On Feb 16, 2011, at 10:48 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Here is a revised version of the message I sent the other day.
Villa reported no gamma emissions or other radiation significantly
above background from the Rossi device. Celani, however, said that
he did detect something. Here are the details he related to me at
ICCF16, from my notes, with corrections and additions by Celani.
Celani attended the demonstration on Jan. 14. The device did not
work at first. He and others were waiting impatiently in a room
next to the room with the device. He estimates that he was around 6
m from the device. He had two battery-powered detectors:
1. A sodium iodide gamma detector (NaI), set for 1 s acquisition time.
2. A Geiger counter (model GEM Radalert II, Perspective
Scientific), which was set to 10 s acquisition time.
Both were turned on as he waited. The sodium iodide detector was in
count mode rather than spectrum mode; that is, it just tells the
number of counts per second.
Both showed what Celani considers normal background for Italy at
that elevation.
As he was waiting, suddenly, during a 1-second interval both
detectors were saturated. That is to say, they both registered
counts off the scale. The following seconds the NaI detector
returned to nomal. The Geiger counter had to be switched off to
"delete overrange," which was >7.5 microsievert/hour, and later
switched on again.
About 1 to 2 minutes after this event, Rossi emerged from the other
room and said the machine just turned on and the demonstration was
underway.
Celani commented that the only conventional source of gamma rays
far from a nuclear reactor would be a rare event: a cosmic ray
impact on the atmosphere producing proton storm shower of
particles. He and I agreed it is extremely unlikely this happened
coincidentally the same moment the reactor started . . . Although,
come to think of it, perhaps the causality is reversed, and the
cosmic ray triggered the Rossi device.
Another scientist said perhaps both detectors malfunctioned because
of an electromagnetic source in the building or some other prosaic
source. Celani considers this unrealistic because he also had in
operation battery-operated radio frequency detectors: an ELF
(Extremely Low Frequency) and RF (COM environmental microwave
monitor), both made by Perspective Scientific. No radio frequency
anomalies were detected. I remarked that it is also unrealistic
because the two gamma detectors are battery powered and they work
on different principles. The scientist pointed to neutron detectors
in an early cold fusion experiment that malfunctioned at a certain
time of day every day because some equipment in the laboratory
building was turned on every day. That sort of thing can happen
with neutron detectors, which are finicky, but this Geiger counter
is used for safety monitoring. Such devices have to be rugged and
reliable or they will not keep you safe, so I doubt it is easy to
fool one of them.
Celani expresses some reservations about the reality of the Rossi
device. Given his detector results I think it would be more
appropriate for him to question the safety of it.
When Celani went in to see the experiment in action, he brought out
the sodium iodide detector and prepared to change it to spectrum
mode, which would give him more information about the ongoing
reaction. Rossi objected vociferously, saying the spectrum would
give Celani (or anyone else who see it), all they need to know to
replicate the machine and steal Ross's intellectual property.
Celani later groused that there is no point to inviting scientists
to a demo if you have no intentions of letter them use their own
instruments. (Note, however, that Levi et al. did use their own
instruments.)
Jacques Dufour also attended the demonstration. He does not speak
much Italian, so he could not follow the discussion. He made some
observations, including one that I consider important, namely that
the outlet pipe was far too hot to touch. That means the
temperature of it was over 70°C. That, in turn, proves there was
considerable excess heat.
It proves no such thing. Set up hot plate and adjust input to 600
W. Watt meters, combined with integrated kWh metering, can be
obtained relatively cheaply. Place a covered pan on the burner until
water boils. The pan lid will be too hot to touch. The steam can
drive a whistle to make a loud noise. Proves nothing.
McKubre and others have said the outlet temperature sensor was too
close to the body of the device. Others have questioned whether the
steam was really dry or not. If the question is whether the machine
really produced heat or not, these factors can be ignored. All you
need to know is the temperature of the tap water going in (15°C),
the flow rate and the power input (400 W). At that power level the
outlet pipe would be ~30°C. Celani points out that the input power
was quite unstable, fluctuating between 400 and 800 W, but it was
still not large enough to explain the excess heat.
