Detail The National Ignition Facility: On target, finally   Oleh:  The Economist Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine Dalam koleksi: The Economist (http://search.proquest.com/) vol. 391 no. 8633 (May 2009), page 77. Topik: National Ignition Facility (NIF); Nuclear Weapons; Bombs Ketersediaan Perpustakaan Pusat (Semanggi) Nomor Panggil: EE29.55 Non-tandon: 1 (dapat dipinjam: 0) Tandon: tidak ada     Lihat Detail Induk Isi artikel WHAT do you get when you focus 192 lasers onto a pellet the size of a match head and press the “fire” button? The answer, hope physicists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Livermore, California, is: the most powerful machine on the planet. The NIF, which is scheduled to go into operation on May 29th, is designed to create conditions like those found in stars—and also in the explosions of hydrogen bombs. To do that requires, for the brief instants when it is operating at full tilt (a total of three thousandths of a second a year), that it has a power of 500 trillion watts, about 3,000 times the average electricity consumption of the whole of planet Earth. The pellets at which this energy is directed are made of frozen hydrogen. The aim is to make those pellets undergo nuclear fusion—the process that causes stars to shine and hydrogen bombs to explode. Although the justification for building the NIF has changed over the years (originally there was talk of it being a prototype for fusion-based power stations), it is the resemblance to bombs which has saved the project from the budgetary chop. For the NIF provides America with a way to carry out nuclear-weapons tests without actually testing any weapons. Opini Anda Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini! Kembali

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