any time a scientist says "more or less" you should run the other direction.

they already tried to burn it off, might as well accelerate the process

:facepalm: more or less proven because we can't make get more energy out of it than we put in on the level needed to be put on the grid.

... Of course once we get to that point we will have the NIMBY people going "NUCLEAR fusion?!!! They are trying to kill us all!!!!" and the power plants will never get built, excpet in France where they replace their existing nuclear fission power plants and produce enough power for them, the UK, and Spain all by themselves.

It would be nice if we could succeed in sustaining nuclear fission and plasma conditions, that would open up a good branch of possibilities regarding energy generation. I doubt it is dangers; I would expect that if something were to go wrong it would be regarding the plasma containment, however, if the containment system were to break the conditions for the plasma state could no longer be maintained - hence the dangerous elements would be removed by the change in conditions. End of the world is just silly, sure there is probably a percentage chance that it could cause a major disaster, but such a thing would be close to nil for the experiment to go ahead.

Do I think it's dangerous?

Well, I'm not a scientist so instead of making a misinformed opinion I'm going to trust the science guys who spend their lives studying this stuff to not kill us all. Besides, playing it safe is for losers. :meh:

This ought to be the slogan of every scientist ever.

Even these guys, when there's simply zero chance of anything happening.

Like DEFRON said, this technology is nothing new...and has been done on a much larger scale! The only reason people are getting worried is because it's been labelled a 'star' (albeit a 'mini' one). Honestly, before saying it's the most dangerous thing ever, and how it's going to kill us all, you guys should really research the topic...just a quick google search will bring up results from a list of similar experiments and tests...the thing would be perfectly safe and even if something did go wrong, it wouldn't be forever (like the reaction at the end of Spiderman 2)...eventually it'd cool down due to a lack of gravity and fusion needs extremely high temps to operate...in other words, it would 'fizzle out'.

I'm all for it personally

Indeed. The dangers of misinformed, pseudo-scientific conclusions: mistrust, unwarranted panic, pitchforks and torches. :ahhh:

They could do this under my house if they wanted to, I'm not worried about many dangers, let alone explosions or black holes.

I think they should do it, might as well. My only concern is that stars form black holes after they die, but I'm sure the scientists have taken this into account and it won't be a problem.

It's worth the risk (which honestly isn't really that big), seeing as we could have a new energy source. If all else fails at least we can say that humans can create stars

The way I see it the military/government will get their hands on the power source first. And we all know how responsible the government is.

EDIT: apparently it's been done before. Which pretty much proves my point.

Yeah, go star power!

The fact that they're planning to set off a massive fusion reaction an hour away from where I live does not a comfortable Metro make.
If you're going to create a star, can you please do it somewhere far away? Somewhere that is not virtually on top of my apartment? Please?


...On the other hand, they are trying to create a star. On Earth. FOR SCIENCE! : D

All you need to create a short lived star is reality television.

I'll avoide Nuclear Fission thanks.

Don't worry, if it was going to go horrifically wrong, it would kill us all anyway.

That probably didn't help allay your fears.

I can see a new post-apocalyptic RPG coming into focus! Earth's surface is ravaged by man-made star, and you must find a way to stop it!!!!!!

But seriously, I don't think this is that dangerous, or else they probably wouldn't go through with it. I do think it is really cool though!

NOT TRUE BRO just ask Defron, he's lead production manager in charge of this project. He'll know.

Well, if they insist on doing something that radically cool within driving distance -something that has a chance (albeit a very small one) of backfiring horribly- they could at least let me press the button.
Enthusiastically.
With my head.

To be fair there is still inherent risk in anything they do. They are experiments, they have really good hypotheses of what will happen, but no one knows exactly what will happen until they do it. The chances of catastrophe are extremely slim, but saying "zero change of ANYTHING happening" is just as misinformed as saying it is the end of the world. As my mum would say, "famous last words"

Add some scary words, and anything can become dangerous and deadly :shakehead: . Every time a nuke goes off, the same thing happens, so it's not like CERN or something, where the worlds going to end (oh wait). We run a bigger risk of going broke from chasing pipe dream science, than we do of ending the world with it.

Oh, cool, I am production manager of this project. I must've missed that memo.

Only one thing left to do:


Nope, not a nuclear physicist, but apparently I am production manager of this project, and I assure you that it isn't going to explode, and the many nuclear physicists working on this project all agree as well as the countless others all around the world, many of which have done similar experiments.

good news is that if something were to explode, at least there won't be any fallout and or radiation.. :goodjob:
yay fusion power!!

If the building were to explode, there would indeed be radiation and fallout, the difference is that the area would be inhabitable in just 100 or so years, (in comparison to fission waste, which remains radioactive for an extremely long period of time).

Of course it won't explode, at most the inside of the building will be irradiated.


This is definitely not a massive fusion reaction, it is very small, actually. It also isn't a star.

I love how, when the word 'star' is used, people think http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0211/04soho/sun.jpg is going to hover 20 meters over our heads.

The only thing I love more is the 'scientists have said this procedure is perfectly safe, as do you. You are not a scientist however, so, while I'm not a scientist either, I'm going to claim that http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0211/04soho/sun.jpg is infact going to hover 20 meters over our heads and potentially kill us', argument.


Bravo humanity, you never stop to amaze me.

I'm more liable to trust the word of people who have devoted their entire lives to studying physics than those who haven't. Oh wait, I don't have to take them by their word because there's thousands of documents of experiments just like this one on a larger scale and have the science to both prove its worth AND its safety!

I'd like you to point me towards a post in this thread where anyone said anything remotely like that. :blink: