From Tokamaks to Stellarators — 50 Years of Fusion & the Physics of Confinement - Dr. Donald Spong

Dr. Donald Spong of Oak Ridge National Laboratory joins Priyanca Ford for a sweeping look at magnetic confinement fusion — from the early tokamak era and the birth of ITER to the modern renaissance in optimized stellarators. He shares how the Simons-funded Hidden Symmetries project transformed stellarator design, why burning-plasma physics remains the field’s final frontier, and how AI and reduced models are accelerating reactor design.