A talk by Dr. Luc Peterson ’06, Associate Program Leader for Data Science, Space Science and Security Program, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

At 1:03 am on December 5, 2022, 192 laser beams at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory focused 2.05 megajoules of energy onto a peppercorn-sized capsule of frozen hydrogen fuel. The fuel ignited and produced 3.15 megajoules of energy, making it the first experiment to ever achieve net energy gain from nuclear fusion.

In this talk, Dr. Peterson will discuss the breakthrough experiment, nuclear fusion, and how his team used machine learning to call the shot heard around the world.

Sponsored by Astronomy & Physics, Computer Science, and Science, Technology & Society.