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 journal. I have looked up all those I could get hold of, and give them below (plus one I chased up myself, upon reading one of these). They contain a number of what you might call peripheral papers and I have created a new section 3 as a result; i.e. papers that give (possibly) useful information but are not directly concerned with cold nuclear fusion. I realised of course that a number of papers in my grand list also fall into this category, and am going to shift them into it (before they fall, or something, if you know what I mean). Vince Cate's list of unix- accessible files has become section 4. There were some papers I have no immediate access to and I have asked our librarian to get me copies of these; when I get them, I'll add them. I also felt free to leave out some, (about 5 in all) which do not seem relevant to me. The Jones group no doubt feel the same way about some of my peripherals like, e.g., the Soederberg book, maybe - which I now realise belongs in section 0 since it's a book. The joys of being a pedant. The Jones group's list also has some papers that have been submitted but as yet unpublished. These I will catch up with when they do go public, as I wish to have only published stuff in the list. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 8-Feb. 1990 from the Jones+ list. Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 1. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Durocher JJG, Gallop DM, Kwok CB, Mathur MS, Mayer JK, McKee JSC, Mirzai A, Smith GR, Yeo YH; Can. J. Phys. 67 (1989) 624. " A search for evidence of cold fusion in the direct implantation of palladium and indium with deuterium". ** In order to emulate the Utah experiments, but without D2O, they used a 30/60 keV beam of D2+ (cf. Beuhler et al) to implant D into indium. The initial surprise upon observing neutrons faded when they calculated that this could be fully accounted for by the beam energy - it was warm fusion, as the implanted D itself is the target. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Horanyi G; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. Lett. 137 (1989) 23. "Some basic electrochemistry and the cold nuclear fusion of deuterium". ** Claims that the authors of CNF claim that the flow of current is necessary for CNF, having to do with the resultant overpotential and thus the effective D-compression (I don't think FPH or Jones+ claim this). A "strict" analysis of kinetic and equilibrium relationships is undertaken and shows that we should reject the astronomic pressures stated by FPH. This humble bibliographer suggests that Horanyi is using the wrong reaction for a start (in the alkaline medium used, it is D2O, not D+, which is reduced) and that the 0.8 V named by FPH is not an overvoltage but an equilibrium potential measured at the back of the electrode, unperturbed by Butler-Volmer effects. Neither do they make much of that figure of 10**26 atm and, even if they did, such compression is not enough to produce fusion. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Petelenz P; Acta Phys. Polon. A75 (1989) 929. "Hypothetical D-D bound states in solid palladium". ** In theory, CNF might go if only D-D pairs are held close enough for long enough. But analysis shows they are even further apart than in D2 gas. But P. speculates that double-positive Schottky vacancies exist in the Pd crystal lattice, attracting deuterons, so that possibly two of them can move in together and be close enough for CNF. Maybe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richards PM; Phys. Rev. B40 (1989) 7966. "Molecular-dynamics investigation of deuteron separation in PdD1.1". ** How close can two D+'s get? Although electrolysis or D2 gas under pressure won't get us higher than PdD, ion implantation can go to PdD1.2. A loading of 1.1 was assumed in a MD simulation and nothing closer than 0.8 Aangstroms was found - not good enough, mate, no CNF. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shani G, Cohen C, Grayevsky A, Brokman A; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 53. "Evidence for a background neutron enhanced fusion in deuterium absorbed palladium". ** This shows that neutrons will enhance natural fusion rates. Thus, a 2.5 MeV neutron peak is emitted from a Pd-D system in a high-background lab but not in a "clean" one. Compressed D2 gas shows the same effect. Pd was charged with D from the gas phase at 3 kg/cm**2. Within 2 hours, the pressure had dropped, indicating absorption to PdD0.6. This was then sealed into a stainless tube under the same pressure of D2 and placed near a counter. Under high-level neutron background (0.05 count/s/cm**2) a 2.5 MeV peak is seen (difference between the sample and pure Pd), but at low levels (0.0002 counts/s/cm**2), nothing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taniguchi R, Yamamoto T, Irie S; Jap. J. Appl. Phys. 28 (1989) L2021. "Detection of charged particles emitted by electrolytically induced cold nuclear fusion". ** Point out three problems with neutron detection: 1. low detection efficiency; 2. low signal/noise ratio, due to large determination volume 3. problems of neutron/gammma discrimination. Charged particles might be a better bet. They used a favourable geometry and a charged-particle detector with high efficiency and low background sensitivity, as well as to gammas. The electrode was a thin foil at the cell bottom, with the detector just underneath. Out of 30 runs with D2O, or about 3900 hours total, 6 runs showed proton counting rates of up to 100 times those in plain H2O. These rates did not commence until after 6-12 days (|), although the electrodes were only 10 microns thick and presumably would be fully loaded long before this. The authors do not draw firm conclusions; the spectra are not clear, protons may have been slowed down. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wada N, Nishizawa K; Jap. J. Appl. Phys. 28 (1989) L2017. "Nuclear fusion in solid". ** Pd rods were "well soaked" with D2 gas in closed glass bulbs, and stimulated with a high-voltage discharge between the rods. This brought forth neutron bursts 2*10**4 higher than background, but not with Pd rods soaked with H2. No neutrons were emitted during the soaking. The authors theorise that heating due the discharge causes local bubble nucleation in the Pd, with locally high D concentration and thus fusion. ============================================================================ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion (background facts etc) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beuhler RJ, Friedlander G, Friedman L; Phys. Rev. Lett. 63 (1989) 1292. "Cluster-impact fusion". ** Singly-(+)-charged clusters of D2O of from 25-1300 molecules in size were shot at TiD with an energy of 325 keV and some fusion was observed. The primary signature of the fusion was protons at 3.0 MeV from the reaction D + D --> H + T, the best yield being from clusters of about 200 molecules. The fusion is assumed to be due to compressional heating of the top 10 or so layers of TiD. "Cold fusion" is not mentioned but Jones + Koonin (Nature) is cited, a bit free of context. This paper may contribute to clearing up what is (?) happening within the micro-cracks assumed in the fracto-theory. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brauer E, Doerr R, Zuechner H; Z. phys. Chem. NF 100 (1976) 109. "Hydrogen diffusion in titanium". ** Pretreatment of the Ti surface consisted of (a) heating to near the mpt to remove O2, H2 and C (but see Mebrahtu et al, 1989), (b) evaporating a Pd layer on it to prevent oxidation and (c) coating with Pd black to facilitate #establishment of$ equilibrium between H2(gas) and H(metal). There are other complications. The resulting measured diffusion coefficient of H in (apparently) the metal is, at 293K, 2*10**(-7) cm**2/s or D0 = 6*10**(-2) cm**2/s, EA = 7.4 +/- 0.7 kcal/mol in D(T) = D0 * exp(-EA/RT). This is compared with D in other metals (T not given): 5*10**(-6) in Nb, 2*10**(-6) in Ta, 2*10**(-5) in V, by the same technique, unfortunately not described - you have to get hold of a thesis. These D values are 3-4 orders of magnitude larger than others', possibly due to more careful surface treatment. This work is at variance with the Brauer et al (1983) paper and we may have to do a literature search to assess the position. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brauer E, Gruner R, Rauch F; Ber. Bunsenges. Phys. Chem. 87 (1983) 341. "Kinetics and mechanism of hydrogen diffusion in hydrides of titanium, zirconium and TiNi0.5". ** All these form stable hydrides. Electrolysis was used to charge the metals with hydrogen; loadings corresponding to TiH1.65 and ZrH1.61 or about 60 at% were reached. The measured diffusion coefficients were 3.6*10**(-11) in Ti, 2*10**(-11) in Zr, both in cm**2/s. At current densities of 15 mA/cm**2, the absorption of H is diffusion controlled. However, we are not measuring diffusion of hydrogen in the metal, but through the hydride; a layer of the hydride is slowly formed, going deeper into the metal, and the hydrogen has to diffuse through this. Compare with the earlier paper of Brauer et al (1976). Because of oxide formation on the metal surfaces, surface pretreatment is very important, and in this case gave D values an order of magnitude higher than previous work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheek GT, O'Grady WE; J. Electroanal. Chem. 277 (1990) 341. "Measurement of hydrogen uptake by palladium using a quartz crystal microbalance". ** The QCM, a new toy for electrochemists, is used here to measure H-loading of Pd, evaporated onto the quartz surface. Calibration was by means of coulometry. It turns out that the frequency shifts, which normally tell you how much has been laid on, are about double those expected, due to stresses caused by Pd lattice expansion upon H-uptake. A loading of PdHx, x = 0.72 +/- 0.06 and PdDx, x = 0.68 +/- 0.06, was reached. So QCM can be used to measure H/D loading in films of Pd. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crandall DH; Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B42 (1989) 409. "The scientific status of fusion". ** A review of the various kinds of hydrogen fusion. The name "cold fusion" is given to muon catalysed fusion, known for some time; this is explained, among other variants. A "note added in proof" mentions the stunning news of the new CNF but appears skeptical. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dalard F, Ulman M, Augustynski J, Selvam P; J. Electroanal. Chem. 270 (1989) 445. "Electrochemical incorporation of lithium into palladium from aprotic electrolytes". ** Li is sometimes claimed to be associated with CNF. So, at what potentials does Li+ get deposited on Pd. They used 1M LiClO4 in acetonitrile plus propylene carbonate, as well as in a solid polymer. They reached, at rather negative potentials, a surface loading of 1 at% Li in the Pd, which is not much. It is feasible that in FPH's experiments a surface layer of a few microns incorporates Li and this might change the electrochemical behaviour of the Pd. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hoffmann B, Baumann H, Rauch F; Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B15 (1986) 361. "Hydrogen uptake by palladium-implanted titanium studied by NRA and RBS". ** Ti has an oxide layer, which prevents the uptake of H2. So they implanted a Pd layer to prevent surface oxidation and this facilitated H-absorption greatly. They measured #H$ profiles in the metal by Rutherford back- scattering spectroscopy (RBS) and nuclear reaction analysis (NRA). These were not the profiles expected from simple diffusion into the bulk, and they conclude that a surface reaction is rate limiting (compare the Brauer et al papers). They measured a maximum loading of 62 at%. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mamyrin BA, Khabarin LV, Yudenich VS; Sov. Phys. Dokl. 23 (1978) 581. "Anomalously high isotope ratio 3He/4He in technical-grade metals and semiconductors". ** Looked at 18 elements, from all the groups of the periodic table, and used mass spec to measure these ratios. These varied from 0.001 to 1, albeit at low levels. The authors speculate as to the origin of 3He and suggest that it comes form tritium decay by natural cold fusion over a very long period. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mebrahtu T, Rodriguez JF, Bothwell ME, Cheng IF, Lawson DR, McBride JR, Martin CR, Soriaga MP; J. Electroanal. Chem. 267 (1989) 351. "Observations on the surface composition of palladium cathodes after D2O electrolysis in LiOD solutions". ** Focusses on the irreproducibility of CNF: might this be due to surface states? Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used to look at surface elements. Pure Pd itself had, besides Pd, the impurities S, C and O; heat treatment reduced but did not eliminate these, and added Si, presumably out of the metal bulk. After 7 days of electrolysis, AES no longer showed Pd. Impurities have evidently covered it completely. C, Si and O peaks are larger, S has vanished along with the Pd. This is useful information to all who think they purify their Pd by simple heating. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pine DJ, Cotts RM; Phys. Rev. B28 (1983) 641. "Diffusion and electrotransport of hydrogen and deuterium in vanadium- titanium and vanadium-chromium alloys". ** Measured diffusional and electrotransport charge number Z* for H and D in these alloys as a function of time. Basic data of possible relevance. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turner PJ, Pritchard HO; Can. J. Chem. 56 (1978) 1415. "Calorimetric study of an electrochemical reaction". ** Gives some useful hints on a technique not often used, they say. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendk cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.12 / W Bernecky / Re: chunnel fusion Originally-From: bernecky-robert@CS.YALE.EDU (William Robert Bernecky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: chunnel fusion Date: 12 Feb 90 16:11:06 GMT Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 One may speculate that DC flow through a cathode would impart a force on deteurium ions embedded in the palladium lattice, and that under certain conditions, these ions could be accelerated. The Cluster Impact fusion experiments performed at Brookhaven suggest that d-d fusion rates of 10e-1/d-sec can occur with deuteron energies of only 100 eV. So perhaps there is merit in this idea. We might further speculate that the electron flow within the cathode is not uniform, but characterized by currents flowing to "hot spots" on the cathode surface. Depending on the orientation of these electron currents, the accelerated deuterium ions driven by one electron current may be in opposition, or at least convergence, with other accelerated deuterium streams. Fusion would occur at the confluence. Presumably, the orientation of the electron currents within the cathode are determined by the geometry of the cathode, the pattern and degree of poisoning of the cathode surface, and the geometry and placement of the anode(s) with respect to the cathode. In this view, the sporadic nature of the phenomenon can be attributed to the initial geometries of the cathode and anode, and to the time dependent random poisoning of the cathode surface by (I guess) the lithium in the electrolyte. If luck holds, "hot spots" will develop at particular locations on the surface, and the currents flowing to these hot spots will drive deuterium streams together. We can speculate that these streams meet "far" from the cathode surface, perhaps enough so to preclude neutrons from escaping. The phenomenon would cease for a variety of reasons: the slow poisoning of the surface of the cathode, strain fractures disrupting the lattice, and interference from the fusion by-products. cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenrobert cudfnWilliam cudlnBernecky cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.12 / Jon Jacky / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: jon@cs.washington.edu (Jon Jacky) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 12 Feb 90 18:04:04 GMT Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle > Kenneth A. Wolcott (whessler@cudnvr.denver.colorado.edu) writes: > 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... This request covers quite a lot! So, I'll recommend a book that also covers quite a lot, which I imagine your friend, and many other readers of this newsgroup, would find interesting. It is NUCLEAR FEAR: A HISTORY OF IMAGES by Spencer Weart. I think the year is 1989 but it might be 1988. I don't recall the publisher. This recently came out in a "quality" (large format) paperback edition for not much money, about $8 I think. The book is much more than a "history of images," it is a history of nuclear technology of all kinds: medical, weapons, power, but it is told from the point of view of popular attitudes, coverage in the media, etc. In particular this book contains the best history of opposition to and debates about nuclear power and nuclear weapons that I have seen anywhere. Spencer Weart is a physicist-turned-historian. By the way, his personal opinion is that the public worries too much about nuclear power and not enough about nuclear weapons. He says this in the book, but the book is not a tract arguing this point of view --- the book is useful whether you agree with this assessment or not. - Jon Jacky Department of Radiation Oncology RC-08 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 jon@gaffer.rad.washington.edu cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenjon cudfnJon cudlnJacky cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.12 / MMAXIM%F3%sc.i / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: MMAXIM%F3%sc.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Michael A. Maxim, F3-11, Ext. 3489 B.#856) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 12 Feb 90 22:08:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Has anyone tried zapping a "deuterated" Pd or Ti specimen with: 1: A D+ ion beam. 2: A moderate to intense e-beam. 3: Both 1 & 2 above. 4: A low/moderate level neutron source. I'm not terribly physics-literate, but from what I've read it seems that most of the "fusion" reactions reported involve deuterium, electric current, Pd/Ti, and some type of lattice disruption (i.e. "fracto-fusion" cracks, mechanical movement, voltage or temperature spikes, etc.). If this is some type of surface effect, I can't think of a better way to disrupt the specimen's surface than with a nice blanket ion implant. Details left to those qualified to determine them. ************************************************************************** *Michael A. Maxim * Basic Principle of Fiscal Responsibility: * *Intel Fab 3 * "Anything you can get and don't pay for is profit"* *Livermore, Ca. * -Ernie * ************************************************************************** mmaxim%f3@sc.intel.com cudkeys: cuddy12 cudencom cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.12 / Michael Brooks / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 12 Feb 90 22:46:29 GMT Organization: Stanford University in Message-ID: <9002051044.AA20168@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >>brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) writes >> Well all you spf readers, hungrily waiting for someone(things)` >> uncommon demise, here is another bone to chew on. >> OK, comments? Bill, Paul, John, Dave, Dieter, Ted, (everybody), >>let`s get more >> of our usual incisive invective rolling! :-) :-) ^^^^^^ >Hungrily waiting? For someone's demise? Invective? Your qualifying smileys ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >notwithstanding, Mike, you seem to imply that CNF critics are spoil-sport >narks. I know that science doesn't stand up to our ideal (?) of dispassionate >inquiry but let's not stray too far from that. As Fleischmann himself said, >we absolutely need critical viewpoints.[text deleted] > I'll certainly look it up. Dieter Dieter, Please! Those who have read my previous posts to this group know that I imply nothing of the sort that you suggest in your post. In the past I have posted material that is balanced, or at least open-minded, on the possibilities of CNF. Nor have I at any time, (now included), said or implied that "CNF critics are spoil-sport narks". Please note that I put the smileys in to indicate "in jest", since a few readers of the group have said negative things before, including personal attacks. This seems to be a feature of both pro & con viewpoints. I merely refer to this "in jest," and condemn no one. I specifically wish to emphasize that those people named in my post are not being criticized, in case anyone is wondering. I imply nothing about them, or anyone else, for that matter. (It`s a joke! try interpreting my post with that in mind, OK?) A suggestion, re-read Bill Johnsons response to my post---he did take it the way it was intended. Insofar as the paper goes, please look it up. It is excellent, and your points on fracto-fusion represent my sympathies as well. The other citations I mentionmay be worth a look too. (you might try email to continue this discussion). Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Labs (solid state)/SU MIT astronomer Walter Lewin: "Absence of evidence should never be mistaken for evidence of absence." cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenbrooks cudfnMichael cudlnBrooks cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.14 / Charles Poirier / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 14 Feb 90 01:23:20 GMT In article <9002080243.AA04876@ctc.contel.com> fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG writes: >[Terry Bollinger -- A software type & proud of it...] ... [tunneling and bohring stuff deleted] >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. I guess it's time to question the unquestionable again. What evidence is there that the deuterons, if they fuse, must fuse directly? Could it not be a two-or-more-step process, with some intermediate state[s] (involving some sort of nuclear catalyst) being involved? I think the dismissal of Unknown Mechanisms should be rethought. To fork off an analogy, a chemist knows that just naming the ingredients of a chemical reaction is not enough to determine the reaction products; you also have to name the conditions, including any catalysts that might be present. Remember that without enzymes (which are catalysts), few of the chemical reactions that make you alive would take place at a measurable rate. And burning sugar is rather different from metabolizing it. (And please, readers, save us from another round of the "but chemicals aren't the same as nuclei" chiding this time, ok? If analogies were exact, they wouldn't be analogies, would they? The catalysis idea is presented here just as an idea, admittedly incomplete.) >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. Certainly there is an Uncertainty Principle (at least, usually there is :-) ) but if the reaction mechanism is totally ignored, you can't know what species to apply it to. I don't mean to sound too contentious, but in the face of strenuous assertions like "fundamental", "irrevocable", "unforgiving", and "absolutely unavoidable", I am fundamentally compelled to ask "Oh yeah? What about... ?". > 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. Perhaps that ought to read that "they" can't explain it, and that they are telling their best idea of the truth. Let's not overstate what *anyone* can or can't explain, nor what constitutes the true truth. I am not picking on physicists. What I do knock is any unfounded, unquestioning, or arrogant adherence to dogma, wherever it arises. My gentle rejoinder is: Question assumptions. They often lie. Cheers back, Charles Poirier cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.15 / Hal Lillywhite / Catalysis in fusion? Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Catalysis in fusion? Date: 15 Feb 90 15:29:05 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <68@xyzzy.UUCP> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com ( Poirier local) writes: >I guess it's time to question the unquestionable again. What evidence >is there that the deuterons, if they fuse, must fuse directly? Could >it not be a two-or-more-step process, with some intermediate state[s] >(involving some sort of nuclear catalyst) being involved? I think >the dismissal of Unknown Mechanisms should be rethought. Maybe we could postulate something like deuterons being absorbed by carbon until the compound nucleus thus created splits and ejects an alpha particle. Let's see now, how does the sun (and other stars) do it? :-) (If this doesn't ring a bell with you, look up something on the carbon cycle in the sun.) Actually, it seems like back in the early days of this controversy (less that a year ago) there was speculation that lithium might enter into the reaction in some way. I haven't heard much about it lately, perhaps because some claimed positive results appear not to have used lithium or anything similar. cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.15 / andrew@dtg.nsc / news Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: news Date: 15 Feb 90 19:51:49 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara "Science News" this week carries a piece on the virtues of the fracto-fusion model; Jones of BYU is cited as thinking it the leading model currently. Those heady days of melting concrete seem a *long* way away. It just seems like "people don't do that anymore" :-) -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman andrew@dtg.nsc.com Albania before April! cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenandrew cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Rainer Sachs / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: sachs@tanner.berkeley.edu (Rainer Sachs) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 00:55:07 GMT Organization: Math Dept., UC Berkeley In article <778@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: >...I refer Mr. Van Pelt and others interested in learning more about the known >effects of radiation on human health to the following (available through >the NAS bookstore in Washington, D.C. : > > HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF IONIZING RADIATION >...In it will be found a detailed analysis of the world's data. Here are a >few quotes from the executive summary portion of that work: > "... the new data do not contradict the hypothesis, at least with respect > to cancer induction and hereditary genetic effects, that the frequency of > such effects increases with low-level radiation as a linear, nonthreshold > function of the dose." ... >To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION This summary is overstated. Note the careful wording "do not contradict the hypothesis ...". Quite possibly, according to current ideas: (a) the effects of ionizing radiation as far as killing cells or causing mutations has a significant linear portion. (b) the effects of overall damage as far as causing cancer may well be quadratic or of higher order in the overall damage, at least for many kinds of cancer (e.g. if one needs to turn on two different genes, one for uncontrolled growth, another for the ability to move to new locations in the body) (c) In case (b), if, e.g., chemical damage is much more predominant than radiation damage, this would still mean that as a function of radiation damage *alone* cancer is linear. But it would also mean than whenever radiation damage is a large fraction of overall damage, cancer is super linear in radiation damage. (d) My preferred summary would be: for cell killing or mutation, there is probably no threshold, even for low LET radiation; for cancer induction, the situation remains doubtful. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudensachs cudfnRainer cudlnSachs cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / 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: 20 Feb 90 06:37:38 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I have looked at a couple more articles from the Jones groups' list (the last two items, in section 4), plus some others. I have also looked into my previous Tayler entry, which was without comment and have changed it. I have renumbered the sections, so that we now have 1. Books 2. published articles/letters directly bearing on cold fusion 3. news, reports, comments in scientific magazine/journals (like Science) 4. published articles peripheral to cold fusion (background facts etc) 5. unpublished writings, preprints, supplied by Vincent Cate, and available from him. Sorry, I can't leave well enough alone. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 19-Feb. 1990 (partly) from the Jones+ list. Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Balej J, Divisek J; J. Electroanal. Chem. 278 (1989) 85. "Energy balance of D2O electrolysis with a palladium cathode. Part I. Theoretical relations". ** Anyone who intends to do calorimetry of D2O electrolysis must read this. The authors develop, in an extremely pedantic and fussy manner, reaction enthalpies for a widish range of operating temperatures. Nothing seems to have been left out, and the large (enthalpy of the overall electrolysis reaction) is mixed with the small (e.g. heat of evaporation of water), and even non-unity current efficiencies are considered - something these authors are experts at, since their daily bread is the economic electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen. In the thermodynamic tradition, however, only the overall process is considered, and local effects are ignored. See Part II under Divisek et al. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deryagin BV, Klyuev VA, Lipson AG, Toporov YuP; Colloid J. USSR 48 (1986) 8. "Possibility of nuclear reactions during the fracture of solids". ** Another early paper from the USSR, on fracto-something. Here, they shot pellets at heavy ice, i.e. D2O crystals, and appear to measure small but significant neutrons levels, a few times the background. Normal ice, H2O, did not produce neutrons. They theorise that an acceleration of deuterons in the microcracks of only 10 keV is enough to produce some neutrons from fusion reactions. The yield (from an ice bead of unspecified mass, using pellets with 100-200 m/s velocity) was about 0.25 neutrons per shot, averaged over 75 shots and corrected for the value for H2O. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Divisek J, Fuerst L, Balej J; J. Electroanal. Chem. 278 (1989) 99. "Energy balance of D2O electrolysis with a palladium cathode. Part II. Experimental results". ** A careful reenactment of FPH's experiments, with divided and undivided celss, and better calorimetry, making use of the relations developed in Part I (Balej and Divisek). Whether using H2O or D2O, the heat measured is within 0.5% the same as predicted from thermodynamics. Inititally in the undivided cell, some of the evolved deuterium gas recombined with eveloved oxygen at the Pd electrode; as this becomes loaded with D, however, this recombination reaction decreased, eventually to zero upon reaching a loading of PdD(x), x = 0.7-0.8. After long electrolysis (270 h), however, appreci- able Pt deposits were found on the Pd electrode (from corrosion of the Pt anode, also found by Williams et al), which again catalysed recombination in an undivided cell. An interesting aspect of this work is the method of obtaining D-loading of the Pd. The evolved deuterium gas was monitored and compared with the expected amount from the known current. The deficit was thus that part that went into PdD, and corresponded to a pure beta-phase with x = 0.70 and 0.77 in two separate experiments (divided cells, thus no recombination). They also performed surface x-ray analysis on the Pd, before and after 270 h of electrolysis, and found quite significant amounts of platinum, copper, lead and oxygen accumulated, while carbon decreased. This was confirmed by another analysis technique. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hajdas W, Kistryn s, Lang J, Sromicki J, Jenny B, Wachter P; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 309. "Search for cold fusion events". ** If we assume (as we must) an about 50:50 branching ratio for fusion, i.e. that we should get about half tritium and half helium-4, then 1W of excess heat corresponds to 10**12 neutrons. Neutrons, then, are a much more sensitive measure of fusion. But FPH only found in the region of 10**4. Hajdas et al repeated FPH's experiment, and did one of their own, in which they exposed LaNi5 to D2 gas at 12 bar, 150 degC. This alloy absorbs 6 atoms of hydrogen per unit, and crumbles into a powder upon doing so. Neutrons and gammas were measured with a low background. Results: nothing found. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jorne J; J. Electrochem. Soc. 137 (1990) 369. "Unsteady diffusion reaction of electrochemically produced deuterium in palladium rod". ** A rather approximate theoretical prediction of the time required to load Pd with deuterium right to the centre of the Pd bulk, assuming a given diffusion coefficient diminished by the conversion of deuterium into PdD, of 10**(-7) cm**2/s. Pd cylinders of diameters (0.1,0.2,0.4,0.6,1.0,2.0) cm resp. require about (7/24,1,5,10,29,116) days electrolysis for a full PdD(0.6) loading, which corresponds roughly to experimental findings. As an afterthought, Jorne calculates that at full loading, the deuterium is packed at a density corresponding to solid deuterium. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lam PK, Yu R; Phys. Rev. Lett. 63 (1989) 1895. " Comment on 'Cold fusion: How close can deuterium atoms get inside palladium?'". ** A correction of the paper by Sun and Tomanek, in which a distance of 0.93 Aangstrom was calculated; Lam and Yu calculate something more like 1.7, varying a little with orientation. Thus it is even less likely that fusion will occur, which Sun and Tomanek had already ruled out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Price PB, Barwick SW, Williams WT, Porter JD; Phys. Rev. Lett. 63 (1989) 1926. "Search for energetic-charged-particle emission from deuterated Ti and Pd foils". ** Pd and Ti foils of 0.23 mm thickness were cleaned in aqua regia and exposed to D2 at 1 bar, 550 degC for 3 hours. This should be enough, given the diffusion coefficients of D in the metals, to load them fully. Careful monitoring of particle emissions showed nothing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Price PB; Nature 343 (1990) 542 (Feb 1990). "Search for high-energy ions from fracture of LiD crystals". ** At last an attempt to verify the several Soviet claims of emission of high-energy particles from fractured deuterides. Price cleaved a large LiD crystal 100 times, and measures no neutrons. This casts some doubt on the Soviet fracto-something results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tayler K; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 346 (issue 6223). "Fusion of 1947?" (Scientific correspondence). ** Refers to a 1947 paper by Lord Rayleigh who allowed ionised O, N and H in a discharge tube to impinge on metal wires (among them Pd) and measured a "surprising amount of energy" as a result. This was commented on in 1957 by Burgess and Robb. I doubt that this has much to do with anything but read the papers and draw your own conclusions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yanokura M, Minami M, Yamagata S, Nakabayashi S, Aratani M, Kira A, Tanihata I; Chem. Lett. 1989, 2197. "An approach to the cold fusion through hydrogen isotopes analysis by the heavy ion Rutherford scattering". ** Used argon ion beam analysis to find loading factor x in PdD(x) profiles of deuterium in Pd under some different conditions of loading. One group of electrodes (dimensions not given) were etched in sulphuric acid before electrolysis and another group was heated in vacuo, the cooled in the presence of 1 atm D2, before electrolysis. Some were kept in D2O after loading, some were exposed to a vacuum, some to air. Loadings of up to 1.5 were achieved; in vacuum or air, these decreased to about 0.7 near the surface; those kept in D2O lost less. The authors conclude that it is difficult to monitor loading during electrolysis but OK to do it afterwards. In a preliminary note (to be published) they mention that no neutrons, tritium or He-3 were found. ============================================================================ 3. news, reports, comments in scientific magazine/journals ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 879. "Cold fusion: Smoke, little light". (News & Comment). ** Report on a meeting, sponsored jointly by the NSF and the Electric Power Research Institute, where some feathers were ruffled, because funding, rather than the science of CNF, was concentrated on. Other participants were happy, however (what else is new?). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pool R; Science 246 (1989) 1384. "In hot water over cold fusion". ** Report on Hagelstein's talk at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in San Francisco, December 1989, which has caused some controversy and may predujice his achievement of tenure at MIT. He had also irritated people with what they considered premature release of his theories on cold fusion, 3 weeks after the FPH paper; however, Pool points out that Hagelstein has always been very reluctant to talk to the press. His superiors are worried about his tenacity in holding to his theory of coherent fusion, perhaps beyond reason. Again, his own statements are more moderate than his detractors seem to think. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion (background facts etc) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chou P, Vannice MA; J. Catal. 104 (1987) 1. "Calorimetric heat of adsorption measurements on palladium. I Influences of crystallite size and support on hydrogen adsorption". ** Calorimetry showed that the enthalpy of chemisorption of H2 on Pd is about 15 kcal/mol, about three times that of absorption in the bulk, as the hydride. The adsorption energy was to some extent a function of grain size. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pardee WJ, Paton NE; Metallurgical Trans. 11A (1980) 1391. "Model of sustained load cracking by hydride growth in Ti alloys". ** Is concerned with hydrogen embrittlement of Ti alloys, and develops models for the propagation speed of embrittlement cracks. Along the way, they quote the diffusion coefficient of hydrogen in the alpha phase (i.e. low H) at elevated temperatures as 0.018*EXP(-0.537eV/(atom-kT)) or 0.031*EXP(-0.638/(atom-kT)), which may be useful to someone. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendk cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / 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: 20 Feb 90 06:37:52 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) reacts to my over-the-top note > Dieter, Please! Those who have read my previous posts to this group know > that I imply nothing of the sort that you suggest in your post. In the > past I have posted material that is balanced, or at least open-minded, > on the possibilities of CNF. Nor have I at any time, (now included), > said or implied that "CNF critics are spoil-sport narks". > Please note that I put the smileys in to indicate "in jest", since a few > .... etc. - sorry, mate, I should know better. This is a public apology. Even if you were one of those who froth at the mouth at the thought of skepticism about CNF (and you're not), I shouldn't get personal. :-( ... :-I ... :-) ? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Irving Chidsey / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: chidsey@smoke.BRL.MIL (Irving Chidsey) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 16:15:23 GMT Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. In article <778@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: <>>An important work to consider is John Gofman's Radiation and Human Health. <>> <>>Gofman estimates the risks of cancer induction from a given dose of <>>radiation is on the order of 20 times given in BEIR III. <>> <>>Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer <>>risk is overblown..... <... <>Also watch out for extrapolations via the "Linear Hypothesis" of very <>high dose (several REMs and up) effects to low levels where the <>effects, if any, are too low to be measured. <... <>(Note: The BEIR IV estimates are based on revised estimates of the <>amount of shielding that Japanese buildings provided for their <>occupants at Hirohima and Nagasaki.) < cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenchidsey cudfnIrving cudlnChidsey cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Irving Chidsey / worst cases Originally-From: chidsey@smoke.BRL.MIL (Irving Chidsey) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: worst cases Date: 20 Feb 90 16:41:49 GMT Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. In article <1990Feb19.194447.532@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: <>In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: <>> <>>Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively <>>different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For <>>instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant <>>emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death <>>toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". <> <>What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant <>compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Humans seem willing to tolerate <>risks that come in small doses much more than risks that come in large <>ones. So there *IS* a difference in the risks. <> cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenchidsey cudfnIrving cudlnChidsey cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Irving Chidsey / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: chidsey@smoke.BRL.MIL (Irving Chidsey) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 19:39:05 GMT Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. In article <1990Feb20.005507.10651@agate.berkeley.edu> sachs@tanner.UUCP (Rainer Sachs) writes: gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: < <>few quotes from the executive summary portion of that work: <> "... the new data do not contradict the hypothesis, at least with respect < <>To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION < cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenchidsey cudfnIrving cudlnChidsey cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Boyd McKillican / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: bjmckillican@trillium.waterloo.edu (Boyd McKillican) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 19:25:26 GMT Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario In article <3249@pikes.Colorado.EDU> kawolcot@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Kenneth A. Wolcott) writes: >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... For politics/health effects see _The_Atomic_Establishment_ by H.P. Metzger. 1972. Some scary reading from a scientist's point of view of how much power is given to the regulating body. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Boyd McKillican bjmckillican@trillium.waterloo.edu Math '90 "We're just musicians, here to thin the thickness of your skin." - Mitchell/Dubois cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenbjmckillican cudfnBoyd cudlnMcKillican cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Mark Brader / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 17:21:09 GMT Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto > Humans seem willing to tolerate risks that come in small doses > much more than risks that come in large ones. This is a bug, not a feature. Followups are directed to sci.energy. -- Mark Brader, Toronto "Common sense isn't any more common on Usenet utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com than it is anywhere else." -- Henry Spencer This article is in the public domain. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenmsb cudfnMark cudlnBrader cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.20 / Steve Friedl / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: friedl@mtndew.UUCP (Steve Friedl) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 20 Feb 90 07:52:43 GMT Organization: Steve's Barnburner 386 In article <1990Feb19.194447.532@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes: > > Consider what would happen if a plant upwind of New York City would > melt down, dumping its contents into the air. Remember folks, this > has already happened once, and came close a second time. Consider > the result: an area presently home to 25 million people becomes > uninhabitable for a hundred or more years, and a few million people die. Those who believe this should visit the obviously uninhabitable areas around Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do they know something we don't? Steve -- Stephen J. Friedl, KA8CMY / Software Consultant / Tustin, CA / 3B2-kind-of-guy +1 714 544 6561 voice / friedl@vsi.com / {uunet,attmail}!mtndew!friedl "Winning the Balridge Quality Award is as easy as falling off a horse." - me cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenfriedl cudfnSteve cudlnFriedl cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.15 / Gary Evans / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans ) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 15 Feb 90 16:16:49 GMT Organization: Noe Systems, San Francisco In article <3249@pikes.Colorado.EDU> kawolcot@pikes.Colorado.EDU (Kenneth A. Wolcott) writes: > >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... > An important work to consider is John Gofman's "Radiation and Human Health". In it, he carefully analyzes the world's database re: past radiation exposure and subsequent health effects. In addition, he has a detailed discussion of projected health effects in a nuclear economy. This book was written in criticism of the BEIR III Report (1980) of the National Academy of Sciences (BEIR=Biologic Effects of Ionizing Radiation). Gofman estimates the risks of cancer induction from a given dose of radiation is on the order of 20 times the risk given in BEIR III. Of note (and also should be read by your friend) the latest BEIR Report just released 1/90 (BEIR V) has increased their estimate of cancer induction by 3-4 times that listed in BEIR III. The take home message is: watch out for things radiative, they are much more dangerous than we have before considered. Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer risk is overblown.....there now exists documented and significant evidence that the opposite is true (read: AT LEAST one cancer per 1250 people exposed to 1 rad each! [BEIR V]. Gary D. Evans gary@noe.uucp sparkgap@cmsa.berkeley.edu sparkgap@ucbcmsa.bitnet gary%n6paw@kg6kf.ampr.org cudkeys: cuddy15 cudengary cudfnGary cudlnEvans cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.17 / Mike Pelt / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 17 Feb 90 00:33:48 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <777@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: >An important work to consider is John Gofman's "Radiation and Human Health". ... >Gofman estimates the risks of cancer induction from a given dose of >radiation is on the order of 20 times the risk given in BEIR III. ... >Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer >risk is overblown..... Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". Also watch out for extrapolations via the "Linear Hypothesis" of very high dose (several REMs and up) effects to low levels where the effects, if any, are too low to be measured. If John Gofman, Professional Anti-nuke, is correct, then I am at a loss to explain why Colorado, with a background count of 100mr/year higher than most of the rest of the US, has a quite significantly *LOWER* cancer rate. Colorado should be depopulated by now. I guess that's Organic Radiation, and Organic is always Wonderful. (Note: The BEIR IV estimates are based on revised estimates of the amount of shielding that Japanese buildings provided for their occupants at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) -- "It was more dangerous to drive Mike Van Pelt away from Three Mile Island than Headland Technology/Video 7 to stay there." -- Dr. Bruce Ames. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.16 / USENET System / cancel <20482@netnews.upenn.edu> Originally-From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System) Newsgroups: misc.invest,misc.jobs.misc,misc.jobs.offered,na.forsale Subject: cancel <20482@netnews.upenn.edu> Date: 16 Feb 90 17:52:09 GMT Organization: University of Pennsylvania cudkeys: cuddy16 cudennews cudfnUSENET cudlnSystem cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.18 / Gary Evans / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans ) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 18 Feb 90 17:21:27 GMT Organization: Noe Systems, San Francisco In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >>An important work to consider is John Gofman's Radiation and Human Health. >> >>Gofman estimates the risks of cancer induction from a given dose of >>radiation is on the order of 20 times given in BEIR III. >> >>Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer >>risk is overblown..... ... >Also watch out for extrapolations via the "Linear Hypothesis" of very >high dose (several REMs and up) effects to low levels where the >effects, if any, are too low to be measured. ... >(Note: The BEIR IV estimates are based on revised estimates of the >amount of shielding that Japanese buildings provided for their >occupants at Hirohima and Nagasaki.) I refer Mr. Van Pelt and others interested in learning more about the known effects of radiation on human health to the following (available through the NAS bookstore in Washington, D.C. : HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF IONIZING RADIATION BEIR V Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiations Board on Radiation Effects Research - Commission on Life Sciences National Research Council National Academy Press 1990 In it will be found a detailed analysis of the world's data. Here are a few quotes from the executive summary portion of that work: "... the new data do not contradict the hypothesis, at least with respect to cancer induction and hereditary genetic effects, that the frequency of such effects increases with low-level radiation as a linear, nonthreshold function of the dose." "... On the basis of the available evidence, the population-weighed average lifetime excess risk of death from cancer following an acute dose equivalent to all body organs of 0.1 Sv (0.1 Gy of low-LET radiation) is estimated to be 0.8%, although the lifetime risk varies considerably with age at the time of exposure." "... The cancer risk estimates derived with the preferred models used in this report are about 3 times larger for solid cancers (relative risk projection) and about 4 times larger for leukemia than the risk estimates presented in the BEIR III report." To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION ------------------------------- - Gary D. Evans - - gary@noe.uucp - - sparkgap@cmsa.berkeley.edu - - sparkgap@ucbcmsa.bitnet - - gary%n6paw@kg6kf.ampr.org - ------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy18 cudengary cudfnGary cudlnEvans cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.19 / Greg Lindahl / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 19 Feb 90 18:00:22 GMT Organization: Dept. of Astronomy, University of Virginia In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: > >Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For >instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant >emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death >toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Humans seem willing to tolerate risks that come in small doses much more than risks that come in large ones. So there *IS* a difference in the risks. ------ Greg Lindahl cudkeys: cuddy19 cudengl8f cudfnGreg cudlnLindahl cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.19 / Doug McDonald / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 19 Feb 90 19:44:47 GMT Organization: School of Chemical Sciences, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign In article <2619@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >> >>Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >>different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For >>instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant >>emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death >>toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". > >What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant >compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Humans seem willing to tolerate >risks that come in small doses much more than risks that come in large >ones. So there *IS* a difference in the risks. > The estimated total death toll for all nuclear power plant accidents to date is very uncertain - most of these people will not die for 20 or 30 years - but ranges from 5,000 to 200,000 people. And this for accidents in relatively unpopulated areas. Consider what would happen if a plant upwind of New York City would melt down, dumping its contents into the air. Remember folks, this has already happened once, and came close a second time. Consider the result: an area presently home to 25 million people becomes uninhabitable for a hundred or more years, and a few million people die. This sort of thing cannot happen with coal fired plants. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenmcdonald cudfnDoug cudlnMcDonald cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.19 / Hal Lillywhite / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 19 Feb 90 19:54:18 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <2619@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >>Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >>different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For >>instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant >>emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death >What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant >compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Humans seem willing to tolerate >risks that come in small doses much more than risks that come in large >ones. So there *IS* a difference in the risks. I think this not so much risk as certainty of small losses. We know that fossil fuel consumption kills but prefer this certain death rate to the possibility of a nuclear accident which is more spectacular. Similarly many people are afraid to fly in an airliner but don't think twice about driving on our statistically more dangerous roads. The airline crash is more spectacular. For an interesting view on this, particularly regarding nuclear power, see Berbard Cohen's article "Reducing the Hazards of Nuclear Power: Insanity in Action" *Physics and Society 16, 3 p 2, July 1987. Cohen also mentions the relationship between what is perceived as dangerous and what attracts TV viewers. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.19 / Scott Finfrock / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: finfrock@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Scott Finfrock) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 19 Feb 90 20:35:18 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA > >Consider what would happen if a plant upwind of New York City would >melt down, dumping its contents into the air. Remember folks, this >has already happened once, and came close a second time. Consider >the result: an area presently home to 25 million people becomes >uninhabitable for a hundred or more years, and a few million people die. > >This sort of thing cannot happen with coal fired plants. Can't it? Our coal plants are routinely dumping millions of tons of carcinogens into the environment and millions of people are dying of cancer, respiratory ailments, etc. The major difference I see is that radiation exposure is easily measured and the correlations determined. For most harmful chemicals this is not true. It is a tragic case of people deciding that what they can't see can't hurt them. -- -Scott Finfrock- cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenfinfrock cudfnScott cudlnFinfrock cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.19 / John Whitmore / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: whit@milton.acs.washington.edu (John Whitmore) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 19 Feb 90 20:43:31 GMT Organization: University of Washington, Seattle In article <2619@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> gl8f@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: >What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant >compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Humans seem willing to tolerate >risks that come in small doses much more than risks that come in large >ones. So there *IS* a difference in the risks. > Wrong comparison. Look at a large hydroelectric power plant instead; the same summer Three Mile Island failed (hardware loss, not human), a dam ruptured in India, killing 1000 people. The worst case for a non-nuclear plant is in the tens of thousands, and this is NOT the worst-conceivable-case, but a simple scaling of known dam failures to the size of the largest hydroelectric dams. People do not search for risks, nor consider them analytically; most people just listen to what noises show up on their TVs, and it is up to us (scientists) to make sure those noises aren't deceptive. Add to the signal, not the noise. I am known for my brilliance, John Whitmore by those who do not know me well. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenwhit cudfnJohn cudlnWhitmore cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.21 / Jan Steinman / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 21 Feb 90 20:40:37 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. (Follow-ups directed to sci.environment.) <> <> Those who disbelieve this should visit the obviously uninhabitable areas around Chernobyl. Friedl is comparing apples and oranges. The biological effects from a Hiroshima-sized (~13 kT) "clean" air blast are largely immediate, from intense gamma and neutron radiation. The biologically active radioisotopes produced are released in the upper atmosphere, where they are globally dispersed at relatively low concentrations. Contrast this with a "China Syndrome" containment breech. The fuel rods are already much "dirtier" than the enriched uranium used at Hiroshima or the plutonium used at Nagasaki, because they have been producing long-lived actinides for some time. As the fuel melts and escapes from or boils away the moderator, fast neutrons begin to cause anything nearby to become radioactive. As the molten fuel burns through the containment floor to the earth beneath, the quantity of newly radioactive biological radioisotopes increases rapidly. When the molten mass hits the water table (which they successfully avoided at Chernobyl), a steam explosion inevitably releases the newly radioactive material into the lower atmosphere, where it is distributed in high concentration over a relatively small area of tens or hundreds of square miles. Biologically active radioisotopes are those that readily incorporate themselves into living tissue, and are much worse in a dirty meltdown than in a clean air blast. These enter and remain in our bodies, and cause an intense, localized, continuous radiation exposure for the remainder of the unfortunate victim's life. If they fall in large concentration on farmland, that land is no longer usable as such. If they fall on pasture and are grazed, the grazing animals are useless for food. But don't take my word for the results of such a catastrophe. These things were exposed in the federally funded WASH-740 and Brookhaven studies. Under pressure from the nuclear industry, the NRC (then AEC) subsequently dismissed those studies' basis (but not conclusions) by calling a catastrophic meltdown "not credible". Another great example of "if you don't like what might happen, say it can't happen". Jan Steinman - N7JDB Tektronix Electronic Systems Laboratory Box 500, MS 50-370, Beaverton, OR 97077 (w)503/627-5881 (h)503/657-7703 cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenjans cudfnJan cudlnSteinman cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.22 / Alien Wells / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 22 Feb 90 16:17:28 GMT Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass. In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For >instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant >emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death >toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". While I don't disagree in principle with the sentiment expressed above, I hate seeing tenuous statistics thrown around as if they were truth - whether they agree with me or not. The point I am trying to make is that the death toll of fossil fuels is still very much in question. The National Academy of Science has estimated the rate at 24,000 with the following disclaimers: - This is just for deaths in the US east of the Mississippi. (Granted, the majority of deaths are in the east due to prevailing winds, but I haven't seen an extrapolation for the entire country.) - This was only an investigation of the effects of the main-line pollutants (NOx, SO2, etc). I would also point out that the NAS has a history of being relatively conservative (their estimates of risk from nuclear plants were roundly ridiculed by anti-nuclear activists, for instance). I've seen other studies which place estimated deaths from fossil fuels anywhere in the range of 20,000 to 200,000 per year (US only). I would also point out that the first real studies of the low-level pollutants from coal and oil plants were released in the mid-late 70s. Ironically, much less research has been done on their risks than with nuclear, despite our long use (or, perhaps, because of it). A large laundry list of very potent carcinogens and mutagens are emitted in low quantities. I saw one study that pointed out elevated birth defect rates in the northeast and attribued that to coal/oil burning. The largest group of these carcinogens and mutagens are poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, but quite a few things get generated in trace amounts. Of course, once you start talking about the effects of low quantities of potent carcinogens and mutagens on humans, you start getting into the same questions of linear/non-linear scaling, thresholds, etc. that people debate when questioning the effects of low-level radation exposure. I even saw one paper where someone was bemoaning the increased radiation exposure caused by coal burning. It turns out that coal averages a 5 ppm uranium content (which, if my math and memory serve me right, turns into into hundreds of tons per year of uranium burned in coal plants in the US). I don't worry much about the increased background radiation due to coal burning, but there are some people that get really bent out of shape about it. -- --------| Then am I a happy fly, If I live or if I die. Alien | - William Blake --------| jjmhome!cpoint!alien bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenalien cudfnAlien cudlnWells cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.22 / Brent Nelson / COLD FUSION? Originally-From: Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brent Nelson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: COLD FUSION? Date: 22 Feb 90 23:36:24 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:3601/35 - Access Gainesville, Gainesville Fl Dr. Martin Fleishman (whoops, forgot the spelling) just gave a lecture here at the University of Florida last Wednesday. He seemed to be very convincing regarding his work! He said he has a paper that is in the final stages of the review process. Watch for it! * Origin: Access Gainesville, Florida 24 Hours a Day (3601/35) -- Brent Nelson ...!{dhw68k,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!3601!35!Brent.Nelson Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 [PCP: CASAN] [disclaimer.std] cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenNelson cudfnBrent cudlnNelson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / Gary Evans / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans ) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 23 Feb 90 01:50:04 GMT Organization: Noe Systems, San Francisco In article <777@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: > >Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer >risk is overblown..... >... ------------------- In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >Also watch out for extrapolations via the "Linear Hypothesis" of very >high dose (several Rems and up) effects to low levels where the >effects, if any, are too low to be measured. >... ------------------- In article <778@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: >I refer Mr. Van Pelt and others interested in learning more about the known >effects of radiation on human health to the following (available through >the NAS bookstore in Washington, D.C. : > HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF IONIZING RADIATION > BEIR V >... >In it will be found a detailed analysis... > >"... the new data do not contradict the hypothesis, ..." >... >To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION ------------------- In article <12188@smoke.BRL.MIL> chidsey@brl.arpa (Irving Chidsey (INF) )> writes: The confirmation is so weasle-worded that a better summary would >probablt be "we don't have enough data to tell what is going on at the >low end yet." >... > As worded, the report does nothing to curb arm waving on either side. >The CAPITALS are definitely not supported. ------------------- In article <12197@smoke.BRL.MIL> chidsey@brl.arpa (Irving Chidsey (INF) ) writes: >... > If these hypotheses are true, then carcinogenic effects are likely to >be non-linear at low dosages, and may even have a threshold. -- Note, more >weasel words! >... ------------------- and In article <1990Feb20.0507.10651@agate.berkeley.edu> sachs@tanner.UUCP (Rainer Sachs) writes: >>To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION > >This summary is overstated. Note the careful wording "do not >contradict the hypothesis ...". > >Quite possibly, according to current ideas: > (a) the effects of ionizing radiation as far as killing cells >or causing mutations has a significant linear portion. > (b) the effects of overall damage as far as causing cancer may >well be quadratic or of higher order in the overall damage, at >least for many kinds of cancer (e.g. if one needs to turn on two >different genes, one for uncontrolled growth, another for the >ability to move to new locations in the body) > (c) In case (b), if, e.g., chemical damage is much more >predominant than radiation damage, this would still mean that >as a function of radiation damage *alone* cancer is linear. But >it would also mean that whenever radiation damage is a large >fraction of overall damage, cancer is super linear in radiation >damage. > (d) My preferred summary would be: for cell killing or mutation, >there is probably no threshold, even for low LET radiation; >for cancer induction, the situation remains doubtful. ------------------- I agree the NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION summary was hyperbolized. Nonetheless, there is data that suggests linearity of the dose-response function for low dose/low LET radiation exposure. From ppg.212-213 BEIR V: "Even when the women who received the highest doses are excluded, it is difficult to reach firm conclusions about the shape of the dose-response function at low doses. The incidence data provide weak evidence for a negative quadratic response (p = 0.1), while the Canadian mortality data indicate evidence for a positive quadratic component when the Nova Scotia data are included in the analysis. However, after allowing for this nonlinearity, a significant difference between the risk per unit dose in the two Canadian subcohorts remains. In contrast, if one allows for this subcohort difference, the quadratic component of the dose response is not statistically significant (p = 0.5). Based upon these analyses the Committee's preferred models for breast cancer incidence and mortality are linear dose-response models." From pg.267 BEIR V (with respect to breast cancer induction): "3. There is little evidence of reduction in risk associated with dose fractionation in the human cohorts considered, even though these cohorts included both fractionated and acute exposures." From pg.321 BEIR V: "The epidemilogic evidence shows that radiation can cause cancer of the bladder and, to a lesser extent, of the kidneys and other urinary organs. For such effects, the observed dose-response relationship is consistent From pg.327 BEIR V: "Although the data do not suffice to define the dose-incidence relationships precisely, the cumulative 30-year excess of basal cell carcinomas in fair- skinned persons treated with x rays to the scalp for tinea capitis in childhood has been observed to increase with dose in a manner consistent with linearity, ..." There are several other forms of cancer included, but with insufficient dose- response data to, as yet, draw conclusions. Gary - +- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ | Gary D. Evans | | gary@noe.UUCP | | sparkgap@ucbcmsa.BITNET | | sparkgap@cmsa.berkeley.edu | | gary%n6paw@kg6kf.ampr.org | +- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ cudkeys: cuddy23 cudengary cudfnGary cudlnEvans cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / Jon.Webb@cs.cm / Re: COLD FUSION? Originally-From: Jon.Webb@cs.cmu.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: COLD FUSION? Date: 23 Feb 90 19:40:05 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA If anyone has any more information on Fleischmann's lecture at the University of Florida February 21, ideally notes from the lecture, please post them. -- J cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenWebb cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / William Johnson / Re: Fleischmann talk Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fleischmann talk Date: 23 Feb 90 16:11:14 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <304.25E477CB@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG>, Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brent Nelson) writes: > [Fleischmann] just gave a lecture here at > the University of Florida last Wednesday. He seemed to be very convincing > regarding his work! He said he has a paper that is in the final stages of the > review process. Watch for it! Don't get your hopes too high. We've been hearing about a "paper that is in the final stages" for a long time now. Fleischmann is going to be talking here in Los Alamos next week -- before a **very** skeptical audience that will include me. I think I can promise the net a little, shall we say, critique ... -- 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: cuddy23 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.21 / Jan Steinman / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: jans@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Jan Steinman) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 21 Feb 90 20:40:37 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. (Follow-ups directed to sci.environment.) <> <> Those who disbelieve this should visit the obviously uninhabitable areas around Chernobyl. Friedl is comparing apples and oranges. The biological effects from a Hiroshima-sized (~13 kT) "clean" air blast are largely immediate, from intense gamma and neutron radiation. The biologically active radioisotopes produced are released in the upper atmosphere, where they are globally dispersed at relatively low concentrations. Contrast this with a "China Syndrome" containment breech. The fuel rods are already much "dirtier" than the enriched uranium used at Hiroshima or the plutonium used at Nagasaki, because they have been producing long-lived actinides for some time. As the fuel melts and escapes from or boils away the moderator, fast neutrons begin to cause anything nearby to become radioactive. As the molten fuel burns through the containment floor to the earth beneath, the quantity of newly radioactive biological radioisotopes increases rapidly. When the molten mass hits the water table (which they successfully avoided at Chernobyl), a steam explosion inevitably releases the newly radioactive material into the lower atmosphere, where it is distributed in high concentration over a relatively small area of tens or hundreds of square miles. Biologically active radioisotopes are those that readily incorporate themselves into living tissue, and are much worse in a dirty meltdown than in a clean air blast. These enter and remain in our bodies, and cause an intense, localized, continuous radiation exposure for the remainder of the unfortunate victim's life. If they fall in large concentration on farmland, that land is no longer usable as such. If they fall on pasture and are grazed, the grazing animals are useless for food. But don't take my word for the results of such a catastrophe. These things were exposed in the federally funded WASH-740 and Brookhaven studies. Under pressure from the nuclear industry, the NRC (then AEC) subsequently dismissed those studies' basis (but not conclusions) by calling a catastrophic meltdown "not credible". Another great example of "if you don't like what might happen, say it can't happen". Jan Steinman - N7JDB Tektronix Electronic Systems Laboratory Box 500, MS 50-370, Beaverton, OR 97077 (w)503/627-5881 (h)503/657-7703 cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenjans cudfnJan cudlnSteinman cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.22 / Alien Wells / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 22 Feb 90 16:17:28 GMT Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass. In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day. For >instance, another risk imposed on society at large is fossil fuel plant >emissions, which kill 30,000 people each and every year. This death >toll somehow makes no newspaper headlines or TV "documentaries". While I don't disagree in principle with the sentiment expressed above, I hate seeing tenuous statistics thrown around as if they were truth - whether they agree with me or not. The point I am trying to make is that the death toll of fossil fuels is still very much in question. The National Academy of Science has estimated the rate at 24,000 with the following disclaimers: - This is just for deaths in the US east of the Mississippi. (Granted, the majority of deaths are in the east due to prevailing winds, but I haven't seen an extrapolation for the entire country.) - This was only an investigation of the effects of the main-line pollutants (NOx, SO2, etc). I would also point out that the NAS has a history of being relatively conservative (their estimates of risk from nuclear plants were roundly ridiculed by anti-nuclear activists, for instance). I've seen other studies which place estimated deaths from fossil fuels anywhere in the range of 20,000 to 200,000 per year (US only). I would also point out that the first real studies of the low-level pollutants from coal and oil plants were released in the mid-late 70s. Ironically, much less research has been done on their risks than with nuclear, despite our long use (or, perhaps, because of it). A large laundry list of very potent carcinogens and mutagens are emitted in low quantities. I saw one study that pointed out elevated birth defect rates in the northeast and attribued that to coal/oil burning. The largest group of these carcinogens and mutagens are poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, but quite a few things get generated in trace amounts. Of course, once you start talking about the effects of low quantities of potent carcinogens and mutagens on humans, you start getting into the same questions of linear/non-linear scaling, thresholds, etc. that people debate when questioning the effects of low-level radation exposure. I even saw one paper where someone was bemoaning the increased radiation exposure caused by coal burning. It turns out that coal averages a 5 ppm uranium content (which, if my math and memory serve me right, turns into into hundreds of tons per year of uranium burned in coal plants in the US). I don't worry much about the increased background radiation due to coal burning, but there are some people that get really bent out of shape about it. -- --------| Then am I a happy fly, If I live or if I die. Alien | - William Blake --------| jjmhome!cpoint!alien bu-cs!mirror!frog!cpoint!alien cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenalien cudfnAlien cudlnWells cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.22 / Brent Nelson / COLD FUSION? Originally-From: Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brent Nelson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: COLD FUSION? Date: 22 Feb 90 23:36:24 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:3601/35 - Access Gainesville, Gainesville Fl Dr. Martin Fleishman (whoops, forgot the spelling) just gave a lecture here at the University of Florida last Wednesday. He seemed to be very convincing regarding his work! He said he has a paper that is in the final stages of the review process. Watch for it! * Origin: Access Gainesville, Florida 24 Hours a Day (3601/35) -- Brent Nelson ...!{dhw68k,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!3601!35!Brent.Nelson Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 [PCP: CASAN] [disclaimer.std] cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenNelson cudfnBrent cudlnNelson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / Gary Evans / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans ) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 23 Feb 90 01:50:04 GMT Organization: Noe Systems, San Francisco In article <777@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: > >Also watch out for the mindset that states all of the talk of cancer >risk is overblown..... >... ------------------- In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >Also watch out for extrapolations via the "Linear Hypothesis" of very >high dose (several Rems and up) effects to low levels where the >effects, if any, are too low to be measured. >... ------------------- In article <778@noe.UUCP> gary@noe.UUCP (Gary Evans (N6PAW)) writes: >I refer Mr. Van Pelt and others interested in learning more about the known >effects of radiation on human health to the following (available through >the NAS bookstore in Washington, D.C. : > HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO LOW LEVELS OF IONIZING RADIATION > BEIR V >... >In it will be found a detailed analysis... > >"... the new data do not contradict the hypothesis, ..." >... >To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION ------------------- In article <12188@smoke.BRL.MIL> chidsey@brl.arpa (Irving Chidsey (INF) )> writes: The confirmation is so weasle-worded that a better summary would >probablt be "we don't have enough data to tell what is going on at the >low end yet." >... > As worded, the report does nothing to curb arm waving on either side. >The CAPITALS are definitely not supported. ------------------- In article <12197@smoke.BRL.MIL> chidsey@brl.arpa (Irving Chidsey (INF) ) writes: >... > If these hypotheses are true, then carcinogenic effects are likely to >be non-linear at low dosages, and may even have a threshold. -- Note, more >weasel words! >... ------------------- and In article <1990Feb20.0507.10651@agate.berkeley.edu> sachs@tanner.UUCP (Rainer Sachs) writes: >>To summarize a portion of the summary: NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION > >This summary is overstated. Note the careful wording "do not >contradict the hypothesis ...". > >Quite possibly, according to current ideas: > (a) the effects of ionizing radiation as far as killing cells >or causing mutations has a significant linear portion. > (b) the effects of overall damage as far as causing cancer may >well be quadratic or of higher order in the overall damage, at >least for many kinds of cancer (e.g. if one needs to turn on two >different genes, one for uncontrolled growth, another for the >ability to move to new locations in the body) > (c) In case (b), if, e.g., chemical damage is much more >predominant than radiation damage, this would still mean that >as a function of radiation damage *alone* cancer is linear. But >it would also mean that whenever radiation damage is a large >fraction of overall damage, cancer is super linear in radiation >damage. > (d) My preferred summary would be: for cell killing or mutation, >there is probably no threshold, even for low LET radiation; >for cancer induction, the situation remains doubtful. ------------------- I agree the NO THRESHOLD, LINEAR FUNCTION summary was hyperbolized. Nonetheless, there is data that suggests linearity of the dose-response function for low dose/low LET radiation exposure. From ppg.212-213 BEIR V: "Even when the women who received the highest doses are excluded, it is difficult to reach firm conclusions about the shape of the dose-response function at low doses. The incidence data provide weak evidence for a negative quadratic response (p = 0.1), while the Canadian mortality data indicate evidence for a positive quadratic component when the Nova Scotia data are included in the analysis. However, after allowing for this nonlinearity, a significant difference between the risk per unit dose in the two Canadian subcohorts remains. In contrast, if one allows for this subcohort difference, the quadratic component of the dose response is not statistically significant (p = 0.5). Based upon these analyses the Committee's preferred models for breast cancer incidence and mortality are linear dose-response models." From pg.267 BEIR V (with respect to breast cancer induction): "3. There is little evidence of reduction in risk associated with dose fractionation in the human cohorts considered, even though these cohorts included both fractionated and acute exposures." From pg.321 BEIR V: "The epidemilogic evidence shows that radiation can cause cancer of the bladder and, to a lesser extent, of the kidneys and other urinary organs. For such effects, the observed dose-response relationship is consistent From pg.327 BEIR V: "Although the data do not suffice to define the dose-incidence relationships precisely, the cumulative 30-year excess of basal cell carcinomas in fair- skinned persons treated with x rays to the scalp for tinea capitis in childhood has been observed to increase with dose in a manner consistent with linearity, ..." There are several other forms of cancer included, but with insufficient dose- response data to, as yet, draw conclusions. Gary - +- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ | Gary D. Evans | | gary@noe.UUCP | | sparkgap@ucbcmsa.BITNET | | sparkgap@cmsa.berkeley.edu | | gary%n6paw@kg6kf.ampr.org | +- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -+ cudkeys: cuddy23 cudengary cudfnGary cudlnEvans cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / Jon.Webb@cs.cm / Re: COLD FUSION? Originally-From: Jon.Webb@cs.cmu.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: COLD FUSION? Date: 23 Feb 90 19:40:05 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA If anyone has any more information on Fleischmann's lecture at the University of Florida February 21, ideally notes from the lecture, please post them. -- J cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenWebb cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.23 / William Johnson / Re: Fleischmann talk Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fleischmann talk Date: 23 Feb 90 16:11:14 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <304.25E477CB@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG>, Brent.Nelson@f35.n3601.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Brent Nelson) writes: > [Fleischmann] just gave a lecture here at > the University of Florida last Wednesday. He seemed to be very convincing > regarding his work! He said he has a paper that is in the final stages of the > review process. Watch for it! Don't get your hopes too high. We've been hearing about a "paper that is in the final stages" for a long time now. Fleischmann is going to be talking here in Los Alamos next week -- before a **very** skeptical audience that will include me. I think I can promise the net a little, shall we say, critique ... -- 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: cuddy23 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.26 / Todd Courtois / Re: Piezoelectric Fracto-Fusion Originally-From: tcourtoi@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Piezoelectric Fracto-Fusion Date: 26 Feb 90 17:24:44 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 Actually, maybe the thin-film piezoelectric idea isn't so bad. Back when Pons was on the cover of every magazine in the nation I was looking into the possibility of using extreme acoustic or other waves to momentarily seperate the layers of a crystal lattice. (Between the two layers would be Deuterium, and thus FUSION, right? :) I haven't worked on the idea for awhile because I've been too busy, but if I remember right it theoretically wasn't that difficult to drive the lattice until layers would split and come back together in synch with the driving waves. My random guess is that seperating layers of a crystal would be a more efficient "cracking" scheme than layers of piezoelectric, since the gaps created would be only atoms wide. I would also suggest that through this lattice, perpendicular to the plane of the layers, a current should be run, so that some REAL potential would be generated across those gaps. An added benefit of running the current through there is that it might tend to involve the deuterium's electrons more in the lattice. If this happens, the deuterium's electrons might tend to behave more like the metal's electrons, which have an effective mass that is easily modified by the energy level of the lattice and the strength of the current. ----Just a surreal suggestion --Todd Courtois tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu ccourtois@hmcvax.claremont.edu "I'm not stupid, I'm just a frosh!"--Me cudkeys: cuddy26 cudentcourtoi cudfnTodd cudlnCourtois cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.26 / Paul Johnson / Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Originally-From: paj@mrcu (Paul Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.energy,sci.environment,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Help in research of nuclear power issues... Date: 26 Feb 90 14:25:43 GMT Organization: GEC-Marconi Research Centre, Great Baddow, UK >In article <1571@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >> >>Also watch out for the mindset that radiation is somehow qualitatively >>different from all the other risks that we accept from day to day.... >What's the worst-case death-toll for an accident at a nuclear power plant >compared to a large fossil fuel plant? Dont forget the fossil fuel mines/wells as well: over here we had the Piper Alpha disaster (130+ men killed by an oil rig explosion). If that had happened in the nuclear industry, imagine the public reponse. Since it happened in the petrochemicals industry, comparative quiet (note "comparative": reasonable amount of noise concerning saftey measures, nothing hysterical). I guess the thing that REALLY stuns me is the people who take a drag on their fags and remark how harmful food irradiation is and how they would never touch it. (I have seen two friends do this). Paul. -- Paul Johnson UUCP: !mcvax!ukc!gec-mrc!paj -------------------------------!-------------------------|------------------- GEC-Marconi Research is not | Telex: 995016 GECRES G | Tel: +44 245 73331 responsible for my opinions. | Inet: paj@uk.co.gec-mrc | Fax: +44 245 75244 cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenpaj cudfnPaul cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.26 / William Johnson / Michael Maxim's "Submission" (four suggested experiments) Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Michael Maxim's "Submission" (four suggested experiments) Date: 26 Feb 90 22:29:14 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <9002130254.AA24314@ames.arc.nasa.gov>, MMAXIM%F3%sc.intel.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Michael A. Maxim, F3-11, Ext. 3489 B.#856) writes: > Has anyone tried zapping a "deuterated" Pd or Ti specimen with: > > 1: A D+ ion beam. That's done all the time. Precisely this technique (more often applied to tritiated targets than to deuterated ones) underlies the standard gadgets for producing 2.5-MeV (or 14-MeV in the case of tritiated targets) neutrons. The physics is quite well worked out and self-consistent; more about that later. > 2: A moderate to intense e-beam. Also done routinely; that's basically what a scanning electron microscope does. (I assume you are inquiring here about e-beams of high intensity but low *energy*, corresponding to the energies available in chemical systems such as electrochemical cells. If you're leaving the question open to include MeV-sized beams, the answer "It's been done" is still applicable, except that it's been done at accelerator facilities.) Again, no obvious physics surprises. > 3: Both 1 & 2 above. That's considerably harder to do, and I'm not aware of any such experiments. However, a vast body of plasma-physics data exists that suggests that the whole is no more than the sum of the parts, i.e., that no qualitatively funny nuclear processes occur when both nuclei and electrons are flying around. > 4: A low/moderate level neutron source. Follows directly from 1; hitting deuterated-metal targets with low-energy (tens to hundreds of keV) deuterons produces gobs of neutrons, and the neutron yield is well explained by the known d+d cross sections. The neutrons don't seem to cause anything funny themselves. > I'm not terribly physics-literate, but from what I've read it seems that most > of the "fusion" reactions reported involve deuterium, electric current, Pd/Ti, > and some type of lattice disruption (i.e. "fracto-fusion" cracks, mechanical > movement, voltage or temperature spikes, etc.). If this is some type of WHAT fusion reactions? The entire problem with cold fusion is that NOT ONE of the "positive" results reported thus far -- NOT ONE -- has stood up to one one thousandth of the scrutiny that has been applied to "hot" fusion using, among others, the experimental programs that you suggest. It is precisely the fact that all these experiments *have* been done, and done successfully in terms of providing self-consistent data explainable through theoretical models, that has most physicists convinced that the "positive" cold-fusion results are gibberish. I'm a nuclear physicist by trade, but have worked in fields as diverse as inorganic chemistry, atmospheric science and RF-cavity design. Of these, nuclear physics is *by far* the most "mature" discipline, in two senses. First, more than in any of those other fields, the "easy" experiments -- and all the ones you suggest, except #3, are *very* easy -- have been done and satisfactorily explained in terms of self-consistent theories. (Theories, I might add, that leave very little room for cold fusion, and appear much better at explaining better-known phenomena than the -- generally quite flaky -- theories that have been proposed lately for "explaining" cold fusion.) Second, probably more than in any of those fields, there exists a good understanding of the ways to screw up an experiment. Consequently, there also exists a much greater suspicion of strange results unless screwups are *known* to have been excluded as a cause. Additionally, the fraction of strange results that *cannot* be traced to recognizable screwups is probably the lowest of any scientific discipline I'm aware of. I don't want to be a wet blanket, but please do give the physics community a little credit; the skepticism with which cold fusion has been met stems from much more compelling sources than simple refusal to believe. -- 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: cuddy26 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.27 / William Johnson / Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Date: 27 Feb 90 18:17:19 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory I promised a critique of Fleischmann's colloquium here at Los Alamos, from which I have just returned. I'm not sure how much of a critique I'll be able to do -- one of the conditions of his talking here was that the colloquium not be recorded or disseminated outside LANL, and that may or may not restrict what I can say, I'll have to check on it. Meanwhile, I ran into an article in the October 1989 issue of "Arms Control Today" that, shall we say, stuck in my mind after hearing the talk. The article is titled "Pseudo-Science and the Selling of SDI" and is written by Joseph Romm. Without getting into a flamefest on SDI (*please* keep that somewhere else!), I wish to point out the relevance of the following little quote to cold fusion: "Science philosopher Karl Popper distinguishes science from pseudo-science in part by the methods they employ. Pseudo-science, he says, advances a theory, then searches for positive examples to corroborate the hypothesis. The scientific method does the opposite. It seeks out any proof that the theory is wrong. If we are genuinely searching for the truth, we should subject our theory to the most relentless criticism, in the hope that if it is false it will reveal itself to be false. "'The point is that whenever we try to propose a solution to a problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our solution, rather than defend it. Few of us, unfortunately, practice this precept; but other people, fortunately, will supply the criticism for us if we fail to supply it ourselves. Yet criticism will be fruitful only if we state our problem as clearly as we can and put our solution in a sufficiently critical form -- a form in which it can be critically discussed.' ..." This will have to do as a critique until I figure out what I can say. But then again, is any more critique really needed?... -- 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: cuddy27 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.28 / Les Earnest / Cold fusion still facing sales job Originally-From: les@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion still facing sales job Date: 28 Feb 90 02:07:08 GMT Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University [From UPI; posted without permission] SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) -- The best way to accelerate the development of cold fusion is to convince physicists the reaction is nuclear, Gerald Byrne, chairman of the University of Utah metallurgy department, said Monday. ``If we hope to convince the world that cold fusion is real, we must first convince the physicists,'' Byrne told the opening session of the four-day Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration's annual convention. ``This will require focusing on the basics before worrying about scaling up into energy production devices,'' said Byrne, who also serves on the staff at the university's National Cold Fusion Institute. Since electrochemists Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of England's Southampton University claimed 11 months ago they had produced nuclear fusion at room temperature, dozens of chemists have replicated at least parts of the reaction. But most nuclear physicists have claimed the Utah reaction must be chemical. Those critics disagree with Pons and Fleischmann, Byrne said, ``because no existing nuclear theory can presently fit the data.'' ``Too many interesting effects are being seen by too many people all around the world -- things ranging from excess heart, to tritium, to neutron production -- for the claims of cold fusion to any longer be dismissed,'' he told the nearly 3,600 conference delegates. ``But, the exact nature of what is being seen may take a long time to become understood,'' Byrne said. The Pons-Fleischmann experiment involves placing electrodes of palladium and platinum in a flask filled with heavy water -- water formed from oxygen and deuterium, a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron. An electrical charge splits the deuterium and oxygen, they said, and the deuterium is attracted to the palladium where it is absorbed in such tremendous concentrations it fuses inside the electrode, releasing more heat energy than the electrical energy needed to kick off the reaction. But Byrne said the Utah team has yet to ``clarify the nuclear mechanisms and learn the parameters involved which lead to reproducibility and predecitability.'' Pons and Fleischmann, and other researchers, have yet to produce the reaction on demand. ***************************** -- Les Earnest Phone: 415 941-3984 Internet: Les@Sail.Stanford.edu USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr. UUCP: . . . decwrl!Sail.Stanford.edu!Les Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenles cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.28 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Date: 28 Feb 90 03:56:28 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <44606@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: > "'The point is that whenever we try to propose a solution to a > problem, we ought to try as hard as we can to overthrow our > solution, rather than defend it. Few of us, unfortunately, practice > this precept; but other people, fortunately, will supply the > criticism for us if we fail to supply it ourselves. Yet criticism > will be fruitful only if we state our problem as clearly as we can > and put our solution in a sufficiently critical form -- a form in > which it can be critically discussed.' ..." > >This will have to do as a critique until I figure out what I can say. But >then again, is any more critique really needed?... Fleischmann and Pons are electrochemists, not physicists. They have the competence and expertise to say "we have an experiment which produces energy which we cannot explain by means of known or theoretically conceivable chemistry." They do not have the competence to say "according to our theory, we have demonstrated Cold Fusion." Whenever the Cold Fusion enthusiasts who are not physicists claim proof of Cold Fusion, they can validly be criticized by the above quote. However, whenever The Establishment seeks to Defend Existing Theory by emphasizing only results which favor the theoretical status quo but minimizing results which do not, then they also leave themselves open to the same criticism. Just becuase a theory is the currently accepted one is NO EXCUSE for failing to maintain the necessary critical attitude. It's a THEORY, just like any other. Just because it's not new is no reason not to "try as hard as we can to overthrow our [theory], rather than defend it." And of course this does NOT mean that we happily accept each new theory that comes along. Far from it. But every unexplained experimental result is a vote of NO CONFIDENCE in the present theory. A new election must be called, which the currently accepted theory may or may not win. Of course, the best defense is a good offense, so unexplained results should definitely be THOROUGHLY checked for experimental error. Personally, I think the Pons/Fleischmann effect is just that--experimental error. But that is just my best guess, I have not yet seen it conclusively proven. So which attitude did Pons actually take? ____"Congress shall have the power to prohibit speech offensive to Congress"____ Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-2211; AT&T Paradyne: 8550 Ulmerton, Largo, FL. Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne. They do not speak for me. Mottos: << Many are cold, but few are frozen. >> << Frigido, ergo sum. >> cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.28 / Kenneth Power / help Originally-From: kpower@maths.tcd.ie (Kenneth Power) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: help Date: 28 Feb 90 14:09:57 GMT Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Hi, I am looking for a fairly detailed cross-section of the postings in this news group, alt.fusion, and sci.physics concerning the cold fusion debate. I would like the articles from the very start, the various theorys which circulated at the time, the reports of sucsess and faliure and the summarys of the lectures which were given at the time.Please I don't want every article that was posted just a cross section.Can any one help me?? Thanks in advance. Ken. cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenkpower cudfnKenneth cudlnPower cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.28 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Cold fusion still facing sales job Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion still facing sales job Date: 28 Feb 90 15:07:43 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <1990Feb28.020708.20656@Neon.Stanford.EDU< les@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: <[From UPI; posted without permission] < Pons and Fleischmann, and other researchers, have yet to produce > << Frigido, ergo sum. >> cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.02 / John Moore / CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 2 Mar 90 15:40:41 GMT Organization: Anasazi Inc., Phoenix AZ This morning's (3/2/90) Wall Street Journal has a nice article on cold fusion (Pages B1 and B4). I will summarize here for the net: Headline: 'Cold Fusion' Research Dispels Some Doubts Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott (LANL) have a forthcoming scientific article reporting excess tritium in 7 of the 9 latest cells that they built. In one, they found an 80 fold increase over several days. Article will be in July issue of Journal of Fusion Technology. Excess tritium has been produced in 22 different cold fusion cells at various sites - according to David Worledge at EPRI. EPRI is now the only source of CNF grants- 1 to 2 million dollars this year. Worledge claims that many of the latest experiments that are getting positive results are so carefully conducted that most of the earlier criticisms are not applicable. Storms and Talcott say "...this work is still incomplete and leaves many questions unanswered. However, the results are supported by such a large and consistent data base that reporting of tritium production is warranted even before a full understanding of the process is available." S&T first got lots of tritium in 2 of 16 cells last June. They then modified their cells, and none of the modified cells showed tritium. Between September and mid-November a third set of experiments was run. In these experiments, they recombined the D2 and O2. They also pretreated the palladium with paraffin and hydrogen sulfide "as had been done in some of the first experiments". 7 of the 9 cells produced tritium. However, they say "No clear pattern could be found in the cell designs that gives an explanation or a significant probability for reproducing the behavior." India is also reporting significan tritium from the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. Scientists there apparently have lots of experience (25 years) in tritium measurement, and Mr. Worledge (EPRI) considers them "experts" in handling tritium. They are reporting tritium increases in heavy water of up to 20,000 times. Charles Scott at Oak Ridge (ORNL) says "We feel we have incontroverible evidence that we've detected excess energy" in the form of heat. Two different groups there are running CNF experiments. Scott reports 5-10% excess heat in his experiments. Huggins and Bockris are both reporting continuing excess heat in their experiments. Huggins will report at a cold fusion conference at the end of March in SLC [I hope our SLC respondents will attend and report! :-) ). Bockris says that the effect is intermittent [my wording] but he has no doubt that the effect is real. One cell which had been inactive suddenly produced 10 megajoules over several days. Fleischmann and Pons are remaining silent, but "it is known that they have submitted a voluminous paper - more than 100 manuscript pages, accorting to one scientist - to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry." F&P are scheduled to speak at the SLC conference at the end of March. ..................................................................... So, a few questions: Anyone have anything to add to this? Bill Johnson? Bob Shermann? Did Fleischmann speak at LANL yet? What did he say? We used to have THE most up-to-date info on this net, but lately it seems to have partly dried up. Is the fusion experimenters mailing list still active? I haven't received anything in months. .................................................................... For those who are interested, we (myself & friend) have discontinued our experiments due to: (1) Lack of Time (2) Lack of Money to pursue something with as low a probability of repeating positive results of this. However, if the process gets more predictable, we plan to restart and go on. We got as far as assembling all the supplies and equipment and designing a unique closed system calorimeter, but that's it. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.02 / James White / WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 2 Mar 90 18:23:25 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service Here is an article by Jerry E. Bishop on cold fusion that appeared in the March 2, 1990 Wall Street Journal: 'Cold Fusion' Research Dispels Some Doubts The mystery of "cold fusion" hasn't been solved, but a growing number of experiments suggest that the phenomenon can't be written off as a scientific error. Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have detected significant production of tritium, which can be a byproduct of nuclear reactions, in several of their latest cold fusion experiments. Large amounts of tritium also have been detected in cold fusion experiments at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center near Bombay, India, and at Texas A&M University at College Station. Small amounts of excess tritium in cold fusion experimental "cells" have been reported by scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and at Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Tritium is a triply heavy form of hydrogen that can be produced by the fusion of hydrogen atoms. It was previously thought that such fusion could take place only at extremely high temperatures. The report of a successful cold fusion experiment last year sparked excitement because the discovery could signal a safe, inexpensive way to produce energy. But early excitement turned to doubt when the results couldn't be duplicated. Erratic Results The Los Alamos and other cold fusion researchers stop short of claiming fusion is producing the tritium they are finding. For now, their work leaves the erratic and unpredictable production of heat and tritium in the experiments a scientific mystery. But doubts that earlier measurements of heat and tritium were artifacts, or products of scientific error, are fading. In a forthcoming scientific article, Los Alamos scientists Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott report that they have found excess amounts of tritium in seven of the latest nine cold fusion devices that they have built. In one of their experimental cells, they found the amount of tritium in the apparatus increased 80-fold during several days of operation. So far, 22 different cold fusion cells have produced excess tritium in various amounts, according to a count by physicist David Worledge of the exploratory research division of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) in Palo Alto, Calif. EPRI has become the only source of research grants for cold fusion experiments since the Department of Energy quit funding such experiments last fall. The utility-supported institute expects to hand out $1 million to $2 million in cold fusion research grants this year, Mr. Worledge says. The reports of tritium, excess heat and low levels of neutrons being produced by various experiments are adding up to "an incredibly intriguing" situation, Mr. Worledge says. "It all could be wrong." the physicist cautions, but "the experiments being done in various places are now of very high quality, which wasn't true last spring and summer, and there are a handful that are quite credible." Many of the latest experiments, he says, are so carefully conducted that most of the earlier criticisms leveled at cold fusion experiments aren't applicable. "Most of the holes have been plugged," he says. "It's beginning to get to where you have to contrive miracles to explain away the results rather than accept them." Most of the cold fusion experiments are variations of the University of Utah experiments reported last March 23 by electrochemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. Those experiments involved dunking pieces of palladium metal, encircled by a platinum wire, into a flask of "heavy water," in which the hydrogen atoms are the doubly heavy form known as deuterium. An electric current is applied to the apparatus, causing the water molecules to break up into deuterium (hydrogen) and oxygen atoms. A world-wide scientific furor was triggered when Messrs. Pons and Fleischmann claimed their simple electrolysis-of-water devices began producing several times more energy, in the form of heat, than was being put into the devices electrically. Because they could find no known chemical reaction that could produce such excess heat, the two chemists asserted that the excess energy must be coming from the fusion of deuterium atoms inside the palladium rod. Because the experiments were conducted at room temperature, rather than at sunlike temperatures of millions of degrees where hydrogen fusion is known to take place, the claimed phenomenon was dubbed cold fusion. Scientists have been waiting almost a year for the results of several different cold fusion experiments at Los Alamos, considered one of the premier U.S. nuclear research laboratories. The new report, one of the first positive findings to come out of Los Alamos, is to be published in the July issue of the Journal of Fusion Technology. It also illustrates the frustrating inability of all the fusion researchers to reproduce positive cold fusion results at will. In the report, Mr. Storms and Ms. Talcott say they realize "that this work is still incomplete and leaves many questions unanswered. However, the results are supported by such a large and consistent data base that reporting of tritium production is warranted even before a full understanding of the process is available." The two researchers report they first found large amounts of tritium last June in two of 16 cells in operation and small amounts in two other cells. They took daily measurements of tritium accumulating in the heavy water of the cells beginning about 10 days after the cells were turned on. In one of the cells, the first measurement found 80 times as much tritium in the used heavy water as was in the water when it was fresh. But, mysteriously, there was no increase in tritium content after the first measurement, suggesting that the tritium-making phenomenon had stopped. The researchers then made modifications in the cells, such as substituting a glass beaker for a plastic one. In the next round of experiments August and September, none of the 13 modified cells showed indications of tritium production. A third set of experiments was conducted between September and mid- November with additional modifications of the cells. The deuterium and oxygen gases released by the breakup of the heavy water were piped out of each cell and allowed to recombine into water in a separate plastic bag, for instance. And many of the pieces of palladium were pretreated with paraffin and hydrogen sulfide, as had been done in some of the first experiments. Of nine modified cells, seven produced increasing amounts of tritium in the heavy water. The timing of the tritium measurements hinted that it was being produced in bursts of activity inside the cells. But, the scientists say, "No clear pattern could be found in the cell designs that gives an explanation or a significant probability for reproducing the behavior. Impressive amounts of tritium production also are being reported from India. EPRI's Mr Worledge, who has visited the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, says the Indian scientists have worked for 25 years with Canadian-designed atomic reactors that require careful monitoring of tritium levels in the heavy water and in the air surrounding them. "It's very clear that they are much the experts in handling tritium, and they gave me the most comprehensive answers I've had," about whether their cold fusion cells are making tritium, Mr Worledge says. The Indians have reported the heavy water in their cells have shown increases of as much as 20,000 times the amount of tritium in fresh heavy water. More experiments also are reporting excess amounts of heat coming from cold fusion cells. "We feel we have incontrovertible evidence that we've detected excess energy" in the form of heat, says Charles Scott at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where two different groups are running cold fusion experiments. Mr Scott says he is getting 5% to 10% more energy from his experiments than is being put into the cells. Both Robert A. Huggins at Stanford University and John O. Bockris at Texas A&M say they continue to measure excess heat from their cold fusion experiments. Mr Huggins says he will report his latest results at a cold fusion conference at the end of March in Salt Lake City. Mr. Bockris reiterates his earlier conviction that Messrs. Pons and Fleischmann have discovered an entirely new phenomenon. "There's no doubt about the existence of an effect," he says, adding it is unquestionably a nuclear reaction of some sort. The big problem is that "we still can't reproduce it at will," he adds. "For instance, we went along from Nov. 2 to Feb. 15 with no heat and no tritium," Mr. Bockris says. Then one of the cells suddenly turned on and over several days produced about 10 megajoules of heat (about 10 British thermal units), enough to raise the temperature of a pound of water by nine or 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Mr. Bockris's heat-producing cells are separate from the tritium-producing cells of a Texas A&M colleague, Kevin Wolf. Meanwhile, Messrs. Pons and Fleischmann are maintaining their silence about their latest experiments. It is known that they have submitted a voluminous paper--more than 100 manuscript pages, according to one scientist-- to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, which published their first report last spring. Both chemists are scheduled to speak at the Salt Lake City conference at the end of this month. cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.03 / andrew@dtg.nsc / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 3 Mar 90 03:23:19 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara First we have the sporadic and irreproducible heat. Then we have the sporadic and irreproducible neutrons. Then we have the sporadic and irreproducible tritium. Any predictions for the next sporadic and irreproducible phenomenon? -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman andrew@dtg.nsc.com Albania before April! cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenandrew cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.03 / Ted Dunning / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 3 Mar 90 23:38:23 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science In article <1372@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott (LANL) have a forthcoming scientific article reporting excess tritium in 7 of the 9 latest cells that they built. In one, they found an 80 fold increase over several days. Article will be in July issue of Journal of Fusion Technology. i saw an early copy of this article and notice a number of difficulties in it. the first and most problematic for me is that all of the positive cells showed the positive results during the same few days during the run. they all started seeing more tritium at very nearly the same time and they all stopped seeing it at about this same time. this is in spite of the fact that since the cells pretty much all started a different times, they had been running for widely varying amounts of time. coupled with the VERY low levels of tritium being detected in the closed cells, i didn't find their paper at all persuasive. other difficulties with the paper included the fact that the number of cells reported in the abstract differed from the number of cells in the body of the paper (at least by my count), the lack of any indication of what current levels were used, and the fact that no reasonable controls were run. it is very hard for me to eliminate contamination as a leading explanation for tritium detection unless light water and non palladium controls are included in an experimental design. Is the fusion experimenters mailing list still active? I haven't received anything in months. it is still in place, but it certainly isn't active. -- Offer void except where prohibited by law. cudkeys: cuddy3 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.03 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 3 Mar 90 22:12:33 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <723@berlioz.nsc.com< andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: < < > << Frigido, ergo sum. >> cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.03 / John Moore / Re: Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Relevant article in "Arms Control Today" (!) Date: 3 Mar 90 15:09:40 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <44606@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: ]somewhere else!), I wish to point out the relevance of the following little ]quote to cold fusion: ] "Science philosopher Karl Popper distinguishes science from ] pseudo-science in part by the methods they employ. Pseudo-science, ] he says, advances a theory, then searches for positive examples to ] corroborate the hypothesis. The scientific method does the opposite. ] It seeks out any proof that the theory is wrong. If we are genuinely ] searching for the truth, we should subject our theory to the most ] relentless criticism, in the hope that if it is false it will reveal ] itself to be false. This is all very nice in theory, but in practice we find proponents and opponents of various theories in most disciplines. The proponents search for proof of their view, the opponents search for proof of theirs. I would say that the quote is correct when applied to the entire set of researchers in a particular area, but too idealistic when applied to subsets. I think it would be sufficient if the proponents do not discard contrary evidence, and accept alternate theories if they can explain the experimental results. So far, I think there are plenty of folks accepting criticism (such as that of open cell calorimetery) and improving their experimental method. The theories of cold fusion have PLENTY of opponents, so I think we can be assured that the proponents will not, in the long run, get away with "pseudo-science." -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / James White / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 13:42:41 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <723@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: > First we have the sporadic and irreproducible heat. > Then we have the sporadic and irreproducible neutrons. > Then we have the sporadic and irreproducible tritium. A phenomenon is reproducible if it can be reproduced. The tritium and excess heat have been reproduced in a number of experiments at several different laboratories. Thus, these results are reproducible. The sporadic nature of the results mean that not all important variables are being adequately controlled. This is true even if the phenomenon is something other than real fusion. When the researchers discover what all the important variables are then the effect will no longer be sporadic. In the meantime, a sporadic effect can still be studied, just not as easily. As for the neutrons, I am not convinced that they are related to the other phenomenon. