Swedish scientists claim LENR explanation break-through

Quote from Tyy

Wonder why so many nutty scientists in Sweden. Don't get me.wrong, I like Swedish. Just wondering.

I suggest that you invent a coding systm like exists for medical diagnosis. Such a system would save you a lot of typing. This comment might simply be 12nnx7...so easy. Mary Yugo could use it also. We could call it the troll code.

I suppose when those living in the far north of Sweden first see the Aurora. There are:

Poets and artists who think it is beautiful,
Mystics who think it is a message from the Nordic gods,
Explorers an Engineers who want to go there,
Scientists who wonder what it is and how it works,
and those I guess who don't care and are just glad it isn't raining.

I suppose if you lived there you would be number 5?

Personally I'm glad that there are those up there are in categories 1 to 4.

And remember if they are all nuts: from nuts beautiful trees can grow

i think anomalous heat when needed is something as facinating as the Aurora don't you?

I know nearly nothing about LENR –discovered the subject a couple of weeks ago – but I am a bit familiar with the foundations of physics. So I have some considerations.

Theoretical physics is a set of models and each model is constructed with the help of one of more hypotheses. Unfortunately, every hypothesis is a drastic simplification of ultimate reality.
The only cause that the models are feasible, is because everything is derived from experiments and observations. Therefore, phenomena that cannot be observed because they are too small or too big are subject of continuous (hilarious) speculation. Remember string theory.

Cold fusion is thought to be a nuclear process between atoms, instead of a process between single nuclei. Nevertheless, it isn’t said that there are no single particles involved in the process. We just don’t know any model that can describe the interactions between atoms that will result into a fusion process without implementing high energy particles.

So we can draw 2 conclusions:

• The explanation of LENR needs far more insight about the foundations of physics than available at the moment, because the explanation of LENR seems to be impossible without an important “rearranging” of the description of reality by physics.
• A model that can describe LENR have to be obtained by numerous methodical experiments.

The second conclusion has the drawback that it costs a lot of time. Probably decades when the number of involved groups – and the co-operation – is limited. That’s a very sad conclusion because the world needs a new source of energy that’s independent of deposits in a limited number of states.
Fortunately, there is a method to shorten the number of experiments: theoretical considerations that eliminate the number of random experiments.

Theoretical considerations have some kind of connection with conclusion one. Because if there are suitable hypotheses within the framework of physics, there was only a little sceptics about the suitability of LENR.

So the question is: how do we promote the creation of some new insights about the mechanism of LENR? By searching the literature of physics and getting excited when we read about (e.g.) “ponderomotive Miller forces”? There are “millions” of (obscure) hypotheses to be find, so I am not quite convinced about this method.

What we need, is a new concept about “reality” inside and between atoms. Nevertheless, we cannot force the forming of a new concept. Mostly it is some kind of sudden idea we cannot create in a controlled way.

The only thing we can do (at the forum), is offering adequate information: verified facts about materials and the methods using to manipulate. Not only with the help of numerous links, but with the help of a file with a limited number of pages too. Probably one or two A4’s can do the job. Maybe we trigger someone’s imagination.

Quote from Hendrik

Cold fusion is thought to be a nuclear process between atoms, instead of a process between single nuclei.

As you surmise, there are many different LENR theories. Having paid attention to the field for several years, now, I'm open to the possibility that there is more than one thing going on that is currently being lumped into one basket.

With that understanding in mind, here is an example of an attempt to explain and/or understand LENR as a phenomenon that relates to a single nucleus rather than as an interaction between nuclei: http://bit.ly/1MSS90U.

@Hendrik

I have been reading an article by a string theorist about the connection between black holes and tachyons. It seems that tachyons are a major prediction of string theory and the connection between black holes and tachyons are tight. This connection in the science business is called dualism. I was surprised and pleased that the many experimentally observed behaviors of SPPs were predicted by theoretically predicted tachyon behavior including the production of quark based subatomic particles as a dualistic production that mimic hawking's radiation. It seem that tachyons don't evaporate like black holes do. They reach a equilibrium condition until they receive more input energy whereupon they produce more quark based subatomic particles.

The author said:

"Most work on black holes in string theory, including the present work, focus on theoretical objects which are probably not realistic."

I say that this guy does not yet know his theory reflects real things and that LENR will soon become a desktop based experimental tool to verify multi-dimensional D-Brane theory.

