9 ms·

I know HOW to build it, I just don't have a million dollars laying around to actually do it. The prototype needs to be built inside an MRI machine.

jacquesm 8y ago
That's going to be one heck of a prototype or one heck of a bang. Either way the results will be spectacular.
empath75 8y ago
I meant you would know how to get funding for it, since nuclear physics research is a well established field.
- pontifier 8y ago
  I've looked at funding. I've talked to people in the field. There does not appear to be any money available from any source to fund any fusion projects other than Tokamaks or similar devices. Tokamaks by the way, were invented by an outsider with no previous domain knowledge...
  - basementcat 8y ago
    People involved with certain “long term high capital expenditure” efforts have indicated to me that most venture capital funders and US DOE-like sponsors aren’t too interested in projects with potentially long time horizons. They told me they got the bulk of their capital from foreign sovereign wealth funds and university endowment investments.
YawningAngel 8y ago
Couldn't you produce exact diagrams of such a thing and model its properties to show that it would be able to effectively achieve a stable plasma?
- pontifier 8y ago
  I've done some simulations, but have taken them as far as I am able to without additional funding. The results were promising, but the cost of better software to MAYBE get better tests was insane... Over $50k for a package that might not even do what I need it to do. I've contemplated writing my own software from scratch, but that just seems daunting. I'm quite burned out.
basementcat 8y ago
Don't need $1MM, a picoSpin 45 retails for ~$3k [1]. As an alternative, you could homebrew a simple NMR yourself with a cow magnet or a neodymium magnet. [1] https://www.fishersci.ca/shop/products/thermo-scientific-picospin-45-nmr-spectrometer-19/p-4585759 https://www.fishersci.ca/shop/products/thermo-scientific-pic...
- pontifier 8y ago
  Sorry, but that just won't work. The device I've looked at that I believe will work is a Hitachi Airis II. It has just about the right field strength, working volume and field uniformity for the prototype to have a chance of working. It's an older model and I have seen some for sale for approximately $30k.
ColinWright 8y ago
How serious are you about this? Why should anyone believe you when you blindly assert that you know how to build it? If you can convince someone in the field then there's a chance that the experiments can be done to see if it would work, but you'd need to convince someone that you know what you're talking about. So where's your evidence? The usual method is to have a track record, another method is to be able to state very clearly what the new/novel idea is for this to be different and workable. In that case, what's your elevator pitch? If you're outside the system it boils down to that question - if someone gives you three minutes, you need to be able to convince them to invest more time to understand more detail. Do you have a description like that? Why is your idea different? What's new about it? Why should some invest the time to see how/whether it works?
- pontifier 8y ago
  I'm very serious, but very burnt out by many recent failures. I would hope that nobody would blindly believe me, but would investigate the idea on it's merits. It's basically an inside out cyclotron... instead of ions circling a central point, all ion trajectories intersect a focus point once per period. If they collide at that focus point without fusing, they will still be on a trajectory that brings them back to the focus. There are no new physics, and only basic college level physics knowledge is required to understand the device. Here is a simulation video I made using a program called simbuca that simulates ion motion in a penning trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6nvmN7GB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6nvmN7GB0 As you can see, that simulation was made 3 years ago, but has very few views. I've tried, but don't know how to move forward without funding further research myself... I've basically stopped looking for outside funding.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    It seems like you might be neglecting repulsive forces that would alter the trajectories as pressures increased far below those necessary for fusion. In short, it’s hard to see how your device would fuse anything; you’d need some way to constrict everything or it wouldn’t collapse so neatly in each cycle. That constriction would have to be magnetic, require a ton of energy and modeling to solve, and... then you’re in the same hole as every other fusion researcher, except you have a weird geometry that hasn’t been studied and isn’t efficient. Sorry.

jacquesm 8y ago

That's going to be one heck of a prototype or one heck of a bang. Either way the results will be spectacular.

empath75 8y ago

I meant you would know how to get funding for it, since nuclear physics research is a well established field.

pontifier 8y ago
I've looked at funding. I've talked to people in the field. There does not appear to be any money available from any source to fund any fusion projects other than Tokamaks or similar devices. Tokamaks by the way, were invented by an outsider with no previous domain knowledge...
- basementcat 8y ago
  People involved with certain “long term high capital expenditure” efforts have indicated to me that most venture capital funders and US DOE-like sponsors aren’t too interested in projects with potentially long time horizons. They told me they got the bulk of their capital from foreign sovereign wealth funds and university endowment investments.

YawningAngel 8y ago

Couldn't you produce exact diagrams of such a thing and model its properties to show that it would be able to effectively achieve a stable plasma?

pontifier 8y ago
I've done some simulations, but have taken them as far as I am able to without additional funding. The results were promising, but the cost of better software to MAYBE get better tests was insane... Over $50k for a package that might not even do what I need it to do. I've contemplated writing my own software from scratch, but that just seems daunting. I'm quite burned out.

basementcat 8y ago

Don't need $1MM, a picoSpin 45 retails for ~$3k [1]. As an alternative, you could homebrew a simple NMR yourself with a cow magnet or a neodymium magnet. [1] https://www.fishersci.ca/shop/products/thermo-scientific-picospin-45-nmr-spectrometer-19/p-4585759 https://www.fishersci.ca/shop/products/thermo-scientific-pic...

pontifier 8y ago
Sorry, but that just won't work. The device I've looked at that I believe will work is a Hitachi Airis II. It has just about the right field strength, working volume and field uniformity for the prototype to have a chance of working. It's an older model and I have seen some for sale for approximately $30k.

ColinWright 8y ago

How serious are you about this? Why should anyone believe you when you blindly assert that you know how to build it? If you can convince someone in the field then there's a chance that the experiments can be done to see if it would work, but you'd need to convince someone that you know what you're talking about. So where's your evidence? The usual method is to have a track record, another method is to be able to state very clearly what the new/novel idea is for this to be different and workable. In that case, what's your elevator pitch? If you're outside the system it boils down to that question - if someone gives you three minutes, you need to be able to convince them to invest more time to understand more detail. Do you have a description like that? Why is your idea different? What's new about it? Why should some invest the time to see how/whether it works?

pontifier 8y ago
I'm very serious, but very burnt out by many recent failures. I would hope that nobody would blindly believe me, but would investigate the idea on it's merits. It's basically an inside out cyclotron... instead of ions circling a central point, all ion trajectories intersect a focus point once per period. If they collide at that focus point without fusing, they will still be on a trajectory that brings them back to the focus. There are no new physics, and only basic college level physics knowledge is required to understand the device. Here is a simulation video I made using a program called simbuca that simulates ion motion in a penning trap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6nvmN7GB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6nvmN7GB0 As you can see, that simulation was made 3 years ago, but has very few views. I've tried, but don't know how to move forward without funding further research myself... I've basically stopped looking for outside funding.
- gotocake 8y ago
  It seems like you might be neglecting repulsive forces that would alter the trajectories as pressures increased far below those necessary for fusion. In short, it’s hard to see how your device would fuse anything; you’d need some way to constrict everything or it wouldn’t collapse so neatly in each cycle. That constriction would have to be magnetic, require a ton of energy and modeling to solve, and... then you’re in the same hole as every other fusion researcher, except you have a weird geometry that hasn’t been studied and isn’t efficient. Sorry.