Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Jed, (sorry for the late reply, finding it hard to keep up with the high volume of postings lately, could power contributors make attempts at conciseness please?) 2009/11/18 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com: I forgot to mention a critical factor. Heat stimulation of cold fusion reactions seems to occur remarkably slowly. Fleischmann and Biberian both told me they used a heat pulse to trigger the boil off reaction. It worked something like this: Turn up electrolysis power for 3 minutes. The temperature starts to rise. Turn the power back down again. Temperature stabilizes, starts to fall . . . Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . Minutes later the cell starts to self-heat, as positive feedback kicks in. It ramps up slowly, over several minutes, and finally reaches the climax boil off (as Biberian calls it). Interesting! It may not be the heat pulse per se that triggered the LENRs. When you turn the electrolysis power back down (to a non zero initial value previously maintained for a long time, right?) after having turned it up for several minutes, you get desorption don't you? This, plus the flickering hot spots observed on the (probably desorbing) back of the Mylar backed SPAWAR cathode discussed the other day (if they are indeed CF effects which I see Horace disputes)... Any additional experimental evidence of the PF effect occurring on simultaneously desorbing and electrolyzing Pd surfaces? Michel
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 28, 2009, at 9:27 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: This, plus the flickering hot spots observed on the (probably desorbing) back of the Mylar backed SPAWAR cathode discussed the other day (if they are indeed CF effects which I see Horace disputes)... Any additional experimental evidence of the PF effect occurring on simultaneously desorbing and electrolyzing Pd surfaces? Michel I don't necessarily *dispute* that the flashing hot spots are CF effects. I only think that should remain an open question. I would of course love to see it proved that the flashes were driven by nuclear energy, but I think that is far from certain at this point. It will take correlating the flashes with nuclear events to prove it one way or another, possibly in conjunction with trace tritium to ensure neutron generation from any fusion events large enough to create a flash. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:00:55 -0500: Hi, [snip] Turn up electrolysis power for 3 minutes. The temperature starts to rise. Turn the power back down again. Temperature stabilizes, starts to fall . . . Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . Minutes later the cell starts to self-heat, as positive feedback kicks in. It ramps up slowly, over several minutes, and finally reaches the climax boil off (as Biberian calls it). [snip] Minutes are typical time intervals for thermal transmission. Perhaps it just takes a while for the heat to reach the active sites? Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Robin van Spaandonk wrote: Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . Minutes later the cell starts to self-heat, as positive feedback kicks in. It ramps up slowly, over several minutes, and finally reaches the climax boil off (as Biberian calls it). [snip] Minutes are typical time intervals for thermal transmission. Perhaps it just takes a while for the heat to reach the active sites? No doubt that is the reason. The same thing happens when you heat the cell by other means, such as a joule heater. Whether it heats itself or is heated externally, it works the same way, and that is why we know it is the heat that does the trick, not neutrons or some other product of the reaction. This is a slow and unreliable way to control the reaction. I doubt that temperature will became an effective way to modulate the reaction in a practical device. If there is a way to do that, I guess it would be de-gassing nanoparticles. I hope that cold fusion can be modulated. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Taylor J. Smith wrote: Try Bible-dipping and find By their works you shall know them. Are they doing a terrible job? Do you think it is some accident that there has been very little US government funding for cold fusion research since the announcement by Pons and Fleischmann in 1989? Of course not. Everyone knows that this research has been suppressed since 1989. However, the people suppressing it are academic scientists at the APS and the DoE, not secret government agents. The methods they use include things like: Ridicule in the mass media. Publishing books attacking the research. Rejecting papers without peer-review. Reassigning distinguished scientists such as Miles to menial tasks, and trying to fire Bockris. The methods do not include things like Men in Black harassing me. (With the possible exception that someone at Google may be deliberately preventing their search engine from indexing the DIA document.) The dispute is driven by academic politics, not national security concerns. People at the national security and intelligence agencies, other than the DIA, all believe that cold fusion was never replicated and there is no truth to it. The skeptics are all convinced there is nothing to it. It isn't as if they fear it might work after all, so they have redoubled their efforts. The thought that they might be mistaken has never crossed their minds. That much I am sure of, based on many encounters with them. Do you think that all the savage attacks on cold fusion have been motivated by altruism? Or is it possible that some of the sceptics are hired guns? Why would anyone bother to hire people to do this? Any number of people such as Taubes, Huizenga, Close and Park are anxious to do it for free. Actually, Taubes is doing it for money. That's what he told some cold fusion researchers. The Men in Black need not pay him; Random House did. The American Nuclear Society paid Hoffman a large sum to write his book. I think it was $120,000. Why should the Men in Black pay secret hired guns when Random House and the American Nuclear Society are openly paying authors to trash the research? The Scientific American, the New Scientist and Nature trash it for fun, or to sell magazines. Attacking cold fusion has been profitable and enjoyable to the skeptics. It has enhanced their reputations and furthered their careers. Taubes is a certified idiot who does not understand the first thing about electricity, yet he persuaded four Nobel laureates and the head of the AAAS to plug his book, in the back cover blurb. That's a huge favor! A fifth rate hack like him would never score these blurbs by attacking some other research. There is plenty of motivation and opportunity to attack cold fusion. There is no need to postulate someone behind the scenes pulling strings or paying off people such as Taubes. