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

[wolfram]

I think people who despise immortality mostly don’t do things that take time. Try being an experimental arborealist when you only live to be 80, you’ll get through maybe 2 generations of black walnut trees! Why do you fiat that this yet undiscovered longevity treatment will /have/ to cost absurd amounts? Computers used to cost so much it was assumed only 5 would exist, now the raspberry pi came out and it costs prox 20 bucks and the distribution companies servers collapsed under the load of demand. The consensus was that fusion research took vast quantities of resources, Dr. Lerner is making legitimate headway for a pittance in comparison to some of the other groups. And I can’t speak for other disciplines, but I know at least in physics they are becoming more relaxed about “crazy” theorists. Not a century ago Boltzmann was ridiculed to the point that he committed suicide just because he used atoms in his theory of statistical mechanics even though they wouldn’t be proven to exist for another few decades. Now we string theorists and people who assert the big bang didn’t exist and the community is [em]fine[/em] with that. If they can come up with experiments that would only be explainable by their theories then bam, they’re the next physics rockstar. I look forward to a future of 7 billion patient and free hobbyists.