Steven was born and raised in Dar es Salaam, and moved to Germany for his studies. He graduated with a BSc. in Physics (Jacobs University Bremen), and then a MSc. in Engineering Physics (Technische Universität München). Steven is currently pursuing a PhD in Physics (growth of coatings/multilayers for next generation lithography reflective optics) in the Netherlands. He’s thinking about starting his own business in a few years; something high-tech related. At Vijana FM, Steven discusses issues critical to youths in Tanzania, music, sport and a host of other angles. He’s also helping Vijana FM with a Swahili translation project.
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This is the Large Helical Device found in Toki Gifu Japan. It is used to conduct fusion plasma confinement research in a steady-state machine and to elucidate important research issues in physics and engineering for helical plasma reactors.
According to their website its been operational since 1998, has achieved some results and is still functional. Currently they are undertaking their 14th cycle of operation. Here is their schedule http://www.lhd.nifs.ac.jp/en/org/
Shukrani sana Aron!! Inabidi upewe tuzo fulani hivi; unataka zawadi gani?
Nilikuwa najibu swali la mtu facebook… Nimeamua kukopi hapa:
Nope, not my field mzee. Kabisa; though, I understand what they are up to… (Vifaa vyao pale kwetu vipo chumba cha pili tu; literary). Went to their lab to see what exactly they’re doing — all I can say is this, the big ass magnets will be installed in February 2011, hoping to start the experiments (at least at our institute) around April or May.
The basis of this technology was proven to be efficient in late 1950s! In Russia. The Westerners couldn’t believe it, so they went to the Russian lab to witness and measure the temperature needed for the “Tokamak“. As in, the temperature needed to ‘kick start’ the fusion reaction of the hydrogen isotopes (Note: let’s not confuse this with nuclear fission, where the “famous” uranium is used).
I am not sure if that has answered any questions… But the Japanese have had that set-up for about 12 years! No one said anything… I wonder why. Nevertheless, the EU, Japan, USA, India and China are investing heavily in this research. In other words, all those similar projects are now incorporated under one umbella of “ITER“. Will it be successful? Well, the concerned parties are doing their best to convince the politicians (i.e. people with money) so that they can start the pilot research in France by 2035 (They got money for this already)… Then, build the demo in 2040-50. So, we will know for sure in the near future.
On the other hand, whatever is going on at the moment has got shit loads of applications.
Are you guys interested in this? Should I write a Swahili article about it, with photos of the equipment from the lab?
For some reasons I instinctively thought it resembled the Large Haldron Collider at CERN, but I knew it wasn’t since that one is neither as snakily meandering nor this pretty. Good stuff to know.
hehehe… nimesoma some of the projections and plans up to 2033. Dah, aisee.. nikiona vitu kama hivi naishiwa na nguvu. Will we ever catch up? Kha….ujue kuna documentary moja nzuri sana ya BABIES:
Ukipata muda icheki. Yaani tofauti kati ya watoto wa Kiafrika ukifananisha na wengine (Tokyo, San Francisco, Mongolia) ni kubwa aisee. I mean catching up is possible, but highly improbable.
Kabla ya hapo tulikuwa na open-day, na nadhani yule mama alimleta mtoto wake. Nini kilimfanya amlete mtoto wake tena? Kuna maswali alishindwa kujibu (kwasababu yeye hana ujuzi mkubwa wa fizikia), hivyo akaamua kumleta mtoto wake tena? Maongezi yao huko nyumbani yalikuwaje (kati ya baba, mama na yule mtoto; baba nae hana background ya fizikia)?
Ndio tofauti… jinsi tunavyolea watoto na vipaji au interests zao.
Hiyo ishu ya Japan ndio hivyo. Hawakuanza jana wala juzi, na watu wa Magharibi nadhani hawajui kwasababu vyombo vyao vya habari haviwezi kusumbuka kufuatilia utafiti kama huo. ILA, hii ingekuwa Uingereza, USA au Ufaransa, nina uhakika ingekuwa inafahamika kuliko Large Hadron Collider…
FYI, the operational temperature of that helical sh*t is 40 – 100,000,000 *C!! Yaani kama uko kwenye kiini cha jua; na bado Japan haijalipuka wala nini. Jiulize sasa, data kama hizi zingesambazwa kama ile “PR stunt” ya LHC, ingekuwaje?
All this Physics talk reminded me of this piece by the funny man, Woody Allen
Strung Out.
By Woody Allen
I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me. As it turns out, physics, like a grating relative, has all the answers. The big bang, black holes, and the primordial soup turn up every Tuesday in the Science section of the Times, and as a result my grasp of general relativity and quantum mechanics now equals Einstein’s—Einstein Moomjy, that is, the rug seller.
