Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
2009/10/26 Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net: ... ...you are willing to sell something that not even the fringe physics/chemistry population constituting experts in the CF field agree to as demonstrativeThis could of course, at minimum, be damaging to the field. ... What is missing is a single utterly convincing experiment that is readily replicated. No such experiment yet exists as far as I know, even as accepted by the community. So you're effectively saying that selling ANY Cold Fusion demo kit today would be damaging to the field, right? I don't see why, as long as it is not claimed that the kits constitute a proof of CF reality. ... In regards to the Galileo protocol, I again suggest you read: http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html I don't know if he has read them but I pointed Abd to the Earthtech results too, very early on. Not because they disprove the nuclear origin of the SPAWAR pits, which they don't c.f. their conclusions, but because they demonstrate that some variants of the Galileo protocol, including considerably simpler and faster and cheaper ones(*), do produce such pits, which I thought was highly relevant in the context of a commercial kit project. Michel (*) notably this one (simpler: constant current, faster: 2 days, cheaper: Ag cathode wire and light water): http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/5/report5.htm http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/5/report5.htm Experiment *5 - 100mA Light Water* *Cell:* - Cathode: 3.5 cm of exposed 0.25mm Ag wire as close as possible to 1 cm x 2 cm Landauer CR-39 chip. - Anode: Approximately 5 cm of 0.5 mm Pt wire with Pt screen spot welded on end - *NO* magnets *Electrolyte:* - 30 gm *H2O* + 0.42 gm LiCl + *0.044 gm* PdCl2 * Procedure:* - 100 mA for 48 hours
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
Horace Heffner wrote: There is no convincing single experiment that demonstrates cold fusion. A year ago I would have agreed. I would have said that the weight of evidence from many different experiments must be considered. Now, I believe that the Arata style nanoparticle gas loading experiment by itself is convincing. However, this experiment is not easy or cheap. It might become cheaper overnight if someone starts manufacturing large amounts of the powder. There is no inherent reason why the powder should be so expensive. However the experiment will still require a vacuum pump, pure deuterium gas, a good calorimeter and various other pricey things. Producing a kit that supposedly does demonstrate CF is therefore is a matter of questionable ethics. Doing so at a profit casts an ugly shadow on the effort at best. I do not think it is questionable ethics, but it may be a mistake, mainly because it is likely to fail. But Lomax will realize this before shipping the first kit so I doubt any harm will come of it. If there were a convincing single cheap experiment I'd want to see at least 1,000 talented science students graduating from high school every year having personally witnessed cold fusion. That's worth attempting on a non-profit basis. It think 10,000 is even a reasonable goal. I agree, but alas there is no cheap or easy experiment. The situation is better than it was. Several institutions are now embarked on nanoparticle experiments. What would make much more sense is to provide enough of a variety of things so that the purchaser can cook up his own experiments, to provide an erector set for electrochemical experiments. Everyone I know involved in replicating is a professional scientist in a well-equipped laboratory, so this sort of thing is not needed. I expect that if you are not a professional scientist in a well-equipped laboratory there is no chance you will succeed anyway, so I doubt there will ever be a need for this. Producing the cold fusion device is and will always remain roughly as difficult as making a transistor from scratch. I do not think amateurs were ever able to do this. Now that transistors have been integrated, they are far beyond the ability of any amateur or even any small laboratory. Perhaps in the future small cold fusion devices will be sold as science kits, similar to the high-temperature superconducting devices sold today as kits, and the old Heathkit-style electronics projects. In such things, the difficult work of fabrication has already been done, back at the factory. The person doing the experiment merely observes the effect. This is valuable. It is a learning experience. With an electronics kit and an oscilloscope you learn far more about electronics than you would merely using an ordinary consumer gadget such as a computer or television game. But it is not possible to make a kit of this nature with cold fusion today, given the state of the art. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
