New Experimental Polywell Publication

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

Post Reply
SteveJenkins
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Sep 18, 2014 11:35 pm

New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by SteveJenkins »

Hi All,

Long time reader first time poster here. I just found this new Polywell paper which I haven't seen before and wanted to share it.

http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/jo ... /1.4894475

It's an experimental paper from Joe Khachan and the USYD guys, another small Polywell.

Enjoy!

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by ladajo »

Thanks.
In my own opinion, after a light read, it appears that Kachan is definitely behind EMC2 in the research process, but clearly on the same path finding similar things as he goes.
The development of atomic power, though it could confer unimaginable blessings on mankind, is something that is dreaded by the owners of coal mines and oil wells. (Hazlitt)
What I want to do is to look up C. . . . I call him the Forgotten Man. (Sumner)

mattman
Posts: 459
Joined: Tue May 27, 2008 11:14 pm

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by mattman »

Hello,

Great! I have not seen this one yet. This looks allot like their 2013 study, where they measured the concentration of charge at different points.

... But, it looks like they have a much better probe this time....

I hope to spread this paper around.

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by D Tibbets »

Interesting paper. It demonstrates the difficulty of measuring plasmas. The results/ conclusions seem to suggest some general patterns and they are developing a sit of actual numerical predictions instead of just hand waving. Mentioned is that only about 10% of the filament electron current enters the machine when the potential well approaches the machine voltage (bias on the magnetic cans). This is due to both the space charge- electrostatic repulsion inside the machine, and mirroring by the magnetic fields rejecting the electrons. The contribution of each seems to be complex and the current intensity seems to be ore contributory than increasing B field strength, at least in this limited low voltage and modest B field range. A 10 % efficiency may be mildly better than my guess of a few percent based on loose interpretation of WB6 results. This is good, but considering what Dr Parks said about injection efficiency versus potential well depth, it may be concerning, provided I am understanding the situation corectly. What is the "approaching potential well depth versus accelerating magrid potential". Is it 99%, 90% ? The relationship is apparently exponential so obtaining potential well depths of 80% (such as Bussard quoted) may not be too painful.

The other consideration is where the energy of the rejected electron filament current goes. If it is mirrored and then grounded on a high positive voltage (such as I believed it did in WB6-hitting the nubs) a lot of energy is lost. If the mirrored electron s grounded further away from the magrid and have lost a lot of their energy to the magrid (climbing an external potential well) then ground on the vacuum vessel wall, Faraday cage, etc. then the loss is trivial. The electrons that are rejected due to electrostatic repulsion by internal electrons (internal potential well) then have lost their KE (to the internal potential well, and provided they are not accelerated much as they leave the region (go to greater radii)) the losses would again be modest. The interplay between the positive charge of the magrid and the negative charge of the internal electron induced potential well may be a near wash for the rejected electrons- which would result in only modest energy losses by rejected electrons. EG: 90 percent of the electrons are lost but their average energy may be only 5-10% of the maximum voltage, net losses would thus be minor, or at least tolerable. The situation where the magrid is at ground and filament electrons are accelerated to high energy well outside the magrid is a different setup (as in Mini B) and I suspect much more problematic in this regard- though perhaps still not as bad as the nubs in WB6.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

DeltaV
Posts: 2245
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:05 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by DeltaV »

That is not a Polywell.

A Polywell magrid has rounded (toroidal) coil casings and adequate separation between the casings.

(Bussard's "eureka" moment --> last-minute WB-6 tests --> continued Navy funding --> Park's paper on the diamagnetic, B field-expelling plasma)

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by D Tibbets »

Sorry, but I disagree. A Polywell is a term applied to a device that forms a potential well with a quasispherical symetrical plasma containment. This arrangement generally allows for a pressure build up without the disruption of containment prematurely. The success of this approach remains an issue of contention, but it probably will work as advertised, though weather this leads to profitable fusion is still an open question. The key features of a polywell is a polyhedral arrangement of magnets, and an excess of contained electrons that leads to a potential well, thus the first and last halfs of the name- Poly, and Well. Refinements such as rounded magnet cans, can separation, e- gun placement, bias of magrid cans, etc are all refinements that changes the details but not overall principles. The US patent office agreed with this view as they rejected can spacing and rounding refinements warranting a new patent.

