Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
On Dec 25, 2009, at 4:02 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Steven Krivit wrote: Fleischmann, M., et al., Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263, p. 187-188, (1989) In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved species there must therefore be a significant number of close collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D + such as 2D + 2D 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v) or 2D + 2D 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi) be feasible under these conditions? By golly they did say that, didn't they! I have to admit, Steve is right on this. It was a dumb thing for FP to say, but they said it. I think it is important to keep in mind they went on to clarify their position: The most surprising feature of our results however, is that reactions (v) and (vi) are only a small part of the overall reaction scheme and that the bulk of the energy release is due to an hitherto unknown nuclear process or processes (presumably again due to deuterons). It was obvious from the ratio of heat to neutrons that nothing like these reactions could be happening. That is what Pons said in Congressional Testimony in April 1989. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CSSThearingbef.pdf . . . I would like to say that if we try to explain the magnitude of the heat by the conventional deuterium deuterium reaction, which I showed a couple of slides ago, we find that we have 10 to the ninth times more energy from these thermal measurements than that represented by this neutron and tritium that we observe. So apparently there is another nuclear reaction or another branch to the deuterium deuterium fusion reaction that heretofore has not been considered, and it is that that we propose is, indeed, the mechanism of the excess heat generation. . . . Apparently, in the original paper the phrase such as before these two equations means: broadly interpreted, something along the lines of the following reactions, except aneutronic . . . They should have inserted something similar to what Pons said two months later. - Jed At 06:08 PM 12/24/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: Steven Krivit wrote: On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M. Fleischmann and S. Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion . . . Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. I don't get this. I don't think Fleischmann and Pons ever claimed this is fusion caused by heat (thermo-nuclear fusion). Or anything remotely like plasma fusion. The only people who said that were the skeptics. I think the emphasis here should be on the word novel and not thermonuclear. The use of the term thermonuclear is totally appropriate in this historical context because the only kinds of fusion at the time were either thermonuclear, muon catlayzed, or beam type kinetic fusion. It is clear even from the first article PF knew of what they spoke. It was a hitherto unknown nuclear process. It was clearly neither a beam type nor a muon type, but could have been a thermonuclear process on some plane of understanding. It was reasonable, given the Lawson criteria, or the triple criteria, that the high density and high effective pressure of the lattice, combined with some form of lattice mechanics, might overcome the lack of high temperature, and thus something similar to thermonuclear fusion might be involved, even if it drastically changed the branching ratios. Given the lattice mechanics involved is electron catalysis, the above is still a viable description of cold fusion. I spell out some of the mechanics that may be involved in the branching ratio changes on pp 3-11 of: http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
At 16:50: on Fri, 25 Dec 2009, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote [snip] Yeah. Very high compression and mobility is somewhat of a proxy for very high temperature. But not exactly. Thermonuclear fusion would refer to fusion taking place because of the high energy of the nuclei, allowing them to overcome the Coulomb barrier by sheer momentum. High compression and mobility, absent the high nuclear velocities, would increase the number of potential collisions and possibly reveal some tunneling or shielding effect. No idea was expressed, in the news conference or this article, that high temperature was the cause of the apparent nuclear reaction. And that is what thermonuclear means. [end snip] I think if he meant heat he would have said so, I suggest this was a very early attempt at what Naudts later calls relativistic hydrogen or what Caltech refers to as squeezing toward a one dimensional atom. Since the energy density between the conductors of a Casimir cavity is less than normal, Casimir energy is said to be negative. The very high mobility mentioned by P/F is not a proxy for high temperature. The atom is actually decelerating relative to any reference point outside of the catalyst plates. The absolute delta of acceleration between a reference point in the normal isotropic ZPF and the reduced ZPF field is still energy but I wouldn't call it heat. Relativity through equivalent acceleration normally occurs at astronomical distances where gravity accumulates at a slow gradient as a space craft takes position in a deep gravity well. Cavity QED however suggests equivalence can also occur as an abrupt boundary where the situation is reversed, The higher energy ZPF exists outside of bubble formed by the plates of a cavity such as the skeletal catalyst Rayney nickel or the pores of plated cathode alloy in electrolysis. The lower suppressed energy inside the plates would represent a gravitational hill as opposed to a well, Italian researchers DiFiore et all pretty much proved this differential can not be exploited into a lifting force so we must presume it is either a drag on the ambient field outside the plates or there is a balance inside the plates where distributed wells exactly matches the segregated hills accumulated in the depletion zone between the plates. IMHO Fran
