Electron-assisted fusion

Quote from axil

The energy differences among these levels were consistent with the seven peaks observed in the neutron scattering data, the researchers found."

axil: Of course an electron orbit may look like being smeared and often QM orbits completely match the found picture! But that's just one method to measure the "reality". Even worse there can be no outcome of an other reality of a scattering experiment! So QM works very well to verify a statistical method of finding the physical truth.

But as long as e.g. electrons frequent with more than 10²⁰ Hz. and the time resolution of physics is well below that (currently atto seconds), we can't also not expect any exact position measurements. Discrete orbits are not wrong, but they are never stable (exact) because there is always disturbance. Interestingly enough abstract discrete orbits are most of the time sufficient (see Mills) to calculates some basic values (e.g. Bor radius, ionization energies) of physics, because they deliver a correct average based on first order theory.

Quote from Longview

Eric: 3He + e- → t + v - 19 keV

As written, that would be exothermic.....

The convention with nuclear reactions is to use a plus sign for exothermic reactions. Here I've kept the energy on the righthand side and used a minus sign, making the electron capture reaction endothermic.

Quote from Eric Walker

The convention with nuclear reactions is to use a plus sign for exothermic reactions.

That could be a big problem communicating between nuclear physicists and chemical thermodynamicists.

And we would not be the only readers seeing and perhaps being misled by that issue. In the reference cited by Kirkshanahan here to support his contention that hydrogen absorption into Pd is due in large part to exothermic enthalpy, the authors (Wicke and Brodowsky pp.73 to 155 of Alefeld and Voelkl, Eds. Hydrogen in Metalls II, 1978) give positive delta H on pp. 79, 81 and 93, and negative on pp. 82. Under the thermodynamic convention only the negative would represent 'energy out' or exothermic or more correctly exergonic i.e. 'producing work'.

Quote from Jarek

I am not saying that particles sometimes behave like corpuscles, but that they are always both corpuscles (e.g. elementary charge) and coupled waves.
There are plenty of experiments showing that elementary charge is practically a point, but you still didn't give a single experiment showing that elementary charge can be objectively smeared (?

There are two experiments that I've given: (1) the electron interference experiments, and (2) the fact that electrons moving at different velocities interact with other objects at different orders of magnitude of extent. Both of these kinds of experiments give evidence of wave-like behavior, and not billiard-ball like behavior. I hope we can move beyond this request of yours, which has been duly answered several times now.

Quote from Jarek

What is smeared is its coupled wave, but it doesn't mean that there is no hidden trajectory of the elementary charge behind.
There is this "quantum superstition" that elementary charge is also smeared, to project our effective model into the nature using argument "because QM works" ... like inferring from "because thermodynamics works" and it uses smooth density function, so atoms are uniformly smeared over the vacuum ...

These are interesting details which go back to the de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave theory. The pilot wave theory, I hope you'll agree, is speculative and not yet established by experiment.

Quote from Jarek

It seems all dedicated experiments show that elementary charge is nearly a point, we also need its coupled "pilot" wave, described by QM.

If we do not allow pilot waves, which are speculative, there are the experiments in which wave-like behavior seen in connection with electrons must be explained. One possibility is that electrons are waves that deliver energy in discrete packets.

Quote from Jarek

You write like there is some freedom in interpreting the nature here, like saying that evolutionism and creationism are just alternative theories and so should be taught alongside in schools ... please point any evidence, especially experimental, showing that there is indeed an alternative explanation to that particles are simultaneously waves and corpuscles? What alternative?

The analogy between pilot waves (evolutionism) and the standard QM take on things (creationism) is vastly inadequate, I hope you'll appreciate. QM leaves unanswered these questions about waves and particles. You prefer to try to fill in the details. That's fine, of course. But you're going beyond the experimental evidence. What you need is an experiment or set of experiments that show that pilot waves are the only suitable interpretation. Then you can call this other stuff creationism.

Quote from Jarek

Indeed, QM is great at working with (dynamical) equilibrium situations, where resonance of the coupled wave is crucial e.g. to form an atom.
But if we want model non-equilibrium situations, like scattering or fusion, the influence of this wave nature (force from the pilot wave) becomes less important - in such situations the most crucial is the corpuscular nature of particles, we should focus on.

Tunnelling is relevant to fission and alpha decay. Also, Gryziński's picture is an equilibrium one, by your own admission, so there's a question about whether insight can be gleaned from it for the dynamic situations we've been considering.

Quote from Jarek

19keV seems completely unreachable for thermal electrons inside Earth, but high energy electrons indeed might come from some beta decay.

