Mesoscopic deals with submicron materials, generally between the size of a
molecule and the largest bacterium. The lower limit can be atoms; so it is
more of a superset of nano than an adjoining range on the high side; but
it can be that as well. Mesoscopic usually implies at least a few dozen
atoms, as with an 'exciton', up to many thousands, as in single biological
cells.
A macroscopic object obeys classical mechanics but when scaled down to a
nano-size, it starts having overwhelming quantum mechanical properties. Why
do we need a competing term with nano? Because the mesoscopic object has
BOTH classical and quantum features as well as a mix of both, all at the
same time in the same particle. It is simply a wider range, and implies a
composite. It also implies complexity.
The paper by Takahashi and Kitamura Mesoscopic Catalyst and D-Cluster
Fusion
http://rxiv.org/pdf/1012.0041v1.pdf
supplies a number of interesting factoids and implications about Mesoscopic
particles in LENR. The paper does not seem to be on the LENR/CANR site yet,
but it could become a classic, so it should be.
Under the auspices of Technova Inc (as in Toyota) these guys may have
answers to the technical questions that the Rossi demo raises, but which
Rossi is apparently ill-equipped to understand, or at least does not want to
share.
BTW - Technova is probably as close to solving the Rossi riddle as anyone,
and with Toyota's money, they may try to upstage the MW demo with one of
their own. Wouldn't it be a hoot if an alternative to E-Cat it turned up as
a prototype in a Prius ???
One senses, in watching these developments as they emerge, that beating
Rossi may become almost an issue of national pride for the Japanese in some
ways, due to the pioneering work of Arata and Mizuno. Sadly, there is no
deep pocket funder in the USA with the kind of longer range foresight as
Toyota.
On page 8 of the paper, there is an crude image worth only 999 words,
showing why mesoscopic describes the active powder for this kind of LENR
(which was discovered by Arata) better than nano. The nano-constituent of
the particle requires a support which can be micron sized, and is usually
a ceramic within which are imbedded the nano particles, and with subnano
structural features, like pits and cavities.
The 'support' at the meso level is needed to avoid stiction . which as we
all remember from not-too-long ago was the bugaboo of hard-drives, in their
swift evolution to terabyte, back when they started to go over 100 megs. The
drive would fail due to the close tolerances and stiction.
Any non-dielectric in the meso-size range, and some dielectrics will
experience stiction, becoming less active. This is related to van der Waals
forces.
Jones
