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"Mark Herrmann, Livermore’s deputy director for fundamental weapons physics, says the lab got a lot of feedback from the more than 100 scientists involved in the programme. But he emphasizes that the long-term goal is to achieve yields that are two orders of magnitude higher than those managed even last August. “As long as we’re doing good, careful, systematic scientific study, that’s what’s most important from my perspective,” he adds."
I guess that the Livermore definition of "good, careful, systematic scientific study" includes premature announcements by pseudo-scientist politicians of anomalous results that cannot be reproduced. Gotta hand it to this bunch of charlatans, they've milked the taxpayers for decades with no accountability in sight.
I wouldn’t call them charlatans. I don’t think they oversold the “anomalous result” like Moses would have. It’s true they were predicting even much higher yields than the 1 MJ. I remember seeing Lindl’s presentations which had the y-aes in divisions of 10 MJ. I think the question is should they continue given the budget constraints on the NNSA.
If ignition is the goal, clearly NIF doesn't have the energy or the efficiency to deliver it reliably in any reasonable amount of time. It's not like science is uncertain whether X-ray driven fusion is possible or not, but trying to do it with NIF's output is like trying to demolish a building with the perfectly designed fire cracker. Good luck.
"The August 8th shot was a remarkable achievement. I had always thought that the radiation field in the hohlraum would be too complex to ever achieve the necessary implosion symmetry at the convergence ratios required to reach ignition. Clearly I was wrong. Omar and his team deserve all of the accolades that I expect them to receive. "We know the lion by his paw." -- Jas. Mercer-Smith"
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Well that sure as hell did not age well.
The very next post is.
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Actually it sounds better to say
"We know the lion by his claw"
"Unlike Newton NIF did not exactly solve the problem in 12 hours, nor is it obvious they can reproduce this since it is a single shot.
But who knows where this could lead, I am cautiously optimistic but if one looks at the history of science there are all sorts of one anomaly events in big experiments. Repeat the shot and I will be more optimistic.
8/19/2021 10:26 AM"
Jas should have just stuck with his initial feelings on this.
Meanwhile NIF will advance science with 300+ diagnosed target shots this year,... again.
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
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…."
NIF was never about fusion energy production and was never about weapons research. It was about NIF. High-energy plasma research with no practical goal. Not saying that's bad, but it was sold dishonestly and wasted many $millions through dishonesty.
1:00 for the win. It wasn’t just supposedly “premier” weapons designers, but people with actual facility and engineering experience who called NIF out for what it has always been - a $10Billion dollar gee-wiz playground for 2nd rate physicists.
People are being a little too harsh here on the NIF. Yes, it was oversold by some unscrupulous characters, but it has been successfully brought up as a major facility. Also, the people managing NIF now are not prone to exaggeration or the oversell.
“Also, the people managing NIF now are not prone to exaggeration or the oversell.”
Selling the value of a racehorse on paper, is not the same as selling the value of a racehorse after repeated failures to win a race.
Unlike the pre-2012 NIF promoters, the post-2012 promoters don’t have the luxury of embellishing the probability of ignition or ignition repeatability. So, from your statement alone, I do not see how this translates to higher scientific honesty or integrity among NIF managers “now”.
From an idea, an unclear concept 15 years ago to a 100-square acre, flawlessly operating instrument assimilating amazing new disruptive technologies from material, to modelling to controls, to a burning fusion plasma.
1.8MJ of intense blue light.. 500TW every 4 hours on a 3 mm target... Wow...WOW!
Brilliant.
24 beamlines 192 beams, adaptive optics, 5 MJ of capacitors, amazing 9000 pcs of 40cm x40cm Nd glass, meter-long 9000 flashlamps, literally millions of optics... Cleanest large surfaces ever produced, 1000s of times better than in wafer production.
A crisp reliable 4K target system in a shielded 10m diameter vacuum perfect sphere. DT targets regularly meeting extremely exacting standards. Calibrated diagnostics systems to determine performance to finest touch. Models to support interpretation that as elegant as they are resilient.
All to the highest seismic standards ever imagned, every system with a safety note, checked, rechecked and checked yet again. AND THE THING WORKS!
Truly a magnificent lifetime achievement. Something Haussman dreamed of when he hired Emmett. What Paisner, Simmons, Hurley and Frietag strove for in setting high scientific and engineering standards. What Trenholme's team predicted, what Ed wanted and what Ed got. The dream fulfilled, the promise kept, the deal sealed, the product moved, the goods delivered, the costumers happy, and wanting more...much more. Let us give them what they want and what they need.