Yes, the 19 keV is unreachable for thermal electrons. But we have beta decay electrons. Also, I'm not exactly sure how the energetics of weak interaction reactions works. If you have a superabundance of electron density during a brief transient, you might not have a thermal distribution. We might be talking about a micro electric arc discharge. Is 19 kV possible at the microscopic level? I would not be surprised if high potentials occasionally arise in gaps between metal grains.

Quote from Jarek

Indeed filtering might be the answer - as helium (He4?) is the only element diffusing even through thick glass (better than hydrogen!, maybe because of helium being needle-like as Gryzinski claims: gryzinski.republika.pl/teor5ang.html ) ... so helium might be the only one percolating through some rocks.

By this hypothesis, there should be a store of 3He waiting to be released. I wonder whether there's a way to test it.

Electrons are pinpoint particles, their mutually interfering pilot waves are forming orbitals around atoms, which modulate the probability of their occurrence

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Electrons are pinpoint particles, their mutually interfering pilot waves are forming orbitals around atoms, which modulate the probability of their occurrence

I'm open to the possibility. But if we're going to state the matter in absolute terms like this, (1) can you point to the specific experiments that were recently conducted which settled the question for good to the satisfaction of physicists, experiments that proved that pilot waves are the correct description? And (2) can you point to an article or textbook which shows that this is now the consensus view? I don't think you'll be able to do either of these things.

I suggest you raise the question on Physics Forums and see what they say. This is an excellent discussion board.

Jarek, Eric, Wyttenbach, Zephir_AWT, Axil and others;

I humbly submit that this old thread might have some relevance or at least modest interest re this current discussion:

deBroglie's equation and heavy electrons

(Thanks once again to Lou Pagnucco).

Quote from Jarek

(1) electron interference experiment shows that electrons have at least the wave nature, but how do you conclude that it shows objective smearing of elementary charge? or that electron doesn't have both natures simultaneously?: like in Couder's interference, the elementary charge travels one trajectory, while its couples 'pilot' wave travels all trajectories, affecting trajectory of the charge.

(2) seems a general question of scattering, like the Ramsauer effect (increased cross-section for low energy), explained among others by Gryzinski (here using effective picture of atom as multipole + oscillating multipole): gryzinski.republika.pl/teor6ang.html

We seem to be having difficulty coming to a shared understanding of one another’s positions on the matter of whether the elementary charge is actually smeared over the probability distribution. But I will try once more in the the hopes that we still might get there. My position is not that the elementary charge is smeared over the probability distribution. It is that the supposition that the electron is a particle riding on a pilot wave is one among several competing explanations for what underlies the experimental results explained by quantum mechanics, and a minority one at that. According to the Wikipedia page, the pilot wave theory’s “more modern version, the de Broglie–Bohm theory, remains a non-mainstream attempt to interpret quantum mechanics as a deterministic theory” [1]. There are several interpretations of quantum mechanics, among which is the de Broglie-Bohm theory, and the most popular of which is the Copenhagen interpretation. Although you may find pilot waves interesting, you have little hope of persuading me that this is the one correct interpretation over and above the other ones, in light of the fact that they are all effectively empirically indistinguishable and that people who know much more about physics than I do argue for each.

What this means is that competing interpretations, such as the many-worlds interpretation, which give primacy to waves in the description of quantum phenomena, cannot be readily ruled out by pilot waves. An electron can be seen as a wave in such a description. That seems to imply that the elementary charge could potentially be smeared over the probability distribution. If you argue for pilot waves, the burden of evidence is entirely on you to rule out the other interpretations of quantum mechanics. My job in this situation could not be easier, for all I have to do is sit back and watch you in your attempt to do so. And in your effort you will not be debating me but some very good physicists who do not take a fancy to pilot waves.

But note: in your adoption of the pilot wave description, you will have your own difficulty to deal with, for according to the Wikipedia article on the de Broglie-Bohm theory, “unlike in classical mechanics, physical properties (e.g., mass, charge) are spread out over the wavefunction in de Broglie-Bohm theory, not localized at the position of the particle” [1]. So (electron) charge in that account would seem to be smeared out due to its being an attribute not of the particle but of the wavefunction.

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Where do you see a problem with classical Gryzinski's calculations? - for scattering usually getting better agreement with experiment than quantum predictions.

The main problem I see with Gryzinski's explanation has to do with the movement of the electrons around the nucleus, as we’ve already discussed. They’re like a planetary system, and a three-dimensional planetary system with many moving bodies will exhibit chaotic rather than ordered movement.