On Oct 27, 2009, at 10:53 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Horace Heffner wrote: [snip] What would make much more sense is to provide enough of a variety of things so that the purchaser can cook up his own experiments, to provide an erector set for electrochemical experiments. Everyone I know involved in replicating is a professional scientist in a well-equipped laboratory, so this sort of thing is not needed. I expect that if you are not a professional scientist in a well- equipped laboratory there is no chance you will succeed anyway, so I doubt there will ever be a need for this. Many of the experts involved in cold fusion are actually amateurs in one part of the field or another. They either are not trained particle physicists or electrochemists. Some are MDs. Producing the cold fusion device is and will always remain roughly as difficult as making a transistor from scratch. It does not appear this is true. Certainly a lot of the experiments I've seen published are not much more difficult to construct than a fusor. I'll certainly grant you that obtaining clean data is another thing entirely. There have been many blunders in calorimetry, chemsitry, and basic design of controlled experiments, some by professional scientists. As difficult as making a transistor - maybe not. This remains to be seen. I do not think amateurs were ever able to do this. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Now that transistors have been integrated, they are far beyond the ability of any amateur or even any small laboratory. Perhaps in the future small cold fusion devices will be sold as science kits, similar to the high-temperature superconducting devices sold today as kits, and the old Heathkit-style electronics projects. In such things, the difficult work of fabrication has already been done, back at the factory. The person doing the experiment merely observes the effect. This is valuable. It is not as valuable right now as the expanding the search for results. For example, the Edisonian search for better rocket fuels that occurred by amateurs, even high schoolers, back in the 50's may have had a significant effect on solid fuels used today. Sorry I don't have a reference, but I have read something about that. Took part in it a bit too! 8^) I think we might be right on the verge of finding something robust. There is no doubt that *some* nuclear events are occurring. Tunneling is a key aspect of that. The wave function declines exponentially - so we must already have conditions that are very very close to robust. It is a learning experience. With an electronics kit and an oscilloscope you learn far more about electronics than you would merely using an ordinary consumer gadget such as a computer or television game. But it is not possible to make a kit of this nature with cold fusion today, given the state of the art. - Jed Yes, it appears that way. But it *is* possible to build a set to explore some possibilities reasonably scientifically. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
On Oct 25, 2009, at 8:13 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 08:09 PM 10/25/2009, you wrote: On Oct 25, 2009, at 9:10 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: This is also a preliminary response to Horace. I agree that the Galileo Project is a poor kit to offer, or whatever you wrote. However, it was designed for simplicity. Make it complicated, and replication becomes less likely. Why would anyone go to the trouble to produce a poor kit to offer? BTW, those are not my words. Sigh. I believe I was clear that the quotation marks indicated not an exact quote, but a sense. You utterly missed the point. My point was that you agreed to the fact it was a poor kit to offer. That has nothing to do with who said it, only that you agreed to it. It has only to do with the fact you are willing to sell something that not even the fringe physics/ chemistry population constituting experts in the CF field agree to as demonstrative. (I say fringe even though the field has had a comparatively high proportion of Nobels and other distinguished fellows.) This could of course, at minimum, be damaging to the field. I have no doubt that CF is real. There is a vast pool of evidence that collectively demonstrates it is real beyond any reasonable doubt. The problem is for experts to obtain enough funding for research to pin down a useable theory and reliable results. What is missing is a single utterly convincing experiment that is readily replicated. No such experiment yet exists as far as I know, even as accepted by the community. I'm not the only one to tell you this, so you must be getting some kind of clue that it is true. In regards to the Galileo protocol, I again suggest you read: http://www.earthtech.org/CR39/index.html Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
Horace Heffner wrote: 5. By making the grid elements small, say under 0.1 cm, there will be a clear marking of a scale on the micrographs and this will hopefully assist in counting and locating tracks, although the hole diameter should of course be larger that the thickness of the primary metallic layer (base), Is this supposed to be 0.1 mm? With cumulative detectors like this, such as x-ray film and CR39, I recommend some sort of mask; that is, something that blocks the particles you are trying to detect, and casts a shadow. Not seeing particles is a good as seeing them, in a sense. Italian researchers used dental x-ray film to detect x-rays in aqueous electrochemical cells. The anode cast a shadow on the film, and they used this shadow to make various analyses. It was remarkable how much information they got out the x-rays. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