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 23, 2009, at 7:10 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Taylor J. Smith wrote: Try Bible-dipping and find By their works you shall know them. Are they doing a terrible job? Do you think it is some accident that there has been very little US government funding for cold fusion research since the announcement by Pons and Fleischmann in 1989? Of course not. Everyone knows that this research has been suppressed since 1989. However, the people suppressing it are academic scientists at the APS and the DoE, not secret government agents. The methods they use include things like: Ridicule in the mass media. Publishing books attacking the research. Rejecting papers without peer-review. Reassigning distinguished scientists such as Miles to menial tasks, and trying to fire Bockris. . Let's not forget suppression of patents, at least in the US. That kills off industrial development and research investment within the US, at least somewhat. Though probably instigated by pathological skeptic academics, it is still an official governmental agency policy. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Horace Heffner wrote: The methods they use include things like: Ridicule in the mass media. Publishing books attacking the research. . . . . Let's not forget suppression of patents, at least in the US. That kills off industrial development and research investment within the US, at least somewhat. . . . Sure. I have a memo circulated at the Patent Office on June 5, 1989 instructing inspectors to be on the lookout for fusion patent applications, so they can be shunted aside, presumably in order to reject them summarily. It does not actually say they will be rejected, but they all were. There are other methods as well. I did mean that was a comprehensive list. My point is that the suppression has been overt, not covert. The methods are obvious to everyone. The people suppressing cold fusion are not trying to keep their activities quiet. On the contrary, at every opportunity they brag about what they did, in the mass media and at conferences. Though probably instigated by pathological skeptic academics, it is still an official governmental agency policy. It sure is. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Steven V Johnson wrote: I'm sure this was stated with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.;-) Not really. I'd bet even money someone is diddling with the Google's search engine. It would be pointless to speculate about who or why. My apologies if the following speculation has already been discussed at length, but isn't it conceivable that Google's search engines focus on the data mining of actual text. Since the DIA report is in an image/graphic format there is no actual text for which Google can directly index. Nope. I converted it to image-over-text Acrobat format. Google has indexed other documents in this format. Plus there are claims on the net that Google OCRs image-only Acrobat files automatically. Also, it is not finding this text on the HTML main screen at LENR-CANR.org. It found this very same text a few days ago, but now it has stopped finding it. This is unprecedented as far as I know. All HTML text at LENR-CANR has always be indexed and made available. Therefore, Google is unintentionally blind to its existence. Honestly, this does not look like a program error to me. I have looking at program errors for nigh on 40 years, and this ain't one. It reminds me a little of the fake MIT data with 7 or more extra data points mysteriously crammed into the first 20 hours. Computers never do that sort of thing. See p. 23 here: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMisoperibol.pdf If you set out to deceive people, you should not use inept, transparent lies. They fooled the skeptics but they only insulted my intelligence. It took me 2 seconds to see this was fake. I have never had any doubt about it. It could not be inadvertent or unnoticed. I do not know exactly who did it, or when they did it. (I think Gene told me it was probably Stanley C. Luckhardt, a co-author to the Albagli paper in which this figure appeared.) So I suppose my observation would not constitute legal proof. But I think any sane, unbiased programmer would agree that the data points have been manually changed. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:05:15 -0800: Hi, [snip] Speaking of real demos of CANR chain reactions ... in fact a very old demo with a high death toll... IOW, speaking of nuclear triggers in the historical sense ... which could be exactly on point to this subject - via the uber-secret project that led a few experts at Los Alamos to the realization that deuterium is chemically active for nuclear reactions ... i.e. when rapidly mixed with the proper ingredient (photon activated chlorine) D2 can release copious neutrons, which can be used (and were) as a trigger... ...that is the one major secret from the Manhattan project that was fairly well kept - the Kistiakowsky trigger, but as I have opined before, the [snip] Note that according to Mills in his paper http://www.blacklightpower.com/papers/Commercializable%20Paper%20101409.pdf HCl is a Mills catalyst. The reaction D2 + Cl = D + DCl would produce lots of D atoms which could then be shrunk with the help of the catalytic DCl. Once severely shrunken D atoms combined to form shrunken D molecules, the D-D reaction D + D = He3 + n could produce neutrons. The photo activation helps by ensuring a large population of D and Cl atoms. (The reaction D + Cl2 = DCl + Cl also takes place). See also the Scragg patents (http://www.rexresearch.com/scragg/scragg.htm) e.g. US patent 4,024,715. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
