Slashdot Mirror
Eric Lerner's Focus Fusion Device Gets Funded
pln2bz writes "Eric Lerner, author of The Big Bang Never Happened, has received $600k in funding, and a promise of phased payments of $10 million if scientific feasibility can be demonstrated to productize Lerner's focus fusion energy production device. Unlike the Tokamak, focus fusion does not require the plasma to be stable, does not produce significant amounts of dangerous radiation, directly injects electrons into the power grid without the need for turbines and would only cost around $300k to manufacture a generator. Lerner's inspiration for the technology is based upon an interpretation for astrophysical Herbig-Haro jets that agrees with the Electric Universe explanation."
.... I understand that there's a certain appeal to a theory that does away with dark energy, dark matter and inflation....
It does a lot more than that. It explains that the sun is not a thermo-nuclear fusion device. If the sun were heated from the inside out, its corona would not be three million degrees and the surface only 6000 or so. We know that heat always flows from the hotter region to the cooler area. How is it that a 6000 degree solar surface manages to produce 2 to 3 million degrees of heat from a 6000 degree source?
Fusion produces a certain number of neutrinos. We know this from theory and from experiments. If the sun were energized by fusion we should be able to measure a commensurate number of neutrinos coming from the sun. The problem is that we don't see even a tiny fraction of the neutrinos that should be observed, IF nuclear fusion were indeed the fuel that keeps that "giant "campfire in the sky" shining.
As we have been learning for at least 4 decades now, in our attempt to tame the fusion reaction, that the fusion reaction is inherently unstable. So far, we have only been able to make bombs that produce a surplus of energy for a very brief amount of time. If the sun and all the stars were run by fusion, they could not produce a stable flow of energy over time.
It is very humbling to realize that we don't REALLY know what makes the sun shine, any more than the ancients knew. We have theorized a better, more powerful fuel than a giant wood or coal fire, but there is evidence that this is no more correct than what the ancients thought.
There is evidence that our sun, as all stars are are the focal points of immense, invisible electric currents flowing through galactic and intergalactic space. Since the earth is part of and immersed in this power flow, it becomes visible to us whenever the current density is high enough to excite the atoms of the upper atmosphere to produce light. This is called the borealis, commonly known as northern lights. The earth's magnetic field focuses these currents to enough density to make them visible.
In the end, the sun appears to be nothing more than a giant light bulb, powered from a cosmic power stations sending its power though one of the spiral arms of our home galaxy. There are a many of such light bulbs called stars strung out along each spiral arm, including the one our sun and its planets are in.
All theory is gray
...This is because electromagnetism doesn't affect mechanics at cosmological distance scales...
That is patently false. The pioneer and viking probes have MEASURED, not calculated the electric current we call the "solar wind".
WHY is there such a resistance to the proven concept of electrical current flows in space? It's really a mystery to me. We KNOW from measurements that large electrical currents flow outward from the sun. These currents cause the northern lights and do, if strong enough disrupt our power grids and communication systems. These currents are real, measured, not some theoretical calculation in some computer.
The detailed behaviors of plasma doesn't really matter. The fact is that there ARE electrical currents flowing in space. There is no physics law that would preclude such currents from flowing throughout our galaxy and even between galaxies. The spiral arms of our galaxy are visible current paths along which there are numerous stars. Our sun with its planets is located in one of these arms.
All theory is gray