1989.12.14 / Donn Seeley / 'about the temperature of your dishwasher' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'about the temperature of your dishwasher' Date: 14 Dec 89 07:02:30 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept The Deseret News today (12/13) had a front page that could only happen in Utah... The top story is a wire service report on proposed Japanese aid for Eastern Europe -- nothing too unusual there. But check out the other three stories: 'S.L. measure requires revelers to party quietly: police may assess $100 service fee if called to quell loud parties more than once in 24 hours;' and 'S.L. urged to disown Soviet sister: member of John Birch Society says ties with Ukraine city may erode heritage, morale of Utah;' and, of course, 'Scientists slowly warming to fusion research.' The latter story is the UPI report on the American Society of Mechanical Engineers meeting, for which the AP story was already posted by Les Earnest. The UPI version has some different details, so I thought I'd pass a few of them along as well. For example, there are some more tidbits about Huggins's work at Stanford: ... In a low-key session at the society's winter meeting, scientists from Stanford University and the Oak Ridge government research center said their experiments had produced significant amounts of 'excess heat' they could not account for except by nuclear fusion. Robert Huggins of Stanford said his team measured such heat for steady periods of up to 16 days. He added cautiously that the levels of warming measured 'might even be enough to be useful.' For example, Huggins said, the 16-day spate of 'excess heat' was 'about the temperature of your dishwasher.' In addition, both research teams said they invented new methods to reduce the chance of error. These included shielding their apparatus from contact with people or the outside air and running it constantly for as many as 2,000 hours to see if results persisted over time. Nevertheless, the researchers said the heat bursts seem to start and stop for no reason at all, and some pieces of equipment work better than others designed to be exactly the same. ... After spending a few paragraphs recapitulating the F & P experiments, the article seems to contradict itself slightly -- the speakers did not in fact link their excess heat findings to fusion: In marked contrast to Pons and Fleischmann, the Stanford and Oak Ridge researchers avoided direct claims that they had produced nuclear fusion. Gordon Michaels of Oak Ridge prefaced his talk with scrupulous denials of certainty. 'We are not representing this experiment as confirming a Pons-and-Fleischmann effect, confirming cold fusion, confirming anything,' he said. The remarks of a Society officer strike a curiously apologetic note: The president-elect of the engineers' society, Arthur E Bergles of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said in an interview that Pons and Fleischmann drew unusually heavy criticism this spring because they made unequivocal claims and announced their work to the press before publishing in a scientific journal. After the initial attacks on 'cold fusion' claims, Bergles said, 'reason has set in.' Large numbers of reputable scientists have begun to learn from Pons and Fleischmann's methods, he said. A Rensselaer colleague, Deborah Kaminski, said many research teams, including members of Rensselaer's nuclear physics department, have attempted cold fusion and failed to find signs of it. However, she said they recognize 'it's a finicky experiment' and failure does not make them call it impossible. The mechanical engineers seem to be much more charitable than the physicists, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@cs.utah.edu 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 utah-cs!donn cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1989 ------------------------------ 1989.12.27 / Dieter Britz / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 27 Dec 89 15:00:39 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Another lot, this time fewer - does this mean the peak has been passed, or is it a local fluctuation? Time will tell. I repeat my plea for any papers I may have missed, if anyone out there has seen any; thanks in advance. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, Aarhus, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 21-Dec. 1989 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 1. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Demanins F, Graziani M, Kaspar J, Modesti S, Raicich F, Rosei R, Tommasini F, Trovarelli A; Solid State Commun. 71 (1989) 559. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220295 (1989). "Search for the neutron production in niobium deuteride". ** Measured n spectrum with a p-recoil scintillation detector, and found a neutron emission rate of <= 7*10**(-25). The abstract gives no other details. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eberhard V, Heeringa W, Klages HO, Maschuw R, Voelker G, Zeitnitz B; Z. Phys. A: At. Nucl. 334 (1989) 357. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220347 (1989). "Neutron limits from gas-loaded titanium-deuterium systems". ** Ti sponge and shavings were brought in to contact with D gas at various pressures and temps. and neutrons measured. None found. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hargitai C; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 137 (1989) 17. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220911 (1989). "Considerations on cold nuclear fusion in palladium". ** Suggests that CNF can be triggered by raising the dielectric constant of the cathode to about 20. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lipson AG, Klyuev VA, Toporov YuP, Deryagin BV, Sakov DM; Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 15 (1989) 26 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220303 (1989). "Deuterium-deuterium fusion initiation by friction in the system titanium- deuterated polymer". ** Note that this journal comes out later in the English translation Sov. Lett. Tech. Phys. They applied friction to Ti in solutions of (C2D4)x polymers in D2O and observed a substantial excess of neutrons above the background, amounting to 0.3 events per s. This is similar to their earlier ball mill paper, see the main list. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ohms D, Rahner D, Wiesener K; Mitteilungsblatt - Chem. Ges. DDR 36 (1989) 151 (in German). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220285 (1989). "Nuclear fusion in an electrolysis cell". ** Review with 6 references. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ratkje SK, Hafskjold B; J. Electroanal. Chem. 273 (1989) 269. "Local heat effects by electrolysis of heavy water". ** An analysis in principle of heat effects, separately for the two electrodes. Involved thermodynamics of the partial reactions, the electro- chemical Peltier effect, as well as Joule heating were considered. The conclusion is that there should be cooling at both electrodes and that no conclusions about the bulk nature of any phenomenon can be drawn from point heat measurements in the cell. This analysis does not take into account the fact that in FPH's cell, there was undoubtedly partial recombination of the electrochemically generated deuterium and oxygen and the probably bursty nature of such a reaction in the cell. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takahashi Y; Gendai Kagaku 223 (1989) 48 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220288 (1989). "Room temperature nuclear fusion". ** Review, with no references (huh?) of the FPH and Jones+ experiments, as well as the non-electrochemical Italian work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wilms W, Werges F, Schober T, Schaetzler R, Mund M, Hempelmann R, Fuerst L, Divisek J, Alefeld B; Ber. Kernforschungsanlage Juelich Juel-2294 (1989) 88-106. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:220790 (1989). "Experiments to detect 'cold fusion' neutrons". ** Description of the neutron detection experiments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1989 ------------------------------ 1989.12.27 / Eli Liang / from a Johnny-come-lately: Where's Cold Fusion? Originally-From: elil@sco.COM (Eli Liang) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: from a Johnny-come-lately: Where's Cold Fusion? Date: 27 Dec 89 21:32:27 GMT Organization: The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. I've been off the net for a couple of months now and so I haven't been able to follow the net discussion on cold fusion. It pretty much fell out of the media spotlight outside of usenet when a couple of major research institutes casts doubts on it. However, as I recall, there was still discussion on the net of interesting things which still might or might not be demonstrated. What I want to ask is, what really happened to cold fusion? Did Pons and Fleischmann ever recant? What was the effect that they discovered (if it wasn't fusion)? Is there anyone reputable that is still holding out on their decision on the verdict of "cold fusion", or is everyone pretty decided that it was flawed experimental methods? -eli -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eli Liang US MAIL: Systems Engineering; Kernel Group EMAIL: ...!uunet!sco!elil The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. elil@sco.COM 400 Encinal Street FAX: 408-458-0811 P.O. Box 1900 TWX: 910-598-4510 SCO SACZ Santa Cruz, CA 95061 cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenelil cudfnEli cudlnLiang cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1989 ------------------------------ 1989.12.27 / walterj@physc1 / Complete list papers held at BYU Originally-From: walterj@physc1.byu.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Complete list papers held at BYU Date: 27 Dec 89 07:19:48 GMT TO ACTIVE RESEARCHERS IN "COLD FUSION" Greetings from the BYU Center for Fusion Studies Dear Colleagues, These are exciting and decisive times for research in "cold fusion." Some are finding evidence for neutron production, or protons, or tritium. (Nowhere do we ascertain a quantitative correlation between fusion products and excess power; nonetheless "excess heat" measurements are intriguing.) Some are concerned about reproducibility, some about the reality of the phenomenon, some about geophysical implications, while others dream of applications. We believe that the research effort could be accelerated by improving communications. Therefore, we propose to maintain in electronic form the following information: 1) a bibliography of papers relating to cold fusion which we receive at BYU, which are available for public distribution; and 2) a roster of institutions/researchers active in the new field. Our bibliography contains references to over 150 preprints and papers related to so-called "cold fusion". If you take a moment to review it, you will probably notice a number of papers that are interesting but that you were unaware of. And there are doubtless other papers missing from our accumulation here at BYU. The bibliography and institution roster are avaliable by anonymous ftp from "noc.byu.edu" (ip # 128.187.7.2) with a username of "anonymous" and password of "guest", they're in the "fusion" directory. For those who indicate that they do not have easy access to the computer networks, we can mail the list to you if you simply send us your address. As a further service to the community, we are willing to provide a few copies of papers in our library by regular US mail, but we would ask that requests be made directly to the authors if practical. We sincerely hope that this service will benefit your research efforts, and we invite you to participate by providing information and suggestions. Please address communications to our technical secretary: Nanette Hamm BYU 174 ESC Provo, Utah USA 84602 (801) 378-4516 FAX: (801) 378-2800 E-mail: bitnet: jonesse@byuvax internet: jonesse@yvax.byu.edu We wish you peace at this Christmas season, and success. Sincerely, Steven E. Jones, B. Kent Harrison, Nanette L. Hamm cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenwalterj cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1989 ------------------------------ 1990.01.05 / William Johnson / Comments on the Wada paper in JJAP Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Comments on the Wada paper in JJAP Date: 5 Jan 90 17:12:09 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Back when the reports of "confirmations" by Japanese researchers came out -- mid-December or so -- I promised various people that I'd comment on the Wada paper for the net when I saw it. (The Wada paper, you will recall, was in the 11/89 issue of _Japanese Journal of Applied Physics_ and supposedly reported neutron bursts from a gas setup.) Thanks to Tom Sommers, I now have a copy of that paper, and with this posting I am keeping my promise. First, the standard disclaimer: the following comments represent only my own views and are not endorsed or necessarily shared by Los Alamos National Laboratory. That said ... The paper is a "letter" and therefore rather brief. They describe results from a system involving a "reaction glass bulb of 300 ml with a pair of electrode stems," i.e., a gas vessel with palladium electrodes across which they applied voltage ("AC voltage of 12 KV, 60 Hz") at various times. They first zapped the electrodes with this voltage before adding deuterium gas "[i]n order to activate the sample", then added gas and let it sit around for a while while they monitored the temperature and pressure. After some hours, they zapped the electrodes again, whereupon bursts of neutrons apparently occurred that lasted a few seconds. The neutrons were detected with BF3 tubes, one neutron detector being surrounded by 3 "bulbs" at a time. After some seconds, the neutron count rate declined to a level somewhat greater than the "background" level that existed before they applied high voltage. Another application of high voltage 40 hours later led to more neutrons, as did two more zaps at some later, unspecified time. After this, "[t]he used palladium never showed the emission of neutrons again, even though it was soaked with deuterium by the activation... Many cracks and holes were observed on the surface of the consumed sample by a scanning electron microscope (SEM)." A similar experimental setup with normal light hydrogen instead of deuterium showed no neutrons; the paper does not say whether "many cracks and holes" showed up in the electrodes from that setup. The paper concludes with some arm-waving about reaction mechanism that tries to explain things "in terms of the supersaturation of the solid solution of deuterium" -- whatever that means. My first reaction to this paper is that it is quite hard to read, being written in a language in which I am not fluent: Franglish. (That's shorthand for "fractured English.") Some of the quotes above will hint at the difficulties in reading it; the constructions are obscure enough that, in