On Oct 25, 2009, at 7:42 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote: Horace Heffner wrote: 5. By making the grid elements small, say under 0.1 cm, there will be a clear marking of a scale on the micrographs and this will hopefully assist in counting and locating tracks, although the hole diameter should of course be larger that the thickness of the primary metallic layer (base), Is this supposed to be 0.1 mm? No. This is the suggested grid element size - the spacing between hole centers. The holes at that spacing would have to be less than 0.5 mm in diameter. One of the problems with this grid idea is the problem of bubble removal. I think the holes will quickly have bubbles covering the tops of them, but surface tension will continue to wet the inside surface and provide the ion flow path. It should take some experimenting to find the best hole size, including possibly adding sonic cell shakers to limit bubble size. With cumulative detectors like this, such as x-ray film and CR39, I recommend some sort of mask; that is, something that blocks the particles you are trying to detect, and casts a shadow. Yes, and of course masks of various thicknesses and kinds are useful for particle discrimination. The use of a grid of lots of tiny cells in a single experiment makes feasible aligning many different kinds, thicknesses, and patterns of discriminators with specific holes in the grid. This in effect, can provide many experiments for the price of one, which, with a little trouble, all run with the same voltage, current, chemical, and field time line profiles. Not seeing particles is a good as seeing them, in a sense. Italian researchers used dental x-ray film to detect x-rays in aqueous electrochemical cells. The anode cast a shadow on the film, and they used this shadow to make various analyses. It was remarkable how much information they got out the x-rays. - Jed Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
This is also a preliminary response to Horace. I agree that the Galileo Project is a poor kit to offer, or whatever you wrote. However, it was designed for simplicity. Make it complicated, and replication becomes less likely. I'm starting for my own testing with Galileo because I'm confident that I'll see results, not because the design is optimal. There are many aspects to the design that can safely be optimized, especially by adding external monitoring of various kinds. Cathode design is an obvious place to move to, but much monkeying with it in the initial tests gets increasingly risky with how complex the change is. What you have written, Horace, isn't wasted, it will be considered as final cathode design moves forward. Fabrication through plating had already been considered. (Why use a gold wire if a gold-plated silver wire, for example, would do?) It's been suggested that I study various topics. Great idea. When I have another lifetime to spare, I will. Seriously, every day I feel intensely the weight of my ignorance about, say, electrochemistry. Especially electrochemistry. As well, my knowledge about the behavior of various elements under alpha bombardment is severely limited. So many topics, so little time. So ... I punt. I depend on my friends and even on my enemies. They will point my bloopers out to me. In a way, I'm just a node in a network, my own intelligence is quite limited, the network's intelligence is not nearly as limited. If I don't listen to my friends, that's when I become truly stupid. At 11:42 AM 10/25/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: Horace Heffner wrote: 5. By making the grid elements small, say under 0.1 cm, there will be a clear marking of a scale on the micrographs and this will hopefully assist in counting and locating tracks, although the hole diameter should of course be larger that the thickness of the primary metallic layer (base), Is this supposed to be 0.1 mm? With cumulative detectors like this, such as x-ray film and CR39, I recommend some sort of mask; that is, something that blocks the particles you are trying to detect, and casts a shadow. Not seeing particles is a good as seeing them, in a sense. Italian researchers used dental x-ray film to detect x-rays in aqueous electrochemical cells. The anode cast a shadow on the film, and they used this shadow to make various analyses. It was remarkable how much information they got out the x-rays. Yes. Excellent idea, and easy to implement. It also brings up another possibility, time-dependent masking. One of the problems with CR-39 or LR-115 detectors is their very strength, they are cumulative. What if a mask is shifted in position so that a single detector covers a time period instead of the whole run? In addition, when the experiment is terminated, the cathode should be held against a detector for a time, for an auto-radiograph detecting residual radioactivity. With controls, of course. Some aspects of the reports I've seen indicate that the palladium plating may be fragile and can fall off easily, so moving stuff around is tricky. However, all the CR-39 I've seen that has been immersion with direct contact with the cathode has been, essentially, overexposed, so counting of tracks in the most active areas is impossible. LR-115 should be more tolerant of high track density, that's why I'm investigating it. I also intend to play with commercial CR-39 that is not the special stuff used by Fukuvi/Landauer, which is pretty expensive. I might put a lot of it in the cell, actually displacing significant heavy water. I was going to use acrylic for that, as well as to support more precise cathode structures than the flexible polyethylene cathode support Galileo used (and substituting acrylic is safe, I expect), but why not use cheap CR-39 and then see what happens when it's etched? Whatever I do, it has to start out very simple, or I'm unlikely to actually do it. But once I have something working and can replicate it, then the design can grow, with a baseline to compare it with. At a certain point, what I have will be sufficient to begin sales, and then the community of customers will help develop it further.
