more efficient fusor

[Todd Massure]

Steven, one thing I will point out is that inside a hollow charged sphere there will actually be no charge and therefore no "squeezing" effect.
In a fusor there isn't a net charge felt inside the grid, but there is a potential between the outer shell and the inner grid which causes acceleration. We call it Inertial Electrostatic Confinement, but possibly it would be better to describe it as inertial confinement by (or due to) electrostatic acceleration.
Truthfully the word "confinement" is a little misleading also as far as the Hirsch style fusor that is most commonly being constructed by the members of this site, it's more like ionic collision. Others here may disagree on my nitpicking about the exact labels we put on things...I don't really care IEC works for me.

-Todd

[Steven Sesselmann]

I have started a new thread for the discussion on the ball fusor grid.

See "You need balls to do this!"

Steven Sesselmann

[longstreet]

I really need to take a course on just general relativity. But, I used your method of relating the rate of change of the mass to the rate of change of the potential energy divided by c^2. But, I didn't get your equation when I integrated, and it's very strang. I get the normal "-GMm/r" potential energy; but I also get an extra "-e^(-GM/rc^2)", which is wierd. So the whole thing would read as so:

-(GMm/r + e^(-GM/rc^2))

Ok, so in the limiting case when M is really small and r is really big (i.e. not a black hole) it gives back the origional equation, which is good. But I'm still not sure the ramifications of the equation, or if it is even valid. One thing is when m=0 then somehow there is still potential energy, which is just wacky... I don't think this is right.

edit: actually, no. that limiting case is wronge. M would have to be huge and r would have to be small to get the origional equation. So even that doesn't make sense.

Thanks,
Carter

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter, a course in GR would probably stuff up your thinking.

Stick with common sense, it is there to be used. Your equation is good, it
says that potential energy gravitates. Suddenly all the mystery
disappears. As you have discovered, when you separate to masses
against a force, you are actually adding to their mass at the rate of E/C^2.

Okay, why is it so hard to get this across to the average scientist?

Because this rule only applies when the energy for the separation comes
from outside the system. Let me use another one of my favorite thought
experiments;

Let there be a small planet in space, with a man, a table and a brick. Now
let the man pick up the brick and place it on the table. The brick has
gained potential energy at the expence of the man's energy, but the
planet, brick man system has neither gained or lost any energy.

Scenario 2;
This time there is a planet a table and a brick, but no man. Instead an alien
space ship arrives on the planet from which an alien steps out and picks
up the brick and places the brick on the table. The alien subsequently gets
back in his space ship and goes back home.

As you can see there is a difference, the system has now gained energy
and a small amount of mass.

As occupants of this small insignificant albeit nice planet, we often fail to
see the big picture.

Now, I would like you to look at the forces in the Atom. Again, what does
your common sense tell you about the strong force, being a short range
force and the electrostatic force being a long range force, and then
another electroweak force and gravity to complicate things
further???

No creator in his right mind would come up with a scheme like that.

How about a two forces Gravity and Electrostatic, that makes more
sense, one deals with Space & Time the other with Electricity &
Magnetism.

Protons and neutrons are very dense and the forces required to separate
them in space are very large, which means that the potential energy
gained will have a significant mass.

Now calculate the potential energy required to separate two protons for
each force separately. Gravity produces a negative potential and the
electrostatic force produces a positive potential.

add the two together and you will see that something strange happens. At
first when the radius is small, the sum is negative, but then at a certain
radus it becomes positive.

I attach a spreadsheet that I was experimenting with.

The numbers don't represent real values, it was just to demonstrate that
the two potentials together can replicate the pattern we see.

This new thinking really opens up a can of worms, or should I say
solutions.

PS: I think I have made a breakthrough on my fusor design.

