At 03:09 PM 4/4/2010, Horace Heffner wrote:
On Apr 4, 2010, at 9:58 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
If Takahashi's math is confirmed, we have a real candidate for an
explanation, though not necessarily the whole story.
It is not Takahashi's math that is in question, but his assumptions
and the implications of his conclusions.
The math should be in question. It is difficult, and it is a finding
that, all by itself, contradicts the assumption that fusion is
impossible at room temperature. Rather, one would have to retreat:
fusion may be impossible unless a particular physical configuration
of two deuterium molecules can form with enough frequency to create an effect.
(2) Takahashi's math is based, indeed, on an assumption that the TSC
configuration can form. You have to start somewhere! I would guess
that he was looking for an explanation for an experimental fact:
multibody fusion does happen, he found evidence for 3D and 4D fusion,
as I recall. What could possibly lead to this? Normally, we'd think
that if 2D fusion is so rare as to be practically impossible, 3D
would be even more impossible. But what if a lattice confines
molecules in some way, orients them? What could happen. What
Takahashi found was that, under an extreme condition, not known to
occur, but also not known to *not* occur, but only seemingly very
rare, at best, fusion is *expected.*
That's huge.
He is tracking back from a finding that multibody fusion happens.
Most fusion theories do not allow for multibody fusion at all, I
think of Kim, which may be some kind of variation on Takahashi's
theory. Or not. I wish they'd talk to each other and let us listen in!
(3) Bottom line, Takahashi's theory at present requires the presence
of two deuterium molecules in confinement in some way; the way he
says it in the ACS Low Energy Nuclear Reactions Sourcebook (p. 58) is
to give three models "to initiate TSC formation":
One is the TSC formation in regular Pd lattice in D-flow from O-site
to T-site by D-lattice phonon excitation. The second model is the
TSC formation by the collison-combination process between trapped D2
molecule[s], being lost freedom of rotation, and incoming D2
molecule on the surface of metal-D systems. The third idea is the
random formation of TSC by combination of two "bosonized" molecules
of dde*(2,2) in the near-surface of Fermi-level-gap of PdDx and CaO
(or other insulator with low work function); generation of Cooper
pair near on Fermi surface may play a key role in this case.
Who edited this, any way?
I'd read this paper before, but since then, have done a lot of
discussion of TSC theory, and have had to think a lot about how TSC
might form, and I'm gratified to find that I did come up with the
simplest of his three models, in a private e-mail today. I now
understand and can retain more of the paper, but most of it is still
way over my head. (Contrary to what I'd said before, he was explicit
about two deuterium molecules.)
He's not assuming any particular mechanism of TSC formation in his
paper. He mentions three possibilities, that's all. The work to
attempt to predict the frequency that TSC would form has either not
been done, or has not, to my knowledge, been published. But this is
what I think:
Some frequency of trapping of D2 molecules at the surface of the
lattice should be expected. The surface is where, I assume,
dissociation of D2 to individual deuterons takes place. Off the top
of my head, not having studied this process, I'd imagine that a D2
molecule peaks its head into a lattice, crossing a bit of a potential
barrier at the face; perhaps the forces when the head is in and the
neck is squeezed are such to separate them, as those electrons decide
the lattice is a freer place, or perhaps at this moment, dissociation
is aided by the action of other molecules. But sometimes, as the head
is peeking in, the tail is whacked just right (or it had just the
right momentum) and the whole thing is pushed in. It's tight in
there, and i don't think that this is stable, but it might last for a
while. And then another molecule hits at the right position and angle
to squeeze in too. They have no freedom of motion to speak of now,
they can't rotate, they can only fit in one way, with the deuterium
nuclei forming a tetrahedron. If they are in low relative motion,
they condense and Bang!
Or whatever happens when fusion occurs within a BEC. Do we know how
these behave? What does it mean to "fuse within a BEC?" (if they
aren't separate, how do they fuse, or, perhaps more to the point, how
do they *not* fuse? How tightly coupled will this BEC be to the
confining palladium?
Often it's pointed out that Bose-Einstein Condensates are only known
to form at low temperature. But "temperature" refers to relative
motion of the component molecules. If for some reason they have no
relative motion, they would be at zero temperature. We are not
accustomed to thinking of "pockets" of low temperature within objects
of higher temperature, but this would be a transient "pocket" of only
two molecules. What's the frequency of that?
What I see is that, without doing the heavy math or other heavy
lifting, TSC theory is being rejected based on assumptions about what
is and what is not possible, that are not examined in detail.
Obviously there are objections, but I'm not seeing that they are
necesarily insuperable.
The way I put it in a mail today was that TSC theory still requires
one miracle: that the TSC forms. I'm pretty sure that there is some
incidence of single molecular confinement. That's not a miracle. But
that another molecule also gets confined, I'll call that a miracle.
Not to be expected. But, then, with what must be an extraordinarily
rare reaction, "not expected" should be looked at much more closely:
*how much* not expected? *How often* would this be occur?
Widom-Larsen theory requires two miracles. The first is the
unconfirmed and unexpected creation of ULM neutrons at significant
levels. The second is the absence of intermediate and other products
not observed.
And, of course, "cold fusion," when it was *assumed* that if it's
fusion, it must be d-d fusion, plain and simple, required three miracles.
Notice how "miracle" is imagined by a poverty of our understanding of
the possibilities.
If someone has the knowledge and does the math to predict how often
the TSC conditions would form, and it predicts something like
observable fusion rates, it would no longer be a miracle, it would
simply be science. It would still need to be confirmed! I suspect
though, that some aspects of this are simply not well enough known.
We'll see, as more attention begins to be focused, as publication
rates continue to increase and more of the best theorists start to
pay attention, and experiment turns to testing the predictions of
theory. This is far from easy stuff, and it's possible that no one
person can pull it off.
