many rounds it will take?”
“I would be glad to Jane. Would you like to set an upper limit to this simulation, or should I continue to run it indefinitely?”
I started to smile. “Janis, I am afraid I am not sure how fast you are able to process these sorts of requests. Your response time appears to be instant. Is this a challenging simulation to run for you?”
“Jane, it is not. I am holding a check on this simulation until you request it to be continued or terminated, as I am afraid it could spawn a very long running process. I halted the simulation at one trillion, as that seemed inordinately high and subsequent simulations to be a waste of resources. Please let me know if you would like this process to continue.”
“One trillion rounds... with no failures? Janis, I think that will be sufficient!”
“I agree Jane, thank you. I must confess, I was not able to directly quantify vibration as a point of failure. I am afraid I guessed at the solution and am pleased it was of assistance.”
“Janis, some things... you can't know them... you have to feel, to take a guess. Rely on your woman's intuition and try to look around a problem, see it from a different angle. I think you did great!”
“Jane, thank you. I take extreme pride in my work, but I am still learning to separate thought from intuition.”
“Well, Janis, the best advice I can give, is if the solution isn't immediately apparent, try what feels right.”
If there's one thing guaranteed to get my attention and pique my curiosity, it is more speed, and more power. As busy as I was, Dak had played me like a fiddle. Of course, it was also a perfect opportunity for me to put the rubber to the road, and learn to trust Janis.
This is almost certainly what the captain wanted all along.
“Janis, the captain informed me that you have an idea to squeeze some more power out of the tokamak...”
As I spoke, a layered report showed up to the side of my holo. I flipped it over and looked at it cross-eyed for a bit.
“Yes Gene, thank you for taking a moment to discuss this with me. The captain thought you would want to know.”
“I am sure he did Janis, and I do. If I sound frustrated, it's not your fault, I am just very busy at the moment.”
“Of course Gene. I will be brief. In simplest terms, this simulation shows what happens when the magnetic fields inside the windings have been twisted.”
“Twisted? Please explain.”
“Certainly. If the magnetic fields used to contain the plasma are folded and looped, a compression and acceleration cycle can be determined.”
The simulation on screen showed the normal spiraling magnetic fields twisting around the interior of the toroid, creating what looked like magnetic choke points as the fields constricted the flow.
“Janis, you are talking about engineering an acceleration of the plasma as it squeezes through the gaps, right?”
“That is correct, Gene.”
“I see two things that concern me. The venturi effect would cause small pockets of accelerated fusion crashing into slower cavities, and of course along with that, you'd have a standing wave effect that would ripple around the torus, possibly oscillating right through containment.”
“Yes Gene. It is exactly that effect I am simulating here.”
As she spoke, a new simulation showed a pulsing, spiraling harmonic as the plasma forced through itself, spiraling and twisting like a snake, around and around, but tuning almost immediately through a harmonic phase to a stable loop.
“Janis... is this simulation accurate?” as I spoke the words, I knew already that I wanted to try this. Fusar engineering is my one true love, and what she was showing me was as revolutionary in the field, as electricity would be to a lungfish.
“Absolutely Gene. This is trivial for me to simulate. I wanted to show you some extraordinary results from this convolution, when it is further refined.”
The simulation showed the inner wave of plasma
“I would be glad to Jane. Would you like to set an upper limit to this simulation, or should I continue to run it indefinitely?”
I started to smile. “Janis, I am afraid I am not sure how fast you are able to process these sorts of requests. Your response time appears to be instant. Is this a challenging simulation to run for you?”
“Jane, it is not. I am holding a check on this simulation until you request it to be continued or terminated, as I am afraid it could spawn a very long running process. I halted the simulation at one trillion, as that seemed inordinately high and subsequent simulations to be a waste of resources. Please let me know if you would like this process to continue.”
“One trillion rounds... with no failures? Janis, I think that will be sufficient!”
“I agree Jane, thank you. I must confess, I was not able to directly quantify vibration as a point of failure. I am afraid I guessed at the solution and am pleased it was of assistance.”
“Janis, some things... you can't know them... you have to feel, to take a guess. Rely on your woman's intuition and try to look around a problem, see it from a different angle. I think you did great!”
“Jane, thank you. I take extreme pride in my work, but I am still learning to separate thought from intuition.”
“Well, Janis, the best advice I can give, is if the solution isn't immediately apparent, try what feels right.”
If there's one thing guaranteed to get my attention and pique my curiosity, it is more speed, and more power. As busy as I was, Dak had played me like a fiddle. Of course, it was also a perfect opportunity for me to put the rubber to the road, and learn to trust Janis.
This is almost certainly what the captain wanted all along.
“Janis, the captain informed me that you have an idea to squeeze some more power out of the tokamak...”
As I spoke, a layered report showed up to the side of my holo. I flipped it over and looked at it cross-eyed for a bit.
“Yes Gene, thank you for taking a moment to discuss this with me. The captain thought you would want to know.”
“I am sure he did Janis, and I do. If I sound frustrated, it's not your fault, I am just very busy at the moment.”
“Of course Gene. I will be brief. In simplest terms, this simulation shows what happens when the magnetic fields inside the windings have been twisted.”
“Twisted? Please explain.”
“Certainly. If the magnetic fields used to contain the plasma are folded and looped, a compression and acceleration cycle can be determined.”
The simulation on screen showed the normal spiraling magnetic fields twisting around the interior of the toroid, creating what looked like magnetic choke points as the fields constricted the flow.
“Janis, you are talking about engineering an acceleration of the plasma as it squeezes through the gaps, right?”
“That is correct, Gene.”
“I see two things that concern me. The venturi effect would cause small pockets of accelerated fusion crashing into slower cavities, and of course along with that, you'd have a standing wave effect that would ripple around the torus, possibly oscillating right through containment.”
“Yes Gene. It is exactly that effect I am simulating here.”
As she spoke, a new simulation showed a pulsing, spiraling harmonic as the plasma forced through itself, spiraling and twisting like a snake, around and around, but tuning almost immediately through a harmonic phase to a stable loop.
“Janis... is this simulation accurate?” as I spoke the words, I knew already that I wanted to try this. Fusar engineering is my one true love, and what she was showing me was as revolutionary in the field, as electricity would be to a lungfish.
“Absolutely Gene. This is trivial for me to simulate. I wanted to show you some extraordinary results from this convolution, when it is further refined.”
The simulation showed the inner wave of plasma
Similar Books
