This won’t surprise anyone, but we should keep in mind that ALL liberals do science, economics and academic research this way. https://instapundit.com/558479/
Gail Heriot points out that the US Civil Rights Comm uses wildly different methodologies to count “hurricane deaths” so they can smear Trump. It’s extremely dishonest. The lefties running the commission know it. They do stuff like this all the time. It’s standard procedure.
Every time someone checks any sort of government agency or academic “study” this is what turns up. I’ve spent well over a thousand hours reading up on climate “research” over the last 20 years. All of it is this bad.
We saw this repeatedly with Covid. All lies all the time. What needs to be kept in mind is that govt agencies are just as bad as academia.
Commerce’s jobs numbers under Obama were over-estimated deliberately using a bogus birth/death model. The estimates of jobs created by his stimulus were complete fiction. The OMB cost numbers for Obamacare were corrupt to the core.
They don’t even try to pretend to be honest. It’s all propaganda. It’s all Lysenkoism. In every field. The Left is a cancer that kills truth anywhere and everywhere it spreads.
Not as wild as Taylor’s chimerism tho – that’s not quite cool but really fascinating.
Glad Musk is showing that the US election in 2020 was rigged. Not free and fair – stolen by the Democrat Deep State. (Again?)
All Republicans should be constantly talking about the lack of accountability for the Deep State for stealing the election – and how it’s OK for most Trump haters, including too many GOPe. The less serious, tho often more passionate haters, suffer from Democrat Demonization Syndrome.
My newest suggested alt-label; after BDS & TDS << Demonization is the key problem, not "derangement".
From the “You Will NEVER Believe This” File!:
“Bankman-Fried Faces Senate Subpoena After Refusing To Attend Wednesday Hearing”— https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bankman-fried-faces-senate-subpoena-after-refusing-attend-wednesday-hearing
Opening graf:
“Having been asked so nicely by Maxine Waters (a recipient of his donations), and agreed, to virtually-attend tomorrow’s Congressional hearing about the collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried has made it clear he will not be attending Wednesday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing on the same topic. [Emphasis mine: Barry M.]
Well, he is, after all, One Busy Dude(TM)!
(Polyamory DOES take a heckuva a lot of concentration, focus and time. Apparently.)
Yes swan lake was composed in the latter part of alexander 2nd reign a time of turmoil and later war anna karenina would chronicle the latter event the russo turkish war
The “BIG” science news out of Livermore Nat. Lab today is that their laser fusion ignition facility produced more energy than was put in. Several media sources are making a huge deal out this. It’s not.
First of all, the design here is to take a small glass ball containing D-H and then impact it from all sides with high energy lasers to create an implosion to get the fusion reaction going. Not at all a practical design for any sort of commercial reactor.
Second, the net output of energy was listed at 0.4MJ, or 400,000J. To put that in perspective, a typical US house uses about 1500 kWh in a month. Which is 5400 MJ, or 5.4×10^9J. Doing the arithmetic, 400,000J is about what a house uses in around 3 minutes.
Don’t get your hopes up for any fusion reactor anytime soon. Recreating the interior of a star has, in my view, been shown to be a ridiculous approach to fusion now that it’s been tried for over 50 years. Just draining money. Some new physics needs to come into play before this is ever going to work.
Barry Meislin – No lawyer worth a hill of beans would allow SBF to willingly testify to Congress until after his criminal matters are sorted out. Even if he does testify before his criminal matters play out (and he listens to his lawyers), he’ll just sit there and take the 5th through the entire hearing.
Count me in on the clawbacks though. At worst, it would require a lot of Democrat’s campaign organizations to declare bankruptcy.
stan – The most powerful people in the world are those who code the data.
Interesting speculation that Octopusus may have an extraterrestrial origin.
SBF has been shooting off his mouth in ways I find astounding, considering he has two lawyers for parents. Leftist lawyers, but still lawyers.
