Re: [Vo]:CR39
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 7:14 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: Kowalski does not believe that the tracks he found were caused by electrolysis. He considers that one possible explanation. Kowalski is quite careful. He is looking at clusters. Oriani reported some clusters, but clusters aren't Oriani's claim. Kowalski's paper cannot be considered to be a confirmation of Oriani's claims, beyond a finding that some unusual and difficult-to-explain phenomena occur. Just to pin things down, we should try to agree on a few basic facts. The first proposed fact is that Kowalski, in [1], favors an explanation that involves electrolysis for the clusters he identifies in the two successful trials. Numerous tracks of charged nuclear particles, emitted during electrolysis, were discovered by Oriani and Fisher ... Arguments are presented against prosaic explanations for the clusters, such as natural radioactivity or cosmic rays. (p. 1.) This study, prompted by recent reports ..., confirms that an unexpected nuclear process seems to be occasionally triggered by a chemical process. (p. 2.) In this section [sec. 4] I hope to show that neither contamination nor cosmic rays can be responsible for the clusters shown in Figures 1 and 4. (p. 9.) I am not going to elaborate on this [the behavior of neutral particles] because my goal, at this stage, is to convince myself (and others) that Oriani-type clusters are due to electrolysis. (p. 9.) I should ask at this point if have I misunderstood anything. Eric [1] http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLonemission.pdf
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 05:04 PM 10/11/2012, ChemE Stewart wrote: Abd, When a neutrino collides with a hydrogen proton you get a triple track. See photo on wilkipedia from 1970. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrinohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino It might produce a triple track with some detectors. That's a bubble chamber. CR-39 and LR-115 don't produce tracks from all charged particles at all ranges of energy. I wish I knew more about it. I don't have access to all the literature that exists on CR-39, lots of it is behind pay walls. In addition, neutrinos only very rarely interact in the way shown. Cold fusion is the production of neutrinos, which are also considered a dark matter candidate. They are colliding with Hydrogen and also triggering beta decays. That is what they do. No evidence has been shown of neutrino activity from cold fusion. Maybe. However, the quantity would have to be very large to be detectable. Neutrino emission might be shown from missing energy, but we don't yet have sufficiently accurate measurements of reaction energy, my guess. If W-L theory is correct, there would indeed be neutrinos. Still not enough to be detected, I suspect.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
http://www.bubbletech.ca/radiation_detectors_files/bubble_detectors.html No etching required on this product; real time response. This product may be easier to use than CR39. Cheers: Axil On Sat, Oct 6, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: CR39 is very hard to use. It is not for dummies or beginners. That's the take home lesson I learned after listening to 2 days of discussion on CR32 by experts. There is a reason people invented electronic particle detectors and stopped using the analog ones such as CR39. A lot of reasons, actually. I am not saying the old techniques are inferior, but they are harder. To say they are inferior would be like saying that RTDs are better than mercury thermometers. That is true in some ways but not so true in other ways. It is complicated. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 04:05 PM 10/13/2012, Eric Walker wrote: Abd, your comments prodded me to read Oriani's paper more closely and to dig around for Kowalski's attempted replication.  I see that there are several papers with Kowalski as author or coauthor that mention Oriani, and I wasn't sure which one you had in mind.  It might be [1], but in that one Kowalski concludes that electrolysis is the source of the tracks, although he does not find evidence for Oriani's claim of reproducibility. Additional comments inline. On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Oriani did not use adequate controls, and his effect was explicitly not correlated with the electrolysis current. Basically, we don't ordinarily leave radiation detectors sitting in electrolytic cells, we don't know, really, what normal behavior is, and it would vary with the lab environment. I don't think you need a claim about the amount of current to conclude that it is electrolysis that causes the tracks and not ambient radiation or cosmic rays. Actually, you do. Is there a minimum current at which the effect appears? Does the effect scale with current? If there is no scaling with current, there would still need to be some minimum current or it's not electrolysis.  A finding pertaining to current would be nice, of course.  But to my mind, current is just a proxy for hydrogen flux (or loading), and it is possible that you could get high flux with lower current, so correlation with this particular variable is a week finding, as far as I can see. No, lower current would generally mean lower flux. Further, lower current can mean lower voltage, and if the voltage is below a certain level, hydrogen/deuterium is not evolved. Why did Oriani vary his current all over the place? To me, it's stabbing-in-the-dark investigation, which is fine, except this is not how own establishes are reproducible effect. Kowalski attempted to replicate Oriani quite because of the claim of reproducibility. I have no thoughts on whether it is a good protocol to leave CR39 chips sitting around in electrolytic cells.  This might be a silly thing to do.  :) Maybe. These chips are fairly tough. To etch them, they are cooked in 6N sodium hydroxide for many hours. In any case, it's easy to run controls.  I don't think Oriani used control cells. I think you made that up, Eric, by not reading his paper carefully. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate correction, but I did review this fairly carefully before, looking as well at Kowalski's attempt to replicate. Kowlaski was not able to see the effect that Oriani had claimed. With regard to the question of controls, I should distinguish between two important details here -- what Oriani claims and whether what he claims is valid.  For every section of Oriani's paper [2], which pertains to a different protocol, he describes a different control. I his original paper, he claimed consistent results for 25 experiments. On examination, the experiments were all different. In the case of the finding of tracks within the CR39 chips during electrolysis (sec. 6), the control involves two rounds of etching of chips that were in comparable cells in which electrolysis did not take place. In the case of the finding of tracks within CR39 chips suspended in the anode compartment of a U-shaped tube, where the oxygen and the hydrogen bubble up into different compartments and don't mix (sec. 7), the control is to suspend chips in a similar assembly without electrolysis. The control data is presented in less detail than the experimental data. In the experimental data, the front and back side are presented separately, and it is considered significant if *either side* has an increase over the mean from the controls. I believe that some of the data has previously been published in greater detail. Many features of the tables presented don't seem to be explained. I find the whole paper so confusing that I'm just putting it down. Eric, your comments don't seem to match the sections and description in the Oriani paper. I try to look at at least something. [...] I think his main claim of reproducibility, at least in [2], pertains to sec. 5, where the CR39 chips are suspended in the electrolyte in close proximity to the cathode, with 6um of Mylar between the chip and the cathode to protect against chemical attack.  In this section he says that the number of pits, either on the facing side or on the opposing side, are always considerably greater than those found in the controls (p. 112). On this section the control chips were of four kinds. The analysis presented makes an odd claim: A comparison of the active chips with the controls leads to the conclusion that a nuclear reaction of an unknown kind is consistently generated in the course of electrolysis. The many instances of nuclear tracks on
