Video Transcript
So this is just the Wikipedia on John Knuckles. We're not going to go through all of it, of course, because it's quite long, but I think just the most initial parts are pretty significant. He's best known for the development of inertial confinement fusion. The development of inertial confinement fusion chat, ICF fusion. That right there is literally the fusion that Friedwart Winterberg said was classified for national security. This guy developed it. This guy is the father of inertial confinement fusion, which is a major branch of fusion research to this day. Well, kind of. Now, let's take a look at his awards. He won the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, the James Clerk Maxwell Prize for Plasma Physics in 1981, and the Edward Teller Award in 1991, the Department of Energy Distinguished Associate in 1995, the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996 by Fusion Power Associates, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996 as well. Finally, the Enrico Fermy Presidential Award last year. Wow. Basically, he was working on trying to make the thermonuclear bombs even more efficient. He was trying to make it so that one, he found out that they could use lasers as the trigger. And then he said, "Oh, well, we don't need the A bomb anymore." He was trying to figure out how do we make a fusion bomb without the A bomb, without the explosive part of it, a clean bomb. and talked about doing it to potentially produce energy as well. When I heard John Knuckles or read about John Knuckles when he was basically trying to make a clean fusion bomb, which is what we might be looking at, that was full on. This is the Enrio Fermy 2024 presentation. The moment I found out that this dude won the Enrico Fermy, I was immediately like, we're going to find that video, that presentation. There's only like 20 people in this audience. So let's listen to the part for this uh final laurette for this year is Mr. John Hopkins Nichols. He is recognized for pioneering inertial confinement fusion and high energy density physics and having in the last couple of years. You've been in a hole somewhere and outstanding contributions to national visionary leadership uh at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the end of the cold war. >> Mr. Dr. Nichols is L is celebrated for his groundbreaking contributions to inertial confinement fusion or ICF and high energy density physics HDP. >> He advanced national security and he is being credited with getting ignition to happen at the national ignition facility which just happened according to the public a couple years ago. Okay. Yeah. This dude we need to go we need to make an amendment to our goat uh black project tier list. And I think this dude got like no recognition. Like yes, he's getting all these awards, but just like look at it from a realistic perspective, right? Like these people are doing stuff that if the public knew about it, they would be like on CNN, right? They would be like publicly famous, right? Instead, they're just famous in these small physics and engineering communities. Like, yes, you're a Nobel laureate, but if I go talk to somebody on the street, nobody knows who the hell you are. They never heard of you before. They know who Drake is. He also played a critical role in the early stages of constructing the NIT. >> Wow. >> It is thanks to his vision and expertise that the ICF and the laser programs were pushed forward and led to the creation of the increasingly powerful lasers and the establishment of the net. His leadership elevated Lawrence Liverour National Laboratory's reputation as a multi-disiplinary national security institution and solidified ICF and HDP as key components of the US deterrence strategy. key components of the US deter. What does she mean? What does she mean when she says inertial confinement fusion was a key component of the United States deterrent strategy? That's a really specific use of those words. So, we're using inertial confinement fusion as a deterrent. Do you mean like with some orbs that can spin around and zap something to the next dimension? cuz that's what we're seeing in the MH370 videos. And as far as I can tell, inertial confinement fusion is not really successful from the public perspective. In fact, can anybody list me one thing that they know about that the United States uses for deterrence or for defense related to inertial confinement fusion? One thing other than nukes. I can't literally the only thing I can think of related to inertial confinement fusion is nukes. So, what do they what's the deterrent strategy? Hm. >> He has certainly uh ensured the kind of uh growth and especially in the area of ICF and these fields. >> Oh, that was that was >> his contributions have had farreaching impacts. His work in ICF and laser technology has not only advanced national security but also led to many technological spin-offs such as extreme and ultraviolet photography for modern integrated circuits. >> Whoa, hold up chat. Hold up. >> What did What did she just say right there? Extreme ultraviolet lithography. Oh yes, chat. Oh yes, full doses, chat. Full dos. Ultraviolet lithography. Wait, he helped inspire microchip design. Microchip design. This is where it gets weird. This is where this just gets off the damn rails. It turns out when I was looking into his connection to the Ripple project and and working on these nukes, a huge aspect of the nuke technology was literally doing IBM punch cards. Do you know what that means? Probably not. That was making the first computers. A huge aspect of the nukes. He says he would stay up day and night and all they were doing is punching IBM punch cards. Why? Because they're programming the computer that's going to launch that's going to pro that fire the nuke off. Why? Because it needs perfect geometry. You need to compress the target perfectly. So, you need to have a computer do those calculations. And I went, wait, what? I'm reading this and I'm going, John Knuckles potentially