People have been working on inertial fusion energy for decades, and not simply because they like playing with stadium-sized, $5-billion-dollar laser facilities.

People have been working on inertial fusion energy for decades, and not simply because they like playing with stadium-sized, $5-billion-dollar laser facilities. Internet commenters who multiply two numbers to calculate a laser efficiency and then think they're smarter than thousands of people who have dedicated decades of their lives to this effort - should reconsider their perspective. The physics of thermonuclear burn is well-understood from nuclear weapons experiments. The yield from burning DT fuel in an ICF target is just as nonlinear as striking a match. If you've never seen a matchbox before, you might watch someone fruitlessly swiping the match on the side of the box with no discernible result. One, twice, three times. Maybe at some point you see a spark, but clearly the spark is insufficient to do anything with. You might start laughing, and exclaim "Why do you keep doing the same thing, clearly nothing is going to happen! Why are you wasting your energy?" But as everyone knows - eventually the match will strike and burst into flame.