"Ignition" in fusion requires a device in which no energy needs to be input to sustain a "burning plasma."
That would be nice to achieve. If you take a careful look at the specs for NIF, you'll see that even if they achieve "ignition" with their pellets, they will not reach the energy break even point. To me, the way they're handling this is a bit deceptive. It's a goal for simulating nuclear bombs, but not one for energy generation. It does no good to talk about ignition here if that doesn't even *theoretically* get you to break even on your device, which magnetically confined plasmas have been doing for a long time now.
Again, the point is NOT what the words mean to a physicist, but what they mean to the news media and politicians!
The people running this thing need to think really, *really* hard how their comments play out in the media, maybe try and be a little more clear. The difference between getting fusion (the physical process) to work and getting fusion (the power generation system) to work is huge! Should they accomplish their goals in a year, they will still be a very long way away from thinking about building an electricity generating system. The line of "getting more power out than we put in" for fusion in the lab was crossed decades ago, and it's still unclear how doing this with yet another method of creating a fusion plasma is going to result in a more straightforward commercial reactor design.
This is how we end up with government officials who think we're all full of hyperbole, and don't actually do any work. I know they're fighting for their jobs at Livermore, but I don't see how they can keep this up long term. At some point, some Congressional committee is going to ask them to deliver on what has been promised, even if it was a confused, incorrect promise mis-translated by the media.
That acronym still needs work (NCRAIDT?), but it's nice to see the Education Department taking responsibility for, you know, doing their job. There has been significant grumbling among some scientists that we've essentially been forced to include pre-university educational plans in our NSF research grants.
In the Chinese Confucian tradition (which is still very much alive and well), laws are really more "suggestions for proper behavior" than the strict 10 commandments style "Thou shall not" rules we in the west are used to.
Legal traditions and backgrounds in China are different than in the west. A well-educated, "fair" Chinese judge will absolutely have a different meaning of the word "law" than an American or European judge.
I'm a physicist, I know plenty of statistics. The kinds of statistics he's talking about are not hard. If you can do algebra, you can do things like calculate the standard deviation and variance of a set of measurements.
Was this rant really necessary? I run into people in physics who don't take care of these details. I find that a simple "can you put a standard deviation on that number?" or "can you repeat the experiment?" generally gets the job done. If you want to be more scientific, just start with those questions, and see where it takes you... you could even add "please" if you wanted to be nice. I find threatening people with death and belittling their intellect while talking about trivial calculations doesn't generate useful data.
To be fair, it sounds like Zed has been working as staff at a university. This has nothing to do with statistics, but it's probably the real reason he's in such a bad mood.
These are more or less the same techniques we used in carbon nanotechnology 10 years ago. The difference is that now there are more than 2 or 3 groups capable of mastering all these techniques. It's nice to see everyone hasn't given up on this material and that engineers have taken over now that all the scientists have moved on to graphene. It's still far too expensive to make transistors from carbon nanotubes, but maybe they're right and these labor-intensive techniques used can be automated.
The sooner IT people start realizing that this debate has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with professionalism and quality of life, the better off everyone will be.
Let me explain how physics works, and see if this sounds like IT:
If you're just starting out, you are most likely being asked to do things that you really shouldn't be doing. If you're managing others, you are most likely asking the people below you to do things you had to do in the past, but they probably shouldn't be doing. People with family are not expected to do as much work, but are automatically cut off from the best projects and jobs. Efficiency and quantity of work are the only real measures of professional advancement. The exceptions to this are by definition in the "weak," "uncompetitive" areas. These "weak" people living close to normal lives are made fun of by the late night shift.
The people (in physics this would be Congress) positing that gender is the issue are disingenuous. They don't want to face the realities of what it would take to relieve the job competition and make the field attractive to a broader cross section of people.
From the actual news piece, I doubt the instructors actually feared for their own safety, at least, I hope not.
From an instructor's perspective (in physics), it's not cool to joke about using lab equipment in dangerous ways because I am not your friend, I do not know that you are joking, and I am assuming responsibility for you while you're in my class. I don't want you to hurt yourself (what I really worry about), particularly under my supervision. I have sent students home who were too immature to handle dangerous lab equipment (high voltage power supplies, radioactive materials... no one has done anything dangerous with the blocks on an inclined plane--no one has tried), I have not had anyone I felt was too depressed or angry (yet). I hope I would make make such a student take a visit to a school counselor before going to the police!
Who makes nanotubes out of petroleum? I've worked with carbon nanotubes for almost a decade and never heard of anyone seriously doing that. Sure, you can make them from whatever carbon you want, but it's easiest to make them from ethanol. Are we going to char the forests to get that? If you can generate ethanol economically from forests, then you need to tell someone. Is the electricity used to make the nanotubes from petroleum? Maybe, maybe not. The nice thing about electricity is that it doesn't matter how you make it, it works the same. So you can hook Slashdot commenters up to giant hampster wheels to drive your generators if you need to.
