Posts by JulianBianchi

Quote from Paradigmnoia

JulianBianchi,

I had to constrain my estimate somehow. The plasma has to be able to fit in a thin tube, probably built by hand. The electrode gap is adjustable by means of a large lever, which should imply a limit to the internal pressures/vacuums feasible.

Z-pinch tubes are cylindrical tubes made of quartz (or similar) that contain a plasma in which a high current is passed through to compress it. In other words, the Quark X is a z-pinch tube almost by definition. In the 1950s most tubes had a diameter of a few cms but then it was shown that a smaller diameter was beneficial to reach higher plasma densities when compressed. Interestingly enough, the Quark X has some dimensions that are compatible with the criteria known to lead to enhanced plasma stability.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

No neutrons, etc. seem to be coming out of the tube.

Do we know if Rossi has ever worked with deuterium?

Quote from Paradigmnoia

My general impression was that simply using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for a plasma, which is considered to be a blackbody in this case, within a thin transparent tube, is quite easily subject to errors that can easily span orders of magnitude compared to a solid that is a blackbody of the same dimensions.

If anyone wants to work out the plasma density/pressure/temperature/frequency required to make a blackbody in the space allotted by the Quark design, please have a go at it.

As soon as a current passes through the plasma, magnetic Lorentz forces contract the plasma which forms a filament in the center of the tube with minimum pinch diameter. From what you wrote I get the impression that you would like to assume that the pressure, temperature and density of the plasma remain isotropic within the tube. This cannot be the case precisely because of the pinch. In other words I don't think that a good set of conditions exist "to make a blackbody" and indeed the Stefan-Boltzmann equation not fit for purpose.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

Gennadiy Tarassenko ,

I really couldn't even guess at a real number at the moment.

I looked at a whole bunch of reports of various plasma densities, (which are generally commensurate with temperature), and then at typical solid material densities.

Then I looked at a whole bunch of optical thickness estimates for various dispersed particles versus solid materials. I also considered that Bremmstrahlung is responsible for the blackbody spectrum of plasmas, while characteristic spectral lines are present, but not likely to carry away a large amount of energy compared to Bremmstrahlung (unless lasing was intentional).

My guess is a mental composite of a lot of random data. I mostly compared the ranges of the order of magnitude differences between solids and plasmas in regards to various characteristics, as best as I could manage, without getting caught up in the precise values.

If someone wants to try and do a more specific estimate, they are welcome to it. It looks really difficult.

I think lightning was one of the highest plasma densities I looked at.

(High density plasmas seemed to tend to push themselves apart by electric charge repulsion, towards a lower density, pretty quick unless they are held under pressure somehow).

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Not sure if this is what you are looking for but in the 1990s I had the chance to do a (small) research project in a Tokamak and from that work I know the basics of plasma densities. In Tokamak designs, plasma densities are typically in the 10¹⁹/m³ range with confinement times in the order of 1 sec to fulfil the Lawson criterion. ITER will not be different in that regard. On the other hand, capillary fusion Z-pinch designs with filaments of <1 mm diameter can have plasma densities up to 10²⁷/m³. Search for "high density Z-pinch". HDZP prototypes were developed in the 1970s in Los Alamos. In a table top capillary fusion experiment, plasma densities in the range of at least 10²³/m³ are easily manageable. You can look at the references I gave in my previous post.

For those interested in the science associated to the QuarkX (yes there may be some real physics beyond the QuarkX!), the QuarkX shares interesting characteristics with so-called Z-pinch fusion experiments and more particularly with those associated to capillary fusion (also called filament fusion by some). An evident one is the size of the « reactor », a filament of a few centimeters and a diameter of less than 1 mm. Back in the 1950-1970s, it was shown that filaments containing deuterium in which intense currents were passed through to create a plasma were generating large bursts of neutrons.

For those interested to read more on this subject (ahead of the Nov 24 popcorns...), I suggest to start with the article published by Peter Graneau and his son Neal in Infinite Energy in 1999. This article highlights the similarities between z-pinch fusion and cold fusion. Also, the references given in the article are really good, in particular the paper describing the first experiment in the field (Anderson et al, Neutron Production in Linear Deuterium Pinches, Phys Rev 1958), then the paper written by Lochte-Holtgreven published in 1976 in Plasma Physics and Fusion Technology (which may be the last paper by Lochte-Holtgreven, a name well known by plasma physicists), and finally the paper published by Sethian in PRL in 1987. Capillary fusion is less controversial than cold fusion, however, for both, nuclear reactions happen at low temperature and a good understanding of the underpinning is still lacking.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Mainstream physics considers vacuum empty

On the contrary, according to QED and the Standard Model, the vacuum is not empty. Here is a nice read on some experimental evidence through the Casimir effect https://physics.aps.org/story/v2/st28

More generally, there are many similarities between quantum field theories and aether theories. This was first pointed out by Dirac himself in his Letter to Nature of 1951, in which he concluded: "Thus with the new theory of electrodynamics we are rather forced to have an aether". https://www.nature.com/nature/…8/n4282/abs/168906a0.html

Quote from interested observer

I have a full-page ad from Life Scientific American magazine from the 1950s featuring 16 medical doctors fusionists extolling the health energy benefits of smoking burning Camel cigarettes hydrogen gas. These doctors knew MUCH more about medical physical matters than you and I do. Nevertheless, they were idiots. It is quite easy to find smart people who believe stupid things. It is especially useful when the stupid things they believe are what you yourself want to believe.

Another FTFY with the original image (Scientific American Oct 1958)

Quote from THHuxleynew

Originally Holmlid with theoretical support from Winterberg suggested that a Madelung transformation of the QM wave function - only possible for deuterium - could result in the high density:

It is not "Holmlid with theoretical support from Winteberg" who suggested that, it is just ravings from Winterberg.

Holmlid is an experimentalist. And a good one.

Quote from THHuxleynew

No. Not only. I specifically addressed the point why the usual fast decay involving electric dipole radiation is forbidden. (Not saying that the differentiation of the dwell time from the lifetime of the metastable state, as you did, is now considered obsolete, but this is another issue).

My understanding is that the n or p ejection decay mechanism is even faster - otherwise it would not normally have a higher branching ratio. So all of the known decay paths are fast as stated in the OP link (with numbers derived from the gamma line width which therefore bounds the state existence time).

Your understanding is wrong. Did you read what I wrote?

Back to the basics of nuclear decay:

- a excited state is described by its energy above the ground level, its angular momentum and its parity.

- for the excited state He4* reached in D-D hot fusion or through D beams, the electromagnetic mechanism for the main decays is electric dipole radiation.

- electric multipole radiations of the same order L carry the same angular momentum L but differ in parity P.

- electric dipole radiation requires a parity change.

Nothing new here, just basic quantum nuclear physics of the 1940-1970's. If you are not familiar with quantum nuclear physics, a good book is Theoretical Nuclear Physics by Blatt and Weisskopf, 1979.

What is new:

- UDD has zero orbital angular momentum L=0 by its very nature.

- the two D of an UDD pair, which carry even intrinsic parity, fuse in the orbital state of zero relative angular momentum. Therefore the excited state He4* also has even parity.

- with no parity change, electric dipole radiation is forbidden.

- therefore the usual hot fusion branches are forbidden.

The idea "for L=0 there is no n and p in D-D fusion" was first pointed out by Schwinger. I recommend to read the articles published by Schwinger in 1989-1991. Here is one. At that time, Schwinger proposed L=0 as a solution to the lack of n and p in D-D fusion, arguing this would be the case for two D of low energy. However, to assume L=0 was highly criticised because a high energy is required in any case to pass the Coulomb barrier. This problem is solved with UDD because it has L=0 by its very nature. One among other reasons why I like the idea that LENR is based on UDD. Because if UDD is truly formed in LENR experiments, then all Huizenga's miracles are solved in full agreement with the Standard Model.

Quote from THHuxleynew

So, I agree UDD is an interesting idea that changes various things. I liked it when Holmlid first proposed evidence for this - with some limited theoretical support - and much less when it then morphed into UDH as well (where the theoretical support did not seem to work).

Not sure I understand what you mean given that UDH and UDD is virtually the same beast (except for the additional neutrons of course).

Quote from THHuxleynew

The key issue is what time is available for dispersal of the fusion energy. You are considering the time over which the fusion reaction can happen.

No. Not only. I specifically addressed the point why the usual fast decay involving electric dipole radiation is forbidden. (Not saying that the differentiation of the dwell time from the lifetime of the metastable state, as you did, is now considered obsolete, but this is another issue).

Quote from THHuxleynew

the dispersal happens only after the D nuclei (through tunnelling) have got close enough to fuse.

Again, not sure I understand what you mean by "got close enough". Because neither tunnelling brings the D nuclei "close enough to fuse" nor the distance between the two D atoms of UDD is changing over time.

