Nothing has changed. I think I saw some of those people at the last HEAS.
Frank Sanns
50 years ?
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Frank Sanns
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- Real name: Frank Sanns
Re: 50 years ?
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Doug Coulter
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- Real name: Doug Coulter
- Location: Floyd, VA, USA
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Re: 50 years ?
Yeah, I think I did too.
And you know what? A too-large proportion of what I see here is "how can I make the sticks go faster" rather than a true attempt to understand "fire" and that there may be better ways to get there.
Now that we know a thing or two about fire, we rarely make it by rubbing sticks together "faster". (Though to prove it possible, I once chucked one into a high speed drill -- and it only took thousands of times more input energy than say a cigarette lighter, or a single spark from a coil would for the same result).
What I have been finding in my more successful attempts to improve Q -- which should be the holy grail, not total neutron output (which I will make the questionable assumption can be scaled later on once good Q is happening), is that more isn't better -- you don't want brute force, but if I may coin a term, "brute subtlety", instead.
Just turning it all up to "11" may get you to a million neutrons/s, or a little more or less -- and does here and elsewhere. But there you stop, more or less, things melt, there's no obvious way to get the next factor of 10 or so, and we need plenty of those factors to get to gain. Those who only "want a source of neutrons for the home lab" -- there's better ways than a fusor -- by far.
What I'd like to see is a paradigm shift -- Q vs output, here. At a million neuts/second most aren't getting Q anywhere close to what I can get at far lower input powers, just by "getting things right" and paying more close attention to what's really going on.
We are squandering our one huge advantage over government funded efforts -- the ability to change direction quick when we learn something new.
We don't have to sweat tenure, job security, any of that, so we're better prepared to accept a pleasant surprise (some of us, anyway).
And you know what? A too-large proportion of what I see here is "how can I make the sticks go faster" rather than a true attempt to understand "fire" and that there may be better ways to get there.
Now that we know a thing or two about fire, we rarely make it by rubbing sticks together "faster". (Though to prove it possible, I once chucked one into a high speed drill -- and it only took thousands of times more input energy than say a cigarette lighter, or a single spark from a coil would for the same result).
What I have been finding in my more successful attempts to improve Q -- which should be the holy grail, not total neutron output (which I will make the questionable assumption can be scaled later on once good Q is happening), is that more isn't better -- you don't want brute force, but if I may coin a term, "brute subtlety", instead.
Just turning it all up to "11" may get you to a million neutrons/s, or a little more or less -- and does here and elsewhere. But there you stop, more or less, things melt, there's no obvious way to get the next factor of 10 or so, and we need plenty of those factors to get to gain. Those who only "want a source of neutrons for the home lab" -- there's better ways than a fusor -- by far.
What I'd like to see is a paradigm shift -- Q vs output, here. At a million neuts/second most aren't getting Q anywhere close to what I can get at far lower input powers, just by "getting things right" and paying more close attention to what's really going on.
We are squandering our one huge advantage over government funded efforts -- the ability to change direction quick when we learn something new.
We don't have to sweat tenure, job security, any of that, so we're better prepared to accept a pleasant surprise (some of us, anyway).
Why guess when you can know? Measure!