PHYSICS: Will NIF Live Up to Its Name?
The National Ignition Facility (NIF)--if it works as advertised, which is by no means certain given all of NIF's problems (see main text)--will pump almost 2 million joules of laser energy into a BB-sized pellet of hydrogen. But the bigger question is whether the pellet will actually achieve ignition--that is, undergo a sustained nuclear reaction that gives off as much energy as was put in? Most scientists on the project are cautiously optimistic, but others have grave doubts.
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