Hi Robin, >JB: Stated simply, much of the expected excess energy was already given up prior to the actual nuclear reaction, via the non-nuclear "shrinkage" reaction which pushed it below ground state, giving up heat in the form of UV radiation.
>That is the part that BLP got right wrt hydrogen, and hinted at, back in the early nineties wrt cold fusion, but it took these good experiments by Arata/Zhang to actually document the transition into two distinct steps. RvS: The problem with this is that if there isn't nearly enough He4 to explain the heat output, then most of the heat is coming from shrinkage... JB: Well, most of the excess heat in the unpowered A/Z experiments, the ones with low delta-t is due to shrinkage. In some of these experiments there is a small gain from hydrogen too, but not as much gain ... plus, be aware that in some experiments he does use a gaseous "medium" which is helium, so in those experiments it is impossible to tell; and in the paper of reference (2005) there is electrical input and real fusion. Plus, as you will be quick to notice helium is an effective Mills catalyst for further shrinkage. IOW for Arata, there are many variations on the theme going back a decade. Maybe it is not wise to try to classify them into groups since the boundaries are cloudy. RvS: But if that is so then H should yield the same results as D. AFAIK, that isn't the case. Correct, it is not the case ... and let me try to explain this, Robin - since prior to an hour ago I would have to agree with your premise, but instead this is now another reason to suspect the stepwise transition: going from fractional deuterium to the quasi-BEC, which is the precise dynamic involved that eliminates hydrogen from working as well as deuterium, since it cannot fuse via the Bose mechanism. If there is no fusion at all, then there is probably a limited amount of gain possible from shrinkage alone, so that muddles the picture. IOW - here is the essence of the prior message, in case you didn't see it yet. It suggests that a combination of the two mechanisms leads to fusion with deuterium, which is a molecular boson, but which mechanism canNOT happen with hydrogen, which is fermionic. IOW only deuterium makes the giant step to BEC-fusion, since it is a boson, but both can produce some excess heat via shrinkage alone. There will be more heat with deuterium, since fusion can happen to 'balance the books' (CoE). Over time, once a population of pycnodeuterium is present, most of the heat will come from fusion, but that could be days or weeks later. In fact Arata at one point suggests what can be described as 'harvesting' the active species (pycnodeuterium) even for hot fusion like the IEC. This takes Ed Storm's boson mechanism a step further, even if he chooses not to acknowledge any below-ground-state contribution. This hypothesis gives the BEC a better pathway to happen, since obviously there is no liquid hydrogen, and every BEC we know about demands it. In contrast, this two step hypothesis proposes that the fractional ground state itself would encourage a quasi-BEC via the same mechanism as does cryogenics - which is removal of freedom of movement. Maybe I am not explaining it well, but it makes sense to me, so far. It is essentially equating the strong magnetic alignment you mention as providing the same effect as ultracold - IF and only if there is a group of highly shrunken bosons present. Jones