many cases, it's hard to figure out just what is going on. This problem is widespread in English-language journals originating in non-English-speaking countries, and I don't want to be too critical of it; their English is, after all, better than my technical French or German, to say nothing of my nonexistent Japanese! But potential readers of the paper should be aware that its fractured English will lead to problems of interpretation. Technically, Wada and Nishizawa appear to have done a moderately competent job, although there are things I would have done differently than they did. I wish they had used He-3 tubes rather than BF3 tubes for various reasons, not the least reason being that He-3 tubes are vastly more stable and less prone to electronic weirdness than BF3 tubes are. Examples of this are the known sensitivity of BF3 tubes to temperature variations (although the drawing of the experimental apparatus included a thermometer, the paper does not mention any temperature variations, or lack thereof, during the bursts of neutrons) and to gamma rays and x rays (the paragraph in the paper describing possible problems from gamma rays is a particularly murky bit of Franglish). Their efficiency for counting neutrons was also lower than it should have been, what with their detector being surrounded with "bulbs" rather than vice versa (as in, for example, the oft-cited Menlove experiment). Of course, one must work with the equipment one has, rather than the equipment one would like to have ... The primary shortcoming of this paper is that standard bugbear of cold-fusion experiments, reproducibility. Only one experimental setup is described, and neutrons only came from that setup for a little while; then they stopped and never reappeared. I am very surprised that no attempt was made (or at least none was mentioned) to refurbish the electrodes or obtain new ones with which to repeat the measurements; failing such an attempt, I'm surprised that JJAP even accepted the paper. IMHO, researchers *must* put more effort into trying to reproduce their findings before making public statements -- conspicuously including scholarly publications -- if they expect anyone to take their work seriously. The only reason I don't reject this paper out of hand as incorrect is the time signature of the neutron bursts observed. As pointed out by a co-worker who specializes in detecting neutrons, the application of AC high voltage in a system such as Wada's is all too likely to cause noise to be picked up by the BF3 tubes and misinterpreted as neutrons; the analog electronics used with BF3 tubes is notoriously prone to this. However, one would expect that the high count rate would be observed for the *whole* time that the high voltage was being applied; instead, a "burst of neutron emission ... for 63 seconds ... was then detected just after starting of the 540-second [application of high voltage]." This argues, although not very strongly, against the "burst" having been an electronic artifact. In general, I find this paper interesting but unconvincing. Too many experimental details are omitted, with the result that sources of experimental error aren't adequately disposed of. There is also the everpresent reproducibility problem. My inclination is just to write it off as another flawed experiment ... but the results are there, and although one can quibble with them, one can't refute them outright. Final note: the last paragraph of the paper (before acknowledgements and references) reads in part: "These mechanisms of fusion in palladium suggest similar results for the other metals ... This means that these other metals should be cooled or heated accordingly to allow absorption of deuterium. Palladium is the only metal that exhibits the nuclear fusion at room temperature *except for some alloys used for hydrogen storing.*" (my emphasis added) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Do these guys know something the rest of us don't? -- Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile (mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.05 / Gerald Durand / Science News Article Originally-From: JDurand@cup.portal.com (Gerald Joseph Durand) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Science News Article Date: 5 Jan 90 20:09:42 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) (Taken from Science News, VOL. 136, 12/23-30/89, p.406 without permission) Cold fusion - or something Despite widespread skepticism about earlier claims, some reasearch continue to conduct cold fusion experiments. Several of these described mysterious results last week at the San Francisco meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. ``Anomalous effects have been seen often enough that the phenomena can't be explained away as artifacts,'' says Charles D. Scott of Oak Ridge (Tenn.) National Laboratory. For instance, Gordon E. Michaels of Oak Ridge reports evidence of anomalously large amounts of heat emerging from his group's Pons-Fleischman-type electrolysis experiments, which involve palladium electrodes immersed in heavy water (SN: 4/1/89, p.196). In addition, Scott told Science News, the group intermittently detected neutrons and tritium, two predicted products of fusion reactions involving heavy water. He notes that the sporadic effects, which defy conventional wisdom, disappear in experiments using regular water. Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT proposes a ``coherent fusion theory'' to explain these and other anomalous observations. Such results, he suggests, could stem from unconventionsl nuclear reactions that produce low-energy photons and thus yield an unconventional profile of fusion products. cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenJDurand cudfnGerald cudlnDurand cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.06 / Jon Watts / ASME meeting news? Originally-From: jwatts@hpihoah.HP.COM (Jon Watts) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: ASME meeting news? Date: 6 Jan 90 00:33:21 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Has anyone heard anything from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers meeting in San Francisco last week? Science News (Dec 23&30 issue) had a brief article. It says Charles D. Scott of Oak Ridge National Laboratory talked about work by Gordon E. Michaels (also of Oak Ridge) in which "anomalously large amounts of heat" have been seen "often enough that the phenomena can't be explained away as artifacts". All of this is highly paraphrased from a rather scant article so measure the appropriate amount of salt (hint: do your measuring with a dump truck), but it would appear there is still life out there in fusion land. Jon Watts cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenjwatts cudfnJon cudlnWatts cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.06 / Dieter Britz / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 6 Jan 90 18:09:51 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway About 20 items again this time. I include the Deryagin et al (again), as it does not seem to be in my grand list. There is now a book out, but not a good one, if we are to believe David Lindley. Most of the articles I get from Chemical Abstracts, where they are in the eminent company of papers on the fifth force, superstrings, gravity waves and non-Abelian wormholes. I do, of course, keep the grand list, and keep adding these updates. Anyone who wants this can have it but it's rather long. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 6-Jan. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 0. A book| ^^^^^^^^^^ F. David Peat, "Cold Fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy", Contemporary Books 1989, 188 pp, !16.95. ** Reviewed by David Lindley in Nature 342 (1989) 870 (issue 6252, 21/28 Dec). 1. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andreani R; Energ. Nucl. (Rome) 6 (1989) 8 (in Italian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241527 (1989). "'Cold' fusion". ** A review with no references (huh?), it discusses Italian cold fusion experiments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bhattacharjee JK, Satpathy L, Waghmare YR; Pranama 32 (1989) L841. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241580 (1989). "A possible mechanism of cold fusion". ** Again invokes shielding of two deuterons from each other by an electron with enhanced effective mass. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blaser JP, Haas O, Ptitjean C, Barbero C, Bertl W, Lou K, Mathias M, Baumann P, Herbert D et al; Chimia 43 (1989) 262. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241658 (1989). "Experimental investigation of cold fusion phenomena in palladium". ** Electrolysis of D2O and H2O, using closed cells, at the Paul Scherrer Institute found no radiation above background, no excess heat, nothing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Capec V; Czech. J. Phys. B39 (1989) 793. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241557 (1989). "Tunnelling efficiency and the problem of cold fusion". ** Argue, irrespective of the final outcome of the CNF debate, that there is a theoretical possibility of a tunnelling mechanism which exists in solids but not in vacuum, to allow CNF. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Davydov AS; Ukr. Fiz. Zh. (Russ. Ed.) 34 (1989) 1295 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241572 (1989). "Possible interpretationof cold nuclear fusion" (Letter to the Editor). ** While neither pure Pd nor pure D is superconducting, PdD can be, at below 11K. This is used to show that CNF is feasible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- DeNinno A, Frattolillo A, Lollobattista G, Martinis L, Martone M, Mori L, Podda S, Scaramuzzi F; Energ. Nucl. (Rome) 6 (1989) 9 (in Italian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241562 (1989). "Emission of neutrons from a deuterium-titanium system". ** Two experiments, in which Ti was placed under high pressure D, produced neutrons. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deryagin BV, Lipson AG, Kluev VA, Sakov DM, Toporov YuP; Nature (London) 341 (1989) 492 (issue 6242). "Titanium fracture yields neutrons?" ** Ti chips were ground in a ball mill with various mixtures of heavy water and deuterated "polypropilenium", and neutrons detected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Durocher JJG, Gallop DM, Kwok CB, Mathur MS, Mayer JK, McKee JSC, Mirzai A, Smith GR, Yeo YH et al; Can. J. Phys. 67 (1989) 624. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241586 (1989). "A search for evidence of cold fusion in the direct implantation of palladium and indium with deuterium". ** Using a beam of D2+, they surface-loaded Pd and In with D. At a loading of > 10**19 d (the abstract does not say more than this), neutrons were observed for both metals. The flux is, however, consistent with known fusion cross sections. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Feng S; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 205. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241648 (1989). "Enhancement of cold fusion rat by electron polarization in palladium deuterium solid". ** Again a theoretical attempt to overcome the coulomb repulsion: at a loading of 0.5 D per Pd, the compound is a semiconductor, and this might enhance tunnelling. Not enough, though, to explain CNF. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ikeya M, Miyamaru H; Chem. Express. 4 (1989) 563. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:242382 (1989). "Chemical heat production of palladium electrode electrolytically charged with deuterium and hydrogen". ** D- or H-charged Pd-sputtered Pd plates, having been wiped in air with acetone and then bent, heated up to 280 deg., presumably from the reaction of D or H with the keto-group to give the alcohol. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kainthla RC, Velev O, Kaba L, Lin GH, Packham NJC, Szklarczyk M, Wass J, Bockris JO'M; Electrochim. Acta 34 (1989) 1315. " Sporadic observation of the Fleischmann-Pons heat effect" ** -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lee AR, Kalotas TM; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis., A 102 (1989) 1177. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241579 (1989). "On the feasibility of cold fusion". ** Despite the journal, an Australian contribution. Estimation of fusion rates of deuterons trapped in Pd lattice. Coulomb screening and lattice vibration are crucial. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marinelli M, Morpurgo G, Vitale S, Olcese GL; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis., A 102 (1989) 959. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:242381 (1989). "Heat release from deuterated titanium-iron (TiFe) or lanthanum-nickel (LaNi5) on exposure to the air". ** The title compounds, heavily deuterated and in contact with Pd or Ni, sometimes ignite on exposure to air. Thus, ignition (i.e. reoxidation of D by recombination with O2) may have caused the heat bursts in PFH's PdD, presumed to have been partially exposed to the air. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mazitov RK; Koord. Khim. 15 (1989) 1294 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241525 (1989). "Registration of cold fusion" ** A review with 3 references. Discusses some error sources and makes suggestions for avoiding them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mazitov RK; Dokl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 307 (1989) 1158 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241558 (1989). "Possibility of nuclear transformation in chemical reactions" ** Discusses conditions under which CNF might take place, such as close approach of two D's, changes in the electronic structure of the D, "heavy" electrons and interactions of the D with the environment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miskelly GM, Heben MJ, Kumar A, Penner RM, Sailor MJ, Lewis NS; Science 246 (1989) 793. "Analysis of the published calorimetric evidence for electrochemical fusion of deuterium in palladium". ** Critical analysis of published data and report of their own results. The authors point to some error sources, and conclude that all can be accounted for without invoking CNF. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nagamine K; Kagaku (Kyoto) 44 (1989) 653 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241547 (1989). "Muon catalyzed fusion" ** Not strictly on cold fusion but might be of interest anyway, being a review with 6 references of muon catalysed fusion experiments. Muons have been invoked (and revoked) at times as an explanation for CNF. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sanchez C, Sevilla J, Escarpizo B, Fernandez FJ, Canizares J; Solid State Commun. 71 (1989) 1039. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241581 (1989). "Nuclear products detection during electrolysis of heavy water with titanium and platinum electrodes". ** Detected gamma radiation, neutrons, as well as (3)He and consider this consistent with a d+d nuclear fusion reaction, as well they might. