Posts by Frogfall

I noticed that on magicsound 's slides (also mentioned on his PDF), the lowest energy photons that could have been detected would have been around 150 eV (and there were none detected from the Frank Gordon wire mesh sample).

It seems that the lowest ionisation energy for both hydrogen and oxygen are around 14 eV, in the far UV band (around 88.5 nm)

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…_for_lower-energy_photons

So, what would be the easiest way to detect photons at that end of the UV band? (Fluorescence?)

Quote from Rob Christian

The author of the paper refutes this version of the story with survey evidence, shows that many geologists were unaware of the newest literature, and that continental drift prevailed simply because the demographics changed.

Interestingly, this seems to go against the conclusions of this 1988 study: Age Differences in the Reception of New Scientific Theories: The Case of Plate Tectonics Theory

Quote

Explanations as to why age and receptivity might co-vary have focused on motivational factors that reinforce attachments to existing knowledge, overlooking the possibility that the resources which scientists accrue during their careers may well buffer the increased intellectual risk taken in advocating speculative theories. Older scientists may therefore be better positioned than their younger colleagues to speak out earlier in support of new but controversial theories. Age may thus have contradictory effects on receptivity.

If the example of CF research in the late 80s / early 90s is used - it is interesting to note that the main proponents were mostly elderly, and more experienced, researchers. They were certainly not the "eager young scientists, with radical new ideas" that is meant to be the progressive group implied in the often quoted aphorism by Max Planck.

Personal anecdote:

In the late 1990s, a young (online) acquaintance of mine was studying for a PhD in Condensed Matter Physics. During one week he came up to stay at the halls of a university near me, for a joint UK-wide gathering of graduate students in the field - so I arranged to meet up with him in a local pub one evening. As well as being generally sociable, I was also curious as to his attitude to "unconventional" nuclear theories, such as low energy transmutation, free proton/deuteron behaviour within metal latices, quantum tunnelling, nucleus excitation, etc (all standard LENR fare).

To my utter amazement he seemed to be totally incapable of thinking beyond anything that he'd been taught, "as fact", whilst he'd been an undergraduate. This was someone who had a first class honours degree in Physics from Imperial College, London - and his pursuit of a PhD was meant to show that he could carry out original research, and was capable of applying original thought. Nice chap though he was, I could see no evidence that he was able to entertain any thoughts that might be beyond a narrow set of "learned rules". Nevertheless, he still subsequently obtained his PhD (although he later emigrated, to work in a totally non-science field altogether).

If this chap had stayed within academia, he might well have been able to teach undergraduates all the things he had learned - and/or might also have been able to continue postdoc research in a conscientious and perfunctory manner, whilst climbing the seniority ladder. He could have very well ended up in a position where his opinion as an "expert witness" could have been called upon by politicians or industrialists. What answers would he have given if asked whether the claims of CF/LENR proponents should be taken seriously?

Quote from Curbina

Even the Wardenclyffe was LENR related

Sorry to sound like a boring old skeptic, but do you have any properly documented historical references for that claim? (i.e. not a verbal statement from an mfmp video.)

Unfortunately, there have been far too many layers of unsubstantiated rumour and fantasy added to the Tesla legend, over the years.

Sadly, I wouldn't even be surprised if someone claimed that Nikola Tesla was a time traveller who secretly arrived here from the incredibly technologically advanced civilisation of ancient Mesopotamia...

That was an interesting interview Alan Smith - thanks.

There was some mention of the mysterious "Swedish Stone" that was often said to be a vital component in Moray's earlier machines.

There is an article available (link below) on the Wayback Machine, taken from a talk by a chap named John Moreland - who carried out some research on the Moray devices. The talk appears to be from about 20 years ago.

Moreland seems to have collaborated with Rodney Sego (another investigator, mentioned further up this thread). They even took out a joint patent on a device inspired by their research - based on the rather odd idea that a radioactive wire amplifies any current running through it. I wish the world was that simple...

