Dear Vorts (of a sort), Not enough energy to catch up with the prolific Jed, but here is an idea for another path to Challenge victory:
According to A STUDENT'S GUIDE TO COLD FUSION, by Edmund Storms http://www.lenr-canr.org/StudentsGuide.htm ----- Evidence for iron production during arcing between carbon electrodes under H2O has been reported [16, 165-167]. This method seems to be easily reproduced. Palladium and gold cathodes also showed excessive iron after electrolysis in light water [168, 169]. [16] Sundaresan, R. and J. Bockris, Anomalous Reactions During Arcing Between Carbon Rods in Water. Fusion Technol., 1994. 26: p. 261. [168] Ohmori, T. and M. Enyo, Iron Formation in Gold and Palladium Cathodes. J. New Energy, 1996. 1(1): p. 15. ----- My assumption (!) or hope is that transmutation using the arcing method is much faster than any results that occur via electrolysis. But I'm also assuming (ass u me) that the transmutation researchers simply tested their resulting "iron" magnetically by waving a permanent magnet over the residue to see if anything therein responded ferromagnetically (though nickel and cobalt also exhibit ferromagnetism). That's what I seem to recall from an old issue of "Infinite Energy". BUT! -- Just to show how problematic that test is, here is an not-so-recent science news item: ----- More Magnets, Please Only metals can become magnetic, right? Introducing buckyballs that may undo our thinking on yet another scientific principle By Robert Kunzig DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 12 | December 2002 Tatiana Makarova makes are tiny black cylinders, a tenth of an inch long. If they weren't so small, you might mistake them for ordinary refrigerator magnets. But the stuff they are made from is not ordinary iron: It costs $100 a gram. In fact, Makarova handles that precious black powder in a transparent "glove box"the kind of thing a biologist might use to contain a virusprecisely because she doesn't want it getting contaminated by some speck of iron-laden dust in her lab. Magnetic iron would not be news. What Makarova has discovered is magnetic carbon. Only four elements in the periodic tableiron, cobalt, nickel, and gadoliniumare naturally ferromagnetic at room temperature, meaning they can be permanently magnetized by exposure to a magnetic field. But the search for nonmetallic magnetswhich could be light, cheap, maybe even transparenthas lately become something of a cottage industry. A decade ago, a Japanese lab isolated a metal-free organic compound that became permanently magnetized at a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Makarova, a Russian physicist working at Umeå University in Sweden, has now found a way to make magnets of pure carbonto be precise, of buckyballs, the soccer-ball-shaped molecules that consist of 60 carbon atoms each. Her magnets are extremely weak - "They won't stick to your refrigerator," she says - but they do work at room temperature. That's an essential quality if they are ever going to have any practical applications. http://www.discover.com/issues/dec-02/features/featmagnet/ ----- As vortians are no doubt aware, fullerenes (originally known as buckminsterfullerenes; the buckyball, the third known natural form of pure carbon after diamond and graphite) is one of the components of soot, soot from burning carbon like from candles -- or from carbon arc lamps. Maybe if the cold fusioneers weren't looking so hard for transmutations they would have discovered Makarova's magnetic carbon years before she did. At least they can produce a version more easily: Makarova has to process her buckyballs into a polymer using pressure of a million pounds per square inch at a temperature of more than 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (forgive the non-SI units). So if your "iron" instead turns out to be magnetic buckyballs you've got yourself a potentially useful patent right there. At any rate, instead assuming actual iron, for our purposes I recommend that the residue be tested for the presence of iron, tested using multiple sensitive "iron-clad" chemical tests. No need to bring in a mass spectrometer unless JREF insists. Unfortunately -- as I explained to Jed in a private email -- any evidence of "transmutation" introduces a problem: The counter-claim that the new elements were already somewhere present in the experimental apparatus before the experiment started. So we have to introduce additional control experimental set-ups that can be examined, and to have a reasonable number of experiments and controls we have to prepare at least six experimental set-ups beforehand, choosing by chance which three of the six to run. If the results are positive and consistent, the chance that only the three "rigged" experimental setups were chosen is the combination of six things, taken three at a time; C(6,3) = 20. One chance in 20. If you want an even more conclusive result, try more experimental set-ups: C(8,4) = 70; C(10,5) = 252. I'd wager that if you pass the preliminary testing phase JREF will insist on 10 set-ups. That's assuming that indeed, "This method seems to be easily reproduced." We might lower our expectations to allow one of five run experiments to fail, which changes the numbers but I've forgotten exactly how right now. For experimental details, preparation and early testing, get help from Sundaresan AND Bockris if you can. The whole set-up MUST be proved to work consistently BEFORE you agree to be tested by JREF. Or if instead the "iron" turns out to be magnetic buckyballs, you have a potentially valuable patent. ----- I also suggested to Jed doing a demo using the so-called "Reifenschweiler Effect" (http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Reifenschwreducedrad.pdf) but he said it had never been reproduced. If both that and the above are ruled out and no one has a better idea then someone will have to do things the hard way: Balance reproducibility, min/avg/max time for effect, signal strength, control methods and a dozen other aspects of cold fusion research in order to mount a test for the Challenge. Unfortunately, not myself being a scientist I can't be of any help. But I remain convinced that someone can do it. -Walter
