Posts by Eric Walker

Quote from magicsound

some are on loan from a nearby lab.

By "some," I take it you mean some components and not some lead bricks? Either way, I'd be interested in knowing if anyone at the nearby lab knows if an open strontium or other beta source is ever used (assuming there is such a thing as an open source — I think there is), or if strontium or something similar is ever brought close to the instruments that are on loan.

Part of the difficulty here is that the signal was so weak that it was probably well below the threshold of detection instruments, meaning it would not necessarily show up in a run to check the bricks or the instruments. And if the dust moved into and out of view of the detector (e.g., through air currents), then it would only be picked up during some integration periods.

Quote from gameover

I wrote that the initially ejected neutral particles are according to Holmlid small fragments of "ultra-dense hydrogen". These fragments decay into kaons, etc.

The column on the far right of the table "Properties of kaons" on the Wikipedia page has the common decay modes for a positive kaon. I suppose you can just fill in the antiparticles to get the decay modes for negative kaons. As you can see, neutral or positive pions feature in most of the branches, even when reversed for negative kaons. That suggests that if there are kaons there would be lots of 511 keV electron-positron annihilation photons.

Quote from BobHiggins

As Gameover wrote, muons may be created first as neutral pions which decay to muons. This could hypothetically allow the particles to escape the reactor as neutral pions and subsequently become muons outside the reactor.

Wikipedia suggests that the main branches for a neutral pion decay are not to muons, but instead to electrons and positrons, and possibly two of each, as well as gammas. So at a minimum you'd get the two 511 keV electron-positron gammas, somewhere in the room.

Quote from magicsound

Some unknown person (whose initials could be E.W.) sneaked into the lab wearing an invisibility cloak (without opening the door of course). Then he compromised the experiment by touching the lead in front of the spectrometer with a refractory wand containing 90Sr, and left, again without opening the door.

Why did he do this? Just for the fun of it, or out of malice maybe. Or perhaps under a compulsion spell from He Who Must Not Be Named...

I did not see this until now. At least you're taking my prodding in stride and have a sense of humor about it.

But more seriously: did you guys purchase any of those components second-hand? And have you run a sensitive GM counter over them?

Sorry — I should have said six p-orbital electrons per shell, not three. I'll take a look at the video when I have time, later on.

Quote from Jarek

Another argument that 3 electrons would not fit in one orbital is that electrons are tiny magnets.

But I think this is precisely what you see in the fine splitting for p-orbital electrons: three electrons, all clustered around an energy value. The implication seems to be that you have 3 electrons filling a subshell. How does Gryzinski account for this, or is your reply going beyond Gryzinski at this point?

Quote from AlainCo

Second let us consider that despite strong efforts by LENR scientists, and thousands of experiments, the normal LENR experiments seldom produce noticeable radiation, noticeable by instruments, let us not even talk of dangerous for live being.

One often hears that there's little radiation in LENR experiments. But this is merely a comparison to normal nuclear reactions. There are researchers such as Lipson and Karabut who have been tireless in reporting charged particle radiation and x-rays over the years.

Quote from Jarek

I personally see QM and so spherical harmonics as mix of two reasons:

My understanding of one reason why the spherical harmonics are used is to explain the filling of atomic (and nuclear) shells. Because electrons are fermions, you can't have more than two occupying the same s-orbital for a shell, for example, and you can't have more than three electrons occupying the p-orbital for a shell. The s-shell electrons all have one energy and the p-shell electrons have another (ignoring fine structure). And these patterns are borne out by the energy transitions seen in atomic spectra, and the number of electrons becomes apparent when spectral lines are split. You see several lines clustered around this energy, and a different number clustered around that energy. So the spherical harmonics do a great job of describing how many electrons can fill each energy level.

Quote from Longview

However, you and others here might benefit from reviewing Bremsstrahlung in primary print references. My objection here may be summarized: Bremsstrahlung must always be tied back to its definition..... "braking radiation"....that has little, if anything to do with averaging of characteristic emissions. Characteristic radiations are definitively quantized, Bremsstrahlung is inherently continuum, in appearance, at least. Both may be co-incident to Thomson-Compton scattering, but one (characteristic) is electron dependent, the other (continuum) is only electrostatic field-dependent.

What you say about bremsstrahlung having a continuum profile is true. But it's not readily apparent how to tie this point back to the previous discussion, which has assumed this all along. Perhaps you're objecting to the use of the word "spectrum". I'm using it only in the sense that you have a multi-channel analyzer that is analyzing the components of a signal into different bins according to energy, creating a spectrum. When you look at the counts, they form a smooth curve across all of the bins, because the radiation is continuum radiation.

