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Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

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Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#131

Post by gridlockd »

peterlk wrote: post #46

The cynicism in this threads hurts. > “This is not just a chase for cold fusion,” says Matthew Trevithick, a research programme manager at Google in Mountain View, California. “If it were, I don’t think we would have maintained an interest of this calibre of team for so long.” Here's what I see: fusion power would be a step function in human civilization. Such step functions are pathologically hard to achieve, becaus…

> Will it work? Probably not. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

The fact that it "probably will not work" (where "probably" = "almost certainly") is a strong argument for not doing something.

If I told you I had this idea for an over unity generator that "probably will not work", would you invest a million dollars into it?

Research is an investment, resources are extremely limited and they must be allocated prudently.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#132

Post by dTal »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #98
natechols wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those legally enforceable restrictions last for less than two decades; it's already been 30 years since the Pons and Fleischmann fiasco.

It's also assuming they would do something untoward with the monopoly, rather than just building a thousand new power plants and then making ten trillion dollars by being the lowest cost provider of zero carbon power generation for twenty years.

I don't know how the math works out exactly, but it seems not unlikely that the optimal rollout for curbing carbon emissions as rapidly as possible is not the same as the optimal rollout for maximizing value to shareholders.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#133

Post by Barrin92 »

darawk wrote: post #71
olooney wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skepticism is not about fusion power, it's about cold fusion specifically, as well role of proprietary IP and patents in scientific research. Tokamak[1] (and other magnetic confinement) reactors seem much more promising and have seen slow but non-zero improvements for decades[2]. Some reactors like JT-60 have come close to being energy positive[3] but are not yet self sustaining. Large ongoing projects like like…

So, you must think one of two things, then: 1. Google, with all of the subject matter expertise they can avail themselves of, is completely wasting their money on this research that has no hope of success. 2. It'd be a bad thing for the world if we got cold fusion, but Google made some money off of it. Is that right?

>Google, with all of the subject matter expertise they can avail themselves of, is completely wasting their money on this research that has no hope of success.

This isn't actually as silly as it sounds. There's a certain culture around self-absorbed futurism alive and kicking within these companies that produces weird and nonsensical projects.

One only has to look at Ray Kurzweil who turned from genuine inventor into some sort of nutrition supplement cyber guru and apparently still is employed by Google. There's also a lot of general silliness in the 'smart city' space, or cryogenics and lifespan enhancement. What all of those projects usually have in common is that they predominantly sound like something out of science fiction novels that the people would read who go on and found tech companies.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#134

Post by perl4ever »

gliboc wrote: post #118
_red wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical: You are driving your car and see that the pickup truck in front of you has an empty cardboard box in it (you can tell its empty by the way its floating around in bed of truck). Suddenly a gust of win picks up the box and it lands directly in front of your car. Its not very big, about 12 inches tall. Do you: (a) Slam on breaks? (b) Roll over it? Now what will the "AI" in your car do? Self-driving cars…

I'm returning your argument. Imagine your are driving your car on the highway, but you suddenly have a heart attack and become unable to remain conscious. Do you: (a) Die? (b) Die? Manned vehicles are not coming anytime soon. They are a whole slew of problems etc. -- you got my point. I think focusing too much on pesky details is very much a fallacy in this case - you do not want an "AI" to react like a human in all…

"Imagine your are driving your car on the highway, but you suddenly have a heart attack and become unable to remain conscious"

Humans who drive cautiously may go for a million miles without an accident. The best self-driving cars (i.e. Waymo) disengage on average every 11,000 miles.[1] It seems to me that a disengagement is equivalent to becoming unconscious without warning, and presumably we both agree that a given human does not have a heart attack while driving every year.

Humans, even with all the people who drive drunk, or texting, or falling asleep, average about 80 million miles between fatalities. Going 11,000 miles between events of total loss of control is nearly four orders of magnitude worse.

[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2019/02/13/waymo-to...

