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May 16, 2012
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Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.
Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.
If you just received your new issue of Scientific American, you saw the article The Problems with ITER and the Fading Dream of Fusion Energy by Geoff Brumfiel. Accompanying image (a little small online, but nice and big in print) is a photograph by Hironobu Maeda of a sculpture by Sachiko Akinaga. It is a LEGO model of the ITER fusion reactor which has been under construction for many years now, and apparently will keep being under construction for many years to come.
You may think that the image is a photoshop, or a drawing, or that perhaps the LEGO model does exist somewhere, perhaps in some studio in Japan, or at ITER construction site itself.
But no. The model is in the middle of the Scientific American newsroom! A couple of weeks ago when I went to our New York City office, I took these photos of the model. Now that the embargo has lifted, I can show you some more details of the model:
About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.
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Dangit Bora! I’m so jealous. I should have had my own LEGO ITER written into my writer’s contract…
Link to thisYou should have! At least come by the office one day and play!
Link to thisSo awesome!
Link to thisIf they had only used LEGOs to model the planned process in advance they could have avoided all these problems!
Link to thisVery cute, though!
other people play with legos too not just kids and myth busters? hum?
Link to thisIf they used LEGOs to actually build the thing, they would have finished construction by now
Link to this