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shibab-Eldin AA, Rasmussen JO, Justice M, Stoyer MA; Mod. Phys. Lett. B 3 (1989) 965. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241660 (1989). " Cold fusion: effects of possible narrow nuclear resonance". ** Theory; looks at the possibility of the effect of an as yet unknown narrow resonance of (4)He on d-d fusion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takeda T, Takizuka T; Nippon Genshiryoku Kenkyushu #Rep.$ JAERI-M 1989, JAERI-M-89-093, 19 pp. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241735 (1989). "Fracto-fusion mechanism of cold fusion". ** Fractofusion can explain all. See also the published paper by the same authors. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zelentsov VV; Koord. Khim. 19 (1989) 1296 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241526 (1989). "New but completely forgotten ideas" ** I'm sure there is a mistranslation of the title; anyway, it's about Paneth and Peters' 1926 work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; New Scientist 124 (1989) 18 (issue 1695, Dec. 16) "Test-tube fusion fails the final test" - Science report. ** Although this report starts with mention of the two Japanese claims of success, the report is mainly about two heavily negative publications: those of Nathan Lewis, and Williams et al, and thus the title conclusion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 342 (1989) 870 (issue 6252, 21/28 Dec.) "Sitting on the fence" - Book Review. ** Review of the book by F. David Peat "Cold fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy". Mr Lindley is not happy, Peat has done a rush job and made some mistakes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy6 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.09 / Dieter Britz / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 9 Jan 90 15:23:48 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In my update of two days ago, I missed the Langanke article, now included. This reminds me to ask again, if anyone knows of stuff I have missed, please let me know. Also, I have cleared up the problem with the Deryagin/Derjagin/Deryaguin papers and include the Chemical Abstracts abstract here, exactly as given. This is not interesting in terms of the subject but for fussy bibiliographers like me. Both Deryagin and Klyuev (I reckon that should strictly be Klyuyev) have suffered in transliteration - partly by their own hands. The item below should prevent people taking the Chemical Abstract and the real article as two separate papers. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Addition 8-Jan. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 1. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deryagin BV, Lipson AG, Kluev VA, Sakov DM, Toporov YuP; Nature (London) 341 (1989) 492 (issue 6242). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241575 (1989). "Titanium fracture yields neutrons?" ***** NOT A SEPARATE ARTICLE ***** ** This is the identical article given under Derjaguin et al; Chemical Abstracts chose to partially correct the transliteration of the authors' names, which the authors themselves have written incorrectly in this English-language Letter. The proper transliteration of the two problem names are Deryagin and Klyuev (or even Klyuyev), as seen in the translated paper in Sov. Tech. Phys. Lett 12 (1986) 551 (see under Klyuev et al). I mention all this only to point out that these are not two different articles. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Langanke K; Mod. Phys. Lett. B 3 (1989) 1031. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 111:241659 (1989). "Potential of a deuterium molecule trapped in an external field of screened point charges with fcc-symmetry". ** Calculated the potential between 2 d, within the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, using the Monte-Carlo technique. No significant deviation was found from D2. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.09 / Dave Spain / Re: Science News Article Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Science News Article Date: 9 Jan 90 00:22:27 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA In article <25634@cup.portal.com> JDurand@cup.portal.com (Gerald Joseph Durand) writes: > [...] >Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT proposes a ``coherent fusion theory'' to explain >these and other anomalous observations. [...] Is there anyone out there in netland who can explain this theory in lay terms? Dave Spain cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.09 / Mark Thorson / Cold Fusion Kits Now Available !!! Originally-From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Kits Now Available !!! Date: 9 Jan 90 00:21:29 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) The current issue (2/90) of Radio-Electronics magazine has a write-up on cold fusion kits in the column by Don Lancaster. The kits are available for $25 plus $2 shipping from: Guy Wicker 30437 Fairfax Southfield, MI 48076 (313) 647-1820 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnThorson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.09 / fusion@zorch.S / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 9 Jan 90 22:09:40 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway (Terry Bollinger -- Computer Science) On 9 Jan 90 00:22:27 GMT spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) wrote: > In article <25634@cup.portal.com> JDurand@cup.portal.com > (Gerald Joseph Durand) writes: >> [...] >> Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT proposes a ``coherent fusion theory'' to explain >> these and other anomalous observations. [...] > > Is there anyone out there in netland who can explain this theory > in lay terms? Speaking only as one poor computer lay person to another, probably not, because Hagelstein's theory simply does not jibe well with reality. Coherent fusion implies some form of coordinated action between atomic nuclei, just as optical coherency in lasers is based on "group behavior" of a large number of atoms or molecules that are just itching to get rid of some extra energy. (That situation is called an "inverted population," by the way -- sort of like 90% of the population being millionares rather than the normal state of affairs). The key concept of coherency in lasers is that a photon (the smallest possible "particle" or packet of light) given off my one atom can "tickle" other atoms to produce identical photons that then travel in perfect lockstep in exactly the same direction. (Sort of like East Germans heading west -- once it gets started, it's hard to stop.) Light waves are very, very much larger than atoms, which is why they are able to "tickle" enough other atoms to get an avalanche going. However, nuclear fields are very, very short-range in their effects, and therein lies the rub with any attempt to explain weird palladium results via a mechanism of "coherent fusion." Fusion is mediated by "strong" (and "weak" -- Bill, am I right on that one?) forces that are found only in atomic nuclei. As soon you say "coherent" and "nuclear forces" in the same sentence, you are in big, big conceptual trouble. Nuclei are very much smaller than atoms (about 10,000 to 100,000 times smaller), and are constantly being jostled around by the motions (heat) of the atoms themselves. (That's true even at absolute zero, incidentally.) To achieve any "coherency" of nuclear forces, the products of fusion are somehow going to have to "get close" to each other, just as photons readily "get close" to atoms within lasers. Coherency is real easy with big photons and small atoms. It's very hard to imagine with the extremely tiny, very localized nuclear fields of fusion products and target nuclei that are bouncing around due to thermal noise like drunken sailors on a small ship in a big typhoon. Coherent reactions between nuclear forces certainly may exist somewhere -- e.g., within the core of a neutron star, where the size of the strong field is comparable to the distance between nuclear particles. But, layman though I am, please, please, MIT, do not try to tell me that the explantion for all of this weird stuff has anything to do with "coherent" nuclear reactions in a room-temperature tube of ordinary matter located somewhere in Utah. Alas, I freely admit that I have not studied the details of Hagelstein's paper and thus could be missing some profound, remarkable insight. But I don't think so. +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Terry Bollinger | "Don't get *too* excited about this. | | Contel Technology Center | Teller is a theorist..." | | (terry@ctc.contel.com) | --Bill Johnson, LANL (with permission) | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenfusion cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.09 / Jim Bowery / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 9 Jan 90 17:48:41 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) writes: >In article <25634@cup.portal.com> JDurand@cup.portal.com (Gerald Joseph Durand) writes: >> [...] >>Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT proposes a ``coherent fusion theory'' to explain >>these and other anomalous observations. [...] > >Is there anyone out there in netland who can explain this theory in lay terms? Yes, the "coherent fusion theory" in laymans terms is as follows: Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT hears about the CNF press release last march and immediately stays up nights with MIT lawyers trying to come up with every permutation of words in the english language that sounds remotely like a physical theory, patenting each. Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT then hears a bunch of physicists calling P&F nasty names and decides to stop. Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT then starts hearing about persistent reports of CNF-type phenomena in spite of the fact that really big baboons like Koonin are making really nasty threatening noises. Koonin starts quieting down and saying things like he "hasn't lost all hope for CNF." Peter L. Hagelstein of MIT then decides it is ok for him to start generating random permutations of english words that sound like physical theories again, all of which he patents the hell out of immediately. --- Typical RESEARCH grant: $ Typical DEVELOPMENT contract: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjim cudfnJim cudlnBowery cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.10 / rolfe petschek / Coherent fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Subject: Coherent fusion Date: 9 Jan 90 19:08:20 GMT Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 12:45:23 -0500 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Received: by zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (smail2.5) id AA20577; 9 Jan 90 09:17:33 PST (Tue) Received: from [129.22.176.5] by ames.arc.nasa.gov (5.61/1.2); Wed, 10 Jan 90 08:37:10 -0800 Received: by mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu. (5.61+ida+/Ultrix3.0-C) id AA09068; Wed, 10 Jan 90 12:45:23 -0500 Date: Wed, 10 Jan 90 12:45:23 -0500 Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Message-Id: <9001101745.AA09068@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu.> To: scott@zorch.sf-bay.org, spain@alliant.com Subject: Coherent fusion Cc: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu Status: R Re Hagelstein's coherent cold fusion: It is a general rule of physics that if you have a number of bosons (photons, phonons etc.) then a system which wants to emit such bosons will tend to emit them more quickly. This 'simulated emission' is how lasers work. A population inversion is prepared in which there are more atoms which want to emit photons than there are atoms which want to absorb photons so that there is a chain reaction of more and more photons emitted L(ight) A(mplification by) S(imulated) E(mmission of) R(adiation). Hagelstein has proposed that essentially this effect should allow a very excited nucleus, which has the capability of emitting many, many phonons to emit them all at once and therefore do it much more quickly than would otherwise be expected. I have read the paper. It makes no sense to me. In addition we have a _lot_ of experience with excitations in solids which want to emit a _lot_ of phonons e.g. excited atoms or nuclei. They seem not to behave in a way consistent with Hagelstein's ideas but in more prosaic ways which are relatively well understood. In fact if they behaved as Hagelstein would seem to suggest all sorts of things which Hagelstein knows about e.g. every solid state laser (ruby, Nd-YAG etc.) would not work. More technical comments about Hagelstein's paper could be made available if you have, say, at least a graduate level education in physics. Rolfe G. Petschek cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.10 / William Johnson / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 10 Jan 90 16:34:45 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <9001092209.AA06246@ctc.contel.com>, Terry Bollinger writes: [A good reply to Dave Spain's query about the Hagelstein "coherent fusion" "theory"; I extract only the following piece ...] > Fusion is mediated by "strong" (and "weak" -- Bill, am I right on that > one?) forces that are found only in atomic nuclei. As soon you say > "coherent" and "nuclear forces" in the same sentence, you are in big, > big conceptual trouble. [...] Gee ... I'm a net.oracle! :-) Actually, the forces involved in fusion (at least, fusion as we know it ...) are the strong force and the Coulomb force, the latter acting against it and the former causing it when the Coulomb force is overcome. (Quibbles that the strong and Coulomb forces are really just aspects of one "superforce" are directed to sci.physics or somewhere comparably useless.) As for the "conceptual trouble" of using "coherent" and "nuclear forces" in the same sentence, that's only partially true -- there are grounds for believing that "gamma-ray lasers" might be at least theoretically possible (and *please* discuss them somewhere other than sci.physics.fusion!) -- but in the current context, I'd have to agree with you. I've refrained from discussing the Hagelstein "theory" on the net for the simple reason that I don't know enough about it, but permit me to give an experimental physicist's opinion of why that theory, like any other "theory" of cold fusion yet proposed, doesn't impress me very much. The basic problem is that all of these theories take the general form "deuteron meets deuteron -- THEN A MIRACLE OCCURS -- and fusion results." But a vast body of experimental evidence exists, pertaining to normal low-energy nuclear reactions (of which d+d=t+p/n+He-3 is one), that has sufficed for the construction of theories that *don't* require miracles but still explain the observations. One might argue the significance of relying on miracles -- after all, the mere existence