Does ultrasonic transmutation prove LENR?

Quote from Rob

Okay... But the topic is just whether or not ultrasonic transmutation proves the existence of LENR. I guess the answer is a definitive "yes"? So if I gave a TED Talk, and I showed people the ULTR experiment and the results, and I said, "See? All sorts of new elements, this proves LENR is a real effect", I would be right, and then CMNS would be welcomed into the CMP world with broad acceptance? I'm idealizing my example here but hopefully you understand what I'm asking. Politics of science aside, am I understanding the physics concepts correctly?

New elements => nuclear reactions. That is the physics.

Proving you have new elements is complex because:

(1) results can be misinterpreted - often interpretations are ambiguous but of course those making a specific interpretation may not say that.

(2) you need before and after measurements, and comparison

(3) you need to consider differences between before and after due to heterogeneity in the sample

The most vivid (sic) example of this heterogeneity effect is where measurements from old CF bulbs showed a strongly skewed isotopic composition in the mercury. The hypothesis was that this was cause by nuclear reactions induced by the running of the bulbs.

In fact the skewed distribution was caused by an effect where the mercury was isotopically separated by the sputtering process, and the samples taken from old bulbs were juts part of the original mercury - with a skewed isotopic ratio.

However it was a mystery for quite a long time with some claiming LENR.

Quote from THHuxleynew

New elements => nuclear reactions. That is the physics.

Proving you have new elements is complex because:

(1) results can be misinterpreted - often interpretations are ambiguous but of course those making a specific interpretation may not say that.

(2) you need before and after measurements, and comparison

(3) you need to consider differences between before and after due to heterogeneity in the sample

The most vivid (sic) example of this heterogeneity effect is where measurements from old CF bulbs showed a strongly skewed isotopic composition in the mercury. The hypothesis was that this was cause by nuclear reactions induced by the running of the bulbs.

In fact the skewed distribution was caused by an effect where the mercury was isotopically separated by the sputtering process, and the samples taken from old bulbs were juts part of the original mercury - with a skewed isotopic ratio.

However it was a mystery for quite a long time with some claiming LENR.

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/…0AGUFM.V31B2325M/abstract

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That is completely different from obtaining solid elements, in high concentrations, that were completely absent from a homogeneous sample of mercury with known impurities, none of which corresponds to the new elements identified after the treatment.

Another example:

Suppose you do electrolysis for a long time, topping up with water which has a known tritium content of 2bq/litre.

At the end you check the mixed hydrogen and oxygen gas coming out from the experiment at the end, and it shows 20Bq/litre.

Is that proof of nuclear reactions?

Not necessarily: maybe H2O is more likely to be split by electrolysis than T2O, in which case you get natural concentration of T2O or THO as times goes on.

Or, a similar effect, where the lighter gas is preferentially emitted from liquid and what is left dissolved in the liquid is much higher in tritium than at the start.

Quote from Curbina

That is completely different from obtaining solid elements, in high concentrations, that were completely absent from a homogeneous sample of mercury with known impurities, none of which corresponds to the new elements identified after the treatment.

Yes, that is true. You also need to look at elements leaching from containers etc. You also need to be sure that these new elements were completely absent from the original sample.

And since this is beginning to resemble alchemy (with very visible solid residue) you might want to be careful about the competence and integrity of the person making the claims.

After all, large quantity nuclear transmutation of pretty well any sort will lead to very large enthalpy change. So getting your large lump of lead transmuted to gold in a low energy environment is problematic because it requires enormous amounts of energy, the otehr way also problematic because a large amount of energy is released.

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

maybe

Your "maybes" in the case of tritium are things that are obvious possibilities and that have been checked for and ruled out.

Quote from THHuxleynew

And since this is beginning to resemble alchemy (with very visible solid residue) you might want to be careful about the competence and integrity of the person making the claims.

I'm sure Cardone et al will be amused by you calling them incompetent.

Quote from Curbina

I'm sure Cardone et al will be amused by you calling them incompetent.

And that is not what I am doing. I said that both competence and trickery would in that situation need to be checked.

All I know about Cardone is that (if what you said above about his papers is correct) he does not know how to write an informative and useful research paper. That is a type of incompetence I guess. It does make me less motivated to read them in detail.

Quote from Curbina

Your "maybes" in the case of tritium are things that are obvious possibilities and that have been checked for and ruled out.

Indeed - for the ICCF24 case at hand that we discussed - but not obvious to everyone as you well know. My point is that all these things - and some other stuff - needs to be checked.

Quote from Frogfall

Did you read the CF mercury transmutation papers?

Tiny Nuclear Reactions Inside Compact Fluorescent Bulbs?

Harmless low-energy nuclear reactions may be taking place routinely inside of compact fluorescent lightbulbs, according to a physicist whose theories have NASA…

www.forbes.com

And did you think they were likely LENR?

Actually - the elephant analogy works very well if you set elephant = LENR?

Patience is a virtue, so I would not go for it in that form either.

Quote from THHuxleynew

And did you think they were likely LENR?

No- never did like that idea. It has also been postulated as a reason for runaways in Lithium batteries. I think Widom and Larsen were behind those ideas. (I might be worng, it's awhile ago) They make up theories based on little evidence you see.

Quote from THHuxleynew

It does make me less motivated to read them in detail.

