megajoule

[ meg-uh-joul, -jool ]

noun

, Physics.

1. a unit of work or energy, equal to one million joules.

Word History and Origins

Origin of megajoule¹

mega- + joule

Example Sentences

Besides the NIF, the biggest, there are the Megajoule Laser facility in France and the Shenguang-III laser facility in China; Russia also might be pursuing this approach, but the details are hard to ascertain.

From Scientific American

Although the December 2022 shot at NIF produced a record-breaking 3.15 megajoules of energy from a 2.05 megajoule laser pulse, a gain of about 1.5, generating that pulse consumed hundreds of megajoules of electricity, and NIF can only do one shot per day.

From Science Magazine

The latter advantage means that although land-use effects alone add an extra 4–26 grams of CO2 emissions per megajoule of energy delivered from soya-based fuels, according to Field, carinata cuts 9–13 grams of emissions per megajoule from fuels.

From Scientific American

It took far more energy in total — on the scale of 300 megajoules — to produce that 3.15 megajoule result.

From Washington Post

However, that 2.05 megajoule input did not represent all the energy that went into the ignition process — just the amount that inefficient lasers managed to get to the hydrogen pellet.

From Washington Post