At 04:58 PM 5/4/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote:
I wrote to Bushnell:
"I do not agree that the Widom and Lewis Larsen
theory deserves credit for bringing attention to
the field. I think that is mainly caused by
improved results and widespread replications. . . ."
His response is below. In a second message he
granted permission to share this message.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
You are of course correct, The piece was heavily
edited, even after I asked them to stop such.
YES 20 years of Experiments HAVE convinced
folks that is REAL, WHATEVER IT IS. The
experiments are not, IMHO , indicating how to
make this really useful in terms of quantity
and quality of heat, and neither are the
fusion-related theories. As I indicated, we
here have cored down on W-L and can find
nothing obviously untoward. We have used the
theory to devise surface morphologies which
should, if the theory is correct, produce MUCH
more heat. We are also setting up experiments
to determine whether the W-L theory is correct
[ or not]. I have checked with others doing
experiments and cannot identify folks that are
looking into the voracity of the W-L theory. If
you know of such please so indicate.
Best
Dennis Bushnell
Chief Scientist
NASA Langley Research Center
Great. Head on straight. Perhaps they are better
at understanding W-L than I. I see from it, as
have others with better understanding than I, a
host of problems with W-L, so that's the one
thing that puzzles me, "nothing obviously untoward."
I'm not going to comment on the formation of
"ultra-low momentum neutrons." I find that term
very strange, in itself. Thermal neutrons have a
range of momenta, down to whatever value you want
to define as "ultra-low," within the limits of the uncertainty principle.
Because thermal neutrons can so easily interact
with nuclei, they cause various effects, mostly
effects that aren't observed in these experiments.
The reactions that W-L propose would indeed occur
if thermal neutrons are present. However, we know
that helium is being formed. To get from
deuterium to helium takes more than deuterium and
a neutron. The neutron must interact with the
deuterium or something else to form an
intermediate, and then this intermediate must
again interact, either with a neutron or with
another element or particle present, to form helium.
These are three separate reactions, including the
original formation of the neutron, and nothing
that I've seen has been proposed to cause one of
the to happen immediately and (mostly)
invariantly in sequence after the previous one.
There would therefore be intermediates, and
unless these intermediates are highly unstable
and would immediately decay (in which case there
would be multiple reaction products and/or
radiation), they would be observable, and they
would necessarily be produced at rates higher
than the helium. But it appears that the principle reaction product is helium.
Where are the intermediates? With Takahashi's TSC
theory, there is an intermediate, Be-8, formed by
the collapse of a small BEC consisting of two
deuterium molecules. The BEC would be, intself,
highly transient and extremely difficult to
observe. It might be possible to observe
characteristic photon emission from the excited
Be-8 nucleus during its short lifetime, but it
immediately decays into two helium nuclei, with
no direct radiation (other than a series of
photon emissions from the excited single nucleus,
plus the alpha radiation that is the helium nuclei.)
Thermal neutrons would cause a host of reactions
that would be detectable, only some of them would
result in helium. So I and others don't find W-L
theory satisfactory. But sometimes everyone
overlooks something, we've certainly seen that!
So, what does W-L theory predict, how can it be
tested. A number of the theories predict the same
thing, such as sensitivity to surface geometry,
and that cold fusion is a surface reaction is
well-established. Testing various surface
geometries is a very important part of moving forward.
In other words, Bushnell's approach is sound,
whether or not his assessment of W-L theory is sound.
I'd really like to see a decent explanation of
W-L theory that addresses the obvious problems;
what I've seen from W-L themselves simply avoids
the whole rate issue, that, in the absence of a
strict 1:1 final step, the intermediates should
be found at higher concentrations than the final
product, i.e., helium or other ash.
W-L theory, of course, has much wider
implications. If neutrons can be generated from
protons like that, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities.
