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These are great questions for someone more knowledgable, but as I understand it, If you follow a single point on the surface all the way around the loop, it will spend as much time in high confinement as it does in low confinement.

That explains why folding is important, as for the mobius, I oversimplified a bit. The Wendelstein has 5 folds, making it a mobius, but I think I read about one in Spain that had only 4 folds. That would mean the mobius isn't imperitive, but I'm sure there is a good reason for it.

Really a stellerator doesn't need 'folding' at all, they can be as simple as a twisted torroid. I didn't want to go into excruciating detail though, the more in detail I go the more likely I am to say something that is wrong lol.

Edit: I looked it up, the one in spain is called "TJ-II"




First thing that comes to mind is like twisted pairing on cables. Distributes the external/internal forces more equally. Is it anything like this?


No, twisted pair wires are really cool but different. When you push current down one wire you pull current down the other. The signal is passed through the differential of those 2 wires. If the wire is hit with EM interference, that change will be seen as a 'common mode voltage', that is, both wires will be 'pushed' or 'pulled' the same amount, and you won't see a differential.

That effect works both ways too, where a single wire with a digital signal will spew out radio waves, 2 wires with opposing signal cancel each other out and emit no em waves.

The effect with the stellarator is more like stirring a pot.


Thank you for the clear explanation! I love it!




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