Posts by Longview

Very interesting, David.

A metallic liquid (molten Li, or room temperature mercury as a pair of examples), has virtually identical density to the solid. The inter-nuclear distances are very constant and their freedom of rotation may make them even freer to form something akin to a bosonic condensate at much higher temperatures than conventional B-E condensates. [Mechanistically, I suspect] the difference is in the distribution of momenta (as p = m v) between the nuclei versus their much more agitated electronic accompaniment, due to the thousands times smaller aggregate electron mass than that of the aggregate nuclear mass. So, for nucleonic colligative behaviors such as nucleonic conduction [e.g. proton superconduction] or nucleon exchange, the B-E transition temperature could well be higher than 1000 K., v. the millikelvin temperatures for B-E condensates of whole atoms or their ions. [To be continued, and /or critiqued]

Error in original E-Cat News article now appears to have been at least partially corrected.

Thanks for initiating an interesting topic.

But, what "equilibrium" would that be? It is my understanding that these reactors are not widely understood that well, yet. Recall all the effort Mitchell Swartz has put into the concept of OOP, or optimal operating point. If I recall that correctly, there was a curve or slope that clearly made "too high" too dangerous or too destructive. I am certain the reactor should be under automated control so that pre-defined parameters are not exceeded. With such control redundantly in place, "let her rip" might be OK, with the appropriate containment and liability insurance!

I'm interested,

[Continuing, but with a plausible "reduction to practice" motif, which is given impetus by Lou Pagnucco's commentary here. Readers will note, that I am again suggesting, or even advocating, high EMF (voltage) WITH low current flow, keeping in mind Nernst pressure.]

Another implication is that nearly any electron-rich material can be on the negative side of a LENR cell and any proton-rich material on the positive side. The presence of a highly insulating, but proton-permeable "separator" may, or may not, be a necessity-- Whether a true proton conductor or a proton "handoff" type, such as Dupont "Nafion"--- implemented as a thin separator in an electrolytic cell, or some other form in a gas or plasma phase cell. Or perhaps more durably, a separator or coating of a newer ceramic frypan-type and/or diamond-like material. Such a cell, or reactive environment, would be constructed so as to impede or stop electron flow in at least one dimension and yet to encourage proton flow. Easy enough, I believe. And probably has been approximated many times in successful demonstrations of LENR / CF in what are largely electrostatically driven cells. And perhaps generalizable to gas with powder designs. [Recall Nernst, idea not dead yet.]

With the caveat that destruction or untoward alteration of any or all the cell components might rapidly result because of the high concentration of ULM neutrons. That is, a separator cannot retain its chemical and physical identity for long under such a concentration of heat, local beta flux and isotopic shifts. Of course there are work-arounds for those problems including using powders with continually renewed faces and so on.

I'm reminded of "catalyst drums" that essentially continuously, or stepwise, rotate new reactive surface in and out of the reaction matrix or flow to handoff products and perhaps undergo reactivation, cleaning and so on while oustide the reaction zone. There are other potential or actual "work arounds" many taking the form the arts and sciences of industrial chemistry, chemical engineering, process chemisry and catalytic chemistry,

[And as an aside, and based on possible structural similarities, anyone working developing or using ultracapacitors for short term very high energy storage-- useful auxiliary to batteries, see Google, Wikipedia etc.-- might be advised to judiciously observe ULM or ultracold neutron production within such devices (not easy!) and consequent short term beta fluxes (relatvely easy) and engineer to avoid their potentially destructive effects to the ultracapacitor itself, or possibly to nearby mammalian exposure to secondary beta emissions!]

Longview

Lou Pagnucco,

Thanks again for your attention to this subject, I much appreciate your view(s). I won't attribute QED to Prof. Hagelstein in this situation, although a brief rereading still makes me think it is more like a classical-Maxwellian / QM hybrid, with some aspects borrowed as needed from each. And of course one of the great things about this gentleman is that he is able to make strong arguments and later come back and say, "No, I'm ready to bury that theory".

