more efficient fusor

[zexelon]

Fist things first, I fully understand that building an efficient fuser will kill the operator when using the D-D reaction. Therefore there is currently no intent to build something along these lines.

I was wondering however since the major problem with the fuser is that most of the ions collide with the inner grid. Would it not be possible to move the fusion outside the grid by having the ions rotate around it with sufficient speed to over come the atractive force of the grid (probably requires a very powerful magnetic field)?

Another possibly better idea would be to charge the shell of the fuser with sifficiant voltage to confine the ions inside the sphear.

Now comes the loaded question: What laws of physics do these ideas violate?

Sincerely
Melvin Newman

[Richard Hull]

No laws are violated in your scenario, however, you have just stabilized the ions out of fusion capable collisional modes. Thus, no fusion. Almost all neat ideas like this either kill the fusion process or are un-engineerable in the physical sense with current technology or materials and if they are workable, they are so far beyond an amateur budget that we can't test them.

The big boys with all the dough have a consistent track record of total failure at all processes and methodologies. Efficient fusion is not easy and may not even be possible! Nature can't even do it well in stars, either!

Nature puts severe skids on fusion ideas as she doesn't seem to want the uncontrolled burning up of the entire universe. This seems patently obvious as the bulk of all matter in the enitre universe is fusion fuel. It is the only reason the universe has a long history.

1. Nature isn't good at doing fusion but does it anyway by using gravity as the primary fusion confinement force.

2. Nature has laws in place to not only keep herself in check in a fuel rich universe, but also any other little creepy-crawly who evolved out of her ooze from setting the place on fire as well.

I often wonder if nature kept this one for herself.

Ricahrd Hull

[zexelon]

In responce to your last line in your reply Richard; nature has tried to keep many things from humanity in the past. There is nothing humanity has discovered that nature has not attempted in some way to keep hidden.

As a side note, I have noticed that most of the discussions on fusion efficiency have become very phylisofical in nature.

In the first scenario, you are quite right that the ions would be stabalized. However could a secondary beem be injected into the mass that would be rotating about the inner sphere? This beem would try to rotate in the same direction as the as the rest of the mass however since it was injected oposite the rotation it would simply be slowed down. This would cause a buildup of mass (something like a pressure wave) in the area where the mass and the beem intersected, could fusion take place in this scenario if given enough energy? Hopefully less energy than the currently accepted method, though now that I think about it I do doubt it would be any better.

As for the second method of positively charging the out shell in an attempt to keep all of the ions confined in the grid, is this a possible method? It would simply be a matter of using a second power supply. Or would this just create a cathod ray beem and disrupt everything?

Sincerely
Melvin Newman

[Richard Hull]

A more positive outer shell would not confine the ions any better.

Lets think about this. A more positive shell would just effectively ADD to the acceleratory potential unless referenced to an inner grid that is at zero potential, in which case it would hog electrons and heat the shell in collisonal attraction. Likewise, the horrific losses by fast neutrals would not even see any potential, anywhere. These are wall bound losses that can't be steered or controlled electrostatically.

Lots of very clever ideas stomped on, again, by nature.

The carte blanc idea that man can triumph over nature is as false as the idea he can triumph over his own nature. We can certainly do work arounds if we can get our hands on enough energy and concentrate it enough to outdo nature at her own game. Thus we can do,....but at what cost, and at what payback level?

We can defy the natural law of gravity and lift 100,000 lb shuttles into orbit provided we spend billions in the money operate massive cryogenic plants for weeks and months at full capacity to produce and liquify oxygen and hydrogen and fluorine and mine or chemically produce metric tons of solid propellant oxidizers and complex radical fuels to mix and burn at the rate of tons each second of the accent of the rocket proving our glorious triumph over nature.

