Sandy Aygo, Part the Second
Yet another successful revolution of the sun without dying. Huzzah!
The conference is in full swing. Last night some folks from General Atomics took a few of us on a tour of the local Tokamak. What's that? Well, I can now inform you that it's a toroidal nuclear fusion reactor.
What's it got to do with control systems? The plasma is held in a donut shaped cavity by controlling the currents through various coils around it. Can't let the plasma touch the sides, because it's quite hot at 230 million degrees!
Here's the general plan:
And our tour guide standing in front of a life-sized cross-section mockup:
The real thing is somewhat obscured by pipes and wires:
twas very tempting to swipe one of these signs for my bedroom wall:
It was all very impressive!
Also, we got a free dinner.
My plans to dive earlier in the week didn't come through (the seas were angry that day, my friend) but if conditions are better tomorrow I'm going to sneak out of the conference for one of the sessions, go for a quick dive, then come back in time to do my presentation, perhaps with some kelp still tangled in my hair.
The conference is in full swing. Last night some folks from General Atomics took a few of us on a tour of the local Tokamak. What's that? Well, I can now inform you that it's a toroidal nuclear fusion reactor.
What's it got to do with control systems? The plasma is held in a donut shaped cavity by controlling the currents through various coils around it. Can't let the plasma touch the sides, because it's quite hot at 230 million degrees!
Here's the general plan:
And our tour guide standing in front of a life-sized cross-section mockup:
The real thing is somewhat obscured by pipes and wires:
twas very tempting to swipe one of these signs for my bedroom wall:
It was all very impressive!
Also, we got a free dinner.
My plans to dive earlier in the week didn't come through (the seas were angry that day, my friend) but if conditions are better tomorrow I'm going to sneak out of the conference for one of the sessions, go for a quick dive, then come back in time to do my presentation, perhaps with some kelp still tangled in my hair.
posted by I-Rock at 4:24 PM
2 Comments:
Is the man in the pictorial representation of the toroidal nuclear fusion reactor merely for scale or is the finished hardware intended to work in cross-section?
Or perhaps it is merely representing the dress code for personal at the facility?
dress code, definitely. And the correct posture for professorial explanation of abstruse details.
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