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No it's not a breakthrough. It is only net positive because the NIF has an exquisitely stupid and convenient place where they are defining "energy in" which let's them cheat how good it looks. If you could take other types of fusion and draw a clever line around where you start tallying energy in, then they would have had "breakthroughs" long ago.

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The definition of Q that is being used was established by the National Academy of Sciences not NIF.

NIF previously tied to use the hot spot energy instead of target energy in 2013, which they were criticized for, and rightfully so. But this definition of Q is analogous to the definition of Q used by MCF.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the Q typically used for MCF does not count the energy in neutrons, only the alpha particle energy.

Ok. So the NAS has an exquisitely stupid definition of Q which is not at all what most engineers would use as a reasonable definition of Q

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