Sure, some of your guys have solar panels and wind-powered generators, but how many of you have NUCLEAR FUSION goin' on in the shack? These guys do. They DEFINITELY have The Knack. Be sure to watch the video in which the guy admits that he has an agreement with his wife to replace the house if he actually blows it up!Check it out: Wall Street Journal Fusion Article
This all reminds me of a wonderful book I got as a kid: "The Amateur Scientist" by C.L. Strong. "Build a Homemade Atom Smasher" was one of the projects. Homebrew X-Rays were also in there.
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When I was still in grade school, our local library used to maintain a bin of books and magazines they would toss out. One of my great items that I took away was a collection of nearly three decades of Scientific American. My favorite columns? Martin Gardner's "Mathematical Games" and "The Amateur Scientist" edited by C.L. Stong. Later, some of these columns were combined into a book called "The Amateur Scientist", which I still have on my shelf next to my radio books. The book is out of print I think, but you can actually get all of the articles on CDROM:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0970347626/sciencehobbyist/
There are all sorts of terrific and somewhat crazy projects. Linear accelerators. X ray machines. Ruling engines to make diffraction gratings. Using radioactive isotopes to measure nutrient absorption in plants. Building a cloud chamber. Tracking satellites. Building a Foucault pendulum. Building interferemeters. It's amazing.
There is nothing like it being published today. "Make Magazine" is like crocheting by comparison.
Mark KF6KYI