With regard to the specific results of Gryzinski's calculations and their accuracy, I have no opinion here. But you will have to choose either between pilot waves, which give predictions indistinguishable from other interpretations of quantum mechanics, and an approach that purportedly gives predictions that are better than quantum mechanics. You cannot have both.

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dBB is just substituting psi = sqrt(rho) * exp(iS/hbar) to Schrodinger, getting continuity equation for density (rho) and Hamilton-Jacobi for the action (S), with additional interaction with what is called the 'pilot wave'.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wa…ion_for_a_single_particle
What is 'speculative' about such substitution?
What exactly has not yet been established by experiment here?

What is not established by experiment is that pilot waves are the correct understanding over and above, e.g., a pure wave description of quantum mechanics. The predictions of the different interpretations are the same and match experiment. The matter of interpretation, whether there are point particles riding on pilot waves, or whether something else is going on, is largely an exercise in philosophy.

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Sure, electrons have wave nature - we all agree on that. Our disagreement is that you claim that they are not simultaneously corpuscles - that against many experiments, their elementary charge is objectively smeared over e.g. micrometer size Rydberg molecule.

This has not been my position, as hopefully I have succeeded in clarifying above. But in adopting the pilot wave theory, if we are to go on the statement made in the Wikipedia article cited above, it seems you will have to accept the smearing of electron charge, unless you are willing to champion a variant that is different than the de Broglie-Bohm theory.

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Please finally give a single argument, experiment against the duality - against particles being simultaneously both corpuscles and coupled waves?

This is another misunderstanding of my position.

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Sure, but as I have written: the question is if such effect could have sufficient statistical importance to explain 10000x larger tritium release than from fission?

I don't know of anyone who has suggested that tritium, in LENR or anywhere else, comes from fission.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory

/* They’re like a planetary system, and a three-dimensional planetary system with many moving bodies will exhibit chaotic rather than ordered movement. */

This is just a contradiction of planetary system, which tends to be quite ordered. The electrons are very tiny vortices, but their vorticity extends their size by many orders of magnitude as so-called Coulombic charge. There are many experimental indicia, that this charge is connected with electron superluminaly. This field and its changes would perturb vacuum into sort of wake wave during motion of electron, which is called the deBroglie wave. These waves would perturb the subsequent paths of another electrons, even these ones f original electron once it revolves the atom nuclei at place. The spatial interference of these waves leads into fancy shapes of orbitals and their quantum numbers. But the motion of electrons within these orbitals will still not be deterministic, because the vacuum is dynamic system and it perturbs the path of particles all the time. The resulting motion of electron will be therefore mixture of deterministic and indeterminist components.

I don't think, this particular topic is very significant for discussion about shielding effect of electrons, which is merely driven with Coulomb charge distribution - so I've no motivation to continue about it right here.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

There are many experimental indicia, that this charge is connected with electron superluminaly. This field and its changes would perturb vacuum into sort of wake wave during motion of electron, which is called the deBroglie wave.

This experiment is a nice cheat, possibly measuring the different internal frequency/time delays of the amplifying circuit. To measure the speed of light at a distance of 1m you need a time resolution of 10^-12s! Today's oscilloscopes are way to slow...

Which experiment? I'm discussing at least four ones at my link.. One experiment can be indeed crippled - but four ones?

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Which experiment? I'm discussing at least four ones at my link.. One experiment can be indeed crippled - but four ones?

@Zephir: Experimental Clarification of Coulomb-Field Propagation!

My link doesn't contain such an sentence ("Experimental Clarification of Coulomb-Field Propagation").
Please provide the link to the work objected. Learn to use links whenever possible, it makes discussion more rigorous.

Quote from Jarek

After many threads you have finally given two such experiments ... but then didn't respond to my objections - why do you think they conclude objective smearing of elementary charge?

In the experiments where an electron has wavelike behavior, it is easy to understand it as a wave. A wave does not normally have all of its energy and other attributes localized in a single point; instead, they are spread out over the wave as a whole. If one sees wavelike behavior in the electron, it would be a natural to suspect that the elementary charge could be similarly spread out. It would certainly be simpler, as a first approximation, than positing a combination of a point particle and a guiding wavefunction. Is this a good and/or correct interpretation of the experimental evidence? I don't know for sure. I kind of see how it could be true.

You did not have to wait long for me to provide you two examples where there’s reason to think that the elementary charge might be spread over the electron probability distribution; I gave them early on, and you simply failed to appreciate that I was answering your question. But I’ll give you a third reason: the electron orbitals in atoms give evidence of being standing waves. One simple approach here is to understand the electron as being the standing wave itself. We can then use the logic above to deduce that the elementary charge might be distributed over the volume of the standing wave.