Clawbacks would be great. We’ll see.
She’s nearly 40 years old. She has no husband, no children, and and no wage or salaried employment to which she admits. Her life isn’t working out so well.
She’s handsome but would be well-advised to quit coloring her hair (in addition to everything else you’d suggest she do).
It’s simple plodding work by a corrupt bureaucracy. Easily identified and cleaned up… These guys simply cross-checked election rolls against property and tax records.
“…willingly testify…”
Here’s a—novel—thought: how ’bout “unwillingly testify”…?
P.S. Let him plead the 5th till the cows come home. Let the corrupt media complain about how he’s being besieged and oppressed by those hypocritical trog-publicans. Let the whole panoply of Democratic princes and princesses despair about the foul, fetid, unwholesome environment that the GOP is creating FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES ONLY!
And let ’em keep it up for at least the next two years….
physicsguy on December 12, 2022 at 12:32 pm said:
The “BIG” science news out of Livermore Nat. Lab today is that their laser fusion ignition facility produced more energy than was put in. Several media sources are making a huge deal out this. It’s not. …
_______________________________________________________________
physicsguy:
Thanks for taking the time to write this comment. Simply based on the fusion reactor research track record, I suspected that this news was too good to be true, but I have absolutely no qualifications to judge the science.
As for alternative research funding, do you think that the NSF et al. should revive funding for thorium reactor research, or is that a dead-end? I’m neither a nuclear engineer nor a physicist, but the fantasy of small-scale, widely dispersed thorium reactors is so tempting that my first skeptical assumption is to yell “panacea.” Any thoughts?
My understanding is that the laser ignition fusion method requires tiny spherical pellets (about 2 mm in diameter) of deuterium and tritium that have to be fairly precisely formed. I wonder how difficult it will be to produce the large volumes of those that will be required to scale up for commercial engery production.
Cornflour,
Thorium base reactors certainly appear more promising than conventional uranium based reactors. I haven’t followed their development too closely. Maybe if the DoE had spent a fraction of what they’ve spent on fusion, the thorium machines might be further along. The problem with any fission reactor is going to be mainly political.
Re: Nuclear fusion
physicsguy, Conflour:
Sabine Hossenfelder has an excellent video, an expose really, on the often misleading communications from fusion researchers to make their results sound more impressive.
The Livermore story illustrates exactly the sleight of hand Sabine calls out:
_________________
The government official, who spoke anonymously to discuss results that are not yet public, said that the fusion experiment at NIF achieved what is known as ignition, where the fusion energy generated equals the laser energy that started the reaction. Ignition is also called energy gain of one.
The problem is that this energy gain, which Sabine terms “Q”, is only Q-plasma — the ratio of the energy out of the plasma divided the energy directed into the plasma.
It is not Q-total, which considers *all* the required input energy compared to all the output energy after it is turned into usable energy.
For instance, the Q-plasma number does not include the energies expended/lost:
* to power the magnets which contain the fusion reaction
* to aim the lasers
* to convert the heat to electricity
Sabine uses a back-of-the-envelope calculation to show that an earlier fusion test which resulted in a Q-plasma of 0.67 only nets to a Q-total of 0.01!
I’m sure the fusion scientists understand the difference, but even Sabine didn’t until a few years ago.
I can’t help but assume this is just standard PR happy talk to continue fusion research funding, but it sure feels scammy. And right in line with what we expect these days from “authorities.”
Poor Boy(TM). Such a shame, really…so young…so creative…so full of promise…in over his head…Sigh…
(Guess we have to start feeling sorry for him, too…Double-Sigh…)
…Hey, hold on a sec!
What if—stay with me here—what if “Poor Boy”(TM) was quite a bit more experienced—and sophisticated—than “IT SEEMS”….?
Back in the Good Old Days, we considered a 30-year-old to be old enough to be responsible for his actions and for his failures. He was certainly pulling in enough money to be able to hire creditable financial officers had he wished to.
