Fusion Isn't 20 years in the future. It's 60 years in the past and we missed it.
This was one of my favorite moments in ‘Oppenheimer’ In this scene, the physicist Isidor Rabi (portrayed by David Krumholz) tells Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) why he will not be coming to Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project. “When you drop a bomb,” Rabi says, “It falls on the just and the unjust. I […]
The questions around finding viable source of fusion energy on Earth seem complex and technical. Actually, they are simple… and spiritual/metaphysical. It’s really a question about where we are on the arc of human evolution, and whether or not Homo Sapiens can ever get past its incipient ‘ape’ phase. This video ends with a note […]
“This is the good part of my theories. You must continue this work.” –Albert Einstein – despondent after Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to Philo T. Farnsworth in 1948 “I’ve seen all I need to see.” –Philo T. Farnsworth – to his wife after conducting a clandestine, late-night fusor ‘run’ in 1966 “We were close. We […]
Introducing: the Excalibur Fusion Fund Now that we’ve got a tax exempt (501c3) non-profit organization it’s time to expand the scope. As I have written and discussed often, I got sucked into the Farnsworth story almost entirely because of this riddle: How do you bottle a star? Yes, I am endlessly fascinated by the origins […]
Have you seen “Oppenheimer” yet? I saw it last week. There is an erudite discussion of the film here at the Waterstar sister site, Fusor.net, which includes my personal review of the film. Other fusor.net regulars add some interesting insight into the development of nuclear weapons and their aftermath. I also posted some thoughts about what […]
In the ‘aughts – the years after the first first fusor.net forums were formed and I was researching The Boy Who Invented Television – Richard Hull went even deeper into the history of the fusor research and development effort in the 1960s. At the time, Farnsworth was employed as the Vice President for Research at […]
I was asked recently, “how did you get interested in this subject?” This is where the story begins, on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean near Santa Cruz California, on a warm afternoon in the late summer of 1973. I had graduated from a branch of Antioch College near Baltimore, Maryland, in the spring of […]
Cut to the chase: Follow this link to Chapter 20: Tranquility Base at Medium.com * On Tuesday, July 16, 2019, the world will begin commemorating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, that improbable mission that culminated four days later with Neil Armstrong’s historic “giant leap for mankind.” In recent weeks, there have already been recollections […]
Greetings, Fusor Friends: First: a note of sincere Gratitude to Frank Sanns, Richard Hull, Andrew Robinson and others who have borne of the burden of keeping this site running smoothly while I have been largely MIA over the past… well, sigh, it’s been a while now. I will spare you the gory details of my […]
If you happen to turn on a TeeVee today… hell, if you look at a video screen (actually, you’re looking at a video screen NOW) … tip a nod toward Philo T. Farnsworth, who delivered electronic video to the planet 90 years ago today…