The root cause of THIS problem are badly behaved 'youths' rioting and breaking other serious laws. Like those same 'youths' of a 'certain religious group' who rioted, burnt, looted and murdered when somebody in Denmark put some rude pictures in the newspaper.
I think we've already established the basic principle that there is no right not to be offended. The only way we'll teach people this very basic lesson, especially those belonging to a 'certain religious group', is to use force. Force is one language that uncultured and illiterate people throughout the world, truly understand.
So why not just read the rioters the proverbial Riot Act and then kick their asses? Rioting and looting is an extremely serious offence with no moral justification.
Not all good scientific theories and models are falsifiable.
Take high-energy physics: the Standard Model predicts the existence of the Higgs boson. However, 'proof' is statistical. When we can only ever say that something exists with statistical certainty (e.g. 6.5 sigmas), then it's going to be tough, if not impossible to falsify.
Doesn't mean that that theory is useless in describing the world. What makes a theory good, is its ability (or lack thereof), to explain observations about the real world.
FWIW, conservatives who say things like "evolution is only a theory", all need a good hard punch in the head. Because it displays an obscene lack of understanding of how the world works.
Can't wait for all the AC right-winger and libertarians to pile in -- who will rail against the science because they disagree with the policy implications of climate change.
Funny how the Right love science when it produces weapons to bomb brown people, or enriches multinational corporations. But go NUTS if it means that their rich friends endure more regulation.
Yeah, the red Chinese are utterly morally bankrupt at an individual, as well as a national level. I've seen how mainland Chinese operate, up close and personal. And the West has had decades to wake up to the threat from the rising superpower that always refuses to play by the rules.
Part of me says that the US corporate Right are full of weak, greedy idiots. And weak, greedy idiots always come a cropper sooner or later. The trouble with this situation, is that the corporate Right, in their weakness and folly, will take the West down with them. Whether it's gaming regulators, dismantling institutions, undermining government, or engaging in outright corruption, they match the Chinese in their immorality, but don't share the Chinese' rat-cunning, sense of patriotism, loyalty to their own culture -- or sense of self-preservation.
Doesn't excuse the behaviour of the Chinese though. They need to be given a bloody nose.
Turnabout is fair play. I can just their their faces twisted in paroxyms of rage, as the white round-eyes DARED to play as dirty as they have for decades.
The Red Chinese are culturally compelled to lie compulsively and steal anything that isn't nailed down. They hate us white devils like poison, and will do anything to get one over us.
They had MALWARE running on the personal PCs of Australias senior political leadership, for crying out loud!
Huawei is a defacto branch of the Chinese military. The Chinese CANNOT be trusted. Full stop.
Anybody who watches islamist snuff videos and regularly consumes islamist propaganda is likely to be a threat, and belongs in jail (or should be deported).
I'm generally supportive. If the security services need additional levers to pull, in order to put terrorist sympathisers behind bars, then I'm generally supportive. As long as there is proper oversight of the use of these powers to ensure they're not abused, then I don't see the harm.
I would also be generally supportive of ways of identifying disaffected or impossible-to-integrate elements of the muslim community, and move them on to some place where they aren't as unhappy. If they hate us dirty white kuffars so badly, why keep them around?
Awesome! I got onto a public tour once, and was impressed enough, that I enrolled in university to study physics. I loved the MASCOT:-)
And despite the little I've been able to dig up and read on it, I was seriously impressed by the kit you guys are designing and building for ITER. ITER will be a work of art. Respect.
For a viable plant, we have to do WAY better than breakeven.
We've already achieved breakeven (or rather, the equivalent): Japan's JT-60 machine achieved Q=1.25 (or WOULD have, if the machine took tritium as fuel).
JET will likely do a D-T campaign in 2015, where the researchers say they're likely to crack breakeven -- on a thirty year old machine with copper magnets. Obviously, a machine with superconducting magnets of the scale of JET or ITER will do much better than breakeven.
There's still an absolute f*ckton of fuel out there (billions of years' worth). The ocean is full of easily recoverable deuterium, and we'll need to breed the tritium in a breeding blanket in the tokamak.
There is "pork", in the sense that it's expensive, precisely because the partners are giving their work to their local industries. OTOH, spreading around the know-how and industrial capability can't be a bad thing in the long run, when it comes time to build DEMO (or multiple DEMO machines, as has been suggested).
It's also expensive, because the resource boom, coupled with the sheer scale of this project, has pushed prices for certain materials through the roof. I seem to remember something about the annual global production having to increase a hundredfold to make the magnets for ITER.
I can think of quite a few unknown unknowns, both good and bad.
Examples:
Good: discovery of the 'H-mode', a phenomenon that just appeared out of the blue one that, that spontaneously doubled confinement time in tokamaks. Bad: the destructive instabilities, like the so-called 'edge localized mode' that came with it. Good: discovery of the 'bootstrap' current, which gives us hope that we can get tokamaks running steady-state fairly efficiently
Black swans are appearing all the time.
