NASA: New Paper about Experimental Progress

Quote from bocijn

THH Huxley " These two equations are inconsistent"

They appear inconsistent to you because they refer to different things

My interpretation is that Equation 6 yields the unscreened reactivities (UR)

which are graphed in Fig 1.

Equation 14,15 multiplies these UR by the screening factor to give the screened reactivities (SR) as shown in Fig 2.

I do not think that 3 research physicists working collaboratively on a research paper for one year

are going to make an error that can be 'debugged' up in 1hour by a pharmacist like me or any other layman scientist.

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Perhaps not unless you pay attention to the equations. I agree they refer to different things.

(6) is the unscreened reactivity - I'm sure we both agree.

(15) is stated to be the reactivity enhancement factor fR(kT). There is no ambiguity. It is a scalar (no units) as expected for an enhancement factor. It is clearly inconsistent as explained below.

(14) Unremarkably gives the screened reactivity as the unscreened value from (6) multiplied by fR(kT) from (15). But then the T dependence from fR(kT) is completely inconsistent, because fR(kT) dependence on T is not compatible with screening being (roughly) equivalent to a decrease in Eg by roughly U0. (Nor an increase in average projectile energy kT by a factor of roughly U0).

The intuitive argument here is that whatever the screening, at low projectile energies (low T) increasing the projectile energy kT must increase, not decrease, the cross-section. That is obviously not true in (14) as derived from (6) and (15), on a cursory comparison of the exponents. And Figure 2 underscores this obvious inconsistency - although it is not so obvious because the horizontal axis of Fig 2 is obscure - is this under conditions of varying T, fixed U0 or varying U0, fixed T? From context I believe the former. This error is so large a physicist with math background would be unlikely to miss it on grounds of both physics and maths. However, anyone can make mistakes.

What I've said follows. If you'd like to make your criticism above more precise I could reply more precisely, but you are a bit vague so I'm not entirely sure what is your point - (14) and (15) are different as above, and I'd guess you agree with my definitions since they come from the paper.

I do not agree with your "don't ask, just accept authority" judgement that you propose here. We do not know that these authors are an authority. My own background in Math is not necessarily worse than that of 3 random experimental research physicists. In any case that is not the point. Science is judged based on merit, not the credentials of the authors. The error here is obvious and clear. The paper is inconsistent. I've e-mailed the corresponding author.

Eric Walker said "Conclusion when you have an electrolysis setup" .

I actually think this paper applies to the Mizuno and other plasma set ups...where the electric energy is applied to the nickel cages(nurseries?)

by an external voltage to overcome the Coulombic barrier and initiate the fusion reaction.

This paper's theoretical discussion does not take into account the kinetics of the deuterium accesss to the nickel lattice vacancies

and also the lack of full packing etc. Their suggestion of a "few Evs" is actually a minimum.

I would suggest that in practice in the plasma experiments a driving electrical impetus of more than a few eVs is needed

Mizuno' report suggests that 50- 150 eV is required,depending on the temperature.

As regards neutrons..my 100% guesspeculation is that the nickel cage environment modifies the neutron birth somehow.

Perhap it is the 3d orbitals with their fluctuating magnetic spin,combined with the fluctuating Coulombic screening

Perhaps they trap the neutron, desatbilise it and accelerate its decay way down from15 minutes 'normal' to seconds.

It is noteworthy that there is ~37 % more energy coming out form Mizuno's experiment

than can be accounted for by D-D fusion (average MEV, 3.65)......i.e we need to find the equivof 5.0MEV.

However incorporating the energy fron neutron decay (MEV,0.782).. goes along way to explaining this discrepancy.

Perhaps the reason that neutrons are not seen much is because most of them decay in the nickel cage environment.

As regards neutrons..my 100% guesspeculation is that the nickel cage environment modifies the neutron birth somehow.

Perhap it is the 3d orbitals with their fluctuating magnetic spin,combined with the fluctuating Coulombic screening

Perhaps they trap the neutron, desatbilise it and accelerate its decay way down from15 minutes 'normal' to seconds.

Neither magnetic nor electric fields can trap neutrons at any normal energy. Magnetic fields can trap neutrons, but only when they are cooled to 1/1000K.

https://www.nist.gov/news-even…onstrated-first-time-nist

Given our null result, we propose an alternative theory for the non-zero activities
measured previously. Namely, that the materials in the previous work were
contaminated with daughters of radon decay, which contain both alpha and beta
emitters. The plausibility of this theory is enhanced by the fact that the previous
work was conducted partially in a basement laboratory in a part of the country
where radon gas is common. Radioactive daughters are electrostatically charged
following radon decay, and thus can accumulate on electrostatically charged
materials. Pursuant to this theory, we have shown that our PE and DPE materials
are easily charged and can retain such a charge for an extended period of time. They
are easily discharged with an ion blower, but are not easily discharged through
contact with a grounded conductor, which is understandable given that they are
electrical insulators. One contraindication of this theory is the absence of a signal in
the control samples in the previous study. Both the PE and DPE materials, if
electrostatically charged, would be expected to attract radon daughters. This
difference could be explained by a systematic difference in method or timing of the
processing of the PE and DPE samples used in the previous work. We have no means
of exploring whether there was such a difference, and therefore, cannot come to a
firm conclusion about the validity of our alternate theory.

THHuxley "don't ask, just accept authority"

Those are your words.

