Super Sonic Shock Waves, Hydrogen Bombs, and Ruptured Cancer Cells

“Blowing things up for fun, profit, war, and medicine.” Sound like an action-packed video game, loaded with aggression and gore your adolescent teen can’t wait to see?

Perhaps the topic has a future in gaming, but on Tuesday evening, “Blowing things up for fun, profit, war and medicine” will not feature fantasy combat or sweaty game controllers. Instead, it will expose the secrets behind atomic bombs, the formation of the solar system, and cell-exploding nanoparticles. This sixth Pinhead Town Talk of the summer will be led by Dana D. Dlott, professor of chemistry, University of Illinois, at the Telluride Conference Center in Mountain Village from 6-7:15 p.m. Tuesday, July 21.

“Our nation spends a ton of money on shock wave research, but we still don’t understand how the simplest element – hydrogen – reacts under high temperatures and pressures,” Dlott responded when asked why he studies shock compression.

The statistics speak for themselves. Last year alone, the United States spent up to $52.4 billion on nuclear weapons and programs, reported the Los Angeles Times. And in April, the $3.5 billion dollar National Ignition Facility completed the 15-year construction of the world’s largest laser − comprised of 60 miles of fiber optics, light amplifiers, crystals and mirrors controlled by more control points than a space shuttle.

Dlott’s research focuses on explosives at the microscopic level, specifically investigating how shock waves propagate through mediums of diverse densities and chemical structures. “We want to know what happens to the individual molecules when we slap a material with an impactor, send shock waves, and cause everything to detonate,” Dlott explains.

Take air, water, iron and plastic, for example; they carry shock waves at speeds ranging from 760 to 21,000 miles per second. Using laser vibrational spectroscopic techniques, Dlott’s laboratory investigates how energy travels over single “monolayers” of molecules. His experimental techniques generate shock wave data, such as speed, pressure, and temperature, and help prove or disprove mathematical computer models. Dlott is confident his research will contribute to safer explosives and biological devices.

“The more we understand what is happening to the individual molecules, such as hydrogen atoms, the less bombs we have to blow up,” Dlott said. With 15 to 20 bombs detonated every year at Nevada’s Test Site, Dlott’s research certainly has implications for a safer and more energy-efficient nuclear and thermonuclear weapons future.

Dlott will further elucidate how shock waves contribute to drug delivery and therapeutics for medical complications, including tennis elbow, bone fractures, kidney stones, arterial plaque, and cancer.

Pinhead Town Talks are co-produced by the Telluride Science Research Center (TSRC) and Pinhead Institute, and are sponsored by the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association (TMVOA). Admission is free and there will be a cash bar.

For more information please visit www.telluridescience.org or call Nana Naisbitt, TSRC executive director at 970-708-0004.