of nuclear reactions would have been deemed "miraculous" according to physics dogmas of circa 1900. The point, however, is that any theory invoking "miracles" must also explain convincingly why miracles are *NOT* happening in a zillion other places. For example, Hagelstein would have to explain why "coherent fusion" doesn't affect things like * experimental measurements of d+d and d+t cross sections at accelerators, which are often performed with non-gas-phase targets; * the observed fact that 14-MeV neutron generators (consisting of a deuteron beam hurled at a metallic target with adsorbed tritium) work just as expected; * a great body of theoretical astrophysics relying on non-miraculous nuclear physics to explain -- pretty successfully -- what happens inside stars (Ethan Vishniac, if you're still following this, you might elaborate); * the things designed here at Los Alamos that are euphemistically referred to as "nuclear devices"; * The observed fact that cold fusion does *NOT* happen under an extremely wide range of circumstances; -- and so on, all of which seem to agree very nicely with low-energy nuclear physics as we know it (or think we know it). A "theory" explaining cold fusion in deuterated palladium has to show itself compatible with all of these things, plus very many others, before an experimentalist is ever going to take it seriously. There is, or at least used to be, one pretty distinguished theoretical nuclear physicist who sometimes sees things from this newsgroup, and I'd like to see if he agrees with this assessment. Steve, what do you think? If you can't post, mail to me, and I'll pass your contribution along if you wish. -- Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile (mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.10 / Mark Kaufmann / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: mrk@wuphys.UUCP (Mark R. Kaufmann) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 10 Jan 90 22:53:36 GMT Organization: Dept. of Physics, Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO, USA In article <1001@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG writes: >Re Hagelstein's coherent cold fusion: >...bosons will tend to emit them more quickly. This 'simulated emission' >more photons emitted L(ight) A(mplification by) S(imulated) E(mmission >of) R(adiation).... "Stimulated," not "simulated." -- Mark R. Kaufmann UUCP: ...!uunet!wucs1!wuphys!mrk Internet: mrk@wuphys.wustl.edu ?: wuphys!mrk@uunet.uu.net cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenmrk cudfnMark cudlnKaufmann cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.10 / Sean Casey / Could we get some subject lines? Originally-From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Could we get some subject lines? Date: 10 Jan 90 15:17:51 GMT Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY I realize that the place that posts articles with the subject line "Submission for ..." is generating the subject automatically, but I still don't feel that's acceptable. The articles already have a newsgroup line. The subject line is redundant. Perhaps the software could be fixed to provide proper subjects. I know a number of people that don't read such postings because they don't have time to read things with a generic subject. So what do you think? Maybe we can get some real subject lines on those articles? Sean -- *** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean *** Copyright 1989 by Sean Casey. Only non-profit redistribution permitted. *** "Gotta warn ya, if you're not a RUSH fan, well, what's *wrong* with you?" *** -DJ during WKQQs Four HOURS of Rush special. cudkeys: cuddy10 cudensean cudfnSean cudlnCasey cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.11 / fusion@zorch.S / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 11 Jan 90 14:11:10 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hypothesis: Palladium/deuterium anomolies occur only when the following two conditions are met: 1) Beta phase is reached, and 2) Disruption of the original Pd crystal structure during the overall transition to beta phase is minimal. Corollaries if true: a) Slow charging promotes odd results not because of "saturation" (beyond the norm for beta phase, that is), but because it does not disrupt the original crystal structure as severely as rapid charging. b) Large electrodes work better than small electrodes because the outside layers of the Pd act as constraints against severe mechanical distortion of the interior; the actual reaction would thus take place in the interior, not the surface. Also, large electrodes will encourage slow charging of the interior. c) Repeated cycling will invariably "kill" electrodes due to the severe mechanical stress of repeated transtitions between alpha and beta phases. (The beta phase is about 10% higher in volume than the alpha phase.) d) In terms of their ability to produce anomolies, electrodes will be mechanically fragile due to a combination of strain accumulation and the brittleness of the beta phase. e) Surface dendrites and other novel features are relevant only to the degree that they promote or impede smooth, low-strain charging of the interior. They would not participate in the reaction at all, since their structures would be drastically altered from that of the original Pd metal. f) High levels of shape, surface, and metallurgical symmetry in the Pd electrodes are all important during charging, because asymmetries in any of these could lead to asymmetrical transitions to the beta phase that would stress the crystal structure and help disrupt it. Surface asymmetries (as they might affect D charging) could perhaps be introduced by such minor factors as scrapes or fingerprints. Metallurgical asymmetries could perhaps be introduced by actions as simple as bending or unbending an electrode. g) Macroscopic (whole electrode) electrical properties quite possibly would change as an active electrode became inactive, since electrical conductivity would tend to be a fairly good measure of the overall preservation of the (metallic) original and alpha crystal structures vs. the less metallic beta phase. Tests: 1) Look for changes in macroscopic electrical properties in electrodes that are "active" as they (inevitably) stop working. 2) Build electrodes that are very high in shape, surface, and metallurgical symmetry. 3) Jacket electrodes with permeable claddings of strong metal or ceramics that are either porous or permeable to hydrogen. (A porous ceramic with some might work best, and would probably be safer; an inner layer with some "give" might prevent cracking of the ceramic.) The idea would be to minimize crystal structure disruption through physical reduction of stress. (Please note the possibility of explosions when jacketing a material (Pd) that swells significantly.) 4) Follow the Wada dry-loading lead and get away from using water in the system; electrolysis effects such as dendrite growth and absorption of oxygen would be far more likely to damage the electrode than assist it. Pure Pd + D2 would certainly be nice (although perhaps unreasonable), possibly with selected addition of "interesting" metals such as lithium directly to the surface or interior (via alloying) of the Pd. Cheers, Terry Bollinger terry@ctc.contel.com cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenfusion cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.11 / fusion@zorch.S / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 11 Jan 90 19:46:14 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 10 Jan 90 16:34:45 GMT mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) wrote: > The point, however, is that any theory invoking "miracles" must also > explain convincingly why miracles are *NOT* happening in a zillion > other places. Bravo! I think Bill's nailed down a point that has been a problem for essentially every theory that has been proposed for palladium effects -- "Why isn't it going on all over the place?" If there's an explanation somewhere, it had better be able to lock itself down very tightly to the experimental setups using palladium and titanium. The alternative is a very, very warm universe with nuclear reactions occurring randomly like fizz out of a warm soda. Cheers, Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com) cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenfusion cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.12 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibiography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 12 Jan 90 16:30:41 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Another mini-harvest. The two Scalia articles may not be to with CNF at all; I'd have to read them to find out. Anyone out there who can do this easily? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 12-Jan. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 1. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chemla M, Chevalet J, Bury R; C. R. Acad. Sci., Ser. 2 309 (1989) 987 (in French). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:13278 (1990). "Heat evolution involved with the electrochemical discharge of hydrogen and deuterium on palladium". ** Used a quasiadiabatic calorimeter. In all cases of ordinary electrolysis, the heat produced was less than the total electrical energy input. When using a new technique of transfer electrolysis, in which PdD is used as the anode, the output heat matches the electrical energy input exactly. In a few experiments, a slight heat excess was found, but attributed to recom- bination of D2 with O2. The same was observed without deuterium. A short English summary is provided. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scalia A; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A 102 (1989) 1101. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:12779 (1990). "The nuclear fusion for the reaction (3)H(d,n)(4)He at very low energy". ** Probably showing my ignorance but the phrase "low energy" caught me. Scalia applied the elastic model to subbarrier fusion at low energy to the title reaction, and compared with experimental results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scalia A; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A 102 (1989) 1105. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:12780 (1990). "The nuclear fusion for the reaction (2)H(d,n)(3)He at very low energy". ** Similar to Scalia's other article but here about deuterium, not tritium. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yan X, Tsai S, Guo S, Zhang Z; Chin. Phys. Lett. 6 (1989) 343. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:12819 (1990). "Room temperature deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction rate - a strong- -coupling plasma model". ** A strong-coupling model with ion screening and electron polarization was used to study CNF. The abstract does not say what the result was. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendk cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.12 / Johnny Zweig / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: zweig@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (Johnny Zweig) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 12 Jan 90 17:29:07 GMT Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG writes: >Re Hagelstein's coherent cold fusion: > It is a general rule of physics that if you have a number of >bosons (photons, phonons etc.) then a system which wants to emit such >bosons will tend to emit them more quickly. This 'simulated emission' >is how lasers work. >L(ight) A(mplification by) S(imulated) E(mmission >of) R(adiation). > Rolfe G. Petschek That's "Stimulated" not "Simulated". It matters. -Johnny Spellschek cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenzweig cudfnJohnny cudlnZweig cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.14 / Mark Thorson / Cold Fusion Kits Now Available !!! Originally-From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Kits Now Available !!! Date: 14 Jan 90 22:26:02 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) [Sorry if you get more than one copy of this. From here, it looks like my host dropped the first attempt to post. The host is very unreliable.] The current issue of RADIO-ELECTRONICS magazine, dated Feb 1990, describes cold fusion kits available from: Guy Wicker 30437 Fairfax Southfield, MI 48076 (313) 647-1820 They cost $27. It includes a piece of palladium foil and a small test tube containing a deuterated electrolyte. You also get some nickel wire to use as the other electrode. cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnThorson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.15 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibiography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 15 Jan 90 22:07:56 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Having just received copies of the two articles below, I have been able to expand on my commentary, and pass it on here. They are well-chosen words from distinguished Indian electrochemists. These two items have been changed in my grand list. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Changes, 15-Jan. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 1. Published articles, letters -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chidambaram R, Sahni VC; Curr. Sci. 58 (1989) 597. "Materials issues in the so-called 'cold fusion' experiments". ** A very good, clear discussion of the thermodynamics of H/D loading of Pd. Absorption of H2/D2 by Pd is exothermic and absorption of nascent H/D, as generated by electrolysis (if that is indeed what goes into the Pd) can be expected to be even more so. The authors state that this can fully account for the heat measured by FPH. One might wonder why, then, this is not seen every time... but - as long as you have good thermodynamic parameters - you can't argue with thermodynamics. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rangarajan SK; Curr. Sci. 58 (1989) 598. "Electrochemically induced cold fusion? A commentary". ** One of the foremost electrochemists names some problems that require settling: 1. The mechanism of H+/D+ reduction at the electrode; does this perhaps change with current density, is there perhaps trace metal codeposition, different at different cd's, with possible effects on absorption of H/D? 2. The design of the experiments, e.g. should current or potential be controlled? This relates to the dimensionality effects suspected by some (but debunked by Williams et al) and the role of lattice defects and grain boundaries. 3. The part played by the Pd lattice itself. E.g. the possibility of locally high effective electronic density and the cross-section for radiation (possibly) generated. R. suggests that the "cold rush" - even if it turns out hopeless - will be remembered for the hope it engendered while it lasted. