With a powerful laser blast, scientists near a nuclear fusion milestone

[dalekphalm]

On 8/20/2021 at 2:43 PM, Bitter said:

We'll have fusion power plants before Michelin gets that Tweel out for retail sale. That thing has been "1-2 years away' for the last 20 years.

According to this, you can buy them right now?

https://tweel.michelinman.com/

https://tweel.michelinman.com/michelin-tweel-family-of-products

 

Looks like smaller vehicles only though - utility vehicles, ATV's, etc.

[Touch My Hamm]

when can I start building my evil death rays and hold the world hostage for 1 million dollars?

[tankyx]

On 8/19/2021 at 10:38 AM, Mel0nMan said:

I guess if you stood right where the atoms collide that would suck but I can’t even think of a way that could work as a weapon…

I mean ... https://qz.com/964065/this-is-what-happened-to-the-scientist-who-stuck-his-head-inside-a-particle-accelerator/

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

According to this, you can buy them right now?

https://tweel.michelinman.com/

https://tweel.michelinman.com/michelin-tweel-family-of-products

 

Looks like smaller vehicles only though - utility vehicles, ATV's, etc.

Passenger cars is what I meant by retail sales. Yes they're available for commercial and industrial uses, you cannot buy one for your car and yet they're 1 maybe 2 years away at most every 3 or 4 years. 

[StDragon]

On 8/20/2021 at 1:09 PM, Bitter said:

Basically anything that comes out of the ground is radioactive. If you want a mind blower read up on tabacco/cigarettes and radioactivity. Spoilers, Alpha emitters are extra bad INSIDE your body.

The real  is that per unit the amount of coal ash produced is 100 more radioactive than material that's shielded from a nuclear power plant. Or, last figure ran put that to a total of 5,000+ tons of uranium and 15,000+ tons of thorium.

It should be stated however that in the US and parts of Europe, coal fired plants have scrubbers and the ash is resold in a secondary market (it has value). But in other parts overseas, that goes right out the stack into the atmosphere.

The farmland around these coal plants, I would be afraid to put a Geiger counter to the soil . Not sure I'd like what I find.
 

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, StDragon said:

The real  is that per unit the amount of coal ash produced is 100 more radioactive than material that's shielded from a nuclear power plant. Or, last figure ran put that to a total of 5,000+ tons of uranium and 15,000+ tons of thorium.

It should be stated however that in the US and parts of Europe, coal fired plants have scrubbers and the ash is resold in a secondary market (it has value). But in other parts overseas, that goes right out the stack into the atmosphere.

The farmland around these coal plants, I would be afraid to put a Geiger counter to the soil . Not sure I'd like what I find.
 

That's why that big flyash dam burst here in the southeastern US was so bad, it spread a whole lot of that across a river valley and watershed.

[ouroesa]

On 8/19/2021 at 8:22 PM, J-from-Nucleon said:

For an almost imperceptible fraction of a second... the power of the sun in a tiny hot spot no wider than a human hair....which takes up the space of three football fields....lasers there were focused onto a target the size of a BB...

What type of American units are these? Can science writes just use the SI system? Please. 

[The_russian]

45 minutes ago, ouroesa said:

What type of American units are these? Can science writes just use the SI system? Please. 

What’s easier to visualize for most people, 75 μm or the width of a human hair? 16054 square meters or three football fields? 6mm or the size of a BB? This is a news article not a research paper, there is more focus on data being understandable for regular people rather than being as specific as possible. There are situations when complaining about the SI system not being used is completely warranted, I don’t see how this is one of them. As far as I know scientists for the most part do use SI, it’s the general public that doesn’t.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, The_russian said:

What’s easier to visualize for most people, 75 μm or the width of a human hair? 16054 square meters or three football fields? 6mm or the size of a BB? This is a news article not a research paper, there is more focus on data being understandable for regular people rather than being as specific as possible. There are situations when complaining about the SI system not being used is completely warranted, I don’t see how this is one of them. As far as I know scientists for the most part do use SI, it’s the general public that doesn’t.

For those of us used to metric/SI visualizing these isn't a problem at all. 3 football fields literally means nothing to me because do you mean football or football?

[Rauten]

1 hour ago, The_russian said:

What’s easier to visualize for most people, 75 μm or the width of a human hair? 16054 square meters or three football fields? 6mm or the size of a BB? This is a news article not a research paper, there is more focus on data being understandable for regular people rather than being as specific as possible. There are situations when complaining about the SI system not being used is completely warranted, I don’t see how this is one of them. As far as I know scientists for the most part do use SI, it’s the general public that doesn’t.

What even is a BB?

