On Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 8:45:41 AM UTC-4, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2020-10-06 15:35, newshound wrote:
On 06/10/2020 17:21, Alfred Molon wrote:
In article ec681ae6-62b5-4543-9015-
, says...

On Monday, 5 October 2020 at 19:39:40 UTC-4, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2020-10-05 18:58, RichA wrote:
https://www.osa-opn.org/home/newsroo...photodetector/



Or none at all. It's a long way from the lab to a commercially viable
product.
True.Â* We all know about carbon nanotubes and remember, "the space
elevator!!"

Not quite as bad as battery research where for some time almost
weekly they were announcing a breakthrough. But would be great
if they managed to bring this into actual production and the
sensor performed well.

The equivalent now seems to be fusion. Every month or two there are
optimistic articles in the press saying "This could be it!". Presumably
prompted by those looking for financial backing.

Commercial fusion energy is a mere 20 years away. And has been for
nearly 60 years.

Ditto for Directed Energy weapons...


(That said, recent advances in incredibly powerful magnets are making it
more and more likely).

Same, although the recent change in DE has been in higher power
solid state devices; state of the art is looking at 50kW laser
systems which now are only a couple of cubic meters and weigh
only a couple of tons (including prime power & cooling). But its
still decades from a Star Trek phaser / Star Wars blaster pistol.


-hh