Moreland had his own hypothesis for the origin of the Swedish Stone - which seems rather far-fetched, to me.

I actually suspect that the Swedish Stone never actually existed - and was simply a convenient tale told by Moray to stop investigators getting close to the real concept behind his machine.

Anyway, here is the article:

UPDATE ON CONTINUING RESEARCH INTO free energy

I'm sorry if I've misunderstood the documents, but it looks to me like the device consists of the outer stator of an ordinary 3 phase induction motor, with a static gas-filled "can" (called a 'stator' in the text), containing a single conductor and spark gap, in place of the normal rotor.

It appears that there is a single phase mains supply (220v, 50Hz?) connected across one of the set of three field coils, with the other two not connected to anything.

Heavy gauge cables run from the terminals on the central "can" to a couple of external spark gaps - which are exhibiting sparks.

My guess is that the powered motor coils are acting like the primary of a transformer, and that the central conductor of the "can" is acting like the secondary. The induced voltage in the secondary circuit is "firing" the internal spark gap, and creating RF oscillations - which pass out to the external spark gaps - which also spark.

So, to me, it looks a bit like a "chunkier" version of George Egely's "magic wand" - which, in turn, is like a Spark-gap Transmitter.

Unless using a filtering lens, the CCD in most digital cameras will also pick up some short wave IR along with the light Try looking at the screen of a camera, in video mode, whilst pointing a TV remote control at the lens, and pressing some buttons.

Quote from Cydonia

We can't underestimate solar strong UV in the upper atmosphere

So you are shifting the goalposts, by claiming that UV is a well established cause of nuclear transmutation?

Then there is this, from 2003:

Isotope discrimination provides new insight into biological nitrogen fixation

People scratching thier heads over the origins of all this Nitrogen-15...

Quote from Curbina

This has been attributed by some sort of nuclear process happening during thunderstorms when lightnings occur

Well, that's what the paper says.

I can't find a link to this paper on the forum, so apologies if it has already been discussed.

Extreme enrichment in atmospheric 15N-15N

L.Y.Yeung,S.Li,I.E.Kohl,J.A.Haslun,N.E.Ostrom,H.Hu,T.P.Fischer,E. A. Schauble, E. D. Young, Extreme enrichment in atmospheric¹⁵N¹⁵N.Sci. Adv.3,eaao6741 (2017).

Quote from this 2017 article in Space Daily:

Quote

“We didn’t believe it at first,” said Yeung, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Rice. “We spent about a year just convincing ourselves that the measurements were accurate.”
The story revolves around nitrogen, a key element of life that makes up more than three-quarters of Earth’s atmosphere. Compared with other key elements of life like oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, nitrogen is very stable.
Two atoms of it form N2 molecules that are estimated to hang around in the atmosphere for about 10 million years before being broken apart and reformed. And the vast majority of nitrogen has an atomic mass of 14. Only about 0.4 percent are nitrogen–15, an isotope that contains one extra neutron. Because nitrogen–15 is already rare, N2 molecules that contain two nitrogen–15s - which chemists refer to as 15N15N - are the rarest of all N2 molecules.
The new study shows that 15N15N is 20 times more enriched in Earth’s atmosphere than can be accounted for by processes happening near Earth’s surface.

There is an argument that, to some extent, all science can be described as pathological. Without that obsessional drive, there can be no progress

Actually, I'd take issue with the notion that “hot fusion people could switch”. Big money projects have little to do with actual science – they have an economic, political, and industrial momentum all of their own.

Another little story:

Back in 1982 I went for a job interview at the JET project at the Culham laboratory, in Oxfordshire. They were still building the main torus at that point, so I was able to have a tour around the facility and see the workings in some detail. It was certainly impressive – as it should have been, considering the huge amounts of money being spent. High value, high precision components were arriving from subcontract companies based all over Europe. A large and expanding skilled workforce was needed to integrate and run everything – from the high power electrical supplies, gas processing equipment, complex instrumentation, to mainframe computing. Nothing was cheap. Even the main reactor hall had to be built using thick expensive borated concrete, to shield everyone from the huge neutron flux that would radiate from the machine when “fired up”.

