This is like whack-a-mole. If it's not one thing, it's another. We are
getting a reprieve from the painful reminders of NIF EoS threads, and
I'm sure those people involved are breathing a sigh of relief. This
time, it's about NIF ignition!
Title: IGNITION FAILED
Source: Science News
Date: April 4, 2013 (web)
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/349381/description/Ignition_Failed
81 comments:
"NIF director Edward Moses points to another record-setting facility: the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. The machine’s main goal was to observe a particle called the Higgs boson. The Higgs is an essential element of the Standard Model, a leading theory that describes every particle and force in the universe. On July 4, 2012, physicists proudly announced that they had found it."
Ed id right, finding the Higgs turned out to be a huge disappointment in the end. The same thing is true of ignition. If ignition worked it would mean Nature is boring. These are exciting times.
Whatever, just toss another $10 billion to LLNL to keep these scientists busy until we need them for the nuclear war with North Korea. NIF is really just a job/skills program for physicists anyway. So it has been very successful.
Yeah finding the Higgs was a huge colossal failure. We don't care at all about execution anyways. They were better off messing up on execution and not getting any results.. just like NIF. That way, expectations can remain artificially high indefinitely.
Confirming that nuclear reactions between deuterium and tritium can happen under intense compression is a big discovery, even bigger than confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. Those scientists at LHC should be ashamed of themselves for trying to con the rest of the world. For Shame
While I am not sure that discovering the Higgs was a disappointment (did people expect it to also sing a song),
I agree that not having ignition is an exciting result as well.
One thing it clearly shows is that the simulations are only as good as the input which goes into the code.
I wish some of the computer people here at LANL would finally wake up to this fact, and realize that only data are credible scientific proof of a theory.
The last thing I want to add, is that in a system where science is driven by milestones and managers who are only interested in PBIs, it is a miracle that NIF is even able to perform at this level.
Disclaimer: I work at LANL.
Magnetic fusion has always been the more viable approach. Simulation and experimentation have better agreement. Inertial confinement is a make work, scientific debacle.
Congress: "Bring out your dead, bring out your dead"
NIF: "I'm not dead"
Congress" "You soon will be"
NIF" I'm feeling better after we missed the September 30 deadline"
Congress: You're not fooling anybody.........WHACK!
Source: The meaning of LIFE
Financial management also failed.
Yup, we did have a Higgs initiative and we starved that science puppy out too.
This clearly disqualifies you from having anything to do with our nuclear weapons, and you (LLNL)should be shut down, NOW.
Right on, after all we are on the fast track to becoming the Pyongyang of US science and technology.
Hey, nitwick, if you actually knew anything about modern physics than you know the Higgs is irrelevant. String theory which is the theory of physics does not need the Higgs.
April 6, 2013 at 7:47 PM
Huh?? String theory has nothing to support it but you. The standard model has the Higgs. Experiment always beats theory. Get a clue.
String theory is just that; an unproven theory. Since the scientific method is based on experimental proof of theory, string theory is not yet science. Maybe someday someone will invent an experiment to distinguish string theory from the standard model. Or not!
Since the scientific method is based on experimental proof of theory, string theory is not yet science.
April 7, 2013 at 8:08 AM
Obviously you are not a scientist. You are using the layman's definition of the term "theory," not the scientific definition. Experiments prove hypotheses, not theories.
NIF is confirming whether or not D-T reactions under compression can work on a small sample? That's not a big scientific finding. Figuring out why it didn't work is just science around the edges to address feasibility of a future power plant. Figuring out why your weapons codes don't work well on the NIF target scale or why the implosion is so nonuniform is not a big scientific finding either. It's more engineering than science.
No no, you're quite mistaken. The Rayleigh-Taylor Instability is about to be discovered for the first time ever via these NIF ignition experiments. You just wait and see.
Try reading Webster sometime, Dr. April 7, 2013 at 9:50 AM.
Try reading a high school science text, April 7, 2013 at 3:34 PM.
And which of those on your bookshelf would you recomend?
"NIF director Edward Moses points to another record-setting facility:"
Ed, where are you getting your weed from? Make sure it's pesticide-free.
And which of those on your bookshelf would you recomend?
April 7, 2013 at 7:56 PM
First, I'd recommend you learn how to spell "recommend."
Spelling Nazi in the room ... run for your lives!!!!!
Knowing how to spell is an indication of the quality of your of your overall education, and your overall respect for accuracy in what you do. It is a serious and definitive reflection of "who you are." Language matters. It matters in the world of educated people expecting and worthy of respect for their intellect. Don't like that opinion? Tough. Get over it.