on Friday, November 20, 2009 2:41:11 AM Mark Iverson said the discussion about chain reactions in LENR-type experiments... Not sure if I got the below reference from vortex-l or not, but, in a general sense, it seems that it is saying that under certain conditions, normally incoherent behavior can suddenly become coherent... Mark, check out what happens to D1 in the superwave video -It looks like a school of fish inside the lattice! Fran http://newenergytimes.com/v2/commerce/energeticstech/SuperWaveProcess.shtml
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Some typos corrected below. On Nov 18, 2009, at 5:02 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: The reactions appear to be completely independent of one another. I base that on the patterns of heat shown in IR cameras. Also the damage and the autoradiographs. . . . The point I meant to make is that with a chain reaction from one area on the cathode to other areas, caused by neutrons or something analogous to photons in a laser, I would expect to see the reaction begin at one spot and then spread out from there, perhaps in waves. U ... this is what I wrote about, a genuine chain reaction. Not for all cold fusion processes, but as a side effect, just due to the fact cold fusion can be expected to build up hyperons, and these hyperons are capable of chain reactions triggered by cosmic rays. If you read my paper you should be able to see this: http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf A small cosmic ray initiated chain reaction event can be expected to be all over long before the metal involved shows any outward signs of melting or evaporating. The collective motions of the mass of metal atoms is slow compared to the rate at which a photon based or near light speed particle based chain reaction can speed through the lattice. The effects of the heating, i.e. liquid metal motion and gas release, follow after the chain reaction is over. Instead, you see random spots appear and disappear, all over the cathode. The spots would be coordinated over time in some pattern, not random. As the cathode heats up you do see more and more hot spots, but they are not adjacent or coordinated. Exactly what you would expect from small cosmic ray initiated chain reaction events. Here is a macroscopic mousetrap chain reaction that starts at one spot and spreads in waves to the rest of the material: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzPN-vdP_0NR=1 Here is another, not as clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLv8Qflg6PQ When I say waves I mean the reaction runs out of material with potential energy in the initial location, so it peters out there while spreading out from that spot. You do not see patterns like this on cathodes. Cold fusion reactions also seem to go for a short while at a small spot, and then stop for a while. That's what the IR camera shows. I have serious doubts the camera is actually showing cold fusion events. See below. When a spot peters out and stops, I do not think it has run out of fuel. I assume the NAE is not longer suitable for some reason, for a while, and then it becomes suitable again. - Jed The fact the sparse hyperons are used up by the chain reaction, and then regenerated by CF, makes the theory I proposed fully consistent with the above. However, I suspect the SPAWAR flashes on Pd mesh are *not* cold fusion, as noted below, For a chain reaction of the kind I suggested to occur there has to be a high D loading, and more importantly, there has to be a build up of low binding energy hyperons sufficient to sustain the chain reaction throughout the hot spot. Hyperons, and possibly stable kaons, were suggested to result from highly de-energized cold fusion reactions, i.e. deflated hydrogen fusion reactions, that precede the chain reaction. Some of these strange quark containing H/He entities are known to have very low (keV order) binding energies. This was noted on page 9 ff of: http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf This means a chain reaction can be sustained merely by x-ray stimulation of such nuclei, or other keV order stimulation, by high energy particles. A single MeV particle can thus unbind numerous hyperons, depending on their local density. When such hyperons are disrupted, more high energy particles are generated which can trigger further hyperon disintegrations. It may be that some mu- muons can be generated from some hyperon disintegrations, thus triggering some ordinary muon based cold fusion. However, if the bulk of hyperons release K0 kaons, or produce decay of otherwise stable K0 kaons, then the bulk of the muons resulting will be neutral. It takes the build-up of a sufficient density of low binding energy hyperons to sustain a chain reaction, and they are not the triggers but rather a partial fuel. It is also notable that the ability of a hyperon chain reaction to actually *sustain*, to not be a fast event, is affected not only by the local density of hyperons, but also by the volume and shape of hyperon dense material, and its ability to sustain hyperon generation through ordinary cold fusion. One difficulty is such a reaction is very difficult to moderate, so it has to essentially proceed in small controlled bangs. Once a critical density of hyperons is obtained in a locality, a single cosmic ray can clearly set off a chain reaction, so fuel storage is not feasible. The hyperons
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
At 10:08 AM 11/18/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: To my knowledge, there have been no cold fusion experiments at cryogenic temperatures. Muon-catalyzed fusion. Alvarez used a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, didn't he?
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Does heat speed up the rate the muon does it's job freeing it up sooner? Of course that goes against the cryogenic thing. On Fri, Nov 20, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: At 10:08 AM 11/18/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: To my knowledge, there have been no cold fusion experiments at cryogenic temperatures. Muon-catalyzed fusion. Alvarez used a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, didn't he?
