Posts by Hermes

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

Speculation about science, LENR, at this point, is likely to be a waste of time, because the experimental evidence is too shallow

What a pessimistic answer! The major purpose of speculating is to ask scientific questions not to answer them! The answers come from well designed experiments.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

I have put serious effort, so far, into only one investigation, the confirmation of the heat/helium ratio with the FP Heat Effect

I thought this was settled 15+ years ago by experiments is multiple laboratories (China Lake, SRI, ENEA etc.). Where is your lab? What does your investigation show? What do you conclude so far? Will you be publishing a paper?

I note you are looking at the conditions that allow the reaction. One way which I have verified is to reverse the electrolytic cell polarity for a few seconds. After this treatment the temperature of the cell climbs (overtaking the control cell temperature).

Quote from JedRothwell

Where was that natural prudence in the military in 1916?

Jed, this is a strawman argument. It's easy to cherry pick an irrelevant example out the history books but this one did not even involve democratic discussion. I'm sorry but your interjection is totally off the point! You may not appreciate the point of view of the "physics establishment". But to compare such a diverse community with glory seeking generals of WWI seems "over the top". F & P alienated the physics establishment back in 89 because they claimed evidence for fusion and specifically gammas from neutron capture by protons. Nobody believes this today. The "physics establishment" was right. Indeed few today believe in d+d fusion. Again the "physics establishment" was right. I could go on...

I suggest unless this community starts paying attention to physics, it will continue to alienate mainstream physicists. We will never persuade them that in rejecting ALL LENR claims they have thrown out the baby with the bath water unless we start understanding their objections. I think these objections are wrong, but they are not unreasonable. If their objections were the result of misguided reason, then perhaps more cogent reasoning will persuade them of their error. But insulting them by comparing them with WW1 military is likely to be counter-productive.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

First of all, Miles deserves a Nobel Prize.

Indeed. And he was awarded the Truffle prize in 1999! http://www.iscmns.org/prizes.htm

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

My training is to be extraordinary. And anyone is welcome to join me,

Hmmm. With the greatest respect Abd perhaps you would explain why you are reluctant to join others yet you expect others to join you? What exactly are your qualifications? You claim to be a coach and a writer? What scientific papers have you published? Do you have any scientific experience experience? Why do you not attend more LENR meetings?

There are many intelligent people in this field.... to survive 27 years of frustration and sometimes ridicule, only the arrogant, the stubborn, have the patience to remain. But as individuals we will NEVER make progress. We need to set aside personal ego, hopes for Nobel prizes, and our desires to be leaders in order to work with the community as a multi-disciplinary team. We have been told many, many times that prolific blog writing, failure to get to the point, confusion of conjecture with fact will alienate our natural supporters.

You (and many of us!) seem to be pretty much obsessed by the IH/Rossi saga. But sooner or later the truth will come out in Court. I suggest we would do better to discuss science and resist speculation about what may or may not have happened in some 1 MW test. You and I have an opinion. But whatever that opinion is, it will not change the facts and we do not know all the facts. The truth will come out without our speculating.

In contrast some speculation about science is likely to be much more productive. Nature is not going to reveal her secrets if we wait passively. As you are facilitating access to research funds I wonder what investigations you are recommending? Who is advising you? In your opinion, what scientific questions need answering, and what sort of experiments will answer them?

Quote from AlainCo

This is the model of LENR-Cities!

Lenr-Cities seems to be remarkably quiet. Their web-site is not updated. Do they still exist? Some of their core team tell me they have received no communications at all over the last year. Do you have any updated information?

Quote from IH Fanboy

LENR space threatens interests

If interests are indeed threatened, and we're thinking of big science / industry interests, aren't these "victims" the very same entities whic have the most to gain from early adoption of a new disruptive technology?

I find the conspiracy theories, conflict of interest theories etc., rather unconvincing. If there has been opposition to LENR I think the reasons are quite understandable and reflect the natural prudence of the scientific and industrial community. But this is counterbalanced by the enthusiasm, perseverence and personal experience of proponents. We need all perspectives. This is not a religious battle between good and evil, but a democratic expression of different points of view. Having said that I am not enthusiastic about some voluminous posters who seem to be more concerned about pushing the limits to imagination and innuendo rather than scientific facts. A forum should not be a sounding board for self promotion, but a place to teach and learn.

Quote from Eric Walker

You have convinced yourself of this. Now you should give scientific reasons, so that others can learn.

I repeat, the scientific reasons to suppose that we cannot enhance natural alpha decays to produce appeciable heat are 2 fold. First of all we cannot add enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier. Second we cannot reduce the height and width of the barrier by adding negative charge to the nucleus. The explanation comes from doing the calculation.

Your approach Eric, is to assume an explanation, and then suggest qualitative ways it might be true. So for example, you cite experimentally observed changes in decay rates, attributed to changes in electron density, as hints that LENR might have a similar mechanism. I dispute this because calculations show that the required enhancements cannot be achieved by any conceivable chemistry.

