Slashdot Mirror
Building the World's Most Powerful Laser
Bill writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories is attempting to create the world's largest laser. The NIF's goal is to focus the laser on a pea-sized hydrogen pellet and result in fusion ignition."
Got a better idea of how to make sure our cold-war aresnal is still functioning and capable of deployment without detonating a nuclear warhead every few years?
Yes, kill yourselves and let the world go on without your crazy ass, evil, militarist asses.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
Three points:
First, there are no oil companies left in the world that are not state run. There are only energy companies. Energy companies buy and sell energy. They don't really care where it comes from. In fact, as far as energy companies are concerned, oil is a pain in the ass with far too much politics attached. If an energy haf fussion power in their hands, they would merrily use it to reap in as much profit as possible.
Second: Most energy comes from coal. Oil is an easily replacable source of energy. Namely, coal is where most nations get their power. Coal is without a doubt cheaper and very abundent. The world is not going to hit an energy crunch because they can't make enough energy. The real issue is that coal is dirty... hence the move towards things like solar, wind power, and maybe even one day fussion. Energy is not the problem. It is making energy that doesn't dump toxic crap into the sky that is the problem.
Third: I don't know why you think the US is anti-science. Sure, the US has its crazies and fundementalist whackos, but any places where you gather 200+ million plus people tends to find some crazies that crawl out of the wood work. Anticdotal evidence aside, the US is still takes in the largest number of foriegn students to study science and technology in the world simply because the US has some of the best schools for it in the world. In fact, when it comes to technophilia, I would say US easily ranks in the top 5, falling behind only to Japan a crazy North European nation or two where it is so damn cold and dark year round they don't have anything else to do but play with their cell phones (I am kidding... kind of).
Claiming that the nation that is the home to Intel, Microsoft, Mac, the dot com boom (love them or hate them) is technophobic should set off a few alarm bells. My larger point is that before you bite down on a sterotype and take it as truth, think for a few moments about it. Anyone can find anticdotal evidence within a society to prove any point. Looking at a society at large requires more then a few anticdotes.