Nuclear Fusion - The Most Amazing Magical Idea

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Dennis White: Nuclear fusion is one of the most amazing magical ideas in all of human endeavor, which is nuclear fusion. One of my lifelong goals is like to make it, it's like, it's not magic. And this means we're using it everywhere, right? Yeah. Well, thank you for everything you do. Thank you for talking to me. This is a fascinating and amazing conversation. I hope to see you next time.

Dennis Whyte is a nuclear scientist at MIT and the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(05:54) – Nuclear fusion
(23:53) – e=mc^2
(38:20) – Fission vs fusion
(43:32) – Nuclear weapons
(47:19) – Plasma
(54:29) – Nuclear fusion reactor
(1:09:50) – 2022 nuclear fusion breakthrough explained
(1:30:27) – Magnetic confinement
(1:49:36) – ITER
(1:54:23) – SPARC
(2:08:23) – Future of fusion power
(2:16:55) – Engineering challenges
(2:35:36) – Nuclear disasters
(2:40:21) – Cold fusion
(2:54:36) – Kardashev scale
(3:04:00) – Advice for young people