Judge Benitez of the Southern CA district federal court is holding a hearing on multiple gun control cases today. These are cases where he upheld the 2nd (overturned gun control), that were appealed to the 9th, then sent back down to the District court after the Bruin decision (it’s a stalling tactic by CA at this point).
Cool video and story Neo. I knew of this rarity, but even so was shocked to see a nearly perfect dividing line down the center of her torso. There was this old Star Trek episode … (Nuff said about that.)
I used to know a bit about the NIF project at Livermore (LLNL) a long time ago. That’s where the fusion energy story is originating. NIF is the National Ignition Facility. I brought a couple of those folks in to give presentations of their work back when.
The original proposal for it that got funded claimed that they were going to use a two pronged approach to obviate the need to test nukes at the Nevada test site. 1) Computer modeling (natch). 2) NIF. And the synergies between 1) and 2).
Oh yeah. They also said that they were going to make nuclear warheads safer. People laughed at that because they were already super safe.
The guy who spoke about supercomputers and the modeling effort was very nice, but I got the impression that he would say or do anything to get the next tranche of megabucks for the next installment of toys.
huxley speaks of Q-plasma & some of what is left out, but what about laser efficiencies? My vague recollection was that the lasers get nearly all their power from a system of amplification and that maybe those amplifiers were kind of efficient. Here is an abbrev. description:
In a sense NIF, the world’s largest and highest-energy laser system, is one big laser amplifier. As with most large lasers, NIF uses intense flashes of white light from giant flashlamps to “pump” electrons in large slabs of laser glass to a higher-energy state that lasts only about one-millionth of a second.
Just the fact that the amplifier pumps use white light has got to be an efficiency killer.
According to Fox News, Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested in the Bahamas.
“Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents staying in Bahamas, fear his legal fees will ‘wipe them out’
It’s called redistribution of wealth and I’ve read they’re familiar with the concept.
Thanks for the link, Ben David. I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails referring to the same thing. It appears the voter registration rolls are corrupt and the SoSs in most states just don’t keep them up to date. If true, this is a fixable problem. I hope it’s that easy.
AMartel, +1.
In other news, the Non-Binary Fashion Icon Luggage Klepto was finally canned by the DOE: “‘Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee. By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel matters,’ a spokesperson for the DOE told the Daily Beast on Monday.”
The [Livermore] guy who spoke about supercomputers and the modeling effort was very nice, but I got the impression that he would say or do anything to get the next tranche of megabucks for the next installment of toys.
TommyJay:
And that’s the problem.
Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe in nuclear fusion, but the big magnets, lasers and deuterium/tritium approach doesn’t seem to be happenin’ anytime soon.
However, it is soaking up tons of funding, which could be going — as physicsguy points out — to alternate approaches like thorium reactors.
I don’t know that thorium is the answer either, but I can’t believe our options are limited to conventional fission or ITER megaproject fusion.
I find more and more merit in the idea that the universe was created and “fine tuned” for life, and is not the result of impersonal, mindless, random chance.
One of the key arguments for creation is the number of physical constants which govern our Universe, with the smallest variance of any one of them making our Universe and life impossible.*
One of the most ubiquitous and most mysterious of these constants is the “fine structure constant” which equals roughly 1/137 and which appears as part of many other constants.**
So much of a problem is 1/137 that Jung and Pauli, among others, were both obsessed with trying to explain it’s ubiquity and what that meant.
Kate @ 4:21: agree.
In 1787 we thought the minimum age for President should be 35. Jefferson wrote the DOI at 33, with many years of legislative experience under his belt. Same for other founders/ framers.
But given today’s complexities and medical advances, I would prefer to see the age limit raised to 50 (or maybe even 55?). Then a bunch of senators who ran in 2012 and 2016 would have been considered too young and “immature” for the presidency, thus winnowing the candidate pool to potentially a more manageable and attractive group? But better can be the enemy of good enough: reference VP Harris.
