The Quest For Fusion

Richard Finney writes: "Michael Paterniti, writing for the UK's Observer , writes about a machine called Z : an inertial confinement fusion machine. This is a well written explanation for the lay person and a philospophical look at the personalities driven to create the power of the Sun on Earth. Can these dedicated heroes reach 1,000 trillion watts and high yield fusion?"

Comments

Now I'm aroused

[Just Some Guy]

Thrusting and squeezing and ramming until the ions can no longer resist, the centre cannot hold, and in that hot nanosecond - Boom ! Everything becomes one.

Damn! Did this guy write romance novels in a previous career?

If I'd have known physics was that exciting, I think I would've chosen a different major in college.

Old info, but very poetic

[MythoBeast]

Scientific American gave a much more scientific review of the Z machine in 1998, and I saw no change in the numbers from that publication. They have been insisting that they are 30 years away from high-yield (read: energy-efficient) nuclear fusion since they came up with the theory in the first place. They are still about 30 years away from it.
I can almost hear Bullwinkle saying "This time, for sure". Every time they take another step forward, someone moves the finish line.

It's a really cool story, though.

Re:Old info, but very poetic

[Schwarzchild]

The Scientific American article is here.

Re:Climate change

[Teancum]

There are several source for "global warming" that don't even include any influence from mankind or "advanced industrial societies". Among these include:

• Increases in solar radiation - that's right, the sun is producing more energy, more heat, therefore the planet is heating up too. Look at increases in the sunspot cycle, which has been well documented for more than a half a millenium.
  
• Increase in volcanism - More volcanoes are blowing up and spewing massive quanities of greenhouse gasses at a rate significantely higher than in the past. Admittedly the records are not quite as accurate for this, but there does seem to be a "recent" increase in volcanic activity throughout the Earth. Volcanic activity was much less in the 19th and 18th Centuries, and there are historical records to back this up.
  
• Deep Ocean currents - This is simply an unknown factor. The first substantive ocean current cycle that has been documented is the El Nino, La Nina (sorry about the lack of enya... I got an english keyboard here). There are several other oceanic cycles that interact in a very complex manner that are still not fully understood.
  
• Polar Precession - The effects of precession are still being debated, and it is clear that a different orientation of the poles can change climate behavior.... but again you find many schools of thought over what it does and how much influence it really has
  

One thing to note about all of these items: There is practically nothing that an industrial society could possibly do to even affect any of these things from occuring.... even with a Manhattan Project style concentrated effort to even try.

Furthermore, there are strong indications that at least some of the meterological data has been manipulated to some extent to "promote" a radical change of public policy to change global warming, when in fact not all of the facts are in.

The only "substantive" climate data that I've seen that would suggest there is some sort of impact on the global climate by the current global civilization is from the ice core samples from Greenland, which can document air pollution levels in Greenland for more than 1000 years. I would like to point out that Pittsburg Pennsylvania used to have air pollution so thick that you couldn't see more than a block (and that was in the 1890's) There are some notable improvements in many industrial centers of production... but that is for another argument at another time.

To suggest that the jury has made its verdict regarding global warming is really not seeing the whole picture.

After The Horrible Mishap!

[Cheshire Cat]

After a horrific accident at this lab in New Mexico, Freeman Gordon had to fight his way out against aliens from another dimension.

I'm disappointed...

[Kasreyn]

The article IS interesting, I'll give it that... but the writer is sadly misguided (in addition to having diarrhoea of the metaphor).

The "Machine", as he capitalizes it, may well be a fascinating invention, but all these references that seem to call for its worship as some sort of god really disturb me. He never comes out and says that, but he gets into the subjects of religion and deism, dropping smug references to "Waiting for Godot" and in general, clearing a path for the Lord in the desert. =P

It's just a tangle of wires and some reaaaaally high-tech gadgetry. It's not a god; it's not the final solution. Free, safe, clean power is a Good Thing, that is true. But it won't answer all the problems, and he holds to one of the most common fallacious beliefs in existence today. I quote Poul Anderson, from his short story "Superstition", set in a post-apocalyptic future :

"...But the superstition is this, son: that science could understand everything, and do everything, and make everything good... I wonder how they could have held so odd a belief, even then."

It's a good idea, and a great new technology, and so it deserves a reference on /. But please, don't go around hailing it as the ultimate solution for world peace and ending man's inhumanity to man. It's not. We already have the technology AND the resources, as a race, to lift much of the lower-class portion of our billions from their squalor and ignorance, improve their lifestyles, and improve mankind as a whole thereby. We haven't, not because we cant, but because we just don't care to. We just can't be bothered, and to tell the truth, many of those in high places prefer things this way.

Before a technological advance can "cure all of society's ills", it first needs to cure the common flaw of society - human nature.

And there's no cure for that.

-Kasreyn.