<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Responsive to the issue of public funding of science (and
advanced technology):</p>
<p>We all know I'm a bit of a Luddite by most measures. By
coincidence I was listening (with one ear) to Bill Nye (da Science
Guy) give his popular hip-hip-hooray for the latest DOE
announcement as I read your post here. He nailed *ME* with the
perfect alternative descriptor to NIMBY (not in my back yard) with
BANANA (build absolutely nothing anywhere anything).</p>
<p>I believe it is inevitable that under our current self-conception
(all humanity,not just US or the Western Nations) it is virtually
impossible to imagine us doing anything but driving technology
forward (roughly) as fast as possible, as if to outrun the
consequences of our previous actions (and out-compete our
competitors with similar levels of capability). Singularity much?
Evolutionary Biology coined the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis">Red
Queen Hypothesis</a> to describe the latter but I think of it
more as (also) a corollary to the prisoner's *dilemma*. <br>
</p>
<p>This <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://medium.com/thinking-is-hard/a-prisoners-dilemma-cheat-sheet-4d85fe289d87#:~:text=When%20you're%20playing%20against,also%20defending%20against%20Always%20Defectors.">Medium
article</a> is a nice pop-sci summary of Prisoner's Dilemma
strategies, covering *especially* multiplayer games which I think
our various tech/arms races are implicitly. The conclusion of the
article, author Benson makes the astute obvservation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><i><span style="color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size: 20px;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.06px; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;">The most interesting thing is that
cooperation<span> </span></span></i><em class="wm"
style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size:
20px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps:
normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.06px; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">has</em><i><span
style="color: rgb(41, 41, 41); font-size: 20px;
font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: -0.06px; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space:
normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);
text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style:
initial; text-decoration-color: initial; display: inline
!important; float: none;"><span> </span>evolved, even if it
feels impossibly complicated and always on the verge of
tipping over into fake cooperation (mimicry) and probing
(extortion).</span></i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>And as always, when discussing iterated prisoner's dilemma, Nick,
et al's <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://backspaces.net/28/moth-my-way-or-the-highway/">MOTH</a>
must be referenced.<br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 12/13/22 12:04 PM, Marcus Daniels
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:98C7F6C3-FB2D-47F0-94B7-D47F166DE350@snoutfarm.com">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div>I thought director Budil made a good case for the unique
value of public funding of science and advanced technology.
Rockets are understood, Musk and others can build them. Decades
of investment to do something like this is, it is just
different. And they were not timid about mentioning the
defense side. Concurrent with the test of a U.S. hypersonic
too. <a
href="https://www.defensenews.com/air/2022/12/12/air-force-conducts-first-operational-launch-of-arrw-hypersonic-missile/"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.defensenews.com/air/2022/12/12/air-force-conducts-first-operational-launch-of-arrw-hypersonic-missile/</a></div>
<br>
<div dir="ltr">
<blockquote type="cite">On Dec 13, 2022, at 10:16 AM, Steve
Smith <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"><sasmyth@swcp.com></a> wrote:<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr"><span>Great synopsis... thanks.</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span>I'm fascinated at how long we've been "on the cusp" of
"lighting up" a micro-star in the laboratory.</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span>My first awareness was in the early 70s when a Radio
Engineer I worked with had just come from the early MFE
Livermore efforts to my tiny hometown AM RAdio station... He
described what they were up to as I was taking my first
physics course (Junior in HS)... and thinking about the
implications both for science (as little I knew it) and
society (cheap/ubiquitous energy). Working at LANL for 3
decades (starting with the high energy Proton Storage Ring)
put me close to lots of this as an "educated layman".</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span>I can't say "nothing's changed" but it is mind boggling
how long one can "hang on the cusp" of something. Or how
quickly we can go from burning coal to make steam to drive
mechanical devices to replace animal and human (and water
and wind) labor to lighting up tiny stars for the same
purpose.</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span>- Steve</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span> "some days just drag on, but the years they just fly
by"</span><br>
<span></span><br>
<span></span><br>
<blockquote type="cite"><span>Awesome. Thanks. I'm still
trying to catch up with the QC Wormhole kerfuffle. Who
knew Quanta was so click baity?</span><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><span>What is "DT"?</span><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><span>On 12/13/22 09:02, Marcus
Daniels wrote:</span><br>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>In case no one wanted to get
up at 7:00am to watch DOE administrators talk:</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>1. Controlling the laser in
space and time was important for maintaining symmetry.
Timing precision of 25e-12 secs and laser spatial
precision of 5e-12 meter were needed. This was thought
to be the main explanation for the achievement.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>2. 8% more power on the laser
this time</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>3. x-ray tomography is used to
find flaws in the capsules. Developing software to do
the counting.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>4. They have ongoing efforts
to study the fabrication systems and their components
(done in Germany) to find idiosyncrasies of each.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>5. Laser technology
improvements since NIF was built which are 20% more
efficient.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>6. Target cost is from labor,
and it takes 7 months each</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>7. 4% of DT is burned in a
shot</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>8. Machine learning ties
together radiation hydrodynamics and experimental
data. (It sounded preliminary.)</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>9. The (successful) capsule
had more defects than previous experiments. However,
previous experiments did show benefits from capsule
quality.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>10. 15% of experiments are
indirect drive of this kind, 15% of experiments are
other approaches to ignition. The rest are weapons and
materials characterization.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite"><span>11. Anomalous laser
directional control were problems in the summer runs.
Fixed that.</span><br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite"><span></span><br>
</blockquote>
<span></span><br>
<span>-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-.
--- -.. .</span><br>
<span>FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv</span><br>
<span>Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays
9a-12p Zoom <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a></span><br>
<span>to (un)subscribe
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a></span><br>
<span>FRIAM-COMIC <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a></span><br>
<span>archives: 5/2017 thru present
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a></span><br>
<span>1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a></span><br>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://bit.ly/virtualfriam">https://bit.ly/virtualfriam</a>
to (un)subscribe <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com">http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com</a>
FRIAM-COMIC <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/">http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/</a>
archives: 5/2017 thru present <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/">https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/</a>
1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>