Pre-ignition for an automobile engine to continue on for thousands of kilometers with mild detonation, pre-ignition can destroy an engine in just a few strokes of the piston. Pre-ignition Pre-ignition (or preignition) in a spark-ignition engine is a technically different phenomenon from engine knocking, and describes the event wherein the air/fuel mixture in the cylinder ignites before the spark plug fires. Pre-ignition is initiated by an ignition source other than the spark, such as hot spots in the combustion chamber, a spark plug that runs too hot for the application, or carbonaceous deposits in the combustion chamber heated to incandescence by
Fusion ignition of deuterium and tritium, which are both isotopes of hydrogen, in order to compress the isotopes to a fraction of their original size, and fuse them into helium atoms (releasing neutrons in the process). In January 2012, National Ignition Facility Director Mike Dunne predicted in a Photonics West 2012 plenary talk that ignition would be achieved at NIF by October 2012. However, , NIF is operating at conditions about 1/10 to 1/3 of breakeven. Confusingly, by LLNL definitions, ignition and breakeven occur at the same point, due to specifics of their experiment. Experts believe that achieving fusion ignition is the