“…the Non-Binary Fashion Icon Luggage Klepto was finally canned by the DOE…”
Quibble alert: Should (really…well, not really) read, “…WERE finally canned…”
(Which raises the all-important question if ALL OF THEM were actually fired…)
“Interesting speculation that Octopusus may have an extraterrestrial origin.”
Ha!
Some, supposed scientist thinks that octopuses are space monsters?
Now all of H.P. Lovecraft’s, science-fiction stories make sense! Nope.
What a load of nonsense Wow.
This is just my opinion, which is based on me being mad, at the moment:
It really BUGS me that- this weeks trend on news sites is- putting a video that starts automatically…on every news article, whenever I click on a site’s…news article.
It feels like these sites are saying: “we think you are too dumb, or too-lacking-in-attention, to read this whole article, unless- we put a shiny, new video on that article”.
That’s very annoying.
Wow.
TR–Did you actually read the article about Octopuses I linked to?
What it was proposing was the Panspermia idea–that things like comet tails or meteorites carrying viruses, bacteria, microorganisms—things like Tardigrades*, or even fertilized eggs–may have introduced these things into Earth, initiating life in general, or contributing particular lines of life.
Moreover, the idea, in particular, with regard to Octopuses was based on their unique genetic structures–which are far more complicated, dense, and different than their supposed ancestral organisms and other earthly creatures.
Based, as well, on their ability to change color and even shape, and their demonstrated intelligence and problem solving ability**, and things like the fact that a majority of their neurons are not located in their heads, but are distributed among their individual tentacles.
It’s a great article, however- for me to be, in scientific ways, to be satisfied that octopuses, [are to be declared as “very likely to be from another planet, or from outer space”, first I’d like to have NASA or other people 1] physically touch that planet, and then 2] present their physical samples from that planet, to trace the octopuses- from that planet to planet earth.
Cheers.
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This won’t surprise anyone, but we should keep in mind that ALL liberals do science, economics and academic research this way. https://instapundit.com/558479/
Gail Heriot points out that the US Civil Rights Comm uses wildly different methodologies to count “hurricane deaths” so they can smear Trump. It’s extremely dishonest. The lefties running the commission know it. They do stuff like this all the time. It’s standard procedure.
Every time someone checks any sort of government agency or academic “study” this is what turns up. I’ve spent well over a thousand hours reading up on climate “research” over the last 20 years. All of it is this bad.
We saw this repeatedly with Covid. All lies all the time. What needs to be kept in mind is that govt agencies are just as bad as academia.
Commerce’s jobs numbers under Obama were over-estimated deliberately using a bogus birth/death model. The estimates of jobs created by his stimulus were complete fiction. The OMB cost numbers for Obamacare were corrupt to the core.
They don’t even try to pretend to be honest. It’s all propaganda. It’s all Lysenkoism. In every field. The Left is a cancer that kills truth anywhere and everywhere it spreads.
Oh really
https://www.theepochtimes.com/fbi-reveals-it-has-more-information-on-deceased-dnc-staffer-seth-rich_4916113.html
Less politics and listen to alt-music, like this Swan Lake.
It’s madness!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1EV0WvwzM&list=RDRNEHRD7Rx_g&index=27
Not as wild as Taylor’s chimerism tho – that’s not quite cool but really fascinating.
Glad Musk is showing that the US election in 2020 was rigged. Not free and fair – stolen by the Democrat Deep State. (Again?)
All Republicans should be constantly talking about the lack of accountability for the Deep State for stealing the election – and how it’s OK for most Trump haters, including too many GOPe. The less serious, tho often more passionate haters, suffer from Democrat Demonization Syndrome.
My newest suggested alt-label; after BDS & TDS << Demonization is the key problem, not "derangement".