Steven Sesselmann

[Richard Hull]

Unfortunately the planet and the system does receive energy from fusion regardless of any scenario. No planet can exist without stars (matter). No man can exist without food and no food can be grown or processed without starlight. Therefore there is no energy to lift the brick against gravity whether by the man or the alien without an initial source of energy and in this case it was the separation of charge by gravity on a distant sun and the resultant fusion at some point in time.

The dynamic energy of the man or alien was required to cock the potential energy gun of the brick being raised in the gravitational field. The man or alien's energy came from electron orbital fall exchanges (chemistry) in his burning his food fuel.

The electron orbitals got raised and the chemical potential energy gun was cocked by solar energy falling on crops.

The solar quanta that grew the crops came from solar separated charge recombination and from fusion energy all from within the nearest star. This ultimately came about solely due to the urgings of gravity. It is a closed cycle.

Richard Hull

[longstreet]

First, my equation is wronge. I was trying to work around solving the differential, and I left out that the rate of change of potential energy STILL relies on the rate of change of the distance. So I don't think this is a simple thing to solve, but it does have a solution somewhere.

However, many people, including Einstein, have tryed to do what you are talking about. Not only does matter behave completely differently at those small scales, there are other forces that we have *measured*. Einstein also tried to ignore the weak and strong force in his theories, and didn't succeed. There must be a way to unite all the effects of nature because nature does it all the time, obveously. But what we like in a theory doesn't dictate how nature works.

I don't want to say you're wronge, because to say that with certainty I would have to already know the correct answer, and I don't. I can say it's not the whole picture. But, keep searching deeper and deeper.

Carter

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter, First I need to make a correction to what I said yesterday.

We should keep the strong force and the electrostatic force and then the
electroweak and gravity become superfflous. They are just "apparent"
forces caused by the way the other two interact.

This is good news, because i think it is much easier for us to get an
accurate measure of the strong force than we have ever managed to get
of gravity.

So first off, lets forget "G" !

Let's bastardise newtons theory and insert a new constant "S" for the
relationship of the strong force to mass/r.

The static strong force is then F=SMm/r^2

However, as already explained you can not simply integrate this from r to
r=infinity to find Up.

Integrate to find Up = -(SMm/r + e^(-GM/rc^2))

A non linear attractive force where the energy applied to separate the
masses cause the masses to gain mass.

The Electrostatic force on its own is simpler, it is repulsive and simply
inversely proportional to the radius.

However they always act together, and where the two forces cancel
eachother out no force is required (Coulumb barrier). Therefore the 99.9%
of the mass increase happens when the radius is below the Coulumb
radius.

PS: Relativists will tell you that you are wrong, make up your own mind.

Steven Sesselmann

[Steven Sesselmann]

Richard, Looks like I had you a bit worried there, with my Alien
scenario

Does a mousetrap have more inertial mass when the spring is cocked ?
(Ignoring the cheese in this case)

Steven Sesselmann

[Richard Hull]

The strong force is not related to gravity. I once sought to link this. A proton has no strong force present yet is gravitational in nature. The strong force never existed anywhere in the universe until the first fusion occured. The first fusion couldn't occur until stable electrons and protons existed which was thermally late in the universal evolution. The strong force is not found as part of a proton or electron which are primal particles so far as the current universe is concerned.

Gravitation is attractive only. negative gravity or gravitational repulsion is never observed.

I have stressed this all before. I think in this thread! As the bulk of the univese is hydrogen, thus only, protons and electrons, we must conclude there is no strong force in the universe as a whole. It is only seen in isolated islands of very cold CONDENSED, FUSED, matter which makes up only the tiniest fraction of all existance. Like light and magnetism, it is a manufactured byproduct of the action of matter being digested and energized via the PE mechanisms of Coulombic and gravitational interactions.

Coulombic force is both attractive and repulsive in nature. This is why these two potential energies, (gravity and coulombic forces), rule the current universe. They are mutually exclusive, omni-present and unrelated in nature or form.

They keep things dynamic through their matter exchange processes related to each; one form being stored and recocked and the other acting in opposition as a spring oscillator which WILL run down, but only over eons. (entropy).

