Does ultrasonic transmutation prove LENR?

Quote from THHuxleynew

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).

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Just a random thought - you never know - probably not relevant but google popped it up:

High performance promoter-free CO2 absorption using potassium carbonate solution in an ultrasonic irradiation system

CO2 capture for power plant and natural gas purification using absorption process suffers two major drawbacks: large absorption body and high regenera…

www.sciencedirect.com

Quote from Daniel_G

Yeah I saw they hand waved that they didn't find anything in the pre-data but if I were the referee I wouldn't allow such hand waving. I would show the blank results. As I said, higher standard. Trust me I am not only a LENR believer, we are in the thick of the development of it ourselves and want nothing more than more credible data to be published. We have to take the researcher's word for the ND data, but I would show my work rather than just hand wave. Just my two lira's worth.

Many Blanks and a couple types of Certified Reference Materials, analyzed often, in order, systematically, should be in every transmutation claim report. I don’t want to know the claimed uncertainties from the laboratory or equipment, I want to see them.

We use about 10% QA/QC samples in our sample stream, and we send out about 15000 to a bit over 20000 samples a year, every year. We know almost everything about our laboratories capabilities; we can spot drift, just plain bad analyses, certain biases, elemental interferences for which alternate method need to be used, etc. Engineers test the data, and even test how we keep it and access it, to verify the integrity of it all. I like solid data. It is cheapest in the long run.

Quote from Alan Smith

So how come it can be found in an ultrasound bath containing Al and water ?BTW, a couple of points, you need an electron microscope to see those balls, not any old microscope. Also, you got the comma in your Hamlet quite in the wrong place, Shakespearean scholars agree that it should come after 'Horatio'.

The production of iron by FUSION is exclusively accomplished only in a dying star, not inside a cavitation cleaner. Only transmutation can produce elements with atomic numbers equal to or greater than Iron in a cavitation cleaner. The same is true for SAFIRE but more so where their micro ball is made out of rare earths.

The takeaway: the micro ball is not produced by fusion inside a cavitation cleaner. More broadly, LENR does not produce transmutation using fusion.

Quote from axil

The production of iron by FUSION is exclusively accomplished only in a dying star, not inside a cavitation cleaner. Only transmutation can produce elements with atomic numbers equal to or greater than Iron in a cavitation cleaner. The same is true for SAFIRE but more so where their micro ball is made out of rare earths.

The takeaway: the micro ball is not produced by fusion inside a cavitation cleaner. More broadly, LENR does not produce transmutation using fusion.

While Axil may well be right - indeed I think he is right in these statements (though not his reasoning) - my principle when people make general and absolute statements about LENR (no theory without major gaps - see my comments on Storms' latest attempt) is to ignore them unless all of the evidence on which they rest is laid out. In that case I will probably view it as so incomplete I would also ignore them, but I guess there must always a be a first time which breaks a rule!

Quote from Alan Smith

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

With respect: NASA are not exactly the centre of the particle physics theoretical universe. I don't doubt their experimental work will be interesting - or that they will have done a literature review and use what they can find - but it is not likely they would single-handedly construct and validate an entirely new theory of physics that allowed for H4 (and presumably other nuclei) to have multiple metastable states where the state alters lifetime by a very large amount.

Obviously if Storms is right such a theory will be constructed, but it is a big deal, worth at least one Nobel, probably many, and just calculating all of the consequences and validating them will be a job for many people. WITHOUT doing that - and finding it identical to current theories nearly all of the time - it rests on much less experimental evidence that standard theories which predict an awful lot about nuclear behaviour and reactions.

Quote from THHuxleynew

With respect: NASA are not exactly the centre of the particle physics theoretical universe.

No, but I think NASA have more firepower than you imagine.

Now here's something to ponder. Ed thinks that phonons cannot exist in bulk metal, being a surface phenomenon. I think he's probably wrong. Here's a test that you might care to try and then explain the result. It is a phenomenon ignored by most physicists, but well known to most engineers - especially those who got their fingers burnt.

