This is great news for LENR research.
No, it isn't. Alas. Most of these projects are barking up the wrong tree. They will not produce useful results because these people do not know the first thing about cold fusion. They think it is a form of plasma fusion. They are making the same mistakes people made in 1989. Because they have not done their homework. Because some of them are arrogant know-it-alls and will not listen to the cold fusion researchers or read the literature.
No, it isn't. Alas. Most of these projects are barking up the wrong tree. They will not produce useful results because these people do not know the first thing about cold fusion. They think it is a form of plasma fusion. They are making the same mistakes people made in 1989. Because they have not done their homework. Because some of them are arrogant know-it-alls and will not listen to the cold fusion researchers or read the literature.
Yes, these projects are barking up the wrong tree. See my previous comments in this thread.
However, cold fusion (non-thermal nuclear fusion) is plasma based, because it is based on electro-gravity. If not so, then show me where the data analysis I've presented fail.
The problem is the tremendous amount of transmutation for an almost negatable amount of heat. The problem is that successful applications like: AquaFuel, Osama gas, S&G gas, and GEET are not recognized as non-thermal nuclear fusion. The adage "if it appears to be too good to be true, then it probably is" has limited successful applications to waste recycling and then after developing a false cover story. The problem is that truth lies between what is real according to consensus and what is ridiculous or seen as fantasy.
Quantum mechanics(QM) makes LENR theory supremely complicated. QM allows for primary states of matter to be mixed in hundreds of ways. This mixing of fundamental mechanisms in condensed matter systems is what gives LENR its varied nature.
QM mixing is what allows lattice aided fusion to occur at low temperatures by removing columbic repulsion from the lattice system. The interaction of many fundamental particles and forces gives these particles new characteristics in a condensed matter system.
Over 500 states of matter have been identified due to QM mixing in a condensed matter system.
The problem is that successful applications like: AquaFuel, Osama gas, S&G gas, and GEET are not recognized as non-thermal nuclear fusion.
Each of these condensed matter systems has a unique QM mixing pattern that makes them unique yet share fundamental LENR properties. Because QM mixing is not yet completely defined makes LENR theory difficult to study using reductionists methods.
Understanding any given LENR system requires that all QM mixing patterns and interactions be identified and characterized then assigned to the unique behavior of the particular LENR system.
Examples of QM mixing:
fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE)
By adding magnetic flux lines to 2D electrons: It is a property of a collective state in which electrons bind magnetic flux lines to make new quasiparticles, and excitations have a fractional elementary charge and possibly also fractional statistics.
The hydrino
In the Mills SunCell system, some number of varied catalysts produces the hydrino state of matter that is the active agent in the SunCell system. Mills has assumed that the hydrino is fundamental and has tossed out and discounted the standard model to accommodate the hydrino.
But the hydrino is a product of a condensed matter systems' formation of a unique state of matter particular to the action of a family of catalysts.
Yet another buzzword, "QM Mixing"? No more chiral polariton BEC EVO hexagonal fields needed?
I have heard of QM superposition, not "mixing".
The finest QM Mixer was the Quantum Audio Labs QM-12B Console 12-channel 4-bus Studio Mixing Board
Yet another buzzword, "QM Mixing"? No more chiral polariton BEC EVO hexagonal fields needed?
I have heard of QM superposition, not "mixing".
The finest QM Mixer was the Quantum Audio Labs QM-12B Console 12-channel 4-bus Studio Mixing Board
As you are prone to do, you searched for QM mixing, but did not find anything; let me help. If you read the Phys.org article which I doubt, the term that they used was quantum entanglement rather than QM mixing. Yes, the Polariton is a another state of matter generated by QM mixing and is the active agent in many other coherent LENR systems.
You should look into condensed matter science and quantum mechanics to understand better the LENR reaction.
QM Mixer
Goes with cold fusion..jazz from Madison
FYI
QuoteA mixture of quantum states is again a quantum state. Quantum states that cannot be written as a mixture of other states are called pure quantum states, while all other states are called mixed quantum states. A pure quantum state can be represented by a ray in a Hilbert space over the complex numbers,[1][2] while mixed states are represented by density matrices, which are positive semidefinite operators that act on Hilbert spaces.
No, it isn't. Alas. Most of these projects are barking up the wrong tree. They will not produce useful results because these people do not know the first thing about cold fusion.
