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[Art Carlson]

The peer review panel were as well informed, as experienced, and as skeptical as you are...

Nobody is as skeptical as I am.

An experimental proposal was being reviewed. The statements made by Rick Nebel during this process have not been published. The reaction of the reviewers to those statements has not been published. Since we know next to nothing about the process and the arguments made during the process, let's just stick to physics. I have reproduced and endorsed the peer-reviewed and published analysis of Rider. I'm waiting for anyone to provide a physics-based counter-argument.

[Art Carlson]

Art you are leaving out that while the particles are whizzing passed each other their "point" of maximum interaction is at "1/2 r" where the velocities are equal and opposite. Every where else (if it is a beam machine) the electrons are fast while the ions are slow and vice versa.

In addition you have the "dwell time" at turn around where the slow particles can thermalize at the slow speeds.

You're a bit sketchy on the details.You're not suggesting that "collective mechanisms" can slow down the energy transfer due to "classical binary collisions", are you?

It all hinges on what the relaxation time to Maxwellian is.

Does it? Did Rick ever say that? Does he think the diffusion of electrons into the central hole in the velocity distribution is slower than the classical calculation? Or does he think there is an efficient mechansim that works to maintain that hole despite the diffusion? Or does he think that the transfer of energy from the ions to the electrons is slower than the classical calculation? There are a number of points he could try to contest, but I don't not know which ones he actually contests.

[alexjrgreen]

An experimental proposal was being reviewed. The statements made by Rick Nebel during this process have not been published. The reaction of the reviewers to those statements has not been published. Since we know next to nothing about the process and the arguments made during the process, let's just stick to physics. I have reproduced and endorsed the peer-reviewed and published analysis of Rider. I'm waiting for anyone to provide a physics-based counter-argument.

We know the quality of the peer review panel, and they would certainly have been familiar with Rider's work.

Since the result of the process was more funding, there had to be something that justified that. In short, there must be a way to dodge Rider or, for all the reasons you've given, the funding would never have been approved.

You're not suggesting that "collective mechanisms" can slow down the energy transfer due to "classical binary collisions", are you?

What if collisions hardly ever happen because of the geometry?

[MSimon]

What if collisions hardly ever happen because of the geometry?

Or some collective behavior.

[Art Carlson]

What if collisions hardly ever happen because of the geometry?

Or some collective behavior.

Are you two just babbling? You've got ions and electrons intimately mixed, with separations under a micron and speeds over a meter per microsecond. What geometry can possiblý keep them from running into each other? Likewise with collective behavior. Collective means millions of particles or more are involved. What can possibly keep those millions exhibiting a macroscopic motion together from mixing it up in their own neighborhood? Is there even a single example from the long and rich history of fluid mechanics of a collective behavior that was able to suppress binary collisions?

[Art Carlson]

We know the quality of the peer review panel, and they would certainly have been familiar with Rider's work.

Since the result of the process was more funding, there had to be something that justified that. In short, there must be a way to dodge Rider or, for all the reasons you've given, the funding would never have been approved.

Your confidence in the peer review process is touching. By that logic it is clear that the tokamak is a slam dunk and the polywell is hundreds of times less promising.

But excuse me. I allowed myself to be distracted from the main point. The review panel apparently decided to recommend funding of Nebel's experimental program. Presumably not just out of scientific curiosity but due to the possibility that a fusion power reactor might come out of it some day. It is illogical to conclude from that that they saw a possibility of a viable p-B11 fusion power reactor. In fact the quote from Rick cited above just says that collective effects are important to understand current experiments. They may still be important in the D-T reactor regime, although that has not yet been shown. To conclude - on the basis of the mere existence of a review report that none of us has ever seen - that they will not only still be important in the p-B11 reactor regime but will also work in such a way as to negate Rider's solid, peer-reviewed analysis is, to put it politely, a stretch.

[alexjrgreen]

What if collisions hardly ever happen because of the geometry?

Or some collective behavior.

Are you two just babbling? You've got ions and electrons intimately mixed, with separations under a micron and speeds over a meter per microsecond. What geometry can possiblý keep them from running into each other? Likewise with collective behavior. Collective means millions of particles or more are involved. What can possibly keep those millions exhibiting a macroscopic motion together from mixing it up in their own neighborhood? Is there even a single example from the long and rich history of fluid mechanics of a collective behavior that was able to suppress binary collisions?

Suppose the electrons travel on the surface of the wiffleball...

[alexjrgreen]

To conclude - on the basis of the mere existence of a review report that none of us has ever seen - that they will not only still be important in the p-B11 reactor regime but will also work in such a way as to negate Rider's solid, peer-reviewed analysis is, to put it politely, a stretch.

Your confidence in the peer review process is touching.

It's not a question of negating Rider. It's about finding a way to dodge him...

[Betruger]

It is illogical to conclude from that that they saw a possibility of a viable p-B11 fusion power reactor

And p-B11 was tacked on only at the very end of the latest contractese.

Nevertheless, while there yet appears no (concrete, precise) evidence that the Polywell ought to work (meaning allow an economical power solution), there must be something that contradicts Rider's conclusions that the Polywell is ladden with show-stoppers. This is the same argument as a little over a year ago, yet here we are, with no more data to go onto, and only that general inference to be made..

Either the review teams (repeated and increasing funding) and EMC2 ("no show stoppers so far") are wrong, or Rider (major show stoppers; paraphrase) was. If the former, it's clearly for classical reasons as pointed out in precision by Rider. If the latter, then something's amiss. Some unexpected physics is happening in that vacuum chamber.

So the first useful question from this point, in my very humble opinion, is what physics that must be. Not how it fails.. Or at least, how the expected non-functional physics could "fool" EMC2 and the collective reviewers into thinking that it's all promising so far. How do you reconcile the apparent contradiction. That's the best "data" we have so far, that I've seen.

[chrismb]

We know the quality of the peer review panel, and they would certainly have been familiar with Rider's work.

Since the result of the process was more funding, there had to be something that justified that.

You mean, like those peer reviewed cold-fusion works, and how about that microwave drive.

Even tokamaks got past peer review 50 years ago!

[chrismb]

Nobody is as skeptical as I am.

I'm skeptical about that.

[chrismb]

Either the review teams (repeated and increasing funding) and EMC2 ("no show stoppers so far") are wrong, or Rider (major show stoppers; paraphrase) was.

They probably didn't read about my critique of vacuum pumping at MW output levels. I still don't think there are any billion litre/sec vacuum pumps available.

[Betruger]

We're already one step into speculation, but I reckon dangling the carrot of fusion as plentiful as a pB11 polywell would provide, in front of the public, would quickly mean funding to match the challenge. Pollution and comparatively low energy output, versus pump engineering? I think that choice is obvious.

That's if pumping is such a problem. Didn't MSimon (or someone else - I only have vague memory of this) point out that it wasn't quite so insurmountable?

[Art Carlson]

Suppose the electrons travel on the surface of the wiffleball...

When are you going to start talking physics? Are you suggesting that the electrons travel exclusively on the surface, as in zero density inside? How thick is the surface? And what does that have to do with anything anyway?

[choff]

I did a quick search for documents critiquing Rider. This is probably old news.
http://fsl.ne.uiuc.edu/IEC/IEC_report_IVG.H.Miley.doc