Talk:Tokamak
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, which collaborates on articles related to physics. | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the assessment scale. [FAQ] | |
| ??? | This article has not yet received an importance rating within physics. | |
|
Please rate this article, and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. |
||
"The tokamak continues to be the most promising device for generating net power from nuclear fusion" Who made that claim and what is it founded upon? There are infact competing devices such as the polywell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell)
From the quote: "The hair is analogous to the magnetic field lines needed in a fusion reactor. It turns out that it is impossible to comb hair on a sphere so that no hair sticks up".... How about if I combed the sphere into a very neat afro? every hair would stand on end, so this is not an impossibility is it?
How about if it read:
"The hair is analogous to the magnetic field lines needed in a fusion reactor. It turns out that it is impossible to comb hair on a sphere so that no hairs cross over each other (or are not parallel to each other). A strand of hair that crosses another would be equivalent to an instability in the reactor. However, a hairy doughnut can be so combed by combing along the circumference and with a slight twist, and thus adjustments to the magnetic field can be made to correct the irregularities. This allows the magnetic field to better confine the plasma"
-donville
- You don't seem to understand the hairy ball theorem, I've reverted the changes you made as they're incorrect. However I will agree that the section is badly written, and a deeper physical explanation (of what the hairy ball theorem means for confining a plasma) would be good. Suggestions? -TeeEmCee 12:07, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Some indication as to the absolute size of the pictured tokamak would be useful.
Saying it is the "smallest" doesn't mean much without that reference.
The article states that the only way to confine a plasma is with magnetic fields. Surely a plasma can also (albeit momentarily) be confined by its own inertia. Such is the principle of inertial confinement devices after all.
Most plasma in the universe is confined by gravity.
The explanation given in the article for the spelling of tokamak (with a final 'k', to avoid orthographic similarity with 'magic') seems quite dubious. More likely is that the 'g' of 'magnitnaya' is subjected to the typical Russian language devoicing of consonants at the end of a word.
Alodyne 04:25, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
to avoid analogy with the word magic
- The Russian word for magic??? I'm confused. - Omegatron 00:03, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
"Tokamak" comes from Russian "toroidalnaya kamera s magnitnoi katushkoi" (toroidal camera with magnetic coil).
- I thought "kamera" was "chamber"? YggdrasilsRoot 28 June 2005 12:53 (UTC)
- yes (gritzko)
http://nature.web.ru/db/msg.html?mid=1173581&uri=page4.html
Note: most probably, the author of the general idea of tokamak is Sgt. Oleg Aleksandrovich Lavrent'ev (no kidding, his work was sent to I.V.Stalin circa 1949, A.D.Sakharov reviewed that letter). "Nauka i zhizn'" ("Science and life", one of oldest Russian popular science journals) claims that A.D.Sakharov recognized scientific priority of Lavrent'ev, although I don't have the exact quote (by ADS). Dr. Lavrent'ev was working at Kharkov Physics&Technics Institute as of 2001. (gritzko)
http://ufn.ioc.ac.ru/archive/russian/abstracts/abst2145.html "Role of O.A.Lavrent'ev in raising the problem and initiating the research on (manageable?) thermonuclear synthesis in USSR" by B.D.Bondarenko, from USPEKHI FIZICHESKIKH NAUK ("Successes of physics"), a purely academic journal. Resume: although the initial idea by O.A.Lavrent'ev clearly could not be implemented in practice, the proposed original approach (i.e. plasma containment by a field) was further developed by Tamm and Sakharov into a workable solution. Scientific priority of O.A.Lavrent'ev "worth mentioning".
[edit] Name
Can anyone from russia confirm which of the two terms is official, or at least which is prevalent ?
- 1) тороидальная камера в магнитных катушках (... in magnetic coils) - currently in article
- 2) тороидальная камера с магнитными катушками (... with magnetic coils) - in russian wikipedia article
- JohnyDog 01:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
-
- Looks like (2) is prevalent. Gritzko
[edit] Power generation
What is the plan for extracting the energy generated from fusion in these devices? Will it be used to heat water, or what? A5 16:08, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, the basic idea is to heat water. See Fusion_power#Subsystems for a bit more detail. - mako 19:47, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Someone ought to put this up since it's in the news... http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060724-065917-5783r --D3matt
This really should have a section about potential uses and hazards, etc... If I had the info I'd do it. Otherwise, this thing is pretty lame.
[edit] Torus In operation
I believe there's also a Torus in operation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Here's some links about it http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/fusion.htm http://plasma.physics.wisc.edu/mst/html/mst.htm
- They do have the Madison Symmetric Torus, but it's a reversed field pinch device not a tokamak. --Gabbec 07:11, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
- Well, they also have the Pegasus spherical torus; does this count as a tokamak? NSTX should also be added in that case. --Gabbec 07:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
-
-
- If we're going to distinguish between 'spherical torus' and 'tokamak', we'd better do it in the introduction. There isn't even a Spherical torus page. I think a spherical torus is just a special case of a tokamak, especially at the introductory level. So lets just note that a sperical torus is a kind of tokamak, and include them in this article. --Dashpool 13:03, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
-
