ICCF21 Thread

Quote from Director

al months ago, after a period of intensive study consisting of obsessive compulsive all-night-long literature searches, I reached the conclusion that ultra-high-power LENR+ (or whatever funky term you want to use) is likely a ubiquitous phenomenon that a multitude of researchers have witnessed.

I don't know what you consider ultra-high-power. If you mean power over 100 W, then practically no one has witnessed it. Except when Fleischmann and Pons' early device blew up. Mizuno and others have seen heat after death ranging from 20 to ~100 W.

Mizuno probably saw ~480 W at one point. See p. 11:

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

If you have in mind something like what Rossi claims, with a kilowatt or more, there are no credible reports of that. If "multitudes of researchers" had witnessed such a thing, they would have recorded the data and reported it. They would not keep it secret. They do not hide good results. On the contrary, they often report high heat that turns out to be a mistake, and is actually zero heat.

Quote from Director

Parkhomov achieved self sustain at high temperature for a short period of time and has witnessed several meltdowns. Additionally, Songsheng Jiang produced a high level of excess heat in at least one of his experiments. There are a couple Russian groups that have produced E-Cat like reactors as well that produced high power. . . .

I doubt these reports. I am not saying they did not happen, but the evidence is thin and they have not been properly reported or replicated, so for now they remain in limbo. Jiang's high heat results are artifacts of broken TCs, as far as I know. I don't buy vague reports by Russian groups or that fellow ME-something-or-other who reported here and then vanished after people went to visit him and found nothing.

I think you need to hold researchers to higher standards than you do. Don't believe everything you read. In fact, don't believe anything . . . until it has been replicated several times and reported in detail.

Quote from Director

From what I've been told by individuals who have worked with TC's extensively in real world industrial settings, TC's are not prone to showing abnormally high temperatures when damaged; instead, I've been told they usually show lowered readings.

There is no doubt the TC was damaged. Jiang himself said so. It did not work after the test. He included some of the data that was unstable. As I recall, he said the data came from before it was damaged, but Storms and I disagree. It was already fluctuating in way that looks like damage. I think the data was meaningless.

FWIW, the Jiang Thermocouple error voltage swings (decreasing T part) are less than 5 mV (which can be easily calculated with a TC voltage-temperature chart).

The V swings are more like: 4 mV, 3 mV, 2 mV during the T decrease, actually)

Although a 5 mV problem does not sound like much, for a thermocouple it is a lot, and could come from anywhere, like a ground loop, galvanic effect with the MgO insulation, or a Reference Junction problem.

Anyways, once the TC goes overlimit (melting point) or open circuit, there's no useful and reliable info coming out of it.

The subsequent Zhang Hang "replication" avoided overheating and several other problems (nicely done) and the results are totally mundane.

Quote from Director

Parkhomov achieved self sustain at high temperature for a short period of time ...

The only public presented self sustain LENR is R.Mills SUN-CELL development system. For interested folks - there are videos available.

But what do we mean with self sustain?? Is it only no input energy needed or does it include cooling / "waste" removement etc..?

Quote from Alan Smith

Jed, while I agree with you about the lack of solid data from Jiang et al, this thermocouple stuff is a canard I thought had flown away. I have never known a faulty thermocouple read high, they either read low or don't read at all. Resistance thermometers may read high under some circumstances, but while I have tortured many hundreds of thermocouples to death, they never read high even in extremis.

Alan,

May I disagree ?

Some thermocouple circuits have a high ohmic pull-up resistor, which when the thermocouple gets broken, cause a high voltage at the input. (We used 10 MegaOhm resistors)

This will result in a high temperature displayed when a thermocouple is broken and will be an alert that there is something wrong.

The high value displayed depends on the electronics and software, but will normally so much different from the expected value, that you will not interpret it aa a valid measurment.

Quote from Alan Smith

Jed, while I agree with you about the lack of solid data from Jiang et al, this thermocouple stuff is a canard I thought had flown away. I have never known a faulty thermocouple read high, they either read low or don't read at all.

You saw the data, didn't you? What do you make of it? It was fluctuating violently. Jiang said the TC was damaged because it exceeded the maximum temperature. I had the impression the numbers were "stuck" at the highest level recorded before it was damaged, which could indicate a problem with the interface rather than the TC itself.

Anyway, if it is confirmed to be damaged after a test, I would toss out the entire test. I wouldn't try to guess when the damage began to have an effect.

