On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 1:36 AM, John Franks <[email protected]> wrote:
Really, the MB distribution should allow for these outliers then CF would
> be happening with a non-vanishing probability.
>
I think you're referring to what goes on in nature, outside of CF labs, on
the assumption that cold fusion does not occur? If so, this I do not think
that we can peremptorily rule out cold fusion occurring in nature at this
point.
> I am still struggling with the putative process and the result,, which
> should give off gamma rays, neutrons and locally vaporise the lattice.
>
There are several results -- the results that physicists insist should be
seen for CF to be real (1), the results that explanations should be aiming
to handle (2) and the results that are actually observed (3).
1. Results that physicists have insisted should be seen in cold fusion:
copious gammas, neutrons, fast charged particles, byproducts commensurate
with the known branching ratios.
2. The results that explanations should be aiming to handle: the results
that are actually observed in the lab (3) and not the ones that physicists
insist should be seen (1).
3. The results that are actually observed:
1. evolution of heat out of a system beyond what can be chemically
stored within it if it were, for example, a container of
petroleum fuel or
a very high-capacity battery;
2. a very small number of gammas and charged particles, several
orders of magnitude below what would be needed to account for the
calorimetric measurements;
3. in PdD systems, 4He embedded within the outer layers of the Pd
cathode in amounts beyond those seen in controls;
4. in PdD systems, off-gas that includes an amount of 4He above
background levels commensurate with the heat measured if there were
d(d,ɣ)4He fusion reactions going on.
5. in NiH systems, apparently heat, no gammas, and transmutations
(beyond this, we don't know much).
An important point to emphasize here is that there are very few gammas and
fast particles. This is what is observed. The basic facts that an
explanation must contend with (assuming there is only one), then, are heat
beyond what is seen in known chemical reactions, and no gammas and charged
particles above a very low threshold. There are also interesting
observations of tritium and transmutations, but these observations seem to
be quite context dependent.
Several studies have documented lattice dislocation sites and whole regions
that have been vaporized. Mizuno includes an interesting image of one
vaporization site on the cover of his book [1].
Eric
[1]
http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Transmutation-Reality-Cold-Fusion/dp/1892925001
