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Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

npr.org

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Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#21

Post by josh-wrale »

JackFr wrote: post #13
dj-wonk wrote: post #5

This sentiment is interesting "Over the past few years, NIF has been getting a fat 'F.'" Perhaps now that 'grade' will change. Actually, I think framing it as a grade is beyond silly; it is irresponsible. Giving a letter grade to long-term scientific project makes little sense. It is not a one-shot thing with a predefined notion of correctness. What can we compare such a grade to? Instead, we should be asking what we…

Is this even basic science? It sounds more like an engineering problem, albeit a very hard one. I am not a physicist, but I would consider this more like the Manhattan project -- the science being done is not of the 'deeper under standing of nature' type, but rather 'how do you make a controllable explosion' type. Given that, the way to evaluate the project is not on grants received, articles published or citations i…

Science isn't limited to the abstract. There can be much science in application of theory (e.g. Tesla's career).

Science requires experiments, no?

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#22

Post by Oculus »

> led NIF's critics to label the facility an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars

> government shifted NIF away from its fusion goals to focus on its other mission: simulating the conditions inside nuclear weapons

I think right there lies the problem with our world. People take up more issue with a multi-billion dollar research facility for science than one for military applications. If we spent a small fraction of the world's military spending on these big, as Google likes to put it, moonshot projects we could probably solve some really fundamental world problems (i.e. energy, climate change) in the near future vs. waiting many, many decades (if not centuries).

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#23

Post by jarvic »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #6
dj-wonk wrote: post #5

This sentiment is interesting "Over the past few years, NIF has been getting a fat 'F.'" Perhaps now that 'grade' will change. Actually, I think framing it as a grade is beyond silly; it is irresponsible. Giving a letter grade to long-term scientific project makes little sense. It is not a one-shot thing with a predefined notion of correctness. What can we compare such a grade to? Instead, we should be asking what we…

That's not enough. Learning what doesn't work is sort of useful, but only if it ever leads to something that DOES work. There's an infinite supply of dead ends out there. You need a higher bar than 'learned something' if that something is a negative.

>You need a higher bar than 'learned something' if that something is a negative.

Why?

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#24

Post by fophillips »

JackFr wrote: post #13
dj-wonk wrote: post #5

This sentiment is interesting "Over the past few years, NIF has been getting a fat 'F.'" Perhaps now that 'grade' will change. Actually, I think framing it as a grade is beyond silly; it is irresponsible. Giving a letter grade to long-term scientific project makes little sense. It is not a one-shot thing with a predefined notion of correctness. What can we compare such a grade to? Instead, we should be asking what we…

Is this even basic science? It sounds more like an engineering problem, albeit a very hard one. I am not a physicist, but I would consider this more like the Manhattan project -- the science being done is not of the 'deeper under standing of nature' type, but rather 'how do you make a controllable explosion' type. Given that, the way to evaluate the project is not on grants received, articles published or citations i…

You go tell Feynman the Manhattan project wasn't about science.

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#25

Post by devbug »

halfdan wrote: post #12
acidburnNSA wrote: post #7

"Strictly speaking, while more energy came from fusion than went into the hydrogen fuel, only about 1 percent of the laser's energy ever reached the fuel. Useful levels of fusion are still a long way off." The rest was lost to energy conversion losses. Yeah, not the best breakthrough I've heard today. Their best breakthrough was this CAD-flythrough video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Sp1sDpn_M0

Considering that they previously had to use way more energy than they got out: This is pretty awesome.

Absolutely! It's one step closer to sustainable and exploitable Q+ nuclear fusion and to DEMO.

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#27

Post by diydsp »

dj-wonk wrote: post #5

This sentiment is interesting "Over the past few years, NIF has been getting a fat 'F.'" Perhaps now that 'grade' will change. Actually, I think framing it as a grade is beyond silly; it is irresponsible. Giving a letter grade to long-term scientific project makes little sense. It is not a one-shot thing with a predefined notion of correctness. What can we compare such a grade to? Instead, we should be asking what we…

Newspapers love to act as if it they call the shots. NPR in particular styles itself as the stalwart of the disenfranchised - has its shit together more than Occupy, but is unsullied by big corporate interests. They're not much worse than other papers, but unfortunately, it sometimes maintains its readers disenfranchised in order to maintain the illusion.

I mean, why don't they admit that this is four-month-old news? Why is this getting sudden publication? Is their agenda as transparent as informing the public, or is there a strategic element to it?

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#28

Post by arethuza »

EthanHeilman wrote: post #4
ck2 wrote: post #2

Oh please. That whole "fusion" thing from that facility is a trick to get taxpayers to fund more nuclear weapon research. We should have finished this instead, what a waste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider Take a guess why congress only funded the one useful for weapons.

Given that hydrogen bombs are fusion bombs such a claim can be leveled at all fusion research. Maybe nuclear weapons research is the way they get the US government to shell out for fusion research, like the optics researchers did with SDI.

Actually, most of the energy in most H-bomb designs actually comes from fission - but the neutrons that cause this fission come from the fusion of the secondary - so fusion is the key component of the whole thing working.

A notable exception to this was the Soviet Tsar Bomba which used non-fissioning tampers in its multiple tertiary (and probably its single secondary) stages - resulting in an explosion of over 50Mt where 97% came from fusion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

Re: Scientists Say Their Giant Laser Has Produced Nuclear Fusion

#29

Post by diydsp »

davidklemke wrote: post #11

Wasn't this milestone reached sometime late last year? I remember writing about it: http://www.therefinedgeek.com.au/index.php/2013/10/08/fusion...

p.s. Here's an article from October 5, 2012 which in a very biased way dismissed the possibility of this happening.... then it happened, TWO DAYS LATER [1]

> The lab's leaders predict that "ignition"-—the point where the 192 lasers actually deliver more energy than they consume—could occur as early as next year.

[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/national-...

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