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: To my knowledge, there have been no cold fusion experiments at cryogenic temperatures. Muon-catalyzed fusion. Alvarez used a liquid hydrogen bubble chamber, didn't he? I meant the metal lattice Fleischmann-Pons effect. But as it happens, I was wrong. I forgot there have been experiments with Ti chips cooled in liquid nitrogen. Such as: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MenloveHOreproducib.pdf - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
RE: the discussion about chain reactions in LENR-type experiments... Not sure if I got the below reference from vortex-l or not, but, in a general sense, it seems that it is saying that under certain conditions, normally incoherent behavior can suddenly become coherent... i.e., the behavior of atoms or subatomic particles, at least locally, changes into something that rarely occurs in the bulk. This just seems to mirror what I perceive as occuring in the Pd lattice; namely, that conditions come about that cause some kind of coherent atomic/QM behavior that results in reactions that will never occur under normal bulk conditions... -Mark -- REFERENCE BELOW AU - Piot, B. A. TI - Wigner crystallization in a quasi-three-dimensional electronic system JA - Nat Phys PY - 2008/10/05/online PB - Nature Publishing Group SN - 1745-2481 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nphys1094 Abstract When a strong magnetic field is applied perpendicularly (along z) to a sheet confining electrons to two dimensions (x-y), highly correlated states emerge as a result of the interplay between electron-electron interactions, confinement and disorder. These so-called fractional quantum Hall liquids (1) form a series of states that ultimately give way to a periodic electron solid that crystallizes at high magnetic fields. This quantum phase of electrons has been identified previously as a disorder-pinned two-dimensional Wigner crystal with broken translational symmetry in the x-y plane (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). Here, we report our discovery of a new insulating quantum phase of electrons when, in addition to a perpendicular field, a very high magnetic field is applied in a geometry parallel (y direction) to the two-dimensional electron sheet. Our data point towards this new quantum phase being an electron solid in a 'quasi-three-dimensional' configuration induced by orbital coupling with the parallel field. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.425 / Virus Database: 270.14.73/2513 - Release Date: 11/19/09 07:51:00 attachment: winmail.dat
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 17, 2009, at 7:00 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: . If someone can show a trigger that works very rapidly with a huge amount of NEA, or what appears to be a very rapid chain reaction by some mechanism I have not heard of, then I am wrong. - Jed In the above statement you mean that you then will admit you are wrong. If you are wrong then you are of course wrong whether someone does a demonstration for you or not. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Horace Heffner wrote: . If someone can show a trigger that works very rapidly with a huge amount of NEA, or what appears to be a very rapid chain reaction by some mechanism I have not heard of, then I am wrong. In the above statement you mean that you then will admit you are wrong. If you are wrong then you are of course wrong whether someone does a demonstration for you or not. Ah, but unless someone does a demonstration, it is impossible for me to know if I am right or wrong. A theory proves nothing. Only an experiment can show what is true. So in a sense, until someone does a demonstration I am neither right nor wrong, sort of like Schodinger's cat that is both alive and dead. You have published a theory that postulates something might happen at cryogenic temperatures. That may be so, but until someone tests it by actual experiment, no human being possibly can know whether it is true or not, and an assertion that it is true is meaningless. It can only be plausible or implausible speculation. To my knowledge, there have been no cold fusion experiments at cryogenic temperatures. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Speaking of real demos of CANR chain reactions ... in fact a very old demo with a high death toll... IOW, speaking of nuclear triggers in the historical sense ... which could be exactly on point to this subject - via the uber-secret project that led a few experts at Los Alamos to the realization that deuterium is chemically active for nuclear reactions ... i.e. when rapidly mixed with the proper ingredient (photon activated chlorine) D2 can release copious neutrons, which can be used (and were) as a trigger... ...that is the one major secret from the Manhattan project that was fairly well kept - the Kistiakowsky trigger, but as I have opined before, the reason for keeping it secret probably relates to the Port Chicago incident and its aftermath more than anything else (because it was not a reliable trigger anyway, and because of the rewriting of the history of the so-called mutiny). George Kistiakowsky was one of the Russian trained scientists in the Manhattan project who did not spy for them and in fact hated Stalin. He was later to become a Harvard professor and Anti-Viet-Nam activist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Kistiakowsky -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell Subject: Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs Horace Heffner wrote: . If someone can show a trigger that works very rapidly with a huge amount of NEA, or what appears to be a very rapid chain reaction by some mechanism I have not heard of, then I am wrong. In the above statement you mean that you then will admit you are wrong. If you are wrong then you are of course wrong whether someone does a demonstration for you or not. Ah, but unless someone does a demonstration, it is impossible for me to know if I am right or wrong. A theory proves nothing. Only an experiment can show what is true. So in a sense, until someone does a demonstration I am neither right nor wrong, sort of like Schodinger's cat that is both alive and dead. You have published a theory that postulates something might happen at cryogenic temperatures. That may be so, but until someone tests it by actual experiment, no human being possibly can know whether it is true or not, and an assertion that it is true is meaningless. It can only be plausible or implausible speculation. To my knowledge, there have been no cold fusion experiments at cryogenic temperatures. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
In reply to Jed Rothwell's message of Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:16:45 -0500: Hi, [snip] And it will melt locally long before you get multiple generations of reactions from a large fraction of the total population of deuterons, because heat conducts very slowly compared to the timescale of a nuclear reaction. It conducts at the speed of sound. The speed of sound in metals is on the order of thousands of meters / second. If heat conducted at that speed you would burn your fingers the instant you put your teaspoon in your coffee. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/Project.html
