Posts by Storms

Quote from gio06

The idea of Stevenson is supported by an old but still very interesting Ahern patent

US5411654A

"As an alternative to mechanical and metallurgical techniques for producing nanometric surface features, lithographic wet-etch techniques may be used. For example, referring to FIG. 4A, in a first lithographic process, a bare substrate 30 of a selected host lattice material, for example, nickel, is provided with a selected crystallographic orientation, for example, the 110 or 100 orientation. The 110 crystal faces are favored in the case of a nickel host lattice substrate because the 110 planes support the highest solubility of hydrogen isotopes of any crystallographic planes.

As shown in FIGS. 4B, 4C and 4D, photoresist 32 is spun on the substrate and exposed using a patterned

lithographic mask 34 having a selected pattern of sub-micron sized geometries. Preferably, the maximum pattern dimension, d, or "duty cycle" of repeated pattern is about 0.2 μm in length. Such nanoscale features require the use of thin, state of the art photoresists. The unexposed resist is then removed using standard techniques to produce a photoresist etch mask. As shown in FIGS. 4E and 4F, the underlying substrate is then anisotropically etched using an appropriate etch to produce grooves in the substrate surface having a depth, h, of less than about 1 μm. Grooves of a greater height are less preferable because they would allow the prismatic faces of grooves exceeding about 1 μm to reconstruct to a more harmonic, high atomic coordination state. After removing the resist etch mask using standard photoresist processing techniques, the substrate 30 is provided with a topology of steps 36 which all ideally exhibit sharp corners and straight walls."

This is an interesting patent because it shows how not to write a patent. Instead of looking at the process from an atom's point of view while keeping the conditions as general as possible, an imagined model is applied to limit the conditions and behavior. Many methods are available to create gaps in a material. The successful patent will focus on the result, not on the method. The NAE has to have several unique features. These features need to be part of the patent. These unique features are presently unknown. I have identified only one of them as being the size. Obviously, several other conditions are required. The challenge is learning the nature of these conditions.

I predict that gaps made by nano machining will be the method used when LENR is finally applied. Therefore, the patent describing this method will be valuable. This means that too much public speculation about how to implement the method would not be in anyone's financial interest. Someone with imagination, courage, and money will try this method. They will fail initially but eventually will discover the effective conditions. They will become rich and the world will finally have the ideal source of energy. Meanwhile, too much public discussion would dilute the patent and the incentive to go down this path. This is part of the reality these days.

A crack is a form of gap that is generally large enough to see. The critical gap size is very small and formed at a very special location. I explain how the gaps can be formed in the paper that started this discussion. They form by accident when different conditions are applied. Stress relief is one cause while sintering would be another. Electrodeposited Pd produces the gaps between the isolated crystals when an electrolyte containing PdCl2 is used. The gaps are produced on the cathode when ion bombardment is used. People need to focus on the unique conditions that are found to produce LENR and then identify where the gaps are located. The search has to be like a treasure hunt. We know what the treasure looks like but we do not know where it is hidden.

Thanks for the encouragement, Alan. I realize invisible people may be reading what I write. However, I only have the feedback as an indication of what they hear me say. I realize that the same thing has to be said many times and in different ways for most people to understand an idea. I always hope that someone who has the knowledge will engage in an effective discussion. I do not expect my understanding to be the best but it is clearly better than most. A discussion is valuable to me because it forces me to consider Ideas that I have ignored. Normally, this kind of discussion would happen in an organization. Unfortunately, I'm not part of an organization. So, I have to get my reality testing done anyway I can.

I post it here to highlight that one of the aspects they state will be explored is “In our project we will combine an electro-chemical cell with ion beams for deuterium loading and defect engineering of palladium.”be which is the topic that interests us in this thread. Its interesting they are attempting to engineer the cracks on the Pd lattice as one of the aspects of their research.

This description makes no sense. This word salad. I have no idea what "defect engineering" means. Also, cracks are NOT THE SITE of LENR. The sites are gaps having a critical dimensioin. The details are important yet getting the details understood seems to be impossible.

