Heating power to the Ni is furnished by an HP 6024A DC power supply. Voltage and current were measured to 4 digits with a Keithley 2000 multimeter.
Jeff
jeff: Celani-Type Replication
-
I should elaborate a little on the Pu-238 decay. The product of alpha decay (U-234) is formed 1/3 of the time in an excited state, and emits low energy gamma-rays, mostly at 42 keV (which in turn produces 17 keV X-rays from the uranium), but also at 99 and 150 keV. So, a small amount of lead is necessary to shield these low energy gammas.
But again, these are all dead easy not only to detect (without the lead), but to characterize in ridiculous detail.
Detailed measurement of these emissions from Pu-238 was published at least as early as 1954 (Phys Rev 94 (1954) 381). Here's the abstract:
QuoteThe alpha and gamma spectra of Pu-238 have been studied with an alpha-particle spectrograph and gamma- ray scintillation and proportional counters. Alpha groups of 5.495 (72 percent), 5.452 (28 percent), and 5.352 Mev (0.09 percent) and electromagnetic radiations of 17 (13 percent), 43.8 +/- 0.5 (0.038 percent), 99 +/- 2 (0.008 percent), and 150 +/- 2 kev (0.001 percent) were observed.
If, in the present experiment, the emissions persist for more than an hour after shut down, there is no reason, some 60 years after the above report, that the emissions can not be identified with similar specificity. It's been 27 years since Piantelli first claimed cold fusion from the Ni-H system. Even if the current crop of amateurs don't have the necessary instrumentation, Piantelli surely did or does. And yet his few claims of radiation measurement are not much more sophisticated, or more credible, than these recent results.
-
"The likelihood that these alleged, very low level, emissions (that no one can characterize) are somehow associated with another unlikely reaction (that no one can characterize) that produces measurable heat is extremely remote."
On the contrary - radiation disappears in the thermalization process.
-
Quote
On the contrary - radiation disappears in the thermalization process.
I'm don't understand why that's "on the contrary".
The increased implausibility comes from the existence of *2* unlikely nuclear reactions, both somehow not allowing the discovery of their nature, even though one of them produces detectable radiation.
And only alpha emission could thermalize without being detected, and even that could be detected if you put the emitting wire right next to the detector.
-
What if a constant flux of Hydronion's (Mills name of the beast: Hydrino) is causing an activation of the environment?
According to Andrea Calaon's list of LENR active elements Cr, Mn, Ni. ev. Zr may all be present in steel.
The only figure of a Hydronion we know from 'theory' is that it is propagated with about 1000m/s. As we don't know the half live, we can’t guess how far it reaches. May be any neutron shielding is more effective to protect the experimenters.
Wired things possibly need wired explanations...
-
Joshua: Of course alpha can be detected - and it does! You say the obvious which I agree with. And?
-
If the radiation is primarily high-energy beta (electrons), it would be thermalized in the reactor tube or air around the reactor. The apparent Brehmsstralung broad-band gamma spectrum we saw suggests this is a possible scenario.
If the betas are collected on an anode in the cell, they might even produce electricity in inverse proportion to the thermalization heat. I'm sure there will be objections to this but it would account for both radiation data and a recent claim by AR.
-
The "dust" theory could maybe be easily ruled out by blowing a fan around the detector when it is showing elevated readings. Although it is an unlikely scenario that it is related to radioactive dust, it is best to take any testable alternative explanation seriously.
-
I'm don't understand why that's "on the contrary".
The increased implausibility comes from the existence of *2* unlikely nuclear reactions, both somehow not allowing the discovery of their nature, even though one of them produces detectable radiation.
And only alpha emission could thermalize without being detected, and even that could be detected if you put the emitting wire right next to the detector.
Implausibility yes: If LENR proves to be real, Twistor Theory by Roger Penrose, non associative quantum mechanics, and Twistor String Theory initially proposed by Edward Witten in 2003 will be probably proved correct.
