NIF may never ignite, DOE admits:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.1076
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.1076
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
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He sound's a lot like Trump commenting on Iraq. Yes, so sad ! And, we should spent another $3 to 4 billion dollars building a KrF laser for direct drive that will also fail to achieve ignition.
Why would you think that direct drive would have any reduced requirements for target and irradiation "smoothness" as compared to indirect drive ?
But NIF trained thousands of people which are the foundation to the next generation of leaders at the labs. In order to judge NIF you have to consider everything about NIF, and all the contributions that come from NIF. History will show that NIF has been a great success when seen from the correct perspective.
The real tragedy here is that Omar Hurricane will not win the Nobel Prize in physics for the high-foot break-even scam.
The real tragedy here is that Omar Hurricane will not win the Nobel Prize in physics for the high-foot break-even scam.
June 19, 2016 at 9:59 AM
Even if NIF did get ignition it would not be something worth a Nobel prize so why even mention it?
F**k that pig. 2nd most hated man in National Lab history.
LLNL
1976-2011
This depends on what one means by "careers". If you mean a high paying secure job than these people did have career and a very nice one at that. Is there some other definition of career that means something?
A wild guess? I seem to recall that many people said NIF was going to fail. You can even read old LANL blog from 2005-2006 and see posts talking about how NIF cannot work and was never really intended to work. It was just suppose to be big, and big things get funded. Boner may well be a jerk and wrong about most things but he did not make a wild guess about NIF.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/climbing-mountain-fusion-ignition-interview-omar-hurricane
I wonder what new fabrications they will give us soon?
June 19, 2016 at 12:44 PM
Read that and weep naysayers, not 300 but 300+, science is being advanced and discoveries are made at a rate that humanity has not seen before and may never witness again, few of us will ever do even one partial advancement of science in our life time let alone 300+ advancements, amazing, the mind boggles and at such a scale of scientific advancements, you may be forgiven if you do not understand the grand scale and meaning of what 300+ target shots a year means, that number alone is just beyond all human comprehension and it is nothing like any of could have ever imaged before. Think about it an individual cannot have 300 children, have 300 college degrees and no certainly no individual can ever achieve 300 breakthroughs, the greatest authors cannot write 300 books, the greatest musical genius cannot compose 300 songs, so the number 300 in terms of grand accomplishments is just beyond what we can ever hope to truly understand but not only does NIF understand this... IT DOES IT!. This is NIF, this IS, this IS what NIF does, this IS what NIF was designed to do, this IS what science looks like, and this IS what science on grandest scale humanity has ever seen looks like. Wow, folks we are in a very special time so embrace and live the moment. 300+,...300+ breakthrough a year! MAGNIFICENT!!! LUX LUX LUX
Rochester Omega likes to brag about the number of shots they do every year. Must be a laser ICF thing.
I support NIF and helped design, build, and activate it, however, I think the author above is chugging far to many Expresso shots on any shot day.
300+ shots a year has a huge human "burn rate" associated with it. I'm glad I retired, so I won't have that expected heart attack and/or stroke before hitting my mid-60's.
Hows does a single shot equal a scientific breakthrough?
It's called narcissistic personality disorder.
300 shots, 300!
King Leonidas: Give them nothing! But take from them everything!
Messenger: This is madness!!
King Leonidas: Madness? THIS IS NIF!!!
300 vs 10000
Forward.
Satire is, by definition, offensive. It is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. It is meant to make us scratch our heads, think, do a double-take, and then think again. Maajid Nawaz
Maybe it's just revenge of reality? C+ students or A+ students, its all just a big scam where scientists make impossible promises to the tax payer in order to rake in the funding for their real goals.
In the private sector, you can make ridiculous promises that don't make scientific sense (e.g. Theranos), but sooner or later, investors and the market will make sure your crash and burn. In the gov't, you can continue that way indefinitely. Naturally, that does attract the C+ students, but its really besides the point.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/06/giant-us-fusion-laser-might-never-achieve-goal-report-concludes
The natural thing is going to be for them to pivot to EOS which doesn't work either, but can be fabricated at some level.
The scientific community needs to put the last nail in this coffin.
Criticism is the last resort of scoundrels.
Maybe late 2020's early 2030's, that seems like a better time frame.
June 21, 2016 at 5:40 PM
So in order to not be a scoundrel, one must accept absolutely anything anyone says or does uncritically? HaHaHaHaHaHa!!!!!
Why the hell would they need physics for NIF?
Published: August 31, 1999
"The director of an installation intended to house the world's most powerful lasers resigned his post on Friday after a flurry of anonymous faxes to officials at his California laboratory and at the Department of Energy in Washington disclosed that he lacked a Ph.D. degree..."
"Mr. Campbell is recognized as one of the world's leading experts in ultra-high-energy lasers."
"Mr. Campbell will be replaced by Dr. George Miller...Livermore's associate Dr. Miller is expected to undertake a far-reaching evaluation of the status of the National Ignition Facility, including rumors of cost overruns..."
"Jeff Richardson, a laboratory spokesman, said yesterday that Mr. Campbell had falsely allowed the laboratory to believe he had a doctorate from Princeton University..."
That is the LANL cowboy culture again.
June 24, 2016 at 12:06 PM
What is? A story about a disgraced LLNL employee? Or are you already drunk at noon on Friday?
In any case, it is done, NIF will never ignite anything. Not least because there isn't enough money to fund enough relevant experiments with relevant diagnostics. But we can anticipate the result after 5 more years of work: "We have not uncovered anything to prove that ignition on the NIF is impossible" And that will even be a true statement.
If LANL was so useful than it should have said something about NIF. No it is all about cowboy culture. I am dropping the mic now!
June 25, 2016 at 10:46 PM
Jas Mercer-Smith, John Pedicini, Gary Wall, Bruce Trent, etc., and many other premier weapon designers at LANL, stated for years that NIF was useless to the weapon program and in general would fail. Unfortunately, Mike Anastasio, the guy with the toupee, Bret Knapp, and now Charlie McMillan have ignored their input for many years. I wonder why? "At Livermore…."
P.S. Don't let the mic fall on your toes!
As in all blog postings by me, I sign my name.
John M. Pedicini
The past is the past, NIF is built and is a fine facility, a truly beautiful battlecruiser, it is the HMS Hood of the NNSA complex. We should not sneer but be proud and let our ship sail into battle with the forces of nature.
If NIF could really do EOS, the Z machine would disappear.
June 26, 2016 at 8:39 PM
It looks like the HMS NIF just ran into natures Bismark.
These were presented to a JASON committee, but later shown to be wrong by LLNL scientists.
As always, I sign my name.
Bruno Rossi
They're our friends and we like them, that's why !!!
You couldn't be more wrong. Suggest you read the comment again.