*I suspect the reason W-L got so much traction is because it does away with the Coulomb barrier problem (by fiat). That is a very attractive thing to hobbyists like me, who know enough about nuclear physics to know that Coulomb repulsion is a major difficulty to be dealt with (I used to like W-L, btw).*
Eric, You are clearly part of the "conspiracy" to promote d+d fusion! j/k :). Great points as always. Regards, John On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 11:00 PM, Eric Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Jan 13, 2014 at 10:16 AM, Foks0904 . <[email protected]> wrote: > > And while W-L is likely smoke and mirrors, lack of neutron detection does >> not refute the theory, because as W-L states their "Ultracold" Neutrons are >> captured so quickly as to evade detection. Convenient, no? >> > > Even the fact that the neutrons are hypothesized to be very slow does not > seem to be all that convenient upon further reflection. The amount of > neutrons needed to generate the kind of heat seen in CF experiments would > be very high indeed -- let's say on the order of 10E12 per second, just to > put a number on it. The neutron capture cross section would need to be > extremely large in order for the nickel lattice sites to absorb all of > those neutrons. But the capture cross section is finite and is not > arbitrarily large, and indeed nickel has a high "neutron optical > potential," meaning that slow neutrons have an increased likelihood of > bouncing off of nickel atoms [1]. Some of those neutrons are going to have > to exit the system. > > If you have a ginormous number of neutrons being created per second, and > even one percent are not captured, that is a lot of neutrons: 10E12 * 0.01 > = 10E10 per second. I suspect, however, that 0.99 percent neutron capture > is a wild and wonderful fantasy, and that the actual maximum capture cross > section, even for nearly stationary neutrons, is far lower. Those neutrons > are going to tumble all over the place, thermalize with the environment, > set off gamma rays as they interact with water and surely result in a lot > of clicks on any nearby geiger counters. > > But assume for the moment that 99.99999999 percent of the neutrons are > captured in a special W-L LENR reaction. The reaction would need to be > very special, because normally neutrons activate a host material, but these > ones can't, because activation is not something that is generally seen in > CF experiments. > > I suspect the reason W-L got so much traction is because it does away with > the Coulomb barrier problem (by fiat). That is a very attractive thing to > hobbyists like me, who know enough about nuclear physics to know that > Coulomb repulsion is a major difficulty to be dealt with (I used to like > W-L, btw). > > Eric > > [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultracold_neutrons#Reflecting_materials > >
