Posts by Longview

Quote from rakitsa

Please do not mix the size of an electon itself and the size of an electron cloud in a bound state.

An ion is not necessarily a "bound state", although I would agree with you that an anion such as a hydride might be considered such.

The hydride ion in transit in such a conductor may be ionically bound or at least is sequentially bound in the "handoff" mechanism aforementioned. Whether it is bound or not is likely not related to the supernumerary electron's size (mean three standard deviation volume in this context, or possibly maximum, excursive length-- see more below). Keep in mind as well that this ionic bonding would likely have a completely distinct electronic size effect compared to say covalent bonding. Repeating: hydride conduction appears to involve aspects of sequential ionic bonding.

On your other "point": I can only accept that there are various views of the question of the size of an electron. The "classical" diameter is around 5.6 fm, that is over 6X that of the classical proton diameter of 0.877 fm (so my 1000X number is quite wrong by that classical standard-- although I can cite a reference to support it). But this "classical" 5.6 fm electronic dimension is also quite inappropriate. Free electrons, such as those in an electron beam have effective diameters that can be best described as I mentioned earlier, that is for example by their wavelength "lambda" i.e. planck's constant (h) divided by the momentum. Hence their non-relativistic wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum.... it is the essence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle although Heisenberg himself apparently did not care for deBroglie's nifty equation and refers to it as "merely empirical". The proton, having a rest mass 1836 times that of an electron, has a much less velocity dependent wavelength, that is 1836 times less. Hence the proton diameter is much more like a "hard ball", and indeed its classical radius is a more realistically defined as about one femtometer / one fermi.

To see what someone else says of electron size, see this Googler Dan Piponi's comment at Quora (and "upvoted" by some other physicists there):

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-diameter-of-an-electron:

The notion of an electron radius or diameter
makes sense for a particle that is a hard ball. But today we don't model
electrons in that way and it doesn't really make sense to talk of a
radius. In Quantum mechanics an electron is described by a wave. There's nothing you can point to and call the radius.

If the wave is bunched up in one particular place then you might talk of
the radius of the bunch. But that's not a fixed property of the
electron. An electron in an atom is bunched up in a region the size of
an atom, but an electron conducting electricity in a piece of metal is
described by a very extended wave. So it wouldn't make sense to call
this the electron radius.

If an electron were made of smaller
parts we could define the radius using the average distance between the
parts, or something similar. But as far as we know an electron is a
fundamental particle with no smaller parts.

There are some things
associated to an electron that are like a radius. For example, if you
fire particles at an electron and watch how they scatter you can compute
what's called a Cross section (physics)
which is a bit like the area of the target the electron makes. You
could compute a radius from this, but it depends on what exactly you
fire at the electron so it's not a fixed number.

Longview continues: I should say my 1000 X diameter IS a rough approximation of a typical orbital number. While it is NOT necessarily in a "bound" state to get to such a diameter. Scattering experiments can yield these magnitudes of diameters for electrons in free atoms.

You are correct that electrons are ostensibly fundamental and have no known constituent components. However, that does not necessarily imply that they are infinitesimal points. But certainly you are correct that there are arguments to support that idea.... If I recall correctly, that is one implication of Hotson's revival of Dirac's original conception, subsequently abandoned by Dirac due to dogma of the day. (See D.L. Hotson, Infinite Energy "Dirac's Equation and the Sea of Negative Energy" pt. 1, issue 43 pp. 43-62 and pt. 2, issue 44 pp. 14-37, both issues in 2002).

Quote from rakitsa

I think, H- conductivity is nonsense.

I guess you will have to speak to the editors of Science about that (best to read the cited article, before making summary executions) . In spite of its pre-eminence in scientific publications, Science editors certainly have made mistakes before, and some of them likely relate to premature editorial judgements of CF / LENR. But that is not what we're discussing.

You have not made any case whatsoever that hydride conductivity is "nonsense". I suggest you return to read my posts carefully, take a day to consider the evidence and the ideas there. Then make your case. I'm willing to respond to reasoned critiques. And you will note that I am not advocating anything particularly unusual here. See my response to Thomas Clarke, for example.

