Brrr.... we must be in eskimo.com country ;-)
A decade ago, Tim Vaughan wrote an essay called "Transient Electron
Coherence" which has some relevance to the possibility that the "cold
electron" effect of Ron Stiffler's circuit is related to a form of ZPE
coherence.
The following is a complete rewording and paraphrasing of that essay,
updated to present circumstances. The original essay was prompted by a
experimental observation of Dragone and later by JL Naudin of an
anomalous cooling effect in a large coil of wire. In that pivotal year
of 1989, Leon Dragone, who tragically died early, measured a temperature
drop of 2 degrees F. (0.8 C) in a large coil of wire connected to a cold
cathode arc switch.
He and Vaughan had similar ideas about the possibility of cohering ZPE
or vacuum fluctuation energy, and the physical aftermath of a cooling
effect. His arc device seemed to show excess energy and consisted of a
transformer coil connected in series with a adjustable spark gap also in
series with a light bulb and a 575 volt battery pack. The spark gap
device was a small black box with a micrometer adjustment knob and two
wires sticking out, which is curious in the context of the Avramenko plug.
"When the spark gap was shorted, the bulb would not glow at all as only
25 milliamperes was flowing through it due to the 18000 ohms of
resistance in the neon sign transformer. When Leon would carefully
adjust the spark gap device the light would glow quite brightly and the
current would increase to over 1000 milliamperes."
The spark gap was called a cold cathode glow discharge spark, and it
could be considered in the context of a "gainful" Peltier Effect. More
recently, Naudin made similar discovery of a temperature drop in a large
coil when running experiments with a Joseph Newman type motors. The
original rationale of Vaughan is worth rereading but it contained
nothing relating to the possibility that tunneling electrons can become
degenerate, or cold.
http://jnaudin.free.fr/html/NewMcool.htm
He does mention Pauli but overlooks "degeneracy pressure" which arises
because the Pauli principle forbids the fermions to occupy identical
states. Any attempt to force them together places them in artificially
different energy levels. This creates both subradiant and superradiant
states, in the proper circumstance; and from this perspective ZPE can
then be poised to operate asymmetrically on only the subradiant state,
bringing the electron back to normal wave function, but leaving the
structure slightly colder. The total system is conservative, even though
more photons may have been emitted from the super-radiant component than
is otherwise possible with so-called 100% efficiency.
The motion of the free electrons in a metal is statistically random when
there is no net current. Much of the motion of the electrons is due to
thermal energy, but electrons move around even at absolute zero
temperature- the zero point energy of the free electrons.
The wavelength of an electron depends on its energy (speed) but
interact with the atoms in a metal conductor, or semiconductor, or thin
insulator differently, depending on speed and the "impedance" or the
blocking effect of the surroundings. Certain energy values are not
allowed in a given metal of semiconductor because they resonate with
periodically spaced conductors, or "blockers". These missing energy
values are "forbidden energy bands". This is the genesis of
super-radiance and subradiance, which taken-together would be normally
balanced and not gainful. ZPE can operate asymmetrically on only the
subradiant state creating an unusual situation in which ambient heat
seems to be driving the gain, only that is ironically NOT the case.
A band of allowed energy levels (speeds) will then have an upper and
lower limit bounded by the forbidden regions. An insulator has electrons
that are confined to stay within individual atoms or molecules and are
not free to move throughout the material but there is a quantum
mechanical effect called "tunneling" in which electrons can get through.
However, the electron may or may not emerge with a different wave
function and can even loose so much energy that it becomes "degenerate".
When an electric field is applied to a conductor such as a wire, the
electrons in the valence bands accelerate or gain energy as long as
there is an allowed energy level to fill which would be the next higher
level that has been vacated by another electron that has also been
accelerated. This amplification effect would be short lived because the
population of eligible reverse moving conduction bands electrons would
be quickly depleted unless some of them have become subradiant or
degenerate, due to impedance.
For an electrically resonant system, the Q factor represents the effect
of electrical resistance; and that impedance sets the stage for an
outside gainful input into the system, such as from ZPE frequencies,
when they can operate on only the lower energy components. The actual
"gateway for ZPE would likely come in the form of what is called
negative (differential) resistance in either an arc discharge of
tunneling situation.
We know that arc discharges can have a short range of negative
resistance. Look once again at the Pavel Imris claims. If they are
accurate, then negative resistance probably comes into play in those
multiple tube discharges. What about LEDs and a negative resistance
range? The VCNR diode (Voltage Controlled Negative Resistance diode) is
emblematic of a state that may exist in many kinds of LEDs.
Under this interpretation of ZPE that field (ZPF), in effect "props up"
the thermal spectrum - the so-called "ambient" level which is ~300 K.
Solar input and heat from the earth provide most of ambient. However,
just as in "space" (not interstellar but interplanetary) where the
actual temperature seldom drops below ~150 K, even in the "shade" then
this indicates that the lowest or bottom level of earthly "ambient" i.e.
the bottom 100 degrees has a ZPE origin. This "bottom" props up the rest
and when some is removed, the system seems to cool.
In short an abruptly applied high voltage potential applied to a
conductor should cause the selective reflection of the lower energy
conduction band electrons, at an impediment of cathode, traveling in
opposition to the applied electric field which will contribute their
kinetic energy to the forward moving current. If the lower energy
component becomes degenerate -cold- then it can eventually be 'raised'
back up by ZPE, and there is a net inflow of one kind of energy, but a
concomitant cooling when the "bottom" of thermal has been compromised..
A device capturing such ZPE energy need not constitute a macroscopic
violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics since there is a net
balancing act in play. Ironically, as argued above, this gives the
"appearance" that ambient heat has been upshifted, when that is not the
case. Instead in effect, ZPE has been "cohered" and removed from the
bottom of the blackbody pyramid.
Please excuse the hasty nature of this explication- being bare of
authoritative references and no doubt more confusing to you than it is
to me. We should expect nothing less from the "Z" word. I hope to refine
these ideas in the coming days with more detail and some semblance of
deference to the mainstream... if that is possible.
Jones