Which projects in particular? And what about the descriptions of the projects, or what we might infer about the teams, is problematic?
QuoteThey think it is a form of plasma fusion. They are making the same mistakes people made in 1989. Because they have not done their homework. Because some of them are arrogant know-it-alls and will not listen to the cold fusion researchers or read the literature.
Which projects "think it is a form of plasma fusion"? Who is an arrogant know it all?
Please name names.
It's not useful to tar everybody with the same wide brush.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but I don't think we know that much about what's being proposed. I'm genuinely trying to better understand your antipathy towards the announced work.
Which projects in particular? And what about the descriptions of the projects, or what we might infer about the teams?
I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but I don't think we know that much about what's being proposed. I did try to guess about them earlier, though. I'm curious to know which in particular have made you despair.
I have an opinion on this.
The fusion meme predisposes research to look to compression of hydrogen inside the lattice imperfections to produce fusion into other elements. The research is directed toward increasing this compressive effect by increasing the packing of hydrogen into the lattice.
The proper research approach is directed toward observing how the nature of the fundamental particles change their nature based on many particle interactions. The experimenter should observe how electrons an protons behave differently in a LENR system.
What NASA has found is that protons lose their charge in a lattice due to election screening making high gas pressure unnecessary.
Axil, too many assumptions here for me. Low gas pressure increased XSH in published Mizuno experiments before NASA “discovered” this phenomenon. Let’s give credit where credit is due. As far as I have seen Mizuno was the first to publish this.
Display MoreI have an opinion on this.
The fusion meme predisposes research to look to compression of hydrogen inside the lattice imperfections to produce fusion into other elements. The research is directed toward increasing this compressive effect by increasing the packing of hydrogen into the lattice.
The proper research approach is directed toward observing how the nature of the fundamental particles change their nature based on many particle interactions. The experimenter should observe how electrons an protons behave differently in a LENR system.
What NASA has found is that protons lose their charge in a lattice due to election screening making high gas pressure unnecessary.
With respect, that doesn't really go to the substance of my question, which was a request for a critique of the specific projects announced, as well as what we might reasonably infer about them from what's in the public domain.
For instance, if we accept as a working hypothesis that John Dodaro has been funded, why is his experimental approach inappropriate? What's so bad about Duncan getting funding? Or more co-dep work?
I'm just trying (again) to ask for a more granular conversation.
Pardon my naïveté but I tried searching Google Scholar for Duncan’s publications on LENR and couldn’t find anything.
I think it’s great that more mainstream institutions are supporting work in this area. I’d like to read anything he’s published in the field if anyone can point me in the right direction
Pardon my naïveté but I tried searching Google Scholar for Duncan’s publications on LENR and couldn’t find anything.
I think it’s great that more mainstream institutions are supporting work in this area. I’d like to read anything he’s published in the field if anyone can point me in the right direction
Fair to say that he's a well known quantity, but hasn't published LENR results to date. He was the independent expert for a 60 minutes segment on LENR, and subsequently became involved in the field.
Which projects in particular? And what about the descriptions of the projects, or what we might infer about the teams, is problematic?
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA) will draw from knowledge based on previous work using higher energy ion beams as an external excitation source for LENR on metal hydrides electrochemically loaded with deuterium. The team proposes to systematically vary materials and conditions, while monitoring nuclear event rates with a suite of diagnostics. (Award amount: $1,500,000)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) will develop an experimental platform that thoroughly and reproducibly tests claims of nuclear anomalies in gas-loaded metal-hydrogen systems. (Award amount: $2,000,000)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) will use a gas cycling experiment that passes deuterium gas through a chamber filled with palladium nanocrystalline samples. Variables will include temperature, nanocrystalline size, and laser wavelength. (Award amount: $1,108,412)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) will provide capability to measure hypothetical neutron, gamma, and ion emissions from LENR experiments. Modern instrumentation will be coupled with best practices in data acquisition, analysis, and understanding of backgrounds to interpret collected data and evaluate the proposed signal. (Award amount: $902,213)
Although I understand little about theory, generally speaking, the theories that most of them discussed at ICCF24 seem to be high energy plasma physics. Most are using instruments better suited to plasma physics than cold fusion.
Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX) will focus on advanced materials fabrication, characterization, and analysis, along with advanced detection of nuclear products as a resource for teams within the LENR Exploratory Topic. (Award amount: $1,150,000)
Wrong calorimetry range of temperatures. Wrong focus of instrument types.
It's not useful to tar everybody with the same wide brush.
I did not tar everybody. I said "most of these . . ." Not all.
Pardon my naïveté but I tried searching Google Scholar for Duncan’s publications on LENR and couldn’t find anything.
I think it’s great that more mainstream institutions are supporting work in this area. I’d like to read anything he’s published in the field if anyone can point me in the right direction
Jed's repository of LENR-related papers is always a good place to try
Jed's repository of LENR-related papers is always a good place to try
Start here, and enter "Duncan, R." under "All Authors."
I do not have much from him.
Although I understand little about theory, generally speaking, the theories that most of them discussed at ICCF24 seem to be high energy plasma physics. Most are using instruments better suited to plasma physics than cold fusion.
The U of M team, which I assume to be Igor Jovanovic's, has never, to my knowledge, presented at ICCF. I don't see how this comment applies to Schenkel. Who spoke for the MIT project at ICCF24? I don't understand how this comment applies to Duncan.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA) will draw from knowledge based on previous work using higher energy ion beams as an external excitation source for LENR on metal hydrides electrochemically loaded with deuterium. The team proposes to systematically vary materials and conditions, while monitoring nuclear event rates with a suite of diagnostics. (Award amount: $1,500,000)
Could you please be more specific? As I suggested earlier, the focus of this work seems to be on probing electron screening at low energies. This work seems motivated by Czerski et al. and, indeed, Schenkel name-checked him at ICCF24. I don't understand what's wrong with this work, and I don't understand your characterisation of it as (paraphrasing) 'fools who think cold fusion is plasma physics'. If I understand it correctly, this work is really about theory, and better characterising those low energies that have thus far not been studied as much.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) will develop an experimental platform that thoroughly and reproducibly tests claims of nuclear anomalies in gas-loaded metal-hydrogen systems. (Award amount: $2,000,000)
Do we know yet whether this is Hagelstein? The expanded description states that:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) proposes a hypothesis-driven experimental campaign to examine prominent claims of low energy nuclear reactions (LENR) with nuclear and material diagnostics, focusing on unambiguous indicators of nuclear reactions such as emitted neutrons and nuclear ash with unnatural isotopic ratios. The team will develop an experimental platform that thoroughly and reproducibly test claims of nuclear anomalies in gas-loaded metal-hydrogen systems.
If this is Hagelstein, then I don't think we can claim that he doesn't know what he's doing.
Irrespective, a gas system doesn't seem controversial. Granted, the diagnostics explicitly mention neutrons, but also transmutation. This looks like a replication attempt, given the language of 'prominent claims' and 'test claims'. I can understand your reservation re: the diagnostics, but I'm more inclined to reserve judgement.
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) will use a gas cycling experiment that passes deuterium gas through a chamber filled with palladium nanocrystalline samples. Variables will include temperature, nanocrystalline size, and laser wavelength. (Award amount: $1,108,412)
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) will provide capability to measure hypothetical neutron, gamma, and ion emissions from LENR experiments. Modern instrumentation will be coupled with best practices in data acquisition, analysis, and understanding of backgrounds to interpret collected data and evaluate the proposed signal. (Award amount: $902,213)
With regards to the second of these, this appears to be funding to make their lab available to others for very precise nuclear diagnostics. I don't understand the objection to this, other than 'it's hard to find these things, so we shouldn't look.' I would submit that it makes sense to include something like this, as it gives the other teams access to top flight nuclear diagnostics, and relieves them of a substantial burden. If they find something unambiguous, it will be much harder to assail, and likely easier to publish.
The first project appears to be a replication attempt.
The expanded note says:
The University of Michigan proposes to systematically evaluate claims of excess heat generation during deuteration and correlate it to nuclear and chemical reaction products. The team plans to combine scintillation-based neutron and gamma ray detectors, mass spectrometers, a calorimeter capable of performing microwatt-resolution measurements of heat generation, and ab-initio computational approaches. The proposed research will experimentally and theoretically explore the origin and mechanisms of excess heat generation and LENR.
The experiment itself seems uncontroversial. I grant you that they're looking for neutrons, but also much more aside, including heat and helium. I don't believe that there's anything that one could reasonably object to here re: the diagnostics. They're exhaustive.