WB4, even WB1 can be safely be called a Polywell. WB5 also was a Polywell, though it proved to be a dead end variation. A machine that uses much of the Polywell concepts but would not reasonably be called a Polywell is the design by Lockheed Skunkworks. By my interpretation at least, the plasma/ electrons is contained in a quasispherical volume by magnetic fields with good magnetic field curvature and with an excess of electrons to form a potential well for ion acceleration and containment, but the three magnets are not in a polyhedral arrangement.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

Tom Ligon
Posts: 1871
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by Tom Ligon »

Dr. Bussard certainly called the WB machines before WB-6 "Polywells". That even included PXL-1 and WB5, which put the magnets outside the vacuum enclosure.

Yes, the machines illustrated qualify as Polywells, but it does rather beggar the imagination as to why the geometry mistakes of the early machines would be repeated. Likely the same seductive thinking is involved ... that shape of coil and means of assembling them is SOOO much cheaper and easier, you hope you can get something useful out of it. And we felt we did.

Attempting to replicate the earlier work would, of course, require using the same form factor. But attempting to improve on the earlier work requires the improved geometry of WB-8. Even WB-6 has an obvious flaw.

prestonbarrows
Posts: 78
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 4:41 pm

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by prestonbarrows »

Tom Ligon wrote:why the geometry mistakes of the early machines would be repeated.
Bussard's results are not published. They are nothing more than anecdotes for anyone outside of his company. For all intents and purposes, they never happened.

The Sydney group are really the only folks putting out rigorous peer-reviewed experimental data at this point (with recent preliminary results from emc2). That is how science works.

TallDave
Posts: 3140
Joined: Wed Jul 25, 2007 7:12 pm
Contact:

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by TallDave »

prestonbarrows wrote:
Tom Ligon wrote:why the geometry mistakes of the early machines would be repeated.
Bussard's results are not published. They are nothing more than anecdotes for anyone outside of his company. For all intents and purposes, they never happened.

The Sydney group are really the only folks putting out rigorous peer-reviewed experimental data at this point (with recent preliminary results from emc2). That is how science works.
Well, that is certainly how science publishing works. Science advances whenever anyone applies the scientific method to acquire new knowledge -- much of which never makes it into journals, because most scientific application happens in industry and is often considered trade secrets (or much more often, useless). I have clients with very successful technologies older than most of us here than have never been replicated (despite competitors' best efforts) or published.

Anyways, anyone can look at Bussard's work and draw some obvious conclusions. It would be silly to just ignore Valencia.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...

D Tibbets
Posts: 2775
Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:52 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by D Tibbets »

Bussard, etel have certainly published a number of papers. The Velencia paper and final WB6 results papers are possibly the best examples. The internal papers, subsequently released cover the physics much more. The WB6 results paper was subsequently withdrawn for unknown reasons. Also, the bibliography presented by Dr Parks in his preprint paper is useful, especially for the Wiffleball (sharp border) concept that is the most root consideration for the Polywell..

As for peer review, this is certainly valuable. But several caveats. EMC2 work has been reviewed by peers, just not by a magazine based group of peers. The reasonableness and quality of these multiple peer reviews is not reenforced by subsequent publication in a journal. The only criteria for judging the process we have is that the reviews have resulted in a third party giving money (granted in stingy amounts).
Peer review in any format is not a guarantee of appropriateness and accuracy in any case. The journal review panels have erred many times. Only time, and very importantly, repeatable results can determine the final outcome.

This is why independent work such as this is very valuable. Not only does it potentially expand the knowledge, it potentially confirms or repudiates the earlier views.
This is a major problem with cold fusion- repeatability.

Journal review panels that rejected or approved of certain papers that later was found to be wrong (or right) includes Plate tectonics, Neutrinos traveling faster than light, polarity of Cosmic background radiation, FRC being unworkable. I'm sure the list is almost endless. Only picking at the data, and sometimes picking at entrenched ideas have resolved the issues- whether in the affirmative or negative or sometimes some other alternate conclusion.

Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.

Tom Ligon
Posts: 1871
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by Tom Ligon »

To pick a minor nit with that FTL neutrino communication, I believe the authors were not claiming it to be proven, just presenting the evidence and inviting more eyes to find the flaw. I got the impression they fully expected to find a flaw, but realized the huge significance if the results were confirmed. I seem to recall they found a cruddy coax connector instead.