We could mine thousands of tons of uranic rock, transport it hundreds of miles, burn off megawatss of electricity grinding it to powder, turn it to the oxide and transport it hundreds of miles and use about 6 tons of chemicals per ton of powder to purify to uranium 238 and then centirfuge it for weeks on end in hundreds of centrifuges to get grams of U 235 to make energy via fusion. When the fuel is depleted there is still 60% of it left in the fuel cell, but we throw it away anyway. We have done nothing here really other than take stuff nature does casually and on the little and spend massive amounts of energy, money and effort to do it in concentrated form. We don't beat nature, we concentrate and alter matter and energy at great cost and get out material or energy also in concentrated form beyond nature's natural rates. Again, at what net cost and what net efficiency?

To what percentage per unit watt delivered is the fission biz really a hydrocarbon biz in the end. (gas and diesel all along the way to mine and transport), chemicals to reduce and convert, electricity via coal, natural gas, oil to heat solutions, electro-refine and concentrate and ultimately to centrifuge, reconstitute and package to fuel cells for use in the reactor)

The best deal going is solar power via hydro-electric where we let nature do virtually all the work for us. She heats the earth bound water via the nearest star. It rises to cloud. It falls on high ground and graivty drags it over a convenient man made cliff to fall on turbine blades to turn a shaft and spin magnets in a cage of wires and we get, virtually free, small infrastructure, low maintenance megawatts. This is watching nature and using many of her artifices well. This is where man shines. He is clever at using nature and concentrating her bounty.

Fusion is not a bounty. It is creation itself. An assembly process. Man is a user of disassembly processes, a destroyer, relying, as any good hunter-gatherer does, on a large number of extant processes for the realease of stored potential energy. There is no stored energy in fusion to release. It is energy waiting to be born requiring vast amounts of seed energy to bring forth. This makes fusion unique in man's questing for energy. We are totally out of our element here.

We will never burn a fusion fuel vapor via fusion in a controlled manner without gravity or its mime fully at our command. I am pretty sure of this one. The key to fusion lay in some force or action that makes electrostatic charge and magnetic forces pale and impotent before it. We have yet to even dream of what that might be.

Richard Hull

[Steven Sesselmann]

Richard, it's not quite right to say that Fusion energy is not stored potential
energy. Fusion energy, just like the water in the mountain lake is potential
energy, it was just put there a long long time ago.

Something or someone (we can only speculate), donated a massive
amount of energy, and this energy is what we call the Universe.

Half the energy donated went into making the actual matter and the other
half was used to separate matter (potential energy).

Fortunately there were some laws that prevented the whole darn thing
from instantly collapsing back into nothing, these laws acted as a ratchet,
much like the ratchet on a car jack.

One of these ratchets is the Columb barrier

So what Fusioneers are trying to do, is force the jack to fail, and thereby
releasing the ancient stored potential energy !

My view...

Steven Sesselmann

[Richard Hull]

Fusion energy is not potential energy, in spite of the clever jack analogy.

There is zero potential energy in free protons outside of any secondary momentum or primal gravitational attraction and possible primal coloubic reactions they may be subject to.

These are the only observed potential energies in a cloud of protons. It is important to remember that so far as the universe and the bulk of its matter is concerned all fusion is gravitationally produced either directly or through indirect secondary reactions stemming from same.

The universe and protons DO NOT want to fuse. However, when, due to gravity, they do fuse they STORE and RELEASE energy.

The stored energy IS potential, (binding energy), in nature for it can later be released via fission (in larger atoms). Binding energy is mass converted to energy in this case, which is the common case seen in nature. ( fusion results in a reduced mass net product)

The released fusion energy is due to a mechansim related to what appears to be a mysterious law of physics associated with fusion.

You seem to opt for this release energy coming from some sort of universal continuum. A totally theoretical point of view.

However, if this released energy comes from the differential from the sum of the two protons mass minus the resultant mass showing some converted mass energy going to binding and some going to released energy then all is easily explained without a continuum. As such, there would be no potential energy here at fusion time with the released energy. It came from mass-energy conversion. Potential energy was CREATED in the form of binding energy, (strong force).