Texas Tech University (Lubbock, TX) will focus on advanced materials fabrication, characterization, and analysis, along with advanced detection of nuclear products as a resource for teams within the LENR Exploratory Topic. (Award amount: $1,150,000)
Wrong calorimetry range of temperatures. Wrong focus of instrument types.
The first thing I'd note is that we don't really know what Duncan is doing vis a vis his own experiments, and it's not clear whether his inclusion here includes funding for experiments, or simply making his lab available to others for fabrication, characterisation and diagnostics.
You state that their calorimetry has the 'wrong range of temperatures'. Note that RobertBryant pulled his comment from here:
https://www.depts.ttu.edu/phas/cees/Projects/4_PrecisionMeasurement.php
and the reference to 250c is for their vacuum calorimetry only.
They have a much wider focus than this though, with a number of different calorimeter designs, as well as advanced mass spec capabilities.
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021LENR_workshop_Duncan.pdf
I don't understand your comment re: instrument types. Assuming I understand correctly, Duncan's lab is focused on calorimetry and the detection of helium and tritium. This pairs quite nicely with the U of M focus on neutrons, charged particles, etc.
It could be argued that, between the two, ARPA-E has made a complete suite of diagnostics available to the researchers involved. Again, I don't understand the concern. What you interpret as a misguided search for the wrong things, I interpret as them throwing the kitchen sink at the problem - which I think is encouraging, rather than dismaying.
So, we have (with some assumptions made):
An experiment focused on better characterising electron screening at low energies (LBNL)
A gas loading experiment looking for neutrons and transmutation (MIT) - some concern perhaps justifiable
A suite of diagnostics made available to researchers (UofM)
An exhaustively characterised replication attempt (UofM)
A suite of diagnostics and fabrication capabilities made available to researchers (Texas Tech)
I realise we're going in circles, so I won't belabour my opinions any further. Suffice it to say that reasonable minds have differed.
kitchen sink at the problem
They are throwing a kitchen sink but
that's not what they need..
the calorimeter at TexasU has a hole in its kitchen sink... it only goes up to 250C.
ARPA-E researchers should have a look at Takahashi's calorimeter .. or Celani's
or CLEAN Planet's
What about a simple gamma spectrometer with a Beryllium window
in the reactor
to look at LE gamma photons in the region below 1Mev? 20 cpm is enough
Schenkel at Berkeley probably has at least 20 neutron detectors and a superdooper gamma spectrometer..
at Berkeley...plenty of HE collision apparatus
..
the calorimeter has a hole in its kitchen sink... it only goes up to 250C.
The vacuum calorimetry is one type among a number. You (and Jed) make it sound like none of their calorimetry is fit for purpose.
What about a decent gamma spectrometer with a Beryllium window
in the reactor
to look at LE gamma photons in the region below 1Mev?
I don't believe that's a focus at CEES. In the context of this conversation, and the ARPA-E funded work, it would make more sense to scrutinise UofM.
The Applied Nuclear Science Group (ANSG) at the University of Michigan is led by Prof. Igor Jovanovic and has an extensive experience in the detection of most forms of ionizing radiation, including the highly penetrating types: neutrons, gamma rays, and neutrinos. The group operates Michigan’s Neutron Science Laboratory, which provides outstanding infrastructure for detector development, testing, and scientific experimentation with a variety of neutron sources. The laboratory sources include DD (2.45 MeV) and DT (14.1 MeV) generators, spontaneous fission source (Cf-252), and (alpha,n) neutron sources. The group’s experience spans modeling using codes such as Geant4, Fluka, and MCNP, custom detector design and characterization, and complex experiments in low-signal, high-background environments, such as active interrogation and detection of antineutrinos from nuclear reactors. ANSG intends to submit a capability proposal that will offer a sophisticated, well-characterized neutron detection and spectroscopy system with exquisitely characterized backgrounds that will be available for unbiased measurement of the radiation production from various LENR experiments. The capability will be augmented by state-of-the-art modeling to account for experiment-specific shielding conditions. We are interested in partnering with LENR performers interested in the detailed measurement and characterization of neutrons produced in their experiments
Schenkel at Berkeley probably has at least 20 neutron detectors and a superdooper gamma spectrometer..
at Berkeley...plenty of HE collision apparatus
Great. What's your point?