Re: [Vo]:CR39
On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: Actually, you do. Is there a minimum current at which the effect appears? Does the effect scale with current? If there is no scaling with current, there would still need to be some minimum current or it's not electrolysis. In an electrolysis experiment, you would need a minimum current to have electrolysis. In Oriani's review of his work, he says that there were current densities of between 0.1 and 0.37 A/cm^2. I don't think there was a question at any point about there being a minimum current. Â A finding pertaining to current would be nice, of course. Â But to my mind, current is just a proxy for hydrogen flux (or loading), and it is possible that you could get high flux with lower current, so correlation with this particular variable is a week finding, as far as I can see. No, lower current would generally mean lower flux. Further, lower current can mean lower voltage, and if the voltage is below a certain level, hydrogen/deuterium is not evolved. In general, yes. But there might be gradual sulfur poisoning of the kind described by Hioki et al. [1], or poisoning by some other nuclide, the onset of which is both current-related and which serves to obscure the relationship between current and effect. In this case, you have current, increasing poisoning, a hard-to-decipher relation between current and effect, and a real effect, buried in there somewhere. Correlation with current is nice, but I don't see it as a must-have in order to draw basic conclusions. I find the whole paper so confusing that I'm just putting it down. Eric, your comments don't seem to match the sections and description in the Oriani paper. I notice that the nominal page numbers at the top right-hand corners of the pages do not correspond with the actual page numbers of the PDF. I've been referring to the nominal page numbers. I'm pretty happy with my descriptions of the sections, minus an inaccuracy here and there -- perhaps others here can read the paper and see if they agree. As I've written before, this is investigational work, not the kind of work that can be used to draw clear conclusions. A great deal more work would be needed, with tighter controls, and a single variable. If there is an effect from electrolysis, at what level of electrolysis does the effect appear? If all conditions are held constant, how consistent are the results? Nobody has substantiated. Kowalski tried. From Oriani's original paper (not the recent review), I didn't see that Oriani's data supported the claim of reproducible. It wasn't clear what was being reproduced. In the paper I read, Kowalski found two things in relation to Oriani's earlier study. The first thing he found was that there were tracks he believed to be caused by electrolysis and not ambient radioisotopes or cosmic things, which was in agreement with a claim of Oriani. The second thing he found was that he was not able to reproduce another claim of Oriani, concerning repeatability. So he supported one claim and didn't support another; that's a more complex conclusion than that he simply wasn't able to reproduce. You may have another paper by Kowalski in mind, however. Eric [1] http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol6.pdf, p. 64 ff.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
I wrote: The first thing he found was that there were tracks he believed to be caused by electrolysis and not ambient radioisotopes or cosmic things That's supposed to be cosmic rays. Eric
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 06:45 PM 10/14/2012, Eric Walker wrote: On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 5:04 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.coma...@lomaxdesign.com wrote: Actually, you do. Is there a minimum current at which the effect appears? Does the effect scale with current? If there is no scaling with current, there would still need to be some minimum current or it's not electrolysis. In an electrolysis experiment, you would need a minimum current to have electrolysis.  In Oriani's review of his work, he says that there were current densities of between 0.1 and 0.37 A/cm^2.  I don't think there was a question at any point about there being a minimum current. My point has been missed. If electrolysis causes the effect, then the effect will extinguish at some current level. When medication is being tested, this is dose-response effect. A lack of a dose-response effect is a sign of artifact. (Not necessarily a proof, because of threshhold effects.) The highest current did have the highest track counts, it was off the charts, not numerically reported. However, I recall studying this before, there wasn't any apparent correlation with current.  à A finding pertaining to current would be nice, of course. à But to my mind, current is just a proxy for hydrogen flux (or loading), and it is possible that you could get high flux with lower current, so correlation with this particular variable is a week finding, as far as I can see. No, lower current would generally mean lower flux. Further, lower current can mean lower voltage, and if the voltage is below a certain level, hydrogen/deuterium is not evolved. In general, yes.  But there might be gradual sulfur poisoning of the kind described by Hioki et al. [1], or poisoning by some other nuclide, the onset of which is both current-related and which serves to obscure the relationship between current and effect.  In this case, you have current, increasing poisoning, a hard-to-decipher relation between current and effect, and a real effect, buried in there somewhere.  Correlation with current is nice, but I don't see it as a must-have in order to draw basic conclusions. Conclusions might be possible without current correlation; however, again, the lack of correlation is a bad sign. I find the whole paper so confusing that I'm just putting it down. Eric, your comments don't seem to match the sections and description in the Oriani paper. I notice that the nominal page numbers at the top right-hand corners of the pages do not correspond with the actual page numbers of the PDF.  I've been referring to the nominal page numbers.  I'm pretty happy with my descriptions of the sections, minus an inaccuracy here and there -- perhaps others here can read the paper and see if they agree. Normally, with a published article, page N refers to the page number printed on the page, not to the page sequence in a PDF, which includes front matter. Page 110, though, was obviously a reference to the printed page numbers, because the PDF article begins at about PDF page 117.  As I've written before, this is investigational work, not the kind of work that can be used to draw clear conclusions. A great deal more work would be needed, with tighter controls, and a single variable. If there is an effect from electrolysis, at what level of electrolysis does the effect appear? If all conditions are held constant, how consistent are the results? Nobody has substantiated. Kowalski tried. From Oriani's original paper (not the recent review), I didn't see that Oriani's data supported the claim of reproducible. It wasn't clear what was being reproduced. In the paper I read, Kowalski found two things in relation to Oriani's earlier study.  