Rezwan wrote: This NYT article on the National Ignition Facility is from May 2009. Do we have any more recent information?
What a dramatic machine.
In theory, the facility’s 192 lasers — made of nearly 60 miles of mirrors and fiber optics, crystals and light amplifiers — will fire as one to pulverize a fleck of hydrogen fuel smaller than a match head. Compressed and heated to temperatures hotter than those of the core of a star, the hydrogen atoms will fuse into helium, releasing bursts of thermonuclear energy.
And great visuals!
And then a new matchhead is positioned within micrometers of the correct spot, and repeat. Uh-huh. The whole project is whacked.
