3 ms·
What a silly thing to say -- of course there has been progress, even if it's only a better understanding of what doesn't work.
by shardling 14y ago
What a silly thing to say -- of course there has been progress, even if it's only a better understanding of what doesn't work.
- cjensen 14y agoOnly the US bothers with lasers because everyone else understands that lasers don't work for fusion. Tokamaks are where it's at. The only real use of NIF is to better understand fusion so as to better understand how nuclear weapons work. I just want them to be honest about it.
- uvdiv 14y agoOnly the US bothers with lasers because everyone else understands that lasers don't work for fusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Mégajoule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Mégajoule I personally think lasers are much more promising, if only because of how much room there is for disruption with solid-state lasers. Look at how horrible the NIF lasers are: ~1% efficient [0], billions of dollars, the size of a warehouse [1]. And the fusion end seems to work fine. [0] https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/nif/about.php [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#Driver_laser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Ignition_Facility#Dri...