I've been asked to give a talk at my alma mater in a week. (Abstract!) I'm looking forward to it!

While reviewing my slides I'm putting together, I ran across these fun facts:

Highest elemental melting point: Tungsten (74W), ~ 3,400 C
Temperature of Sun’s surface ~ 6,000 C
Fusion reactor: ~ 20,000,000 C

This is why I like fusion. And preparing talks like this -- because it reminds me just how awesome it is to be working on real fusion devices. :)

I just found out in this last week, after being able to borrow a Phantom v. 7.3 camera from PPPL!

Shiny New Movie (2.5 M DivX-encoded AVI)

Pretty darn spiffy, huh? :) Now I just need to write some image processing software...

... when your pen runs out of ink as a result of working on the math for your magnetohydrodynamics final. :)

As a followup to my last post, there has been an amazing response at a blog set up to thank Colbert for his performance. With more than 45,000 comments (the vast majority compliments/thank yous) in less than a week -- and growing rapidly -- it would seem that his performance struck a resonance with the American people!