The input water came from a container exposed to a very warm room
temperature for at least 45 minutes before the active test, so was
actually maybe 27 °C. Also, the actual flow rate has been
questioned. Now we hear the input power was unstable, fluctuating
between 400 and 800 W, so was actually probably 600 W. Further, the
water in the device was in effect pre-heated for 45 minutes by 1000 -
1500 W. The temperature of the hot - cold mixed water being boiled
by the active material chamber exposed to the water could have been
well over 80 °C, especially in the initial part of the "live" portion
of the experiment. The efficacy of the device diminished toward the
end of the demonstration.
Evan at the stated flow rate of 4.9 gm/s we have:
P_liq = (4.9 gm/s)*(20 K)*(4.2 J/(gm K))= 412 J/s = 0.412 kW
right at the supposed power input level.
We know the vaporization energy can explained away almost in
entirety, See table and discussion at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg42287.html
This means it is feasible that no excess heat was generated at all.
The gamma production however, is a very different situation.
According to deflation fusion theory, the deflated state is made more
probable orbital stressing. The spin zero partial orbitals (I have
written much here about partial orbitals) that are extensions of
conduction band wavefunctions, drive electrons precisely through the
hydrogen nuclei. The density and frequency of the establishment of
these orbitals is increased upon cooling a densely loaded lattice.
In a gas loading regime, the loading must occur at a highly elevated
temperature to increase the diffusion rate of the hydrogen. Once
loading is achieved, the temperature is dropped in order to reduce
the lattice constant and stress the orbitals. Cold fusion results
according to the means spelled out in my papers. Unfortunately, the
lattice is disrupted by this means and thermal recycling is necessary
to re-load, and possibly anneal or repair the lattice at high
temperature. I am merely repeating here old stuff, so I won't both
giving references to my papers.
Beyond that, I'll simply repeat here my comments regards to Celani's
radiation observations from the post:
http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg42287.html
The production of kaons would appear "erratic" because (1) it is a
function of cosmic ray activity, (2) it has a chain reaction quality
to it that depends on hyperon build-up, i.e. hyperon and hypernuclei
density in the active material, and (3) the positron decay intensity
for the K0_long particles would be in a volume away from the device
itself, possibly by a meter or more. In other words, up close to the
device, the positrons produced by kaon decay would be observed to
increase in density with distance instead of diminish as 1/r^2 as
expected. Further, the detection of such remotely decaying kaons
requires that the volume the coincidence counters examine not be the
device itself, but a volume away from the device. The coincidence
counters used in the experiment were (time) focused on the device.
The probability of observing such events away from the device might
be enhanced by placing a paraffin block, a liter or so in volume,
between two NaI counters with coincidence counting, and locating the
block at distances from the device varying from up close to 3 m. A
positron decay peak should be observed away from the device itself.
Because hyperon decay occurs with increasing distance from the
device, a chain reaction increases in likelyhood as the size of the
device increases. Also, according to deflation fusion theory, the
K0_long mesons created by deflation fusion, having initially low
internal energy, may have extended half lives, and might be at least
momentarily, absorbed by heavy nuclei, thus creating kaon
hypernuclei. Such nuclei would build up at a distance of up to 2
meters from the experiment. Low internal energy kaons could also
accumulate in water or wax or other material in or near the
experiment, including humans.
The important point here is, if strange reactions actually occur in
the device, accumulating hypernuclei, even if not producing
significant excess heat, then scaling up by orders of magnitude can
have unexpected consequences.
Celani did not see the steam emerge from the end of the pipe, but
he reported the whistling sound of steam passing through the pipe.
(Dufour did not notice that but he says he is hard of hearing,
especially high frequency sounds.) I think there is no question the
water boiled, and much of it was vaporized, so there was massive
excess heat. Celani complained that phase-change calorimetry is too
complicated, but I think he exaggerates the difficulty. I agree
that the actual calorimetric method could be improved, especially
with a 5-minute test of steam sparged into a container of cold water.
- Jed
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