helped inspire UV lithography, microchip design. He was working on the first computers in the 50s. He's working on the some of the very first computers and I'm just going in my head. I can't stop thinking about the fact that the orbs in the MH370 videos are using AI navigation. Why are they using AI navigation? Because it comes from the first nuclear computers. The first nuclear computers were doing the exact same things that the orbs are doing. They were just trying to get into a perfect geometric orientation to compress the the fusion target. They're called the pushers. That's what they would call them. I mean, back when they didn't have orbs and they had to use physical things. But, and before you ask, yes, he even talks about using plasma beams as the as the ignition target or the uh the pushers, not just lasers, plasma. This is what they're hiding. The whole laser ignition facility thing. Now they can use plasma. They can use a matter beam or whatever the hell. Coherent matter wave beam. So John Knuckles helped ultraviolet lithography chat. I've got to be honest. I am obsessed with lithography right now. I want to learn everything there is about it. I might make a career change and just go fullon microchip cuz it's dope as And here's the other thing I was thinking about right before this related to it. How the hell do they design those microchips? Those microchips are so small. They've got millions of components on them. Nobody is make handwriting that, right? Like nobody's designing that by hand. It's got to be AI making the microchip designs, right? like you feed AI what you want it to do and then it just makes a pattern, a geometric pattern and that's what your microchip is. They're pretty much just geometric patterns. So we might actually already be getting to the point where like the AI is produc like might even becoming self efficient like you just tell the AI make a better microchip make it more efficient and it designs you something that's even more efficient then you print it out and then the only thing holding us back is our material manufacturing. How small, how efficient, how accurate can we make our microchips? The smaller, the more efficient, the best lithography is going to have the best technology for sure. Best lithography, best microchips, best technology. So when I saw this, that was big like warning like red flag. for modern integrated circuits and his achievements demonstrate the profound societal benefits of scientific innovation and visionary leadership. Unfortunately, Mr. Nichols is not able to be here in person today, though he's joining us online. So, we I mean, we got to play it again. He's not able to join us today. Why is he not able to join us today? Everybody else is there. Is he in a hyperbarolic time chamber somewhere? Hyperbaric time chamber. Like this is weird, man. The reason why I watched this video is I wanted to know what this guy looked like. What does he look like? Right? Like I'm going to get to see him. He doesn't even have a picture on his Wikipedia. His Wikipedia doesn't even have a photo. Which tells me anytime I see like when I search these people, you search a normal person on the internet, guys, like with a unique name, you're going to get so much stuff about them. Their social media, every time I search these black project engineers is nothing, dude. is nothing. Maybe some random photo somebody uploaded one time. They have like no social media presence except for like LinkedIn, which is weird to me, but yeah. Okay, so he's not even there. No, let's skip that, though. Okay, so they we applause for him. And here's here's the only photo I've ever seen of the guy right there. There he is. John Knuckles. Boom. Nichols. They do they have speeches here at the end. Okay, that's the only photo I've seen of this dude. Okay, here's the here's the remarks John prepared for us. So, let's listen to the man himself, guys. Well, at least through a proxy. >> John has prepared for you. I'd like to thank the Biden administration and the Dway Office of Science for honoring me today. I'm proud to share this award with Hector Arunia and Paul Alivasados. Joining these two in the illustrious list of past recipients is truly remarkable. They include my heroes, mentors, and colleagues like Edward Teller, Harold Brown, and John Foster. >> Okay, Edward Teller is this hero. Good sign. Here we go. >> I'd also like to thank my colleagues at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where I spent my entire career. Scientific accomplishments are never an individual achievement. We build on the work of our predecessors, expand our knowledge through collaboration and competition, and pass forward new problems and ideas to the next generation of scientists. I was fortunate to begin my career just before the invention of the laser. In 1960, this cutting edge technology opened exciting new avenues of research in physics. Pretty soon, Lawrence Livermore started a laser program. From the start, I believed we could use a laser to achieve fusion ignition. Lawrence Livermore emerged as a leader in both laser research and supercomputing, which proved fortuitous. Without supercomputing, we could not have done the calculations necessary to advance this work. As happens in most careers, I >> hold up. Without supercomputing, we couldn't have advanced this work. From the start, I believed we could use a laser to create ignition from fusion >> laser to achieve fusion ignition. Lawrence Livermore emerged as a leader in both laser research and supercomputing, which proved fortuitous. Without supercomputing, we could not have done the calculations necessary to advance this work. As happens in most careers, I event. >> What are they use chat? What are they using quantum computers for? Chat, what are they using the quantum computers for? John Kramer told us. John Kramer, I remembered it. I remembered it. It was John Kramer. He gets asked, he said this random interview says, "What do you think they're doing quantum computers for?" He