The comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest were highly productive. These are some other interesting comments that did not fit into the previous two categories.
Category: Science
My Responses to Fusion Critics
In the comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, several people asked me about what I thought about several high-profile critics of fusion. This is a summary of my responses.
My Comments on Other Fusion Startups
In the comments on my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, several people asked me about what I thought about other fusion startups. This is a summary of my responses.
Book Review of THE FUTURE OF FUSION ENERGY by Jason Parisi and Justin Ball (2019)
This is my submission to the Astral Codex Ten book review contest, where it tied for third place.
Fusion is the power which lights the stars. It is the source of almost all elements heavier than hydrogen in the universe. Wouldn’t it be great if we could use and control this power here on Earth?
I predict that we will get fusion before 2035 (80%) or 2040 (90%). I am a professional plasma physicist, a fusioneer if you will, so I probably know more about this subject than you, but am likely to overemphasize its importance.
The Future of Fusion Energy is the best introduction to fusion that I know. I can confirm that the information it contains is common knowledge among plasma physicists. My parents, who are not physicists, can confirm that it is accessible and interesting to read.
Things are changing fast in fusion right now, and The Future of Fusion Energy is already out of date in some important ways. I will summarize our quest for fusion as it is portrayed in the book, describe what has happened in the field since 2018, and make some predictions about where we go from here. The predictions are my own and do not reflect the opinions of Parisi or Ball.
Grid City and Line City
Suppose you are trying to build a new city of 100 blocks. Each block is 1 mile square, has the same density, and can provide enough demand for a rapid transit station. We would like to arrange the blocks in the simplest possible way, and design a rapid transit system for them.
We will try out two different arrangements for the city: Grid City and Line City. Grid City is a 10 by 10 grid. Line City is a 100 by 1 line. How does the transit system work for both of them?
Climate Science for Fantasy Writers. Part II: Tolkien’s Prevailing Winds
J. R. R. Tolkien is the type specimen for good worldbuilding. He used his expertise in linguistics and medieval poetry to invent new languages, then built a world around those languages, then wrote stories in that world. I have always loved Tolkien and so he should have a place in my discussions of world building. Unfortunately, Middle Earth does not fit the criteria I established in Part I. It does have an atmosphere, but it is not a sphere. The sun and moon are a fruit and a flower from the two trees that sail in ships across the sky. This is not a place where we would expect normal climate science to apply. But the resulting climate ends up mostly making sense. If you understand enough about a few subjects, you often end up inadvertently learning some information about other subjects as well.
Climate Science for Fantasy Writers. Part I: A Sphere with an Atmosphere
Fantasy writers often want to make their worlds realistic. Making your world realistic draws readers in more easily and more clearly defines challenges your characters will face and solutions they might use to overcome these challenges. Realism is especially important in historically inspired fantasy because “Popular culture is often how we, collectively, wrestle with these issues [history or organization of other cultures], so it is worthwhile to ask how much truth and meaning there is in it, and what that means for our discourse.” I am not a historian, so I will leave historical advice to other people. But I can help you with climate realism. How can you make the climate of your world more realistic?
Book Review of LEVIATHAN AND THE AIR PUMP by Stephen Shapin and Simon Schaffer (1985)
The debates between Thomas Hobbes, author of Leviathan, and Robert Boyle, inventor of the air pump, were some of the first challenges of institutionalized science (called ‘natural philosophy’ at the time). Boyle and the Royal Society won one of the most decisive victories in the history of philosophy. Hobbes is still remembered as a political and moral philosopher, but his natural philosophy was completely rejected and forgotten. Hobbes’s arguments had not even been translated out of Latin before 1985.
Shapin & Schaffer decided to take Hobbes’s side of the debate. They pretend impartially in the introduction, but consistently favor Hobbes in the text, and the last sentence of the conclusion is “Hobbes was right.”
Why should we care about the losing side of an old debate about natural philosophy?
It is interesting to see what challenges science faced in its early days and what it defined itself in opposition to. We can use these debates to help understand science and its role in society today.
Why shouldn’t we just read Hobbes directly then?
When you read only a few great authors of the past, you get a distorted view of intellectual history. It looks like there were only a few sides of the debates. Modern scholars have read much more than you could in their eras of expertise. I might have read Hobbes and Boyle, but not Torricelli or Linus or More. By reading modern scholarship, you can see how much more complex and sophisticated the debates were.
Highlights from the Comments on Generating Electricity without Fossil Fuels
My post series on Generating Electricity without Fossil Fuels has gotten some interesting comments. I would like to respond to them here.
Mining the Heat of the Crust?
Next generation geothermal power claims to be a potential game changer in electricity generation. I knew nothing about it until recently. This post is a summary of the field for the people who know nothing about it and some questions for the people who do.