How could I not have known that there are little things the size of a “Planck length” in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theatre how hard it would be to find. And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket? What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore time passes quicker than to a man on a boat—especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.
The latest miracle of physics is string theory, which has been heralded as a T.O.E., or “Theory of Everything.” This may even include the incident of last week herewith described.
I awoke on Friday and because the universe is expanding, it took me longer than usual to find my robe. This made me late leaving for work, and because the concept of up and down is relative the elevator I got into went to the roof, where it was very difficult to hail a taxi. Please keep in mind that a man on a rocket ship approaching the speed of light would have seemed on time for work?or perhaps even a little early and certainly better dressed.
When I finally got to the office and approached my employer Mr. Muchnick to explain the delay, my mass increased the closer I came to him, which he took as a sign of insubordination. There was some rather bitter talk of docking my pay, which, when measured against the speed of light, is very small anyhow. The truth is that compared to the amount of atoms in the Andromeda Galaxy I actually earn quite little. I tried to tell this to Mr. Muchnick, who said I was not taking into account that time and space were the same thing. He swore that if the situation should change he would give me a raise. I pointed out that since time and space are the same thing, and it takes three hours to do something that turns out to be less than six inches long, it can’t sell for more than five dollars. The one good thing about space being the same as time is that if you travel to the outer reaches of the universe and the voyage takes three thousand earth years, your friends will be dead when you come back, but you will not need Botox.
Back in my office, with the sunlight streaming through the window, I thought to myself that if our great golden star suddenly exploded this planet would fly out of orbit and hurtle through infinity forever—another good reason to always carry a cell phone. On the other hand, if I could someday go faster than a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and recapture the light born centuries ago, could I then go back in time to ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome? But what would I do there: I hardly knew anybody.
It was at this moment that our new secretary, Miss Lola Kelly, walked in. Now, in the debate over whether everything is made up of particles or waves Miss Kelly is definitely waves. You can tell she’s waves every time she walks to the water cooler. Not that she doesn’t have good particles but it’s the waves that get her the trinkets from Tiffany’s. My wife is more waves than particles too, it’s just that her waves have begun to sag a little. Or maybe the problem is that my wife has too many quarks. The truth is, lately she looks as if she had passed too close to the event horizon of a black hole and some of her?not all of her by any means?was sucked in. It gives her a kind of funny shape, which I’m hoping will be correctable by cold fusion. My advice to anyone has always been to avoid black holes because, once inside, it’s extremely hard to climb out and still retain one’s ear for music. If, by chance, you do fall all the way through a black hole and emerge from the other side, you’ll probably live your entire life over and over but will be too compressed to go out and meet girls.
And so I approached Miss Kelly’s gravitational field and could feel my strings vibrating. All I knew was that I wanted to wrap my weak-gauge bosons around her gluons, slip through a wormhole, and do some quantum tunneling. It was at this point that I was rendered impotent by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. How could I act if I couldn’t determine her exact position and velocity? And what if I should suddenly cause a singularity; that is, a devastating rupture in space-time? They’re so noisy. Everyone would look up and I’d be embarrassed in front of Miss Kelly.
Ah, but the woman has such good dark energy. Dark energy, though hypothetical, has always been a turn-on for me, especially in a female who has an overbite. I fantasized that if I could only get her into a particle accelerator for five minutes with a bottle of Ch?teau Lafite I’d be standing next to her, with our quanta approximating the speed of light and her nucleus colliding with mine. Of course, exactly at this moment I got a piece of antimatter in my eye and had to find a Q-tip to remove it. I had all but lost hope when she turned toward me and spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was about to order some coffee and Danish but now I can’t seem to remember the Schroedinger equation. Isn’t that silly? It’s just slipped my mind.”
“Evolution of probability waves,” I said. “And if you’re ordering I’d love an English muffin with muons and tea.”
“My pleasure,” she said, smiling coquettishly and curling up into a Calabi-Yau shape. I could feel my coupling constant invade her weak field as I pressed my lips to her wet neutrinos. Apparently I achieved some kind of fission, because the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the floor with a mouse on my eye the size of a supernova.
I guess physics can explain everything except the softer sex, although I told my wife I got the shiner because the universe was contracting, not expanding, and I just wasn’t paying attention.
This is the Large Helical Device found in Toki Gifu Japan. It is used to conduct fusion plasma confinement research in a steady-state machine and to elucidate important research issues in physics and engineering for helical plasma reactors.
Aron, nakutafuta kinoma. Mimi pia namsapoti Aron, alichokisema hapo juu ndio hivyo hivyo . (Aron you better be right, for your sake).
Safi Aron… is it functional? And for how long?
