Are we close to making fusion power practical?
This seems a bit far-fetched (or at least premature) to me, but wouldn’t it be nice?:
The project, a collaboration between scientists at MIT and a private company, will take a radically different approach to other efforts to transform fusion from an expensive science experiment into a viable commercial energy source. The team intend to use a new class of high-temperature superconductors they predict will allow them to create the world’s first fusion reactor that produces more energy than needs to be put in to get the fusion reaction going.
Bob Mumgaard, CEO of the private company Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which has attracted $50 million in support of this effort from the Italian energy company Eni, said: “The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change. We think we have the science, speed and scale to put carbon-free fusion power on the grid in 15 years.”
It’s an appealing prospect, but I am skeptical both of the concept and the time frame.
When Mumgaard says the idea is to have a working plant “in time to combat climate change,” what he’s referring to is the idea that such a plant would be a power source that doesn’t use fossil fuels and doesn’t create greenhouse gases or hazardous waste. And yet:
Decades of disappointment in the field has led to the joke that fusion is the energy of the future ”“ and always will be.
Cynic that I am, I attribute his optimism to the need to raise funds for the research and development effort. The climate change reference is a wink to the smart set so that they know he is properly motivated.
When I was an undergrad I attended a seminar (1973) in which it was stated they would have a commercial fusion reactor in 15 years. Attended a similar seminar in grad school, another one in the late 80s, another one in the 90s.. and on and on.
The current iteration seems to have settled on the Tokamak design wherein the plasma is constrained in a doughnut by a magnetic field. For several decades it has come close to “breakeven” but never much beyond. To me, it’s the “brute force” method of trying to create the conditions in the core of a star. They can’t reproduce the density of the core of a star, so they have to make up for that by going to even higher temperatures. The article basically touts replacing their current superconducting magnet with a new design of YBaCuO “high temperature” magnets. Basically what that allows them to do is use liquid nitrogen to attain superconductivity and then push more current through the magnets resulting in a higher field. They may inch a bit closer to sustained “breakeven” or a bit of a positive output, but I doubt it will produce a commercially viable reactor.
Frankly, until some new physics is brought to bear, I don’t think the brute force method is going to work. I wish I knew what that new physics is…I would be rich then! But I would guess that it will have to do with solving the inherent problems in the Standard Model.
I also love the obligatory benediction to “climate change”.
Maybe someday. Possibly this project. I do believe we will crack a big new energy technology in the next 100 years.
In the meantime I go with Steve Walsh:
Cynic that I am, I attribute his optimism to the need to raise funds for the research and development effort.
I was about to ask what was meant by “soon”. And like physicsguy, I’ve seen that progression, starting in the 80s for me.
I don’t know/understand enough a-bomb physics to even offer quality commentary. I think in the time scales quoted, thorium reactors will be coming on line, as that is a proven technology.
Just needs to be debugged, with the knowledge and experience gained from that to make them reliable.
Unlike nuclear fission, nuclear fusion is clean. It’s also achievable, given that its the process that stars use. But as steve and physicsguy state the climate change angle indicates this is another at best problematic approach. I too think it will take a fundamental breakthrough in our understanding of physics to achieve workable nuclear fusion.
BSI=BSO
[BULLSHIT IN = BULLSHIT OUT]
“…The aspiration is to have a working power plant in time to combat climate change.”
TRANSLATION: This is at or beyond t he same level of bullshit that gulled millions back during the “Cold Fusion” hoax at the end of the century.
Cold fusion – Wikipedia
In 1989 Martin Fleischmann (then one of the world’s leading electrochemists) and Stanley Pons reported that their apparatus had produced anomalous heat (“excess heat”) of a magnitude they asserted would defy explanation except in terms of nuclear processes.[1] They further reported measuring small amounts of nuclear reaction byproducts, including neutrons and tritium.[2] The small tabletop experiment involved electrolysis of heavy water on the surface of a palladium (Pd) electrode.[3] The reported results received wide media attention,[3] and raised hopes of a cheap and abundant source of energy.[4]
The only fusion process that is clean is the aneutronic type. IIRC you can devise a fusion reactor based upon Boron that emits no neutrons at all. IIRC, it ultimately emits alpha particles.