The author says:

"In the confined theory, the gauge-invariant composite glueballs arise at an energy and size scale commensurate with 18 the strong coupling scale of the field theory. In our time dependent transition, the excitations in the tachyon phase correspond to field theoretic modes at an energy scale below the mass gap. From the dual field theory point of view we expect forces from flux tubes to dynamically force them to shrink toward the size scale of the glueballs in the confining theory. The forces we analyzed in this section, which act to force excitations into the bulk gravitational solution dual to the confining geometry, may provide a gravity-side manifestation of this phenomenon. This effect is similar in some ways to the description of black hole evaporation via hadronization in [18]. "

Reference 18 shows this. This is what Holmlid sees.

Eric Walker,

I have read your letter to Robin. It is very interesting because I have never thought about the consequences of a certain amount of impurities.

Nevertheless, I am not familiar with applied physics (see my post above). So I cannot draw any conclusion about the percentage of impurities inside the used palladium by LENR experiments. I suppose it will be a very limited number of atoms but that’s just some kind of “feeling”. Because, as a consumer, I can buy 99,99% pure metal. So there must be even higher percentages available.

@axil,

In metaphysics they are convinced that it is impossible to have any idea that is not produced by the underlying mechanism that forms reality. I agree with that.

Nevertheless, we use ideas not only for ourselves, we use them for communication too. And now the trouble begins because our frame of reference cannot differ too much from that of other people. String theory has abandon a lot of basic assumptions in science. In fact, they tried to create a new framework. But this effort during decades hasn’t result in some known phenomena.

Tachyons are hypothetical particles that move faster than the speed of light. Unfortunately this idea is not consistent with the known laws of physics and that’s correct. Perhaps you have the energy to dive into the understanding of the validity of tachyons. Personally I cannot force myself to study all the literature about these particles.

Quote from Hendrik

Eric Walker,

Personally I cannot force myself to study all the literature about these particles.

Marie Curies choice of a thesis topic was influenced by two recent discoveries by other scientists. In December 1895, about six months after the Curies married, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered a kind of ray that could travel through solid wood or flesh and yield photographs of living people's bones. Roentgen dubbed these mysterious rays X-rays, with X standing for unknown. In recognition of his discovery, Roentgen in 1901 became the first Nobel laureate in physics.

In early 1896, only a few of months after Roentgen's discovery, French physicist Henri Becquerel reported to the French Academy of Sciences that uranium compounds, even if they were kept in the dark, emitted rays that would fog a photographic plate. He had come upon this discovery accidentally. Despite Becquerel's intriguing finding, the scientific community continued to focus its attention on Roentgen's X-rays, neglecting the much weaker Becquerel rays or uranium rays.

These ignored uranium rays appealed to Marie Curie. Since she would not have a long bibliography of published papers to read, she could begin experimental work on them immediately. The director of the Paris Municipal School of Industrial Physics and Chemistry, where Pierre was professor of physics, permitted her to use a crowded, damp storeroom there as a lab.

A clever technique was her key to success. About 15 years earlier, Pierre and his older brother, Jacques, had invented a new kind of electrometer, a device for measuring extremely low electrical currents. Marie now put the Curie electrometer to use in measuring the faint currents that can pass through air that has been bombarded with uranium rays. The moist air in the storeroom tended to dissipate the electric charge, but she managed to make reproducible measurements.

“Instead of making these bodies act upon photographic plates, I preferred to determine the intensity of their radiation by measuring the conductivity of the air exposed to the action of the rays.”

This device for precise electrical measurement, invented by Pierre Curie and his brother Jacques, was essential for Marie's work.

With numerous experiments Marie confirmed Becquerel's observations that the electrical effects of uranium rays are constant, regardless of whether the uranium was solid or pulverized, pure or in a compound, wet or dry, or whether exposed to light or heat. Likewise, her study of the rays emitted by different uranium compounds validated Becquerel's conclusion that the minerals with a higher proportion of uranium emitted the most intense rays. She went beyond Becquerel's work, however, in forming a crucial hypothesis: the emission of rays by uranium compounds could be an atomic property of the element uranium--something built into the very structure of its atoms.

