Horizon nuclear fusion episode Tonight 20.00

[trdsf]

AI is showing progress though. It is also economic since computational tech is expanding without added investment. What you have with fusion is a 700 year project and with AI a 70 year project. In that there is a big a difference.

AI isn't really showing all that much progress. Systems appear "smarter", but that's only because of faster machines and better algorithms -- the cleverness is still at the keyboard, not in the silicon. The Turing test isn't even really a meaningful test of AI any more -- natural language processing is advanced enough to make a serious run at passing the test, but it's not by any definition intelligent.

I'm not sure I agree that fusion is a 700 year project anyway. If you'd say a 100 year project, I might agree. And I'm becoming convinced (albeit with an open mind on the matter) that genuinely intelligent machines are not possible with current technology, or anything in the near future.

[mistermack]

It's very frustrating that fusion is so hard to do.

I was quite stunned by the facts that they trotted out, about the temperatures that they are able to achieve in a plasma. I'm not going to look it up, but it was much much hotter than the centre of the sun.

What they can't do, is replicate the pressures inside the Sun. Even for a micro-second. And that's why they need such high temperatures. Fusion needs temperature and pressure to overcome the repulsion of particles. In the Sun, you've got both in abundance. Here on Earth, they can outdo the Sun for temperature, but can't get anywhere near it's pressures.

Except by setting off a nuclear fission bomb. In an H bomb, the pressures and temperatures are provided by setting off an A bomb as a detonator, and that fuses the hydrogen of the H bomb. But you can't do that on a small scale. And anyway, fission is dirty and expensive to clean up, so it wouldn't be much of an improvement on the current fission reactors.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

They need to employ lots of cheap, east-european labour to sort of squeeze it, so it can't get out.

[mistermack]

They need to employ lots of cheap, east-european labour to sort of squeeze it, so it can't get out.

If they could do that, they'd be worth giving a work permit.

I did know a Ukranian girl called Rita, and she could certainly squeeze.