Anyway, the problems of heating, confinement and stability are now largely dealt with. The challenge now is tying up the loose ends, and taking what we know and engineering a working power plant. The primary issues now are technological, not with basic physics.
Mod parent up. Advanced materials are a BIG issue for future machines. Everyone else recognises this, and are trying to find ways to get a head start on the problem now, instead of in 20 years time.
A tokamak power plant would use a thick wall, called a blanket, which slows the fast neutrons from the reaction, and using the resulting heat to heat a working fluid, driving a turbine. Note that this hasn't been demonstrated yet though -- they'll do this on ITER.
This has happened many times throughout history. I'm certain the stonemasons who toiled away on Europe's beautiful cathedrals must've worked away, knowing that despite their own obscurity, they were still leaving a legacy.
Ultimately, you'd have to ask an expert -- but I do know that there is a fairly substantial first wall between the plasma and the coils (and just as well -- a quench on a machine the size of ITER would truly be something to behold). Not sure what you mean by Alcator C-Mod being 'unconventional' -- were you referring to the superconducting magnets, as opposed to copper ones?
Particularly on large machines, during disruptions, there is potential for serious damage to the first wall from heating, runaway electrons, and substantial mechanical forces. Disruption mitigation is considered a priority for ITER, because the problems get worse for large machines, especially research machines not designed with the duty cycles of actual, real power plants.
The plasma DOES come in contact with the 'divertor', which is a part of the interior of the reactor where the cool outer edge of the plasma outside the last set of closed field lines is drawn out over a large surface area to trap and remove the helium 'ash' and other contaminants from the plasma. The plasma is held tightly within the closed magnetic field lines within the torus, and only the 'scrape off layer' ever comes anywhere near the walls. This is key to performance, as performance is closely related to purity (contaminants wastefully radiate away energy).
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The Chinese and Muslims act offended to extract political concessions.
Offending somebody with a gun and a badge is just lack of common sense.
The root cause of THIS problem are badly behaved 'youths' rioting and breaking other serious laws. Like those same 'youths' of a 'certain religious group' who rioted, burnt, looted and murdered when somebody in Denmark put some rude pictures in the newspaper.
I think we've already established the basic principle that there is no right not to be offended. The only way we'll teach people this very basic lesson, especially those belonging to a 'certain religious group', is to use force. Force is one language that uncultured and illiterate people throughout the world, truly understand.
So why not just read the rioters the proverbial Riot Act and then kick their asses? Rioting and looting is an extremely serious offence with no moral justification.
Oh, fantastic, another home-schooled armchair physicist.
Not all good scientific theories and models are falsifiable.
Take high-energy physics: the Standard Model predicts the existence of the Higgs boson. However, 'proof' is statistical. When we can only ever say that something exists with statistical certainty (e.g. 6.5 sigmas), then it's going to be tough, if not impossible to falsify.
Doesn't mean that that theory is useless in describing the world. What makes a theory good, is its ability (or lack thereof), to explain observations about the real world.
FWIW, conservatives who say things like "evolution is only a theory", all need a good hard punch in the head. Because it displays an obscene lack of understanding of how the world works.
You win the internets
Can't wait for all the AC right-winger and libertarians to pile in -- who will rail against the science because they disagree with the policy implications of climate change.
Funny how the Right love science when it produces weapons to bomb brown people, or enriches multinational corporations. But go NUTS if it means that their rich friends endure more regulation.
... stupid and ignorant people increasingly justify their stupidity and ignorance by cloaking it in a political identity.
There is objective truth in science. But in politics, there is no "right and wrong" -- only opposing points of view with equal legitimacy.
I can be as ignorant, stupid and nasty as I want. All I have to do is say "I'm a conservative", and it's all right then.
Yeah, the red Chinese are utterly morally bankrupt at an individual, as well as a national level. I've seen how mainland Chinese operate, up close and personal. And the West has had decades to wake up to the threat from the rising superpower that always refuses to play by the rules.
Part of me says that the US corporate Right are full of weak, greedy idiots. And weak, greedy idiots always come a cropper sooner or later. The trouble with this situation, is that the corporate Right, in their weakness and folly, will take the West down with them. Whether it's gaming regulators, dismantling institutions, undermining government, or engaging in outright corruption, they match the Chinese in their immorality, but don't share the Chinese' rat-cunning, sense of patriotism, loyalty to their own culture -- or sense of self-preservation.
Doesn't excuse the behaviour of the Chinese though. They need to be given a bloody nose.
Turnabout is fair play. I can just their their faces twisted in paroxyms of rage, as the white round-eyes DARED to play as dirty as they have for decades.
Those white RACISTS!!!
The Red Chinese are culturally compelled to lie compulsively and steal anything that isn't nailed down. They hate us white devils like poison, and will do anything to get one over us.
