I have to stop getting distracted from the main point I wanted to discuss in this thread.
I posited the following: I would like to drill down a little more into nothingness, and look inside a NAE. -------------- Assume we start out with a chunk of solid palladium with NO internal voids or 'cracks'. Stress that chunk of palladium so a crack/defect/void forms in the interior of it, removed from the outer surfaces. assume that this void is several hundred atoms long, and a few tens of atoms wide. Have Scotty miniaturize you, and beam you into the center of that void. 1) what's inside that void? 2) what's the temperature in that void? -------------------- To which Ed answered, mainly expressing what his view is inside this void: "The answer depends on which theory you accept. In my case, the void consists initially of a strong negative charge created by the electrons in the wall that are associated with the metal atoms making up the wall. The charge is strong because it is now unbalance as a result of the walls being too far apart for the electron orbits (waves) to be properly balanced. This condition attracts hydrons (hydrogen ions), which enter the gap by releasing Gibbs energy. In so doing, they create a tightly bonded covalent structure in the form of a string. The hydrons in this string are closer together than is normally possible because the electron concentration between them is higher than normal. When this structure resonates, the hydrons get even closer together periodically, depending on the frequency of vibration. Each time they get to within a critical distance, energy is emitted from each hydron as a photon. Once enough energy has been emitted as a series of weak photons, the fusion process is completed by the intervening electron being sucked into the final nuclear product. The details of how this process works will be described later." The temperature is very high, but not high enough to melt the surrounding material. As a result, some energy is lost from the gap as phonons. The photon/phonon ratio is still unknown. Nevertheless, the rate of photon emission is large enough to be detected outside of the apparatus when H is used. To which I respond: But if the void is tens of 'atom-diameters' across, you are way beyond the influence of any electrons, unless they are 'free' electrons flying around in that void. Restrict your viewpoint to only the interior of the void. *For the sake of argument*, assume that there are NO free atoms, sub-atomic particles or photons flying around in the void. in that case, do you not have a *perfect vacuum*? And as to my second question, what's the temperature of a perfect vacuum? Would it not be 0.00000000000K in temperature? Ed is positing that the NAE are essential to LENR, and I am positing that the VOIDs are a major element in the NAE, AND that the conditions in the VOIDs are NOT those of the bulk, surrounding matter; in fact, they are very different. To understand the NAE requires an understanding of EXACTLY what the conditions are INSIDE the voids. Ed, perhaps you could summarize what the various viewpoints are as to the physical environment inside these voids. -Mark Iverson
