Solid-State_Baseplate

@ianmiles Here's an excellent example of streamlining to design optimization. @elonmusk @JTLonsdale x.com/SpaceX/status/…

Concentrating that massive amount of electrical energy will require powerful electronics, that can be optimally built by directly bonding the heat-generating SILICON to the heat-sinking ALUMINUM. x.com/SolidStateBase… This huge streamlining of design eliminates electronic-packaging interlayers ... saving cost, complexity, space and weight. @elonmusk @JTLonsdale @SecWar

Joe Lonsdale: We looked at the future of warfare and it was obvious where things were going — drones everywhere. And it just isn’t sustainable to fire million-dollar missiles at cheap drones. That math doesn’t work. So we asked: how do you get a one-to-many effect? The answer wasn’t more missiles — it was energy. The breakthrough came when Silicon Valley chips got fast and powerful enough to control massive energy on microscopic time scales. You can condense huge amounts of power into a fraction of a second, send it into a gallium nitride emitter, and fire farther than anyone thought possible. That’s when everything changed. Missiles versus drones is a losing game. You’re spending $100,000 to shoot down something that costs a fraction of that. The future is shooting cones of energy — fast, efficient, precise — and taking out multiple threats without bankrupting yourself. Gallium nitride — GaN — is the unsung hero here. It’s an insanely efficient emitter that’s only really become viable in the last 10–15 years. Pair that with modern AI chips, and suddenly you can deliver a burst of energy so intense and so fast that it fries drone electronics instantly. You’re not slowly melting targets. You’re condensing power into a 10,000th of a second or less. A super-fast, super-intense burst. When it hits the drone’s electronics, it doesn’t damage them — it destroys them. The key insight was realizing that Silicon Valley’s best engineers and chips could solve defense problems in totally new ways. When you combine cutting-edge AI hardware with advanced emitters like gallium nitride, you don’t just improve weapons — you redefine how warfare works.

@elonmusk PRO TIP: 'BELL CURVES' are healthy ... everything is relative. That's how Nature has worked for billions of years.

Universal high income

Q: Is hollow-fiber SRO technology still around? There's not much on the interweb it. Back then, we were talking about going to 1800-psi feed pressure, which enabled the maximum conversion rate, minimizing pre-treatment volume.

@SolidStateBased @VincentGeloso @NonlinearSum @engineers_feed Those older energy recovery technologies were much more complicated and much less efficient. Rotary PXs were a game changer. It's remarkable how late such a simple technology was discovered. Energy use is now as low as 2.6 kWh/m^3.

No secular stagnation

@IanCopeland5 Homosexuality -- where the brain does not match the body's gender -- is hormonal and natural, occurring in males way more than females: all embryos start female, only males need to transition. x.com/NonlinearSum/s…

It doesn't really matter what you think about homosexuality. What matters is the science. All great apes (including humans) display homosexual behavior. So unless your argument is that all great apes are mentally ill, homosexuality is a natural phenomenon in humans and all great apes... nature.com/articles/s4146…

Even back in the '80s, all the big SRO hollow-fiber plants had brine energy-recapture pumps (acted like a turbo-charger), although I don't recall the efficiency. Qs: What maximum feed pressure do SRO pumps now deliver? What are the permeators' conversion rates?

@SolidStateBased @VincentGeloso @NonlinearSum RO has not stagnated. For example, the introduction of the rotary pressure exchanger (PX), which has one moving part and recovers energy in the output brine stream at 95+% efficiency, didn't become standard until 2005 or later.

@Rainmaker1973 Q: Are those powerful magnet fields that control the plasma from conventional or superconducting magnets? @NonlinearSum

@skdh As noted before, scientific progress -- whether in high-energy physics or high-performance materials -- was gelded when the Soviets were no longer an adversary. x.com/NonlinearSum/s…

Demis Hassabis about the lack of progress in the foundations of physics

@ericweinstein Dubya was also fuzzy on that whole *international law* concept. azquotes.com/quote/906289

I’ve never been entirely sure if international law actually existed.

