Most light bulbs fail - "not with a bang but with a whimper" as TSE
might have opined, but occasionally one fails with a surprisingly robust
explosion. Why?
Usually this is the result of a "current surge" in the house wiring,
possibly caused by a short or by lightning, but is that all there is to it?
And ... on a completely related subject (only seemingly different)...
...the Wiki entry for "rogue wave," has some decent info - but they fail
to mention specifically "superradiance" as the source cause. Too bad, as
it forces me to paraphrase that entry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave_(oceanography)
Not surprising that they miss "DPSR" (Dicke-Preparata Super-radiance),
as the MO - since application of this phenomenon to the real world is
almost 'brand new,' especially to LENR. But it is emerging as powerful
insight.
SIDE NOTE: The new Widom, Larsen, Srivastava paper on "exploding wires"
mentioned in NET by Steve Krivit, does build on DPSR, and recently
suggests that about 17,000 amps is required to cause nuclear reactions
in exploding wires.
The Tungsten wire filaments in household light bulbs would never (almost
never) get close to that high level of amperage - *unless* there are two
overlapping anomalies - a "rogue wave" of the non-oceanic variety, which
multiplies a normal (but rare) current-surge for a few nanoseconds.
Normally, the incandescent wire glows in the yellow optical frequency,
slowly evaporating metal atoms from the filament. Over time, the wire
filament thins in some pinch regions, strongly increasing the Maxwell
magnetic pressure. Then with a ”pop”, the filament explodes, shifting
the final bright radiation pulse frequency upward into the blue. The
filament is broken at the pinch points. IF - on rare occasion this were
to happen coincident with a power surge - then... voila: it is not
out-of-the-question that the common light bulb would be a documentable
source of real nuclear reactions (documented by slight transformation of
the Tungsten into non-natural isotopes).
Back to the 'normal' (Wiki-ized) explanation for rogue waves. These can
be the source for multiplying (a second) unrelated anomaly (thus the
statistical rarity).
There is "Diffractive focusing" which is one step towards the level of
superradiance - where several smaller wave trains meet in phase. Their
crest heights combine to create the freak-wave. This rings of Dardik's
(Energetics) superwaves, where this phenomenon is actually planned (as
opposed to being random) no?
Then there is "Focusing by current" — On the ocean a gale-storm can
force waves into an opposing current, even with some spherical
convergence, shortening of wavelength and causing first: "shoaling"
(increase in wave height) and later the already-shoaled wave trains can
further compress into the rogue wave.
Then there are "Nonlinear effects" — and for this explanation, one needs
to appreciate the "long tail" of Boltzmann (in the Maxwellian
statistical distribution).
This is almost to the level of superradiance, when combined with the
above points; and in such a case, an unstable wave type may form which
'sucks' energy from other waves, growing to a near-vertical monster
itself, before becoming too unstable and collapsing shortly after.
Wiki: "One simple model for this is a wave equation known as the
nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLS), in which a normal and perfectly
accountable wave (by the standard linear model) begins to 'soak' energy
from the waves immediately fore and aft, reducing them to minor ripples
compared to other waves. Such a monster, and the abyssal trough commonly
seen before and after it, may last only for some minutes before either
breaking, or reducing in size again.
This could be very relevant to LENR - and - with this possible "lesson"
of the 'you-heard-it-first-here' variety :
"The NLS is only valid in deep water conditions, and in shallow water an
alternative such as the Boussinesq equation is used."
The naural lesson then, deriving all the way from oceanography to LENR,
applicable for designing an electrodes which benefit from superradiance
may be counter intuitive. The common wisdom is to maximized surface area
(at the expense of bulk), but if one wants to maximized wave energy,
then a thicker, as opposed to a thinner electrode would be indicated.
Second lesson: read Dardik's (Lewin's) book (available from Amazon) and
the W/L/S papers.
Jones
Prior message:
DPSR = Dicke-Preparata Super-radiance
"Cooperative radiation" is the precursor to coherence, the laser and so
forth, but not confined to atomic or quantum systems.
The "impure form" of coherence phenomenon is called super-radiance. The
name is somewhat self-explanatory, and it is a bit of a surprise that
until recently, the relevance to LENR was not appreciated (even
mentioned!).
QM is replete with the strange assertion that energy effects can be
"borrowed nonlocally", i.e. from another dimension, and then "repaid"
later, but this is on a very small scale. At the macro-scale, however,
you may very well get something similar, but non-quantized and hidden by
noise which makes it seem random.
Superradiant-like damping effects can even been heard in musical
instruments like the piano, or in specialized versions like the eight
octave model, in which some tones are produced by a group of two (or
three) identical strings that are struck together to give "more than the
sum" of each (at the expense of accelerated decay of the tone). When the
sound decays away too rapidly, then the tuning of the strings is too
perfect, and a small amount of detuning is introduced deliberately to
reduce superradiant damping.
Examples of macro-super-radiance, like this, are important to force
comprehension of what may difficult to imagine as commonplace. But
super-radiance though not commonplace, is not exactly rare either. Here
is another example - the "rogue wave":
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=701
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freak_wave
There is an emerging metaphor here, which may be closer to fact than
metaphor:
LENR is the result of a "rogue wave" of interfacial phonons.
The statistical probability of ocean rogue-waves, and phonon rogue-waves
(both so seemingly rare that they may seem unpredictable) may actually
be similar (when one takes into account relative frequency and surface
area).
Jones