These are your words"It is academic, because the IH replication failed"

Since when was IH an 'authority'

Have you emailed them?

These are what I follow "but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good."

God Bless.

Quote from bocijn

THHuxley "don't ask, just accept authority"

Those are your words.

These are your words"It is academic, because the IH replication failed"

Since when was IH an 'authority'

Have you emailed them?

These are what I follow "but test everything that is said. Hold on to what is good."

God Bless.

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As far as IH replication goes the point is that this is IH (wanting a positive result) with the cooperation of Mizumo. So if M could find anything rational wrong with IH methodology he would point this out, and IH (being I assume rational) would correct it.

Context matters.

Of course I could just follow others here and note that, especially in this area, experiment is more believable than theory any day.

100% guesspeculation

There is a problem with the discrepancies in the decay rates of neutron that have as yet been unexplained.

In the end, further in depth research on the mechanism is needed rather than energy calculations which are even worse than broadbrush.

I can assure you that the authority NIST has never measured deuterium giving birth to a neutron in the nickel neonatal ward.

Since when is IH an authority???

Show me the credentials of Weaver or Darden .

But you trust them implicitly.

'It is academic, because the IH replication failed"

It's Mizuno by the way,not Mizumo.

"experiment is more believable than theory any day."

I find your commitment to "Science is judged based on merit" highly contestable

when you accept Dewey's word on face value

but do not accept Mizuno's spreadsheets (from experiment ) and do not even analyse them.

Perhaps you can find the time to "debug" them.

Quote from THHuxleynew

One contraindication of this theory is the absence of a signal in the control samples in the previous study.

If the original study showed a robust effect in the live runs and little or none in the control runs, this detail alone should call into doubt the relevance of the attempted replication. The original study may still have been flawed for some unknown reason, but it's hard to draw conclusions from the failed replication other than they weren't able to see what was seen in the first study.

Quote from maryyugo

This should be restated to say that MIZUNO COULD NOT REPLICATE HIS OWN WORK AT IH and gave no reason for it that we know of.

You know nothing about this, so I suggest you refrain from speculating about it. I know of several reasons why it may have failed.

Ahlfors

Alan Smith

We seem to be going round in circles here.

There was a NASA study that appeared to show nuclear activity from low intensity x-ray photon beam radiation, referencedby Ahlfors.

The paper Alan cites has the same authors and appears roughly similar in import. It is the same study.

Ahlfors cites an independent replication by Rob Davies, which does not find these results or anything like (no nuclear activity seen to within error limits). This is in fact Rob's second reported replication, the first used a different photon beam source and therefore did not precisely replicate the original conditions. He is obviously trying hard to see if there is anything there.

Rob Davies speculates why the original study might have obtained such clear positive results, when his replication does not show them. It is a plausible, but unprovable, speculation. I quoted it (from Rob's paper linked here) above:

Given our null result, we propose an alternative theory for the non-zero activities

measured previously. Namely, that the materials in the previous work were

contaminated with daughters of radon decay, which contain both alpha and beta

emitters. The plausibility of this theory is enhanced by the fact that the previous

work was conducted partially in a basement laboratory in a part of the country

where radon gas is common. Radioactive daughters are electrostatically charged

following radon decay, and thus can accumulate on electrostatically charged

materials. Pursuant to this theory, we have shown that our PE and DPE materials

are easily charged and can retain such a charge for an extended period of time. They

are easily discharged with an ion blower, but are not easily discharged through

contact with a grounded conductor, which is understandable given that they are

electrical insulators. One contraindication of this theory is the absence of a signal in

the control samples in the previous study. Both the PE and DPE materials, if

electrostatically charged, would be expected to attract radon daughters. This

difference could be explained by a systematic difference in method or timing of the

processing of the PE and DPE samples used in the previous work. We have no means

of exploring whether there was such a difference, and therefore, cannot come to a

firm conclusion about the validity of our alternate theory.

So, from my POV, this is an interesting anomaly raised, checked, and found not to be replicable. We have a possible artifact, though no certainty. That will usually be the case when there is some extraordinary result like this that cannot be replicated. The existence of the possible artifact is enough to make chasing for another possible artifact uninteresting for most.

While there is no certainty, the normal way to process this data is to go with the original unreplicable result indeed being an artifact. It is certainly how I process it.

No doubt, occasionally, such judgements are wrong. Perhaps the replication is different in some subtle not understood way from the original. But then there remains some replicable clear result, which will be found at some point. In this case there is no reason, other than an a priori bias towards wanting to find nuclear reactions in situations where they are not conventionally expected, to go with the original.

Finally I'd point out that there are web sites (not this one of course) that will continue to recycle any apparently positive scientific evidence, without the context refuting it, as evidence. It is context, and followup, that allows us to judge unusual results.

Quote from Alan Smith

Once? I would call that a draw,.

That is an unusual view of the situation different from mine: which perhaps explains a number of issues on which we disagree.

Consider: Davies has a plausible reason for a false positive artifact. The original authors have published no such plausible reason for a false negative artifact, nor have they contributed enough detailed information as to disprove Davies's artifact proposal. Advantage Davies.

Quote from Alan Smith

Exposure of highly deuterated materials to a low-energy (nom. 2 MeV) photon beam

Deuterium-tritium fusion peaks at kinetic energies of around 70 keV (see caption in the image at right). Once we have 2 MeV photons, we're talking about normal nuclear physics and are far removed from a low energy scenario.