From the “You Will NEVER Believe This” File!:
“Bankman-Fried Faces Senate Subpoena After Refusing To Attend Wednesday Hearing”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/bankman-fried-faces-senate-subpoena-after-refusing-attend-wednesday-hearing
Opening graf:
“Having been asked so nicely by Maxine Waters (a recipient of his donations), and agreed, to virtually-attend tomorrow’s Congressional hearing about the collapse of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried has made it clear he will not be attending Wednesday’s Senate Banking Committee hearing on the same topic. [Emphasis mine: Barry M.]
Well, he is, after all, One Busy Dude(TM)!
(Polyamory DOES take a heckuva a lot of concentration, focus and time. Apparently.)
We’ll throw in this one, as well…
“FTX Bankruptcy Puts $73 Million In Political Donations At Risk Of Clawbacks”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ftx-bankruptcy-puts-73-million-political-donations-risk-clawbacks
Though now that Elon Musk has surpassed DJT as Demon-Du-Jour, at least for the time being…and for the foreseeable future, we can pretty much forget about hearing much about FTX…
+ Bonus—explaining one of the many reasons for the Democratic Party’s SUCCESS in the recent mid-term elections!
“…The Biden Economy Is A Mess”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/schiff-biden-economy-mess
He’ll get the confy chair
Yes swan lake was composed in the latter part of alexander 2nd reign a time of turmoil and later war anna karenina would chronicle the latter event the russo turkish war
The “BIG” science news out of Livermore Nat. Lab today is that their laser fusion ignition facility produced more energy than was put in. Several media sources are making a huge deal out this. It’s not.
First of all, the design here is to take a small glass ball containing D-H and then impact it from all sides with high energy lasers to create an implosion to get the fusion reaction going. Not at all a practical design for any sort of commercial reactor.
Second, the net output of energy was listed at 0.4MJ, or 400,000J. To put that in perspective, a typical US house uses about 1500 kWh in a month. Which is 5400 MJ, or 5.4×10^9J. Doing the arithmetic, 400,000J is about what a house uses in around 3 minutes.
Don’t get your hopes up for any fusion reactor anytime soon. Recreating the interior of a star has, in my view, been shown to be a ridiculous approach to fusion now that it’s been tried for over 50 years. Just draining money. Some new physics needs to come into play before this is ever going to work.
Barry Meislin – No lawyer worth a hill of beans would allow SBF to willingly testify to Congress until after his criminal matters are sorted out. Even if he does testify before his criminal matters play out (and he listens to his lawyers), he’ll just sit there and take the 5th through the entire hearing.
Count me in on the clawbacks though. At worst, it would require a lot of Democrat’s campaign organizations to declare bankruptcy.
stan – The most powerful people in the world are those who code the data.
Interesting speculation that Octopusus may have an extraterrestrial origin.
See https://mindmatters.ai/2022/01/science-paper-could-octopuses-be-aliens-from-outer-space/
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1602002599343194112.html
You were saying
https://thepostmillennial.com/upenn-deletes-disgraced-twitter-exec-yoel-roths-phd-dissertation-arguing-minors-should-have-access-to-sex-apps
SBF has been shooting off his mouth in ways I find astounding, considering he has two lawyers for parents. Leftist lawyers, but still lawyers.
Clawbacks would be great. We’ll see.
She’s nearly 40 years old. She has no husband, no children, and and no wage or salaried employment to which she admits. Her life isn’t working out so well.
She’s handsome but would be well-advised to quit coloring her hair (in addition to everything else you’d suggest she do).
How the Dems game election rolls:
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/12/cooking_the_books_why_republicans_always_come_up_short.html
It’s simple plodding work by a corrupt bureaucracy. Easily identified and cleaned up… These guys simply cross-checked election rolls against property and tax records.
“…willingly testify…”
Here’s a—novel—thought: how ’bout “unwillingly testify”…?