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy15 cudendk cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.16 / John Moore / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 16 Jan 90 15:26:35 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9001151544.AA02046@danpost.uni-c.dk> BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibiography update) writes: ]1. Published articles, letters ]--------------------------------------------------------------------------- ]Chidambaram R, Sahni VC; Curr. Sci. 58 (1989) 597. ]"Materials issues in the so-called 'cold fusion' experiments". ]** A very good, clear discussion of the thermodynamics of H/D loading of Pd. ]Absorption of H2/D2 by Pd is exothermic and absorption of nascent H/D, as ]generated by electrolysis (if that is indeed what goes into the Pd) can be ]expected to be even more so. The authors state that this can fully account ]for the heat measured by FPH. One might wonder why, then, this is not seen ]every time... but - as long as you have good thermodynamic parameters - you ]can't argue with thermodynamics. The exothermic absorbtion process is well known and understood, having been first researched around 1860 for H/D into PD. Chidambaram's explanation has two problems: (1) once the Pd is saturated, there should be no more exothermic effect, and yet F&P and others see their "excess heat" after saturation; (2) the magnitude of the effect is not enough to account for all excess heat. -- John Moore (NJ7E) mcdphx!anasaz!john asuvax!anasaz!john (602) 951-9326 (day or eve) long palladium, short petroleum 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 Freedom and Communism are incompatable. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.16 / Dick Jackson / Jones' Predictions Originally-From: jackson@ttidca.TTI.COM (Dick Jackson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Jones' Predictions Date: 16 Jan 90 16:50:28 GMT Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Remember way back? When there was just Fleishman, Pons and Jones? Jones' paper was published on the net and I thought it was good work, partly because of the nice geophysical speculations and easily testable predictions. Unfortunately I have forgotten the details, but I think he said that gases from volcanoes should be measured for tritium. Does anyone know if this has been done? (If it has it was presumably a negative result, otherwise the news would have been splashed around -- by Jones at the very least). Dick Jackson cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjackson cudfnDick cudlnJackson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.17 / Mike Pelt / Re: Jones' Predictions Originally-From: mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones' Predictions Date: 17 Jan 90 06:01:42 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <9035@ttidca.TTI.COM> jackson@ttidca.tti.com (Dick Jackson) writes: >Unfortunately I have forgotten the details, but I think [Jones] >said that gases from volcanoes should be measured for tritium. > >Does anyone know if this has been done? Jones' initial paper discussed his own measurement of tritium from an eruption of Mauna Ulu on Hawaii. The paper said that they estimated about 100 curies per hour of tritium were being given off. I don't know of any other tests of this. Volcanoes don't erupt on a convenient schedule. (I wonder of any of Jones' people are up in Alaska testing that volcano?) -- Mike Van Pelt I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the Headland Technology word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies. (was: Video Seven) -- William F. Buckley ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.18 / jonesse@physc1 / Response to Jones' Predictions Originally-From: jonesse@physc1.byu.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Response to Jones' Predictions Date: 18 Jan 90 04:30:33 GMT In response to the questions of Dick Jackson and Mike Van Pelt regarding volcano testing. A series of water samples have been taken near the Macdonald underwater volcano. This work is being done by a U. of Hawaii/BYU collaboration. The samples will be analyzed for tritium during the next few weeks. Stay tuned! Steven E. Jones Brigham Young University cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenjonesse cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.18 / Mark Muhlestein / Deseret News article -- Japanese lab confirms CNF Originally-From: mmm@iconsys.UUCP (Mark Muhlestein) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Deseret News article -- Japanese lab confirms CNF Date: 18 Jan 90 04:14:17 GMT Organization: ICON International, Inc., Orem, UT The following article is reproduced without permission from the Salt Lake City Deseret News, Wednesday, January 17, 1990: Japanese lab confirms cold fusion * Heated race: Research sparks fears in U.S. that global contest could be won abroad. By JoAnn Jacobsen-Wells Deseret News science writer ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + Japan in the lead? + + + + Japanese researchers say they have + + taken the lead in the international + + fusion race. Utah fusion discoverer + + B. Stanley Pons agrees. The Japanese + + research effort reportedly involves + + 200 researchers at 30 institutions -- + + and substantial government funding. + + + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ In Japan, a government-owned lab has confirmed cold fusion experiments first announced by the University of Utah, creating further concerns that the international race to make fusion a practical energy source could be won abroad. Scientists at Nagoya's National Institute for Fusion Science this week announced to the Japanese press that they have observed high levels of neutrons, a fusion byproduct, in their test-tube experiments. The government researchers said fusion had occurred spontaneously in their lab between two palladium electrodes in a flask filled with deuterium (heavy hydrogen) gas. Japan's national effort to investigate the Utah-born experiment produced its first publicized reports in December when university research teams in Nagoya and Osaka claimed to have detected large bursts of neutrons -- up to 100 million per minute -- in their cold nuclear fusion experiments. In the November issue of the English-language Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Nobuhiko Wada, an assistant professor of physics at Nagoya University, said a neutron detector monitored his team's experiment. In the institute's experiments, a sophisticated procedure to check artifacts due to noise was added in the institute's experiments, giving researchers a more accurate report of unambiguous neutron emission. The device was not used a Nagoya University. In December, Hideo Ikegami, a professor at the institute who was named last year to coordinate his country's fusion research, said the findings by the university scientists ended the debates over the possibility of cold fusion and verified it as a potential energy source. He concluded that his countrymen's successful experiments were proof that Japan, while slow in releasing results, had taken the lead in the international fusion race. He also said the Japanese research would accelerate. U. fusion discoverer B. Stanley Pons agrees. ``While we are simply planning it -- due to lack of funds -- they do it,'' Pons said Tuesday. ``They are far ahead of us now in several areas. We are now dangerously behind in this type of research.'' Pons said he and co-researcher Martin Fleischmann have been doing experiments with deuterium gas, as well as heavy water, for many months, and the experiments are covered by the U.'s broad fusion patents. ``The Japanese have been duplicating our experiments and improving upon them since late March,'' he said. ``Scientists in India are doing the same thing. One group alone has submitted 14 scientific papers.'' Similar fusion experiments are rumored to be conducted as Brigham Young University and Texas A&M University. But according to Pons, who began 32 new experiments Tuesday at the U.'s National Cold Fusion Institute, fusion research at all of the universities has been crippled by insufficient funds, prohibiting scientists from purchasing sophisticated detection devices. ***** END OF ARTICLE ***** -- Mark Muhlestein @ Sanyo/Icon uunet!iconsys!mmm cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnMuhlestein cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.19 / Bob Pendleton / Money from DOE? Originally-From: bpendlet@bambam.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Money from DOE? Date: 19 Jan 90 16:23:07 GMT Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah On KUER this morning I heard a very hedged statement that said the DOE may, might, maybe? give the cold fusion institute small amounts of money starting in '91. I hope the cold fusion question gets resolved this year. Oh well, science isn't a sitcom. Real questions take more than 30 minutes to answer. Bob P. -- Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself. UUCP Address: decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet X: Tools, not rules. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenbpendlet cudfnBob cudlnPendleton cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.21 / Todd Courtois / Muon catalysis Originally-From: tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics,sci.research Subject: Muon catalysis Date: 21 Jan 90 05:29:30 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 A few years ago, I remember Jones from BYU and a colleague from the U of Arizona wrote an article in Scientific American about muon-catalysed fusion, which was the first example of "cold" fusion. I would like to hear if anyone knows if any follow-up research was done. For example, what level of muon bombardment was necessary to sustain a fusion reactor of any useful proportion? Also, does anyone have any data on the level of muon bombardment at various altitudes? I know Jones did a little experimentation to determine what background levels were present at ground level in his lab at BYU, and I know studies have been done on mountain tops in New Hampshire and elsewhere, but is there a complete source of average muon levels at altitudes all the way out to space? Thanks for any information. E-mail preferred. --Todd Courtois "I'm not stupid; I'm just a freshman!"--Me TCOURTOI@JARTHUR.CLAREMONT.EDU OR CCOURTOIS@HMCVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU cudkeys: cuddy21 cudentcourtoi cudfnTodd cudlnCourtois cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.21 / Todd Courtois / Effective Mass Originally-From: tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics,sci.research Subject: Effective Mass Date: 21 Jan 90 05:35:58 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 I've read much about the "effective mass" classical approximation of quantum situations in metals and crystal lattices, but I'm curious to know if anyone has run across literature dealing with gases which, upon being introduced to a metal or crystal lattice, assume an effective mass effect. In other words, I'm looking for evidence that, upon being assimilated into a lattice structure, the electrons of a gas are influenced in the same manner as the electrons of the lattice-- the same effective mass approximation applies. All replies welcome. E-mail preferred. --Todd Courtois "I'm not stupid; I'm just a freshman!"--Me TCOURTOI@JARTHUR.CLAREMONT.EDU OR CCOURTOIS@HMCVAX.CLAREMONT.EDU cudkeys: cuddy21 cudentcourtoi cudfnTodd cudlnCourtois cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.21 / Hansong Cheng / Computer program for spheroidal wave functions Originally-From: hansong@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Hansong Cheng) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Computer program for spheroidal wave functions Date: 21 Jan 90 22:28:38 GMT Organization: Princeton Univ. Computing and Information Technology Does anyone out there know if there is any fortran program to calculate the spheroidal wave functions? Any information about this would be greatly appreciated. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenhansong cudfnHansong cudlnCheng cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.22 / Hal Lillywhite / Re: Money from DOE? Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Money from DOE? Date: 22 Jan 90 15:07:44 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <401@bambam.UUCP> bpendlet@bambam.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes: >I hope the cold fusion question gets resolved this year. Oh well, >science isn't a sitcom. Real questions take more than 30 minutes to >answer. Right, science is much more like a soap opera :-) (Maybe that should be only half a smiley). cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.31 / fusion@zorch.S / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 31 Jan 90 00:27:17 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway ================================================================= The following article is quoted with the February 1990 issue of IEEE Spectrum, page 23, with permission from IEEE Spectrum. Please do not reprint or copy the following article for profit or for any other commercial purpose unless you have received explicit permission to do so from IEEE. Additionally, please ensure that this IEEE copyright disclaimer is kept with any large quotes of this electronic copy of the article. The disclaimer is not needed for short quotes, but please be sure to attribute all quotes from the article to IEEE Spectrum. Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------- THE MEDIA EVENT By Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum. Copyright 1990 IEEE. When two electrochemists claimed last March to have produced a useful fusion reaction in a simple electrolytic cell built with basic laboratory materials, reactions was swift and stunning. News reports all over the globe painted tantalizing pictures of a new energy source of almost limitless supply, negligible environmental effects, and inexpensive operation. But if "cold fusion" sounded too good to be true, that was because indeed it was, many Government scientists have now concluded. In a report to U.S. Secretary of Energy James Watkins, a panel of top U.S. physicists, chemists, and materials scientists recommended "against any special funding for the investigation of the phenomenon." The report, made public in December, concluded that results of experiments at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and elsewhere "do not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion." "Theorists have pretty much come to the conclusion that if [cold] fusion is occurring, then our whole framework of nuclear physics has a big error in it somewhere," said Michael Guinan, a staff physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. Many now believe that the energy releases measured in numerous experiments were attributable to chemical processes, Guinan added. PLENTY OF HEAT But researchers who have measured excess heat in cold fusion electrolytic cells say they have no evidence of recombination, and, even if they did, chemical reactions alone could not possibly account for all the heat measured. As of December, significant experimentation was proceeding at a number of universities and research centers in the United States. Besides the University of Utah and Brigham Young, organizations still pursuing cold fusion include Texas A&M University in College Station; Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.; the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis; Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio; the University of Florida in Gainesville; SRI International in Palo Alto; and the Naval Weapons Center in China Lake, Calif. Major corporate investigators include General Electric Co. in Schenectady, N.Y., and at least three other U.S. companies that have not yet announced their work publicly, according to one prominent university researcher. At Texas A&M and Stanford, recent efforts have concentrated on painstaking measurements of heat within a thermally closed system containing an operating electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes and heavy water (in which deuterium atoms replace those of hydrogen). In the closed systems, gases are forced to recombine and when they do so, the energy released is taken into account. At Stanford, researchers are "detecting large amounts of excess energy accumulating every day in several cells," said materials science professor Robert A. Huggins in an interview in early December. Experimental cells running for two weeks or so often generate several tens of megajoules of excess heat per mole of palladium cathode material, Huggins added. Working with a closed systems, the Texas team has measured 5 to 8 percent heat energy in excess of input electrical energy, according to Supramaniam Srinivasan, deputy directory of the university's center for electrochemical systems and hydrogen research. Srinivasan said the excess heat energy measured in his experiments could not have been chemical because in some cases it persisted for over 100 hours. BUT WHERE ARE THE BYPRODUCTS? Physicists, however, counter that the measured heat could not be nuclear because no experiments have produced the combinations of byproducts known to accompany fusion reactions, including neutrons, helium, tritium (the heaviest hydrogen isotope), gamma rays, and X-rays. Most of the reports of neutron emission at rates discernibly above background levels, including recent accounts of tremendous bursts of neutrons at Nagoya and Osaka universities in Japan, have not been conclusively verified or even duplicated. At Texas A&M and at several laboratories in India, meanwhile, high levels of tritium have been detected in operating cells. But, as with the Japanese reports, there were no indications that other byproducts were detected, let alone in the combinations predicted by the principles governing known fusion reactions. Also disturbing to researchers, both skeptical and enthusiastic, is the maddening inconsistency of the results. "...Even the strongest proponents of cold fusion assert that the experiments, for unknown reasons, are not consistent and reproducible at the present time," said the Department of Energy panelists in their report. Sometimes heat or tritium is measured in a burst, sometimes in a constant emission, sometimes not at all. Close monitoring of some operating cells has shown the rates of heat release to be extremely erratic, surging after input electricity was turned off and back on, or after the equipment was physically moved. But to some observers, the most disturbing aspect of the cold fusion episode had nothing to do with science. In the early goings- on after the announcement, when fortunes and prestigious prizes were thought to be at stake, lawyers and publicists seemed to be controlling the release of results by the University of Utah group. Lacking a formal scientific account, scientists eager to reproduce the phenomenon were forced to do so aided by only sketchy news accounts, photographs, or the occasional piece of videotape. Promises by the Utah scientists to collaborate with others evaporated in an atmosphere of legal anxiety, arrogance, and personal attacks. A formal scientific paper eventually was published, but much of it -- including claims that nuclear byproducts were observed -- has since been retracted. Nor, apparently, has the situation improved. Of the $5 million set aside by the Utah state legislature for cold fusion research, at least 10 percent has reportedly already been spent on, or committed to, paying legal fees. ================================================================= cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenfusion cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.27 / Michael Brooks / Latest News Originally-From: brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Latest News Date: 27 Jan 90 08:02:49 GMT Organization: Stanford University Well all you spf readers, hungrily waiting for someone(things)` uncommon demise, here is another bone to chew on. I discovered this in the very reputable Journal of Materials Research (something I routinely peruse for solid state stuff). Try Vol.5, No.1, Jan.1990, by JT Dickinson, LC Jensen, SC Langford, RR Ryan, and E Garcia, of Washington State U (Pullman), and LANL (rec. 14Jul89). From pp109-122: Fracto-emission from deuterated titanium: Supporting evidence for a fracto-fusion mechanism ABSTRACT Measurements of the emission of charged particles, photons, and radio frequency signals accompanying the deformation and fracture of poly- crystalline Ti metal and deuterated Ti are described. Preliminary evidence for charge separation created by crack propagation is presented which supports a proposed fracture mechanism to explain neutron bursts observed during treatment of deuterated metals. I will submit a couple of teasers (but I have yet to read the whole thing myself): "We suggest that crack growth results in charge separation on the newly formed crack surfaces, which act like a miniature "linear accelerator;" i.e., D+ ions are accelerated in the electric field across the crack tip to kinetic energies of 10-10e4 eV or more, sufficient to raise significantly the D+D fusion probability." Two other references (Notes added in proof) also discuss this mechanism: "Another discussion of the fracto-fusion mechanism has recently been published:"Fracto-fusion Mechanism," Tatsuoki Tekeda and Tomonori Takizuka, J.Phys.Soc.Japan, 58, 3073 (1989). A recent experiment has been reported by B.V. Derjaguin [et.al.], Nature 341, 492(1989), claiming low levels of neutron emission above back- ground during ball-milling of Ti and deuterium containing compounds. This emmision is attributed to a fracto-fusion mechanism." OK, comments? Bill, Paul, John, Dave, Dieter, Ted, (everybody), let`s get more of our usual incisive invective rolling! :-) :-) Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Labs (solid state)/SU MIT astronomer Walter Lewin: "Absence of evidence should never be mistaken for evidence of absence." cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenbrooks cudfnMichael cudlnBrooks cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.27 / Mark Thorson / First Commercial Application Of Cold Fusion !!! Originally-From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: First Commercial Application Of Cold Fusion !!! Date: 27 Jan 90 04:18:57 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) In my job, a number of press releases from semiconductor companies cross my desk. One which particularly caught my eye was from Intel, describing a new chip: "Based on Intel's 1.0-micron CHMOS* IIIE process technology, Intel's 85C220 consumes less than one-third the power and dissipates 50 percent less heat than bipolar PALs*. Thus, with 80-MHz performance, the 85C220 can replace fast, bipolar PLDs--like "D" (55-MHz) and "E" (74-MHz) PALs--and 74-series LS and CMOS SSI/MSI logic devices for bus control and state machine applications." My God, this chip is generating excess heat! Why would Intel choose to make the announcement so quietly? Are they afraid their stock would drop because of the skeptical attitude of the technology-watchers and the "conventional wisdom"? And what are they using cold-fusion for? Could it be that the intermediate vector in the fusion reaction has better mobility than the charge carriers in silicon? * CHMOS is an Intel trademark, PAL belongs to AMD now that they bought MMI and are beating everybody else to death with lawsuits on patents covering nearly every form of PLD chip. cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnThorson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.31 / Dave Bailey / IEEE Spectrum article Originally-From: dbailey@orville.nas.nasa.gov (Dave H. Bailey) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: IEEE Spectrum article Date: 31 Jan 90 00:06:01 GMT Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA The following appeared in the February issue of IEEE Spectrum, p. 23, QWOP: The Media Event When two electrochemists claimed last March to have produced a useful fusion reaction in a simple electrolytic cell built with basic laboratory materials, reaction was swift and stunning. News report all over the globe painted tantalizing pictures of a new energy source of almost limitless supply, negligible environmental effects, and inexpensive operation. But if "cold fusion" sounded too good to be true, that was because indeed it was, many Government scientists have now concluded. ... At Texas A&M and Stanford, recent efforts have concentrated on painstaking measurements of heat within a thermally closed system containing an operating electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes and heavy water... In the closed systems, gases are forced to recombine and when they do so, the energy released is taken into account. At Stanford, researchers are "detecting large amounts of excess energy accumulating every day in several cells," said materials science professor Robert A. Huggins in an interview in early December. Experimental cells running for two weeks or so often generate several tens of megajoules of excess heat per mole of palladium cathode material, Huggins added. Working with a closed system, the Texas team has measured 5 to 8 percent heat energy in excess of input electrical energy, according to S. Srinivasan, deputy director of the university's center for electrochemical systems and hydrogen research. Srinivasan said the excess heat energy measured in his experiments could not have been chemical because in some cases it persisted for over 100 hours. ... Most of the reports of neutron emission at rates discernibly above background levels, including recent accounts of tremendous bursts of neutrons at Nagoya and Osaka universities in Japan, have not been conclusively verified or even duplicated. At Texas A&M and at several laboratories in India, meanwhile, high levels of tritium have been detected in operating cells. But, as with the Japanese reports, there were no indications that other byproducts were detected, let alone in the combinations predicted by the principles governing known fusion reactions. ... But to some observers, the most disturbing aspect of the cold fusion episode had nothing to do with science. In the early goings-on after the announcement, when fortunes and prestigious prizes were thought to be at stake, lawyers and publicists seemed to be controlling the release of results by the University of Utah group. Lacking a formal scientific account, scientists eager to reproduce the phenomenon were forced to do so aided by only sketchy news accounts, photographs, or the occasional piece of videotape. Promises by the Utah scientists to collaborate with others evaporated in an atmosphere of legal anxiety, arrogance, and personal attacks. A formal scientific paper eventually was published, but much of it -- including claims that nuclear byproducts were observed -- has since been retracted. Nor, apparently, has the situation improved. Of the $5 million set aside by the Utah State legislature for cold fusion research, at least 10 percent has reportedly already been spent on, or committed to, paying legal fees. cudkeys: cuddy31 cudendbailey cudfnDave cudlnBailey cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.01.29 / William Johnson / WSU "Fractofusion" paper (was: Latest News) Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: WSU "Fractofusion" paper (was: Latest News) Date: 29 Jan 90 17:11:43 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory Mike Brooks (<474@sierra.stanford.edu>) alerts us to an interesting article: > I discovered this in the very reputable Journal of Materials > Research (something I routinely peruse for solid state stuff). > Try Vol.5, No.1, Jan.1990, by JT Dickinson, LC Jensen, SC Langford, > RR Ryan, and E Garcia, of Washington State U (Pullman), and LANL > (rec. 14Jul89). From pp109-122: > > Fracto-emission from deuterated titanium: Supporting evidence for a > fracto-fusion mechanism > > ABSTRACT > > Measurements of the emission of charged particles, photons, and radio ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (I interpret this to mean energetic electrons -- MWJ) > frequency signals accompanying the deformation and fracture of poly- > crystalline Ti metal and deuterated Ti are described. Preliminary > evidence for charge separation created by crack propagation is > presented which supports a proposed fracture mechanism to explain > neutron bursts observed during treatment of deuterated metals. > I will submit a couple of teasers (but I have yet to read the whole > thing myself): Nor have I, nor do I recognize any Los Alamos people among the authors, the above attributions notwithstanding. (Obligatory disclaimer: the following represents my own opinions and not positions of Los Alamos National Laboratory.) > "We suggest that crack growth results in charge separation on the newly > formed crack surfaces, which act like a miniature "linear accelerator;" > i.e., D+ ions are accelerated in the electric field across the crack tip > to kinetic energies of 10-10e4 eV or more, sufficient to raise > significantly the D+D fusion probability." In case it isn't obvious, this is the so-called "fractofusion" mechanism. Nothing too new here; several other people have proposed this, as Mike points out. > OK, comments? Bill, Paul, John, Dave, Dieter, Ted, (everybody), let`s get more > of our usual incisive invective rolling! :-) :-) Well, I don't know about invective; will random pontifications do? :-) A friend who's been following the gas-phase work more closely than I have pointed out one thing that's missing from this group's effort: measurement of neutrons. My friend notes that some of the earlier gas-phase work (Menlove's here at Los Alamos; again, observe the standard disclaimer for the following) did acoustic measurements, to "listen" for direct evidence of such crack propagation. The rationale was that crack propagation would make little crackling noises that would be easy to hear with proper instrumentation. I reported on this once before in s.p.f; such noises do indeed occur when deuterated