On Dec 10, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Jones Beene wrote:
It just occurred to me that the hypothesis of ultra cold neutrons
in LENR is
falsifiable ! Not only that, it should be relatively easy to do,
and with a
significantly large and obvious level of discrimination in side-by-
side
testing.
As mentioned, according to the information on the Wiki site, some
of it
going back to Fermi, the kinetic energy near absolute zero of 300 neV
neutrons corresponds to a maximum velocity of 7.6 m/s.
Consequently, there
will be travel from point of origin, since even with high
reflectivity at
first, the neutrons will be gradually thermalized and can move
significant
distances if there is an outside influence. Which there always will
be, if
you think about it.
Here is the key to falsifiability: Due to the small kinetic energy
of an
UCN, the influence of gravity is significant. Kinetic energy of an
UCN is
transformed into potential (height) energy with ~102 neV/m. which
is a third
of total kinetic energy on formation, if they are very cold. This
effect is
less in proportion, as the particle warms up, but it should allow a
gravity
gradient to exist when capture occurs.
Thus, it would seem that a small CR-39 cell of the SPAWAR variety,
designed
so that it can be rotated 180 degrees - so that the CR-39 is
"either down or
up" will show a rather pronounced variation in tracks if UCN are
involved,
due to the effect of gravity. There will be viewer per unit of time
in the
"up" position than in the down.
Now that should be rather easy to pull off, no? ... or has this
been tried
already?
Using 300 neV = 300 x 10^-9 eV = 4.807x10^-26 J.
1/2 m v^2 = (4.807x10^-26 J)
v = (2*(4.807x10^-26 J)/(1.675x10^-27 kg))^(1/2)
v = 7.6 m/s
From:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0509269v1
"The ultra low momentum neutron is created when a
heavy electron is absorbed by one of many protons participating
in a collective surface oscillation. The neutron
wave length is thus comparable to the spatial size of the
collective oscillation, say λ ∼ 10−3 cm."
As I noted earlier, their arbitrary assumption of a neutron
wavelength of 10^-3 m yields the value of v:
lambda = h/p
p = h/lambda = h/(10^-3 cm) = 6.626x10^-29 kg m/s
p = m * v
v = p/m = (6.626x10^-29 kg m/s)/(1.675x10^-27 kg)
v = 3.96x10^-2 m/s = 0.0396 m/s
Needles to say, the two velocities are highly inconsistent.
W&L goes on to say in the above article:
"An ultra low momentum neutron is thus absorbed within about ten
nanometers from where it was first created. The likelihood that ultra
low momentum neutrons will escape capture and thermalize via phonon
interactions is very small."
In ten nanometers, 1x10^-8 m, even at the higher speed of 7.6 m/s
neutron will exist a mean time of (1x10^-8 m)/(7.6 m/s) = 1.316x10^-9
seconds. The speed due to gravity s_g =
s_g = g * t = (9.8067 m/s^2)*(1.316x10^-9 s) = 1.285x10^-8 m/s
and fall a distance d of:
d = (1/2) * g * t^2 = (1/2)*(9.8067 m/s^2)*(1.316x10^-9 s)^2
d = 8.41 x 10^-18 m
or about 1/100th the diameter of a nucleus. That of course assumes
the W&L claim that "neutron is thus absorbed within about ten
nanometers" is valid.
If a neutron of the nature W&L claims survives it seems that
thermalization would be the overwhelming effect - it would overwhelm
gravity that is, and motion would be essentially be pure brownian in
nature.
It strikes me as self-evident the lack of neutron activation
thoroughly denies the W&L theory. It is also notable that NA is not
mentioned once in their papers AFIK. Beyond that, the W&L theory has
many criticisms, like this critique of the heavy electron hypothesis:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.3810
Response to the above:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0466v2
and on and on in the blogs etc.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
