Talk-Polywell.org

Part of the problem they have with announcing the results is that no matter how by the book they do things, any criticism to date is just the calm before the storm. If the results are positive expect a thousand bloodthirsty tokamakers to descend on Santa Fe with pitchforks and torches. The peer revi...

I've always thought one way to improve on the time required to accelerate/decelerate fusion engine spacecraft to light speed would be to send crewless AI computer run ships ahead with the fuel, let them make the long trip. Then send the humans much later to the final destination on ships with just t...

With a good peer review, probably a lot of western governments might be persuaded to contribute to a $250 million program. They all want to show a commitment with voters to clean up the enviorment and get gas prices down. That in turn makes it a lot easier to sell too the U.S. congress when the Amer...

Art, if your calculations prove correct, tell your boss from me that you are being badly underpaid, if fact maybe they should put you in charge of iter and cern. You will have caught an error in a few weeks that some of the top names in the game missed for 2 decades.

Agreed. But if he abandoned the Riggatron once he decided it was impratical, why would he continue to flog the dead polywell horse if thats what it was show to be.

It occured to me today that Dr. Bussard, his consultants and his critics spend 17 years going over potential show stoppers, doing calculations and then recalculations. This helped to reinforce his view that the process would work. If Arts objections are correct, then how could it be in all that time...

To my way of thinking, the center well will have a much higher negative potential than any field or electron sheet close to the magrid, the negative pull on the ions will always be stronger inward. For electrons to escape the cusps they will have to hit them on a dead center straight path from r0, o...

Art, what would stop either the electrons or the ions that sneak out from sneaking back in on the return path, and the energy lost comes back in with them. You mentioned in another thread that brems has infinite free escape paths from any mag mirror m/c. I assume they never collide with anything or ...

The larger the tank in relation to the magrid, the less chance of discharge. Assuming the ions get to the wall they could be vacuumed up, filtered out and reused. Build the tank large enough and the ions will turn around and head back to the well. Tom, do you think the well forms from the inside pus...

If I understand the cusp problem as described by Art, the wiffleball will have an irregular shape and ions can get out the cusps before they fuse. They could be replaced through injection if the loss rate isn't to rapid, unless the cusps do in fact get pinched off sufficiently during the formation. ...

Then there's absolutely no debate the wiffle ball forms from the core and pushes out as opposed to from the cusps pushing inward, naval terminology notwithstanding.

My understanding is that electrons enter from the inside of the coils where they have lots of space and exit through the narrow corners. I wonder if its possible for the corners to become so saturated with escaping electrons that at some point additional electrons arriving at the corners start getti...

I don't understand the math either. My understanding comes from being exposed briefly to klystrons, magnetrons,and microwave guides during electronics training 35 some years ago, and reading scientific american articles on physics about as long. To my way of thinking electron flows have been precise...

I recall reading on one of rnebel's posts that the plasma pressure in a fusor was 64500 times higher on the surface than inside a tokamak, and that it got higher as it went in. Also that this made themalization irrelevant. I'm curious how much plasma pressure by itself would be required for fusion a...

I think I read one blog that said a breakeven reactor could be built for $10 Million. Depending on what 'nuanced' means maybe they get enough to try for a mimimum sized breakeven machine. With the minimalistic budget and time frame they've been forced to work with some results could be inconclusive ...