metals are temperature-cycled. One would be tempted to guess that these noises would occur simultaneously with other "fractofusion" observables such as neutrons (Menlove) or the electrons, x rays, etc., reported in the paper Mike cites. However, things weren't so simple. It was found that the crackling noises of metal deforming/cracking/etc. were *not* correlated in time with observation of neutron bursts. This finding doesn't necessarily invalidate the fractofusion suggestion, but it does suggest that one should be careful in considering the fast electrons, x rays, etc., as evidence of fractofusion. Personally, I suspect that if there's anything to "cold fusion" in gas systems at all, it will indeed turn out to be something like fractofusion, and this paper certainly provides evidence in that direction. However, I'd like to see neutron measurements from the WSU group before passing further judgement. It's interesting work, anyway. -- Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile (mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo1 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.02 / Dave Spain / "Cold Fusion" work continues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: "Cold Fusion" work continues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Date: 2 Feb 90 23:02:33 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA I received the following UPI wire report by Email from a friend here at work. I'm passing it along to the sci.physics.fusion newsgroup because I had not seen it here before. Form your own opinions, but please send me Email if you have any hard info on the following. If there is enough interest in this work, I will share what I get with the net. Dave Spain SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) -- The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is coming closer to turning on and off a discovery University of Utah researchers claim is cold fusion, a scientist from the federal laboratory said Tuesday. Charles D. Scott, head of the Energy Research Section at Oak Ridge's Chemical Technology Division, said the Utah breakthrough is ``a very interesting phenomenon we cannot explain.'' And Scott said he is continuing to use ``qualifying words'' rather than calling the discovery cold fusion. Scott said his team has measured excess heat -- more heat energy produced than the amount of electrical energy needed to run the experiment. But he said the team still cannot confirm the heat is the result of a nuclear reaction. ``The biggest potential has to be the excess energy. Just the phenomenon of observed excess energy has the potential for utilization sometime in the future,'' he said. Utah researchers and other scientists attempting to duplicate the discovery announced March 23, 1989, have been stumped by the random nature of heat bursts. The six-man Oak Ridge team, however, is ``beginning to reach the point'' where it can ``initiate and control'' the reaction, he said. ``We can't do it every time we try it. It tends to be associated with instability in the system. We think we're very, very close to being in control,'' Scott said. The Tennessee group has created ``instability'' in the experiment by changing the electrical charge, the heat levels or the concentrations of dissolved chemicals that carry the electrical charge through the heavy water. Electrochemists Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of England's Southampton University said they used electrodes of palladium and platinum sitting in heavy water. Heavy water is made from oxygen and deuterium, a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron. An electrical charge splits the heavy water into oxygen and deuterium, they said, and the deuterium is then absorbed into the palladium electrode's atomic structure in such intense concentrations the atoms fuse together, releasing excess heat. Scott said the Oak Ridge team also monitored the emission of neutrons and tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen. Both are byproducts of a nuclear reaction. But he said the levels are lower than ``can be explained with current nuclear theory. We're always wondering, `Are we forgetting something?''' Because of that problem, Scott said, many nuclear physicists claimed the reaction must be chemical rather than solid-state fusion. ``I feel that it has been shown to be real. If it is not chemical, then it has to be a nuclear phenomenon. We don't think there is a chemical explanation for the excess heat. I don't know how it can be.'' The Utah discovery also is overcoming its bad-press image, he said, that immediately followed the announcement. ``We had a very exciting time for a couple of months. The whole field was in great turmoil,'' Scott said. Numerous institutions and researchers tried to duplicate the Pons-Fleischmann discovery, he said, but most ``dropped out'' due to a lack of interest or a lack of funding and said their failed efforts showed the reaction was not fusion. ``We're still seeing the fallout of a lot of research, most of which was unsuccessful. Negative results have had an impact on the funding,'' said Scott, adding the Oak Ridge work is financed only with ``discretionary'' money, not a special federal appropriation. ``A few rather dedicated groups continue to look at it. This will be the foundation for research in the future,'' he said. ``The number of research groups getting positive results will contine to increase. ``It will take a while for the various institutions to turn around because a lot of them have a lot of momentum'' to continue research in other areas. ``It would be unfortunate if we didn't have enough research funds to look at it carefully.'' cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.02 / William Johnson / Re: Muon catalysis Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Muon catalysis Date: 2 Feb 90 18:52:19 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <3872@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu (Todd Courtois) writes: > A few years ago, I remember Jones from BYU and a colleague from the U of > Arizona wrote an article in Scientific American about muon-catalysed fusion, > which was the first example of "cold" fusion. Sort of ... > I would like to hear if anyone knows if any follow-up research was done. For > example, what level of muon bombardment was necessary to sustain a fusion > reactor of any useful proportion? > > Also, does anyone have any data on the level of muon bombardment at various > altitudes? I know Jones did a little experimentation to determine what > background levels were present at ground level in his lab at BYU, and I > know studies have been done on mountain tops in New Hampshire and elsewhere, > but is there a complete source of average muon levels at altitudes all the > way out to space? To take this one first: I don't know of any comprehensive survey studies on this (Michael Attas, are you listening?), but muon fluxes in the atmosphere are calculable, at least in principle. Most of the atmospheric muons result from reactions of primary cosmic rays -- primarily protons and other light nuclei at energies that are very high but not ****VERY**** high. (I'll get back to the distinction shortly.) For these reactions, satisfactory theoretical models exist that have been put into computer codes for predicting muon (and other particle) yield as a function of incident cosmic-ray energy, amount of atmosphere traversed, etc. The cascade code that I know about is called EGS, but there are probably others. Since the primary cosmic-ray flux is basically well established (at least to order of magnitude...), the "source of average muon levels at altitudes all the way out to space" can be calculated, if you have enough computer time. (Just don't ask me to!) BTW, I excluded ultra-energetic cosmic rays from the class of things for which "satisfactory theoretical models exist." A moderately interesting topic right now in high-energy physics is the "Cygnet" problem -- the apparent existence of a class of super-energetic cosmic rays that, on hitting the atmosphere, produce cascades of secondary particles that don't seem to obey the rules. You might ask about these beasts over in sci.astro or sci.physics; in any event, their contribution to the total muon flux at the earth's surface is not terribly large. > Thanks for any information. E-mail preferred. Understood, but this comes up every so often in s.p.f and also sci.physics, so rather than e-mailing, I'm going to respond to the net, thereby (I hope) answering the questions for others as well. Todd, if you don't read this, let me know. :-) Muon catalysis is a topic of continuing interest that gets time at several different accelerator labs, including the one here in Los Alamos (LAMPF). "Follow-up research was done" and continues to be done. However, the question "what level of muon bombardment was necessary to sustain a fusion reactor ..." is ill-posed; to see why, a brief look at the physics is required. Without completely rehashing the Scientific American article, the basic physics of muon catalysis is: a muon stopping in a hydrogen target creates the muonic "molecule" (or ion or whatever you want to call it) D2+ (or DT+), i.e., two deuterons (or a deuteron and triton) with the muon occupying a stable orbital around both nuclei. Because this "molecule" is much smaller than the usual hydrogen molecule, courtesy of the muon weighing so much more than an electron, the nuclei are relatively close together and have some chance of undergoing a nuclear reaction, i.e., fusion. If a fusion occurs, energy is released, the fusion products go flying off, and the muon either tags along with one of the fusion products or is released into free space to hook up with more hydrogen. If the latter occurs, another fusion may result, whereupon the muon either tags along with the new fusion product or flies off into free space (in which case it latches onto more hydrogen...), and so on. The repetitive process stops when the muon sticks to the fusion product or decays, the latter occurring with a mean lifetime of 2.2 microseconds. The basic "practical" question addressed by all the research is: under what conditions, if any, can one cause the muon to fly off rather than stick to the fusion product? If you can't get the muon to cooperate, there's never any hope for making net energy from muon-catalyzed fusion, because it is necessary to expend energy -- 140 MeV per particle -- to make the muon. If you don't get at least this much energy back from fusion before the muon stops "working", the reaction never has a hope of generating net energy. (And don't try to get around this by proposing cosmic-ray muons as the catalysts; there aren't anywhere near enough of them.) With this in mind we can begin to answer your first question, or at least see why it doesn't really have an answer. Lacking a clear idea of how to turn a muon into a net energy producer, it doesn't matter how many muons you use: the process just won't work. Various people have proposed reactor "designs" based on physics assumptions that allow recovery of the muons, but lacking any ideas for converting these assumptions into reality, the "designs" are basically just fantasies. Sorry to be so discouraging. :-) -- Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile (mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.08 / andrew@dtg.nsc / indian mega-electrode Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: indian mega-electrode Date: 8 Feb 90 00:34:53 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara Whatever happened to the "five-foot palladium electrode" which was reputedly in use by an Indian laboratory? Do the results appear in any published papers? This always struck me as one of the more bizarre news releases in the good old days when things were considerably more frenzied than currently. -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman andrew@dtg.nsc.com Albania before April! cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenandrew cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.08 / fusion@zorch.S / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 8 Feb 90 02:43:56 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway [Terry Bollinger -- A software type & proud of it...] PART 1 -- WHY THE PHYSICISTS ARE RIGHT (It's not fusion...) As a non-physicist, my purpose in the first part of this letter is simply to give a layman's explanation of why I am fully convinced that anomalies in deuterated palladium and titanium cannot be explained by *any* type of nuclear fusion, regardless of whether it is hot, "cold," or lukewarm. My hope is help non- physicists understand why physicists are justifiably upset at having such effects called "cold fusion." Signatures, Signatures, Who's Got the Signatures? The key problem in ascribing has been mentioned at least twice on the net. On Thursday, December 7, 1989, yours truly wrote: > ... no matter how it is accomplished, proximity fusion should > always give the same type of gamma-neutron-tritium-helium_3- > helium_4 signature, and that type of signature has not exactly > been leaping to the forefront of the cold fusion work ... And on page 23 of the Feb 1990 issue of IEEE Spectrum, Glenn Zorpette wrote: > Physicists ... counter that the measured heat could not be > nuclear because no experiments have produced the combinations > of byproducts known to accompany fusion reactions, including > neutrons, helium, tritium ..., gamma rays, and X-rays. What I'd like to get across below is that this idea of fusion "signatures" is based on a phenomenon so fundamental that *any* attempt to explain Pd/Ti anomalies via fusion amounts to beating a dead horse. Bill Johnson first pointed out the key issue -- a phenomenon called "quantum tunneling" -- back in the spring, but I suspect that it has since been lost in the shuffle. Quantum Absentmindedness To understand quantum tunneling, one first needs to realize that very small objects tend to be very absentminded -- they keep forgetting where they are. Actually, it's a bit worse than just forgetting where they are -- they forget to *be* where they are. Imagine, for example that a German physics student named Niels Bohr has a jacket that follows the same quantum rules as an electron or deuteron. Every time Niels lays the jacket down and turns his attention away from it even momentarily, the jacket tends to shift its physical position. Usually the shift is rather small -- say a couple of inches to the left or right. However, every once in a while Niels' jacket decides to take a great leap and wind up somewhere quite far away, such as on the *inside* of a tightly locked drawer, or even back on Niels' back. After one frustrating locked-drawer incident on an especially cold night, Niels decides to name the phenomenon "tunneling," a reference to its ability to send objects through seemingly impossible barriers. Being a scientific sort, Niels decides to investigate the Bohr Jacket phenomenon more closely. He keeps a tally and finds that the Bohr Jacket clearly