Again, the strong force is never extant anywhere in the universe prior to fusion. It is created at that time only.

There are many issues here that boggle the mind. As the universe is mostly protons, we may confidently state that within the bulk of all matter extant in the uiniverse, the strong force doesn't exist and cannot be found as a naturally extant force in natrure. It is a secondary, created force in nature much as is the case for light and magnetism, weak force, etc. All are secondary items and not primal in nature.

Richard Hull

[Todd Massure]

Well it could be said that all matter is potential energy, as shown by E=mc^2
But conversely it can also be said that all energy is potential mass ( m=E/c^2 )
I don't think that the universe favors either state. Only the huge gravitational forces of stars and black holes make either conversion routine in nature.

[Richard Hull]

As I have written before, E=MC^2 never, ever refers to what you and I might call particulate mass, but only to MASS DEFECT, big big difference.

The mass of protons and electrons that make up matter ARE NOT a form of potential energy as they can never be converted to energy regardless of any form of nuclear hand waving.

No protons are ever turned into energy, no electrons are turned into energy. Charge would be lost or destroyed if they were and to my way of seeing things net loss of charge is impossible anywhere in the universe. The ultimate conservation law is that of charge conservation. Forget baryon number, spin, etc. they are just assumed based on good evidence.

What E=MC^2 talks to is merely mass defect- binding energy(strong force)-weak force exchanges! Sort of an appearance-disappearance of mass via smoke and mirrors. There are no protons or electrons dropping out of sight or being created. Yes, we see and measure real, inertial mass come and go away, but not the stuff of matter, protons and electrons.

Many famous scientists have stressed this over the years. Robert Serber in the manhattan project's, "Los Alamos Primer", pointed this out rigidly.

What form this chargeless inertial mass takes is a genuine mystery with lots of ad hoc, goof ball, theories entrained.

Only the neutron weighs more than the apparently contained proton and electron summed. All other fused matter weighs less up to iron. This is why the neutron is unstable outside the nucleus and is often considered as a whole form of matter by itself. Uranium and Thorium self destruct giving up the E=MC^2 mass defect to energy via EM (photonic) and kinetic energy of the debris. No lost particles or charge here, just mass defect fun and games via an unknown smoke and mirror act which we are not privvy to.

So the next time you imagine E=MC^2 turning the real stuff of matter into energy or vice-versa.... Imagine again.

Richard Hull

[Todd Massure]

What about if a proton and anti proton meet? It is uncommon and unlikely, but I believe it will result in total mass energy conversion which agrees w/ E=mc^2 and I think it does conserve charge at the same time.
But yes you are right, it is important for everyone to remember that the protons, neutrons and electrons of atoms are not converted to energy in a nuclear reaction.

[Steven Sesselmann]

Richard, I respect your view, which is in line with classical theory, let me
however use another one of my metaphors, to express my view.

Imagine if you and everything you knew existed on the rooftop of a 100
level building. Around the edge of this rooftop there was a massive fence
erected to prevent you and everyone else from falling down.

This fence was so high that nobody in your world had ever peered over it,
and as a consequence nobody in your world knew that your whole world
was situated on the top of a tall building.

You and everyone else in your world may be forgiven for thinking that
your ground level is as low as it gets, and that there is no more potential to
exploit.

One day a wild haired scientist comes along and tells people the truth, and
that E=MC^2. (The people find it amusing and print it on their T-Shirts.)

Einstein told us how high the building is, and that matter can be
converted into energy. In other words, if you throw something off the edge
of the building you can theoretically extract 100% of its mass as potential
energy.

Fortunately there are these ratchets along the way, that stop all of the
energy from being exploited all at once.

The Coulumb barrier, is the first ratchet, and once we get over that barrier
some mass is released as energy, until the proton hits the next ratchet.

We know this because the total mass of the fusion product is less than
the mass of the Deuterons before the fusion by you know what.

