#353 – Dennis Whyte: Nuclear Fusion and the Future of Energy
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What is nuclear fusion?
The following is a conversation with Dennis White, nuclear physicist at MIT and the director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Rocket Money for helping you cancel unwanted subscriptions, Masterclass for online education, and Insight Tracker for bio-monitoring. Choose wisely, my friends. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This show is brought to you by Rocket Money, a personal finance app that finds and cancels unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps you lower your bills all in one place.
I use it especially to monitor my subscriptions. It actually, in an indirect way, makes me realize all the things I'm subscribed to that actually add value to my life. For example, it shows Audible and... Netflix, maybe Spotify. I'm trying to think. Things I pay for every single month and things that add a huge amount of value to my life. And in that list are a bunch of subscriptions that I don't need, that I completely forgot. Or actually I aspired to use, but I ended up not using. And then you kind of have to confront... yourself with the reality of the fact that you uh plan to use a service and you don't use it and why pay a huge amount of money every month every year to use it and so it's really nice to kind of have an introspective analysis of your life reflect and start anew
I'm a big believer that habits every single day can make a huge amount of progress in your growth, in your learning, in your development.
How does e=mc^2 relate to energy and mass?
In that same way, paying for stuff every single day, every week, every month can make a huge impact on your bank account. So that's why you want to remove the stuff you're actually not using. Of course, Rocket Money helps you manage other kinds of spending in general, but for me, the subscription's the big one. Go to rocketmoney.com to cancel unwanted subscriptions and manage your money the easy way. That's rocketmoney.com. This show is also brought to you by MasterClass. $180 a year gets you an all-access pass to watch courses from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. The list is ridiculous. Chris Hadfield, Will Wright, Carlos Santana, Garry Kasparov, Daniel Negreanu, Neil Gaiman, Martin Scorsese.
I would love to talk to Martin Scorsese on this podcast. I think he's probably, if not the, he's one of the greatest directors of all time, but also just a really interesting mind, a really unique mind, a really unique cinematographer, director, producer, storyteller, visionary, has created some of the greatest movies ever. But I think a podcast is a totally different thing than a masterclass. A masterclass is a really condensed, elegant, clear, succinct summary of all the deep lessons that the person has about the particular expertise. And that's the kind of people you want to learn about a thing from is the best people that actually have done it. Not just good at teaching, but good at doing the best teachers are the ones that have reached the top and have sort of, uh,
What are the differences between fission and fusion?
done it for long enough to be able to reflect on it and condense it down into wisdom. And that's what Masterclass is really good at. You can get unlimited access to every Masterclass and get 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com. This show is also brought to you by InsideTracker, a service I use to track biological data. They have a bunch of plans, most include blood tests that give you information to make decisions about your health.
How do nuclear weapons differ from fusion energy?
Like John Mayer said, your body is a wonderland. It's a source of a lot of signal, a lot of data. It's obvious to me that in the 21st century, maybe the 22nd century, we're going to create systems for the collection of of that data and then use machine learning to analyze that data in order to understand what is going on inside and what you should do next.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is nuclear fusion?
0:00–1:55
2
How does e=mc^2 relate to energy and mass?
1:55–3:45
3
What are the differences between fission and fusion?
3:45–4:13
4
How do nuclear weapons differ from fusion energy?
4:13–1:33:47
5
What engineering challenges are faced in nuclear fusion?
1:33:47–1:35:45
6
How does magnetic confinement work in fusion reactors?
1:35:45–1:38:52
7
What is the significance of the ITER project?
1:38:52–1:40:01
8
What future advancements are anticipated in fusion energy?
1:40:01–3:13:20
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from Lex Fridman Podcast
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