Any attempt to use Tritium and Deuterium is certain to be a commercial failure. Fast neutrons are just too much to handle.
As for Thorium — you’re really describing U-233 — as Thorium is strictly a breeding material. It can’t generate any energy until it’s promoted to U-233.
But there’s a slew of crippling problems:
U-233 is the single worst proliferation risk as it combines the purity of Pu-239 with the simplicity of the gun-tube weapon design.
It also achieves critical mass at half the weight of U-235 or Pu-239. ( in round numbers )
Problem #2 is that it’s impossible to build a containment for its salts — which is the usual proposition that keeps being kicked around.
Both the Americans and the Russians spent a mega-fortune — going through the Periodic Table and every sold substance known — only to find that absolutely nothing can tolerate the hot Fluorine ions kicked loose when U-233 fissions in a salt bath.
All of this was openly admitted in the technical literature, circa 1981, when the money ran out and the players couldn’t milk Washington any more. The scientists involved had been draining taxpayers to no purpose ( save their own wallets ) for fifteen-years — and more.
No matter how many times I bring this up, some goof is going to say that I’m wrong, that a technical fix is just around the corner. BS.
Thorium has been only five-years away — for fifty-five years. And it’s not even a Thorium reactor. It’s Uranium reactor that is dependent upon breeding Thorium up to Uranium. All prior breeder reactors have been staggering money pits to date, not just U-233, the correct name of this technology.
ANY atomic reactor that spits out copious amounts of neutrons also is a highway to proliferation of atomic weapons — beyond anything yet seen.
This is an avenue that the Great Powers can’t travel down. It’s tantamount to suicide to pursue such a technology.
LOL that was the main conceptual element of my brother’s half-assed “flying saucer” design, back in the same era.
Mid70’s early 80’s?
Me: Hey man, how do you expect to contain that plasma toroid?
He: magnetic field: supercooled doughnut.
Me: If it works what will it do other than float?
He: We’ll figure that out.
Nothing came of it as he reached the end of his ability to think it through further … even with a physics prof’s help.
He got a nice letter from NASA though, indicating they thought the idea was some kind of mag-lev concept.
He now works for one of the auto companies in a non technical area.
In the years since I have seen all kinds of designs for things with that as an element.
Must be one of those ideas that are in the air for a couple of generations …
Any comment on the “EmDrive”?
If it weren’t for all the expensive regulations put in place by the environmental lobby, plain old fission reactors would be generating electricity everywhere, cheaply and reliably. The Navy has been using them in ships since the 1950s without an accident.
The real problem is the hysteria generated by the press and the enviros whenever an accident occurred even though there has never been a death or even an injury. “Oh my god, it’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Three Mile Island was a mess due to the poor design of the control room, one of the operators had a gut that hung over the control panel and obscured his view of a critical meter. There was only one RAD of radioactive gas released out of the cooling stack, about ten x-rays. Fukashima was due to poorly placed emergency equipment that was wrecked by the tsunami. Had it been on the roof of the reactor where it should have been there wouldn’t have been a problem.
The only real disaster was Chernobyl which used a reactor design that was illegal in the US from the very beginning due to its known propensity to run away catastrophically. It also didn’t have a containment, the concrete dome that you see over every commercial reactor. The other significant problem was that it was run by a political commissar who didn’t listen to the engineers in charge and over rode their warnings. Other than that it was OK.
Re: Fleishman and Pons. It was obvious almost from the beginning that it was junk. They were claiming 1 Watt of nuclear power. For comparison, the first chain reaction in Chicago, CP 1, was 1 Watt and required 12 tons of shielding. After that it was moved out into the country side because it was too dangerous to run in the city. If F & P had really initiated that level of nuclear power without major precautions they would have been dead of radiation poisoning within 3 months.
