The Tiny Star Explosions Powering Moore's Law (opens in new tab)

(spectrum.ieee.org)

131 pointsmcharawi1y ago13 comments

13 comments

IEEE is so cool. They could have went the stuffy way of most organizations like that, but they really try and succeed to make interesting articles. They stayed hip.

chasil1y ago

Recent Japanese research has focused on reducing the number of mirrors by reshaping them, improving efficiency.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41336690

00N81y ago

Nice article, although I think this must be a typo: "Despite the fact that a supernova has 1045 times as much energy as our tin blasts, the same math describes the evolution of both types of explosions."

Maybe they meant 10^45 times as much energy?

hnuser1234561y ago

Was probably written in one system, formatted with the 45 as superscript, then copied into a CMS that converted the superscript back to regular script. Lots of popsci type publications end up having this happen.

skmoore1y ago

Yeah. It's fixed now.

1 more reply

saulpw1y ago

This is yet another reason I'm promoting the ^45 "magnitude notation"[0].

https://saul.pw/mag

hinkley1y ago

1045 is a pretty weird multiple. And probably moves us up quite a ways on the Kardashev Scale.

trhway1y ago

Can we repurpose the ASML machine as fusion drive? Asking for a friend.

Especially when lithography in near future will move from EUV to X-ray, the difference between NIF and ASML would become even smaller (or may be ASML would even use Sandia Z alike).

leptoniscool1y ago

you may be thinking of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Inertial_Fusion_Energy

Here the machine is using tin, which isn't suitable for fusion (no energy is released beyond iron).

trhway1y ago

replace tin droplets with DT pellets :)

rini171y ago

Not really, the temperature used for EUV or X-ray generation is still several magnitudes away from fusion.

pfdietz1y ago

Also, the whole point of EUV/XUV sources is to rapidly and efficiently convert the plasma energy into photon radiation, which is just the opposite of what you want in a fusion plasma.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

13 comments

Mistletoe1y ago

IEEE is so cool. They could have went the stuffy way of most organizations like that, but they really try and succeed to make interesting articles. They stayed hip.

chasil1y ago

Recent Japanese research has focused on reducing the number of mirrors by reshaping them, improving efficiency.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41336690

00N81y ago

Maybe they meant 10^45 times as much energy?

hnuser1234561y ago

skmoore1y ago

Yeah. It's fixed now.

1 more reply

saulpw1y ago

This is yet another reason I'm promoting the ^45 "magnitude notation"[0].

https://saul.pw/mag

hinkley1y ago

1045 is a pretty weird multiple. And probably moves us up quite a ways on the Kardashev Scale.

trhway1y ago

Can we repurpose the ASML machine as fusion drive? Asking for a friend.

Especially when lithography in near future will move from EUV to X-ray, the difference between NIF and ASML would become even smaller (or may be ASML would even use Sandia Z alike).

leptoniscool1y ago

you may be thinking of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Inertial_Fusion_Energy

Here the machine is using tin, which isn't suitable for fusion (no energy is released beyond iron).

trhway1y ago

replace tin droplets with DT pellets :)

rini171y ago

Not really, the temperature used for EUV or X-ray generation is still several magnitudes away from fusion.

pfdietz1y ago

Also, the whole point of EUV/XUV sources is to rapidly and efficiently convert the plasma energy into photon radiation, which is just the opposite of what you want in a fusion plasma.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse