Comment Not holding my breath (Score 1) 112
In the real world, the problem isn't really creating laminar flow. It's dealing with it after it forms. Laminar flows tend to be less resilient to real world conditions than turbulent flows. Imagine an aerodynamic stall that, rather than happen in a benign and predictable way, happens without warning and in unpredictable ways. Or suddenly the laminar flow went turbulent because of surface contamination but you designed the engine size based on the drag from laminar flow. Interesting science, but I'm not sure it changes engineering much for the foreseeable future.