4 ms·
Korean artificial sun sets the new world record of 20sec at 100M degrees
- jawns 6y agoAnybody know how they keep something like that from melting everything in the room?
- sfvisser 6y agoNot an expert, but don’t they fuse matter kept in the center of a toroid vacuum chamber using magnetic fields? So the high temperature doesn’t have a medium to escape through.
- cultofmetatron 6y agothis is accurate. thats the purpose of the superconductors
- ThePadawan 6y agoI conceptually love how the answer to the question "how do you stop something from melting the room" is - stop melting from being an applicable concept - remove the concept of a room from the equation
- aaomidi 6y agoI love this
- woleium 6y agomagnets, really big magnets.
- andruby 6y agoMagnets or electrically induced magnetic fields?
- woleium 6y agoI believe the way it used to be done was magnets made by inducing a moving current in a ring shaped superconductor which needs to be at c. 2 kelvin to maintain superconductivity? They are supercooled by liquid Helium, which then has it's compression system cooled by a liquid Nitrogen compression system. That said, I do recall reading about a fancy new higher temp superconductor which would allow for a much smaller torus to be made. This may be using that system. I'm not completely up to date.
- bob1029 6y agoThe amount of stuff that is kept incredibly hot is very small, so the effective radiated power is manageable using the gigantic containment vessel which was purpose-built for this problem.
- anonymfus 6y agoThe answer is carefully hidden right in the first sentence of the article: > The Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), a superconducting fusion device also known as the Korean artificial sun, set the new world record as it succeeded in maintaining the high temperature plasma for 20 seconds with an ion temperature over 100 million degrees. Tokamak here is a Russian for toroidal chamber with magnetic coils. The plasma is hold in place by interaction of magnetic fields from these coils with magnetic fields from currents flowing trough the plasma.
- kenjackson 6y agoThis sounds like the background for some superhero origin story.
- ricc 6y ago...or supervillain.
- klmadfejno 6y agoIt is! This is what Doctor Octopus is doing in (the original) Spider Man 2. He built his arms to help contain the reaction.
- syockit 6y agoNote that "the original" in the above comment refers to the movie series, not the comic books. There were two movie series post-2000 by different directors. The second one didn't feature Doctor Octopus. In the comics, he was like a typical scumbag villain, but in the movie referred to here, he's more like a misguided psychopath.
- interestica 6y agoThey should bring that character back for the new movies and have him be played by the old actor. ...
- klmadfejno 6y agoThey are doing that
- roughly 6y agoAt this rate I’d say we’re only 20 years or so away from practical nuclear fusion...
- ncmncm 6y agoAlways have been, always will be. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FrUWoywZRt8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FrUWoywZRt8 Fusion research produces more (and higher-energy) falsehoods than neutrons.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoGotta go with 25. Standard answer since 1960. But then, only 25 more years until we can light up the moon. https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/
- icodestuff 6y agoSo how long does it have to run to break even?