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Spent the day at a garden party, meeting lots of nice people, many of whom I have become familiar, and many who were new. That said, I am now the very sleepy guy™ and will be heading off to bed shortly. First though, I think I need to drink a bit more water to help rehydrate myself after all that wine. G'night all!
Aug. 22nd, 2004
The Call it "Morning"?
Aug. 22nd, 2004 09:40 amI'm now at the barely-upright, not-actually-articulate, only-one-eye-open stage, but I do have coffee, so I will survive. This is all so that I will fall asleep easily tonight and be able to get to my monday morning breakfast meeting in a reasonable state of mind.
Of course, the plan for *today* is to do the research for said meeting, so I hope I wake up before its time for bed.
Of course, the plan for *today* is to do the research for said meeting, so I hope I wake up before its time for bed.
Team America: World Police
Aug. 22nd, 2004 10:03 amThe makers of South Park have gotten into Supermarionation! So, South Park meets the Thunderbirds meets Farenheit 9/11 in what is likely to be a very politically charged movie!
New Fusion Testbed.
Aug. 22nd, 2004 11:01 amI should preface this little message by saying that although Nuclear Physics was my first love and what I first majored in at University, its also an area where my intuitions have proven to be very wrong in the past. 20 years ago I would have bet good money that the first working fusion reactor would be some shiva-esque inertial confinement system based on spherical arrays of lasers or ion beams, while the Tokomak was a dead-end technology due to inherent magnetic-field instabilities in the design.
Well, since then inertial confinement systems have gone nowhere while tokomaks have gotten better and better, despite their inherent flaws. Now though, I've just learned about the Levitating Dipole reactor. Rather than having a large coil of magnets on the outside of a donut and trying to produce a plasma inside, they levitate the magnets at the center of a ring and produce a plasma on the outside of the magnets. From a magnetic field stability point-of-view this is waaaay better and I have a very good feeling about this avenue of research. There are *many* technical problems with doing things this way, as there is a need to keep a levitating magnet cooled to 12K while a fusion reaction is happening just inches away, but I can see a number of possible approaches to solving them. I'll be watching progress in this area with interest.
Well, since then inertial confinement systems have gone nowhere while tokomaks have gotten better and better, despite their inherent flaws. Now though, I've just learned about the Levitating Dipole reactor. Rather than having a large coil of magnets on the outside of a donut and trying to produce a plasma inside, they levitate the magnets at the center of a ring and produce a plasma on the outside of the magnets. From a magnetic field stability point-of-view this is waaaay better and I have a very good feeling about this avenue of research. There are *many* technical problems with doing things this way, as there is a need to keep a levitating magnet cooled to 12K while a fusion reaction is happening just inches away, but I can see a number of possible approaches to solving them. I'll be watching progress in this area with interest.
Sooo Sleeeeepy....
Aug. 22nd, 2004 04:05 pmI never really did manage to wake up today. I tried, really I did, but it doesn't seem to have worked. So, I think I shall head off to bed shortly and sleep for the next 10 or 12 hours. That will allow me to wake refreshed tomorrow, and still get some research done before my breakfast meeting.