Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes
đź’ˇThe Heretics Who Made Fusion Small: What Avalanche Energy Teaches Us About Impossible Problems
Season 5 Episode 53
Please see the corresponding Substack episode
When the orthodoxy says “it can’t be done,” someone inevitably proves them wrong—but only if they’re willing to fail fast, think sideways, and trust the data over doctrine.
There’s a peculiar comfort in impossibility. When experts across an entire field agree that something fundamentally cannot work, we get to stop worrying about it. The case is closed. The limits are real. We can move on to problems that might actually have solutions.
This is precisely the psychological space that electrostatic fusion occupied for decades in the minds of plasma physicists. Not controversial, not debatable—simply impossible. The math was clear: space charge limits would prevent sufficient density, and Coulomb collisions would drain energy 25 times faster than fusion could release it. Building a small fusion reactor using electrostatic confinement wasn’t just hard; it violated basic principles.
The Company Reinventing Fusion
This is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy
Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
Thanks for listening today!
Four recurring narratives underlie every episode: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These aren’t just philosophical musings but frameworks for understanding our modern world.Â
We hope you continue exploring our other podcasts, responding to the content, and checking out our related articles on the Heliox Podcast on Substack.Â
About SCZoomers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1632045180447285
https://x.com/SCZoomers
https://mstdn.ca/@SCZoomers
https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app
Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.
http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs
Curated, independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, evidenced-based, clinical & community information regarding COVID-19. Since 2017, it has focused on Covid since Feb 2020, with Multiple Stores per day, hence a large searchable base of stories to date. More than 4000 stories on COVID-19 alone. Hundreds of stories on Climate Change.
Zoomers of the Sunshine Coast is a news organization with the advantages of deeply rooted connections within our local community, combined with a provincial, national and global following and exposure. In written form, audio, and video, we provide evidence-based and referenced stories interspersed with curated commentary, satire and humour. We reference where our stories come from and who wrote, published, and even inspired them. Using a social media platform means we have a much higher degree of interaction with our readers than conventional media and provides a significant amplification effect, positively. We expect the same courtesy of other media referencing our stories.
Published on 1Â week, 4Â days ago