But of course I have no substantial familiarity with QED other than as a historical development, so I will defer for now.

I am not sure how intense currents must be to see substantial collisions of oppositely charged entities. It is often neglected, I think, that protons and neutrons are extremely small, so even though the proton has a high mass, its diameter should enable it to pass through insulators (such as oxides) with ease, as long as sufficient EMF is available to accelerate a measurable or usable current. So the important variable with respect to LENR in my mind would be the potential difference and not necessarily the current, although clearly some flow would be necessary for any steady state neutron production. But if the assay for production is secondary radioactivity or heat, then the "life" of the producing structure is likely to be short....

Much more to discuss.

Thanks for the explanation, Lou Pagnucco. It seems plausible. My main concern had been raised by Peter Hagelstein's critique in JCMNS. But, as I mentioned, the critique unfortunately shows a few "antique" notions (at least from a chemistry perspective) with respect to QM as it is practically applied.

The QSE, or quantum size effect-- [for a brief review, see work cited below], could be interpreted either as kinetic confinement in the sense you mentioned. It seems that my argument at the outset of this thread, that is essentially one of a qualitative shift as electron mobilities are both constrained in velocity and position.... But it seems also the deBroglie relation is relatively easily saved from "collapse near zero velocity" in other reasonable ways. The 3D version of deBroglie allows the other two dimensions (a plane) of momentum loss (with paradoxical and disallowed positional uncertainty DECREASE) by allowing, or pushing, enhanced positional and momentum uncertainty orthogonal to that plane.

So, with three dimensions of spatial freedom [and one of time?], the electron can be highly constrained in one or two dimensions and take its increased lambda [wavelength, or uncertainty of position] in one or both other dimensions. So an intuitive explanation of the role of oxides at interfaces, (or other immobilization, such as electrostatic Nernst pressure?) might be at hand. That is in thin layers such as in HT superconductors, the presence of the oxide layers pushes the orbital excursions greater in orthogonal to plane directions AND confers increased momentum (probably in the plane?). While this is in seeming conflict with a one dimensional deBroglie model [Lambda = h/mv], perhaps it is no problem in 3D space. In semiconductors the phenomenon of QSE is realized strongly only in the interfaces between very thin layers.

For anyone who might want a quick review of QSE [in words! --- although the book is loaded with higher maths] see page 4 of Bhattacharya and Ghatak 'Effective Electron Mass in Low-dimensional Semiconductors', Springer 2013.

And by the way, Lou, they interpret and even define Effective Electron Mass (EEM) consistent with your view, bottom of page 8: "The EEM is defined as the ratio of the electron momentum to the group velocity."

Longview

That link and an earlier one kindly given by Lou Pagnucco, as a source of a piece of information from Feynman's Lectures online, seem to have some problems, see my comments above. I suspect these sources may unfortunately be evading copyright obligations enforceable in the USA.

One still pays something substantial (about $40 and way on up, at Alibris) for old hardcopies of Feynman's Lectures in the USA in the 2010 Edition.

I get a "Not Found 404" error message. Clearly Asian ideograms or Kana.... no problem with that, but it does not work.

I will try to dig up my own Feynman lectures link. Thanks for the page numbers.

Please recall or read my warning in early February:

planning stage for a replication

Maybe that explains why the "silicate" or aluminum silicate tube is only "glazed" and somewhat distorted looking. In other words the temperature (degrees C) of the Thermite reaction may well be much hotter than the silicate melting temperature, but the quantity of heat (kJ) was not at all sufficient to melt, vaporize or burn everything (the mass or moles of substance) there. The Wikipedia article (no controversy, so in that case perhaps an OK source), indicates there are many types of Thermite. The hottest of the Thermites listed there is the Iron (III) oxidizer with aluminum as fuel, [btw, the most common form of Iron (III) is Fe2O3]--- reaction temperature of up to 2500 degrees C. That is favorably over the melting point of aluminum oxide (Al2O3) at a bit under 2100 C.

