At 11:49 AM 10/18/2010, Jones Beene wrote:
Side note: radiodurans sounds like a rock group, no?
I just want to know, how can I get some?
And there has to be a way to get access to a Mossbauer spectrograph.
I did Mossbauer spectroscopy in sophomore physics lab at Caltech, it
didn't take much, this could possibly be done at home. You need a
particular radioactive source, that decays to Fe-57 and emits a gamma
ray. You need to be able to detect the gammas. You need a linear
motion table, you do the spectrogram by doppler shifting the gamma
radiation by motion on the order of mm/sec, as I recall.
It doesn't seem completely out of reach. But codeposition neutrons, a
whole lot simpler, I hope and expect. I can detect neutrons, I
believe, in a very sophisticated way, with two pieces of LR-115 film
that cost me under a dollar.
Sure, this is getting out there into the Rube Goldberg range of fanciful
complexity, with a dash of ill-timed humor tossed in - but that is what
inspires a lot of young creative nerds... especially if Dad, the famous
professor, is a total skeptic.
Sure. Why do you think I got into this?
What LENR needs more than anything else these days is young creative nerds
taking an interest, to replace the dinosaurs who are dying-off in droves.
Hey, come on. Dinosaurs?
In any case, my original kit concept was to make SPAWAR neutrons
accessible to high school students. I only later realized that these
kits might be useful for more serious research. And that the high
school kids could help, with some investigations.
It's about communication....
I'm running a control already, a detector stack set up on a dummy
cell, mounted as the actual experimental stack will be mounted, and I
hope that in a few weeks when I develop these two films, I'll be
ready to start the first cell.
But it occured to me that this simple control experiment could be
quite interesting. I expect to be detecting and showing the effects
of cosmic ray neutrons. The way this is set up, it can distinguish
between cosmic ray origin and ordinary background from radon,
fallout, etc., wandering about.
That could make a nifty little project that would be sellable for,
like, a few dollars.... The hardest part, in fact, is developing the
films. I'll probably have to offer a service. This stuff isn't quite
as bad as CR-39 (which is like many hours at 70 degrees C, this is
about two hours at 60 degrees C), but, still, hot lye is dangerous.
