Road to Fusion
From the Birth of Modern Physics to ITER.
This is a school-specific course (Kiviruukki upper secondary school). Its goals and contents come from the school's own plan, not from the national modules FY1–FY8.
An interdisciplinary course taught in English that combines physics, English and French (CLIL). It travels from the birth of modern physics through the energy of the nucleus, fusion in the stars and plasma to the Cold War race for fusion and the international ITER project. The whole course answers one question: if scientists have understood nuclear fusion for almost a century, why is producing electricity from fusion still so difficult?
Chapters and units
The chapters of the course in order. Each chapter has its own big question, and its units answer it together.
The course has about 16 teaching sessions: 8 physics, 5 French and 3 project sessions. The Fotoni lab visit is separate from these sessions. ★ marks optional extra material: it is not required for completing the course.
1 · The Birth of Modern Physics
Why did classical physics fail to explain everything?
Chapter 1.1When classical physics ran out of answersWhy could the best physics of 1900 not explain the glow of a hot piece of metal?
- Chapter 1.2Light as particles: the photoelectric effect
Why can a dim violet lamp free electrons from a metal plate when a bright red lamp cannot?
- Chapter 1.3From Rutherford's nucleus to Bohr's atom
Why does glowing hydrogen give off light of only a few colours, while a hot metal glows in all of them?
- Chapter 1.4Waves, probability and quantum tunnelling
Why can the Sun shine, when its protons are far too slow to reach each other?
2 · Inside the Atom
How can such a small nucleus contain so much energy?
Chapter 2.1Building nuclei: isotopes and nuclear notationWhy do the protons in a nucleus not fly apart, although they all repel each other?
- Chapter 2.2Mass defect and binding energy
Why can both joining nuclei and splitting nuclei release energy?
3 · The Energy of the Stars
Why hasn't the Sun burned out?
- Chapter 3.2Fusion reactions: from the Sun to deuterium and tritium
Why must a fusion reactor on Earth be hotter than the centre of the Sun?
4 · Plasma: The Fourth State of Matter
How can we control something hotter than the centre of the Sun?
Chapter 4.1Plasma: the fourth state of matterWhy do the northern lights, a flash of lightning, the Sun and the fuel of a fusion reactor all count as the same state of matter?
- Chapter 4.2Charged particles and magnetic confinement
Why can an invisible magnetic field hold a fuel that would melt or vaporise any solid container?
5 · The Cold War and the Race for Fusion
How did the Cold War influence scientific research?
Chapter 5.1Secret beginnings: fusion research to the 1950sWhy did governments hide research on a peaceful source of energy?
- Chapter 5.2Science across the Iron Curtain
Why should a scientist believe a result from a rival country?
- Chapter 5.3Big machines and world politics: 1970s to 1985
Why did fusion machines grow so large in the 1970s and 1980s?
- Chapter 5.4Fusion history: an interactive timeline
Why has the road from the first idea of fusion energy to a fusion power plant taken more than a hundred years?
6 · From Early Machines to Modern Reactors
Which reactor design has the best chance of making fusion work?
Chapter 6.1Pinches, lasers and other paths to fusionWhy have fusion researchers built so many different kinds of machines instead of agreeing on one?
- Chapter 6.2Tokamak or stellarator?
Why do the two leading designs for a magnetic fusion reactor look so different, although both hold the plasma in a ring?
7 · ITER: An International Megaproject
Can the world's largest fusion collaboration succeed?
Chapter 7.1ITER: why, where and whoWhy would countries that often disagree build one fusion machine together instead of each building its own?
- Chapter 7.2Inside ITER: the machine and fusion gain
Why is it so hard to get more energy out of a fusion plasma than you put into it?
- Chapter 7.3Inside the largest fusion reactor: a video investigation
Why can a popular video about ITER be both useful and out of date at the same time?
- Chapter 7.4ITER: promise, progress and reality
Why can a news article about ITER be well researched and still give a wrong picture a few years later?
8 · Fusion, Energy and Society
Could fusion become part of our future energy system?
Chapter 8.1Fusion in the energy systemWhy is it so hard to say whether fusion will ever power our homes?
- Chapter 8.2Debate: should governments invest more in fusion?
Why do well-informed people disagree about spending public money on fusion?
- Chapter 8.3Global Fusion Explorer
Why does a map of fusion machines tell a story about politics as well as about physics?
9 · Fotoni Lab Visit
What can we measure about light and electrons ourselves?
Chapter 9.1Fotoni lab visit: modern physics experimentsWhy can a small glass tube, a lamp and a voltmeter tell us something about the whole universe of quantum physics?
10 · Le français de la fusion
How do you get by in French on a visit to France?
Chapter 10.1Bonjour ! Introducing yourselfWhy can one small word, bonjour, decide how a whole conversation in France begins?
- Chapter 10.3Au café: a role-play
Why can about ten short phrases get you through a whole café visit in France?
- Chapter 10.4At a research centre in Provence
Why do researchers from so many countries work in one quiet valley in Provence?
- Chapter 10.5Reading French news without a dictionary
How much of a French news text about fusion can you understand after a few weeks of French?
In this course, you will learn to
Working version: the goals will be refined when the course plan is complete.
- explain why classical physics was not enough and how quantum physics was born
- calculate the energy of nuclear reactions from the mass defect and binding energy
- explain why fusion needs extreme temperatures and how magnetic fields confine a plasma
- evaluate how politics, cooperation and technology have shaped fusion research
- distinguish verified research results from predictions and commercial claims
- discuss and write about science in English and get by in everyday situations in French