[AaronB]

Regarding the relationship of science, religion, spirituality and faith, they all boil down to dots, lines, and constellations. Dots are the facts. Lines connect the dots in meaningful ways. Lines are connected to form constellations, or meaningful, higher orders of pictures. Science is supposed to be objective, starting with the dots, and working its way up to find higher levels of order without preconceived ideas. Religion starts with a given picture in mind, based on some source of authority, and finds dots and lines that fit that picture. However, religion has the advantage of not requiring dots. Faith can fill in the dark spots. Scientists can get a subjective picture in their head and exercise a measure of faith until they accumulate data that either fits or doesn’t fit the model. As asymmetric_implosion said, it’s human nature to exercise faith and have personal biases. We are hard-wired to look for patterns and project order into chaos. However, I do believe it is a conspiracy, but conspiracies are just organized plans of action between people. They’re not all bad. Our Focus Fusion project is a conspiracy to beat all the big fusion projects to the ultimate prize. Is that bad? No. It is a competition, and teams conspire against each other to gain advantages. That’s just the way it is. The bad part is when conspirators resort to cheating, falsifying, or using undue influence to tip the scales in their favor.

“Mainstream science” is the most popular constellation of ideas. Once the majority of scientists have a commonly accepted way of organizing the dots, they tend to expect future dots to fall within the lines of their constellation, and the money usually follows. Since new dots are constantly being found, the picture evolves. Some parts become more established while others require a significant change in perception. The center of the universe has moved significantly over the last few hundred years from the earth to the sun to the galaxy to who-knows-where. Science and religion have both gone through crises of belief and have adapted; some adapted more successfully than others. Skepticism is valuable because without it, there is no motivation to confront problems. Confronting problems leads to progress. Skepticism is not the same as cynicism. I don’t see any people here on this board who are cynics, but I see a lot of healthy skepticism, and that’s good.

Our project is fairly open, and people are free to interpret the results as they see fit. We don’t claim to have the final solution to the fusion challenge yet. We have ideas and hypotheses that we think are worth testing, because if they prove to be valid, we have a good chance of success. We share our data when it comes in so fans, skeptics, and pundits can chew on it. FoFu-1 isn’t the largest DPF, but it is a strong contender. Our theories have yet to be proven conclusively, and we are just now getting FoFu-1 to its full power regime where we expect either confirmation or disproval. We’ll see soon enough. In the meantime, it’s fun to debate different ideas.

[AaronB]

Can you be a little more specific? Are you referring to the quantum magnetic field effect? If so, that is only projected to kick in when we switch to heavier ions.

[AaronB]

The switches are great! I wish everything worked as well, but it’s getting there. We’ll be testing our latest upgrades this week. The next report should be out in the next couple of weeks.

[AaronB]

Our shots are numbered by date first, and then the shot number for that day. Today’s first shot would be 08311101 (month, day, year, shot #).

[AaronB]

The moment I was conceived, I started becoming obsolete. It’s the nature of progress. Without the ability to replace my parts, upgrade my memory, rapidly share and receive ideas, and expand my senses, robots and computers are rapidly catching up to my abilities and will soon surpass me. If I was able to live forever, I would be a museum piece within a century. To me, it is important to immortalize our discoveries, intelligence, and wisdom. Spoken and written language provided the basis of this transfer of knowledge that led to our quick advancement. Artificial intelligence combines the benefits of replaceable and upgradeable parts with the abilities to receive and convey knowledge very rapidly. I’m OK with becoming obsolete. The fact that I am a stepping stone to the next stage of evolution is fulfillment enough for me. I don’t want to become a museum piece anyway.

However, I understand that others think and feel differently, and that’s OK too.

[AaronB]

Duke Leto wrote: So I’m not sure what effect, say for instance, China just up and producing FF generators on their own would have. Aaron I’m sure has a plan in place for that.

We applied for international patents, including China, so we’re trying to reduce that possibility. We’ve covered the major markets of the world, but that won’t stop someone from trying to circumvent us. When the time comes, we’ll apply for more patents and take legal action against patent infringers. It’s just part of the game.

[AaronB]

This is an interesting discussion. Focus Fusion won’t solve the systemic problems caused by fractional-reserve banking by private banks, but it could provide the power for the system that replaces it when it crashes. The crash is inevitable, regardless of who is in office, or how long they stave off the crash. The elements don’t disappear, and neither does most of the infrastructure, so I’m not too worried about the long-term effects. The short-term crises will be painful, but hopefully we’ll come out smarter in the end. Cheap energy will definitely have bad effects in certain industries, but will have good effects in others. The evolution in the energy industry will force change, but over a couple of decades, people will adapt.

[AaronB]

We’re starting off at 35 kV and working out the bugs. We had to fix a faulty vacuum system valve switch, tighten a new spark plug, update the data format now that we are working with two new oscilloscopes, reset the turbo pump, adjust the camera timing, and move the high-voltage probe. Once all switches are firing regularly and any remaining bugs are worked out, we’ll start moving up in voltage. Of course, we’ll announce our results in the monthly update, which should be out in a few days. Keep your fingers crossed.

[AaronB]

First cleaning shot successful. Data acquisition done. Preparing for next shot. Nice to be operational again!

[AaronB]

I suspect that before long, a robot located at the power station would be able to change out an anode in just a few minutes, regardless of radiation levels, so down-time may be limited to 30 minutes for a typical electrode swap. If one robot on a circular track was surrounded by 24 generators, it should be able to perform these replacements easily. We just have to design the generators to have easy robotic access and plug-and-play parts. In that case, even if the electrode life was 1 week, it wouldn’t be too bad.