Ah, words of wisdom from a nifnik, possibly of EOS blunder fame. Oh yes, the spelling in the discredited publication on D2 EOS was impeccable; the science, not so much. But never fear, even though LLNL fails in scientific endeavors like NIF, they will contiue succeed in spelling bees.At least it will keep them off the streets.
Ah, words of wisdom from a nifnik, possibly of EOS blunder fame. Oh yes, the spelling in the discredited publication on D2 EOS was impeccable; the science, not so much. But never fear, even though LLNL fails in scientific endeavors like NIF, they will contiue succeed in spelling bees.At least it will keep them off the streets.
April 8, 2013 at 8:35 PM
Nothing to do with NIF. Couldn't care less about NIF. Why on earth would you thing I was in any way connected with NIF? NIF is irrelevant to anything important in the world (including spelling).
Why on earth would you thing I was in any way connected with NIF?
April 8, 2013 at 8:47 PM
Because you misspelled "think"?
Pot signing off -- so long kettle.
Failing to learn how to spell as a child, or even failing to learn that spelling is important, are symptoms of post-60's grade school nonsense, when so-called "educators" began to supplant "teachers". No more vocabulary tests or drills, no more spelling tests, no more reading requirements. Just be sure your kid "feels good about himself." The unfortunates who are the products of this "learning" philosophy are the losers, in many ways. So are we as a country.
Of course this has noting to do with NIF, or any other unimportant issues, only the decline in our country's ability to turn out well-educated, well-rounded, headed-for-success graduates. That's why we have our colleges and universities holding classes to teach freshmen how to read. Note that there are no Asians in those classes. Take a lesson.
Scooby, delete as you will. Your loss. Maybe this should be a top post, as if real education of our children, or the failure thereof, were important to the maintenance of our scientific and technical capabilities, important to the success of all the national laboratories.
Threads tend to wander, hence the name thread. Instead of criticism, produce comments to refocus the thread.
For example, ignition may have failed (that's the nature of science), but how was it even possible for NIF to spend their entire budget in 6 months, and why should the rest of the lab's programs pay for it?
Spelling Nazi actually led a lackluster and mediocre life in comparison to his peers. His outstanding spelling skills however is what makes him stand out over all others who accomplished more than him. He can make himself feel good over the fact that he is superior to others in this one aspect. Let's give our applause and recognition to Spelling Nazi for his consistent use of ad hominem attack logic to make himself feel better about himself.
Envy is not the right word to describe the view of the scientific community towards the award winning D2 laser EoS team whose work was shown later on to be spurious. Most of us hope this kind of fiasco "never happens to us" because many of us actually care about our standing and reputation in the community.
Nicely written summary for the lay person. Thanks.
Why is laser EoS such an issue now when it wasn't a problem in the previous 14 years? If the problem was known by the high pressure community, why is it coming up in such a big way now? Is this some kind of elaborate ploy to shake off NNSA programmatic missions and instead focus on the ignition sandbox? Would that kind of ploy even work?
April 10, 2013 at 4:02 AM
EOS is only an issue by a single poster on this blog. The poster sounds a tad bitter and somewhat crazy so your mileage may vary.
I like how the article discusses how NIF is for the advancement of energy. They seem to avoid the fact that it is for A division (whatever their new name is). Maybe they are getting data they need but can't release?
In full disclosure, I think NIF is the biggest red herring the lab has chased since Star Wars. But deep down I hope something useful comes out of it even if it SRD.
If you can't run experiments with macroscopic quantities of special nuclear materials, then you are not going to be able produce useful data with current capability. So ignition and energy production is what needs to come through to save the day. I can foresee a scheme to ask for more money on a bigger facility based on fuzzy claims that all evidence on NIF points to the next larger design achieving ignition AND able to produce useful measurements.
A long time ago, a Greek was working on something called the steam engine. The initial experiment did not work, so bloggers or graffiti artists in that day said "Shut it down" "he does not understand eee oh ess, whatever that means". Mankind was held back more tha 1500 years by small minds. Let us not make the same mistake with NIF.
And did the Greek take money from other scientists, because he overspent his budget?
Mankind was held back more tha 1500 years by small minds. Let us not make the same mistake with NIF.
April 10, 2013 at 5:12 PM
It's not small minds at NIF, it is small vision, i.e., blinders. Perfectly brilliant people chasing a pipe dream instead of the important stuff. We could use all that expertise if it weren't enthralled with the NIF fantasy.
