By: Pranjal Mehar
May 19, 2019
Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence (AI) that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. Machine learning focuses on the development of computer programs that can access data and use it to learn for themselves.
Machine learning (ML), a form of artificial intelligence that recognizes faces, understands language and navigates self-driving cars, can help bring to Earth the clean fusion energy that lights the sun and stars. Now, it will help to create a model for rapid control of plasma — the state of matter composed of free electrons and atomic nuclei, or ions — that fuels fusion reactions.
The sun and most stars are giant bundles of plasma that experience steady fusion reactions. On Earth, scientists need to heat and control the plasma to make the particles to fuse and discharge their energy. This study demonstrates that ML can encourage such control.