WB7.1 Contract Awarded March 3, 2009

[MSimon]

when there is no significant PUBLIC evidence either way

I am not aware of any definition of 'evidence' that doesn't include a public disclosure.

A lack of PUBLIC evidence is not the same as a lack of evidence.

For instance was the atomic bomb a viable weapon on 1 August 1945? At the time there was no PUBLIC evidence. And yet billions were spent based on private evidence.

[choff]

Before the positive peer review was reported, I gave the polywell odds of between 1 in 10 to 1 in 10,000. Since the peer review I give it odds of between 1 in 3 to 1 in 10. While that may be interpeted as skepticism, I've seen published odds against life evolving on earth to the blogging stage that are astronomical.
The Riggatron past a peer review but was abandoned for reasons unknowable at the time. If the polywell concept fails, it might be from something Art pointed out, but just as likely from some loss mechanism that nobody anticipated. Fusion power is a tough row to hoe.

[MSimon]

Before the positive peer review was reported, I gave the polywell odds of between 1 in 10 to 1 in 10,000. Since the peer review I give it odds of between 1 in 3 to 1 in 10. While that may be interpeted as skepticism, I've seen published odds against life evolving on earth to the blogging stage that are astronomical.
The Riggatron past a peer review but was abandoned for reasons unknowable at the time. If the polywell concept fails, it might be from something Art pointed out, but just as likely from some loss mechanism that nobody anticipated. Fusion power is a tough row to hoe.

Assuming the physics works out, the known engineering problems - the first wall, supporting and cooling the magnets, etc. are quite difficult. I estimate between 1,000 and 10,000 significant "inventions" will be required to make a BFR work. And probably another 1,000 to 10,000 inventions will be required to turn it into a power producer.

And that doesn't even get into the question of geometry - gains vs costs.

[chrismb]

when there is no significant PUBLIC evidence either way

I am not aware of any definition of 'evidence' that doesn't include a public disclosure.

A lack of PUBLIC evidence is not the same as a lack of evidence.

For instance was the atomic bomb a viable weapon on 1 August 1945? At the time there was no PUBLIC evidence. And yet billions were spent based on private evidence.

There is no evidence in this case.

In the commercial world, 'evidence' that leads to committing to a business plan is called "commercially confidential material". (If it is 'evidence' that leads to proof of complance it is called "auditable material". If it is 'evidence' that leads to proof of non-complance or liability by a company it is called either "trash" or "attorney priviledged information", depending on how far down the disposal route it has got before some injunction was raised!!)

In the military, as you mention, 'evidence' is called "a military secret".

In the scientific, academic, engineering and legal worlds, 'evidence' is a full disclosure of facts of what it known so that all questions can be answered by it, up to the state of the art.

This is no pedantery, we are talking about the substantiation of an engineering challenge in fusion energy. There is only one version of evidence permissible here, by definition - public disclosure. If we fall foul of that then we will have every half-wit claiming Starship Enterprise propulsion systems with some sort of obligation implied that we have to accept that there is evidence for a thing without being able to demand substantiating material.

The whole nature of fact-driven science would promptly fall apart if we permit a notion of 'private evidence'. There is no evidence in the case of Polywell, be under no illusion. There may be 'material that supports an argument for more funding' but it only becomes 'evidence' when it is available to be challenged by those *without* a vested interest in it.

[MSimon]

There is no evidence in this case.

As you point out: all evidence has a probability (or quality if you prefer) attached.

What evidence do we have so far: the Navy is funding further research. The device they are researching is different enough from WB - 7 to warrant calling it WB - 7.1. All facts in evidence. From highly reliable sources. There is more of course but that is the very basic outline.

Now what can we infer from this?

1. EMC2 is a bunch of crooks and is just stringing the government along.
2. There are unanswered questions that a modified device would answer and results so far are sufficient to warrant more effort.

Of course there are other interpretations possible. Mass delusion. Collusion with the Navy. Political pressure. Of all those I incline to #2.

[chrismb]

A vast number of people fund churches. Some fund it to their own financial detriment. But this is no evidence of God. Nor is it, necessarily, that the church will or can do anything useful with that money.

evidence - from the latin 'videre', to see. The 'e' bit means 'outside' like 'external'.

If you could have stuff seen 'inside', it would be called "ividence", I suppose!

[Betruger]

That's still your own arbitrary frame of reference.

[IntLibber]

...If Msimon is correct when saying that polywell is no longer under the radar and DOE has been made aware of this, they will keep tabs whether or not Nebel is allowed to disclose. The people writing these contracts up for EMC2 should know that. it seems there is another reason for keeping this under wrap. I suggest Msimon and others that have the know-how on how to spread the word most efficiently go into 100% mode. You are doing nothing wrong by trying to spread awareness. Perhaps you can give me a few hints as well?