Take a piece of steel bar, 30 cms long x 1cm in diameter will do. Heat one end of it with a blowlamp as quickly as you can until it is bright cherry red. The end you are holding will barely become warm. Then plunge the hot end into around 10 cms of cold water. The cold end will almost instantly quickly get hot enough to burn your hand. No physics - and no tables of thermal conductivity - can explain that except for it being heat transport by bulk phonons moving through the lattice.

It is my opinion that this type of phenomenon - perhaps not mediated by phonons but by non-Bosonic EM - also occurs in cold fusion, whereby the energy of individual particle emissions is reduced by by that energy being shared throughout the bulk. Here's a paper which seems to suggest a mechanism, but then I am not a theoretician any more than you are.

ShieldSquare Captcha

Abstract

Coherent hopping of excitation relies on quantum coherence over physically extended states. In this work, we consider simple models to examine the effect of symmetries of delocalized multi-excitation states on the dynamical timescales, including hopping rates, radiative decay and environmental interactions. While the decoherence (pure dephasing) rate of an extended state over N sites is comparable to that of a non-extended state, superradiance leads to a factor of N enhancement in decay and absorption rates. In addition to superradiance, we illustrate how the multi-excitonic states exhibit 'supertransfer' in the far-field regime—hopping from a symmetrized state over N sites to a symmetrized state over M sites at a rate proportional to MN. We argue that such symmetries could play an operational role in physical systems based on the competition between symmetry-enhanced interactions and localized inhomogeneities and environmental interactions that destroy symmetry. As an example, we propose that supertransfer and coherent hopping play a role in recent observations of anomalously long diffusion lengths in nano-engineered assembly of light-harvesting complexes.

Quote from Alan Smith

Take a piece of steel bar, 30 cms long x 1cm in diameter will do. Heat one end of it with a blowlamp as quickly as you can until it is bright cherry red. The end you are holding will barely become warm. Then plunge the hot end into around 10 cms of cold water. The cold end will almost instantly quickly get hot enough to burn your hand. No physics - and no tables of thermal conductivity - can explain that except for it being heat transport by bulk phonons moving through the lattice.

I never knew this, utterly fascinating! TY for that

Very interesting Alan. No by the way my ICCF presentation was nowhere near the level I am describing. But I was referring to a published paper. Not a presentation. Completely different standards. Transmutation papers are tricky. There are lots of validations, and uncertainties to be worked out as well as enough data to dismiss possible contamination and experimental error. Especially in a liquid substrate. I hope they recruit some good experimentalists on their team to work out those details. A real paper needs a null hypothesis, uncertainty bounds, statistical power required to rule out the null hypothesis. That is how we are going to convince mainstream scientists to open their mind about LENR. They should add the correct expertise to their team, replicate and publish again in a higher impact journal. I am talking to a very high impact journal and they are guiding us on the quality of work we are required to do to pass their board. It’s not easy as all and not sure when I can ever do this but we are trying.

Quote from THHuxleynew

With respect: NASA are not exactly the centre of the particle physics theoretical universe. I don't doubt their experimental work will be interesting - or that they will have done a literature review and use what they can find - but it is not likely they would single-handedly construct and validate an entirely new theory of physics that allowed for H4 (and presumably other nuclei) to have multiple metastable states where the state alters lifetime by a very large amount.

Maybe not, but according to Benyo at the ICCF24, they have 25 scientists on the task force. More importantly IMO, they have devoted a lot of fire power to studying LENR, with an almost unlimited access to money, talent, resources, logistical support, and facilities. More so than any other in the field now, or previously, that I know of. Maybe CleanHME and HERMES (the EU funded programs) combined come close, but they are spread across many universities and are much more constrained by budget, etc.

NASA has a simple theory displayed on their website, but their papers and patent applications take you as deep as you want to go. More importantly, they have concrete experimental results to at least partially back up their theory.

Source: https://link.springer.com/chap…1007/978-3-319-21611-9_22

Quote from Alan Smith

No, but I think NASA have more firepower than you imagine.