I hope all further fusion experimentation takes place beyond moon orbit; a small star there is one thing, in Nevada it’s quite another.
as blert says. “the only fusion process that is clean is the aneutronic type”. when i was in graduate school ( ~ 1974) one of the other guys who was more interested in fusion reactors mentioned that the first generation of fusion reactors would still have radioactive waste due to the neutrons coming out. I’m not sure (as blert says) that that would necessarily make it commercially non-viable, but it does mean there would be radioactive waste we still can’t store under the mountain in Nevada.
Since the early 2000s I’ve been keen on the polywell fusion reactor, which could fit on a tabletop and generate significant power. If it worked, it would change the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
The polywell design generates power from fusion, but alas fails to produce more power than it requires to work.
The polywell folks at the EMC2 corporation have had funding problems. The ITER designs soak up almost all fusion funding. EMC2 soldiers on. Their president claims they will have scientific proof of positive net power output by 2020.
Fingers crossed, but I’m not waiting up nights.
Blert:
I’m not qualified to dispute your comments about thorium reactors; but, like many people, I’ve read about them and their supposed potential. If you have any references to technical papers or journal articles that support your critique, I’d appreciate it if you could list a few in another comment. I suspect I’d have some trouble understanding the papers, but I can’t help but be curious.
Cold Fusion experiments were stopped and halted by certain off budget government programs in the US at least.
EmDrive is probably applying something off of quantum mechanics unknowingly.
Fission only produces fissile waste because that’s how the US wanted it, as it refines nuclear materials for WMDs. A thorium fission reactor doesn’t quite have that “problem” or benefit, depending on your pov.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor#Thorium_high-temperature_reactor
France has more nuclear facilities than the uS. People don’t use safety features because of the cost and complexity.
Another weird sorta-nuclear power candidate is Brilliant Light Power (formerly BlackLight Power). Its founder, Randell Mills, claims to have dramatically revamped nuclear physics and discovered a new state for hydrogen atoms which Mills calls “hydrinos” and claims can replace all forms of fuel.
Unfortunately no mainstream physicist will back Mills. From what I can tell he is selling total hoodoo.
Nonetheless, Mills has managed to find funding since the early 90s and has been working to build working prototypes which will do something real impressive real soon now. I figured the game would have been up years ago, but it continues.
My question is whether Mills knows he is a scammer or manages to delude himself as well.
For levitation, people should focus more on counter rotating toroid mercury plasma instead.
The problem is that people doing the experiments will be told to stop if they gain any kind of success/publicity. (Easy way to figure out when you are getting close)
As for the creation of new elements, the only time I’ve ever seen lower order elements created is for 2001 and other applications of scalar tech. Besides, Sodom is a good ancient example.
Fusion’s problem is the problem of astrophysicists and their lack of knowledge of what is going on inside a star. Fusion itself, the very concept of it along with gravity, is not a fully fleshed out theory: the application and reproduction is not solid.
The thermonuclear weapons like the H bomb, use a fission reaction to start a limited fusion reaction. That’s about the only example of fusion I know of, but it is not an application of a self sustained “star” fusion chamber that utilizes gravity for compressing matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=ML8CJp9Ha14
Take a look if you want to see some divine knowledge.
Hi, Neo,
This isn’t political so I’m going to comment. There’s been a lot about fusion in the last 5 years, including a positive flow of energy for about a few picoseconds in 2014. An inch to make a mile.
This is the google search: https://www.google.com/search?q=fusion+reactor+2014&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b.
The arguments about fusion and thorium/ U-233 are not applicable. The key is “All of this was openly admitted in the technical literature, circa 1981, when the money ran out and the players couldn’t milk Washington any more.” That’s over 36 years ago, outdated, a political statement not a scientific statement. Thorium reactors are not fusion reactors but fission reactors by converting the thorium to U-233 (neutron absorption ), then producing energy by fission. Cleaner, but still fission. If we weren’t phobic about nuclear power, we could have much of our electricity, like the French, from the latest generation of fission plants, rather than having plants equivalent to the outdated Fukushima where pumps were required to cool.
