[Ivy Matt]

If you’re concerned about the legitimacy of plasma physics, let alone nuclear fusion, you might just want to skip this comment.

If you have seen The Phantom Menace, and still recall having seen it, you may remember that the Gungan army fought off the droid army with what appeared to be some kind of children’s toy. These “energy balls” supposedly consist of a blue plasma contained within an organic shell. However, I’m not quite sure what sustains the plasma, or how the blue slime fits into the picture.

But wait! There’s more:

You may recall that the climactic lightsaber battle began in the hangar and quickly moved into a large room with catwalks and vertical tubes glowing with a purple light. These tubes contained plasma, which was being mined from below the city. What’s more, the planet Naboo is an exporter of plasma. In fact, plasma is its primary export. In fact, the export of plasma was an important factor that contributed to its dispute with the Trade Federation, setting into motion the events of The Phantom Menace, the Prequel Trilogy, and the Original Trilogy. Now you know.

[Ivy Matt]

Stephen Hawking once appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m not sure how that affected the legitimacy of his views on cosmology.

As for nuclear fusion, I’d say its use or non-use in science fiction, or its attraction to science fiction fans, has little to no bearing on its current legitimacy. Far more important are the claims of the scientists actually doing the research and, of course, how the results stack up against those claims. In the case of fusion, I suspect most knowledgeable people will want not just results, but widespread replication of results. Followed by demonstration reactors. Until then, controlled nuclear fusion as a useful energy source is science fiction.

vansig wrote: please, someone, at least tell me what are the next hard problems to solve, this month, for Focus Fusion?

Or, maybe, what hard problems they solved last month? We could extrapolate from there…

What’s left, anyway?

Increase voltage to 45 kV.
Increase pressure to about 40 torr.
Achieve a peak current of 2 MA.
Replace electrodes with shorter ones.
Introduce heavier gases: D + He (+ N).
Introduce p + B11.
Achieve fusion with p + B11.
Demonstrate net energy with p + B11.

Am I missing anything? Supposedly the first two or three steps were completed last month, leaving the heavier gases as the main unknown.

[Ivy Matt]

So this is going to be an iPhone/iPad game? Well, I know people who have iPhones, and at least one person who has an iPad. If you go the cocos2d route, the new Particle Designer looks like it may come in handy. Or perhaps you could take some inspiration from this game. Going by the latest news, it appears the serious commercial plasma simulators are all based on either particle physics or fluid dynamics.

I checked the analysis and blank technology card. It looks good to me. What’s the next step? Settling on the 4-5 technologies? That would probably be another good topic for a poll, once the current poll has run its course.

By the way, I didn’t know there had been a Google Tech Talk on the FRC until I checked your blog. Thanks for the link to it!

[Ivy Matt]

Heh, I didn’t intend for my name suggestion to be taken all that seriously, but if other people like it…

Another idea I had for a name was “Plasmania”. However, a quick Google search shows it has already been used as the name of an Apple II game supposedly having something to do with blood plasma…and space ships. Or something like that. The company that developed the game is long gone, so I think there wouldn’t be any trademark conflicts. However, I am not a lawyer.

I’ll throw out a third idea: “Energy Quest”. Not surprisingly, this phrase also turns up on a Google search, but I’m not aware of any games or other software under that title.

And, not to speak for other members, but Breakable was referring to this idea, informally at least, as “Fusion Wars” on the first page.

epimenide wrote: entertainment should have priority over realism (I know, pushing this here sounds heretic!)

Not at all. This is the “Social Marketing” forum. 😉

epimenide wrote: Basic math will probably be unsatisfactory for scientists, but I’m sure even they would enjoy showing something “almost real” like that to kids to experiment with the concepts (I know I would!)

Right. “Almost real” is a good way of putting it. The essential idea is that the devices in the game shouldn’t behave much differently from the real devices, or from the simulations the physicists use. Which is why the game will eventually need the input of actual physicists. Of course, an actual physicist may see this as a step down from a more realistic simulation, which is a step down from an actual experiment. The Talk Polywell forum seems to have a number of physicists who have plenty of time on their hands, but I must say I haven’t seen the same around here, so I’m guessing what physicists we have are pretty busy.

Aeronaut wrote: I agree that top-notch (lots of shiny, reflecting stuff that exudes energy) graphics and animations will be absolutely required for the public release version, and that Torulf is more than up to the task if he should decide to get involved. But I wouldn’t necessarily begin with polished graphics. Too easy to have a change in art direction in mid-development. The point in my mind is to proceed using what we have in hand right now, which is good enough graphics to test game design and play.

Keep the interface separate from the functionality is the programming philosophy I’ve learned. Then you can improve the one without impacting the other too much.

I used to draw quite a bit, but I never really made the leap to computer art, so I’ll give the same caveat about graphics as I have about programming: I can try it, but I guarantee I will spend at least half the time learning to use my tools.

