Jed wrote: "The name is not important." Its not important to you and some others perhaps, but not to the physicists... ya know, the guys you are trying to 'convince'!!!! I asked a friend who is a physics prof at the local University the following questions: 1) Do you consider neutron capture as 'fusion'? 2) How would the majority of physicists answer that question? and this was his answer... ==============
Hi Mark, I don't think neutron capture is considered as 'fusion'. But funny things could happen; the nucleus that had captured a neutron could undergo beta-decay and then the nuclear charge changes, therefore changing the chemical element from Z to Z+1. Whether that happens depends on the energy level of the two nuclei. I saw the reports on the Italian cold fusion claims, where nickel was transformed into copper - that may have been caused by a neutron capture with subsequent beta decay. Wikipedia says: "Naturally occurring nickel <blocked::/wiki/Nickel> (Ni) is composed of five stable <blocked::/wiki/Isotope> isotopes; 58Ni, 60Ni, 61Ni, <blocked::/wiki/Nickel-62> 62Ni and 64Ni with 58Ni being the most abundant (68.077% <blocked::/wiki/Natural_abundance> natural abundance). 18 <blocked::/wiki/Radioisotope> radioisotopes have been characterised with the most stable being 59Ni with a <blocked::/wiki/Half-life> half-life of 76,000 years, 63Ni with a half-life of 100.1 years, and 56Ni with a half-life of 6.077 days. All of the remaining <blocked::/wiki/Radioactive> radioactive isotopes have half-lives that are less than 60 hours and the majority of these have half-lives that are less than 30 seconds." When you look at http://www.webelements.com/nickel/isotopes.html then you see which nickel isotopes will beta decay to copper. Those are the ones with the higher number of neutrons: 63Ni, 65Ni, and 66Ni but only the last two have a short lifetime. Since 66Ni comes from the unstable 65Ni, the only source would be 64Ni, which is at about 1% natural abundance. So that could be the one Ni isotope that can capture a neutron and then beta-decay to 65Cu. With best regards, S-------- ============================== I really don't care one way or the other... what matters is that we figure out what is happening and commercialize it asap... -Mark