Is the US navy scared that someone else would pick up on the disclosed details and beat them to the punch in developing a net power device? That`s not it either because if that were the case they would find out some way to throw a shitload of money at it. Are they worried they would fall into a "cold fusion" scandal? I think not, after all they are being very careful to make sure the findings are properly scrutinised as weve all seen... So, i see absoluetly no reason why there shouldn`t be at least a little bit of publicity...

Well look at the current cost of building and maintaining nuclear warships, their capabilities, and environmental risks.

China in recent years has embarked on its own SLBM sub program. Their boomers can and do cruise off the west coast of the US now, and their SLBM can hit most of the US from the west coast (and presumably the east coast from the atlantic as well).

The Navy knows all the current sub detection technologies, some of which have to do with detecting nuclear technologies (turbines, etc).

A polywell reactor, remember, generates electricity by direct conversion. This greatly reduces the amount of noise generated by the power plant (I am not aware of acoustic issues inside a polywell), as you dont need turbines, wont have cavitation or a lot of moving parts. A polywell powered sub can dump waste heat to the surrounding water.

Now, current chinese war doctrine accepts as a given that war with the US is inevitable by 2050. This makes it crucial that the Navy can detect noise from all chinese subs.

Also look at the resurgent Russia, and its incursions into georgia, its energy bullying of europe, its alliances with latin american leftists.

Also look at the proliferation issues. While a polywell cant be made into a bomb, could it not be used to manufacture fissile material by lining the cavity with uranium and using DT or similar neutron emitting reactions? If polywells would become easy to build, this would become an easy path to nuclear weapons proliferation.

[chrismb]

That's still your own arbitrary frame of reference.

Thank you for supporting my argument.

Clearly, evidence cannot be 'frame dependent' for it is a means to dismiss an argument if it can be shown to be frame dependent. Thus, the only frame that is equitable to all viewers is one that is 'outside', viz. is one in public sight.

[Betruger]

Yes like I said your criteria for validity is relative to the exterior viewers. What's the sound of a tree falling when no one is there to hear it? That no one hears it doesn't mean it's silent or any different from any other felled tree. You aren't on the R&D team and so aren't any more of an authority than anyone else not privvy to the experimental data on what has or hasn't happened in that vacuum chamber at EMC2.

The one link between us and the "truth" is Dr Nebel's reports. Everyone here knows this link is an assumption. One more step removed from the truth and into "benefit of the doubt" are the equally taken-for-granted "proofs" of promise - the further contracts since last August's review.

[chrismb]

A polywell reactor, remember, generates electricity by direct conversion.

This 'present tense' notion ["generates"] is really wrong in every way.

You *might* get away with "..may be speculated to generate electricity at some future stage..", but that is cobblers as well because the alphas that come out of p+11B are spread across a wide spectrum of energies, whereas any sort of direct electrical conversion of charged particles relies on mono-energetic particles, which p+11B alphas certainly are not.

[Betruger]

And this is something engineering couldn't feasibly address?

[chrismb]

And this is something engineering couldn't feasibly address?

If you mean, to begin able to extract direct electricity from a wide spectrum of particle energies - no, if you have to name one thing engineering can't do it is to defeat the laws of physics.

If you have a continuous spectrum of particle energies, by what possible means can you slow down all of those particles to stationary by means of a finite set of electrical screens? How many can you possible have nested inside each other, when each screen has some given non-zero transparency?

A pair of screens can only bring one specific particle energy to stationary, the rest either scream on through or get re-accelerate back again. If it is a continuous spectrum of alphas (which it is for p+11B) then that means mostly 100% will either scream on through or get accelerated back again.

[MSimon]

If you mean, to begin able to extract direct electricity from a wide spectrum of particle energies - no, if you have to name one thing engineering can't do it is to defeat the laws of physics.

True. But engineers are pretty good at figuring ways around them.

Take a subject I am familiar with. Amplifiers. No way can you get transistor drift under 10 uV/deg C. And yet I can do it easily with chopper stabilized amplifiers. Or how about infinite (well very very large) common mode rejection with capacitor sampling? Or sigma delta ADC converters which transform out of band noise to a part of the spectrum where it can do relatively little harm?

Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

[MSimon]

And this is something engineering couldn't feasibly address?

If you mean, to begin able to extract direct electricity from a wide spectrum of particle energies - no, if you have to name one thing engineering can't do it is to defeat the laws of physics.

If you have a continuous spectrum of particle energies, by what possible means can you slow down all of those particles to stationary by means of a finite set of electrical screens? How many can you possible have nested inside each other, when each screen has some given non-zero transparency?

A pair of screens can only bring one specific particle energy to stationary, the rest either scream on through or get re-accelerate back again. If it is a continuous spectrum of alphas (which it is for p+11B) then that means mostly 100% will either scream on through or get accelerated back again.

I thought some one posted a link to a design for just such a direct conversion device.