Of some importance: Thermite / Thermit is still the brand of a commercial enterpirse. its products unlike aspirin, may still have trademark exclusivity status even though there is widespread popularization of the term. I see this link: http://www.goldschmidt-thermit.com/en/ which derives its name from the originator of the technology around 1893.

I see no aluminum oxide per se listed in the ingredients of the original Jack Cole sentence I quoted from the "source" document. But, certainly aluminum oxide can easily be found in refractory ceramic tubes, such as the pencil heater or spark plug insulators Nickec and perhaps others mentioned. Al2O3 presence might act as a surface catalyst (immobilizing electrons as many oxides tend to do) that may incidentally or intentionally enhance any LENR produced.

[With regard to what Alain and Longview were just discussing here on LENR Forum. This
paragraph is directly from the Executive Summary of the DTRA 2007 Report declassified
in 2011 and now linked here.]

"The potential energy that can be tapped from the nucleus(> 106 eV/atom) is vastly
greater than the energy available from the electronic states of an atom(< 1 eV/atom).
The conversion of mass into energy, via fission and fusion reactions, is the basis for the
only existing "high-energy" weapons, but further refinements in the design of these
weapons, to make them more relevant to the post-Cold War security environment, are
certainly possible. Another possible way to extract energy from the nucleus is to exploit
the energy stored in metastable isomeric states. Also, despite the negative publicity about
"Cold Fusion," the nuclear community continues to watch research in the area of low
energy nuclear reactions with guarded optimism for possible future commercial and
military applications. Anti-matter annihilation reactions involve the complete conversion
of mass to energy with energy densities three orders of magnitude higher than nuclear
fission and fusion. The prospect of compactly storing positrons in the form of chargeneutral
positronium holds promise for viable military applications of anti-matter."

Longview comments:

I would think antimatter would be a lot easier to store as charged particles. Charge neutral
makes it much harder contain, in my opinion. That is for neutral, magnetic and/or electrostatic confinement
would require much higher strength fields.

[But let's see if the "nuclear isomers' section has a long lived
and triggerably convertible nuclear isomer that gains mass on anti particle decay... antigravity,
time reversal, many million fold energy densities over hydrogen and oxygen.... can't wait!]

Speaking of "orders of magnitude", The DTRA report shows that US government interests and awareness
are higher by orders of magnitude over the vast majority of the corporately generated plebeian
media circus in the USA.

As an exception to that "circus" we would have to credit CBS "60 Minutes" for example.

There is a very interesting article / note from 1970 on Nuclear Isomers in Radiochimica Acta. It does appear that I cannot access it through ACS. It is published by de Gruyter and the full text is behind a fairly spendy paywall. I believe Hagelstein and others may have spent a fair amount of earlier career time under US Federal grants looking at nuclear isomers, probably as possible routes to "grasers" that is gamma ray lasers-- great for space warfare, it is said.

http://www.degruyter.com/view/…32/ract.1970.13.3.132.xml

But in the full first page, the authors mention the possibility of chemistry (tarnishing is suggested) substantially changing the radiological character of at least the silver isomer.

Mass gain would be a genuine eye opener, Alain. I have seen published speculation that antiparticles might have antigravity... going so far as to use a centrifuge to enrich for them. I believe that generally anti particles are currently assumed to respond with positive rather than negative masses. But the analogue of positrons, that is "holes" in semiconductors may well have negative mass.... I still haven't centrifuged a pair of small LED, button battery powered flashlights to look for effects on their spectral output As I mentioned in a recent post, one result there is likely failure of the LED, the battery or its circuitry. But with luck one should be able to get a cheap little one to reach say 100 X g, since sometimes they survive such deceleration impacts with the floor.

Click the link to the "source" article at the bottom of the original LENR Forum post. Quoting:

"I was using INCO type 255 nickel, TiH2, LiOh, KOH, aluminum powder, and Fe2O3. Good idea on the small amount of fuel which should cause some localized melting."

