What is the Z Machine?
The Z Machine is a gigantic machine used to generate x-rays and extreme temperatures for the testing of hypotheses about nuclear explosions. Using tremendous power feeding apparatus, it runs a current through a tungsten or steel wire, causing it to vaporize into a charged plasma. At the same time, the tremendous current density in the surrounding air creates a magnetic field which causes the charged plasma to be further condensed, a process known as z-pinch, after the vertical axis along which the plasma was compressed in the earliest British machines. The imploding plasma produces temperatures as great as 3.7 billion Kelvin, or 3.6 billion degrees F, and generates an x-ray pulse that can induce a shock wave in a target object. The temperatures and pressures generated in the Z Machine are so immense that the properties of nuclear fusion can be studied using them. In fact, the peak temperature is about 300 times higher than that in the core of the Sun, where nuclear fusion takes place.
