Talk-Polywell.org

Joe, thanks much for your legwork in tracking the story.

Too bad crap like this doesn't carry jail time. Reading about it was downright painful.

OK, so there's trapped electrons in the center and ions streaming in toward them.

What's to keep the ions from merely sweeping up all the electrons and simply forming neutral atoms?

afaik, none of the Feynman Prize Grand Challenges have been won or even attempted. I think the state of the art isn't up to it. A big problem is that the majority of scientists don't think the kind of nanotech Foresight proposes (mechanosynthesis, productive nanosystems) is possible. Some do and are...

Salvage WB-6 and give it new magnets instead of building a new one from scratch? Or would that make experiments less meaningful?

The money we would spend on a professional fund-raiser would be much better spent on a small polywell with WB-6 like design. The idea is not to spend 100's of thousands on a full time permanent fundraising staff, but instead to pay them thousands for their ideas and contacts that would be of value,...

Looking further at the Moore foundation site, I see it's given several multimillion dollar grants incl physics related.

Here's one I found: Gordon Moore's foundation: http://www.moore.org/science-special.aspx The foundations from the HP founders are very big I think: David & Lucille Packard foundation http://www.packard.org/home.aspx (note promoting science, albeit ocean science) and William & Flora Hewlett foundatio...

I've been a Foresight member for 20 years. They must have thousands of members world wide and a pretty solid leadership. Haven't been following them much lately but they should know the ropes as far as fundraising.

I suppose there's rules about fraud too....

How 'bout a DOE grant proposal to fund polywell, but don't call it a fusion device, call it a plasma gadget? Avoid all references to fusion, IEC, deuterium, etc. Have all the detailed diagrams you want, just don't label them with forbidden words.

My wife had an interesting suggestion: pool volunteer funds and hire a professional fund-raiser, at least for a limited time. Pay them for their time on a consulting basis. Get their ideas, advice, and contacts... this could bootstrap the fundraising process much faster.