Over 3000 labbies contributed years of their lives and many, many late nights. Humanity smiles, the Gods rejoice, this is on par with Pyramids of Cydonia
Remarkable. Unprecedented. The damn thing works...it regularly meets its design specs and beyond. This on top of the hundreds of scientific discoveries made on materials, plasma, dynamics, optics, lasers that will serve the DOE complex for decades on end. Thousands of trained experts to insure the stockpile. Oh did I mention THE DAMN THING WORKS
In addition the NIFfers have lost credibility by playing the energy bait and weapon’s switch too many times. Face it. It’s got no value to either endeavor even remotely commensurate with the extraordinary cost.
This is optimism at its best, since the DOE/NNSA could determine given budgets, competing priorities, and bridge technology acceptably safe new fission plant alternatives, that NIF is well over due to be redlined out of the budget, or significantly less funded going forward. Yes the world doesn’t revolve around NIF. A shocker to some.
"If John Fettuccine and DJ Jazzy Mercer Smith are against NIF"
Just out of curiosity why? Perhaps you have a good reason and these people have been wrong about all sorts of stuff in the past or they do not know what they are talking about?
As for Peddenci am not sure he was ever against NIF in general just against some of the claims being made. Mercer-Smith had doubts that NIF could get to ignition and looks like he could still be correct but again I am not aware of him ever saying we should not have made NIF.
Any time you have a big project you are going to have some doubters. Just look at the LHC.
22 comments:
"Mark Herrmann, Livermore’s deputy director for fundamental weapons physics, says the lab got a lot of feedback from the more than 100 scientists involved in the programme. But he emphasizes that the long-term goal is to achieve yields that are two orders of magnitude higher than those managed even last August. “As long as we’re doing good, careful, systematic scientific study, that’s what’s most important from my perspective,” he adds."
I guess that the Livermore definition of "good, careful, systematic scientific study" includes premature announcements by pseudo-scientist politicians of anomalous results that cannot be reproduced. Gotta hand it to this bunch of charlatans, they've milked the taxpayers for decades with no accountability in sight.
“As long as we’re doing good, careful, systematic scientific study, that’s what’s most important from my perspective”
I believe that translates to "Keep the money rolling in" in manager speak.
"the lab got a lot of feedback from the more than 100 scientists involved in the programme"
How many other scientists outside of the "100 scientists" figure mentioned, were rooted out of the program along the way for singing out of tune?
I wouldn’t call them charlatans. I don’t think they oversold the “anomalous result” like Moses would have. It’s true they were predicting even much higher yields than the 1 MJ. I remember seeing Lindl’s presentations which had the y-aes in divisions of 10 MJ. I think the question is should they continue given the budget constraints on the NNSA.
If ignition is the goal, clearly NIF doesn't have the energy or the efficiency to deliver it reliably in any reasonable amount of time. It's not like science is uncertain whether X-ray driven fusion is possible or not, but trying to do it with NIF's output is like trying to demolish a building with the perfectly designed fire cracker. Good luck.
"The August 8th shot was a remarkable achievement. I had always thought that the radiation field in the hohlraum would be too complex to ever achieve the necessary implosion symmetry at the convergence ratios required to reach ignition. Clearly I was wrong. Omar and his team deserve all of the accolades that I expect them to receive. "We know the lion by his paw."
-- Jas. Mercer-Smith"
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Well that sure as hell did not age well.
The very next post is.
8/18/2021 7:57 PM
Actually it sounds better to say
"We know the lion by his claw"
"Unlike Newton NIF did not exactly solve the problem in 12 hours, nor is it obvious they can reproduce this since it is a single shot.
But who knows where this could lead, I am cautiously optimistic but if one looks at the history of science there are all sorts of one anomaly events in big experiments. Repeat the shot and I will be more optimistic.
8/19/2021 10:26 AM"
Jas should have just stuck with his initial feelings on this.
Meanwhile NIF will advance science with 300+ diagnosed target shots this year,... again.
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
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!
NIF was never about fusion energy production and was never about weapons research. It was about NIF. High-energy plasma research with no practical goal. Not saying that's bad, but it was sold dishonestly and wasted many $millions through dishonesty.
1:00 for the win. It wasn’t just supposedly “premier” weapons designers, but people with actual facility and engineering experience who called NIF out for what it has always been - a $10Billion dollar gee-wiz playground for 2nd rate physicists.