Quote from THHuxleynew

That excited state is unstable and so gets rid of its energy quickly,

What is "quick" for you when the fast decay via the strong interaction is forbidden? Please specify.

Quote from THHuxleynew

and the lifetime of that excited He4 state is low

How much? Again you make a vague statement here, please specify.

Quote from THHuxleynew

True, it will depend on the total excitation energy, which will be the large amount released by fusion + or - a contribution from the original kinetic + potential energy of the fusing particles.

UDD is characterised by zero kinetic energy and zero orbital angular momentum therefore you make a moot point.

Quote from THHuxleynew

However, the energy released (10s of MeV) is far larger than the Coulomb barrier energy (100s of kEv), so it would be unlikely for that to have a large affect on the stability of the excited He4 nucleus.

Again you make a vague statement without specifying the decay you are talking about. In practice the energy release of the various decays discussed in the thread differ by more than 2 orders of magnitude. Also, to link the amount of energy release and the Coulomb barrier energy to the stability of He4* doesn't make sense to me.

THHuxleynew

Thank you for this thread and the interesting link. I agree that many theories are ruled out on this simple "short time and space scales" principle. This basic principle is precisely the reason why I have a strong interest in Ultra Dense Hydrogen. In practice, all data on the excited state He4* published in the review by Tilley, Weller & Hale, 1992, come from experiments with D atoms impinging other D atoms at a given kinetic energy. AFAIK the lowest kinetic energy ever used was as low as 2 keV in an experiment performed at the Mines in collaboration with the LANL (see Wilkinson & Cecil, 1985; Cecil & Hale 1991). Of course, at such low kinetic energy levels, the yields of the usual D(d,p)T and D(d,n)3He reactions decrease drastically. However, the rates are still high enough to show that the branching ratio remains constant independently of the COM energy (see Cecil & Hale 1991, 2nd Conference on Cold Fusion). These results were viewed by many physicists as conclusive evidence that "Cold Fusion was crap".

In D beams experiments, the time two D nuclei are in close vicinity is short. The kinetic energy of the impinging D is mainly used to pass the Coulomb barrier with a short "dwell time" for quantum tunneling. Things are radically different with UDD where the time scale is very long (> 1sec) and the space scale is short (~10-12m). Meaning that the time and space scale conditions are fulfilled for the weak interaction to play a role. Of course these long time and short space scales don't say why the usual fast decay of the He4* doesn't appear to occur. However, UDD is a state of zero orbital angular momentum, therefore of positive orbital parity. As nicely pointed out by Schwinger as early as in 1989, if He4* is in a s-state of even orbital parity, this state cannot involve electric dipole radiation or an odd-parity particle to reach a ground state with even parity. The usually dominant electric dipole radiation, which requires a parity change, is therefore forbidden. Of course, at that time, Schwinger didn't know about the (possible) existence of UDD and that UDD has zero orbital angular momentum by its very nature. Interestingly, he still posited the existence of a 4th branch with all energy transferred to phonon excitations in the Pd-D lattice, but I think that even himself viewed his explanation as far-fetched.

Actually, if the usual branches are forbidden, the main branch may be the decay of He4* to mesons via the weak interaction, knowing that the conservation of the baryon number is an approximate law only. Interestingly, the possible existence of this 4th branch is based on the same time and scale principles as used in the link you provided. Some may argue that to have mesons rather than protons and neutrons as products of the fusion is just shifting the problem. However it happens that the mesons resulting from the decay of He4* would have a kinetic energy close to the minimum of the Bethe-Bloch curve (and still assuming a charge particle such as K-), therefore they would be difficult to detect almost by definition.

In short, the existence of UDD may (does?) solve the paradox you mention. In that regard, it is often claimed that the work of Holmlid has never been replicated. On the contrary, one should not forget that the first experimental evidence of UDD came from Lipson et al, 2005, a Cold Fusion experiment by the way, with then Holmlid providing further experimental evidence of its reality.

For those without access to the journal, the preprint is already available on sci-hub. It includes multiple EDX spectra of excellent quality that leave no doubt about the occurence of transmutations with large effect size. Many photos and videos of the experiments are also available here.

Quote from ATIREAN sas

This is why 60% of Li atoms remains available to suck "air" from dead volume ( by LIOH or Li oxide way) to reach zero pressure when the reactor starts.