According to their website its been operational since 1998, has achieved some results and is still functional. Currently they are undertaking their 14th cycle of operation. Here is their schedule http://www.lhd.nifs.ac.jp/en/org/
Shukrani sana Aron!! Inabidi upewe tuzo fulani hivi; unataka zawadi gani?
Nilikuwa najibu swali la mtu facebook… Nimeamua kukopi hapa:
Nope, not my field mzee. Kabisa; though, I understand what they are up to… (Vifaa vyao pale kwetu vipo chumba cha pili tu; literary). Went to their lab to see what exactly they’re doing — all I can say is this, the big ass magnets will be installed in February 2011, hoping to start the experiments (at least at our institute) around April or May.
The basis of this technology was proven to be efficient in late 1950s! In Russia. The Westerners couldn’t believe it, so they went to the Russian lab to witness and measure the temperature needed for the “Tokamak“. As in, the temperature needed to ‘kick start’ the fusion reaction of the hydrogen isotopes (Note: let’s not confuse this with nuclear fission, where the “famous” uranium is used).
I am not sure if that has answered any questions… But the Japanese have had that set-up for about 12 years! No one said anything… I wonder why. Nevertheless, the EU, Japan, USA, India and China are investing heavily in this research. In other words, all those similar projects are now incorporated under one umbella of “ITER“. Will it be successful? Well, the concerned parties are doing their best to convince the politicians (i.e. people with money) so that they can start the pilot research in France by 2035 (They got money for this already)… Then, build the demo in 2040-50. So, we will know for sure in the near future.
On the other hand, whatever is going on at the moment has got shit loads of applications.
Are you guys interested in this? Should I write a Swahili article about it, with photos of the equipment from the lab?
@ Aron, @ SN, naomba mnielezee kwa lugha rahisi ya Kiswahili ili mimi niliye hapa Kiembesamaki, Unguja nielewe!
Kweli, naona Aron kaja na data kama zilivyo. Lakini inawezekana kuelezea hivi vitu kwa lugha rahisi, ambayo inaweza kueleweka kwa urahisi.
Nikipata muda nitaandika makala — kwa Kiswahili.
For some reasons I instinctively thought it resembled the Large Haldron Collider at CERN, but I knew it wasn’t since that one is neither as snakily meandering nor this pretty. Good stuff to know.
hehehe… nimesoma some of the projections and plans up to 2033. Dah, aisee.. nikiona vitu kama hivi naishiwa na nguvu. Will we ever catch up? Kha….ujue kuna documentary moja nzuri sana ya BABIES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vupEpNjCuY
Ukipata muda icheki. Yaani tofauti kati ya watoto wa Kiafrika ukifananisha na wengine (Tokyo, San Francisco, Mongolia) ni kubwa aisee. I mean catching up is possible, but highly improbable.
Bata, wiki tatu zilizopita karani wa kitengo chetu alimleta binti wake (wa miaka 9-10) kuona maabara zetu. Nimemzoea huyo mama, lakini nilishindwa kumuuliza maswali ambayo mpaka leo yapo kichwani. Na wataalamu hapa hawakusita kumueleza yule binti vitu wanavyofanya (zile experiments za maana — kama hiyo hapo juu — zina demos zake ndogo, kama ‘midoli’, ambazo watoto wanaruhusiwa ‘kuchezea’).
Kabla ya hapo tulikuwa na open-day, na nadhani yule mama alimleta mtoto wake. Nini kilimfanya amlete mtoto wake tena? Kuna maswali alishindwa kujibu (kwasababu yeye hana ujuzi mkubwa wa fizikia), hivyo akaamua kumleta mtoto wake tena? Maongezi yao huko nyumbani yalikuwaje (kati ya baba, mama na yule mtoto; baba nae hana background ya fizikia)?
Ndio tofauti… jinsi tunavyolea watoto na vipaji au interests zao.
Hiyo ishu ya Japan ndio hivyo. Hawakuanza jana wala juzi, na watu wa Magharibi nadhani hawajui kwasababu vyombo vyao vya habari haviwezi kusumbuka kufuatilia utafiti kama huo. ILA, hii ingekuwa Uingereza, USA au Ufaransa, nina uhakika ingekuwa inafahamika kuliko Large Hadron Collider…
FYI, the operational temperature of that helical sh*t is 40 – 100,000,000 *C!! Yaani kama uko kwenye kiini cha jua; na bado Japan haijalipuka wala nini. Jiulize sasa, data kama hizi zingesambazwa kama ile “PR stunt” ya LHC, ingekuwaje?
All this Physics talk reminded me of this piece by the funny man, Woody Allen
Strung Out.
By Woody Allen
I am greatly relieved that the universe is finally explainable. I was beginning to think it was me. As it turns out, physics, like a grating relative, has all the answers. The big bang, black holes, and the primordial soup turn up every Tuesday in the Science section of the Times, and as a result my grasp of general relativity and quantum mechanics now equals Einstein’s—Einstein Moomjy, that is, the rug seller.