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
On Oct 25, 2009, at 9:10 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: This is also a preliminary response to Horace. I agree that the Galileo Project is a poor kit to offer, or whatever you wrote. However, it was designed for simplicity. Make it complicated, and replication becomes less likely. Why would anyone go to the trouble to produce a poor kit to offer? BTW, those are not my words. Production of a kit for amateurs using a procedure known to have major problems and that produces results that are not even convincing to the CF community is potentially harmful to the field. Doing so for profit casts an even darker pall on the community, because the motives can be impugned. I'm starting for my own testing with Galileo because I'm confident that I'll see results, not because the design is optimal. There are many aspects to the design that can safely be optimized, especially by adding external monitoring of various kinds. Cathode design is an obvious place to move to, but much monkeying with it in the initial tests gets increasingly risky with how complex the change is. What you have written, Horace, isn't wasted, it will be considered as final cathode design moves forward. Fabrication through plating had already been considered. (Why use a gold wire if a gold-plated silver wire, for example, would do?) If nothing else I hope you keep the CR-39 or other detector out of the electrolyte. That is known to cause problems. It's been suggested that I study various topics. Great idea. When I have another lifetime to spare, I will. Seriously, every day I feel intensely the weight of my ignorance about, say, electrochemistry. Especially electrochemistry. As well, my knowledge about the behavior of various elements under alpha bombardment is severely limited. So many topics, so little time. So ... I punt. I depend on my friends and even on my enemies. They will point my bloopers out to me. In a way, I'm just a node in a network, my own intelligence is quite limited, the network's intelligence is not nearly as limited. If I don't listen to my friends, that's when I become truly stupid. On Sep 29, 2009, at 6:08 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Originally, I thought I'd be a nuclear physicist, and I was on my way, as an undergraduate student at Caltech. But my life took me to different places, so I never developed an investment in theory; I simply got an attitude and an approach from sitting with Feynmann -- who taught physics my first two years at Caltech, those lectures were the ones that became the standard text. I also had Linus Pauling for freshman chemistry, but he wasn't nearly as memorable. On Sep 1, 2009, at 10:31 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: If the volume were large enough, we could buy one of those spectrometers. Or build one, it's not a difficult measurement, you need a Co-57 source, an accurate gamma detector, and a linear motor to drive the source toward or away from the test sample at a known velocity. I did this in sophomore physics lab at Caltech, that's why I recognized the significance of Vyosotskii's findings, I'm not sure that others get it. Back in those days it was nearly impossible to find a physics major at Caltech with less than 140 IQ. This exercise is beginning to look more like a social science experiment than a legitimate physics effort. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
At 08:09 PM 10/25/2009, you wrote: On Oct 25, 2009, at 9:10 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: This is also a preliminary response to Horace. I agree that the Galileo Project is a poor kit to offer, or whatever you wrote. However, it was designed for simplicity. Make it complicated, and replication becomes less likely. Why would anyone go to the trouble to produce a poor kit to offer? BTW, those are not my words. Sigh. I believe I was clear that the quotation marks indicated not an exact quote, but a sense. What you actually wrote was but the Galileo protocol seems to me to be *NOT* a protocol appropriate for dissemination on a commercial basis. My work will proceed in stages. In the first stage, I'm gathering materials for an expanded experiment following, more or less, the Galileo protocol. I've never done a codeposition experiment before, or anything like it since college, almost fifty years ago. I've got two forces to balance, one is I don't want to waste time with approaches that don't work, until I have an approach, in hand, tested, that I know works. So I'm quite wary of any changes to the basic Galileo protocol: the materials, the quantities, the cathode geometry, the current profile. On the other hand, there are obvious possible improvements, and I have different motives than the Galileo experimenters. For them, saving, say, $100 on materials for a cell, when they were putting a huge amount of effort in, would be trivial. For me, saving money on a cell, as long as it doesn't have a significant impact on results, is a big deal. But if I go too far in the first stage, as, for example, using a cheap stainless-steel wire that is plated with 24 K gold, instead of