Talk-Polywell.org

Kindly provided by:

http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/02/lawren ... usion.html

Interesting. I am still skeptical, but that it is good to see that they are at a point where they are getting experimental results. I love results!

Of course, their explanation is garbage. You want the field to compress the plasma. The fusion yield goes as n^2*V, which is the density times the particle inventory. All other things (in particular the particle inventory and temperature) being equal, big and tenuous should give you less neutrons than small and dense. That shouldn't surprise anybody. Lerner has never been a big fan of physics constraints like equilibrium.

I think it is trying to say that the rotation helps form a bigger plasmoid of the same density, not a more tenuous one of the same inventory.

Is there any acknowledged physics at all behind this "dense plasma fokus"? Or are we dealing with a bunch of howling lunatics in urgent need of heavy medication?

Or are we dealing with a bunch of howling lunatics in urgent need of heavy medication?

If I am not mistaken, then this is pretty much what Art thinks.

Dense plasma pinches are well known and have been researched for years, long long before Eric Lerner. They produce plenty of neutrons and xrays, but not "over unity" energy.

You can definitely make a decent plasmoid this way. Where Lerner goes crazy is thinking that the field can twist around in such a way as to produce a small but extremely dense plasmoid - in violation of the virial theorem.

Art Carlson wrote:You can definitely make a decent plasmoid this way. Where Lerner goes crazy is thinking that the field can twist around in such a way as to produce a small but extremely dense plasmoid - in violation of the virial theorem.

Yes, this twisting and self-assembly of the plasmoid into the more dense configuration he shows in his animation has always seemed quite the stretch to me.

Jesus, you guys are harsh. I just talked with Eric Lerner and Mureli on Monday, and no, he's not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist. Eric acknowledges he doesn't has all the answers or all the problems solved yet, but the entire purpose of his device to attempt to answer some of these questions!


Anyhoo, I took lots of notes. Eric and crew were at the Princeton Fusion conference and met with Tri-Alpha, too. Apparently Tri-Alpha told them they've got some "big" results to publish soon.


More posts later.

joedead wrote:Jesus, you guys are harsh. I just talked with Eric Lerner and Mureli on Monday, and no, he's not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist. Eric acknowledges he doesn't has all the answers or all the problems solved yet, but the entire purpose of his device to attempt to answer some of these questions!

I actually wish him the best of luck. I'm just skeptical, that's all.

I actually wish him the best of luck. I'm just skeptical, that's all.

Same here.

joedead wrote:Jesus, you guys are harsh. I just talked with Eric Lerner and Mureli on Monday, and no, he's not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist.

I would be interested in knowing how you reached this conclusion. Hopefully not just on the basis of a friendly conversation. Have you read his papers? Do you have the education and experience in plasma physics necessary to be able to detect flaws in his arguments?

There are a few good things I could say about Lerner, but at the end of the day I think he is simply wrong on the important points.

Art Carlson wrote:

joedead wrote: I just talked with Eric Lerner and Mureli on Monday, and no, he's not a quack. Eccentric, yes, but a solid scientist.

I would be interested in knowing how you reached this conclusion. Hopefully not just on the basis of a friendly conversation. Have you read his papers? Do you have the education and experience in plasma physics necessary to be able to detect flaws in his arguments?

I don't agree that joed's description is so erroneous that a correction needs be sought.

It seems to me that nothing Eric Lerner has done suggests he isn't a "solid scientist". It would seem a very reasonable critique to point out he is no academic and seems to be lacking a full set of counter-arguments.

But being a "scientist" isn't being an "academic". If someone in some totally isolated tribe in South America splits light with a crystal and decides that the crystal has added colour to the light then they are still as solid a scientist as all those who have done the same experiment and have hypothesised on it. The "act" of being a scientist is the formation and testing of a hypothesis.

Being a scientist is about making some assumptions then going out to test them, objectively and repeatably. Academia has forgotten this and thinks being a scientist means being an academic who no longer investigates things which are presumed to be "known".

Having flaws in one's argument doesn't bar one from being "a scientist", these things are not mutually dependent.

chrismb wrote:It seems to me that nothing Eric Lerner has done suggests he isn't a "solid scientist". It would seem a very reasonable critique to point out he is no academic and seems to be lacking a full set of counter-arguments.

Getting banished from editing his own Wikipedia page?

He's more interested in his reputation than doing actual science. That says to me he's not a solid scientist.