My paper describes various ways the required gap size can be created. Each of these methods has been found to work but none have been studied in sufficient detail to achieve control. If someone wants to make the effort, I can provide advice.

Ed

The behavior shows that the gaps are stable and continue to support the fusion reaction. If they were destroyed after a fusion event, the observed power would gradually decrease as the number of active sites decreased. This does not happen. This means that the energy released by the fusion event is dissipated well away from the reaction site. Otherwise, the local site would melt and be destroyed. The video provided by Spack et al. is consistent with this conclusion. (Szpak, S., et al. (2003). Polarized D+/Pd-D2O system: hot spots and "mini-explosions". Tenth International Conference on Cold Fusion, Cambridge, MA, World Scientific Publishing Co.)

The required gap size can form in many materials. These gaps normally would be invisible and would be totally ignored. They are made visible when an isotope of hydrogen is made available and the amount of nuclear power is great enough to be detected. In some cases, transmutation will accumulate enough nuclear product for it to be detected when a proper search is made. In other words, this process might have always occured at a rate too low for it to be detected. The process was overlooked because an effort was not made to detect the nuclear products until F-P made such a search important.

If a person wants to explain anything about reality, certain facts must be accepted as true. For example, to explain any chemical behavior, the laws of thermodynamics must be accepted, understood, and then applied. Cold fusion starts as a chemical process. Therefore, the laws of thermodynamics must be understood and applied. A discussion about LENR is pointless unless the people involved have this understanding.

Several other facts must also be accepted.

1. The chemical energy states and the nuclear energy states are incompatible and do not interact in a normal chemical structure. Assuming that phonons may be involved does not change this fact. Therefore, a special condition must be created in the material before nuclear interaction would be possible.

2. Fusion between two nuclei cannot occur until the distance between them is reduced to a critical value. This reduction requires either applied energy or the intervention of electrons. A special condition would be required to provide the required electrons.

Therefore, the basic question is, "What is the nature of the required special condition and how can it be created"? Unless this question can be answered, the discussion is useless. Can we focus on this question?

Ed

THH, I ask again, what is your goal? What exactly do you want people to believe? You seem to be asking people to ignore all of the reported behaviors because they are too confusing to have meaning. The behaviors are not reliable because the work was done poorly and without proper controls. Therefore, the claimed behaviors cannot be used to develop a theory. In other words, my efforts are useless and a waste of time. This being the case, you would rather argue with Jed about the flaws in how the science is done than focus on how the observations might be explained. Do I correctly summarize your intent? If so, you are in the wrong discussion group.

Exact replication has no meaning. This would require an exact replication of the Wright Brothers airplane before heavier than air flight would be considered possible. The production of excess energy has been replicated hundreds of times using many different methods and materials, as would be the required behavior of a real phenomenon. Nature never requires a single unique treatment to produce a behavior. The fact that the excess energy and helium can be produced using different materials and treatments adds to the credibility. The production of He and tritium have been replicated less often but by 5 independent studies.

The problem is no longer replication. I can make the effect work any time I want. The problem is control. Because the active sites are made by an uncontrolled random process, the amount of power is not predictable. Rather than waste time trying to reinvent the wheel, please accept the reality and help to understand how and why it works.

No one has asked me "What to do next?". I can suggest what needs to be done next, but that is a subject for a different discussion.

Until an experiment is reproducible more-or-less at will, producing more-or-less the same results (including magnitude and timing) more-or-less every time then we cannot know that it is real and fully under our control."

Being real and being under total control are two entirely different requirements. They should not even be discussed in the same sentence. Cold fusion is real. However, it will not be under total control until it is understood. Unless a person is helping to obtain this understanding, their comments are useless.

Quote from JedRothwell

I think this is VERY important, and often overlooked.

It seems to me that cold fusion generates tritium in some stages, neutrons in some stages, and then heat. Takahashi found the neutrons are anticorrelated with heat. That suggests the neutrons are generated in some precursor stage before a lot of heat appears. It is analogous to smoke being generated before open flames appear. Incomplete combustion is combustion, of course. It is the same thing. But it looks different. It produces different chemical products. Cold fusion tritium, neutrons and heat are all products of the same reaction, but at different stages or in different conditions. Neutrons may be an effect caused by some other effect. I guess that would be called a side-effect, or secondary effect.

