stackyFACTSPhysicists realized early on that you don't need the fury of a sun to fuse atoms.
Physicists realized early on that you don't need the fury of a sun to fuse atoms. You just need fatter electrons. By replacing an electron in a hydrogen molecule with a muon—a subatomic particle 200 times heavier—the nuclei are pulled so ridiculously close together that they spontaneously fuse at room temperature. It is literally cold fusion that actually works, unlike the debunked 1980s junk science, though muons currently decay too quickly to power your house.
Keep exploring facts in this topic.
Science →STACKY FOR IPHONEKeep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Building a star on Earth is hard enough without the nuclear fuel constantly trying to tear itself apart from the inside. Inside massive tokamak reactors like…
Discover more
Every second, the Sun converts 600 million tons of hydrogen into light—some photons older than your grandparents before they escape its core. Recently,…
Discover more
Turning gas back into liquid is surprisingly warm work. The phase change forces chaotic molecules to calm down and bond, forcibly expelling all the pent-up…
Discover more
If you want to temporarily weigh slightly less on a bathroom scale, where on Earth should you stand?
Discover more
Pure nothingness pushes things together. Thanks to the Casimir effect, virtual particles bubbling inside a tiny gap create less pressure than the virtual…
Discover more
Why does your microwave notoriously leave the center of your leftovers completely freezing cold?
Discover more