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Technology Science

Building the World's Most Powerful Laser 354

Posted by samzenpus from the lazlo-would-not-approve dept.
Bill writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories is attempting to create the world's largest laser. The NIF's goal is to focus the laser on a pea-sized hydrogen pellet and result in fusion ignition."
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Building the World's Most Powerful Laser More

Building the World's Most Powerful Laser

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  • Companion Cloning/Bio-Engineering Project? (Score:3, Funny)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:39PM (#12618613)
    To produce Extremely Large Shark?

    • Re:Companion Cloning/Bio-Engineering Project? (Score:5, Funny)

      by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:44PM (#12618661)
      Alternatively,

      We need to find an evil college professor and fill his house with popcorn! [moviequotequiz.com]

      Hilarity will ensue!
      • You know, every time I make a reference to Real Genius around here, it goes right over everyone's heads. Which can mean only one of two things:

        1. Slashdot is infested with teenage wannabes who aren't old enough to have seen Real Genius.

        2. Slashdot is infested with people who *wish* they were cool enough to be geeks.

        Considering how much nonsense we see, plus the general Slashdot GroupThink(TM), I'm going for number 3: All of the above.
        • I'm still trying to restore my hallway from all the water damage.

          forgot the plastic....
        • Ok, ok. I totally got this reference right away. Which maybe dates me a bit (I'm under 30). But what makes that movie (and that scene) so special? Is it the fact that it was kinda weird and original way back when? I mean, you had the guy with the weird braces talking to god while popcorn while exploding all around him.

          Definitely stands out.

          Group think. Meh, original scenes make group think happen because the group remembers them.

          - Horse head in Godfather
          - Shark tank with Lasers on their heads
          - I kn
          • Ok, ok. I totally got this reference right away. Which maybe dates me a bit (I'm under 30).

            A few people will usually get it. But the majority will say something amazingly stupid.

            But what makes that movie (and that scene) so special?

            Oh, come on! That's the ultimate 80's party movie for geeks! They pulled off all sorts of geeky pranks (dry ice in the hall, disassembling/reassembling a car in the dorm, tuning a radio to braces), saved the world through some pretty creative hacking/espionage, and even pulled an awesome prank on the bad guy! What's not to like? :-)

            Group think. Meh, original scenes make group think happen because the group remembers them.

            Ummm... no. Group Think refers to the Slashdot mentality of accepting the story spin at face value without checking the facts. A perfect example was the Chase Mastercard story from a day or two ago. The poster said "wireless", "RFID", and "insecure", thus ensuring that 95% of the posts were "This sucks and is insecure wireless crap that I can hack like this RFID hack (some pointless link here)!" The truth of the matter was that the card was not wireless (induction), not RFID (smartcard), and was not insecure (crypto chip). It was actually a marked improvement over the current cards! And yet, the last response to my rebuttals of such nonsense still had someone calling it wireless and insecure! Enough to make me want to drop-kick a few people...

          • Reel Geeks (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
            _Real Genius_ was a landmark movie, that made geeks look cool. Not just Val Kilmer (later playing Jim Morrison), but even the really geeky geeks were heroic, and even got laid. It was totally sympathetic to geek passions, and funny enough to get normals to like the movie geeks. It was the geek _Blackboard Jungle_.

        • -or-

          3. Real Genius was gay and noone cares.
        • Let me be the first to say that if they pull off this laser plan, the reward should be to surround them with a million women screaming and throwing tiny pickles at them.
    • To produce Extremely Large Shark?

      No, just a shark with an extremely large head.

  • I beg to differ (Score:5, Funny)

    by Yeldarb-7 ( 873124 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:39PM (#12618614) Homepage
    There is something for me to see here.

  • I call it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by djward ( 251728 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:40PM (#12618617)
    The "Alan Parsons Project"

  • Eh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by chriswaclawik ( 859112 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:40PM (#12618628)
    It may be powerful, but is it readily mountable on a shark's head?

  • About time! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:46PM (#12618676)
    They finally put in my order! I was about to go someplace else for my "Death Star".

  • military research, again (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cats-paw ( 34890 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:46PM (#12618678) Homepage
    From TFA

    The NIF laser "is essential to assessing the potential performance of nuclear weapons," says Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

    Naturally I'm depressed that "civilian" research does not get the money which it needs to help solve many pressing problems, but on the other hand if this facility removes the need for live nuclear tests that would be a good thing.