@ATIREAN sas

Interesting comment. Do you suggest that a very low pressure would somewhat help? If the case, what would be the rationale? Thank you

can Here is a selection of papers I have on the helical representation of the electron. It starts with the seminal papers by Dirac and Schrödinger in the 1920's, then a few in the 1950's that suggest that the spin, mass and magnetic moment of the electron are associated to the Zitterbewegung, followed by the influential work of Barut and Hestenes in the 1980-90's. Since then many have revisited the question however I have only cited a few I found interesting. Again, this is a subjective selection without pretension to be exhaustive.

With regard to the link with UDH, IMHO the important aspect is the possibility to have a bound state at the Compton scale caused by magnetic moment interactions associated to the electron's spin, something beautifully addressed by Barut (again!) in the 1970-80's. That said, a complete picture including both UDH and Zitterbewegung remains lacking, the issue is that a Born-Oppenheimer approximation is not possible given that the proton-proton distance in UDH is in the same range as the amplitude of the Zitterbewegung. I'm personally working on a numerical solution based on the integration of the Dirac Hamiltonian following Barut's formalism, however this is time consuming and I don't have much time for that these days.

P.A.M. Dirac, The Quantum Theory of the Electron, Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 117 (778), 610-624 (1928) Dirac’s equation and (among others) the magnetic moment of the electron.

E. Schrödinger, Über die kräftefreie Bewegung in der relativistischen Quantenmechanik, Sitz. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Phys. Math. Kl. 24, 418-428 (1930) The Zitterbewegung introduced.

K. Huang, On the Zitterbewegung of the Dirac Electron, Am. J. Phys. 20, 479 (1952) Zitterbewegung is at the origin of spin.

M. Bunge, A picture of the electron, Nuovo Cimento 1, 977 (1955) Article suggesting that the mass spreads over a certain volume.

A.O. Barut & A.J. Bracken, "Zitterbewegung and the internal geometry of the electron," Phys. Rev. D 23, 2454 (1981) Barut on the Zitterbewegung, a must read.

A.O. Barut & N. Zanghi, Classical Model of the Dirac Electron, Phys. Rev. Lett. 52, 2009 (1984) The famous paper that gives a semi-classical and visual helical interpretation of the electron and its spin.

D. Hestenes, The Zitterbewegung Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Found. of Phys., 20, 1213-1232 (1990) A reference paper in the field, Zitterbewegung as a real effect.

M. Pavsic et al, Spin and Electron Structure, Phys. Lett. B, 318, Pages 481-488 (1993) Pavsic, who previously worked with Barut, extends the idea of a helical motion as the classical limit of the « spin motion ». Extended arxiv paper published in 1998.

W.A. Rodrigues et al, About zitterbewegung and electron structure, Phys. Lett. B, 318, 623-628(1993) Another interesting article on the Zitterbewegung helical motion and the electron spin.

J.G. Williamson, Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology?, Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie, 22 (2),133 (1997) Electron as a toroidal helix.

Q.H. Hu, The nature of the electron, Physics Essays, 17-4 (2004) The electron as a Hubius helix.

D. Hestenes, Zitterbewegung in Quantum Mechanics, Foundations of Physics, 40:1 (2010) A long paper by Hestenes that discusses whether the helical Zitterbewegung is a real physical phenomenon or just a metaphor.

O. Consa, Helical Model of the Electron, GSJ (2014) A simple article on the helical model of the electron.

A. Niehaus, Zitterbewegung and the Electron, Journal of Modern Physics, 8-4 (2017) A geometrical representation of the electron with some graphics.

can From all evidence I have, UDH cannot have the form of a single electron and a single proton. The simplest "building block" that has been characterised experimentally consists of 2 protons and 2 electrons. Theoretically this can be explained by magnetic dipole-dipole interactions at some energy levels and proton-proton distances that depend on the spin quantum number s=1,2,3 of the electron.

Also, the famous zitterbewegung is hard to represent graphically. Some have tried, for example using a so-called Hubius helix, with interesting properties stemming from the topological structure of the closed two-turn helix. I can share a few references if you are interested in this topic.

A well written review. A must read for all skeptics.

can

I agree that the sole transition into UDH with the release of hundreds of eV is the way to go. However the comprehension of the energetics of UDH remains incomplete. For example, in Badiei et al (2010): Production of ultradense deuterium: A compact future fusion fuel, a continuous interconversion between RM and UDH is claimed, something that would be hardly possible for a difference of hundreds of eV between the two states.

