A 100-foot 20-foot tall cylinder-shaped machine, Sandia's 'Z-pinch' is the world's most powerful electrical generator.
Quintenz should know-he works on a real-life pinch device. Set off in the middle of Las Vegas, the pinch detonates an intense 'electromagnetic pulse' that blacks out the city's power grid for a few moments.Īs it turns out, some physics labs really do have devices called 'pinches'-the movie's website touts the reality of the concept-but can they really produce such impressive effects? 'I enjoyed the movie and the 'pinch' was an amusing twist but had little to do with science,' says Jeff Quintenz, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. In the film, eleven con artists employ a physics device, called 'the pinch,' - to help them rob a vault containing the riches of three casinos. Before most moviegoers walk into the hit comedy 'Ocean's Eleven,' starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, they don't realize that the Las Vegas con- artist caper contains some physics in its plot.
