Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote: > Ø JR: “The reaction is inherently stable. It has what Pons called a > "memory" meaning it tends to go back the same power level after a > perturbation, which means it must have a built-in control mechanism.” > > > > I am not so sure. These comments overlook the severe runaway reaction at > the P&F Salt Lake City Lab, and similar one’s elsewhere. There are four of > these that I know of, and possibly more – meaning: unexpected but far from > impossible. >
I did not mean that the control mechanisms always work. No doubt a runaway reaction can occur. Here is an analogy. In a wood burning stove, the fire tends to stay at about the same level of intensity for ~10 minutes at a time. The intensity of the flame is governed mainly by how wide you open the vents, and by the shape of the wood pile inside, which determines how much surface area is exposed. You can poke the wood and the fire will flame up for a while, but it tends to return to the same intensity. After a while a log will burn through, the others will fall down, the shape changes and the intensity of the flame changes. You can think of the area of exposed, hot, burning log as analogous to the NAE in a cold fusion cathode or powder. It changes slowly over time but the overall intensity is a function of how much NAE you have. The fire is controlled by the vent, surface area, temperature, the type of wood and so on. But it can go out of control. The entire mass of wood can catch fire and burn rapidly. The heat can ramp up rapidly with positive feedback. (This is not an analogy; the very same thing can happen with Pd-D cold fusion.) If you increase the surface area by grinding the wood into powder, it can explode. In the old days, people using fireplaces, wood stoves and other rudimentary methods of burning fuel knew how to control the reaction, but occasionally it got away from them, and burned down the house. Obviously, Rossi has discovered the major control factors for Ni-H cold fusion. He knows how to use them in real time. That is a gigantic step forward. However, I fear that Rossi may not fully understand this, and the reaction might go out of control. - Jed
