F茅licie Albert inside the Titan laser machinery Laura Morton for 51动漫
IT’S a fittingly bright California morning when F茅licie Albert meets me. We’re outside the National Ignition Facility (NIF), the building that houses the world’s most powerful laser. The intimidating force of armed guards is just part of the scenery when you’re using such potent devices to study the extreme states of matter found in the molten hearts of planets and the nuclear furnaces of stars. “It’s a hot, dense matter 鈥 which is a very tricky state,” says Albert. “It’s not condensed and cold, it’s not quite a plasma… it’s really hard to describe.”…