I agree with physicsguy, but without his cynicism. These attempts are necessary to arrive at his ‘new physics’. Brute force can lead to epiphanies. Doing nothing waiting for an epiphany of ‘new physics’ that can only come from experiment, my apologies to Hawkin, isn’t a plan.
Finally, if we want to overcome the man-made signal over the natural signal of climate change, not wipe out species, not pollute the environment, and still maintain a technological society, we won’t do it through bird-killing windmills that can’t meet peek demand, or the batteries needed to store, or solar panels produced by the same nasty chemicals used to make the computers that environmentalists use to spread their message. We can do it by using every technology we have, from air carbon absorption to safer fission to achieving fusion.
(I gave my opinion on ‘sustainable energy’ and windmills, those fucking windmills kill so many birds…and the environmentalists just give lip-service. I guess birds are only important when…)
Ariel: Nicely put.
I’m not a climate alarmist but given my druthers I would rather we weren’t emitting gigatons of CO2 each year. I believe nuclear in various forms is the future. I even think we will crack fusion someday.
However, I would also prefer burning fossil fuels rather than putting the climate mafia in charge of the global energy infrastructure.
Ymar,
“As for the creation of new elements, the only time I’ve ever seen lower order elements created is for 2001 and other applications of scalar tech. Besides, Sodom is a good ancient example.” This is just nonsense. What is “lower order elements”? The periodic table numbering is based on proton-neutron-electron. I was making “lower order elements” on that basis when I was 13. H-Cl-Na.
“Scalar tech” is what? Tesla’s ‘scalar waves’?
We don’t create new elements, even if we call them synthetic, we discover new elements that likely exist in stars but not on Earth. Since 2002 we have ‘created’ four new elements.
“Fusion’s problem is the problem of astrophysicists and their lack of knowledge of what is going on inside a star. Fusion itself, the very concept of it along with gravity, is not a fully fleshed out theory: the application and reproduction is not solid.” Fusion is fleshed out, it’s a fully fleshed out theory in the scientific meaning, it’s the engineering of creating it here on Earth that’s the problem. Why in God’s name would you conflate fusion with the theory of gravity?
That a ‘hydrogen bomb’ takes an ‘atomic bomb’ to create the pressure to create fusion should give you a clue as to why it’s an engineering problem to create a controllable fusion reaction. It shouldn’t lead you to “is the problem of astrophysicists and their lack of knowledge of what is going on inside a star” because it was really easy to make an uncontrollable fusion reaction over 60 years ago. When we knew less about what was going on inside a star. But which star…
Green, blue, yellow? Blue giant, red giant, red dwarf, yellow dwarf, white dwarf, yellow main sequence, which star? How about you read even the starting point that is Wiki by “Stellar nucleosynthesis”?
Ariel
There are ONLY so many elements in our universe.
EVERY last anything was tried.
Man, they gave it twenty-five years.
The Russians came up with bupkiss, too.
I’m just going to have to flunk you clean out of class.
Politics had NOTHING to do with the conclusions.
‘Hot’ Fluorine ions rip solids into powders… with Fluorine being especially destructive.
(‘Hot’ in this case means a million degrees.)
Then you lose containment.
The light at the end of the tunnel is a gorilla with a flashlight.
The Big Batch bucket of molten salt idea is a DEAD END.
BTW, Moscow shut down its Thorium reactor research the day after Washington zeroed out funding. They were merely mirroring American expenditures, didn’t want to be caught napping.
It’s like the speed of light,
There are some barriers you’re just not going to be able to engineer around.
Period.
Huxley,
I’m not an alarmist either, in fact I think the alarmists are the same coin as those they tar with ‘denialist’.
