So has Polywell even proved if it has two neutrons to rub together?
It comes down to a pretty simple yes or no .... neutrons or not?
How many "peers" need to stand around the instruments and agree on that?
"Nuancing the neutrons" seems to be the business of big government fusion programs, something Bussard was quite scathing of I noticed.
Success is measured in a well-funded report-proposal-report writing cycle not necessarily producing anything of merit or commercial viability.
It's not that people are bad, it's just what the system makes them do with the way it has perverted incentivisation and allocation of resources.
New Alan Boyle article
It's more complicated than that. Neutrons assume a certain energy level of the plasma/ions. The task given EMC2 may only be to verify the plasma behavior under specific conditions, and those conditions may not require high enough energy or density level to generate fusion. On top of that, the plasma estimates can be done with helium gas, so no fusion takes place at all. But a lot of physics does.
I think the fundamental question is confinement time. Bussard claimed that the WB effect would increase confinement time, and if EMC2 can verify that claim, it makes sense to proceed with more sophisticated experiments and refined questions. It doesn't really matter if Bussard's description was correct or not - it could be he was right for totally different reasons than he thought. I kinda doubt it - but it's a good reason to fund EMC2 to double check it.
If confinement time is long enough then fusion has a chance. That's the whole point of all fusion research - hold that star in place long enough. It will be very interesting to read EMC2's results and compare it with the Dolan review article.
I think the fundamental question is confinement time. Bussard claimed that the WB effect would increase confinement time, and if EMC2 can verify that claim, it makes sense to proceed with more sophisticated experiments and refined questions. It doesn't really matter if Bussard's description was correct or not - it could be he was right for totally different reasons than he thought. I kinda doubt it - but it's a good reason to fund EMC2 to double check it.
If confinement time is long enough then fusion has a chance. That's the whole point of all fusion research - hold that star in place long enough. It will be very interesting to read EMC2's results and compare it with the Dolan review article.
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Barry Kirk
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No idea whether he's on the panel, but he's done a nice summaryof some approaches similar to polywell. I think this paper ought to be required reading for talk-polywellers. It's nice because he actually has some solid data, models and conclusions, where we have little of that from Bussard's work. And it also gives some other possible directions that have been taken.