They had MALWARE running on the personal PCs of Australias senior political leadership, for crying out loud!
Huawei is a defacto branch of the Chinese military. The Chinese CANNOT be trusted. Full stop.
You're welcome xx
No, just Muslim.
Hollywood is full of greedy idiots. Why is anybody trying to dissuade them from their own folly.
Let them fuck up and waste their money. Financial failure is the only language these dunces understand.
Anybody who watches islamist snuff videos and regularly consumes islamist propaganda is likely to be a threat, and belongs in jail (or should be deported).
I'm generally supportive. If the security services need additional levers to pull, in order to put terrorist sympathisers behind bars, then I'm generally supportive. As long as there is proper oversight of the use of these powers to ensure they're not abused, then I don't see the harm.
I would also be generally supportive of ways of identifying disaffected or impossible-to-integrate elements of the muslim community, and move them on to some place where they aren't as unhappy. If they hate us dirty white kuffars so badly, why keep them around?
Awesome! I got onto a public tour once, and was impressed enough, that I enrolled in university to study physics. I loved the MASCOT :-)
And despite the little I've been able to dig up and read on it, I was seriously impressed by the kit you guys are designing and building for ITER. ITER will be a work of art. Respect.
The hot particles in the scrape off layer aren't classified as 'plasma', i.e. they've totally recombined?
I've only just started studying physics, so I know nothing about the physics of these machines, just generalities.
For a viable plant, we have to do WAY better than breakeven.
We've already achieved breakeven (or rather, the equivalent): Japan's JT-60 machine achieved Q=1.25 (or WOULD have, if the machine took tritium as fuel).
JET will likely do a D-T campaign in 2015, where the researchers say they're likely to crack breakeven -- on a thirty year old machine with copper magnets. Obviously, a machine with superconducting magnets of the scale of JET or ITER will do much better than breakeven.
There's still an absolute f*ckton of fuel out there (billions of years' worth). The ocean is full of easily recoverable deuterium, and we'll need to breed the tritium in a breeding blanket in the tokamak.
There is "pork", in the sense that it's expensive, precisely because the partners are giving their work to their local industries. OTOH, spreading around the know-how and industrial capability can't be a bad thing in the long run, when it comes time to build DEMO (or multiple DEMO machines, as has been suggested).
It's also expensive, because the resource boom, coupled with the sheer scale of this project, has pushed prices for certain materials through the roof. I seem to remember something about the annual global production having to increase a hundredfold to make the magnets for ITER.
I can think of quite a few unknown unknowns, both good and bad.
Examples:
Good: discovery of the 'H-mode', a phenomenon that just appeared out of the blue one that, that spontaneously doubled confinement time in tokamaks.
Bad: the destructive instabilities, like the so-called 'edge localized mode' that came with it.
Good: discovery of the 'bootstrap' current, which gives us hope that we can get tokamaks running steady-state fairly efficiently
Black swans are appearing all the time.
Anyway, the problems of heating, confinement and stability are now largely dealt with. The challenge now is tying up the loose ends, and taking what we know and engineering a working power plant. The primary issues now are technological, not with basic physics.
Que??
Mod parent up. Advanced materials are a BIG issue for future machines. Everyone else recognises this, and are trying to find ways to get a head start on the problem now, instead of in 20 years time.
It turned out to be way harder than we expected. Remember Donald Rumsfeld and his 'unknown unknowns'?
A tokamak power plant would use a thick wall, called a blanket, which slows the fast neutrons from the reaction, and using the resulting heat to heat a working fluid, driving a turbine. Note that this hasn't been demonstrated yet though -- they'll do this on ITER.
This has happened many times throughout history. I'm certain the stonemasons who toiled away on Europe's beautiful cathedrals must've worked away, knowing that despite their own obscurity, they were still leaving a legacy.
Ultimately, you'd have to ask an expert -- but I do know that there is a fairly substantial first wall between the plasma and the coils (and just as well -- a quench on a machine the size of ITER would truly be something to behold). Not sure what you mean by Alcator C-Mod being 'unconventional' -- were you referring to the superconducting magnets, as opposed to copper ones?
Particularly on large machines, during disruptions, there is potential for serious damage to the first wall from heating, runaway electrons, and substantial mechanical forces. Disruption mitigation is considered a priority for ITER, because the problems get worse for large machines, especially research machines not designed with the duty cycles of actual, real power plants.
The plasma DOES come in contact with the 'divertor', which is a part of the interior of the reactor where the cool outer edge of the plasma outside the last set of closed field lines is drawn out over a large surface area to trap and remove the helium 'ash' and other contaminants from the plasma. The plasma is held tightly within the closed magnetic field lines within the torus, and only the 'scrape off layer' ever comes anywhere near the walls. This is key to performance, as performance is closely related to purity (contaminants wastefully radiate away energy).