@Thomas Clarke
Sounds reasonable. Do we know what the hydride ion looks like in the context of its conductor, and on a positive interface? I suspect it may not be so clear as the Schrodinger solution in vacuo.

@rakitsa

An electron at some extreme linear velocity might be considered "small" as in very high voltage electron microscopy, for one application. An electron fixed in some position has quite a large and indeterminate cross-section, the "electron cloud". This is Heisenberg and earlier deBroglie as lambda = h/mv = h/p. Look at electronic orbitals and compare them with nuclear particle orbitals. Here is one manifestation of the thousand-fold or greater difference.

Speaking broadly, an electron has a tiny mass, but generally not a tiny diameter.

@rakitsa

Yes, if they were direct conduction. But of course electrons themselves are generally thought to be conducted, at least in the non-superconductive state, by "handoff" processes. Clearly hydride ions could be launched in a vacuum. But you are quite right that the crystal would likely be too crowded for direct conduction of hydride ions. I suspect a hydride ion may be considerably smaller than an electron, even though most, if not all anionic radii are larger than their uncharged parent atoms. By the way, most, if not all, cations are considerably smaller than their uncharged parent atoms.

@rakitsa

First, I would recommend reading the Science article cited. Conduction of protons occupies whole books (eg. "Proton Conductors - solids, membranes and gels -- material and devices." edited by Phillippe Columban, vol. 2 of series "Chemistry of Solid State Materials" Cambridge U. Press, 1992). Hydride conductions is another field somewhat tangential to proton conduction. The play of hydrides and protons in LENR theories is long and complex. The most notable for me are the ideas of "shielding" coulombic repulsion afforded by an intervening electron, so that conceivably, and by "hand waving", one may see fusion enabled in this way.

Arguing that protons are directly involved is always difficult (unless one accepts the Lipinski - UGC WIPO application dataset!). Mainly because proton (or deuteron rich) electrolytic environments are often LESS likely to produce over unity COP, or any evident energy at all. But, shielded protons, or deuterons, for example as hydroxyls (deuteroxyls) often show up in electrolytic LENR / CF experiments with over unity or at least promising results.

One complexity when speaking of "conduction" is that there are two distinct types, in my reading anyway. One is what I call "handoff" conduction, that is some component of the conducting material is able to shuttle hydride ions by taking on two redox states, essentially one with and one without the hydride. A hydride is simply handed off along such a shuttle in the whatever direct electrostatic potential pushes it. True "vacuum" conduction may be another matter for hydrides, since they are relatively bulky, that is over a thousand times the diameter of a naked proton. Direct, that is non-handoff conduction is seen in some systems for proton conduction. It is difficult to easily appreciate the immense strength of charge surrounding a naked proton, that is all of the charge of an electron, but occupying far less than one millionth the volume (the field strength there will be truly immense, and is one reason why proton / proton fusion are collisionally so immensely difficult, in my humble opinion). There are immense surprises in proton chemistry and behavior, even for chemists, who have been working at the bench with protons for over 150 years (not by that name of course).

The conduction of hydride ions in this case is surely "handoff" type. But that does not mean that a naked hydride is not presented at positive face of such a hydride conductor. The conjunction of such with a naked proton at least provides a thought provoking question and possible model for aspects of LENR. It is a question that can at least be approached at the bench, in my opinion.

Thanks for your interest!

Longview

Quote from Francesco CELANI

THANKS for the welcome and sorry to all, in advance, because my quite poor English Language ability.

Welcome here Prof. Celani! And thanks for all your efforts over the decades! Your English appears to be nearly flawless. Do not hesitate a moment to express yourself... we are all aliens to perfect English, in my humble opinion. And we all should remember that Romans occupied England for some 450 years! So there is a deep common heritage.

