Grad School, internship, etc

Discuss ways to make polywell research more widely known or better understood. Includes education and outreach.

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Robthebob
Posts: 383
Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:12 pm
Location: Auburn, Alabama

Grad School, internship, etc

Post by Robthebob »

So I'm just in college right now. If by the time I get out of college this design is still considered valid, I'm gonna give my life for it. Does anyone know of any internship chances, professors that are interested in this?

I was just hoping I can go intern somewhere to see this worked on first hand, or even second hand, I dont really care. As for, I think I need to go indepth to EM in order to help solve the current problem with the shape of magnetic fields with the design. Can anyone give me some idea or advice on where I can go? Like a summer internship, which school I should go to to learn more to help develop this design, etc.

Thanks.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

dweigert
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Sep 11, 2007 1:09 am

Post by dweigert »

Well, Some of the diciplines needed for this stuff seem to be dying arts. Vacuum tube electronics and design, heavy current electrical engineering, superconductors, etc. My Dad would have jumped at this with both feet, and probably built a fusor in the basement (he was both an electrical and mechanical Engineer).

MSimon
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Location: Rockford, Illinois
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Re: Grad School, internship, etc

Post by MSimon »

Robthebob wrote:So I'm just in college right now. If by the time I get out of college this design is still considered valid, I'm gonna give my life for it. Does anyone know of any internship chances, professors that are interested in this?

I was just hoping I can go intern somewhere to see this worked on first hand, or even second hand, I dont really care. As for, I think I need to go indepth to EM in order to help solve the current problem with the shape of magnetic fields with the design. Can anyone give me some idea or advice on where I can go? Like a summer internship, which school I should go to to learn more to help develop this design, etc.

Thanks.
I would put at the top of my list UWisconsin Madison. Second - UIllinois Champaign Urbana. Top plasma schools in the nation. If magnets are your thing - MIT Bitter Labs.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Robthebob
Posts: 383
Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:12 pm
Location: Auburn, Alabama

Post by Robthebob »

nope, not interested in plasma fusion. In fact, if I want to learn about plasma fusion, I would stay in Auburn University, we have a mini tokemek.

I need to learn things that would improve my understand of IEC, so I can help the progression of this approach.
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

MSimon
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Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
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Post by MSimon »

Robthebob wrote:nope, not interested in plasma fusion. In fact, if I want to learn about plasma fusion, I would stay in Auburn University, we have a mini tokemek.

I need to learn things that would improve my understand of IEC, so I can help the progression of this approach.
An IEC machine is a plasma fusion machine. Learning about beam accelerators, and magnetic confinement should be quite helpful. It is just a different arrangement of the fundamentals with the addition of oscillating beams.

There is nothing special about IEC. Just the question of: will it work.

If you want to really help: heat transfer and fluid flow. Or high voltage engineering. Or plasma etching which should be a good introduction to the first wall problem.

The question really is: what do you want to do? Theoretical physics work, or experimental physics (which is more like engineering). Or just straight up engineering? In engineering itself economics comes more into play and designing production systems and logistics (how many do you need? How soon do you need them? Where do they come from? What is it going to cost?).

This is going to sound rather harsh, but in picking an engineering team for this I would consider 15 years of experience a minimum. And that would be for the jr engineers. For a theory person or mathematician straight out of school might be OK. But that is just me and I obviously have no say in the matter. Some one straight out of school? Jr. lab tech. If you are really good (in comparison to the competition) it will show and you could move up to engineer in no time. I did. Sans degree. Let me add that my time on the bench was very valuable when it came to making designs that are producible. Technicians loved me. (Well my designs any way).
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Jeff Peachman
Posts: 69
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:47 pm

Post by Jeff Peachman »

Rob,

I had a post a few weeks ago about going to grad school to learn about how to better apply the polywell to propulsion. (I'm an aerospace engineer - my only exposer to electrical is in lightning susceptibility testing)

I'm glad to see that this idea is inspiring other college students as well.

How many years of college do you have left?

It might be most beneficial to you to wait for a few months until the peer reviewed results come out on WB-7. If you have a few years of undergrad left, don't worry about it for awhile. If the results are good, a lot of people will probably get excited about it and there will be a lot of opportunities opening up to study relevant projects. If the results are not good (which I hope doesn't happen) then you've wasted time worrying about it.

-Jeff
- Jeff Peachman

StevePoling
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Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 8:03 pm
Location: grand rapids, MI
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Heat transfer and fluid flow

Post by StevePoling »

Even if polywell does not work, mad skillz at heat transfer and fluid flow engineering will do you well anywhere in nuclear engineering.

Robthebob
Posts: 383
Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2008 11:12 pm
Location: Auburn, Alabama

Post by Robthebob »

MSimon wrote: An IEC machine is a plasma fusion machine. Learning about beam accelerators, and magnetic confinement should be quite helpful. It is just a different arrangement of the fundamentals with the addition of oscillating beams.

There is nothing special about IEC. Just the question of: will it work.

If you want to really help: heat transfer and fluid flow. Or high voltage engineering. Or plasma etching which should be a good introduction to the first wall problem.

The question really is: what do you want to do? Theoretical physics work, or experimental physics (which is more like engineering). Or just straight up engineering? In engineering itself economics comes more into play and designing production systems and logistics (how many do you need? How soon do you need them? Where do they come from? What is it going to cost?).

This is going to sound rather harsh, but in picking an engineering team for this I would consider 15 years of experience a minimum. And that would be for the jr engineers. For a theory person or mathematician straight out of school might be OK. But that is just me and I obviously have no say in the matter. Some one straight out of school? Jr. lab tech. If you are really good (in comparison to the competition) it will show and you could move up to engineer in no time. I did. Sans degree. Let me add that my time on the bench was very valuable when it came to making designs that are producible. Technicians loved me. (Well my designs any way).
-I dont know, it kinda feels like learning how to make a cake by learning how to make a cookie. Is there really no more direct stuff? Or am I wrong in my analogy?

-Hmmm, those things sounds awesome, I was actually thinking about learning more in depth about EM, using EM as a form of confinement. Although I'm better with motion and force, not really EM, but EM does look a lot cooler, I mean "force fields." Come on, that's already cool enough. The problems people are posting on the theory forums are basically relating to EM, so I thought maybe I can help there.

-I dont know if I wanna do experimental or theory or engin or what. Really, it's way too soon to tell. I still have at least 2 and a half year of undergrad physics left. I do know I want to get at least my undergrad in physics, cus it's the thing I love, but really whatever is going to be the most helpful in 4 years... that's counting grad school. Which I guess I can do engin.... errrrr. So basically whatever is going to be the most helpful of this situation in 4 years.

-Well, if my brain can work as fast as some of the real geniuses in physics, maybe.... all I know is I would like to help. I mean it's either help this or do plasma fusion.... which from what I heard from my professor.... sigh.... it's so depressing....
Throwing my life away for this whole Fusion mess.

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