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
Fleischmann, M., et al., http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/1989/1989Fleischmann-PrelimNote.pdfElectrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263, p. 187-188, (1989) In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved species there must therefore be a significant number of close collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D+ such as 2D + 2D 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v) or 2D + 2D 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi) be feasible under these conditions? At 03:08 PM 12/24/2009, you wrote: Steven Krivit wrote: On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M. Fleischmann and S. Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion . . . Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. I don't get this. I don't think Fleischmann and Pons ever claimed this is fusion caused by heat (thermo-nuclear fusion). Or anything remotely like plasma fusion. The only people who said that were the skeptics. The suggestion that LENR research represented a new form of thermonuclear fusion has caused significant confusion. This suggestion was a strawman argument by the skeptics intended to cause confusion. No cold fusion researcher has made this suggestion as far as I know. I hope the rest of the article makes this clear. In 1989 I knew a little about plasma fusion, mainly because I had observed plasma fusion experiments back in college, conducted by my roommate (a grad student). When I read the Wall Street Journal article about cold fusion, based on this rudimentary knowledge it took me about 5 seconds to conclude that whatever Fleischmann and Pons had discovered, it could not be anything like plasma fusion. (Of course I assumed it might be an experimental error or misunderstanding. I did not learn any details until Gene's book came out.) I am sure Fleischmann and Pons reached that some conclusion. Although Pons was upset with researchers in 1989 who said there were no neutrons, so in a sense he still had one foot stuck back in the plasma fusion model. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
At 06:24 PM 12/25/2009, Steven Krivit wrote: Fleischmann, M., et al., Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263, p. 187-188, (1989) In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved species there must therefore be a significant number of close collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D+ such as 2D + 2D 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v) or 2D + 2D 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi) be feasible under these conditions? Yeah. Very high compression and mobility is somewhat of a proxy for very high temperature. But not exactly. Thermonuclear fusion would refer to fusion taking place because of the high energy of the nuclei, allowing them to overcome the Coulomb barrier by sheer momentum. High compression and mobility, absent the high nuclear velocities, would increase the number of potential collisions and possibly reveal some tunneling or shielding effect. No idea was expressed, in the news conference or this article, that high temperature was the cause of the apparent nuclear reaction. And that is what thermonuclear means. Webster's on-line dictionary defines thermonuclear as: of, relating to, or employing transformations in the nuclei of atoms of low atomic weight (as hydrogen) that require a very high temperature for their inception You wrote, if I'm correct, in the encyclopedia article: Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. As the introduction to the article, the text quoted above from them explains the question that they were researching. They were looking for evidence of those reactions. Now, oddly, they didn't find that evidence. They found something else, heat without the levels of tritium and neutron radiation which those reactions are known to produce. The conditions were not thermonuclear. After they have presented their experimental results, they state: We realise that the results reported here raise more questions than they provide answers, and that much further work is required on this topic. The observation of the generation of neutrons and of tritium from electrochemically compressed D+ in a Pd cathode is in itself a very surprising result and, evidently, it is necessary to reconsider the quantum mechanics of electrons and deuterons in such host lattices. In particular we must ask: is it possible to achieve a fusion rate of 10-19 s-l for reactions (v) and (vi) for clusters of deuterons (presumably located in the octahedral lattice positions) at typical energies of 1 eV? at typical energies of 1 eV That means *not* thermonuclear. It means at low temperatures. High density, low temperatures. This article does not support the text that claims that their hypothesis was a novel form of thermonuclear fusion. We must say that they were claiming fusion, yes, that was laced through what they wrote, though they were aware that too little was known to really come up with something solid. I don't see that they proposed a mechanism, and a thermonuclear reaction would be very unlikely (from, perhaps, fractofusion?), wouldn't explain the experimental results, and the question they were asking was what could happen at low energies (temperatures), not high.
