Hi Robin, > Actually I was trying to come up with a way of measuring the ratio of "stripping" > reactions to fusion reactions, but upon further consideration I realize that since > both would produce lone neutrons, this isn't a good measure anyway.
That measurement can be done with a neutron spectrometer. In fact this has been done and most neutrons appear to be 2.5 MeV, which is as expected for D+D fusion. This is the main reason that Fusorites don't buy the (formerly flawed) hypothesis for stripping. I think that the earlier hypothesis which neglected the immediate n decay is also what you have been referring to in these posts. But that is not the way this *present version* of stripping should be understood. This is a new twist. I shouldn't even call it a hypothesis yet - as it must be tested, which can be done. Consequently, if what I am proposing happens in fact, the split-neutron will decay too fast to be noticed as a free neutron, and it should not have ever been picked up by any neutron spectrometer anyway, which it wasn't. So far, so good. The most noticeable thing, and the test that would prove my hypothesis, is a magnetic plasma divertor which samples a small portion of the bulk plasma spectrographically. This is probably way too expensive for most small inventors to manage - plus - none of the ones I know are convinced of this hypothesis anyway. Side note: the "not-invented-here" mentality extends even to the garage inventor group... IF protons are seen near 500 KeV and beyond - then yes, I think my suggestion is the only reasonable explanation. These would NOT be the proton which is left over from stripping - that would be much lower energy. Let me make that clear - we are not talking about the proton left over when a deuteron is split into a proton and a neutron. That proton is cold - the putative "hot" proton needed to drive the secondary reaction (D+D) is the new twist on stripping. Instead, these hot protons would be the decay protons from accelerated neutron decay. These are the very particles (along with the betas) that provide the "missing" energy necessary to cause real D+D fusion and real 2.5 MeV neutrons. Make no mistake - real D+D fusion occurs, it just cannot be caused by 20 kv of input, unless there is an intermediary reaction which has heretofore gone unnoticed. That reaction is not stripping, per se, it is accelerated neutron decay. It is even possible that stripping will NOT occur frequently in circumstances where immediate decay is not favored by other circumstances. As stated earlier, for every 2.5 MeV neutron seen, I expect that you will find a multiple of "hot" protons - maybe in a ratio of from 2-1 up to 10-1. These would be your "real" power source, and would be the reason that it doesn't help to raise the voltage of the Fusor, nor to increase the plasma density. In the end, this is a QM reaction and it has nearly maxed-out at ~10^10 decays per second per 10^20 deuterons present (very rough approx). Another way to prove/disprove this hypothesis is to run the Fusor for a few hours, shut it down and run everything through a high precision mass-spec. I believe that the ratio of hydrogen to tritium, or hydrogen to 3He, will be on the order of 20-1 up to 50-1. If you started the run with 100% D2 as fuel, how would you explain this otherwise? Side Note: if the protons which I am suggesting are present were a bit hotter, one might find that boron atoms in a Fusor would fuse. Some might anyway. It should be tried. Proton-Boron fusion (fission) p + 11 B --> 3 alphas + 8.7 MeV is the reaction which probably offers the ultimate energy resource on the earth, because, the fuels are ubiquitous on the earth, cheap and fast neutrons are not generated. It has been shown, however, that bremsstrahlung power losses are too large to satisfy the ignition condition in a solenoid because the atomic number of boron is so large but as to a Fusor, well, let's say it should be tried. The "real" power source of the Fusor is IMHO not the 20 kilovolt input, nor a recycling of the D+D energy (as the neutron carries most of that off anyway) NOR is the "real" power source "stripping" per se." IMHO, the real power source is the nearly instantaneous beta decay of the neutron which has been slightly freed from the proton (QM tunneling effect) and is then subject to accelerated decay. As stated, it is even possible that stripping will NOT occur frequently in circumstances where immediate decay is not favored by other circumstances. Ironically, the reason that any of this can happen at all, as Fred has been suggesting, is that a high voltage gradient serves to oscillate the ever-present neutrino flux to the degree that they will interact with neutrons. This has been demonstrated. The neutrinos, however, cannot accomplish this accelerated decay thing within the D nucleus, so there has to be QM "partial" tunneling involved first. This is the determining factor on the rate of the reaction. That is why the Fusor is likely a dead-end street as far as viable LENR device is concerned, unless a larger amount of neutrinos can be focused into the device using much larger HV coils, space around the device. Fred threw this out to Earth-Tech, but they didn't bite. Fortunately, there are likely to be "other ways to skin a cat" (where did that horrible idiomatic expression come from?) Jones Besides a potato peeler, what are the other ways to skin a cat?