a pure gold wire, I might end up wasting weeks. I'll spend the money on the gold. To start. I'll also buy a little gold-plated wire for further development. The biggest expense in the experiment is not the palladium, it's the wire for the cathode and anode. The anode wire they recommend, platinum, is the most expensive. Is that necessary? How about gold, if nothing else? How about stainless steel, for that matter? As the first stage progresses, I'll be buying materials. As it happens, buying just enough for one experiment is pretty expensive. So I'll buy more, and I will offer these materials for sale. Because of the volume purchase savings, I should be able to offer low quantities, buy what you need, for about what it would cost from the suppliers. (If I can get some volume going, it might become cheaper.) Basically, it's pretty much standard retail/wholesale. I now have LR-115 radiation detector sheets. For some purposes, better than CR-39. I also have a little Boron-10 neutron converter screen, enough that I can experiment with it and sell some. I have much more of both of these than I'll need for my own work, so, if anyone wants LR-115 radiation detectors or 1x2 cm pieces of Boron-10 screen, I could sell them immediately. Be the first on your block! There are only two down sides to LR-115: it's dark red, so if you want to be able to see through the detector, not so good, and I have no idea if it is stable in the electrolyte. If it is, whoopee! It's about one-quarter the cost of CR-39 intended for radiation detection. But commercial CR-39 is actually cheap. Problem is, if you don't know the history of it, how much radiation damage has it suffered from background? On the other hand, I do intend to buy some CR-39 sheets from Ebay and develop pieces. They are so cheap, compared to Fukuvi/Landauer CR-39, that I might as well try. Second stage, I'll be varying the protocol; at this point it's no longer the Galileo protocol and it might vary considerably from it. I still want to keep it relatively simple. Unless, I suppose, some angel investor pops up, which I'm not expecting. Horace, this is a for-profit venture, because if it isn't, it won't happen. If you've got some donor lined up to support me to put together free kits, or, for that matter, to support someone else to do it, be my guest! During the second stage, kits will be available to beta testers. Unless I get that angel funding, these will also be kits that are sold. They are sold as exactly what they are: a very specific list of materials, a specific design, open information about what has been tested and what the results were, and with no guarantees except that all of this information is accurate. Your mileage may vary. Third stage, the kits are sold to the general public, but, quite likely, they will be accompanied with disclaimers. Full disclosure. The results from my own work, and from all those who have used the beta kits, providing it is disclosed to me, will all be published. Whether the results were successful or not. These are science kits and, in fact, there are no experimental failures if the procedures are documented and the results are reported carefully enough. Production of a kit for amateurs
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
I wrote: Naturally, I see why theory is important to the researchers, but I am not a researcher, so it isn't my department. Glassware is important to them too . . . That is not a joke, by the way. An experiment with the right theory but the wrong glassware will still fail. Nature does not care whether the fault is in the design or the execution. An airplane may crash because it is poorly designed. A well-designed airplane may crash because the engines ingest geese. In experimental science the devil is in the details. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
Horace Heffner wrote: Will this paper be available online soon? Whenever the ICCF-15 proceedings become available, or perhaps sooner if Ed wants to upload it separately to LENR-CANR.org. The ICCF-15 papers are due soon, November 30, 2009. But I do not see instructions or a template on the website. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
At 02:49 PM 10/24/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote: I wrote: Naturally, I see why theory is important to the researchers, but I am not a researcher, so it isn't my department. Glassware is important to them too . . . That is not a joke, by the way. An experiment with the right theory but the wrong glassware will still fail. Nature does not care whether the fault is in the design or the execution. An airplane may crash because it is poorly designed. A well-designed airplane may crash because the engines ingest geese. In experimental science the devil is in the details. Or can be, for sure, especially when dealing with an effect with unknown cause and obvious rarity, or it would have been recognized before. (LENR may be happening all the time, all around us, but without easily detectable radiation, so, as long as it's rare enough, it could escape being noticed. That, indeed, is what some of the biological transmutation experimenters claim. And they