Quote from LDM

Alan,

May I disagree ?

Some thermocouple circuits have a high ohmic pull-up resistor, which when the thermocouple gets broken, cause a high voltage at the input. (We used 10 MegaOhm resistors)

This will result in a high temperature displayed when a thermocouple is broken and will be an alert that there is something wrong.

The high value displayed depends on the electronics and software, but will normally so much different from the expected value, that you will not interpret it aa a valid measurment.

Display More

My TC logger displays open TC circuits as 9999.

Obviously, 0 (zero) is not safe be displayed for opens/unplugged TC's.

Quote from Alan Smith

Mine too.

Some "smart" people would now conclude that PARA and Alan have the same TC loggers.

Quote from LDM

Some "smart" people would now conclude that PARA and Alan have the same TC loggers.

Same as Rossi's

As most know here, many prominent AHE / LENR reports might be explained by some plausible mechanism of how the 782 keV/c^2 mass-energy deficit is made up.

Earlier, discussed here on LF, in some detail from a quite different perspective, now linked at:

deBroglie's equation and heavy electrons

[I deduce we no longer need to advise "newbies" that the W-L theory ostensibly explains the "growing" a proton to neutron by adding such a heavy electron mechanism.]

As many here may know, and IMHO, deBroglie offers, a quite different explanation for "heavy" electrons, and that explanation might be, at least under "classical" QM, quite inconsistent with the usual "classical" relativistic interpretation. I believe the relativity-based explanations may be quite difficult-to-reconcile with observations. Recently it seems the theoreticians are seeking, and more recently, demanding difficult-to-imagine scenarios. And if Dr. Hagelstein's, and other JCMNS articles analyzing the energetics are correct, it may be quite impossible or insufficiently productive to seek "relativistic" explanations of increased mass suitable to accomplish LENR. This has apparently now evolved to a "received view" that is often used to brush away any low velocity heavy electron explanations of LENR / CF.

A little background: I was primed long ago, long before my science career, for discussions of QM via deBroglie from P.W. Atkins' Physical Chemistry (W.H. Freeman, 1978), especially the 2nd section "structure". And now I see a much later influence layered on the Atkins text: The (one volume version) of the 1993, 2nd edition of McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Physics (Sybil Parker, editor). In that tome was where I first saw the initial hints that led me to focus on one of the two core deBroglie equations, that is: lambda = h/p where "p" can be taken as classical momentum (that is: m dot v, as I understand it). Some key passages are there ca. p. 1112. I won't review that here, except to say that it appears that the by now classical QM uncertainty relationship, that is a reciprocal "complementarity" relationship of position (distributed as "wavelength" in lambda) with momentum distribution as "p".... can indeed be further decomposed (classical Newton: p=mv) to allow not only velocity uncertainty, but mass fluctuation, at least in one vectorial pairing, in that article, say the "x" axis.

With the greatest respect for some of the living giants in the CF field, it seems such a strictly relativistic explanation of mass gain, at least at first view, is quite the contrived situation. So much so, that I suspected it a "strawman" to have electrons in the conduction band travel anywhere near the vacuum velocity of light.

But, here is another piece the older folks know well -- or maybe not: in view of Cerenkov / Cherenkov / Tcherenkov radiation, which is the emission of energy of the "forbidden" transluminal velocity as energy via photons induced by superluminal particle transit through transparent media. For example, velocity of light in pure water is about 0.76 of vacuum c in free space. Thus, with ANY superluminal transmission (ie. over c in the media) of any massive particle, we might "have our cake and eat it too", that is an increased relativistic mass at a relatively modest velocity compared to vacuum, AND the possibility of bonus energetic photon(s) accompaniment via Cherenkov.

[For "very newbies", Tcherenkov, Cherenkov, Cerenkov radiation, is the blue light seen in reactors and radwaste storage pools, the ostensible source of that blue light, for decades now, and I see at our never-to-be-trusted for controversial information, is Cherenkov's1934 explanation which led to Cherenkov's 1958 Nobel.]

