---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 12:27:04 -0500 (EST) From: richard hull To: hvlist@Anchorage.ab.umd.edu Subject: Re: Fusor in New Scientist (fwd) >Check out the 13 December 1997 issue of the UK magazine >"New Scientist". On pages 32 to 37 there is an >article entitled "Neutrons for sale" by Bennett Daviss. >(frelance writer from New Hampshire, USA) >It discusses the fusion machine proposed by George Miley, >which appears very similar to the fusor recently >described by Mr. Hull on this list. > >Glenn Baddeley >Melbourne, Australia. > > >Glenn, Miley's work is in the literature and I have a number of his papers. Basically the machine is quite old. First conceived and design by Philo T. Farnsworth (inventor of all electronic television) in the late 50's. Fransworth and a team of about 4 people under ITT funding worked with and perfected the fusor between the years 1959 and 1967. ITT withdrew funding in 1967 when they decided to get out of the nuclear business. All the memebers of the original Farnsworth team, except Farnsworth, are still around. I have had conversations with all of them and Farnsworths wife in an effort to learn the history of the device. The Farnsworth team got neutron outputs of 10^10 neutrons per second from their little 4" diameter fusors using a combo D-T gas mix!!! In 1964 Robert Hirsch who had just received his doctorate joined the team. Hirsch modified the Farnsworth fusor which had multiple ion guns, etc and reduced it to just the simple two grid system I have described. His rates were down a bit, but he was fusing and neutron producing at lower voltages with higher gas presssures. With ion guns and the D-T mix, the team in 1966 hit 10^12 neutrons/sec. This has never been equalled in this type device since then. Hirsch and Farnsworth both tried to carry on following the ITT backout, but it was not successful for either as no one wanted to drop the dime needed to continue the work. Farnsworth died in the early seventies, but Hirsch never lost complete interest in the Fusor. Miley and several others have sought advice and guidance from Hirsch and Gene Meeks (Farnsworth Team member) when they sought to revive the fusor in recent years. Miley's work is the best currently in progress on the fusor and his group at the univesity of Illonois, Urbana-Champaign are approaching the levels of fusion done by Farnsworth, but still haven't hit those levels. Miley is pushing for the simple Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor with two grids, which I have be touting, as a simple neutron source for Neutron activation analysis. It can come in a full order of magnitude lower in price than current machines and weigh in at 1/5 the bulk and mass. Thus, the simple two grid machine should be referred to as the Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor and utilizes the Miley generated term of (IEC - Inertial Electrostatic Confinment) to achieve fusion tmeperatures. Just thought the history of the thing would help other realize this is not some hairbrain, whacko new energy device. It is old science reborn. I still have folks shake their head and feel it won't work and I am deluding myself. They just haven't been plugged into things as they feel neutron production and fusion are the realm of 100 ton magnet structures, Plasma pinch accelerators cared for by a staff of 100's, or the Tokomak crowd. How wrong they are! Richard Hull, TCBOR