Reply To: Iconography

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote:

Each organization and politician and bureaucrat will operate on the “Qui Bono?” principle, meaning “Who Benefits—will it be me/us?”

I thought that meant “Where’s Bono”, as in U2 lead singer. It’d be great to get him on board with promoting fusion alternatives.

About the date, when I contacted intrade for a focus fusion listing, that was the thing we had to work out with them before they would list us. We settled on 2014 as sufficient time to prove the concept either way. Including peer review, though. That was important to them. More at this link: https://focusfusion.org/index.php/forums/viewthread/288

You’ve got to keep that disclaimer in there. This is still unproven and it all comes down to “will it work?”

I think getting interest in that question alone will carry the game. With ITER’s recent troubles, I don’t think most people expect this to work, so it’s still at the level of speculation and game. Once the game gathers interest, and is publicly won (inshallah), people will want to benefit from it, will demand it. There will be large public & political support.

But yeah. At this time, politicians and people are rightfully skeptical. And we’ll have to respect that skepticism. The burden of proof is on focus fusion. Will it work?

In the meantime, the preparation work you guys are doing is great. Laying the groundwork for when, not if, this works, explaining the options to people, and the possible ways of integrating this. Anticipating barriers and arguments, devising workarounds. Keep up the great work!

I’ve written once or twice that I think fusion is controllable at the mega-level, if you have stellar gravity to work with, or at the nano-level, where (as Eric is demonstrating) magnetic forces can briefly be manipulated to create adequate temperatures, but at the meso- or human scale, the forces and energies generated by fusion cannot be held in steady state. This is what both ITER and Bussard’s approach attempt to do, but their efforts tip over into surges and leakage and runaway spiking. Not to mention that they depend on keeping equipment functioning under a torrent of neutrons.

Anyhow, Rezwan [ed], as I’ve been saying to Aeronaut; if there is once a prototype smoothly cranking out power, it’s game over. Sceptics will have to play catch-up as best they can. The device will be a Reality Proof that doesn’t allow much meaningful argument.