[Relevant text underlined and made bold by Longview: quote apparently attributed directly to Jack Cole]

Longview comment also amended in "edit" mode: Clearly ingredients are not quantified at all here , but I have to stand by Thermite, until otherwise informed by the builder as above. Was the builder trying to make aluminum oxide in situ? Why? What was the rationale? I certainly did not see any question showing Thermite ingredients presented where I was able to critique it. As it stands the "experiment" proves only that Thermite can melt and burn up nearly anything -- many of us already new that.

Longview

Actually,the energetics of these simple fusions, such as p + p and so on is completely favorable, that is exothermic. The problem is simply overcoming the activation barrier, which is generally very high here on Earth. However, CF and LENR suggest that this activation barrier can be relatively easily undermined or "tunneled" through. That is "catalysis" is effective here just as it is in many purely chemical situations.

I just noticed that the ingredients used correspond at least partly to Thermite:

A mixture of iron oxide
Fe2O3 (rust) and aluminum powder. When it is ignited the aluminum
powder reacts with the O3 part of the rust in a highly exothermic
reaction, the resulting product is molten iron. Thermite is commonly
used in welding, because the molten iron has the ability to seep into
cracks in metal.
Thermite - Instructableswww.instructables.com/id/Thermite/Instructables

Who thought that was a smart thing to do ???? We now all know something we should have known anyway.

Thanks Alain,

The BEC, superconductivity path was exactly what I imagined from reading your post. I don't know if I sent it, but I had a post in preparation that suggests that from a velocity standpoint "condensed matter" [that is solids and liquids], have nuclei that are very immobile, even though their momentum is that of the ambient temperature, the very large mass makes the v component very small. So for nuclear or nucleonic interactions, it is plausible that high temperature superconductivity is truly quite high, that is way above room temperature. Considering that proton diameters are so small (10 e -15 m) and their masses are so great (1836 X an electron) it is little surprise that unusual coherent and long range order interactions could at least be contemplated.

And thanks for the reminders about PdH superconductivity and the macroscopic "quantized" effects seen around us.

As humans and animals we have evolved to appreciate collligative properties very easily (hot, cold, hard, soft, heavy, light, liquid, solid etc.). The ultimate sources of these properties, that is quantum level events taken in aggregate are easy enough. The events themselves are quite unintuitive, even to physicists. Talbot A. Chubb made quite a lot of this in his Cold Fusion Clean Energy for the Future, 2008 book. He went so far as to say (as I recall it) that many physicists are still in the pre quantum era in terms of their understanding of issues such as CF / LENR. It does seem there is certainly some evidence to support that contention. The problem is not physicists, it is simple biology. We all cannot easily abstract or generalize what we cannot perceive.

From your calculations, Lou, what were your assumptions of current density? Beam diameter? Coulombic beam dispersion? and the potentially anti-Coulombic effect of the presence of the oppositely charged species in the beam? Also what length of path and potential difference brought you to MeV energies?

Thanks,
Longview

Very interesting post Lou Pagnucco. Your scenario is worthy of experimentation, if it has not already been intensively investigated!

I do see that a substantial portion of CF / LENR reports involve "arcs" of one sort or another, but nowhere near a majority. I take those "arcs" to be possibly unrefined versions of the scenario that might result from colliding electron and nucleon (especially proton) currents. The approach seems simple enough. Measuring the expected ULM neutrons may require something akin to [Link to another discussion thread:] Ultracold neutron isolation and detection

I have not yet read your references / linkouts yet, although I tried the first one, with the Arabic and Farsi headers, only to then notice the ".ir". Curiously my message screen here became "blue" and the typeface changed. By logging out, then returning, I thankfully found normal function here at LENR Forum.

[I would advise against citing or following linkouts to sites with Iranian origin.... for practical and linguistic reasons and perhaps for security, at least for those in the USA--- with apologies to many wonderful folks of that ethnicity who have befriended me over the decades.]

Alain,

Kindly suggest where there is a good summary table of Iwamura or other results that show the transmutaions favoring 2,4,6 D ?

And thanks for the further details on your ideas here.

Perhaps "coherence" is a key word, or so Pr. Hagelstein suggests based on Karabut.