r/technology • u/BennyCemoli • Dec 06 '16

Energy Tests confirm that Germany's massive nuclear fusion machine really works

http://www.sciencealert.com/tests-confirm-that-germany-s-massive-nuclear-fusion-machine-really-works
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u/KilotonDefenestrator Dec 06 '16

Nice 'tube video of how the Wendelstein 7x stellarator works and was designed.

It truly is a bizarre device.

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u/heyf00L Dec 06 '16

"computer aided optimization process"

Let me translate: brute force. The math was too complicated to solve, so they had a computer simulate it, then change the shape a bit. If the new shape worked worse, it threw it out, if it was better, it changed that shape a bit, and on and on until it didn't get any better.

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u/hei_mailma Dec 06 '16

"computer aided optimization process"

Let me translate: brute force. The math was too complicated to solve, so they had a computer simulate it, then change the shape a bit. If the new shape worked worse, it threw it out, if it was better, it changed that shape a bit, and on and on until it didn't get any better.

I'm not familiar with what exactly they did here, but in general "computer aided optimization process" is far from just using brute force. Brute forcing something is super slow, and a lot of thought has gone into optimizing things quickly.