Editing Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (section)

===Formation===
In 1950, [[John Archibald Wheeler|John Wheeler]] was setting up a secret [[H-bomb]] research lab at [[Princeton University]]. [[Lyman Spitzer|Lyman Spitzer, Jr.]], an avid mountaineer, was aware of this program and suggested the name "Project Matterhorn".<ref>{{cite web |title=Timeline |website=Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory |url=https://www.pppl.gov/about/history/timeline |ref=CITEREFTimeline}}</ref>

Spitzer, a professor of astronomy, had for many years been involved in the study of very hot rarefied gases in interstellar space. While leaving for a ski trip to [[Aspen, Colorado|Aspen]] in February 1951, his father called and told him to read the front page of the ''[[New York Times]]''. The paper had a story about claims released the day before in [[Argentina]] that a relatively unknown German scientist named [[Ronald Richter]] had achieved nuclear fusion in his [[Huemul Project]].<ref>Burke, James (1999) ''The Knowledge Web: From Electronic Agents to Stonehenge and Back – And Other Journeys Through Knowledge'' Simon & Schuster, New York, pp.&nbsp;241–242, {{ISBN|0-684-85934-3}}.</ref> Spitzer ultimately dismissed these claims, and they were later proven erroneous, but the story got him thinking about fusion. While riding the [[chairlift]] at Aspen, he struck upon a new concept to confine a [[Plasma (physics)|plasma]] for long periods so it could be heated to fusion temperatures. He called this concept the [[stellarator]].

Later that year he took this design to the [[United States Atomic Energy Commission|Atomic Energy Commission]] in Washington. As a result of this meeting and a review of the invention by scientists throughout the nation, the stellarator proposal was funded in 1951. As the device would produce high-energy [[neutron]]s, which could be used for breeding weapon fuel, the program was classified and carried out as part of Project Matterhorn. Matterhorn ultimately ended its involvement in the bomb field in 1954, becoming entirely devoted to the fusion power field.

In 1958, this magnetic fusion research was declassified following the [[International Atomic Energy Agency#History|United Nations International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy]].  This generated an influx of graduate students eager to learn the "new" physics, which in turn influenced the lab to concentrate more on basic research.<ref>Bromberg, Joan Lisa (1982) ''Fusion: Science, Politics, and the Invention of a New Energy Source'' [[MIT Press]], Cambridge, Massachusetts, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ECOvgg7b3MQC&pg=PA97 p. 97], {{ISBN|0-262-02180-3}}.</ref>

The early figure-8 stellarators included: Model-A, Model-B, Model-B2, Model-B3.<ref name=Stix/> Model-B64 was a square with round corners, and Model-B65 had a racetrack configuration.<ref name=Stix>{{Cite web|url=http://www.jspf.or.jp/JPFRS/PDF/Vol1/jpfrs1998_01-003.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.jspf.or.jp/JPFRS/PDF/Vol1/jpfrs1998_01-003.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|title=Highlights in Early Stellarator Research at Princeton. Stix. 1997}}</ref> The last and most powerful stellarator at this time was the "racetrack" [[Model C stellarator|Model&nbsp;C]] (operating from 1961 to 1969).<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yoshikawa |first=S. |last2=Stix |first2=T.H. |date=1985-09-01 |title=Experiments on the Model C stellarator |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0029-5515/25/9/047 |journal=Nuclear Fusion |volume=25 |issue=9 |pages=1275–1279 |doi=10.1088/0029-5515/25/9/047 |issn=0029-5515}}</ref>