I have been studying all transmutation related papers, and the ones related to ultrasound / Cavitation, for some years now.

I even started a project, with a Chemical Analysis specialist researcher, for investigating about this effect in aqueous solutions of dissolved salts, precisely to avoid most of the methodological problems that can affect concentrations in solid samples.

Unfortunately, I faced personal circumstances that made me withdraw from the project early, and it meant it ended without much experimental results, but at least I personally was able to see unexpected changes in dissolved solids concentrations that are unexplainable by any of the potential sources of error.

Quote from Curbina

I have been studying all transmutation related papers, and the ones related to ultrasound / Cavitation, for some years now.

I even started a project, with a Chemical Analysis specialist researcher, for investigating about this effect in aqueous solutions of dissolved salts, precisely to avoid most of the methodological problems that can affect concentrations in solid samples.

Unfortunately, I faced personal circumstances that made me withdraw from the project early, and it meant it ended without much experimental results, but at least I personally was able to see unexpected changes in dissolved solids concentrations that are unexplainable by any of the potential sources of error.

I accept what you say, but I wonder how you can be so sure: electrolysis can result in strange chemicals. I think if you were to document (better than Cardone) the exact data on changes and publish you might find that many eyes on this would be able to come up with an explanation.

If you start with a solution that contains 546 mg/L of dissolved K, then apply 30 seconds of 20 Khz ultrasound, and measure again the concentration of dissolved K and is now 387 mg/L (all samples analyzed by triplicate with calibrated against a standard), without any precipitate nor gasification detectable, and you can give me a conventional explanation I am all ears.

Quote from Rob

The back and forth between Curbina and THHuxleynew has been very helpful for getting some understanding of the methodological considerations for this research path.

I’m glad you find this useful. Even the simplest of experiments can produce results that turn out to be hard to interpret. However, when something really unexpected happens and you dismiss it because “it’s impossible” instead of doubling down the efforts to elucidate it, as has happened with LENR in general and the ultrasonic induced transmutations, I think you are letting your beliefs in “stablished Theory” to decide for you instead of following the observations wherever they may take you.

Quote from Curbina

If you start with a solution that contains 546 mg/L of dissolved K, then apply 30 seconds of 20 Khz ultrasound, and measure again the concentration of dissolved K and is now 387 mg/L (all samples analyzed by triplicate with calibrated against a standard), without any precipitate nor gasification detectable, and you can give me a conventional explanation I am all ears.

So: I'd need a lot more detail about:

(1) The analytic methods used to measure K concentration, what are the errors, are there any confounders

(2) The methodology (to ensure complete homogeneity)

(3) How it is known there is no micro or nano precipitate

I'd want to know all the other ions in the liquid - because you need a cation I think? K2CO3?

If so, given K2CO3 is deliquescent, I'd want to be sure there was not some liquid that was very high in K2CO3 concentration balancing the lower concentration (if all other things check out and indeed the K ion concentration is lower).

Quote from Curbina

I’m glad you find this useful. Even the simplest of experiments can produce results that turn out to be hard to interpret. However, when something really unexpected happens and you dismiss it because “it’s impossible” instead of doubling down the efforts to elucidate it, as has happened with LENR in general and the ultrasonic induced transmutations, I think you are letting your beliefs in “stablished Theory” to decide for you instead of following the observations wherever they may take you.

Well, that is your view.

I don't think I dismiss anything, I just give explanations without any theory a lower prior probability than those with.

To follow up on another thread. Storms ideas as a "theory" of LENR.

It is a decent attempt. I agree with a lot of it.

There are two gaps that prevent these ideas from being a workable theory:

One a little one where for the ideas to become a viable hypothesis some work needs to be done (how the 23MeV released from the hypothesised nuclear reaction can be released as particles that cannot penetrate reaction container walls and thus are never detected).

The other a big one: 4H nuclei are proposed to have two distinct states -

(1) "normal" with v fast decay - the nucleus has way too many neutrons for stability so ejects one immediately

(2) "LENR" with much slower and different decay.

This is assumed, but if true it would need a new theory rewriting nuclear physics.

Now I'm not against a new theory. The difficult bar for this is how, given these new types of nuclei existing, we have never every seen them anywhere else. (We have never directly seen them in LENR - but they are required for this theory). There is enormous amounts of experimental data on all kinds of nuclei.

So: to be a theory Storms needs to fill that gap - posit some new something that differentiates the 4H nucleus in the two cases making a big difference to its decay. Then the theory needs to explain why it is never ever seen in any other experiments. It is a VERY big ask and the one step that makes the Storms idea unattractive to me as it stands.

Any theory not compatible with "standard" theory has nevertheless to deliver identical predictions over an enormous number of nuclear reaction rates and prohibited transitions. So it is tough - and no-one will take theory an alternate theory without checking it against all that evidence.

Thus plucking something out that makes sense of the LENR data under a very particular set of other ideas is only worthwhile what you have makes equal sense of the much larger volume of detailed experimental data about nuclear physics.

Quote from THHuxleynew

So: to be a theory Storms needs to fill that gap - posit some new something that differentiates the 4H nucleus in the two cases making a big difference to its decay. Then the theory needs to explain why it is never ever seen in any other experiments. It is a VERY big ask and the one step that makes the Storms idea unattractive to me as it stands.

I think NASA will decide how pretty it is when they replicate his experiments.