The MIT plasma tour was very very educative because we got to learn more about fusion and see an actual fission reactor.

Fusion is the method use to combine two light elements to make a heavier element, the process produce energy which can be used to generate other form of energy as opposed to fission which is the process of breaking a heavy element into smaller element. With fusion, theoretically we will not have any loss and critical failures in the engine. The elements used in fusion are H1 (deuterium) and H2 (tritium).

We also learn that for fusion to happen, we need to have the elements at a temperature of 100 million Kelvin and keep them together log enough for them to bond. Keeping them together is the challenge. At this temperature the hydrogen elements become plasma (the fourth state of matter which happens when a gas is heated) making it difficult to keep the elements together because there is no real container for plasma. Yet, some methods are used to solve this problem. Some of the methods used so far are:

– Inertia confinement: method used to compress the plasma

– Electrostatic confinement: the emptiness of the space, make the elements flow toward the center of the space making it possible for them stay together long enough

Another method that had been used to actually make fusion occur is gold fusion where instead of heating the elements, we freeze them but this method was never confirm. No matter how much and long scientists tried to recreate the experiments, none of them were able to get to desire result.

The second part of the tour was dedicated to the facility of a fission reactor. We did not get to see the inside of the reactor for it is very small but we got to see what it looks like:

We got to see the control room where the scientists work and learn that the actual experiment time is about 5 seconds (about 4 second for theengines to start and shut down and 1 seconds for measurements). This time seems low but multiples measurements are during the short time.