NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/1765

Text File | 1992-07-22 | 2.5 KB | 46 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!metro!seagoon.newcastle.edu.au!cc.newcastle.edu.au!medb
From: [e-mail] (Dieter Britz)
Subject: Deuteron beams and yodeling
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Lines: 35
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: University of Newcastle, AUSTRALIA
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1992 11:27:13 GMT

I note that nobody has bothered to answer the bloke from Brisbane. I find
that his message has disappeared suddenly from my NEWS window - shows that
the way I work in Denmark is better, using LISTSERV. Anyway, whoever you
are, mate, you propose using massive beams of deuterons aimed at Pd plus
nifty ways of optimising the catch. This has been looked at extensively in
the 1950's and is called self targeting. The deuterons at first get absorbed
in the Pd, and when that gets saturated, beam deuterons increasingly hit
deuterons sitting at the surface. If the beam has an energy of some keV, you
do indeed get fusion. Quite a few Russian papers about "cold fusion" are in
fact in this category, they don't seem to know about the effect. The problem,
I presume, is that you put in a lot more energy to make that beam, than you get
from the fusion. I am sure that people were thinking of this as an energy
source back in the 50's.

Having said this, I wouldn't say that this proves it is totally impossible to
make it go. Some ideas come up before their time. E.g. others before Watt had
the idea of a steam engine, but he was the first to be able to build one with
the tolerances required. Likewise, the Difference Engine of last century was
a good idea in principle, but unrealisable because of its mechanical nature;
the first vacuum tube computers were just about in the same category. I
remember a poor engineer replacing valves (tubes to you lot) just about all
the time on the first computer at Sydney University. Not the way to start the
computer age. So, maybe one day a way will be found to use self targeting as
a source of cheap, unlimited etc etc bla bla. So keep thinking.

While we're in Australia, I do really not know who Murphy Brown is, though I
have heard about Dan Quayle - there was a good joke about him. You're right,
Tom, I don't watch TV, here (no time anyway) OR in Denmark, and I am glad to
be uninformed about the US elections. Not all the world is following that
circus: I am not. But they do have TV here, I believe, it's not all guitars
and yodeling in the bush. Anymore.

Dieter alias [e-mail]
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