At 08:30 AM 9/17/2009, Roarty, Francis X wrote:
Thanks for the link - I will check it out presently but just to be
clear (I was sleep deprived in the previous post) I do realize
the goal is fusion and was referring to a bootstrap step to get up
to those velocities. I am assuming there are many such "intermediate
step theories" but was trying to feel out which, if any, or a
combination of all, they are using to guide the materials selection
for the proposed kit.
Actually, the goal is not fusion, per se, but to demonstrate the
physical effects that lead many of us to conclude that low-energy
nuclear reactions are taking place. By making replication cheap, the
kit project aims to improve public understanding of these effects, as
well as to facilitate certain kinds of investigation into the source
of the effects. Other kinds of investigation, as Jed Rothwell points
out, require highly sophisticated instrumentation and researchers. In
my mind, it all fits together: wider public interest and acceptance
will eventually foster and facilitate better acceptance and funding
of research.
As some have pointed out, if, when codeposition results were first
reported, someone had run a kit project like this, we might be a
decade ahead of the game. To me, it is not crucial if the reaction is
actually fusion, or even if it is actually nuclear. I want the kits
to demonstrate at least some of the effects that lead some to
conclude that it's nuclear. It is theoretically possible that the
kits will result in a rejection of some substantial fraction of "cold
fusion" claims. That would happen if the kits are tested, and
reliably show the effects that are the basis of, say, the SPAWAR
claims of neutrons and the older and more substantiated claims of
charged particle radiation and cathode heating, the kits are sold
more widely, *and then* someone uses the kits to conclusively show
that the pitting of CR-39 isn't from charged radiation, or that,
perhaps, somehow codeposition sucks up radon from the atmosphere, and
other claimed effects likewise have more prosaic explanations.
On the other hand, that's not the result I expect!
(Failures during the kit design and early testing process will be
different, because we may run into apparently harmless engineering
variations that aren't harmless. Unless we get donor money, and maybe
even if we do, the early kits will also be sold, I assume -- funding
has to come from somewhere -- but with clear caveats, no
representation that they work beyond reporting very small-scale testing.)