-
Quote
If the radiation is primarily high-energy beta (electrons), it would be thermalized in the reactor tube or air around the reactor. The apparent Brehmsstralung broad-band gamma spectrum we saw suggests this is a possible scenario.
The continuum observed by MFMP is consistent with beta emission, but the rate is too low by many orders of magnitude to account for the heat. Moreover, the radiation occurs allegedly only at the onset of excess heat in the MFMP narrative. So, again, there would have to be two different reactions or processes happening, both of which have eluded characterization for 27 years, and one of which produces easily measurable radiation. Even if characteristic x-rays are too low in energy for MFMP's equipment, surely Piantelli and Focardi, in university labs, could have done as well as scientists did in the 50s to characterize the radiation. They've had a lot of time.
-
The continuum observed by MFMP is consistent with beta emission, but the rate is too low by many orders of magnitude to account for the heat. Moreover, the radiation occurs allegedly only at the onset of excess heat in the MFMP narrative. So, again, there would have to be two different reactions or processes happening, both of which have eluded characterization for 27 years, and one of which produces easily measurable radiation. Even if characteristic x-rays are too low in energy for MFMP's equipment, surely Piantelli and Focardi, in university labs, could have done as well as scientists did in the 50s to characterize the radiation. They've had a lot of time.
The LENR reaction uses Bose condensation of the Surface Plasmon Polaritons to thermalize the nuclear radiation whose energy is transferred by entanglement from the site of the nuclear reaction to the SPP. It takes a few seconds for that Condensate to establish itself before the Hawkings radiation setup by the condensate to takes effect. It is all straightforward. The window for radiation non-thermalization is just a few seconds after the SPPs have been established.
-
@Joshua We make no claim of excess heat resulting from radiation. We just observed the radiation and are now discussing it. Available sky survey data for cosmic rays shows no abnormal events during that period. Stray dust won't account for it, because no such source shows up in extensive survey of the local environment. If you have a more plausible explanation for it, please share the details.
-
"may I suggest you perform the same type of test, but using a steel wire, where LENR would not be expected to happen."
"Run again with Kanthal wire (there is no theoretical reason to expect you would see radiation with this)."
"OK, do another test with a nitrogen atmospehere and fresh Nickel wire. No LENR and therefore no radiation should be detected...."
Suggest a control experiment in which wire is heated in a helium or nitrogen bath to prove that the effect noted is due to H2 loading in the Ni."These do not seem like good controls. The closest thing that comes to mind as a control relatively safer than the ones above is a run in a vacuum, without a gas such as hydrogen, deuterium, nitrogen or argon.
There are others, and the best way to show this is something about the experiment is to run a control which is physically as identical as possible to the original but with no active material.
Agreed. But the trick is finding out what is to be considered not active without getting caught up too much in one or another LENR theory (each of which could be overly selective or just wrong). Joshua's point about merely assuming that there will be different rates in the anomaly for different materials seems like a safe one. -
But the reaction that produces the heat (alpha decay) does not produce gammas.
I would have expected there to be inelastic collisions/Coulomb excitation from energetic alphas. Is this not really the case in practice?So, a single extraordinary radiationless reaction associated with LENR, while extremely unlikely, is far more likely than two extraordinary reactions, both of which contrive to prevent the discovery of their nature, while one of them actually produces measurable radiation.
A difficulty is that there is not as yet a "lab rat" experiment that can be run over and over in order to study it in minute detail by different labs. Once there is one, I suppose academic labs will make short work of most of the questions. -
"Obvious" suggested holding a vaccum bag full of dust in front of the spectrometer, I suggest emptying said bag of dust above a fan directed towards the spectrometer.
-
I suggest that Jeff does not need to fiddle with bags of dust.
There are plenty of folks with various gamma detector types out in the internet wilderness that can do this test and report on it.
I posit that the result will be insignificant relative to background.
The stupid dust is part of the background.I happen to have a few bags of dirt with 3 to 5 times background counts. Where they came from is anomalous as it gets for dirt. 2000 to 12500 CPS in the air 15 cm off the ground. Clay-rich dirt from a swampy area.
