Has Wiffleball Been Created Ever?

[ladajo]

Have you read up on project history yet?

[MSimon]

2) to be fair, for 3-D isotropic maxwellian plasma, the energy for any X-Y-Z direction should be about 1/3 of the value you used.

Polywell is not isotropic X-Y-Z. It is a beam-beam machine (6 beams actually). This is a very common confusion for beginners (mixing up thermal and beam machines), don't feel all alone.

To understand Polywell you have to leave "thermal" (tok) thinking behind. It was easy for me. I knew hardly anything about toks (technically) when I began my studies.

[Robthebob]

Compare to toks, at the level of T-1 or T-3, early WBs' engineering could be simple, but the physics are not: it's way way too complicated If some lobbyist tell us that he or sb else understand the wiffleball mechanism, be aware of "The Emperor's New Clothes".

My understanding of polywell isnt enough to answer the earlier points, but those on this website who do understand this machine on the thermal dynamic level, how energy sharing, particle behavior, etc in this machine can probably answer your questions.

I would like to say, the conditions on emperor's new clothes is the like this

1. fooling the observer and the first party: this certainly is possible, while unlikely, because the person with the most stake on the project passed away years ago. The people at emc2 are scientists, and the very nature of not releasing any definite conclusion suggests they're not trying to fool us either. Those of us on this forum, we're the ones asking the questions and digging up any information, past and current. The emperor in this situation is telling people that he might have new clothes, but he refuses to show the new clothes to us at all. We're told of various characteristics of the new clothes, and the information, as stated before, checks out both first party and third party.

2. fooling the observer only: this is very very unlikely, because as stated before, first and third parties came to similar conclusions. This is also nonsensical, because again, we're the ones asking questions and digging up information. While they've released certain information, not all written by the first party, such as the various progress reports are what they told the Navy that they're doing or planning to do, and keep in mind that the Navy has been keeping a short leash on this company for the last couple years, basically ever since emc2 got funding from them again after the company went public. Again, it's just very unlikely that people are fooling us, because the emperor showed his wife his new clothes, and the wife (went as far as to get a second opinion from someone else) did not blatantly say, "what are you crazy, you're naked!" The information, analysis, conclusions, etc do exist, and they're being shared with other people, just not with the public (us).

3. Fooling everyone: no argument against this, although if you think this, I would say you're a bit paranoid.

Please keep in mind that lack of publicly released and explicitly stated information does not come anywhere close to evidence of invalidity of the polywell approach to fusion.

Lastly, please stop randomly changing colors, bolding things, throwing in smiley faces, etc. I dont think any of us likes to be treated like children and unprofessionally; makes you look like Joe.

[ladajo]

It is a beam-beam machine (6 beams actually).

-ish

Now cue a Joeseph rant...

[emc3]

To Robthebob,

Per your request, I have removed all those "colors, bolding things, throwing in smiley faces, etc." on last post.

All the questions are just from curiosity.

thanks, anyway.

emc2+

[emc3]

I am reading ......

Be nicer and patient, please.

Have you read up on project history yet?

[Robthebob]

Again, I'm not saying toks cant last into the minutes,...

"Toks lasting minutes" are overcoming Lawson Criterion (product of number density and confinement time). Modern toks do that but can not overcome triple product (product of number density and confinement time and temperature). So, denying by you (and your professors) heating problem is the most significant problem for TOKAMAKs.

I'm sure they can, so can stellerators,...

It does not matter in what you are sure but after doubtless success of TOKAMAKs stellarator program in USA was cancelled. That is the fact that is much more significant than my, yours or any others opinion.

but I'm saying it doesnt matter how long you toks can last, if instabilities happen, then what?

May be you would be surprised but they (instabilities) are occurring in ANY plasma device.
But once again if lifetime of plasma in TOKAMAKs reaches seconds, they are rather controllable in TOKAMAKs. Unlike any other devices.

PS> You wrote too long text. It is rather difficult for me to answer on each little sentence from there. Sorry.

Actually no.... instabilities, at least the unique ones in toks, are not present in stellerators, sorry... Again, you miss my point and also the primary concern of mainstream torodial magnetic confinement community. Again, control is the issue, because of the micro and macro instabilities. We've moved past the Lawson Criterion long ago, it's the simplistic way of looking at plasma confinement.

You seem to not understand that just because they're reached sufficient average confinement time (again, no one is arguing that toks cant confine plasma that long) doesnt mean anything, unless they can make sure disruptions never happen (which is impossible) or that they can be dealt with (which is what they're doing now).

The car can go on for a long time, but can you guarantee that the car will never ever break down? Imagine now that, this breaking down process happens even more often, and if you're building a power plant, how can you afford a disruption, ever? It literally has to be like 100% chance of no disruption or 100% of time, you can either avoid the disruption from growing, deal with it somehow, or stay away from parameters that would cause disruptions.

