It is an interesting question as to what percentage of the yield of “Mike” – if any - was due to BEC formation within the large flask of liquid deuterium. For some reason, this possibility never occurred to me before now - but it seems possible if not likely.
Indeed, the extra yield from BECs could have been substantial. BTW – the statement that Maxwellian distribution prohibits room temperature BECs is probably false in a time denominated progression where only a small percentage is necessary for fusion. It’s all statistics. But the skeptics mis-framed the argument. If BECs can form at all at room temperature - then at least for a useable portion of the population of deuterons, there should be transitory condensates of a few tens of molecules forming rapidly enough at room temperature for fusion - since the time required for fusion is extremely short. Even if only 10 deuterons in 10 billion condense together at any picosecond, the statistics could be such that there should always be a useable population to fuse. This is above my pay grade, but I doubt seriously that MB distributions are prohibitory - IF the BEC will form at all at ambient. The logical error of skeptics here is the “all or nothing” error. Don’t forget that D nuclei inside a palladium lattice at full loading and 300 K are closer together than when in the deuterons are in liquid form. From: David Roberson Low temperatures initially? Too bad it did not remain that way. Actually, I was seeking evidence of a low energy reaction. You did bring up an interesting point however. How would you expect the BECs to influence the overall reaction in this particular case? Could they have caused the yield to exceed expectations? Would that also tend to generate nasty radioactive elements that do not normally occur in other designs? We may be on to something that needs to be explored. I am attempting to get a handle on the equivalent pressure that would be required to force Ds to be in the proximity that they find themselves within if they share a hole within a metal matrix. This must be enormous compared to the density they exhibit at room temperature. Add this elevated pressure and laser cooling, or other methods that reduce the relative motion between them and something interesting might result. Then, of course there are random variations in the energy of Ds that naturally occur. It makes me wonder if being trapped in a tiny cavity would tend to allow instantaneous cooling to occur under the right circumstances. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Jones Beene This is why I ask whether or not fusion has been proven to occur with very low temperature deuterons. I am not aware that anyone makes that claim and it would add support to the other theory if proven. Yes – an early hydrogen bomb called “Mike” put millions of tons of radioactivity into the air in the fifties, creating untold numbers of health problems today - but that is probably not the answer you are looking for. Although the yield was surprising – so perhaps BECs were involved, come to think of it. BTW – “Mike” used liquid deuterium in a large thermos as the main fuel - with a small fission trigger. No tritium was needed. The output was over 10 megatons of TNT – and that exceeded all of the explosives used in WW II, including the small fission bombs dropped on Japan - which were similar to Mike’s trigger. About 95% of Mike’s energy came from the fusion of liquid deuterium at very low temperature - initially :-) Cough, cough…
