Re: Hypertrophy of a Heated Actinide/more

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

But it wouldn't be news, if you already knew about that, would it?
Here's a little more from PhysicsWeb (IoP)

"Sergei Savrasov and colleagues of Rutgers University in the US have merged
two existing theories to explain the anomaly (S Y Savrasov et al 2001
Nature 410 793).

 Plutonium expands by 25% when its crystal structure changes from its
'alpha' form, at around 400 K, to its 'delta' form at 600 K. But the theory
typically used to explain crystal structure, known as density functional
theory, cannot account for this increase. Moreover, density functional
theory also predicts magnetic effects that have never been observed. "

(Nice shot at a sonnet, by the way, even if the pentameters go hex at times)

Brian


At 22:43 4/11/01 -0500, Jack Uretsky wrote:
>    Well, I dunno about that

> On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, brian whatcott wrote:
>
> > Current news snippets include the surprising intelligence that
> > a phase change of Plutonium between 400 and 600K swells its volume
> > by 25%.

brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>  Altus OK
                Eureka!