But I'll repeat: here we're talking about interpretations of behavior described by QM. There is nothing to experimentally distinguish between different interpretations, for all of the successful ones give the same predictions. A similar thing might be said for an interpretation of QM that starts from the assumption that the behavior of electrons is explained by tiny hobbits with jetpacks battling tiny orcs. If the mathematical results are the same, there's nothing apart from individual intuition/taste/Occam's razor to say that it's an incorrect interpretation. You would like very much for your understanding that electrons are point charges moving in classical trajectories to be seen as the correct understanding. To get agreement on this detail you will need to produce an experiment that rules out the alternatives. So long as existing interpretations lead to the same predictions, I do not see how you will be able to do this.

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Eric: The main problem I see with Gryzinski's explanation has to do with the movement of the electrons around the nucleus, as we’ve already discussed. They’re like a planetary system, and a three-dimensional planetary system with many moving bodies will exhibit chaotic rather than ordered movement.

So your objection is possibility of chaos - could you elaborate why do you think it would be a problem?
I have two complementing views how quantum probability cloud emerges from trajectories: ...
2) Everything is happening in a field, particle has to find resonance with: make it a standing wave to avoid synchrotron radiation - this standing wave is described by QM.
Locally 2) is crucial - staying at resonance (field) prevents local chaos ... but still there are some thermodynamical perturbations and after a long time probability distribution for finding particle averages to predicted by QM due to 1) .

Planets orbit around the sun in the gravitational field. Similarly to the electromagnetic field, the gravitational field also falls off as 1/r^2 and has infinite extent. The main differences are in relative strength and scale and in the lack of observation of gravitational repulsion. The following video shows what happens when many bodies orbit one another in a gravitational field:

(Fast forward to 1:30 min. and watch for 30 or so seconds.) This is in a sense an illustration of a conclusion of Poincare long ago that a three-body system is unstable [1]. As you can see if you watch through for several seconds, the results are far from ordered, and this is just in two dimensions. Why would two fields (gravitational, Coulomb) with such similar attributes have such different outcomes? My conclusion is that the Coulomb field by itself is insufficient to explain the electron orbitals in an atom; and, by extension, that Gryzinsky’s assumption of classically orbiting point charges is insufficient. There must be some kind of standing wave to explain the ordered nature of the orbitals.

It’s fine if you extend Gryzinsky’s explanation to include standing waves, but is this not then a critical departure from it?

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Why we cannot have both - as two complementary perspectives on the same system?

For example imagine coupled pendula - you can describe evolution of their positions (classical), or go to normal modes - where you have exactly unitary evolution like in QM:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mode#Coupled_oscillators

Now take a lattice of pendula (crystal) and its normal nodes are called phonons, directly used in QM description ... but you can still ask for classical evolution of atom position in this lattice - alternative, complementing perspective.

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You can have both QM and Gryzinsky in a sense; but when you’ve modified either QM or Gryzinsky, or both, you now no longer have what you started with, but something different. My points are about Gryzinsky, not some later correction of his work.

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There are at least two ways to tritium from fission: through neutrons or direct: according to Wikipedia, in about 1:10000 fissions tritium is directly created: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium#Fission

The part I don’t understand about this sub-thread of tritium and fission is the reason for it being mentioned in the first place. What question or comment were you addressing when you mentioned that fission produces tritium?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

Hi Longview,

Quote from Longview

I humbly submit that this old thread might have some relevance or at least modest interest re this current discussion:

It was an interesting discussion. How would you tie it in to what is being discussed here?

Quote from Jarek

Elementary charge has ~1/r^2 electric field - how would you like to spread it?

You ask, “Elementary charge has ~1/r^2 electric field - how would you like to spread it?” One answer: however it is that it spreads; perhaps it is made of spreadable stuff.

You mention that we can talk about the trajectory of a single electron traveling through space, and ask why it would all of a sudden become a wave once it becomes bound to a proton. I think talking about a trajectory of a point particle in the former case is an oversimplification of what we know about the macroscopic behavior of electrons. In experiments such as the double-slit experiment, the single electron appears to pass through both slits and interfere with itself, which is different than the behavior of a billiard ball. A question at issue in the present discussion is whether a further reply to this experimental situation that there is a pilot wave that is guiding the electron is sufficient to close the book on this topic. I’m saying it’s not sufficient, because there are other explanations that fit the evidence.

You mention the Afshar experiment, which is an interesting experiment whose interpretation is in dispute. The Wikipedia article points out that there is an ongoing debate about whether the experiment violates the principle of complementarity, namely that you cannot observe both the wave and particle nature of a quantum object at the same time.

