Okay, so, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore ‘National Ignition Facility’ will be attempting to create a ‘tiny man-made star’ inside their laboratory. This concerns me on multiple levels. First, that is an awesome name for a place of employment. They have that going for them, at least.
However, take a look at the first picture of the four in that article. Some friends of mine were reminded of the test chamber in Half-Life, and you know how that turns out. I don’t own a shotgun, and I am not looking forward to defending myself from headcrabs with a crowbar. The scientists are ‘impatient’, but I would like to ask them to check their numbers 2 or 3 times, just to be safe.
The result should be an explosion in the 32ft-wide reaction chamber which will produce at least 10 times the amount of energy used to create it.
Jeff Wisoff, a former astronaut who is deputy principal associate director of science at the NIF, said: “Everyone is keen to get started, but we have to get the targeting right, otherwise it won€™t work.”
This kind of quote always scares me…‘at least 10 times’…so, they could get a small flash, a blast that fills the 32 foot room, or we could end up with crater a mile wide. To reference Professor Chromedome, “Bah! Warm fuzzy nice-nice! What good is science if no one gets hurt?”.
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