Pancake Probe Sees All

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Joe Gayo
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Pancake Probe Sees All

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Richard Hull
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

Post by Richard Hull »

Agreed! I read both real carefully and was spell bound by the verbiage! proof of aneutronic fusion via neutron detection and......other stuff! I can use a great neutron detector and show that while I mix hot chocolate powder in warm milk that it is an aneutronic reaction.

I can see the pancake probe as a "prop" for the camera and photo's sake. If part of their real science it will detect lots of RF noise, (Look at the friggin' lightning in that tube!), and any x-radiation present, just as when mixing up my hot choclate that probe will detect no neutrons during such mixing as well as no arc produced RF, no x-rays or any other form of dangerous radiation.

Another rich and bold attempt at doing what can't be done in a newsy article that seems to befuddle those in the know.

Great catch Joe! I love these continuing tales of those claiming to be close to the breakthrough we've all been waiting for since Lyman Spitzer and crew assembled that first crude, non-functional stellarator in 1952.
It's been 70 years now since that first fusion reactor attempt to produce useable electrical energy.

Fission produced useful energy using the water boiler in 1944 only 6 years after the discovery of fission.

It has been 90 years since the discovery of fusion and not one watt of fusion produced boiled water has been produced to make electricity.

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/ ... er-reactor

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Richard Hester
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

Post by Richard Hester »

There are some researchers using petawatt(?) ultrashort laser pulses to initiate fusion reactions, but this doesn't sound like those guys... I recall that there was an individual a few years back claiming to achieve fusion with some sort of electric arc apparatus.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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Yes, I have long called this putt-putt boat fusion. More akin to trying to catch lightning bolt discharges to feed the grid. Not realistic, of course. The shining example of a fail in this is the NIF debacle. This effort is now mostly used for it original funding effort of stockpile stewardship testing. The concept of power ready fusion using this system is now faded from view.

Going to our wayback machine here at fusor.net, Richard Hester put up a realizable, hydrogen thyratron pulsed fusor diagram. No one went to it or built it. Naturally, electronic detection methods were out with near mega watt peak pulses of fusion, requiring the cumulative dose collecting of an expensive BTI dosimeter to track the output of a pulsed device. Mark Rowley recently tried a pulsed system that went on the back burner in his to-do list.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
Richard Hester
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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Actually, I suspect that the mechanism for fusion in the case of the ultrashort pulse work is rather different than that for inertial confinement, as fusion is taking place with far less energy input. I suspect some sort of short-distance scale particle acceleration. Ultrashort-pulse lasers are enabling particle accelerators that are far more compact than the usual electromagnetic monsters.

BTW, I found my PDF file for the pulsed fusor scheme. If I remember tonight, I'll post a copy to an administrator, so it can be restored. Looking back on it, I have some questions re the impedance matching between the PFN/transformer combination and the highly nonlinear impedance of the fusor plasma.
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Joe Gayo
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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@Richard Hester

It would be great if you could restore your old files!

Good to have you back. It looks like it has been about 6 years since you last posted.
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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Good to have you back, Richard.

As I recall, most fusion work using ultra short pulsed lasers is to first, compress a pellet using regular lower power lasers (extremely pellet illumination uniformity is relaxed somewhat) and then use the ultra short laser to ignite a small region of the pellet (well before required density to ignite via compression) to imitate a burn that then "flashes over" enabling full pellet fusion. To date, those ideas have failed, completely. As for particle beam (ion) fusion, to this day, no one has really tried and there is absolutely no known physical reason it wouldn't work. Also, previous accelerators were already more then efficient enough (about 20%) to not be an issue if a power plant was in the future. Being smaller would be useful for a power plant but not important for a test bed. Still, it certainly lowers the bar for smaller research places if they would want to try that methodology.
Richard Hester
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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Here's the citation for the ultrashort pulse laser fusion work. They are getting 2 million neutrons per pulse, with low energy input. A tottering baby step to start with, but interesting.
https://optics.org/news/9/4/47
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Interesting overview of the work; most definitely was not for fusion energy but is considered useful as a possible diagnostic tool for the big devices ( like NIF which we now know was designed utterly wrong and will never work for fusion energy) and as an x-ray illumination source or a very hot plasma source.
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Richard Hull
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Re: Pancake Probe Sees All

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In the original bill put to congress for NIF the number one thing that got it funded was "stockpile stewardship" Defense comes first!!! The tiny, but laudable, at the time, secondary mission was fusion energy research. For those who don't know what that "Stockpile Stewardship" means............

We have a stockpile of nuclear weapons. The test-ban on atmospheric testing was ancient, but we set off hundreds of underground nuclear tests from 65-92. The Amchitka blast of the 5 megaton Spartan missile warhead in Alaska was the reason Greenpeace was formed. Underground tests were abandoned soon after. Why all these hundreds of underground tests?? Smart nuclear weaponeers are always thinking...Bigger yield...Ever smaller...more efficient in destruction. As such, the stock pile is upgraded over time with more megatons in the same or smaller package. These ideas require testing. Testing large in the atmosphere is prohibited and underground blasts considered an offense against mother earth. Testing of ideas in the small, but still thermonuclear, was NIFs big promise to stockpile stewardship.

Unfortunately NIF was a major debacle and billions over budget and years late in completion. The nuke boys, in the meantime, during the delays, had found suitable work-arounds to NIF. To save face the fusion boys were given first crack when the nuke boys said, there is no rush where we are concerned. Therefore, NIFs debut made a real fusion splash, but unfortunately, it was in a kiddy pool. Now used on and off for some stewardship missions, it is an edifice to just how big we can make a loser, too late, and vastly too expensive. It is now a "funhouse" of nuclear fusion to tourists liking to see big stuff, made to do big stuff.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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