CIRCLES, SPHERES AND ATOMS

Nik · Post by **Nik** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:20 am

http://www.kennethsnelson.net/circ_sph/index.htm

I was looking for something utterly unrelated to polywells etc (*) when I stumbled across this site.

All I can say is the geometry is pretty, and some of the configurations seem to match the different generations of whiffleballs...

Fun, too !!

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(*) Pentagonal tesseracts {FX: Cough} Polychora !!!

DeltaV · Post by **DeltaV** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 1:03 am

Interesting. Some of the pictures reminded me of this patent:

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id= ... dq=5929732

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Mon Oct 26, 2009 3:02 pm

About half way down, Snelson shows a white and black faced "cuboctahedron". This is precisely what Dr. Bussard stated in his Valencia paper that he wanted for WB7 (except the white to white corners would be slightly rounded and wouldn't touch.

Oh well. Maybe someone else will build it. Of course if I were to build it, I would bow the sides out to lie on the surface of the sphere the cuboctahedron is inscribed within.

krenshala · Post by **krenshala** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:58 am

The 32 face polyhedra is the one that interests me. It looks from the pictures (especially the round magnet structures) like it would work extremely well for a Polywell, assuming the additional electro-magnets would make up for the corrosponding increase in cusps.

Well, that and seeing his site causes me to want to go play with flat magnets with the poles on the faces.

[edit] Just finished the page: the Snelson Atom model is an interesting way to look at it.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Thu Oct 29, 2009 2:32 pm

Buckminster Fuller and Snelson worked together for a time.

Snelson thought Bucky was appropriating his ideas without credit.

The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago had a Snelson tensegrity tower on display for many years.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:31 am

krenshala wrote:The 32 face polyhedra is the one that interests me. It looks from the pictures (especially the round magnet structures) like it would work extremely well for a Polywell, assuming the additional electro-magnets would make up for the corrosponding increase in cusps.

Using circular coils, it looks like it would leak like a seive. If the magnets were more hexagonal, maybe it would be ok. Though the hexagons would not be uniform sides and angles. Every other corner of the hex would have to be extended a bit.

Interesting.

krenshala · Post by **krenshala** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 12:13 am

KitemanSA wrote:
krenshala wrote:The 32 face polyhedra is the one that interests me. It looks from the pictures (especially the round magnet structures) like it would work extremely well for a Polywell, assuming the additional electro-magnets would make up for the corrosponding increase in cusps.
Using circular coils, it looks like it would leak like a seive. If the magnets were more hexagonal, maybe it would be ok. Though the hexagons would not be uniform sides and angles. Every other corner of the hex would have to be extended a bit.

Interesting.

I would think that since the overall surface area of the (virtual) sphere that isn't covered/surrounded by the circular coils is smaller on the 32 ring layout than on the WB6/7 (and 8?) 6 ring layout that the loss areas would also be smaller, even if more numerous. Of course, that might not apply as it could be one of those non-intuitive behaviors of plasmas I keep hearing about.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 4:31 am

krenshala wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:
krenshala wrote:The 32 face polyhedra is the one that interests me. It looks from the pictures (especially the round magnet structures) like it would work extremely well for a Polywell, assuming the additional electro-magnets would make up for the corrosponding increase in cusps.
Using circular coils, it looks like it would leak like a seive. If the magnets were more hexagonal, maybe it would be ok. Though the hexagons would not be uniform sides and angles. Every other corner of the hex would have to be extended a bit.

Interesting.
I would think that since the overall surface area of the (virtual) sphere that isn't covered/surrounded by the circular coils is smaller on the 32 ring layout than on the WB6/7 (and 8?) 6 ring layout that the loss areas would also be smaller, even if more numerous. Of course, that might not apply as it could be one of those non-intuitive behaviors of plasmas I keep hearing about. ;)

The problem is not coverage IMO. It is the number of places where the field lines "point" to the center. i.e. the number of holes in the wiffle ball.

KitemanSA · Post by **KitemanSA** » Sat Oct 31, 2009 1:22 pm

krenshala wrote: I would think that since the overall surface area of the (virtual) sphere that isn't covered/surrounded by the circular coils is smaller on the 32 ring layout than on the WB6/7 (and 8?) 6 ring layout that the loss areas would also be smaller, even if more numerous. Of course, that might not apply as it could be one of those non-intuitive behaviors of plasmas I keep hearing about.

From what I have gleened, it is not the "triangles" between the circles that are the holes, they are in fact virtual magnets as shown in that black and white cubotahedron in Snelson's site. But at the center of each triangle and each circle are point cusps (which leak a little) and between each cirgle is a line like cusp (where there SHOULD have been a funny cusp iaw the original patent), and the line like cusps leak a LOT. And the wide open ones (where the circles are far apart) may leak a lot more.

Going to hexagons rather than circles reduce the line like cusps, but MAY introduce other issues. We don't know because we have no data. Maybe we should try to get some, which is kind of covered in this post.
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