P.S. Let him plead the 5th till the cows come home. Let the corrupt media complain about how he’s being besieged and oppressed by those hypocritical trog-publicans. Let the whole panoply of Democratic princes and princesses despair about the foul, fetid, unwholesome environment that the GOP is creating FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES ONLY!
And let ’em keep it up for at least the next two years….
physicsguy on December 12, 2022 at 12:32 pm said:
The “BIG” science news out of Livermore Nat. Lab today is that their laser fusion ignition facility produced more energy than was put in. Several media sources are making a huge deal out this. It’s not. …
_______________________________________________________________
physicsguy:
Thanks for taking the time to write this comment. Simply based on the fusion reactor research track record, I suspected that this news was too good to be true, but I have absolutely no qualifications to judge the science.
As for alternative research funding, do you think that the NSF et al. should revive funding for thorium reactor research, or is that a dead-end? I’m neither a nuclear engineer nor a physicist, but the fantasy of small-scale, widely dispersed thorium reactors is so tempting that my first skeptical assumption is to yell “panacea.” Any thoughts?
Bari Weiss drops Twitters Files part 5: https://mobile.twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1602375528224215040
Time to invest in underarm deoderant companies?
(Assuming that shares in popcorn manufacturers are all sold out….)
“Caroline Ellison hires lawyer as US reportedly weighs fraud case against Sam Bankman-Fried”—
https://nypost.com/2022/12/12/caroline-ellison-hires-lawyer-as-feds-probe-sam-bankman-fried/
And wouldn’t you know it…ANOTHER poor couple we’ll have to feel sorry for….
“Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents staying in Bahamas, fear his legal fees will ‘wipe them out’ “—
https://nypost.com/2022/12/12/sam-bankman-frieds-parents-fear-his-legal-fees-will-wipe-them-out/
I dunno. This one’ll be a real challenge….
File under: Alas, what cost compassion….?
My understanding is that the laser ignition fusion method requires tiny spherical pellets (about 2 mm in diameter) of deuterium and tritium that have to be fairly precisely formed. I wonder how difficult it will be to produce the large volumes of those that will be required to scale up for commercial engery production.
Cornflour,
Thorium base reactors certainly appear more promising than conventional uranium based reactors. I haven’t followed their development too closely. Maybe if the DoE had spent a fraction of what they’ve spent on fusion, the thorium machines might be further along. The problem with any fission reactor is going to be mainly political.
Re: Nuclear fusion
physicsguy, Conflour:
Sabine Hossenfelder has an excellent video, an expose really, on the often misleading communications from fusion researchers to make their results sound more impressive.
–“How close is nuclear fusion power?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ4W1g-6JiY
The Livermore story illustrates exactly the sleight of hand Sabine calls out:
_________________
The government official, who spoke anonymously to discuss results that are not yet public, said that the fusion experiment at NIF achieved what is known as ignition, where the fusion energy generated equals the laser energy that started the reaction. Ignition is also called energy gain of one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/science/nuclear-fusion-energy-breakthrough.html
_________________
The problem is that this energy gain, which Sabine terms “Q”, is only Q-plasma — the ratio of the energy out of the plasma divided the energy directed into the plasma.
It is not Q-total, which considers *all* the required input energy compared to all the output energy after it is turned into usable energy.
For instance, the Q-plasma number does not include the energies expended/lost:
* to power the magnets which contain the fusion reaction
* to aim the lasers
* to convert the heat to electricity
Sabine uses a back-of-the-envelope calculation to show that an earlier fusion test which resulted in a Q-plasma of 0.67 only nets to a Q-total of 0.01!
I’m sure the fusion scientists understand the difference, but even Sabine didn’t until a few years ago.
I can’t help but assume this is just standard PR happy talk to continue fusion research funding, but it sure feels scammy. And right in line with what we expect these days from “authorities.”