Can you clarify the detail you're objecting to? I think you might have tripped up on a word you think I'm using incorrectly.

Characteristic radiation was discussed early on, when the point was brought up that the GS5.2 Spectrum-07 curve is smooth and doesn't show any sharp peaks, which one might expect. Bob then addressed this detail.

Quote from Jarek

So there are no doubts that also higher shell electrons spend some time extremely close to the nucleus

I don't think there was ever a doubt about this. QM says that any s-shell electron, no matter how far out, spends some time in the nucleus. I guess the question for me is, does Gryzinski's picture lend itself to the actual ratios of K, L, M, etc., captures that are observed, with most being K-capture? There's some definite evidence that has led to this conclusion, although I do not recall what it was. There's an interesting possibility that Gryzinski's account not only is at variance with the Copenhagen interpretation, with his literal orbitals, but the existing calcluations as well.

Does Gryzinski do away with the spherical harmonics?

How about this scenario? A component of the detector was bought second-hand and had previously been present during a calibration by its previous owner with a strontium check source (or another beta emitter with a similar activity), at which point a small amount of contamination from the check source (which was not the kind that is encased in plastic) was left somewhere on/in the component. The airflow in the room or the heat of the experiment or some other perturbation moved the particle into view of either the crystal or the PMT, during which time its activity was picked up, despite its being below the level of the background. And then the air or something someone did caused the particle to move out of view again several integration periods later.

Possible? I don't know. Let's give it a 1 percent chance. It seems to me that that's still 10 times better than the 0.1 percent chance that LENR in a nickel/hydrogen system setup gave rise to bremsstrahlung by interacting with the nickel which then escaped the reactor and was picked up by the detector. And I'm actually sympathetic to the NiH account. I just think we need stronger evidence.

Yes, nice find. One could easily see from the spectrum you show that the MFMP signal could be interpreted either as a simple beta signal or, with more difficulty, as bremsstrahlung.

Quote from gameover

Since 90Sr sources are commonly available to the public for test purposes (if I am correct the manufacturer of the spectrometer used by MFMP also sells them) this similarity should be a reason of concern. A pseudoskeptic could argue that one of such sources was inadvertently left around or played with during the test.

One need not be a pseudoskeptic to wonder about that. It was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the resemblance with the 90Sr bremsstrahlung spectrum. The truth is what we're after, not protecting an MFMP conclusion.

But note: if an experimental finding is liable to multiple interpretations, that means the experiment needs to be tightened up before much can be concluded from it, even if what is going on under the hood is the process of one's preference. One might be able to argue in this instance that strontium lying around, either as a standard or as contamination, is improbable; that's not something I have enough knowledge to weigh in on.

Quote from gameover

Here are other links showing the 90Sr signal from various spectrometers:

Quite a bit of variability in shapes for spectra for a single decay chain. There's a hump at 1.4 MeV that is in many of them, however. (Also, subtle detail for anyone who almost missed it, like I did: these look like beta spectra, in contrast to spectra for bremsstrahlung generated by betas being stopped in a target.)

About the question of whether the GS5.2 spectrum (GS5.2 Spectrum-07) looks like bremsstrahlung, here is one version of it [1]:

Here is another version [2]:

Conclusions:

• The GS5.2 spectrum has little structure.
• There’s the initial peak and a noisy tail.
• It goes out to 1.4 MeV and beyond.

Here’s low-energy bremsstrahlung (3 angstrom = 0.3 nm = 4.1 keV) from a monochromatic source [3]:

Conclusions/notes:

• The GS5.2 spectrum does not have the shape of a bremsstrahlung spectrum from a low-energy monochromatic source.
• The y-axis is not on a log scale (or is it?), so be careful.

Here’s the bremsstrahlung from sending 90Sr betas into lead [5]:

Here’s the level scheme for 90Sr [7]:

Conclusions:

• This is a bremsstrahlung spectrum that arises from several beta decays superimposed on one another, in the right energy range. Do the relative activities allow this conclusion?
• The 90Sr spectrum has a noisy tail (but only out towards the end).
• The GS5.2 spectrum spectrum does not have the shape of the 90Sr spectrum. (Note that the y-axis for both is on the log scale, so the graphs are comparable.)

Here's another spectrum for 90Sr [7]:

Conclusions:

• Looks a lot like the GS5.2 spectrum, including the noisy tail.
• This one only vaguely resembles the earlier 90Sr spectrum, so be careful about drawing conclusions from a single spectrum, and be careful about the units!

