At 10:53 AM 5/26/2011, Charles Hope wrote:
On May 26, 2011, at 4:09, Joshua Cude
<<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]> wrote:
The language of physics is math.
This is a deep statement, worth unpacking. It means that if an idea
can't be written mathematically, it is not physics. I suspect that
the sort of answer that Mark seeks could not be written mathematically.
Cude is representing the hold-over of the deterministic model of the
world that has actually been largely rejected, the clockwork concept.
Yes, most physics went to "math," however, there is a problem. The
world is so complex that math can be useless, unless simplifying
assumptions are made. It is certain simplifying assumptions that led
to the conclusion that QM predicts that LENR is impossible. This was
already a problematic assumption, because we already knew of a
three-body example where fusion is known to take place,
muon-catalyzed fusion, so the question then naturally arises if there
might be other "exceptions."
In the case of MCF, the reaction behaves similarly to how normal hot
fusion, overcoming the Coulomb barrier by brute force, behaves, such
as branching ratio and ash composition. (He-3, tritium, and various
radiations).
But would an "unknown mechanism" also produce the same branching?
What if it goes through a Be-8 intermediary, for example, what if it
is not 3 body but is 4 body or more complex? The math gets horrific,
quickly, with 3-body problems and higher.
Chemistry also uses math, but the foundation of chemistry is not
math, it is observation. Physics only uses math in the interpretation
of results, in the development of theories, and some of these
theories, applied in simplified situations -- such as plasma
conditions -- are extraordinarily successful, amazingly accurate. As
long as you stay away from messy situations, like the stuff that we
live with all the time.
In theory, physics should be able to predict chemistry, entirely.
Feynman taught me not to hold my breath waiting for this!
But 1989 physicists were quite confident that physics predicted CF,
in the complex condensed matter environment, was impossible.
Fleischmann and Pons were quite aware of this, and they agreed, but
they also knew that it was possible, even probable, that there was
*some deviation* from expected fusion cross-section in condensed
matter. Fleischmann has written that he expected this to be below
measurement accuracy, that he and Pons expected failure to find
anything. But they decided to test this.
Then the damn thing melted down. They never again saw that level of
heat, but, then again, they didn't try. Having your experiment melt
down, burning a hole not only through the lab bench but also a few
inches into the concrete floor may seem exciting, but what if they
had gotten even more heat? They scaled down, and so has everone else
working on this, plus they may have been -- probably were --
extremely lucky, that result was outside the normal envelope. There
have been a few explosions, and one fatality, from smaller
experiments. The fatality was apparently not due to the F-P effect,
it was a recombination explosion in a closed cell, always a hazard.
There have been, I think, two other explosions, that may not have
been due to recombination, but this is all speculation at this point.
Rossi cells, reportedly, have exploded. They should not explode, from
the chemistry. However, a runaway heat reaction might create some
spectacular effects. Skillful design should avoid this, and what
would be needed for this is not public knowledge. What would be
needed would be, for example, the behavior of the cell, precisely
measured, at a controlled range of internal temperatures. Rossi is
not about to release this information until he has full patent
protection. He's certainly not going to release it because of the
cries of pseudoskeptics that this isn't "science."
It isn't science. Get over it! It's engineering and business. We
can't do much physics on this, not as to the reaction, there isn't
anywhere near enough information to do more than blather (in any
direction, skeptical or "gullible.")
I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to make money on this. I
may lose money on my investment in Pd-D, though probably not much
(those materials won't collapse in value, they have appreciated
already for reasons completely unrelated to the success of cold
fusion). In 1989, seeing the announcement, and being quite aware that
it might be a flop, I bought $10,000 worth of palladium, held in a
metals account at Credit Suisse. Later, I sold it, approximately
breaking even, when it appeared that, indeed, it was a flop. Had I
held the palladium and sold it at the peak, I'd have made a 900%
return on my investment, by the way. If I held it beyond that point,
it would have become, say now, only vrey roughly 200%, off the top of
my head. Not bad. Better than the stock market, I think!
So what now? I'm willing to bet a significant chunk of my net worth
on Rossi being real, not because it's "scientifically proven" -- it
isn't -- but because that's where I see the odds. (In January, before
there was as much semi-independent observation, my sense was toward
fraud. That's shifted.) How to do it?
