Home Nuclear Fusion With The Fusor.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

With all the talk of home particle accelerators in the neutrino communication thread, thought this might make for an interesting topic. It's the Fusor, originally envisioned by P.T. Farnsworth (the inventor of the CRT), and tweaked by various scientists. It has since become a hobby for some hardcore home-scientists.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/
homemade fusor (nuclear fusion reactor) - neutron and x-ray radiation, silver activation
Geek Group Farnsworth-Hirsch-Meeks Fusor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

Now before you get your hopes up: Unfortunately in it's current form the fusor is nowhere close to efficient enough to give a positive release of energy. Fusion collisions are all by probability, and the odds aren't in our favor ATM. Still an interesting project, though. Either in demo form which ionizes air, or if you're feeling adventurous or have the money, D-D fusion.

[Seze Mune]

Was tickled by the VERY obvious University of Michigan Wolverines tee-shirt.  "Hail to the victors valiant, hail to the conquering heroes..."     


                               GO BLUE!!

[`Eylan Ayfalulukanä]

Farnsworth invented the 'image dissector' camera tube, not the CRT.

There was a school in the upstairs of our TV station, called the 'Davidson Academy'. It is a public school for very gifted and talented students, and its location allows these middle and high school students access to university-level courses. (since moved to a different building on campus, but we got to keep several hundreds of thousands of $$$ in building improvements!) One of the students there, who I think was just 13 at the time, built a Farnsworth Fusor. The Department of Homeland Security had this kid do a demo for them, as he came up for an idea on how to locate fissionable materials smuggled in other cargo, using a Farnsworth fusor.

They are not all that complicated to build, and they will produce small, but measureable amounts of nuclear fusion.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Yeah, I heard of him. He's been on Popsci, plus he's been on the front of fusor.net for weeks.

[Human No More]

I read a bit about this a few years ago... I'd love to see one, although it's beyond my skill to make