Fusion Breaks the Trend of Nuclear Fusion

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Fusion doesn't work on a chain reaction. There's no chain reaction, zero. So this means it cannot physically exponentiate away on you because it works. By the way, we know this already. It's why stars and suns are so stable. Because they are regulated through their own temperature and their heating. The same thing in fusion. But then that amazing stuff is going to enable more amazing stuff and more, unfortunately, or depending how you see on it, more powerful weapons. Does it terrify you? Just again, to step back at the philosophical, the humans have been able to use physics and engineering to create such powerful weapons. I mean, we should be...

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