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Robin van Spaandonk wrote: . . . heat conducts very slowly compared to the timescale of a nuclear reaction. It conducts at the speed of sound. The speed of sound in metals is on the order of thousands of meters / second. If heat conducted at that speed you would burn your fingers the instant you put your teaspoon in your coffee. Huh. Good point. And yet I have often read that the heat conducts at the speed of sound. Perhaps that means something like: the first temperature rise (vibration) in a long copper bar reaches a sensor at the speed of sound. Not that the entire thing comes up to the same temperature instantaneously. Maybe it reaches the other end quickly but attenuates. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Jed Rothwell wrote: Robin van Spaandonk wrote: . . . heat conducts very slowly compared to the timescale of a nuclear reaction. It conducts at the speed of sound. The speed of sound in metals is on the order of thousands of meters / second. If heat conducted at that speed you would burn your fingers the instant you put your teaspoon in your coffee. Huh. Good point. And yet I have often read that the heat conducts at the speed of sound. Perhaps that means something like: the first temperature rise (vibration) in a long copper bar reaches a sensor at the speed of sound. Not that the entire thing comes up to the same temperature instantaneously. Maybe it reaches the other end quickly but attenuates. Any vibration -- including the vibration of atoms which is heat -- is presumably going to travel at mach 1. However, that's sort of like saying the EM wave when you hook up a battery goes through the wire at C (in the wire). It does, but that doesn't mean a capacitor hooked to the end of the wire is going to be fully charged Length/C seconds after you hook up the battery. The information that heat has started to flow travels that fast, but the actual heat flow rate (in joules/second/cm^2) is determined by other factors, and the rate at which the temperature rises depends on the heat flow rate and the thermal mass of the object being heated. Temperature goes up as the integral of the heat flow rate divided by the thermal capacity of whatever is being heated. Heat flow at each point on a bar will be proportional to the thermal gradient at that point, and in the example of the spoon, the gradient starts out at zero (when you first put the spoon in the coffee). As the temp rises along the bar the gradient increases and the flow rate increases; if the other end is held at a fixed temperature then it's a relaxation process and, in principle, it probably takes infinite time to actually finish relaxing. (Not one of my more coherent responses, I'm afraid!) - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Any vibration -- including the vibration of atoms which is heat -- is presumably going to travel at mach 1. However, that's sort of like saying the EM wave when you hook up a battery goes through the wire at C (in the wire). It does, but that doesn't mean a capacitor hooked to the end of the wire is going to be fully charged Length/C seconds after you hook up the battery. That's what I thought. There is also the problem with getting electric signals through an old fashioned undersea copper cable. Electricity may go at the speed of light but the signals do not, for various reasons that I cannot keep straight. Oliver Heaviside found that you can improve transmission by increasing inductance, which seems counterintuitive. Along with everything else he discovered. Anyway, my point is that a nuclear chain reaction goes faster than heat conduction which is why a critical mass holds together long enough to make a really big bang. But if heat is the only means that one cold fusion reaction triggers another (and not via fast moving neutrons or what-have-you), I don't see how you can trigger a really big bang by chain reaction or positive feedback. However, it is much too early to reach a firm conclusion about the prospects for a bomb, and I am certainly not qualified to reach it in any case. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part. Naturally, I hope that cold fusion cannot be used for a bomb! Maybe it will be possible to make a CF bomb of some sort, but CF will remain a poor choice -- forever, we hope. Many different chemical explosions can be arranged. You can make a huge explosion with dust, for example, in a silo or a sugar refinery. One exploded in Georgia recently and killed several people. But no one would think to make dust bomb because there are better choices. Even without a bomb, I am sure that cold fusion will have many dreadful military applications, as I discussed in the chapter in my book. It is regrettable. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
well, if your cathode were also a superconducter, you'd be gold to go boom. On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: This is a perennial subject. I suppose that cold fusion bombs are probably not possible, for the reasons given below, but I do not think suppose can roll them out definitively. First, the reasons why they may be possible: 1. Several cold fusion devices have exploded. 2. Martin Fleischmann worried that cold fusion might have weapons applications, which is one of the reasons he wanted to keep the research secret for several more years back in 1989. I gather he still worries about this. I do not know his reasons but he is a smart cookie so perhaps there is something to it. Clearly, you can make a small bomb. But I doubt you can make a kiloton or megaton scale device, for the following reasons -- 1. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction. 2. Cold fusion cannot exist without an intact lattice. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction in the same sense a fission bomb is. That is to say, each nuclear reaction does not give rise directly to one or more other reactions, on the timescale of a nuclear reaction. Cold fusion does exhibit positive feedback, but that is not the same as a chain reaction. As far as I know, positive feedback comes about because the cold fusion reaction heats the metal, and the heat increases the reaction rate. I assume that as soon as the lattice melts or vaporizes the reaction stops. And it will melt locally long before you get multiple generations of reactions from a large fraction of the total population of deuterons, because heat conducts very slowly compared to the timescale of a nuclear reaction. It conducts at the speed of sound. Suppose a tiny spot on the cathode becomes very hot because multiple reactions occur there. This may trigger a runaway reaction in the area right around that spot which gets hot, but by the time the rest of the cathode gets hot, that spot will have melted or evaporated. I doubt that the heat can spread over the whole cathode and trigger a uniform reaction over a large volume (or surface area), so that a large fraction of the deuterons present in the lattice participate in the reaction. By the time the neighboring metal or nanoparticles heat up, the metal in the starting location is gone and the reaction is quenched. Regarding this subject Jones Beene wrote: Going back to Robert Forward we find the idea of “really cold fusion” … plus the realization that bosons could be involved in LENR in a higher temp range than with the Bose condensate . . . … it very likely that near absolute zero the rate of reaction “could possibly” be poised to go into a rapid chain-reaction mode, if there is a stable BEC and extremely high loading. I do not know about this theory but