Fusion Message Board

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: Tesla Coil
Date: Oct 01, 10:40 am
Poster: Eugene Kopf

On Oct 01, 10:40 am, Eugene Kopf wrote:

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>>Furthermore, this should create shock waves, which could serve to heat the plasma even further.
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> Ack! Why on earth would you want to *heat* your fusor plasma? You want your plasma to have very little thermal energy and lots and lots of kinetic energy. It is harder to focus hot ions down to a small collision volume, because the thermal motion tends to take the ions all over the place. An ideal fusor plasma would be at absolute zero -- i've even kicked the idea of a laser-cooled fusor plasma around.
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>-p

Heat *is* kinetic energies on the ions. However, I think I understand what you are saying. You only wish to have the kinetic energy on one axis which is parallel to the the fusor radii.

Shock waves would only be most notable well inside of the grid, where the constant bouncing back and forth through the center have already assumed a Maxwellian distribution, just as in the core of a star. IE, the kinetic energies are appearing as hot plasma. Any shock waves only only contribute to the effect. At the center, your are dealing with a tiny _thermo_nuclear reaction.