Was that a full paper, or a "letter"? Letters are less formal and invite contribution and discussion. Never underestimate the contribution to science of less formal communications. Some appear in print, while many more never see the light of day. But they still represent a valuable exchange of ideas.

Please treat peer review for what it is. You get a few experts in your field to look over the paper to see if they can find any flaws to recommend against publication. They might do their jobs meticulously or they might give a cursory look (maybe see if the references look valid) and get back to frying their own fish. But readers of scientific journals are not supposed to say "Oh, it is peer reviewed, so it may be accepted as proven." Every reader is a reviewer, even readers decades or centuries later. Any are welcome to point out problems. And absence of peer review does not invalidate the validity of information presented, it simply underscores to each reader that THEY are primary reviewers.

Last night I read a paper, presumably peer reviewed, in which entomologists tested bees for magnetic sense, found some, and concluded that sunspots are a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder. I expect not many of you are beekeepers, but at least a dozen people here could have sunk that paper in peer review, at least the conclusion that CCD is caused by sunspots. See, sometimes your peers, in this case etymologists, may not be particularly proficient at the physics of Earth's magnetic field or understand sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections.

pbelter
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 2:52 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by pbelter »

Tom Ligon wrote:Last night I read a paper, presumably peer reviewed, in which entomologists tested bees for magnetic sense, found some, and concluded that sunspots are a cause of Colony Collapse Disorder. I expect not many of you are beekeepers, but at least a dozen people here could have sunk that paper in peer review, at least the conclusion that CCD is caused by sunspots. See, sometimes your peers, in this case etymologists, may not be particularly proficient at the physics of Earth's magnetic field or understand sunspots, flares, and coronal mass ejections.
Tom,

Do you have a link to that paper about bees? I had similar thoughts for years now but could not find anybody interested in the idea. But I think this is not the sunspots themselves but the overall Sun's activity. I read somewhere that as the Sun's output goes down a bit in the visible spectrum, the change is much more pronounced in the UV spectrum. Most bee species use UV spectrum to navigate, that is why Biosphere 2 had hard time finding one that did not need UV as the glass of their greenhouses was blocking UV rays and the regular species could not survive.
An interesting thing about the Colony Collapse Disorder is that there are no bodies. This would happen though if they are getting simply lost having trouble finding their way back.

Proving that could have significant implications to the Global Warming Theory. If the decrease in Sun's activity is pronounced enough to cause Colony Collapse Disorder, the measurement of even localized bee populations could be a good indicator whether the Sun is producing more or less output reaching the surface. That data could be used to validate or disprove the Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory. With all other things equal if the population growth is positively correlated with temperature increase (presumably because of Sun's output variation), it is due to Sun's activity being the primary driver of the temperature changes. If it is negatively correlated than it is probably not.

Even if this is in not right, with AGW being so popular nowadays they could use those arguments to get some good grants...

Tom Ligon
Posts: 1871
Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:23 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Contact:

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by Tom Ligon »

Here's the link.

http://www.ibrabee.org.uk/index.php/com ... it&id=3696

If you actually want to discuss this, I'd suggest doing this at Beesource.com, where I post as Phoebee. This is WAAAAY off-topic for Talk-Polywell, except to point out a weakness of peer review. Do note that CCD peaked in 2006, a sunspot-free solar minimum (discussed here, IIRC).

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthr ... d-sunspots

pbelter
Posts: 188
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 2:52 am

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by pbelter »

Thanks Tom!

Interesting that the CCD peaked in 2006. The sunspot activity minimum was in 2008.
If the Sun is really going into a minimum in a long term multi-decade cycle, then the next CCD peak should be during the next 11-year cycle minimum around 2018

TDPerk
Posts: 976
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:55 pm
Location: Northern Shen. Valley, VA
Contact:

Re: New Experimental Polywell Publication

Post by TDPerk »

"An interesting thing about the Colony Collapse Disorder is that there are no bodies."

OMG! I figured it out!

The bees are really like the dolphins in Hitchiker's Guide, going home before the planet ends.

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!

</humor>
molon labe
montani semper liberi
para fides paternae patria

Post Reply