Tammy Ma’s job involves firing lots of powerful lasers: 192 of them to be exact. She works at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), home to the world’s largest and most energetic laser system. Three football fields could fit inside the building. One of the original goals of the giant facility was to harness fusion energy.
In a fusion experiment, Ma and her team place a capsule of fuel in the middle of a target chamber. All 192 lasers fire onto the capsule, causing intense pressure and a temperature hotter than the center of the sun. Under these conditions, some atoms inside the capsule join together, releasing a burst of fusion energy. To make that energy useful, though, the capsule must release more energy than it takes to fire the lasers. This is called ignition.
BEFORE NIF WAS BUILT, THE TEAM PREDICTED THAT YOU’D REACH IGNITION BY 2012. BUT THAT DATE CAME AND WENT WITHOUT REACHING THE GOAL. DO YOU THINK YOU’LL EVER GET THERE?
I undoubtedly think so! When you take on a huge scientific challenge like this, you do the best you can with the knowledge you have at that point and the technology you have at that time. We made the best projections we could.
RIGHT, NO ONE HAD EVER BUILT A LASER SYSTEM THAT BIG BEFORE, SO IT WAS HARD TO KNOW WHETHER IT WOULD WORK LIKE COMPUTER SIMULATIONS PREDICTED.
Esta historia es de la edición July/August 2018 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
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Esta historia es de la edición July/August 2018 de Muse Science Magazine for Kids.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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Who's Your Cousin?
The great apes are among the most popular animals in most zoos. Their actions, facial expressions, and family life remind us so much of ourselves. Have you ever wondered, though, how we might look to them?
Is it possible to die of boredom?
To figure out if we can die of boredom, we first have to understand what boredom is. For help, we called James Danckert, a psychologist who studies boredom at the University of Waterloo in Canada.
THE PROBLEM WITH PALM OIL
Palm oil is all around you. It’s in sugary snacks like cookies and candy bars. It’s in lipstick and shampoo and pet food.
SERGE WICH
Serge Wich’s favorite days at work are spent out in the forest, studying orangutans in Sumatra and Borneo or chimpanzees in Tanzania.
ELODIE FREYMANN
When you’re feeling sick, it probably doesn’t occur to you to try eating tree bark.
Guardians of the Forest
EARLY, MAKESHIFT WILDLIFE DRONES HELPED TO DETECT AND PROTECT ORANGUTANS.
APE ANTICS
The Whirling World of primate play
Dr. Ape Will See You Now
HUMANS AREN’T THE ONLY PRIMATES THAT USE MEDICATION.
THE LEFT OVERS
A lot has happened for modern humans to get to this point. We lost most of our hair, learned how to make tools, established civilizations, sent a person to the Moon, and invented artificial intelligence. Whew! With all of these changes, our bodies have changed, too. It’s only taken us about six million years.
SO, WHAT IS A PRIMATE?
What do you have in common with the aye-aye, sifaka, siamang, and potto? If you said your collarbone, you re probably a primatologist—a person who studies primates. If you’re not, read on.