The kids doing this research probably come from farms in rural China, are paid probably 1/3 of what you make and are treated like shit (no probably about that). Yet they're at least trying to solve the big problems in the world. To them, you are Joe Palooka... but for some reason they think the world is worth saving.
It's absurd that one can be considered "educated" in the western world without having a basic understanding of century old (or older) scientific principles (evolution, relativity, calculus...). It is not "too hard" to learn these things. If you have a college degree, you should be as familiar with basic science as you are with writing essays.
If the average lay person has as much understanding of modern science as they do something like modern economics (we all know China holds our debt, and why), then an attitude of skepticism toward scientists is actually desirable. Without that basic understanding, how are we to communicate?! How do you express something like climate change to a populace which doesn't know 19th century thermodynamics? On what basis can they trust or criticize you? I don't trust people saying things that sound like nonsense. A sometimes "nonsense" people turn out to actually be lawyers, but not knowing their basic terminology I can't tell the difference between a charlatan and the real thing, so I can't really trust any of them. I imagine that's how most people see scientists.
All we're left with is politics and sound bytes, which does not lead to a helpful discussion.
The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.
I would imagine we will be able to grow meat at a substantially lower cost than raising cattle... the difference to the consumer will be pretty obvious. Other than that, I agree that it may be hard to tell the difference between "bad" slaughtered meat and grown meat.
My position is "fellow," is that really any better than "guy?"
If you "guys" are looking at management jobs in the corporate world, be happy with it. While all the kids want to be a "fellow," it doesn't pay as well as being a "guy".... but give it a try, go for "IT fellows" if you really want to.
Leave the laptop, bring a smartphone (such as an iPhone), and make sure you're able to use that.
You don't really want to be on your laptop all the time, and a phone will be much better for getting around (GPS, maps) and fine for getting online for planning/reservations and those 1-2 emergency e-mails you have to respond to.
Also, Westminster Abbey. If you're ok with visiting graves, this is a great place to go. Some of the graves there: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Paul Dirac, Ernest Rutherford, James Watt... those are who I can remember now, it's pretty cool.
Excellent point that the base technology is unfortunately getting easier to achieve.
The continued training of engineers who can build nukes for us is one of the main points of the refurbishment program. These Jason guys are pretty smart. Their report mentions the main risk here is not losing the ability to blow people to bits, but loss of skills due to lack of support for the refurbishing (training) program.
Wasn't there something here on the NIF a while ago, and how they're working on alternative energy? Hmmm. Not underground, but those bangs are pretty useful to physicists who aren't working on alternative energy.
If he was actually trying to build a working fusion reactor, that may actually be a surprising response (no need for fission reactors means fewer potential nukes out there).
The design at NIF is not relevant to solving the problems in getting electricity from inertial confinement fusion. It takes over 300MJ for them to power their lasers, while the best output they can hope for from their fusion is about 50MJ. They're also focusing on D-D and D-T fusion, which is not actually "clean" in that it will make the reactor radioactive over time. That's not to say ICF is "bad," or will never work, just that NIF was not designed as an alternative energy experiment. If he's got a reactor design, it's based on other ICF experiments (the one in Japan is nice).
A solar energy guy took over DOE and now they have to say these things to keep their jobs, that's all that's happening here.
This is why people in silicon valley still have no idea what graphene is, while companies in asia are close to commercializing products with it.
I've talked with business people from California, Korea and China. The guys from California were clueless and thought I would just willingly hand over my research for almost nothing. They still don't believe they have competition.
The group theory method of organization is the same idea taught to anyone who's taken an atomic physics class (there are many "physics" periodic tables out there). Too bad we don't teach atomic physics very much anymore. It's a very useful representation for anyone who is looking at the elements from a modeling or spectroscopy perspective. There have to be tables in a similar representation that are decades old (though probably lacking a formal group theory explanation).
The summary missed the actual cool part of the group theory paper, which is that by doing the formal calculations, he's predicting a different set of atomic numbers should make up the superactinides than is normally assumed (the superactinides would be a third row that would go below the lanthanides and actinides). I have no idea if we'll ever be able to test this.
The traditional periodic table is meant to be organized by chemical properties. It seems to do that pretty well, there's not really a reason to change it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ignition" in fusion requires a device in which no energy needs to be input to sustain a "burning plasma."
That would be nice to achieve. If you take a careful look at the specs for NIF, you'll see that even if they achieve "ignition" with their pellets, they will not reach the energy break even point. To me, the way they're handling this is a bit deceptive. It's a goal for simulating nuclear bombs, but not one for energy generation. It does no good to talk about ignition here if that doesn't even *theoretically* get you to break even on your device, which magnetically confined plasmas have been doing for a long time now.
