Interior of the Alcator C-Mod fusion reactor at MIT, which was shut off on September 30th. Image: Bob Mumgaard/Plasma Science and Fusion Center/MIT MIT’s fusion program has fallen on hard times, but that hasn’t stopped it from smashing world records and keeping the dream of limitless, carbon-free energy alive. At an International Atomic Energy Agency summit in Japan this week, researchers involved with MIT’s Alcator C-Mod tokamak reactor announced that their machine had generated the highest plasma pressure ever recorded . Read more…
See the original post:
MIT’s Fusion Reactor Broke a World Record Right Before the Feds Shut It Off
MarkWhittington writes: The EmDrive, the so-called “impossible” space drive that uses no propellant, has roiled the aerospace world for the past several years ever since it was proposed by British aerospace engineer Robert Shawyer. In essence, the claim advanced by Shawyer and others is that if you bounced microwaves in a truncated cone, thrust would be produced out the open end. Most scientists have snorted at the idea, noting correctly that such a thing would violate physical laws. However, organizations as prestigious as NASA have replicated the same results, that prototypes of the EmDrive produces thrust. How does one reconcile the experimental results with the apparent scientific impossibility? MIT Technology Review suggested a reason why. Read more of this story at Slashdot.