Editing Tokamak (section)

==== Tokamak race in the US ====
In early 1969, Artsimovich visited [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]], where he was hounded by those interested in fusion. He finally agreed to give several lectures in April{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=161}} and then allowed lengthy question-and-answer sessions. As these went on, MIT itself grew interested in the tokamak, having previously stayed out of the fusion field for a variety of reasons. [[Bruno Coppi]] was at MIT at the time, and following the same concepts as Postma's team, came up with his own low-aspect-ratio concept, [[Alcator]]. Instead of Ormak's toroidal transformer, Alcator used traditional ring-shaped magnetic field coils but required them to be much smaller than existing designs. MIT's [[Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory]] was the world leader in magnet design and they were confident they could build them.{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=161}}

During 1969, two additional groups entered the field. At [[General Atomics]], [[Tihiro Ohkawa]] had been developing multipole reactors, and submitted a concept based on these ideas. This was a tokamak that would have a non-circular plasma cross-section; the same math that suggested a lower aspect-ratio would improve performance also suggested that a C or D-shaped plasma would do the same. He called the new design [[Doublet (fusion reactor)|Doublet]].{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=164}} Meanwhile, a group at [[University of Texas at Austin]] was proposing a relatively simple tokamak to explore heating the plasma through deliberately induced turbulence, the [[Texas Turbulent Tokamak]].{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=165}}

When the members of the Atomic Energy Commissions' Fusion Steering Committee met again in June 1969, they had "tokamak proposals coming out of our ears".{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=165}} The only major lab working on a toroidal design that was not proposing a tokamak was Princeton, who refused to consider it in spite of their Model C stellarator being just about perfect for such a conversion. They continued to offer a long list of reasons why the Model C should not be converted. When these were questioned, a furious debate broke out about whether the Soviet results were reliable.{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=165}}

Watching the debate take place, Gottlieb had a change of heart. There was no point moving forward with the tokamak if the Soviet electron temperature measurements were not accurate, so he formulated a plan to either prove or disprove their results. While swimming in the pool during the lunch break, he told [[Harold Furth]] his plan, to which Furth replied: "well, maybe you're right."{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=167}} After lunch, the various teams presented their designs, at which point Gottlieb presented his idea for a "stellarator-tokamak" based on the Model C.{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=167}}

The Standing Committee noted that this system could be complete in six months, while Ormak would take a year.{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=167}} It was only a short time later that the confidential results from the Culham Five were released. When they met again in October, the Standing Committee released funding for all of these proposals. The Model C's new configuration, soon named [[Symmetrical Tokamak]], intended to simply verify the Soviet results, while the others would explore ways to go well beyond T-3.{{sfn|Bromberg|1982|p=168}}