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Old 01-09-2014, 06:07 PM   #1
gvidas
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January 9th, 2014 -- The National Ignition Facility

The Atlantic's usually-awesome In Focus photoblog has a particularly stunning set of photos up today: 25 pics (spanning two decades) showing the construction of a piece of lab equipment to explore nuclear fusion.

The scale of the project is mind-blowing. A spherical chamber, 33 feet in diameter, houses lasers that, in total, can shoot up to a trillion watts at a target that is 2 millimeters in diameter. Doing this creates "[...t]emperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures extreme enough to compress the target to densities up to 100 times the density of lead."

Seriously, just go look at the whole set. The captions are full of mind-blowing details about a project I never really even knew existed.



Inside the 33-foot target chamber.



The 2mm target.



At the end of the pencil-like arm on the right is that 2mm sphere of hydrogen.
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Old 01-09-2014, 08:26 PM   #2
xoxoxoBruce
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Seems like a lot of trouble and expense to destroy a 2mm sphere of hydrogen, couldn't they hide it in an old Marlboro pack and shove down to the bottom of the trash?
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Old 01-10-2014, 05:30 AM   #3
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Great IoTD gvidas!

I interviewed there right out'ta school. Got the whole tour.

Living around there though...sucks. Hot, dusty, -1000 appeal.
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Old 01-10-2014, 08:16 AM   #4
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Question the big pencil

How do they sharpen that pencil in the bottom pic?
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Old 01-10-2014, 09:40 AM   #5
footfootfoot
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce View Post
Seems like a lot of trouble and expense to destroy a 2mm sphere of hydrogen, couldn't they hide it in an old Marlboro pack and shove down to the bottom of the trash?
Ditto:
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Old 01-10-2014, 04:01 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by smillie View Post
How do they sharpen that pencil in the bottom pic?
frickin' lasers!!!!
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Old 01-11-2014, 05:46 AM   #7
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What's really nutz is trying to find out what's happening there NOW. Seems the place went black.
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