Incidentally, does anyone know what sorts of programming and graphic design tools are used to design Facebook games? I haven’t paid much attention to FarmVille and the like. I think the only Facebook game I’ve played is “Jedi vs. Sith”, which doesn’t really have graphics—or didn’t the last time I actually played it.

[Ivy Matt]

Nuclear Meltdown!

How’s that for eye-catching? 😉

Looks good. The parts that interest me most are the input parameters and the bill of materials. With four or five wildly different reactor types, I’m wondering about comparisons between the approaches, and the game’s balance in particular. Clearly an even balance is not desirable. If the game’s purpose is partly educational, I suppose the bill of materials for a realistic design for, say, a commercial laser-induced fusion power plant should be, well, educational. But perhaps the balance can be fair without being even. Is there some advantage to the large conventional approaches which the smaller fusion alternatives have trouble matching? (Political clout, of course. Anything else?) I’m thinking designing this game may require temporarily becoming a tokamak advocate, a fission advocate, etc. just to understand the benefits of each approach. That said, I think the game should err on the side of realism more often than not, even if it means that nobody wants to build an inertial confinement reactor, for instance. If an approach has almost no benefits, perhaps it should be scratched off the list. The only exception I would leave to this rule is the tokamak, just because it seems widely assumed to be the future of fusion energy, and pretty much every alternative approach to fusion compares itself against it.

The other part that interests me is the math, if only because it seems to me to be the great unknown factor. Given that most, if not all, of the reactor types in the game are still experimental in the real world, to some extent the terms “modeling” or “conjecture” may be more apt than “simulation”. From Talk Polywell I get the impression that there are still a lot of questions about what exactly goes on inside the plasma in a Polywell device. If those questions have been answered, the answers are apparently not public. Of course, secrecy is going to be a problem with many commercial and military technologies. With what is “known” about the math behind the various approaches, I think it will be necessary to strike some compromise between realism and simplicity. The more realistic it is, the more effort it will take to design, and the more likely you’ll just be duplicating the work of the people in the labs who are actually modeling these devices. However, I think it would be nice if this game turns out to be a very simple, yet functional plasma simulator. Of course, I don’t know what kind of effort that would require. It would probably be easier just to make a basic mathematical model of each device that avoids dealing directly with plasma dynamics.

My apologies if, as is likely, I’m simply restating what other people are thinking or have already thought.

Oh, and, since I’m going on as if some unspecified person (or perhaps epimenide) is going to be doing all the work, here is a list of things I can probably handle:

1. Editing
2. Writing
3. Research (But somebody else will have to comprehend the large formulae with numerous variables.)
4. [del]Programming[/del] (I can try it, but I guarantee I will spend at least half the time learning to use my tools.)

[Ivy Matt]

There’s an Enterprise episode and a Voyager novel named “Fusion”, neither of which has anything to do with nuclear fusion as far as I am aware.

A recent visit to a bookstore confirms that hypermatter reactors are standard fare in post-prequel Star Wars lore. So far I have been unable to find evidence of any fusion-assisted hypermatter reactors. However, I did find that Tipoca City, site of the Republic’s secret cloning facility, is powered by a fusion generator. You can get a look at it if you click on the image labeled “Tipoca City cutaway”.

Then I remembered I had a copy of the Star Wars Technical Journal. This reference work was published in 1994, so it predates the era of George Lucas revisionism. Some Star Wars fans may prefer it for that reason alone, but it’s not without its own problems and, for most fans, has been superseded by the newer, more widely available references.

For about half of the vehicles, the technology is described in very general terms. The Millennium Falcon, for instance, contains fuel slug tanks, a hyperdrive motivator, a drive system matrix, and an emergency generator.

The first technology that really caught my eye was the Star Destroyer’s power generator, which is called a “solar ionization reactor”. What do you suppose that means? It’s contained within a large sphere on the ship’s ventral ridge, so it’s not likely to have anything to do with photovoltaics. As a deep-space vessel, you wouldn’t want it to be dependent on nearby stars for its power anyway. So “solar” likely has some meaning other than “coming from the sun”. Perhaps it means something like “resembling the sun”. “Ionization”, well, that’s what happens to a gas when it becomes a plasma, right? Now, here’s the description from the book:

Containing what is in essence a miniature sun, the heavily-shielded, carbonite and durasteel-reinforced heart of the ship’s SFS I-a2b solar ionization reactor was the one element that dictated the enormous size of the Imperial Star Destroyer. It feeds not only the hyperdrive motivation system, but the vessel’s propulsion, powerfeed and weapons networks as well, providing more than enough focused power for any task facing a Star Destroyer.

What, no magnets? And focused power? 😉

The Description of the Death Star is even more explicit. The diagram of the Death Star’s reactor core shows a solar ionization reactor with a power generator just below it. Here’s the description:

At the core of the Death Star was an immense, cavernous housing for the battle station’s power generator matrix. A fusion reactor of incredible proportions, fed by stellar fuel bottles lining its periphery, produced the raw energy demanded by the Death Star‘s superlaser and hyperdrive systems.