Jed, the stages I'm discussing involve the chemical conditions that allow fusion to occur. Once initiated, the fusion reaction has a single path. The occasional neutron, I suggest, results from T+D fusion or fractofusion. The occasional gamma-ray results from the decay of a transmutation product. The cold fusion process gives H4 that decays into He4 gas. The energy and momentum are carried mostly by the emitted electrons. The radiation Swartz measures results from the electrons interacting with the surrounding crystal structure. We do not need additional speculation to explain all the observations.

Quote from Ascoli65

Ok, Alan. Thanks for the dedicated thread. Feel free to move my comments there, if you wish. I don't want to disturb or to be OT, here.

Anyway, Dr.Storm mentions the controversial F&P experiment at the beginning of paragraph 9 (Effect of Temperature) of his draft paper, which is under discussion here. How can I interact with him in order to know his opinion on that experiment?

Anyone who has a question can contact me at [email protected].

Quote from Shane D.

The interest is there, as this forum being healthy and growing proves. But I do tend to agree when you say: "the problem is too difficult to solve, and my questions are too difficult to answer".

But that is not a reflection on you, the forum members who participated in this discussion, or most of your old guard colleagues who have tried as hard as you to solve the LENR mystery. It is simply a tough nut to crack. Like dark matter/energy, it is not one of nature's low hanging fruits. You are not the first to try to solve this, nor (probably) the last.

My hat is off to you. Instead of slipping off into a comfortable retirement, you have decided to fight. Hopefully you keep the fight up here on the forum.

Shane, thanks for the encouraging words. The subject has three strikes against it. First, a myth was created by the establishment claiming the discovery was not real. That myth still lives. The other two flaws would be too insulting to describe.

The problem would not be difficult to solve if it were discussed with that goal in mind. Instead, the discussion does not have that goal. The people who are actually trying to solve the problem are not interested in such discussions because they already think they know how it works. Ego and habit will not allow them to consider other possibilities. That is why I expect to see no progress until after the present leadership dies, which has been noted before as a requirement for progress after other new discoveries were made. In fact, the behavior is so predictable, the process has become boring.

From my point of view, I only gain benefit by being encouraged to state my beliefs clearly and because I'm occasionally forced to consider a good question. Otherwise, this would be a waste of time. Instead, my time would be best spent publishing my ideas so that future researchers might learn other ways to look at the problem.

As I have attempted to explain, the LENR reactions has several separate stages. Most explanations ignore one or more of these stages. But, I can not even get this simple and basic idea accepted and discussed. In other words, a useful discussion has not even started here nor have any beliefs been changed, as best I can tell. So, what is the value of such an effort?

This data looks exactly as expected. The greater the gamma energy, i.e. the more unstable the nucleus, the shorter the half-life, i.e. the faster the energy is released.

But I see the interest in LENR has been exhausted. I can only assume the problem is too difficult to solve and my questions are too difficult to answer. So, I will go back to my job of trying to explain my model in a paper. Perhaps someday someone will discover that I was on the right track after all.

Alain, you seem to be describing a chemical system. Fusion can not happen in a normal chemical system because the nuclei are held too far apart by the electron cloud. The nuclei and electrons need to acquire an entirely different relationship for fusion to occur. This different relationship can not form within the chemical structure that is normally present because its formation would violate the rules that caused the normal structure to form. In other words, the new kind of structure can not form in a vacancy. Because this fact is ignored, people keep going down the wrong path. A change in belief seems almost impossible to achieve. The required structure can form in a gap because this condition is outside of the normal chemical structure. Therefore, the rules do not apply. In addition, the gap contains electrons having entirely different energy relationships compared to the electrons in a crystal structure. These novel relationships make LENR possible.

Quote from JedRothwell

Needless to say, that violates the scientific method. You can never reject replicated, high signal to noise experiments based on theory. It only works the other way around. When theory and replicated experiments conflict, the experiments always win, theory always loses.

