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Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

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Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#211
post #67

The Stellarator is theoretically a superior design over the Tokamak, designed to neutralize the JxB force, where J is the current through the plasma and B is the magnetic field guiding the plasma around the device. By twisting the plasma into a shape where the curl of B (proportional to J) is parallel to B, i.e. a helix, the cross product is 0, and thus there are no net magnetohydrodynamic forces on the plasma.

'Theoretically' is the right word for sure. iirc, the predecessor of the Wendelstein led to the bankruptcy of the engineering firms building the parts, because tolerances were so tight and they failed multiple times to land within the constraints.

W7-X is a new stellarator design. It’s magnet arrangement was optimized using a lot of compute time and is designed to overcome the faults of previous more naive designs.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#212

I don’t get it; who cares? We know the equations to burn plasma; that’s the easy part. The hard part is building a machine that can burn plasma and breed tritium at appreciable rates. Why even bother with these machines that can never be built economically?

Progress is built by iteration. Did you think the world sprung into its current form in one step?

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#213
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doing CAD design is really interesting. A lot of stuff is just 2.5D, extrusions of 2D sketches sitting on other 2D sketches. Then you accidentally make something truly 3D by intersecting things and realize you have no idea what you're looking at, couldn't imagine it if you closed your eyes, couldn't replicate it if you had a picture of the result and didn't know the 2D inputs that made it... and then you realize ther…

Coming from 3d sculpting to CAD was...eye opening. It really makes you realize how much of design constrained by the CAD tools, which are mostly constrained by manufacturability. If true 3d printing* ever gets cheap, it'll be interesting to see how much form will be able follow function, rather than manufacturing cost. * true 3d, as in overhang are allowed. Something like a cheap FDM is more 2.5d, since overhangs are…

You can print with supports to print any shape.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#214
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually really easy to explain. Draw a torus and then draw rectangular "bands" across it, they will represent the containment magnets. Due to pure geometry, the area closer to the center will have a smaller distance between bars. This means that the magnetic field will be stronger near the center. This in turn means that particles will separate (depending on charge) and drift to the sides. It seriously interfer…

How do Tokamaks solve the issue since they’re still torus shaped?

Brute force: just use stronger magnetic fields to contain the plasma.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are real life superconductors ideal, i.e. they truly would store a charge forever (at least until the material disintegrated)? Or is there some sort of loss, albeit much less than typical resistance?

So long as you do not exceed a certain current, they have zero resistance. There are other forms of parasitics though that can effect it. Those crazy electromagnets they use on these stellarator are simple superconducting loops that they 'charge' by inducing a current. That current is maintained so long as the superconductor stays below a certain temp. There is even something called a SMES (superconducting magnetic e…

Is the charge static or in motion? If in motion, isn't this basically a perpetual motion machine? Electrons have mass right?

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've listened to that song hundreds of times yet somehow never realized it was Worf.

Genuine question: why? That isn't even a song, it's just a vinyl record skipping for a minute and a half.

It's two copies of "...where time becomes a loop." One on the left, one on the right. One of them is slightly shorter than the other, so that as they repeat again and again, they slide in and out of phase. The track ends after they come back into phase.

If you listen to this with headphones, or speakers with decent separation, paying attention to this feels interesting. It's similar to the way listening to "binaural beats" can do interesting things to your brain.

Also if you are in the habit of putting an entire album on repeat and this is one of your favorite albums, then you've probably heard this a zillion times. If you have your music player set in "randomize by album" mode, then, well, it's the first track on this album, so every time it comes up you'll hear most of it unless you instantly decide you are not in the mood for Orbital 2, and even if you're not in that mood it may be pleasant to let everything come back into phase before going to another album.

----

The next track on the album starts up entirely in the left ear, with a tinny, distant little loop, and the words "Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day". Once it brings in a deep bass, this bass is also doing some weird cross-ear phasing things.

And then the third track also opens with "Even a stopped clock..."; a theme has been established at this point. Time is a loop, and a stopped clock is right twice a day. The opening of "where time becomes a loop" is also a bit of a joke; Orbital's musical craft is very much about making a bunch of short loops that work together, and bringing them in and out over each other for four to seven minutes. Occasionally as much as thirty minutes, the extended version of "The Box" is glorious. This is something that utterly dominates most electronic dance music now, but Orbital was one of the first notable acts to really go hard on this, and this is their second album; they are saying "yes it's just more loops, we think they're good loops, enjoy!".

By the time you get to the last track, you've probably forgotten about Worf's repeated mantra. Especially if it's your first time listening to the whole thing and Halcyon + On + On just blew all the cobwebs out of your head. But Orbital returns to the idea, with two different loops that are very close in sound and length, played on both channels: "Input Translation"/"Output Rotation". They begin in phase with each other, drift out, and come back together. And the album is over.

Or, if you have the CD player on repeat (remember, this album is from a time when people bought CDs and probably stuck them into a one-disc player, maybe a 3 or 5-disc player if they were lucky, and the whole album is built with an awareness of this), you're back where you began, inputs translated and outputs rotated, and ready to be reminded of the Theory of the Moebius.

Time has become a loop. Come out of the trance Orbital has put you in. Do you want to experience this loop again? Does it feel rude to jump to another album before Worf's come back into phase again? You may as well let him get you back in sync with the moment the album began before going back into normal time.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is bullshit. A steam turbine and a generator will be a _minor_ detail in the overall list of expenses building a fusion generator. It's like saying: "We should build an airport here in the desert, because we'll be able to save on cutting the grass!"

How would you know?

I worked in the nuclear energy area. I also invested personal money into several fusion startups.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So long as you do not exceed a certain current, they have zero resistance. There are other forms of parasitics though that can effect it. Those crazy electromagnets they use on these stellarator are simple superconducting loops that they 'charge' by inducing a current. That current is maintained so long as the superconductor stays below a certain temp. There is even something called a SMES (superconducting magnetic e…

Is the charge static or in motion? If in motion, isn't this basically a perpetual motion machine? Electrons have mass right?

In motion. Yes it is perpetual motion. The same thing can be observed in superfluids.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#219
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually really easy to explain. Draw a torus and then draw rectangular "bands" across it, they will represent the containment magnets. Due to pure geometry, the area closer to the center will have a smaller distance between bars. This means that the magnetic field will be stronger near the center. This in turn means that particles will separate (depending on charge) and drift to the sides. It seriously interfer…

How do Tokamaks solve the issue since they’re still torus shaped?

They don't. As a result, they have to be much larger, so that the difference in the field strength is low enough.

Re: Wendelstein 7-X: Gigajoule energy turnover generated for eight minutes

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: why? That isn't even a song, it's just a vinyl record skipping for a minute and a half.

It's two copies of "...where time becomes a loop." One on the left, one on the right. One of them is slightly shorter than the other, so that as they repeat again and again, they slide in and out of phase. The track ends after they come back into phase. If you listen to this with headphones, or speakers with decent separation, paying attention to this feels interesting. It's similar to the way listening to "binaural…

>remember, this album is from a time when people bought CDs and probably stuck them into a one-disc player

You just describe the first time I every danced with Lucy. I went back and forth with this disc and The Orb's A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld.

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