4 ms·

Thanks for replying! I didn't recognize the name of Ray Dandl, so I did a little research. Apparently he was the mind behind the Elmo Bumpy Torus, a device ha

Thanks for replying! I didn't recognize the name of Ray Dandl, so I did a little research. Apparently he was the mind behind the Elmo Bumpy Torus, a device half-way between mirror designs and a tokamak. I recall reading about it many years ago. He also seems to have had a hand in early microwave plasma heating (not sure if that is in conjunction with your other relative). While looking around, I ran across an interesting book, "Fun in Fusion Research", by John Sheffield. It contains a bunch of interesting anecdotes, including ones about Mr. Dandl. I thought I might mention it to you in case you enjoy it.

souprock 8y ago
Well that puts a name to the mysterious device Ray showed me. Thanks. I recall it being larger, in a cube-shaped 2-story room. According to his sister, Ray was really held back by his lack of a PhD. He had an IQ of 180. I wonder why nobody seems to have tried electronically cycling the field direction (alternating perpendicular fields) faster than the particles can get out the end of the magnetic mirror. That other relative, Pat Cahalan, did work for Varian, now called CPI. That was the supplier of the gyrotrons. He also was held back by limited education. The gyrotrons are pretty insane, with diamond windows about 2" in diameter that cost a $million. Megawatts of RF shoot out in one direction, while a powerful beam of X-rays shoots out in another direction. I've heard of them reaching 60 MW, and evidently they go over half a THz. I'm told that it's a bad day when you shatter the gyrotron window, causing air to be sucked into the hot vacuum tube. It's also a bad day when you are inside the walk-in power supply and a capacitor blows.