On Oct 23, 2009, at 10:11 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
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!
It is notable that D+D+e -> 4He+e will not necessarily trigger
neutrons and readily detectable gammas or betas. However, a viable
hydrogen fusion model is far from sufficient to explain CF lattice
phenomena. Beyond the He production with small amounts of high energy
alphas and neutron production problem, there is the well documented
and much more difficult to explain heavy transmutation without
signature problem.
AFAIK, it is well known what large signatures that neutrons, even
very slow neutrons, produce when they interact with other nuclei.
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.
Will this paper be available online soon?
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?
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. Thermal
neutrons are readily detected. See:
http://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.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