follows certain well-defined patterns. Small jumps are far more likely than large jumps, and even more interestingly, large jumps seem to be biased by characteristics of the "targets" on which the jacket lands. Targets which provide a particularly good fit for the jacket (e.g., Niels himself) are much more likely to get "hit" than targets that provide less perfect fits, such as a chair, or shapely Gretel at the next desk, or the overweight professor. Looking at his data, Niels finds that he can define the behavior of the jacket by assigning a probability -- e.g., one in ten -- to each location in the room. In general, these probabilities decline very quickly as he moves farther and farther away from where he laid the jacket down. However, Niels also finds that "favorable" locations that provide minimal stretching (e.g., Niels himself) tend to have a much higher probabilities of receiving the jacket than their distance alone would indicate. He note that energy seems to be the critical issue -- locations that require a lot of energy to stretch the jacket (e.g., the overweight professor) are less likely to be favored than locations that provide good, "low-energy" fits. Niels is very pleased with his characterization of how his Bohr Jacket jumps about, and he decides to call his probability map an "eigenfunction" -- "eigen" simply being the German work for "characteristic." However, try as he might, he is completely unable to resolve the remaining mystery of why the jacket takes a *particular* jump at any one time. Further analysis based on the work of his good friend Werner Heisenberg convinces Niels that his Heisenberg's peculiar Uncertainty Principle is in fact a fundamental feature of the Bohr Jacket -- meaning that the exact location of the Bohr Jacket can be estimated, but can never be precisely anticipated or controlled. Deuterons as Bohr Jackets Given the whimsical background of Bohr Jacket, I now would like to present an uncomfortable idea: the Bohr Jacket is a very close representation of what actually goes on at the level of tiny objects such as deuterons -- in fact, the Bohr Jacket provides a *much* more accurate model of deuton interactions than our more common visualization of deuterons "hitting" and "sticking" to each other. For deuterons, the "close fits" of the Bohr Jacket correspond to any results that produce a lot of energy. In particular, both helium-3 and helium-4 nuclei have far less total energy than do two separate deuterium nuclei. This means that once a deuteron gets close enough to another deuteron, there is a dramatic increase in the probability that it will physically "jump" to the location of the other deuteron to produce, say, a helium-3 nucleus plus a neutron and a gamma ray. However, deuterons are moderately complex beasts, and it turns out that more than one type of "jump" is possible once they get close enough. Just as the Bohr Jacket would quite often pass up the "best" fit provided by Niels in favor of somewhat less favorable locations such as Gretel, a deuteron that is close enough to "jump" has available to it a number of alternative paths that are less attractive, but which are nonetheless certain to occur if given enough opportunities. And what mechanism decides *which* of the alternative paths will be taken? Alas, this is precisely why Niels kept losing his jacket, for the only mechanism for deciding which path is taken is the Uncertainty Principle, which is a most unforgiving and unmanageable beast. Orienting the deuterons in special ways might, for example, alter the *probability* of a certain fusion paths being taken -- He-4 over He-3, for example -- but it could never fully overcome the intransigent randomness enforced by the Uncertainty Principle. Fusion Signatures and the Uncertainty Principle And there, at last, is my own reason for being fully convinced that *no* theory that relies on the fusing of deuterium nuclei (or palladium or titanium or hydrogen or lithium for that matter) will ever explain the anomalies seen in deuterated palladium. No matter how you do it, whether by muons or brute force or Unknown Mechanisms, an absolutely unavoidable first step in any kind of deuteron fusion is that you must first get the two deuterons close to each other -- and as soon as that happens, the mechanics of the Bohr Jacket takes over and make all other issues irrelevant. The result? A signature like that described at the beginning of this piece, in which the proportions of helium, neutron, and gamma rays are fundamentally and irrevocably tied to the unforgiving randomness of the Uncertainty Principle. If you work hard, you *might* be able to waffle the profile a bit by such tricks as orienting the deuterons, but you will never be able to change its fundamental mix of by-products -- and you will certainly not be able to shut off entire categories of products in the fashion that has been described for essentially all of the various Pd/Ti anomaly experiments. And the Conclusion Is... A gentle suggestion: Don't knock the physicists when they say that you can't explain weird deuterated palladium results by invoking fusion. They are only telling you the truth. Cheers, Terry Bollinger cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenfusion cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.08 / William Johnson / Re: indian mega-electrode Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: indian mega-electrode Date: 8 Feb 90 16:31:13 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <622@berlioz.nsc.com>, andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: > Whatever happened to the "five-foot palladium electrode" which was > reputedly in use by an Indian laboratory? Do the results appear in > any published papers? This always struck me as one of the more > bizarre news releases in the good old days when things were considerably > more frenzied than currently. Well, I haven't seen any "published papers" from the Indians, but they are most emphatically still in the business. (This is the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre people, whose work has been written up by one Iyengar; an early report is in Vince's fusion archives via ftp, or at least used to be.) I've seen, but as yet have not read critically, a massive "progress-report"-style collection of internal BARC papers that apparently make various claims that expand on the paper in the fusion archives. Third-hand reports indicate that something like a hundred (!) BARC people continue to work on cold fusion and that they think it's "real," whatever that means. Numbers like that can be a little deceptive; I am aware of maybe 15 people here at Los Alamos who "continue to work on cold fusion," but with almost all of us it's a very occasional kind of thing, so that the total effort (just among those 15 people I know -- usual disclaimers apply) probably doesn't amount to more than the equivalent of two or three full-time researchers, if that. Still, my confidants report that the Indians are (IMHO, inexplicably) pretty excited about the whole thing yet. I've been promised a copy of this progress report For My Very Own, and when I get it, I'll summarize and critique it for the net. In the interim, has anybody else seen the beast? It's way too long for Vince to scan, I think (over 100 pages!), but maybe it's made its way to other people via different routes than the one I'm trying to exploit (an EPRI connection to another guy here at Los Alamos). [P.S. Scott Hazen Mueller, are you still reading this? If so, please drop me a note -- I've lost your e-mail address.] -- Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile (mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.09 / Kenneth Wolcott / Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: kawolcot@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Kenneth A. Wolcott) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 9 Feb 90 00:27:47 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Denver Hello all! I have a friend who needs leads into alternative energy concepts, nuclear power pollution/politics/technology/medical, etc -- for a combined under- graduate and graduate level thesis... please post or send mail to: whessler@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu Thanks! Kenneth A. Wolcott cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenkawolcot cudfnKenneth cudlnWolcott cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.09 / v052nsfx@ubvms / Originally-From: v052nsfx@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Date: 9 Feb 90 18:03:17 GMT Organization: Academic Computing Services, University at Buffalo Can anyone tell me something about the Pons/Fleishman Experiment? Is anything currently being done with the process? John. cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenv052nsfx cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.09 / John Logajan / aneutronic fusion Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: aneutronic fusion Date: 9 Feb 90 19:10:04 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corp., Mpls., MN An intuitive explanation of why cold fusion is aneutronic (does not release free neutrons) -- and a couple of questions. In "hot" fusion, the participant colliding particles must have high energies of momentum in order to overcome their mutual repulsion. Thus, in addition to the energy release as a result of the fusion, there is the external energy brought in by the momentum of the participant particles. Now, as I understand it, the bound energy of the nucleus is attributable to the repulsive forces of the electrical charge of the nucleic entities. So one would expect that a disruption in the nucleic arrangement would see immense forces acting upon the charged members rather more than on the uncharged members. One would also expect in, say, divinely inspired fission (no external energy input) that charged fragments projectiles would be favored over neutral fragments (free neutrons, what with the neutron's desire to cling on to stuff, and the proton's desire to avoid other protons.) So in hot fusion we have a different kind of energy input than we see in cold fusion. The energy of momentum of the hot fusion collisions is charge-irrelevant. It is analogous to mechanical - physical "banging." Neutrons can pick up exit velocity just by mechanical contact. But in cold fusion, there is no input mechanical energy for the neutrons to absorb, yet there is plenty of released "repulsive" energy for charged fragments to absorb. Of course, this intuitive approach seems to be in contradiction to reality. Spontaneous fissions DO release high energy neutrons and fusion reactions DO release neutrons with more energy that was input. But how? And still, even if these things do occur -- the intuitive factor still exists at some level of influence, but how much? -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, john@logajan.mn.org, 612-424-4888, Fax 424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.09 / John Logajan / chunnel fusion Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: chunnel fusion Date: 9 Feb 90 19:10:48 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corp., Mpls., MN Chunnel Fusion I haven't read all the papers, so does anybody know if the following idea has been suggested in any of them? Several theorists have proposed that the electrons of the lattice atoms shield the repulsive charge of the migrating D ions. However, due to the nature of the setup, there are more than just orbiting lattice electrons, there are electron-flow electrons due to the applied potential heretofore (?) supposed only to induce D2 uptake into the lattice. Now it would seem that these electrons are flowing counter to and in greater numbers than the migrating D ions. The D ions, then, are flowing down tunnels (charge tunnels -- chunnels?) of counter flowing electrons. Furthermore, the D ions and the counter- flowing electrons attract each other -- squeezing the dimensions of the chunnel. (By the way, does a D in a chunnel feel forces that propel it with or against the electron flow?) This might further suggest that chunnels are self-reinforcing and self-sustaining in that D ions attract electrons which in turn attract more D ions. As two or more D's approach (tailgate syndrome) their increasing charge density invites a further constriction and strengthening of the surrounding chunnel -- perhaps so much so that they can mosey right on up to each other. Please send one billion dollars if you like this idea to: John Logajan -- 2/2/90 -- logajan@ns.network.com 4248 Hamline Ave Arden Hills, MN 55112 -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, john@logajan.mn.org, 612-424-4888, Fax 424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.09 / Kenneth Wolcott / Correction to e-mail address in previous research help posting... Originally-From: kawolcot@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Kenneth A. Wolcott) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Correction to e-mail address in previous research help posting... Date: 9 Feb 90 23:52:53 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Denver Hello! Thanks very much for some of you who tried to e-mail to my friend, Walter Hessler, here at the University of Colorado at Denver, and failed. This is his corrected e-mail address: whessler%cudnvr@ccnucd.denver.colorado.edu A reminder and repeated request is that his research is for a combined undergraduate/graduate thesis which is quite involved, maybe you could call it "multi-dimentional"! Environmental education, energy alternatives, recycling, economics, education in general, nuclear/gas/coal electrical power generation versus solar/wind/geothermal/biomass, etc... He would like to have research leads that are as fresh as possible concerning toxic waste disposal, clean air bills, clean water bills, coal slurry pipelines, nuclear power plant construction/maintenance problems...etc! Any mail sent to me will be forwarded to him. Thanks for your comments and assitance... Kenneth A. Wolcott University of Colorado at Denver Computing Services Advising and Operations kwolcott@copper.denver.colorado.edu kwolcott@pikes.denver.colorado.edu kwolcott@orphan.denver.colorado.edu kwolcott%cudnvr@ccnucd.denver.colorado.edu or BITNET: kwolcott@cudenver Thank you! ****************************************************************************** * * * The only thing bad about being a student is * * that no one thinks you can be a professional. * * * ****************************************************************************** cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenkawolcot cudfnKenneth cudlnWolcott cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.12 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibiography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 12 Feb 90 15:26:38 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The Jones group in Utah has kindly sent me their list, and I have compared it with mine. I did miss a number of papers, even (to my chagrin) one in an electrochemical jou