4 ms·

So you're saying, for example, that after plowing how many billions into fusion research, when they finally crack it and can produce continents-worth of power f

So you're saying, for example, that after plowing how many billions into fusion research, when they finally crack it and can produce continents-worth of power from pennies worth of sea water, they won't actually start giving electricity away for free? Even though we've all collectively 'invested' in it through our taxes for decades?

urthor 4y ago
Isaac Newton spent more time turning lead into gold than mathematics. Time & money doesn't make dumb ideas good ones. Bread needs water, flour, AND yeast to rise. Ain't gonna do much without all three.
- greenbit 4y ago
  And of course Sir Isaac found time to fit alchemy and mathematics in between the daily activities of subsistence farming. Oh wait ..
- HPsquared 4y ago
  Was he funded by an external agency for the purpose of turning lead into gold, or was it only his own interest/initiative?
  - lioeters 4y ago
    Interestingly, Newton was "Master of the Mint" at the Royal Mint, which supplies all the nation's coinage. > Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon the death of Thomas Neale in 1699, a position Newton held for the last 30 years of his life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint If he had been successful in turning lead into gold, he might have made his employer obsolete.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Flatbread is pretty tasty I hear.
achn 4y ago
It’s also the worst investment ever - if the same money was invested in solar farms and research, we could have actual world changing energy sources right now.
- jimbokun 4y ago
- huffmsa 4y ago
  More money doesn't make the wind blow more often. And there's only.so much capital that can be spent on material science before you hit a limit on the rate of improvement per unit time
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    An ironic comment, since fusion is the field depending on radical materials advances. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/research.seas.ucla.edu/dist/d/39/files/2019/08/MAbdou_ISFNT-14_Keynote_Lessons_Learned_2019.pdf https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/research.seas.ucla.edu/dist/d/... slide 13
- Bakary 4y ago
  It doesn't work like a game of Civilization. Allocating resources to a research problem means you increase the social and material rewards for a certain type of person to work on a certain type of project. There is no guarantee of success or one to one allocation of resources. It's also not a zero-sum game when the money to one source of energy took away from another.
  - imperfect_blue 4y ago
    Also unlike a video game, the tech-tree dependencies are not obvious. We don't know in advance whether a tech will be a productive avenue of R&D, or if it depends on other unrelated advances in theory, material science, or computer modeling, or was actually completely unfeasible in the first place. I find wind power [1] as a case study representative, and we see similar stories for e.g. fusion, cancer research, AI [1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-did-we-wait-so-long-for-wind-498 https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-did-we-wait-s...

urthor 4y ago

Isaac Newton spent more time turning lead into gold than mathematics. Time & money doesn't make dumb ideas good ones. Bread needs water, flour, AND yeast to rise. Ain't gonna do much without all three.

greenbit 4y ago
And of course Sir Isaac found time to fit alchemy and mathematics in between the daily activities of subsistence farming. Oh wait ..
HPsquared 4y ago
Was he funded by an external agency for the purpose of turning lead into gold, or was it only his own interest/initiative?
- lioeters 4y ago
  Interestingly, Newton was "Master of the Mint" at the Royal Mint, which supplies all the nation's coinage. > Newton became perhaps the best-known Master of the Mint upon the death of Thomas Neale in 1699, a position Newton held for the last 30 years of his life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint If he had been successful in turning lead into gold, he might have made his employer obsolete.
tomrod 4y ago
Flatbread is pretty tasty I hear.

achn 4y ago

It’s also the worst investment ever - if the same money was invested in solar farms and research, we could have actual world changing energy sources right now.

jimbokun 4y ago
huffmsa 4y ago
More money doesn't make the wind blow more often. And there's only.so much capital that can be spent on material science before you hit a limit on the rate of improvement per unit time
- pfdietz 4y ago
  An ironic comment, since fusion is the field depending on radical materials advances. https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/research.seas.ucla.edu/dist/d/39/files/2019/08/MAbdou_ISFNT-14_Keynote_Lessons_Learned_2019.pdf https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/research.seas.ucla.edu/dist/d/... slide 13
Bakary 4y ago
It doesn't work like a game of Civilization. Allocating resources to a research problem means you increase the social and material rewards for a certain type of person to work on a certain type of project. There is no guarantee of success or one to one allocation of resources. It's also not a zero-sum game when the money to one source of energy took away from another.
- imperfect_blue 4y ago
  Also unlike a video game, the tech-tree dependencies are not obvious. We don't know in advance whether a tech will be a productive avenue of R&D, or if it depends on other unrelated advances in theory, material science, or computer modeling, or was actually completely unfeasible in the first place. I find wind power [1] as a case study representative, and we see similar stories for e.g. fusion, cancer research, AI [1] https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-did-we-wait-so-long-for-wind-498 https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/why-did-we-wait-s...