Improbable Matter

My head when someone tells me the AI bubble is bursting. /s

(Image: Microsoft's classifier - which nobody asked for and which automatically tries to caption any image you import into a slide - thinks this plasma physics experiment is "A close-up of a person's head")

2 months ago | [YT] | 37

Improbable Matter

If anyone is interested in an even more technical talk, I was invited by the (peer-reviewed) Astrophysical Journal to give a talk about a paper of mine published last month. You can check it out here:

1 year ago | [YT] | 20

Improbable Matter

I'm due to appear live on WW2TV next week (14:00 UTC 5th July). All I can say is that it will be very interesting and if you enjoy my usual videos, you will enjoy this one. Put it in your diaries!

In particular, I will mention the Red Army offensives at Yelnya, right bank Ukraine, the Battles of Rzhev, Kursk and Berlin, among others. This is through the lens of the memoirs of a Soviet officer.

1 year ago | [YT] | 15

Improbable Matter

People are telling me these guys have backed Helion Energy

2 years ago | [YT] | 69

Improbable Matter

"That fooled them at Lawrence Livermore" (home of NIF)

2 years ago | [YT] | 18

Improbable Matter

I intend to try a live Q&A session next week. If you're interested in seeing it live, what time would you prefer?

2 years ago | [YT] | 25

Improbable Matter

Fusion Breakthrough as we are now 6% of the way to beating goat power!

I am of course referring to my video last year. Those who actually bothered to watch it would have seen that power generation by nuclear fusion requires the energy output from the reaction to be at least 20 times the energy input. the National Ignition Facility has reported releasing about 1.2 times the energy input, so there we go.

In the video, I did not have time to elaborate what I meant by the fact that current inertial fusion efforts would give out about as much energy as a goat on a treadmill (though I go on a deep dive about it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmxZ... ).

In short, the experiments currently do one or two shots per day, but they would need to do between 1 and 10 shots per second - basically the rate of a machine gun. For the record, the energy recently output at the NIF - 2.5MJ - is about the same amount as in a bag of crisps (potato chips if you're in the US). So, if you're outputting a bag of chips per day, you aren't really going to justify a nuclear power plant.

So, we are certainly moving forward, but we won't have a fusion power plant just yet. In the meantime, please enjoy a selection of "breakthrough" headlines from just the last 8 years.

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2 years ago | [YT] | 86

Improbable Matter

As I release a new video which is not about nuclear fusion, I would like to remind any regular viewers:

2 years ago | [YT] | 39

Improbable Matter

By popular demand, I am uploading versions of my educational videos without background music to a separate DailyMotion channel: www.dailymotion.com/ImprobableMatter

3 years ago | [YT] | 10

Improbable Matter

Plasma Physics Conference bans Russians/Belorussians - nice!

3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 31