Horace Heffner writes > I would certainly agree that it is unfortunate that no one bothered to > quantify the fields involved in their publication, or possibly to even > measure them or even compute them theoretically.
Huh? Fromthe Letts paper, page 7: "During the course of experimentation it was discovered that polarization of the laser beam can dramatically affect the thermal response of the cathode to the laser beam. Cravens observed during one of our runs that when the laser beam polarization is perpendicular to an external magnetic field, the thermal response of the cathode is maximized. The polarization of the beam was rotated with a ½ wave retarder; as the polarization of the beam became parallel to the external magnetic field lines, apparent excess power declined. With the ½ wave retarder shown in Figure 9, the laser beam polarization was rotated with respect to an *external magnetic field of 350 Gauss.* How much more specific were you expecting him to be? And 350 Gauss is a fairly weak field, as I would categorize it. Its too bad he didn't get some NIB magnets which can have a surface field of 30x what he used. > To that extent it can not > be said one way or another the importance of the magnetic fields involved > because they were not quantified. It can only be said that Letts observed > an experimental effect upon adding or removing the magnets. Not exactly. Polarization is important. Field orientation is important. But Storms has demonstrated that the Laser alone is sufficient and that an axial field does not help at all. Storms also suggests that Letts calorimetry is being affected. If Letts does not acknowledge that point, then what all this says to me is that this experiment begs for more clarification. Ed says, > >Someday, someone might properly determine if a > >magnet is important. Meanwhile, I and McKubre replicated the basic > >observation. You seem to think that the claimed effect of the magnetic field > >has essential importance while I claim that producing extra heat using a laser > >is the essential point. This last sentence is clearly NOT true, as Ed previously indicated. I think he must have fired this off in haste. The excess heat is de minimis. The importance of the Laser is clearly related to field alignment within the matrix. From that standpoint the magnetic field should be able to add or subtract, depending on its proper alignment. I sense that Horace has performed this on his own but is not ready to share that work thus far. Understandable, but I hope he will at least share his thoughts on the underlying theory. Do you see this as a robust QM effect, Horace? Jones