Stellerator programs in USA are not cancelled. I went to a school where our machine is a stellerator hybrid. Also, you dont seem to understand why toks were made in the first place. They were made because 1. they're easier to design and build, 2. they allowed for higher plasma density and temperature given the same amount of effort (usually), 3. pulsed machines didnt matter because studying the physics in time frames of milliseconds and 10s of seconds do not differ, the life time of plasma is short enough that a plused machine can be used to study the physics no problem.

So in the view of everyone, they went with the cheaper, easier to design and build, traditionally allow higher density and temperature, pulse machine. Ironically (maybe poetically), the defining feature of toks that allow them to reach higher densities, temperature, and other parameters, so the physics at those parameters can be studied, is the very downfall of toks themselves, because that feature, the plasma current, has been labeled the very cause of those micro and macro instabilities. Also toks are not steady state machines, so they cant be the design for powerplants, anyways....

On another note, success of machines and approaches cannot just be measured in terms of how many programs and projects are of that machine. For one, there are still a handful of linear machines in the US, we've all pretty much came to the conclusion that linear machines cant work, but why are they built? It's for studying the physics. Same goes for toks, again, the reason why there are so many of them in the world is because they allow the researchers to study the physics at the conditions that toks can reach with relative ease. They cant be used as the design of power plants. Which I guess makes our entire discussion irrelevant...

I remember a very famous quote by Mark Twain that might help illustrate the situation. "there are lies, there are darn lies, and then there are statistics." Without understanding why there are so many toks, you've made the error of equating number of machines to validity of the approach, and you used that statistics to back up your claim. That, Joe, is much more significant than my, yours or any others opinion.

It's fine, it's not easy, but I try my best to answer all of your statements and points, so should you.

[Robthebob]

I am reading ......

Be nicer and patient, please.

Have you read up on project history yet?

A lot of it is our fault, many of us have been following polywell for years. I guess it also didnt help that questions and concerns sounded like accusations from your posts.

[303]

if polywell doesn't pan out for fusion, does wiffeball have any other practical uses, for example fired magnetically would it be useful as a weapon, or just end up charging the enemy's batteries ;p

[Joseph Chikva]

Also, you dont seem to understand why toks were made in the first place. They were made because 1. they're easier to design and build, 2. they allowed for higher plasma density and temperature given the same amount of effort (usually), 3. pulsed machines didnt matter because studying the physics in time frames of milliseconds and 10s of seconds do not differ, the life time of plasma is short enough that a plused machine can be used to study the physics no problem.

Toks are in the first place because they give better perfomance.
Toks also are pulse machines. But long pulse machines.
Pulse machines do matter as second epproach seriously considered by mainstream physics is inertial confinement driven by lasers or beams. Pulse duration there has microseconds order.

Your statement that Stelarators have not instabilities is wrong. Microinstability studies for the large helical device
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/119892
Among some MHD instabilities, the ballooning instability is closely related with the β-limit of a helical device such as the large helical device. (LHD) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.js ... %3D5944975 etc.
I know about existence of only two actual stellarators: LHD in Japan and the second Waldenstein (or similar name) in Germany. What's name of machine being in your school?

The car can go on for a long time, but can you guarantee that the car will never ever break down? Imagine now that, this breaking down process happens even more often, and if you're building a power plant, how can you afford a disruption, ever? It literally has to be like 100% chance of no disruption or 100% of time, you can either avoid the disruption from growing, deal with it somehow, or stay away from parameters that would cause disruptions.

100% chance of no disruption is impossible in engineering. Regardless to parameters. Good luck.

[ladajo]

I am reading ......

Be nicer and patient, please.

Have you read up on project history yet?

The available documents address a good bit of your questions if you read them carefully. Once you have read them, and then go through public commentary by project participants, I think it will help you understand what they have done, how, and where they are at now. It is a lot to get through, and some refuse to do it.

I am sorry if you misunderstood, as I did not mean any of this in a bad way.

[Robthebob]

Toks are in the first place because they give better perfomance.
Toks also are pulse machines. But long pulse machines.
Pulse machines do matter as second epproach seriously considered by mainstream physics is inertial confinement driven by lasers or beams. Pulse duration there has microseconds order.

Your statement that Stelarators have not instabilities is wrong. Microinstability studies for the large helical device
http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/119892
Among some MHD instabilities, the ballooning instability is closely related with the β-limit of a helical device such as the large helical device. (LHD) http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.js ... %3D5944975 etc.
I know about existence of only two actual stellarators: LHD in Japan and the second Waldenstein (or similar name) in Germany. What's name of machine being in your school?

100% chance of no disruption is impossible in engineering. Regardless to parameters. Good luck.