Again, the point is NOT what the words mean to a physicist, but what they mean to the news media and politicians!
I'm a physicist, I love these experiments, but...
The people running this thing need to think really, *really* hard how their comments play out in the media, maybe try and be a little more clear. The difference between getting fusion (the physical process) to work and getting fusion (the power generation system) to work is huge! Should they accomplish their goals in a year, they will still be a very long way away from thinking about building an electricity generating system. The line of "getting more power out than we put in" for fusion in the lab was crossed decades ago, and it's still unclear how doing this with yet another method of creating a fusion plasma is going to result in a more straightforward commercial reactor design.
This is how we end up with government officials who think we're all full of hyperbole, and don't actually do any work. I know they're fighting for their jobs at Livermore, but I don't see how they can keep this up long term. At some point, some Congressional committee is going to ask them to deliver on what has been promised, even if it was a confused, incorrect promise mis-translated by the media.
That acronym still needs work (NCRAIDT?), but it's nice to see the Education Department taking responsibility for, you know, doing their job. There has been significant grumbling among some scientists that we've essentially been forced to include pre-university educational plans in our NSF research grants.
Very nice elaboration! Thanks.
In the Chinese Confucian tradition (which is still very much alive and well), laws are really more "suggestions for proper behavior" than the strict 10 commandments style "Thou shall not" rules we in the west are used to.
Legal traditions and backgrounds in China are different than in the west. A well-educated, "fair" Chinese judge will absolutely have a different meaning of the word "law" than an American or European judge.
I'm a physicist, I know plenty of statistics. The kinds of statistics he's talking about are not hard. If you can do algebra, you can do things like calculate the standard deviation and variance of a set of measurements.
Was this rant really necessary? I run into people in physics who don't take care of these details. I find that a simple "can you put a standard deviation on that number?" or "can you repeat the experiment?" generally gets the job done. If you want to be more scientific, just start with those questions, and see where it takes you... you could even add "please" if you wanted to be nice. I find threatening people with death and belittling their intellect while talking about trivial calculations doesn't generate useful data.
To be fair, it sounds like Zed has been working as staff at a university. This has nothing to do with statistics, but it's probably the real reason he's in such a bad mood.
These are more or less the same techniques we used in carbon nanotechnology 10 years ago. The difference is that now there are more than 2 or 3 groups capable of mastering all these techniques. It's nice to see everyone hasn't given up on this material and that engineers have taken over now that all the scientists have moved on to graphene. It's still far too expensive to make transistors from carbon nanotubes, but maybe they're right and these labor-intensive techniques used can be automated.
Physics is in a similar place.
The sooner IT people start realizing that this debate has nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with professionalism and quality of life, the better off everyone will be.
Let me explain how physics works, and see if this sounds like IT:
If you're just starting out, you are most likely being asked to do things that you really shouldn't be doing. If you're managing others, you are most likely asking the people below you to do things you had to do in the past, but they probably shouldn't be doing. People with family are not expected to do as much work, but are automatically cut off from the best projects and jobs. Efficiency and quantity of work are the only real measures of professional advancement. The exceptions to this are by definition in the "weak," "uncompetitive" areas. These "weak" people living close to normal lives are made fun of by the late night shift.
The people (in physics this would be Congress) positing that gender is the issue are disingenuous. They don't want to face the realities of what it would take to relieve the job competition and make the field attractive to a broader cross section of people.
From the actual news piece, I doubt the instructors actually feared for their own safety, at least, I hope not.
From an instructor's perspective (in physics), it's not cool to joke about using lab equipment in dangerous ways because I am not your friend, I do not know that you are joking, and I am assuming responsibility for you while you're in my class. I don't want you to hurt yourself (what I really worry about), particularly under my supervision. I have sent students home who were too immature to handle dangerous lab equipment (high voltage power supplies, radioactive materials... no one has done anything dangerous with the blocks on an inclined plane--no one has tried), I have not had anyone I felt was too depressed or angry (yet). I hope I would make make such a student take a visit to a school counselor before going to the police!
This is a MUCH better solution.
Ok, now you're just making stuff up.
Who makes nanotubes out of petroleum? I've worked with carbon nanotubes for almost a decade and never heard of anyone seriously doing that. Sure, you can make them from whatever carbon you want, but it's easiest to make them from ethanol. Are we going to char the forests to get that? If you can generate ethanol economically from forests, then you need to tell someone. Is the electricity used to make the nanotubes from petroleum? Maybe, maybe not. The nice thing about electricity is that it doesn't matter how you make it, it works the same. So you can hook Slashdot commenters up to giant hampster wheels to drive your generators if you need to.
