# Magnetic confinement fusion Magnetic confinement holds a fusion [[Plasma_(physics)|plasma]] away from any wall using magnetic fields, since no material survives contact at a hundred million degrees. Charged particles spiral along field lines, so a closed field geometry — a torus — can in principle hold them indefinitely. ## A fluid problem in disguise The plasma behaves as a conducting fluid, and the field lines behave much like [[Vorticity|vortex]] lines: they cannot end, they move with the material, and their topology is nearly conserved. Confinement fails through instabilities that are close relatives of the ones on this spine — shear-driven modes akin to [[Kelvin–Helmholtz_instability]], and [[Turbulence|turbulent]] transport that leaks heat across the field far faster than collisions alone would. The magnets themselves depend on [[Superconductivity]] and therefore on cryogenic [[Helium]], which is how the noble branch supplies the machine that burns the reactive one. **Reads with:** *Future Energy: Opportunities & Challenges (2013)* — [OTL record](https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/future-energy-opportunities-challenges) · [download](https://trace.tennessee.edu/entities/publication/48577f98-9b67-472e-bbb3-5d150c80c1e2). Seeded from the Thury Hydrodynamics Apex Spine book shelf. **On the spine:** [[Inertial_confinement_fusion]] · [[Nuclear_fusion]] · [[Deuterium]] · [[Plasma_(physics)]] · [[WT!Thury_Hydrodynamics_Compendium]]. ## Wikipedia : Wikitube **Strict pair:** [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_confinement_fusion) : [Wikitube](https://en.wikitube.io/wiki/Magnetic_confinement_fusion) ## Previous hub tags Hubs: `Life_Physics`, `Systems`. Portals: [[PORTAL_Thury_Hydrodynamics_Apex_Spine]], [[PORTAL_Energy]], [[PORTAL_Helium-3]]. --- *Apex Spine wave · 2026-09-10 · stub · microsim layer deferred.*