Curie's simple hypothesis would prove revolutionary. It would ultimately contribute to a fundamental shift in scientific understanding. At the time scientists regarded the atom--a word meaning undivided or indivisible -- as the most elementary particle. A hint that this ancient idea was false came from the discovery of the electron by other scientists around this same time. But nobody grasped the complex inner structure or the immense energy stored in atoms. Marie and Pierre Curie themselves were not convinced that radioactive energy came from within atoms--maybe, for example, the earth was bathed in cosmic rays, whose energy certain atoms somehow caught and radiated? Marie's real achievement was to cut through the complicated and obscure observations with a crystal-clear analysis of the set of conclusions that, however unexpected, were logically possible.

Like Marie Curie, we now stand at a similar crossroads in science. The evidence of Tachyons has been seen by many experimenters in a wide range of LENR reactions in their photographic plates. These perplexing images have be replicated over and over again. Do we ignore these images as being impossible? Do we allow their mysteries to confound us. Do we let their explanation pass us by? Do we pick this delicious fruit from the tree of knowledge? Like so many back in Marie's time, who said that the observations of uranium rays are against all common sense and the current laws of science, do we trust the observations of our eyes to know what is real? Do we take the time and effort to learn whatever is required to explain what is going on in LENR to produce these strange images on the photographic plates? Who has the courage to walk in the footsteps of Marie Curie? Who will open the door to the new science of tomorrow?

@axil,

The subject of this topic is a paper about a Swedish LENR explanation. In my post I dropped the word “string theory” and you reacted with a quote of a publication about tachyons. I gave you a polite answer and told you in a nice way that I am not so interested because it is an unfruitful scientific topic. Moreover, it has nothing to do with the Swedish LENR explanation. Now you are trying to convince me of the necessity to read papers because Marie Curie made her scientific progress with the help of idea’s that were published in a couple of papers by other physicists. ;-))

I have always been a researcher in the field of the foundations of mathematical physics. Now I am 67 years old so think a bit about the next sentences.

Science is some kind of religion and we are composing our own “holy book”: the book that describes the ultimate reality of our existence. We don’t want to believe in fairy tales, so we made some rules to prevent ourselves against too much nonsense. Hypotheses about reality have to be proofed by verified
experiments and predictions of still unknown phenomena must hold some kind of calculation about their properties. These rules regulate modern phenomenal physics.

All the physicists believe in the correctness of these rules and so they believe in the results too: the experimental verified hypotheses we call theories. Thus, when Pons and Fleissmann discovered some strange thermal effect when they forced an electric current through H-atom saturated palladium, they offended the religion when they called the effect “cold fusion”. Because the theories give no room for nuclear fusion at low temperatures.

Some years ago a Dutch theoretical physicist (Eric Verlinden) published a paper about gravity. He mathematically proofed that gravity isn’t a fundamental force in nature. Gravity emerges from other fundamental force fields. No one could find a flaw so there came up a big silence: the scientific community simply can grasp the fact. That's the way it goes.

Are our rules to prevent science against nonsense perfect? I can publish papers about topics that are totally speculative. As long as I don’t interfere with the known basic laws of physics nobody will make troubles. Moreover, we have grand theories – like the standard model of cosmology – that conflicts other grand theories (quantum field theory). However, as long as the scientific community hasn’t proofed that they have discovered the foundations of a grand theory, you have the freedom to publish nearly everything about both subjects! Anyway, we all know deep inside that there is something wrong.

I don’t think that you are unaware of these “facts” (they are widely known), I just have to write them down to step a bit further.

Physicist are convinced of the correctness of the assumption that they can derive ultimate reality out of the data of the experiments. So they try to interpret the data in such a way that they can construct a hypothetical model. But there is a lot of data from all kind of phenomena so we have to knit the models together. One result is the standard model of particles and forces. Unfortunately, our models are derived from the measured differences between phenomena and that’s not observing ultimate reality. It like discussing the properties of icebergs without any knowledge of what’s under the level of the sea.

The right way to describe ultimate reality – and to proof the correctness of a grand theory – is constructing a model that clarifies the origin of the general phenomena that can be find everywhere in the universe (the main expressions of the function of the system we call “nature”). Like the constant speed of light, Planck’s constant, the quantification of spatial fields, the conservation of energy, the isotropic property of space (and some more). And all the other publications about physics? They only describe the icebergs above the sea level so the proposed concepts – and even the derived grand theories – are partly a flaw (sorry).

So be careful. It isn't difficult to spoil a live by reading all the offered scientific papers.

