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To: dr_lew

If, as it sounds, you are arguing that unless given "sun-level" condtions, fusion is impossible, regardless of scale, then how do you rationalize the Farnsworth Fusor?


33 posted on 01/28/2006 1:39:59 AM PST by Don Joe (We've traded the Rule of Law for the Law of Rule.)
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To: Don Joe

As I mentioned, the conditions at the center of the sun are MINIMALLY capable of producing fusion. In an H-bomb, the temperatures are much greater for some fraction of a microsecond. I remember a physics coloquium back in the seventies when the guy was explaining the figure of merit for fusion devices - the product of confinement time, density, and temperature. He stated, jokingly, that the break-even point was 10 to the 20th, and they had achieved 10 to the 10th, "... so we like to say we are half way there." Have things progressed since then? Not so very much I think.

Gotta confess I never heard of the Farnsworth Fusor. I find several long expositions of it on the web, however, including a Wikipedia entry. Notwithstanding these, I have to stick by my guns here. I don't believe Farnsworth got anywhere near nuclear fusion. What about all these Tokomak guys? Haven't they ever heard of it? That's basically the concept conveyed by the description, sort of a miniature Tokamak. Well except they say it was supposed to be "inertial confinement". But this concept has been explored by the big boys as well. Why didn't they take the lesson of the Fusor?

And besides, if this was so great, why are they messing around with "Sonofusion" ?


37 posted on 01/28/2006 2:35:57 AM PST by dr_lew
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To: Don Joe; dr_lew
The Farnsworth Fuser, as explained by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth:

The Farnsworth Fuser!
64 posted on 01/28/2006 6:02:03 PM PST by Rebel_Ace (Tags?!? Tags?!? We don' neeeed no stinkin' Tags!)
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