Plasma Knots

[Cognisant]

http://www.physics.leidenuniv.nl/qo-research/knots-in-a-plasma

I don't know much about this, AI and mechatronics are my thing, but if there's someone here that understands the math well enough to explain to me what they'd need to make it happen I'd love to help, insofar as I can.

When miniature fusion reactors become avalible I want to be the one of the first, in particular the first engineer to get my hands one one.

For obvious reasons

Spoiler

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

You tie a plasma knot and add a structure to get a lightsaber?

Cool, but I already can have the same effect in CGI, no need for the real thing.

Self-confining fusion technologies are obviously important.

 

[Cognisant]

Probably something more like a plasma ball gun, imagine a tiny super bright ball hitting someone at bullet like speed, penetrating them (or their armour) like a plasma torch, then the ball disentangles inside them and the room gets painted in steaming hot blood.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x9bGM9Xke8g

See now I could make that, out of titanium if need be.

 

[Cognisant]

Not at all related but fuck that's cool.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKgnNGqxMw

 

[Cognisant]

I wonder how small this knotting affect can be before it collapses.

Unless conservation of momentum dosen't apply for some reason if one were to make a large plasma knot and compress it the flow should accelerate which should (wild mass guessing here) increase the stability of the knot. However I don't know how that flow velocity could be maintained and even if the plasma became hot enough for fusion I don't know how to go about adding more fuel and removing the byproducts.

And how would I harvest the heat/light/radiation/whatever that fusion produces?

 

[Architect]

Brilliant, a plasma soliton, why haven't I thought of that? Well plasma wasn't my main thing ... anyhow Solitons aren't easy to create, but if you do so it's a brilliant idea. It also depends on how stable the soliton is. I'd hazard to guess it would have a shortish halflife, and so the energy to create it would be more than what you get out of it. Lots of research needed though, I wonder if anybody is looking at it?

 

[JimJambones]

Not at all related but fuck that's cool.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zzKgnNGqxMw

That was cool

 

[scorpiomover]

Brilliant, a plasma soliton, why haven't I thought of that? Well plasma wasn't my main thing ... anyhow Solitons aren't easy to create, but if you do so it's a brilliant idea.[/quiote]I concur.

It also depends on how stable the soliton is. I'd hazard to guess it would have a shortish halflife, and so the energy to create it would be more than what you get out of it.

Depends on the wave-front, what's causing it to decay, etc. You'd have the initial wave-front, just by itself. Be tricky to get right. But it's no more than stirring a bowl of water in a circle till you get some angular momentum going. IIRC, if I remember my high-school physics, angular momentum is subject to Newton's laws, the same as linear momentum. Get a rotation going, and it should continue forever. Problem is outside forces and friction. Those will definitely slow it down. But as long as you have something to continually bump up the angular momentum, by just the amount that the system is losing angular momentum, then you should have something pretty stable. The losses due to external forces would be much lower than the amount of energy in the system.

The system would then be capable of holding in a fusion reaction quite easily. Could also act as a very powerful force field.

Would take time to set up. Then just a question of small but constant automated maintenance.

Lots of research needed though, I wonder if anybody is looking at it?

The guys in the paper mentioned by the OP are.