THH will say the experiments were not replicated, or they were flawed. But he cannot give a reason why they were flawed. He has never even tried to come up with a reason, except imaginary nonsense such as "Miles threw away data from cells that leaked."

Any experiment might be wrong, but to assume that widely replicated ones are wrong would invalidate all scientific knowledge. Tycho Brahe's measurements of the orbit of Mars might be wrong. Newton's prism experiments might be wrong. So the laws of gravity and light might be invalid. Might be . . . but until you find a reason and then prove by experiment these things are wrong, you have no case. Just waving your hands and saying "prisms don't work" or "calorimeters don't work" does not prove anything.

THH and other "skeptics" who put theory ahead of experiments are not doing science. They are doing a debased form of faith-based religion.

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Jed, I think that all objective scientists who examine the information about LENR would accept the phenomenon as real. THH and other similar people have a problem because the very basis of their scientific reality is being challenged. Yes, their response is very similar to how people respond when their religious

beliefs are challenged. We know that such beliefs can not be changed by discussion. So, we need to look elsewhere for the cure.

Yes, THH, what you say is true. People who believe that QM and QED are true must reject LENR as impossible. On the other hand, if LENR were real, QM must contain serious flaws. The question is, "How do we solve this dilemma"? It would seem like QM is believed with the greater intent, so the emphasis is placed on believing that LENR is not real and that more effort would reveal this to be true. Finding the flaw in QM does not seem to be important to most people.

Can we develop a description that is consistent with the behavior without having to use QM or QED? I have done this. Can you accept my description so that the discussion can move on?

Quote from THHuxleynew

Right. But you are making assumptions when you say it is not possible. There is a mountain to climb, but there are many possible things to help that climb.

I am not saying it is likely - but if LENR exists it has a mechanism - and the possible mechanisms need to be considered, not dismissed out of hand.

THH, the possible mechanisms are not being dismissed. Only the impossible mechanisms are dismissed, just as you like to do. Perhaps we need to eliminate all of the impossible mechanisms so that only the possible remains as the truth. This will eliminate all of the presently accepted mechanisms. So, we will need to start over. Can we do this?

Quote from Gerard McEk

Dr. Storms, sorry for my ignorance and I may have missed this in this thread. Also I did not read your books yet. But you are saying that in LENR a chemical energy state does interact/influence the reaction. I wasn’t aware of this, can you give an example?

I will give you more than an example. I will tell you how the fusion process works.

The fusion reaction must first start as a chemical process. This chemical process causes the D and electrons to assemble, a process to which the rules of chemistry apply. This chemical process does not start with a fusion reaction being possible as the final event. The fusion reaction needs to be thought of as an accidental consequence of a chemical process, to which all of the rules of a normal chemical reaction apply. This understanding is critical to creating a successful explanation.

As I said before, the chemical energy states do not interact DIRECTLY with the nuclear energy states. This means that a condition not present in a normal chemical structure has to be created. As I said above, the creation of this condition has to involve the rules of chemistry. In order to cause fusion, this condition must allow at least two D to get close enough for their nuclear energy states to interact. The electrons that would cause this reduction in separation would also have to interact with the nuclear energy states. So, at the time fusion takes place, some electrons are in direct communication with the nuclear energy states of two or more D. As a result, when fusion happens, all of these electrons can carry some of the resulting mass-energy as kinetic energy and momentum. Briefly stated, the chemical-nuclear energy structure explodes.

Based on the results observed by Gordon and others, a large number of electrons are interacting with the nuclear energy states when fusion occurs. I person might imagine this structure to briefly consist of 4 or more neutrons surrounded by a cloud of electrons. The energy needed to form the neutrons is supplied by the mass-loss when this process occurs. This structure rearranges to form He4 because this has a lower mass-energy. However, H4 is briefly formed because an electron is captured during the process. In other words, Nature has the ability to form a chemical-nuclear structure that has been overlooked by conventional physics.

As with all natural structures, their formation can be described in many different ways. I have chosen only one of the possible descriptions for the sake of discussion.

I would be interested in knowing why such a process can not work.