Wow, this was entertaining. Kind of watching kids play bunch ball on the soccer field and all the parents trying to be the coach! Get over it! Bill@nif
'...red herring the lab has chased since Star Wars.."
We should be so lucky. The key star wars technologies are deployed off of the coast of North Korea tonight, poised to try to take down a frightful intruder.
Thank Bush for the existing ABM system.
"And did the Greek take money from other scientists, because he overspent his budget?
April 10, 2013 at 5:42 PM"
Suppose our Greek did overspend his budget? Only a small mind would use that to set us back 1500 years. They also said that the steam engine is 1500 years old. History rests its case
"We should be so lucky. The key star wars technologies are deployed off of the coast of North Korea tonight, poised to try to take down a frightful intruder.
Thank Bush for the existing ABM system.
April 10, 2013 at 9:41 PM"
Ohh...there is no LLNL star wars technology key or otherwise that is being used off Korea. Using a ground based rocket to shoot down another rocket is a much older idea that has nothing to do with star wars never has never will. Maybe using a rocket from space to shoot one down is but that is a pipe dream. And no Star Wars did not break the back of Soviet Union and no Bush along is not responsible for AMB.
How many billions of dollars spent on NIF even through the Campbell fiasco (that's correct, we don't look at it as a "restart"). Atleast 6B? I think ignition is a worthy pursuit. LLNL just can't be trusted to carry on such research. Shall we go into the specific reasons why?
Jeez, the last NIF thread has barely disappeared off the bottom of the page, and now this one continues. Please!!! Stop this nonsense, No one cares about NIF!
Never fear. More stuff coming down the NIF pipeline. The lab is an endless source of surprises it seems. The blog viewership metrics will keep spiking for years to come.
The fact that the lab can only survive on lack of transparency is giving this blog the slow but steady flow of items, giving readers time to absorb every juicy morsel.
If did away with all the badness at once, this blog wouldn't be such an irritant to those trying to divert your eyes using propaganda and troll tactics.
If the lab management was so bothered by this blog, why don't they just send out the lawyers. Start a lawsuit, get a court order to compel Google, the ISPs, and Scooby to give all information that could point to the identity of the bothersome posters, then go after them for defamation.
To do so would also reveal the lab managers posting anonymously.
Some "company person" is out there. Bring up odd NIF fund transfers, unnecessary management, or excessive overhead (getting specific), and watch the subject get changed to some other subjective "hot topic" area.
Try starting a new reasonable discussion thread (not a hater), and watch it get changed off topic.
Time to start a new NIF thread. This one is about to disappear.
Please don't. Please.
Oh yeah, i feel another one coming right around the corner. The lab never fails us in this regard.
More NIF!! More NIF!!!
I think we need to clear a few things up on NIF.
Questions: Is NIF a failure?
Answer: No NIF works and works as it was designed to work. It was made to look at a specific realm which it is doing. Ignition was a possibility only. We now know more about ignition than we ever had before. It may not work but that is science folks. NIF also trained thousands of people for the labs in training they could not get elsewhere. We may not know for 15-100 years if NIF will pave the way for useable power, but if it does it will be huge.
Question: Does NIF cost too much?
Answer: No for big projects the cost if NIF is fine. For the potential payoff huge. Remember this also pays for the people and NIF has the very best people in the world. It is an investment for the future. NIF also shows that rest of the world just how powerful the United States is.
Ok now that is settled we can let the peanut gallery cry but the facts are the facts.
Ignition and EoS experiments failed, however.
We're not questioning the value of ignition. We are questioning the ability of LLNL to execute the science. LLNL is the real problem here. And NIF can't help train people if you don't have the right people, or "A-Students" who have a long track record and standing in the academic community mentor those "trainees." To say that they have the best people in the world belies the failures in ignotion, LIFE, EoS, Strength, and even just basic application of the scientific method. You will not find a program more filled with confirmation bias. To call this the "best in the world" is an insult to those at other labs and in academia who play by the rules and abide by strict ethical standards. And why are we using taxpayer funds to train people to perform science while wearing blinders on and encouraging them to play the bait-and-switch game of lying to their sponsors?
EoS keeps rearing its head for the fact that is is one of the counter cases to the propaganda by lab managers posting anonymously to this blog. And all of us remember the con-job that the LAB inflicted on Friedman and others. To now say that ignition "was a possibility only" is the not-so-clever switch. They can't even do bread-and-butter stockpile stewardship related measurements. But the ignition fanfare was going full blast. Typical con artistry.