How could I not have known that there are little things the size of a “Planck length” in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimetre? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theatre how hard it would be to find. And how does gravity work? And if it were to cease suddenly, would certain restaurants still require a jacket? What I do know about physics is that to a man standing on the shore time passes quicker than to a man on a boat—especially if the man on the boat is with his wife.
The latest miracle of physics is string theory, which has been heralded as a T.O.E., or “Theory of Everything.” This may even include the incident of last week herewith described.
I awoke on Friday and because the universe is expanding, it took me longer than usual to find my robe. This made me late leaving for work, and because the concept of up and down is relative the elevator I got into went to the roof, where it was very difficult to hail a taxi. Please keep in mind that a man on a rocket ship approaching the speed of light would have seemed on time for work?or perhaps even a little early and certainly better dressed.
When I finally got to the office and approached my employer Mr. Muchnick to explain the delay, my mass increased the closer I came to him, which he took as a sign of insubordination. There was some rather bitter talk of docking my pay, which, when measured against the speed of light, is very small anyhow. The truth is that compared to the amount of atoms in the Andromeda Galaxy I actually earn quite little. I tried to tell this to Mr. Muchnick, who said I was not taking into account that time and space were the same thing. He swore that if the situation should change he would give me a raise. I pointed out that since time and space are the same thing, and it takes three hours to do something that turns out to be less than six inches long, it can’t sell for more than five dollars. The one good thing about space being the same as time is that if you travel to the outer reaches of the universe and the voyage takes three thousand earth years, your friends will be dead when you come back, but you will not need Botox.
Back in my office, with the sunlight streaming through the window, I thought to myself that if our great golden star suddenly exploded this planet would fly out of orbit and hurtle through infinity forever—another good reason to always carry a cell phone. On the other hand, if I could someday go faster than a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second and recapture the light born centuries ago, could I then go back in time to ancient Egypt or Imperial Rome? But what would I do there: I hardly knew anybody.
It was at this moment that our new secretary, Miss Lola Kelly, walked in. Now, in the debate over whether everything is made up of particles or waves Miss Kelly is definitely waves. You can tell she’s waves every time she walks to the water cooler. Not that she doesn’t have good particles but it’s the waves that get her the trinkets from Tiffany’s. My wife is more waves than particles too, it’s just that her waves have begun to sag a little. Or maybe the problem is that my wife has too many quarks. The truth is, lately she looks as if she had passed too close to the event horizon of a black hole and some of her?not all of her by any means?was sucked in. It gives her a kind of funny shape, which I’m hoping will be correctable by cold fusion. My advice to anyone has always been to avoid black holes because, once inside, it’s extremely hard to climb out and still retain one’s ear for music. If, by chance, you do fall all the way through a black hole and emerge from the other side, you’ll probably live your entire life over and over but will be too compressed to go out and meet girls.
And so I approached Miss Kelly’s gravitational field and could feel my strings vibrating. All I knew was that I wanted to wrap my weak-gauge bosons around her gluons, slip through a wormhole, and do some quantum tunneling. It was at this point that I was rendered impotent by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. How could I act if I couldn’t determine her exact position and velocity? And what if I should suddenly cause a singularity; that is, a devastating rupture in space-time? They’re so noisy. Everyone would look up and I’d be embarrassed in front of Miss Kelly.
Ah, but the woman has such good dark energy. Dark energy, though hypothetical, has always been a turn-on for me, especially in a female who has an overbite. I fantasized that if I could only get her into a particle accelerator for five minutes with a bottle of Ch?teau Lafite I’d be standing next to her, with our quanta approximating the speed of light and her nucleus colliding with mine. Of course, exactly at this moment I got a piece of antimatter in my eye and had to find a Q-tip to remove it. I had all but lost hope when she turned toward me and spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was about to order some coffee and Danish but now I can’t seem to remember the Schroedinger equation. Isn’t that silly? It’s just slipped my mind.”
“Evolution of probability waves,” I said. “And if you’re ordering I’d love an English muffin with muons and tea.”
“My pleasure,” she said, smiling coquettishly and curling up into a Calabi-Yau shape. I could feel my coupling constant invade her weak field as I pressed my lips to her wet neutrinos. Apparently I achieved some kind of fission, because the next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the floor with a mouse on my eye the size of a supernova.
I guess physics can explain everything except the softer sex, although I told my wife I got the shiner because the universe was contracting, not expanding, and I just wasn’t paying attention.
(c) Woody Allen. July 28, 2003, The New Yorker.
Joji that Woody Allen piece is a rare gem, hilarious round-up from cosmology to quantum physics.
🙂
Good one…