Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Chapter 1 The Fourth State of Matter
- Chapter 2 The Music and Dance of Plasmas
- Chapter 3 The Sun–Earth Connection
- Chapter 4 Bringing the Sun to Earth: The Story of Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion
- Chapter 5 The Cosmic Plasma Theater: Galaxies, Stars, and Accretion Discs
- Chapter 6 Putting Plasmas to Work
- Index
Chapter 4 - Bringing the Sun to Earth: The Story of Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Preface
- Chapter 1 The Fourth State of Matter
- Chapter 2 The Music and Dance of Plasmas
- Chapter 3 The Sun–Earth Connection
- Chapter 4 Bringing the Sun to Earth: The Story of Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion
- Chapter 5 The Cosmic Plasma Theater: Galaxies, Stars, and Accretion Discs
- Chapter 6 Putting Plasmas to Work
- Index
Summary
SINCE THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION, mankind has looked to the Sun as the ultimate sustainer of life. And now plasma physics is on the verge of capturing the power of our star – nuclear fusion – and bringing it to Earth in a controllable form.
That effort, one of the most arduous in the history of science, requires that human beings actually beat the Sun at its own game. Researchers have to outshine the Sun by using temperatures that are ten times hotter. They have to employ isotopic fuels that are rare but much more efficient than the bare protons that fuse in the solar core. And they have to contort the infernal plasma into specific shapes and exacting densities while confining it in a safe enclosure. Those goals are so formidably hard that half a century of research has not yet produced a working reactor. Still, the long struggle continues, because the potential payoff could change the world.
The reason is that nuclear reactions – fission and fusion – are sources of immense power. And pound for pound, fusion produces many times more energy than even nuclear fission, the source of power for “atom bombs” and today's nuclear electrical plants.
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- Information
- The Plasma Universe , pp. 39 - 50Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009