The first thing he found was that there were tracks he believed to be caused by electrolysis and not ambient radioisotopes or cosmic things, which was in agreement with a claim of Oriani.  The second thing he found was that he was not able to reproduce another claim of Oriani, concerning repeatability.  So he supported one claim and didn't support another; that's a more complex conclusion than that he simply wasn't able to reproduce.  You may have another paper by Kowalski in mind, however. Kowalski does not believe that the tracks he found were caused by electrolysis. He considers that one possible explanation. Kowalski is quite careful. He is looking at clusters. Oriani reported some clusters, but clusters aren't Oriani's claim. Kowalski's paper cannot be considered to be a confirmation of Oriani's claims, beyond a finding that some unusual and difficult-to-explain phenomena occur. SSNTDs are highly sensitive and accumulate very low levels of radiation, radiation we would not ordinarily notice with electronic detectors. (Kowalski: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLonemission.pdf )
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 03:34 PM 10/14/2012, Axil Axil wrote: http://www.bubbletech.ca/radiation_detectors_files/bubble_detectors.html No etching required on this product; real time response. This product may be easier to use than CR39. In some ways. However, I'm not sure how sensitive it is to neutrons. The flux in that video was pretty high, with only an occasional bubble popping up. Still, this would be a nice test. It seems that a bubble detector may be purchased for something in the range of $200, according to one source. (another source said $700 for three). They are guaranteed to work for three months; but the author of the paper said he had one that was still working after two years. (Bubble detectors have a pressure screw that allows increasing the pressure till the bubbles disappear. It's supposed to be stored in this position. To turn it on, the pressure is relieved, which causes the contained drops of working liquid to become superheated and sensitive to neutrons.) They certainly seem nifty, and they will accumulate bubbles for some time (don't know how long), and the bubbles are immediately visible. However, for comparison, I sell a 9x12 cm sheet of LR-115 for $30. I cut it into 72 pieces for my kits, 1x1.5 cm. (If you want to buy 25 sheets from Dosirad, you can get them for roughly half of that each, as I recall.)
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 06:47 PM 10/14/2012, Eric Walker wrote: I wrote: Â The first thing he found was that there were tracks he believed to be caused by electrolysis and not ambient radioisotopes or cosmic things That's supposed to be cosmic rays. Interesting, though. Rays implies, to me, electromagnetic radiation, but cosmic rays are generally very fast charged particles or nuclei. Things.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
Abd, your comments prodded me to read Oriani's paper more closely and to dig around for Kowalski's attempted replication. I see that there are several papers with Kowalski as author or coauthor that mention Oriani, and I wasn't sure which one you had in mind. It might be [1], but in that one Kowalski concludes that electrolysis is the source of the tracks, although he does not find evidence for Oriani's claim of reproducibility. Additional comments inline. On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: Oriani did not use adequate controls, and his effect was explicitly not correlated with the electrolysis current. Basically, we don't ordinarily leave radiation detectors sitting in electrolytic cells, we don't know, really, what normal behavior is, and it would vary with the lab environment. I don't think you need a claim about the amount of current to conclude that it is electrolysis that causes the tracks and not ambient radiation or cosmic rays. A finding pertaining to current would be nice, of course. But to my mind, current is just a proxy for hydrogen flux (or loading), and it is possible that you could get high flux with lower current, so correlation with this particular variable is a week finding, as far as I can see. I have no thoughts on whether it is a good protocol to leave CR39 chips sitting around in electrolytic cells. This might be a silly thing to do. :) I don't think Oriani used control cells. I think you made that up, Eric, by not reading his paper carefully. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate correction, but I did review this fairly carefully before, looking as well at Kowalski's attempt to replicate. Kowlaski was not able to see the effect that Oriani had claimed. With regard to the question of controls, I should distinguish between two important details here -- what Oriani claims and whether what he claims is valid. For every section of Oriani's paper [2], which pertains to a different protocol, he describes a different control. In the case of the finding of tracks within the CR39 chips during electrolysis (sec. 6), the control involves two rounds of etching of chips that were in comparable cells in which electrolysis did not take place. In the case of the finding of tracks within CR39 chips suspended in the anode compartment of a U-shaped tube, where the oxygen and the hydrogen bubble up into different compartments and don't mix (sec. 7), the control is to suspend chips in a similar assembly without electrolysis. Just to pin the details down, I should mention that the assembly in sec. 6 appears to be the first cell he describes on p. 110, which involves either Pd/D or Ni/D or Ni/H, and the assembly in sec. 7 appears to be a different setup, with Pd cathodes and anodes, and Li2SO4 in distilled H2O. As you mention below, the numbers are relatively low in the electrolysis cells, and in some cases they overlap with the purported control cells. Oriani uses a Mann-Whitney statistical significance test to determine the probability that the different sets of results arise from the same population and concludes that it is P = 3E-10, which is very small. Concerning the second detail, of whether what Oriani claims to be controls are in fact scientifically valid ones (or whether a Mann-Whitney statistical analysis gets us anything here, for that matter), I am not in a position to say one way or the other. As I recall, Oriani claimed reproducible but it turns out that his evidence didn't show that, it showed that he found *something* anomalous each time he looked. Not always the same thing. Sometimes it was an increase in front side tracks, sometimes in back side. It seems that the range of track counts found for experimental runs overlapped the range of counts found in controls. (Controls were chips not exposed to the cells.) I think his main claim of reproducibility, at least in [2], pertains to sec. 5, where the CR39 chips are suspended in the electrolyte in close proximity to the cathode, with 6um of Mylar between the chip and the cathode to protect against chemical attack. In this section he says that the number of pits, either on the facing side or on the opposing side, are always considerably greater than those found in the controls (p. 112). I can't say that there was *nothing* there in Oriani's work, only that it was far less clear than claimed. Perhaps. I know very little about the quality of Oriani's work or the difficulties involved in making the claims he's making. The claims themselves are pretty interesting if they can be substantiated. Eric [1] http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KowalskiLonemission.pdf [2] http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol6.pdf, p. 108 ff.
