Ed, perhaps we are discussing the details in this case, but many times the details reveal an underlying behavior that offers important clues. I believe that I have a good understanding of your assumed mechanism at this time since you did a good job of describing it. The hot spot evidence suggests that more is going on than just simple addition of heat that is released throughout a wide region due to penetrating radiation. The effect appears to be much more focused than what would be expected under those conditions. Do you have an estimate of how far a typical X-Ray generated by your mechanism would penetrate before its energy is deposited? I can not locate that information in the reports that you have written, but it is possible that I overlooked it some how. I just recall several discussions with Horace about the distance that relatively low energy gammas would travel and the numbers implied that the heat would not be correlated to any significant degree around the local NAE in those cases. It would take gamma energy of much less than 100 keV to be captured in the same device. Ed, what energy level of X-Ray are you anticipating to be given off by your mechanism as each NAE allows fusion? We should be able to take that estimate and figure out the penetration distance.
On the other hand, if you determine that direct local point heating is generated, then the process that I am envisioning would be active. This would happen if for instance a kinetic kick is given to the metal surrounding the fusing D's and possibly to the Helium formed itself. Some form of electromagnetic or mechanical coupling would achieve this result and I suspect that this is happening. We tend to speak of this type of process as heat energy, but it is just local coupling that ends up dissipating in that form. These types of processes would likely demonstrate directivity since they form in a Newtonian manner. There will be equal and opposite reactions when two bodies interact to conserve momentum and energy. If it is assumed that there is no overall directed energy released and that it is indeed random as you imply, then the diffusing heat will propagate away from each active site in a radially symmetrical manner and influence its neighbors without a preferred direction. This does not seem to be what is observed. In the crater formations, a conic propagation appears to be in play. I realize that these are rare and the hot spots are the main phenomena observed. The supposition that gas generated at an interior site is adequate to cause a large crater to be blown out of the material is not proven and I suspect is not likely. Do you have evidence that these conic plugs of blown out material are being projected at high velocity into the nearby experiment? It seems far more likely that the cone of matter is heated to melting by a directed flow of heat of a conic form and then gently expelled by a moderate amount of internal pressure. There is a large difference between these two processes. Hot spot formation is most likely the main observation that strongly supports the local heating hypothesis. Your penetrating radiation theory should not result in this type of behavior. The X-Rays would travel too far before depositing their energy unless you now assume that the X-Rays themselves directly impact the additional release of energy by nearby NAE. This has not been a part of you theory so far, but it would offer some of the desired characteristics. These types of penetrating radiation have been known to initiate nuclear reactions before as in the hydrogen bomb case, so perhaps here as well. Also, the lack of X-Rays being detected in the numbers required to explain the LENR energy release is a big problem. Any release near the surface of the metal should result in penetration and external detection. This is much like the problem that we all realize is faced by the W&L theory. I think that any mechanism that relies upon gammas or X-Rays is going to be hard to justify. If you can maneuver your theory to be restricted to the release of radiation that gets captured quickly such as UV or very low energy X-Rays, then all is well. This short range local conversion into heat would fit into my hypothesis quite well. Then, the high temperature impulses would immediately influence the nearby NAE. This close coupling would result in chain reactions and the corresponding hot spots. All of the papers that I have read about your theories thus far have concentrated upon the local, single NAE environment. That is of the utmost importance in our obtaining an explanation as to how LENR actually in initiated and represents an interesting hypothetical process as to the sequence of events leading to the ultimate goal of fusion. I have extended that concept to the system level of behavior with my current hypothesis which can explain the hot spot as well as cratering phenomena using your individual reactions as a starting point. I have brought the density of NAE into the equation in a way that allows for chain reactions to be explained which was lacking from the earlier discussions. I consider this contribution as more than just nitpicking the details. All of us need to operate as a team as we attempt to analyze the evidence before us. If we work together and realize that no one person is the sole innovator and ultimate source of ideas then the next few years should not be a repeat of the last decades and LENR will unravel before us. So, lets all make an attempt to keep our minds open far enough to accept new ideas from sources beyond ourselves since it can not be known ahead of time what sparks will ignite a fire. Dave -----Original Message----- From: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Cc: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> Sent: Mon, Feb 25, 2013 12:15 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Explaining Cold fusion -IV On Feb 24, 2013, at 6:23 PM, David Roberson wrote: OK, I think I understand what you are describing after your detailed explanation. Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears as though you are assuming that a random collection of individual events is leading to the crater formation and hot spots. This is a possible cause and might indeed be the final explanation. I see that you are still considering that the energy from each reaction is in the form of photons mainly which can penetrate fairly deeply into the metal. The heat is released when the photons are absorbed at some remote location. Correct That is what I remember you stating a few days ago. I countered with a slightly different concept as I was discussing blue sky thinking. I envision that the heat does not appear far removed from the reaction and therefore results in a large elevation to the temperature in the very nearby NAE. On many occasions a random fusion occurs at one of your sites that does not cause adjacent sites to significantly accelerate their activity. The probability of interaction instead is directly related to the density of NAE within the region according to my hypothesis. I see now how this differs from your process since it appears that each of your reactions proceeds slowly and there would not be a large concentration of heat energy to diffuse. I think we have a combination of what you describe and my description. The photons are absorbed as they move from the source. The greatest heat is produced near the source with the energy release dropping off with distance. Consequently, some local heating will occur where the photon flux is greatest. Do you think that the heating due to random addition of the events would be sufficient to cause the cratering and hot spots? I am not sure about how many of these random happenings would have to be coincident for the release of sufficient heat energy to form one of those craters. The melted spots are rare. Most apparent craters are not from this cause, as I said. Most result from deposited impurities. The appearance reminds me more of an explosion of some sort instead of a simple melting of the material. Please read: Nagel, D., Characteristics and Energetics of Craters in LENR Experimental Materials J. Cond. Matter Nucl. Sci. 10. 1-14 (2013) These craters you describe are from deposition of impurity. I suspect that a cone type shape does not originate from random melting of a bulk of material although I may be wrong. And the dept of the initial cone tip seems out of range for liquid metal to originate. These are the problems that I encounter when attempting to explain the size and shape of the end products. You need to consider that several sources of apparent craters are possible. If you think of the reaction as being a form of chain reaction then the shapes make more sense. There will generally be a single random triggered fusion reaction within the metal. These must be occurring for the device to initially generate excess heat. If, as I suspect, the adjacent NEA sites become triggered themselves then more heat is added to the mix. An interesting observation comes to light. Since the resulting structure has a cone shape, the suggestion becomes that the energy is released in that shape from each reaction. This cone of energy spreads outward from initiation and encounters additional NAE in its path. Many of these become triggered in some manner and the energy from them adds to the resulting cone shaped energy wave. We would need to understand what process could lead to a cone shaped energy release if my hypothesis has any likelihood of success. David, you are over thinking this process and ignoring much of what has to happen for any melting to occur. Consider that a large number of cracks form in one place. The fusion is then controlled by how fast the D can get to this region, which is determined by temperature and concentration of D in the surrounding PdD. The cracks start to produce energy slowly and the local area heats up, as seen by the flashes measured by Szpak et. al. The local area gets hotter, the D diffuses more rapidly, and the flash rate increases while becoming more intense each time. Finally, the flash creates a local temperature that exceeds the melting point of the alloy on the surface, which has a value significantly below that of Pd. This melting causes a sudden release of gas that blows the liquid away. Yes, the sites interact, but through local temperature and diffusion. Because this local region can be less than a square micron in size, the description has to take the conditions present on this scale into account. On this scale, the surface is very complex. I need to consider how shaped charges behave to clarify my understanding of how my assumed process proceeds. Someone in vortex my already have that knowledge and their input would be welcome. Should I also look into the path that a high speed projectile takes when it penetrates a solid material? The shockwave emanating from one of these tends to take the form of the craters. Well Ed, I see that your current theory and my hypothesis do not quite merge together as a whole. If there is a way to speed up your reactions and get them to cooperate with their neighbors then that might become possible. I see no basic difference. We are only nitpicking about details. Ed Dave -----Original Message----- From: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Cc: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> Sent: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 6:40 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Explaining Cold fusion -IV On Feb 24, 2013, at 3:06 PM, David Roberson wrote: Ed, I have been looking at the craters that have formed upon the surface of some of the earlier active experiments. Also, Axil supplied a fine link that demonstrated hot spots being formed upon the surface of another system. I can run down the picture reference if you wish, but I suspect that you are aware of these from previous studies. Let me know. I have seem all of this information. The big question is whether or not a single fusion event is capable of doing this degree of damage and creating the relatively large heating associated with hot spots. Dave, I see no question here. A single event CAN NOT do any damage. This is easy to show. The melting occurs only when the random collection of active sites exceeds a critical concentration in a local region, as I explain in detail below. It is well established that temperature does effect the LENR systems in a positive manner. Elevated metal temperature is required to obtain any significant LENR and it is apparent that the higher the temperature of a device such as the ECAT, the more heat is produced. Yes My hypothesis can be proven wrong if it