Radiation heat transfer?

[Ryan]

Thanks for all your replies....but i was seeking an explanation as to how plasma in the fusor core could result with only 130 degrees on chamber wall. (specially when the radiation equation involves T^4)

[Chris Bradley]

You are now asking about plasma-wall interactions, which is a sideways question to the one you asked. There is plenty of literature on the web on this. Enter the following seach term "langmuir debye sheath plasma wall" and you'll be able to pick a listing to satisfy the depth of analysis you want on the subject. Might be better to start a new thread if you have follow-up questions.

Thanks for looking for an answer to my question. Still unsure what this means in simpleton+1-level physics, which is where I am floating around. I note wikipedia discusses electrical resistance by saying heating in the conductor arises from "destructive interference of free electron waves on non-correlating potentials of ions". I get a feeling I understand that - somewhat!

[David Geer]

Doesn't matter if they are free electrons or not. Particle interactions will share the vibrational energies until everything reaches an even balance. So if, particle A and Particle B are of the energy frequencies 3MeV and 5MeV, constant interactions will eventually lead to both levelling out at 4MeV. The transfer of motion is what causes the heat. This is why a capacitor or feedstock gets hot. Electrons flow through, innumerable interactions occer between the medium and the free electrons and produces heat. This is neither insubstantial or trivial because it is a basic principle. The only other variables to look at are resistivity and conductance for the time it takes for the exchange to occur.

-David

[Chris Bradley]

David Geer wrote:
> Doesn't matter if they are free electrons or not. Particle interactions will share the vibrational energies until everything reaches an even balance. So if, particle A and Particle B are of the energy frequencies 3MeV and 5MeV, constant interactions will eventually lead to both levelling out at 4MeV. The transfer of motion is what causes the heat.

So, your interpretation seems to be that the electrons in a conductor at a higher potential than in another [separate] conductor are thermal in nature. That is, the electrons in an isolated wire at 100V are at a higher temperature than those in a 0V wire, hence their energy would flow into the 0V wire because that energy would be thermalising with the cooler electrons there (were the conductors to come into contact).

Yet, oddly, the 100V wire, with all these hotter electrons, is no hotter?

Your explanation also seem to be implying that they do not even need to be conductors for the electrons to flow, because you mention they do not need to be free electrons.

Your explanation doesn't seem quite correct, on the face of it, does it? Especially given that your explanation does not seem to require any differential charge to get a current moving.