Get your facts straight please, toks are not steady state machines, it's evident in the fact that you cant have a continuously changing current running through the transformer coil forever, well you can change directions, I dont know how that would work. That itself is enough to warrant the statement that it's impossible to have a tok power plant. No such a thing as long pulse machines, you can make the pulse last longer, but it doesnt matter. The longer the operation, the greater the amount of the current through the coils. Again, they're not "first place" (what are we? children competing for attention?). There are more of them because they make studying physics at those conditions easier, but once again, it's funny, because what makes toks reach those conditions easier is what's killing toks. I absolutely do not understand what you mean by "long pulse machine." A pulse machine is a pulse machine is a pulse machine is a pulse machine, as in it cant operate for indefinite durations.

Okay, with regards to my statement of stellerators, I might be wrong to say they have no instabilities, but you're absolutely 100% wrong to make it sound as if stellerators have similar levels of problems with instabilities, they dont. The problems with stellerators traditionally has been that its very very hard to design, as toks are considered to be 2d machines and stellerators are 3d machines, the theory, the math, the whatever are all much harder with stellerators because they're 3d. And also back then, when no one understand that you dont have to do ohmic heating, stellerators "performed worse" because they couldnt get to those higher plasma temperatures and densities.

Now there are plenty of ways of getting to higher plasma temperatures and densities, which greatly diminish that edge toks have over stellerators, but toks are still better for physics studying purpose because it cost less headaches, money, effort to build, etc.

I know 100% chance of no disruption is impossible... i said that earlier. I dont need luck on it, because I'm not going into studying toroidal magnetic confinement machines. If anyone needs luck, its mainstream fusion community, believing in a machine that cant run indefinitely, have lots of problems with instabilities, have no known material to build the inner walls, costing in the 10s of billions, etc.

I dont want to rant, but the reason why so many people are studying disruptions, instabilities, etc, all this research on dusty plasma, disruption control, theories on instabilities, etc, it's all because they know they cant move forward until they fix this obvious problem. Like i said before, they can either try to avoid certain parameters to minimize the chance of disruptions, find a way to detect and stop instabilities from growing, or deal with it somehow. Surprisingly, the CTH is performing one of those research, which is to find a way to stop disruptions in its tracks, this is done by retrofitting a tok into a stellerator, or a stellerator into a tok, making it a hybrid, the key is that stellerator features makes the confine plasma very stable, and they can actually stop the problem in its tracks.

None of this really matters, because there are computer and detection issues. Currently, even if it's possible to predict and deal with every single instability, the speed of them forming and growing is greater than the speed of us detecting and dealing with them. We can just have the most problem ridden machine if we can deal with every single problem, but that's not an option right now, it might be possible in like 30 years, when our computational capabilities allow us to do that.

[Joseph Chikva]

Get your facts straight please, toks are not steady state machines, it's evident in the fact that you cant have a continuously changing current running through the transformer coil forever, well you can change directions, I dont know how that would work. That itself is enough to warrant the statement that it's impossible to have a tok power plant.

B varying from -5 to +5 T allow to keep 0.5-2 V loop voltage for many seconds. By the end of induction pulse the so called bootstrap current begins lasting as long as required. This is proved experimentally that several amperes order beams drive migamperes order current in plasma.

That itself is enough to warrant the statement that it's impossible to have a tok power plant.

I understand that you believe only your proffesors but e.g. DOE believes only in TOKAMAK and inertial confinement driven by laser (NIF) or heavy ion beam. Pulse duration there is much shorter than in TOKAMAKs.
As I know your beloved Polywell should have milliseconds order cycle time. Should I go on?

[303]

as a layman, tokamak doesnt seem like a very good solution to me , too big, produces radiation, 20 years top boffins working on it and billions spent or more and cant even get stable plasma for longer than a few minutes, a sign that the underlying principle is less than stellar

at risk of ruffling some feathers here, if it produces radiation its no better than the disaster thats been fission reactors , classic case of mankind building stuff before we knew or cared much about consequences

moving essentially hot slurry round a magnetic torus isnt a bad idea, but if u gonna do that, why not just make a mini sun ?? come to think of it, why arent we just making mini suns?

[Joseph Chikva]

and cant even get stable plasma for longer than a few minutes,

30 years ago even 1 sec of plasma lifetime was an unrealizable dream. As in case of enough plasma reactivity which is first of all the temperature function, 1 sec is quite enough.

Concerning radiation (I think you mean neutron flux) aneutronic reaction are more complex for realization. Today we can not realize economically even easiest DT reaction.
If you mean so called Bremstrahlung (braking radiation of electrons) that will observed in any plasma device maintaining dense enough plasma. Especially if reactive spices there have higher than hydrogen atomic number.