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Z Machine Makes Progress Toward Nuclear Fusion
sciencehabit writes Scientists are reporting a significant advance in the quest to develop an alternative approach to nuclear fusion. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, using the lab's Z machine, a colossal electric pulse generator capable of producing currents of tens of millions of amperes, say they have detected significant numbers of neutrons — byproducts of fusion reactions — coming from the experiment. This, they say, demonstrates the viability of their approach and marks progress toward the ultimate goal of producing more energy than the fusion device takes in.
Yes, and all the stars in the sky would have collapsed, and we would have created black holes at H-bomb test sites.
There might be nuclear waste to worry about given stray neutrons, but gravitons aren't something I'm worried about.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
In other words they aren't even remotely close to a meaningful breakthrough. Nothing to see here, move along...
Progress is progress and "breakthrough"s only exist in the minds of the people who weren't paying attention to all the incremental steps that created them.
A factor of a hundred here, a factor of a hundred there, and pretty soon you're talking about orders of magnitude.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
You can't know that, unless you have foreknowledge of exactly which steps will have proven necessary to accomplish the ultimate goal.
Jupiter radiates more heat than it recieves not because it is a failed star, but because of gravitational contraction and something called differentiation, which is the layering of lighter and hevier elements sorting out (like dressing separating after you shake it).
The notion that Jupiter is radiating excess heat and, therefore, is a failed star is a tempting idea, but it is far from being a star. By an order of magnitude or three.
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