Inertially Confined Fusion and The Nuclear Weapons Program
The very hot and dense conditions encountered during an Inertial Confinement Fusion experiment are similar to those created in a thermonuclear weapon, and have applications to the nuclear weapons program. ICF experiments might be used, for example, to help determine how warhead performance will degrade as it ages, or as part of a program of designing new weapons. Retaining knowledge and corporate expertise in the nuclear weapons program is another motivation for pursuing ICF. Funding for the NIF in the United States is sourced from the 'Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship' program, and the goals of the program are oriented accordingly. It has been argued that some aspects of ICF research may violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In the long term, despite the formidable technical hurdles, ICF research might potentially lead to the creation of a "pure fusion weapon".
Read more about this topic: Inertial Confinement Fusion
Famous quotes containing the words confined, fusion, nuclear, weapons and/or program:
“Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“The sadistic person is as dependent on the submissive person as the latter is on the former; neither can live without the other. The difference is only that the sadistic person commands, exploits, hurts, humiliates, and that the masochistic person is commanded, exploited, hurt, humiliated. This is a considerable difference in a realistic sense; in a deeper emotional sense, the difference is not so great as that which they both have in common: fusion without integrity.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams—Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“The almost unexplored Everglades lay close by and with a half- hour’s start a man who knew the country was safe from pursuit. As one man cheerfully confided ..., ‘A boat don’t leave no trail, stranger.’”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)