The kids doing this research probably come from farms in rural China, are paid probably 1/3 of what you make and are treated like shit (no probably about that). Yet they're at least trying to solve the big problems in the world. To them, you are Joe Palooka... but for some reason they think the world is worth saving.
It's absurd that one can be considered "educated" in the western world without having a basic understanding of century old (or older) scientific principles (evolution, relativity, calculus...). It is not "too hard" to learn these things. If you have a college degree, you should be as familiar with basic science as you are with writing essays.
If the average lay person has as much understanding of modern science as they do something like modern economics (we all know China holds our debt, and why), then an attitude of skepticism toward scientists is actually desirable. Without that basic understanding, how are we to communicate?! How do you express something like climate change to a populace which doesn't know 19th century thermodynamics? On what basis can they trust or criticize you? I don't trust people saying things that sound like nonsense. A sometimes "nonsense" people turn out to actually be lawyers, but not knowing their basic terminology I can't tell the difference between a charlatan and the real thing, so I can't really trust any of them. I imagine that's how most people see scientists.
All we're left with is politics and sound bytes, which does not lead to a helpful discussion.
The use of the phrase "quasi-subconsciously" is fascinating. The rest, not so much.
The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.
I would imagine we will be able to grow meat at a substantially lower cost than raising cattle... the difference to the consumer will be pretty obvious. Other than that, I agree that it may be hard to tell the difference between "bad" slaughtered meat and grown meat.
My position is "fellow," is that really any better than "guy?"
If you "guys" are looking at management jobs in the corporate world, be happy with it. While all the kids want to be a "fellow," it doesn't pay as well as being a "guy". ... but give it a try, go for "IT fellows" if you really want to.
One wonders why the AP and Reuters allow newspapers to put their stuff online. AP and Reuters have websites of their own.
Leave the laptop, bring a smartphone (such as an iPhone), and make sure you're able to use that.
You don't really want to be on your laptop all the time, and a phone will be much better for getting around (GPS, maps) and fine for getting online for planning/reservations and those 1-2 emergency e-mails you have to respond to.
Also, Westminster Abbey. If you're ok with visiting graves, this is a great place to go. Some of the graves there: Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Paul Dirac, Ernest Rutherford, James Watt... those are who I can remember now, it's pretty cool.
It seems we know how to do just about anything these days, but lack the ability to actually get it done
Excellent point that the base technology is unfortunately getting easier to achieve.
The continued training of engineers who can build nukes for us is one of the main points of the refurbishment program. These Jason guys are pretty smart. Their report mentions the main risk here is not losing the ability to blow people to bits, but loss of skills due to lack of support for the refurbishing (training) program.
Wasn't there something here on the NIF a while ago, and how they're working on alternative energy? Hmmm. Not underground, but those bangs are pretty useful to physicists who aren't working on alternative energy.
If he was actually trying to build a working fusion reactor, that may actually be a surprising response (no need for fission reactors means fewer potential nukes out there).
The design at NIF is not relevant to solving the problems in getting electricity from inertial confinement fusion. It takes over 300MJ for them to power their lasers, while the best output they can hope for from their fusion is about 50MJ. They're also focusing on D-D and D-T fusion, which is not actually "clean" in that it will make the reactor radioactive over time. That's not to say ICF is "bad," or will never work, just that NIF was not designed as an alternative energy experiment. If he's got a reactor design, it's based on other ICF experiments (the one in Japan is nice).
A solar energy guy took over DOE and now they have to say these things to keep their jobs, that's all that's happening here.
This is why people in silicon valley still have no idea what graphene is, while companies in asia are close to commercializing products with it.
I've talked with business people from California, Korea and China. The guys from California were clueless and thought I would just willingly hand over my research for almost nothing. They still don't believe they have competition.
Do you want a career in industry?
A patent or two doesn't look bad on a resume.
Do you want a career in academia?
A paper or two doesn't look bad on a CV.
Do you want to make lots of money?
Forget inventing and get an MBA.
I'm sure things like this will only get less common now that we're giving these guys particle accelerators.
The group theory method of organization is the same idea taught to anyone who's taken an atomic physics class (there are many "physics" periodic tables out there). Too bad we don't teach atomic physics very much anymore. It's a very useful representation for anyone who is looking at the elements from a modeling or spectroscopy perspective. There have to be tables in a similar representation that are decades old (though probably lacking a formal group theory explanation).
The summary missed the actual cool part of the group theory paper, which is that by doing the formal calculations, he's predicting a different set of atomic numbers should make up the superactinides than is normally assumed (the superactinides would be a third row that would go below the lanthanides and actinides). I have no idea if we'll ever be able to test this.
The traditional periodic table is meant to be organized by chemical properties. It seems to do that pretty well, there's not really a reason to change it.
Extremely good point! Guides *might* know what you can buy in the school computer store.