Conference noted::sf

    Re .0:
    
    If you are talking about the globes with the red and blue bolts inside
    them, they are just ordinary fluorescent light.  Instead of mixing
    gases and coating the tube to give a sort of white color, you leave the
    tube clear and use gases that give red and blue light.  Then you add
    something to force electrons through the gases.  Two levers control
    intensity and focus, and putting one's hands or fingers on or near the
    globe changes the paths the electrons take, concentrating them in
    one place or otherwise moving them around.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    RE: -1
    
    O.K.
    
    Is there any other kind ?
    Can it be used for anything ?   (starship drives, energy source?)

    Plasma is highly ionized gas.  Some people regard it as sufficiently
    different from normal gas as to rank as a fourth state of matter, on a
    par with gas, liquid, and solid.  Stars are made of plasma, so plasma
    may be the commonest kind of matter around.  (I don't know how much
    interstellar gas there is, though, and no one knows what the mysterious
    "dark matter" is.)
    
    Sparks and lightning bolts are more home-town examples of plasma.  Here
    the gas is ionized by the strong electric field that pulls the
    electrons across the gap.  The ionized gas, in turn, is a better
    conductor than the un-ionized air, so that more electrons come
    cascading across.
    
    There is no distinctive form of energy you could call "plasma energy." 
    But heat, light, and electrical current are stardard features of a
    plasma.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    'Round these parts (HL1), plasma is used to enhance low temperature
    deposition of Silicon Nitride and to "Dry Etch" various films used
    in the manufacture of semiconductors.  ("Dry" etching allows more
    controlled etch characteristics than "Wet" chemical--acids-etching.)
    
    						Don

    This was going to be my specialty.  A plasma is an ionized gas that is
    under extreme agitation (via heat, pressure, external energy...) and is
    undergoing a fusion process (Hydrogen to Helium).  Physicist consider
    it to be the next great energy source once the process can be contained
    and more energy comes out of it then is put into it.  Lawrence
    Livermore Labs has two research teams exploring plasma fusion, the
    Magnetic Fusion Experiments group (also known as Project Sherwood)
    and the Laser Fusion Experiments group (known as Nova, the largest
    Laser installation in the world).  Unfortunately I think that the
    Nova group has been redirected towards Star Wars.
    
    Larry

>      A plasma is an ionized gas that is
>    under extreme agitation (via heat, pressure, external energy...)
 
    Correct, this is the definition of a plasma.
    
>     and is
>    undergoing a fusion process (Hydrogen to Helium).
 
    Well, hydrogen plasmas can undergo fusion thus producing energy,
    but strictly speaking, not all plasmas produce energy.  Plasma energy
    is kind of like saying "Liquid Energy".  Gasoline creates heat when
    burned and gasoline is a liquid, but we don't talk of liquid fueled
    cars.
    
    Willie

    Mr. Tyler,
    	If you are seriously interested in the source of energy which
    will be  the only hope in sight for mankind, mail me at ENOVAX::WELCH.
    I'm a future physicist going to M.I.T. to study, at least at this
    time I plan to, plasma fusion.  I've done research in high school,
    and have stacks of material from magazines as well as directly from
    Princeton University's Plasma Fusion Labs which I could copy and
    send to you.  I wish I had the resources to convince the whole world
    just how much we need this energy.  Our current sources are
    inefficient, dirty, and running out.
    							-John

    
    Fusion is a fascinating area of study, but be aware of its shortcomings
    as well.  If fusion power stations are built in the near future based
    on current technology, the reaction chamber will become highly 
    radioactive and the stations themselves have to be *very* large
    and expensive.  I suspect they would make conventional nuclear plants
    look cheap in comparison.  However, if muon-catalyzed fusion ever
    becomes practical, then these problems may be reduced.  Remember,
    30 years ago fission reactors were suppose to be the beat-all, end-all
    power source.
    
    I don't want to seem down on fusion power.  I support fusion research.
    I just don't think it'll be practical in the near future.
    
    Personally, if I had my way.  I'd cover my roof with solar cells
    and put a superconducting energy storage ring in my back yard.
    
    /dana gould/

    The very superconductors you call upon for storage of solar energy
    may make fusion practical.  The high temp SC's have higher magnetic
    field strengths and may allow higher order (no high energy neutrons
    to make your reactor "dirty" and brittle) fusions.  The higher field
    strengths should also make for smaller reactor's.
    
    The high temp SC revolution was the best thing for fusion in the
    past 10 years.
    
    Tony

    
    Re: .9
    
    I hope so, I really do, but we don't have enough experimental data
    to evaluate the side effects of 'higher order' fusions either. 
    Nuclear fission was suppose to be the 'clean, safe' energy of the
    future once, well it wasn't.
    
    Don't pay any attention to me when I get like this, I'm just a natural
    born cynic. ;-)
    
    /dana gould/
    
    You are right that hi-temp superconducters are the hottest development
    in physics in years, but they'll only be practical *if* you can
    make the darn stuff into wires.

    Re: .-1
    
    > You are right that hi-temp superconducters are the hottest development
    > in physics in years, but they'll only be practical *if* you can
    > make the darn stuff into wires.

    I've heard that this has been accomplished on a small scale.
    				- HBM

    Re: .11
    
    BTW, Lancaster's column in Radio-Electronics mentions a report in
    Science about an aluminum-?-?-thallium superconductor with a critical
    temp of 120 degrees.
    
    /dana gould/

    	I can't remember which reply it was in, but somebody mentioned
    something about if fusion power facitlities were started "based
    on today's technology" it would be costly and radioactive.  That's
    why we are fighting wars in the Persian Gulf - because it ISN'T
    practical today.  But some day it will be.  Until then, it will
    stay in labs in Princeton, NJ and Cambridge, MA.  And I will be
    one of the people fighting to get it out!!!  
    							jw