During the interview I was told of a few of the inherent problems they were trying to overcome in the technology. Instability in the toroidal plasma was a major one – as the stream of ionised atoms has a horrible tendency to squirm and flail inside the vacuum chamber (before collapsing). Purity of the gas to be ionised was another issue – as the plasma would vaporise anything it touched (chamber walls, probes, antennas), leading to contamination with metal ions. But most troublesome, in my view, was the intense neutron flux that radiates from the plasma when “squeezed”. Neutrons have a habit of activating everything in their path – and, at the intensity involved, the flux would steadily degrade the insulation of any and all electrical equipment, as well as drastically shorten the life of any semiconductors.

I actually queried the long-term implications of the neutron flux problem. The whole machine relied on electromagnets for its operation, and so even if “continuous fusion” was achieved, then surely an electromagnetically confined generator would be unfeasible. The answer, which came with a shrug from my interviewer, was that they would just have to “cross that bridge when they came to it” - maybe by using some new kind of shielding (that hadn't yet been invented).

It was at that moment that I realised how far they still were from achieving any form of hot fusion energy production. It was clearly so far away that there were still known “bridges” that they had not even bothered to think about. In other words, despite the impressive engineering, it was still just a basic experiment.

But this wasn't just a couple of people, in a small lab, with some relatively cheap apparatus. They couldn't just “switch” to another area of research, on a whim. The billions needed, even up until that point, had been squeezed out of multiple government budgets through gushing promises of future energy security. Many scientists, engineers, and administrators' careers relied upon it, and they would not have taken kindly to the suggestion that they should just stop what they were doing, and try something else. After convincing governments that this was “the only game in town”, none of them would want any doubt creeping into the minds of politicians that they might be funding the wrong thing.

Unfortunately, the continued existence of hot fusion research suits too many vested interests, and all for the wrong reasons. Politicians like it because it enables them to boast about the marvellous future they are funding for their potential voters. The fossil fuel barons like it because hot fusion power has continued to be “40 years away” for the last 60 years.

Anyway – to end the story – although I was offered the job, I turned it down and decided to continue with my education instead, ending up working at another research site only a few miles away...

Quote from Alan Smith

I suspect that in 1939 it was made from cast iron for the big stuff and malleable iron (trade term) for the small stuff.

I suspect you are right about the German pipeline (Temperguss!)

I was actually going to post a question during the webinar about the old town gas equipment - being as that was mostly H₂ & CO - but they were swamped with questions already. I can remember some initial problems related to seals drying out, when they made the transition to North Sea Gas - which was attributed to differences in moisture levels between the gases. However, as they didn't dig up and replace every pipeline across the country, they must have found a satisfactory solution. And yes, I'm sure the low pressure distribution, and LP gasholder storage, would have helped.

The modern gas grid uses the long-distance pipelines themselves, at high pressure, for storage. That's why they have been able to demolish so many of the old gasholders. I guess if the high pressure pipeline storage is found to be incompatible with hydrogen - then they will have to start rebuilding gasholders again

I've got a book somewhere that has details of the German hydrogen network. I'll have to see if I can find it (some of my books are still crated after my last house move).

Quote from Alan Smith

A lot of it sold for vaping

Good grief. Is there no end to the daft things people do to their lungs?

I assume the mesh is heated - to vaporise the liquid crap. But there could be more than just the liquid droplets going into their lungs.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever

Quote from Alan Smith

But I do suspect that at some level the hydrogen loses its electron when inside the metal, and becomes a naked proton, only regaining it when it re-emerges. And a naked proton could actually go deep into metals normally considered not to adsorb/absorb H but without affecting their gross physical structure in a readily detectable way.

