At 05:07 AM 4/4/2010, Horace Heffner wrote:
On Apr 2, 2010, at 11:14 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I was gratified to see that he is now explaining TSC theory as
involving D2 molecules, which I'd come up with as the explanation
for "Why four deuterons"? I think that's quite what he had in mind
from the start, but if he'd explained it, I missed it.
I think Takahashi explained this in early publications. The problem
he was addressing was that D + D -> He4 leaves nowhere for the
kinetic energy to go. If you throw one or more electrons on both
sides that specific momentum problem goes away. So does the problem
of explaining low energy photons. He addressed the problem by
providing *two* He4 nuclei, alphas, to carry away the momentum. The
problem with that is that energetic alphas must be produced, and
these are not detected in appropriate amounts.
More should be said. Takahashi first observed evidence, from
bombardment of palladium deuteride targets with energetic deuterons,
for fusion of more than two deuterons more than expected. He didn't
just pick multiple deuteron fusion out of the air.
Takahashi seems to confidently predict photon emissions from the
excited Be-8 nucleus. The energy of the alphas will depend on how
much energy is radiated before decay, but decay from the ground state
produces how much energy? He shows, as I recall, a minimum of 90 KeV.
What is the fission energy from Be-8?
The excited Be-8 nucleus would be involved with the electrons from
the original deuterium nuclei. What would happen to them before
fission? We would be seeing fusion within a condensate, what is the
behavior of a new, fused nucleus formed within those conditions? I'm
not convinced that anyone knows.
Whatever, cluster fusion of some kind is seeming increasingly likely.
In a general sense, it would explain a great deal.
I wished that he had confronted the discrepance between his
predictions, involving alphas of up to a few MeV, with Hagelstein's
paper, which he considered good work, which seems to rule those out
from the experimental evidence.
That is an understatement!
Okay, but we should be careful about absolute statements! And,
besides, Hagelstein's analysis has not been generally accepted yet.
It's a theoretical analysis, which is good, indeed, but we should
beware of considering such things the final answer. It does not rule
out cluster fusion, nor TSC fusion, because how TSC fusion would
behave under condensed conditions (i.e., as with a Bose-Einstein
condensate) is unclear. It's possible, to my feeble thinking, that
the energy would be transferred to the entire condensate and thus
most directly to electronic excitation, which would then, indeed, be
radiated as photons. What if all the electrons shared the extra
energy? What if the fission from Be-8 also happened within the
condensate, it's fast!, so that what resulted was electronically
excited helium atoms?
It would hinge on the preferred decay modes of the excited Be-8
(47.6 MeV). I suspect that under lattice/confinement conditions, it
might favor photon emission down to a minimal energy before decay.
Takahashi has a serious problem here, because there is no decay mode
which can release energy in numerous small energy packets - without
an electron present in the nucleus - a possibility Takahashi has
firmly denied in the past. If there were such a non-electron mode,
e.g. coupling the energy across thousands of nuclei throughout the
lattice, then the D + D -> He4 reaction could do the same, and there
is no need for the Be8 model to begin with. Also, if you work out the
geometry you will see that putting two D2 molecules into a
tetrahedral site is not realistic.
You mean into a single lattice site, I assume, but you are assuming
that the confinement site is within the clean lattice. The lattice
will contain defects that might be more accomodating. Further,
"putting two D2 molecules into a tetrahedral site" is definitely
difficult! First of all, putting one in is difficult; but the
question is "how difficult?" If there is one in a site already, and
conditions exerting pressure of D2 gas, how common would be a
transient occurrence of two? It could be very rare and very
transient, but it only takes a femtosecond or less to get some
fusion, according to Takahashi's calculations. I'd say that an urgent
task for the competent would be to verify this. Let me put it this
way, it's a different question than what Takahashi addressed: What
degree of confinement would be necessary before the TSC
formation/fusion would begin to have significant cross-section?
Some of these questions would be very difficult to verify
experimentally, if they involve activity below the surface. At the
surface, it may become more possible to investigate.
In his theory, if the reactions are taking place at the surface, as
he shows, it might be possible to detect, with the right
experimental set-up, the decay photons, which would be a strong
confirmation, at least that Be-9* is being formed. If the reactions
are taking place in lattice defects under the surface, that might
not work.
There are numerous theories which predict low energy photons in the
form of EUV, soft x-rays, and even IR (e.g. by Mitchel Swartz).
Yes.
[...]
Takahashi has since revised his theory, reducing the alpha energy I
think, but the same principles apply, just not to the same orders of
magnitude. And now Hagelstein has set the energy bar pretty low for
a theory like Takahashi's to fit under it. Still, there is no telling
what Takahashi might come up with next.
It's distressing that there is not more collegial review of the
theories. Hagelstein's work is important, for sure. So is
Takahashi's. Now, what do other theoreticians find? Is Takahashi's
math correct? It's been years since the TSC theory was proposed. Is
there any solid review of it? Not of whether or not it's possible as
the mechanism, though that kind of work would also be important, but
of the prediction of fusion under TSC conditions.
If Takahashi's math is confirmed, we have a real candidate for an
explanation, though not necessarily the whole story. We would have a
solid prediction of fusion under certain physical configurations at
low temperatures. Which would pull the rug out from under the
theoretical predictions of impossibility. Even if it turns out that
those conditions aren't being met in the present experiments, that
some other explanation must be found.
