In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.Subject: Re: Hirsch device info
Date: Jul 26, 3:38 pm
Poster: Richard HullOn Jul 26, 3:38 pm, Richard Hull wrote:
Your setting us aright is again correct, as far as old articles are concerned, but the Russuian never did more than a micro-dribble of fusion with his gridded device Also, Hirsch has told me that he obtained the 10E16 figure from extrapolated Farnsworth data (prior to his arrival). The only numbers he ever witnessed were 10E11 with his gunned late mark series devices made concurrent and paralllel to Farnsworth's fusors and 10E10 with his grided system. He was a bit kind to the Farnsworth numbers which I have always felt were a bit inflated. Also the Hirsch-Meeks device was
a 40-60kv device and the mark series went to nearly 140kv. The last version of the Farnsworth device looks like a giant warp drive core (still with only a 6" spherical core). I have gangs of photos of all these weird later 8 guned mark devices in my possession and all of the team members noted that they were big flops. Oh, they got good numbers, but run times were on the order of a few minutes before a burn thru would shut the whole thing down for weeks. (Haak info)
Hirsch and Meeks worked separate from Farnsworth after 1965 and had their own fusor systems, but all were members of the same team. Hirsch improved all numbers significantly after 1965, but no number while he was there climbed above 10E11.
Oddly, any official ITT records, reports or corporate lab notes are non-existant at present, either being lost in the ITT megalith or misfiled in some giant holding area.
There are no records!
Farnworth kept a small personal log as well as did Bain, but Bain can't locate his records and the Farnsowrth notes are suspect in a number of ways.
As always, I will believe 10E18 will self-sustain when I see it, having grave doubts about the future of hot fusion.
I predict that, if we get hot fusion going, it will be much dirtier and more complicated than promised. It will be vastly more expensive and totally outside of anything approaching a viable economic alternative energy source.
The US has officially abandonded its committment to the international effort at hot fusion and I feel with good reason.
We seem to have also placed some sort of un-written moritorium on new startup fission facilities which oddly are economical, efficient, on line, and a fully mature technology. Oh well.......
New startup megawatt power plants are still burning something that died millions of years ago to boil water. Intrinsically 1890's technology with a 21 first century twist.
If you can't break even and or self-sustain with fusion in a small 6 foot cubed effort, you probably won't do it in a power plant sized model either.
The best efforts are those by dedicated, well funded smaller groups outside of acedemia.
Richard Hull