    How long this self-imposed testband will last if China or India decide they need to start testing weapons using live tests ?

    • The NIF laser "is essential to assessing the potential performance of nuclear weapons," says Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

      More like shooting down nuclear weapons from the ground. After all, the missile defense drones don't seem to be doing it. Why not just try the obvious.

      Of course, they'll have to station the test facility under an abandoned drive-in movie theater [imdb.com].

    • This is actually nothing new. The NIF is something that is reported on about once a year, just to keep people interested in the Fusion project that will happen Real Soon Now(TM).

      These lasers are definitely cool, but not what one would traditionally think of. Each laser charges up to one terrajoule of energy, then outputs one terrawatt for one second. The theory is that if the pulse is timed correctly, there will be enough pressure from all sides to force fusion. Unfortunately, we won't know if it's actually going to work until the end of the decade.

      As for military uses, the military doesn't really need a laser this powerful. A gigawatt laser would do the job just as effectively, would charge much faster, and wouldn't strain the reactors in a combat situation. I'd provide more info if I could, but the Navy currently has the next generation ships listed as having "directed energy weapons". The only such weapon they've confirmed (for suitably shakey definitions of "confirmed") is the Rail Gun, which may allow destroyers to perform Battleship style land bombardments.
      • "Each laser charges up to one terrajoule of energy, then outputs one terrawatt for one second."

        Juuust slightly off...by a factor of a billion or so! :-) Actually the NIF will fire each of its 192 beams simultaneously with an energy of ~10kJ for a duration of 2-3 nanoseconds for a total of nearly 2 MJ on the target. The overall power of the laser will be somewhere near 500 Terawatts (trillion watts) and despite what the AP article says, that will never secure its stature as being the "worlds most powerful

  • If we have to go to these lengths (Score:5, Funny)

    by Blue the Wild Dog ( 886365 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:47PM (#12618691)
    then the pea-sized hydrogen pellets have already won.

  • Huh. this story looks like its almost exactly what I have on my blog. Anyways, the direct link for the NIF is here [llnl.gov].

    Just think: it's better than half way to a fusion drive if it all works in 2010.

    • I don't think this has anything to do with power generation, regardless of the blurb at the NIF. It's about researching better bombs.

      Laser ignition is not the path to a reactor.

      • I don't think this has anything to do with power generation, regardless of the blurb at the NIF. It's about researching better bombs.

        What a brilliant idea. Next time I apply for a grant, I'm going to call it "Z_2 gauge theories on spin lattices and applications to builiding a bigger bomb". I'll probably get millions.

  • Trouble is... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ross.w ( 87751 ) <rwonderley AT gmail DOT com> on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:48PM (#12618703) Journal
    Just when you get it finished, some rabbit comes and steals the Q36 Explosive Space Modulator, and there is no kaboom.

  • Who's Financing This? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Michael_Burton ( 608237 ) <michaelburton@brainrow.com> on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:48PM (#12618704) Homepage

    Funding, and vital tritium pellets, will be provided by a grant from OsCorp?

  • And in other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_Minkis ( 885627 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:49PM (#12618715)
    NASA has begun work on a replacement for the International Space Station. It is roughly spherical in shape, and resembles the AT&T logo...

  • But can they turn it off? (Score:4, Funny)

    by quackPOT ( 100330 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:50PM (#12618727) Homepage
    "This is predicted to achieve self-sustaining nuclear fusion reactions, or ignition."

    Self-sustaining? Can they turn it off if it starts to get out of control? Amazing stuff, but to some degree a little scary.
    • I would expect that ceasing to feed it fuel would go a long way to stopping it. Barring that, once all the free form hydrogen in the atmosphere was consumed I would expect that things would stop then (a little sarcasm).

    • Re:But can they turn it off? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:00PM (#12618822)
      Well, it stops when it runs out of hydrogen... I mean, it's not exactly as if there are huge amounts of hydrogen floating freely all over the earth!

    • Re:But can they turn it off? (Score:5, Informative)

      by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) * on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:14PM (#12618917) Homepage Journal
      Nah, it's not even a little scary. Fusion is quite unlike fission, in that it's really hard to get going and just as hard to keep going.

