Reply To: Toshiba's "Micro Nuclear Reactor" – it's not fusion, but it's here now

[Rezwan]

Getting clearer by the post! Thanks for this. You make some excellent points and you’ve set up the issues very well. My favorite line:

However, personally I think DPF aneutronic fusion is pretty cool

🙂

The DPF indeed has a rich heritage and a lot of fascinating science. It deserves a thorough exploration.

Alas, I’m no expert in it. My understanding is good, but not deep. As someone noted on another post, it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. My approach to that is to work on developing our organization as a nonprofit, with fundraising, so that we can get a budget, to hire someone to develop extensive materials to explain the science, and to moderate discussions. It’s something I’d have to outsource.

The crowdsourcing you’re suggesting might also work. Alas, no one has jumped forward yet to take charge of that, suggesting that other folks on the site don’t feel they are experts either. If you’re just being shy, I would like very much for the experts on these forums to come forward and develop content and materials and landing pages etc. to explain the DPF (and specifically the aneutronic aspects).

I.e., if you have the ability, it would be fantastic if you (and others) can take initiative to develop the technical aneutronic DPF materials! I keep pushing that to the “YIKES! Later when I have time to sit down and really grok this stuff” pile.

Most of the people here in this forum seem to regard LPP as the work that we are primarily interested in here, with other fusion projects being “other” fusion projects. It would seem to be a dilution and limitation not to be able to take all of the characteristics of DPF aneutronic fusion and use them to bring up some support.

I don’t mean to limit folks. As mentioned, I’d love it if people took initiative. This is, again, a resource problem. And a simple lack of expertise on my part. If you want that done, either I have to hire someone, or you guys have to do it on a volunteer basis. Eric and the crew have no time (I used to try to get them to sit down and explain stuff – but that was a dilution of their time and they had the research to do – plus there were gaps in my knowledge, and that’s just frustrating).

You guys can do the hard core stuff. Try to make it clear enough for me to lift stuff to use for our games section – scroll down to the DPF themed Flash game trilogy. This is not to dilute the science, but to start somewhere basic that I feel comfortable with, and build knowledge from there – drill deeper as things progress. I see this as useful for myself and others who want to come along.

And not to trivialize either the science or these games – they’re actually pretty sophisticated (well, you might not be able to tell from the short description. In my head they’re pretty detailed). Once we can get focused on them, it will still be months to develop them. And they have to exist in some sort of context, so there’s no getting away from the whole “knowledge map” idea. Those of you who are already conversant with this material just won’t get why the people you try to explain it to tune it out.

As to your other point here: “most of the people in this forum”, “it’s what mostly the people here are talking about”. About 250 people have ever posted, 30 or so actively – and that’s been pretty steady for some time. Sure it’s a majority, but of a small group. And I suspect developing more DPF material isn’t what will bring a lot more people over to the cause, especially as most people are turned off by physics, and other people find fusion in general suspicious and take the apathetic “Wait and See” attitude. It’s vital for the cause to develop popular, accessible materials.

I.e., while you might develop a well run technical forum, it would be bad to drop the rest of the forums because that’s where the broader support is eventually going to come from. Of course, it’s hard to see that now as well, because of the resource issue again. We need to turn the site into a platform that is a cool mix of science and culture.

Of course, I understand FFS is not legally part of LPP. We can’t be Eric’s cheering club, and I expect he doesn’t want that.

Of course he want’s cheering! (Or should! Who wouldn’t?) And deserves it! Three cheers for Eric!

We have no problem with cheering. Soliciting investment, yes, but not cheering. Songwriting is also cool.

I am bringing this up because I hope to get input from the wider community on this website, FFS members, etc. Is DPF aneutronic fusion the main thing here, or just any aneutronic fusion? I do not mean what do we think is most likely to be successful, or what we personally support, but I mean what do we think FFS is about?

Great question!