From: Jed Rothwell
Consider various physical effects in metals that have been discovered over the centuries, such as magnetism, conducting electricity, the thermoelectric effect (and its opposite manifestation the Peltier effect), the photovoltaic effect, hydrogen embrittlement, piezoelectricity, and superconductivity. Each of these has one mechanism, and only one mechanism, as far as I know. It seems unlikely to me that anomalous nuclear effects in highly loaded metal hydrides are caused by many different phenomena with different physical principles. I do not think there are any other physical effects in metals which have two or more different disparate causes. In biology you sometimes find mechanisms, organs and so on that evolved independently, but came to resemble one another, such as the body shape of dolphins and fish. That's another story entirely. Conduction of electricity disproves your point since it has several distinct forms - including ionic conductivity, superconductivity and HTSC, which is different from SC. Not to mention biological conduction in neurons and semiconductors. At any rate, the difference between LENR and the simpler physical effects is found in the mysteries of QM tunneling in the context of two intertwined mechanisms - the reactant and the lattice which can experience tunneling effects in markedly different ways. Thus, hydrogen reacting within a nickel lattice would be a different reaction from deuterium reacting within palladium, both in the output, the ash and the radiation. The difference is sufficient to call them: two different types of LENR. QM tunneling is a basic paradigm shift in understanding, and it changes everything - to the extent that hydrogen reacting with an alloy of nickel and barium can be a different reaction than Ni-H. Curiously, hydrogen embrittlement is somewhat similar to LENR, and could be labeled as yet another form of LENR in which the thermal gain is relatively insignificant. Thanks for bringing that up. It also emphasizes the point that LENR can be low gain, high gain or endothermic. The most amazing detail of Ahern's EPRI work was in the discovery (rediscovery) of LENR endotherm.