It appears that potential energies get locked down over time and evolve to more stable forms that become ever more difficult to both cock and release. One of these near the edge is the strong force, itself. In a vastly more intensely energetic (hot) and compact universe, I'll bet the strong force was overcome with a frequency approaching that of electron orbital upset in our current much cooler universe. The strong force is one of those PE forces that is on the cusp of extinction and is no longer a major universal player in the PE game. Only Gravity and Coulombic PE remain in the mix as easily cocked and unleashed.

Another point...............

A mouse trap gains no weight when cocked. The molecular structure at the electron orbital, crystalographic level is just under micro tension per crystalline bond within the spring and trap wire.

This inconceivably tiny micro stressing of each metalo-crystalline bond sums upon release of the tensioned mechanism to enable it to dispatch a macroscopic item like a mouse, most of the input energy from the setting going off in dynamic energy snapping the mouse's neck, crushing its windpipe and flipping the mouse and trap into the air a bit. Meanwhile, the case hardened spring's crystalline structure returns to its normal, unstrained condition. The mouse trap is a purely coulombically operated device. Thus, it is totally electric in nature of its ultimate action so far as the poor mouse was concerned, though initially set solely due to fusion energy (gravitational in nature) on the star that grew the food that gave you energy enough to stress those coulombic bonds and set the trap in the first place.............And the wheel goes round and round.........

Richard Hull

[Retric]

Given enough time everything decays even electrons. With the right
time frame even led has more potential energy than that much mass
as realy low temperature radiation.

PS: See :http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/end.html for a quick
look at the end times.

[Steven Sesselmann]

Richard, I follow what you say and I guess it works. My problem is that it
is too much like reverse engineering.

We observe an action, then we invent something to explain it.

What exites me is when we invent a beautiful theory and observe it in
action.

I am not saying that I have that theory, but I am certainly looking for it.

I don't know if you have ever been in Copenhagen, but they have the best
beer over there, so it is not surprising that the "Interpretation" ended up as
a Zoo (just making fun).

I know that quantum theory is very successful at explaining what we
observe, but to me it is still a patchwork.

Maybe I don't fully understand it yet.

Steven Sesselmann

[Richard Hull]

The quatum theory is a patch work dike holding back the waters that would devour it, but it has lots of little dutch boys to plug leaks. Thus, it survives until it breaks and once again scientists are sent scurrying about, but the break itself will be the big clue.

reverse engineering, or backing up into the truth is just fine. It is the very essence of science. Observe and then theorize. Observe some more and modify. It is why we have senses and brain to process the input data.

Dreaming up ideas and theories with no observation is really bad, if not impossible. Our senses and relational thought processes are too much with us at every turn to be free to invent without reference.

Richard Hull

[Hayabusa]

Richard,

I have been puzzled by this e=mc^2 for such along time .
Thankyou for clearing this up, the picture is still far from being understood, but your explanation helps quite a bit.

Thanks.

Also, the notion of an object composed of matter gaining more and more mass as its velocity approaches "c" (speed of light), actually does not gain more matter as in more matter particles, rather it gains more of this mass defect you speak of.

Is this correct?

T.I.A.

Rog

[longstreet]

E=mc^2 is always the total energy, whether we are talking about a 2 ton car parked outside or a spaceship traveling at 90% the speed of light. It conveinently encapsulates all the energy that was required to create the matter, and accelerate it to a velocity if it's moving. And I'm not just talking about the nuclear binding energy here, what Richard calls mass defect. E=mc^2 includes everything, which includes some stuff we really don't understand. But somehow we can amazingly represent it in a couple characters.

What you should take away from this is that energy has mass, whatever energy you are talking about. When you run down the sidewalk, you increase your mass because you increased your kinetic energy. It's just a coincidental and amazing thing that we can convert some mass into energy through nuclear reaction, at least small slivers of it anyway.