says, "Well, they could do the nuclear calculations of the waves because it has all these complex differentials or whatever." So that's what quantum computer could do because it can solve the equations just like that. Wowers moved into leadership becoming lab director in 1988. It was a remarkable time with the end of the cold war and underground nuclear weapons testing. This provided the impetus for building the laser that could achieve fusion. The national ignition facility or NIF. N became one of the main ingredients in the sciencebased stockpile stewardship program which replaced underground testing with laboratory experiments and supercomputing. Launching this is one of the highlights of my career. We had high hopes when Nif began experiments, but the results did not match our expectations. We had much more to learn to understand these strange results. >> Okay, right there. I can I can He's not even on the screen. Like, that's just him reading through a proxy and I can tell he's lying. We had high expectations, but it just didn't We got strange results. Didn't really work out. No, no, no, no. You solved it. I already read about you solving the hydrogen bomb. Stop pretending like you don't know the answer. Strange results. Strange results like when we had a we detonated a a thermonuclear bomb and it was like three times the energy released than what we expected. Those kinds of strange results. Where's fusion? Where's fusion? When are we going to get fusion? Tell me exactly when we're going to get it. This guy's 95 years old. He's about to die. Of course they figured it out, guys. Of course they figured it out. And then what they do because academics are stupid as hell and so easily misled. I mean honestly academics is just insane how gullible they are. You know all you have to do is you have to put somebody in a lab, make it look nice and fancy, right? And then he just comes in and tells them what to do and he just ensures that they'll never actually get there. And if they get too close, he might let them in but makes them sign the NDA and they can never talk about it. Right? This is all they do. That's it. The people that are ignorant that are never going to figure it out, like the Brian Keadons of the world for example, like he's never going to figure this out. He had no chance of figuring this out. They know those guys are never going to figure it out. Doesn't matter. You could even show it to them. They're not going to figure it out. But there are smart people out there that will figure it out, right? That will. They'll be like, "Wait, something's not adding up here. Like, I'm doing these results and like I'm seeing this self-stable plasma here. Like, why is this happening?" Those people, those are the ones that they look for. Those are the ones they go, "Okay, we're going to bring you in, right? You're going to come work for us for national security." Now, side the the problem with that is that now you can never talk to anybody about it ever. And if you do, we can kill you. If you think I'm joking, I actually looked it up. No, they can literally the death penalty is on the table for leaking nuclear secrets. The death penalty is literally on the table for leaking nuclear secrets. And that's if they care about the law. That's if they actually care about the law. If they don't care about the law because they're above the law anyway, then they can just take you out anytime they want. >> But NIPL had plenty of doubters. Repeatedly, different review teams told us it would never work, that the facility would never achieve ignition. I joined a red team to refute this, and in the end, we proved them wrong. 2018, I received the John S. Foster Junior Medal. I received many awards over the course of my career, but this one stands out because it recognized my work of the last 10 years. I'm proud of my contributions to understanding the complex physics of Nif experiments. Just over two years ago, we did what many thought was impossible. We achieved ignition at N. And in the last two years, we've repeated this result over and over. Now, scientists are building on this new foundation to advance the experiments we can do for stockpile stewardship. While the media and general public tend to overlook this this reason that N exists. But the beautiful thing about NIF is that as we explore new regimes of high energy density physics, that understanding applies to stockpile stewardship and the pursuit of fusion energy. As I reflect on my career, I move beyond words. I always believed we'd achieve fusion ignition in my lifetime, but no one foresaw how hard it would be. But we did it. And now the US is the undisputed leader in fusion energy research. So this almost reminds me of like he's trying to fight for it publicly, right? Because they already know, they figured out privately. They've already got fusion reactors probably on like submarines and other military stuff, right? That's why those submarines can be underwater for like 35 years. Not using a conventional nuclear reactor. So he's he's just these are like I feel like these guys just want recognition. Like they just want somebody to be like, "Yes, you did this amazing thing." In fact, I kind of think that some of these people might be on our side because you can imagine some of them are now in their 90s, right? And they're realizing, "Oh nobody caught on. Nobody caught on to what we were really doing. They were kind of expecting it to leak out and it never did." And now they're going, "We're never going to get they're going," we're never going to get the recognition that they deserve. So some of them and some of them also are probably realizing like it's never going to come out. Like they were successfully able to suppress fusion for like 70 years and they're going unless something changes. Like it the the laws aren't changing. Nobody's really whistleblowing. When is it going to change? So some of them might be on our side wanting some of this to come out. That could be a reason why I'm not dead right now.