      With fission, all you have to do is put too much Uranium (or Plutonium or whatever nasty, radioactive stuff) in a closet, and it will spontaneously sustain itself in a "chain reaction". If you put way too much stuff in the closet, then the chain reaction runs away and explodes, spontaneously.

      With fusion, you take a tiny sphere of deuterium (or tritium) and blast it for a tiny fraction of a second with the World's Largest Laser Beam. If you are really, really lucky, the deuterium will fuse to helium and you'll get out a little bit more energy than you spent getting the thing to fuse. There's no possibility of a runaway here, because there's no chain reaction. You can simply choose not to fire the WLLB at any point.
    • Don't worry - Spider-man will be along in time to save us! And he might even bring a cute girl with him ;) Hey - maybe that's their plan!
    • Back when they were developing "the super", the first thermonuclear bomb, they quickly found out that you couldn't just lash a fission bomb to a tank of hydrogen, deuterium or tritium, and expect it to work. Hot objects radiate energy. Really hot objects radiate energy very quickly. You couldn't produce a self-sustaining fusion reaction in a tank of hydrogen because it would radiate energy much faster than the fusion reaction could create it. They did eventually solve the problem, but it took some very clev
  • is making so much popcorn the victorian house falls apart

    • Re:all the laser is good for (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      is making so much popcorn the victorian house falls apart

      I'll file your comment under "H" for "toy".

  • Warning on Laser (Score:5, Funny)

    by nxtr ( 813179 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:54PM (#12618763)
    Do not stare directly at beam. Spontaneous fusion reactions of eyes may result. May also cause temporary blindness.

  • Bias out the ass. (Score:4, Informative)

    by dayid ( 802168 ) * <slashdot@dayid.org> on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:54PM (#12618765) Homepage
    If NIF achieves fusion ignition, it will for the first time in a laboratory simulate the pressures and heat of a nuclear explosion, allowing nuclear weapons scientists to study the performance and readiness of the country's aging nuclear arsenal without actually detonating a nuclear device.
    Sounds good to me.

    "If Congress knew it would cost $5 billion up front, would they ever have funded it? No way," maintains Christopher Paine, who has monitored NIF's development for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environment advocacy group, and has been one of its sharpest critics.
    ...and his opinion matters why? Sounds like he's got a giant basis for bias. He continues...

    Paine, who in a critique once dubbed NIF "The Unlovable Laser," maintains that NIF should follow the same path. He says it isn't needed and poses a nuclear proliferation risk because it might make it easier in decades ahead to develop new nuclear weapons, not just maintain existing ones.
    Since, every American knows the only use of anything nuclear is to kill people. So now, we take a "reliable" newsource like CNN.com - and not only shred any chance of getting "unbiased" information and toss it in the can.

    Also, to contrast that idiots opinion, we get:
    The JASONs, a group of scientists frequently called upon to review complex defense or national security issues,
    that sounds a LITTLE more relevant, no?
    has concluded that NIF "does not represent a significant proliferation risk" and is "fully compatible" with U.S.

    I guess this is why I can't appreciate the news for telling me anything new now adays. Someone go develop a computer to report things without bias, then I'll be interested in reading the news.

    • Re:Bias out the ass. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by AndrewStephens ( 815287 ) * on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:09PM (#12618887) Homepage
      The International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation have a writeup [inesap.org] on this facility.

      Quoting from the conclusion (my emphasis added):

      Livermore Lab is already on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund" list of most contaminated sites in the country. NIF will generate toxic and radioactive wastes; even its 'routine' operation will create pollution for the surrounding communities. The situation could be exacerbated by newly-planned experiments and the addition of materials with long-lived isotopes like plutonium.
      Few scientists believe NIF will achieve its scientific objective of ignition, though it will reach energies, temperatures, and densities of interest to weapons designers. In essence, it's a machine to keep weapons designers busy at their deadly pursuits. NIF runs counter to the U.S.' disarmament obligation under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Many believe is violates Article 1 of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as well. From conducting laser fireball experiments, to providing detailed analyses of mix, to studying new fusion weapon concepts to creating a test bed for weapons effects, NIF will push the envelope of nuclear weapons physics - and demonstrate once again that the United States will not practice the disarmament it so sanctimoniously (and forcibly) prescribes for others.
      Who would have thought a giant laser could be used for war!
    • Wait... why should *your* opinion matter *more* than theirs? At least they're talking about something they're have expertise in, not being cynical "out the ass".
    • I guess this is why I can't appreciate the news for telling me anything new now adays. Someone go develop a computer to report things without bias, then I'll be interested in reading the news.