Carter

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter, I see the old thread has woken up again....my favorite subject

That's right all the energy can be accounted for in one simple equation,
very elegantly E=mc^2.

What many beginners have difficulty understanding, is that
we are all born rich......very RICH! ie: Pre-energized.

I like to think that the birth of the universe was one big "energy" donation,
and that half that energy went into creating the mass and the other half to
create the spaces between the mass ie. the potential energy.

So, therefore in my opinion, we should concider that the universe has
twice as much mass/energy as what we can see.

On the other hand, if you believe that the stars and the planets were there
all the time, and that all we humans are doing, is re-arranging the
mass slightly, then we have to explain why gravity is not behaving the
way Einstein predicted.

Two perfectly valid views, since non of us were there at the time, just a
matter of opinion, or which explanation is more beautiful.

Steven

[Richard Hull]

Roger, the true mass gain due to velocity is not verified to my satisfaction. There IS a RELATIVE kinetic energy gain! Of this there is no doubt. We assume that since there are only two factors in the KE equation, (mass and velocity), that relative mass must have increased.

Obviously, regardless of what is real and what is conjecture or assumption, there are no new charged particles in the fast moving matter. No new electrons, no new protons and, also, no new neutrons. A swelling mass defect?......I do not know.....Nor does anyone else.

The key is that the mass gain is said to be "relative" and this is where the issue lies....and it lies quite dead, I might add. If you weigh yourself at near C you are still the same old weight.

So where is this conjectured, "relative mass" coming from? A far deeper issue than physics can plumb at this moment, I am afraid. Although, I am also afraid that in and effort not to appear emasculated, many well meaning physics gurus may step into the breach offering ad hoc, almost or even generally accepted explainations which may or may not be satisfying to you.

Suffice it to say the in any energy transferance via normal atomic/nuclear reactions using e=mc^2 you are seeing conversions of only mass defect and not, bulk charged matter.

Richard Hull

[longstreet]

That brings up a question I've had for a long time, and that's how black holes don't seem to be semetric it it's treatment of matter and energy. It seems we can throw matter into a black hole, and get random energy back out through hawking radiation. I think this is a classic problem in quantum mechanics because it seems information was lost. Maybe the problem's been solved and I haven't been paying attention.

Carter

[Hayabusa]

Carter,

"It seems we can throw matter into a black hole, and get random energy back out through hawking radiation."

How do we know that the emitted radiation is in fact random? What is the evidence so far?

I wonder about the nature of emitted particles from the D-D fusion reaction.

Are the trajectories of the product particles predictable, if the incident trajectories of the D-D atoms prior to collision are know, or are the product velocity (trajectories) random?

Said in another way:
If it were possible to collide two D-D atoms in a series of collisions, with the exact same incident trajectories for each collision.
Then,
Would the daughter (product) particles depart along like trajectories after each collision?

All responses are welcome...

Rog

[longstreet]

Of course there is no evidence. We don't have many black holes around to run tests on. Good old wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_loss

As for collisions, I think you can just look at it as a kind of scattering problem. I imagine there would be a range of angles of deflection with a probability distribution for the products. Just like with gold foil, you'd probably get a fairly wide angle of "near misses", and fairly sharp regions of "hits". I don't think it's possible to get the exact same angles, however, since this isn't a classical problem.

Carter

[Richard Hull]

Carter is correct. In fusion, the direction or tragectories of the resultant particles is not necessarily the same as the parent particles. Fusion has taken place and the particles will respond randomly, especilly at our low energies of bombardment.

Richard Hull

[Hayabusa]

It sounds like the answer is not known. Still I wounder why some of you tend toward a random result.

Im still thinking of a method of extracting energy from the Fusor. In one of the posts (I believe it was "resonent nuclear battery"), there was talk of organizing the product particles in order to capture their energies. Kinda reminds me of a laser.