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In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Thu, 11 Oct 2012 17:41:29 -0500: Hi, [snip] That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. Obviously, if we want to allow new physics, anything is possible. Now, would hydrino molecules (are they molecules or atoms) produce triple-tracks? Both molecules and atoms exit according to Mills. I was referring to the molecules, because unless they are shrunken below level 24, the atoms will acquire an electron becoming a negative ion that should get stuck in an ionic substance. The molecules however are both very small and electrically neutral, therefore IMO (not according to Mills) they stand a chance of penetrating the electron shells of other atoms and reacting with the nucleus bringing about nuclear reactions (much as neutrons do). Quite sure does not mean absolutely certain. I was just writing about routine assumptions. Hydrinos, if fusion-capable, would produce other effects. And, by the way, I'd expect hydrino fusion to follow the same branching ratio as hot fusion. This is probably true for the larger ones, however because they are large, the fusion rate will be very low. The very small ones, with a high fusion rate, may be small enough for the Internal Conversion reaction to play a major role, resulting in the fusion energy being expressed in the form of fast electrons. Alternatively, a hydrino *molecule* providing 2 protons to the reaction opens up the possibility that one of the two will undergo a nuclear reaction, while the other absorbs the energy of the reaction (due to proximity), resulting in a fast proton. It is this reaction that would be (nearly?) indistinguishable from a neutron knock on reaction. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 04:25 PM 10/8/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Mon, 08 Oct 2012 00:22:22 -0500: Hi, [snip] At 03:55 PM 10/7/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: While what you say is true, a track created by a single proton is not necessarily indicative of neutrons, as the track could be caused by any reaction producing a proton, or any charged particle for that matter. However the triple track created by the C12 breakup is strongly indicative of fast neutrons. Yes, the triple track is distinctive. However, if you have lots of small tracks, as protons will produce, in a place where no charged particle radiation would penetrate, you can be quite sure you are looking at neutron-caused proton knock-on. That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. Obviously, if we want to allow new physics, anything is possible. Now, would hydrino molecules (are they molecules or atoms) produce triple-tracks? Quite sure does not mean absolutely certain. I was just writing about routine assumptions. Hydrinos, if fusion-capable, would produce other effects. And, by the way, I'd expect hydrino fusion to follow the same branching ratio as hot fusion.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 04:30 PM 10/8/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Sun, 07 Oct 2012 23:56:54 -0500: Hi, [snip] These materials are not sensitive to energetic photons, i.e., gamma rays. Gammas are absorbed by all solid matter to some extent, during which process energetic electrons are usually produced, which should then leave tracks. However electron tracks are likely to be longer and narrower than heavy particle tracks, which combined with the low absorption rate of the gamma rays would probably result more in a slight background fogging of the medium rather than the distinctive short tracks made by heavy particles. That makes sense. The materials are sold, however, as not being sensitive to gamma radiation. My understanding is that the materials do self-heal to some extent. It might be that those electron tracks simply are not disruptive enough for the disruption to survive to the etch process. Not sensitive does not rule out some level of fogging as described.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
Abd, When a neutrino collides with a hydrogen proton you get a triple track. See photo on wilkipedia from 1970. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino Cold fusion is the production of neutrinos, which are also considered a dark matter candidate. They are colliding with Hydrogen and also triggering beta decays. That is what they do. Scientists expect a large amount of them from the sun, i just found massive particles of dark matter (in my model) orbiting through the center of hurricanes and tornadoes as well as triggering volcanoes, fish kills and bird kills and most sinkholes. All most likely expelled from the sun during high solar activity. No kidding, no gremlins Stewart Http://darkmattersalot.com On Thursday, October 11, 2012, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 04:30 PM 10/8/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Sun, 07 Oct 2012 23:56:54 -0500: Hi, [snip] These materials are not sensitive to energetic photons, i.e., gamma rays. Gammas are absorbed by all solid matter to some extent, during which process energetic electrons are usually produced, which should then leave tracks. However electron tracks are likely to be longer and narrower than heavy particle tracks, which combined with the low absorption rate of the gamma rays would probably result more in a slight background fogging of the medium rather than the distinctive short tracks made by heavy particles. That makes sense. The materials are sold, however, as not being sensitive to gamma radiation. My understanding is that the materials do self-heal to some extent. It might be that those electron tracks simply are not disruptive enough for the disruption to survive to the etch process. Not sensitive does not rule out some level of fogging as described.
RE: [Vo]:CR39
At 11:00 AM 10/8/2012, Jones Beene wrote: Well, one wonders if some of the triple tracks have not been misidentified, given the known miniscule cross-section of C-12 for thermal neutrons and lack of fast neutrons in LENR. There are simply too many triple tracks for even a year of exposure$B!D(J Triple tracks are considered diagnostic for fast neutrons. The materials are not sold for use with slow neutrons, unless there is a converter screen, either natural boron or, for better results, boron-10. In that case, what the material shows is the generated alphas. The SPAWAR reports are claiming, in fact, 14 MeV neutrons. There is not exactly a lack of fast neutrons in LENR. Rather, the levels of neutrons reported have been so low as to be difficult to distinguish from noise, using electronic detectors. Solid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTDs) can accumulate tracks over a long period; in the SPAWAR triple-track reports it might be for six days or longer. One should understand that the SPAWAR results have on the order of ten triple-tracks (or less) per chip, the chips being 1 cm x 2 cm x 1 mm thick. Background may be about one triple-track. WERE IT NOT FOR THE INTERPRETATION. Is it valid logically? If you look carefully at the images the bubbles are NOT compatible with three identical ions (in mass/energy) and they should be if there were really three alphas. Instead, usually there is one larger bubble (the center one that is often larger and the other two, which are themselves not identical. I don't know that it's necessary that the alphas have equal velocity. The momentum must be distributed to match the original momentum. The angle of incidence of the original neutron, and the actual site where the carbon interaction takes place, may produce differing visibility for the individual tracks. This old paper indicates why boron was initially added to CR39. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18811248.1984.9731126#preview ... and it is simply to narrow down the interpretation of the source, as boron does not respond to gammas. Problem is: Boron is not always added to CR39, and if it is not labeled as being added, then the suspicion can be that B is absent. This would be a reason to eliminate it - as well as the false assumption that boron does not produce triple tracks. If there are fast neutrons, boron will have little effect. It's only if there are slow neutrons that boron is used. First - Is it valid to assume no boron, if the film is not labeled as such? Yes. At least no significant boron. If not, or if the film is known to have boron, then the triple tracks could be a relic of boron interaction. It does not take much boron as a contaminate, given the extremely high cross-section (millions of times higher than for C12) That probability - of the assumption of no boron based on labeling alone - may be similar to why food processors must disclose whether the same equipment was used with peanuts and other allergens. Can you trust a supplier of film for that kind of full disclosure? If not, then it throws a wild-card into the interpretation. These materials are sold for radiation dosimetry. That can be a critical application. I'd be astonished if there was significant boron. LR-115 is sold with an overlayer of boron, if that's what you want. Speaking of it's all about interpretation: - This reaction below is actually a triple track, although on first blush - it would be categorized as double. 