Nuclear Fusion

I was thinking about the magpies while I was out riding my pushy (bicycle for non-Australian speakers) the other day, basking in the stretch of blue sky and bright spring colours, and thought how wonderful it would be if we could get this nuclear fusion thing working just like it works in the sun that makes my bike rides so enjoyable, and keeps the magpies warm (yeah I've developed a real soft spot for my magpie family, I do get a little clucky over such things, I guess that's why I was vegetarian for 5 years and still would be if my hyped up carnivorous male metabolism did not suffer for it, and even now I am quite picky).

So I started thinking about this thing called an edge-localised-node or something like that that those smart scientists keep coming up against when they try to heat matter to 150 million degrees and keep it there (you won't do it with even the best laid campfire), hence sparking nuclear fusion, promising greenhouse (and magpie friendly) energy for us and our progeny. And I started thinking about the Latin roots of my language and how it tends to split things in two, either on or off, black or white, and how even our so called amazing computers are really just a product of this cultural heritage harking back to the industrial revolution (binary computers have reached their peak, look up Moore's Law and Quantum Computing sometime).

So, while whizzing along with my heart rate up around 170 to 180, with some wild Goa trance in my ears care of the binary based Internet we all know and love, magpies flying around, some swooping me so I know they are there, I applied this thought to plasma turbulence. What if our smart scientists were trying to apply Western cultural heritage to a problem that is more fundamental than that? I.e - do they have to completely eliminate plasma turbulence? Like the Goa trance in time with my heart beat, why can't they just live with the vibrations of nature, the harmony of vibrations that is all matter, and channel or tune the turbulence in to some sort of harmonic or set of harmonics instead? It's like supressing emotions, as we all seem to do (well Western Anglo-Saxon people anyway), it gets you in the end. My Croatian partner does not suffer this affliction (boy do I know), perhaps I can learn from that. Perhaps it's the same with plasma, supress it and it will lash out and there will be no cancer-free cigars and Nobel prizes at the after party.

So I sent ITER an email anyway (http://iter.org). They probably thought of this long before I was born and are doing it already if it works, but hey.. If all 6 billion of us keep brainstorming, someone is bound to find the answers eventually. Even if it is just monkeys bashing randomly at a keyboard and by chance producing a Shakespeare play.

It beats sitting around cafes drinking skinny-latte's all day sprouting opinions on the failures of our politicians :-)

Here is my humble suggestion in an email to ITER anyway...

Hi Mark,

You guys have probably already considered this although I thought I would make a suggestion just in case.

I keep hearing about this thing called a ‘edge localised node’ or plasma disturbance that just makes everything difficult to sustain the reaction and prevent erosion of the container vessel.

I was thinking the other day that Western civilisation tends to think in binary logic, on / off, black / white and so on, and our engineering solutions tend to reflect this drive for ‘perfection’.

So I wonder if we could just live with plasma disturbance, and find some sort of harmonic frequency, or frequencies that control the plasma disturbance or turbulence within acceptable tolerances. Perhaps a Chinese or other ‘non Western’ engineer can give it a go with their fresh perspective on things.

Anyway, my main talent is gardening so I am no nuclear physicist but it’s amazing the things one thinks about when tending to their vegetable patch and listening to the news on the radio, so I could be wrong or this was considered long ago, but I thought I would give it a shot anyway.

Cheers..