Please excuse the long posting. It will never happen again :-) There is the possibility of a multitude of semantic ambiguities when these two phrases are used together: "inversion temperature" vs "thermal inversion". which should be cleared up - especially now that we are in a situation where the two can interact in such a way as to supply synergy.
The inversion temperature of hydrogen relates to the inversion of the Joule-Thomson effect. With H2, the value is below ambient, as the table below indicates. There is no expected cooling effect on expansion of hydrogen - as with an ideal gas, nor is there the normal range of heating on compression. In fact, H2 can and does heat on expansion. That is part of the M. O. of the infamous "palladium cigarette lighter". If not for the inversion temperature heating effect, the Pd in the lighter would never release much gas to begin with, and no cigarettes would get lit. Note this was an actual lighter design at one time, and addicts do not like to get fooled by having no flame from a lighter that costs as much as a luxury car. In contrast - "thermal inversion" as happens in LENR refers to an internal heating effect of the active material. For instance, if two RTDs are placed in a reactor, so that there is an internal and external temperature measurement - then when there is active electrical heating on the outside, the expectation is that the outside RTD will remain hotter at all times. However, when the internal reading is higher, sometimes significantly hotter, then the logical explanation is that LENR has been triggered. I should mention that a few experts like Ed Storms are suspicious of this method of validation of LENR, and others like Jed Rothwell see it as perfectly valid. I think it is meaningful, as long as the experiment is run for long enough, and the inversion remains relatively constant over time. At any rate, the two terms: "inversion temperature" vs "thermal inversion" can not only overlap, but also influence each other - in LENR experiments using gas phase. We are so accustomed to the Joule-Thomson effect and the ideal gas law as operating the way Boyle sez it should operate, that we often do not realize this 'problem' (now a feature). But the message is clear that any gas expanded at constant enthalpy will experience a temperature decrease ONLY if it is below the inversion temperature. If above, it can experience a temperature increase. On cycling, no net gain is expected, of course, and when net gain is seen - this points to an energy anomaly of some kind, but not limited to LENR. The inversion temperature of hydrogen and two other noble gases are lower than ambient, as the table below indicates: Gas Inversion Temp (Deg K) Helium 51 Hydrogen (H2) 205 Neon 242 Nitrogen (N2) 621 Argon 723 Krypton 727 Oxygen (O2) 893 This can fit into an alternative M.O. for some experiments, to the degree that this oddity about hydrogen being able to heat up on expansion can be exploited in some way. To be exploitable, there would need to be asymmetry in sequential cycling. The asymmetry could related to ZPE, in the same way that the Lamb shift relates to ZPE. As most vorticians realize, the Lamb shift is a small asymmetry between two energy levels of the hydrogen atom in quantum electrodynamics (QED). It is small, tiny really - but absolutely real - and when we are talking about trigger temperatures in near IR, the "transaction rate" of sequential cycling can be 10^13 times per second and up. BTW this shift shows up in a frequency of about 1 GHz, which is similar to the observed energy shift. That is not much per photon but it is more than a third as much as your microwave oven, and also coherent - and a few of us have a suspicion that this may be the real driving force behind the Rossi device. It is a falsifiable hypothesis. You heard it first on vortex. (going back to January, in this thread: http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg41193.html where Terry gives the energy equivalent of the Lamb shift as 10^-6 eV. I guess it is worth adding now that even this low amount of "energy per shift" is quite significant when multiplied by a sequential transaction rate in the IR range. .which explains something in the common vernacular that you may not have realized before . <g> . there is such a thing as "cold as hell" - thanks to ZPE. Jones
