It’s been getting closer for what, two decades now?
This is low effort. Are you arguing we haven’t made material progress in the last twenty years?
Material science advances in magnets alone should raise your curiosity to not have to wait for a packaged consumer product to notice advancement.
Arguably there has been a time when fusion got further away (compared to predictions) because of reduced interest and funding. But I'd agree that for the last two decades you could print the headline "fusion is getting closer" at any time, and it would always be true.
Maybe that's just me ranting about how titles have shifted from trying to inform you and distill the essence of a news article to just trying to get you to read the article. It's really a comment on journalism rather than fusion.
This is a terrible assumption when it comes to basic research.
> that for the last two decades you could print the headline "fusion is getting closer" at any time, and it would always be true
What are you basing this on?There have been a few discrete steps forward. In between, ideas and experiments.
> really a comment on journalism rather than fusion
Can you quote the line from the article that renders the title misleading?
Even trying out things that don't work is progress, since it narrows the space of possible solutions. The only ways to really set back progress would be by getting others to believe something that's untrue, for example by faking research.
You could manage to not advance the field by not publishing a finding and leaving the field. You can slow progress for example by popularizing a path that doesn't lead anywhere, discouraging people from going down the right path, or just reducing popularity or funding of the field. But slowing progress doesn't erase progress. If you do genuine work and at least talk about it with colleagues on a conference that's advancing the field.
> What are you basing this on?
The classic graph everyone uses would be 1, which shows consistent progress over ~40 years. It's a bit out of date now, but I assume the trend has held since then.
> Can you quote the line from the article that renders the title misleading?
I didn't call it misleading, I called it lazy and uninformative. A (mild) form of clickbait, because it merely hints at information without providing any. My English teacher would have deducted points for that title.
1: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Progress-to-Date-in-Achi...
Maybe, maybe not. You may be searching an infinite domain, or the wrong domain entirely.
> If you do genuine work and at least talk about it with colleagues on a conference that's advancing the field
Sure. But it’s not advancing a technology.
> classic graph everyone uses would be 1, which shows consistent progress over ~40 years
Fair enough. I’d argue that’s constant progress in one of the problems of fusion power, namely, ignition. The article’s point is the other problems are either being solved or showing similar progress. That wasn’t true until recently.
> it merely hints at information without providing any
It's debunking the assumption at the top of this thread. Especially with the "no really," it's arguing that the ground truth has changed.
Far cheaper and more practical.
No reason for pointless cynicism, this is also against the guidelines. Fusion power is like childbirth - yelling at 9 months that it has been 9 months, and is therefore never arriving, would be delusional.