Yet Another Cycling Forum
Off Topic => The Pub => Arts and Entertainment => Topic started by: токамак on 17 February, 2009, 08:00:10 pm
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I've just noticed that tonight's Horizon program is about nuclear fusion - a subject on which I have a long standing interest and a little knowledge. The current series seems to mark a return to form for the strand - less melodramatic and sensationalist, more informative and challenging.
Having said that, I just wanna see some TOKAMAK action!
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Bookmarked!
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I thought nuclear fusion was perfected in the 1950s?
Oh, you mean controlled nuclear fusion.
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Oh, you mean controlled nuclear fusion.
Even controlled fusion isn't so very hard, e.g.:
Fusor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor)
Control and net power output at the same time is the real trick.
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
Read more about ITER here: ITER (http://www.iter.org/)
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That's one of the best Horizons in recent years. No "big story" teaser trailer that's repeated in the last few minutes for the benefit of people not paying attention.
So what if Brian Cox is annoying, he makes physics sexy (which, by extension makes people with two degrees in the subject sexy) ;)
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Yes, Physicists are definitely sexy. ;D
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I shall watch it on iPlayer this evening :thumbsup:
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
He used to be a pop star!
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I was going to watch it whilst having my bath, and eating my breakfast, but iPlayer is playing silly buggers and won't let me watch that episode yet. >:(
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
He used to be a pop star!
I looked this up - not so cool now. :P
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
He used to be a pop star!
I looked this up - not so cool now. :P
Indeed, membership of D:ream is certainly not cool! :P
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I was half-watching it - did he really say at one point
Truly, we are children of the stars
:sick:
I switched off at that point - the risk of him watching him burst into a verse of Good Morning Starshine was too great
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
He used to be a pop star!
I looked this up - not so cool now. :P
Indeed, membership of D:ream is certainly not cool! :P
All I can picture is the 1997 general election and Blair et al dancing like idiots to 'Things Can Only Get Better'. I was actually quite enthusiastic about it at the time (Labour getting into government, not D:Ream).
With hindsight, they should have built more TOKAMAK's!
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did he really say at one point
Truly, we are children of the stars
:sick:
I switched off at that point - the risk of him watching him burst into a verse of Good Morning Starshine was too great
Well, we are. Don't be so bloody miserable! ;)
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I can remember the Horizon I saw when I was doing Physics A level, it had a Pink Floyd soundtrack, mainly from Meddle, so it was about 1974, and it featured doughnut shaped reactors, people in white coats with clipboards and safety glasses and a promise that the world would be swimming in energy in 40 years time. To demonstrate this there was a tiny flash of light, created by generating capacity equivalent to the energy demand of Exeter or some such. Back then there was no presenter, Peter Jones did a voice over. Would I learn anything new from the recent programme, or would I just be annoyed by the boyish charm of the presenter?
Damon.
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Would I learn anything new from the recent programme, or would I just be annoyed by the boyish charm of the presenter?
Probably both.
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I love this old drawing of the University Of Texas TOKAMAK - check out the stetson!
(http://www.ntskeptics.org/2000/2000march/tokamak.gif)
The Newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics (http://www.ntskeptics.org/2000/2000march/march2000.htm)
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Would I learn anything new from the recent programme, or would I just be annoyed by the boyish charm of the presenter?
Probably both.
One thing that did annoy me about the program was when they showed the Z-machine "flashover" photograph, just as I was starting to look closely at all the detail thinking "wow, that's cool", they did some sort of visual effect on the picures, shaking it around, (and possibly flashing the colours, to the accompaniment of a electric spark sound effect). ISTR that they did that more than once. >:(
I vaguely remember D:Ream related discussion between students in the Durham University physics department when Brian Cox started either his Ph.D., or maybe a postdoc position (possibly at RAL?).
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Have a good look now:
(http://madscientist.org.uk/images/zmachine.jpg) (http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2006/images/z-machine.jpg)
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All very pretty (I keep seeing that photo passed around as 'evidence of what an EMP would do to your kit', which is totally WRONG) but I can't help thinking that the pinch isn't going to work as a power station.
K-Star, on the other hand, was a very tidy little bit of kit.
How are people planning to extract energy from their bottled stars, anyhow?
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Just like this:
(http://iter.rma.ac.be/images/powerstation.jpg)
I was slightly disappointed that they spent so much time on the laser technology when the leading candidate for actual fusion power is the the TOKAMAK and plasma confinement - they really only got onto this in the last ten minutes.
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[...snip...]I was slightly disappointed that they spent so much time on the laser technology when the leading candidate for actual fusion power is the the TOKAMAK, and plasma confinement [...snip...]
Well, you would say that, wouldn't you ;)
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That's the classic Horizon style, though - spend a lot of time on the set up to ensure all the audience understand the orthodox thinking (and feel a bit clever), then explore an alternative idea, and lastly, a spur off from that which moves the model or process forward.
Now I put it like that, it sounds like dialectical materialism... :)
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Ah, *that's* where the heat-exchanger goes! Thanks :)
The laser was frikken cool wasn't it? Even if it's not going to work, it's a hellacious beast.
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Yeah, that's why I was only slightly dissapointed. ;)
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K-star looked real. The lasers looked like a research project and you could see that it is highly unlikely to go into production: too complex, too delicate. K-star looked like an engineering project rather than a science project. One would assume that you don't go and build something like K-star without determining that it will work beforehand.
I was quite surprised at the plasma containment times for JET - which is pretty old. They seemed impressive.
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I designed and sold a very small part of Jet and spent a great day wandering about measuring stuff. It's bloody huge!
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Sure is, I went there on a SCHOOL trip. Before they fired it up. It was ace.
K-star is built on the knowledge gleaned from Jet and it's ilk. JIF is the laser-igniter equivalent of Jet, IMO.
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JET is big. ITER is MASSIVE!
(http://www.jet.efda.org/images/level1/jet-iter/jet-iter-m.jpg)
[edit] I should point out that it's not built yet, but the site for it in Cadarache, South France is under development.
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How do they get the energy out of a Fusion reactor ? If its a vacuum where the plasma is kept from touching anything by a magnetic field what transfers the heat ? Wouldn't the plasma just melt any kind of heat exchanger it came into contact with ? Curious minds need to know.
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I would imagine that the radiant heat is pretty fierce. Surround the plasma with gas and circulate it? In the picture (above) it looks like they are going to cools the walls directly.
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Slaps head. Of course its so hot that the radiant heat does the trick. The Sun is a fusion reactor in a vacuum and does a good job of keeping the earth warm from millions of miles away. I am not thinking straight today.
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
Not that Brian Cox. Oh well - we have a seminar room named after the other one because he has raised so much money for diabetes research.
..d
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I watched this tonight and it was very good :thumbsup:
Did anyone notice the guy spinning past on his fixer when Brian was in San Francisco? :P
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It wasn't just me, then? ;D
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Not Bad. Brian Cox is well cool - he drives a Mustang, he shoots guns, he looks like a pop star, and he's a scientist!
It only takes one of those four to be cool 8)