Talk-Polywell.org

http://vixra.org/pdf/1106.0009v1.pdf
via http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=18019
In theory, 25 Tons of Bang from well less than a ton of expended material, plus an unspecified quantity of reusable high voltage equipment.

Very interesting development.

Very interesting development.

Plowshare?

hanelyp wrote:http://vixra.org/pdf/1106.0009v1.pdf
via http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=18019
In theory, 25 Tons of Bang from well less than a ton of expended material, plus an unspecified quantity of reusable high voltage equipment.

Nothing new. Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons have been under discussion for decades. The Project Orion team anticipated pure fusion devices in relatively short order c.1958. They haven't been developed because the established nuclear powers are (rightfully) scared spitless over the implications of nukes that do not require 4kg of hard-to-acquire Pu239 (or 10kg+ of U235) in the Primary - nukes that require no Primary at all, in fact. No production reactors to limit fissionables supply, and the sweet dream of nonproliferation has its truly last gasps.

http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0510071
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_fusion_weapon

Winterberg has been publishing on "conventional" derivatives of the Teller-Ulam design for years. He had a notional DT reactor design in 2003 with a Q of 1000 on the math - i.e. a probable Q of 100 in hardware.

http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/a ... rview.html

This latest is reminiscent of the maybe-mythical "Red Mercury" that made the rounds in the '90s. Direct chemical explosive compression of a pure fusion device has eluded the boffins at the nuke labs for 50 years, and the pols would much prefer it remain elusive.

My understanding is that it is the Gamma radiation and high energy neutron flux from the fission trigger that generates the necessary conditions for the fusion reaction in a thermonuclear bomb. It is not the shockwave itself. This was the technical argument between Teller and Ulam. Ulam argued the above point and turned out to be correct.