With respect to what has been somewhat difficult-to-envision, this claimed as relativistic mass gain of 0.782 MeV/c^2 (to give a total of ~2.53 X the nominal CODATA rest electron mass of 0.511 MeV), I am deducing from ICCF 21 chats and other conversations with some of our most famous LENR scientists, and yet others perhaps not so famous, that if indeed this were possible, it is enabled by the much lower velocity c (from our external perspective, of course!) in some solid media, such as boron nitride (B₄N or simply BN), graphene, diamond-like coatings, PTFE, Schott and Nikon high refractive index glasses and polymers, as well as barium glass, uranium glass, leaded glass and so on.

c in high refractive index materials such as boron nitride, boron carbide, as well as spodumene-like products, including high mp, low cost, quite transparent materials such as Corning's "Visions Ware", which is likely related to their "Vicor" glassware, or traditional transparent refractories such as fused or amorphous quartz, zirconia etc.

As one simple example, here is a little boron nitride paper:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/….nasa.gov/19870015584.pdf

therein is reported a refractive index of 1.65 to 1.67, taking a mean, gives c =1.8 X 10 ^8 m/s, v. ~3.0 X 10^8 in vacuo.

Finally, we see a conundrum of an almost ever-present structural theme in the more functional CF and LENR "cells" resolved and/or explained without resort to "crazy" stuff. That is the near universal presence of phase, state, field, or other structural interfaces / junctions in such cells . That may provide a plausible explanation of how a "situational transluminal velocity" could accomplish something constructive, even when there is too large a Fermi gap between the valence and conduction bands for metallic behavior. And proactively, we can now see that (perhaps) photons in transparent media are conjoined with electrons in nearby metallic media. Is there another parallel to Hagelstein's evocation and explanation of the Karabut data, or others theorists also seeking to explain the possible direct thermalization / "phononization", [to use an awkward term], of MeV photons?

Ponderables: What is the likelihood of a "heavy" conduction band electron making an excursion, or channeled, stripline or TIR fiber style, into adjacent non-conducting / insulating dielectric material? What happens to Cherenkov photons in that case? Are they plasmons? Can they participate as bosonically additive entities (that is, can they coherently elaborate optical pumping that might through Thomson-Compton or other mechanisms, further highly accelerate already electrostatically accelerated electrons?

As always, I admonish to "do you own due diligence". Think of energy and power densities that might accidentally occur. Don't want to lose these genii !!

Quote from Longview

As most know here, many prominent AHE / LENR reports might be explained by some plausible mechanism of how the 782 keV/c^2 mass-energy deficit is made up.

Quote from Longview

[I deduce we no longer need to advise "newbies" that the W-L theory ostensibly explains the "growing" a proton to neutron by adding such a heavy electron mechanism.]

W-L theory explains nothing as it is not a physical theory at all. It is a collections of guesses that point in the completely wrong direction.

The neutron is an excess energy particle! Why? because it decays to more stable sub-particles and free - energy. There is absolutely no chance to produce a free neutron from a proton. Neutrons are only stable inside a nucleus. Why? A neutron has the property to acquire or to release (4D) energy. This amount can be exactly calculated. The 4D neutron model exactly reproduces the Aspect measured kinetic energy of 782010eV. It also explains the difference = non kinetic/potential like energy.

For interested people (( https://www.researchgate.net/project/Nuclear-and-particle-physics-2.0))

Contrary to WL theory the 4D model shows that the neutron is a combination of a non relativistic electron "base mass" with a proton. In Mills terminology rest-mass of the electron flux.

There is one possibility to produce a heavy electron in combination e.g. with a proton base wave. According to Mills model (relativistic metric) the rotating/orbiting rest-mass can acquire the mass of m_e*2*pi. But be aware in what space/rest frame you work.

Conclusion: Inside a nucleus there is no exact 782 keV/c^2 mass-energy deficit. It is either larger or smaller

I always appreciate your deep and sensible knowledge of New Physics, dear Wyttenbach. But you are not the only one speaking and writing in that way of neutrons without the evidence most can grasp. I prefer deposing a theory by experimentation rather than with words. Much of the W-L discussion seems fatal to itself. It is becoming reminiscent of the alchemical era with the best theories containing ideas such as "phlogiston".. I think the S of W-L-S did drop out, it just did not hold up in any evidentiary sense. No one is complaining about that loss, probably not even the author. And thus by experiment, it is seen that hypothetical superconducting regions are not able to shield or absorb say 1 angstrom gammas, that otherwise can pass through a lot of anything.... So what experiment will depose W-L?

Experiment is vital to science. The rest is artful mathematics, attractive ideas and useful recipes.