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It's been actualized recently, but there's a sort of vaporware bermuda triangle within physics of revolutionary holy grail advancements that repeatedly garner a

It's been actualized recently, but there's a sort of vaporware bermuda triangle within physics of revolutionary holy grail advancements that repeatedly garner an enormous amount of hype and press, but almost always fails to materialize into anything useful. It consists of * Room temperature semiconductors * Useful fusion power * Quantum computers something anything useful outside of a simulation It's a bit of a meme at this point. These things have been twenty years away for forty years. I wouldn't go as far as saying any of these things are impossible, but I would suggest physicists roll their eyes at these announcements for a good reason.

ajmurmann 3y ago
Is this more a property of these breakthroughs being very hard or very desirable? What would be achievements of similar impact that might be more achievable? I'm asking this in part because I was thinking way too much about applications of superconductors during peak LK-99 hype and now think room-temp superconductors would be the greatest possible discovery (we wouldn't even need fusion about because solar cells in deserts and a global superconductors grid). I wonder if I got to that conclusion because I obsessed over superconductors for weeks and if I'm missing other equally amazing, possible, future technologies.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  Probably mostly a consequence of how desirable these things would be. Both room temperature semiconductors and fusion would completely reshape society and re-draw the geopolitical map to a degree we haven't seen since the industrial revolution. We'd find ourselves in an age where oil was nearly worthless. So there's a lot of money and glory at stake if you can demonstrate you're making headway toward any of these goals. There's a parallel to alchemy in all this. Before we knew it wasn't impossible to create gold through chemical processes, it seemed like a very appealing quest indeed. You have figures like Newton spending an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to figure it out.
- cubefox 3y ago
  > What would be achievements of similar impact that might be more achievable? Artificial intelligence. By a gigantic margin. Fusion would be very expensive and likely not competitive with fission, due to vastly more complex and expensive reactors. So effectively useless. Quantum computers: Nobody knows what they would be practically useful for, not even experts like Scott Aaronson. (No, cracking RSA is not useful.) Room temperature superconductors: The most realistic example I have heard about them is ... smaller MRI machines. Great.

ajmurmann 3y ago

Is this more a property of these breakthroughs being very hard or very desirable? What would be achievements of similar impact that might be more achievable? I'm asking this in part because I was thinking way too much about applications of superconductors during peak LK-99 hype and now think room-temp superconductors would be the greatest possible discovery (we wouldn't even need fusion about because solar cells in deserts and a global superconductors grid). I wonder if I got to that conclusion because I obsessed over superconductors for weeks and if I'm missing other equally amazing, possible, future technologies.

marginalia_nu 3y ago
Probably mostly a consequence of how desirable these things would be. Both room temperature semiconductors and fusion would completely reshape society and re-draw the geopolitical map to a degree we haven't seen since the industrial revolution. We'd find ourselves in an age where oil was nearly worthless. So there's a lot of money and glory at stake if you can demonstrate you're making headway toward any of these goals. There's a parallel to alchemy in all this. Before we knew it wasn't impossible to create gold through chemical processes, it seemed like a very appealing quest indeed. You have figures like Newton spending an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to figure it out.
cubefox 3y ago
> What would be achievements of similar impact that might be more achievable? Artificial intelligence. By a gigantic margin. Fusion would be very expensive and likely not competitive with fission, due to vastly more complex and expensive reactors. So effectively useless. Quantum computers: Nobody knows what they would be practically useful for, not even experts like Scott Aaronson. (No, cracking RSA is not useful.) Room temperature superconductors: The most realistic example I have heard about them is ... smaller MRI machines. Great.