cold fusion at room temperature and in the positive feedback high temperatures exhibits no signs of being a chain reaction as far as I know, so I do not see why it would become a chain reaction at cryogenic temperatures. IIRC - Jed has led the chorus for the argument that goes something like this: our military bureaucracy is really “not that smart” and there is no high-level conspiracy to quash LENR – just basic ignorance. The bureaucrats could not keep it secret, in any event. I know for a fact that our military bureaucracy is not that smart when it comes to cold fusion. This is an observation, not speculation. I have spoken with some of them and I know many other people who have communicated much more extensively at much higher levels, and they confirm my observation. This is also true of the Japanese bureaucracy under the previous two Prime Ministers. The bureaucrats or Men in Black have never lifted a finger to stop me from publishing information about cold fusion, so I suppose they are not trying to keep it secret. Take the Defense Intelligence Agency report. As noted it is based on open sources, and those sources are credible. In fact you could write just about every sentence based on stuff at LENR-CANR.org. You would not even have to spring for Ed's book or an ICCF proceedings -- although anyone serious about the subject should do that. So if they are trying to suppress this they are doing a terrible job. The only people who have ever asked me to remove papers from LENR-CANR are publishers who do not want me to violate copyright. (A few authors prefer not to have me upload in the first place.) The only calls I have gotten from bureaucrats were requests for copies of papers not on file. Naturally if there were a high-level conspiracy I would not hear about it. But it seems to me that the non-conspiratorial actions by people like Robert Park and the editors of the Scientific American and Nature can account for the opposition to cold fusion. If there is a high-level conspiracy that meets every 6 months the members are not busy. They convene a meeting and go through a
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 18, 2009, at 6:08 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: You have published a theory that postulates something might happen at cryogenic temperatures. Where did you get that idea?? Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 18, 2009, at 1:41 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Anyway, my point is that a nuclear chain reaction goes faster than heat conduction which is why a critical mass holds together long enough to make a really big bang. But if heat is the only means that one cold fusion reaction triggers another (and not via fast moving neutrons or what-have-you), I don't see how you can trigger a really big bang by chain reaction or positive feedback. However, it is much too early to reach a firm conclusion about the prospects for a bomb, and I am certainly not qualified to reach it in any case. Why would you think heat conduction would be involved in a chain reaction?? This is certainly nothing like what I suggested. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Horace Heffner wrote: Why would you think heat conduction would be involved in a chain reaction?? Technically it is not a chain reaction, but rather positive feedback. As I said before, as far as I know, the only way one spot on a cathode can trigger a reaction elsewhere on the same cathode is by raising the overall temperature. The reactions appear to be completely independent of one another. I base that on the patterns of heat shown in IR cameras. Also the damage and the autoradiographs. If a CF reaction in one spot could trigger others, the reaction would be more concentrated in one area rather than spread out in spots, and you would not see the IR camera image flickering back and forth all over the place like ordinary fireflies. It would look like synchronized fireflies (Photinus carolinus). - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
I wrote: The reactions appear to be completely independent of one another. I base that on the patterns of heat shown in IR cameras. Also the damage and the autoradiographs. . . . The point I meant to make is that with a chain reaction from one area on the cathode to other areas, caused by neutrons or something analogous to photons in a laser, I would expect to see the reaction begin at one spot and then spread out from there, perhaps in waves. Instead, you see random spots appear and disappear, all over the cathode. The spots would be coordinated over time in some pattern, not random. As the cathode heats up you do see more and more hot spots, but they are not adjacent or coordinated. Here is a macroscopic mousetrap chain reaction that starts at one spot and spreads in waves to the rest of the material: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxzPN-vdP_0NR=1 Here is another, not as clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLv8Qflg6PQ When I say waves I mean the reaction runs out of material with potential energy in the initial location, so it peters out there while spreading out from that spot. You do not see patterns like this on cathodes. Cold fusion reactions also seem to go for a short while at a small spot, and then stop for a while. That's what the IR camera shows. When a spot peters out and stops, I do not think it has run out of fuel. I assume the NAE is not longer suitable for some reason, for a while, and then it becomes suitable again. - Jed
[Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
This is a perennial subject. I suppose that cold fusion bombs are probably not possible, for the reasons given below, but I do not think suppose can roll them out definitively. First, the reasons why they may be possible: 1. Several cold fusion devices have exploded. 2. Martin Fleischmann worried that cold fusion might have weapons applications, which is one of the reasons he wanted to keep the research secret for several more years back in 1989. I gather he still worries about this. I do not know his reasons but he is a smart cookie so perhaps there is something to it. Clearly, you can make a small bomb. But I doubt you can make a kiloton or megaton scale device, for the following reasons -- 1. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction. 2. Cold fusion cannot exist without an intact lattice. