Science and Truth
Nature is governed by hidden truth. The space, time, energy, and mass are expressions of Truth.
The relations are expressed through mathematical language. The relation of Mass and Energy is,
E= Mc2 or E= hf and like that. The truth is based on experimental results. The atom, the electron, the electronics, the present generation of mobile telephony, and the internet are some wonderful applications of science.
Solar cells and power generation at satellites, the solar-powered plane, and atomic power are a few such examples of hidden Truth.
Scientists took more than a century to understand the atom and molecules of matter; Right from Dalton's concept of atom; to modern atomic theory based on quantum theory. Man produced new atoms like Plutonium in Labs and used them as fission material. All countries are connected through information technology. There is no political control over human contacts globally. Living standard is getting changed very rapidly. But the revolution started in the 18th century, and within two hundred years of the scientific approach, many wonders have been achieved worldwide. The world has been reduced to a small area like a town.
We could fly like a bird, we could launch satellites, we could generate radio signals and propagate messages through them. We could control the satellites and view the mother earth from space.
We undertook a journey to nearby planets and beyond we are thinking to go.
We investigated the laws of motion, and the law of universal gravitation and could predict the supernova, the conversion of mass into an infinite amount of energy in the space around , and so on.
We discovered the information storage in DNA to produce a species of life.
The list grows very fast in the coming decades. We clone animals, and plants and tried to clone our own race, the human beings. We harnessed the atom to produce superconductivity, lasers, and fibers and had networks all around us, called internetworks. We sold purchased, and arranged couples through networks. Online has become an everyday matter for any type of business.
A Set of colonies in different parts of the world could work as a single office. The boundaries began eliminated among nations. Power sharing is being done through the democratic process, throughout the planet.
These changes happened just within a century of time-lapse. And that is the power of science!
In fact, it seems to me that the observations on "black-body radiation", photoluminescence, the production of cathode rays by ultraviolet light, and other phenomena involving the emission or conversion of light can be better understood on the assumption that the energy of light is distributed discontinuously in space. According to the assumption considered here, when a light ray starting from a point is propagated, the energy is not continuously distributed over an ever-increasing volume, but it consists of a finite number of energy quanta, localized in space, which move without being divided and which can be absorbed or emitted only as a whole.
Einstein put forth the energy-mass relation in 1905. Atom was split in 1942 and energy was released to destroy human habitat in Japan which saw the end of world war ii. However the nuclear energy was harnessed to generate power. U235, Pu239, and U233 being fission materials. The U 238 when used as blanket material in nuclear reactors, Pu 239 could be obtained. Thorium when placed as blanket material, U233 could be produced.
India Turns to Thorium as Future Reactor Fuel
Nuclear Energy Insight
Winter 2012—Officials in India are ready to build a large-scale prototype of a reactor fueled by a combination of thorium and low-enriched uranium.
Ratan Kumar Sinha, chairman of the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in Mumbai, recently told the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, “The basic physics and engineering of the thorium-fueled Advanced Heavy Water Reactor are in place, and the design is ready.” He said the Indian government has begun a six-month search for a site for the 300-megawatt reactor while conducting confirmatory tests on the final design.
India’s Advanced Heavy Water Reactor design would use the country’s abundant thorium supply. Sinha said the reactor could be operational by the end of the decade.
One of the three elements widely considered to be useful in the generation of nuclear energy, thorium is three to four times more plentiful than uranium and is widely distributed in nature. India has one of the world’s largest thorium deposits.
The element cannot be used alone in a reactor because it cannot split apart to release energy. However, it can be converted inside a reactor into the fissile isotope uranium-233 when used with other fissile materials such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239.
Only a relatively small amount of uranium or plutonium is needed to convert thorium to uranium because the thorium will continue to create more fuel during normal operation in the reactor.
The Indian plant will demonstrate the use of low-enriched uranium, which is readily available on the world market, to breed fuel from thorium. Previous thorium-based nuclear facilities used high-enriched uranium or plutonium to convert thorium. Low-enriched uranium carries a much smaller proliferation risk.
Additionally, the used fuel from thorium reactors also mitigates proliferation concerns because it includes fewer radioactive byproducts than uranium.
Scientists and engineers have long been interested in developing nuclear reactor technology based on thorium. In the 1960s and 1970s, thorium-based research reactors operated in the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union. U.S. reactors in Pennsylvania (Peach Bottom and Shippingport) and Colorado (Fort St. Vrain) have used thorium.
The thorium is placed within and around the reactor core, where it absorbs neutrons from the fission chain reaction and becomes uranium-233. The uranium is either extracted and manufactured separately into fuel or used directly within the same reactor.