Consider a DC motor, When a battery is attached to this motor the shaft will rotate at a certain speed. Now if an external rotating force with a higher speed but same direction were applied to the already rotating shaft, then the motor would become a generator and start pumping energy back into the battery.

Now consider the diagram I have attached (yes its the same one from another thread). The coil shaped inner grid generates a magnetic feild which helps to organize the D atoms before collision (it also causes them to follow a longer path inside the inner grid). After collision the products fly off with a trajectory which is related to the incident, only with added kinetic energy. This added energy is then absorbed by the coil inner grid, which gives us some output current.

I haven't really drawn this out in any great detail as I don't really have much faith in it. My hopes are that they will inspire better ideas.

Rog

[longstreet]

Well, I was actually speeking to collisions. If fusion happens all bets are off as to where the products go. It basically only needs to conserve total momentum. The idea behind direct conversion of fusion energy to electrical can be done simply by having extra grid voltage in the mega-volt range, and as the positivly charge products leave the area, no matter which direction they go they have to climb the potential, which does work on the field. This also stipulates that you gotta keep it from falling back in so you don't then just waste the energy accelerating it back into the chamber. However, this doesn't work for chargless products.

This doesn't work for magnetic fields because a charge can't do work on a magnetic field and a magnetic field can't do work on a charge. Magnetic fields can only change the directions of motion while kinetic energy remains constant.

What happens in a motor is the magnetic effectively changes the direction of the electrons inside the wires. If you can imagine shutting off the voltage, and then somehow turning on the magnet with the electons still moving, the elctrons will turn to collide with the wall of the wire, and the wire will twirl a bit until friction slows it down. Kinetic energy was completely constant here. The mag field didn't do any work. However, the current was destroyed in exchange for a moving wire. A constant voltage does the work, add to the electron kinetic energy as the electron kinetic energy is being converted to the wires kinetic energy. The mag field simply acts as a tool to do this and no energy is actually extract from the magnet. A similar argument can be constructed for generators, but the wire is accelerating the electrons and the magnetic field converts this kinetic energy into a current.

That is only true for constant magnetic fields though. A magnetic field *contains* some amount of energy itself. And this energy can be extracted by destroying the magnetic field, generating a voltage that can do work. That's where I'll leave off, even through that's where the fun just begins...

edit:

I'm not sure how a alternating magnetic field could extract energy, because as soon as the field oscillates it creates an electric field which starts doing work on the charged plasma. So I'm not sure how you get anything out when it seems like it would only heat the plasma. It would seem that would contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics if you could cool things down that way!

[Richard Hull]

Roger was disucssing organizing the deuterium atoms prior to collision with a mag field.......... Sorry..........neutral atoms don't respond to simple magnetic fields prior to collision and ionization.

If you meant deuterons then that needed to be made clear. A deuteron is not a deuterium atom, it is a deuterium nucleus and this is positively charged and will respond to a mag field. A deuterium atom is neutral and will not respond.

A fine point, but a major one in any discussion.

Richard Hull

[Hayabusa]

Yes, sorry about that.

I was reffering to the ionized atom (deuteron).

What do you think about the use of a static (DC supplied) magnetic coil type inner grid. Also to increase flux density at the inner grid, and eliminate flux between the inner grid and the shell, a core with a low reluctance (the stuff they use to shield TV tubes with) could be used with a gap (vacuum gap) coinciding with the inner grid. I have attached a new picture which tries to show this core (high permeability), and the flux lines that move through it.

This magnetic field would increase the path length inside the inner grid don't you think?

I wonder what effect an AC magnetic field would produce. Of course such an experiment would have to be carried out using different frequencies, to see what effects may occur.

Rog

[Wilfried Heil]

A magnetic field would produce more ions close to the grid, which is exactly where you don´t want them. If possible, they should form farther out, so that the ions can fall though a higher potential difference. The concept would work if the deuterons were accellerated outwards, to a collision with the outer shell.
This is in fact done in some neutron generators, with good results.