10B + n $B*(J [11B] $B*(J $BA(J + 7Li Not only is it triple track, because the 11 boron actually is dislocated far enough on impact with the neutron to cause the central bubble - but also, the two which split off from the 11B (in this interpretation of triple tracks) are the right size range for them to be consistent with the images $B!D(J the ones which claim the triplets are from C12 disintegration. This is an alternate interpretation. It indicates only that there are other logical interpretations of triple tracks - which may or may not be more cogent than C12, when the cross-section is factored in. These aren't bubbles, just to nit-pick. What is seen in the images are pits. The CR-39 is etched down from the surface, and the part of a track that is closest to the surface is etched the most. In addition, it appears, as a particle slows, the energy transferred per micron increases, so tracks would get fatter just from that. If there is a bubble, it wouldn't be from radiation, it would be a process defect in the CR-39. The bottom of a pit is etched the least. As you continue to etch CR-39, the normal surface is also etched away to some degree, so any features that appear as pits will grow with time. The degree of confusion that can result in interpretation of CR-39 material, the kind used by SPAWAR, could be great. That's why I'd prefer, if I were going to use CR-39, to either use very thin material, if it can be obtained, or create it by
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 10:15 PM 10/8/2012, Eric Walker wrote: Oriani also talks about tracks generated within the CR-39 chip itself in his Pd/D and Ni/D electrolysis experiments [1].  He also mentions tracks appearing in chips that are in the anode compartment of a subdivided cell, well away from the cathode, where the anode and the cathode are physically separate.  He sees these affects noticeably above activity in control cells he is also running.  This paper challenges conventional wisdom about CR-39 tracks in LENR cells. Oriani did not use adequate controls, and his effect was explicitly not correlated with the electrolysis current. Basically, we don't ordinarily leave radiation detectors sitting in electrolytic cells, we don't know, really, what normal behavior is, and it would vary with the lab environment. I don't think Oriani used control cells. I think you made that up, Eric, by not reading his paper carefully. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate correction, but I did review this fairly carefully before, looking as well at Kowalski's attempt to replicate. Kowlaski was not able to see the effect that Oriani had claimed. As I recall, Oriani claimed reproducible but it turns out that his evidence didn't show that, it showed that he found *something* anomalous each time he looked. Not always the same thing. Sometimes it was an increase in front side tracks, sometimes in back side. It seems that the range of track counts found for experimental runs overlapped the range of counts found in controls. (Controls were chips not exposed to the cells.) I can't say that there was *nothing* there in Oriani's work, only that it was far less clear than claimed.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 10:15 PM 10/8/2012, Eric Walker wrote: Oriani also talks about ... Eric [1]Â http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol6.pdfhttp://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol6.pdf, p. 108 ff. Â See his conclusion on p. 115-16. I should note that I had not read Oriani's recent review of his own work. Looking at it now, I don't see anything new. He claims increases in track counts during electrolysis, but he doesn't run exact controls, and doesn't compare his increases with those in controls under all-but-electrolysis conditions. If electrolysis is the cause, then there should be a dose-response effect. I.e., the effect should lessen as the current lessens. There is no correlation with current shown. However, it would not be surprising to see increases from electrolysis. Electrolysis moves elements around. It attracts contaminants. It also separates hydrogen isotopes, which may or may not be relevant. Oriani draws many conclusions from his data that don't seem to be warranted. More surprising is that nuclear particles can be generated within the thickness of the plastic. Well, if there are neutrons, this wouldn't be surprising. But what does he conclude this from? He re-etches the CR-39, and assumes that if he finds new tracks, not visible before, these are from radiation originating in the material. That's what fast neutrons would do. He doesn't mention neutrons, though. However, I don't see any mention of controls, of the repeated etching of chips not exposed to electrolysis. He finds an apparent anomaly, his cell with the highest electrolytic current, experiment number 9, with tracks so numerous that they could not be counted. (That would make it seem that track counts do correlate with electrolytic current, but this doesn't appear over all the data, and I've been relying on Kowalski's relaying of Oriani's comment that track counts did not correlate with current.) Now, one could still estimate overall track counts by counting them in a small area and extrapolating, unless the tracks really were so numerous that they have merged with each other. Hamburger, it's called, perhaps. Oriani does not appear to have attempted to replicate that result. His experiments were all over the map. This is investigational work, where you try lots of stuff. It's not the kind of work that can be used to draw clear conclusions, it's generally useful to suggest directions for further research. Oriani notes, in this paper, that some of the control chips show more tracks than some of the experimental chips. He then applies statistical analysis. The problem is that this is not a uniform data set, i.e., the experiments are widely varied from each other. Kowalski, in his replication, used a single protocol, and found no effect. Kowalski also saw a few anomalies. Just not what he'd thought he'd see! His Figure 2 shows a large cluster of tracks. What caused that? Well, the CR-39 could be exposed to a radioactive source at any time, from the time it was manufactured and cured, up until the time it was etched. It could be a bit of radioactive dust, there is stuff floating around from nuclear tests, still. A piece of dust on the surface would not produce a spread pattern like that, unless it was fairly large, which is unlikely. But Oriani doesn't give scale for his images. I'd think that some piece of radioactive dust that was held away from the surface, a short distance, could produce this. It's on the back side of the chip, presumably the side away from the cathode? (Otherwise, there is no definition of back or front, CR-39 is symmetrical.) It's always possible that some piece of dust ended up in the CR-39 itself. Not likely that it could produce that pattern, again. This looks like external radiation. Looking over the paper again, I think I have misinterpreted certain things. The research is confusing because it represents many different experiments, presented as if was a series that is the same, which was implied by his claim of reproducibility. Above, I make an assumption about back side. That may be completely incorrect, because Oriani used CR-39, in at least some cases, with the 6 micron plastic mylar covering intact, on one side, removed on the other. Oriani implies that radiation would not be expected on the back side, which implies an orientation toward a source, but he doesn't seem to show any consistent relationship of the detectors to the source. To nail all this down, I'd need to read and reread and restate and reanalyze Oriani's paper Bottom line, Oriani has not been replicated. Kowalski failed to replicate (actually I didn't see Kowalski's results as being that much different from Oriani's, but Kowalski's opinion was that he didn't replicate the results), but this should actually be fairly easy work. If one is going to do this with nickel-hydrogen, it's cheap, and there is no reason not to use high current, to get the
Re: [Vo]:CR39