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
Steven Krivit wrote: Fleischmann, M., et al., Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuteriumhttp://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/1989/1989Fleischmann-PrelimNote.pdf, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263, p. 187-188, (1989) In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved species there must therefore be a significant number of close collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D+ such as 2D + 2D 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v) or 2D + 2D 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi) be feasible under these conditions? By golly they did say that, didn't they! I have to admit, Steve is right on this. It was a dumb thing for FP to say, but they said it. It was obvious from the ratio of heat to neutrons that nothing like these reactions could be happening. That is what Pons said in Congressional Testimony in April 1989. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CSSThearingbef.pdf . . . I would like to say that if we try to explain the magnitude of the heat by the conventional deuterium deuterium reaction, which I showed a couple of slides ago, we find that we have 10 to the ninth times more energy from these thermal measurements than that represented by this neutron and tritium that we observe. So apparently there is another nuclear reaction or another branch to the deuterium deuterium fusion reaction that heretofore has not been considered, and it is that that we propose is, indeed, the mechanism of the excess heat generation. . . . Apparently, in the original paper the phrase such as before these two equations means: broadly interpreted, something along the lines of the following reactions, except aneutronic . . . They should have inserted something similar to what Pons said two months later. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
I do not want to make too big a deal about this, by the way. I think thermonuclear is technically inaccurate in this context but broadly speaking, taken to mean conventional, known, plasma fusion reactions then Steve is right. This hypothesis has dogged the field. I do not think Fleischmann and Pons proposed that hypothesis but someone reading their first paper might have gotten that impression. As I said, I wish they had inserted the caveat Pons introduced a few months later, in his testimony. They had been thinking about this subject for a long time and they are not fools, so I am sure they knew long before they published that this cannot be a normal fusion reaction. Charles Beaudette told me that the paper was written in haste. Perhaps it was the best they could do in a short time. There were a number of sloppy errors corrected in the next issue of the journal so evidently it was written in a hurry. I do not recall why. Perhaps to ensure priority because of the showdown with Steve Jones. Regarding the hypothesis that extreme pressure causes the reaction, that is discussed in the Congressional testimony referenced above, and in Mizuno's book. I think people still take that hypothesis seriously. It is difficult to discuss this or any other scientific subject in a congressional hearing because you have to be 100% honest and not condescending, but at the same time you cannot use the kind of detailed technical language Mizuno uses in his book, and you have to say everything in a few minutes. Pons did his best, saying: On the next slide, we point out that if, indeed, you would try to -- if you were to try to obtain that same voltage by the compression of hydrogen gas to get that same chemical potential of .8 volts, you would have to exert a hydrostatic pressure of a billion, billion, billion atmospheres, tremendously high pressure. And, further, we see -- or the point here is that also these pressures -- or certainly these pressures, absolute hydrostatic pressures, are not attained inside the metal lattice. The dissolution of this material, these atoms going to these ions inside the lattice, represents a very high energy process, and it is not very well understood. . . . - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
At 08:24 PM 12/25/2009, you wrote: I do not want to make too big a deal about this, by the way. I think thermonuclear is technically inaccurate in this context but broadly speaking, taken to mean conventional, known, plasma fusion reactions then Steve is right. This hypothesis has dogged the field. I do not think Fleischmann and Pons proposed that hypothesis but someone reading their first paper might have gotten that impression. I agree with this. That 1989 paper did not actually propose those reactions as a hypothesis, but the writing was obscure and it could certainly look like that. As I said, I wish they had inserted the caveat Pons introduced a few months later, in his testimony. They had been thinking about this subject for a long time and they are not fools, so I am sure they knew long before they published that this cannot be a normal fusion reaction. Charles Beaudette told me that the paper was written in haste. Perhaps it was the best they could do in a short time. There were a number of sloppy errors corrected in the next issue of the journal so evidently it was written in a hurry. I do not recall why. Perhaps to ensure priority because of the showdown with Steve Jones. Yeah, seems possible. We have a technical term for situations like this. Mess. Regarding the hypothesis that extreme pressure causes the reaction, that is discussed in the Congressional testimony referenced above, and in Mizuno's book. I think people still take that hypothesis seriously. It is difficult to discuss this or any other scientific subject in a congressional hearing because you have to be 100% honest and not condescending, but at the same time you cannot use the kind of detailed technical language Mizuno uses in his book, and you have to say everything in a few minutes. Pons did his best, saying: On the next slide, we point out that if, indeed, you would try to -- if you were to try to obtain that same voltage by the compression of hydrogen gas to get that same chemical potential of .8 volts, you would have to exert a hydrostatic pressure of a billion, billion, billion atmospheres, tremendously high pressure. That's an interesting statement, since Fleischmann mentioned, in the press conference, 10^27 atmospheres as the equivalent pressure to the conditions attained in the lattice. A billion, billion, billion. And, further, we see -- or the point here is that also these pressures -- or certainly these pressures, absolute hydrostatic pressures, are not attained inside the metal lattice. The dissolution of this material, these atoms going to these ions inside the lattice, represents a very high energy process, and it is not very well understood. . . . Taubes claims that Fleischmann had made a calculation error with the 10^27 figure. Has Fleischmann written about this, later? Fleischmann was really writing about compression, i.e., resulting density, not pressure, per se. But 10^27 is still vastly too high. What did he have in mind?
