When Peer Review Fails NIF Debacle

[JeffKoch]

Update: NIF dedication ceremonies were this weekend, it was quite the party with a wide array of government dignitaries in attendance. It's huge, it's real, and it works.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1697260/super_laser_as_hot_as_a_star_unveiled/index.html?source=r_technology

 

[mheslep]

Update: NIF dedication ceremonies were this weekend, it was quite the party with a wide array of government dignitaries in attendance. It's huge, it's real, and it works.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1697260/super_laser_as_hot_as_a_star_unveiled/index.html?source=r_technology

Well congratulations to all concerned on some substantial optical engineering. But 'it works'? The National Ignition Facility, works?

...NIF director Edward Moses said that a fusion reactions triggered by the super laser hitting hydrogen atoms will produce more energy than was required to prompt "ignition."

Not he hopes it will, or it might, it simply 'will'? What's published on this? I thought the Centurion Halite experiments indicated 20MJ were needed for ignition? Here we have something https://newsline.llnl.gov/_rev02/articles/2009/mar/03.13.09-nif.php" delivered to the target (still amazing), but is it known that this is enough for ignition?

 

[JeffKoch]

I thought the Centurion Halite experiments indicated 20MJ were needed for ignition? Here we have something https://newsline.llnl.gov/_rev02/articles/2009/mar/03.13.09-nif.php" delivered to the target (still amazing), but is it known that this is enough for ignition?

We don't know. This is cutting-edge physics research, we try to extrapolate from what we think we know based on past experiments (Nova, Omega, Centurion/Halite (all results are classified so take open literature commentary with many grains of salt)), but there's a non-zero chance that we've made a mistake. If we find that we've made a mistake, we'll work out how to fix it. Nothing is certain in this business, the same is true in any large experimental facility - we build bigger facilities in order to learn more, and that learning curve isn't always predictable in advance.