[1] https://goo.gl/VJCCuy
[2] https://goo.gl/ls1XQ8
[4] http://slideplayer.com/slide/4046937/
[5] https://goo.gl/61H4nJ
[6] http://www.sciencedirect.com/s…cle/pii/S0969804315000317
[7] https://goo.gl/qfk46w

Yes, that's the direction I was taking things. It's great that you were able to model all of that. Was there anything in that model where you were hinting at the fact that the scenario would be highly unlikely? What about the assumption of the 6" distance? Why not closer? Is there a similar scenario, perhaps involving the flaking off of a tiny bit of the 137Cs source so that it comes to rest somewhere inside the lead cave, out of the direct line of view of the crystal?

I'm sure you are aware of the fact that there are two beta spectra and not just one: there's the less frequent case where the 137Cs decays straight to the ground state (Q=1.2 MeV), with a small fraction of the betas all the way up to that energy.

My intuition tells me that it doesn't matter for the purposes of detection, apart from practical considerations, that the number of photons are below the noise threshold of the detector if they provide a systematic enough pattern to show up in an analysis of the kind you did. Sort of like SETI. Am I incorrect about this?

Quote from BobHiggins

Either. Gamma does NOT reflect! Gamma can only excite the characteristic lines of the lead/bismuth which will re-radiate isotropically. The lead/bismuth lines are already there due to cosmic ray excitation anyway, and you would have a hard time seeing the small re-radiation effect in the presence of the cosmic ray induced characteristic lines.

I'm thinking of processes such as betas leaving the source and interacting with the far wall, not in direct view of the scintillator, and giving off bremsstrahlung and characteristic radiation. The 662 keV gammas coming from the source and somehow getting into the scintillator would pose a problem for this line of investigation and would likely disqualify it, rather than lend credence to it. Or perhaps I've missed your point.

But the main points are that it's the integrated spectrum that is important, and that rather than reason through these things, if you can just test them, seems like a good thing to do. Alan makes it sound like it's not so straightforward to investigate, so I step back at this point, having made the best case I can for the possibility, acknowledging that it might be a bit of a long shot or even absurd.

Even with the wall at the top of the diagram obstructing the view of the source, the bottom wall is in view of the source, and there will perhaps be some reflection.

Quote from BobHiggins

Once X moves so that all of the crystal is in the shadow, you get nothing. When all of the crystal sees X, you get full sensitivity.

When you say "get nothing," are you talking about a real-time signal, or an integrated signal over a longer period of time?

Bob, I now see the omnidirectional disk. The sources I recall in a textbook I read were shielded metal tubes, with a cap that can be removed.

Alan, I like your idea of creating an opening in the lead cave so that only reflected radiations will make it through. But if this is something that is going to require a lot of effort in the way of post-processing of the data, and it cannot be tackled in an exploratory fashion, then perhaps best not to worry about it. I do not know, even to a first-order approximation, what one might expect. I just noticed that there are the Pb/Bi lines, that lead has a high bremsstrahlung cross section, that the curve doesn't go far beyond 1.2 MeV and is heavily weighted towards the low energy side, and that the 137Cs was a radiation source that was around. So there are some tantalizing coincidences there. But the human mind sees patterns in everything.

From the outside is interesting, but not the specific test I was thinking of. I was thinking of something like this (the "=" is lead, and the "o" is the scintillator):

============
============
==
== ooo
==
============
============

From the inside of the cave, aim the source towards the wall, way up close to it, so that the opening of the source is not in view of the scintillator, but anything coming from the lead wall will be in view. If possible, integrate long enough to get any kind of clear signal. If the shape is way off, or if Compton scattering produces an obvious peak that was not seen in the original run, then this test is a failure. I expect the test to fail, for the reasons Bob H. mentions. But since it's so easy to do, seems like it should be done.

Earlier, in response to something I said, you wrote:

Quote from magicsound

Eric Walker wrote:
that particular run was suggestive at best, and possibly artifact. Do you disagree with this assessment? Note that the announcement that was made at the time sounded very different than this summary.

BobG is sometimes overly enthusiastic, as befits his role of "chief facilitator". After the post-investigations I described, I now think the data is more than suggestive. No plausible mechanism for a measurement error or artifact has been found, though it's still possible. That is why I encourage ongoing informed questions, and will add suggested tests as time and facilities allow.

"More than suggestive" is different than "suggestive". You also talk about "no plausible mechanism for measurement error" being found. The obvious implication is that we should conclude that the run was evidence for LENR. Bob confirmed this impression on my part by not backing down on the the run being only suggestive. I think I've made my point at this point and don't want to quibble over small nuances.

Quote

A two-point calibration was done prior to the experiment using a 137Cs check source.

Is the source still around? Can you aim it at the lead cave, away from the spectrometer, and see what the spectrometer picks up? This should be easy to do.