[Jensson]

Most things people said wouldn't happen didn't happen though. Some remarkable things happened, yes, but you can't count on remarkable breakthroughs happening in any specific area.

People looked at past results and thought we would live forever by now, but we still die and there is no end in sight of that.

People looked at past energy use and saw the future of fusion solving all human energy needs, but energy use has been flat for the past 50 years as no new efficient enough energy sources was found.

People looked at the innovations of transportation and assumed we would all have flying cars today, yet we still drive cars on the ground just like 70 years ago. They are a bit safer and more efficient today, but they are still just cars.

[beambot]

Fwiw, net-positive nuclear fusion now legitimately looks to be less than 5 years out. See Commonwealth Fusion. Here's a technical deep dive:

https://youtu.be/rY6U4wB-oYM

[Jensson]

Those slides was 2.5 years ago, there ought to have been some very interesting development since then if it is just 5 years away, right? Can't you link something more recent?

[beambot]

Most recent advances: https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusio...

I just figured the physics symposium lecture would be more interesting given the deep-dive details and allusions to why ITER "failed" to achieve the desired breakthroughs.

[pas]

(Just to elaborate on ITER. It's the classic too big to fail project, not to mention it has basically one feature: it's so over-engineered that it can't fail. It's almost the equivalent of the LHC. Built to "prove" a theory. Of course almost everyone wished some beyond the standard model physics to pop up at the LHC, it didn't as far as I know. Almost nobody wishes for unexpected things to happen at ITER, so it's supre boring. With a really eye-watering price tag. But at the same time it is a big umbrella project to get the necessary components designed, built, and tested for fusion. It's accumulating know-how, training experts, it's literally paving the fucking way. Hence the name. And in that context it's basically free. Companies spend more on filing and litigating dumb parents, and those are obvious too.)

[Jensson]

Thanks, that looks cool. Just that a professor with slides is rarely a good sign that something is soon production ready, but them meeting production milestones is a good sign.

Still I wont bother to check the physics, if they are right it is great, but I wont change my life based on them making it. I know the problems with ITER, it will be too expensive to really revolutionize much, but I haven't done physics in a while and wont bother with more now.