How Supercomputers and the Berlin Wall Made a Nuclear Marvel Possible
Located a ten-minute drive outside the pretty German town of Greifswald, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics has a gray-and-glass front and gently waving roof that scream ‘Science Stuff Here.’
Inside, it’s not much different: bare walls, throngs of scientists drinking coffee and an Escher-pleasing warren of corridors and offices. It’s in the bowels of the giant building, however, that the Institute is protecting, updating and perfecting its greatest asset. It’s one that might, years from now, change the world.
The Wendelstein X-7 might not, at first sight, appear the likeliest candidate for global energy savior. It’s messy: pipes and platforms and wires surround it like scaffold on a car production line, something Germany has become rather more known for.
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