Quote from Can

I have a question for you: among all papers you've read, have you found information that would support the idea that just the transition of hydrogen to the ultra-dense form could release usable energy, without involving nuclear reactions (whether conventional or not)? Given that the UDH clusters formed are supposed to be relatively stable, this could make UDH similar to the Hydrino concept in certain aspects. Holmlid et al. however never really explore this property in detail; it's usually only implied or just briefly mentioned (for example in this paper).

AFAIK there is no conclusive evidence on the amount of energy that can be released in the transition from RM to UDH. In several articles by Holmlid it is suggested that the value can be around 600 eV, up to the keV range.

FYI, earlier this year, I asked Prof Holmlid what was the binding energy of UDH: he said in the keV range.

This is indeed a key question. The fact that UDH may have energy levels about 3 orders of magnitude higher than RM leads to important questions on the stability of RM and the dynamics of the transition to release so much energy.

For those interested in the link between LENR and Ultra Dense Hydrogen (UDH), I made a selection of scientific articles that deal with this subject. This selection does not aim to be exhaustive, nor objective. Current version (August 2017) contains 77 articles that I selected among hundreds that I read on the subject. It starts with the work of Barut in the 1970's who predicted a bound state at the Compton scale with magnetic forces playing a key role, continues with the theoretical and experimental discovery of Rydberg Matter in the 1980's by both Manykin and Holmlid, then presents the conjecture first made at the beginning of the 1990's right after Fleischman & Pons that LENR is based on UDH, followed by the experimental evidence of the existence of UDH in the middle of the 2000's, independently by Lipson & Miley and by Holmlid, to end with the seminal work of Holmlid in the 2010's on the characterisation of UDH and notably the fact that UDH may decay in mesons in breaking the conservation of the baryon number.

The so-called Deep Dirac Levels, Compton composites, binuclear atoms, etc... may just be other names of the same physical entity. Therefore I also included the main papers on these subjects. Note that I didn't include any study by Mills for two reasons: first, I find the experimental evidence of the existence of hydrinos to be very weak; second, even if we assume that hydrinos exist, they still largely differ from UDH. Similarly, I didn't include anything on charge clusters and Ken Shoulders' work despite that UDH and charge clusters may actually be the same beast, because I find the charge cluster concept way way less convincing than UDH.

I would appreciate if this thread could stay on the topic UDH and LENR. I plan to keep the spreadsheet up-to-date with any new evidence on the subject, both experimental and theoretical. In particular feel free to chime in if you believe that I missed an important paper on this subject.

PS: XLSX spreadsheet zipped to comply with the forum allowed extensions.

Reference_UDH_LENR.xlsx.zip

When does season 2 start?

By the way they missed the nominations for the 2017 Emmy Awards. Too bad.

Quote from maryyugo

Celani is absurd. He has never implemented the most obvious suggestion made by me years ago and by others on Vortex: USE MORE F'N WIRES with the same heater wire. Get more output from the same input. You don't need magicalmanipulations. if the wires work, which I am pretty sure they don't and never had. See also the MFMP forums about this issue.

Gosh, you missed it again!

This is exactly what he did, from 1 wire to 4 wires, and on top of other improvements he succeeded to increase the "COP" from 1.2 to ~2. Go to slide 27 of the presentation linked above.

Quote from THHuxleynew

MFMP demonstrates that me356 has what he claims.

Yes, that would convince me. I'll bet anyone here able to spare the cash and happy to establish suitable terms $1000 it will not happen. I'd be happy to lose.

If this bet still stands I'm in!

The terms could be a reasonable COP, say >3 with power out >500W, obtained during a reasonable time, say >1 hour, that is proven beyond a reasonable doubt with a test carried out say before the end of this Summer. Happy to discuss any more specific technical elements you may want to add to define the meaning of "beyond a reasonable doubt" based on the MFMP's setup.

If all the conditions above are fulfilled I propose that you pay $1000 to the MFMP in the 10 days that will follow the completion of the test. If any of the conditions above is not met, I pay $1000 to the MFMP during the same period, alternatively at the end of September if me356 will not honor his commitment. So that the MFMP will be a winner in any case.

A serious offer. Anyone else ready to pledge some cash - not necessarily $1000 - because confident that the test will be a failure or a success, following the above terms, is welcome to participate.

Edit: I let the Mods see if this message should stay here or be moved to the dedicated AURA thread.

The LENR community has so many scars that bashing based on preconceptions already started before the completion of the test. In some sense, this is understandable, we all waited for so long and had to endure so many desillusions, not saying scams.

This is the one. Let this test be carried out as it should be. And be a game changer in LENR history. Thank you so much me356 and MFMP for your time and dedication.