Interesting questions, Lou. The energy absorption of a current of electrons might be limited by the mass of such a current. A current of protons or hydride ions would have much higher absorption capacity.... that is the relativistic transform of the 1836 and 1837 times the per particle momentum (p=mv), rest masses respectively. I suspect the other limitations there are the resonant coupling constants. A 20 ~MeV gamma photon has well below any pair production energy for protons, which must be over ten times that energy, whereas electrons are in the range for 2X 511 keV electron/positron pair production. It seems that a current to be a useful absorber must consist of elementary particles that have a relativistic masses below their constituent pair production energy... otherwise they could not be expected to absorb but only convert the impinging photonic flux to equal or even higher energy output.

This is interesting, Lou. I see the laser energies are large, even though they are far below "hot fusion" by inertial compression levels. I wonder if there is a "window" at much lower energies, just as there apparently is for protons, as seen in the Lipinski-UGC WIPO application data set. There it was seen that high energies were counterproductive.... much lower energy protons had a free pass, so to speak, with the lithium target easily susceptible giving Q values (energy out over energy in) for the product alpha particles all the way up to 7000 (approximating that value as a COP).

The idea of "tuning" laser, proton or electron energies to specific susceptibilities seems viable, particularly with a high value endpoint such as radio-isotope remediation. The tuning may have the bonus of avoiding need for high purification of the target as well.

I wonder how any of this compares with the Mitsubishi work?

Quote from H-G Branzell

- Overcoming the Coulomb barrier thus producing nuclear reactions.
- Those reactions occur without prompt ionizing radiation.
- No long-lived reaction products are produced.

Is that plagiarism? How do these three miracles differ from Huizenga's three miracles?

If you are still working from these, you have missed a lot of science and criticism in the interim ~25 years. The one miracle that, at least to some physicists, remains most troubling is the "prompt ionizing radiation" question. Personally, it does not seem that the branching ratios for near MeV-driven collisional fusion are necessarily constrained to product ratios brought about by low energy processes where at least one player is in the condensed or even solid phase.

Kobayashi et al in the March 18, 2016 Science (AAAS) p. 1314-1317: "Pure H- conduction in oxyhydride". The article reports first conclusive evidence of conductors of H minus. The hydride conductor reported here consists of a di-lanthanum / lithium superoxide/hydroxide, ie. La2LiHO3, with electrodes consisting of La2LiHO3 with titanium (TiH2) as hydride donor and again La2LiHO3 with Ti as the hydride acceptor.

The article and its abstract remind us that a variety of proton (H+) conducting oxides are known. It also reminds that hydrides of alkaline earth metals such as BaH2 can also act as hydride conductors, but lack stability.

Thought experiment: Consider the junction of a hydride conductor directly adjoining a proton conductor. That metal/oxide union under some modest applied electrostatic potential might result in what interaction at said junction?

Longview

Where is this Bob Greenyer / Cude mixup supposed to be happening? I don't see it here at the LENR Forum.
Or do you mean the research results associated with Greenyer are defeating Cude?

Does not seem likely.... but let's see the details.

Quote from Longview

So Cude, where are you now? Can it be that you have nothing to say?

Best of health to you, if that is an issue.

Does anyone here know what happened to Cude? Seems a bit odd that he vanished. Maybe Abd would have some perspective on Cude in this regard.

Somewhat like Thomas Clarke, Cude seemed never without a response. Or has Cude's troll funding by the Kochs or whoever been cancelled?

joshua cude had written:

"Hot fusion
You do realize that hot fusion doesn't work yet, right? Which makes it a sink of money, not a source. The decision makers -- the DOE in the US, or the government, by extension -- would like nothing better than to save the money they *spend* on hot fusion. And the same goes for everyone in the scientific community other than the hot fusion workers, because it would leave all the more money for other fields. Sure, the actual hot fusion researchers get their salaries from the research, but they are trained scientists and engineers. They could get the same salary just about anywhere else. No one is making a killing here. None of the people involved now are likely to be living by the time hot fusion turns a profit, if it ever does."

Quote from to which Longview

In peace time, research funding is directly related to and quite proportionate to public perception (simple mechanism involving media and Congress). In war time a similar relationship prevails, except that the public is largely excluded from the decision making.

