This machine is the stringing together major physics, optical, and electronic discoveries of the past century or so into a precision machine with incredible new capabilities. From the electron sources, the RF technologies, vacuum and supercon technology, the Bremstrellung (sp?), to the photon grouping, to the obviously advanced detectors with enormous parallel data throughput. One of the best talks I have seen. Bravo.
CCC.DE is slow for me, here's a youtube link to same video. Worth watching!<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKqof77pKBc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKqof77pKBc</a>
I saw the talk live and the nerdism, physicians humor and the transfered knowledge was really mind blowing. It's an awesome insight into the foundation and building of a really large human made machine. Watch!
The dig at the beginning that „white men“ got 1962 the Nobel prize for DNA instead Rosalind Franklin was cringey and factually incorrect. Frankin died in 1958 and the Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously. Had she lived she would have gotten it too, there is no question about that.
I watched the video and then clapped at the end.<p>There has been tremendous effort to make the presentation and explain the mechanics that led to the XFEL.<p>Highly recommended.
I agree with all the other comments - this is an excellent video.<p>Does anyone know how the slides were made? Some of the animations are rather lovely. They look like they were made by a professional TV media company. I'm guess this is not the case.
I still don't understand why we need such a thing. Every single interaction that is involved with protein folding or any chemical or molecular process can be calculated "ab initio" via QED (Quantum Electro Dynamics). So why not just build big computers and be done with it? If there is any macroscopic effect that can be exploited, we still can prove that the theory works and won't need a super powerful FEL for it.