On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 4:47 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: I don't think Oriani used control cells. I think you made that up, Eric, by not reading his paper carefully. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate correction, but I did review this fairly carefully before, looking as well at Kowalski's attempt to replicate. Kowlaski was not able to see the effect that Oriani had claimed. It's entirely possible that I made that up. ;) I'll have to reread the Oriani paper and then read Kowalski's writeup and then get back to you once I have more context. Can you provide a link for Kowalski's replication? Eric
Re: [Vo]:CR39
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:25 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. One more thought -- if this is what is going on, it would suggest that hydrinos are potentially quite dangerous to living organisms anywhere near where they are being produced. Eric
Re: [Vo]:CR39
That's the behavior I believe can happen if this collapsed state of matter, call it what you want, can tunnel through collapse/decay other matter. Best some type of magnetic and/or inertial confinement like Miley has contracted with NASA to do. Maybe suspend it in a reactor, feed it hydrogen and keep it happy. On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 11:10 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:25 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. One more thought -- if this is what is going on, it would suggest that hydrinos are potentially quite dangerous to living organisms anywhere near where they are being produced. Eric
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to Eric Walker's message of Tue, 9 Oct 2012 20:10:30 -0700: Hi, [snip] On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:25 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. One more thought -- if this is what is going on, it would suggest that hydrinos are potentially quite dangerous to living organisms anywhere near where they are being produced. Eric Possibly, though Mills seems ok. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to ChemE Stewart's message of Tue, 9 Oct 2012 23:18:58 -0400: Hi, [snip] That's the behavior I believe can happen if this collapsed state of matter, call it what you want, can tunnel through collapse/decay other matter. The Hydrino molecule is extremely stable, to the point of being chemically totally inert. It also won't cause other matter to collapse, however the occasional nuclear reaction is not out of the question. The trick is to give it good nuclear fuel as soon as it is formed, so that it reacts straight away. Best some type of magnetic and/or inertial confinement like Miley has contracted with NASA to do. Maybe suspend it in a reactor, feed it hydrogen and keep it happy. On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 11:10 PM, Eric Walker eric.wal...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:25 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. One more thought -- if this is what is going on, it would suggest that hydrinos are potentially quite dangerous to living organisms anywhere near where they are being produced. Eric Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
RE: [Vo]:CR39
Well, one wonders if some of the triple tracks have not been misidentified, given the known miniscule cross-section of C-12 for thermal neutrons and lack of fast neutrons in LENR. There are simply too many triple tracks for even a year of exposure… WERE IT NOT FOR THE INTERPRETATION. Is it valid logically? If you look carefully at the images the bubbles are NOT compatible with three identical ions (in mass/energy) and they should be if there were really three alphas. Instead, usually there is one larger bubble (the center one that is often larger and the other two, which are themselves not identical. This old paper indicates why boron was initially added to CR39. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18811248.1984.9731126#preview ... and it is simply to narrow down the interpretation of the source, as boron does not respond to gammas. Problem is: Boron is not always added to CR39, and if it is not labeled as being added, then the suspicion can be that B is absent. This would be a reason to eliminate it - as well as the false assumption that boron does not produce triple tracks. First - Is it valid to assume no boron, if the film is not labeled as such? If not, or if the film is known to have boron, then the triple tracks could be a relic of boron interaction. It does not take much boron as a contaminate, given the extremely high cross-section (millions of times higher than for C12) That probability - of the assumption of no boron based on labeling alone - may be similar to why food processors must disclose whether the same equipment was used with peanuts and other allergens. Can you trust a supplier of film for that kind of full disclosure? If not, then it throws a wild-card into the interpretation. Speaking of it's all about interpretation: - This reaction below is actually a triple track, although on first blush - it would be categorized as double. 10B + n → [11B] → α + 7Li Not only is it triple track, because the 11 boron actually is dislocated far enough on impact with the neutron to cause the central bubble - but also, the two which split off from the 11B (in this interpretation of triple tracks) are the right size range for them to be consistent with the images … the ones which claim the triplets are from C12 disintegration. This is an alternate interpretation. It indicates only that there are other logical interpretations of triple tracks - which may or may not be more cogent than C12, when the cross-section is factored in. -Original Message- From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax AFAIK fast neutrons are detected by the fact that they occasionally break a C12 nucleus into 3 alpha particles. It is the three alpha particles that produce three cone shaped tracks in the CR39, with a common origin. Common origin yes - but NOT a similarity in mass energy, since the bubbles vary considerably attachment: winmail.dat
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to Abd ul-Rahman Lomax's message of Sun, 07 Oct 2012 23:56:54 -0500: Hi, [snip] These materials are not sensitive to energetic photons, i.e., gamma rays. Gammas are absorbed by all solid matter to some extent, during which process energetic electrons are usually produced, which should then leave tracks. However electron tracks are likely to be longer and narrower than heavy particle tracks, which combined with the low absorption rate of the gamma rays would probably result more in a slight background fogging of the medium rather than the distinctive short tracks made by heavy particles. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Mon, 8 Oct 2012 09:00:07 -0700: Hi, [snip] Well, one wonders if some of the triple tracks have not been misidentified, given the known miniscule cross-section of C-12 for thermal neutrons and lack of fast neutrons in LENR. There are simply too many triple tracks for even a year of exposure? As Abd mentioned, they were probably 14 MeV neutrons from the conventional D-T reaction, which one might expect to happen occasionally, even with LENR. (The T also being the occasional result of LENR). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Mon, 8 Oct 2012 09:00:07 -0700: Hi, [snip] If you look carefully at the images the bubbles are NOT compatible with three identical ions (in mass/energy) and they should be if there were really three alphas. When a neutron breaks a C12 nucleus into 3 alphas, they don't necessarily all get the same energy. The only requirement is that both energy and momentum be conserved, not that the energy necessarily be equally divided. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:25 PM, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: That may be true according to conventional wisdom, however consider the following possibility. Severely shrunken Hydrino molecules could easily migrate through the interstitial spaces in solid matter, and then undergo fusion reactions further on. The result might be essentially indistinguishable from neutron/proton knock-on reactions. Oriani also talks about tracks generated within the CR-39 chip itself in his Pd/D and Ni/D electrolysis experiments [1]. He also mentions tracks appearing in chips that are in the anode compartment of a subdivided cell, well away from the cathode, where the anode and the cathode are physically separate. He sees these affects noticeably above activity in control cells he is also running. This paper challenges conventional wisdom about CR-39 tracks in LENR cells. Eric [1] http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol6.pdf, p. 108 ff. See his conclusion on p. 115-16.
