The upgrade will include new switches, new sparkplugs, ability to handle much higher currents. It means there won’t be much improvisations from now one compared to what happened before, it will be a much more mature design. But it won’t be a new design. So should we call it FoFu 1.X?

My opinion is X=5

http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/index.php?option=com_lyftenbloggie&view=entry&year=2011&month=02&day=05&id=23:lpp-looks-back-on-2010-ahead-to-fusion-breakthrough-in-2011&Itemid=90

Not being one to miss out on an opportunity for bikeshedding, I voted “no”. Here’s why:

I tend to interpret “Focus Fusion-1” as equivalent to “Focus Fusion Mark I”. Seen this way, fractional marks don’t really make sense to me.

If we’re going to use software development as an analogy (like EMC2 does), on the other hand, I would favor “1.1” over “1.5”. To me, “1.5” means “version 1, release 5”. I would have to be shown how the upcoming redesign is somehow the fifth modification to the current design before I changed my mind on that point. I realize software designers have been playing fast and loose with version numbers for years now, but I see no reason to go along with that.

I suppose another way to look at “1.5” is as a fraction. In other words, “Focus Fusion-1.5” is halfway between “Focus Fusion-1” and “Focus Fusion-2”. (In all fairness, some software designers treat version numbers as fractional, using numbers such as “1.91” while avoiding numbers such as “1.10” for the tenth release of version 1.) I’m not sure I buy the idea that we know how close we are to a hypothetical “Focus Fusion-2”, though.

I wonder, do LPP employees get to vote more than once in this poll? 

Myself, I’d think just LPPX-1. The final objective of LPPX-1 has been defined as the validation of boron fusion and that still lies ahead.

The basic design of the experiment still holds and the new switches will be just doing what the original specifications called for.

zapkitty - 19 February 2011 02:20 AM

Myself, I’d think just LPPX-1. The final objective of LPPX-1 has been defined as the validation of boron fusion and that still lies ahead.

The basic design of the experiment still holds and the new switches will be just doing what the original specifications called for.

I agree. We’ve refined the machine’s high voltage sub-system to properly support the pb-11 experiments. Part of FF’s appeal to me is the simple elegance. Why detract from that- and confuse new readers- by tracking every last bug fix in the machine’s public name? We can track all of that trivia in an errata thread or something similar.

Let me be the first to suggest Fo-Fu-Fum-1.  And probably the last. 

P.S.  Ivy, thanx for that!  read the link, and I now wonder what those of us who comment on a nuke plant as though it was a bikeshed should be called. 

Don’t answer that!  Be polite! 

Brian H - 21 February 2011 09:11 AM

Let me be the first to suggest Fo-Fu-Fum-1.  And probably the last. 

P.S.  Ivy, thanx for that!  read the link, and I now wonder what those of us who comment on a nuke plant as though it was a bikeshed should be called. 

Don’t answer that!  Be polite! 

Fo-Fu Phoenix is another possibility.

It now runs with initial specifications. The previous was probably 0.9. So I would vote “no”.