Now here's something to ponder. Ed thinks that phonons cannot exist in bulk metal, being a surface phenomenon. I think he's probably wrong. Here's a test that you might care to try and then explain the result. It is a phenomenon ignored by most physicists, but well known to most engineers - especially those who got their fingers burnt.

Take a piece of steel bar, 30 cms long x 1cm in diameter will do. Heat one end of it with a blowlamp as quickly as you can until it is bright cherry red. The end you are holding will barely become warm. Then plunge the hot end into around 10 cms of cold water. The cold end will almost instantly quickly get hot enough to burn your hand. No physics - and no tables of thermal conductivity - can explain that except for it being heat transport by bulk phonons moving through the lattice.

It is my opinion that this type of phenomenon - perhaps not mediated by phonons but by non-Bosonic EM - also occurs in cold fusion, whereby the energy of individual particle emissions is reduced by by that energy being shared throughout the bulk. Here's a paper which seems to suggest a mechanism, but then I am not a theoretician any more ..

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This is neat. One question: has anyone tested the core temperature at the cold end when it heats up, to see if the heat is only on the outside or all the way through?

Anyone interesting in ultrasound should read Roger Stringham's work.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

This is neat. One question: has anyone tested the core temperature at the cold end when it heats up, to see if the heat is only on the outside or all the way through?

Ages ago I came across a patent that suggested this was the case. From memory it was to do with making tools - hot-forging one end (say) of a chisel blank -I really can't remember exactly - into a tang to fit into a handle and then flash-cooling it to make the heat 'rush' to the other end ready for tempering to the correct hardness. I think a search might turn up more on this phenomenon.

Quote from Alan Smith

Take a piece of steel bar, 30 cms long x 1cm in diameter will do. Heat one end of it with a blowlamp as quickly as you can until it is bright cherry red. The end you are holding will barely become warm. Then plunge the hot end into around 10 cms of cold water. The cold end will almost instantly quickly get hot enough to burn your hand. No physics - and no tables of thermal conductivity - can explain that except for it being heat transport by bulk phonons moving through the lattice.

This can be done with a Kanthal resistor wire too.

If you suddenly cool one half of the glowing wire with water, the other half will start getting hotter.

Alternatively, if from room temperature conditions one half of the wire is kept cool with water, the other will also similarly heat up more with the same amount of input power into the wire.

I thought it might have to do with heat having one escape path (radiation) removed, therefore being forced to flow elsewhere.

Alan Smith The hot bar discussion reminded me of the Jominy End Quench Test - which is used by metallurgists to determine the hardenability of steels. This is different, of course, as the whole bar starts off hot.

I did wonder whether a rapid chain of grain disruption/recrystalisation might sweep along the bar - with some form of exothermic effect at the 'cool' end.

However can 's story of the resistor wire, starting off from room temperature, might suggest that some type of grain disruption/reformation is not at play.

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?

No. Because LENR is Low Energy Nuclear Reaction, which means that energy in the range of MeV is not required for a nuclear reaction. In reality the coulomb barrier exists. An LENR process could act as an accelerator, combining low energy inputs into a higher energy input (so it really is using energy in the MeV range for fusion, or it could be accelerating the combination of a neutrino, an electron and a proton so that that combination become a neutron. (So, it really is using at least 0.78 MeV). I can show the math line for line that that is what is actually happening for at least two specific situations. So, in the sense I have outlined LENR may be a misnomer.

Ultrasonic transmutation can be explained by generalization from specific cases as indicated above. One gets lots of transmutation reactions with ultrasound, it is too complicated to be useful. Rather, it is better to limit what transmutation is possible to provide clear data and thus working from simpler to more complex situations.

Quote from THHuxleynew

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

Wrong! Transmutation frees energy but that energy can show up as enthalpy or a function of temperature and entropy. Mass balance, stoichiometry and energy balance lead to the conclusion that because the enthalpy is so small, the entropy must be very large.

For example, consider a black hole: the entropy is enormous, and the enthalpy is very low.