Magnetic Bottles & Laser Squeeze: Two Ways To Contain A Star

The Containment Problem

The challenge: 150 million K plasma is hotter than any material's melting point. It can't touch anything physical.

Two solutions emerged:

1. Magnetic Confinement

• Use powerful electromagnets to create a "magnetic bottle"
• Levitate plasma away from walls
• Hold for seconds to continuous operation

2. Inertial Confinement

• Crush fuel so fast it doesn't have time to expand
• Compression happens faster than plasma can move
• Hold for nanoseconds only

Both are trying to achieve the Lawson criterion—just through completely different physics.