Do you have some fundamental misunderstanding of economics and research? A "sink' of money from the standpoint of the taxpayer is a "source" of money from the standpoint of a researcher. Not too difficult, but perhaps such a fundamental misunderstanding is clouding your thinking in this area?

I assume from other's descriptions of your actual persona that you are aware of the inertia that can accompany a career in science today. That is a life of work in an area of NSF, NIH, DOE etc funding come with many perqs such as journal editorships, book authorships / editorships, national meeting keynote presentations, grant committee membership and so on. Sure a newly minted Ph.D. or successful post doc is ready to "move on" to other areas within the larger discipline (if there are not reputation traps laid). But that does not apply as easily the more successful and entrenched one becomes in their particular sub discipline. Exceptions: the very top folks, the National Academicians, the Nobel Laureates. They can move around on reputation alone, due in part to a possibly dubious notion of "brilliance'. But regardless of the notion, it is a system and it has worked, for example say in the Manhattan Project. But it is not perfect, take for example the Human Genome Project which stumbled along for a decade or so, and only gained momentum under the threat of a private and competing initiative by J. Craig Venter.

So Cude, where are you now? Can it be that you have nothing to say?

Best of health to you, if that is an issue.

Longview

Eleven children! Wow, if those are biological, then this dude is truly a "believer". If this is his view of biology, then let's hope his meme (outcompeting other fundamentalists?) is not accepted by anyone else. Taken to every to human that makes the Earth's human burden something like 60 billion in just a generation. He, and the rest of us, had better hope that LENR is really working well and developed very fast indeed.

Death of a biosphere.... it has almost certainly happened before.

Quote from joshua cude

Hot fusion

You do realize that hot fusion doesn't work yet, right? Which makes it a sink of money, not a source. The decision makers -- the DOE in the US, or the government, by extension -- would like nothing better than to save the money they *spend* on hot fusion. And the same goes for everyone in the scientific community other than the hot fusion workers, because it would leave all the more money for other fields. Sure, the actual hot fusion researchers get their salaries from the research, but they are trained scientists and engineers. They could get the same salary just about anywhere else. No one is making a killing here. None of the people involved now are likely to be living by the time hot fusion turns a profit, if it ever does.

In peace time, research funding is directly related to and quite proportionate to public perception (simple mechanism involving media and Congress). In war time a similar relationship prevails, except that the public is largely excluded from the decision making.

Do you have some fundamental misunderstanding of economics and research? A "sink' of money from the standpoint of the taxpayer is a "source" of money from the standpoint of a researcher. Not too difficult, but perhaps such a fundamental misunderstanding is clouding your thinking in this area?

I assume from other's descriptions of your actual persona that you are aware of the inertia that can accompany a career in science today. That is a life of work in an area of NSF, NIH, DOE etc funding come with many perqs such as journal editorships, book authorships / editorships, national meeting keynote presentations, grant committee membership and so on. Sure a newly minted Ph.D. or successful post doc is ready to "move on" to other areas within the larger discipline (if there are not reputation traps laid). But that does not apply as easily the more successful and entrenched one becomes in their particular sub discipline. Exceptions: the very top folks, the National Academicians, the Nobel Laureates. They can move around on reputation alone, due in part to a possibly dubious notion of "brilliance'. But regardless of the notion, it is a system and it has worked, for example say in the Manhattan Project. But it is not perfect, take for example the Human Genome Project which stumbled along for a decade or so, and only gained momentum under the threat of a private and competing initiative by J. Craig Venter.

Someone wrote and Alain Coetmeur quotes:

Quote from AlainCo

Wien, Rayleigh-Jeans, Davison Germer, Einstein, and Planck is analogous to comparing a Dick Tracy comic book story with the Bible.

Much of Dick Tracy has come to pass [eg. wrist radios etc], but nothing in "The Book" seems to relate at all to our era [read Bart Ehrman, for example]. So in one sense, likely opposed to the intent of this quoted writer, the statement may be right for exactly the wrong reason.

