
Man-made star to unlock cosmic secrets - habs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8044620.stm
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qw
This reminds me of another article that was posted to HN a few months ago. The
author speculated that one of the reasons why we have not seen signs of alien
life, is that any advanced civilization capable of space travel will
eventually create a technology that they don't understand, and that destroys
them.

I don't think we will be destroyed this time, but we will probably come to a
point where there are things we shouldn't try unless we can test the
experiment on another planet.

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teilo
Well, to be sure, calling this a "Man-made star" is quite a stretch. In fact,
it is nothing of the sort. It is a small-scale fusion reaction. Yes, this can
indeed tell them some things about how stars operate, but in no way, shape, or
form does it, as claimed by the article, "allow the researchers to probe the
insides of stars and supernovae in unprecedented detail".

That's not to say they won't be surprised by some unexpected side-effects. Who
knows? But they certainly won't be doing a 2010 to planet Earth. Besides, we
have already created fusion reactions vastly larger than what NIF will be
creating. It's called the hydrogen bomb.

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pohl
I couldn't find any credits, but the narrator in the video at the bottom of
this article sounds like Samuel L. Jackson (to my ears).

I had no idea we were building such a facility. It sounds like fertile
scientific ground.

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teilo
Woah. I remember Spiderman 2. Are they sure this is such a good idea?

