Pure fusion weapons, fallout, and what physics does/doesn’t allow

33:27research. >> Right. >> Right. >> Right. Because because while we have figured out with nuclear weapons how to create fision bombs, >> which I was just listening to something the other day, so correct me if I'm wrong. With a fision bomb, it's like you actually have the fision process is actually an like the ignition to then create a fusion reaction after the fact. >> Yeah. Uh and but because of that two-step fision fusion combination, that's where you get uh radioactive uh like the radio fallout as a result of that. >> Yeah. Because you need a fusion bomb in order to spark the I mean, sorry, you need a fision bomb in order to spark the fusion bomb. But if you were able to

34:08master fusion and have a pure fusion nuclear weapon, >> there would be no fallout. Yeah, there would be no fallout, >> which would allow you militarily the strategery would be now you can drop a nuke somewhere and have troops right nearby. >> Yeah. >> To be able to then go in post the fusion explosion because there would be no >> Yeah. They'd have to wear sunscreen because like you don't want like the Yeah, the photons are are the main, you know, but at least you don't have to worry about like ionizing radiation. But like Yeah. The the other main thing is like with with fusion, right? Fusion nuclear reactors, for example, those are like relatively easy to control. Okay. Okay. Because you've got these rods of

34:48uranium. Yes. That are spitting out neutrons. Yes. And then in between you can have rods of graphite that slow down the neutrons. Yes. Right. And so you can have this sort of static nuclear reactor that is creating heat, creating energy that causes uh steam from water and then that steam turns a turbine. Right. The heat creates motion which turns a turbine. Yes. >> With fusion, >> isolating fusion, right? Fusion is happening in plasma. It's not happening in solid materials. >> With fision, you you have a rod of uranium. That thing is fisioning and it's creating energy. In order to create

35:29energy from fusion, you need this plasma which is super hard to control. It's super hard to contain. And then and then once we have that, we need we need to have it self- sustaining and then create a heat source that then powers the turbine. It's it's a whole thing, right? And if we don't understand the mathematics fundamentally, then there's no hope. I will just note we we've talked about this off camera uh previously, but if you work in a classified program in plasma research and you've maybe figured out how to better control plasma for other use cases, declassify part of it so we can use it for fusion reactors.

36:09>> Yeah, that'd be great. >> Please and thank you. >> That'd be great. [laughter] >> But so so that was his 2007 paper. Makes sense. Very big deal. Huge deal. >> Okay. He won a bunch of awards for it. Welld deserved. >> Yes. >> Um >> can't win a Nobel. >> Yeah. Um Yeah. Not anymore. >> Which is really crazy. Anyway. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um he he probably would have on the been on the short list because um in it in the future of his life. So that was at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. He was kind of a posttock. Then he became a professor at MIT became full professor and in 2004 he was the director of the plasma science and fusion center at MIT. And that MIT PSFC >> Yes.

36:49>> spun out and created Commonwealth Fusion Systems which is designing something called spark. It is a small fusion reactor. I mean this it looks kind of big mate compared to [laughter] >> like compared to fusion reactors that is small. Okay. That's that that is that is quite small. The goal is to be the first device to achieve a Q factor greater than one. A Q factor is basically net energy gain, right? >> Which is how much energy you put in, how much do you get out, the ratio of that. If you have greater than one, then whatever is that greater than one, >> you can use to power a turbine which creates electricity.