What I do have to accept is that the average or mean temperature of the earth is going up faster than that what can be explained by natural change (even though there have been periods of quick and drastic change in climate in earlier times, human experienced or by geological record). What I don’t have to accept is putting up bird-killing windmills, putting solar panels over every square foot of roof across 190 plus nations, driving hybids or electric cars, and composting our garbage (I threw that in) will solve the problem, or even ameliorate it.
If the problem is man-made then we need to use every technology we have to solve the problem we made. If man-made global warming is the over-riding issue, the issue more important than anything else, then we need to use every and any technology that doesn’t emit CO2. Even those bird-killing windmills that don’t, and can’t, supply enough electricity to keep even the environmentalists’ in their Priuses and on their computers. I owned a Prius, it wasn’t built by windmill power.
“However, I would also prefer burning fossil fuels rather than putting the climate mafia in charge of the global energy infrastructure.” But that’s a false choice, there is another: tell the climate mafia to fuck off because they’re way more often wrong than right, push to reduce the use of fossil fuels and push for all means of producing energy that don’t emit CO2. And if anyone brings up Fukushima, point out that it was an outdated plant that should have been upgraded to the latest technology that didn’t depend on pumps to cool, then point out how evironmentalists acting as Luddites have kept us dependent on CO2 emitting technologies.
And don’t forget to point out that they like killing birds. Even endangered birds. They really like killing birds so they can see those white windmills that aren’t the solution but are sustainable when they aren’t broken down. Okay, I hate those windmills…they’re symbolic of the hypocrisy of the enviro-sustainable-energy-protect-the-wildlife crowd. I think I’ve found the problem with intersectionalism…
1. Fusion is already powering our planet. It’s called sunlight.
2. “Regular nukular” energy is kinda like flying – people are irrationally afraid despite a sterling safety record.
3. From a consumption angle, we are talking about electricity. And it looks like large, centralized generation of electricity will become less important. Local energy generation will become more important.
It is now possible to build a home or office-based business that runs on low-voltage, locally generated electricity. Higher voltages are required by stuff with motors or heating elements – and even the motors are getting more efficient.
Most modern electrical products have built-in transformers to step down the wall voltage to 12 or 6 volts. Local gensets or solar systems can provide that.
Blert,
Yep, there are only so many elements in the Universe. When we know all about all the processes in all the stars in the Universe, we may then know all the elements in the Universe. Right now we are discovering chemical processes we have never imagined by just sending robot explorers to a few planets and moons in our system. Why? Because the Earth constrains, restricts, our thinking. The rest of the Universe is vastly different from this small, blue, wet planet. We have found chemistries that we have never imagined in just a few years of exploration.
As for the speed of light, it changes by media. The constant we use only applies in a vacuum and only when you are ‘next to it’. And wasn’t there a paper written around 1995 that has been accepted as a way of getting around the speed of light while not voiding Special Relativity? Something about contracting space in front and expanding it behind? Moreover, why would any of us think that Einstein, anymore than Newton, would be the last word? Given that Einstein said he stood on the shoulders of giants, perhaps Einstein would accept that he was just another giant.
Finally, all you wrote before and in reply to me is about fission. You dismissed fusion in two paragraphs, very short paragraphs. I’m overjoyed that you are the be-all and end-all in the physics of fusion. I’m even more overjoyed that so many physicists and engineers are ignoring you.