People are being a little too harsh here on the NIF. Yes, it was oversold by some unscrupulous characters, but it has been successfully brought up as a major facility. Also, the people managing NIF now are not prone to exaggeration or the oversell.
“Also, the people managing NIF now are not prone to exaggeration or the oversell.”
Selling the value of a racehorse on paper, is not the same as selling the value of a racehorse after repeated failures to win a race.
Unlike the pre-2012 NIF promoters, the post-2012 promoters don’t have the luxury of embellishing the probability of ignition or ignition repeatability. So, from your statement alone, I do not see how this translates to higher scientific honesty or integrity among NIF managers “now”.
NIF!!!!!!!!!!!!
From an idea, an unclear concept 15 years ago to a 100-square acre, flawlessly operating instrument assimilating amazing new disruptive technologies from material, to modelling to controls, to a burning fusion plasma.
1.8MJ of intense blue light.. 500TW every 4 hours on a 3 mm target... Wow...WOW!
Brilliant.
24 beamlines 192 beams, adaptive optics, 5 MJ of capacitors, amazing 9000 pcs of 40cm x40cm Nd glass, meter-long 9000 flashlamps, literally millions of optics... Cleanest large surfaces ever produced, 1000s of times better than in wafer production.
A crisp reliable 4K target system in a shielded 10m diameter vacuum perfect sphere. DT targets regularly meeting extremely exacting standards. Calibrated diagnostics systems to determine performance to finest touch. Models to support interpretation that as elegant as they are resilient.
All to the highest seismic standards ever imagned, every system with a safety note, checked, rechecked and checked yet again. AND THE THING WORKS!
Truly a magnificent lifetime achievement. Something Haussman dreamed of when he hired Emmett. What Paisner, Simmons, Hurley and Frietag strove for in setting high scientific and engineering standards. What Trenholme's team predicted, what Ed wanted and what Ed got. The dream fulfilled, the promise kept, the deal sealed, the product moved, the goods delivered, the costumers happy, and wanting more...much more. Let us give them what they want and what they need.
Over 3000 labbies contributed years of their lives and many, many late nights. Humanity smiles, the Gods rejoice, this is on par with Pyramids of Cydonia
Remarkable. Unprecedented. The damn thing works...it regularly meets its design specs and beyond. This on top of the hundreds of scientific discoveries made on materials, plasma, dynamics, optics, lasers that will serve the DOE complex for
decades on end. Thousands of trained experts to insure the stockpile. Oh did I mention THE DAMN THING WORKS
Thanks for the confirmation Al.
"FIAT LUX" is fulfilled.
Let us ignite the future!!!!!
In addition the NIFfers have lost credibility by playing the energy bait and weapon’s switch too many times. Face it. It’s got no value to either endeavor even remotely commensurate with the extraordinary cost.
But, NIF has served its purpose -- it has kept Livermore afloat.
7/26/2022 3:21 PM
All those wonderful numbers are suspect since you used the term "square acres," which is meaningless.
All those wonderful numbers are suspect since you used the term "square acres," which is meaningless.
7/27/2022 5:46 PM
Good catch but "on par with Pyramids of Cydonia" is also kinda meaningless once you realize Cydonia is on Mars. But other than that it is all correct.
There is no recession.
If John Fettuccine and DJ Jazzy Mercer Smith are against NIF, I’m for all for it.
“back to the drawing board” (?)
This is optimism at its best, since the DOE/NNSA could determine given budgets, competing priorities, and bridge technology acceptably safe new fission plant alternatives, that NIF is well over due to be redlined out of the budget, or significantly less funded going forward. Yes the world doesn’t revolve around NIF. A shocker to some.
"If John Fettuccine and DJ Jazzy Mercer Smith are against NIF"
Just out of curiosity why? Perhaps you have a good reason and these people have been wrong about all sorts of stuff in the past or they do not know what they are talking about?
As for Peddenci am not sure he was ever against NIF in general just against some of the claims being made. Mercer-Smith had doubts that NIF could get to ignition and looks like he could still be correct but again I am not aware of him ever saying we should not have made NIF.
Any time you have a big project you are going to have some doubters. Just look at the LHC.
Any time you have a big project you are going to have some doubters. Just look at the LHC.
7/31/2022 12:01 AM
perhaps better to look at the SSC as an example of failed "big-science" projects "managed" by the US DOE. Oh yeah, and NIF.
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