Technology

The power of the sun in the palm of my hand

Le et

The amusing thing is that the sun is actually quite a shit fusion reactor. It's power per unit volume is tiny. It just makes it up in sheer volume. A solar level fusion reactor would be almost completely useless to us. Instead we need to go far beyond the sun's output to just be viable.

It's like describing one of the mega mining dumper trucks as an "artificial mule".

The power of the sun in the palm of my hand.

They say "artificial sun" because that's what it is though, there's no fusion reactions here they're just microwaving hydrogen to millions of degrees to study the kind of thing that would happen IF somebody runs a fusion reactor for 22 minutes.

It is awesome. Whichever country develops it first will be remembered as the next ‘moon landing’ event forever.

Or the world blows up and it’s all over. I guess what I’m saying is, no downside, fire it up and let’s see what happens.

That's called McFusion

I know!

Because the articles were written by different people and published in different magazines ya goober.

Why do you care so much what an article says about France's accomplishments of science and China's accomplishments of science? Why can't we enjoy the movement of technology without bickering about lines drawn in the sand by people none of us know or care about?

Because that one was over double the length of the record before it and this one is closer to a 35% increase.

IIRC it was expected because previous record from China was essentially a trial for this one. It all happens under ITER project so it’s not that much of a race.