Q: Does the 'Mansfield era' refer to this guy, the controversial conservative Harvard professor? I do know him a bit, and he's quite the free thinker ... I'm sure Harvard was happy when he retired. thecrimson.com/article/2023/7…

Scientists need autonomy, academic freedom, resources and high trust to do science. And over 55 years since the Mansfield era, we have lost on all of those. And that is why we have no @elonmusk types in science. We would instantly drive them out by committees, HR complaints, peer review, and death by 1000 colleagues and administrators.

There is no @elonmusk of Science.

PRO TIP: Scrap the scary term *NUCLEAR REACTOR*, as it gives the technology a bad vibe ... and what 'reaction' is actually happening anyway, beyond a molecular transition in the uranium that gives off heat? NEW TERM: *MAGIC ROCKS* boil water. x.com/NonlinearSum/s… @NonlinearSum @engineers_feed

The @DeptofWar is teaming up with @ENERGY to deploy advanced nuclear reactors at military bases and AI data centers by 2027. 🤝 inl.gov/news-release/i…

@BADown1 @elonmusk @engineers_feed On that *PLUMBING* metaphor, equating electrical and water flow has long been useful for understanding system dynamics. @NonlinearSum en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic…

That's an impressive application description, but out-of-my-league, photon-technology wise. Q: Can you tell me more about the specific mounting of your heat-generating semiconductor chips to their baseplate for cooling? I'm more of a *THERMAL PLUMBER* -- x.com/SolidStateBase… -- and only focus on the system INTERFACES ... heat-sealing together dissimilar surfaces (such as semiconductor and aluminum) with a robust bond that can survive extreme-temperature exposure (cryo-to-300C) and thermal shocks.

Like SpaceX engines, dramatic reductions in cost, complexity, space and weight are possible in HIGH-POWER ELECTRONICS packaging, by bonding the heat-generating semiconductor (Si, SiC, GaN) directly to heat-dissipating aluminum. x.com/SpaceX/status/… @elonmusk @engineers_feed @EEPwr @APEC_Conf @PwrElectronics @AlessandroStru4 @PPPLab @ENERGY @SecretaryWright @MichaelDell

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but further advancement in this military-aviation stealth technology probably dried up after the Soviet Union threw in the towel. What you see is what we got ... no 'stealth' here. @engineers_feed @elonmusk @NonlinearSum x.com/SolidStateBase…

This is 37 year old technology. Can you imagine what they have now?

*Government funded non governmental organizations* Wow, what a sweet all-time contradiction in terms! dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/eng…

ELON MUSK: "Government funded non governmental organizations are one of the biggest sources of fraud in the world. This is a gigantic fraud loophole."

@BADown1 @elonmusk @engineers_feed The proprietary TPI-bonding technology should be able to bond any semiconductor surface to any aluminum surface, with a bondline of only few microns (which can be highly filled with inorganic particles to optimize thermal or electrical conductivity, see below).

Again, sorry for the delayed response. The direct lamination of Si-on-Al is a brand new (patented) technology that has been in-development over the past 10 years ... Si-on-Al is now optimized and ready-for-business. Could you describe your PHOTON DATA TRANSMISSION application? Info about your existing electronic-packaging design would be most helpful. [I'll try to respond sooner this time, if I can figure out X's nuances.] @nonlinearsum

The same principles in engineering-design optimization would certainly benefit ELECTRONIC PACKAGING. Bonding heat-generating SILICON directly to heat-dissipating ALUMINUM would eliminate 80-90% of the systems' cost, complexity, space and weight. x.com/SolidStateBase…

@TheCaptainEli @live_munro @elonmusk certainly utilized that simplifying discipline in streamlining the design of his Raptor engine. cosmoscience.in/raptor-rocket-… @engineers_feed

In the 2021 Sandy Munro interview (min 17-20), Elon brilliantly breaks down why simplicity wins. He gives engineers 2 points for deleting a line of code, only 1 for adding one. On manufacturing: “We asked the world’s best material scientists the best material for each little section… got 50 different answers. All true individually, but not true collectively.” That led to dozens of parts, dissimilar metals, seals, leaks, and nightmare assembly. His fix? Mega-castings. One giant single-piece rear body. No joins, no sealant, no corrosion, dramatically smaller factory. This obsession with “fewer parts, fewer lines of code” is pure first-principles genius. It’s why Tesla keeps leaping ahead while others complicate. Relentless simplicity in action. Love it. 🚀