At 01:01 PM 12/27/2011, Horace Heffner wrote:
On Dec 27, 2011, at 8:31 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
Transmutations are not observed with any clean correlation with
excess heat. Some experiments produce more, some less. Levels of
transmuted products other than helium are produced at far lower
levels than helium, many orders of magnitude lower.
This is far from true. Transmutation products have been detected by
chemical means, and XRF. This requires large quantities of product.
Horace, can you provide a reference for this. It contradicts what
I've understood.
To be sure, I'm talking about widely reported results, not about
isolated reports.
This is one of the great mysteries of LENR - the vast amount of
nuclear reactions involved in heavy element transmutation, without
the corresponding excess heat. It is explanation of this
experimental observation that is one of the strong points of
deflation fusion theory.
Please specify the "experimental observation." Quantitatively.
Various techniques have been used to detect extremely small
quantities of transmuted elements on cathode surfaces, but this work
is hampered by the "garbage collector" characteristic of an
electrolytic cathode, it attracts cations from the tiniest impurities
in cell materials, one can find almost anything on a cold fusion
cathode. However, my understanding has been that the detected
quantities, compared to the helium found to be correlated with the
FPHE, are far lower. I.e., typical tritium results might be a
production of about 10^11 atoms of tritium, compared to, say, 10^14
atoms of helium. That's about three orders of magnitude down.
My understanding has been that in most reports, other transmuted
elements are at even lower numbers. However, looking through Storms,
I do see some reports of higher production rates. One of the problems
with transmuation reports are that the techniques are all over the
map, and when we are looking for what are usually very low quantities
of material, and with many of the reported elements, contamination is
a real problem. Earthtech showed fairly well how some reported
transmutations were do to cell contaminants, and Storms cautions
about the problem studying electrolytic cells re transmutation.
There are many research avenues which have not been explored, it's a
problem related to the widespread rejection of cold fusion, it became
very difficult to get funding for this work, so many promising
avenues of exploration have never been followed. Some quite amazing
work has been done, as an example, involving biological
transmutation, specifically the work of Vyosotskii. The work, as
reported, seems definitive. But I've not seen or heard of any attempt
to replicate what should be a fairly simple experiment, one merely
needs access to Mossbauer spectroscopy, and one of the reported
cultures (deinococcus radiodurans has been used, quite a fascinating
little bug all by itself. What would be the evolutionary advantage to
being astonishingly resistant to radiation? Could it be because the
organism does a little nuclear chemistry?
If cold fusion results from cavities of a certain size, with loading
of the cavities with available elements, it simply wouldn't be
utterly beyond the pale for biology to figure out a way to do it, but
if there is very short-range radiation, and if the reaction takes
place inside a cell, there would be radiation damage.
Many cold fusion researchers look for the exits when someone starts
talking about biological transmutation, because, after all, isn't
that crazy? But it is not really any crazier than cold fusion itself,
i.e., highly unexpected, but sometimes nature does what we don't expect.
What I've come to is an understanding, a sense of probability that
there are many reactions involved, not just one. Some reactions do
one thing, other reactions do other things. One of the assumptions
that made it difficult to establish cold fusion findings, originally,
is exactly the assumption that there was only one reaction. With that
assumption, then, but widely differing reported phenomena, the sum of
those reports looked to skeptics like proof that CF reseatchers were
just imagining things. This experiment produces tritium, that one
doesn't. Well, does cold fusion produce tritium or not? Make up your minds!
"Cold fusion" means, in practice, any nuclear reaction, other than
possible accelerated decay (known for some beta-capture examples to
be possible to influence with chemistry), that takes place with
excitation energies below those of thermonuclear fusion. However, the
popular usage implies condensed matter temperatures, i.e., below the
vaporization temperature of elements, and mostly below the melting
point for metals. Other names that are related are LANR,
Lattice-Assisted Nuclear Reactions. Presumably the lattice provides
what Storms calls the Nuclear Active Environment, NAE.
It appears that palladium doesn't quite do that, naturally. The
reaction seems to happen when the palladium structure is modified,
possibly with the formation of cracks or voids, and possibly by the
admixture of other elements with the palladium, such as some level of
oxygen on the surface of the cathode. I don't think that most
physicists have appreciated the extraordinary complexity of the
surface of an electrolytic cathode.
Gas loading approaches may be far simpler. Studies like that of
Imwamura may provide clues to the nature of the reaction.
The initial energy deficits in heavy element transmutation, due to
the trapped electron, are typically very large. This is due to the
large positive charge of the heavy nucleus involved. See:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/dfRpt
for many examples. For Rossi E-cat related examples see:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/NiProtonRiddle.pdf
The large initial energy deficit makes follow-on weak reactions
likely, involving the trapped electron(s) when energetically
favorable. Most of the reaction energy, about 99%, is carried away by
neutrinos in the case of the follow-on weak reactions. This, plus the
initial energy deficit, is why heavy element LENR often produces no
observable excess heat. This was discussed with references on page 1
of:
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf
This lack of corresponding heat from heavy element transmutation,
required by and corresponding to the mass deficit change, is also why
the huge amount of transmutation that occurs was such a surprise to
Bockris and others when it was first observed. Explaining this is
one of the strong points of deflation fusion theory. It is an even
stronger argument for deflation fusion theory than the fact it also
explains the change in branching ratios in D+D fusion, and the 10^-8
ratio of n/T observed in some LENR experiments.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
