Ok, I am haunted by this brilliant insight, just the same as my famous 'Water Laser'. All of which will be safely ignored in our era of influencer hype.
The only two fusion things we got going are the Hydrogen Bomb, and the Sun. Both work on exactly the same physics, but nobody would say that.
How does the sun do this trick? It has a low Rayleigh Number, and thus, violent convection. The same as the atmosphere on Earth. If it was thick, like Venus, and the clange version of Earth, there would be no fusion, and I wouldn't be sitting here, wasting typing-finger energy.
The key to fusion is 'Constant Pressure Confinement'. That's nearly impossible to get. All easy confinement is 'Constant Displacement' like a pressure pot. A diesel engine comes close, but the piston motion is mostly dictated by external forces. I doubt it come close to constant pressure.
The Sun does this with violent convection. Cold fuel (hydrogen) sinks in convection cells. With gravity, it reaches a point where the heat and pressure can start the fusion process. However, the first atoms that pop (with neutrons) destroy the whole arrangement. This is like a kernel of popcorn.
The cell must be kept in a state of constant pressure, and the pressure must be such that we only get a 'semi-pop', like the popcorn kernel must cracked and ready to split. This happens easily with a convection cell. But, the cell cannot rise until all the fuel is in the ready state. Otherwise, there is no energy. The cell then starts to rise, and create heat energy as we get the full pop.
It is exactly the same with the bomb.
-- tbc
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