Further, all the "minds" cited have produced a flawed Standard Model and hence generated the crisis in modern physics-- one apparently unrecognized by the likes of Thomas Clarke, but widely acknowledged elsewhere.

Quote from joshua cude

Patent examiners have scientific training. That's obvious from the well-informed rejection of some of Rossi's patent applications. But it's not even clear scientific training should be necessary to determine whether a claim has utility or not. It's difficult to see how something could have utility and not be easily proven to work to an examiner. This is especially the case for something as simple as a heater.

If that is the same Rossi patent application I have read, then it would not take much training to reject it. It is the picture is non-disclosure, at least the version I attended to. Don't confuse my position with that which may be typical in the Rossi fan base-- while it is rare, I am truly an agnostic with regards to Ni-H. In my personal view, pursuing Ni-H is justified because of the possible endpoint, even if there are reasons to doubt some or even all of the work so far. This is basic research, it takes capital, it may even take some degree of optimism. It certainly requires the suspension of "belief" in crippling doubts generated by skeptics. But I agree that it may be a matter of personal preference. As many would hope that Ni-H might work because of its supposed simplicity, and yield substantial excess power over that put in (XP). I consider all Ni-H work still quite tentative or very preliminary-- except possibly the Lipinski case [which I believe deserves everyone's detailed attention], who themselves disclaim CF / LENR.

No CF or LENR device, I have read of, is as simple as "a heater". Sure if the device required no rise in operating temperature, or is the XP / COP were an easily achieved 3 through 10 or more, then perhaps this discussion would be moot. In fact some have demonstrated COPs ranging up to 6 or so (Mitchell Swartz, if I am not mistaken). And pertinent to the discussion of utility, I understand that the USPTO presumption of non-operability you tout has or had blocked Swartz from patent protection (taking his comments at face value in a confrontation with David French sometime back).

The sporadic nature of the Pd-D XP results since 1989 is far more the source of sufficient data to justify a further large research effort on face value. Like others, I have unanswered questions there, but assume that there are conditions that are as yet not well defined that lead or have led to XP. On the basis of the rather limited work that has been done well so far, more effort is justified.... and is slowly going forward in spite of reputation traps laid by whomever and for whatever reasons (I gave some as examples, you appear not to accept that money and power can call the shots in Science).

On the other hand, and in my humble opinion as a trained scientist in unrelated, but very litigious patent pre-occupied field, the PdD work is sorely in need to be taken to the level of completion of say several Ph.D. candidates and an equal number of post-docs-- if not by corporate venture efforts. These questions appear legitimate to me, but there is simply insufficient funding-- combined with reputational impediments to fully investigating Pd-D. These problems cannot, and should not, be blamed on the heroic efforts of those few who have labored under the reputation trap now for up to 27 years and perhaps more.

Remove funding, Remove "reputation" by slandering and by an orchestrated effort to deny publication in "normal" peer-reviewed journals. Troll the remaining enthusiast groups and the usual online look up venues. Result: No widespead public recognition, no grad students or post-docs. Little or no progress.

I don't think the curve of declining results is even remotely related to the truth value of CF / LENR hypotheses or to empirical evidence weighing against either Ni-H or Pd-D excess power. The rebound in interest over the last 5 years or so may relate instead to the desperation of the eventual consequences of a world-wide carbon fueled economy. But that is a "bottom up" kind of interest and may take another decade to mature to a full research agenda. As you and others have at least implicitly pointed out, solid, high COP results that are easily replicated will greatly accelerate CF / LENR research-- or so we would hope.

joshua cude

On the contrary, NO progress has been made by any scientist who was dogmatically opposed to the possibility of CF. No big surprise there, but just a fact. The only apparent exception may be Robert Duncan, but he did not make "progress" by his efforts, he made progress by examining the existing record.

I am confident that I don't have to defend CF at this point. You may continue your quest to demoralize "believers" when, in fact, it is no longer necessary to "believe". You appear to be the one that may well be a dogmatic "disbeliever" (or worse).