Saturday, April 27, 2013

Headlines


For John, BLUFHeadline writers are the bane of newspaper readers.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

Yesterday someone sent an EMail in frustration over a misleading headline.  I wrote back and told him that headlines are written by aliens from space.  Take this example:

One giant leap for mankind: £13bn Iter project makes breakthrough in the quest for nuclear fusion, a solution to climate change and an age of clean, cheap energy

What does that mean?

The FIFTH paragraph down we finally get to the meat of the matter:

This week the project gained final approval for the design of the most technically challenging component – the fusion reactor’s “blanket” that will handle the super-heated nuclear fuel.
They got design approval.  That is the big breakthrough.  We are years, perhaps decades, away from when these boffins will be able to ignite a fusion reaction and destroy planet earth.

Regards  —  Cliff

3 comments:

  1. Ah yes.......shades and memories of the great cold fusion scam. Still.....it's good to dream....

    ReplyDelete
  2. We already have the perfect fusion reactor - we should challenge ourselves on better ways to capture its output.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Joe

    Nice comment.

    Regards  —  Cliff

    ReplyDelete

Please be forthright, but please consider that this is not a barracks.