Ben David,
1. Cute, but not pertinent. Not the same fusion.
2. Nuclear power does have hidden costs. The mining of the uranium and the disposal of the waste are not to be put aside as nothing consequential. However, the fear of the plants themselves is overblown. Fukushima, the latest on why fission plants are so dangerous, was an outmoded design depending on power to maintain cooling placed in a geologically active zone in a region that coined the word ‘tsunami’. What could go wrong…
3. Economies of scale. If you mean solar panels, the cost of a kWH from a panel is much higher than from your local utility. The cost has a formula of initial cost, then produced electricity (which isn’t constant, as Joni Mitchell sang “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down and still somehow, It’s cloud’s illusions I recall…), then maintenance (if those panels are covered in dust, leaves, etc), and then replacement (you have about 20 years with a degradation of output of about 1% per year, neglecting clouds and leaves). Did I mention the cost of storage? See Tesla, or a bank of lead acid batteries. There’s a reason why there are subsidies, hell, it’s why I have a SolaHart on my roof. I did the math, without a subsidy that solar water heater on my roof would cost me more over it’s lifetime than just chucking in a conventional water heater that I could install.
What you say is now possible I am all for, but I’m not going to just ignore that it is actually more costly than just being hooked up to a utility. One reason, I’m not going to forget the poor that can’t afford it.
A Prius doesn’t save you money, but I really liked mine.
Ymar,
Cold fusion wasn’t stopped by “Cold Fusion experiments were stopped and halted by certain off budget government programs in the US at least.” Cold fusion was stopped because it doesn’t work. You would make as much sense by saying perpetual motion machines “were stopped and halted…”.
There is that carburetor that gives near a 100 miles per gallon and acceleration like a DB-9 that’s been hidden by the American automotive giants in collusion with the oil companies for over a half century because it wouldn’t benefit either…The automotive giants instead spent a lot of time and money on fuel injection to achieve higher mileage…I guess it was those certain off budget government programs.
Hey, do you spend a lot of time bingeing on Netflix? I use it for background while researching the fauna and flora, the towns and cities, the rivers and mountains, of Australia and New Zealand. I guess I miss the conspiracies by not paying enough attention.
Ariel:
Don’t vex the troll, he will curse your soul. Be very worried! Not. :0
We were 10 years away from fusion power in the 1960s (e.g., Philo Farnsworth, yeah, the TV guy, and his fusor), and we are 10 years away today (e.g., the Wendelstein 7-X Stellarator).
The promise is tremendous, and the progress is real, but the timeframe remains stubborn. I still think we’ll see it in our lifetimes (i.e., those of us who are roughly Neo’s age). I think it will be a bigger game-changer than the Industrial Revolution.
It is not an economic enterprise in a controlled, closed system.
ConceptJunkie: The Farnsworth fusor is the grandfather to the polywell reactor I mentioned earlier.
Philo T. Farnsworth, essentially the inventor of television as we know it, is a forgotten American hero.
I believe they are still working on the Polywell reactor, and achieved breakeven on a very limited tabletop scale. They were on a Dept. of the Navy contract, on something else now. I wish them well.
I followed the cold fusion story in the 90s and 00s. Cold fusion was not a fraud but something of a premature announcement. Fleischmann and Pons were electrochemists, not physicists. They had some kind of effect they didn’t understand and weren’t able to describe with sufficient accuracy that others could replicate reliably.
But that didn’t mean it was fraud or without scientific interest. Checking the web today I see that is where F&P cold fusion has landed.
Wiki:
Fleischmann and Pons misunderstood their own experiment but did not engage in sham science as they were accused of. Ultimately, although their experiment did not show what Fleischmann and Pons thought it did, it prompted new exciting venues of research that may highly expand applications of theoretical particle physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleischmann—Pons_experiment#Revival_and_LENR
“It’s Not Cold Fusion… But It’s Something”
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/its-not-cold-fusion-but-its-something/
we had fusion in my grandfather’s time.
a lot of nuclear (family) bodies huddled together in the middle of winter to keep warm.
unfortunately this resulted in no diminution of emitted carbon dioxide or other more/less noxious gases
Cold fusion was stopped because it doesn’t work.
That’s based on the presupposition and assumption that fusion itself works. Which it doesn’t. Both cold fusion and fusion, as alchemical lines sought by Newton and other classical scientists, for the production and transmutation of material elements, is equally non viable.