IT SEEMS that the Poor Boy(TM) just…wasn’t “experienced” and “sophisticated” enough…to be running billions and billions of Other People’s Money (OPM?)…
‘New FTX CEO Admits “Commingling Of Assets”, Blasts SBF As “Grossly Inexperienced & Unsophisticated” In Prepared Remarks’—
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/new-ftx-ceo-admits-commingling-assets-blasts-sbf-grossly-inexperienced-unsophisticated
Poor Boy(TM). Such a shame, really…so young…so creative…so full of promise…in over his head…Sigh…
(Guess we have to start feeling sorry for him, too…Double-Sigh…)
…Hey, hold on a sec!
What if—stay with me here—what if “Poor Boy”(TM) was quite a bit more experienced—and sophisticated—than “IT SEEMS”….?
And from the “All The Moola That’s Fit To Print” File (cross-filed with “Don’t Worry, It’s Only Transitory Destruction”)…
“$36 Billion Biden Bail-Out Rescues Pensions Of Truckers And Other Union Workers”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/36-billion-federal-bail-out-rescues-pensions-truckers-and-other-union-workers
See! Dems are our Friends…
Back in the Good Old Days, we considered a 30-year-old to be old enough to be responsible for his actions and for his failures. He was certainly pulling in enough money to be able to hire creditable financial officers had he wished to.
Judge Benitez of the Southern CA district federal court is holding a hearing on multiple gun control cases today. These are cases where he upheld the 2nd (overturned gun control), that were appealed to the 9th, then sent back down to the District court after the Bruin decision (it’s a stalling tactic by CA at this point).
Cool video and story Neo. I knew of this rarity, but even so was shocked to see a nearly perfect dividing line down the center of her torso. There was this old Star Trek episode … (Nuff said about that.)
I used to know a bit about the NIF project at Livermore (LLNL) a long time ago. That’s where the fusion energy story is originating. NIF is the National Ignition Facility. I brought a couple of those folks in to give presentations of their work back when.
The original proposal for it that got funded claimed that they were going to use a two pronged approach to obviate the need to test nukes at the Nevada test site. 1) Computer modeling (natch). 2) NIF. And the synergies between 1) and 2).
Oh yeah. They also said that they were going to make nuclear warheads safer. People laughed at that because they were already super safe.
The guy who spoke about supercomputers and the modeling effort was very nice, but I got the impression that he would say or do anything to get the next tranche of megabucks for the next installment of toys.
huxley speaks of Q-plasma & some of what is left out, but what about laser efficiencies? My vague recollection was that the lasers get nearly all their power from a system of amplification and that maybe those amplifiers were kind of efficient. Here is an abbrev. description:
How NIF Works
In a sense NIF, the world’s largest and highest-energy laser system, is one big laser amplifier. As with most large lasers, NIF uses intense flashes of white light from giant flashlamps to “pump” electrons in large slabs of laser glass to a higher-energy state that lasts only about one-millionth of a second.
Just the fact that the amplifier pumps use white light has got to be an efficiency killer.
According to Fox News, Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested in the Bahamas.
“Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents staying in Bahamas, fear his legal fees will ‘wipe them out’
It’s called redistribution of wealth and I’ve read they’re familiar with the concept.
Thanks for the link, Ben David. I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails referring to the same thing. It appears the voter registration rolls are corrupt and the SoSs in most states just don’t keep them up to date. If true, this is a fixable problem. I hope it’s that easy.
AMartel, +1.
In other news, the Non-Binary Fashion Icon Luggage Klepto was finally canned by the DOE: “‘Sam Brinton is no longer a DOE employee. By law, the Department of Energy cannot comment further on personnel matters,’ a spokesperson for the DOE told the Daily Beast on Monday.”
https://nypost.com/2022/12/12/non-binary-biden-nuclear-official-sam-brinton-fired-after-multiple-luggage-theft-charges-reports/
He got too radioactive even for the DOE.
The [Livermore] guy who spoke about supercomputers and the modeling effort was very nice, but I got the impression that he would say or do anything to get the next tranche of megabucks for the next installment of toys.
