An Indispensable Truth by Francis Chen

An Indispensable Truth by Francis Chen

Recent books have raised the public consciousness about the dangers of global warming and climate change. This book is intended to convey the message that there is a solution. The solution is the rapid development of hydrogen fusion energy. This energy source is inexhaustible and, although achieving fusion energy is difficult, the progress made in the past two decades has been remarkable. The physics issues are now understood well enough that serious engineering can begin.The book starts with a summary of climate change and energy sources, trying to give a concise, clear, impartial picture of the facts, separate from conjecture and sensationalism. Controlled fusion -- the difficult problems and ingenious solutions -- is then explained using many new concepts.The bottom line -- what has yet to be done, how long it will take, and how much it will cost -- may surprise you. Francis F. Chen's career in plasma has extended over five decades. His textbook Introduction to Plasma Physics has been used worldwide continuously since 1974. He is the only physicist who has published significantly in both experiment and theory and on both magnetic fusion and laser fusion. As an outdoorsman and runner, he is deeply concerned about the environment. Currently he enjoys bird photography and is a member of the Audubon Society.

From the reviews:

“The ‘indispensable truth’ is that Chen … has written what may well be recognized as the definitive retrospective on the promise of endless supplies of cheap, clean nuclear energy from fusion, offering the prospect of realizing the promise at last… It is stylishly written, designed, and illustrated to appeal to general readers … . Chen is in his comfort zone as he tells his story, and the indispensable truth is that it is just that–indispensable! Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.”­­­ (L. W. Fine, Choice, Vol. 49 (3), November 2011)

"With An Indispensable Truth: How Fusion Power Can Save the Planet, Frank Chen has provided a sweeping perspective on fusion energy. He covers everything from climage change to plasma instabilities. On climate change and energy, the view is best from 30 000 feet: The book provides a good high-level overview of the issues at stake...On fusion plasma physics, Chen's area of expertise, An Indispensable Truth provides an intuitive, up-close explanation of exciting recent advances and future challenges...An Indispensable Truth provides an exciting whirlwind tour of energy issues and technologies, with particular insight into fusion. Chen is correct to emphasize the tremendous progress that has been made in fusion research. ITER will produce hundreds of millions of watts of thermal energy from fusion, for periods of up to an hours. However, it remains for the world, and in particular the US, to decide if we will develop fusion into a practical energy source. We will need it." (Physics Today, Volume 65, Issue 2, February 2012)

Francis F. Chen, known as Frank in the physics community, got his B.A. from Harvard Observatory in 1950. His all-star oral committee consisted of famous astronomers Harlow Shapley, Bart J. Bok, Donald Menzel, and Earl Whipple. With pulsars and quasars still undiscovered, he switched to High Energy Physics, receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1954. He had been sent by his adviser, Nobelist Norman Ramsey, to Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he worked on the Cosmotron and wrote the first experimental thesis for energies at or above 1 GeV. To avoid the Korean War draft, he then went to work for the astronomer Lyman Spitzer, Jr., who had just started the classified Project Matterhorn at Princeton University. This was one of four initial projects in the U.S. to tame the hydrogen bomb to make energy peacefully from the same reaction. In 1954, Chen was one of the first 15 employees at what is now the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Project Matterhorn started in two old buildings, one formerly a rabbit hutch, and the other a horse operating room. Chen inherited the Model B1 Stellarator, built by James van Allen of the famous van Allen radiation belts around the earth. With the B1, Chen was the first to show that electrons could be trapped by a magnetic field for millions of traverses. By then, it was clear that fusion would require trapping a plasma, a hot, ionized gas of electrons and ions, and not just electrons. Subsequent Model B stellarators, however, failed to do this for longer than milliseconds. Realizing that stellarators were magnetic bottles that were curved and not straight, he convinced Spitzer to allow him to build straight machines to isolate the problem, even though these would have leaks at the ends. Chen then built the L-1 and L-2 machines with straight magnetic fields. Experiments on these showed that the plasma was lost by turbulence, and these random motions were aligned along the magnetic field, with wavelengths longer than any plasma waves known at that time. While on sabbatical in Paris, Chen figured out what these new waves were. They are now known as resistive drift waves and were discovered simultaneously in Russia by Sagdeev and Pogutse. In L-2, Chen and Mosher showed how this turbulence could be suppressed by magnetic fields that were not totally straight but had what is called shear. Modern magnetic bottles (called tokamaks), using advanced methods of stabilization, can hold a hot plasma for minutes. In 1969, Chen went from Princeton to UCLA in California, where he organized an academic program in plasma physics. He wrote the first undergraduate textbook in this field in 1973. Soon after, however, powerful lasers were invented, opening up a whole new field of research. Chen then left magnetic fusion to help start the field of laser fusion. He built the first laser at UCLA. In basic experiments, he and his students were among the first to study Brillouin and Raman scattering, two instabilities that cause problems even in laser-produced plasmas. This interesting field led to John Dawson's discovery of plasma accelerators, which can shrink the size of machines for high-energy particle research by a factor of 1000! Chen recruited C. Joshi, whose experimental acumen has led his group to spectacular successes. Meanwhile, Chen left the effort to join yet another nascent field: low-temperature plasma physics. This involves partially ionized gases which include neutral atoms as well as ions and electrons. This complexity had led to its reputation as dirty science. By developing helicon plasma sources, which are magnetized, Chen showed that radiofrequency gas discharges contain very interesting physics which can be treated in a logical and interesting manner. Chen's 57-year career in plasma physics can be divided into four approximately equal parts: magnetic fusion, laser fusion and laser accelerators, low-temperature plasma physics, and plasma diagnostics. In the last of these, Chen is an authority on the theory and use of Langmuir probes for local measurements of plasma density and electron temperature in different environments. He is the only physicist who has had significant publications in both theory and experiment in both the fields of magnetic and laser fusion. Outside of science, Chen enjoys the outdoors and is solicitous about the environment. He has been a pole-vaulter, soccer player and coach, backpacker, kayaker, and marathoner, and still plays tennis. He is a bird photographer, and he and his wife Ande have birded on all seven continents. She leads a bird and wildflower hike every weekend in the spring. They are concerned about the effect of climate change on wildlife species.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9781441978196
ISBN 10	1441978194
Titel	An Indispensable Truth
Autor	Francis Chen
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Hardback
Verlag	Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Erscheinungsjahr	2011-04-22
Seitenanzahl	433
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.
Hinweis	Nicht verfügbar