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Igniting a star
The dream of igniting a self-sustained fusion reaction with high yields of energy, a feat likened to creating a miniature star on Earth, is getting closer to becoming reality, according the authors of a new review article in the journal Physics of Plasmas.
In the early morning hours of Aug.13, Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) focused all 192 of its ultra-powerful laser beams on a tiny deuterium-tritium filled capsule. In the nanoseconds that followed, the capsule imploded and released a neutron yield of nearly 3×1015, or approximately 8,000 joules of neutron energy—approximately three times NIF’s previous neutron yield record for cryogenic implosions. http://phys.org/news/2013-09-fusion-weve.html
Clearly, we are living in the end of the fossil fuel age. One estimate is that fusion fuel could be made for as little as 25 cents per use and yield 50 to 100 times more energy than is needed to initiate the fusion reaction.
Will this brave, new world lead to energy abundance for all or a monopoly for a few? I would like to believe that this technology will be used to drive a new economy that is more sustainable and less exploitative than the oil economy of today. But I suspect that the level of technology needed to produce this power would enable a higher consolidation of wealth. Once such a power source becomes available, the market for fossil fuels will shrink to the point that developing economies that are entirely dependent on them may collapse and further destabilize regions already in turmoil.
For a detailed explanation of how the two main types of experimental fusion reactors work, go to http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor2.htm.
I also wonder about the potential to weaponize fusion reactions. A quick search turned up this disturbing info below.
A pure fusion weapon .. would require no fissile material and would therefore be much easier to build in secret than existing weapons. The necessity of separating high-quality fissile material requires a substantial industrial investment, and blocking the sale and transfer of the needed machinery has been the primary mechanism to control nuclear proliferation to date.
Pure fusion weapons offer the possibility of generating very small nuclear yields and the advantage of reduced collateral damage stemming from fallout because these weapons would not create the highly radioactive byproducts associated with fission-type weapons…. The neutrons may cause substantially more casualties than the explosive blast, as in a neutron bomb.
If I understand this idea, a pure fusion weapon would destroy living things without destroying the infrastructure or leaving radiation. How tempting for a new wave of colonization in areas of great instability world wide, instant vacancy – ready for new owner. Science fiction author Isaac Asimov said that “Such a neutron bomb or N bomb seems desirable to those who worry about property and hold life cheap.” in The New Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science. Basic Books, New York, 1965. Page 410.
In a 2001 DOE Declassification document titled RESTRICTED DATA DECLASSIFICATION DECISIONS 1946 TO THE PRESENT a power threshold is set for classification.
Research and development on lasers will be classified if power level exceeds 100 gigawatt, or pulse energy exceed 1 kilojoule. Any laser application (for any power whether or not classified) that achieves DT ignition will be classified Restricted Data. DT ignition is defined to be a 1% rise in temperature or mean charged-particle kinetic energy at any point in the gas [target]. (64-7) http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/rdd-7.html#I59
Does this mean that if the lab succeeds in gaining ignition, the technology becomes unavailable for commercial development? Do the results reported today, exceed this level now? Or does it not count yet, because they did not achieve ignition. So are we one step closer to Utopia or one step closer to Armageddon?
Entangled Myth
I recently read the book Entangled Minds by Dean Radin. I have read a number of other books that also review the large body of rigorous, repeatable lab studies that have demonstrated a measurable effect of PSI interaction over the last hundred years. What most impressed me about Dean Radin is that he goes beyond the now thoroughly established, if not well publicized, conclusion that PSI is real. Radin’s multi-disciplinary background as well as personal experience may have given him a bit more insight to begin proposing a mechanism behind the magic.
Basic physical concepts like time, space, energy, and matter were imagined to be fixed, absolute, and fundamentally different substances. It was taken for granted that reality existed in an absolute sense, independent of observers, and it was an additional token of faith that action at a distance was impossible. The concept of mind, then viewed through the fledgling discipline of psychology , and especially its rising fad of behaviorism, was regarded as an illusion created by the clockwork mechanisms of the brain. Because mind was an illusion and action at a distance was impossible, genuine psi phenomena were also impossible.
Radin, Dean (2009-11-19). Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality (pp. 241-242). Pocket Books. Kindle Edition.
Our cultural framework is still heavily embedded in a mechanistic world/cosmological view. Even practitioners of other scientific disciplines seem to have little awareness of the potential upheaval that could result from the application of the principles of quantum entanglement to the molecular scale. The social sciences, which include my own academic background, are even further out of touch with the frontiers of the physical, chemical and biological sciences. The foundation needed to understand and apply a new understanding of the fundamental nature of matter and energy rarely exists outside of the practitioners’ discipline.While the public is still unaware of the successful research of PSI events, surveys show that most people do accept the reality of PSI. The remaining mystery is how it might work based on our current scientific knowledge. Radin begins to tie the emerging understanding of entangled particles and quantum physics with the patterns of PSI events. Unfortunately, the public is generally unaware of role of the observer in establishing reality and the measurement of quantum particles’ ‘spooky action at a distance’ as famously labeled by Einstein. So tying one mis-understood event to another probably does not go far to break the stalemate that keeps PSI research on the fringe of science and society.
Psychologists still practice as if the brain and the mind were the same thing. Yet, there are documented cases where the mind is operating without the brain functioning. Any out of place thought is a delusion, rather than a stray idea from a passer by.
Bio-chemists and medical researchers are still focusing on the role of specific disease agents and chemical compounds in restoring health. Yet, their population based research has only partial predictive value in managing illness. The role of the mind in establishing and maintaining health is rarely acknowledge, other than as a placebo effect.
It seems we are stuck at the beginning of a scientific revolution, not because the research is unavailable or inconclusive, but because the general academic community and the public can’t absorb the results. The scope of cosmological and theoretical physics have moved so far out of alignment with the general world view that they have become akin to magical arcane practitioners of dark arts.
Visionary Explorer 