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction in the same sense a fission bomb is. That is to say, each nuclear reaction does not give rise directly to one or more other reactions, on the timescale of a nuclear reaction. Cold fusion does exhibit positive feedback, but that is not the same as a chain reaction. As far as I know, positive feedback comes about because the cold fusion reaction heats the metal, and the heat increases the reaction rate. I assume that as soon as the lattice melts or vaporizes the reaction stops. And it will melt locally long before you get multiple generations of reactions from a large fraction of the total population of deuterons, because heat conducts very slowly compared to the timescale of a nuclear reaction. It conducts at the speed of sound. Suppose a tiny spot on the cathode becomes very hot because multiple reactions occur there. This may trigger a runaway reaction in the area right around that spot which gets hot, but by the time the rest of the cathode gets hot, that spot will have melted or evaporated. I doubt that the heat can spread over the whole cathode and trigger a uniform reaction over a large volume (or surface area), so that a large fraction of the deuterons present in the lattice participate in the reaction. By the time the neighboring metal or nanoparticles heat up, the metal in the starting location is gone and the reaction is quenched. Regarding this subject Jones Beene wrote: Going back to Robert Forward we find the idea of really cold fusion plus the realization that bosons could be involved in LENR in a higher temp range than with the Bose condensate . . . it very likely that near absolute zero the rate of reaction could possibly be poised to go into a rapid chain-reaction mode, if there is a stable BEC and extremely high loading. I do not know about this theory but cold fusion at room temperature and in the positive feedback high temperatures exhibits no signs of being a chain reaction as far as I know, so I do not see why it would become a chain reaction at cryogenic temperatures. IIRC - Jed has led the chorus for the argument that goes something like this: our military bureaucracy is really not that smart and there is no high-level conspiracy to quash LENR just basic ignorance. The bureaucrats could not keep it secret, in any event. I know for a fact that our military bureaucracy is not that smart when it comes to cold fusion. This is an observation, not speculation. I have spoken with some of them and I know many other people who have communicated much more extensively at much higher levels, and they confirm my observation. This is also true of the Japanese bureaucracy under the previous two Prime Ministers. The bureaucrats or Men in Black have never lifted a finger to stop me from publishing information about cold fusion, so I suppose they are not trying to keep it secret. Take the Defense Intelligence Agency report. As noted it is based on open sources, and those sources are credible. In fact you could write just about every sentence based on stuff at LENR-CANR.org. You would not even have to spring for Ed's book or an ICCF proceedings -- although anyone serious about the subject should do that. So if they are trying to suppress this they are doing a terrible job. The only people who have ever asked me to remove papers from LENR-CANR are publishers who do not want me to violate copyright. (A few authors prefer not to have me upload in the first place.) The only calls I have gotten from bureaucrats were requests for copies of papers not on file. Naturally if there were a high-level conspiracy I would not hear about it. But it seems to me that the non-conspiratorial actions by people like Robert Park and the editors of the Scientific American and Nature can account for the opposition to cold fusion. If there is a high-level conspiracy that meets every 6 months the members are not busy. They convene a meeting and go through a quick checklist: Are there any positive reports on cold fusion in the Washington Post or any other mass media? Nope. Nothing since
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
I wrote: I know for a fact that our military bureaucracy is not that smart when it comes to cold fusion. This is an observation, not speculation. . . . This is also true of the Japanese bureaucracy under the previous two Prime Ministers. I meant Cabinets. Although I am pretty sure the bureaucracy is equally obtuse. Those who are not obtuse are probably afraid to stick their necks out, perhaps justifiably so. It would accomplish nothing except to put a quick end to their careers. We must recognize, there is a large reservoir of anti-cold fusion hysteria out there. The skeptics claim that vast majority of scientists do not believe the results. That would be difficult to verify, but there is no doubt that many people have it in for this research. I think that is enough to explain the suppression that has taken place so far, without resorting to conspiracy theories. Many people ridicule the research. A much smaller number actively campaign against it, but the larger crowd eggs them on and rewards them. Most of the activists are well known to readers here: Park, Huizenga, Close, Garwin . . . Unfortunately, they have a lot of influence, and cold fusion researchers have practically no influence at all. Although that does seem to be changing, doesn't it? As things now stand, Park can excoriate a researcher in the pages of the Washington Post any time feels like it, and no researcher will be allowed to respond. This has enormous influence on funding. More than people realize. When your reputation is dragged through the mud in the Post or Scientific American, no one will talk to you and there is no chance you will get funded by any agency or venture capitalist. A conspiracy is not needed. All it takes is one psychopath with the power of the mass media at his disposal. In addition to the Big Gun opponents such as Park, there are scads of penny-ante nitwits campaigning against the research, such as the editors at Wikipedia and bloggers. Individually they cause little damage compared to Park, but their cumulative actions add up, because many people consider Wikipedia or a blog to be a legitimate source of information. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
I understand your objections to the idea of a CF bomb. However, I must cite the history of the laser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_inversion The issue is timing. This is an issue from comedy to fission to fusion. Once the process is well understood, creating a synchronous reaction becomes somewhat trivial. Jones' explanation of the BCE and CCF (cold cold) offers a possible situation for a synchronous reaction. If our Defense industry does not understand how the reaction populates and our enemies do, there exists a potential thread, IMNSHO. There must not be a CF gap! Terry
RE: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
The interesting implication of the Arata-Zhang experiment for this subject, is the extraordinary claimed loading ratio of over 3:1 (deuterons to metal atoms). But the CFB concept might work as well or better with protium. Compelling evidence has been found for the occurrence of superfluidity in liquid hydrogen since 1995 (McClintock) - there are a half dozen reports of this, but curiously none with deuterium - and actually at least one report with HD. Whether you call it a molecular boson or a fermionic condensate very cold hydrogen in a matrix would have special properties due to its already high density. At a loading of 3:1 - we seem to have an effective density of hydrogen (atoms per mm^3) an order of magnitude higher than in liquid hydrogen, which could be the most amazing thing about the Arata claim, if real. What does this do to the possibility of a waveform overlap? Of course, one might opine that Catch-22 you cannot get to that degree of loading when you are near absolute zero, since the fusion will have already started! Jones
