Speaking of Philo and the Fusor ... Farnsworth discovered an anomalous self-focusing space-charge phenomenon of electrons - which made the Fusor viable. Normally the tendency is to think that mutual Coulomb repulsion of electrons makes them impossible to control, but in fact spheres of them (plasmoids) can be self-controlling - whereas with magnetism, which seems easier to manipulate, like-charges want to naturally break free of bounds. This may not sound like a big difference but it is now $20 billion hit on the economy, at present.
The USA, in effect, chose the wrong horse when we went magnetic in pursuit of the grail of deuterium fusion. It is too bad that the hot fusion (boondoggle) did not capitalized on the control phenomenon which Farnsworth invented - but instead pursued magnetic confinement to the exclusion of a better system. In retrospect, this decision to "supersize it" in the Big-Mac tradition may have killed any chance of using deuterium fusion for cheap electrical power. Magnetic confinement resists supersizing (negative feedback) whereas electrostatic confinement is the opposite: self-controlling (positive feedback) ... but only in a optimal geometry (think "ball lightning"). There is a reason why ball lighting seems to only happen in balls that are never large. These self-focusing space charges are sometimes called "plasmoids" and they can be voltage controlled and they can coexist with unionized gas which is even more surprising: even contrary to "common sense". Why they have an optimum size is unknown, presently. But they are limited by some unknown physical property to a maximum size and it is not large. Philo named the spheres "poissors" when they when they were small point-plasmas which provided "pixels" for his "other invention" ... which was Television. Yep, Philo invented TV too. Another one of the under-utilized inventions of Philo was the multipactor. Poissors and plasmoids can be created in space and controlled without walls by multipactors. Early Farnsworth multipactors utilized twin opposed concave cold cathodes and this layout evolved directly into the Fusor. Nowadays, there is a "multipactor" terminology in EE - but it is a slightly different beast than in PFs original conception, which he felt could be extremely efficient (even a hint of OU). The design feature of concave electrodes permitted the re-discovery of electron optics, which was a departure in the world of electron tube design at time that PF started inventing television (in the Green Street Lab in SF) Of course, he did use magnetic control as well. Electron tubes were essentially an RCA monopoly and that company tried to ruin Farnsworth ... but Geneen and ITT came to the rescue. ITT later funded the Fusor for many years until the conglomerate started to fall apart from too many acquisitions. The fourth mini-paradigm-shift of Philo which led to QM-based nuclear fusion (in addition to the multipactor, the poissor or self-containing ion sphere, and electron optics) was "virtual electrodes". Of course all of these factors are intertwined in the Fusor. But the main reason the Fusor works so well at such miniscule input - is "spherical confinement". This is why the Fusor can be three orders of magnitude more efficient than the Tokamak (which employs toroidal/poloidal confinement, a poor substitute). The possibility has always loomed that the Fusor (rather several of them) could have been combined with magnetics to provide a better fusion device. IOW the Fusor uses electrostatic spherical confinement which is hard to scale up. Magnetic toroidal confinement is insufficient, too but for other reasons ... However ... we must ask: can synergy be squeezed out of a combination of the two? Imagine a string-of-pearls type of device with multiple Fusors are connected via magnetic solenoids. I doubt if we will ever know, since the hot fusion program is such a financial mess and dead-end street ... with greedy fingers in the pie that refuse to look at the bottom line. Too many of our top Universities have joined in the money scramble, with no accountability - to ever see an acceptable end-game for the USA. They are still begging for more - shame, shame. One can only hope that the Chinese will not be so hindered by the Tokamak, as a technology precedent - and that they will pursue the synergy of magnetics and electrostatics. Ironically, if China or anyone else succeeds, then we will also succeed. At least all that filthy air from burning coal, which ends up in the USA in a matter of days, will be reduced. Jones
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