Amateur Scientists Seek Fusion Reaction

ElvaWSJ writes "A small subculture of amateur physicists and science-fiction fans — fewer than 100 worldwide — are building working nuclear-fusion reactors at home. The designs are based on the work of Philo T. Farnsworth, an inventor of television, from the 1960s. Some of these hobbyists hope similar reactors can one day power the planet, but so far they consume more energy than they create."

Comments

Re:Amateur scientists

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate Sponsors of the Beijing Olympics Ignore Human Rights Abuses

Re:Amateur Scientists Seek Perpetual Motion Device

[edalytical]

The reason is, and I don't care if I'm modded down to -1, some mods would rather bitch slap people than do actual work like thinking and reading post. Some mods use it to suppress differing opinion.

I just don't get it. When I have mod points I look for good stuff to mod up. Sure I mod down "first post", unmistakable trolls, and spammers, but if someone doesn't fall into those groups and seems sincere I either leave it be or mod it up.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Sometimes discussions should be offtopic, and sometimes redundant etc. Most importantly every discussion needs humor. I see no reason to bitch slap when someone is being sincere.

Re:Can a String Theorist?

[linzeal]

Thank you, anyone on Slashdot who has not taken at least physics, chemistry and biology at AP level or college please go enter yourself in a science class. Some computer scientists really need to take the broader view in college and realize that they will be working for software that has to specialize in something be it point of sale, economic modeling or QCD simulation so take fucking classes in what you want that specialty to be. If you are an OS, game, UI or Web programmer it is not essential; but it is nice. and for the rest of you programmer freaks out there; remember that you might be dealing with engineering folk, business dudes or creative types who might know more about algorithm design than you, they just don't have an extra 40+ hours a week to deal with programming. I don't even put my programming skills on my resume anymore, I would rather spend my time in the mechanical side of things. We don't need another programming language we need an entirely new way of modeling process into algorithm. I have seen some of the visual stuff and nothing is more nifty to me than a good simulink model that I can break apart and play with to understand new concepts. Why can't we make something open source even better? The CAD side of Linux is dying. Vendors are pulling out of the OS faster than new companies are supporting it. I am sad, time for a porter.

Re:Can a String Theorist?

[jacquesm]

I disagree about the cad side of linux dying, and these folks would probably do the same.