Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

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Richard Hull
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Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

It seems that internal memo's were flying among two ITT Sceintist V.P.s .... I attach the letter I reference here as a PDF.

Very early questions were raised due to a discussion with Tuck at Los Alamos. A side note mentions this issue being discussed at a Berkley fusion energy conference related to reversal of Farnsworth's patent proposal polarities. It seems much credence was given to Tuck's reversal suggestion. It is to be remembered that this was the very time frame that Farnwsowrth's idea was just accepted and grossly underfunded. As such, ITT power players at the top were trying to cover the effort with a patent on Farnsworth's first fusor, as imagined. The letter suggests that the patent might be written broadly enough to include reversal of polarity to cover Tuck's suggestion. ITT's on-site physicist, Salinger writes a side not in the margin. While there is no distribution formally noted, Farnsworth's name is penned in at the top. Did Farnsworth see this letter?

I am sure that the two fusion effort worker bees were not privy to this missive. (Bain and Meeks) This letter was for the top of the food chain, and appears to be private between two V.P.s, one at Pontiac Street and the other at ITT HQ in New York. It seems that due to margin notes and Farnsworth's penned name on the letter that it had some others brought in on the questions raised in it. All the more interesting that Bain and Meeks would need two useless years of wrong polarity and no fusion before reversing on their own to do fusion.

Those here who are close to the history will find this letter a real eye opener as the polarity issue was of some concern long before the team even got started on their first ITT fusor!

Richard Hull
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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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Re: Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by Frank Sanns »

Yet the original polarity was the foundation of all of the Bussard fame. Google going fusion and all of the rest. Huge funding and notoriety. The poly well and other concepts at the forefront of science and funding decades after this memo.

I think to put so much on the letter is just more dissing of the man who was Farnsworth rather than an evolution of the technology. Science is learning. Most of science gets it wrong before it gets it right. If we all knew the answers when we started then there would be no need for experiments, funding, papers, or discussions.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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Richard Hull
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Re: Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

Well I guess they experimented for a couple of years but found their way to make fusion on their own by flipping the leads around. Many "VCIW"s in th' fusion biz. (term coined by Don Lancaster - "Voices crying in the wilderness"). No shame need fall on ITT, Farnsworth or his tiny band of merry men. They all did their bit as did the other competeing indstrial fusion efforts by GE, General Atomics and one or two others of the 50s and 60s. We now understand fusion is the most simple and easy of all nuclear reactions to bring into existence. Nuclear fuel - cheap, can be bought for chump change. Gear and reactor can be assembled by a gifted high schooler.

Fission is impossible for the high schooler in the number of nuclear reactions per unit time over amateur fusion.

I remain rather stunned that the ITT effort was placed rather fully in the "hands-on" research team of an electrical engineer and a Techician. It helps to understand the two fallow years, and the impotence of the entire underfunded effort cast adrift and rudderless for so long.

The significance of the letter above lay in the phyicist brains at the top of ITT management had and exchanged ideas that never filtered down to the folks doing the work. There are many such letters about in those early days. I wish I could have interviewed the Admiral, but was three months too late in 1998.

Even today the great new fusion ideas that seem to come from "outside of the box" which are, once again, funded by business and industry do have their fits and starts with promises. Such efforts have about 2-7 year life spans, expending a few millions of the money before the glitz and tinsle of their websites are all that remain of the original now hollowed out shell of ideas that have fallen or are in the process of falling on their face.

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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Re: Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by russssellcrow »

IDK Richard, there have been a lot of "promisses" for a lot of years regarding Fusion, but now superconducting magnetism is very real. Fusion occurs in a Fusor with rarity because of probabilities, but inside a star with certainty because of overwhelming forces. With the current class of higher temp super magnets, I can see small scale Fusion in magnetic confinement coming a LOT closer to fruition. Don't get me started on Chirp Laser driven Fusion, these people are blowing the doors off, and setting records monthly.

I may be absurdely optimistic, but I can envision a pathway for SpaceX to be on Mars in the next 10 years. I can see a corporation developing Fusion energy in the next 10 years (probably for a military contract), but still, a Fusion reactor running on a Navy vessel at sea.

From there, maybe the Epstein Drive
https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Epstein_Drive
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Dennis P Brown
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Re: Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by Dennis P Brown »

Fusion via the chirp lasers is highly unlikely to work - I know, I'm involved with some aspects of that methodology as applied to fusion. Pity because it is extremely interesting method to create short pulse lasers; however, that looks to be a method to prove some interesting aspects of quantum mechanics related to field theory. Further, as someone in DoD related project for fusion there are zero programs trying to install fusion in a ship - that isn't even envisioned in twenty years.

As for super conductors (high temp) still very little progress there and no attempt to build a fusion based magnet using that material but there has had some success in higher temp magnets. Not holding my breath on that - but it is making slow progress in both applied and theoretical aspects of that subject. Certainly a worthy area of research! The German Stellarator (W-7X) which I post far too much on will get the closest to a viable methodology for a real fusion device if (or hopefully, when) applied to a second generation machine. Unlike tokamacs they can hold power plant level plasma's in a stable manner (soon, hopefully, for a full thirty minutes.) But again, not holding my breath waiting for them to get the money for that purpose - that is viable so, not likely to get support - go figure.

As for Mars and human flight - any one at HEAS this year would know I'd comment on this aspect of your post - I gave a talk on this very subject (a bit out of place but that occurs) I am rather knowledgeable on getting people to Mars and strangely, both back and safely! Something neither NASA and especially Musk can't really do in a weight range any rockets can handle. One way suicide missions are fun to think about on paper but extremely immoral to actually do. Go figure ;)

Does this mean fusion power is hopeless and we should give up? No! The stellarator is working as far as holding a real power plant level plasma for realistic times (but like ITER, way too expensive for a power plant like device) nor for Mars - that I already know how to do and safely at a weight even NASA can handle. Lasers could possibly do fusion (ignition) via direct drive and if a proper laser (An ArF or maybe a KrF based trans-excited chemical ion) is used. But no money to try that route.
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Re: Very early thoughts of reversal of polarity in ITT fusor

Post by Richard Hull »

This discussion was related to polarity reversal on the fusor in the Farnsworth case specifically and why we retain that in our fusion systems. It has drifted into a fusion powered future or theory discussion please move future discussion to those forums. Reply on on the main thread topic, please.

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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