It would be lunacy to spill that in the air for a test.
It would be remarkable to find something like that in a building. -
Didn't jeff write this in his report?
QuoteWhen the cell was evacuated with 20V across the Ni wire no increase over background was detected. Introducing ~7 Torr of H 2 into the likewise cold quartz cell likewise produced no radiation above background. When the Ni wire was heated to 10, 15, 20 V levels the radiation level started to increase significantly, reaching a max of 0.15 mrem/hr.
No H2 and heat = no radiation
H2 and no heat = no radiation
H2 and heat = radiation -
Form LENR bibliography it seems probable that energetic radiation (neutrons, MeV gamma) and heat are anticorrelated.
This is what Pamela Mosier Boss (ex-Spawar) thinks.This is why asking high energy radiation with heat is like asking horse manure as evidence to birds existence. This is also why it is a popular demand, since it is impossible to fulfil.
Excess heat is enough evidence, provided the observes are competent, this mean are chemist.
even if He4/heat evidence in PdD is even better.
You don't ask an expert in horse manure to analyse bird feather, so you don't ask a nuclear physicists to analyse a calorimetry paper, and reciprocally.Here the radioactivity evidences are intriguing, but to be honest NiH evidence today are far from the quality of PdD evidence from the 1990s. This is why everybody focus on them for critics.
Jeff anyway have done a serious job, and he just need to add some cross-checking, like using shields, moving sensors, adding ambiance sensors...
Note that the theory of magic radioactive dust is reminding me an invisible unicorn joke.
It is funny to see self-proclaimed skeptic use tactic of true believers. Anyway it is not new. -
magicsound wrote:
Quote@Joshua We make no claim of excess heat resulting from radiation. We just observed the radiation and are now discussing it. Available sky survey data for cosmic rays shows no abnormal events during that period. Stray dust won't account for it, because no such source shows up in extensive survey of the local environment. If you have a more plausible explanation for it, please share the details.
If you have a plausible explanation involving nuclear reactions, please share the details,
I suspect it is some kind of artifact, but without additional experiments, I can't propose a detailed explanation involving artifacts.
Others think it is nuclear reactions within the wire caused by heat and the combination of nickel and hydrogen, but without additional experiments, no one can provide a detailed explanation involving nuclear reactions.
Artifacts of this type are quite common in measurements of radiation. Nuclear reactions in this context would involve revolutionary new science that is extremely rare.
Therefore, until better evidence is presented, an artifact of some kind is vastly more likely.
At the very least, the origin of the signal could be localized far better with some simple experiments using lead and aluminum shielding, with control experiments using other elements, or by using more wire to produce higher signal, and other simple and more sophisticated experiments.
-
Eric Walker wrote:
QuoteI would have expected there to be inelastic collisions/Coulomb excitation from energetic alphas. Is this not really the case in practice?
Evidently not, which is why RTGs can be so easily shielded, and why Po-210 can be easily transported without setting of radiation alarms. In the case of Pu-238, the product of alpha decay (U-234) is sometimes formed in the excited state, and it relaxes producing low energy gammas at 42, 99, and 150 keV, and they in turn produce X-rays at 17 keV. These are easily shielded with a small amount of lead.
QuoteA difficulty is that there is not as yet a "lab rat" experiment that can be run over and over in order to study it in minute detail by different labs. Once there is one, I suppose academic labs will make short work of most of the questions.
I understood this experiment was reproducible. If it's not, then yes, it is more difficult to characterize, but also less credible.
In any case, if they can produce it sometimes, they could at least be ready with some lead shielding to place next to the wire to see if the rate is affected. There is no delay involved here. The signal should immediately change and return when the lead is withdrawn. A far smaller effect (if any) would be observed with the same thickness of aluminum. Also, if they put 5 wires in, the probability of the effect, as well as the intensity should be expected to increase.