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / Paul Dietz / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 14:23:08 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Mar4.134241.6796@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: >As for the neutrons, I am not convinced that they are related to the other >phenomenon. But it would be very difficult for a nuclear reaction to occur, producing tritium, in these experiments without also producing copious neutrons. DT reactions should make on the order of 1 neutron per 100,000 tritium nuclei. Even if all the energy of supposed d(d,p)t reactions goes into the proton (never mind conservation of momentum), the proton is still above threshold for the d(p,pn)p reaction. So, the only way tritium production and neutrons could be unrelated would be if tritium "production" is an experimental artifact. Which it almost certainly is, WSJ notwithstanding. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy4 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / James White / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 4 Mar 90 14:51:18 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes: +In article <1372@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: + + Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott (LANL) have a forthcoming scientific + article ... +i saw an early copy of this article and notice a number of +difficulties in it. + +the first and most problematic for me is that all of the positive +cells showed the positive results during the same few days during the +run. they all started seeing more tritium at very nearly the same +time and they all stopped seeing it at about this same time. this is +in spite of the fact that since the cells pretty much all started a +different times, they had been running for widely varying amounts of +time. Does anyone happen to know if the barometric pressure at LANL was unusually low during the few days when tritium was being produced? A small change in pressure could affect the equilibrium at the surface of the electrode and thus could affect whether a cell works or not. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / James White / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 18:40:42 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <1990Mar4.142308.25247@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <1990Mar4.134241.6796@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: > >>As for the neutrons, I am not convinced that they are related to the other >>phenomenon. > >But it would be very difficult for a nuclear reaction to occur, >producing tritium, in these experiments without also producing >copious neutrons. DT reactions should make on the order of >1 neutron per 100,000 tritium nuclei. Even if all the >energy of supposed d(d,p)t reactions goes into the proton (never >mind conservation of momentum), the proton is still above >threshold for the d(p,pn)p reaction. This assumes that the energy of the reaction goes into the reaction products. If the energy could be removed in some other way, then there would be no reason for any such neutrons to be produced. There is another reason to believe such a mechanism exists. For a given amount of wave-function overlap, the rate of fusion is limited by how effectively the energy can be removed. So the rate of fusion will be extremely high if there is a really good way to remove the energy. Thus, I consider the high rate of fusion and the lack of neutrons to be consistent. >So, the only way tritium production and neutrons could be unrelated >would be if tritium "production" is an experimental artifact. Which >it almost certainly is, WSJ notwithstanding. Careful experiments at Texas A&M and elsewhere have eliminated all the explanations for the tritium that were more plausible than cold fusion. Cold fusion is almost certainly real, naysayers notwithstanding. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / John Logajan / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 19:25:05 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation, Mpls., MN dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >So, the only way tritium production and neutrons could be unrelated >would be if tritium "production" is an experimental artifact. Which >it almost certainly is, WSJ notwithstanding. And rocket engines will never work in space because there is not air to push against. -- - 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: cuddy4 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / Paul Dietz / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 20:22:33 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Mar4.192505.3781@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: >dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >>So, the only way tritium production and neutrons could be unrelated >>would be if tritium "production" is an experimental artifact. Which >>it almost certainly is, WSJ notwithstanding. > >And rocket engines will never work in space because there is not air >to push against. Ah yes, that NY Times editorial. Yet another demonstration that journalists can be scientific illiterates. Not something that inspires confidence in the correctness of a newspaper story. If you were trying to compare *my* statement to that famous gaffe, the analogy is bogus. The physical principle on which rockets are based, conservation of momentum, has been understood since Newton. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy4 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.04 / John Logajan / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 4 Mar 90 21:47:35 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation, Mpls., MN dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >>And rocket engines will never work in space because there is not air >>to push against. >The physical principle on which rockets are >based, conservation of momentum, has been understood since Newton. Ah yes, but understood by whom? -- - 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: cuddy4 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.05 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Bibliography additions Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibiography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Bibliography additions Date: 5 Mar 90 15:28:37 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Another instalment in the cold fusion biblio-saga. Nothin much very exciting except maybe the fact that fracto-something now seems to be in some doubt - at least, there is controversy. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 2-Mar. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dickinson JT, Jensen LC, Langford SC, Ryan RR, Garcia E; J. Mater. Res. 5 (1990) 109. "Fracto-emission from deuterated titanium: Supporting evidence for a fracto- fusion mechanism". ** These authors, as well as others, have for some time been propagating the idea of crack propagation of embrittled metal hydride/deuteride as the cause of fusion (be it cold or otherwise), in support of the Soviet team. Experiments of their own, measuring charged particles, photons and radio frequency signals from the deformation of polycrystalline and deuterated Ti, are presented here. They also critically examine charge separation, crucial to the debate: can it be sustained long enough in a conducting medium, and if so, how? These experiments support fractofusion, and the authors propose a possible mechanism for charge separation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Freedman S, Krakauer D; Nature (London) 343 (1990) 703 (22-Feb). "Biases in cold fusion data". (Scientific correspondence). ** The authors throw statistical doubts on the results of Jones et al. One suspicion they appear to harbour is that the Jones team ended their runs - which had durations of widely varying lengths - when positive results had been obtained. This would give positive results from random noise. See Jones, Decker and Tolley's (1990) response. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jones SE, Decker DL, Tolley HD; Nature (London) 343 (1990) 703 (22-Feb). (No title) (Scientific correspondence). ** Response to the accusation by Freedman and Krakauer in the same issue of Nature, that the Jones et al results of 1989 were biased. It appears that the Jones team ended all runs at an arbitrary time, not correlated with success or otherwise, and were in general well aware of possible error sources and the need for controls; this seems also to be clear from their original paper. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sobotka LG, Winter P; Nature (London) 343 (1990) 601 (15-Feb). "Fracture without fusion" (Scientific correspondence). ** The authors note that there appears to be a lot of evidence for fracture- induced fusion, and have a shot at it themselves, by shooting steel pellets (0.131 g mass, going at 168 m/s) at heavy ice. After 75 shots they average less than one neutron per shot, 1/10 the level measured by the Soviet team (Deryagin et al). They note that this experiment was a good reproduction of the Soviet work, and conclude that there is no compelling evidence for fractofusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wenzl H, Treusch J (Editors); Rept. Juel-2294, Kernforschungsanlage Juelich, Germany, July 1989. "KFA-experiments on metal-hydrogen systems analyzing the claim of 'cold nuclear fusion' events". ** The Nuclear Energy Research Centre at Juelich is a large institution, doing high-quality research in a wide range of disciplines including electrochemistry. A number of teams were charged with the verification or otherwise of CNF and this is the report. Some of the items have been published in journals as well. There are reports on calorimetry by Divisek, Fuerst and Balej (since published), basic thermodynamics by Balej and Divisek (published), attempts to detect neutrons by Wilms, Werges, Schober, Schaetzler, Mund, Hempelmann, Fuerst, Divisek and Alefeld (may not be published), attempts to detect helium by Jung and Vassen (no luck, may not be published), and an attempt to reproduce the Frascati experiment, to detect fast neutrons, by Schober, Dieker, Conrads and Hoenen (no luck, I doubt they'll publish). ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy5 cudendk cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.05 / William Johnson / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 5 Mar 90 17:06:23 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <1372@anasaz.UUCP>, john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > This morning's (3/2/90) Wall Street Journal has a nice article > on cold fusion (Pages B1 and B4) and then summarizes that article. He then asks: > Anyone have anything to add to this? Bill Johnson? Bob Shermann? I don't think I should comment on the Los Alamos results to the net. (In case you were wondering, no, I'm not under any pressure to clam up; I just don't think it's professionally appropriate to use "inside information" to discuss things in a non-professional venue. I'm a little too close to the Storms/Talcott work to feel comfortable discussing it on Usenet.) > Did Fleischmann speak at LANL yet? What did he say? Yes, he did; I'm preparing a full-blown report and critique that I'll try to get out later today, if my real job doesn't interfere. :-) > We used to have THE most up-to-date info on this net, but lately > it seems to have partly dried up. This, I think, is for two reasons. First, the amount of information that's flowing through *any* channels is not nearly as high today as it was in the first frenzied days following the FPH announcement. (And just as well, too; a lot of the "information" that got passed around back then turned out to be garbage on further scrutiny ...) Second, "normal" professional channels are beginning to carry the information instead. A good example is _Fusion Technology_, the journal in which the Storms/Talcott work is to be published: they now maintain a regular cold-fusion section that reports results in a more "professional" (if you wish, you may replace this with "old-fashioned" :-) forum than the net. The articles there are technical, but typically not as heavy going as a lot of professional publications; I think most of the net readership is scientifically literate enough to read them and understand what's going on. (BTW, I personally don't think that computer telecommunications have played as major a role in cold fusion as has sometimes been thought, either in getting news out to the lay public or in expediting discussions among researchers. I have seen some rather purple claims that cold fusion is the first "hot" scientific activity to be conducted largely over computer networks. This claim is clearly wrong: I know for a fact that many of the key players either don't have net access, are blissfully unaware that they do, or consciously turn their backs on it. Sometimes we net.people take ourselves a little too seriously...) > Is the fusion experimenters mailing list still active? I haven't > received anything in months. As Ted Dunning (who was running it) pointed out, it still exists but has seen no particular traffic. See previous paragraph. -- 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 cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ Mon Mar 5 / orch.SF-Bay.ORG / to sci.physics.fusion net Originally-From: uunet!atina!cab!granada@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: to sci.physics.fusion net Date: 6 Mar 90 02:13:13 GMT Date: Mon Mar 5 21:16:55 1990 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Date: Mon Mar 5 21:16:55 1990 NEUTRON MEASUREMENTS IN BARILOCHE (ARGENTINA) --------------------------------------------- Our group at Centro Atomico Bariloche has been working for the last 11 months doing neutron measurements on electro- lytic cells with deuterated Pd cathodes. * We presented our first results at the APS Meeting in Baltimore last May (CF#22, Bull.Am.Phys.Soc.34 (1989)1862), and a written account of that presentation has been incorpo- rated into Vincent Cate's archive. * More recently, a contribution entitled: "Neutron measurements in deuterated Palladium cathodes subjected to pulsed electrolytic currents", by J.R. Granada, R.E. Mayer, G. Guido, P.C. Florido, N.E. Pati- no, V.H. Gillette, L. Sobehart, S.E. Gomez and A.Larreteguy was made to the XIX International Symposium on Nuclear Physics - Nuclear Processes in Fusion Reactors, Gaussig, DDR (Nov. 1989), and will appear in the correspond- ing Proceedings. Two additional papers have been accepted and will appear in forthcoming issues (March, April) of Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology (Japan). Those are: * "Thermal neutron measurements on Electrolytic Cells with deuterated Pd cathodes subjected to a pulsed current", by J.R. Granada, R.E. Mayer, G. Guido, P.C. Florido, A. Larre- teguy, V.H. Gillette, N.E. Patino, J. Converti, S.E. Gomez ABSTRACT: The present work describes the design of a high efficiency thermal neutron detection system, and the measurements per- formed with it on electrolytic cells containing LiH dissolv- ed in D2O with Pd cathodes. A procedure involving the use of a non-stationary (pulsed) current through the cell caused a correlated neutron production to be observed in a repeatable manner. These patterns are strongly dependent on the previous charging history of the cathodes. * "Neutron measurements on electrolytic cells (Pd-D2O) per- formed under Very Low Background conditions", by J.R. Granada, R.E. Mayer, P.C. Florido, V.H.Gillette and S. E. Gomez SUMMARY: With the use of a high efficiency neutron detection system in combination with a procedure involving the pulsing of the electrolytic current, we have performed measurements on electrolytic cells containing deuterated Pd cathodes. The unique feature of these experiments is that they were per- formed in a submarine vessel deep under the sea surface, thus attaining very low background conditions which represent a reduction by a factor 70 respect to our laboratory values. Many similar runs were performed on different cells contain- ing D2O and one test cell with H2O. The results show that individual count rates measured from deuterated cathodes are separated by three standard deviations from the background level. The combined 'signal' count rate turns out to be separated by six standard deviations from the count rate due to the background. The purpose of this message is to keep the newsgroup informed about our activities and results. Please do not hesitate to contact me for additional information. J. Rolando Granada Neutron Physics Division - Centro Atomico Bariloche 8400 Bariloche (RN) - ARGENTINA Phone: (54) 944 61007 FAX : (54) 944 61006 TLX : 80723 CAB AR E-mail: granada%cab.edu.ar@uunet.uu.net cudkeys: cudengranada cudszM ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / Mike Mahar / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: mahar@attila.WEITEK.COM (Mike Mahar) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 6 Mar 90 00:24:56 GMT Organization: WEITEK, Sunnyvale CA What I find interresting about Cold Fusion is the fact that the effect is described without much or any theory to back it up. This make reproducing the experaments difficult. To illustrate my point, suppose someone in the late 19th century had happened to make up a batch of transisters. They didn't have any of the solid state physics to guide them they just stumbled upon the process. As carefully as they could they tried to duplicate the experament but sometimes the got transisters but usually they didn't. Most of the other scientists would be unable to duplicate their work. There are two reasons transisters are difficult to make. One, they are susceptable to contamination and second, without understanding what you are really trying to do you don't know which variables are important or not. Without an underlying theory the cold fusion experiments could be very difficult to produce. Scientists will be limited to saying "Gee, what if we used milled paladeium instead of cast? what whould happen then?". and other such things. -- "The bug is in the package somewhere". | Mike Mahar - Anyone who has used Ada | UUCP: {turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!mahar ------------------- Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: GE research in cold fusion Date: 6 Mar 90 14:36:44 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I remember reading somewhere that General Electric was going into the lab to study cold fusion. Has anyone heard what progress they are making? I have this vision of GE emerging from the building with the Mr. Fusion generator ready to go on the shelf at Sears someday. Seriously, they do seem to have a good reputation for research and I was just curious as to how they are doing with it. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Harpe, N4PLE | BITNET: MEHARP01@ULKYVM 106B Ormsby Building | VOICE: 502-588-7785 University of Louisville | FAX: 502-588-5048 Louisville, KY 40292 | AURAL: "Mike!" -------------------------------------------------------------------- "Sir, there is a large multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder" - Spock cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenmahar cudfnMike cudlnMahar cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / Charles Poirier / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 6 Mar 90 20:34:06 GMT In article ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes: >In article <1372@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > >> Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott (LANL) have a forthcoming scientific >> article reporting excess tritium in 7 of the 9 latest cells that they >> built. > >the first and most problematic for me is that all of the positive >cells showed the positive results during the same few days during the >run. they all started seeing more tritium at very nearly the same >time and they all stopped seeing it at about this same time. this is >in spite of the fact that since the cells pretty much all started a >different times, they had been running for widely varying amounts of >time. The timing described above for the detection of tritium does suggest that there was an external factor affecting all of the cells at once. Whether that factor was introduction of tritium from outside is not clear. There are a number of other things that could potentially affect a whole labful of apparatus at once: temperature, humidity, pressure, magnetic field, illumination, muon source (??), solar flare, a glitch in the cells' power supply voltage, different operator of the detection equipment, etc. Admittedly, most of these factors would require an "unknown mechanism", unlike the contamination scenario. But if the excess heat reports are real, we're already in "unknown mechanism" territory, so, big deal. It's just an impression, but it seems to me that most cold fusion experiments have focused on variations of the "internal" or structural setup of the experiment. Perhaps, in view of the Storms / Talcott results, better studies of "external" conditions during the experiments should be conducted. Cheers, Charles Poirier cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / William Johnson / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 6 Mar 90 22:40:41 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <857@xyzzy.UUCP>, poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) writes: > In article ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes: [ref. John Moore's summary of the WSJ article, and Ted's reservations about the Storms/Talcott work reported there] > >the first and most problematic for me is that all of the positive > >cells showed the positive results during the same few days during the > >run. [...] > > The timing described above for the detection of tritium does suggest > that there was an external factor affecting all of the cells at once. As noted before, I don't feel I can comment editorially to the net on this or other Los Alamos cold-fusion reports; however ... > It's just an impression, but it seems to me that most cold fusion > experiments have focused on variations of the "internal" or structural > setup of the experiment. Perhaps, in view of the Storms / Talcott results, > better studies of "external" conditions during the experiments should > be conducted. This is a very good point. Most of the "results" reported so far involving tritium, whether the Storms/Talcott paper or others, have two unifying characteristics: they report *very* small increases in the amount of tritium in the electrolyte, and they were obtained at facilities where tritium is used for other purposes nearby, sometimes in startlingly large quantities. Consequently, there always exists a great deal of suspicion that the tritium reports are due to contamination. This concern can be remedied, in part, by doing the experiments under rigorous clean-room conditions that go to great lengths to prevent tritium contamination from environmental sources. Two comments on this are relevant, however. First, clean-room conditions aren't all that easy to come by, and practically all of the domestic cold-fusion work is being done "on the cuff" using whatever equipment and facilities are readily available. As a result, the research as it now stands simply can't afford to take several of the steps that you suggest. (This may eventually be self-correcting: if enough bogus "observations" of tritium get into print, political pressure may develop to fund careful studies that reveal the bogosity. But it isn't happening yet.) The second comment, of course, is that there may already be experiments running that work under clean, controlled conditions ... but they aren't seeing any extra tritium. How about that?? -- 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: cuddy6 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / William Johnson / Critique of Fleischmann's colloquium at Los Alamos, 2/27/90 Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Critique of Fleischmann's colloquium at Los Alamos, 2/27/90 Date: 6 Mar 90 23:47:56 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory I wrote: > >I promised a critique of Fleischmann's colloquium here at Los Alamos, from >which I have just returned. I'm not sure how much of a critique I'll be able >to do -- one of the conditions of his talking here was that the colloquium >not be recorded or disseminated outside LANL, and that may or may not restrict >what I can say, I'll have to check on it. [...] I haven't got any closer to an answer to this, apart from some discussions with friends that suggest there's not as much of a problem as I had thought. In any case, I'm going to go ahead with the critique, under the usual assumption that it's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission ... The talk was a "Los Alamos Colloquium," implying that it was open to all 7,000+ LANL employees (although attendance was restricted, somewhat unusually, to lab employees -- most LANL Colloquia allow newscritters to attend, but not this one). Considering this and the fact that last April, Pons talked here to an absolutely packed house, attendance was remarkably low: the talk was held in one of the medium-sized lecture halls rather than the biggest one, and it still didn't come close to filling the place. It may be valid to infer from this that cold fusion doesn't have much credibility around here any more; who can say? In terms of content: Fleischmann was introduced by Ed Storms, who remarked that there are now 20 to 30 "confirmations" of various aspects of cold fusion being reported at various places. [IMHO, this figure is a distinct overestimate; see Dieter Britz's bibliography and judge for yourself.] Fleischmann then launched into a historical review to explain how he and Pons got interested in the possibility of electrochemically-induced fusion, drawing on some old cloud-chamber experiments [of which more later ...] and other odds and ends from circa 1930 to suggest that there's more to fusion than meets the eye. A lengthy discussion of some of the thermodynamics of hydrogen electrolysis followed, in which the [long discredited ...] arguments involving "fugacity" reappeared. He then proclaimed his intention to disregard questions of nuclear physics in favor of presenting things tied to calorimetry. [This was not well received by the audience, to put it mildly...] There then followed a presentation of various bodies of data, which we were specifically asked not to distribute further. I feel honor-bound to comply with this request and will not give actual "results" in this critique, but a few comments: he claimed that their calorimetry was accurate to one part in a thousand [whatever that means], and that a paper has been submitted (he didn't say to what journal) giving "results" up through October 1989. [I infer that this is the journal article -- was it J. Electrochem.? -- that somebody else, I forget who, alluded to in a recent posting. BTW, Vince Cate: I think your bet is still open ...] The data consisted of vast piles of tables and plots of transient temperature excursions. He did dip into nuclear things to report tritium measurements and observations of 2.223-MeV gamma radiation. [More about that later too.] These led to a number of *very* hostile questions from the audience that threatened to interfere with the flow of the colloquium; when things did resume, he was rather defensive and brought the talk to an end with various generic conclusions. Now the critique. I was expecting about what I heard, but I still found this talk disappointing. A very large fraction of it was simply a rehash of the talk Pons gave in April (albeit better presented -- Fleischmann is a witty, articulate speaker who handles himself well "on stage"), and only a few things in it were "news." Those things were all in the part of the talk that he requested not be distributed, and again, I will honor that request; however, net readers aren't really missing much there. Their experimental design appears to have changed very little in the last nine months, at least in broad outline, although some instrumental details were different then. A certain liturgical atmosphere has developed regarding the Utah group's experimental technique: some of the experimental setup is described as though by ritual, ritual complaints and suggestions are raised by the audience, and they are ritually answered "that's in the paper" or "we're working on it." I have been to Catholic masses that were less predictable. Several curious little inconsistencies in this talk caught my eye. The first pertained to the historical overview, in which he invoked a cloud-chamber experiment that (he claimed) demonstrated the occurrence of (d,t) reactions involving much lower center-of-mass energies than expected. I think he got the physics wrong on that -- the observation didn't really show what he thought it did, I don't think -- but the real point is that he was basing quite a bit of his historical background on an experiment producing precisely the nuclear observables that cold-fusion "believers" dismiss as unimportant. With this in mind, his unwillingness to examine the nuclear-physics questions, which I interpret (possibly incorrectly) as being due to his collaboration's reluctance to do comprehensive nuclear measurements, seems inappropriate to me. The second inconsistency had to do with the 2.223-MeV gamma-ray observations. These gamma rays, you will recall, come from reactions of thermal neutrons with hydrogen. Observation of these gamma rays was one of the bits of "evidence" presented way back in the first FPH paper, and/or the press releases and hoopla going with it, that fusion was occurring. The data in that paper were promptly and convincingly discredited; I posted an article to alt.fusion back then that pointed out some of the problems in inferring neutron production from such observations, and Palazzo _et al._ (I think) did a nice scholarly job of refuting the FPH contention in professional journals. I had thought that Fleischmann himself had backed away from relying on these gamma rays to prove anything; yet here he was in this talk, making the same old claims, the only improvement being use of a higher-resolution gamma-ray detector! To do this, in the face of absolutely unanimous opinions on the part of experimental nuclear physicists that looking for 2.223-MeV gamma rays is a *dumb* way to look for neutrons, suggests to me that either Fleischmann and Pons are oblivious to the nuclear-physics issues their work is raising, or they just don't care. All in all, I was left with the feeling that Fleischmann really still does believe that they're observing something strange and that that strange thing is fusion; I detected little or no evidence of a "con job" in progress. But the talk he gave isn't going to convince anybody who knows what's going on. -- 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: cuddy6 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / / Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Originally-From: winters@gumby.paradyne.com (0000-John Winters(0000)) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: WSJ article on cold fusion Date: 6 Mar 90 11:49:27 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida That's funny. I thought P&F had a theory. Too busy laughing to listen? cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenwinters cudln cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.02.28 / Peter Shackle / Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. (long) Originally-From: pws@plnapc.philips.com (Peter Shackle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. (long) Date: 28 Feb 90 17:05:09 GMT On Philosophy of Cold Fusion: - In a recent posting Bill Johnson drew attention to the excellent point that it is necessary to postulate a hypothesis and then subject it to the most searching examination in order to verify its truth. This has been the accepted mode of working of natural philosophers since science began. However, to simply apply this attitude blindly to the subject of cold fusion might be counter productive. To illustrate this, turn in your imagination back in time to say, 1947. If in this era you had postulated that a silicon crystal could amplify an electrical signal by enormous factors, at least most of the population would have laughed at you. They would have said: "Look, we have taken the purest crystals and stuck wires on them, and nothing happens. How could a crystal possibly amplify electrical power?" Indeed, the answer is that silicon left to itself does not spontaneously amplify signals any more than palladium soaked in deuterium spontaneously starts a fusion process. Fortunately the early investigators had a dream of a mechanism something like what is now called the MOSFET. With the technology they had at the time they had no chance of making a MOSFET. But as they poked around with their crystals and wires they accidentally stumbled upon the mechanism of the bipolar transistor. Thank god they were smart enough to recognise what was happening, eventually. But you can be sure that at first the effect was unreproducible and there was a great deal of doubt as to whether a (germanium) crystal really could amplify electric signals. The conclusion was, if you set up the right microscopic structures in the crystal, you can get amplification. But it sure does not happen naturally, anymore than cold fusion does. My impression is that by now most people must be accepting that if you take pure deuterium and palladium and pass currents, perform electrolysis etc as described, that if you control everything perfectly NOTHING happens. However, an awful lot of people have screwed around, just like the early transistor investigators, and got transient, puzzling, non reproducible effects. But unlike the case with the invention of the transistor, nobody has yet had an insight to recognize something useful happening and to postulate a structure that is needed to make useful things happen reproducibly. MAYBE its impossible. We cant see the future, and I at least have been around long enough to be very wary of words like NEVER and IMPOSSIBLE. But I do conclude that if there were some solid state structure which could cause or enhance fusion, then by chance and statistics it may happen randomly on a minute scale. This might produce the fleeting, tantalizing effects which have been seen from time to time. This corresponds exactly to the early history of semiconductor research, when specimens would work or not work for unknown reasons, and always stop working after a while. So lets recognise, for the sake of human progress, that the scientific method has its roots in natural philosophy and is great for preventing us from deceiving ourselves. But its application will not result in the invention of a cold fusion mechanism any more than it invented the transistor or the laser. Someone has to imagine that IF you put these structures together in a certain way, certain things may happen. Most likely those exact things may not happen, but if mankind is lucky something else useful may happen and the investigators may get started on a creative trail which will lead to technological progress. As a semiconductor technologist myself, I am powerfully aware that modern technology has the capability of rearranging molecular structures, using, for example, molecular beam epitaxy. We can shape extremely tiny structures which can focus high electric fields. We can selectively place, by masking and implantation, localized areas of one material inside another material, on a scale of thousands of atoms. In one plane we can reproducibly lay down layers of one atom thickness. The available tools are dazzling, IF ONLY someone could dream up a structure, a mechanism. If we want this to happen those creative dreamers have to be encouraged. SURE, 9 out of 10 ideas which come out will suck. But maybe the 10th one will be the BIG ONE. At all cost we must not sneer at the dreamers - and a lot of the correspondence in sci.physics.fusion recently has come awfully close to plain sneering. The "establishment" in a field is always something of a mixed blessing. In my institution a solitary scientist was posted, for extraneous reasons, to conduct research in his field in our institution instead of at his home base, which represents the establishment. From this work a brilliant new invention has come, indeed a whole new field of work. Last week alone 15 patent disclosures were filed. Yet the idea at the basis is quite simple - everyone says, "why didnt they come up with that one back at 'the establishment?' " The answer in this particular case is simple - everyone at 'the establishment' knew it was impossible. As the manager of this project even I knew a few reasons why the project should not have worked - but the man in question had a certain conviction, an inner light which led me to say to myself, "Let him have a go anyway!" (He also knew a hell of a lot of relevant theory!). The analogy here is obvious - the fusion establishment has been playing with deuterium and palladium for forty or so years now, and if they were going to invent a cold fusion mechanism they would have done it by now. If something does come out of cold fusion, it will probably come from some place where somebody has had the courage or the ignorance to go against the accepted wisdom and try something different. When this creative spark has taken place somewhere, then is the time that at least some part of the establishment may take the idea and run with it. Sorry to bore you with my philosophy - and thanks to anybody who read down this far! Pete Shackle cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenpws cudfnPeter cudlnShackle cudmo2 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.06 / Ted Dunning / Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Originally-From: ted@npsue.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CNF News from Wall Street Journal Date: 6 Mar 90 22:17:47 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science Xnasaz.UUCP's message of 2 Mar 90 15:40:41 GMT In article <1372ry, XnasazJohneMoore anad Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott (LANL) have a forthcoming scientific article reporting excess tritium in 7 of the 9 latest cells that they built. In one, they found an 80 fold increase over several days. Article will be in July issue of Journal of Fusion Technology. i saw an early copy of this article and notice a number of difficulties in it. the first and most problematic for me is that all of the positive cells showed the positive results during the same few days during the run. they all started seeing more tritium at very nearly the (W(e time and they all stopped seeing it at about this (W(e time. this is in spite of the fact that since the cells pretty much all started a different times, they had been running for widely varying amounts of time. coupled with the VERY low levels of tritium being detected in the closed cells, i didn't find their paper at all persuasive. other difficulties with the paper included the fact cells reported in the abstract differed from the number of cells in the body of the paper (at least by my count), the lack of any indication of what current levels were used, and the fact that no reasonable controls were run. it is very hard for me to eliminate contamithat explanation for tritium detection unless light water and non palladium controls are included in an experimental design. Is the fusion experimenters mailing list received anything in months. it is -- Offer void except where prohibited by cudkeys: cuddy6 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.08 / Robert Eachus / Re: Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. Originally-From: eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. Date: 8 Mar 90 04:16:57 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA I agree with Peter. When I was asked by my parents whether cold fusion was "real" or not back in May, my reply was that it didn't matter! It was steamboat time (or fusion time). With all the various quasi-reproducible experiments going around, and the hot fusion crowd worried about their continued funding, someone was going to get it right soon. Around 1970 I knew enough (and a lot of others did too) to build a working fusion power plant. Why did no one do it? Because the first plant could never make money, and there was no possibility of a "small" prototype. (In case you doubt this, it is simple economics...You get a lot smarter about how to build anything after you have one operating. And the electric power industry, for large power stations there is a "perfect" market. Utilities will buy power from whoever can sell it cheapest right now. So if you build the first 10000 MWe plant, it doesn't matter how cheap you can sell power, the next guy will eat you for lunch.) In twenty years the size of the smallest feasible hot fusion plant may have shrunk to say 2000 MWe, but the interest costs and the political costs have gone up. You can't get fisson plants built any more. I think that we are more likely to see power from some breakthrough than from the hot fusion establishment (or maybe intertial confinement will come through), but in any case I think we will see fusion power in some form before the year 2000. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy8 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.08 / Ronald BODKIN / hot fusion Originally-From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: hot fusion Date: 8 Mar 90 18:42:30 GMT Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada In article eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes: > Around 1970 I knew enough (and a lot of others did too) to build >a working fusion power plant. Why did no one do it? Because the >first plant could never make money, and there was no possibility of a >"small" prototype. (In case you doubt this, it is simple >economics...You get a lot smarter about how to build anything after >you have one operating. And the electric power industry, for large >power stations there is a "perfect" market. Utilities will buy power >from whoever can sell it cheapest right now. So if you build the >first 10000 MWe plant, it doesn't matter how cheap you can sell power, >the next guy will eat you for lunch.) In twenty years the size of the >smallest feasible hot fusion plant may have shrunk to say 2000 MWe, >but the interest costs and the political costs have gone up. You >can't get fisson plants built any more. Is that right? I wish there would be more discussion of hot fusion on this newsgroup -- I had been under the impression that people had not achieved the ability to quite recover the energy they put into fusion. I also wonder why, if the first plant wouldn't make money, that someone didn't build the first one (how much do you figure a 2000 MWe plant would cost) and sustain losses so as to have a much better idea for their next plant, but not allow potentional competetion to hear about all the interesting ideas you researched. Also, I would think that since fission is impeded it would ease the way for (clean) fusion. Then again, I don't know if protestors are intelligent enough to see the difference. > I think that we are more likely to see power from some >breakthrough than from the hot fusion establishment (or maybe >intertial confinement will come through), but in any case I think we >will see fusion power in some form before the year 2000. I never cease to be amazed by the fact that, although fusion is close at hand, people ignore the implications. This would herald a new age of virtually free energy, as I understand it. I guess it means that instead of hydro-electric power's highly limited source of low-maintanence cost power, we will get virtually limitless such. Ron cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenutility cudfnRonald cudlnBODKIN cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.08 / Paul Dietz / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 8 Mar 90 20:14:38 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <2411@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) writes: >In article eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes: >> I think that we are more likely to see power from some >>breakthrough than from the hot fusion establishment (or maybe >>intertial confinement will come through), but in any case I think we >>will see fusion power in some form before the year 2000. > I never cease to be amazed by the fact that, although fusion >is close at hand, people ignore the implications. This would herald >a new age of virtually free energy, as I understand it. I guess >it means that instead of hydro-electric power's highly limited >source of low-maintanence cost power, we will get virtually limitless >such. I never cease to be amazed by the hold hot fusion has on some people. There are serious technical problems. "Free" fuel does not mean free energy -- the capital cost is large (the same problem that solar experiences). Remember the "too cheap to meter" claims for fission power? We may see scientific breakeven before the end of the century. I doubt a tokamak will reach ignition by then. Even after that, the engineering problems just begin. Look at the difference between achieving a fission chain reaction and making a fission reactor that can reliably generate power. Fusion is even harder. The reaction is more difficult to sustain, the reaction vessel is much more complicated, heat transfer is more difficult, and the materials problems more severe. The high neutron flux -- much higher than in fission reactors -- would likely require periodic replacement of the reactor wall, if DT fuel is used. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy8 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.08 / David Seghers / Re: Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. (long) Originally-From: seghers@hpccc.HP.COM (David Seghers) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Philosophy of Science - Why fusioneers should keep going. (long) Date: 8 Mar 90 17:47:57 GMT Organization: HP Corp Computing & Services Thanks for a thoughtful and unbiased note. You seem to be quite correct that many of the postings in this group have been of the "It doesn't fit our theory so it can't be occurring or if it is it's all a mistake even if LOTS of people are making the same mistakes, and maybe it will all go away if P&F suddenly say April Fools" sneering. Perhaps all this stems from the time when physics, biology and chemistry were all thought to be different and separate...... Now if we combine cold fusion and gyroscopic antigravity, perhaps we could do away with clumsy and explosive rockets? David Seghers (seghers@hpccc.hp.com) W:415-691-5042 Disclaimer: Any ideas expressed here are my own, and no one else's. (Perhaps that's why I'm still single....... ;-)} ) Cold Fusion: Sex at low temperatures? cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenseghers cudfnDavid cudlnSeghers cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.08 / Donald Lindsay / Closed Cells Originally-From: lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Closed Cells Date: 8 Mar 90 21:57:33 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI A loooong time ago, we were all waiting for someone to do the same experiment, but with totally sealed cells. What happened? Several people started to do this: did they get anywhere? -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenlindsay cudfnDonald cudlnLindsay cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.09 / Ronald BODKIN / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 9 Mar 90 02:21:45 GMT Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada In article <1990Mar8.201438.12506@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >> I never cease to be amazed by the fact that, although fusion >>is close at hand, people ignore the implications. This would herald >>a new age of virtually free energy, as I understand it. I guess >>it means that instead of hydro-electric power's highly limited >>source of low-maintanence cost power, we will get virtually limitless >>such. > >I never cease to be amazed by the hold hot fusion has on some people. >There are serious technical problems. "Free" fuel does not mean free >energy -- the capital cost is large (the same problem that solar >experiences). Remember the "too cheap to meter" claims for fission >power? If we were willing to use breeder reactors, it would be pretty close to that level of expense. Unfortunately breeder reactors are just too dangerous and other fission fuel is far from free. And I might add that I am aware that free fuel is not free energy, but I assert that once the reactor is built it will have an extremely low maintaince cost. Of course fission also suffers expense from storage of radioactive waste. As for capital expense, as I understand it, with a bit of technical improvement the rate of energy per (monetary) unit of capital can be made quite low (solar has this too, I suppose). However, your point that fusion will be far from inexpensive upon introduction is quite well taken. Ron cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenutility cudfnRonald cudlnBODKIN cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.09 / Paul Dietz / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 9 Mar 90 22:05:14 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department I wrote: >> Remember the "too cheap to meter" claims for fission >>power? Ron Bodkin (utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca) wrote: > If we were willing to use breeder reactors, it would be pretty >close to that level of expense. Unfortunately breeder reactors are >just too dangerous and other fission fuel is far from free. I'm afraid you are in error. Fuel cost is a small part of the cost of nuclear power; we are still experiencing a uranium glut. Capital and interest costs dominate. Fast breeders have been found to be more expensive than conventional burners. It currently isn't even economical to extract plutonium from spent PWR fuel. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.09 / Robert Eachus / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 9 Mar 90 18:15:38 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA Fifty years from now there will probably be no competition (on Earth) to fusion as a base load power source. But that day is not "just around the corner." I agree almost completely with what Paul Dietz says. I think Tokomak ignition probably will occur before the turn of the century (that's the almost), but the Tokomak may never be a viable economic source of power. Any form of hot fusion as an economic power source requires a commitment of resouces that has never been close to happening before the cold fusion announcements. We may now see a willingness in Congress (or elsewhere) to take one of the many propsed prototype power plants and fund it. This would definitely not be cheap power, or even a cheap investment. However I think Congress has pissed away more money on technology demonstrations which have no hope of scientific breakeven than the cost of one large prototype power plant. Incidentally, the smallest such proposal I have seen was for a 8000 MW thermal fusion reactor, which is about twice the heat output of the largest commercial nuclear reactors, the 1970 proposal was 100,000 MWt. These things are BIG. