On Thursday, May 26th, the Institute of Physics (IOP) released a campaign on Twitter to break down the stereotype of what a physicist looks like.
The objective of the movement is to help the non-scientific community to better understand that there is no mainstream physicist, and that there is a wide range of jobs a physicist can do, from finance (econophysics) to healthcare (medical physics).
Present nuclear power plants make use of robust plant simulators capable of simulating the plant operation. In addition, these plant simulators are able to model possible accidents that could occur in a real situation. In this way operators can be instructed and acquire all the skills that they are going to need in the development of their job. Of course we are talking about “fission” nuclear power plants.
But what about “fusion” nuclear power plants?
Last Friday, 20 May 2016, was a historic day at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). It was a day that the $94-million upgrade to National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX-U), which took almost four years to build, was officially launched by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Ernest Moniz.
Funded by the DOE Office of Science, NSTX-U addresses how to create fusion, the process that powers the Sun, on Earth, in a device based on the spherical tokamak concept.
Ten things you may not know about the plasma:
At the JET reactor at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, the film maker Tom Scott talks to the engineers about fusion power, being the hottest place in the solar system, deliberate disruptions, and about the surround-sound speakers that give a diagnostic test you might not expect.
Harnessing the energy produced in nuclear fusion reactions is an ongoing grand challenge. Recent Nature Physics Insight focuses on the achievements made so far and the trials ahead, highlighting that at the core of nuclear fusion lies some fascinating physics.