But to the experiments you mention that purport to demonstrate that electrons behave as particles, these experiments lend themselves to multiple understandings: one understanding is that the electron is described by a wavefunction that collapses to a point upon measurement. That’s very different than the behavior of a billiard ball. In other words, we are not required on the strength of this evidence alone to conclude that the electron is a corpuscle. So I will invert the question you have repeatedly been asking me, and whose replies you haven’t appreciated: give me one single experiment that shows that the electron is a particle. I will bet that you cannot give one single experiment that shows that the electron charge is not in reality spread out.

You ask whether I can point to an experiment that shows that particles have only one nature at a time—corpuscle or wave. I neither know of such an experiment nor see the need to produce such an experiment in order to maintain my agnosticism about the question of what is going on under the hood in quantum mechanics. From my earlier comment about it being simpler as a first approximation after observing the various evidence for wave-like behavior of the electron to assume that it is a wave, you ask me to explain why it would be simpler to assume wave-like behavior here and particle-like behavior there. My reply is that after getting past that first approximation that one might have started out with and seeking to further refine it, the problem does indeed become more subtle. This is why people have been arguing about quantum mechanics for decades. So the answer is that after a first approximation, it is not simpler to hold that view.

You write: “You have given interference (that particles have at least the wave nature) and scattering (which is better than QM modeled by Gryzinski's classical considerations) - you didn't explain how you conclude e.g. objective smearing of elementary charge from them?” You haven’t yet explained how we can conclude that an electron is single a point from the experiments you point to that show point-like behavior. Our situations are no different. One must work with seemingly incompatible evidence.

But I’ll repeat once more: according to the Wikipedia article, the de Broglie-Bohm variant of pilot waves assumes that “unlike in classical mechanics, physical properties (e.g., mass, charge) are spread out over the wavefunction in de Broglie-Bohm theory, not localized at the position of the particle.” Do you eschew, then, the de Broglie-Bohm variant of pilot waves and prefer a different one? If you go along with the de Broglie-Bohm account, are you up for editing the Wikipedia article in order to address this detail?

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Interpretations of QM is a bottomless swamp - the basic is "shut up and calculate", require human free will like theology, they don't care about e.g. energy conservation ...
Please let us stay away from subjective human theories and their interpretations - and focus on objective facts: experiments.

It seems to me this is the Mobius strip we've somehow landed on:

• Jarek: The electron is a point particle riding on a pilot wave.
• Eric: That’s one possible interpretation of QM; there are others as well, which are different, but which produce the same predictions.
• Jarek: Give me one single experiment that shows that the elementary charge is objectively smeared.
• Eric: By arguing for pilot waves, without realizing it you’re pulling us into the swamp of which interpretation of quantum mechanics is the right one, which very smart physicists haven’t been able to sort out over many decades.
• Jarek: The interpretation of quantum mechanics is a swamp and an exercise in philosophy, and we should be happy with the principle “shut up and calculate.” Let’s not get into that whole question.
• Eric: Ok.
• Jarek: The electron is a point particle riding on a pilot wave.

I fear we could continue on in this manner indefinitely. Is there any way to agree to disagree and move on?

You write that the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition will provide our classical electrons with a standing wave that will stabilize their trajectories. Why is there no similar thing that occurs with planets orbiting in three dimensions around a massive body? My point in mentioning the need for standing waves is that the simple classical orbital model is insufficient, and that there must be something more, however that’s accomplished.

Regarding fusion and tunnelling, it’s been quite some time since I’ve entertained the notion that tunneling would be adequate to explain putative fusion occurring in LENR. I suspect you are right that tunneling is inadequate in this context. But I am highly doubtful that the resolution to this problem that you adopt, namely, confining electrons to a one dimensional path between two positively charged bodies, is going to be all that helpful here.

Quote from Eric Walker

I will bet that you cannot give one single experiment that shows that the electron charge is not in reality spread out.

It's even worse: The SIN experiment showed that we even can separate the electron momentum from the charge... But to be honest there is also a slight difference between an electron cloud and the space a "waving electron" occupies...

Quote from Eric Walker

I fear we could continue on in this manner indefinitely. Is there any way to agree to disagree and move on?

Just take the adequate model for your purpose. I agree with Jarek that a forced trajectory is more powerful to explain limiting conditions, but, may be, for probabilities they are of no use.

Quote from Eric Walker

Why is there no similar thing that occurs with planets orbiting in three dimensions around a massive body?

Planets move in slow motion compared to electrons...Nevertheless their orbits are far from being stable they only look like being so... But for our live Condensed matter physics is far more important thus please don't start a gravity discussion!