Two desktop-printer engineers quit their jobs to search for the ultimate source of endless energy: nuclear fusion. Could this highly improbable enterprise actually succeed?

两位桌面印刷工程师放下手中的活去研究核聚变这种取之不尽的最终能源，这项看来异想天开的事儿能成功吗？

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Time, then, to rekindle a little glamour, by using lasers to bring about nuclear fusion, the great prize of energy research.

现在看来是重新让人们对激光感兴趣的时候了，办法就是利用激光，激发核聚变，这就是能量研究方面最大的回报。

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Technological progress will be essential but, barring a breakthrough in nuclear fusion, it will not set us on a path to an energy system purged of fossil fuels.

技术进步将必不可少，但除非在核聚变技术上获得突破，否则我们无法借此建立一个没有化石燃料的能源体系。

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Nuclear energy is released during fission and fusion.

WSJ: The New Nuclear Revolution

Acting alone, gravity would cause stars to collapse completely, but as long as energy is produced at their centers by nuclear fusion (the joining of atomic nuclei to form new elements, as in a hydrogen bomb), the star is heated and puffed up.

CNN: Why gamma-ray burst shocked scientists

The good news is that the big names in nuclear energy -- like Areva, Hitachi, General Electric and Toshiba -- have recently been joined by a bevy of high-tech start-ups seeking to develop advanced nuclear-reactor designs for both fission and fusion energy production.

WSJ: The New Nuclear Revolution