Believe it when I see it: US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough

I'm not a fan of alarmists (despite what you may think) but his work and efforts have convinced countries to make efforts to slow down population growth and he has been correct about many things - such as the distribution of wealth would result in great movement of people from poor overpopulated areas to richer areas if left unaddressed.

It should also be noted he wasn't talking about fusion power, but rather fission.

 

I'm still waiting for flying cars powered by fusion in a food processor.

 

Ya that wasn't worded well. Energy input and output reflects energy transfer rather than literally more energy created.

So basically it's saying that the energy output finally has reached a state where there was enough usable energy transfer into actually directing heat to superheat water.

 

Kinda - E=MC2 is actually without relativity. You have to include momentum to make it relativistic. People misread this equation because in reality what it is saying is that there is no such thing as mass, that mass is just a property of energy in certain states (It was actually written M = E/C^2). For example, if you took a bunch of photos and put it in a massless perfectly reflecting box, the box would have mass based on the number of photons and their frequencies in it despite photons not having mass themselves.

And it's not entirely the complete picture that the thermal energy released equals the change in mass. There are also neutrinos and positrons somewhere in there being released but yeah at the end of the day, it's all energy in one form or another which is conserved as a total quantity.

Doesn't violate the laws of thermodynamics @Ubiquitin anymore than pushing a rock down a hill which then picks up speed does. Where did all the energy come from in the ball? It was always there. Yet it took very little energy input (your finger maybe) to generate a lot of energy output - a big boulder smashing along. This is how all power is generated. It's simply potential (or kinetic) changed to another form. Potential from gravity, from chemical bonds, or in the case of fusion: the nuclear strong force carried by gluons.

 

Musk is on it. If it's an engineering problem, you can't ask for a better problem solver (now, if it's a political or social, or human interaction issue, run away, fast).

Congratulation to the US scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab and the US Dept of Energy. A historic milestone that one day our children will look back on and be very proud of what the US and our gov scientists achieved (unless Musk Twitter claims all me credit).

 

Boring Company Ghosts Cities Across America

 

He's on that too.

 

Couple of code reviews, some 4 year old meme reposts

->

Cold. Fusion.

 

20 years ago, I'd agree 100%. Today, he seems a bit unhinged

 

Well done. Nice job.

 

there is a large segment of those in power that oppose cheap/abundant energy, because that is what allows humanity to flourish and alter our planet from its natural, brutal state

it's why most climate change alarmists also oppose nuclear

you would see that same dynamic if fusion ever became viable. Some new negative externality will be discovered that justifies killing it.

 

Is this a form of projection or a new color hat?

 

This is a pet peeve of mine, photons have mass. They have no rest mass, which is almost irrelevant, because they are never at rest.

 

Photons have 0 mass. No rest mass and no relativistic mass. Nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light (the speed of a photon). In fact, everything that is massless travels at the same speed - the speed of light. You're getting bad info.

You are probably confusing mass with momentum - which photons do have.

 

Yes those people are called oil men.