Artificial Star Chamber, 2010

20" x 30" archival inkjet print

The National Ignition Facility begins tests for the creation of an artificial star using a nuclear fusion process in Livermore, CA in 2010. The construction and planning of the project include focusing 192 lasers with over two million joules of ultraviolet laser light into a target chamber the size of a pencil eraser. The objective of this endeavor is to achieve self-sustaining energy gain, effectively cheating the second law of thermodynamics and the entropic state of nature. If this fusion energy can be harnessed and distributed, it would theoretically provide a source of limitless energy.

© Daniel R Small