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
On Dec 25, 2009, at 4:02 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Steven Krivit wrote: Fleischmann, M., et al., Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium, Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261, Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263, p. 187-188, (1989) In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved species there must therefore be a significant number of close collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D + such as 2D + 2D 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v) or 2D + 2D 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi) be feasible under these conditions? By golly they did say that, didn't they! I have to admit, Steve is right on this. It was a dumb thing for FP to say, but they said it. I think it is important to keep in mind they went on to clarify their position: The most surprising feature of our results however, is that reactions (v) and (vi) are only a small part of the overall reaction scheme and that the bulk of the energy release is due to an hitherto unknown nuclear process or processes (presumably again due to deuterons). It was obvious from the ratio of heat to neutrons that nothing like these reactions could be happening. That is what Pons said in Congressional Testimony in April 1989. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/CSSThearingbef.pdf . . . I would like to say that if we try to explain the magnitude of the heat by the conventional deuterium deuterium reaction, which I showed a couple of slides ago, we find that we have 10 to the ninth times more energy from these thermal measurements than that represented by this neutron and tritium that we observe. So apparently there is another nuclear reaction or another branch to the deuterium deuterium fusion reaction that heretofore has not been considered, and it is that that we propose is, indeed, the mechanism of the excess heat generation. . . . Apparently, in the original paper the phrase such as before these two equations means: broadly interpreted, something along the lines of the following reactions, except aneutronic . . . They should have inserted something similar to what Pons said two months later. - Jed Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
I can't post my encyclopedia papers on the Web at this time, however, I have permission to email them to anybody who is interested, so don't hesitate to ask, I'm happy to save you the $1800. (Actually, they may end up selling individual chapters, I don't know.) Steve By golly they did say that, didn't they! I have to admit, Steve is right on this. It was a dumb thing for FP to say, but they said it. I think it is important to keep in mind they went on to clarify their position: The most surprising feature of our results however, is that reactions (v) and (vi) are only a small part of the overall reaction scheme and that the bulk of the energy release is due to an hitherto unknown nuclear process or processes (presumably again due to deuterons).
[Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
http://www.elsevierdirect.com/brochures/ecps/Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources Five-Volume Set Krivit, S.B, Cold Fusion: History, Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 271276, ISBN 9780444520937 Krivit, S.B, Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, Encyclopedia of Electrochemical Power Sources, Vol 2, Juergen Garche, Chris Dyer, Patrick Moseley, Zempachi Ogumi, David Rand and Bruno Scrosati, eds, Amsterdam: Elsevier; Nov. 2009. p. 255270, ISBN 9780444520937 (Author copies are available on request) stev...@newenergytimes.com
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
That's great! For my database, please upload the abstracts here. If they don't have abstracts, the few paragraphs. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
At 11:21 AM 12/24/2009, you wrote: That's great! For my database, please upload the abstracts here. If they don't have abstracts, the few paragraphs. - Jed Jed, There are no abstracts. Feel free to publish the introductions. Steve Cold Fusion Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions SB Krivit, New Energy Times, San Rafael, CA, USA 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M. Fleischmann and S. Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion in a tabletop chemistry experiment. Since then, evidence of fusion in what is now called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research has grown only slightly stronger. Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. On the contrary, LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for some sort of nuclear process or processes though not necessarily fusion year after year. The suggestion that LENR research represented a new form of thermonuclear fusion has caused significant confusion. The two fields, thermonuclear fusion and LENR research, and their respective sets of phenomena are very different. Therefore, direct comparisons between the two are irrelevant. Cold Fusion: History SB Krivit, New Energy Times, San Rafael, CA, USA 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Introduction Research on low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) originated as the result of an electrolysis experiment that used the elements palladium (a heavy metal) and deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). The first modern experiment was performed by Martin Fleischmann and B. Stanley Pons at the University of Utah in early 1985. Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters of the University of Berlin preceded Fleischmann and Pons with a similar experiment in 1926. Fleischmann and Pons used an electrochemical method of generating nuclear energy, in the form of heat, in a way previously unrecognized by nuclear physicists. The two electrochemists announced their work at a press conference on 23 March 1989. They said that they had attained a sustained nuclear fusion reaction. The media identified the discovery as cold fusion. This event initiated a new field of science. It did not belong exclusively to chemistry, physics, or any other scientific discipline. As the field approaches its third decade, much has been learned, but certain significant facts remain unknown. However, this limitation is not unexpected, considering the novelty and scope of the subject matter.
