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.