At 06:24 PM 12/25/2009, Steven Krivit wrote:
Fleischmann, M., et al., " Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion
of Deuterium," Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Vol. 261,
Issue 2, Part 1, p. 301-308 (April 10, 1989) and errata in Vol. 263,
p. 187-188, (1989)
"In view of the very high compression and mobility of the dissolved
species there must therefore be a significant number of close
collisions and one can pose the question: would nuclear fusion of D+ such as
2D + 2D > 3T(1.01 MeV) + 1H(3.02 MeV) (v)
or
2D + 2D > 3He(0.82 MeV) + n(2.45 MeV) (vi)
be feasible under these conditions?"
Yeah. "Very high compression and mobility" is somewhat of a proxy for
"very high temperature." But not exactly. Thermonuclear fusion would
refer to fusion taking place because of the high energy of the
nuclei, allowing them to overcome the Coulomb barrier by sheer
momentum. High compression and mobility, absent the high nuclear
velocities, would increase the number of potential collisions and
possibly reveal some tunneling or shielding effect. No idea was
expressed, in the news conference or this article, that high
temperature was the cause of the apparent nuclear reaction. And that
is what "thermonuclear" means.
Webster's on-line dictionary defines "thermonuclear" as:
of, relating to, or employing transformations in the nuclei of atoms
of low atomic weight (as hydrogen) that require a very high
temperature for their inception
You wrote, if I'm correct, in the encyclopedia article:
Their hypothesis that a novel form of thermonuclear fusion was
responsible for their experimental results is still unproved.
As the introduction to the article, the text quoted above from them
explains the question that they were researching. They were looking
for evidence of those reactions. Now, oddly, they didn't find that
evidence. They found something else, heat without the levels of
tritium and neutron radiation which those reactions are known to
produce. The conditions were not "thermonuclear."
After they have presented their experimental results, they state:
We realise that the results reported here raise more questions than
they provide answers, and that much further
work is required on this topic. The observation of the generation of
neutrons and of tritium from electrochemically
compressed D+ in a Pd cathode is in itself a very surprising result
and, evidently, it is necessary to reconsider the
quantum mechanics of electrons and deuterons in such host lattices.
In particular we must ask: is it possible to
achieve a fusion rate of 10-19 s-l for reactions (v) and (vi) for
clusters of deuterons (presumably located in the
octahedral lattice positions) at typical energies of 1 eV?
"at typical energies of 1 eV" That means *not* thermonuclear. It
means at low temperatures. High density, low temperatures.
This article does not support the text that claims that "their
hypothesis" was "a novel form of thermonuclear fusion."
We must say that they were claiming fusion, yes, that was laced
through what they wrote, though they were aware that too little was
known to really come up with something solid. I don't see that they
proposed a mechanism, and a thermonuclear reaction would be very
unlikely (from, perhaps, fractofusion?), wouldn't explain the
experimental results, and the question they were asking was what
could happen at low energies (temperatures), not high.