RE: [Vo]:CR39
Robin The cross-section for alpha emission from carbon is way too small for the explanation you suggest. Wiki sez: in the radiation detection application, CR-39 material is exposed to proton recoils caused by incident neutrons. The proton recoils cause ion tracks, which are enlarged by an etching process in a caustic solution of sodium hydroxide. The enlarged ion tracks are counted under a microscope (commonly 200x), and the number of ion tracks is proportional to the amount of incident neutron radiation. -Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com AFAIK fast neutrons are detected by the fact that they occasionally break a C12 nucleus into 3 alpha particles. It is the three alpha particles that produce three cone shaped tracks in the CR39, with a common origin. Note that only charged particles create tracks, because the tracks are formed from chemical changes in the CR39 caused by the CR39 molecules being ionized, and only energetic photons and charged particles cause ionization (not neutral particles). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
In reply to Jones Beene's message of Sun, 7 Oct 2012 07:32:37 -0700: Hi Jones, [snip] Robin The cross-section for alpha emission from carbon is way too small for the explanation you suggest. Wiki sez: in the radiation detection application, CR-39 material is exposed to proton recoils caused by incident neutrons. The proton recoils cause ion tracks, which are enlarged by an etching process in a caustic solution of sodium hydroxide. The enlarged ion tracks are counted under a microscope (commonly 200x), and the number of ion tracks is proportional to the amount of incident neutron radiation. While what you say is true, a track created by a single proton is not necessarily indicative of neutrons, as the track could be caused by any reaction producing a proton, or any charged particle for that matter. However the triple track created by the C12 breakup is strongly indicative of fast neutrons. -Original Message- From: mix...@bigpond.com AFAIK fast neutrons are detected by the fact that they occasionally break a C12 nucleus into 3 alpha particles. It is the three alpha particles that produce three cone shaped tracks in the CR39, with a common origin. Note that only charged particles create tracks, because the tracks are formed from chemical changes in the CR39 caused by the CR39 molecules being ionized, and only energetic photons and charged particles cause ionization (not neutral particles). Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 04:50 PM 10/6/2012, Jed Rothwell wrote: CR39 is very hard to use. It is not for dummies or beginners. That's the take home lesson I learned after listening to 2 days of discussion on CR32 by experts. CR39 is difficult to *interpret*. It's also a pain to etch. As normally used, CR39 is thick. As it is etched, deeper and deeper layers are shown. I think that a phase-contrast microscope is used, because CR39 is a clear plastic, one is essentially viewing pits on the surface. Focus is critical. There is a reason people invented electronic particle detectors and stopped using the analog ones such as CR39. A lot of reasons, actually. Actually, I think the solid state nuclear track materials like CR39 are more recent than electronic detectors like Geiger counters. But I'm not sure. I am not saying the old techniques are inferior, but they are harder. To say they are inferior would be like saying that RTDs are better than mercury thermometers. That is true in some ways but not so true in other ways. It is complicated. SSNTDs are accumulating detectors, so they can integrate radiation over a long period of time. You can detect, with CR-39, radiation that would be indistiguishable from noise with electronic detectors. There are instructions for using CR-39 in the Galileo project protocol documents. http://newenergytimes.com/v2/projects/tgp/TGP0-V5.1b%20Package.zip The Galileo Project report has some images and comments about interpreting CR-39. In addition to the replication attempts reported by Krivit, there was an Earthtech replication. Some work with CR-39 that I've seen used thin layers. I looked to see if I could find such material, but then I found LR-115. LR-115 is a more recently invented nuclear track detector material. It is cellulose nitrate, and suffers damage from ionizing radiation like CR-39, and is etched with sodium hydroxide like CR-39, except that a lower concentration, lower temperature, and less time are required. The material contains a red colorant. It comes coated on a 100 micron clear polyester base, and in 6 micron or 12 microns of detector thickness. A track that penetrates the whole surface layer will then show up as clear against the red material. I found it difficult to buy CR-39. I was able to buy LR-115 from Dosirad in France; I'm reselling the 6 micron material. For the kits, I cut it down to 1 x 1.5 cm pieces. I sell a 9 x 12 cm sheet for $30. LR-115 has a different response to radiation than CR-39. Tracks at energies above about 4 MeV may not sufficiently ionize the material with LR-115, at least Pam Mosier-Boss indicated this in an email. However, Am-241 sources from ionizing smoke detectors produce beautiful, clear tracks in CR-39. Now, Axil asked about the detection of neutrons. Neutrons, of course, don't leave tracks in SSNTDs. However, passing through a material containing hydrogen (like the detector materials), neutrons will collide with and eject protons from their positions in the plastics. These protons leave tracks, and are used, then, to infer the presence of neutrons. Most of the tracks shown in the CR-39 images are rather obviously proton knock-on tracks. SPAWAR, however, focused largely on rare triple-tracks, produced when a neutron impacts a carbon nucleus and breaks it into three alpha particles. In the first experimental run with one of my kits, done by a high school student, there are no clear tracks that were produced. The material was placed such that *only* neutron-caused tracks would be likely. It is possible that proton knock-on tracks were not energetic enough to produce tracks all the way through the detector layer, and more work is needed to characterize and determine the best etching protocol. However, LR-115 is sold for neutron detection, and we did follow the standard etching procedure, so the most likely explanation of the results is that neutrons were not generated. Nevertheless, it will be important to see some comparison results with LR-115 exposed to a known and calibrated neutron source. (In this experiment, the detectors were a bit further away from the cathode wire than the back sides of the SPAWAR CR-39 chips that showed so many back-side tracks. It's possible that for some unknown reason we did not set up a nuclear reaction. As far as I know, this was the first attempt to replicate the SPAWAR neutron findings. There will be others. Deeper analysis of the detector chips, which were partly damaged from unknown causes, is proceeding.) Back to CR-39, there has been work with thin layers of the plastic, created by evaporating solvent with the plastic dissolved in it. I think it's worth investigating that. It's been used to image radiation from biological cells that have been tagged with a radioistope, a radioautograph on a microscopic scale. An advantage of creating detector material like this would be that it could be completely fresh, no problem
