[perihelion]

http://www.news.wisc.edu/13545.html

Still got a long way to go, but there's a research team at the University of Wisconsin that has thoroughly made my day.  I'd pretty much given up on Stellarators and Tokamak-style reactors in favor of Z- and Theta-pinch systems.  Very much impressed.  The thing looks weird, though!  The article says it's all about symmetry, but it must be a very "special" kind of symmetry.



[attachment deleted by admin]

[Rand al Thor]

Fantastic. I know predictions are for a self sustaining reaction in about 50 years, so if I'm lucky I should live to see it happen.

I'd say it looks more retro than futuristic though.

[Rictor]

That looks like a giant steampunk...I don't know what. A torture machine maybe.

I can appreciate the science behind it (thought not understand it by any stretch), but it just looks kind of cool.

[Nuke]

theyve built the chaos reactor. cool!

[Ghost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER

I saw this thing a while ago, and this is the most promising thing I've seen thus far, as far as fusion is concerned.

[takashi]

it looks like a bumblebee with its head cut off ....


but cool though.

[Flipside]

Actually, it does look curiously insectoid....

[Mefustae]

Meh, the one in Spiderman 2 looked cooler.

[perihelion]

Actually, it does look curiously insectoid....

Heh.  I guess so, but that's just the side-on view.  From the top it looks like a metal doughnut seen through the lens of a bad acid trip.

And the one in Spiderman 2 was patently ridiculous.  Everyone in a room with that thing while it was operational would shortly afterwards wonder why their hair started falling out if the coughing up blood didn't catch their notice first.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Mefustae]

And the one in Spiderman 2 was patently ridiculous.  Everyone in a room with that thing while it was operational would shortly afterwards wonder why their hair started falling out if the coughing up blood didn't catch their notice first.

Yeah, but it looked awesome.

[Nuke]

its just a mater of going with the flow as opposed to forcing the plasma stream into a perfect torus.