plasma cannon

LightningOnDemand revives a pulsed Lorentz plasma cannon, using modern capacitors to extend its range and increase the delivered energy. It is a high-voltage, high-current hobby demonstration.

A Hagerty documentary on a 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400 S and how it ended the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash. It tells the story of the illicit race started by Brock Yates and its Hollywood adaptation.

A SIGGRAPH demo from Yoichi Ochiai's group of aerial and volumetric graphics drawn by focused femtosecond lasers with computational holography. The plasma points can be touched.

Veritasium explains why a halved grape in a microwave makes plasma: the grape traps microwaves, and the fields of two halves interact to concentrate energy where they touch.

A CAD-based animation from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics showing how the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator is configured and what its fusion research aims to achieve. It runs about 11 minutes.

Asianometry explains the EUV light source inside ASML's lithography machines, where lasers hit falling tin droplets twice to produce 13.5 nm light. It walks through the engineering of the droplet generator, the pre-pulse and main laser, and the plasma that results.

Troy Hunt argues that even static, non-secret websites need HTTPS, demonstrating attacks such as injected content and China's Great Cannon. It accompanies his blog post of the same name.

Footage of the US Navy's Phalanx CIWS, a radar-guided 20 mm Gatling gun, firing in live target practice. The Phalanx serves as terminal defense against anti-ship missiles.

MIT's Prof. Dennis Whyte explains the ARC/SPARC compact tokamak approach, in which new high-temperature superconducting magnets allow smaller and cheaper fusion reactors. He covers fusion physics, performance trends and the engineering path to net energy.

An MIT colloquium by Dennis Whyte on power exhaust and first-wall cooling in fusion reactors, including recent innovations and the SPARC and ARC designs.

A roughly three-hour technical livestream Q&A on Helion Energy's fusion approach and the National Ignition Facility. It covers neutron production, shielding, energy recovery, diagnostics and why tokamaks might fare better.

Royal Institution lecture by Dr Kate Lancaster on the most powerful lasers in the world and the extreme conditions they create. It includes live demonstrations and covers applications from industry to fusion.

A short, humorous critique of Helion Energy's fusion approach, framed as a response to a Real Engineering video. It covers low reactivity, neutron production, bremsstrahlung losses and diagnostics.

Zach Hartwig of MIT introduces the key concepts of magnetic fusion energy and the state of fusion research. He then presents MIT's proposed pathway of using high-field superconducting magnets to build smaller, cheaper tokamaks on a climate-relevant timescale.

Sabine Hossenfelder explains how close nuclear fusion really is to break-even, and why headlines about ITER and lab milestones are misleading. She distinguishes plasma gain (Q plasma) from whole-system gain (Q total) and shows the latter is still far below one.

Real Engineering's Brian McManus explains Helion's approach to nuclear fusion: colliding two plasma rings, compressing them magnetically, and capturing energy directly from the changing magnetic flux rather than boiling water. It covers why this pulsed design sidesteps problems of tokamaks and laser fusion.

Seeker's Focal Point short documentary on ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which make the most advanced chips. It shows how plasma-generated 13.5 nm light is used to push Moore's Law forward.

SsethTzeentach reviews Space Station 13, the chaotic multiplayer game, by recounting absurd stories of singularities, malfunctioning AIs and plasma fires.

A two-minute video of an athlete sprinting against a London Underground Circle Line train between Mansion House and Cannon Street. It shows a runner keeping pace with and beating the train.