My view..

Steven Sesselmann

[longstreet]

What we call "fusion energy" is in fact the transformation of potential energy into kinetic energy (our "fusion energy"). A proton is made up of quarks, and the quarks are bound by the strong force. Neutrons are also structured this way. The quarks themselves have a mass, but the sum of all the quark's masses is LESS than the mass of the proton or neutron. The rest of the mass exists in the strong force binding energy (ie potential energy, however you want to think of it).

The neat thing is that certain combinations of protons and neutrons can "share" binding energy, and so requires less TOTAL binding energy between all the quarks. When the total binding energy before a nuclear reaction is more than the binding energy after the nuclear reaction, we get extra kinetic energy. But, certain fusions actually do result in LESS kinetic energy after the reaction (endothermic).

This is what happens when you try to fuse things heavier than iron, and why these elements are ONLY formed during a supernova. A sun connot sustain itself fusing heavier elements because the reactions would actually start consuming energy rather than expending it. During a supernova some energy of the explosion forces these nuclear reactions, and that's why we can get energy OUT of fission. That side of the element table expends energy in fission, and consumes it in fusion. This is also why you can't just keep fusing and fissioning things to get an infinite amount of energy, because one reaction will be exothermic and one will be endothermic, neting you zero energy gain.

So, realistically there IS a finite amount of "fusion energy" in the universe. If you make every atom in the universe iron, that's the maximum kinetic energy you can ever have from nuclear processes (and hence the lowest "nuclear potential energy"). The only way we could ever convert the rest of the mass in the universe into usefull energy is to find where all the anti-matter went, or find the mechanism which allows this symmetry to be broken and then un-break it.

Thanks,
Carter

[Steven Sesselmann]

I agree, there is a finite amount of fusion energy, and that one can only
extract energy from elements lighter than iron.

This does not mean that Iron has no more potential energy, it just means
that the fusion process is exhausted, and that you have reached another
tooth on the ratchet.

Now the next barrier is a rather tough one, but if you gather up enough
Iron, you will eventually reach a point where the whole mass collapses,
turning into neutrons+a whole lot more energy.

We then reach another stable level, a neutron star. Any matter cought up
in the gravitational field of a neutron star and falling to it's surface will
exhaust most if not all of it's potential energy, and only add a very small
amount of mass to the star.

What happens next ?

This is where "My view" differs from the rest...

Instead of collapsing into a singularity, my view is that upon reaching the
Schwartchild limit, any matter cought up in the stars gravity will convert all
of its mass into energy (various forms of radiation).

Now I am well of the subject of Fusion, so I shall leave it at there

Steven Sesselmann

[Richard Hull]

Again ostensibly correct, but, D-D fusion can take three paths. One is fanishingly small D+D= He4
The other D+D= T + P
The last is D+D=He3 + N

Up to iron

(Energy gained at assembly-Lost or demanded at destruction) - mass defect. Gotta' put that mass back if we blow up low Z stuff.

No protons and no electrons were turned into energy in any of these reactions. No protons or electrons lost any mass. Only the complex product nuclei as unit entities do not sum to their composite proton and electron masses. Yet in any future break up reactions involving these same composites, all the masses of all particles from their shattered remenants will still be there once free again. They were effectively in "light storage" in that they lost as a composite about .0002% of their summed masses and we got our hands on a couple of mev from fusion.

Above iron, of course, all masses EXCEED the summed proton electron masses. (Energy lost at assembly or fusion - energy harvested or produced at destruction) - reverse mass defect.

No electron or no proton can be totally destroyed and converted to energy but what all is quickly balanced and every proton and every electron returns to the universe in perfect balance.

Carefully following all the anti-particles and beta decays will show the net effect is zero loss of even one proton or electron in net reactions.

Low Z radioactive isotopes are famous for blasting out anti-particles as decay products. Gotta get those real micro masses lost at fusion back in line. Above iron, radioactive isotopes like to throw out real matter as they have it to burn.

