Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

lanl.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 106 posts

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#21

Post by LAsteNERD »

meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

I worry about this, but these capabilities are hard to replace. This kind of research hasn’t historically been something you can outsource to private companies. Or—at least—it hasn’t been until now. Even if this administration wants to open that door, the infrastructure investment required for the accelerators alone is staggering: easily in the multiple billions.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#22

Post by gosub100 »

meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

[flagged]

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#23

Post by baxtr »

gosub100 wrote: post #22
meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

[flagged]

Can you share any data on your "What ifs"?

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#24

Post by SECProto »

tngranados wrote: post #19
bombela wrote: post #17

7mths? What unit is that. Did they mean 7μs resolution? How is that special? I see youtubers doing nanoseconds. edit: here is the important information in this article. > Scorpius is a new accelerator project planned for the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) that will use an electron beam that can be broken into customized pulses to deliver x-rays and capture multiple images only hundreds of nanoseconds apart. So…

The first line of the articles says "seven-millionths of a second", which would be 1/7μs or 0,14μs. They also mention that the camera shot 16 frames in that period, so that would be once every 0,00875μs or once every 8,75ns Youtubers are a couple of magnitudes away from that, AFAIK

I would say you described "one seven millionth" of a second (1/7,000,000 s)

"Seven millionths" would be 7/1,000,000 s (7μs). They take 20 to 40 images in that period using 7 cameras, so any given camera might be as low as 1.4μs per frame.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#25

Post by gameman144 »

gosub100 wrote: post #22
meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

[flagged]

> Your answer to this question determines whether you believe in ideology or data.

I mean, you're technically right, but that doesn't invalidate anything the parent commenter said.

I could equally ask "What if it turned out that turpentine was actually _healthier_ than water?".

Like, yeah, if that assertion turned out to be the case and you rejected the new data, you'd be following dogma rather than data. That doesn't mean that the assertion is likely to actually be true though.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#26

Post by mythrwy »

meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

I don't think defense budget is facing cuts. They are getting even more money.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#27

Post by dralley »

mythrwy wrote: post #26
meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

I don't think defense budget is facing cuts. They are getting even more money.

The national labs are absolutely getting budget cuts.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#28

Post by cco »

Why are science communicators so consistently missing the mark?

Is it not obvious that if you're writing an article proclaiming to capture _explosions_ at 7mths of a second, people want to see some pictures of said explosions?

Clearly they're understanding that explosions are a hook to grab the reader's attention, but then they just don't include any of the resulting pictures?

C'mon y'all! We need to do better here!

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#29

Post by lawlessone »

gosub100 wrote: post #22
meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

[flagged]

>What if DOGE savings create more money for important science?

>Your answer to this question determines whether you believe in ideology or data.

I've upvoted your comment to give you time to show us your data.

Re: Los Alamos is capturing images of explosions at 7 millionths of a second

#30

Post by dekhn »

gosub100 wrote: post #22
meager_wikis wrote: post #16

Every time I read about one of the national labs doing this research, I wonder how much longer we will head about these. I feel fairly positive that DOGE's layoffs and budget cuts mean this output will fade away in time.

[flagged]

If there was a coherent plan in DOGE to make more money available to do important science, maybe that could work. However, nothing DOGE has done has shown any sort of logic in terms of outcome maximization. The collection of activities (partly DOGE, partly Trump org) applied to scientists has been super-impactful (in an entirely negative way) for science we already know is important

The pool of skilled scientists to be hired shrinks when you cut funding in arbitrary ways.

Post reply on HN