can be shown that there is no change in the quantity of energy released per larger event regardless of the density of NAE that are active in the material. So, if all of the craters can be formed by one or at most a couple of simultaneous fusion reactions, or the amount of heat appearing at the hot spots is only due to one, then each is unrelated. Here I refer to a fusion reaction as being due to the formation of one ash product instead of a chain of events due to the heating. Does this suggest that you now accept the coupling hypothesis? I recall that earlier you stated that each fusion event proceeded to completion and was not related to the others. I need to be more clear here. Millions of suitable cracks are present in an active material. Each one of these cracks supports a series of fusion reactions. The process starts by D accumulating and forming the required structure in the crack. The structure resonates until all energy is lost and the He forms. The He diffuses away and is replaced by D, and the process repeats. The total cycle time might be a few seconds for each active site. The sites are cycling in random sequence and the total power is the average of them all. No single site can produce enough energy to make any local change or even to be detected. However, if by random chance a large number of sites are close together, this can release enough power to cause melting when all the cycles in this area scrutinize to a sufficient amount. If this happens, all active sites in this region are destroyed and further energy production at this local region stops. When I first mentioned this idea you did not express a positive opinion of its merits. It is good that we can now agree that this might be happening and should be an addition to the original theory. My opinion was that I could see no benefit to using this process to explain anything - other than the explanation I had already imagined as I describe above. One thing that needs to be clarified is that I am not speaking of the average temperature of the metal matrix in this description. That might be what you refer to as local. I am addressing the instantaneous large spike that occurs and which diffuses into the average background temperature with time. There is a large difference between the two. You need to realize that the energy is not felt by the system as heat until the photons are absorbed. Most of these photons leave the sample and make heat in the electrolyte or in the wall of the container. Very little is absorbed locally at the active crack. As I said, the process of heat formation is complex. The individual active sites only experience the ambient temperature. Local temperature at each site will be slightly greater than the average, but not excessive unless the concentration of sites at that local area is very high. Is this clearer. Ed Dave -----Original Message----- From: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Cc: Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> Sent: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 4:34 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Explaining Cold fusion -IV Dave, what behavior of LENR can only be explained by proposing coupling between the NAE sites? Of course, coupling is expected based on local temperature and a photon flux. What more do you propose? Ed On Feb 24, 2013, at 2:26 PM, David Roberson wrote: Robin, The net energy released by a single fusion reaction is measured in the MeV, not eV. That is why I believe that there is a mutual interaction between individual NAE. The local heat energy release is large and can not escape the area except through diffusion which is a slow process compared to the reaction time associated with nuclear effects. This should behave much like raising the local temperature by many degrees Kelvin which should encourage reactions by nearby NAEs if we assume a positive temperature coefficient for LENR. Ed's theory handles activity at a single NAE that he states will continue until completion. My suggested addition is a system level coupling that will now explain other observations. When an addition improves a theory, it should be incorporated into an improved one. Now we can consider the behavior of a device exhibiting LENR as being composed of two different type of responses. The first is the original one where NAE generate copious amounts of energy as the elements within fuse. The addition explains craters and hot spots which are hypothesized to be associated with the density of the NAE sites. So far there has been no evidence that coupling does not exist between NAE and a couple of good examples that suggest that this is happening. We should seek out unusual behavior that does not meet expected performance and attempt to explain the discrepancy. Do you know of any evidence that coupling between active regions does not exist? Dave -----Original Message----- From: mixent <mix...@bigpond.com> To: vortex-l <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 1:59 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Explaining Cold fusion -IV In reply to Edmund Storms's message of Sun, 24 Feb 2013 11:26:37 -0700: Hi, [snip] >You ask several questions at the same time. The LENR process requires >energy to overcome a slight energy barrier present within the overall >process. Consequently, it has a positive temperature effect. In other >words, some energy is required to initiate each fusion event. Once >initiated, each fusion reaction goes on without any more help and >releases its energy. Consequently, the initiation reaction will >become faster, the more energy that is applied in any form. This >energy can take the form of increased temperature, laser light, RF or >any other source that can couple to the rate limiting reaction. The >important information comes from identifying the rate limiting step so >that the extra energy can be applied more effectively. This requires a >theory. At the temperature increases common in LENR experiments, the amount of heat energy added is only a tiny fraction of an eV. The theory that best matches this is Hydrinos, because a tiny fraction of an eV is all that is needed to match the difference in energy between the "energy hole" of Hydrinos, and the "energy hole" provided by many common catalysts. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