      HAL9000's voice is kind of dull. Does Skynet have an interesting voice?

  • I wonder.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by d474 ( 695126 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @07:58PM (#12618798)
    Didn't we just hear news that the US wants to move forward with space based weapons?

    Oh.My.God. Once the filibuster is abolished, Darth Bush will finally be able to finish his Death Star!!!
    • The filibuster-busting would only affect judicial nominations, not the kind of Senate processes that would be required to develop space-based weaponry. Legislative filibustering is not being tampered with.

  • nitpick: Not *A* laser (Score:5, Informative)

    by Stephen Samuel ( 106962 ) <samuel@NOsPaM.bcgreen.com> on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:05PM (#12618854) Homepage Journal
    I don't know how you could call "a network of 192 laser beams", 'the world's largest laser'....

    It might classify as the world's most intense laser target, but that's entirely different language.

    Fusion ignition is also not the goal (or, for that matter, even the primary goal) of the laser cluster.. The intent is apparently nuclear weapons testing and design. Civilian fusion research is simply a pleasand side effect.

    • Ever since the 20 beam IR Shiva laser [llnl.gov] at LLNL was built in ~1978 all of the giant multibeam fusion lasers (in no particular order:NOVA, ARGUS, OMEGA, JANUS, LMJ, GEKKO XII, CICLOPS, NIF, ISKRA-5, VULCAN, ..... etc.) right or wrong, are simply referred to as being "a" laser. Also, the fact that NIF will be capable of ignition scale fusion is VERY important in nuclear weapons testing. H-bombs by definition DO achieve ignition.
    • I don't know how you could call "a network of 192 laser beams", 'the world's largest laser'....

      Maybe they got tired of all the posts about 'Imagine a beowulf cluster of these' and went out and built one.
  • Why do they call it fusion "ignition"? Fusing hydrogen nuclei into heavier nuclei, releasing extra energy, bears little physical resemblance to combining oxygen and other atoms by covalent electron shells. Though I guess atomic fission reactions bear little physical resemblance to "chains".
    • because they can use the extra energy to fuse other hydrogen nuclei?
      • But "fusion", no matter how many times it occurs, isn't "ignition", which means "fire", which means "oxidation", which isn't fusion, as I noted. You just justified calling it "chain fusion".
        • I think you're getting too caught up on the "ignition = fire" comparison.

          The sun is often referred to as a "fireball" or "burning", yet it is just "chain fusion". Ignition is quite a suitable name for this intense reaction, regardless of whether it is chemical or nuclear.

    • Re:ConFusion (Score:5, Informative)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:25PM (#12618972)
      The term "ignition" refers to the point of intensity of a fusion reaction whereby the high (kinetic) energy He nuclei fusion product is sufficient in power to heat any remaining fuel to the point of fusing itself. ie. when the reaction is capable of sustaining itself provided you continue to feed it with fuel. It is called Q=1. The NIF should achieve >Q=10 on a full system DT shot and this is called thermonuclear ignition and burn with "high gain". NOTE! the NIF will almost certainly NOT achieve breakeven (total power in Nd:glass lasers are disgustingly inefficient (~1%). Diode pumped [iaea.org] Nd:glass is another story however and if a power plant is ever to be constructed using laser fusion then that is likely what will be used. They are still too fantastically expensive today though.
      • hey, my post got garbled!

        that line was meant to say:
        the NIF will almost certainly NOT achieve breakeven (total power in is equal to or less than total power out)because Nd:glass [wikipedia.org] lasers are disgustingly inefficient (~1%).
      • So they're using "ignition" figuratively, expanding the meaning to mean "emits more energy than it consumes", without necessarily referring to oxidiation. Since you're in the know, do you have any reference to the spectrum of energy emitted by the ignited hydrogen?

