The Pressure Source Problem in Solar Nuclear Fusion: Why Human Fusion Fails and Stars Succeed

The Sun has sustained nuclear fusion for 4.6 billion years. Human attempts have failed for over 70 years to achieve sustained net energy production. This paper examines the fundamental difference: the Sun uses gravitational pressure (negative energy) to confine plasma, while humans use magnetic fields and lasers (positive energy). Under the wormhole hypothesis framework, positive energy cannot stably confine positive energy—only negative energy can provide stable confinement. The paper predicts that ITER will not achieve commercially viable sustained fusion. Paper 5 of the Wormhole Gravity Hypothesis series.