Quote from Eric Walker

There are a lot of assumptions that go into your statement about needing to enhance the alpha decay rate by 20 orders of magnitude to explain LENR. I bet I can bargain that down to a more reasonable number.

Very well. Why don't you postulate a model which explains heat and helium production (not something trivial like radium decay) from materials that are or might be present? Please calculate how the alpha decay rate can be enhanced by the required amount to produce measurable heat.

Meanwhile I shall continue to develop a different model (a paper is in progress).

Quote from Eric Walker

Can you provide details for the calculation behind this estimate?

I already explained for your specific case of 104Pd.

Quote from Eric Walker

Remember that the increase in activity needed will depend upon the specific alpha emitters that are assumed and the power density one is aiming for

I doubt if these criteria have any relevance. But if you would like to enquire about any potential alpha emission I shall be happy to demonstrate the calculation with or without electron screening. I am quite certain this is a blind alley! I am convinced we are not looking for exceptional coincidences or rare conditions but a universal model explaining a wealth of evidence. Alpha emission is of little importance even if helium production may have some importance.

My disdain for helium is that it tells us almost nothing about the underlying mechanism simply because it is a very probable prooduct. What we need to look for is unlikely products in undeniable quantities!

Quote from AlainCo

branching ration of hot DD fusion seldom produce He4 and rather massively produce t+n. My question is why ?

There are 2 reasons. Firstly the there is no Coulomb barrier inhibiting the fragmentation of 4He*. Secondly secondly the emission of a gamma requires a slow electro-magnetic transition rather than a strong force mediated fragmentation. The 2 fragmentation branches, t+p and 3He+n are equally probable despite the diference in energies. They are about 7 orders of magnitude faster than the gamma channel because the strong force is 7 orders of magnitude stronger than the electromagnetic force.

Quote from Eric Walker

The Gamow theory works best for even-even nuclei. It is considered a great success even though it is sometimes off by two orders of magnitude.

In order to explain LENR, we shall need to enhance fusion by 40 orders of magnitude, or alpha decay by 20 orders of magnitude. Any minor anomalies in Gamow theory don't even come close to providing an explanation.

The reason why "Gamow theory works best for even-even nuclei" is that spin can be perfectly conserved in such cases. Other cases, (such as 235U) have longer half lives because the daughter nucleus is left in an excited state and consequently less energy is available to help tunnel through the Coulomb barrier. The exception proves the rule. If you apply the wrong energy you will get the wrong answer.

I think Gamow theory could be improved for say, fission, but even in its current state it makes very impressive predictions.

Quote from Eric Walker

Has the full parameter space been explored sufficiently to work out the bugs in those theories? Can much trust be put in those extrapolations?

Do you know of any exceptions to say Gamow theory? Even if you do, would they be adequate reason not to trust it?

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

What do you mean by fragmentation? Is it what we call spallation? If yes, it will cost a lot of energy and you would have reactions with negative Q-value. Not very useful since they consume energy. Why is fragmentation more promising?

I consider fragmentation as a nuclear reaction which creates at least 2 heavy products. The alternative is only 1 product which is inhibited by about 7 orders of magnitude or more by the electromagnetic transition needed to create a gamma. It is necessary to simultaneously conserve energy and linear momentum. As we do NOT see gammas we are obliged to consider 2 heavy products. Obviously endothermic reactions will be rare. We do not need to consider them in a first approach.

Quote from Eric Walker

The effects observed so far are small. But isn't that how it always starts?

But these studies are not starting now. We have a good theoretical understanding of nuclear reactions and extrapolating expected enhanced decay rates to extremes of electron density are not likely to provide measurable heat.

Quote from Eric Walker

I also don't find erzions very promising.

Eric pl;easejustify such an opinion scientifically. Otherwise nobody learns anything. I gave you 3 of my objections to poly-neutrons. Objection number 2, namely the expectation of beta radio-active products, also applies to Erzion theory. To this can be added the problem of the negativly charged Erzion which would catalyze d-d fusion (as if it were a long lived muon) producing unobserved hot fusion products. Because the negative Erzions bind inertly to positive nuclei, for most purposes they are removed from the system until and unless they decay. Continuous removal of catalyst seems like a recipe for a very short lived anomaly!!

It seems to me that both poly-neutron and Erzion theories could be substantially repaired. In this case the major objection might be prediction of radio-active products. But this is also a strength not a weakness. A verified prediction of the charactaristics of a series of gammas would prove the model beyond doubt (in stark contrast to inconclusive and tedious calorimetry).

Quote from Dewey Weaver

this confirms Rossi's complete lack of integrity. He has not informed IH of any type of sample test

I understand your frustration Dewey. Even if Rossi had no knowledge of any sample and of any analysis, surely by now he would have said so? I think his silence indicates consent.

Quote from Eric Walker

You've disrupted my clever series of leading questions.

Totally unintentionally! Why don't you answer your own questions then, and we'll continue from there?