might be wrong, i.e., that it is as common as they claim, but still it might happen under unusual conditions, such as in the presence of a certain protein from dienococcus radiodurans that seems to be able to convert manganese to iron in the presence of deuterium, which is normally present in very small quantities Who knows what biology is capable of it certainly seemed preposterous to me when I first read the reports. In any case, and speaking of cases, or cells, the Galileo project uses a specific acrylic box, and that is exactly what I'll start with. I may start with everything exactly the same, as close as I can make it. I may not be able to get the exact batch numbers, unless someone will kindly supply some of those batches but indications are that as long as the grade is appropriate, it should work. If I'm lucky! Then I'll start screwing around with the parameter space. Indications are that codeposition is much more forgiving than bulk palladium, reports are that it's 100% reliable (done according to protocol, at least), so I'm hopeful. Besides all kinds of monkeying around with instrumentation and stuff outside the box, I may first vary things like electrolyte volume, leaving the absolute amounts of palladium the same. Obviously, if these cells function as the heavy water evaporates or is lost as evolved gas, the process can handle an increase in lithium concentration, so I may reduce the lithium so that I start with the same concentration. I want the same palladium amount so that the maximum deposit is the same thickness. I want to make the cell smaller, equals cheaper. Which then means one can run twice as many cells for the same cost. Indeed, same current source, current-regulated, it merely has to be able to provide more voltage. Reducing the gap between the cathode and anode should reduce the necessary voltage, which should then reduce input power, making any excess heat results more significant. I'm not expecting any conclusive heat results, but maybe there will be a little temperature elevation over what would be expected from calibration of the effect of Joule heating. Just one more thing for my customers to see, cheaply. Hey, it's heating up! The cell voltage has suddenly gone up, but it's getting hotter than the new voltage would predict! What do you see in the microscope compared to yesterday? Has the sound changed? How? Lucky: Look! Tiny flashes of light, only a few pixels across. Popcorn from the microphone that wasn't there before. Turn off the current! What happens? Do the flashes of light increase or decrease immediately? The sound? Anyone with experience with codeposition, please, I'm all ears. What did you see? What were your results? I haven't asked the SPAWAR people yet, but I will. Right now, I want to hear what is out there in the less formal work.
Re: [Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
On Oct 24, 2009, at 10:18 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 08:22 AM 10/24/2009, Horace Heffner wrote: If neutrons are produced in the lattice in an amount corresponding to He and heat production then they should be readily detectable via neutron activation of materials in or near the cathode. One would think. It seems conceivable that there is some mechanism that results in immediate and contained capture of generated neutrons. Seems conceivable to someone like me, that is, who knows not nearly enough to come up with all the reasons either way. Well, here's a WL take on it: http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269v1 Low energy nuclear reactions in the neighborhood of metallic hydride surfaces may be induced by ultra-low momentum neutrons. Heavy electrons are absorbed by protons or deuterons producing ultra low momentum neutrons and neutrinos. The required electron mass renormalization is provided by the interaction between surface electron plasma oscillations and surface proton oscillations. The resulting neutron catalyzed low energy nuclear reactions emit copious prompt gamma radiation. The heavy electrons which induce the initially produced neutrons also strongly absorb the prompt nuclear gamma radiation, re-emitting soft photons. Nuclear hard photon radiation away from the metallic hydride surfaces is thereby strongly suppressed. ... the mean free path of a hard prompt gamma ray is L ∼ 3.4 Å~ 10−8 cm. Thus, prompt hard gamma photons get absorbed within less than a nanometer from the place wherein they were first created. ... one finds a neutron mean free path of ∼ 10^−6 cm. An ultra low momentum neutron is thus absorbed within about ten nanometers from where it was first created. The likelihood that ultra low momentum neutrons will escape capture and thermalize via phonon interactions is very small. Twice the Bohr radius is about 1x10^-10 m, an angstrom, so the mean free path WL suggest is about 10,000 hydrogen atoms in width. Heavier atoms are not all that much bigger because atomic radius does not grow much with atomic number, e.g. radii in angstroms: Pd 1.79, Au 1.79, Ni 1.62, Li 2.05, K 2.77, Al 1.82, Cu 1.57, Pb 1.81. They apparently completely ignore the fact that most fusion in electrolysis experiments apparently happens near the surface of the cathode. They apparently ignore neutron activation of other nuclei, the atomic radii of which are not much larger than the Bohr radius, and make no effort to account for lattice element transmutation without signatures. The WL math and QM is beyond me, though highly controversial (e.g. via Hagelstein and Chaudhary), but the logic and common sense in problem definition and conclusions are in my opinion clearly controversial and not so complex issues. Experimentally, and by their own results, their theory can be tested by including in a co- deposition electrolyte extremely small trace amounts of metals (cations) suitable for delayed gamma analysis. Thermal neutrons are readily detected. