[jacquesm]

To all of you worried that it will work and that China will take the lead: it doesn't matter. What matters is that once someone shows it can be done there will be a race on to copy the feat and that race won't be too long without other winners. The same thing has happened with every other key technology that might give a nation a head start in the military domain, and this definitely is one like that.

Simply knowing that something is possible is often enough to remove the political and mental roadblocks required to see it through.

[yummypaint]

Im always happy to see more funding for magnetic fusion research. Maybe this will put more pressure on US politicians to at least not renege on our existing commitments (ITER). For reference, here is how we have funded it so far: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/U.S._his...

[imglorp]

If Earth spent a tiny fraction of the annual fossil subsidy, which is in the $US Trillions, on this stuff we'd have it knocked out in no time.

[ethbro]

Or for < 1/3 of an Iraq War, to put it in other terms.

[akvadrako]

There is not really much of a fossil fuel subsidy, unless you are counting costs of climate change.

[imglorp]

Not true.

Around $5T a year globally, $600B just US, some direct and some indirect.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-f...

[akvadrako]

If you actually read that report you would see they include environmental costs from climate change and things like road usage and congestion.

Sure, we shouldn't subsidize big trucks on highways - but it's deceptive to call that a fossil fuel subsidy.

[knzhou]

This point needs to be stressed. It took less than 5 years for the Soviets to figure out the nuclear bomb, despite the great novelty of the idea, the many unknowns surrounding nuclear physics at the time, the scarcity of the ingredients, and the fact that U.S. research was conducted under total secrecy.

Meanwhile, the entire international community of scientists has been thinking about fusion for decades, publicly sharing their results, and scientists in every country know what the rough obstacles are. A big leap forward in fusion wouldn't even take 5 years to disseminate across the community, it would take weeks.

[the-dude]

They had multiple spies in the Manhattan project.

[haecceity]

CIA is well funded

[knzhou]

Sure, and nowadays any big science project has hundreds if not millions of "spies". You, too, can dig into the data and methods of many such experiments, no matter what country you liv in.

[jandrewrogers]

Eh, copying is not always trivial. Much of the work on computational discrete topology circa 2007-2009, for example, is still nowhere in public evidence, despite its criticality to some key domains and obvious value. No one has copied it, more than a decade hence. Information does not flow that freely even when it is old.

[ganzuul]

Need a bit more information to know what you are talking about.

[est]

> What matters is that once someone shows it can be done there will be a race on to copy the feat and that race won't be too long without other winners

That's basically how "Copy to China" mode works. US proved many technology was viable.

[anakaine]

Thanks for the reality check.

[mattlondon]

Why should anyone worry if China "takes the lead"?

And takes the lead from who precisely?