Anti-particle production, especially protonic reactions, are among the rarest of all reactions in the universe. Still,all electrons and protons remain.....anti-matter does not.....It winds up as energy only. (by every observation yet made)

The universe guards charge and, thus, all real matter, (protons and electrons), very tightly. There are no total conversions to energy of these but what they reappear for all to balance out (quickly).

Most total conversions and anti-particle reactions are at many MEV. The universe doesn't work in many MEV in and amongst bulk matter; even in stars.

Man fools himself into believing nature does this total conversion because he does it by storing up terawatt pulses and smashing matter together is a fashion that is not found anywhere in the observable universe. The universe is far too quiet and cold to allow such goings-on to upset the universal proton and electron number, the instant the protons or electrons are converted in to energy, anitparticles are found in and amoungst bulk matter where they are destroyed and all the normal matter that was converted to energy is right back in the universe.

Again such conversions are very very rare outside of accelerators. The fact that we can do somethng doesn't mean it is done in nature to any significant degree.

We need to keep ever focused in our heads that all E-MC^2 reactions involve only mass defect and so far as the universe is concerned never involves the total conversion of the stuff of matter, (protons and electrons), as they can't be destroyed or lost to the universe.

Steve, no need to fear getting off topic in the theory section so long as it bears on the nuclear aspects of things. Sometimes this strings out to cosmology in some fashion or another. I appreciate the commentary and opinions on your take on things.

Richard Hull

[longstreet]

I don't really understand the process you are talking about. I would think an entire star of neutrons containes a huge amount of binding energy. Single atoms become very unstable if you have too many protons OR neutrons. If you only have all of one there is way too much binding energy and it spontaniously emmits electrons or positrons to reduce that energy. My understanding is that a neutron star has so much gravity that any emmitions immediatly get reabsorbed, so they can't decay into protons any longer. But that would just mean there is even MORE energy stored there, not less. You'd want to reduce the amount of stored energy, not increase it, if you want to get energy out.

I'm interested in what effect you are talking about?

However, back to your origional thread, it seems to me there are two large problems with the fusor.

One is the existance of grids. You can use electrostatic lensing to keep ions from hitting these grids if you just worry about "injecting" them into the core. That is basically all current fusors do. To actually do confinement you need to keep them from hitting the wires on the way out as well. This is the hard part, since collisions are nearly random they will definatly always have some ions flying straight for the wires.

The other problem I see is that ions tend to become neutral. They either pick up free electrons or exchange electrons with the surrounding gas molecules. When this happens it is no longer in a conservative field (well, it is but the forces cancel out now). The energy can no longer be conserved in the potential well.

If you can have ions that ALWAYS miss the grid wires, and ALWAYS stay ionized, they should oscillate in the chamber for a very long time haveing a much higher chance of colliding and fusing, and consuming no current. They do create bremsstrahlung radiation which will eventually slow them down. I haven't actually done any calculations on that limitation, but it's not even a factor at the moment since all of the energy used to accelerate an ion is lost when milliseconds later it a) hits a grid, or b) turns neutral and leaves the potential well.

Thanks,
Carter

[Steven Sesselmann]

Richard & Carter, Thanks for comments.

We could go on and on about mass and energy and we may end up
disagreeing on the semantics only. Physically your Proton and Electron
may never vaporize into a puff of smoke (assuming no antiparticle). My
point however was that, when you, the observer, can no longer extract
any energy from that particle, it is for all intents and purposes no longer
observable to _you.

ie. connect a string to your atom, wrap it around a dynamo and let it fall
into a hypothetical black hole. Theoretically you should be able to extract
E=MC^2. After this, we can only speculate on wheather or not the atom
still has a physical existance, as you have no way to observe it.

Carter, back to your inner grid problem. I have been thinking about this
problem for a couple of days, and I keep coming back to this idea.

