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College Freshman Builds Fusion Reactor
Aiua writes "The Deseret Morning News is reporting that a Utah State University freshman has built a nuclear fusion reactor and compares how the student is similar to Philo T. Farnsworth (the inventor of the television and designer of the plans for a fusion reactor)."
Is his name Dexter by any chance?
On the other hand, wouldn't the FBI be looking hard at him now that has built something like this?
In a way. In one of the episode commentary tracks on the Futurama Season 1 DVD set, it's revealed that Philo was the good professor's namesake.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
...Building it would get him older college chicks?
He got second place in a science competition? It makes me wonder what project won first place. An advanced prototype of a nuclear fission weapon using kitchen grease as fissionable material? How manay days is it until April 1st?
"Craig built a neutron modulator (which slows down the emitted neutrons so they can be detected) out of a few hundred spare CDs. "
I guess we have a new winner for what to do with AOL CDs.
Good way to win a Darward Award while still living if you ask me...
Blockwars: free, multiplayer, and with new features!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
Craig built a neutron modulator (which slows down the emitted neutrons so they can be detected) out of a few hundred spare CDs.
RIAA: "They wouldn't be CD's with pirated music on them would they ??"
Wallace: "No sir, Mr. RIAA-man. But you can have a look yourself. I keep them over there in that nuclear reactor. Fill your boots."
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
I was once an ISEF finalist/winner. "Second place" is a designation given to a substantial number of projects at the International fair. There are like 5-10 blue (first), 10-30 red (second), etc. The biggest winners are in a seperate catagory -- things like the, "BLAH T. BLAH SCIENCE AWARD" that includes a trip to Japan, or a trip to see the Nobel ceremonies, etc etc. Interestingly, building a project like this is really only a certain level of merit at a real science fair (like ISEF). I used to build devices like that -- and get awards like second place. The real thing the judges are looking for is scientific/research content. For instance, the kid may have built this and got it to work, but did he improve on the design? did he measure the efficiency of the system? did he use the device to study some effect X, Y, or Z? This may sound crazy, but at that level the high school students are expected to perform at the level of grad student researchers. The winning doesn't really matter, though -- the kid got a postiive experience that will stay with him for the rest of his life...!
Unfortunately, Wallace's IEC, like every other IEC ever built, doesn't get even close to break-even. Their primary utility is, as the article mentions, as a neutron source (and in fact that's what they're usually used for). There are some folks that are hopeful they can find a way to improve the efficiency of IEC fusion and exceed break-even (Robert Bussard, of Bussard ram-jet fame, for example), but no one's managed to actually demonstrate a working, energy-generating IEC yet.
But if -you- RTFA, you would note, he -did- actually acheive fusion in the thing. Albeit, only a few molecules a minute, way to low to ever be used as a power source, but the device -did- fuse Deuterium ions. Which does have the side effect of generating the neutron radiation, which is negligable, as the article mentiones, no more than airline passengers are exposed to (being up there with a little less atmospheric cover).
Atrox
-Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
maybe because you refuse to look? yes, cold fusion got a bad rap and may very well be a crock of... non-fusing stuff. but there are smart people who disagree:
quotes cribbed (using Copy-n-Paste[TM]) from the wired magazine article on cold fusion
give it a read.
2 1337 4 u!
I don't doubt it is real. The fact that his machine only can generate 4 neutrons/minute above background makes it kind of wimpy fusor.
I had a boss once who built a Farnesworth-style fusor from scrounged parts sometime back in the late 60's or early 70's. He told me he kept it behind his desk for years.
At the time he ran the Nuclear Effects - Solar Thermal Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range (basically a BIG concentrating mirror for simulating the intense heat of a nuclear blast and its effect on materials). Frequently they would get VIP visitors dropping in from the Pentagon, major universities, etc. He would always take the visitors on a walking tour of the facility. He would flip the machine on ahead of time and turn on a geiger counter he kept next to his desk. At the end of the tour he would take the visitors to his office. Usually the visitors would notice the clicking sound after a few minutes of chit-chat and ask "what's making that sound?" He would then dead-pan "oh that's nothing, that's just the radiation from my fusion reactor" and wave the geiger counter back and forth across the machine, generating lots of above background clicking.