There is a principle in physics call dualism. Two seemingly unrelated subjects really follow the same fundimental laws. I believe that black holes and dark mode surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) follow the same fundamental physical underpinning. When your science says that LENR has no fundamental basis, you do not understand what dual set of physical laws apply to LENR.

Experimental evidence shows that this dualism exists and is well understood in string theory. I told you to look at the experimental evidence that points to the similarities of nanoplasmonics and black hole physics. I don't want you to destroy your life, I just want to enlighten you to the connections between two seemingly disconnected things. You have an ideal background to understand this stuff and you are a better person than me in this regard.

A few comments on the paper in the OP:
1. Thermal neutrons == no Coulomb barrier and low reaction input energy. I like the idea. The cross-sections for all the isotopes of Ni from 58 to 62 are significant. Their main idea for LENR is plausible.
2. The assumption that the nickel hydride is neutral (p. 7) almost made me quit reading. Seems more reasonable to assume that the lattice is positively charged and the surface has the conduction electrons collected on it, especially under inductive heating. However, I'm not sure what other terms or factors would appear in the force equations - maybe they have a fair first order approximation going.
3. There is no bridge between the wave effect that they state as primary actor and the particle effects that they would have it generate. Complementarity is not addressed, much less satisfied. Gotta deal with wave-particle duality.
4. I want to see more about the opposing forces that tear the neutrons free. The mechanism is described as spalling which occurs in the macroscopic world when something is struck and chips fly off. The neutrons are the spall (the chips) - What delivers the blow?
5. The authors simply state that the Ni nuclei are the radiators that are the attractor in their model, yet they are also neutral and left inert in the description. In the E-Cat and in this scenario the Ni is being inductively heated above its Curie temperature so it is paramagnetic - its magnetic dipole oscillates with the magnetic induction field so I'm OK with it being the 'hot' radiative attractor. However, this oscillation would be in outer shell electron orbitals and not the nucleus itself. I could speculate more on this but I think I may have already supplied more description about the source of the attractive force than the paper did. Seems the charge independent attraction would have double the frequency and a phase shift from the E-M force from the nickel's induced magnetic dipole oscillation...

Now with all that said, again, I really like the basic idea of transmutation by thermal neutron capture. Just don't see the bridge from the field/wave effects to the neutron particle generation. The paper left me unsatisfied but definitely wanting more. Will read this one again and more carefully.

One safety note I have to throw in: If neutron capture is the primary LENR action, then cobalt impurities are dangerous. The thermal neutron cross section of ⁵⁹Co (natural abundance = 100%) is orders of magnitude higher than any of the nickel isotopes. One must take care in producing ⁶⁰Co which decays with hard gammas. Sitting one floor above an unshielded ⁶⁰Co gamma source seems to be a greater concern than having a thermal neutron source in your basement. Switching off the power would stop the neutrons, but not the activated cobalt's gammas.
On the other hand - salting the fuel with some cobalt and looking for the corresponding ⁶⁰Co gammas could provide verification of thermal neutron production and capture.
So, on the gripping hand - their main thesis of neutron capture is testable!
[N.B. corrected for mis-remember of ⁵⁸Co vs. ⁵⁹Co cross-sections]

I like the idea too. Actually Swedish paper is probably only one which links theory with practical details. Mostly papers contain only unusable theory without any recommendation.
It is very important that in this case authors are true replicators so they can gain first hand verification of their theories. Even it is vague but it works, it may help others significantly.
Unfortuntely authors are not responding to my questions. I hope they are alive.

In reply to Eric Walker's previous post --
Swedish scientists claim LENR explanation break-through

Eric, I agree that multiple paths are possible - perhaps even likely.
Fission by stimulated emission has always seemed a more likely LENR candidate than fusion.
The IAEA data pages show cross-sections that could form a potentially significant alpha decay path starting with ⁵⁸NI -- https://www-nds.iaea.org/relnsd/NdsEnsdf/neutroncs.html
I think NiMH systems could easily have a significant path (>10%) that goes:
⁵⁸Ni + n -> ⁵⁹Ni
⁵⁹Ni + n -> ⁵⁶Fe + ⁴He
and the process may repeat to get down to Cr or beyond to Ti.
By stepping between stable isotopes and stepping over Co (and Cr), this alpha path avoids gamma emissions as well.

Really need more thorough analysis of the fuel and ash to get a better picture of the beginning and end composition to shed more light on what is going on in these reactors.
Difficult and expensive sure, but a drop in the bucket compared to expenditures on the super-collider and Sysiphean hot fusion boondogglery ...