I think the best inner grid is a solid sphere with a small hole in it, to let the
protons inside. It should work like a capacitor on top of a Van De Graaf
generator.

Any electrons cought on the inside of the sphere will be drawn to the
outside surface, and over time, you will get a build up of protons inside the
sphere. If you are then able to lower the electrical potential inside the ball
sufficiently, the protons will fuse causing the potential to go down further,
thereby drawing in more protons through the hole. This could cause a
chain reaction and possibly a runaway Fusor.

For safety I would have some kind of current limiter outside the fusor

Just in case...

Steven Sesselmann

[longstreet]

Just putting a voltage on a solid conductor will not create an electric field inside. It will have a uniform voltage everywhere. If you put a positive particle inside the sphere it will simply float around as if there wasn't a voltage at all. If you put two positive particles inside they will just repel each other and you won't get any collisions much less fusion.

Yes, we could discuss stuff a lot. But that's what's fun. As for your dynamo, what is it connected to? What is keeping it from falling into the black hole at the same rate as your atom? Besides, all this has done is extract the gravitational potential energy, which is tiny compared to the total energy stored in the mass itself which is causing the gravitation field in the first place.

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter, since we are hypothesising anyway...

We have built a giant rigid sphere around a black hole and we are
standing on the surface of that sphere lowering a mass on a string through
a hole in the surface.

Elementary ...

Steven Sesselmann

[longstreet]

That is interesting. Just doing some quick math to see here. Gravitational potential energy is -Gm1m2/r. So, the energy gain of dropping the mass is Gm1m2(1/r2 - 1/r1). I'll assum the black hole is the mass of the sun (2x10^30kg) with the event horizon 500m in radius, and we drop a 1kg object from the radius of the earths orbit (1.5x10^11m) to the event horizon. My calculator says that gives 2.65x10^17 Jouls of energy. E = mc^2 says the object alone has a rest energy of 9x10^16 Jouls. This is interestingly close to the same magnitude (10^17) for a rough estimate.

However, I'm using classical mechanics here and we all know space and time are not linear around a black hole. So I'm not quite sure of the implications, and also not sure of the long term effects on the spherical structure by extracting the energy this way (i.e. will it eventually become unstable and require energy to correct?).

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter,

...so your thinking about it, thats good.

If you can follow me on this next one, you may see the light.

Classical mechanics holds fine for a static object the gravitational force is
F=Gmm/r^2, but unfortunately due to reasons that Newton could not
easily have known, one ca't simply integrate this from R to R=infinity to
find the total potential energy.

Newton made this assumption and came up with Up=GMM/r

The problem is that for every dr you are expending a bit of energy and I
believe that one must concider the mass of this energy in the equation.

ie.. for every dr the mass increases by dU/C^2 (a very miniscule amount)

With my limited ability in calculus, I arrived at the following equation for
potential energy.

Up= GMm/r(sqrt(1-(2Gm/rC^2)))

You can check, that any mass falling in a gravitational field will convert all
of its potential energy into kinetic energy, upon reaching the Schwartchild
radius.

If my hypothesis is correct, then it has some important cosequences.

a)
Black holes can not form, because as a neutron star reaches the SR.
radius its mass reaches an absolute limit. Any matter falling on the
surface of that star will have a kinetic energy of MC^2 and upon hitting the
surface will radiate all this energy back into space. This would indeed be
converting mass into energy.

b)
It gives us a very neat explanation of teh Couloumb barrier. (Now this one
is a bit tricky to get.) Potential energy is of course not limited to Gravity,
forcing matter to move against any force will build up the potential energy.

A proton particle has the strong force (attraction) and the electrostatic
force (repulsion). Both are inversely proportional to the suare of the
distance. (don't disagree with me yet)

To protons in a Helium nucleus stick together with a very strong force,
this force is so strong, that the electrostatic force is overridden.