'Ye olde theories' did indeed talk about bare protons swimming around within the electron clouds of the bulk metal lattice. There may still be some portion of truth in that model - as well as in all the others (migration to grain boundaries, H2 recombination, etc).

For years I had been relying on a fairly basic rule of thumb that low carbon steels were hardly affected, but had become fairly paranoid over the behaviour of high tensile alloy steels, when exposed to any form of hydrogen (gaseous, or aqueous) - after experiencing some nasty (and potentially catastrophic) component failures.

Interestingly, the webinar presenter was claiming that practically any metal or alloy could be affected. This was despite the fact that there has been a high pressure hydrogen pipeline in operation, linking various German chemical plants, since 1939 - and is apparently still functioning well (someone in the live comments claimed that it was made out of mild steel).

Quote from magicsound

I don't know, and Frank apparently doesn't either. Perhaps the stainless steel mesh substrate had some zinc plating. The amount I found is not contamination from casual handling though.

I would not be surprised if some manufacturers of stainless steel mesh also give it a shiny 5 micron 'BZP' (bright zinc plate) coating, purely for cosmetic reasons. It all depends what it was sold for, I guess. It certainly wouldn't help with corrosion resistance, and could actually make things worse in high temperature applications. But as most of these samples were produced on a very tight budget, its possible that the mesh was sold for domestic decorative purposes rather than as an engineering material.

The Hydrogen Embrittlement webinar, from yesterday, is now available on the Mission Hydrogen youtube channel.

The presenter certainly "knows his onions" - and covers a lot of introductory material at a fairly fast pace. His slides are quite "full" - but it is a complicated subject, and time is short, so I think he can be forgiven. There won't be a PDF of the slides published, but there is sufficient time devoted to each slide to grab a screenshot of any that interest you.

The intended target audience is people in the hydrogen transport and storage industry - so pipeline issues feature in many of the examples.

Note that this is now a 130 year old research topic - and yet there are still a lot of unknowns.

There's a lot going on inside the metal.

One thing mentioned in the webinar was that as atomic hydrogen migrates along grain boundaries, it can concentrate in certain locations and recombine back to H2. This results in intense localised pressure, and some heat - and can create sudden cracks.

I immediately thought about the "surface eruptions" and sonic "popping" seen in some hydrogen-loaded electrodes.

However, a mundane pressure and recombination heat effect would not account for the transmutation that is sometimes seen when scanning the resulting craters - unless it was a trigger for something else.

Quote from Alan Smith

BTW- 304 S/Steel seems reluctant to accept much hydrogen, at least at the temperature level in the tank. I know you can hot gas load it, but electrolysis only yields around 10mV.

Watched the Mission Hydrogen webinar this afternoon. Quite interesting, but nothing particularly groundbreaking. The presenter did seem to be worrying some of the Hydrogen equipment suppliers, though

As usual, there was an emphasis on all the various theories being incomplete - with plenty of mysteries left.

One thing I noticed was that encouraging a passivation/oxidation layer is being seen as a convenient way to reduce the unwanted migration of hydrogen into the surface of some metals. Maybe the effectiveness of natural surface passivation, as a hydrogen barrier, is better than implied by the normal literature.

So - perhaps a more aggressive oxide removal method is required, for some of the more "reluctant" materials, before trying to load them with hydrogen.

Quote from JedRothwell

I pointed to this photo of a detector:

Funnily enough, in the same sequence of photos,there is this 2012 one from Ed Storms:

I can still remember being told, on a Radiation Detector course I attended in the mid 1980s, that if any of us (engineers, physicists, chemists) wanted to detect neutrons in any of our tests, then we were required by our employer to seek specialist help...

Quote from Bruce__H

I wonder what would be a good name.

I propose:

"Working Fin-tim-lin-bin-whin-bim-lim-bus-stop-F'tang-F'tang-Olé-Biscuit Electrode"

This can be conveniently shortened to "Working Electrode" - thus keeping everyone happy.