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#135

Post by vel0city »

gliboc wrote: post #118
_red wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical: You are driving your car and see that the pickup truck in front of you has an empty cardboard box in it (you can tell its empty by the way its floating around in bed of truck). Suddenly a gust of win picks up the box and it lands directly in front of your car. Its not very big, about 12 inches tall. Do you: (a) Slam on breaks? (b) Roll over it? Now what will the "AI" in your car do? Self-driving cars…

I'm returning your argument. Imagine your are driving your car on the highway, but you suddenly have a heart attack and become unable to remain conscious. Do you: (a) Die? (b) Die? Manned vehicles are not coming anytime soon. They are a whole slew of problems etc. -- you got my point. I think focusing too much on pesky details is very much a fallacy in this case - you do not want an "AI" to react like a human in all…

I've experienced much more soft debris fall from a vehicle in front of me on the road than I've had heart attacks at the wheel.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#136

Post by olooney »

ehsankia wrote: post #116
olooney wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The skepticism is not about fusion power, it's about cold fusion specifically, as well role of proprietary IP and patents in scientific research. Tokamak[1] (and other magnetic confinement) reactors seem much more promising and have seen slow but non-zero improvements for decades[2]. Some reactors like JT-60 have come close to being energy positive[3] but are not yet self sustaining. Large ongoing projects like like…

> If Google were serious about fusion, they would invest in this kind of mainstream research. They do. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-e... https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27... Just because they also look into other alternatives doesn't mean they are ignoring the more mainstream research. They are approaching it from every angle, because as pointed out, any discov…

These two projects look great, and are exactly the kind of projects where I can see Google making an impact. I think it is extremely likely that we will struggle to build working reactors until we have an "AutoCAD for magnetic containment" which is able to accurately simulate real world plasma physics, after which I expect that a working design will be discovered within a few years, and then constructed within a decade or two. This follows from the simple observation that the build-test cycle for real world reactors is something like a decade, and for simulated reactors something like 1 day - a 36500X decrease in iteration time is a game changer. Such a program is very non-trivial and no one today knows how to write one.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#137

Post by mikeash »

wutbrodo wrote: post #130
mikeash wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they’re saying that a single fusion event produces 3-4x more energy than a single fission event.

Do you mean a single _fusion_ event?

Yes, thanks. Brain no function beer well without.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#138

Post by djmips »

Asooka wrote: post #107
dfilppi wrote: post #42

Next on the docket: turning lead into gold at room temperature.

Bah, that's trivial with modern science. You just bombard the lead atom's core with a precise beam of electrons until you knock out two neutrons and a proton. I have the schematics for a very elegant apparatus to do that, but this text box is too small to contain them.

Doesn't that just give you Thallium?

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#139

Post by pontifier »

Tepix wrote: post #31

I like it. I don't believe they will achieve cold fusion, but who knows? If there's even a slim chance for it to work it's worth looking into by respectable scientists that will enable other labs around the world to replicate their results, unlike the dubious experiments we've seen in the past.

This is the hope I have for the reactor I designed.

Cursory exploration of the idea has shown promise, but it needs some real brainpower and equipment for an in-depth scientific analysis and prototype.

I have a strong belief that it will work, but that's irrelevant. Eventually it will succeed or not based on reality.

Re: Google revives controversial cold-fusion experiments

#140

Post by ehsankia »

olooney wrote: post #136
ehsankia wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Google were serious about fusion, they would invest in this kind of mainstream research. They do. https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18201220/nuclear-fusion-e... https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/news/a27... Just because they also look into other alternatives doesn't mean they are ignoring the more mainstream research. They are approaching it from every angle, because as pointed out, any discov…

These two projects look great, and are exactly the kind of projects where I can see Google making an impact. I think it is extremely likely that we will struggle to build working reactors until we have an "AutoCAD for magnetic containment" which is able to accurately simulate real world plasma physics, after which I expect that a working design will be discovered within a few years, and then constructed within a deca…

And that's exactly the kind of stuff Google is trying to accelerate. One tangential but highly relevant example is their work on predicting molecular properties [0]. They were basically able to use neural networks to speed up the simulator by 300,000x, taking something that would take hours to less than a second. As you mention, this entirely changes the way you work and iterate. Here's a video of Jeff Dean talking more about it [1].

[0] https://ai.googleblog.com/2017/04/predicting-properties-of-m...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP8CGyDbxBY&t=16m43s

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