On Jul 13, 2009, at 11:33 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
At 11:59 PM 7/12/2009, you wrote:
All said, I see the gaping hole in Takahashi's theory being the
orders of magnitude lack of detectable high energy alphas. Perhaps
it is just a calculation error on my part. It wouldn't be the first
time such a thing has happened. 8^)
Sure. But Takahashi has been working on this since the early 1990s.
Has he addressed the problem?
I could be wrong, but I get the impression he has other fish to fry.
He has some interest in looking at neutron energies from SPAWAR type
co-deposited films, for example. I think there is today across the
board more interest in the SPAWAR experiments than pursuing theories,
because the SPAWAR experiments are (1) highly repeatable, (2)
comparatively inexpensive, and (3) provide results that are very
difficult to sidestep with spurious arguments. Theories or working
hypotheses are a dime a dozen. I even have one of my own:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/DeflationFusion.pdf
Precisely because it is so easy to make mistakes, to fail to
consider this or that, I wouldn't consider a single calculation, by
a single person, to be conclusive, no matter how good it looks.
Each person has to decide where to spend his time and money. In the
case of CF research today, it truly is the researcher's own time and
own money.
I'm getting the feeling that there is a propensity for trying to be
first with some idea, and so more energy goes into generating new
theories than in specifically and in detail criticizing existing
ones. Same with experimental work.
How much glory and, face it, money, is there in reproducing an
experiment and confirming it? Especially an experiment that leaves
something to be desired, i.e., only a *little* extra energy is
reliable, or it's not even reliable but it still statistically very
significant, or there is only a *little* neutron radiation?
It is well known that the branching ratios for CF are very different
from hot fusion. You do not see neutrons or energetic particles
except in token amounts, orders of magnitude less than required by
the enthalpy. That has been well known for 20 years.
So instead of confirming what's been done, for twenty years cold
fusion researchers kept trying to *improve* the work. Thus the
famous "they are all over the map" comments from DoE reviews, etc.
That's a chicken and egg problem. As long as there is insufficient
(or no) funding, automatic patent application rejection, and academic
stigma, rigorous exploration of the field will not occur. If people
fund their own research they will do their own thing.
Takahashi's theory wasn't published yesterday. Where are the
specific critiques, published? If there were critiques, then
presumably Takahashi would reply.
I don't know the history of the dialog on this. It's pretty old
stuff. My comments were based on your comments. I do know that the
community has almost as many theories as people, and each individual
tends to stick to his own views despite criticism. This is in part
due to the fact *every* theory has gaping holes in it. I thus don't
see Takahashi's old theory as special in that regard. He is a
venerable scientist. I wouldn't personally want to make a point of
drawing comment out of him on something like that through untimely
criticism.
Others would reply. Experiments would be designed to test the
theories, including the theories behind the criticism. What happens
if you take an alpha source and immerse it in heavy water with a
piece of CR-39 next to it? What happens if you generate hot alphas
and let them impact some simulation of the electrolytic environment?
Bremsstrahlung radiation has been mentioned. My understanding is
that it's been detected. Enough? That's another question. I'm
suspicious of purely theoretical calculations, there are too many
ways they can go wrong. Sure, it's a guide, but such should always
be confirmed.
Yes, but who is paying for it?
I do agree with one point. If hot alphas at 23.8 MeV are generated,
they should then behave like any other hot alphas.
Yes, that's my assumption. The theory implies no new science required.
On the other hand, I don't, offhand, know of a way of generating
alphas at that energy in a simulated environment, i.e., simulating
actual generation by Be-8 decay within a metal lattice instead of
being accelerated outside of that, there might indeed be phenomena
that we don't see in a plasma or vacuum environment. Still, if it
hasn't been studied, it should be!
But what are the priorities for dollars?
It's the deafening silence regarding detailed comment on existing
theories that strikes me.
If they are all flawed, why waste time beating the dead horses? I
think at this time in the field experimentation is key, especially
experimentation in areas that are known to be repeatable, or that
explore new regimes.
I'm just an amateur. Maybe someone like Ed Storms would like to
comment.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
