4 ms·
How many % of the country GDP did the Manhattan cost? How much would that percentage be in dollars today?
by borissk 4y ago
How many % of the country GDP did the Manhattan cost? How much would that percentage be in dollars today?
- DennisP 4y agoHow does that matter? It's the same size project, no matter how much is going on in the rest of the economy. Also, the Manhattan Project took three years. Fusion has been actively researched for seventy years. We can spend all day quibbling but it seems clear that fusion research is at least roughly "on a scale similar to Manhattan."
- borissk 4y agoNothing like it. Nearly all the best physicists and mathematicians in the free world were employed in Manhattan, a minuscule amount of the top scientists in the world today work on fusion.
- DennisP 4y agoYou said "a lot of money (on a scale similar to Manhattan", so I've been arguing that specific point. Money on the scale of Manhattan is in fact being spent. I don't think there's any way to quantify whether the "best" physicists are working on fusion so I'm not going to argue that one.
- borissk 4y agoAs I tried to explain, what I meant was the Manhattan project cost 0.8% of 1945 US GDP. To spend the same percentage today would be 184 billion. Obviously nothing like that is being spent. If you read physics journals, you'll know there is very little research being done and published on fusion today.
- spurgu 4y agoIt's perceived to be more profitable to spend that money on wars rather than innovation to attain energy.
- UncleEntity 4y agoIt was a government project during a wartime economy so probably doesn’t matter.