And I love the statement "NIF also shows that rest if the world how powerful the United States is." Are you joking me? We're already powerful for the scientific accomplishments in other fields like biotech and materials. NIF is a liability on our image because the lab fools itself into thinking that an engineering feat translates to scientific excellence. Yet they can't even provide any technical explanation for past failures and keep blundering on producing more and more questionable results. And the lab knows it too.
Here is an aggregation of common terms and elements associated with the NIF meme on the Internet that my crawler algorithm pulled up. I can see where most of these terms fit. I was surprised to see something about Tantalum, and I'll have to go through my logs to figure out the context in which it is related.
Laser
Inertial confinement fusion
Ignition
Hohlraum
D-T fusion
Power production
LIFE
Ed Moses
Stockpile stewardship
Equation of state
Thomas L. Friedman
Plasma instability
NNSA
National ignition campaign
Failure
George Miller
Dianne Feinstein
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Tantalum phase transition
The persistence of Tom Friedman's tag to NIF is on the account of the lab and not Tom Friedman. He has not "come to the rescue" of NIF. Rather, LLNL is overusing the fact that Friedman reported on NIF in 2009, playing it off as a form of endorsement. If I were Tom, I would be telling the lab to knock it off.
I caught that. Nice play on words. Ignotion. Cute.
April 15, 2013 at 9:27 AM
Wrong on all accounts.
(1) NIF works
(2) The people are the best in the world. Who else has anything even close to NIF? The push for an academic community at the labs is not valid. We are not a university. What matters to Universities is not what matters us. The costumers for universities are students, our costumers are the NNSA. The idea that we have to somehow maintain academic standards is false and dangerous.
LANL had an "academic" mindset and it led to Wen-Ho Lee, stolen mustangs, missing disks, fires, and meth. We cannot...we must not go down that road.
(3) Your opinions on confirmation bias are just that...your opinions nothing more and nothing less. You can also have the opinion in Martians on the moon.
(4) Your opinions on EOS are just also opinions.
(5) NIF shows that world that we can make large scientific machines "THAT WORK" as intended. That is a powerful statement.
LANL is just jelly
This thread now consists of one pro-NIF guy (probably a scientist working at NIF), one anti-NIF guy (probably not a scientist at all), and one person who probably considers himself a raconteur but is woefully ill-prepared for that role. Sigh...
Hey check out this editorial rebuke of Friedman's PR piece for NIF in 2009.
http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/why-thomas-friedman-wrong-about-the-national-ignition-facility
"...
He does note (at the end of the column, of course, where it won't be seen by many readers), that he isn't sure NIF can be made to work as a viable commercial technology. But much of his golly-gosh evocation of NIF (complete with a comparison to the USS Enterprise from Star Trek) reads like a weak paraphrase of shovel-ready prose from the lab's public relations department. Surely New York Times readers have a right to expect more from a high-profile columnist than an embellished press release.
...
He does note (at the end of the column, of course, where it won't be seen by many readers), that he isn't sure NIF can be made to work as a viable commercial technology. But much of his golly-gosh evocation of NIF (complete with a comparison to the USS Enterprise from Star Trek) reads like a weak paraphrase of shovel-ready prose from the lab's public relations department. Surely New York Times readers have a right to expect more from a high-profile columnist than an embellished press release."
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nif2/findings.asp
This is the history of NIF build upon lies. Lying to congress is really not a good thing. Didn't your mother raise you to be better than that? Sure, achieving ignition would have washed away your sins in the eyes of the public. But you should not have banked on only the "possibility" of ignition.
Saying there is confirmation bias is being generous, because the alternative is that intentional fraud is involved. How 2 (perhaps even a 3rd) set of data points each from supposedly independent studies by lab scientists sit right on top of each over within error bars, and all determined to be wrong. It reeks of confirmation bias. If you say it's not, then please tell us what it is then. Maybe a plausible explanation with evidentiary backing will bring closure to that one issue. If not, it'll just keep coming up again and again and again and again.
No they could never admit it was confirmation bias or an alternative because it would nullify point (2) made above. Their strategy is only to dodge the issue and keep spouting off about how there are only "opinions." But they cannot afford to ever address problems head on. Remember that the lab is not an organization that has stand-alone value. It can only survive by maintaining a kleptocratic structure where everyone is the enemy and all problems arising internally are transformed into stressors originating from outsiders. In their eyes, this is not a problem about ignition or EoS or whatever. The problem is about the control of messaging and information to keep funding flowing at any and all cost to the tax-payer.