It just so happens that people here are talking about Cold Fusion, but there are at least two different lines of research into it. One is using Scalar tech, and the other is using standard cosmological consideration of fusion-gravity systems: nuclear upgrade essentially.
I speak of the Scalar line, not the standard cosmology.
People may comprehend it more readily as Superstring, dark matter, or zero point quantum energy.
om Says:
March 13th, 2018 at 10:54 am
Om used to say that he would ignore me by scrolling past me. I dared him to actually put his words into action, which he failed to do on numerous occasions. Humans going back on their word and using it as a prostitution whore game is pretty normal in this world.
As for me, when I say things I actually mean them and my track record is substantially more accurate than those who think sarcasm equates to their superiority.
Green, blue, yellow? Blue giant, red giant, red dwarf, yellow dwarf, white dwarf, yellow main sequence, which star? How about you read even the starting point that is Wiki by “Stellar nucleosynthesis”?
Human arrogance never ceases to amaze me. Given the number of times that astronomers and astrophysicists have had to back peddle over the standard cosmological theories of their pet days, the people beneath them copying these theories actually act like they are some kind of priesthood authority that is never wrong.
Well let me be the first one to inform you Ariel. Your cosmology is wrong and has always been wrong. It is not accurate and there isn’t even the evidence to make it a viable theory. But that would require significant amounts of scholarship which I doubt people tend to use.
Philo T. Farnsworth, essentially the inventor of television as we know it, is a forgotten American hero.
However, I had forgotten Matt Groening and the Futurama crew named the semi-mad scientist of the Futurama TV show “Farnsworth” as an homage to Philo T.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Farnsworth
Futurama is loads of fun if you’re inclined to that sort of humor. I like it better than “The Simpsons.”
That a ‘hydrogen bomb’ takes an ‘atomic bomb’ to create the pressure to create fusion should give you a clue as to why it’s an engineering problem to create a controllable fusion reaction. It shouldn’t lead you to “is the problem of astrophysicists and their lack of knowledge of what is going on inside a star” because it was really easy to make an uncontrollable fusion reaction over 60 years ago. When we knew less about what was going on inside a star. But which star…
To borrow Jordan Peterson’s method of rotating complex concepts down to a more consumer friendly level:
The decay of uranium and plutnium in chain reactions and start ups, does not mean this mechanism applies to H20 and atoms at the top of the periodic table. Perhaps before the Quantum Standard Model came out, classical atomic chemistry made a consistent sense. That doesn’t mean people get to say out of ignorance that because they lack the evidence, they know that the fusion and fission behavior of high atomic number elements mirror those of the lower elements.
When humans want to mimic the fusion reaction they claim is going on inside a star when they have no evidence of any such thing, that’s the real problem: human arrogance.
For example, one might think that liquid H20 would function much like every other matter in liquid state, except it doesn’t. Thus we have unique and contradictory behavior for Hydrogen and Oxygen, that is not consistent with the liquid states of other matter. This is precisely the kind of experimental data that is important to the scientific methodology.
The Ariel methodology you have presented to me is to make one experiment, take the data and assume it applies to every data set case in every other scenario. I don’t do it like that, because not only is it wrong, it’s also crippling to the pursuit of truth.
As for Netflix, why is it when people think they know what’s going on in this world they start their proof out with human entertainment like movies and assume it has something to do with what I’m coming from. I have never used Netflix or movies as a source, but apparently everyone assumes that I am using the X Files for something because they did it first.
The problem with humans in the end is that even if they aren’t fanatical Christians or Muslims, they will still create a religion, call it science, and use emotion as the primary source of their faith.
No wonder your Western civilization is imploding. What else is it going to go at this rate.
“…brain the size of a planet….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh-W8QDVA9s
huxley Says:
March 13th, 2018 at 9:08 pm
Philo T. Farnsworth, essentially the inventor of television as we know it, is a forgotten American hero.
* * *
Mr. Farnsworth figures prominently in the wonderfully funny film “Radioland Murders.”
It’s a blast.