Here is a message from Ed Storms, not me.
Ed sent me this yesterday, but he meant to send it to Vortex. I use
the Mindspring on-line mail server at times, and that causes people
to accidentally send Vortex responses to me directly. I do not see
any options for the on-line program to fix that problem.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell wrote:
Edmund Storms wrote:
It depends on what you mean by relationship. Both hot and cold
fusion produce the same end products ...
...snip...
... the error bars are very large. (However, I took your suggestion
that I drop that comparison in the article I was writing.)
The same amount of energy results from each fusion to make helium no
matter how it is initiated. Of course, the other paths produce
different amounts of energy.
The reactions in each case involve the fusion of deuterium.
However, the two process are completely different in the mechanism ...
...snip...
... the same mechanism as combustion (oxidation). It sure didn't
look the same. The differences are all due to the environment.
The Coulomb barrier must be overcome. This is done during hot fusion
by using brute force. This mechanism is not possible at room
temperature. Therefore, a different mechanism must be involved. In
fact fire and metabolism are different and not a good analogy. Not
only do they result in different reaction products, but the mechanism
is entirely different. Fire causes the chemical reactions to go to
the lowest energy state. Metabolism does not produce this result even
though both involve oxidation. A better analogy can be obtained by
comparing a controlled reaction involving a catalyst and an
explosion. Both produce the same products, but by a different process.
As a result, saying that a relationship exists between hot and cold
fusion has no meaning because the only relationship that exists is trivial.
Of course, the hot fusion process can be accelerated by changing the
conditions. For example, bombarding a solid with D+ results in hot
fusion, but at a higher rate than theory based on a plasma would
expect. This does not mean cold fusion is involved. It just means
that the theory describing hot fusion is incomplete, at least when a
solid is involved. Cold fusion involves an entirely different process
that has no relationship to hot fusion even though both result in fusion.
Ed
