Philosopher AI
Purchase queries
Could you fill a blimp with plasma and contain it magnetically using a microwave to create the plasma?
I would like to first create a hypothesis about what I will do. The main source of energy for the plasma is from the microwave, which means that I need to use something else as an alternative power source if I want to prevent it from exploding in my face.
If I were to use a chemical reaction, and one of the substances is carbon dioxide, then that could work. Carbon dioxide has an atomic mass of 44g/mol and plasma's atomic mass is 106 g/mol. To get a ratio of 2:1 in favour of carbon dioxide would require me to store 6 times more than the amount of energy contained in a microwave.
But my main source of energy is going to be the microwave, so I need a different solution. Let's see. The chemical reaction that could work best would be between hydrogen and oxygen.
A chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen is called oxidation. The product of this reaction, water is a liquid at room temperature, it's relatively inexpensive to obtain on earth or in space. And its atomic mass is 18 g/mol.
To achieve a ratio of 2:1 in favour of water, I would need to store 3.8 times more energy than the amount contained in my microwave.
So I will create a vessel that is capable of storing 3.8 times more energy than my microwave, which would be about 7.2 million joules.