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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

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.

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.