        • Re:ConFusion (Score:5, Informative)

          by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:47PM (#12619143)
          yes its just another definition of ignition. spectrum of energy emitted by the H? I'm not sure I understand what you're after. If it is the energy of the products of the DT reaction [wikipedia.org] you're interested in then its H-3 + H-2--> He-4 (with a kinetic energy of 3.5 MeV) and a hot neutron with a KE of 14.1 MeV. If it is the actual electromagnetic radiation from the hot plasma you are talking about then it just radiates like a blackbody [wikipedia.org] at ohhh say 100 million degrees :o) which happens to be mostly in hard X-rays.

          Incidentally, as long as I'm posting here I'd like to say that (no surprise really, its a science article) the AP article gets it a bit wrong. The NIF will never achieve the status of "most powerful" laser on earth. Highest energy laser on earth? At 2 MEGAjoules yes it will be the most energetic. But not the most powerful. The maximum power of the NIF is estimated at 500-750 Terawatts (trillion watts) (I'm approximating). However, the OMEGA EP [rochester.edu] laser which will be finished in 2007 (before NIF) will achieve a power of over 2 PETAwatts or 2 million billion watts. Several times that of the NIF.
          • This is great - a thread with an actual Slashdot expert is like hanging out with the article itself!

            While you're hot - do we have anything like the technology to capture the radiated energy while it's still photons, pumping a laser for transmission away from the reactor to where it can be consumed? Materials that aren't consumed, collectors with high (>90-99%) efficiency, lots of parallel fibers which can conduct, say, 0.001% the wattage without "going nonlinear" (melting/burning)? Once we've got this t

            • Re:ConFusion (Score:4, Informative)

              by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @09:21PM (#12619373)
              Well, the easiest fusion reaction to do is the Deuterium Tritium reaction (DT). That is, it is the reaction which requires the "lowest" temperature to ignite. Thing is, most of the energy released in this reaction is in the form of hot neutrons. The percentage of the fustion energy released in the reaction as neutrons is called the reaction's "neutronicity" and is something like 80% for DT. This really sucks because neutrons, as you may be aware, are absorbed into the nuclei of the surrounding structure material, transmuting its constituent atoms into radioactive isotopes (albeit with relatively short half-lives). Soooo, the best idea around these days is to create a vacuum target chamber with ...wait for it.... undulating "waterfalls" of hot liquid lithium or "filbe" (Lithium Fluoride Beryllium Fluoride mix). The Li absorbs the neutrons and is heated in the process, the heat is then sent to boil water/run turbines, and the usual. There is a bonus in this scheme though, the Li after absorbing a neutron is transmuted into more Tritium! More Fuel! This is called the HYLIFE II [berkeley.edu] reactor design.
              • Hm, all that mechanical (even at nuclear scales) action seems like a waste of energy. Which is why I was thinking of collecting the radiation, which transports itself without loss. Any idea on the total percentage of energy consumed by the Li chamber and turbine operation?

                I understand that we've got to take this a step at a time: first self-sustaining exothermic fusion (by any means necessary :), plugged into the rest of our grid tech. Then tweaks to upgrade inefficient links in the industrial grid. What k
                • There is one method (that I know of) which is capable of direct conversion of nearly all the energy of the fusion plasma into electricity. It is not possible in inertial confinement laser fusion though. It is the P + B-11 reaction. This involves the fusion of protons (normal hydrogen) and Boron 11 in a magnetically confined fusion reactor called a colliding beam fusion reactor [uci.edu]. There is nearly zero neutronicity in this reaction (.001) and the product is 3 He atoms. In this scheme there is sort of a scrape o
  • ...synthesize excited bromide in an argon matrix since its an excimer, frozen in its excited state, as soon as they apply a field, they couple to a state that is radiatively coupled to the ground state and voila! Popcorn for everyone!

  • A lesson.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by OverflowingBitBucket ( 464177 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:37PM (#12619064) Homepage Journal
    And let that be a lesson to any other pea-sized hydrogen capsules that plan to screw with us.

  • Most powerful laser (Score:4, Funny)

    by sith lord 518 ( 885386 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @08:51PM (#12619172)
    what if the sharks eat the pea?

  • Why? (Score:2, Funny)

    by JackAxe ( 689361 )
    Why can't they just heat their peas in the microwave like the rest of us.. :(

  • summary of my thoughts on this (Score:3, Informative)

    by doc modulo ( 568776 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @09:02PM (#12619247)
    Which approach is better?