Now the messaging by the lab is to expect for ignition pushed out to 100 years (so long as LLNL gets its money). If so, then ignition research should be performed in academia. According to point 2, therefore, LLNL has no business continuing the program "their way" based on the extended timeframe for the likely achievement ignition.
I'll give it to the NIF guy point (5). Given their own sordid history of failure, getting a facility to work is truly an accomplishment in the universe that only consists of LLNL. Now that they are on par with organizations that ARE in our universe, however, it's not a very powerful statement. Don't get me wrong. Ed Moses did a great job. But hey that's what he was paid to do. He did his job. He didn't fail like others around him. At the lab in comparison to his internal peers, it's a big deal, but compared to his peers in industry, he did okay, better than average. But you can't ride on that for more than 6 months before your customers are asking what you have done since.
They can't admit confirmation bias because the scientists and decision makers who applied confirmation bias are still there at the lab and active in their work. They never rat out one of their own. Gotta wait until they leave the lab or get dragged under the bus for other unrelated and uncontrollable problems before you can allocate blame and then move on. That's probably in 10-15 years by the way.
The old joke about fusion energy was that from any given point in time, it is always "50 years away." I first heard it in Sophomore Physics in college in 1969. Sad that it's still true.
The "fusion is always 50 years away" factoid says everything about our national will. It set the pattern that many major efforts now follow: start with great hope & promise, then when the going gets tough, reduce funding, ensuring that we just piss away money - but slowly!
What a great legacy to leave to our kids.....
Why we keep pumping money into poor performers like LLNL and LANL I have no clue. That is the sad legacy, that taxpayers keep rewarding the dynamic duopoly of failure.
Yeah we should piss away money faster despite the fact that it won't get you there faster. Not with blinders on and not with the kind off scientists that gave us D2 EoS showing us that ignition is just around the corner.
Fusion used to be twenty years away. If it is now fifty years away then it is receding into the future.
As recently as 2009, LLNL managers thought that ignition was a sure thing. George Miller was going to delay his retirement until after the first ignited capsule.
Any scientific community that tolerates the kind of endless bait-and-switch that fusion research has perpetrated on our country (and others worldwide) deserves to be ridiculed mercilessly and defunded immediately. All the billions that have been spent on ICF, MCF, Tokamak, Z-pinch, etc, have yielded exactly nothing in terms of real practical progress towards energy production. A perpetual sandbox for academic somnolence. The old business basic, "under-promise, over-deliver" needs to be learned by these charlatans. Justify your reason to survive in terms the taxpayer can understand. Or go away.
Some of those other institutions "used" to play bait and switch. And there are always a con artists here and there who end up playing bait-and-switch at any organization. But not on the institutional level as we have seen with LLNL. For LLNL to try to drag PPPL and UCSD under with them is irresponsible.
LLNL banked on ignition to wash away all of the sins that they were perpetrating and all the failures they were accumulating. They lost that gamble. It's time to let other non-con-artist institutions take the reins. The days of hiding failure and deceit behind a fictitious veil of secrecy are long over.
Our spelling pedant must be sleeping. HEY! WAKE UP! Look at April 18, 2013 at 5:41 AM and give us your opinion.
When the laser was first invented, it was described as a "solution looking for a problem." It wasn't long until laser fusion was suggested. Someday, after it is all declassified, someone will write the incredible history of ICF as a lesson about the capability for self-deception.
When the Russians get break even first (not using laser ICF by the way), Washington will be asking hard and pointed questions regarding the self-deception at it's Number 2 NNSA design lab. This kind of ignition work belongs in an NNSA sponsored University center in an academic environment to begin with since there is so much "research" and "science" needed to better understand the underlying physics preventing ignition. LLE is the ideal candidate. Weapons work is not hindered by having Laser ICF somewhere else in a different lab.
The Russian scientists and academicians in general don't use threats and intimidation to push their scientific views the way LLNL has systematically done over the past two decades.
It would be a whole long thread of names and events to capture these cases of LLNL abuse. We can start one.
Speaking of retaliation, does anyone know of any circumstances where LLNL has tried to go legally after a non-employee outsider (the media, advocacy group, bloggers, contractor whistle-blower etc.) to try to silence them? Would be nice to have a list that includes outsiders if there are any such cases.
Buh-bye, NIF thread! Yay!
Check the top, mr. nifnik manager. Like a bad penny!
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