Controllable nuclear fusion?!
It did sound like an interesting topic.
When Lu Zhou heard Professor Klitzing mention this, he immediately became interested.
"Can I go in and take a look?"
Professor Klitzing smiled and said, "If you're interested, of course not a problem."
Lu Zhou followed Professor Klitzing's footsteps and stepped into the building.
Originally, he thought this was a highly confidential place. However, Professor Klitzing just swiped his work card at the access control and easily led Lu Zhou inside.
Professor Klitzing noticed Lu Zhou's confused expression, so he smiled and said, "There's nothing confidential about this. You can even search the Firestone Library's database. As for the access control, it's mainly to prevent unauthorized personnel from coming in. Berlin has had a serious security problem recently. "
Lu Zhou joked. "I thought it was some sort of confidential place."
Professor Klitzing laughed and said, "Confidential place? Don't worry, even I can't go in there, let alone you. "
Contrary to most of the conspiracy theories surrounding nuclear fusion technology, even though countries in the field of controllable nuclear fusion also did some private research, most of the research results were basically open to the public.
According to the ITER agreement signed in Paris in November 2006, research teams from all over the world would report on the latest research progress at every International Fusion Energy Conference.
As for why they had to collaborate on research, the reason was simple.
This was because this project was far more difficult than any scientific research project in history, such as the Manhattan Project, the Human Genome Project, and the Apollo Project. Moreover, the final realization of controllable nuclear fusion technology wasn't something that could be accomplished by a country's scientific research ability alone.
Under this premise, the benefits of building a car behind closed doors were far less than the benefits of actively participating in the ITER program and taking control of it.
For example, the all-superconducting tokamak (EAST) built by China played a pivotal role in the ITER program.
As for the profit distribution after the project was successful, that was another matter. Right now, there wasn't even a trace of a solution to the current problem, let alone the problems in the future.
In fact, whether it was the design of the tokamak or the stellarator, there were no secrets in theory. This was why Professor Klitzing was able to bring Lu Zhou here.
The only confidential part was the laser fusion used for "ignition".
One of the main functions of laser fusion was to simulate a hydrogen bomb explosion. Therefore, the ITER program didn't involve countries outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
However, this part of the research could not be seen here. Confidential research was naturally conducted in a confidential place.
Lu Zhou followed Professor Klitzing all the way to the core area of the building. He looked at the strange-looking object in the middle of the open space and said, "This thing looks like a fried dough twist."
Using a fried dough twist as an analogy might not be accurate enough. This fried dough twist had to be twisted into a circle and connected seamlessly from head to tail.
From a geometrical point of view, it was a Möbius ring that continuously transformed in three-dimensional space.
In this circular orbit wrapped by coils, the plasma could operate steadily by relying on the constraints of the external field.
In contrast, the tokamak, which was the opposite of the stellarator, relied on the magnetic field coupling generated by the external magnetic field and the plasma current. If the plasma was disturbed or became unstable due to some unknown physical phenomenon, the entire system would face the risk of collapsing.
Also, theoretically speaking, the continuous ignition of the stellarator was easier to control than the pulsed ignition of the tokamak.
However, even though the stellarator had many advantages, it also had a fatal disadvantage, which was that the requirements for processing technology were extremely harsh. The entire machine's workload was extremely complicated.
Even though the orbit in front of him was complicated enough in Lu Zhou's opinion, it was only one of the components of the nuclear fusion machine. Other than Germany, there were probably only a handful of countries that could produce this component.
This was one of the reasons why China placed all of its chips on the tokamak.
Professor Klitzing joked, "Really? I think it's more like a doughnut with a layer of cream. "
Lu Zhou looked at the old man in surprise. He didn't expect the old man to understand the word "doughnut".
"This is the plasma orbit from the Wendelstein 7-X." Professor Klitzing looked at the machine in front of him and said, "As for the complete Wendelstein 7-X, it's in the eastern city of Greifswald. If you're interested, I can take you there after the report is over. There's a similar experiment that's about to start. "
Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Really? Then I'll remember these words. "
If that was the case, then this was an opportunity that couldn't be missed.
Even though controllable nuclear fusion was outside of his research field, he was still interested in something that only existed in science fiction movies.
However, no matter how interesting the research project was, it wasn't as important as the work in front of him.
After Lu Zhou finished visiting the Max Planck Laboratory in Berlin, he returned to the Ebenitz Hotel and began to make final preparations for the report.
Time quickly passed by, and soon, it was the day of the report.
According to the original plan, the report was to be held at Humboldt University.
On Saturday morning, Lu Zhou deliberately woke up early and arrived at the report venue an hour early.
By the time he arrived at the venue, the entire venue was almost fully occupied. As far as the eye could see, it was densely packed with people.
The Max Planck Institute, which hosted this report, didn't restrict the number of people who were allowed to attend. They only arranged seats for people who were confirmed to attend the report. Therefore, not only scholars who had been paying attention to this report for a long time, but also PhD and master's students from major universities and research institutions in Berlin came to join in the fun.
The report was less than half an hour away, and a lot of people were sitting in the aisle.
The theoretical chemistry community had been looking forward to this report for two months.
Was this a misunderstanding, or did it mean a new era of chemistry …
Everyone stared at the big screen behind the podium, waiting to witness this historic moment.
President Stratmann stood next to the podium and looked at the empty seats in the venue. He then told the staff to bring some empty chairs from the conference room next door and place them at the back of the venue.
After he finished doing this, he looked at Lu Zhou, who was copying data into the podium.
"How's the preparation going?"
Lu Zhou said in a relaxed manner, "It's pretty much okay."
"Good luck," President Stratmann said as he gave Lu Zhou a thumbs up. He didn't say anything else. Instead, he said, "I hope all of us can witness history today."
Lu Zhou smiled confidently and adjusted his tie.
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