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation_analysishttp:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_activation_analysis wherein thermal neutrons, i.e. with kinetic energies of less than 0.5 eV, are used. Notice the extreme sensitivity of Al, Au, Ag, Cl, Cu, Ca, K, Pt, Ti, and S to neutron activation, all elements commonly used in CF experiments. It is difficult to imagine that 20 years of experimentation with large amounts of these materials present would fail to result in the detection of the effects of slow neutrons in or near the lattice, especially in transmutation detection experiments in which the cathode is digested. This must be a common thought in response to the WL claims. There is not necessarily any emotional content, and certainly emotion is not necessary, to such a reaction to WL claims. I haven't read the material Krivit points to yet, What material? URL? Certainly reading WL material is essential if you are going to design an experiment based on this theory, if WL has any relation to your goals at all. but I'm very interested in the discussion. I don't want to be abrasive, but I dislike discussion which takes me a lot of time and work, especially if the discussion looks open ended and very time consuming, the correspondent is prolific and appears to have unlimited time on his hands, and has no compunction regarding thread hijacking followed by directing questions in a personal way. See: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=thread+hijacking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DonDiego/Thread_hijacking No worries, in this case I'll at least momentarily be a cooperating subject. 8^) However, there may be a limited tolerance to thread hijacking here. One of the things I intend to focus on is the detection of neutrons, Your personal focus does not seem to me relevant to Rothwell's
[Vo]:Rothwell has no opinion about theory
Steven Krivit wrote: . . . it's rather fascinating to see the intensity of the response to my release of the belief in single-step D+D 4He as the dominant underlying explanatory process of LENR. Really emotional, hostile responses. Nobody believes in single step D+D - 4He. That would trigger neutrons and gamma rays. I know barely enough about theory to fill a postcard, but even I know that! Here is roughly everything I know about theory: All experiment I know of that looked for helium-4 found it at roughly the same ratio as plasma fusion. That indicates that 2 deuterons are transformed into 1 helium atom. But surely it must be a multi-step process. I like Chris Tinsley's analogy comparing respiration with combustion. The starting and ending products are the same but the intermediate steps are different. When respiration was first explained, Chris imagined scientists responding: You are telling us that there is fire inside the body?!? That's ridiculous! But in a sense it is true. At ICCF-15 Storms presented a paper discussing what I believe is called a multibody reaction, where several deuterons participate in the reaction. It seems to be the consensus that something like this is happening, as far as I make out from theory discussions. The irony is that the weak-interaction idea could actually bring respect and recognition to the field - and recognition by mainstream science. Or perhaps all of this noise I'm hearing from you, Rothwell and Storms is about envy and jealousy as a result of the recognition of the WL idea. This is a joke, right? I have probably written millions of words about cold fusion, but I do not think you will find a single message or paper from me endorsing or attacking the WL theory or any other theory. On numerous occasions I have made it clear that I could not care less about this or any other theory. I know no more about theory than I know about Contract Bridge or Italian Opera. Naturally, I see why theory is important to the researchers, but I am not a researcher, so it isn't my department. Glassware is important to them too, but I don't make the stuff and I do not know a thing about it. I have edited many theory papers, but only to fix spelling errors and ensure agreement of person and number, and other English grammar. That, I know about. Speaking of which, Krivit does not have disinterest in the Wikipedia crusade. He has no interest. He is uninterested in it. A judge should be disinterested but if she is uninterested she better not show it by falling asleep at the bench. - Jed
