Safety: Lithium Intoxication - Lithium Side Effects ?

Quote from magicsound

My analysis was based on the plots on page 3 of Stelson, showing the
counts per micro Coulomb of beam current. The count data for Ni isotopes
are almost four orders of magnitude lower than for Se (which is not
present in the reactor).

In the Glowstick experiments to date, we are seeing net power (if any)
of less than 100 watts. My conclusion was meant to show that in the
Glowstick experiments, this reaction signal would not have been
measurable. If we're able to generate even 1 kW in a Glowstick, such a
signal would be possible to detect, and we'll watch for it. In such an
event, there would be lots of other signals as well, and possibly a
melt-down of reactor components.

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There is not a factor 10⁴ between ⁵⁸Ni and Se, more like a factor of
20. But let's forget about Se, I don't know why that got into the
discussion.

I find your comments defensive and negative. If p+⁷Li is important in a
LENR reactor, measuring gammas would be the ultimate proof that there is
a reaction and the gamma yield would give a handle on the excess
energy. That would convince even the hardcore nuclear physicists that
you have got something! It would definitely be a good signal. Even a
negative result would be of interest since it would give a rather
stringent upper limit of the p+⁷Li contribution.

We may be willing to measure a alpha+Ni gamma spectrum at our accelerator with
the 2011 Rossi fuel samples (thick target yields, as in Stelson).

Lets calculate an estimate of the count rate of the 1454.2 keV
⁵⁸Ni(2⁺->0⁺) transition. (You can renormalise the final result if you
prefer other assumptions.)

Reaction: p+⁷Li-->2 alpha Q=17.347 MeV.

Alpha energy = 17.347/2=8.67 MeV (all excess energy goes into kinetic energy of the alphas).

Excess energy from the reaction above: 100 W.

Number of alphas per second: 100/(8.67*10⁶*1.6*10^-19)=100*10¹³/(8.67*1.6)=7.2*10¹³ /s.

Equivalent current: I=N*q*e=7.2*10¹³*2*1.6*10^-19*10⁶=23 microA

So we have 23 microC per second.

The yield of ⁵⁸Ni was 9.38*10⁴ (Stelson, table 1, 7% uncertainty, E=8.013 MeV, close to alpha energy above).

Correcting for natural abundance of ⁵⁸Ni: (0.68/0.996)*9.38*10⁴= 64000.

Total activity (only ⁵⁸Ni) is 23*64000=15*10⁵ /s=15*10⁵/(3.7*10⁴)=40 microCi,
which is much more than a standard source (1 microCi). There is
obviously reason to take safety precautions.

A conservative photo peak efficiency of 1% would yield 15000 counts/s. That is probably more than the detector can handle!

I realize that this is, if I have the sums right, as popular as the proposal to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet!

@ Peter Ekstrom

Forgive me if I sounded defensive to you. I am an experimentalist and thus have become used to supporting my data against critical analysis (especially in fora such as this one).

Thank you for your calculation of expected alpha energy yields and counts for the p+7Li reactions. I can only say that our recent experiment with three separate gamma spectrometers in place showed no evidence to support these reaction paths. We have not yet finished analysis of the saved spectra, and subtraction of background may still show a signal from the alpha excitation of Ni.

Quote from magicsound

Forgive me if I sounded defensive to you. I am an experimentalist and thus have become used to supporting my data against critical analysis (especially in fora such as this one).

Thank you for your calculation of expected alpha energy yields and counts for the P+7Li reactions. I can only say that our recent experiment with three separate gamma spectrometers in place showed no evidence to support these reaction paths. We have not yet finished analysis of the saved spectra, and subtraction of background may still show a signal from the alpha excitation of Ni.

OK, no problem. I am also experimentalist and quite experienced in nuclear measurements.

I think, however, that one can safely exclude a reaction with Li. The reason I started looking into the Li reactions was that Cook and Rossi (Cook with the cookbook) say in their paper that the Li reaction is involved and that it is "gamma free". The disappearing ⁷Li supports the reaction, but it is by no means gamma free.

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

I think, however, that one can safely exclude a reaction with Li. The reason I started looking into the Li reactions was that Cook and Rossi (Cook with the cookbook) say in their paper that the Li reaction is involved and that it is "gamma free". The disappearing 7Li supports the reaction, but it is by no means gamma free.

Is this meant from the classical nuclear physics point of view?

Or would You it also exclude under a LENR 'cluster-reaction' view point?

Quote from Wyttenbach

Is this meant from the classical nuclear physics point of view?

Or would You it also exclude under a LENR 'cluster-reaction' view point?

I do not believe in rewriting nuclear physics completely. As I said before, nuclear physicists are not idiots. As long as the LENR community invents another exception for each new problem, it will never make progress. Physics is not like that - Physics is beautiful and simple!

Reality, having heard this over the centuries, may suspect one should not become too enamored of "beauty". Standards change, one era's beauty can become another era's abomination. And what of simplicity? Is it parsimony of expression? Or a minimalist tensor? Occam's razor can cut the throat of truth in the interests of simplicity.

Ockham did not suggest "that the hypothesis that is simplest is better". He asked, what is the minimum number of assumptions needed to make a a hypothesis consistent and testable". A hypothesis with a hundred variables could easily be true, but how can one narrow that down to something that can be either invalidated or demonstrated to require more detail? The hypothesis that is simpler is easier to test.

The razor shaves, it is not Ockham's Cleaver.

Without looking at his writings in latin, I well venture here that you are reading way too much into Occam's commentaries. Further I did not write anything to justly elicit your comment. Out of courtesy to you and others I respond here. Remembering that this man Wiilliam of Ockham (Occam) was finished writing in the early 1300's. No doubt a brilliant eccliastical scholar for the day and a metaphysician of sorts, but certainly not writing seriously of hypothesis testing in a scientific sense. [That was Francis Bacon, nearly 300 years later!]

On Ockham, from the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ :

"An emphasis on reducing one's ontology to a bare minimum, on paring down the supply of fundamental ontological categories. Ockham was likewise a nominalist in this sense."

"He did not believe in mathematical (“quantitative”) entities of any kind."

Finally we are talking not only of an early 14th century ecclesiast given to apodict, but also one who is deeply and dogmatically religious:

'As he says in Sent. I, dist. 30, q. 1: “For
nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is
self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by
experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.”'

But, of course you, Paradigmnoia, already know this, perhaps others can gain from our little exposition.