4 ms·

Forgive my ignorance, but aren't cryogenics and plasma temps at complete odds to function in near proximity?

• sobani 6y ago
  You're not supposed to let them touch. You won't go to space^W^W^W have fusion today if the magnetically confined plasma somehow escapes its confinement and touches the walls of the plasma chamber, let alone the cryogenics of the magnets. Besides creating the pressure, that purpose of the magnets is to keep the _few grams_ of plasma away from the walls of the otherwise vacuum chamber. Look up magnetic levitation, where you keep an object up using just a magnet. Now imagine huge magnets that push against an object from all sides, creating a ton of pressure. (Don't forget to include a whole bunch of fancy math to prevent the object from slipping away like a wet bar of soap you squeeze with your hands.) At no point should the object touch any of the magnets. Also keep in mind that when you (don't) want to heat something else up it's not the temperature that matters, but the total energy of the object. And the total energy is basically mass x temperature difference. So 1 gram at a million degrees is equivalent to 1 Kg at a thousand degrees, which is a lot less scary.