The fusor was completely safe and the neutron radiation from it was well within safe limits, but frequently the visitors would require a bit of calming down after his little joke.
I think at least one general thought he had created a fusion power source and wanted to classify the whole deal and immediately fund development. Don't imagine he was too happy when he found out it used alot of energy and produced only a few neutrons.
"These laws they're passing won't even compile anymore, let alone execute." - anon
It actually is pretty hard to make an implosion-type bomb work. They didn't work out the designs using slide rules, but actually cobbled together what was a hell of a lot of computing power for the day. I don't remember if they actually built any general-purpose electronic computers, but at least some of the work was done by large teams of workers using single purpose calculating machines. One machine would could add, another multiply, etc. and the system was "programmed" by coming up with a specific order in which IBM cards containing the information being processed were run through the system. Richard Feynman discussed a lot about this system in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Admittedly the average mobile phone these days probably had enough processing power to do those calculations, but the Nobel Prize winning minds in charge of the project had a lot more to do with its success than the raw processing power.
FWIW, you can learn far more than you ever wanted to know about nuclear weapons by reading the Nuclear Weapons Archive. When you understand everything in there, you can start thinking about building bombs.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Farnsworth invented the Farnsworth Image Dissector, the first TV camera tube. Which sucked. The device required huge amounts of light to work, bright sunlight, and big optics. It required so much light because it didn't integrate over the entire frame time; only the light that came in during the scan of the specific pixel contributed to the output. But it had some light amplification; it works a lot like a photomultiplier. In fact, it's basically a photomultiplier whose viewpoint can be steered.
Shortly thereafter, Zworklin invented the iconoscope. Which also sucked. That device required huge amounts of light, but for a different reason. The iconoscope has no light amplification, but it integrates the accumulated light over a frame time on a per-pixel basis as an electric charge. The accumulated charge is then read out by a scanning beam.
After much litigation, RCA ended up owning both technologies, and RCA Labs spent many years developing the image orthicon, which combines the good features of the two technologies. The image orthicon is just what you'd expect from a big corporate lab. It took years to develop, it's incredibly complicated and expensive, requires a huge amount of support electronics, is difficult to adjust, and produces a good picture at reasonable light levels. It has the photomultiplier-type amplification of the image dissector and the charge accumulation of the iconosope. Only after the image orthicon was developed did TV broadcasting become commercially viable.
Nevertheless, SCO cannot demand any money from the customers that use neutrons -- after all, they are free of charge.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Baird was the inventor of mechanical scanning television.
e nted_what.html
Q: How many of those are in use today?
A: About 1x10^e-120 (okay, so it's a guess)
Philo Farnsworth invented the electronic scanning system that you watch today.
Vladimir Zworykin, who is often cited as the "inventor" of television said after his 1930 visit to Farnsworth lab that "I wish I might have invented it."
Of course, Zworkin was in the employ of David Sarnoff of RCA. (as an aside: if you think that Microsoft is an anti-competitive monopoly, you should check out "Radio" of the 1920s. They had a portfolio of literally hundreds of patents that effectively denied entry in the radio marketplace unless you went first to them and paid licensing fees. And if Radio did not like you or wanted to own you, no license and no business for you.)
Anyways, Sarnoff wanted RCA to dominate television the same way that they dominated radio. RCA tried for many years to discredit Farnworth and his invention, instead saying that Zworkin had invented the iconoscope in 1923. This, history shows us, was clearly a lie. It is a lie as grand as Apple or Microsoft claiming the invention of the graphical user interface for computing. Or that Marconi invented radio. Neither is true.
History does show that on September 27, 1927 Philo T. Farnsowrth demonstrated the first all-electronic television system.
Farnsworth was a brilliant man, and should be given full credit for all that he did.
For more info: http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/tfc-who_inv