    I can remember first reading about this fusion concept in the "the two faces of tomorrow" [darkhorse.com] from Dark Horse comics. At the time I thought this was just some ancient sci-fi writer's relic idea on how to achieve fusion, we had tokamak (donut) magnetic fusion reactors now. However, after I read about the real life version of it, I first thought WOW and after that I realized that it might be much simpler to ignite a fusion reaction and then back off to let it run wild than to try to contain a fusion reaction in a magnetic bubble. The concept sounds simpler. They're having trouble with manufacturing the hydrogen pellet however, so the tokamak reactor might have a steadier flow of energy coming out of it if they get the concept to work smoothly.

    old-energy corporations

    Oil, gas and coal companies might not want this to work. I remember the piece in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 911" [fahrenheit911.com] about the corporate spy who told his own story. I think he came clean out of guilt over what he'd done in the past. Point I'm trying to make is, there might be a lot of opposition to this project and I hope that they have a lot of security on site. They probably have because this is mostly a military project.

    The need for fusion

    I do think earth will eventually need fusion reactors, at least the USA needs it. Earth can source it's current level of energy consumption from wind, wave and solar plants if we clad most of the planet with these kind of renewables but it would not be as efficient as a lot of fusion plants. The giant solar tower in Australia and the Sterling motor solar plants look promising but fusion reactors would need less room. A lot of countries just don't have the living space to fill with low producing plants like solar and wind farms. That's what I understand from reading a lot of articles. Fusion would also work on a windless cloudy day and a world filled with fusion reactors would give us a lot more energy to play with than a world filled with other kinds of plants. With oil supplies running out, there will be more wars. To think that politicians ares still fighting over where the ITER tokamak fusion reactor prototype is going to be built (Japan or France) is unbelievable. Every hour they waste could mean a human life they could have saved by preventing an energy war. The bastards responsible should be jailed.

    Ridicule of sci-fi

    The "The Two Faces of Tomorrow" comic made me realize that we need more science-fiction in our lives. It's weird that sci-fi isn't more popular because it can help us think up solutions to problems that absolutely need to be solved. Humankind would be dead meat if science stopped completely this second. Most people would die without even an animal skin or a house to protect themselves from weather. Fusion is just the continuation of the process that gave us bear skins.

    I think it can be explained psychologically. If you don't have knowledge of something like science, it's a good tactic for you personally to ridicule it. That way you can still keep some of your social status because the thing you don't know about is "not important anyway". I hear there are a lot of attacks on science in the USA, are these attackers also renouncing clothes? Ofcourse this phenomenon is everywhere but why is it so big in the US? Not as smart? More fundamentalist? Both? I want every smart person on earth to realize that they are more in the right than fundamentalists who oppose science or stupid people with more determination to make themselves heard. Don't cower, ridicule THEM instead.
  • I don't like the sound of this. And the picture in the article - it is not a moon, Luke.

  • Mirror? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by msheppard ( 150231 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @09:11PM (#12619312) Homepage Journal
    And I hear the Fermi labs are working on a mirror to aim this laser.
    M@
  • I know what I want next Christmas. Screw these new gaming consoles.
  • The hydrogen pellet is peaceful! It has no weapons! I'LL TELL YOU WHERE THE REBEL BASE IS!!

  • The sad thing is that this has nothing to do with energy production. It's intended to substitute for nuclear weapons testing.

    Worse, if you need something this big for single-shot tests, pulsed fusion as a power source does not look promising. DoE was talking up pulsed fusion as a power source in the 1970s, and it turned out to be a scam. It was a cover story for a predecessor to this project.

  • Similar european project : the MegaJoule laser (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Blaskowicz ( 634489 ) on Monday May 23, 2005 @11:39PM (#12620256)
    this looks much the LMJ (laser megajoule) we are going to get here in France. We also claim it will world's most powerful. I don't know which one is better, but we'll have 240 beams versus 192 beams on the US facility :D
    http://www-lmj.cea.fr/html/cea.htm [www-lmj.cea.fr]

  • Big laser? (Score:3, Funny)

    by lazlo ( 15906 ) on Tuesday May 24, 2005 @11:03AM (#12623514) Homepage
    "lazlo-would-not-approve"


    Yes I would!

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