Stellar fuel? Is that like hydrogen?

The Correllian Corvette/Blockade Runner’s main reactor is also a solar ionization reactor according to this reference.

Now for the fighters. The TIE fighters are uninteresting, of course, being powered by solar arrays. The X-Wing is powered by “Novaldex 04-Z cryogenic power cells and ionization reactor”. I’m not sure what an “ionization reactor” is, but it sounds less formidable than a “solar ionization reactor”. The X-wing’s propulsion system consists of four “Incom 4j.4 fusial thrust engines (rated at 300KTU)”. “Fusial” is a made-up word, but it could easily mean “having to do with fusion”. (And “KTU” is a made-up acronym. Although unexplained, the “TU” no doubt expands to “thrust units”.)

With the A-wing, things are even more explicit. The A-wing draws its power from an “MPS BPr-99 power converter and fusion reactor”, and is propelled by twin “Novaldex J-77 ‘Event Horizon’ engines (rated at 400 KTU)”. The aft view of the A-Wing shows its fusion reactor exhaust port between the two engines, although this same part of the craft is labeled “thrust vector control” in later literature. Of course, the two functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

The B-wing is similar to the X-wing as far as power and propulsion systems are concerned. The Y-wing is powered by “Thiodyne 03-R cryogenic power cells and ionization reactor”. More interesting is the propulsion system, which consists of twin “Koensayr R200 ion fission engines (rated at 250 KTU).”

Ion fission? *shrug* I think the “fission” part is to make it seem like older technology when compared with the newer fighters.

Oh, and the EG-6 Power Droid “is a walking fusion generator that provides operating power for remote equipment on farms and at spaceports”.

After checking Wookieepedia again, I see that most of this information has not been superseded, at least on Wookieepedia. I’d have to check the newer Vehicles & Vessels and Cross-Sections books to see what they say. Wookieepedia has pages on the A-wing’s fusion reactor and the Star Destroyer’s solar ionization reactor. The Death Star, however, has succumbed to revisionism, being powered by a hypermatter reactor now. I guess you just can’t trust something that large to a fusion reaction.

Of course, none of this was mentioned on film, so….

[Ivy Matt]

Here is a related idea. It seems to me that risk is an important element of gaming, but what would be the risk with a DPF device? Electrode erosion? High voltage? Beryllium poisoning? Random cars jumping off the road and crashing into the vacuum chamber? North Korea copying your design and producing it first?

[Ivy Matt]

Fusion doesn’t get many mentions in the big two science fiction franchises, perhaps because it’s not considered sufficiently advanced. Star Trek spacecraft generally use matter-antimatter annihilation for their warp drives (except for Romulan vessels, which use artificial singularities), and Star Wars spacecraft use “reactors”, which might possibly be fusion reactors, but are usually considered to be “hypermatter reactors” in the Extended Universe literature.

The most prominent mention of controlled fusion as a power source in the Star Trek franchise is in several Deep Space 9 episodes, where it is mentioned that the Cardassian-built space station is powered by laser-induced fusion reactors. It is generally understood that the impulse drive on a Starfleet vessel is powered by fusion reactors of some sort. All use deuterium fuel. Klingon ships use tritium in their warp cores, so it’s possible they may use it in their impulse reactors as well. Apart from space stations and impulse drives, fusion has been known to power at least one individual house.

In Star Wars fusion is usually a small and mobile power source. A fusion furnace is mentioned in the Empire Strikes Back novelization, as Luke sets up his camp on Dagobah. Power droids are walking fusion reactors. On a larger scale, some of the smaller spacecraft may be powered by fusion reactors, and even those powered by hypermatter reactors may use fusion reactors for auxiliary purposes.

As for plasma, it gets plenty of mentions in Star Trek, as well as in Star Wars lore.

Plasma (or “electro-plasma”) is the life’s blood of Starfleet vessels, and seems to be the primary product of the reaction in the warp core. Its power generates the warp field in the warp nacelles. Starfleet vessels are full of plasma conduits, whose function is essentially the same as that of copper electric wires in our time. There are also various plasma weapons, most notably the Romulan plasma torpedo.

In Star Wars lore some blasters (such as those used by the clone troopers) fire plasma bolts. These are particularly effective against droids. Most notably of all, the lightsaber blade is composed of plasma.

The uses of boron in either franchise are left as an exercise for the reader.

Sources: Memory Alpha, Wookieepedia, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, The Empire Strikes Back (novel)

[Ivy Matt]

Something like this? Only for DPF or a variety of alternative fusion candidates. Graphics can be fairly simple, just a sprite for the plasma on a static background. The math is where the real work happens. Maybe give it a collaborative/competitive aspect similar to Foldit. Speculative results may be unavoidable, but note that the Virtual Tokamak allows a Q of up to 100. The highest score I’ve achieved so far is 48.37, which is well above breakeven (score of 25), and all I’m doing is blindly manipulating three variables.

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