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Nov 17, 2009, at 1:16 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: This is a perennial subject. I suppose that cold fusion bombs are probably not possible, for the reasons given below, but I do not think suppose can roll them out definitively. First, the reasons why they may be possible: 1. Several cold fusion devices have exploded. 2. Martin Fleischmann worried that cold fusion might have weapons applications, which is one of the reasons he wanted to keep the research secret for several more years back in 1989. I gather he still worries about this. I do not know his reasons but he is a smart cookie so perhaps there is something to it. Clearly, you can make a small bomb. But I doubt you can make a kiloton or megaton scale device, for the following reasons -- 1. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction. 2. Cold fusion cannot exist without an intact lattice. Cold fusion is not a chain reaction in the same sense a fission bomb is. That is to say, each nuclear reaction does not give rise directly to one or more other reactions, on the timescale of a nuclear reaction. Cold fusion does exhibit positive feedback, but that is not the same as a chain reaction. As far as I know, positive feedback comes about because the cold fusion reaction heats the metal, and the heat increases the reaction rate. Apparently my writing was just too bit vague, too veiled, and too much was left to read between the lines. I fixed that in draft #4 of Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions: http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf Read pages 9, 10 and 12. They are in direct conflict with your statements above. BTW, I read a recent article you put on LENR-CANR.org that showed a beautiful graph of an excursion event. Do you recall which one it was? My memory is getting so bad. Also BTW, I referenced your Barnhart et all article URL for LENR- CANR.org, so thanks for posting that. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 6:48 PM, Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Of course, one might opine that Catch-22 you cannot get to that degree of loading when you are near absolute zero, since the fusion will have already started! And if you suddenly allow the temperature to increase, the confinement pressures increase exponentially. Lock, load, fire! Terry
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Special delivery. A bomb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCape0yPrus harry __ Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Land shark! Terry On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 7:39 PM, Harry Veeder hlvee...@yahoo.com wrote: Special delivery. A bomb. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCape0yPrus harry __ Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and switch to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
Terry Blanton wrote: I understand your objections to the idea of a CF bomb. However, I must cite the history of the laser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_inversion The issue is timing. This is an issue from comedy to fission to fusion. Once the process is well understood, creating a synchronous reaction becomes somewhat trivial. Well, I don't know much about physics, but I do not see how this applies. There has be a mechanism that allows one cold fusion reaction to directly trigger another, very rapidly. In the case of the laser, from the article above, the mechanism is described: If an atom is already in the excited state, it may be perturbed by the passage of a photon which has a frequencyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequencyν 21 corresponding to the energy gap Δ*E* of the excited state to ground state transition. In this case, the excited atom relaxes to the ground state, and is induced to produce a second photon of frequency ν21. The original photon is not absorbed by the atom, and so the result is two photons of the same frequency. . . . Photos perturb one another by passage. That's the causal link. In a fission bomb, a reaction produces neutrons that trigger the next reaction, and it goes through many generations before the critical mass evaporates. That's another kind of causal link. Is there some evidence that CF reactions perturb one another? Sure, but only by raising the temperature. As I said, that seems too slow and too localized to lead to a nuclear bomb-scale explosion. They don't emit many neutrons. They do not have this quality of photos that gives rise to a laser-like emission from perturbation. (As far as I know they don't.) I assume the reason you sometimes get an intense reaction is because there happens to be many deuterons in a perfectly formed NAE all primed to go off. The environment itself enables them to fuse. The only way to make a bomb -- I suppose -- would be to manufacture a bunch of perfectly formed NAE, and load it up with deuterons but somehow prevent any reaction from occurring. Then when it is all set to go, with a huge number of deuterons right on the verge of reacting, you hit them with a fast traveling stimulus such as a laser. That pushes them all over the edge en mass, as it were. Most of them react before the lattice disintegrates. That might do it. But I do not think you can arrange to have one reaction trigger several others in a runaway chain reaction. Perhaps you can orchestrate many events that are independent of one another, and do not trigger one another, yet all respond perfectly to the stimulus, acting within nanoseconds (or however long the lattice survives). Yamaguchi did something like what I have described here, with a gold plated deuterated Pd foil. It went off all at once. I think he only got it to work once, and spent years trying to make it happen again. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/YamaguchiEcoldfusion.pdf - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Cold fusion bombs
I forgot to mention a critical factor. Heat stimulation of cold fusion reactions seems to occur remarkably slowly. Fleischmann and Biberian both told me they used a heat pulse to trigger the boil off reaction. It worked something like this: Turn up electrolysis power for 3 minutes. The temperature starts to rise. Turn the power back down again. Temperature stabilizes, starts to fall . . . Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . Minutes later the cell starts to self-heat, as positive feedback kicks in. It ramps up slowly, over several minutes, and finally reaches the climax boil off (as Biberian calls it). It is more like lighting a pile of firewood than a pile of gunpowder. Maybe this slow build up reaction is function of bulk Pd and would not happen with nanoparticles, but I do not know of any evidence for that. To summarize, if I am right and the only way one cold fusion reaction can trigger another is by raising the temperature, and if this trigger acts in an oddly slow manner, then you cannot make a runaway chain reaction style bomb. Clearly you can make some kind of bomb, because bombs have been made by accident. They have released more energy than a chemical bomb of the same mass can, although nobody knows how quickly the reaction took place. In the future, there may be some nasty little compact cold fusion bombs that fit into fake cell phones and cause a lot more damage than a chemical bomb of the same dimensions. But it seems unlikely they will destroy entire cities. As a WMD, it seems unpromising, although I will grant the reaction is not yet understood or controlled, so who knows. Other, conventional WMD such as sarin or anthrax seem better . . . er, more promising . . . uh, more practical. Horace Heffner says his theory predicts I am wrong. That may be, but theory does not count. I have to see experimental evidence showing that I am wrong. If someone can show a trigger that works very rapidly with a huge amount of NEA, or what appears to be a very rapid chain reaction by some mechanism I have not heard of, then I am wrong. - Jed
