C.T. | per aspera ad astra

astrophysics + nuclear fusion + electronics 3 tesla coils and counting i also do art occasionally

[mobius-art]

Honorary rocketeer ⋆✴︎˚

[eldritchadept]

The 3-meter Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory

[literallymechanical]

The fourth of nine sector modules has been successfully lowered into place using an approach that treats each installation as a first-of-its

It's incredible to see ITER actually coming together. What a beast!!!! It's happening!!!!!!!!

[oldguydoesstuff]

The Bull corporation GAMMA 3 tabulating calculator from 1952 featured 400 vacuum tubes and performed all-electronic operations that made it significantly faster than its electromechanical counterparts of the day.

It also was referred to by the rather-cool nickname "Electron Mastermind", a reference to the tube-based design.

[stone-cold-groove]

Illustration detail from a UNIVAC 120 ad - 1954.

[cherryjams]

‘Hands weaving magnetic-core memory, IBM, Poughkeepsie, New York,’ 1956. Photograph by Ansel Adams.

[braveburattino]

perhaps god is inept

[eldritchadept]

DIII-D Tokamak sketch (work in progress)

[literallymechanical]

There's this extremely weird thing happening in american politics where fusion energy research has real, actual, genuine bipartisan support, though for very different reasons on each side. This is fantastic for research, but I'm always a little worried that some demagogue is going to miss the memo and flip it into a culture war issue and the whole thing will fall apart.

[literallymechanical]

https://tae.com/trump-media-and-technology-group-to-merge-with-tae-technologies/

huh

[ancientcharm]

Colourful paint pigments preserved in their original pots.

Antiquarium of Pompeii 

[almabuc]

Transient Luminous Event

Gouache on paper, 15x20 cm (ish), 2025

[literallymechanical]

This is a contender for my new favorite fusion paper. How does it feel to be the realest god damn scientist on the planet Dr. Smiet

[eldritchadept]

How do you make your tokamak drawings? They're so detailed!!!! Also would you consider making commissions in that style? (like if I wanted a desktop background or something)

Pen and ink is all, I just have a bunch of Muji black pens and random notebooks - that’s it! I try to draw from memory as much as possible. Definitely open to commissions if you’re interested! Let’s chat…

[literallymechanical]

As a field of research, nuclear fusion is extremely international. The full list of ITER research partners includes a lot of countries that aren't particularly friendly with each other, and it's easy for me to forget how unusual that seems to my fellow americans.

I've had so many conversations with extended family or acquaintances who keep up with the headlines where they'll be like, oh I was reading about how China just set a new record in fusion. And I'll be like, yeah!! EAST is a really cool superconducting tokamak. They're great at long-duration high-confinement pulses with non-inductive plasma...

And I'll be another two minutes into the explanation of what H-mode is and why this is a cool result before I notice that the person I'm talking to looks like they just bit into a lemon and I realize that I'm supposed to think that it's bad that "the Chinese" just published a bunch of cool papers. Whoops.

Come on! how could you be mad at this guy???

[algebraic-dumbass]

we've heard of top surgery and bottom surgery, but what about charm surgery, strange surgery, up surgery and down surgery

[kebriones]

maenad

[literallymechanical]

So one of the funny things about materials science is that Brilluoin zone diagrams for crystal lattices look like they come straight out of a medieval grimoire.

[literallymechanical]

I cast spell of <111> silicon

[crazy-pages]

Check out the x-ray diffraction pattern image of the reciprocal lattice of icosahedrite. Found only at the blast sites of intense meteorite impacts and nuclear bombs.