Everyone thinks any ⁴He must come from D+D but ⁿM + n -> ^n-3M' + ⁴He (where M and M' are successively lighter metals) seems much more plausible to me.
Heck, even splitting the ⁷Li seems more likely than fusing it, even with its tiny neutron cross-section. If you get the neutron proton in then ⁸Be immediately goes to two alphas.

[edited to add reply at top and remove failed HTML escapes]

Quote from LeMoyne Castle

One safety note I have to throw in: If neutron capture is the primary LENR action, then cobalt impurities are dangerous.

This is one of the details that makes the Lundin and Lidgren thesis quite implausible. You've identified cobalt impurities. But if you consider that nearly all isotopes are indiscriminate in capturing thermal neutrons, if what the authors propose is a thing, you will get one very radioactive reactor after it's been running for a while (just like a the walls of a fission reactor). A brief review of the LENR papers shows that neutrons, when they are seen, are recorded at many orders of magnitude below what would be needed to generate heat and that the substrate materials never show signs of neutron activation (which is different than saying they show no activity). In addition, the authors do not give a plausible means by which a lethal number of thermal neutrons will not reflect out of the apparatus and kill the researchers; they do not even seem to recognize that this is an issue that must be addressed in their description, suggesting that they're just improvising. If I recall, they claim that nickel will preferentially absorb the neutrons, which seems unlikely. Even if for some reason only "good" nickel isotopes absorbed the thermal neutrons, you'd still get high-energy de-excitation gammas after neutron capture.

See this Vortex thread for a related discussion.

This is not to say that neutrons cannot be involved; for example, if the tunneling of a neutron from one nuclide to another were to happen, you would not have the problems of free neutrons just discussed, and the daughters would generally be more energetically favorable, and hence less radioactive, than comparable daughters that would appear under a thermal neutron flux. I think you could expect de-excitation gamma photons, however, and an explanation would need to account for why these are not a problem.

I didn't realize that in the bulk of a metal the charge is relatively positive and that the conduction electrons all go to the surface. That's a pretty cool detail to know. Is there a name for this effect?

Good discussion. What happened to ULM (ultra low momentum) neutrons. Are they not a prime player in some theories of LENR?

ULM neutrons are novel in some respects. They are presumed to travel only very short distances to the nearest available / or receptive nucleus.

I don't believe ULM neutrons are "thermal" in an ordinary sense, that is they are not temperature / velocity equilibrated to the immediate environment. Instead they are cryogenic in temperature, that is less than say 7 m/s, if I recall one description correctly.

Quote from Longview

Good discussion. What happened to ULM (ultra low momentum) neutrons. Are they not a prime player in some theories of LENR?

I haven't heard anything from Widom and Larsen in the last year or so. There was a lot of enthusiasm for their explanation initially (including from me). But I'm guessing that as the engineers in the audience gradually became more informed about nuclear physics, the implausibility of the whole thing started to set in.

Quote from Longview

They are presumed to travel only very short distances to the nearest available / or receptive nucleus. I don't believe ULM neutrons are "thermal" in an ordinary sense, that is they are not temperature / velocity equilibrated to the immediate environment. Instead they are cryogenic in temperature, that is less than say 7 m/s, if I recall one description correctly.

There's a cross section for neutron capture that is temperature-dependent. Even at cryogenic temperatures it will be finite. What that means is that those neutrons that are not captured will reflect away after the scattering. Gradually they will attain a thermal equilibrium with the host metal, and a significant portion of them can be expected to escape the apparatus with a "thermal" velocity, which is not much in chemical terms, but which is quite fast in meters per second.

If you consider that each neutron capture with nickel brings ~ 7 MeV, you would need ~ 8.9e11 captures to happen successfully per second to generate 1 W of power (which is not a very useful amount, so increase it if you need more). If there's even a little inefficiency in the process, as there must be because of the finite cross section, you'll get gobs of neutrons spilling all over the place. This is a point that Ed Storms made a few years ago that I found really helpful.

Also note that that 1 W of power would be from gamma photons, if the normal neutron-capture thing happens, for which metal is generally transparent. That means that they will travel far from the apparatus before encountering something (perhaps a graduate student), resulting in little heating of the reactor itself. This may be what led Widom and Larsen to suggest that the gamma photons could be thermalized somehow.