Talk-Polywell.org

I was talking to a past employee of EMC2 who told me that while he was working there WB4 did not produce 1 single definite neutron (it might have produced background levels that were not detected) inspite of the fact that the theory and simulation predicted it should have produced 10^10-10^12 and the background level was 10^4. Thats atleast a factor of 1 million times less than predicted. What is more WB4 was a steady state device that ran for a long time which would lead me to believe its results more that the other two devices.

Does anyone have any information of successful WB4 runs and the like? Or any particular theory as to why WB4 would run so much worse then WB6?

Just a guess - electron losses.

Still one million is a pretty big number to be off by. I heard before it was run, WB4 was intended as a break even machine. If WB4 was so tremendously off what was predicted. In my mind that throws Bussards scaling laws into question.

WB-7 should answer the question in any case.

You know the old saw: in theory theory should be sufficient in practice it is not.

If electron losses were not accounted for that could easily give a factor of 1E6 error.

If I recall the Google video & papers correctly, I think electron losses were a big nuisance thru WB-5. They pumped loads of extra current into it expecting orders-of-magnitude improvement but only got 2x or 3x. That's when the lightbulb went off about magnet shape and spacing and WB-6 was the next step.

jmc wrote:I was talking to a past employee of EMC2 who told me that while he was working there WB4 did not produce 1 single definite neutron (it might have produced background levels that were not detected) inspite of the fact that the theory and simulation predicted it should have produced 10^10-10^12 and the background level was 10^4. Thats atleast a factor of 1 million times less than predicted. What is more WB4 was a steady state device that ran for a long time which would lead me to believe its results more that the other two devices.

Does anyone have any information of successful WB4 runs and the like? Or any particular theory as to why WB4 would run so much worse then WB6?

From page 5 the Valencia IAC paper by Dr. Bussard: "WB-4 produced fusions in DD under a short-pulsed-mode drive in Dec 2003, at about 1E6 fusions per second at 12 kV drive energy and 10 kV well depth."

This is in a published paper. I doubt Bussard's lying here. Given that this paper was published well before the bulk of the recent publicity, and also long before the Navy refunded him, I'd have to say they must have got the neutron problems worked out with WB-4 after your hearsay source stopepd working there. Besides, I've never heard anyone dismiss the capabilities of a polywell for making neutrons before --just of it achieving breakeven.

Yes he said that WB4 produced 1e6 neutrons/sec for three shots in pulsed mode thousands of shots were conducted in steady state and had nothing to show for it. What makes me wonder is, if 1e9 neutrons per second produces 3 counts, how many counts do 1e6 neutrons per second produce?

jmc wrote:Yes he said that WB4 produced 1e6 neutrons/sec for three shots in pulsed mode thousands of shots were conducted in steady state and had nothing to show for it. What makes me wonder is, if 1e9 neutrons per second produces 3 counts, how many counts do 1e6 neutrons per second produce?

To a first order approximation - none.

The counts and its result as total neutron emission depends on the duration of the test and the percentage of surface you scan of the total emitting surface. In case of WB-6 the test took 0.25 milliseconds long. The made three other tests at lower voltages and they also got neutrons. I don´t know the WB-4 test duration. But anyway I trust that the published data for WB-4 is real. Maybe EMC2 achieved tests around 1-2 seconds. I don´t know. Anyone has any info about this?

jlumartinez wrote:The counts and its result as total neutron emition depends on the duration of the test and the percentage of surface you scan of the total emitting surface. In case of WB-6 the test took 0.25 microseconds long. The made three other tests at lower voltages and they also got neutrons. I don´t know the WB-4 test duration. But anyway I trust that the published data for WB-4 is real. Maybe EMC2 achieved tests around 1-2 seconds. I don´t know. Anyone has any info about this?

The correct number is 250 uSec or .25 mSec for WB-6.