Walter Faxon wrote: (snip)
> 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. (snip) I don't how others have done this, but here's what I did some years back. I used spectroscopic grade carbon rods, so virtually no chance of contamination. An arc was struck between the rods at 35VDC, don't know what the current was, but the rods were held by hand and rubbed against each other until a significant amount of "slag" was collected below them in a ceramic crucible. A strong magnet was used to separate the resulting magnetic particles. Some of these particles were pounded with a hammer to see if they were malleable, and in fact they flattened out into shiny little disks. In other words, they're metal. The rest of the particles were dissolved in HCl and then given a ferricyanide test for iron. You get that beautiful blue color. What else do you want? Unused rods were crushed and tested with the same magnet. No magnetic particles were in evidence. Yes folks, it's transmutation. It's easy and repeatable, and should be used as at least an indicator that CF is possible. I can't imagine that others haven't done more or less the same procedures, unless they were afraid of the results. M. _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!
