4 ms·

'Theoretically' is the right word for sure. iirc, the predecessor of the Wendelstein led to the bankruptcy of the engineering firms building the parts, because

'Theoretically' is the right word for sure. iirc, the predecessor of the Wendelstein led to the bankruptcy of the engineering firms building the parts, because tolerances were so tight and they failed multiple times to land within the constraints.

mjfl 3y ago
true. but on the other hand, the 'theoretical' is being turned into practice as evidenced by this 8 minute containment. the best a tokamak can do is half a second.
- krasin 3y ago
  Tokamak record time for plasma confinement is 403 seconds as of April 2023, see https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/mutimedia_news/202304/t20230417_329384.shtml https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/mutimedia_news/202304/t20230... 403s is about 7 minutes, so less than Wendelstein 7-X.
  - posterboy 3y ago
    They could go longer. 7-8 mins is an arbitrary cut off out of fear that something might break (quench), knowing that enough data has been gathered for the time being.
nielsbot 3y ago
W7-X is a new stellarator design. It’s magnet arrangement was optimized using a lot of compute time and is designed to overcome the faults of previous more naive designs.
- nielsbot 3y ago
  *its. ugh.
  - onedognight 3y ago
    his, hers, theirs, its. No apostrophe. It took me 30 years to see this pattern.
    - spartanatreyu 3y ago
      What about heirs, heir's and heirs'? Apostrophes are already tricky for English as a first language, it must be hell for English as a second language speakers.
posterboy 3y ago
The first Alternativlos Podcast of two conducted with the leader of the Wendelstein X project relates how certain magnetic coils were purpose made by a kind of emeritus engineer in Swiss. Which seems corollary to the common wisdom about EMI, it's magic, so the manufacturer must be a wizard. On the other hand it is reminiscent of a Georgian I met who used to be occupied with winding regular tire sized coils by hand, for over land transmission lines. This is chirurgical precision, literally hand-craft. We do a lot of thinking with our hands. It stands to reason, metaphorically speaking, that Wendelstein is an experiment to gain hands on experience. Therein lies the difference to megalomanic projects that exceed initial estimates, eg. BER airport, which are a running gag by now. Insolvency means the investment returned no profits so investors on those projects stopped paying. It likely doesn't mean that the cheques bounced on liabilities. And it obviously doesn't mean that investment in this space had to stop.
- codethief 3y ago
  > It likely doesn't mean that the cheques bounced on liabilities. But that's exactly what it means: https://dejure.org/gesetze/InsO/17.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/InsO/17.html

mjfl 3y ago

true. but on the other hand, the 'theoretical' is being turned into practice as evidenced by this 8 minute containment. the best a tokamak can do is half a second.

krasin 3y ago
Tokamak record time for plasma confinement is 403 seconds as of April 2023, see https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/mutimedia_news/202304/t20230417_329384.shtml https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/mutimedia_news/202304/t20230... 403s is about 7 minutes, so less than Wendelstein 7-X.
- posterboy 3y ago
  They could go longer. 7-8 mins is an arbitrary cut off out of fear that something might break (quench), knowing that enough data has been gathered for the time being.

nielsbot 3y ago

W7-X is a new stellarator design. It’s magnet arrangement was optimized using a lot of compute time and is designed to overcome the faults of previous more naive designs.

nielsbot 3y ago
*its. ugh.
- onedognight 3y ago
  his, hers, theirs, its. No apostrophe. It took me 30 years to see this pattern.
  - spartanatreyu 3y ago
    What about heirs, heir's and heirs'? Apostrophes are already tricky for English as a first language, it must be hell for English as a second language speakers.

posterboy 3y ago

The first Alternativlos Podcast of two conducted with the leader of the Wendelstein X project relates how certain magnetic coils were purpose made by a kind of emeritus engineer in Swiss. Which seems corollary to the common wisdom about EMI, it's magic, so the manufacturer must be a wizard. On the other hand it is reminiscent of a Georgian I met who used to be occupied with winding regular tire sized coils by hand, for over land transmission lines. This is chirurgical precision, literally hand-craft. We do a lot of thinking with our hands. It stands to reason, metaphorically speaking, that Wendelstein is an experiment to gain hands on experience. Therein lies the difference to megalomanic projects that exceed initial estimates, eg. BER airport, which are a running gag by now. Insolvency means the investment returned no profits so investors on those projects stopped paying. It likely doesn't mean that the cheques bounced on liabilities. And it obviously doesn't mean that investment in this space had to stop.

codethief 3y ago
> It likely doesn't mean that the cheques bounced on liabilities. But that's exactly what it means: https://dejure.org/gesetze/InsO/17.html https://dejure.org/gesetze/InsO/17.html