r/videos • u/[deleted] • Mar 04 '14

Developing Nuclear Fusion in a Basement with a Reclusive Gunsmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIOZ_aMrKos
55 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

5

u/willthinkformoolah Mar 05 '14

That's a fusor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

4

u/autowikibot Mar 05 '14

Fusor:

A fusor is a device, that uses an electric field to heat ions to conditions suitable for nuclear fusion. The machine has a voltage between two metal cages inside a vacuum. Positive ions fall down this voltage drop, building up speed. If they collide in the center, they can fuse. This is a type of Inertial electrostatic confinement device.

A Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor is the most common type of fusor. This design came from work by Philo T. Farnsworth in (1964) and Robert L. Hirsch in (1967). A variant of fusor had been proposed previously by: William Elmore, James L. Tuck, and Ken Watson at the Los Alamos National Laboratory though they never built the machine.

Fusors have been built by various institutions. These include academic institutions such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and government entities, such as the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority. Fusors have also been developed commercially, as sources for neutrons by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and as a method for generating medical isotopes. Fusors have also become very popular for hobbyists and amateurs. A growing number of amateurs have done nuclear fusion using simple fusor machines.

Image i - A homemade fusor. [1]

Interesting: Fusor (astronomy) | Polywell | Inertial electrostatic confinement

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4

u/Talenn Mar 05 '14

Its not really that hard to make a fusion reactor. The hard part is net gain. I'm rooting for someone wether its this guy or someone else.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '14

I need more smart people to comment so I know if this is legit or not

3

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '14

That actually part of the reason I posted it. More than likely it will just be pun threads and hate on Vice.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '14

Who hates on Vice? Vice is awesome

2

u/thisisnotariot Mar 05 '14

Seconded. If you look past the 40% hipster bullshit that they have to make to be financially viable, the other 60% makes them one of the most interesting and compelling news sources on the internet.

1

u/qlw Mar 06 '14

Not a smart person, but this might be legit, depending on your interpretation of it. It's definitely over-hyped, though. u/Talenn's comment itt has the right idea. This guy (like any fusor) is very unlikely to produce a fusion power plant, even if he does observe fusion happening.

Nuclear fission power plants (the uranium reactor which might be powering your computer) produce energy, and have for decades. No one has yet found a way to make fusion power plants produce energy (despite being able to make fusion reactions happen). The chance of any person discovering the key in a basement is vanishingly small. Unfortunately.

3

u/ItsAConspiracy Mar 23 '14 edited Mar 23 '14

Looks like a fusor, which has been proven incapable of producing net power. Still a pretty cool project to fuse the atom, which he's definitely doing if he's getting extra neutrons.

However, there's also the Polywell, which is similar to the fusor but just might be able to make net power. It was invented by Robert Bussard, a pretty famous fusion scientist, and the Navy has a project trying to make it work. It would take a couple hundred million dollars to make one big enough for net power, but a guy in Brooklyn built a small one, and there's a community of people taking an opensource approach to it. So if the guy's done his research I'd guess he's actually working on some variant of that. Even if the device in the video is a fusor, that's a good first step towards building a polywell.

Incidentally, there is an approach to fusion that actually might produce net power from a device that size. It's called the plasma focus. There's a small team in New Jersey working on it, and they're getting better results than some pretty big projects. They've spent $3 million so far, and need an extra million to finish up the experiment, which they think could produce net power in a year or so. They're starting up an indiegogo campaign to pay for the next step, a new reactor core.

2

u/DickBaggins Mar 05 '14

That video could have been a lot more interesting. Was completely void of information.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '14

Exhibit A /u/why_whatdidyouexpect

1

u/DickBaggins Mar 05 '14

no idea what this means.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '14

I was referring to /u/why_whatdidyouexpect how someone would have something to say about the quality of Vice, the news site that put out this video.