TommyJay:
And that’s the problem.
Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe in nuclear fusion, but the big magnets, lasers and deuterium/tritium approach doesn’t seem to be happenin’ anytime soon.
However, it is soaking up tons of funding, which could be going — as physicsguy points out — to alternate approaches like thorium reactors.
I don’t know that thorium is the answer either, but I can’t believe our options are limited to conventional fission or ITER megaproject fusion.
I find more and more merit in the idea that the universe was created and “fine tuned” for life, and is not the result of impersonal, mindless, random chance.
One of the key arguments for creation is the number of physical constants which govern our Universe, with the smallest variance of any one of them making our Universe and life impossible.*
One of the most ubiquitous and most mysterious of these constants is the “fine structure constant” which equals roughly 1/137 and which appears as part of many other constants.**
So much of a problem is 1/137 that Jung and Pauli, among others, were both obsessed with trying to explain it’s ubiquity and what that meant.
* See https://www.thoughtco.com/fundamental-physical-constants-2699436
** See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant
See also https://www.amazon.com/137-Pauli-Pursuit-Scientific-Obsession/dp/0393338649
Kate @ 4:21: agree.
In 1787 we thought the minimum age for President should be 35. Jefferson wrote the DOI at 33, with many years of legislative experience under his belt. Same for other founders/ framers.
But given today’s complexities and medical advances, I would prefer to see the age limit raised to 50 (or maybe even 55?). Then a bunch of senators who ran in 2012 and 2016 would have been considered too young and “immature” for the presidency, thus winnowing the candidate pool to potentially a more manageable and attractive group? But better can be the enemy of good enough: reference VP Harris.
“…the Non-Binary Fashion Icon Luggage Klepto was finally canned by the DOE…”
Quibble alert: Should (really…well, not really) read, “…WERE finally canned…”
(Which raises the all-important question if ALL OF THEM were actually fired…)
Stay tuned:
When will we get the twitter files on covid? The info on the suspension of the many doctors and scientists? Who was involved? Suppression of what has turned out to be factual information.
Elon: Oh it is coming bigtime …
SnowonPine said:
“Interesting speculation that Octopusus may have an extraterrestrial origin.”
Ha!
Some, supposed scientist thinks that octopuses are space monsters?
Now all of H.P. Lovecraft’s, science-fiction stories make sense! Nope.
What a load of nonsense Wow.
This is just my opinion, which is based on me being mad, at the moment:
It really BUGS me that- this weeks trend on news sites is- putting a video that starts automatically…on every news article, whenever I click on a site’s…news article.
It feels like these sites are saying: “we think you are too dumb, or too-lacking-in-attention, to read this whole article, unless- we put a shiny, new video on that article”.
That’s very annoying.
Wow.
TR–Did you actually read the article about Octopuses I linked to?
What it was proposing was the Panspermia idea–that things like comet tails or meteorites carrying viruses, bacteria, microorganisms—things like Tardigrades*, or even fertilized eggs–may have introduced these things into Earth, initiating life in general, or contributing particular lines of life.
Moreover, the idea, in particular, with regard to Octopuses was based on their unique genetic structures–which are far more complicated, dense, and different than their supposed ancestral organisms and other earthly creatures.
Based, as well, on their ability to change color and even shape, and their demonstrated intelligence and problem solving ability**, and things like the fact that a majority of their neurons are not located in their heads, but are distributed among their individual tentacles.
* See https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a11137/tardigrades-water-bears/
** See OctolabTV at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNo_xQ7NvTr31naPAcjQWjg
Hi Snow on Pine,
It’s a great article, however- for me to be, in scientific ways, to be satisfied that octopuses, [are to be declared as “very likely to be from another planet, or from outer space”, first I’d like to have NASA or other people 1] physically touch that planet, and then 2] present their physical samples from that planet, to trace the octopuses- from that planet to planet earth.
Cheers.