Now apply an even stronger opposite force and begin to separate the
protons slowly. The energy applied to separate the protons, increases
their mass, according to my formula, but the electrostatic force simply
follows the inverse square law. What happens is, excactly what we see,
first strong repulsion, then you reach a break even point, where the
electrostatic force excactly balances the strong nuclear force, the
Coulumb point. beyond this point, the protons repel.

I attach a graph from my spreadsheet to show the little bump

Basically the Electrostatic force is linear, but the strong nuclear force is
non linear and when you add the two together you get that little bump in
the force. The little bump is the all important tooth in the ratchet, the
Coulumb barrier or fusioneers headache.

My view...

Steven Sesselmann

[longstreet]

One step at a time. I'm still not entirely convinced that you are really extracting the mass energy, or can make the connection. My problem with this is that somehow we dropped this mass 'm' into the black hole to get energy somewhere on the order of E = mc^2; but that mass energy still exists and adds to the total mass OF the black hole, which now has "something like" E = (M + m)c^2 energy. If the energy we extracted was the origional mc^2, where did the increased mass of the black hole come from?

This paradox seems to come from how gravitational potential energy isn't one of the energies in the space-energy tensor for gravity in general relativity. Yet we can extract energy from it which can also act like added mass? Does this mean we are increasing the total curvature of space-time by extracting gravitational potential energy, and making our power plant more massive? Very strange. To be honest I really need to shower a couple times on this before babbling any more.

[Steven Sesselmann]

So, you too think about relativity in the shower....

It's a real bummer for water restrictions

Steven

[Richard Hull]

Steven mentioned in a fusor getting protons to fuse with a solid inner grid system with a hole in the middle. I am sure he ment deuterons because proton-proton fusion can't be done here. At least no one has seen it done.

Richard Hull

[SJSVOB]

>If the energy we extracted was the origional mc^2, where did >the increased mass of the black hole come from?

The way I look at it is that the energy extracted was the potential energy created at the moment of the big bang when all matter was driven away from a central point, and not that energy was extracted from the black hole. As far as I know the only method by which energy is extracted from black holes is Hawking radiation.

[longstreet]

Ok, I've mulled it over a bit. I think you are right that the classical potential energy equation is not right. The relativistic energy of a particle is E = mc^2/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2). So, we get the relativistic mass of a particle for a given velocity. As the particle accelerates it gains mass, which increases the gravitational force.

The force we see should be something like F = GMm/((r^2)*sqrt(1-v^2/c2)). In this equation dU should be GMm/((r^2)*sqrt(1-v^2/c2)) dr, but I have a dr/dt (v) there so it's a differential equation. I'm not sure how to integrate that. Maybe your equation is right, but I'd have to look at how you derrived it.

At any rate, if we just let an object fall to the schwartchild radius it will have a kinetic energy which we get from the new potential energy equation. However, if we drop it in at a constant velocity we use the old potential energy equation to find the energy we extracted, not the new equation.

So, if we drop a mass into the black hole to extract energy, we could turn that energy into mass and then drop that into the black hole, over and over again. That's ok because the energy we extracted should be much less than what the kinetic energy would have been if we let the origional object just fall in.

This may seem round-a-bout, but I had to do it.

[Steven Sesselmann]

Carter, we seem to have two threads running under the same heading,
cosmology and fusor grids Over to cosmology...

I wrote down that equation sometime in 1999 and I would have to think a
bit before I remember how I derived it. I have tried talking with many
relativists about this problem, but sometimes I don't think they understand
their own equations. The Universe should not be that hard to explain.

My theory is simple, all energy has mass and all mass gravitates. The
sum of all kinetic and potential energy divided by C^2 equals the mass in
the universe. The arrow of time is in the direction of decreasing energy.
Any process, thing or person that can break break energy down from high
potential to low will be successful (in the eyes of the universe).

Sorry, no room for conservationists

Seems to me that we could free up some thinking time too;

No black holes
No missing mass
No need for four forces
No issues with unexplained slowing of space craft etc.

Steven Sesselmann