On 06/23/2010 03:26 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: > Mauro Lacy wrote: > >> As I'm actually living near the city of Bariloche, which is on the >> shore of the Nahuel Huapi lake in which Huemul island(Richter's >> laboratory site) is, and as this can at least in a potential way be >> related to cold fusion, I feel compelled to tell a little story here. >> . . . > > That is a fascinating account. Thanks. > > I have always wondered about Richter. Not much information is > available about his work, I suppose that is because people try to > forget a fiasco. I have met a few researchers who tried to replicate > cold fusion who have forgotten all about the details of their work. I > assume they put it out of their minds because they considered it a > failure and an embarrassment.
Yes. As far as I know, Richter didn't leave written accounts of their ideas and experiments. After the affair, he lived modestly in a locality common with German emigrates, called Villa Ballester, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. He died in 1991. Maybe it is as Jones suggests: he became aware of, or worked as an assistant in some fusion experiments during the war, and later convinced Peron that he was able to accomplish the same. That would explain the lack of personal papers and accounts, to a certain extent. As the research was secret and he was unable to publish, that's another likely explanation, of course. Jed, if you want to know more the obliged reference is a book called "/El secreto atómico de Huemul"/, although I don't think it's available in English. In the wikipedia entry for "Huemul Project" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huemul_Project) I have found some very interesting references: http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_56/iss_8/12_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1 http://scitation.aip.org/journals/doc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_57/iss_3/14_1.shtml?bypassSSO=1 In short: it seems that he was trying to achieve some kind of plasma based fusion, /a la/ Z-Machine, like were trying many others scientists at the time, including in the US. And it seems that he had the idea of using loudspeakers to generate sound waves on the plasma, to increase its temperature. Jones, I have seen some BIG(like 50 cm of diameter by 70 cm of height) iron cylinders on the island. I've never heard anything regarding elements like palladium, nickel, or palladium-silver alloys. But as you said: ¿quién sabe? I suppose I'll go again next summer, to take some pictures. Mauro