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy9 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.09 / Robert Eachus / Breeder Reactors (was Re: hot fusion) Originally-From: eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Breeder Reactors (was Re: hot fusion) Date: 9 Mar 90 19:13:05 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA In article <2414@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) writes: > If we were willing to use breeder reactors, it would be > pretty close to that level of expense. Unfortunately breeder > reactors are just too dangerous and other fission fuel is far from > free. And I might add that I am aware that free fuel is not free > energy, but I assert that once the reactor is built it will have an > extremely low maintaince cost. Of course fission also suffers > expense from storage of radioactive waste... Not all breeder reactors are created equal. In this country (and in France) the decision was made to concentrate on liquid metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBR's). The French have built several reactors, the United States Congress was finally convinced that the Clinch River prototype was too dangerous to build. Imagine an accident killing vegetation, wildlife, fish, and even people over a 400 sq. mile area...before any nuclear fuel was added to the reactor! Can you say 8000 tons of molten Sodium metal...can you say lots of lye everywhere after the fireworks are over? The French Phoenix and Super-Phoenix reactors are designed so that a Sodium leak is unlikely to cause a non-nuclear disaster. But can you say positive void coefficient? If you can't, a quick summary is that for any Sodium cooled LMFBR, a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) (like the TMI accident) will create a large hole in the ground where the reactor used to be. Clinch River's solution to this was to build the reactor in a BIG container full of coolant. But as mentioned above this leads to other risks.) The US also did research on Molten Salt Reactors (MSR's) which do not breed fuel as fast as LMFBR's, but are inherently safe. You can't have a LOCA problem since the fuel is the coolant, the core can't melt down, since it is already molten, and if the salt mixture leaks out of the reactor it immediately stops reacting and becomes solid. Not perfect, but a lot better than what we have now. One was actually flown (operating!) in an aircraft around 1960. The British (and General Atomic) were doing research on Advanced Gas Reactors (AGR's and HTGR's) as slow breeders. I don't know if the Brits do that currently or are just operating them as very high burn rate conventional reactors. There was also a proposal to convert certain US pressurized water reactors (PWR's) to breeders. The Canadian Deuterium Reactors (CANDU's) which generate a lot of the power Ron uses are technically converters, which are fueled with unenriched uranium, create Plutonium and burn it in place. I know there was some work on a CANDU breeder program. This shows lots of promise, but again none of these are "too cheap to meter." It is worth noting that an the time that phrase was originally used, the cost of electricity was dropping rapidly, and for most of today's users the real cost of electricity is much lower than it was in 1950. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy9 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.10 / Ronald BODKIN / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 10 Mar 90 09:03:35 GMT Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada In article <1990Mar9.220514.19431@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >I wrote: >> If we were willing to use breeder reactors, it would be pretty >>close to that level of expense. Unfortunately breeder reactors are >>just too dangerous and other fission fuel is far from free. > >I'm afraid you are in error. Fuel cost is a small part of the cost of >nuclear power; we are still experiencing a uranium glut. Capital and >interest costs dominate. Fast breeders have been found to be more >expensive than conventional burners. It currently isn't even >economical to extract plutonium from spent PWR fuel. Well, you obviously learn something every day. I would imagine that the source of fission price is largely due to the great need to prevent the highly contaminated byproducts from releasing radiation. I don't suppose fusion has to have a significantly brighter future although at least storage facilities for byproducts aren't needed. I'm certainly glad that I've opened up this discussion -- I hadn't thought about fusion for a while and had made some naive assumptions. Maybe the problems with hot fusion generation have made cold fusion all that much more tantalizing. Of course, mirages are always tantilizing. Ron cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenutility cudfnRonald cudlnBODKIN cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.11 / Steven Bellovin / Re: hot fusion Originally-From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven M. Bellovin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion Date: 11 Mar 90 21:58:14 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Not to belabor elementary economics, but there are many other factors than fuel. Fuel costs tend to account for the marginal increase in cost as you increase reactor load from minimum economical operating level to maximum output. (Sketch of proof: building the reactor at all accounts for your capital costs, and regardless of the power level you still need roughly the same staff level.) What are the costs? A principal one is the capital investment in the plant itself. While some of the costs associated with today's fission reactors are a response to the regulatory and legal climate (and I won't discuss here whether or not the delays are justified), a lot of it is simply unavoidable. You're talking major construction -- on the order of 10^9 American dollars even for a large fossil-fuel plant, and several years of construction time. By my rough calculations, paying off a loan like that would cost on the order of $8,000,000/month, for 30 years. Not free. (Note: I assumed 8.5% annual interest rate, which is close to today's prime; I suspect that utilities would pay more for a speculative project like that. A 12% rate would push the monthly costs to over $10,000,000/month. Add to that staff costs and maintenance costs, and you're talking a considerable sum. And then factor in availability; if a plant is up only 50% of the time, you need two such plants -- at more or less the same capital and staffing cost -- to deliver the same amount of electricity. Another factor is that utilities need -- or perceive that they need -- billing in order to keep their load down. Even if we didn't know it before, we learned it in 1974 -- demand for energy is elastic with respect to price; when costs go up, consumption goes down. Conversely, cheap energy tends to increase consumption. And utilities can't afford that; once demand exceeds the average deliverable capacity of their installed base, they have to switch to backup sources. These are often inefficient (i.e., older, semi-retired plants) or potentially unreliable (power purchased from other areas via the power grid). The only alternative is to build yet another large plant -- with the corresponding costs, delays etc. Someone wrote in another news article that in 50 years, fusion would probably have no competition as a base load power source. I'll buy that if the author meant that fusion power is obviously the way to go to build new plants. I don't agree that most of the base load generation will be fusion-based in 50 years; I'd say that 75 is more like it. Consider: if we had a working design today, it would take on the order of 10 years to build it. Remember that we are talking a *massive* project, one based on a brand-new technology. Even apart from regulatory delays -- and in this country at least, those would be considerable, with issues ranging from the environmental impact of such a large heat source on the local water supply to questions about the safe disposal of neutron-irradiated fusion vessels to the nut fringe that would commit suicide if it learned that its members were made of (horrors) atoms -- major construction takes a long time. We're also taking about technology transfer here. As I recall, it took ~10 years after World War II for the first civilian power reactor to come online. (I remember visiting Pittsburgh around then, and being disappointed that the light bulbs looked the same. After all, if the electricity was based on atomic energy, it should be different, right? Of course, I was quite young at the time.) Given that it's a radically new concept, very few utilities would be willing to commit funding until it was demonstrated to work economically. I would project at least 20 years from first ground-breaking before we saw substantial efforts towards building lots of fusion plants. And given that hydroelectric and fossil-fuel plant last a *long* time -- and economically, they have to, to amortize their construction costs -- no one is going to retire one prematurely. (As an analogy, look at how many crossbar telephone exchanges are still in service in this country. And that's in the face of the revolution in digital electronics. Yes, they're being retired -- but it makes no sense to pull one out of service too soon.) cudkeys: cuddy11 cudensmb cudfnSteven cudlnBellovin cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.12 / Terry Bollinger / Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Date: 12 Mar 90 15:12:14 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway TRITIUM RESULTS -- I vote "Listen to Bill Johnson & Ted Dunning" Since I put in a strong plug a couple of weeks ago for SRI and Texas A&M heat results being real, I thought I'd also add that I find Bill Johnson's and Ted Dunning's points about the weakness of tritium results doggone persuasive. Bill in particular seems to have a very solid work background in testing methods for low-level radioactivity (I don't know enough about Ted Dunning's work to say one way or another), and I'm hard put to think of a background that would be more appropriate for giving a solid evaluation of the kinds of results being presented on tritium.` Particularly intriguing was Bill's comment about how tritium seems (so far) always to be found at facilities in which there are substantial amounts of said substance in one or more nearby rooms. Knowing how communal engineers & physicists tend to be with equipment (and also with incidental shared commodities such as air), that strikes me as a pretty deep-cutting criticism that needs to be addressed very carefully. After all, since palladium is often used to separate out the higher isotopes of hydrogen, isn't it at least possible that all that is going on in the tritium-finding experiments is that people are inadvertantly building very good separators for very low-level tritium contamination? Please note that I would be absolutely delighted to hear unambiguous proof that tritium can be generated by an apparently chemical system -- I am one of those who loves the unexpected. But speaking for myself, I'm going to have to see some "clean room" reproduction of very-high-level tritium results such as those of Wada before I'll bite. (And, by the way, *has* anyone been able to reproduce anything like the Wada results? Anybody know?) SELF-STRUCTURING CAPACITORS -- An interesting precondition... I'm having a lot of fun playing around with the concept of self-structuring capacitors, and may even try writing a *real* paper on the idea. (You know, one with *references!*) The reason for my comparative boldness is that it's an interesting "chemical gedanken experiment" which, even if it turns out to be totally unrelated to palladium, might nonetheless be feasible in some other chemical system. Given the potentially high energy levels, it might be at least worth defining the necessary preconditions for such a chemical system to exist. For example... here's one for palladium hydride that's both interesting and testable. To act as a "self-folding" dielectric, pure beta (or whatever) phase palladium would have to be stable *only* in the presense of a strong electrical field gradient. Otherwise, the system would just grow an increasingly thick dielectric layer that would reduce it capacitance towards zero. By adding the condition that the dielectric is chemically stabilized by a strong field gradient, the dielectric layer would be forced to grow though folding rather than through accretion. Unfortunately, the voltage gradient indicated by 10 megajoules per mole of palladium would be pretty outlandish -- something in the order of 10**7 V per cm! To be honest, I really don't think I buy the idea that a palladium hydride phase could insulate against that kind of gradient, but nonetheless, the testable prediction is this: if there is anything to the idea of a self-structuring capacitor as an explanation for the heat releases from palladium systems, then there must exist a phase of palladium hydride that has the following properties: 1) The pure form of the phase can exist only in the presense of an electrical field gradient that may need to be as high as 10 megavolts/centimeter. (Much lower gradients might also be sufficient to stabilize the phase.) 2) The pure form of the phase should be capable of significant electrical insulation in the presence of a field gradient of 10 megavolts/centimeter. One nice thing about such a beast -- it would match well with some of the unexplained "meltdowns" of palladium. Any local reduction of the field gradient would cause the insulating phase to decompose into a more conventional conducting phase (e.g., alpha). That in turn would cause a futher drop in field gradient, leading to further decomposition of the insulating phase... I think you get the picture: A runaway reaction resulting in very rapid release of nearly all of the stored energy. It could also mean that such systems would be too unstable to be of any commercial value, regardless of how much energy they might store. Batteries that explode unexpectedly tend to reduce customer approval ratings. Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.11 / Peter Fletcher / Waste from hot fusion ? Originally-From: peterf@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter A Fletcher) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Waste from hot fusion ? Date: 11 Mar 90 23:49:44 GMT Organization: CSIRO Div of Inf Tech Just a quickie. I was under the impression that when a hot fusion reactor was in operation, the neutron flux from the plasma would make the stuff surrounding the reactor radioactive, so there WOULD be a waste disposal problem, even with 'clean' fusion. Can someone enlighten me ? Peter Fletcher. cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpeterf cudfnPeter cudlnFletcher cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.09 / Terry Bollinger / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 9 Mar 90 14:24:16 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Short note -- several people have contacted me & sent some interesting ideas. I've been very busy with a software conference (had to give a paper) and I just got back from presenting it. Thanks to those of you who sent me some very interesting remarks, & I *will* get back to you. (Prolly next week.) I haven't even read my sci.fusion mailings yet, so I'm not sure what's up. Can't resist three comments, though: 1) I did the calculations on capacitive effects, and it looks as though a very, very fine-grained capacitor with "plates" or (better yet) dendritic "wires" separated by tens to hundreds of Angstroms, and using a material with very high dielectric constant, could in principle store ten megajoules of energy per mole of palladium at the voltage range (10 to 100 volts was my assumption) involved in the experiments. Dave Spain asked me whether an electric field could lead to oddball positioning of deuterons in the crystal, which led me to wondering whether beta palladium might prove to have a very high ionic dipole that could produce a high dielectric constant. Since the octahedral sites are only 70% loaded, you could in principle get a very high dipole moment in each cell by moving the deuterons to one side of the cell. In short, beta palladium is at least a plausible candidate for having a high dielectric constant. It's at least conceivable that such a capacitor could be "grown" naturally by migration of the hydrogen under current, with deposition to form (non-conductive??) layers of "pure" beta phase on an internal phase layer, and alpha phases on either side as the "plates." A beta phase layer might grow fractally convoluted with time, based on the same type of field interactions that make iron filings form spikes in a magnetic field, rather than just lumping closely to the poles. (A convoluted surface between two highly charged media is more stable than a simple flat surface -- it lets the charges "get closer" to each other.) Tests? Easy (sort of) -- use probes that can "see" charge at the ten-to-hundreds of Angstroms layers, preferably *inside* of an unaltered palladium slab. (Cutting would of course discharge the capacitor.) Electron microscopes obviously come to mind, but might be very hard to apply to the interior in a non-intrusive fashion. However... the layer structure should leave remnants even after discharge, so maybe just cutting a slice from a successful palladium experiment & looking for alpha-beta layering with an electron microscope at the tens-to- hundreds of Angstroms level. (Anyone none that yet? Surely so...) Pretty outlandish? Yep -- but it involves absolutely *no* Mysterious Physics, only a hard-to-swallow configuration of ordinary materials. At very least, Occam's razor nearly demands possibility needs to be eliminated before moving on to Strange Turf. Note that all of this assumes gradual charging of the system over days, weeks, or months. That's a lot harder to eliminate than "false" heat production, because only very slight gazinta/gazouta ratio differences might be able to "trickle charge" the capacitor. In short, proof of a net energy *production* is quite a bit more persnickety than proof of a large energy *burst* -- and so far Stanford and Texas A&M have not made any strong statements about net energy production. 2) Coincidences are interesting things. I haven't seen any significant popular articles on field effect in many years, and then last week I open up the March 1990 Discover magazine and see a nice picture (p. 56) of an array of microscopic field-effect needle points on silicon, made by Bob Marcus of Bell Communications Research in Red Bank, New Jersey. I don't know how he made them (probably plasma etching, judging by their appearance), but they are tungsten (the classic material for field-effect needles) and are atomically sharp. He's using them to build solid-state vacuum tubes, but they would also be absolutely ideal to play around with the idea of field-effect acceleration and fusion of deuterons. (Again, don't expect much in the way of useful energy. But it might make a nice (and inexpensive) little fusion experiment. Look up the old (~20 years) work on field effect microscopes using helium ions & tungsten needles if you are seriously interested in how much energy could be imparted to an ion in this fashion. I'm going by memory, and it's been a while...) 3) A couple of people have asked if the field-effect idea is the same as Japanese "warm fusion" electrical discharge experiments. I really don't know, since I haven't read anything on them -- I either missed those sci.fusion letters or skipped over them. Offhand, though, it does not sound like field effect, because it seemed to involve an actual electrical discharge -- which is definitely *not* the same as field effect emission of ions. Again, see the old work on field effect microscopes (an obsolete technology in these days of atomic force microscopes) to get a better "feel" for what is involved with field effect (vs. discharge) acceleration of low-weight ions. (If these were *short* comments, I hate to think what will happen if I decide to get long-winded...) (Part 3 is coming someday. There's still material to be munched, I think.) Cheers & Thanks for all the great comments, Terry cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.11 / Mark McWiggins / Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Originally-From: mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Date: 11 Mar 90 11:39:05 GMT Organization: Integration Technologies Inc. (Intek), Bellevue WA seghers@hpccc.HP.COM (David Seghers) writes: >Now if we combine cold fusion and gyroscopic antigravity, perhaps we >could do away with clumsy and explosive rockets? Uh, "gyroscopic antigravity"? I didn't see a :-) attached to this, so did I miss something? -- Mark McWiggins Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek) +1 206 455 9935 DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong ... 1400 112th Ave SE #202 Bellevue WA 98004 uunet!intek01!mark Ask me about C++! cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenmark cudfnMark cudlnMcWiggins cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.12 / Andrew MacRae / Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Originally-From: acm@grendal.Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Date: 12 Mar 90 22:47:09 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Mt. View, Ca. >seghers@hpccc.HP.COM (David Seghers) writes: >Now if we combine cold fusion and gyroscopic antigravity, perhaps we >could do away with clumsy and explosive rockets? Does gyroscopic antigravity have anything to do with the 'Dean Drive'? Andrew MacRae cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenacm cudfnAndrew cudlnMacRae cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.12 / William Johnson / Re: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Date: 12 Mar 90 22:33:46 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <9003121512.AA13266@ctc.contel.com>, terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > > TRITIUM RESULTS -- I vote "Listen to Bill Johnson & Ted Dunning" Gee, thanks for the vote ... now if my kids would just read this newsgroup ... > Particularly intriguing was Bill's comment about how tritium seems (so far) > always to be found at facilities in which there are substantial amounts of > said substance in one or more nearby rooms. Actually, I think that's a little stronger than the statement I made; I just suggested that tritium tended to be "nearby" at many of these places. An example of the distinction comes from the Storms/Talcott work here at Los Alamos. Their experiments have been conducted (thus far) in a relatively "ordinary" laboratory, with no unusual ventilation or air filtration, that's one mesa over from LAMPF, a big accelerator laboratory that vents "small" quantities of assorted radionuclides occasionally. It's also a few hundred feet from another facility that occasionally handles rather impressive amounts of tritium, I am told. It isn't nearby "rooms" that cause concerns in this case as much as nearby *buildings*. I put "small" in quotes above, because it's important to understand that "small" quantities of tritium mean one thing from a health-physics viewpoint and something *entirely* different in cold fusion. The facilities I alluded to are not particularly "safety" threats in the amount of tritium they handle and/or release, and a health-physics monitor stationed near the Storms/Talcott lab undoubtedly wouldn't see "significant" amounts of tritium from those sources. However, the amounts that S&T reported back before Christmas (note that as usual, I'm not going to comment on their paper _per se_) are *EXTREMELY* small. The precautions required to assure that these levels of tritium aren't due to external contamination are a lot greater than one might think would be required for a possible tritium source a few hundred feet away. For that reason, when talking about tritium "nearby," one must speak in somewhat more all-encompassing terms than just having the stuff in the room next door. I also think that it's maybe too strong to say that tritium is "always" around; as I mentioned in my original article, I'm not sure that one can make that statement about the Texas A&M tritium results, for example. However, since most of the tritium reports are at such low levels and also are coming from regular research laboratories at which one may reasonably conjecture that tritium is handled, I do think that caution is required. Note too that I'd be delighted to hear that curie-sized batches of tritium are *not* handled at places like A&M, so that contamination can be dismissed as a source of the tritium they observe there ... -- 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: cuddy12 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.13 / Wm Davidsen / Tritium separation Originally-From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium separation Date: 13 Mar 90 13:32:42 GMT Organization: GE Corp R&D Center Please excuse the fairly long quote, my reply wouldn't make much sense without it, trimmed as it is. > From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) > Subject: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis > Date: 12 Mar 90 15:12:14 GMT > Particularly intriguing was Bill's comment about how tritium seems (so far) > always to be found at facilities in which there are substantial amounts of > said substance in one or more nearby rooms. Knowing how communal engineers > & physicists tend to be with equipment (and also with incidental shared > commodities such as air), that strikes me as a pretty deep-cutting > criticism that needs to be addressed very carefully. After all, since > palladium is often used to separate out the higher isotopes of hydrogen, > isn't it at least possible that all that is going on in the tritium-finding > experiments is that people are inadvertantly building very good separators > for very low-level tritium contamination? The first thing which strikes me is that I don't see why the separation only works with deuterium. Most of these experiments have controls running with plain water, so unless there is a good explanation of why tritium can't be taken out of water, I think this objection is unproven. And of course there is a catch-22 here; when measurements were being made by people who didn't usually work with it, critics said that they lacked experience and expertise. Now the people who do work with tritium regularly are assumed to have contaminated their experiments. I will also assure that good labs are working in very clean environments, with new glass, new metal for electrodes, new furnaces, and fresh deuterium, too. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me cudkeys: cuddy13 cudendavidsen cudfnWm cudlnDavidsen cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.13 / David Seghers / Re: Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Originally-From: seghers@hpccc.HP.COM (David Seghers) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Re: "Gyroscopic Antigravity" Date: 13 Mar 90 19:16:39 GMT Organization: HP Corp Computing & Services / hpccc:sci.physics.fusion / mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) / 3:39 am Mar 11, 1990 / >seghers@hpccc.HP.COM (David Seghers) writes: >>Now if we combine cold fusion and gyroscopic antigravity, perhaps we >>could do away with clumsy and explosive rockets? >Uh, "gyroscopic antigravity"? I didn't see a :-) attached to this, so >did I miss something? -- >Mark McWiggins Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek) >+1 206 455 9935 DISCLAIMER: I could be wrong ... ---------- You might want to check out what is going on in sci.physics where the Japanese experiment claiming gyroscopic antigravity was reported. There seems to be a fair level of controversy around this, just like cold fusion..........which is why I tied them together. So, browse throgh that info, and enjoy! Building my own gyroscope :-)} David Seghers (seghers@hpccc.hp.com) W:415-691-5042 Disclaimer: Any ideas expressed here are my own, and no one else's. (Perhaps that's why I'm still single....... ;-)} ) Cold Fusion: Sex at low temperatures? cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenseghers cudfnDavid cudlnSeghers cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.14 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Bibliography additions Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibliography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Bibliography additions Date: 14 Mar 90 17:58:11 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway More cold fusion papers, mostly from Chem. Abstracts but at last we have a public statement from the Texans, although not about their concrete results. The Elbek note I should have caught sooner but didn't - I only had to walk 100 m to get a reprint. We now have 205 published articles directly having to do with cold fusion, that I know of. I wonder how many I've missed? How does this compare with the polywater saga, after 1 year, or with high-temperature superconductivity, to pick one that is "real"? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 12-Mar. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arista NR, Gras-Marti A, Baragiola RA; Phys. Rev. A: Gen. Phys. 40 (1989) 6873. "Screening effects in nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes in dense media". ** Calculation of fusion rates of hydrogen isotopes embedded in a uniform electron gas, and in the inhomogeneous medium given by a solid matrix. In both cases, the screening due to the electron background can help overcome coulomb repulsion. Results are similar to those of Koonin and Nauenberg (Nature 339) and cannot account for reported cold fusion rates in PdD. But temperature is found to be an important parameter and might encourage experiments along this line. See also Fujita for a similar idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Badurek G, Rauch H, Seidl E; Kerntechnik 54 (1989) 178. Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64296 (1990). "Search for cold fusion in palladium-deuterium and titanium-deuterium". ** Repeated the two sorts of experiments, using four independent detection systems to detect neutrons and gamma radiation. An upper limit of 3.6*10**(-23)/s was found for D+D--> (3)He+n per pair. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Benetskii BA, Klyachko AV, Rozantsev AI; Kratk. Soobshch. Fiz. 1989(6) 58. (In Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64301 (1990). "Experiments for detecting cold nuclear fusion in a condensed medium". ** A 200 mm long Pd tube of 2.5 mm diameter and wall thickness 0.1 mm was sealed at one end and D2 gas at 12-14 atm applied to the other, while the tube was electrically heated to 300-400 deg. A total of 10**23 D atoms passed through the tube wall in the course of the experiment. A scintillation counter using stilbene detected the neutrons. No neutrons were observed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Botter F, Bouchez J, Collot J, Kajfasz E, Lefievre B, Lesquoy E, Stutz A, Tistchenko S, Zylberajch S; Phys. Lett. B 232 (1989) 536. "Search for emission of neutrons from a palladium-deuterium system". ** Palladium black was used here, to facilitate absorption of H or D. The Pd was put into a stainless tube and exposed to h@ or D2 gas under various pressures. At various stages: during absorption of H or D; during desorption; static conditions with gas at 1 or 3 bar, and passing through phase changes as a result of H or D absorption; temperature and neutron flux were measured. Out of 25 cycles of 197 hours each, runs with D2 emitted 29 neutrons, runs with H2 18. These levels are several orders of magnitude below the results of DeNinno et al, with Ti. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chene J, Brass AM; J. Electroanal. Chem. 280 (1990) 199. "Tritium production during the cathodic discharge of deuterium on palladium". ** Under FPH conditions, the authors looked at tritium levels (measured as beta activity) both in the LiOD electrolyte and in the palladium, as a function of time, being careful to correct for background levels. They did observe a beta increase in the electrolyte which they say cannot be accounted for by isotope enrichment due to electrolysis, but the error bars are about equal to the measured levels. Nor does one expect much tritium out in the electrolyte, if cold fusion happens inside the palladium. This they looked at by rinsing the electrodes after hours of charging, and boiling them in the scintillation cocktail, to let out any tritium (I'm not sure how much would come out, and they don't say how long they boil). Here, higher levels, many times the error bars, were observed. The authors conclude that tritium is being produced, unaccounted for by electrolytic isotope enrichment, somewhat uncorrelated with time, so production is not continuous, and mainly near the surface of the palladium. The amounts of tritium would correspond to a neutron flux of 10**5/s, much higher than has been observed so, as they say "tritium production and neutron emission may not be connected". They also present spectrum evidence that they are, in fact, observing tritium. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ehrlich AC, Gillespie DJ, Kamm GN; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 529. Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64449 (1990). "A search for neutrons in single-phase palladium-deuterium". ** A Pd rod is charged to relatively high D levels without passing through the 2-phase region of this system. This is done by a combination of high-temp- high-pressure initial charging, followed by electrolytic charging, to a final loading of 0.88. Low temperature thermal cycling, and room temperature slow discharge of D yielded no neutrons. Data collected during rapid discharge of D are statistically unconvincing but weakly suggestive of some possible neutron production. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elbek B; Gamma (Copenhagen) 76 (1989) 19 (in Danish). "Kold fusion?" ** An early report of FPH's results, and a report of their own results of neutron measurements under several different conditions (electrolysis, heating and pressure), which gave nothing beyond cosmic background. The conclusion is sceptical but leaves the question open. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fujita S; Phys. Status Solidi B 156 (1989) K17. "On the feasibility of nuclear fusion in fcc. metals". ** The host crystal creates an ideal environment for very close D-D encounters if the coulomb barrier is overcome, because of preferred migration channels in fcc crystals - in other words, deuterons are not free to move anywhere in palladium, but are restricted to narrow channels. Higher temperatures will therefore favour cold fusion. Compare Arista et al, also focussing on the matrix inhomogeneities and arriving at a similar conclusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gillespie DJ, Kamm GN, Ehrlich AC, Mart PL; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 526. Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64448 (1990). "A search for anomalies in the palladium-deuterium system". ** Charged a polycrytalline Pd rod with D up to 0.81 D/Pd, while monitoring electrical resistivity, sample dimensions, cell temperature and neutrons. Various charging rates were used to provoke anomalous behaviour but none such was observed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Golubnichii PI, Kurakin VA, Filonenko AD, Tsarev VA, Tsarik AA; Kratk. Soobshch. Fiz. 1989(6) 56. (In Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64300 (1990). "Possible mechanism of cold nuclear fusion". ** Examines one of the possible mechanisms, viz: that of microcracks arising from phase changes during hydrogenation, leading to deuteron acceleration (i.e. the 1986 Lipson et al suggestion). High concentration of H(or D) in the metal, high diffusion coefficient of H in the metal at room temperature, efficiency of hydrolytic hydrogenation, strong increase of the specific volume of the metal at the moment of hydride formation at critical H concentrations and ormation of micropores, all are favourable for fusion. The crack formation is accompanied by mechanoemission effects, i.e. pulsed acoustic emission, emission of neutrons with energies <= 10**5 eV and electromagnetic gamma-, x- and radiofrequency radiation. The neutron flux can be attained if deuterons can be accelerated to 380 eV. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lin GH, Kainthla RC, Packham NJC, Bockris JO'M; J. Electroanal. Chem. 280 (1990) 207. "Electrochemical fusion: a mechanism speculation". ** The authors speculate that dendrites of Ni, Fe and Cr, formed after prolonged electrolysis, may be responsible for cold fusion. They say that this would also explain why tritium is not seen until 5 days electrolysis, which is more than enough to fully charge palladium with deuterium (then how come Chene and Brass see tritium after only 24 or 48 hours?). On the tips of these dendrites, high energies are available, and D2 may be split into D+ and D; the D+, in the presence of a high voltage field, might then be accelerated back towards the dendrite and smack into D waiting there. Furthermore, because it always comes from a certain direction, the branching ratio for tritium/helium might not be 50:50. A lot of "might"'s, but if there be (cold) fusion, we need a radically new explanation; some of this speculation is surely testable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsumoto T; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 532. Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64450 (1990). "'Nattoh' model for cold fusion". ** A hypothetical model, the Nattoh model, is proposed to answer the questions that arise from cold fusion experiments. The model proposes the formation of a small cluster of deuterons and examines the feasibility of many-body fusion reactions. The gamma radiation spectrum, heat production, neutron emission and fusion products are discussed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rogers VC, Sandquist GM, Nielson KK; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 523. Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64447 (1990). "Deuterium concentration and cold fusion rate distributions in palladium". ** Addresses the interesting question of how well D would diffuse into Pd. Solving the diffusion equation, it turns out that with or without cold fusion, D will distribute itself evenly throughout the metal. So if any cold fusion occurs, it will occur throughout the metal body and not predominantly on the surface. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rusov VD, Zelentsova TN, Semenov MYu, Radin IV, Babikova YuF Kruglyak YuA; Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 15 (1989) 9. (In Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr 112:64294 (1990). This journal is translated under Sov. Lett. Tech. Phys. "Fast neutron recording by dielectric track dtectors in a palladium-deuterated water-tritated water system in an electrolytic cell". ** Used a 50:50 mix of D2O and T2O, a "corrugated" alloy (Pd 72, Ag 25, Au 3) electrode, 10 mA/cm**2 and "200 V" cell voltage (?). A polymer track detector was used to detect the integrated neutron flux from possible cold fusion of light nuclei. Some rare high-energy (>10 MeV) neutrons were found. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zuqia H; Beijing Shifan Daxue Xuebao. Ziran Kexueban 2 (1989) 43. "A possible explanation of the room temperature nuclear fusion". ** Proposes that the absorbed deuterium forms a sublattice in the palladium, and because of the nonequilibrium due to electrolysis, the deuterons in this lattice could be oscillating energetically. Zuqia invokes nonlinear coupling, solitons, cooperative effects, Toda lattices, and arrives at the possibility of some fusion happening. More is to be reported later. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendk cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.14 / A Boulanger / Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: aboulang@bbn.com (Albert Boulanger) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 14 Mar 90 19:53:13 GMT In article <9003091424.AA05758@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: 1) I did the calculations on capacitive effects, and it looks as though a very, very fine-grained capacitor with "plates" or (better yet) dendritic "wires" separated by tens to hundreds of Angstroms, and using a material with very high dielectric constant, could in principle store ten megajoules of energy per mole of palladium at the voltage range (10 to 100 volts was my assumption) involved in the experiments. You might want to check out a recent Science blurb: "Electricity by Serendipity", Science 2 March 1990, 1034-1035 which discusses a new way of building fuel cells that was stumbled-upon by a Bell Communications researcher, Christopher Dryer. He started trying to make a battery with a Pt,thin-film,Pd system which was to be exposed to hydrogen gas, but was actually exposed to hydrogen and oxygen. It was supposedly described in the 8 Feb. Nature. He is think in terms of integrated circuit fuel cells, and some kind of spiral geometry to increase the surface area, as well as "roughening the electrodes". He is talking about 1 KW per kilogram of fuel cell. Your idea seems to be very similar perhaps to his original battery idea. Yours in inquiry, Albert Boulanger BBN Systems & Technologies Corp. aboulanger@bbn.com cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenaboulang cudfnAlbert cudlnBoulanger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.14 / Fraering Philip / Ball Lightning information request Originally-From: dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Ball Lightning information request Date: 14 Mar 90 22:47:34 GMT Organization: Univ. of Southwestern La., Lafayette I am an undergraduate physics student at the University of Southwestern Louisiana; a while ago I started a project to collect ball lightning reports in this area. There were about 10 or so, few of them local, and none of them current. I am resuming this project, and would like some information from anyone out there who has done research on this project. I am especially interested in: 1. Ball Lightning reports 2. How I should (or how you have) investigated reports. 3. Any interesting theories/lab experiments. According to summaries in the Index of Physics Abstracts, there are several different theories that have been conclusively proved to be the correct explanation for the phenomenon, so I consider it an open question. If you or a friend has published on the subject, please E-mail me about it or perhaps E-mail the article if it is convienently on-line. If you think it is of public interest, or simply have information about ball lightning you feel to be of public interest, please post. Sincerely, Philip Fraering @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ Usenet address: Snailmail address: YellNet address: @ @ dlbres10@pa.usl.edu St. Rt. A Box 170A 318/365-5418 @ @ New Iberia, La. 70560 @ @ Standard disclaimer applies. @ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendlbres10 cudfnFraering cudlnPhilip cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.15 / David Schanen / Just curious... Originally-From: mtv@milton.acs.washington.edu (David Schanen) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Just curious... Date: 15 Mar 90 09:30:50 GMT Organization: Independent Study of Art, Music, Video, Computing I saw a news bit the other night about how high tech metals are made harder by applying an electrical charge during the cooling process. Oh yes, and scientists just don't know why... Could there be a significant relationship here? -Dave finger pons@chemistry.utah.edu [chemistry.chem.utah.edu] PONS B. Stanley Pons PONS not logged in Last login Thu 28-Sep-89 4:14AM-MDT [No plan] cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenmtv cudfnDavid cudlnSchanen cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.15 / Terry Bollinger / Normal water vs. deuterium controls Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Normal water vs. deuterium controls Date: 15 Mar 90 16:27:06 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 13 Mar 90 13:32:42 GMT davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) wrote: >> [Terry Bollinger writes:] >> ... isn't it at least possible that all that is going on in the tritium- >> finding experiments is that people are inadvertantly building very good >> separators for very low-level tritium contamination? > > ... Most of these experiments have controls running with plain water, so > unless there is a good explanation of why tritium can't be taken out of > water, I think this objection is unproven. As far as I can see, yes, verification using controls of ordinary water should provide good elimination of tritium contamination. The only counter I can even think of is a marginal possibility that the quite appreciable differences in palladium diffusion rates for H vs. D could somehow have a relative impact on when and how the minority T population shows up during separation. (Actually, that may not be an entirely trivial difference.) Do you have any good references to papers that provide a thorough analysis of actual tritium-producing experiments using normal water as a control? Is GE writing any such papers that you know of? Has the fact that H is only a modestly accurate control replacement for D in palladium electrolysis environments been at least addressed and shown to be either irrelevant or easily factored out? I realize that some of Dieter's papers may well address any or all of these issues, but I confess that I haven't been paying as much attention to tritium results lately. I'm very annoyed that the Wada scenario seems to have gone "poof!" (contradictions? anyone? please?), and I will probably remain a confirmed skeptic about low-level tritium results until someone comes up with an experiment that knocks everyone's socks off. Nonetheless, my earlier statement holds: I would be absolutely delighted to see a very strong, widely reproduced experiment that produces appreciable amounts of tritium from an apparently purely chemical environment. Until then, well... Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.15 / Terry Bollinger / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 15 Mar 90 18:47:25 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On Mar 15 11:26:49 1990 Terry Bollinger wrote: >> [Wm E Davidsen Jr writes:] >> ... Most of these experiments have controls running with plain water, so >> unless there is a good explanation of why tritium can't be taken out of >> water, I think this objection is unproven. > > As far as I can see, yes, verification using controls of ordinary water > should provide good elimination of tritium contamination. BACKTRACK! MAJOR *OOPS!!* Heavy water would make a dandy control for experiments that were finding tritium out of ORDINARY water -- but the inverse statement (the one implied above) is by no means true! My apologies, also -- I read the letter quickly and didn't stop to think about what was actually being suggested. The problem is one of *when* the very-low-level tritium contamination may have occurred. If it came fromthe air at the time of the experiment, then Bill Davidsen's criticism is quite valid and a good point (with the slight qualification I gave last time about diffusion differences between H and D). However, saying that contamination can occur *only* during the experiment is a very big assumption. Because the levels of tritium involved are so very, very small, it's quite possible that contamination of the heavy water could occur *before* the experiment. Identifying contamination at the levels described is very far from trivial. In fact, isotopic concentration (e.g., using palladium??) might in fact be the best approach to finding such contamination. Heavy water is a manufactured entity, and the way it is manufactured is to separate out heavy hydrogen isotopes (i.e., deuterium *and* tritium) from ordinary water. With no further qualification, saying that tritium was "created" in a heavy water experiment because it was not found in the equivalent light water experiment is an excessive statement. In fact, (BEWARE! I can feel a *Bollinger Satire* taking hold of my keyboard!) it is very much like saying you've found a way to create gold by doing the following: HOW TO CREATE GOLD VIA MECHANICAL AGITATION 1) Go to a creekbed in California in which gold has occasionally been found in the past. (I'd suggest Bollinger Canyon, but I'm prejudiced...) 2) Buy 7001 tons of creek gravel, preferably from my distant cousins. (I'm a Missouri Bollinger myself.) Be sure to tell them I sent you, and please suggest that a modest commission might be appropriate... 3) Pan 7000 tons of the gravel until you have obtained the one ton part of it that has the highest density. Label this: EXPERIMENT A -- HEAVY GRAVEL 4) Take the remaining one ton of gravel and label it as: EXPERIMENT B -- ORDINARY GRAVEL (CONTROL) 5) Now we're getting to the exciting part!! Treating both A and B in EXACTLY the same fashion (this is after all a precise scientific experiment), use a palladium gravel shaker to pan the A and B tons of gravel until only the heaviest pound of gravel is left in each experiment. a) Now check the control (B) for gold nuggets. There should be none. This proves beyond doubt that there is no gold in Bollinger Canyon gravel, at least not anymore. b) Next, check Experiment A for gold nuggets... WHAT??? YOU'VE FOUND ONE!?? *TWO??!!* But there was NO GOLD IN THE ORIGINAL GRAVEL!!!! That was already proved by the control experiment! 6) Write up your paper on how to synthsize nuclear isotopes (tritium, gold, hey, what's the difference?) through mechanical panning. For theory you might try hypercompaction of quartz nuggets, with coherent phonons (more or less means "vibrations") from the gravel shaker being used to dissipate the energy of fusing silicon and oxygen. Be sure to use at least two or three triple integral equations to make it all look impressive and discourage people from looking *too* closely at the underlying concepts. [Umm... do I sound a bit silly suggesting a theory like this? Well, look on the bright side -- *I'M* not being serious... :-) ] Ouch! Didn't mean to get so down and nasty! But I can't readily back off from what I just said, either, so I'll go ahead and send it out. If anyone wants to return a few snipes, don't worry, I've got lots of snipable stuff laying around out there in your mail queues. At any rate, the bottom line for how best to eliminate the possibility of tritium contamination is: a) Produce gonzo quantities of tritium so there will be no doubt, and b) Make darn sure you have very, very good testing mechanisms to make sure that tritium is neither present in the original materials, nor introduced via atmospheric contamination. Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.15 / Terry Bollinger / I think I did it again... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: I think I did it again... Date: 15 Mar 90 21:31:16 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway .. That is, I had too much fun writing a satirical analogy & didn't pay enough attention to where I was going with it. It doesn't help net participation if people like Yours Truly expound at great length on good comments like those that Bill Davidsen sent in. My apologies, Bill. Cheers, Terry Bollinger cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.16 / William Johnson / Tritium in heavy water as "contamination" Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium in heavy water as "contamination" Date: 16 Mar 90 16:55:54 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <9003151847.AA21971@ctc.contel.com>, terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > On Mar 15 11:26:49 1990 Terry Bollinger wrote: > > >> [Wm E Davidsen Jr writes:] > >> ... Most of these experiments have controls running with plain water, so > >> unless there is a good explanation of why tritium can't be taken out of > >> water, I think this objection is unproven. > > > > As far as I can see, yes, verification using controls of ordinary water > > should provide good elimination of tritium contamination. > > BACKTRACK! MAJOR *OOPS!!