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 05:07 PM 10/6/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: AFAIK fast neutrons are detected by the fact that they occasionally break a C12 nucleus into 3 alpha particles. It is the three alpha particles that produce three cone shaped tracks in the CR39, with a common origin. Note that only charged particles create tracks, because the tracks are formed from chemical changes in the CR39 caused by the CR39 molecules being ionized, and only energetic photons and charged particles cause ionization (not neutral particles). The triple tracks are pretty distinct; however, the routine usage of SSNTDs for neutron detection looks for proton tracks, created by proton knock-on from hydrogen-containing materials. In the SPAWAR triple-track report, the hydrogen would be in the CR-39 material itself. SSNTDs, like CR-39 and LR-115, can also be used to detect slow neutrons by using a boron-10 (n,alpha) converter screen. However, while I have some boron-10 material, slow neutrons are not expected from codeposition experiments. Of course, fast neutrons weren't expected either These materials are not sensitive to energetic photons, i.e., gamma rays.
RE: [Vo]:CR39
At 09:32 AM 10/7/2012, Jones Beene wrote: Robin The cross-section for alpha emission from carbon is way too small for the explanation you suggest. Apparently not. Triple tracks are not common, though. If you are not familiar with it, you should read the SPAWAR publications, including the Pamela Mosier-Boss report on triple tracks and her followup report. There are some beautiful images of triple-tracks, she creates them by combining images from two different focus depths, using a different color for each focus. She concludes, ultimately, that the neutrons are at about 14 MeV. It should be understood that she is talking about a very low neutron flux; these tracks have been accumulated for weeks. Wiki sez: in the radiation detection application, CR-39 material is exposed to proton recoils caused by incident neutrons. The proton recoils cause ion tracks, which are enlarged by an etching process in a caustic solution of sodium hydroxide. The enlarged ion tracks are counted under a microscope (commonly 200x), and the number of ion tracks is proportional to the amount of incident neutron radiation. Yeah, that's what they say. I'm seeing finer track images, in LR-115, using about 400X.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
At 03:55 PM 10/7/2012, mix...@bigpond.com wrote: While what you say is true, a track created by a single proton is not necessarily indicative of neutrons, as the track could be caused by any reaction producing a proton, or any charged particle for that matter. However the triple track created by the C12 breakup is strongly indicative of fast neutrons. Yes, the triple track is distinctive. However, if you have lots of small tracks, as protons will produce, in a place where no charged particle radiation would penetrate, you can be quite sure you are looking at neutron-caused proton knock-on. In the experiment we ran, we had the following arrangement: c = cathode wire, originally 250 micron diameter, plus plating, against the cell wall. h = acrylic cell wall, 1/16. (about 1600 microns) p = polyester LR-115 base material, 100 microns d = detector layer, cellulose nitrate, 6 microns d p p d d p cover piece of acrylic plastic holding down the films that's four layers of LR-115, as two pairs, emulsion-to-emulsion We would expect to find, aside from neutron-produced tracks, only background radiation from previous storage, plus radiation during the experiment. Charged particle radiation from the cathode would not penetrate the cell wall, nor the base layer. Ambient radiation would mostly fail to reach the detector material. (Particles carrying radon or other radioisotope could be trapped between the film laters, but a single alpha from them would only penetrate one detector layer. The hope was to look for coincident tracks on adjacent layers as clearly indicating tracks generated during the experiment, and only from two sources: the cathode, or cosmic radiation from outside the experiment.) The detectors, etched, from our run, are remarkably free of clear tracks, all the way through the detector layer, while control chips exposed to Am-241 show brilliant, clear tracks. (I expected to see much more background radiation; these detectors were stored in my refrigerator for more than a year before they were used.) I am thinking of doing a wet experiment, i.e., with the LR-115 immersed in the electrolyte, with various orientations. I don't know if LR-115 can handle the wet environment, but, hey, it still takes hot lye to develop it, might be worth trying.
Re: [Vo]:CR39
CR39 is very hard to use. It is not for dummies or beginners. That's the take home lesson I learned after listening to 2 days of discussion on CR32 by experts. There is a reason people invented electronic particle detectors and stopped using the analog ones such as CR39. A lot of reasons, actually. I am not saying the old techniques are inferior, but they are harder. To say they are inferior would be like saying that RTDs are better than mercury thermometers. That is true in some ways but not so true in other ways. It is complicated. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:CR39
Hi Axil, http://www.slac.stanford.edu/cgi-wrap/getdoc/slac-pub-5655.pdf Samples are chemically etched then tracks are counted using a microscope. I guess it'll be hard to find a guide for dummies. Cheers. From: Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com To: vortex-l vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Saturday, October 6, 2012 11:42 PM Subject: [Vo]:CR39 Has anyone run across a “how to use CR39 for dummies” type document or as an alternitve, a experimental procedure describing in detail the use CR39 to test for neutrons.
