THE idea that nuclear fusion can occur inside bubbles created by bombarding fluids with sound waves has received a boost. Temperatures inside such bubbles are far higher than previously thought, bringing them closer to the conditions required for fusion.
At the heart of “bubble fusion” is something called sonoluminescence: blast a fluid with powerful sound waves and you can cause bubbles to appear and then collapse in a blaze of light (New Scientist, 22 January, p 38). In 2002, a group of physicists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee controversially claimed to have found the first evidence of…
