"Investment" in national laboratories

[Dot Com]

[MENTION=22889]Matthew[/MENTION]- not all of our tax $$$ is being given away as corporate welfare to *cough* "financial" industry-types Some is being invested in science

Zapped! | StarDate Online

Arcs of electricity crawl over the Z Machine at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque like an energetic spiderweb. Astronomers and physicists from McDonald Observatory and Sandia are using the machine, which was designed to study nuclear weapons, to simulate the atmospheres of white dwarf stars. The machine collects electricity from a standard power grid, compresses it, then stores it. It discharges that power in a burst that lasts less than 100 billionths of a second. The discharge zaps gases like those found in white dwarfs, briefly reproducing conditions on the surfaces of these hot, "dead" stars. [Sandia National Laboratories]

The "Z Machine" at Sandia (click on the yellow bar for full screen):

 

[longknife]

How many billions have been wasted by government contracts for useless research?

And, at the same time, how many modern advances have come from government-funded research?

It's not an easy question to answer.

And how many great individual inventions have hit the trash pile for a variety of reasons?

 

[ScienceRocks]

The internet you're typing over fool was invented by government research. Your wars are the waste idiot.

Amazing advancement in meteorology and space science has been funded by the government. Wasted? I'd say your wars is a waste and science is the creation of a stronger nation.

 

[Dot Com]

The internet you're typing over fool was invented by government research. Your wars are the waste idiot.

Amazing advancement in meteorology and space science has been funded by the government. Wasted? I'd say your wars is a waste and science is the creation of a stronger nation.

good points.

Stardate from the McDonald Observatory in Texas has podcasts on I Tunes which i d/l as well. They have 4 short segments on the Z Machine.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Weird how these people will invest hundreds of trillions in the middle east but be damned to do the same for our own nation.

These people are sick in the head.

 

[longknife]

I just wonder how many useful inventions are either not completed or are held up by government regulators.

 

[Dot Com]

I just wonder how many useful inventions are either not completed or are held up by government regulators.

ummm..... thanks for sharing

 

[ScienceRocks]

I just wonder how many useful inventions are either not completed or are held up by government regulators.

ummm..... thanks for sharing

We do need common sense regulations. Need to think about exactly why the government sector/public sector did so well in the 50's, 60's into the 70's. This is what we need.

 

[longknife]

I wonder how Edison, the Wright brothers, and Michaelangelo would do in today's climate.

 

[Dot Com]

I wonder how Edison, the Wright brothers, and Michaelangelo would do in today's climate.

yeah, this era where monopolies (Big Biz) buy out the rights to fledgling new inventions then deep six them so as to eliminate any competition to their paradigm

 

[whitehall]

The best job in the world is a guaranteed salary with government benefits working in a lab that produces nothing but incomprehensible data designed to get more funding.

 

[rdean]

How many billions have been wasted by government contracts for useless research?

And, at the same time, how many modern advances have come from government-funded research?

It's not an easy question to answer.

And how many great individual inventions have hit the trash pile for a variety of reasons?

Learning and understanding are never "wasted efforts".

 

[rdean]

The best job in the world is a guaranteed salary with government benefits working in a lab that produces nothing but incomprehensible data designed to get more funding.

This is why right wingers can't be educated for skilled jobs. They spew this nonsense proving to the world they will never be good for anything more than mucking out shit from stables. And even for that, most are simply too lazy.

 

[Dot Com]

The best job in the world is a guaranteed salary with government benefits working in a lab that produces nothing but incomprehensible data designed to get more funding.

This is why right wingers can't be educated for skilled jobs. They spew this nonsense proving to the world they will never be good for anything more than mucking out shit from stables. And even for that, most are simply too lazy.

yep, intellectually lazy. Its their old, failed, way or the highway.

 

[Dot Com]

Nuclear fusion breakthrough promises unlimited energy

 

[ScienceRocks]

Nuclear fusion breakthrough promises unlimited energy

These are the kinds of innovation only a government could do Maybe way later on when we're setting up the fusion reactors we could allow the private sector to do the construction cheaper.

Cheaper isn't the way to innovation.

 

[Dot Com]

they have a magnetic field around the high energy generator but they have a lot more work to do to achieve the desired results. From the OP:

The machine collects electricity from a standard power grid, compresses it, then stores it. It discharges that power in a burst that lasts less than 100 billionths of a second. The discharge zaps gases like those found in white dwarfs, briefly reproducing conditions on the surfaces of these hot, "dead" stars.