* Heavy water would make a dandy control for > experiments that were finding tritium out of ORDINARY water -- but the > inverse statement (the one implied above) is by no means true! My apologies, Actually, the inverse statement is fine -- as long as it is recognized that light-water controls are only one type, of several, that should be run. Because: > The problem is one of *when* the very-low-level tritium contamination may > have occurred. [...] > However, saying that contamination can occur *only* during the experiment > is a very big assumption. Because the levels of tritium involved are so > very, very small, it's quite possible that contamination of the heavy water > could occur *before* the experiment. Identifying contamination at the > levels described is very far from trivial. Quite the contrary: "identifying" such contamination isn't difficult at all. In fact, it's routinely done in the course of all the CF experiments I know of that are interested in tritium. One merely samples the heavy-water stock on a running basis and counts the samples for tritium simultaneously with the counts of electrolyte samples. The levels aren't *that* low -- typically something like 150 dpm/ml -- and are quite easy to see with normal apparatus for counting tritium in aqueous samples. Furthermore, a healthy body of experience suggests that, as expected, tritium really is evenly distributed within a given stock of heavy water: if you draw samples from the same stock 20 times, the 20 tritium contents you derive will be within experimental error of each other. The story is different if you draw samples from different heavy-water stocks, because the tritium content can vary considerably from batch to batch. That, however, can be addressed by counting samples from every stock you use. Tied to all of this is the question of whether the "growing-in" of tritium reported in some experiments results simply from differential electrolysis and addition of tritium-bearing heavy water. I won't speak to individual experiments and how this question impacts them, but let it be noted that one can set a limit on the amount of growing-in that should result from addition of known quantities of heavy water containing known amounts of tritium. There's an old paper, I forget where, that comes to the expected conclusion that electrolysis of tritiated water produces one third as much tritium in the resulting gas as simple stoichiometry would expect; if one generalizes this result to tritiated heavy water, one can develop a recursion relationship for tritium content. I've done this but leave it as an exercise to the interested reader. There are plenty of other contamination mechanisms -- a bad one is the possibility that the electrodes themselves contained tritium before the experiment started -- that a light-water cell won't address at all. But a light-water control will still provide very useful stuff for understanding "environmental" sources of contamination to which both it and the "real" cell would be exposed equally. As for Bill Davidsen's statement that "Most of these experiments...": I wouldn't touch that one with a ten-foot pole, or even a 20-foot Italian ... -- 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: cuddy16 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.16 / Don Davis / Re: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Originally-From: ded@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Don E. Davis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Plug for Bill Johnson + capacitive hypothesis Date: 16 Mar 90 17:16:10 GMT Organization: The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory > >Actually, I think that's a little stronger than the statement I made; I just >suggested that tritium tended to be "nearby" at many of these places. An >example of the distinction comes from the Storms/Talcott work here at Los >Alamos. Their experiments have been conducted (thus far) in a relatively >"ordinary" laboratory, with no unusual ventilation or air filtration, that's >one mesa over from LAMPF, a big accelerator laboratory that vents "small" >quantities of assorted radionuclides occasionally. It's also a few hundred >feet from another facility that occasionally handles rather impressive >amounts of tritium, I am told. It isn't nearby "rooms" that cause concerns in >this case as much as nearby *buildings*. > I'm confused about this. Aren't these experiments performed with controls containing regular water instead of deuterium? And if tritium is leaking through the windows wouldn't they contaminate the control samples also? cudkeys: cuddy16 cudended cudfnDon cudlnDavis cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.22 / Les Earnest / Hope and Scorn Alive One Year After Cold Fusion Announcement Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Hope and Scorn Alive One Year After Cold Fusion Announcement Date: 22 Mar 90 19:36:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By PEG McENTEE Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - It seemed so simple. A pair of scientists had unlocked the mysteries of nuclear fusion after an inspirational walk in the woods and a couple of shots of sour mash. It was never so simple again. A year after chemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann announced they'd achieved room temperature or ''cold'' fusion in a laboratory flask, their work remains devilishly difficult to duplicate. Not only has subsequent research failed to nurture initial hopes for a clean and limitless energy source, but cold fusion has cooled to the point that a chief supporter describes it as a commercial gamble. ''This is one of those areas where a certain amount of risk-taking is needed, but the payoff is very large,'' said Fritz G. Will, director of the state-funded National Cold Fusion Institute. ''We need luck and money.'' If either is forthcoming, it will require a reversal in cold fusion's fortunes in the laboratory. ''As a whole - and it's always dangerous to characterize how the scientific community thinks on this - but on the whole, the scientific community is still extremely skeptical about it,'' said Ronald Parker, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Plasma Fusion Center. Pons, a University of Utah chemistry professor, and Fleischmann, of England's University of Southampton, announced their findings at a press conference last March 23. They described how they hatched the idea for the experiment during a hike in the Utah mountains, then sketched the apparatus in Pons' kitchen over a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Eventually, they said, they created a nuclear fusion reaction in a bottle of deuterium oxide, or heavy water, using a palladium electrode wrapped in platinum wire. They ran electricity through the two metals and reported that the device put out more energy than they put into it. The announcement, stunning in its possibilities, conjured visions of a cheap, relatively safe and virtually inexhaustible supply of energy. Normally, fusion has occurred under enormously expensive extremes of heat and pressure. Conventional nuclear energy, or fission, splits atoms; fusion produces energy by fusing them together. After the announcement, scientists lambasted Pons and Fleischmann for rushing to the popular press with neither a theory to explain the results nor ability to reproduce them at will. A year later, they have yet to publish definitive scientific papers detailing their research. Other scientists tried to replicate the process. Few met with success and many gave up, although work continues in universities and centers such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and in laboratories in Japan, India, and the Soviet Union. ''The first few months after the announcement was made, people thought that it would be exceedingly simple to reproduce the results,'' Will said. ''The complexities were not fully appreciated by anyone at that time.'' MIT researchers conducted experiments but never detected excess heat or evidence of a nuclear reaction, Parker said in a recent telephone interview. ''To me, the question now is, is there anything at all to it?'' Parker said. ''Or is it completely a misunderstanding or misevaluation of preliminary results?'' Indeed, the Department of Energy's Energy Research Advisory Board last November refused to recommend federal funding for the Utah researchers, saying their conclusions failed to withstand scientific scrutiny. The institute so far has received funding only from the Utah Legislature, which last year appropriated $5 million for research and patent attorneys charged with protecting the state's interests. Not all the scientists are giving up. Edmund Storms at Los Alamos said he and colleague Carol Talcott have detected tritium, considered a sign of a nuclear fusion reaction, in experiments modeled after the Pons-Fleischmann apparatus. Storms, Talcott and about 30 other scientists will present their findings during the University of Utah's first Conference on Cold Fusion, March 29-31. AP-NY-03-21-90 1618EST ********** cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.23 / Pete Zakel / Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Originally-From: phz@cadence.com (Pete Zakel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Date: 23 Mar 90 02:50:31 GMT The following is a letter written to and published in Science News (Vol. 137, No. 11, March 17, 1990) (posted without permission): Has anyone considered the possibility that the anomoly of "cold fusion" experiments -- high energy yields with few neutrons or tritium nuclei -- might result from a case of mistaken identity? There are a number of nuclear *fission* reactions that produce neither neutrons nor tritium, yet yield large quantities of energy. One interesting candidate is the fission of lithium-7 upon proton capture -- ie., 7Li + 1H --> 2(4He) + 17.3 MeV. The enormous energy yield of this reaction (pound for pound, intermediate between deuterium-tritium fusion and uranium fission) is cleanly carried as kinetic energy by the two alpha particles (helium nuclei) generated. Secondary collisions of these alpha particles might be responsible for other, sporadically observed events. This reaction was first described by Cockroft and Walton almost 60 years ago, but their main interest was in astrophysics, not earthly energy generation, and the interrest of the subsequent Manhattan Project was in chain reactions -- something you could make a bomb with. The possibility that the energy of such a clean nuclear reaction as lithium-7 fission might be harnessed for everyday use is all the more intriguing, since lithium (a cheap and abundant element) seems to be a crucial component of Pons-Fleischmann-type "cold fusion" experiments. By varying isotope ratios in the lithium component (ordinary lithium is mostly lithium-7, with an appreciable amount of lithium-6), one should be able to determine whether this or a similar reaction (such as the fission of lithium-6 upon deuteron capture) is responsible for any of the "cold fusion" effects thus far observed. Joel Brind Associate Professor of Natural Sciences Baruch College City University of New York New York, N.Y. So, is the above feasible, or obviously wrong? I can see an obvious hole in the first reaction, since regular hydrogen, as opposed to deuterium, is involved. Also, I don't recall any experimenters reporting untoward amounts of 4He. But I also don't know enough to know whether the above may be even slightly possible. -Pete Zakel (phz@cadence.COM or ..!{hpda,versatc,apollo,ucbcad,uunet}!cadence!phz) cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenphz cudfnPete cudlnZakel cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.23 / Dave Spain / Re: Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Date: 23 Mar 90 07:54:07 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA In article <9003230250.AA22736@cds709.noble.com> phz@cadence.com (Pete Zakel) writes: >The following is a letter written to and published in Science News (Vol. 137, >No. 11, March 17, 1990) (posted without permission): > > Has anyone considered the possibility that the anomoly of "cold > fusion" experiments [...] > > One interesting candidate is the fission of lithium-7 upon proton > capture -- ie., 7Li + 1H --> 2(4He) + 17.3 MeV. The enormous > [...] > > Joel Brind > >So, is the above feasible, or obviously wrong? I can see an obvious hole >in the first reaction, since regular hydrogen, as opposed to deuterium, is >involved. Also, I don't recall any experimenters reporting untoward amounts >of 4He. But I also don't know enough to know whether the above may be >even slightly possible. I believe I remember people posting 6Li + D reaction scenarios to this newsgroup back last summer and fall (Paul Dietz, if you're still reading this newsgroup, you may want to comment). I can't remember if the mechanisms proposed were considered to be primarily fission or fusion-by-catalyst. I would think that the 7Li + 1H scenario ought to be observable with just plain water with a Lithium catalyst added to the solution, but so far no-one has claimed any heat from running with plain H20. [Of course I'm not an expert in this field by any means, maybe I'm missing something here...] In any case, my favorite theories are in the "weird solid state effects inside the charged palladium rod" catagory. Whether they be "capacitive effects" or "structural effects"... Dave Spain spain@alliant Hypothesist: (HI-po-the-sist) n: Someone who works in a Hypothecary... cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.22 / Paul Koloc / Re: Waste from hot fusion ? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste from hot fusion ? Date: 22 Mar 90 06:44:39 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Mar21.092550.18231@alembic.acs.com> csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack) writes: >In article <1990Mar20.193525.2482@pmafire.UUCP> dukas@pmafire.UUCP (Steve Dukas) writes: >>In article <1990Mar11.234944.24016@csis.dit.csiro.au> peterf@csis.dit.csiro.au (Peter A Fletcher) writes: >>>.. . a hot fusion reactor .., the neutron flux from the plasma would make >>>the .. surrounding .., there WOULD be a waste disposal problem, even with >>>'clean' fusion .. ? >> >>.. The materials that make up the reactor (if they can get one to >>work) will become irradiated, and thus very radioactive. ... . >It's probably worth pointing out that the only dangerous by-products of >the fusion reaction itself are neutrons and gammas, whereas fission >produces a spectrum of radioactive by-products. There are two general approaches to produce fusion, which requires a high product of plasma pressure and confinement time. Magnetic fusion schemes produce heavy pressure loading at coils but little plasma pressure. Confinement time is not such a problem. For Inertial Confinement, the plasma pressure is excellent but the confinement time is far to short. A magnetic concept, the Spheromak, does have greatly improved pressure efficiency, but it is difficult to heat, and its high plasma density would produce unacceptable thermal radiation damage to the necessary tightly fitting and highly conducting walls if it did work. Consequently, the most enviromentally unacceptable fuel is the only one available to machines of these approaches. It is simply because it ignites at very low temperature (relatively speaking). This is a 50/50 mixture of deuterium and the radioactive hydrogen isotope tritium. Tritium has special handling problems. The ejected neutrons are very "hot", 14 Mev, and can penetrate matter for a considerable distance. Fortunately, for engineering reasons, neither approach will result in a commercially viable product, so we can rest more easily. On the other hand, the DoE is spending many billions per decade and the progress isn't proportionate. The funded concepts have not been replaced since the middle 1960's and if DoE has any further say they will push the program past most of our lifetimes - past the middle 21st century. Our own program(1) has strong physical indications of a major breakthrough. We compete with the DoE, and they are the sole source for major energy funding. The perceptions of the alleged 'far off realization of commercial fusion' and 'colossal research cost' mitigate against any competing company or group with an innovative fusion concept. This is oblivious to the fact that due to intrinsic engineering advantages, the concept development would be hightly cost effective and have a a much, much shorter development time. This concepts is not so fuel choice limited, burns aneutronically, and has the "all the good things" (and more) claimed for fusion. 1 PM Koloc "The PLASMAK(tm) Star Power for Energy Intensive Space Applications "FUSION TECHNOLOGY" Vol. 15, March 1989, pp 1136-41. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.21 / MORRISON@VXPRI / Cold Fusion Anniversary. Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.CH Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Notes no. 21, from Douglas R. O. Morrison Subject: Cold Fusion Anniversary. Date: 23 Mar 90 23:26:12 GMT Date: Wed, 21 Mar 90 22:36 GMT +1 Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Date: Wed, 21 Mar 90 22:36 GMT +1 Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.CH Subject: Cold Fusion Anniversary. Dear E632 and WA84 Colleagues, 18 March 1990. COLD FUSION NEWS No. 21 - ONE YEAR AFTER. SUMMARY OF THE YEAR and UPDATE The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion will be held on 28 to 31 March 1990. Here we review the past year in particular new results and information since the last CF News in November. On 23 March 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced at a Press Conference that they had produced excess heat and fusion products in a simple table top experiment. They had used heavy water and an electrolytic cell with a palladium cathode and had obtained Fusion at room temperatures - Cold Fusion. The dream of unlimited power with little pollution! - the solution of an ecological problem. Rapid confirmation from Steve Jones's and other groups launched world-wide excitement about Cold Fusion. However there was a major discrepancy between the amount of power claimed from deuterium fusion and the very low rate of the fusion products which should be produced by the fusion. This made many doubt and in Cold Fusion News No. 4 (9 April) it was stated that more and more of the characteristics of Wrong Results in Science were being observed - or Pathological Science - the name introduced by Irving Langmuir in 1953. The Regionalisation of Results was discovered and presented on 2 May to the American Physical Society (CF News No. 13) where it was noted that Northern Europe and the major labs and the North-East of the USA found almost no fusion while reports from the Rest of the World were overwhelmingly in favour of Cold Fusion. The world was said to be divided into "Believers" and "Sceptics". Conferences were held which were mainly for Believers with positive results - this despite protests that in Science both positive and negative results should be considered simultaneously. However the Sceptics with negative results, continued to gain in number and sophistication of their experiments, in various regions of the world - this was described in Pathological Science terms as three phases; In Phase 1 there is the original announcement followed by rapid confirmation Phase 2 has about equal numbers of positive and negative results Phase 3 has an avalanche of negative results (CF News No. 4). The world followed this evolution in 1989 with Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe now all reporting only negative results. However in 1990 we have a new phenomenon which requires the introduction of PHASE 4 - most results are positive! What is happening is that in much of the world scientists have made their experiments and found nothing and they have read the literature and concluded that there is nothing serious in Cold Fusion, so they have stopped tests, press conferences and there are only a few publications of older experiments. On the other hand "Believers" are continuing tests and are publishing their positive results. The two statements below are correct; A. there are now more positive results being presented (or published?) than negative ones B. The rate of new positive results is decreasing. The rate of new negative results is decreasing much more quickly, so that the ratio of negative to positive results is rising. It is up to the reader to chose which statement he likes. In July the Cold Fusion Panel with co-chairs John Huizenga, a distinguished chemist, and Norman Ramsey a physicist who was a 1989 Nobel laureate, and which was set up by the DOE, gave an interim report saying that no "convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result" had been seen and "No special programmes to establish Cold Fusion research centres are justified". In August the National Cold Fusion Institute in Salt Lake City was established. The funding came from the State of Utah. In August a Cold Fusion Research Institute was established in Japan. It has not been easy to get information about experiments in Japan though a few early experiments were boosted in the newspapers, though looking at the papers suggested some of them were of poor quality, e.g using a single BF3 counter. However there could be many commercial experiments that are not reported. It has been said that several hundred people may be working on Cold Fusion. In India the large Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC, reported that six experimental teams had found evidence for Cold Fusion and several hundred people were working on it. In November the final report of the DOE Panel appeared confirming the conclusions of the interim report, There was one curious omisssion - in the interim report it was said that small experiments might be justified to study some unexplained effects reported and these experiments should be peer-reviewed, but in the final report the peer-review requirement was not made. In January Stan Pons began a series of 32 experiments at the NCFI to determine the best conditions and materials, and he was intending to start a further series of 32 experiments. The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion will be held next week, 28 to 31 March at Salt Lake City. The programme is crowded starting at 08.30 and going on to 20.15. A persual of the programme is interesting. There are no experimental talks from Europe although at one time some regions' media were filled with stories of positive results. However there is one European theoretian down to talk - Prof. G. Preparata of Milan. There are no speakers from Japan. From BARC there is the Director, Dr. P.K. Iyengar and an experimentalist. There is a theoretian from the National Taiwan University. All others are working in the USA and as far as I could judge there are 17 experimental talks, 7 theoretical and 9 where it was difficult to be sure from the title. One has the impression that all the talks will be positive though some of the people going to the conference are not "Believers". Among the theoretical speakers are Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger and Peter Hagelstein from MIT. There are also two panel discussions whose members would all be considered "believers". The Governor of Utah, The Honorable Norman S. Bangarter will attend a Reception. Desert at the Reception will be provided by Mrs. Fields Cookies. The role of the media has been important. The Wall Street Journal had an article on 9th March which was favourable to Cold Fusion. It was entitled "Doubts Recede over Cold Fusion but an Explanation Remains Elusive". The article concentrates on work at Los Alamos by Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott who have reported large amounts of tritium. At first they had trouble reproducing their effect but claim that 7 of their last 9 cells gave tritium. They recorded up to 80 times higher tritium levels than in the new heavy water. The Indian experimenters at BARC are quoted as having obtained as much as 20000 times more tritium than originally present. David Worledge of the Electrical Power Research Institute, EPRI, (who are the only source of research funds since the DOE officially stopped funding) says that 22 different cells have given tritium. More experiments have been reporting excess heat; mentioned are Charles Scott of Oak Ridge National Lab, Prof Huggins of Stanford University and Prof Bockris of Texas A&M. Prof Bockris is quoted as saying "There's no doubt of the existance of an effect", unquestionably a nuclear reaction of some sort. The big problem is that "we still can't reproduce it at will". Dr. Storms sent me a copy of his paper and a compilation(author not given) of positive results which lists 12 groups having observed tritium production. There is, however, not a list of experiments which failed to find tritium and the upper limits they gave. It is clear the Wall Street Journal technical section is not the same as the Science section of the New York Times. If some subject is known to be controversial, the NYT takes care to consult experts with other views; for example members of the DOE Panel who would have warned readers of their study. They might also have pointed out that the levels of tritium reported are many orders of magnitude less than that expected from the excess heat claimed. The first book on Cold Fusion has appeared - it seems hastily written and had poor reviews in Nature and The San Francisco Chronicle. Two other books should appear shortly, also written by experienced writers - one is by Frank Close who is a theoretical physicist and the other by Gary Taubes - the two books can be expected to be written in contrasting styles and to be more complete than the first. British ITV has had a programme about Cold Fusion with Frank commenting. On 26 March the BBC will show a programme on Cold Fusion in the respected "Horizon" science series. For the 23 March anniverary many newspapers will have articles. A major feature of the past year is that it has allowed many people to have a glimpse of modern Science and scientists in action - the circumstances were extreme but maybe that is a good way to test a structure. It is unusual to announce important new results by press conference and then to give too few details (though it could be argued that the possible importance of the effect justified it). However it was seen that means of communication are now extremely rapid - by television, newspapers, telex, telefax and electronic mail. The latter is now the preferred means of communication among scientists, particularly physicists who are involved in international experiments and who have extensive networks already set up. Experiments were performed quickly world-wide and the results exchanged. Meetings were held at which all could present their results freely (it is an aberration that astonished many that at a few meetings only allowed positive results - this is not normal Science). A consensus soon emerged that room temperature fusion could not provide power. Everyone was disappointed for if it were true it would have been important for the world. While by far the greatest number of experiments did not observe any fusion products, some did and this has encouraged some scientists to continue. The fact that all agree to, that the positive findings are erratic and irreproducible, encourages these scientists but is discouraging to most. Even more discouraging to most scientists is that while those claiming power say they observe watts, those claiming fusion products observe them at a rate corresponding to nanoWatts or picoWatts or even less. The names "Believers" and "Sceptics" was applied by believers. It might be more accurate to say that among those who have worked on or closely followed Cold Fusion, there are three classes - two small ones, "Believers" and "Sceptics" and one large one, "Non-believers" The Regionalisation of Results is a fact though very disagreeable. It could be considered as a reminder that Scientists are People first and Scientists second. OTHER INFORMATION There are many other items of news - here are a few. 1. Argentine Ingenuity. On Friday I received two papers from Dr. Granada of the National Atomic Energy Commission and two other institutes in Argentina. Both papers have been accepted by the J. of Nuclear Science and Technology. The first long paper describes how the application of a pulsed current through a cell gives a correlated neutron production in a repeatable manner. As the counting rate is very low, about 0.1 neutrons/sec, they do not claim fusion nor give a number of standard deviations. To reduce their background to make the neutron signal stand out, the normal technique is to go underground. However since there are no Gran Sasso or Frejus or Mont Blanc tunnel laboratories in Argentine, they had to find another solution - so they went underwater in a submarine! (a conventionally powered one they state). This reduced the background by a factor of 70 and they state they observe a three standard deviation effect. However these numbers suggest that they were not observing any effect in their first experiment and their graphs seem to bare this out. 2. Joint Sceptics - Believers Experiment At the Santa Fe meeting in May, Moshe Gai challenged Steve Jones to do a joint experiment with him by placing one of his cells that he said gave neutrons, inside Moshe's detector. Steve, as a good sport, accepted. The experiment was performed in August and went happily. IN early November a brief note was given to the DOE panel saying that no neutron bursts had been found, apart from some associated with cosmic rays. Thus it seemed an ideal solution had been found, Believers and Sceptics work jointly and establish the truth. This would be new as in my Pathological Science studies, I have not come across a case where this happened fully. However there was soon major disagreements as Steve calculated that the experiment of 10 days was too short to measure the neutron bursts that Jones and Menlove had reported finding at Los Alamos. Since then there have been many rather heated exchanges, so it seems that history repeats itself and Believers and Sceptics cannot do joint experiments, desirable though this would be. Maybe this is another characteristic of Pathological Science that I should add to the present 18. Have just heard that Nature has refused the Jones-Menlove paper. 3. Explanation of an Excess Heat Measurement It had been suggested By Dick Garwin at Santa Fe that if the incoming current was measured by a DC device, then if there happened to be an oscillation, the AC current coming in would not be recorded. This would upset the heat balance and be recorded as an excess heat. A. Bruggeman et al. of the Nuclear Research Centre at Mol in Belgium at first found excess heat after two months. However the effect was observed in both D2O and H2O cells; also no neutrons were observed but a previously non-observed defect occurred in the gamma measurement circuit giving an ordered peak pattern in channels corresponding normally with energies from 4 to 8 MeV. The tritium yield increased by 65% which is a normal enrichment. It was clear that the "excess heat" was not due to nuclear reactions. It was shown that this "excess heat" could be reproduced by adding an AC current. Also it was shown that the circuit used earlier could oscillate. They are to be congratulated on their honest and full description of their work - alas too rare. When I told Martin Fleischmann of this, he said that they check for this and it was not the explanation of the effects they observe. 4. Excess Heat from Minnesota Prof. Oriani reported last year that he had observed large bursts of excess heat. The effects were erratic but could last as long as 10 hours. He was welcomed in Salt Lake City and given considerable media attention. When I phoned him in January he told me that after the accidental fire, he rebuilt his apparatus but had not been able to repeat his experiment. His name is not on the list of speakers at the First Annual Cold Fusion conference. Incidently he is the first person I have met who was at the actual seminar in 1953 at General Electric where Irving Langmuir gave his talk on Pathological Science - he said it was a great talk and it stuck in his memory. 5. Edward Teller Invents a New Particle. At the NSF/EPRI meeting in Washington where only positive results were presented, Edward Teller suggested that it might be possible to explain some of the major contradictions by postulating a new particle with appropriate properties. He called it the "Meshugtron". He explained to me that he gave it that name as "Meshuga" means crazy in Hebrew. He does not believe the results suggest cold fusion (for he is an expert on the subject and knows one cannot simply ignore all the other experiments that have been performed, some of which he had himself proposed). However he enjoyed trying to invent a new particle for which he gave an appropriate name. 6. Fusion from Fracture of Crystals? It has been shown that fusion should occur at vanishingly low rates in static conditions when deuterium is loaded into metals such as Deuterium. However it has been suggested that if a crystal fractures under stress(e.g. from the loading) then the deuteron ions might be accelerated by the transient high fields across the cracks to reach an energy high enough to cause fusion(would this be "hot" fusion?). Calculations at the Santa Fe meeting suggested that the numbers were not right for such an occurence However Menlove et al. claim to observed ions with TiD(0.8) and Klyuev et al claim (Sov. Tech. Phys. Lett. 12(1986) 551) to have detected neutrons from the fracture of single LiD crystals. Dr P. B. Price of Berkeley, Nature 343 (1990)542, reported that he had tried to repeat the experiment with LiD crystals and found no effect at 90% confidence. He then shows that in TiD2 and PdD2 this effect would be most unlikely. 7. Visit to BYU and the National Cold Fusion Institute At BYU Steve Jones showed me his lab. They are doing some interesting work but it seemed on a surprisingly small scale - one would have expected that they would have been much better funded. One experiment is to look for neutrons (they are fortunate in having a really experienced neutron expert) from a titanium sample where the deuterium is loaded under pressure. Was surprised to find that their loading is very light with D/Ti only about 0.3. This is different from the philosophy elsewhere when one tries for the highest possible loading of deuterium. The National Cold Fusion Institute has developed quickly and lots of good quality equipment is being installed. The people seemed reasonably free and open A first set of 32 cells had just been installed for a carefully planned series of tests to try and establish conditions and materials which would give reproducible effects. It was planned to start a second set of a further 32 cells for further tests. Unfortunately Stan Pons was occupied with a funding agency so that I could not see these series of tests. Incidently an advantage of Salt Lake City in winter is the proximity of Alta which is one of great centres of powder skiing with 12 1/2 metres of snow per year. 8. Solar Neutrinos and Cold Fusion Particle Physics is in the strange situation just now of having a theory, called the Standard Model, SM, which works in the sense that almost every time one does an experiment it is in agreement with the SM. Yet one knows that the model must be wrong and expects that by going to higher energies, e.g. the SSC or LHC, new physics will be found. One of the few places where there is a disagreement is with neutrinos from the Sun. An experiment over the last 20 years by Davis et al. has given an average rate of 2.33 +/- 0.25 SNU which is much lower than the theoretical values of Bahcall of 7.9 +/- 0.8 SNU. A second major discrepancy is suggested by the variation of the neutrino flux with time which it has been suggested is inversely proportional to the number of sunspots. Several fascinating theoretical explanations for these two effects have been proposed. Recently the large Japanese neutrino detector, Kamiokande, (which had a major success in detecting neutrinos from Supernova 1987A) observed 4.2 +/- 0.7 SNU which agreed closely with the values obtained by Davis's much smaller experiment. As the sunspots are close to a maximum now, people are awaiting new results from Kamiokande. At a recent meeting Davis called out "Now is the time". However some members of the Kamiokande experiment want to close it down for a long period to install a Cold Fusion cell in its centre! For what it is worth, in a recent lecture on Pathological Science, it was suggested that both results are probably Pathological. The belief of Bahcall that he can determine the flux of neutrinos from the centre of the sun to only 11% seems to show an excessive belief in his assumptions - and it is interesting to note that Turck-Chieze et al. calculate with almost the same input values, a value of 5.8 +/_ 1.3 SNU which is consistent with the experimental value of Kamiokande. It is to be hoped that Kamiokande will continue to study this important question where it can make a unique contribution at the present time. FINAL COMMENT There has been much more happening since my November CF news but have been too busy with my normal work, however this is a not-unrepresentative sample. It will be very interesting to see if at the First Annual Cold Fusion confernce, new evidence will be presented, e.g. from the 64 cell experiment at NCFI, which will change peoples judgements. Douglas R. O. Morrison. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenMORRISON cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.24 / Les Earnest / WHAT'S NEW Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: WHAT'S NEW Date: 24 Mar 90 01:45:00 GMT [Excerpt from WHAT'S NEW, an electronic newsletter by Robert L. Park of the American Physical Society] 1. SALT LAKE CITY SEANCE CELEBRATES FIRST COLD FUSION ANNIVERSARY! It was one year ago today that Pons and Fleischmann astounded the scientific world by announcing that they had achieved deuterium fusion in a palladium lattice during electrolysis of heavy water. Cold fusion died barely two months later, when a helium assay of their palladium cathode found zip--a result they have declined to make public. Next week, however, more than 30 true believers will assemble behind closed doors for the "First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion," sponsored by the National Cold Fusion Institute. Although non-believers and the press will be barred from technical sessions, any manifestations will be reported at press briefings. 2. DOE PLANS TO INCREASE FUNDING FOR COLD FUSION TO $2M NEXT YEAR, according to a story in Nature this week. That is about twice what they are spending on the non-phenomenon this year. The Director of the Division of Advanced Energy Projects, Ryszard Gajewski, says the funds will go to cooperative research between those who have seen effects and those who have not. The Cold Fusion Panel in its report was "sympathetic toward modest support for carefully focused and cooperative experiments within the present funding system." cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.24 / Paul Schauble / Re: Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Originally-From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Could cold fusion really be cold fission? Date: 24 Mar 90 06:50:28 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Re: Li7 + proton -> 2He4 + energy On the other hand.... Suppose what's happening is a small amount of cold fusion, say, about what Jones found, yielding H3 + proton. The proton then reacts with Li7. How much head do you get? ++PLS cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenPLS cudfnPaul cudlnSchauble cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.26 / toddkeaffaber / Heavy ion beam instability. Originally-From: opi@mace.cc.purdue.edu (toddkeaffaber) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Heavy ion beam instability. Date: 26 Mar 90 16:33:19 GMT Organization: Purdue University I am interested in longitudinal microwave resistive instability of a coasting beam in a storage ring for heavy ion fusion applications. If anyone has any information on current work and/or articles in this area, I would appreciate the information on where to find it. Either post the info or e-mail to : keaffabe@gn.ecn.purdue.edu Thanks for everthing, Todd A. Keaffaber cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenopi cudlntoddkeaffaber cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.27 / orch.SF-Bay.ORG / submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: mips!vax.acs.open.ac.uk!D_BROADHURST@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: 27 Mar 90 01:59:22 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway hour-long "Horizon" documentary on Cold Fusion. I will not attempt to paraphrase it, since you may obtain a complete transcript by sending a cheque for (the equivalent of ?) 1.75 pounds sterling, in favour of "B.S.S.", to Cold Fusion P.O.Box 7 London W3 6XJ UK Maddox: "P&F had come to nurture an illusion ... because of the secrecy they had imposed on their work" Mahaffety of Georgia Tech on the Lawrence Livermore suggestion to check the heat response of BF_3 counters: "Gentlemen, we're dead!" Gai: "It has all the symptoms of the american dream .... turned into a nightmare" Jones's note book, July 4 1986: "Is this it!!" Jones on P&F's first press conference, expressing relief not to be associated with them: "Their nuclear physics obviously wasn't real solid at that stage" Williams: "Like a religious dispute..." Fleischmann: "It was really the patents that were driving us..." etc, etc... Finally, my sincere thanks to the many participants of alt.fusion and sci.physics.fusion who have taken such trouble to marshall report and comment. Thanks to these conferences I was able both to advise our own experimenters and to discriminate, on occasion, wheat from chaff in the multiplicity of other reporting media. Freezing frame of the VT recording of this BBC documentary I was able to discern previous messages from the net. Some net opinions, of a somewhat discursive nature, were incorporated into the programme as voice over. David Broadhurst ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ! Dr D J Broadhurst ! Janet: d_broadhurst@uk.ac.open.acs.vax ! ! Physics Department ! Bitnet/Earn/Uucp: d_broadhurst@vax.acs.open.ac.uk ! ! The Open University ! Telephone: (+44) 908 653873 ! ! Milton Keynes MK7 6AA ! T'fax: (+44) 908 653744 ! ! UK ! Telex: 825061 ouwalt g ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Claimer: These are my opinions. cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenD_BROADHURST cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.29 / Les Earnest / Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Date: 29 Mar 90 02:31:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By DANIEL Q. HANEY AP Science Writer BOSTON (AP) - Cold fusion equipment used by a University of Utah chemist who claimed to harness the power of the sun in a lab jar didn't produce any nuclear energy, said a physicist at the school who tested the apparatus. ''We did not see a peep,'' said Michael H. Salamon, who measured the nuclear output of cold fusion gear in the lab of Stanley Pons for five weeks. ''There was not an iota, not a sniff, of conventional fusion occurring. We saw no neutrons or gamma rays that could be attributed to a fusion process.'' His findings appear to be another blow to the already widely questioned announcement last March of a revolutionary new source of energy. But one backer of cold fusion said the new findings fail to prove anything because Pons' equipment was not working properly when Salamon tested it. Salamon said his measurements, published in Thursday's issue of the British journal Nature, were made at Pons' invitation. He conducted the tests last May and June, about two months after Pons and Martin Fleischman of the University of Southampton in England announced they achieved fusion at room temperature in simple laboratory equipment. Pons did not return telephone calls for comment on the report. But in a guest editorial in Wednesday's Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Pons and Fleischman noted that Nature had printed editorials critical of cold fusion. Since then, they charged, the journal has ''adopted a policy of publishing 'negative' papers to support this editorial stance. It is our view that this behavior is totally against the most general principles of journalism.'' Others, however, viewed Salamon's paper as one more reason to be skeptical. ''It's another nail in the coffin,'' commented Ronald Parker, director of the plasma fusion center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ''They did a very careful search for fusion effects, and they came up empty.'' Fritz G. Will, director of the state-funded National Cold Fusion Institute at the University of Utah, said small changes in experimental conditions, including humidity, can affect whether or not Pons' fusion cells produce heat. At the time Salamon checked the equipment for signs of fusion, Will said, ''experimental conditions prevailing in those experiments were not suitable to finding the phenomenon.'' Pons' equipment consisted of a palladium electrode wrapped in platinum and immersed in a flask of deuterium oxide, or heavy water. When electricity is run through the metals, proponents say, deuterium atoms fuse, giving off more heat than the energy put in. Nuclear fusion powers the stars. Traditionally scientists have believed that fusion could occur only at extremely high temperatures. Cool, small-scale fusion would provide a convenient, limitless source of power and be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. Pons' and Fleischman's seeming breakthrough was questioned when researchers in other labs had trouble duplicating their results. While many scientists say they doubt cold fusion exists, experiments continue at labs around the world. Cold fusion, if it occurs, is likely to produce heat, extra tritium and specific patterns of neutron and gamma ray releases known as nuclear signatures. ''Nintey-five percent of those researchers who have tried to find anomalous effects, whether excess heat or nuclear signatures, have come up empty-handed,'' Will said. ''The mere fact that a large percentage of scientists have failed to confirm does not mean that the phenomenon that has been confirmed by 5 percent is incorrect. The burden is on those who haven't found it to change their experimental conditions so they find it also,'' he said. Will said 20 labs experimenting with cold fusion have produced excess heat, about a dozen have found large tritium counts and ''at least a handful'' have seen signs of neutron release. Salamon set up sensors for gamma rays that would be discharged when neutrons produced by the nuclear process hit the water bath that surrounded the fusion cells. Salamon said he had planned to study Pons' records of heat produced by his fusion cells to see how they matched up with the detection of gamma rays. However, he said Pons later refused to turn over the records. During the five weeks of study, Salamon's equipment was out of service for a two-hour period because a lightning strike knocked out the power. Salamon said Pons later told him that the fusion cells produced excess heat during this time. However, Salamon said he could find no residual signs of a neutron burst that would have lingered for several days. AP-NY-03-28-90 1855EST ********** cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.30 / Donn Seeley / 'we are now 100 percent sure' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Date: 30 Mar 90 08:12:52 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept I haven't been posting much cold fusion news from Utah lately because there simply hasn't been much to report. Basically no real science has made the newspapers in months, and public statements by Pons and Fleischmann have been few and far between. With the National Cold Fusion Institute's first annual conference starting Thursday and running through Saturday, the big top is up again, and the bears are dancing, the clowns are tumbling and the fun is back. Today's Deseret News gave a pithy summary of the event: More than 200 scientists and dozens of reporters from around the world converged Thursday on Salt Lake City... The international conference, sponsored by the state-funded National Cold Fusion Center [sic], features 40 scientific papers from researchers who have successfully duplicated some aspect of the experiments of U chemists B Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. Nay-sayers are attending but are not giving presentations. A year's worth of controversy has made Dr P somewhat defensive, but still determined to advance his cause: 'We stand exactly where we did a year ago with a great number of additional experiments and techniques to be reported. Our results are almost identically the same as then,' Pons said in a Deseret News interview. 'We are much more convinced now. ... If we were 99 percent sure, we are now 100 percent sure. We have made no mistakes in our calorimetric measurements, No one has ever convinced us that we made a mistake. We stand by that. As Martin says, "We are unrepentive." [sic]' ... Pons continue to make claims for large energy outputs without substantiating them with a paper or even a technical report. I sure wish this was out in the open: ... [S]ome cells have produced 'twice the energy output that you would expect in a water-cooled nuclear fission reactor -- over 100 watts per cubic centimeter,' Pons said. In the calorimeters where they measured it, the heat was sustained only for short periods of time because the cells began boiling -- ending the experiment. The scientists said they intend to reassemble such electrodes in devices designed to sustain this heat. Maybe if they build cold fusion pressure cookers, they will be forced to take measurements on closed cells :-)? Pons has not retracted his remarks about radiation, in spite of Salamon's attack in Nature: ... [P&F] continue to make radiation measurements in the cells, and, according to Pons, still monitor low levels of fusion products -- evidence that nuclear processes are happening in the cells. At least some of the promised papers seem to be tangible now -- has anyone seen a copy yet? Pons said the three scientific papers they submitted for publication have been accepted. One to be published by the Journal of Fusion Technology was released to conference participants ... The News goes on to mention that John Huizenga (Rochester?) and Richard Petrasso (MIT) are here to lend the proceedings some suspense, even though no anti-CNF papers will be presented. Another attendee is Douglas R O Morrison, who also appeared on channel 2's weekly talk show together with Fritz Will (head of NCFI) and the inevitable James Brophy (U VP for Research). Morrison was not billed in advance, but he managed to take over the show with charm and aplomb, to the obvious distaste of Will and Brophy. Perhaps that explains why channel 2 was not permitted to cover Pons's press conference this afternoon? KUTV joined the elite company of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, who were also excluded. If a reporter from Nature was present, I'm sure they would be shown the door promptly; as the News reports, this week's edition of Nature did its best to spoil Pons's party: In [Nature's] March 29 edition, ... the magazine features a paper by U physicist Michael H Salamon, who maintains 'not an iota' of nuclear energy was measured in the fusion gear in the Pons-Fleischmann lab. ... Salamon measured the nuclear output of Pons' cold fusion equipment for five weeks last May and June. His findings, and Pons' reaction to them, were released to the press -- and submitted to Nature -- shortly thereafter. Eight months later, Salamon says he believes his findings are still true. Pons was thoroughly steamed about his latest run-in with the estimable publication: ... Pons says the article is full of untruths. Salamon's experiment, he insists, was poorly performed and done to please physicists who were unhappy such an important discovery had been made by a chemist. 'I was asked by Nature to review the paper, but refused since I was too personally involved with the matter,' Pons said. 'I did, however, point out to the editors several serious shortcomings, omissions of fact, and untrue points in the paper. These points were nonetheless ignored by the editors, and we plan to publicly correct these matters.' ... [Pons] accuses Nature and Salamon of dirty politics. 'It is shameful and incredible that Nature has embargoed the publication of this paper until today with the obvious intent of trying to discredit the cold fusion meeting in Utah,' Pons said. Given past exchanges between Pons and Nature, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Nature wanted to rain on Pons's parade, 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: cuddy30 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.30 / BRITZ%kemi.aau / Bibliography additions Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz; bibliography update) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Bibliography additions Date: 30 Mar 90 17:47:56 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway More cold fusion papers, mostly from Chem. Abstracts. We now have 221 articles and quarks have been invoked as a theory, although in a highly hypothetical way. I like the 3-detector experiments, they appear to exclude spurious bursts nicely. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 30-Mar. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alexander KF; Wissensch. Fortschr. 39 (1989) 9 (in German). "Cold nuclear fusion". ** An early review of the CNF affair, with a few good references and acid comments. A criticises the superficiality of FPH's paper and states that Nature would not accept it (Nature does not say this), and deplores the lack of control experiments with normal water. Jones et al's paper fares much better with Alexander and he quotes earlier work of the Jones group, on muon catalysis and the piezo-effect (see Van Siclen and Jones 1986). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Als-Nielsen J, Andersen NH, Clausen KN, Michelsen P, Poulsen FW; Risoe Natl. Lab. Rept. Risoe-M-2806, 1989, 12 pp. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:106518 (1990). "Experiments on palladium- and titanium-deuterium systems with reference to studies on cold fusion". ** Investigation to see whether cold fusion could arise from structural anomalies of deuterated metals, by using x-ray and neutron powder diffraction. An electrolytic cell with Pd gave no anomalous composition or position of the D in the metal. The Ti-D gas system was studied in order to emulate Frascati conditions. No neutrons above background, despite the sensitive detector. Neutron diffraction of this system found a 70% Ti-D2 phase. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Augustynski J, Ulman M, Liu J; Chimia 43 (1989) 355. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:86711 (1990). "Electrochemical measurements on palladium cathodes in LiOD/D2O solutions related to the 'cold fusion experiments'". ** The current/voltage behaviour of Pd electrodes polarized in an electrolysis cell in the title electrolyte was strongly affected by the impurity codeposition at the cathode. Pb and especially Zn caused the shift of electrode potential making possible Li deposition and LiD2 formation. Some expected interactions of these compounds are discussed in the light of CNF. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Briand JP, Dewynck J, Chevallier P, Bobin JL; Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res., Sect. A A285 (1989) 547. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85633 (1990). "Cold fusion: an alternative diagnostic". ** A new diagnostic for CNF in Pd targets, using the x-rays that would be emitted during the slowing down of p fusion products in the target, was carried out. So far, negative results. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Butler MA, Ginley DS, Schirber JE, Ewing RI; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 388. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85587 (1990). "High-sensitivity search for neutrons during electrochemical reactions". ** A redundant neutron detector with 3 independent channels was used, with an overall efficiency of 9.2% and a background of 10 count/h. While spurious signals indicative of neutrons occurred at one channel at a time, no real n events (i.e. on all channels) were recorded for a wide variety of conditions. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ewing RI, Butler MA, Schirber JE, Ginley DS; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 404. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85591 (1990). "Negative results and positive artifacts observed in a comprehensive search for neutrons from 'cold fusion'". ** A search for neutrons using both electrochemical and gas pressure loading was conducted in an underground lab using 3 highly sensitive neutron detectors. Any n emission would be detected simultaneously in all 3 in a known proportion. Individual detectors occasionally emitted groups of counts mimicking both continuous and burst emission. These were identified as artifacts. The use of simultaneous detection on several detectors is thus essential for exclusion of such artifacts. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- He J; Wuli 18 (1989) 461, 508 (in Chinese). Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:106301 (1990). "Muon-catalyzed cold nuclear fusion". ** "A review with 8 refs. is given on thermonuclear fusion and cold nuclear fusion, muon-catalyzed cold fusion, and prodn. of com. energy sources by using cold nuclear fusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kainthla RC, Szklarczyk M, Kaba L, Lin GH, Velev O, Packham NJC, Wass JC, Bockris JO'M; J. Hydrogen Energy 14 (1989) 771. "Eight chemical explanations of the Fleischmann-Pons effect". ** (Once again, Hawkins is forgotten) An attempt to explain the results by conventional chemical means. Exposure of the top of the Pd electrode to the evolved D2/O2 mixture? This seems to reduce to the question of how fast the deuterium in the Pd can come out and burn with O2; an assumed diffusion coefficient of D in PdDx of about 10**(-6)cm**2/s (a bit high maybe but all the better) shows that this can't produce enough heat. Neither can recombi- nation of D2 with O2 in the gas phase, nor at the immersed Pd surface. The alpha-beta PdDx transition will not - thermodynamically - either (but how about transients?). Pd deuteride formation cannot produce the heat, up to loadings of 6. Pauling suggests redissociation into Pd and D2 but this, too, cannot work - and in any case, the deuteride seems to be very stable. How about Li deposition? This would consume energy. Stress release, as the Pd expands? Not enough. So: none of these candidates pass the test, in the authors' opinion. One should mention that Kreysa proves the reverse. A weakness in this paper is that all calculated heats are assumed to be released over a 50-hour period and this does not allow short-term highs - although the argument about the diffusion limitation does answer this in part. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kamm GN, Ehrlich AC, Gillespie DJ, Powers WJ; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 401. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85590 (1990). "Search for neutrons from a titanium-deuterium system". ** Ti sponge was charged under high-pressure D2. The TiD was taken on thermal excursions between 77K and room temp. while monitoring for neutrons; no significant neutrons were found. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karasevskii AI, Matyushov DV, Gorodyskii AV; Ukr. Khim. Zh. (Russ. Ed.) 55 (1989) 1036 (In Russian). Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85521 (1990). "Possibility of the nuclear reaction between deuterium nuclei in electron shells of metal ions". ** Use the Thomas-Fermi statistical model to prove that DD fusion (to both T and He) can take place if the two D's meet within the electron shells of ions forming a metal. Some numbers are apparently given (the abstract is a little garbled). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mueller D, Grisham LR; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 379. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85586 (1990). "Nuclear reactions products that would appear if substantial cold fusion occurred". ** Any energy output must be accompanied by nuclear reaction products, of the order of 10**13/s. The elementary property of the alpha=particle at the d+d threshold is that it decays into 3He or T ( - the old branching question). Nov-89 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rehm KE, Kutschera W, Perlow GJ; Phys. Rev. C: Nucl. Phys 41 (1990) 45. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:106373 (1990). "Search for protons from the 2H(d,p)3H reaction in an electrolytic cell with palladium-platinum electrodes". ** The cathode was a 30.5 mg/cm**2 Pd foil, and separated the gas in the proportional counter from the electrolyte, 0.1 LiOD in D2O. Protons were counted at a detection efficiency of 28%. Current density was <650 mA/cm**2. Several runs were performed, the longest going for >10 days. No difference was noted between cells that were on or off. An upper limit for p production gave a maximum fusion rate of 4*10**(-23) D(d,p)T fusions per s. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shaw GL, Shin M, Bland RW, Fonda L, Matis HS, Pugh HG, Slansky R; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis., 102A (1989) 1441. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85584 (1990). "Scenario for cold fusion by free quark catalysis". ** Small numbers of free stable Q anti-diquarks with electric charge -4/3 and mass of a few GeV and short-range repulsion with hadrons catalyze d fusion. The reaction channel 4He + Q dominates. Bursts of neutrons are predicted with a 3-body energy spectrum. Independently of these findings, Q-catalysis is attractive in that it could provide large power production, if this kind of matter can be found and accumulated (aye, there's the rub). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schirber JE, Butler MA, Ginley DS, Ewing RI; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 397. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85589 (1990). "Search for cold fusion in high-pressure deuterium-loaded titanium and palladium metal and deuteride". ** Various Ti and Pd samples were put under high-pressure (>=2.4 kbar) D2 and temperature cycling. Underground high-sensitivity (9.2%) neutron monitoring (background: 10 counts/h) showed nothing in excess of background. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Werle H, Fieg G, Lebkuecher J, Moeschke M; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 391. