Vortex wrote:
Some observations:
* Another nuclear project, the Manhattan project to build the A bomb took under five years.
* The first microprocessor - the puny Intel 4004 - was released in 1971 ... and in the subsequent 35 or so years the world has been transformed.
* The human genome project took 13 years.
A FIFTY year lack of progress is, IMHO, a disgrace.
Well let's take a more technical look at al of this, and try to reject your retarded arguments:
(i) Manhattan Project: They could do whatever they wanted to start with. Secondly fission is much more easy to accomplish then fusion. I don't see a nucleus and a neutron exercise repulsive forces! (And a little sidenote, how would you explain the Germans failing in their research?)
(ii) Well If you take all the development which lead to the first microprocessor, then you also have take into account the quantum mechanics of Silicon, the description of the lattice and growth procedures of pure cristals...So the total scientific knowledge was developed over let's say 100 years!
(iii) Well about this I don't know anything...I'll ask my sister when I see her because she knows more about this..
Now let's take a more detailed look at what happened in the fifty years of fusion research:
(i) The discovery of the tokamak principle, needed to control the plasma state needed for fusion. Of course the classical tokamak as developed in Russia has it's limits...Huge limit: pulse mode due to magnets!
(ii) limits were described and the limits to achieve fusion were also described.
(iii) Meanhwile lots of technological improvements were achieved on fields as material science, computer power, antennas, accelerators, super conducting magnets... And all of this found it's way into the fusion research.
(iv) Meanwhile some fundamental plasma physics were discovered. Which are of primary importance if you want to control fusion (It's like Solid state physics for a chip).
(v) Interaction of technical and scientific knowledge occurs and other means to further and more selective heat the plasma were discoved (electromagnetic heating). The current needed for confinement which was delivered by a huge magnetic coil can now be replaced by electromagnetic antennas which can operate in steady state...Yet some have implications on the size of the tokamak, therefor a larger device is needed for tests resulting in better understanding: ITER.
(vi) Nowadays a lot of technical knowledge of fusion research is also going towards other technical sectors. Also some research is moving from fundamental physics to harnessing the power of fusion....
And last but not least, the budget compared to the technological system needed is ridiculous!
But of course we have done almost nothing in those 50 years...