I can understand why you'd want to use real life similes for some measurements, but this seems too US centric.

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

For those of us used to metric/SI visualizing these isn't a problem at all. 3 football fields literally means nothing to me because do you mean football or football?

Clearly we must set a new international measuring standard - basketball courts!

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, Rauten said:

What even is a BB?

Air rifle/BB Gun

 

[Lightwreather]

4 hours ago, ouroesa said:

What type of American units are these? Can science writes just use the SI system? Please. 

 America and 2 other countries are the only ones that don't use some form of the metric system

And that pains me

[Bitter]

No, the new international standard stupid science article shall be......

 

[The Blackhat]

On 8/19/2021 at 1:11 PM, Caroline said:

California: we've made a miniature sun, this can led to safer and more efficient nuclear energy

My city's power plant: haha coal conveyor goes brrr

 

This is great, nuclear power is nice but uranium is expensive and, well, there's radiation.

Bruh…fusion doesn’t use uranium.

[ouroesa]

21 hours ago, The_russian said:

What’s easier to visualize for most people, 75 μm or the width of a human hair? 16054 square meters or three football fields? 6mm or the size of a BB? This is a news article not a research paper, there is more focus on data being understandable for regular people rather than being as specific as possible. There are situations when complaining about the SI system not being used is completely warranted, I don’t see how this is one of them. As far as I know scientists for the most part do use SI, it’s the general public that doesn’t.

"75 μm or the width of a human hair?" Neither, maybe 0.075mm or roughly 1/10th of a mm? Hair thickness varies wildly (17 μm to 181 μm) so this could be out by as much as a factor of 10.

"16054 square meters or three football fields?" Neither, maybe 1.6ha? Or 125m x 125m? Or 100m x 160m? This will give you a better indication of shape too.  I don't know the size of a football field tbh and if I did, this would be useless unless it is the width and length of one.

Sidenote: it would benefit from some delineation such as '16,054m²'

 

'Most' people won't be interested in this news article and the anyone who is able to follow this article, should be comfortable with basic units of measurements.

Regardless, I was just poking fun and was not meant to be taken seriously. 

[ouroesa]

18 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

 America and 2 other countries are the only ones that don't use some form of the metric system

And that pains me

Don't forget about those lying pommies too whio say they use metric but mostly does not.

[Wictorian]

18 hours ago, J-from-Nucleon said:

 America and 2 other countries are the only ones that don't use some form of the metric system

And that pains me

It is hard to change systems, it causes confusion and accidents, even deaths.

[GDRRiley]

nice to see LLNL doing something, I know they spend all their focus on nuclear stuff

23 hours ago, ouroesa said:

What type of American units are these? Can science writes just use the SI system? Please. 

they exist but this a press release for the GP who aren't on a technical level. LBNL does the same dumb down for the public

[ouroesa]

1 hour ago, Wictorian said:

It is hard to change systems, it causes confusion and accidents, even deaths.

Them not changing the system has also caused deaths - a certain spacecraft failure comes to mind.

[ouroesa]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

nice to see LLNL doing something, I know they spend all their focus on nuclear stuff

they exist but this a press release for the GP who aren't on a technical level. LBNL does the same dumb down for the public

As mentioned above, I was just joking. 

 

But this brings up a good point - maybe we should stop dumbing things down quite as much as we do because now we have 99% of the populous feeling they have an opinion on something (myself would be a good example here) which they by all rights do not understand and might not have the ability to. The other 1% actually understands these things but are by far the minority so they are rarely heard (refer global warming, anti vaxxers, et al)

[GDRRiley]

15 hours ago, ouroesa said:

But this brings up a good point - maybe we should stop dumbing things down quite as much as we do because now we have 99% of the populous feeling they have an opinion on something (myself would be a good example here) which they by all rights do not understand and might not have the ability to. The other 1% actually understands these things but are by far the minority so they are rarely heard (refer global warming, anti vaxxers, et al)

I can start talking about the crazy things we do at LBNL
I'll try to make it a habit of making tech news topics about them

[Bitter]

1 hour ago, GDRRiley said:

I can start talking about the crazy things we do at LBNL
I'll try to make it a habit of making tech news topics about them

Yes PLEASE!

[CarlBar]

2 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

I can start talking about the crazy things we do at LBNL
I'll try to make it a habit of making tech news topics about them

 

Please do. My inner, (and outer), science and engineering nerds are drooling right now.

[ARikozuM]

Quantum Break when?

[williamcll]

On 8/20/2021 at 9:05 PM, valdyrgramr said:

Didn't this happen in Spiderman 2?

Imagine if Octavius didn't turn to crime to fund his nuclear research. He would have been a competitor to Stark industries.