Teen builds working nuclear fusion reactor in Memphis home This is not new, and other teens have built Farnsworth Fusors, but now in 2019 there is a further "Big Picture"implication- and an under-appreciated impact to this story. A convergence of a sort is at hand, possibly a tipping point
If we were to believe Professor Holmlid's published results - producing massive numbers of muons/sec with a 12 watt laser, then the next step of porting those muons into a small Fusor - perhaps not unlike this one, would increase the yield to breakeven. That is a huge paradigm shift. Eat your heart out, ITER !! (which is pronounced "eater" by critics, due in part to way this boondoggle project eats up billions of wealth with so little to show). Of course we know that muon catalyzed fusion is real - and that it also produces enough neutrons to irradiate everyone nearby - so this combination cannot be done safely in the family garage. That is a huge downside. The important point of this however, is the convergence of two different technologies - cold and warm fusion, if you will. Thanks to Professor Holmlid - and if is he is correct about the muon output then we are months away from his group in Sweden being able to pull off this amazing feat that has defied the best minds and hundreds of billions of dollars in the past 40 years. This is bootstrapping at its best. As mentioned here several times recently, Holmlid's superb argument appears in the latest issue of the journal Fusion. It could be a tipping point in the history of the planet. Of course, it could also be delusional, since there is no independent replication. Holmlid's plan of adding muons as a catalyst would work using a sacrificial Farnsworth Fusor, which becomes immediately neutron-activated. The experiment must be performed in a "hot" lab. Tritium is not required. I suspect the Swedes have already lined up these preliminary steps and are underway. It is bitterly cold over there this time of year and as they say: "necessity is the mother of invention". Well, I guess we should phrase that as: "nödvändighet är modern för uppfinning." Jones nödvändighet är modern för uppfinning
