-----Original Message----- From: Bob Cook Check out the current (Feburary) issue of Scientific American--page 32--regarding the radius of the proton. Seems the wave functions overlap better than one might have concluded from old theory.
The researchers have interesting connections to active long-term LENR theory development at MIT. Ironical. Bob, I haven't read the SciAm article yet but much of this variable radius talk has been out since last summer. Pohl's paper is on arXiv. http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.0905 ...as is the more important one of Roberto Onofrio who has suggested that the muonic hydrogen experiment may be providing evidence of quantum gravity. This bodes well for LENR. A theory of quantum gravity is based on the unification of gravity and the weak force, also called "gravitoweak unification." Essentially quantum gravity tells us why two protons can come together in a metal matrix without requiring a deflated electron. Of course, they cannot fuse permanently - thus the reversal back to two protons may not be net energetic. The "extra energy" if there is any, could come from QCD or from the Lamb shift - which is an easier way to account for it. In fact QCD may supply the Lamb shift (see below). Conventional Newtonian gravity holds at large distances, but like the electroweak interaction, it morphs into a different kind of gravitational interaction at very small scale. Specifically, the strength of the gravitational interactions equals the weak force near the Fermi scale. This in effect reduces four fundamental forces to two. As Onofrio shows, quantum gravity supplies the additional binding energy in the muonic hydrogen experiments, which explains the smaller proton radius value. BTW - In these experiments, the proton radius value is usually measured in terms of an energy difference between two energy levels, called the Lamb shift. On Vortex - for many years, going back to Fred Sparber or before, we have suggested that in the event that when LENR is understood and there is no previously known fusion reaction which can be found, as now seems likely - then the excess energy will most likely be caused by asymmetry in the Lamb Shift. And the Lamb shift energy could still derive from spin coupling to the nucleus so it remains nuclear. Now we have a vetted theory which provides that asymmetry - GU or gravitoweak unification. In fact, at the ~10 THz level, the a sequential Lamb shift can provide what is seen in the Rossi HotCat. LS = 4.372 x 10^-6 eV => x 1.602 x 10^-19 J/eV = 7.00 x 10^-25 J Tiny, indeed. But... that low energy is "per reaction" and "per proton pair" ... and even if the asymmetry is only 1% of that low number - but the transaction rate is 27 THZ... then with a gram of hydrogen adsorbed into nickel, we are feasting on Lamb Bar-B-Q courtesy of the HotCat. Jones
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