[AaronB]

Hi Steve! Welcome to the forums. It’s good to hear new ideas, and this is a safe place to introduce them. Your idea sounds a lot like sonofusion, and a little like the project at General Fusion in Canada. Look those up, and then we’ll have more to discuss on your idea. Again, welcome.

[AaronB]

About 20 years ago, I predicted that someday you would be able to watch a movie on demand. Today we have that technology, with cell phones, GPS, cameras and video conferencing included, not to mention thousands of apps that I didn’t predict. Yesterday I saw the new Nintendo 3DS, which is a 3D portable game device without the need for special glasses or anything. Now they’re starting to use smart phones to pay for things at the store instead of using a credit card. Where might it lead?

I predict that policemen will soon use a smart phone that takes your picture and uses facial recognition software tied to a database to identify you in real time. It will also have a touch screen that can take fingerprints and compare them to a database. While they’re at it, it will probably have retinal scan capabilities too. There are also USB-stick blood tests that you can do, so that might be included.

Everyone will be issued a personal IP address at birth, and a secure chip will be burned into your personal device’s memory, and only you will be able to operate it. Wi-fi will spread, and internet access will become a “right”, controlled and provided by the government through a network of telecom companies.

You’ll be able to ask your device questions verbally, and it will pull the answer from the “cloud”, with multi-media presentations automatically generated. If you’re giving a presentation, the device will wirelessly send the info to the projector and display it for everyone, or to others’ devices who are listening in from different parts of the world. These will be 3D presentations too, by the way.

Body suits with electrodes all over them will provide tactile sensations and muscle movements for games and other things as part of virtual reality. When you get hit or “fragged” in a game, your body will feel it and react.

Music theory, psychology, and language theory will be programmed, and a #1 song will be computer generated, both music and lyrics. Heck, the voices and instruments will be computer generated too, and you will be able to customize the voice accents or instruments in real time.

People who drive their own cars will be considered dangerous, or at least old fashioned. Mowing lawns will be done by Roomba-like robots that will navigate and charge themselves.

Recycling robots will dismantle our garbage and prepare it for reuse. Plasma torches will sort out the rest.

Electronic virus and bacteria detectors will be implanted, and help your body instantly recognize and defeat infections. A virus identified in Africa or Asia will be added to the daily update that goes around the world. Anyone with the device implanted will be immune.

Robots will perform operations with minimal human assistance. With on-board cameras, ultrasound imaging, laser cauterization, and sterilizing equipment, operations will be fast, safe, and have fast recovery times. Nano-operations will repair damaged nerves, reshape corneas, remove plaque from arteries, repair bones, and dissolve tumors.

Based on all your conversations and activities that are recorded and analyzed by your personal device, you will be matched up with compatible people and social networks. You’ll be able to contact and know where your friends are at any given time, as well as their plans for the future, unless they restrict you. Businesses will give discounts if you hold meet-ups at their locations.

That’s enough for now, but there is great potential for change for education, emergency responders, military, science exploration, transportation, custom manufacturing, entertainment, and sleep. In 20 years, let’s have a meet-up at the Disney Orbiter and see how close I was. 🙂

[AaronB]

I like the General Fusion guys, but I think their approach will run into some difficulties if I understand it correctly. The spinning liquid metal will have two open “whirlpools” at the ends, one on the top and one on the bottom. Because of gravity applying pressure on the spinning liquid, the top whirlpool will be larger than the lower one. When the hammers strike the outside of the vessel, the shock waves won’t go straight in. They’ll radiate inward in all directions, with the idea that the centrally-directed waves will reach the middle at the same time and compress the plasmoids that are shot into the middle (which isn’t the exact middle) through the middle of the whirlpools. However, the shock waves will hit the surface of the whirlpools before they get to the middle. The shock waves will be so powerful that they will cause the surface of the whirlpools to virtually explode in a mist of metal droplets, which will interfere with the plasmoids as they come rushing in. Also, shock waves travel at different speeds through the liquid at the top of the device compared with the bottom, because of the pressure differences caused by gravity. Turbulence will also cause the shock waves to get distorted, and there’s going to be a whole lot of turbulence from the liquid being pumped in at certain points, like in a jetted tub.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it would be extremely difficult to get the shock waves to combine at the center of a perfectly still pool, let alone a spinning, pumping, pounded, asymmetrical double whirlpool that has metallic mist flying out of both ends. Imagine getting a small plastic swimming pool, filling it with water, then inviting all of your friends over to kick the sides at exactly the same time, in hopes that the center of the water will fly up so suddenly that it could launch a floating ping-pong ball into orbit. It is reasonable to guess that you and your buddies would get soaked while the ping-pong ball remained fairly well earth-bound. It would be fun to watch, record, and post to YouTube.

Assuming they work out these minor problems, then they still have to deal with the hard stuff, like X-ray and other plasma cooling by the liquid metal, dealing with the fusion products, steam cycle inefficiencies, etc. They do get bonus points for creativity and thinking big. Who knows? They might pull it off.

[AaronB]

We can play the secretive and expensive cards too if it will help. It makes it that much easier when things don’t go according to plan, and besides, the mysterious dark horse or black box project is alluring to some people.

[AaronB]

Wow. Maybe they’re closer to achieving the fusion dream than we’d thought. 😉 LPP would gladly take $5M in seed money, and do a lot of good things with it. Forget $5M, we’d take $1M and see how close we could come to breakeven!

[Author]

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