On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 7:43 AM, Edmund Storms <[email protected]> wrote:
I now propose it is a chain formed from 2p bonds that allow a series of > hydrons to form a chain of atoms. This kind of bond is normally not stable. > I propose it becomes stable in the crack for reasons I will not describe > here. The bond provides an electron between the nuclei as a normal > consequence. This high probability of an electron between the hydrons > reduces the barrier and brings the nuclei closer together than is normally > achieved. This eliminates your first objection. > In this scenario you have two positive charges (+2) and a cloud of charge -1 sandwiched between them, making the balance approx. +1 or greater, I assume (I'm guessing that the electron shielding is diffuse). So there's still a bit of barrier to overcome, although I gather the probability of tunneling increases. I do not have a clear sense of how this affects things, but we still have Coulomb repulsion to deal with. I don't think you want tunneling for your explanation, since that will cause the hydrons to snap together. So for it to work you probably need a normal, stead approach, which seems unrealistic to me. The basic intuition is that there is a very nonlinear potential curve that the nucleons can be expected to traverse, making them hard to control, and that you need a linear potential curve for your explanation to work as presently formulated. The LENR phenomenon reveals the existence of a process that can cause > emission of mass-energy before the final He nucleus is fully formed, > because otherwise hot fusion results. The only unknown is the exact nature > of this process. > This is where I think you're headed in the wrong direction. It's clear that you're looking for a way to conserve momentum, so that you don't get 4He fragments and gamma rays -- i.e., hot fusion. But there are other ways to conserve momentum. I think Robin has drawn attention to the possibility of f/H combining with another nucleus and expelling the electron instead of a gamma or a fragment, and Ron Maimon proposes something similar with a d+d reaction occuring close to a palladium nucleus -- in that case the momentum of the reaction is shared with the spectator nucleus, and as a result the cross sections for 4He fragments and gammas are proposed to be competitively disfavored over a clean 4He + kinetic energy branch. My point here is not that one of these two mechanisms is what must going on, it's only that there may be other ways to achieve conservation of momentum, a clean 4He daughter and no gammas. No matter what process is proposed, it must be consistent with a structure > that can form by chemical means. This requirement severely limits the kind > of structure that is possible. Nevertheless, the demonstrated reality of CF > requires such a structure to form. What structure would you suggest? > Here I must defer to you on the formation of the cracks -- I have no reason to doubt this. As for the formation of the hydroton, which I take it is also what you have in mind when you mention "chemical," I'm a lot less sure about. By the way, nuclei do not snap together because the strong force is > obviously not operating as expected. Perhaps, the theory of the strong > force acting outside of the nucleus needs to be modified. > You have now used up one of your three miracles and have two left. ;) > The basic problem is that LENR is impossible if all objections are > correct. But LENR is possible, therefore some objections are not correct. > Now you need to decide which objection you are willing to modify. My > approach is to find a logically consistent process that can be applied to > all observations without violating any BASIC law and without making > arbitrary assumptions. Of course, gaps exist within this logical structure, > which I identify. Nevertheless the structure allows the process to be > partially understood and hopefully made reproducible. Full understanding > will only happen after an army of graduate students have finished their > work. > This makes sense -- there appears to be some flawed assumption going on in statements to the effect that LENR is impossible. Here I am at the mercy of you and Michael McKubre and Melvin Miles and others, epistemologically speaking, since I've never seen LENR in operation myself. Even if I have reservations with the hydroton, I still think it's worth of research attention. When you say "unpromising", what does this mean? I have proposed a > physical condition in which the nuclear reaction must occur, I have > proposed a nuclear process that predicts the observed products and the > variables that affect these reactions, and I have proposed the form of the > emitted energy. What is unpromising about that? > By "unpromising," I mean only that it is not my working hypothesis. I have no strong opinion here, really. As for my own working hypothesis, it is that Ron Maimon is on to something. But at one point I really liked W-L, so who knows where things might go. Eric
