History
The process of light ion acceleration using electrostatic fields and deuterium ions to produce fusion in solid deuterated targets was first demonstrated by Cockcroft and Walton in 1932 (see Cockcroft-Walton generator). Indeed, the process is used today in thousands of miniaturized versions of their original accelerator, in the form of small sealed tube neutron generators, in the petroleum exploration industry.
The process of pyroelectricity has been known from ancient times. The first use of a pyroelectric field to accelerate deuterons was in 1997 in an experiment conducted by Drs. V.D. Dougar Jabon, G.V. Fedorovich, and N.V. Samsonenko. This group was the first to utilize a lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) pyroelectric crystal in fusion experiments.
The novel idea with the pyroelectric approach to fusion is in its application of the pyroelectric effect to generate the accelerating electric fields. This is done by heating the crystal from −30°C to +45°C over a period of a few minutes.
Read more about this topic: Pyroelectric Fusion
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“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
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Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)