Reply To: Brain: dualism of consciousness.

[Breakable]

I believe I will use this thread for more questions. Here is one I just got today, feel free to answer or clarify:
I have been tinkering with different ideas for fusion reactors for some years mostly on the computer. I came upon an idea that seems to have interesting possibilities. I have tested this on a computer to some extent and have not found a reason that it doesn’t work. It seems that it might be possible to make a superconducting magnet without the need for super cooled coils of wire. On the computer it is possible to put charged particles into orbit around a charged metal sphere. There is a limit on the number of particles based on the charge capacitance of the sphere. And a ring of such particles will tend to want to disperse because of Coulomb repulsion. But what interests me is the possibility of vastly increasing the number of particles in the ring by neutralizing the ring with particles of an opposite charge. On the computer it is possible to put particles of an opposite charge into very small orbits around the orbiting ring of particles. (if the main ring of particles is at a sufficient distance from the metal sphere, the ring exerts a much larger force on a particle than the sphere) Putting one particle into orbit has the effect of neutralizing one particle in the ring allowing another particle to be added to the main ring. There is still the problem of Coulomb repulsion in the ring. But particles can also be put into oscillation through the ring. (at a sufficient velocities, the electrons are not able to be captured by ions in the ring.) If there were an equal number of particles oscillating through the ring then this would neutralize the Coulomb forces and allow the addition of more and more particles. What would be the limit on the number of charges that could be put into orbit? It seems that it would be possible to build up huge magnetic fields in this way because of course the ring of particles would create a magnetic field (ions in the ring travel in the millions of meters per second and also present the possibility of fusion in the ring at those speeds). The oscillating particles moving through the ring in random directions would have their magnetic fields cancelled out. There would be some sort of losses involved with the electrons moving through the ring of ions. But compared to the energy necessary to drive a current through a copper wire it seems that it could be much more efficient.

I would like to ask one question. Is it possible to trap a plasma inside of a straight solenoid with positively charged plates at each end.? It seems that there would be a large flow of electrons towards the plates at first but soon the electron depleted plasma would acquire an overall positive charge which would prevent the escape of more electrons. This positive bias should keep more electrons from fleeing resulting in a somewhat positively charged plasma but a plasma that was still neutral enough for it to not expand from Coulomb repulsion if there was sufficient magnetic field present.