RE: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
What an excellent Christmas present for the field of LENR research... Merry Christmas all! -Mark _ From: Steven Krivit [mailto:stev...@newenergytimes.com] Sent: Thursday, December 24, 2009 11:44 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish At 11:21 AM 12/24/2009, you wrote: That's great! For my database, please upload the abstracts here. If they don't have abstracts, the few paragraphs. - Jed Jed, There are no abstracts. Feel free to publish the introductions. Steve Cold Fusion - Precursor to Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions SB Krivit, New Energy Times, San Rafael, CA, USA 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M. Fleischmann and S. Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion in a tabletop chemistry experiment. Since then, evidence of fusion in what is now called low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research has grown only slightly stronger. Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. On the contrary, LENR experiments have continued to demonstrate increasingly convincing evidence for some sort of nuclear process or processes - though not necessarily fusion - year after year. The suggestion that LENR research represented a new form of thermonuclear fusion has caused significant confusion. The two fields, thermonuclear fusion and LENR research, and their respective sets of phenomena are very different. Therefore, direct comparisons between the two are irrelevant. Cold Fusion: History SB Krivit, New Energy Times, San Rafael, CA, USA 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Introduction Research on low-energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) originated as the result of an electrolysis experiment that used the elements palladium (a heavy metal) and deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). The first modern experiment was performed by Martin Fleischmann and B. Stanley Pons at the University of Utah in early 1985. Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters of the University of Berlin preceded Fleischmann and Pons with a similar experiment in 1926. Fleischmann and Pons used an electrochemical method of generating nuclear energy, in the form of heat, in a way previously unrecognized by nuclear physicists. The two electrochemists announced their work at a press conference on 23 March 1989. They said that they had attained a 'sustained nuclear fusion reaction'. The media identified the discovery as 'cold fusion'. This event initiated a new field of science. It did not belong exclusively to chemistry, physics, or any other scientific discipline. As the field approaches its third decade, much has been learned, but certain significant facts remain unknown. However, this limitation is not unexpected, considering the novelty and scope of the subject matter. No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.722 / Virus Database: 270.14.117/2583 - Release Date: 12/24/09 00:11:00
Re: [Vo]:Krivit Elsevier Encyclopedia Articles Publish
Steven Krivit wrote: On 23 March 1989, electrochemists M. Fleischmann and S. Pons claimed in a press conference at the University of Utah that they had achieved nuclear fusion . . . Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was responsible for their experimental results is still unproved. I don't get this. I don't think Fleischmann and Pons ever claimed this is fusion caused by heat (thermo-nuclear fusion). Or anything remotely like plasma fusion. The only people who said that were the skeptics. The suggestion that LENR research represented a new form of thermonuclear fusion has caused significant confusion. This suggestion was a strawman argument by the skeptics intended to cause confusion. No cold fusion researcher has made this suggestion as far as I know. I hope the rest of the article makes this clear. In 1989 I knew a little about plasma fusion, mainly because I had observed plasma fusion experiments back in college, conducted by my roommate (a grad student). When I read the Wall Street Journal article about cold fusion, based on this rudimentary knowledge it took me about 5 seconds to conclude that whatever Fleischmann and Pons had discovered, it could not be anything like plasma fusion. (Of course I assumed it might be an experimental error or misunderstanding. I did not learn any details until Gene's book came out.) I am sure Fleischmann and Pons reached that some conclusion. Although Pons was upset with researchers in 1989 who said there were no neutrons, so in a sense he still had one foot stuck back in the plasma fusion model. - Jed
