-----Original Message----- From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax > "The skeptics assumed that if helium were being generated, it would be easy to detect the associated gamma rays, so most ruled out helium from the start. That, simply, assumed deuteron fusion, D+D, two deuterons, one helium nucleus resulting, plus a gamma ray. The obvious and simple conclusion is that this is not the reaction...."
Quite true. The immediate problem with the "new reaction" hypothesis is pretty obvious, and I'm sure most everyone here has thought about the ramifications of *no gamma*. But clearly if there is no gamma, then the entire 24 MeV equivalence thing is close to being out the window as well. It could just as easily be 48 MeV or 5 MeV, since the 24 MeV is almost always seen in the form of a gamma ray in brute force thermonuclear fusion (the old reaction) an alpha could come from the metal matrix instead of fusion, and be mistaken for fusion ash. The hypothesis that seems to work best now, in 2010 for the "new reaction" is the one of the many versions of the BEC / 4D / Takahashi or variant, which is essentially the four deuteron hypothesis, and it coincidentally comes along when about a half dozen efforts at replicating Arata have found a loading ratio of close to four-to-one. That is not coincidental IMO. To reiterate where we may be going in terms of a workable theory - via paraphrased quote from Lomax: "Be-8 fusion would resolve the branching ratio issue, it would be 4D -> Be-8 -> 2 He-4 + 47.6 MeV, and the 47.6 would end up almost entirely as heat. 4D fusion seems really unlikely to people [without a transitory BEC] .... However, 4D is just two deuterium molecules, and Takahashi proposes, as I read it, that they form a Bose-Einstein condensate in lattice confinement, which would put them in a symmetrical, tetrahedral arrangement. And then he calculates that if the TSC forms, it will collapse and fuse with 100% frequency within a femtosecond. Let me add that what Takahashi is describing is not a true BEC, but could resemble its immediate aftermath - which leads to the so-called "Bosenova" which is a mainstream invention. IOW a true BEC is deuterium which "look" like one, no tetrahedron, as that is not the same quantum state - and they cannot fuse as a BEC... But since this is not a true BEC, and is transitory, the tetrahedron is the highest probability arrangement of the four atoms when they can fuse, and it is the prime candidate for the "new reaction" that avoids the gamma issue. Jones N.B. The "Bosenova" is all about applying a magnetic field to a BEC. Arata's nanopowder is ferromagnetic, another non-coincidence. When the magnetic field strength is raised, the transitory condensate can implode and shrink beyond detection, followed by explosion. This is proved. About half of the atoms in the condensate seem to have disappeared from the experiment altogether (Cornell experiment, mentioned in prior posts). Carl Wieman explained that under current atomic theory this characteristic of Bose-Einstein condensate could not be explained because the energy state of an atom near absolute zero should not be enough to cause an implosion, and certainly fusion is out. We can transpose some of those remarks to the transitory-BEC. This mainline work with the Bosenova is a lot more mysterious than anything in LENR.