Quote from Eric Walker

You're not thinking laterally enough. It's good to be able to explain some of the results. But we shouldn't stop there. The challenge is to find a unifying theme within the disparate experiments.

Eric, if someone made sufficient lateral thinking, which did indeed create a unified explanation for most observations, do you think it would be appropriate to publish it for the first time here?

Quote from Eric Walker

I don't find the neutral particle theories, e.g., Fisher's, very compelling. Apart from the general implausible sound of polyneutrons, which isn't a valid objection, I'm still trying to put my finger on why, exactly.

May I try to put some fingers on it? :-
1) Any polyneutron finding itself in a heavily deuterated environment (such as D2O) would start growing indefinitely producing heat and fast protons. This would have been observed by now. It would not easily correlate with 4He production.

2) Many of the expected interactions of these neutral particles will produce penetrating gammas from beta decay, which again we don't see.

3) Experimental and theoretical studies show that poly-neutrons are not bound, so they do not exist.

So I don't believe in poly-neutron theories Having said that, any theory which can survive 24 years of criticism obviously must have some redeeming features. So the question is, can we apply some major lateral thinking to improve it? I am quite certain we can. Encouraging work is in progress.

Quote from Eric Walker

Do we already know of something that produces helium, and helium correlated with heat?

Of course! CNO cycle, alpha decay, etc. Helium is such a common product that it's production alone tells us little about its origin.

Quote from Eric Walker

Do we already know of a nuclear process that generally favors stable daughters over unstable ones, all else being equal?

Frequently fragmentation reactions < 2 MeV neither produce prompt gammas nor radio-active daughters.

Quote from Eric Walker

Do we already know of cases where the chemical environment has an influence on nuclear processes?

7Be decay. Perhaps 187Re decay. These are both special cases. In fusion or fission the concentration of fuel, poison, and moderator is crucial. We should suspect that the chemical environment is NOT important and that any NAS is not chemical because excess heat can produce localized melting.

Quote from Eric Walker

Do we already know of processes that produce x-rays at energies far above any applied voltages?

Most radio-active decays.

I'd like to ask similar questions:-
What classes of nuclear reactions are most probable, i.e. fast?
Hint: What classes of nuclear reactions have no (Coulomb) energy barriers?

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

avoiding unstable nuclides (does the parent nucleus have intelligence and knows that the product is radioactive?),

This is a major stumbling block for most models. But surely the resolution is that whatever the correct explanation turns out to be, no penetrating radiations are expected under the experimental conditions.
It may well be that novel conditions, yet to be verified will produce penetrating radiation. And we could attempt to identify those conditions by examining, in detail, what theories predict. Alas most theorists cherry pick their predictions to coincide with generally accepted observations (like heat and helium). Conversely they are reluctant to spell out clearly what radiation is expected and when. It is not surprising that very little attention is given to theory! Unfalsifiable theory is not convincing!

I find that the obsession with "excess heat" and the neglect of far more sensitive nuclear measurements to be quite pathological. It is a poor argument indeed to claim (27 years later) that the anomalies must be nuclear because we cannot think of any other explanation. This is the fallacy of arguing from personal incredulity. To be fair there are some indications of nuclear anomalies. But in that case, they should be investigated in detail, energies, intensities, etc. measured.

It is equally pathological to claim that some kind of exotic chemistry is involved when the same mini atoms / molecules would be expected to fuse just like muon catalysed fusion. Where are the expected gammas?

@Eric Walker and I seem to favour fragmentation as a method to explain helium production and to suppress penetrating radiation. But there is a problem - the so called Hagelstein limit - we do not see expected neutrons in deuterated systems from secondary / tertiary reactions. I may be clutching at straws but I would like to see this limit experimentally verified. After all, Peter Hagelstein has been proposing several incompatible models over the last decades. Maybe the limit is not relevant?

Quote from Wyttenbach

200eV are need to induce LENR reactions

Really? Well I never knew that. I thought 200 eV could induce hot fusion reactions!

Quote from cam

can't find Reifenschweiler's article. I know my own limits and I'll appreciate the help coming from anyone.

There are 3 papers by Reifenschweiler in the ISCMNS library (indexed by surname so easy to find) at http://www.iscmns.org/library.htm

Quote from Wyttenbach

You only read one paper, which I flaged with no helium measure...

Sorry my mistake! Stringham carries out his research at home so I was surprised to know that he managed to measure any helium at all. In fact he collaborated with LANL.

It was good to see they was looking for 3He at the same time as 4He. But they assumed, that all 3He was derived from tritium decay - is that right? I wonder what would have been measured with a 50% D:H ratio?

Wyttenbach. These calculations (200 eV) have nothing to say about spontaneous events which take place in lattice chemistry. These energies are far beyond chemistry. I repeat, if they actually could exist then even very inert helium could fall into the well (and be ionized). Such helium binding has never been observed. In fact there are no chemical reactions of neutral substances which yield > 10 eV.