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:85588 (1990). "Trials to induce neutron emission from a titanium-deuterium system". ** An attempt to reproduce the Frascati experiments, using a highly sensitive (10%) thermal neutron monitor and two different degassed Ti samples. During the 20-day experiment, the neutron emission from these Ti-D systems was <1.7 (first 8 days) and 0.6 n/s (last 12 days), averaged over 100-minute intervals. Nov-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yagi M, Shiokawa Y, Suzuki S, Hara M, Satoh I, Masumoto K, Mitsugashira T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 137 (1989) 411. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:106489 (1990). "Measurement of neutron emission from a titanium-deuterium system". ** A high-resolution liquid scintillation detector was used to detect neutrons from D(d,n)3He fusion. on or in Ti metal or sponge, and a mixture of Ti powder and trapped D at about 1 atm. 11 samples were subjected to a wide variety of conditions, including temperature changes from that of liquid N2 to 350 deg. There were observed "two types of neutron emission" (from cooling and heating? the abstract is not clear). "Possibly the n emission reactions are closely related to to the D trapped in the surface of Ti metal" - which I take to mean that there was some neutron emission which may or may not have been above the background. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anderson GC; Nature 344 (1990) 277 (issue 22 March). "The party continues..." (News section). ** "Despite the urging of a recent DOE panel against 'any special funding' of cold fusion research, the department plans to double its budget next year for work in this field". $10**6 for 1990 and twice that for 1991, in order to have some carefully controlled experiments done. Also, the state of Utah is giving $5*10**6 to a cold fusion centre, essentially to Pons and Fleischmann (has Hawkins been sacked?) and the Office of Naval Research has granted Pons $400,839 (what, no cents?) over 2.5 years. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion (background facts etc) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harley D, Mueller B, Rafelski J; J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 16 (1990) 281. Cited in Chemical Abstracts 112:106504 (1990). "Muon catalyzed fusion of nuclei with Z > 1". ** The process involved in muon catalysis was investigated for H isotopes with light nuclei Z > 1, to identify those where there is at least one fusion per muon. Necessary conditions were established. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Van Siclen CDeW, Jones SE; J. Phys. G: Nucl. Phys. 12 (1986) 213. "Piezonuclear fusion in isotopic hydrogen molecules". ** Asks the question whether high pressure of the order of 10**6 atm, as obtainable from a diamond anvil can significantly increase the natural fusion rate of hydrogen isotope atoms. There is a lot of theory but no real conclusion, because some experimental data is needed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy30 cudendk cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.30 / Leonard Bliss / Re: Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Originally-From: blissl@uncecs.edu (Leonard B. Bliss) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Date: 30 Mar 90 15:49:32 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <$v$AX@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: > [From Associated Press] > By DANIEL Q. HANEY > AP Science Writer > BOSTON (AP) - Cold fusion equipment used by a University of Utah > chemist who claimed to harness the power of the sun in a lab jar > didn't produce any nuclear energy, said a physicist at the school who > tested the apparatus. > ''We did not see a peep,'' said Michael H. Salamon, who measured the > nuclear output of cold fusion gear in the lab of Stanley Pons for > five weeks. > ''There was not an iota, not a sniff, of conventional fusion > occurring. We saw no neutrons or gamma rays that could be attributed > to a fusion process.'' [MATERIAL DELETED] > During the five weeks of study, Salamon's equipment was out of > service for a two-hour period because a lightning strike knocked out > the power. > Salamon said Pons later told him that the fusion cells produced > excess heat during this time. However, Salamon said he could find no > residual signs of a neutron burst that would have lingered for > several days. > > AP-NY-03-28-90 1855EST > ********** Very strange! It seems that the only time Pons' equipment works properly is when Pons, and no one else, is there to observe it. This sounds a whole lot like the "Z-ray" phenomenon to me. Maybe discussions of "pathelogical science" weren't so out of place, after all. ------------------- Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: hot fusion status Date: 30 Mar 90 17:42:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Could someone in the know give a general status on current hot fusion research? Since cold fusion, it seems as if no hot fusion research is being done or reported in the general literature. I'm sure that a lot of hot fusion research is being done, but I don't yet have a sufficient physics knowledge base to scan the fusion journals intelligently to learn what the current goals or directions of said research are. Please forgive me if this has already been discussed extensively as I am new to this list. Thanks. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ /\ Michael Davis, System Manager - NC A&T State University /__\_____ DAVISM@ATSUVAX1.BITNET Greensboro, NC 27411 / \ | USA | Disclaimer: "I work for the State..so I have no opinion!" Einstein: "No number of experiments can prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenblissl cudfnLeonard cudlnBliss cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.30 / Brian Yamauchi / Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Originally-From: yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu (Brian Yamauchi) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Date: 30 Mar 90 17:11:18 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Mar30.081252.6817@albion.utah.edu> donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) writes: >Pons continue to make claims for large energy outputs without >substantiating them with a paper or even a technical report. I sure >wish this was out in the open: > > ... [S]ome cells have produced 'twice the energy output that > you would expect in a water-cooled nuclear fission reactor -- > over 100 watts per cubic centimeter,' Pons said. > > In the calorimeters where they measured it, the heat was > sustained only for short periods of time because the cells > began boiling -- ending the experiment. This is a phenomena that would be hard to attribute to any experimental error more subtle than accidentally placing the cell over a Bunsen burner. So, either: 1) Cold fusion is not only real, but also quite probably the miracle energy source that everyone expected it to be. - or - 2) Pons is lying, and this is an outright attempt at fraud. The possibility of explaining cold fusion (or at least Pons' cold fusion) in terms of calorimetry errors seems to have vanished. > The scientists said they intend to reassemble such electrodes > in devices designed to sustain this heat. This should be interesting to see. _______________________________________________________________________________ Brian Yamauchi University of Rochester yamauchi@cs.rochester.edu Computer Science Department _______________________________________________________________________________ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenyamauchi cudfnBrian cudlnYamauchi cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.31 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Date: 31 Mar 90 02:38:02 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <1990Mar30.081252.6817@albion.utah.edu> donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) writes: at all if Nature wanted to rain on Pons's parade, It's not nice to fool Mother Nature...:-) ...Sorry, I couldn't resist :-) ____"Congress shall have the power to prohibit speech offensive to Congress"____ Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-2211; AT&T Paradyne: 8550 Ulmerton, Largo, FL. Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne. They do not speak for me. Mottos: << Many are cold, but few are frozen. >> << Frigido, ergo sum. >> cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.03.31 / Paul Houle / Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmtsun.nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'we are now 100 percent sure' Date: 31 Mar 90 05:23:43 GMT Organization: New Mexico Tech, Socorro NM Actually, you don't need fusion to boil water in that kind of environment. They sell recombinant caps for batteries; buttons of platinum-group metal catalysts that speed the combination of hydrogen and oxygen -- usually in an orderly manner. However, when too much hydrogen is produced too quickly in a battery, the recombinant caps can heat up enough to start a fire; which is well above the temperature of boiling water. From what I remember, the cold fusion cells have to run for an awfully long time before they start to work; I believe that the minimum time mentioned was two weeks. Even if a cell soaks up energy at the humble rate of a watt, we're talking about an input of about 10^4 J/Hr, 10^5 J/Day, and 10^6 Joules per week. That's alot of energy if it a good part of it is released at one time. cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo3 cudqt1 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.01 / Donn Seeley / 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Date: 1 Apr 90 05:52:19 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept The (first? last?) annual NCFI conference came to a close today. The newspapers were short on science reporting and long on stories about personal intrigues and catfights; I don't know if this reflected reality, although I hope it didn't. I'll present the science tidbits first; here's a report from the 3/30 Salt Lake Tribune: Stanley Pons presented a new paper and the most thorough explanation he has ever given of his cold-fusion apparatus Thursday before a mostly sympathetic audience, but it did not appear to win over the skeptics present. Dr Pons, who delivered the first talk of the University of Utah / National Cold Fusion Institute conference at the University Park Hotel, said he and Martin Fleischmann are not relinquishing any of the claims they made a year ago, and their measurements of what they believe is nuclear heat continue to support that hypothesis. 'I point out that the magnitude of these heats, 100 and 75 watts per cubic centimeter, is twice the enthalpy generated in water-cooled fusion reactors,' he told more than 200 scientists in attendance. The two chemists have stood fast on their method of measuring the heat despite contentions by others that more accurate methods are available. In essence, they have relied on a complex mathematical model to make what they contend are very safe assumptions in their relatively simple 'open cell' apparatus. Dr Pons maintains their calculations 'systematically underestimate' the heat production so any errors will be on the side of understating the effects. If the '100 and 75 watts per cubic centimeter' claim is made in one of the new papers, that will be the first time that such large numbers have appeared in print, if I'm not mistaken. I think this would be a major advance -- other people can now criticize the claim or support it, which wasn't reasonable to do while it was in the rumor stage. The Saturday Trib had an amusing quote from Huggins of Stanford: Dr Huggins claimed his experiments have heated the water to 65 degrees Celsius ... and raise strong possibilities of commercialization. 'Sixty-five degrees is very useful if you consider the bathwater at this hotel. This morning it was considerably less than that.' And that was about it, unfortunately. On the channel 2 news tonight, I did see Charles Scott of Oak Ridge claim to have found heat in closed cells; he said it was now 'unequivocal' that people have been able to produce excess energy. I don't know whether this is old news or not. A lot of people complained about reproducibility, and the nearest we got to a definite statement came from Pons (Trib, 3/31): Drs Pons and Fleischmann claim they are close to solving the reproducibility problem. 'We have had an extremely high percentage,' Dr Pons said. ... Edmund Storms of LANL had a cute simile for reproducibility -- he noted that earthquakes are not reproducible on demand, but no one asserts that they don't exist (again, from the channel 2 news). Finally, there was news of a collaborative project between Jones at BYU and the U physics department (Trib, 3/31): Jones announced that he'll join U physicist Haven Bergeson this summer to look for protons and neutrons ... Jones jokingly told more than 230 conference participants that the joint BYU-U effort should net them a 'Nobel Peace Prize'. Stories about the controversy were a lot easier to find. It appears that some people have taken to heart the recent Nature editorial titled 'farewell (not fond) to cold fusion' which said (according to channel 2 in Salt Lake) that cold fusion deserves nothing better than 'unrestrained mockery ... [and] unqualified vituperation'. (Yes, I can see why Pons might be upset to be called 'an embarrassment to science'. Would someone who subscribes to Nature care to summarize the editorial?) Here's a sampling of the negative comments, with a few reactions from Pons; first, Petrasso (Trib, 3/30): 'I still think it's interesting and I'm still waiting for convincing, unequivocal evidence of nuclear products associated with the heat,' said Richard Petrasso ... 'I have not seen it.' ... 'No one is showing us any He4 ... It was even brought up early on by Fleischmann and Pons,' he said. 'You might say, "Where's the beef?" Well, where's the He4?' ... 'The helium thing right now is still very ambiguous,' [Pons] said. 'It's an extremely difficult measurement to make.' Huizenga was less polite: 'It's quite obvious that the nuclear particles are not there,' said John Huizenga ... The nastiest bout was unquestionably Jones vs Pons: Dr Pons also had a short confrontation with BYU physicist Steven E Jones ... Dr Jones showed a slide of a newspaper article from last June showing Dr Pons with a device he said would produce hot water for home use, and he asked him what the status of the device is now. 'All of our present research is headed toward building a device,' [Pons] said. 'That's all I can say about that now.' 'What brought all the media and all was the promise of immediate applications,' Dr Jones said afterward. '... I was just trying to remind him of the history and ask him how things stand on these applications.' Said Dr Pons of Dr Jones' actions: 'Unprofessional, unscientific, totally expected.' There were plenty of positive comments too; one of the most supportive came from Yeager of CWRU (Trib 3/31): 'I think this meeting will be noted as a decisive point in the history of this affair. There is now a growing consensus within that you cannot explain the phenomena that we have heard about and worked on ourselves by any trivial mathematical or experimental errors,' Ernest B Yeager, of CWRU, said during a press conference Friday. 'There is a degree of optimism about this area that we haven't had before.' Fleischmann and Pons took the controversy philosophically, and with a great deal of frustration, respectively. Fleischmann was so laid back that he actually indicated that he could settle for something a little less than pure fusion (Trib 3/30): 'You can't put it (the issue of reproducibility) to rest, but you can put it to doze,' said Fleischmann, who Thursday reaffirmed his conviction of their research. 'We are convinced there are nuclear processes, but we are not convinced that it is fusion,' he said. 'We are convinced there are nuclear processes and that one of the participants is deuterium. Our position is exactly what it was last spring. We have not backtracked.' ... 'I hope it's the end of the beginning and not the beginning of the end. I hope there is now a sufficient body of work which allows us to move forward to a comprehensive and rational design of new experiments,' Fleischmann said. 'And I hope in the end something useful will come out of it. Pons was less forgiving of his critics. 'Most of it is just needless. We would like to get on with the work,' he said. 'We feel the controversy has put us back at least a year in developing a tighter theoretical base. So far we have proved nothing additional in the whole year, except we have reconfirmed over and over again what we have done.' As a coda, the Saturday Deseret News reported that while NCFI is not receiving the millions in external funding that they had been counting on, there is some cash coming in. They will get $50,000 from Utah Power and Light Co, and 'will likely get' $100,000 to $500,000 from EPRI. There has also been a substantial donation of an undisclosed amount from an anonymous donor. Unlike Nature, I can restrain my tendency to mockery, 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: cuddy1 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.02 / Scott Mueller / Request from Fusion book author Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Request from Fusion book author Date: 2 Apr 90 22:56:44 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix [I am posting the following information on behalf of David Peat, who is a subscriber to the Fusion Digest, which gateways the discussion from sci.physics.fusion via email to participants who don't get Usenet. His email address is dfp@pinet.aip.org, or ames!pinet.aip.org!dfp. Please direct comments to him, not me. This is a paraphrase of his mail to me.] >I am the author of the first cold fusion book and am now revising the >book for a second printing. I'd also like any comments, or errors in >the first edition pointed out. >My book is "Cold Fusion: The Making of a Scientific Controversy", >Contemporary Books, Chicago, (1989) ISBN:0-8092-4243-5. >Thanks. David Peat [End of forwarded message.] -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.02 / Paul Dietz / Re: 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Date: 2 Apr 90 02:32:37 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Apr1.055219.5617@albion.utah.edu> donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) writes: > > Stanley Pons presented a new paper and the most thorough > explanation he has ever given of his cold-fusion apparatus > Thursday before a mostly sympathetic audience, but it did not > appear to win over the skeptics present. ... > 'I point out that the magnitude of these heats, 100 and 75 > watts per cubic centimeter, is twice the enthalpy generated in > water-cooled fusion reactors,' he told more than 200 scientists > in attendance. ... > 'The helium thing right now is still very ambiguous,' [Pons] > said. 'It's an extremely difficult measurement to make.' I can't understand this last part. Let's assume He4 is the major product of putative "cold fusion". The reaction d+d --> 4He (if it could occur) would liberate (if I recall correctly) 22 MeV. So, 100 watts of excess heat per cm^3 would correspond to the production of 3 x 10^13 4He nuclei per second. I am told that mass spec can detect as little as 10^10 atoms of 4He (and 10^4 of 3He, which has a much lower background). Even without mass spec, if 4He is produced at this rate for a day, each cm^3 of electrode would produce ~.1 cm^3 of helium gas (at STP). Such a macroscopic volume of gas could be easily detected (spectroscopically, for example), if one accumulated the gas in a closed cell. So I don't understand Pons's claim that the measurement is "difficult". He must be saying that 4He is not the major product. Then what is? Tritium? If d+d->t+p is presumed to be the major reaction, then the tritium production rate is on the order of a curie/cm^3/day (at 100 W/cm^3). This could not be missed. 3He? It would be easier to detect than 4He. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy2 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.02 / Charles Poirier / Re: Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Report: Utah Equipment Did Not Produce Cold Fusion Date: 2 Apr 90 15:36:28 GMT In article <1990Mar30.154932.23280@uncecs.edu> blissl@uncecs.edu (Leonard B. Bliss) writes: , LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: <> By DANIEL Q. HANEY <> AP Science Writer < [MATERIAL DELETED] <> During the five weeks of study, Salamon's equipment was out of <> service for a two-hour period because a lightning strike knocked out <> the power. <> Salamon said Pons later told him that the fusion cells produced <> excess heat during this time. However, Salamon said he could find no <> residual signs of a neutron burst that would have lingered for <> several days. < >>>>>>> lll-lcc.llnl.gov /v\ lll-crg.llnl.gov / v \ star.stanford.edu / v \ v "I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut" -- Madonna cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenloren cudfnLoren cudlnPetrich cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.03 / Les Earnest / Cold Fusion Conference Concludes With Unanswered Questions Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Conference Concludes With Unanswered Questions Date: 3 Apr 90 00:41:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By PEG McENTEE Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Cold fusion's early promise of a clean, inexpensive energy source has faded as scientists struggle to understand the complexities of a phenomenon that continues to elude definition, researchers said. At the conclusion Saturday of the National Cold Fusion Institute's first international conference, about 200 researchers agreed only that a year of experimentation had produced some sort of nuclear process. ''We're not in a position now to say it's practical,'' said Charles Scott of Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ''It doesn't mean we won't be able to some day, but we certainly can't do it today.'' Still, many scientists left the three-day conference convinced the results of experiments substantiate claims made a year ago by chemists B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of England's University of Southampton. The two men's seeming breakthrough was questioned when researchers in other laboratories had trouble duplicating their results. While many scientists say they doubt cold fusion exists, experiments continue around the world. ''I think we should have the courage to say, if we feel so, that it is cold fusion,'' said physicist Guiliano Preparata of Italy's University of Milan. ''It has been proven to the extent that these phenomena are real, although they are not controllable ... the world is well-advised to take it seriously,'' Preparata said. Pons said that while it was still too early to draw any conclusions about a practical application, the work must go forward. ''You can't deny there's something here,'' he said. ''It may be a huge thing, it may not, but you have to look at it.'' Pons and Fleischmann announced in March 1989 that they had produced a nuclear fusion reaction by immersing a palladium and platinum electrode in deuterium oxide, or heavy water, then charging the device with electricity. They said deuterium atoms fused, giving off energy in the form of excess heat. At the time, it was suspected that sea water, which contains deuterium, might provide an inexhaustible source of fuel for the process. Nuclear fusion powers the stars. Traditionally scientists have believed that fusion could occur only at extremely high temperatures. Cool, small-scale fusion would provide a convenient, limitless source of power and be one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. The Utah Legislature appropriated $5 million to establish the National Cold Fusion Institute last August and to pursue patents to protect the state's commercial interests. However, the federal government has declined to fund the center and only two private companies are known to have donated money. Institute Director Fritz G. Will said that while deuterium is a vital part of the phenomenon, the possibility that the fusion reaction occurs inside the palladium electrode could leave prospects for a practical application ''dead in the water'' because of the rare metal's cost. Even so, many scientists said, the results of experiments in the United States, Japan, Italy, India and elsewhere pose intriguing questions about the nature of the nuclear processes that seem to be occurring. Many reported they'd observed excess heat, while others said their experiments had produced nuclear ''signatures'' such as tritium, neutrons and gamma rays. ''The big question is, what kind of fusion is going on?'' said Edmund Storms of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Storms, who has detected tritium in his experiments, suggested that more than one nuclear process might be taking place in the electrodes. The conference was not without skeptics. But even Richard Petrasso of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, who'd dismissed cold fusion as highly improbable, acknowledged that results so far warrant further research. ''I'm still skeptical, but I think there are some exciting things that need to be explained,'' he said. AP-NY-04-01-90 2223EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.03 / Donald Lindsay / Re: 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Originally-From: lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'we are not convinced that it is fusion' Date: 3 Apr 90 16:34:01 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI In article <1990Apr1.055219.5617@albion.utah.edu> donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) writes: >On the channel 2 news tonight, I >did see Charles Scott of Oak Ridge claim to have found heat in closed >cells; he said it was now 'unequivocal' that people have been able to >produce excess energy. I don't know whether this is old news or not. It's news to me: I believe that this is the first positive result from a closed cell. Hopefully, "closed" means "totally sealed", so that all those suspicions about tritium contamination are addressed. THIS is the experiment I want more details about. You say he's got heat: but has he got tritium? -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenlindsay cudfnDonald cudlnLindsay cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.03 / John Moore / Request for Information Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Request for Information Date: 3 Apr 90 15:38:00 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. (1) Does anyone have the proceedings of the recent cold fusion conference? (2) Does anyone have the phone number of the cold fusion center in Utah? (3) Is anyone going to post papers from the conference? I'd be especially interested in seeing details on experiments that: (a) found tritium "production" in CLOSED cells, or (b) found significant excess heat in CLOSED cells with decent calorimeters. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.04 / Les Earnest / Two Scientists Claim to Have Produced Cold Fusion Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Two Scientists Claim to Have Produced Cold Fusion Date: 4 Apr 90 09:06:00 GMT [From Associated Press] POCATELLO, Idaho (AP) - Two Idaho State University physicists claimed Tuesday that they produced a cold fusion reaction with a different element than those used in experiments by two chemists from Utah and England. Physics professor Kenneth Faler said he and Stanley Vegors produced the reaction March 13 by saturating a small rod of titanium metal in a bottle of deuterium gas cooled to minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit. The device produced bursts of neutrons, ''presumably the fusion of two deuterons into as yet undetermined products,'' Faler told a news conference. A deuteron is the nucleus of an atom of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen. In one type of fusion reaction, two deuterium nuclei fuse to form helium. ''This is a physical process in which deuterium gas stored in a bottle is absorbed into titanium metal at low temperatures and low pressure and as the metal heats up, it emits neutrons,'' Faler said. ''It appears we have produced cold fusion reactions in a different way,'' he claimed. ''There are now two techniques.'' The two researchers were spurred by reports a year ago that chemist B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and British colleague Martin Fleishmann of the University of Southampton had achieved sustained nuclear fusion in a seemingly simple experiment. The Pons-Fleischmann device consists of a palladium electrode wrapped in platinum wire and immersed in deuterium oxide, or heavy water, then charged with electricity. Pons and Fleischmann's seeming breakthrough was questioned when researchers in other laboratories had trouble duplicating their results. While many scientists say they doubt cold fusion exists, experiments continue around the world. The Idaho State researchers observed neutrons using instruments at the school's Low-Energy Accelerator Facility Laboratory. ''The emission of neutrons is generally believed by the scientific community to be an almost positive guarantee that nuclear reactions have taken place,'' Faler said. ''Such a reaction, if it takes place on a large scale, might be able to produce enormous amounts of energy,'' Faler said. John Knox, acting director of the Idaho State physics department, said that although the fusion experiments are important, science requires that results must be repeatable. ''I'm still skeptical about cold fusion in the original sense that was talked about a year ago. But it appears something is happening,'' he said. The Idaho report, which has not been published in any scientific journals, apparently confirms the discovery reported recently by a group of Italian scientists working at the Frascati research laboratory near Rome, Faler said. The ISU information was compared with the Italians' findings in a March conference at the National Cold Fusion Institute in Utah. Four labs worldwide have seen similar results. Scientists at the Los Alamos facility in New Mexico and the Bhabha Atomic Research Center near Bombay, India have viewed neutron bursts under similar conditions. AP-NY-04-03-90 2359EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.03 / Wayne Johnson / Re: hot fusion status Originally-From: johnson@ncrons.StPaul.NCR.COM (Wayne D. Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: hot fusion status Date: 3 Apr 90 18:44:32 GMT Organization: NCR Comten, St Paul In article <9003301843.AA12514@ames.arc.nasa.gov> "Michael N. Davis" writes: =>Could someone in the know give a general status on current hot fusion =>research? Since cold fusion, it seems as if no hot fusion research is =>being done or reported in the general literature. Check out the cover story "Some like it hot" in Discover a few months back. -- Wayne Johnson | Is a baby's life worth more than the right to NCR Comten, Inc. | make a choice? Babies are people too. Roseville MN 55113 +----------------------------------------------------- (Voice) 612-638-7665 (E-MAIL) W.Johnson@StPaul.NCR.COM cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjohnson cudfnWayne cudlnJohnson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.05 / Paul Dietz / Musings about so-called "CNF" Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Musings about so-called "CNF" Date: 5 Apr 90 14:15:11 GMT Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY I'll muse a bit about the Utah claims. Just for the sake of argument, I'll assume here that their calorimetry is accurate, and they really are seeing lots of heat production. I think it would mean that they are not seeing fusion in any conventional sense (I'll have to read their paper, though; if someone with the NCFI proceedings could post a summary, I'd be grateful). The amount of fusion products (helium, tritium) corresponding to their heat production would, it seems, be larger than that claimed. That leaves "new physics". It would be really risky to accept this kind of explanation (you could use it to explain away anything), but perhaps we can get more specific and get some useful ideas that could suggest experiments. Suppose there is some unknown particle that is causing some kind of energy producing reaction (just what kind, I can't say). Let's say the particle occurs naturally, at very low concentrations, associated with hydrogen (say, it is either positively charged, or binds to protons). Let's also suppose this "anomalous hydrogen" is massive (>> than a deuteron). Then: (1) Anomalous hydrogen would be enriched along with deuterium in the process that makes heavy water, only more so. Different sources of heavy water might have different amounts of the AH, depending on the process used to make the heavy water. This could cause irreproducibility in experiments. This suggests trying steps to separate the AH from the deuterium, to see if anything unusual happens. Say, evaporate off 99% of a sample of commercial heavy water and try the experiment with remainder or put the heavy water in a centrifuge and use the bottom fraction. (2) Since AH would get concentrated along with deuterium, heat production in heavy water (but not in normal water) is not evidence that deuterium is reacting. Deuterium could just be a red herring. (3) Electrolysis (and simple evaporation) would have a larger separation factor for AH/deuterium than for tritium/deuterium. So, maybe running an open cell for weeks would increase the concentration of the anomalous stuff sufficiently for something to happen. This suggests that purely closed cells may be a bad idea, and that an open cell system should be designed to contain as little heavy water as possible, since this would increase the concentration of AH left behind, at the cost of more frequent refilling. One might try a hybrid system that is alternately open (for charging) and closed (for calorimetry). (4) A practical implication (if this has any validity) is that if this anomalous hydrogen could be concentrated, power density could be greatly increased. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy5 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.05 / William Johnson / Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Date: 5 Apr 90 17:49:17 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <1990Apr5.141511.3980@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: > I'll muse a bit about the Utah claims. Okay, Paul, then I'll muse a bit about *your* conjectures ... :-) > Suppose there is some unknown particle that is causing some kind of > energy producing reaction (just what kind, I can't say). Let's say > the particle occurs naturally, at very low concentrations, associated > with hydrogen (say, it is either positively charged, or binds to > protons). Let's also suppose this "anomalous hydrogen" is massive (>> > than a deuteron). Then: Then: let's consider some of the *non*-CNF things that should be looked at too. First, let's estimate how many "anomalous hydrogen" atoms are required to account for the observations. The Utah report claimed that the experiments stopped when the cells boiled, right? (I've also heard this from Fleischmann, in his colloquium here.) If we guess that the total water mass in those cells was 100 grams (just a convenient number), and that it started at room temperature, and that 100% of the "fusion" energy went into boiling the water (obviously a bogus assumption, but it doesn't really matter ...), we can calculate from the specific heat of water (assuming for the moment that the specific heat of heavy water is the same as for light stuff) how much energy was required to do the boiling. In round numbers, we find that we must expend (4 joules/deg/g x 100 g x 75 deg) = 3x10^4 joules to get the water to boiling, plus a bit more for the heat of transition. (Again, we'll ignore this, even though it's not really negligable.) This in turn works out to (30000 J x 6x10^12 MeV/J) = 2 x 10^17 MeV, again in round numbers. If our reaction is (anomalous)d+d=p+t (something being anomalous somewhere ...), we get about 4 MeV out per reaction; hence the number of reactions occurring, to more than adequate precision, is about 5x10^16. But we must also allow our anomalous deuterons to react to give He-4 directly, which is more energetic by another factor of 5 or so; thus, assume 10^16 reactions total. Now we begin to run into trouble. 10^16 reactions implies -- in the absence of some weird mechanism for catalysis, of which more later -- 10^16 anomalous deuterons. If these are spread uniformly throughout our 100 grams (=5 moles) of heavy water, we find an anomalous-deuteron concentration of *at least* 10^-9/"normal" deuteron, since all of our assumptions so far have been grossly conservative. It's very easy for mass spectroscopy to recognize weird stuff in such high concentrations, particularly since the mass/charge ratio for anomalous deuterons can hardly be expected to be anything remotely approaching an integer. This being the case, we don't need to resort to any ingenious method for concentrating the anomalous deuterons; we just look at a mass spec and see if they're there. I don't think I really need to tell you how many literature references exist to such weird things showing up in mass spec of heavy water, do I? Now as for catalysis: one can at least imagine that our hypothetical heavy particle might be released when the fusion occurs, as with muons in the well-known muon-catalyzed fusion. Then, however, one is faced with the problem of how to get the heavy particle reattached to another deuteron. If the particle is positively charged, forget it; the Coulomb barrier just won't let it happen, and our particle must wander in space until it decays or something else happens to it. That leaves negative or neutral particles as catalysts, so let's think about what might be seen if they are floating around. Negative ones first: here we have the example of muons to draw on, and this example immediately alerts us to something to look for. When a muon encounters matter, it first bounces around for a while losing energy through ionization, until it's moving at roughly thermal velocity. It then is captured into a bound state about the nearest nucleus, precisely corresponding to the bound states ("orbitals") occupied by electrons in "normal" atoms. This state is just *barely* bound, so the brand-new "muonic atom" is in a highly excited state. It de-excites rapidly, by emission of x-rays of characteristic energy, until the muon is in a 1s orbital, where it stays until it decays or reacts with the nucleus. The x-rays are of discrete energies -- just like the Lyman and Balmer lines in optical/UV spectra of hydrogen, only with much higher energies -- hence stick out like sore thumbs in gamma-ray spectra. (Measuring the energies of these guys, in fact, is what I used to do for a living.) Precisely the same thing would be expected of a massive CNF-catalyzing particle as well; but again, such gamma-ray spectra as I'm aware of in CNF show absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. So scratch negative particles. That leaves the neutrals, and here the analogy is to neutron capture. Capture of a neutron by a nucleus leaves the new nucleus in an excited state too -- the quantum mechanics is quite a bit different from the muon/electron case since it's not a simple central-force problem, but the idea is the same. The nucleus de-excites by emitting gamma rays (sometimes in other ways as well) that again are easy to detect; the relevant detectors are exactly the same ones used in the muonic-atom x-ray studies, in fact (and are what I do for a living *now*). Same extrapolation to our heavy catalyst, and same problem: nothing of the sort has been observed. (BTW, Noel Guardalia, if you're reading this: I haven't seen your data yet ... any news?) So we are left in exactly the same position as we have been all along: there are certain observables that simply *must* be there if cold fusion is occurring due to some weird particle, and they aren't that hard to look for, but they aren't being seen. It is for this reason, among others, that I have become increasingly skeptical of the claims of heat totally unaccompanied by nuclear observables. I like your spirit, though, Paul; keep trying! [Two personal asides: Roger Millikan, if you're reading this, could you e-mail me? And Richard Petrasso, I did get your letter; did you get my e-mail? Thanks ...] -- 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 cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.05 / Larry Wall / Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Originally-From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Date: 5 Apr 90 20:14:06 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Has anyone compared the dates of geographically separate "successful" experiments to see if there's any correlation? Perhaps F&P have invented the first WIMP telescope. And the experiments only work when the Earth is passing through a cloud of WIMPs. Or should I say, a cloud of WIMPs is passing through the Earth. I think Paul mentioned something like this earlier. Of course, if the clouds are smaller than the earth, there would be no correlation. But if a clump of WIMPs can catalyze a reaction for several days, it probably means the clumps have to be considerable larger than the Earth. Unless the deuterons can latch onto the WIMPs with a half life measured in days. But then, you'd think the effect would show up in a mass spec. On the other hand, maybe the WIMPs don't like being accelerated. (But then, how were they captured in the first place?) Or they don't like charged deuterons. It would have to be a very weak binding in any event, or they wouldn't be WIMPs. Just idle speculations (wholly holey, not holy) from someone who doesn't know better... Larry Wall lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenlwall cudfnLarry cudlnWall cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.05 / Vincent Cate / Four new papers in archive Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Four new papers in archive Date: 5 Apr 90 20:28:51 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I have scanned in 4 more papers. I would like to thank J. R. Granada, Bill Johnson, and George A. Christos for sending me these papers. The papers are available via anonymous ftp from unh.cs.cmu.edu: The 4 directories are: /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/jrg1-scanned /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/jrg2-scanned /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/mwj-scanned /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/gac-scanned For detailed instructions see the end of this message. In jrg1 they use a conventional submarine to reduce the background radiation by a factor of 70. Seems like a neat idea. Oh, they get positive results... My apologies to Bill Johnson and Gearoge Christos for taking so long to scan in their papers. If anyone has the new Pons paper, please send me a copy. -- Vince If you have a new cold fusion paper that I do not have listed below please send me mail! If I can get a copy I will scan it in and put it here with the other papers. I will not scan in papers with a copyright (which most published papers have) without written permision from the author. If you can, please email a postscript version of the paper. My next choice is smail since it will scan in better than a FAXed copy. Vince Cate arpanet : vac@cs.cmu.edu bitnet : s171vc09@cmccvb FAX : (412) 681-1998 phone : (412) 268-3077 smail : School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon Pittsburgh PA, 15213 Papers / Files (bottom received first, and top is newest in archive): jrg1 "Neutron Measurements on Electrylytic Cells (Pd-D2O) Performed Under Very Low Background Conditions" J. R. Grananda, R. E. Mayer, P. C. Florido, V. H. Gillette, S. E. Gomez Agrentina - Centro Atomico Bariloche, ... 4/4/90 jrg2 "Thermal Neutron Measurements on Elecrolytic Cells with Deuterated Palladium Cathodes Subjected to a Pulsed Current" J. R. Granada, R. E. Mayer, G. Guido, P. C. Florido, A. Larreteguy, V. H. Gillette, N. E. Patino, J. Converti, S. E. Gomez Agrentina - Centro Atomico Bariloche, ... 4/4/90 mwj "Experiments and Nuclear Measurements in Search of Cold Fusion Processes" S. Gottesfeld, R. E. Anderson, D. A. Baker, R. D. Bolton, K. B. Butterfield, F. H. Garzon, C. A. Goulding, M. W. Johnson, E. M. Leonard, T. E. Springer, T. Zawodzinski Los Alamos National Laboratory gac "Can the Excess Heat Observed in the Fleischmann-Pons Experiment be due to Nuclear Fusion?" George A. Christos University of Western Australia pl "Cold Fusion in Metals" R. H. Parmenter, Willis E. Lamb Jr. Department of Physics, Arizona Research Laboratory Optical Sciences Center, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 10/13/89 cff "Results of the 1st Generation Experiments, at Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory, on Nuclear Cold Fusion" F. Celani, M. De Felici, F. L. Fabbri, L. Liberatori, A. Saggese, A. Spallone, V. Di Stefano, P. Marini, S. Pace, S. Bianco, L. Donati Italy - Frascati National Lab, ... pki "Cold Fusion Results In Barc Experiments" P. K. Iyengar Bhabha Atomic Research Centre Trombay, Bombay 400 085, India ibm Summary of talk on research at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center. Talk was given on Thursday September 14 1989, 7 PM Summary by Peter Shackle ** If anyone has a paper from the IBM people please let me know! ** scgb "Evidence for a Background Neutron Enhanced Fusion in Deuterium Absorbed Palladium" Gad Shani, C. Cohen, A. Grayevsky, A. Brokman Ben Gurion University and Hebrew University Israel mas "Neutron Evolution from Annealed Palladium Cathode in LiOD-D20 Solution" Tadahiko Mizuno, Tadashi Akimoto, Norino Sato June 1 1989 Japan mb "AB Inito Computations of One and Two Hydrogen or Deuterium Atoms in the Palladium Tetrahedral Site" Francis F Muguet, Palmyre M-P Bassez-Muguet Texas Tech University, Lubbock TX 79409 sum1 Summary of "Fleischmann-Pons" type experiments. Dave Mack sum2 Summary of "Jones-Frascatti" type experiments. Dave Mack gcmg "Dynamic Response of Thermal Neutron Measurements in Electrochemically Produced Cold Fusion Subject to Pulsed Current" J. R. Granada, J. Converti, R. E. Mayer, G. Guido, P. C. Florido, N. E. Patino, L. Soverhart, S. Gomez and A. Larreteguy Centro Atomico Bariloche and Instituto Balseiro, Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica and Universidad Nacional de Cuyo Argentina srb "Electochemically initiated cold fusion of deuterium" K. S. V. Santhanam, J. Rangarajan, O'Neil Braganza, S. K. Haram, N. M. Limaye & K. C. Mandal Chemical Physics Group, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Bombay 400 055, India sf3 Summary of Santa Fe conference by Douglas Morrison sf2 Summary of Santa Fe conference by Robert Perry sf1 Summary of Santa Fe conference by Ted Dunning sf0 Agenda for Santa Fe conference by William Johnson pp "The Reported Conversion of Hydrogen into Helium" "The Transmutation of Hydrogen into Helium" Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters Papers in the 1926 issues of Nature. kkr "Calorimetric Studies of Electrolysis of D2O and H2O using a Palladium Cathode" E. Krishnakumar, V. Krishnamurthy, U.T. Raheja, C. Badrinathan, F.A. Rajgara and D. Mathur Laboratory for Atomic and Molecular Physics Tata Institute of Fundamental Research -- India lb0 "Solid-State Effects Cannot Enhace the Cold Fusion Rate Enough" A. J. Legget and G. Baym Dept of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign lb "Can "Solid-State" Effects Enhace the Cold Fusion Rate?" A. J. Legget and G. Baym Dept of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign nfl "Evidence of Emission of Neutrons From a Titanium-Deuterium System" A. De Ninno, A. Frattolillo, G. Lollobattista, L. Martinis, M. Martone, L. Mori, S. Podda, F. Scaramuzzi ENA, Dip. TIB, U.S. Fisica Applicata, Centro Ricerche Energia Frascati, C. P. 65-00044 Frascati, Rome, Italy h4 "Dephasing in Coherent DD Fusion and the Long Chain Model" Peter L. Hagelstein Research Laboratory of Electronics - MIT cam "Cold Nuclear Fusion: Where's the Heat? - Just a Simple Minded (JASM) Theory not using Muons Bosons, or DD reactions" C. A. Melendres Argonne National Laboratory aps Abstracts from the American Physical Society's Special Session on Cold Fusion. May 1-2, 1989 aps.a, aps.b -- Two pages listing first 20 papers aps.1.ps.Z, to aps.40.ps.Z - Abstracts of papers Note that 13 was withdrawn. fp "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium" Martin Fleischmann - Dept of Chemistry, University of Southampton Stanley Pons - Dept of Chemistry, University of Utah Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and Interfacial Electrochemsitry April 10, Volume 261, No 2a -- NOTE - This is in your library already. I did not scan it in because it has a copyright; however, it is nearly the same as "fp" below. cjh "Cold Nuclear Fusion in Metallic Hydrogen and Normal Metals" Charles J. Horowitz Physics Department and Nuclear Theory Center - Indiana University Submitted to Physical Review C dcb "Gammas from Cold Nuclear Fusion" David C. Bailey Department of Physics - University of Toronto April 20, 1989 sek "Enhancement of cold fusion rates by fluctuations" S. E. Koonin Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California, Santa Barbara Submitted to Physical Review Letters, April 19, 1989 kn "Cold fusion in isotopic hydrogen molecules" S. E. Koonin and M. Nauenberg Institute for Theoretical Physics University of California, Santa Barbara Submitted to Nature, April 7, 1989 ws "Two Innocent Chemists Look at Cold Fusion" Cheves Walling and Jack Simons Chemistry Department, University of Utah h1 "A Simple Model for Coherent DD Fusion in the Presence of a Lattice" Peter L. Hagelstein Research Laboratory of Electronics - MIT April 10, 1989 h2 "Phonon Interactions in Coherent Fusion" Peter L. Hagelstein Research Laboratory of Electronics - MIT h3 "Rates for Neutron and Tritium Production in Coherent DD Fusion" Peter L. Hagelstein Research Laboratory of Electronics - MIT April 10, 1989 gcm "Catalysis of Deuterium Fusion in Metal Hydrides by Cosmic Ray Muons." M. W. Guinan, G. F. Chapline, and R. W. Moir Submitted to Physical Review Letters Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory April 7 1989 rj "Theoretical Limits on Cold Fusion in Condensed Matter" J. Rafelski, M. Gajda and D.Harley - University of Arizona S.E. Jones - Brigham Young University March 27, 1989 fp "Electrochemically Induced Nuclear Fusion of Deuterium" Martin Fleischmann - University of Southampton Stanley Pons - University of Utah March 20, 1989 jpr "Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter" Jones, Palmer, Czirr, Decker, Jensen, Thorne, Taylor - Brigham Young University Rafelski - University of Arizona March 23, 1989 Name extension conventions: -scanned = Directory with scanned pictures of each page. Usually about 30K per page (i.e. big). .ascii = An ascii file that someone typed in. .t = Troff version someone typed in. .ps = Postscript version (from troff, LaTex, TEX, ... ) .tex = TEX format .latex = LATEX format .mail = Mail that someone sent including the paper Current versions available: mb.ascii mb.ps - text and graphs, take both sf2.ascii sf1.ascii sf0.ascii sum1.ascii sum2.ascii gcmg.ascii srb.ascii pp.ascii kkr.ascii lb0.ps lb0.tex lb.ps lb.tex cjh.ps cjh.tex cjh.mail dcb.ps dcb.latex dcb.mail sek.ps sek.tex sek.mail kn.ps kn.tex kn.mail scgb-scanned/ mas-scanned/ nfl-scanned/ h4-scanned/ cam-scanned/ ws-scanned/ h1-scanned/ h2-scanned/ h3-scanned/ gcm-scanned/ rj-scanned/ rj.ascii fp-scanned/ fp.ps fp.ascii fp.t jpr-scanned/ jpr.ascii TO COPY PAPERS: If you have never used FTP (File Transfer Program) it might be a good idea to do a "man ftp" to read up on it a little (for non Unix systems "help ftp"). The first thing is to get connected to unh. To do this you type the following three lines. The first line starts up FTP and tells FTP what machine you want. The second line (first anonymous) is the login name. The second is the password. unh's internet number is 128.2.254.150 if FTP comes back saying that it does not know unh. ftp unh.cs.cmu.edu anonymous anonymous At this point it will say something like, "Send ident as password". Just ignore it, you are logged in already. Next you must get to the right directory. cd /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp You must do the whole cd at once as you are not permitted in any of the intermediate directories. Then to get this file: get README For the .ascii, .ps, .tex, .t, .latex, or .mail versions you can just: get paper.type For the XX-scanned versions: cd XX-scanned prompt binary mget * When done getting papers: quit To print the XX-scanned versions from a unix shell: csh print.XX This only works with postscript printers (laserwriters etc.). cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.04 / Bruce Dunn / Not all lithium is the same Originally-From: a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Not all lithium is the same Date: 4 Apr 90 11:06:17 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada Lithium salts seem to be a common component of the electrolyte in cold fusion cells, and there has been some speculation that lithium may be participating in whatever nuclear reactions may be taking place (if indeed there are such reactions). It has been noted by several posters in this group that cold fusion results seem to be better in the U.S. than in Europe. I am curious whether anyone has tried to determine whether success in cold fusion is linked to the chemical supplier from which lithium salts are purchased. Natural lithium is a mixture of 7Li and 6Li. However, the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia warns that much Li available in the U.S. has been subject to isotope separation to remove 6Li (which I think is used in breeding tritium). The Encyclopedia notes that not all commercial lithium has the same isotope ratio and thus the atomic weight of lithium may vary from batch to batch. Different batches of Li salts from different suppliers may thus have differing proportions of isotopes, and possibly this might affect success in cold fusion. Has this been looked into? - Bruce a752@mindlink.uucp cudkeys: cuddy4 cudena752 cudfnBruce cudlnDunn cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / L Chiaraviglio / Has anyone tried deuterium + tritium cold fusion? Originally-From: chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Has anyone tried deuterium + tritium cold fusion? Date: 6 Apr 90 02:59:14 GMT Organization: Department of Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington _ Although it seems quite unlikely that cold fusion is actually occurring, I think I ought to ask about one thing that seems obvious to try: IF cold fusion with just deuterium (or just heavy water) works at all, cold fusion might work much better with a deuterium-tritium (or heavy + super-heavy water) mixture, if the mechanism doesn't require that the nuclei have integer spin or something like that. Why not? We've spent large amounts of time and money probably following red herrings with deuterium -- might as well try it a couple of times with some REALLY potent stuff. | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR) Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu Alt Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenchiaravi cudfnLucius cudlnChiaraviglio cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / James White / Re: Request for Information Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Request for Information Date: 6 Apr 90 06:04:48 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <1579@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >(1) Does anyone have the proceedings of the recent cold fusion conference? Are you kidding? Proceedings can take 6 months to 2 years to come out. I'm hoping that NCFI will set a new record (on the fast side). >(2) Does anyone have the phone number of the cold fusion center in Utah? National Cold Fusion Institute 390 Wakara Way Salt Lake City, Utah 84108 801-581-5571 Fax:801-581-6674 The registration form that I have says you can purchase the proceedings for $55 from: PMMI 640 East Wilmington Salt Lake City, Utah 84106 (801)466-3500 Fax:(801)466-9616 It would be a good idea to call first, because this address is linked to the conference and I don't know how long after the conference it will stay active. >(3) Is anyone going to post papers from the conference? I'd be especially I am preparing a review of the conference from my notes. The best parts in my opinion are the plots from Pons's paper of a burst where the total output power for the cell was from two to over ten times the total input power for virtually the entire 18 day length of the burst (generating 16MJ/cm^3). Several other groups now have >10MJ. Also, someone who has analyzed a number of electrodes from positive experiments as well as a large number of electrodes from negative experiments told me that he got no Palladium signal at all from the electrodes that gave negative results until thousands of angstroms of gunk had been removed. The electrodes that gave positive results had some gunk, but not nearly as much. It seems that a lot of people didn't realize that the high pH LiOD solution would etch an ordinary glass cell causing a big contamination problem. This debunks the myth that the experiments that gave negative results were carefully done. cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / Donn Seeley / 'an apparent increase in the neutron count rate' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'an apparent increase in the neutron count rate' Date: 6 Apr 90 08:31:19 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept The Tuesday 4/3 New York Times science section had an article on cold fusion that contained at least one interesting claim. A team from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee headed by Dr Charles D Scott reported 'extremely interesting results' ..., saying they had observed the generation of excess heat and neutrons. More importantly, in one test they reported seeing 'an apparent increase in the neutron count rate coincident with heat generation.' I sure wish someone would come through with a summary of the U of U / NCFI Cold Fusion Conference proceedings... Maybe Douglas Morrison is working on this? I'm afraid that even if someone put a copy in my hot little hands, I wouldn't be able to do much with it until I finish the paper I'm currently writing. The controversy part of tonight's short posting refers to a lawsuit that Stanley Pons is threatening to file against his U of U colleague, physicist Michael Salamon. Pons's lawyer has been in touch with Salamon, and apparently the battle is over results that Salamon and his colleague Bergeson obtained while monitoring Pons's experiment, results that Salamon failed to publish in his Nature piece which Pons feels will support cold fusion. Salamon apparently thinks that the material Pons is concerned about was actually pretty insignificant. The university will attempt to mediate the dispute by calling Pons and Salamon to a meeting on Monday with their boss, President Chase Peterson. I first heard about the lawsuit from some friends over at physics, but I couldn't really bring myself to believe it until I saw a story about it on the evening news last night... I wonder if Scott's neutrons came from one of his closed cells, 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: cuddy6 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / William Johnson / Re: Has anyone tried deuterium + tritium cold fusion? Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Has anyone tried deuterium + tritium cold fusion? Date: 6 Apr 90 15:36:45 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <40874@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: > > Although it seems quite unlikely that cold fusion is actually > occurring, I think I ought to ask about one thing that seems obvious to try: > IF cold fusion with just deuterium (or just heavy water) works at all, cold > fusion might work much better with a deuterium-tritium (or heavy + super-heavy > water) mixture, if the mechanism doesn't require that the nuclei have integer > spin or something like that. Well, if "fractofusion" is considered part of "cold" fusion, I know of one group that's gearing up to do a d-t gas mix. (In fact, "my" collaboration was going to at one point, too, but decided to concentrate on improved nuclear diagnostics on the things we were already doing.) If the fractofusion mechanism is correct, it should be immediately apparent using d-t gas, as the relevant cross sections are vastly higher, as you point out. I doubt if the group I'm alluding to will have anything to publish for quite a while -- it takes time to do tritium experiments, and they're pretty careful people who will try to avoid going off half-cocked -- but I'll try to pass on any information as it comes in. I haven't heard of any groups using tritiated water in electrochemical cells, and I doubt that any are in the works. Tritiated water, in contrast to the gaseous tritium to be used in the fractofusion work, is nasty stuff to handle, because water gets incorporated into the body if inhaled or ingested while hydrogen gas doesn't. (The occupational-health exposure standards for tritiated water are quite a bit lower than those for tritium gas, if I recall correctly.) Few if any of the domestic cold-fusion groups have the resources for handling tritiated water in the frighteningly large quantities that would be required to make the electrolyte approach a 50/50 d/t mix. If any work along these lines is in the cards, it might be the Indians (Bhabha); keep an eye out for reports from those guys. BTW, I would be delighted to be proven wrong on this assessment; if anybody knows of tritium experiments that I don't, please post something about them. -- 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: cuddy6 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / John Moore / Re: Not all lithium is the same Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Not all lithium is the same Date: 6 Apr 90 14:05:03 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1414@mindlink.UUCP> a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) writes: [ deleted speculation about Li isotope ratios ] ] Has this been looked into? The Texas A&M group did try using pure Li6, with no change in their positive results. This was early last year. I don't know if anyone else tried it. I don't have access to Internet so I can't ftp the scanned articles. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Request for Information Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Request for Information Date: 6 Apr 90 20:51:18 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <1990Apr6.060448.25738@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: >Also, someone who has analyzed a number of electrodes from positive >experiments as well as a large number of electrodes from negative >experiments told me that he got no Palladium signal at all from >the electrodes that gave negative results until thousands of angstroms >of gunk had been removed. The electrodes that gave positive results >had some gunk, but not nearly as much. It seems that a lot of people >didn't realize that the high pH LiOD solution would etch an ordinary >glass cell causing a big contamination problem. This debunks the myth >that the experiments that gave negative results were carefully done. Now that IS interesting. I am reminded of a recent article in Science News.... hey, why don't I go look it up and give a real honest-to-god reference!.. be back in a minute...ah yes, here it is: VOL. 137. 10 Mar 90, pg 154... titled "Neuronal Rescue By Refrigeration." Experiments with a calcium blocking drug (MK-801) were providing conflicting results. Some showed significant neuronal protection in the face of brain ischemia (lack of blood flow), while other experiments showed no such effect. Sound familiar? The puzzle was finally solved when someone noticed that in all the "successful" experiments, either there was no control of brain temperature during ischemia and recirculation, or else the brain temperature was known to have dropped subsequent to injection of the drug. In all the "unsuccessful" experiments, brain temperature was kept constant. Subsequent experiments with appropriate controls confirmed that the lowered brain temperature was responsible for all or most of the effect (just a few degrees celsius makes a big difference in the survival rate, apparently). MK-801 lowers brain temperature as a side effect (whether this is simply a convection effect, or due to the particular chemistry of the drug was not explained in the article). So the research successfully found a way to help brain cells survive long periods without blood circulation. But it failed to show that the calcium blocker MK-801 was effective. The desired effect was achieved, but not by the means expected. The possibility that "Cold Fusion" is suffering from an analogous problem probably deserves some investigation. ____"Congress shall have the power to prohibit speech offensive to Congress"____ Alan Lovejoy; alan@pdn; 813-530-2211; AT&T Paradyne: 8550 Ulmerton, Largo, FL. Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne. They do not speak for me. Mottos: << Many are cold, but few are frozen. >> << Frigido, ergo sum. >> cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.06 / Dave Mahan / Some questions from a Neo-Phyte Originally-From: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Some questions from a Neo-Phyte Date: 6 Apr 90 23:57:27 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System I have been following this conference for a while, and have a few questions about the cold Fusion process. I assume that the cold fusion process (CF process) involves taking a couple of electrodes of the desired rare metal and immersing it in heavy water. The experimenter then charges the cell with energy to activate it in some manner (this may take hours or days to pump enough electrical energy into the cell to get it to go) and then one day the thing just starts to spontaneously emit energy, producing more than was pumped in during the charge process. Am I right so far? 1) How big (physically) are these cells? Test tube sized?, 1/2 liter? 2) How did Pons et. al. get so luck as to detect CF on the first attempt? Seems like if everyone else is having massive problems, they must have been REAL lucky. 3) How long can a reaction be sustained once fusion starts? It appears that the energy release is spontaneous and timing can't be predicted. Once the thing starts going, can it be sustained for long periods of time (over 1 day)? If you set up a cell to remove the heat energy about as fast as it is being produced (say, with a water bath and heat exchanger) can the thing go on indefinately? It appears most positive results stop when the cell begins to boil. 4) Have other types of stimulating energy been tried? It appears that only electricty is used to pump the cell up, but has anyone tried exposure to X-rays, UV, intense lasers, etc? What about exposure to various high energy particles to cause the reaction to go? 5) What is the biggest cell (physically) that has been produced to date that has exhibited positive results? 6) If this is CF and there are particles being produced as suggested by some results, what steps are being taken to protect the experimenters? Seems like some of them could go the way of Madame Curie and get nasty forms of cancer by playing with such toys. That would be a shame. 7) Has anybody yet tried to harness the energy released? Seems like it would go a long way to brighten the image in the media if they could show a couple of steam pipes coming from the inside of an igloo cooler and have them connected to a small steam engine that could be run for days. Maybe even set up the world's first CF powered train set. Yes, this is kind of silly (ok, it's a lot silly) but something like this shown on CNN during prime time will do lots to increase the public awareness of what may be going on and get the bucks flowing. On the other hand, if it isn't real CF, I guess it wouldn't work now, would it? -dave cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenmcmahan cudfnDave cudlnMahan cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.07 / James White / Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 7 Apr 90 21:44:06 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service I went to the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion sponsored by the National Cold Fusion Institute. My notes are a bit brief, but here is some of the info that I picked up. The conference was open to anyone who was willing to pay the registration fee. No video or audio taping was allowed (supposedly because this would inhibit free discussion) but the sponsors videotaped the conference themselves. I asked Pons what happened to the measurements of Helium-4 in the gas from heat producing cells that had been done some time ago. The reply was that it seemed anomalously high and that it may have been contaminated by helium released in a nearby lab. At this time no-one else seems to have looked for Helium-4 in the gas. It is difficult to avoid contamination, funds are scarce, and there are other priorities. I also found out what happened to the rods that Pons sent off to be analyzed for Helium. This is from Nate Hoffman of ETEC and came out during a question period (Hoffman's results officially belong to those who send him their rods so he didn't give a talk himself.) There were five rods: as received from Johnson-Matthey, implanted with a known amount of helium, two used rods that produced excess heat, and a rod that was both implanted and used. The result was that all the rods had a modest amount of helium-4 in the outer micron, including the one that was as received. Hoffman suspected that Johnson-Matthey bombarded the rods with helium to modify the uptake of deuterium. David Thompson of Johnson-Matthey denied this. So Pons decided that there was a screwup somewhere and that the tests would have to be redone. I think he was glad to have an excuse to disregard the results because they seemed to show no Helium in the bulk, and Pons thinks the heat production is a bulk effect. (There were other results, however, that seemed to show no Helium in the bulk of heat producing rods.) There is still argument over whether cold fusion is a bulk or a surface effect. Those seeing excess heat tend to believe its a bulk effect because switching to light water takes hours to kill the reaction. But no-one has ever seen Helium in the bulk. I used to think that the vast number of negative experiments were as carefully done as the scientists that did them claimed, and that the reason they were negative was that they just didn't hit on the right conditions. Some necessary impurity might be missing, for instance. But that isn't the case at all. Hoffman has analyzed a number of electrodes that gave positive results as well as a large number of electrodes that gave negative results. Both groups were covered with gunk. But while the positive group gave some Palladium signal from at or very near the surface, the negative group gave no Palladium signal even after over 1000 angstroms had been removed from their surface! Also, the negative group tended to have much more Zirconium and Aluminum on them. Most of this gunk came from the glass container. It is too bad that the scientists reporting negative results didn't realize that a hydroxide solution etches ordinary glass. It may be that some contamination of the right type is helpful, but the what comes out of ordinary glass in .1M LiOD is a mess. Huggins at Stanford uses quartz, BTW. The first talk was by Pons. There are three papers that he and Fleischmann have written that have been accepted for publication. Preprints for one of them were available (it will appear in the July issue of the Journal of Fusion Technology). Pons is still using open cell calorimetry and most of the talk and the paper were spent showing that this method was quite accurate and that all the various criticisms were invalid. He claims an accuracy of .1% or 10mW. The temperature in the room is regulated and the bath surrounding the cells is held to within .01 degrees. (I saw his lab at the NCFI. He has 32 calorimeters going and 32 more are being set up. The data is recorded by computer.) He mentioned that the effect seemed to kick in at about 64mA/cm^2, but was much more reproducible at 1A/cm^2. I don't know what Pons's cells are made of, but he seems to use an ordinary vacuum Dewar. I guess that would be made of Pyrex. There are some glass rods sticking into the electrolyte, but apparently the total glass surface area is small enough so the contamination doesn't get out of hand. Pons argues that his calorimetry and calculations are conservative in that any errors made will be in the negative direction. Supporting this is the fact that the 14 control experiments show either 0.000 excess heat or a very small negative excess heat. (The controls include light water, Platinum electrode, and very low current experiments.) There are 19 experiments reported that gave positive excess heat (in baseline, not burst form). The average voltage and total input power were given for all of these, along with other information such as the amount of excess heat. In addition, nine of the results from the original paper were listed with this information. Rods from 1mm to 4mm diameter were reported, and the excess heat tended to increase with the volume. But individual rods varied so much that an increase of excess heat with area can't be ruled out. Excess energy over the duration of the experiment reached as high as 50MJ/cm^3 in some cases. In his original paper, When Pons calculated the percentage of breakeven that he had achieved he used as his input energy only that energy which was lost at the electrode. He ignored joule losses (which could be reduced with a more conductive electrolyte and smaller electrode spacing) and the energy that could be recovered from recombining the gas. This is similar to how physicists calculate breakeven. (They consider only the power that goes directly to heating the plasma, and ignore the energy put in the magnetic field.) In his current paper Pons gives only the total input power (total cell current times total cell voltage). Many of the new results use a .5M Li2SO4 electrolyte or a LiOD+Li2SO4 mixture. These new electrolytes didn't do very well at low current, but they seemed to do just fine at .5A/cm^2 or greater. This is interesting because of the previously mentioned problem of LiOD solutions etching glass and burying the electrode in thousands of angstroms of gunk, guaranteeing negative results to many groups that didn't do anything to prevent this. The most interesting results (in my opinion) are the bursts. These were as high as 40 times input energy. The highest bursts had to be shut off for safety reasons. A more modest burst that didn't have to be shut down was described in the paper along with some plots of its behavior. It was in a 4mm by 1.25cm rod in .1M LiOD at 64mA/cm^2. It lasted for 18 days. The excess heat exceeded total input power for nearly the whole time, and sometimes rose to over 10 times input power. The total energy released in this burst was about 16MJ/cm^3. Before and after the burst there was around 20% excess energy. There was a talk by Thompson of Johnson-Matthey (which provides Pons with his rods). The Palladium starts as a sponge and is melted in Nitrogen + 10% Hydrogen. Then it is hot worked at 1000C and it ends up being cold drawn. (I can't fit this in with the cast vs milled debate that occurred last year.) (Hoffman mentioned that the rods from Pons that he saw seemed to have a large number of tiny pores throughout their bulk, as if air bubbles had been broken up during working.) When they analyzed some rods that Pons sent back, they saw a spot that looked like it had seen >200C on a 64mA/cm^2 rod and a spot that looked like it had seen >350C on a 512mA/cm^2 rod. These spots were away from the weld where the wire was attached. They also saw various impurities on the surface (Pt, Fe, Cu, Zn, ...). There was a talk from Huggins group by Schreiber. They have seen 22MJ/mole. They are now using a closed cell and see excess heat in that. They have seen bursts. Quartz cells are used to avoid contamination. Another talk from Huggins group covered design, construction, and calibration of their latest calorimeter. Another talk by Chao involved computer modeling of the behavior of their calorimeter. There was a talk by McKubre of SRI. They used a 4 point resistance measurement to find the loading factor. But the resistivity vs loading chart for deuterium that they used didn't go to a very high loading factor. (I was very dubious about the way they extrapolated it.) They used 10mA/cm^2 under pressure (up to 900psi) and got .3MJ of excess heat, but none in a Pd plated copper control. (They decided that H2O made a lousy control since the D2O-Pd interface is quite different from H2O-Pd). Less than 1e11 atoms of Helium or tritium were in the electrode. Nothing was seen in the gas, either (but I'm not sure they eliminated Helium-4 in the gas). There was a talk by Hutchinson of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Five cells gave 2 to 9 W of excess heat for a period of 1500 hours of an 1800 hour experiment. Three cells gave no excess heat. This was with open cells. 2 of the cells gave 17MJ. There was a talk by Miles of the Naval Weapons Center. Saw some excess heat. There was a talk by Adzic of Case Western Reserve University. Saw an extended heat burst of 20-45% in an open cell. Saw up to 8% in a closed cell. Saw tritium in many cells. Got best tritium results with Ni anode. Li was found to penetrate 2000 angstroms into the Pd. There was an interesting talk by T. F. and L. J. Droege. I also have a paper which they handed out describing their work. This is an amateur effort, with a calorimeter built out of surplus parts and ingenuity. It is a closed cell calorimeter with an ingenious method for keeping the pressure constant. He has a 50cc syringe with the piston connected to a stepping motor. A diaphragm switch whose position is detected with a sensitive photodetector is used to sense the pressure. The pressure is then held constant by the stepping motor. The motor always steps to the final position from the same direction, avoiding backlash. This allows the gas volume to be measured. He assumes that anything that gets by the catalyst is pure Oxygen, which gives him an idea of how much deuterium must be in the electrode. During runs with D2O he sees a sawtooth pattern where the voltage ramps up for a while (1 to 60 sec, depending on current density and gas content) then it suddenly drops by about a volt. The gas volume is at a cusp-like high at the time of the drop, and it sags smoothly between these cusps (with amplitude around tens of microliters). This is with constant current. With constant voltage they see a sawtooth in their current. They also use a 4 point resistance measurement. A 2mm diameter electrode with 16mm between inner connections started at 300 micro-ohms. It soon climbed to 600, and after 20 hours reached 750. It remained at 750 with a wide variety of currents, even though there was considerable variation in gas content. After long off periods it would drop to 600. They have seen excess heat in a number of runs. But this result is tainted somewhat by a drift problem in their current calorimeter. They suspect it is a bulk effect because when they switched to H2O the excess heat continued stronger than ever for 15 hours, then abruptly stopped. (Assuming that this wasn't just calorimeter drift.) Droege controls contamination by using a polypropylene jar. He also has a dummy electrode which he uses prior to a run. High currents through the dummy draw impurities out of the solution, after which a small current through the dummy keep the impurities from redissolving. He also uses reverse current through the primary electrode to remove surface contamination prior to a run. There was a talk by Scott of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (a separate group from the Hutchinson talk). They saw excess heat in a closed cell. They used 99.9% pure Pd from two different suppliers, but only the Pd from one supplier gave excess heat. They made their electrodes by casting, working, and annealing (4hr at 900 deg in vac). The excess heat took more than 200 hours to start and required .4-.5 A/cm^2. They were able to trigger bursts by suddenly changing the current or temperature. A sudden drop in temperature seemed the most effective. They think the heat is a bulk effect because once when they switched to H2O it took about 100 hours for the excess heat to die away. They also detected low levels of gamma and neutrons. there was some correlation between excess heat and the other phenomena in that they all kicked in during bursts, but they certainly didn't have a fixed relationship. They didn't see tritium in this cell, but they did see tritium in other experiments. Murphy gave a talk for the Murphy/Appleby/Srinivasan group at Texas A&M. A microcalorimeter was used with closed cells. Excess heat was seen with D2O + Pd but not with H2O + Pd or D2O + Pt. The heat was quenched by replacing the D2O with H2O or the Li with Na. The isotope of Li didn't matter. Adding extra Li doesn't increase the heat. The extra heat requires 60-200mA/cm^2 to switch on. When the surface was analyzed no Pd signal was seen until 200 angstroms of gunk had been removed. There was a lot of carbon on the surface as well as Ca, O, and lots of other things. A Li signal was observed as most intense near the surface, followed by a plateau, which then tapered off after several microns. (With H2O the Li plateau is higher but not as deep.) Reproducibility is 80%. Large rods give less excess heat. They didn't see tritium or Helium in the rod, but they were doing short experiments. They think it is a surface effect and believe the surface dendrites that form are involved. When asked why they didn't have a cell working when the DOE panel was there (since they're reproducibility was so high) Murphy insisted that there was, in fact, a cell giving excess heat during that visit. (A member of the DOE panel who was at the conference got up and insisted that there wasn't a cell working at that time. The chair interrupted this was/wasn't debate, giving Murphy the last word of course.) There was a talk by Bockris of Texas A&M. They saw excess heat and tritium. Heat bursts correlate with tritium bursts, but the tritium never accounted for more than 1% of the heat. Most of the tritium was released in the gas. Of 53 cells examined 15 had >1e3 dpm (a 10 to 20 fold increase). A titanium electrode also gave tritium. Switch-on took 33+/-22 days (17+/-5 days if only 1mm rods were considered). They have sent away samples for detailed analysis and it is definitely tritium that they are detecting. They think its a surface effect and that dendrites are important. Wolf of Texas A&M had a talk scheduled on tritium and neutrons, but he was grounded by an ear problem and couldn't attend. There were some talks from Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Bombay, India (Lyengar, Srinivasan). It seems that they think that one of their scientists predicted CNF decades ago (sort of an act of faith that a better way to do fusion would be found rather than a theoretical insight.) In any case, the Center has about 150 physicists and engineers working on CNF. And while they aren't exactly rolling in cash, at least they don't have to waste time begging for the resources that they do get. They claim to have many groups getting high levels of tritium, as well as some neutrons. They claim positive results with Ti and Pd, with Li and Na. They get neutron bursts of up to about 600 neutrons within a 20ms period (and probably much less). 10-25% of their neutrons are in bursts, the rest are singles following Poisson statistics. (A questioner from Japan got up and claimed that in Japan they had resolved such bursts into a series of microbursts. This was the only thing heard from Japan at the conference, even though Japan is said to have 40 government funded groups working on cold fusion.) The neutrons/tritium never exceeded .5e-8. There was a talk by Storms and Talcott of Los Alamos National Laboratory. They have seen tritium in about 10% of their cells. They have tried adding things to their Pd (Li in various amounts, C, B, S, Be, Li+C, Rh, Rh+Li) but saw nothing. They tried various surface treatments. Heating with paraffin seemed to help. Various things were added to the solution, but nothing interesting was found. They tried various anodes, and got tritium with Pt and Ni, but not stainless steel. For controls they tried Pd+H, Pt+D, Ni+D, Ti+H. There was no tritium in the controls. They deliberately added Tritium to a cell and observed the expected one-step increase. This was different from the tritium producing cells, which increased in a series of bursts. Their cells were sealed against atmospheric contamination. They had five open jars of water in various locations. The open jars did pick up some tritium, but there was no correlation between when the open jars picked up tritium and when tritium was produced in active cells. The concentration of tritium was much less than that seen by Bockris, but that is partly due to using about 150ml of solution vs about 15ml for Bockris. There seemed to be periods of time when several cells were active and periods of time when no cells were active. Most of the tritium speakers talked at length of precautions they took to prevent contamination and to identify any possible source of contamination. There was a talk by Menlove of Los Alamos National Laboratory. He detected neutrons from titanium chips exposed to deuterium gas under pressure and warmed from liquid nitrogen to room temperature. 30-40% of cells had some activity, although sometimes only after many cycles. Neutrons were only emitted if the deuterium was not in equilibrium. Some neutrons continued to be emitted at room temperature until the deuterium reached equilibrium. A hydrogen+deuterium gas mixture gave some neutrons. Most neutrons were emitted singly or in small bursts, but there were some big bursts of up to 300 neutrons. The bursts, especially the larger ones, tended to occur when the sample was near -30degC. This was a major point of the talk. Holding the sample at -30degC did not produce bursts. The samples were monitored for acoustic sounds. Crackling sounds were detected, but these sounds never seemed to correlate with neutrons. It is possible that all the neutrons in a sample (which contains hundreds of titanium chips) come from a single active chip. There was a talk by Jones of Brigham Young University. He sees neutrons from titanium and other metals. Mentioned the -30degC effect in titanium. Acoustic sounds were detected, but were not correlated with the neutrons. Fractofusion was never able to explain the observed branching ratios, but there was a chance it could explain the neutrons. But the lack of correlation between acoustic sounds and the neutrons seems to rule out even that. There were also some theoretical talks. There was a talk by R. T. Bush of California State Polytechnic University involving "transmission resonance assisted neutron transfer" between isotopes. He believes that "diffusons" such as deuterium can go right through the lattice if the deBroglie waves are such that scattering interferes destructively. He calculates that things should be just right in titanium at -30degC. Frankly I didn't understand his ideas and can't see how they could explain all the data as he claims. There was a talk by Preparata of the University of Milano, Italy. He invoked "superradiance" to get a coherent plasma oscillation that reduces the coulomb repulsion. The coherent electron plasma removes the energy from the heat producing D+D->He-4. There was a talk by Schwinger of UCLA (Nobel Laureate). He views two deuterium atoms next to each other as a very excited state of He-4 with spin/parity (0,2)+. He then examines another excited state at -8.2MeV with spin/parity 0+. The decay from the first state to the second with gamma emission is forbidden. He then goes through some quantum calculations that show that the decay can occur with the energy going into 4e7 phonons. He claims that the coulomb repulsion doesn't enter into this calculation in a way that suppresses the reaction. The -8.2 state doesn't have enough energy to decay into neutron+Helium-3, but it can decay into proton+tritium with 300keV left over. This is supposed to explain the neutron/tritium ratio, although others have said that the tritium can not have more than 10keV. Schwinger didn't attempt to explain the heat. When asked about this he muttered something about proton+deuterium->Helium-3. I think that it is improbable that so much Helium-3 could have escaped detection. There was a talk by S. R. Chubb and T. A. Chubb of Naval Research Laboratories. They believe that deuterium first occupy the lattice sites until a loading factor of 1 is reached. At that point it is energetically unfavorable for more deuterium to be added to the lattice, so the added deuterium spread out like conduction band electrons. Only a very small fraction of the deuterium spread out like this, yet it is these deuterium that interact to form Helium-4, which carries off the energy. Problems with the theory are that no Helium-4 has been seen in the rods where it would have to be produced, and that the high energy Helium-4 would generate far more secondary radiation than has been seen. There was a talk by Peter Hagelstein of MIT. According to his theory a proton captures an electron to become a virtual neutron (which is off its mass shell). This neutron doesn't see the coulomb barrier and is thus able to react with another proton to form deuterium, with the energy somehow carried away by the lattice. The weakness of the weak interaction is somehow overcome through superradiants in the Dicke sense. I see two main problems here. First, most experimenters see H2O quench the reaction, which is not what would be expected if it were protons that were reacting. Second, I believe that the weak interaction is too weak to be overcome with a little superradiants. Nevertheless, Hagelstein's theory has one very beautiful feature. The product of the reaction is deuterium, which is about the only thing that could be produced in the electrode and yet have escaped detection. Here is my idea of how his theory could be made to work. (This might have been more or less what he had in mind, but it didn't seem that way to me.) If you are not interested in my theoretical ramblings, just skip down to the rumor. First, assume the deuterium enters the lattice sites until the loading factor is 1 (much as Chubb did). If more hydrogen is added, it will spread out like a conduction band electron rather than try to share a site with another atom. But it won't be deuterium that enters that state, it will be the protium impurity. The reason for this is that a lighter particle has a much stronger tendency to spread out than a heavier particle. Thus, even with 99.9% D2O, it will be the protium that enters the spread-out state. Now real particles are often linear combinations of "pure" states. Thus, a real proton might really be a linear combination of a pure proton and a virtual neutron + positron + neutrino. The neutron component would be very small, as it is off its mass shell. And since the probability of catching the proton in its neutron state goes as the square of the amplitude, it will almost never be seen in that state. On the other hand, the strength of the weak interaction does not affect the amplitude of the neutron component. The neutron component is closely tied to the proton's wave function. So if the coulomb barrier keeps one proton away from another proton, its virtual neutron component is also kept away from that proton. Note that not only does the coulomb barrier keep the wave functions of two protons apart, but that there is also an anticorrelation between the positions of the protons. That is, even if the wave functions overlap, the chance of finding both protons at a point is less than the chance of finding one proton at that point times the chance of finding the other proton at that point. This anticorrelation doesn't apply to the virtual neutron, however. Now lets consider what happens to the virtual neutron component of protons when they spread out in the lattice. The wave function of a large number of protons will overlap in this spread out form, and the virtual neutron component can add up. In addition, the protons can absorb electrons rather than create virtual positrons. Thus, the neutrons are closer to their mass shell, which will increase their amplitude. These neutrons will still be tied to the wave function of the protons, but now that wave function is spread throughout the lattice. Actually the wave function of the protons will avoid the lattice deuterium, and it will avoid the Palladium atoms even more. But while the spread out protons will anticorrelate with other spread out protons, there will be no such anticorrelation with the neutrons, and they will be able to react with the protons. These are virtual neutrons, however. They are linked with the protons that gave rise to them. Thus, it is these protons that get the energy of the reaction. As the energy is spread evenly among a large number of protons, no one proton ends up with very much. Occasionally a virtual neutron will get close enough to a lattice deuterium to allow neutron+deuterium->tritium, with the energy again going to the protons. Thus we have the correct branching ratios, the energy getting into the lattice without secondary radiation, and the end product being deuterium. The apparent quenching by H2O is easily explained by the smaller potential drop of a H2O-Pd electrode when compared with a D2O-Pd, which causes loading to be less effective. Presumably if we had a good enough poison to get the H2O loading high enough, then even an H2O cell would generate excess heat. (I have heard rumor of excess heat from H2O cells, but nobody has reported such heat. Skeptics would jump on such a report as proof that the excess heat must be experimental error.) RUMOR ON! Here is the winner of the "best rumor" award. You may recall that around last September there was a report that Dr Glen Schoessow and Dr John Wethington at the University of Florida had succeeded in making the excess heat reproducible. Well, according to the rumor Schoessow really can reproducibly get 300% excess heat. He apparently got the key idea while doing electrochemistry many years ago. He has applied for U.S. patents and is applying for foreign patents. An agreement has been worked out with a group of investors where a sum of money is being placed in escrow. A panel will examine the apparatus and if Schoessow's claims are true he will get the money (in exchange for the patent rights). Apparently Schoessow has a history of getting useful patents that caused the investors to sit up and take notice. The person who told me this claims to have talked to Schoessow, to have seen the apparatus, and to have first hand knowledge of the agreement. RUMOR OFF. That's my review. I didn't include all the talks or all the stuff in the talks that I mentioned by any means. Also, I may have made some errors and got confused on who said what. Practically everyone mentioned having a paper in the pipeline, so this information will soon be available in formal published form. cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.08 / Terry Bollinger / The Transformer Argument: "Clean" is Harder than "Cold" Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: The Transformer Argument: "Clean" is Harder than "Cold" Date: 8 Apr 90 00:03:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway THE TRANSFORMER ARGUMENT: WHY "CLEAN" NUCLEAR REACTIONS ARE HARDER THAN "COLD" REACTIONS Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com) April 7, 1990 INTRODUCTION Imagine for a moment what would happen if you attempted to wire a 0.5 megavolt cross-country direct current powerline directly into a 1.5 volt electric toothbrush. It's a rather interesting image, isn't it? Although the powerline carries electrical energy and the toothbrush uses electrical energy, there is a difference in the *level* or intensity of the energy that makes the two, shall we say, incompatible. Now hold onto that image while I take you on a little imaginary excursion. Try to visualize a section of open prairie land in North Dakota that has been filled with tens of thousands of enormous but very lightweight plastic balloons, so light that each one is really little more than a large soap bubble. Each balloon is as wide as a football field is long -- that is, about 100 meters. Suspended in the very center of each of these balloons is a very high energy 22 caliber rifle cartridge whose length is about one centimeter. You are an engineer who has been assigned a very peculiar task. The huge balloons can store energy by swaying back and forth against each other in huge, slow vibrations. The rifle cartridges (this sounds very American, doesn't it?) also store energy in the form of gunpowder, but this energy can be released only by firing the shells. Your boss has asked you to figure out a way to convert *all* of the energy of the rifle shells into the more amenable form of energy that is represented by the rocking of the giant balloons. Even worse, your boss is big on safety and does not want any more than one bullet in a billion to escape the system. For this relatively small set of balloons that means that *all* of the bullets must be captured, and *all* of their energy must be converted into swaying. Now step back for a moment. Do you see the similarity between the powerline/toothbrush and the cartridge/balloon problems? In both cases, the main issue is how to transform a very intense, very high-level forms of energy (electrical or mechanical) into "gentler" forms that are several orders of magnitudes (at least 5 or 6) less intense. At least at the conceptual level, the solution to each of these problems is also the same: you must figure out a way to build an efficient *energy transformer* for converting a little bit of extremely intense energy into a large quantity of low-level energy. ENERGY TRANSFORMERS For the toothbrush the answer is easy -- sort of. The equipment needed to transform very high direct current voltages down to usable levels is anything but simple, but it can certainly be done. It's also worth noting that the resulting machine (energy transformer) will be quite complex, even though it is dealing with a relatively simple energy conversion problem. For the balloon problem it gets a whole lot messier. Firing the cartridges without constraints simply results in the bullets screaming through balloon after balloon with almost no transfer of energy to any of them. As Chief Bullet-to-Balloon Energy Transfer Engineer, you quickly realize that you, too, will need an energy transforming device with the following characteristics: (1) It must fully envelop each cartridge firing. (2) It must capture *all* fragments released when the cartridge is fired -- the bullet, the shell, packing, and any gases. (3) It must then transform the energy into a "soft" form that is "acceptable" to the balloons -- meaning it won't rip right through them. There are two possibilities: (a) The transformer could store energy and release it very slowly to the balloon -- e.g., as "puffs" of air. (b) The transformer could effectively "expand" the captured energy into a much larger volume, so that the average intensity of the energy is low enough to be "accepted" at the balloon level. (4) A final more subtle point: The transformer much be able to "touch" the balloons when transferring its energy too them. For example, a transformer might easily expand the volume of the captured energy (3b) by giving it off as a bright light, but that light would then pass right through the balloons without moving them. In contrast, wind or air would provide a strong interface to the balloons. As you can well see, the task of the Chief Bullet-to-Balloon Energy Transfer Engineer is not an easy one, and the device he winds up building is likely to be quite complex. (And he hasn't even addressed the issue of *how* to set off the bullets yet!). BRINGING THE BULLET-TO-BALLOON MODEL HOME Caricatures are funny things. When the original is not readily available, it is surprisingly easy to substitute caricatures for the originals, at least in our minds. For example, I'd bet that everyone on this net has at one time or another seen a cute little diagram of an atom in which several fat little protons and neutrons are snugly encased within a set of equally fat orbiting electrons. We all know these diagrams are unrealistic -- but do we fully realize just *how* unrealistic they are? Nuclei range from four to five orders of magnitude smaller than atoms. That is about the same as the difference between a 100 meter field and an object that is between one millimeter and one centimeter in diameter (such as a 22 rifle cartridge). Energies within nuclei are also enormously more intense, due both to the influence of the strong force and the simple fact that the energy is being stuffed into an far smaller volume. Imagine all of the sunlight that normally falls on a football field being focused onto a spot one centimeter or less in diameter. It's a rather intimidating thought, is it not? Well, that's an *understatement* of the difference in energy densities between a diffuse atom and its extremely compact nucleus. ALAS THE POOR MUSHUGION... .. Because, folks, it'll have to do far more just *cause* fusion -- it's also going to have to meet the same complex and rather nasty set of energy transformer constraints I just described above in the bullets-to-balloons analogy. You see, if there is any one message that has come through loud and clear over the last year, it is that the heat produced by most palladium anomaly experiments is many of orders of magnitude (say a billion times at least) larger than what can be accounted for the neutrons, helium, gamma rays, tritium, X-rays, or whatever that is produced at the same time. You cannot get around it: If even one palladium experiment produces high levels of "nuclear" heat without producing equivalent levels of byproducts, then the Transformer Argument must be invoked. THE TRANSFORMER ARGUMENT Specifically, the Transformer Argument requires that any system which is capable of translating nuclear fusion energy into ordinary heat, at least within the confines of a very small piece of metal, must contain some number of Fusion Energy Transformers, or FETs. (My apologies to the transistor types out there.) An FET must have the following characteristics: (1) An FET must fully "envelop" nuclei before fusing them. Simply acting as an intermediary (e.g., a "free quark" -- if there is such a thing) is not enough, because quantum uncertainty would guarantee that some level of byproduct- generating fusion reactions would also occur. The FET must literally *swallow* the nuclei to ensure that such byproducts cannot be released. (2) An FET must capture *all* byproducts released by fusion, or else prevent their formation during fusion. This is an unbelievably difficult requirement, since any kind of fusion is quite complex (e.g., 12 quarks in two major groupings and four subgroupings just for D-D fusion) and the by products are so diverse -- neutrons, helium, tritium, gamma rays, etc. To make it worse, some of the usual byproducts respond significantly to one of the major forces. Gamma rays are electromagnetic only, and neutrons respond primarily to the strong force. The FET envelope thus would have to capture *both* EM-only particles and strong-mostly particles. Quite a tall order! (3) An FET must transform fusion energy into a "soft" form that is "acceptable" to electron orbitals -- that is, it can disturb the orbitals without producing severe levels of ionization. There are two possibilities: (a) The FET could store energy and release it very slowly. (b) The FET could effectively "expand" the captured energy into a much larger (atomic level) volume. My only comment is that these are the types of requirements one places on complex macroscopic machines, not particles. (4) And finally, the FET must be able to present the energy to the atomic level via the electromagnetic force, since that is the only force that can interact strongly with atomic electron orbitals in ordinary room-temperature matter. This is important, because it means that an FET *cannot* be a "hidden" particle that might escape the usual physics and chemistry experiments. Unlike neutrinos, which are the proverbial ghost particles of physics, an FET will have to make itself obvious just to perform its "duties." I won't even bother going into the details of why ordinary particles such as protons, neutrons, electrons, muons, and even antimatter cannot possibly meet the requirements of the Transformer Argument. At the very least, every one of them fails FET Requirement 1 -- Enveloping of the Reactants. The FET requirements are a very difficult collection that are much more fit for engineers working macroscopically on tokamaks than they are for particle physics. There is one last particle possibility needs work beyond what I care to address here: magnetic monopoles. Their massive weight, high "internal" temperature, and odd modes of interactions with charged particles are strange enough to make me uncomfortable with eliminating them out-of-hand. Also, you would miss them on a mass spectrometer analysis, so they would be a wee bit better at "hiding" from ordinary analysis. However, I think monopoles can be rather easily eliminated on an experimental rather than theoretical basis. Quite simply, no one has ever reported finding monopoles in large numbers in palladium or water -- and monopoles should not be *that* difficult to detect. WRAP UP I should note that Hagelstein (MIT) was in fact trying to deal with the Transformer Problem when he proposed "coherent phonons" as a way of transforming fusion energy into heat. That's all I'll say about it, because as I described once in an earlier net note, I flatly reject his premises about coherency and fusion. In case it sounds like I've also eliminated *ordinary* fusion methods such as tokamaks, don't worry too much. Conventional fission and fusion reactors simply use "brute force" energy transformation. In terms of the balloon analogy, the energy of the "bullets" (fusion products) is transformed into heat by allowing the bullets to pass through an extremely large number of balloons. In this way, a little bit of energy is released in each balloon. No such brute-force energy transformation methods are even remotely possible within the tiny electrodes of the palladium anomaly experiments. I've picked on "fusion" in stating the Transformer Argument, but don't be misled -- it applies equally to *any* type of nuclear reactions that produce a net release of energy, whether via fusion or fission or who knows what. For that matter, it also applies quite nicely to such things as heavy particle decay and matter/antimatter annihilation. That's what I like about it -- it applies to essentially any situation in which energy must be converted from a very concentrated form into a very diffuse form. Finally, I could use some feedback, especially from the hands-on physics and chemistry folks out there. Do you think I should send this letter, possibly including some of my earlier Bohr Jacket material, to some publications such as Nature? I feel that this material is pretty "safe" in terms of content, but I'd like to have a better feel as to whether it might add anything significant to the ongoing conversations. Cheers, Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com) cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.07 / Shigeki Misawa / Plasma Physics Books for Sale Originally-From: positron@cosmic.berkeley.edu (Shigeki Misawa) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Plasma Physics Books for Sale Date: 7 Apr 90 21:27:00 GMT Organization: UCB Physics Department I have the following books for sale : Introduction to Plasma Theory by Nicholson Brand New Never Used Introduction to Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion Volume 1: Plasma Physics by Francis Chen Barely used (essentially Brand New except for 3 pages on which notes where penciled in lightly and subsequently erased) I am asking $45 for Nicholson (shipping negotiable depending on distance) and $30 or best offer for Chen. Please respond by email I never read this news group. ________________________ Shigeki Misawa - UCB Physics. cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenpositron cudfnShigeki cudlnMisawa cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.08 / John Moore / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 8 Apr 90 16:03:45 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Apr7.214406.24387@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: ]I went to the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion sponsored by the ]National Cold Fusion Institute. My notes are a bit brief, but here is ]some of the info that I picked up. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we greatly appreciate your posting this to the net! ]The first talk was by Pons. There are three papers that he and Fleischmann ]have written that have been accepted for publication. Preprints for one ]of them were available (it will appear in the July issue of the Journal of ]Fusion Technology). Pons is still using open cell calorimetry and most ]of the talk and the paper were spent showing that this method was quite ]accurate and that all the various criticisms were invalid. He claims an ]accuracy of .1% or 10mW. The temperature in the room is regulated and the ]bath surrounding the cells is held to within .01 degrees. (I saw his lab ]at the NCFI. He has 32 calorimeters going and 32 more are being set up. ]The data is recorded by computer.) He mentioned that the effect seemed ]to kick in at about 64mA/cm^2, but was much more reproducible at 1A/cm^2. I wonder what techniques Pons is using to measure the input power. If I remember correctly, the Neumann perpetual motion machine fooled a lot of people until National Bureau of Standards (or whatever they're called these days) looked at the input power with equipment sensitive to high frequencies. The same could be happening with CNF. I took a look at input current to a cell with a scope, and it was quite noisy, with frequency components into the audio frequency range at least. I attribute this to the formation of bubbles on the surface, which results in rapidly varying surface area and current. Simple meters will not accurately measure the power under such circumstances. If there are higher frequencies present, the situation is even worse - the waveforms at the cells will not be the same as the waveforms at the power supplies, because of the inductance of the power leads. If car batteries are still being used, the current (and resulting voltage) variations will be due primarily to the cell behavior. If regulated supplies are used, they may oscillate under the rather strange load that a cell may generate. I have seen regulated supplies oscillate at over 1 MHz. At that frequency, even an audio oscilloscope will not even see the oscillation. Accurately measuring the input power (and hence, energy) is quite difficult under these circumstances. However, one could at least tell if such a measurement is needed by attaching a high frequency scope to the cell and looking at the voltage waveforms, and also doing the same across a small series resistor, and looking at the current waveforms. If they are dancing around, something more complex than a simple volt meter and ammeter is required. Again, in my little prototype cell (LiOH, Pd, and Au), there were indeed rapid variations. Even if digitizing volt and amp meters were used, they would have to be sampled at a high rate (at least a few 1000 times per second) and simultaneously in order to compute the power. I suspect that experimenters need to call in the EE's to measure the electrical power. Have any done this? [ ...much interesting and clever experiments deleted...] >Poisson statistics. (A questioner from Japan got up and claimed that >in Japan they had resolved such bursts into a series of microbursts. >This was the only thing heard from Japan at the conference, even though >Japan is said to have 40 government funded groups working on cold fusion.) >The neutrons/tritium never exceeded .5e-8. I really wonder what is happening at Japan, Inc! Too bad they aren't talking. Likewise in Florida! -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.08 / John Moore / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 8 Apr 90 16:06:13 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Apr7.214406.24387@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: ]I used to think that the vast number of negative experiments were as ]carefully done as the scientists that did them claimed, and that the ]reason they were negative was that they just didn't hit on the right ]conditions. Some necessary impurity might be missing, for instance. ]But that isn't the case at all. Hoffman has analyzed a number of ]electrodes that gave positive results as well as a large number of ]electrodes that gave negative results. Both groups were covered with ]gunk. But while the positive group gave some Palladium signal from ]at or very near the surface, the negative group gave no Palladium ]signal even after over 1000 angstroms had been removed from their If this indeed is true at most negative experiments (Lewis, for example), it is a very significant result! Does anyone else have info on this? [sorry I didn't include this in my previous posting, but it was already on the way when I remembered.] -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / A Hessenflow / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: allanh@netcom.UUCP (Allan N. Hessenflow) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 9 Apr 90 01:07:12 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 249-0290 guest} In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP>, john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > > a small series resistor, and looking at the current waveforms. If they > are dancing around, something more complex than a simple volt meter > and ammeter is required. Again, in my little prototype cell (LiOH, Pd, > and Au), there were indeed rapid variations. Even if digitizing volt > and amp meters were used, they would have to be sampled at a high rate > (at least a few 1000 times per second) and simultaneously in order to > compute the power. actually, if the voltage and current samples are simultaneous then the sample rate does not need to be high (although the sample aperture time does need to be short compared to the highest frequency components of the signal). -- Allan N. Hessenflow {apple|claris}!netcom!allanh allanh@netcom.uucp cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenallanh cudfnAllan cudlnHessenflow cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Terry Bollinger / Capacitive Energy Limits Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Capacitive Energy Limits Date: 9 Apr 90 01:39:04 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 7 Apr 90 21:44:06 GMT jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) wrote: > The first talk was by Pons... > ... > Excess energy over the duration of the experiment reached as high as > 50MJ/cm^3 in some cases. > ... > The total energy released in this burst was about 16MJ/cm^3. I've been quietly doing a rather detailed analysis on the upper bounds of capacitive energy storage, and I will tell all of you this: There is simply no way in which capacitive mechanisms could account for the energy levels quoted above. It is a flat-out physical impossibility. Interestingly enough, the earlier SRI claims of 1MJ/cm3 (10 MJ per mole) turned out to be just *barely* within the realm of possibility, but only if one postulated an "ideal dielectric" that combined the best electrical properties of several very impressive materials. But anything much beyond the 1 MJ/cm3 level starts to contradict the fundamental physics of ordinary matter. The problem is that the E (electrical) fields required to store that much energy per cm3 are about the same strength as the E fields which hold matter together. In short, ordinary matter will disintegrate at the atomic level if one attempts to store 10 MJ/cm3 of electrical field energy in it. Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that this result tends to eliminate *all* energy storage mechanisms that involve changes to electron orbitals. The reason is that capacitive energy storage is pretty fundamental -- it stores energy by directly stressing the electron orbitals of individual atoms. (I can explain that offline if you're interested, but I'd rather not get in to it here.) Thus the limits of capacitive energy storage provide a rather interesting approach to bounding how much energy storage can be achieved by *any* of the usual energy storage mechanisms, whether chemical, mechanical, or even inertial (rotational). Go much beyond this limit and POOF! -- you've got a nice little cloud of plasma. So what does all of this imply? Well for one thing, it means that if *any* of the 10 MJ/cm3 or greater results are correct, then *something* is almost certainly producing new energy that was not previously within the atomic/molecular domain of the solid. (Please not that this is not the same thing as saying that it is nuclear.) So... do I *believe* the (now several) >10 MJ/cm3 reports? Darned if I know, but I must admit that I certainly was *not* anticipating any kind of upswing in high-level energy reports one year after the first UofU announcement. This story is definitely staying interesting -- and it is certainly *not* sticking to the N-rays/polywater track very well. Cheers, Terry Bollinger (P.S. -- Beware my next letter. It is long one about the latest Hagelstein "theory" of cold fusion.) cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Terry Bollinger / At Last! A Winner for the "F&P Memorial Chocolate Quiz" Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: At Last! A Winner for the "F&P Memorial Chocolate Quiz" Date: 9 Apr 90 02:09:02 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On or about 8 May 1989 (that's LAST year folks), Bob Munck was kind enough to send out the following announcement for me: > ANNOUNCING THE FIRST "F&P MEMORIAL CHOCOLATE QUIZ" > > Feeling frustrated because you don't have any good quantum > mechanics problems to sink your teeth into? ... Well, fear > not -- here is an opportunity to speculate as freely and > openly ... and at the same time have a chance to win five > pounds of M&M's. All you have to do is send me a copy of your > best answer to the hypothetical problem given below. > ... > SEARCH FOR THE DACTYLON > > PROBLEM: Find a quantum mechanism that can make a D- ion behave > briefly as if it were a point-size or a near-point- > size particle. "Briefly" here refers to the time that > it would take for a room temperature D- ion in > palladium to cross roughly one Angstrom (without > collisions). For example, if one assumed that the > average thermal velocity of a D- ion at room > temperature was about 1 km/s, then the prerequisite > time span would be in the order of 10E-13 seconds. > ... > One could, for example, hypothesize "borrowing" of the energy > (it is somewhere in the MeV range) needed to permit the > reaction: p + e --> n ... ^^^^^^^^^^^ > This would temporarily convert the D- ion into two neutrons > plus a spare electron... Note [however] that such mechanisms > suffer from an inverse relationship between energy and > duration; that is, the greater the quantity of energy that is > required, the shorter the life span that the novel > configuration will have. AND THE WINNER IS... I am delighted to say that based on James R. White's excellent summary of the recent NCFI conference, I now have a (somewhat belated) winner for my chocolate quiz: PETER L. HAGELSTEIN! On 7 Apr 90 21:44:06 GMT jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) wrote: > There was a talk by Peter Hagelstein of MIT. According to his > theory a proton captures an electron to become a virtual ,,,,,,, ^^^^^^^ > neutron (which is off its mass shell). This neutron doesn't > see the coulomb barrier and is thus able to react with another > proton to form deuterium, with the energy somehow carried away > by the lattice. The weakness of the weak interaction is > somehow overcome through superradiants in the Dicke sense. DISCUSSION TIME original chocolate quiz, since he addresses only *one* electron merging with a proton to form a point-like particle. I was really hoping for *two* electron mergers. But hey, this Dicke superradiants stuff is *great*, so how can I complain? Alas, I do rather wish that more was said about how Professor Hagelstein deals with the extremely difficult problem of inverse time relationships for virtual particles. You see, the bigger the energy gap required to form a virtual particle is, the shorter the lifespan of the particle will be. In the case of virtual neutrons, the energy difference is *quite* substantial. By the way, don't let all the jargon throw you off the facts of the case. As it happens, virtual neutrons are how proton-proton fusion *normally* occurs! As you may recall, I mentioned a couple of months ago in a fracto fusion letter that proton- proton fusions are incredibly difficult to achieve. The reason why is that P-P fusions take place via virtual neutrons, which are so extremely short lived that even at the densities and temperatures in the center of the sun, they occur only often enough to let protons fuse every million years or so. In the case of normal P-P fusions, my best recollection of what happens is this: First, a virtual electron-positron pair "forgets" that it doesn't have enough energy to exist, and forms in the immediate vicinity of one proton. The proton then itself rather foolishly forgets that it does not have enough energy to absorb the virtual electron, and goes ahead and does it anyway. (Notice this concatenation of unlikely events -- that's what makes the overall process so difficult.) But lo!... There just happens to be *another* proton nearby at the exact instant in which all of this is occurring! The proton and neutron combine with a substantial release of energy, all energy debts are paid off (whew!), and the silly positron goes sails off to annihilate some poor unsuspecting electron. The only significant difference in Hagelstein's virtual neutron scenario is it uses a real electron rather than a virtual one. This may (or may not) increase the chances of a virtual neutron forming -- but the benefit would be nowhere *near* enough to account for the time it will then take said virtual neutron to go sailing through the "Coulomb barrier." (Translation: "Jog in a direct beeline to the nearest proton, which will be at least an Angstrom away and will be roughly as easy to find as a lost marble at the end of a football field when the only way you can find it is to step directly on it."). I haven't done the exact calculations and have no particular inclination to bother, because my best recollection of the mass difference between a proton/electron pair and a neutron tells me it ain't even gonna be close, folks. Even more significantly, the center of the sun is *chock full* of handy little electrons whizzing about and available to combine with protons at the drop of a hat. That tells me that the rates for all of this very probably work out to be exactly the same as for the sun -- that is, many millions of years of near collisions before anything interesting happens. is now proposing, but without the extra jargon: "The answer to cold fusion is that it is essentially the same as the slowest and most difficult form of hot hydrogen fusion (proton-proton), except that some *Unknown Process* speeds it up in palladium so that it occurs within a fraction of a second instead of within a few quintillion years. (That's probably not an exaggeration -- remember that the protons in palladium are *much* farther apart than they are in the center of the sun, and it takes millions of years for fusion to occur there.) Also, a second and even more mysterious *Unknown Process* then grabs all of the usual high-energy byproducts and converts them into ordinary heat. I might mention that poor bewildered computer scientist though I am, I abandoned trying to do anything with this "dactylon" approach (i.e., invoking virtual particles via quantum energy/ time uncertainty) several months ago. And even when I first proposed it, it was more of a desperate joke than a serious theory. Sigh. I guess MIT will catch up with the local phone companies eventually. (Monopoles next year, perhaps?) .... By the way, my offer of chocolate is serious. If Professor Hagelstein will contact me or send me a verifiable address, I will most happily ship him his five pounds of M&M's. Reasonable substitutions for other types of chocolate are permitted. ("Dicke superradiants..." I LOVE it, I just love it!) Cheers, Terry DISCLAIMER: Yes, folks, the above opinions and observations are my own and not those of my company. cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Paul Dietz / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 9 Apr 90 03:15:31 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department Thanks to James R. White (jrw@uncecs.edu) for his summary of the NCFI conference. There is something I don't understand about the idea he described that had protons fusing to make deuterons. As far as I could tell, the overall reaction was p + e- + p --> d + neutrino. (the "pep" reaction). Leaving aside whether this really would go at a nonnegligible rate (Koonin calculated it's really slow in ordinary hydrogen molecules, even with the small reduced mass), I don't see why it would be necessary to posit some magical means of depositing the energy back into the lattice. Most of the energy (say 99.95% of it) should be carried off by the neutrino (easy to see from conservation of momentum). The deuteron should be left with maybe 200 eV of energy. I think that's low enough to get negligible secondary neutron production, and of course it can't make coulomb gammas or hard x rays. However, if that's correct, the actual fusion rate is thousands of times higher than anyone had been assuming, and cells making watts of heat are actually making tens of kilowatts of neutrinos. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Dave Mahan / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 9 Apr 90 03:39:21 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System {408 249-0290 guest} In article <10702@netcom.UUCP> allanh@netcom.UUCP (Allan N. Hessenflow) writes: >In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP>, john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >> >> a small series resistor, and looking at the current waveforms. If they >> are dancing around, something more complex than a simple volt meter >> and ammeter is required. Again, in my little prototype cell (LiOH, Pd, >> and Au), there were indeed rapid variations. Even if digitizing volt >> and amp meters were used, they would have to be sampled at a high rate >> (at least a few 1000 times per second) and simultaneously in order to >> compute the power. > >actually, if the voltage and current samples are simultaneous then the >sample rate does not need to be high (although the sample aperture time >does need to be short compared to the highest frequency components of >the signal). If you have frequencies up in the 10 KHz range or higher, and your using small cells(read: high capacitance) and/or long wires(read: high inductance) then to be truly acurate about the real power consumed, you also have to take into account the phase angle (time lag) between current and voltage. Using standard voltmeters and ammeters (like, HP equipment) won't cut it. To get accuracy, these instruments use integrating converters. I'm sure that they make equipment that would take these effects into account, but a stock voltmeter/ammeter won't do it if your interested in power measurement accuracy to the resolution of your voltmeter. A phase difference of 1 degree will throw your measurement off by more than 1.5%. That corresponds to a current that peaks only 36 milliseconds before (or after) the voltage peak you correspond it with at 10 KHz. Not much. -dave cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenmcmahan cudfnDave cudlnMahan cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Paul Dietz / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 9 Apr 90 11:00:38 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Apr9.031531.12520@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >Thanks to James R. White (jrw@uncecs.edu) for his summary of the >NCFI conference. There is something I don't understand about >the idea he described that had protons fusing to make deuterons. >As far as I could tell, the overall reaction was > > p + e- + p --> d + neutrino. ... >... Most of the energy (say 99.95% of it) >should be carried off by the neutrino (easy to see from conservation >of momentum). The deuteron should be left with maybe 200 eV of >energy. Correction: maybe 600 eV. That's still quite small. The corresponding reaction to make tritium, could it occur, is: p + e- + d --> t + neutrino It should leave the tritium nucleus with a shade over 5 KeV -- comfortably less than the 10 KeV upper bound jrw mentioned. It should be possible to calculate, for a given deuterium loading, and given heat and tritium production rates, the rate of production of neutrons by secondary DT and DD reactions. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / James White / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 9 Apr 90 13:25:15 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >I wonder what techniques Pons is using to measure the input power. If >I remember correctly, the Neumann perpetual motion machine fooled a lot ... In the lab at NCFI Pons has a regulated power supply for each cell. These power supplies are set up to regulate the current. Pons mentioned something about verifying the stability of these supplies in his talk, but I don't remember the details. You may be sure, however, that Pons has been told of Neumann's perpetual motion machine many times. The voltage of the cells is sampled by computer. It does change over time. There is a plot of voltage vs time for the cell that gave the burst that I described. The voltage was very slowly rising over time, with some small drops during the burst. These drops are consistent with the hotter electrolyte having a lower resistance. After a second, much smaller burst, the voltage began to decline for a while, then creep back up. On top of all this were some minor fluctuations. The total power output of the cell increased by more than an order of magnitude during this burst. I don't believe it is possible to get such an increase with a malfunctioning power supply without seeing any anomaly in the voltage readings, even if Pons had not been on his guard. cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / John Logajan / Oscillating power supplies Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Oscillating power supplies Date: 9 Apr 90 05:46:00 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation, Mpls., MN In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >I have seen regulated supplies oscillate at over 1 MHz. It is true that this can be a complicated problem with variable supplies, but fixed supplies can be made as immune to this problem as desired. External to the fixed supply you can add any amount of parallel capacitors and series inductors. This should isolate the cell side from any oscillations over on the supply side. It should also drop the frequency of the supply side oscillations considerably. (And, unfortunately, slow down regulatory corrective action -- which, fortunately, you need less of because the stupid passive energy storage device (cap or inductr) is taking over some of the responsibility.) I would think that inductors would be favored in constant current applications while capacitors would be favored in constant voltage applications. Also, it is not clear to me that oscillations increase the amount of power going in to a cell. If the oscillation amplitude is less than the bias voltage such that there is never a current reversal due to voltage reversal, then the average power dissipated is equal to the bias voltage (assuming a sinusoidal supperimposed oscillation.) If you do get current reversals, then your simple voltage readings will become misleading (i.e. a DC meter may read zero volts on typical AC.) -- - 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 cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Terry Bollinger / OOPS! Assert_False( SRI == Stanford University ) Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: OOPS! Assert_False( SRI == Stanford University ) Date: 9 Apr 90 18:48:02 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, OOPS! Alan Algustyniak of SRI International has pointed out to me that SRI is *not* the same entity as Stanford University. I'm not quite sure when I started using the acronym "SRI" to refer to the Huggins group at Stanford, but it is quite incorrect. My apologies to both Stanford U. and SRI, and my thanks to Alan for helping me clear that one up. Cheers, Terry Bollinger cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / James White / Re: Capacitive Energy Limits Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Capacitive Energy Limits Date: 9 Apr 90 17:36:07 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <9004090139.AA00866@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: ... >Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that this result tends to >eliminate *all* energy storage mechanisms that involve changes to >electron orbitals. The reason is that capacitive energy storage ... The "battery effect" was one of the early explanations of the excess heat. It assumed that energy was somehow being stored in the palladium during the initial charge-up and then being released as heat later. This can now be ruled out on two grounds (in addition to 50MJ/cm^3 being too much energy to store). First, there are now reports of getting excess heat soon after the initial loading of the palladium with deuterium. Second, most (if not all) scientists doing calorimetry are recording the heat balance from the beginning. After the initial loading (which behaves about as expected) the cells remain in balance until the excess heat kicks in. There is no missing energy that can be used to charge the "battery". cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Vincent Cate / New Frascati Paper Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New Frascati Paper Date: 9 Apr 90 19:25:31 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I have another paper from Francesco Celani (Thanks!!!). This again confirms Jones type results using the underground Gran Sasso Lab (factor of 50 reduction in gamma rays). They get more than 10ee-20 fusions/deuteron-pair-sec. fc "Further Measurements on Electrolytic Cold Fusion with D2O and Pd at Gran Sasso Laboratory" F. Celani, A. Spallone, S. Pace, B. Polichetti, A. Saggese, L. Liberatori, V. Di Stefano, P. Marini Italy - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare - Lab. Naz., and others I was just noting that we have confirmations of the Jones results (very small amounts of fusion) from Israel (scgp), Japan (mas), Argentina (jrg1, jrg2), Italy (cff, fc), USA - Menlove. How many scientists still strongly contest the Jones level of fusion? Has Nature, Lewis, etc ever attacked Jones? Are there any more people with access to submarines or big tunnels in mountains that can try to reproduce these experiments? James White is mailing me the Pons paper so I should have that soon. -- Vince The digitized pictures are in compressed postscript files. To get a copy of a paper replace the XX below with the name for the paper. ftp unh.cs.cmu.edu anonymous anonymous cd /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/XX-scanned binary mget * quit To print it from a unix csh shell: source print.XX If you can not FTP from your location please do not send mail asking me to type in the file or email you all of the files. For those who do not have unh in their host table: 128.2.254.150 unh.cs.cmu.edu If you send me mail and I do not respond it's probably because I can not figure out how to send you mail (include an arpanet usable address). Other fusion papers that are in: /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp There is a list of these papers in /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/README cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.09 / Larry Wall / Re: The Transformer Argument: "Clean" is Harder than "Cold" Originally-From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: The Transformer Argument: "Clean" is Harder than "Cold" Date: 9 Apr 90 20:17:27 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA Interesting analogy, but it really doesn't speak to those who are suggesting that the .22 bullet is being diffused BEFORE it is fired. Larry Wall lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenlwall cudfnLarry cudlnWall cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.10 / James White / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 10 Apr 90 16:41:33 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <1990Apr9.031531.12520@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >Thanks to James R. White (jrw@uncecs.edu) for his summary of the >NCFI conference. There is something I don't understand about >the idea he described that had protons fusing to make deuterons. >As far as I could tell, the overall reaction was > > p + e- + p --> d + neutrino. ... > ... Most of the energy (say 99.95% of it) >should be carried off by the neutrino (easy to see from conservation >of momentum). ... Actually, the reaction I had in mind was more like: a zillion protons <==> a zillion-1 protons + a virtual neutron + a virtual neutrino + a virtual positron a virtual positron + an electron <==> nothing a virtual neutron + a proton --> a deuterium When the palladium is charged, lattice sites are occupied with deuterium up to a loading factor of 1. Then, the protium impurity enters a spread-out state similar to a conduction electron. Each proton would like to have a small amplitude of being a neutron associated with it. With the wave functions of a zillion protons overlapping, the neutron amplitude contributed by each can build up to a whole neutron. This is a virtual neutron, yet it is long-lived. Each of the zillion protons can be thought of as shareholders that have invested their desire to have a virtual neutron component towards sustaining the virtual neutron. When the virtual neutron reacts with a proton, the energy must be paid out to these shareholders. The virtual neutrino gets enough energy to become real, plus about as much energy as any one proton gets. Here is an analogy. Suppose there is a library and a bunch of bibliophiles. However, it is extremely difficult to get books out of this library, and once a book has been taken out it is very difficult to return it. But there is a Draconian punishment for anyone who keeps a book for more than a short time. As a result, individual bibliophiles are rarely seen with a book. But now the bibliophiles get together and discover a loophole. If they pass a book around directly they can avoid the stupid library, enjoy the book, yet no one bibliophile would have the book for more than a short time. Naturally there will now be several books in circulation with books rarely checked out of or returned to the library. Now, the bibliophiles like money, but after paying off the rent on their apartment they don't have any left. They could share an apartment and save a bundle, but they really don't like each other unless one of them happens to have a book. Fortunately, the library has a streamlined policy for allowing the purchase of books that are in circulation. Without a book to break the ice, the bibliophiles can't get together to agree to use the savings to by a book. But with several books floating around, arrangements are easily made. However, there is a law that forbids such couples from having any extra money, and requires them to divide it among all the bibliophiles in the group. These bibliophiles then spend their share in a nightclub called "The Lattice" and end up as poor as ever. In the above analogy, a bibliophile without a book is a proton, and a bibliophile with a book is a neutron. The group of bibliophiles sharing books are the spread out protons with overlapping wave functions. The difficulty in getting books into and out of the library is the weak interaction. The law about not having a book out for more than a short time is the uncertainty principle. The requirement that the profits be divided among the bibliophiles in the group is the mysterious quantum link between a virtual particle and the system that gave rise to it (similar to the link between the real particles in Bell's EPR experiment). If the protons are the reactants, then using high purity D2O could require an extra long charging time to get enough protium into the electrode. Also, it could explain why closed cells tend to produce less excess heat that open cells (since with open cells more D2O+impurity is constantly being added). Pure H2O, on the other hand, doesn't work as well because the smaller electrolyte-electrode voltage drop is not as effective at loading the electrode. cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.10 / Vincent Cate / Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 10 Apr 90 18:28:29 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Thanks to James White I now have a copy of the Pons paper, "Our Calorimetric Measurements of the Pd/D System: Fact and Fiction". It has a copyright that belongs to the Journal of Fusion Technology. I want to contact this journal to see if it is ok to scan in the paper. Does anyone have their number? Just to let you know that it is not all that exciting I will quote from the Introduction: Following our announcement of the observation of the generation of excess enthalpy in the electrolysis of 0.1M LiOD solutions in D2O using Pd cathodes (1), (for some corrections see(2)) there have been numerous comments in the press (and some in the scientific literature e. g. (3-14)) about the accuracy of our methods and, therefore, of the validity of our results. It may be of interest to the readership of this journal to ocmpare some of these comments with our actual procedures and results. Our calorimetric measurements of the Pd/D system both in the period leading up to the preliminary publication and subsequently have shown that it is necessary to make measurements on a large number of electrodes for long times (the mean time chosen for a measurement cycle has been 3 months). It has therefore been necessary to adopt a low cost approach; our solution has been to use the single compartment Dewar cell type calorimeters illustrated in Fig. 1 and we have maintained up to five of these cells in each of three specially constructed water baths (see Section 2 below). And then in the first part of the text: Recombination does not occur because there are no exposed metal surfaces in the gas head spaces ... If there is D2 and O2 in the solution next to the Pd can't some recombine there? And control experiments? We regard the essentially zero excess enthalpy observed on 0.8 cm diameter Pd electrodes in D2O as the most significant blank ... So the cells that do not produce heat are the control cells. Science at its worst... More accurate calorimetry needed? We believe that more accurate values of the heat outputs could not be derived by using more complex instrumentation. I see, and do they need to stir the electrolyte so there are no temperature differences? (only one thermistor in the cell) Measurements of mixing history using dye injection (tracer technique of chemical reaction engineering) showed that radial mixing was extremely rapid ... It does not look like Pons has come very far in the last year. Sorry if I can not contain my disrespect for this "scientist" who is so slow to tell people exactly what he is doing or let others see working cells. It seems that when ever outsiders are watching, his cells do not seem to produce heat, funny how that works. And a law suit for someone who explaines that when he was watching some of Pons' cells there was no fusion. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.10 / rolfe petschek / Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Musings about so-called "CNF" Date: 10 Apr 90 23:12:44 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <47835@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >In article <1990Apr5.141511.3980@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >> I'll muse a bit about the Utah claims. > >Okay, Paul, then I'll muse a bit about *your* conjectures ... :-) And I on both. > >> Suppose there is some unknown particle that is causing some kind of >> energy producing reaction (just what kind, I can't say). Let's say >> the particle occurs naturally, at very low concentrations, associated >> with hydrogen (say, it is either positively charged, or binds to >> protons). Let's also suppose this "anomalous hydrogen" is massive (>> >> than a deuteron). Then: > Well, it really does seem to me that the only real hope for CNF is that there is some really bizarre particle out there that we know little about. Possibly this is just because I know (or think I know) too much about condensed matter physics to find plausible any of the explanations which have come to my attention which are based on known particles. We simply have much too much experience/knowledge of such particles for any of these bizarre things to happen. While statements of that nature are known to have been false in the past (e.g. the Mossbauer effect) none of the current explanations based on ordinary particles seem to me to pass the ordinary tests of theoretical physics. Most bizarre particle senarios fail on one or more of a) mass conservation b) negative charges like positive charges (e.g. Pd) more than H c) tunnelling integrals d) the fact that no signature for bizarre light particles is seen in high energy particle collisions or the anomolous magnetic moment of the electron/muon. e) if there has been such a particle around since the beginning of time why hasn't it reacted all known particles to iron / exploded every star etc. f) why do they stick around to cause more reactions. One senario, which I view as simply the least ridiculous which I have come up with is a pair of new particles, A and B which have the reactions A+d = p+B+1GeV B+d = p+A+1GeV Two such particles are required for conservation of spin. Note that these reactions do not conserve baryon number, but there is no fundimental reason for baryon number to be conserved. Now suppose that both A and B are light (mass, say .01 proton masses) and large (size say .01 angstroms). This, while possibly impausible is not impossible, they could be, say, topological defects in some symmetry breaking field, though one would probably expect rather heavier, smaller particles from this mechanism. Suppose, moreover that A and B have positive charge of say 1/3e and have, reasons unknown, been collecting in Pd and Ti yea these many years. Well, we load the Pd or Ti with d and then there may form (A/B)d "molecules" in the Pd or Ti. In any case because of the low mass/charge the rate of reaction by tunneling for these reactions (assuming that when these particles touch something fast like the strong nuclear force takes over) is huge compared to that for d+p, the least slow ordinary nuclear reaction. In particular the tunneling integral is down by a factor 20 or so - probably enough. Next miracle: we need to get rid of 1GeV without making easily noticeable high energy particles. Well, if this big particle has lots of excited states which are very closely spaced then it is not unimaginable that the intermediates are all highly excited A/B's. One might (stretching it) argue that the p is initially rather energetic but in escaping from this big, strongly interacting particle, it losses most of its kinetic energy to the excited modes of A/B. If the allowed transitions in A/B have relatively low energies (say 1keV, a not impausible number for a particle of this mass/size) the resultant radiation might mostly be stopped/turned to heat/missed, particularly if it where broad band - remember that this would imply something like 10^6 excited states. So why don't we a) see them in mass-specs? Well I don't think people spend much time looking at m/e=.03 b) see them in accelerator experiments/anomolous magnetic moments? Well their form factors at the relavant wavevectors can (are supposed to be) very small. c) see them in Early Universe/Stellar physics? Well - there isn't really that much d or that much A/B around. Say A/B will not interact with p or He for reasons not explained. Then this is probably enough to get by, as there is very little of anything else around and the tunneling integrals will start to take a nose-dive for higher charge particles. d) see them in anything else? Well - there just are not that many, you see. Well, I don't say that I _believe_ it but at least it seems to me consistant with known theoretical/experimental concepts, though still very implausible. Show me a well controled experiment (closed cell, reproducible calorimeter which works even when other people look at it with excess heat well above the standard error, said being computed based not only on the 2 cells (or 10 experiments) which "work" but the 40 (or 400) which are tried) and I will devote some more time to considering such ideas. I have not been able to come up with ideas which work for tritium production. This requires massive particles. If they are neutral they are presumably not likely to stay in the material. If they are charged the tunnelling integral is huge. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Associate Professor of Physics Case Western Reserve University Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / Yary Hluchan / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: yh0a+@andrew.cmu.edu (Yary Richard Phillip Hluchan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 11 Apr 90 01:17:09 GMT Organization: Class of '91, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA ]a zillion protons <==> a zillion-1 protons + ] a virtual neutron + a virtual neutrino + a virtual positron I was under the impression that not even one in a zillion protons will decay, based on the research going on in scintilation tanks deep underground. Or was that neutrons? Sheesh, too many particles these days! cudkeys: cuddy11 cudfnYary cudlnHluchan cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / Greg / Passing the buck Originally-From: greg@sunkist.berkeley.edu (Greg) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Passing the buck Date: 11 Apr 90 00:43:33 GMT Organization: U.C. Berkeley In article <1990Apr10.231244.7567@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> rpetsche@mrg.CWRU.EDU (rolfe g petschek) writes: #Well, it really does seem to me that the only real hope for CNF is that #there is some really bizarre particle out there that we know little #about. Possibly this is just because I know (or think I know) too much #about condensed matter physics to find plausible any of the explanations which #have come to my attention which are based on known particles. The chemist says: It seems to me the only real hope for CNF is some really bizarre physics, because I know too much chemistry to believe the explanations I've heard. So the condensed matter physicist says: It seems to me the only real hope for CNF is some really bizarre particle physics, because I know too much condensed matter physics to believe the explanations I've heard. And then the particle physicist says: It seems to me the only real hopf for CNF is some really bizarre condensed matter physics, because we've already studied all of the particle interactions very carefully at this energy scale. I know too much to believe the explanations I've heard. So they all ask the funding lobbyist (Robert Park), who says: I've heard this sales pitch a million times. I know WAY too much to believe it now! --- Greg cudkeys: cuddy11 cudengreg cudlnGreg cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / James White / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 11 Apr 90 17:19:17 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <8808@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >Thanks to James White I now have a copy of the Pons paper, >"Our Calorimetric Measurements of the Pd/D System: Fact and Fiction". ... >And then in the first part of the text: > > Recombination does not occur because there are no exposed metal surfaces > in the gas head spaces ... Taken out of context, this quote is misleading. It implies that Pons is arguing that recombination cannot take place because there are no exposed metal surfaces. In fact, Pons was explaining the observed fact that no recombination was occurring: "... the volumes of gas evolved from the cells corresponded to that predicted from Faraday's law to better than 99%; in addition the record of additions of liquid D2O also matched that predicted for a 100% efficient Faradaic process ..." >And control experiments? > > We regard the essentially zero excess enthalpy observed on 0.8 cm > diameter Pd electrodes in D2O as the most significant blank ... > >So the cells that do not produce heat are the control cells. Science at >its worst... Actually, this is a very good control, just as Pons claims. A good control should be as similar to the active experiment as possible. The .8 cm diameter Pd electrodes had slightly different metallurgy causing them not to exhibit the excess heat phenomena. By using them in control experiments Pons was able to keep virtually everything the same (including the D2O/Pd interface). This is merely the "most significant blank", however. There were also a number of control experiments using H2O and/or platinum cathodes. >... and do they need to stir the electrolyte so there are no temperature >differences? (only one thermistor in the cell) > > Measurements of mixing history using dye injection (tracer technique > of chemical reaction engineering) showed that radial mixing was > extremely rapid ... A little further down: "... measurements of the temperature distribution within the cells (using ensembles of 5 thermistors which could be displaced radially and axially) showed that the temperature was uniform to within +/-0.01degree throughout the bulk of the cells; ..." >It does not look like Pons has come very far in the last year. To the extent this is true, it is because he has been wasting time trying to satisfy the demands of skeptics who had already made up their minds, and couldn't be satisfied by any amount of experimental evidence. > Sorry if >I can not contain my disrespect for this "scientist" who is so slow to >tell people exactly what he is doing or let others see working cells. Sorry if I can't contain my admiration for this truly brilliant scientist who has made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. A discovery which has now been confirmed by a large number of independent groups using a variety of different calorimeters. Why don't you ask some of the many other groups seeing excess heat exactly what *they* are doing? >It seems that when ever outsiders are watching, his cells do not seem to >produce heat, funny how that works. By "outsiders" I assume you mean hard-core skeptics. When they see a working cell they then deny that they saw a working cell. Funny how that works. Pons learned the hard way that trying to convince such people using logic is futile. And their body heat didn't help the accuracy of the calorimetry, either. So now Pons only lets people into his lab if there is a good reason. When I was in his lab at the NCFI, there were 32 cells operating. There was no scoreboard flashing the results, however, just a computer quietly taking data for later analysis. If I were a hard-core skeptic I would probably claim that I didn't see any sign of excess heat. But for all I know every single cell could have been quietly producing excess heat. > And a law suit for someone who >explaines that when he was watching some of Pons' cells there was no fusion. I have never heard anything about a "law suit". cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / James White / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 11 Apr 90 17:22:15 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article yh0a+@andrew.cmu.edu (Yary Richard Phillip Hluchan) writes: >]a zillion protons <==> a zillion-1 protons + >] a virtual neutron + a virtual neutrino + a virtual positron >I was under the impression that not even one in a zillion protons will >decay, based on the research going on in scintilation tanks deep >underground. This is a different thing altogether. Those experiments are looking for baryon decay, such as proton->positron+neutrino. In the above equation the number of protons+neutrons is constant, and baryon number is conserved. cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 11 Apr 90 21:06:03 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA I have read ``Our calorimetry measurements of the Pd/D system: Fact and fiction'' by Pons and Fleischmann, and I have to say that I find myself agreeing more with James White than with Vince Cate. It seems to me that Pons and Fleischmann are working with a experimental setup familiar to them as electrochemists (open cells) which they have taken great pains to characterize. It is unreasonable to expect them to change to, e.g., closed cells when they are seeing results they believe they can accurately characterize and control. Pons and Fleischmann give 29 cells in this paper in which excess heat was observed. This is much more than in their first paper a year ago. They justify their measurement of excess heat, and so on. I think this paper answers the criticisms made in the last year, and is evidence of solid progress on the part of Pons and Fleischmann towards characterizing and reproducing the cold fusion effect. > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 11-Apr-90 Re: Pons paper / > Journal of.. James R. White@uncecs.ed (4102) Sorry if I can't contain my admiration for this truly brilliant > scientist who has made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. I agree, but please say `scientists'. Pon and Fleischmann made this discovery together. -- J cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenWebb cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / Donn Seeley / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 12 Apr 90 05:02:22 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI ** Does anyone have the phone number for the Journal of Fusion Technology? ** ** Even the city would be fine. I need to get an OK from them before ** ** scanning this paper. ** After reading James White's summary of the conference it sounded like lots of new and solid results were reported. When I got the Pons paper all it says is, "The open cell calorimetry we did is good enough." There are many simple fixes that could easily take care of legitimate concerns (stirring etc) and in the last year Pons has not done these fixes. I found this very bothersome. Jon Webb: >I agree, but please say `scientists'. Pon and Fleischmann made this >discovery together. The way Hawkins explained it to me, he designed and ran all of the experiments that worked. He said Pons and Fleischmann were asking him all sorts of questions about how to do it (last May when I visited him). Given that Fleischmann could not get a "working" experiment at Harwell, I don't think Fleischmann had much to do with the actual experiments. I skimmed through the paper and all sorts of things jumped out at me (need to use lots of cells with cheap equipment to see anything...). Of all of the cold fusion papers I have read (50+) I think the two by Pons were the worst. I think the one by Jones was the best. When I first read the Jones paper I went out and bought Palladium. A week later when I got my hands on the Pons paper I sold it. I did not like the paper, it felt bogus. This stuff about checking the background radiation 100 meters away, the 10ee27 atmospheres of pressure inside palladium metal, etc. It just seemed like he was doing lots of bad things. The fact is he was. I get about the same reaction after reading this new paper. It is a little more polished, less rushed, but the content feels about as bad. I will not make further comments about the paper and just let people decide for themselves when they read it. Vince Cate: >Sorry if >I can not contain my disrespect for this "scientist" who is so slow to >tell people exactly what he is doing or let others see working cells. James White >Sorry if I can't contain my admiration for this truly brilliant scientist >who has made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind. >A discovery which has now been confirmed by a large number of independent >groups using a variety of different calorimeters. Why don't you ask some >of the many other groups seeing excess heat exactly what *they* are doing? I have. Last summer I was living in California about 2 miles from Huggins lab at Stanford. I talked on the phone with him a number of times during the summer. He agreed to let me come in with a video camera and make a tape of them setting up cells, running them, measuring them, etc. However, he wanted to have me wait till they had working cells. The summer ended and they did not have any working cells. I wish betting were legal. It would have been really fun to watch the odds on cold fusion for the last year. Oh well. It may mean something that palladium is now selling for about $130/oz when it was at about $140 before the cold fusion stuff started and up to $175 or so when CNF was hot. >>It seems that when ever outsiders are watching, his cells do not seem to >>produce heat, funny how that works. > >By "outsiders" I assume you mean hard-core skeptics. When they see a >working cell they then deny that they saw a working cell. Funny how that >works. Pons learned the hard way that trying to convince such people using >logic is futile. I am sure that even the "hard-core skeptics" would be convinced if Pons were able to send out working cells to just a half dozen labs around the country. If pons really has 29 working cells he could advance his case no end by giving 6 of them away and without hurt his research much. What is needed is some good measurements by experienced people, closed cell calorimetry, or at least stirring!!! Experiments that people can reproduce are convincing in science. "Logic" that attempts to prove that a suspect experiment is a good one is not convincing. The best way for Pons to get federal funding would have been to give a working cell to the committee that was investigating cold fusion and let them measure it. >And their body heat didn't help the accuracy of the >calorimetry, either. So now Pons only lets people into his lab if there >is a good reason. The problem is that the more people knew about what Pons was doing the more they could point out flaws in his method. Pons answer to this was to put several levels of guards protecting the lab and tell everyone working with him not to talk to anyone. >When I was in his lab at the NCFI, there were 32 cells operating. There >was no scoreboard flashing the results, however, just a computer quietly >taking data for later analysis. If I were a hard-core skeptic I would >probably claim that I didn't see any sign of excess heat. But for all >I know every single cell could have been quietly producing excess heat. I realize that just by looking at a bubbling cell you can not tell. So it is no skin off Pons' nose to let people do that. No, I am talking about people wanting to measure things for themselves. >> And a law suit for someone who >>explains that when he was watching some of Pons' cells there was no fusion. > >I have never heard anything about a "law suit". Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) >The controversy part of tonight's short posting refers to a lawsuit >that Stanley Pons is threatening to file against his U of U colleague, >physicist Michael Salamon. Pons's lawyer has been in touch with >Salamon, and apparently the battle is over results that Salamon and his >colleague Bergeson obtained while monitoring Pons's experiment, results >that Salamon failed to publish in his Nature piece which Pons feels >will support cold fusion. Salamon apparently thinks that the material >Pons is concerned about was actually pretty insignificant. The >university will attempt to mediate the dispute by calling Pons and >Salamon to a meeting on Monday with their boss, President Chase >Peterson. I first heard about the lawsuit from some friends over at >physics, but I couldn't really bring myself to believe it until I saw >a story about it on the evening news last night... If someone were to monitor a cells of mine and say, "I did not see any statistically significant neutrons." The scientific response is for me to do my own measurements and publish those, NOT to sick a lawyer on the guy!!!!!!!! Pons is NOT acting like a good scientist. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.11 / Paul Koloc / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 11 Apr 90 20:33:00 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <10709@netcom.UUCP> mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) writes: >In article <10702@netcom.UUCP> allanh@netcom.UUCP (Allan N. Hessenflow) writes: >>In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP>, john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >>> >>> a small series resistor, and looking at the current waveforms. >>> .. ... Again, in my little prototype cell (LiOH, Pd, >>> and Au), there were indeed rapid variations. >>actually, if the voltage and current samples are simultaneous then the >>sample rate does not need to be high (although the sample aperture time >>does need to be short compared to the highest frequency components of >>the signal). >If you have frequencies up in the 10 KHz range or higher, and your using >small cells(read: high capacitance) and/or long wires(read: high inductance) >then to be truly acurate about the real power consumed, you also have to take >into account the phase angle (time lag) between current and voltage. First, the possibility is the fluxuations are just "high frequency pickup" acting on long antennae like leadins. In such a case the fluxuations would be meaningless noise, that must be sorted out. Carrying the input and output signals and power in coax cables would be most helpful. Looping the coax cables through ferrite rings to "choke" off the single lead antennae pickup at the oscilloscope (on the signal lines) and power input points (power lines) should take care of this likely possibility. Hot fusion has the same problem and even additionally transports coax cable bundles inside fairly thick walled copper pipes. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / andrew@dtg.nsc / Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 12 Apr 90 05:23:30 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. Is this true, and does anybody know the price of titanium (palladium is about $140 / oz.) ?? -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman andrew@dtg.nsc.com Albania during April! cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenandrew cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / Terry Bollinger / Coherent generation of virtual particles Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Coherent generation of virtual particles Date: 12 Apr 90 14:26:21 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 10 Apr 90 16:41:33 GMT jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) wrote regarding Hagelstein's theory of cold fusion: > With the wave functions of a zillion protons overlapping, the > neutron amplitude contributed by each can build up to a whole > neutron. This is a virtual neutron, yet it is long-lived. My thanks to James for posting a more expanded version of what (I assume) is Hagelstein's theory. It's pretty close to what I was expecting, since Hagelstein is consistently very strong on coherency concepts. That indeed seems to be Hagelstein's weak spot: He attempts to introduce coherency in situations in which it is simply not justified. I don't have time (thank goodness!) for one of my extended notes (diatribes?), but let me briefly (ha ha ha laugh laugh oh come ON Terry we KNOW you!) introduce a helpful "metric" or way of measuring the quality of pretty much any type of physical theory. I call it the Miracle Measure, or just MM. What means is simply how much "then a miracle occurs!" thinking is embedded in the theory, and also how *big* those miracles are. Very simply, a good physical must somehow reduce the MM. That does not mean it can't introduce totally new concepts -- it just means that the *way* in which those concepts are introduced should avoid assuming any more or larger miracles than necessary. One of the more dangerous approaches to theorizing is Miracle Shifting, in which the MM stays exactly the same (or gets worse), but *where* the miracle occurs shifts to some other, usually more obscure part of the the system. Miracle shifting is very tempting, because it often produces an illusion of "progress" -- overt problems (e.g., the lack of closeness of deuterons in room temperature systems) are "traded in" for problems with which the theorizers or his audience tend to be less familiar. With that introduction I can tell you succinctly why I don't find coherency in the generation of virtual particles very convincing: It is very much an example of Miracle Shifting. It is saying that *IF* the very, very highly localized strong (and weak!) forces of individual protons could somehow, someway, and in some fashion simultaneously link together and exhibit coherent behavior, then long-lived virtual neutrons would be possible. This is a miracle, and in terms of orders of magnitudes, it is probably *worse* than the original assumptions about cold fusion via simple compression! (Please note that I have *not* done any exact calculations... Feel free!) As I described once before, coherency is not magic -- the fields (e.g., electromagnetic) must "tickle" a field of relevant particles via *direct* contact. Strong and weak fields both drop off very, very, very rapidly from nucleons -- meaning they have no real opportunity within the lifespan of the universe to "tickle" the fields of other nucleons. And that is exactly what would have to happen in order to build virtual neutrons. Can the miracle be reduced, rather than just shifted? Sure. But you'll have to go to the core of, say, a neutron star to do it, since that is about the only place I can think of where strong-weak coherency has a fighting chance. ..... Again, my thanks to James for posting a nice little summary of the details of Hagelstein's theory. Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / Paul Dietz / Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 12 Apr 90 13:42:31 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <842@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: >I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. Is this true, >and does anybody know the price of titanium (palladium is about $140 / oz.) ?? Titanium is, by weight, the ninth most abundant element in the earth's crust. Palladium is the seventieth. Titanium is some fifty thousand times more abundant than palladium, by weight. Titanium oxide is widely used as a white pigment in paints. Titanium *metal* is fairly expensive, but that's because it is difficult to refine and work. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / John Moore / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 12 Apr 90 05:30:49 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU writes: ]Pons and Fleischmann give 29 cells in this paper in which excess heat ]was observed. This is much more than in their first paper a year ago. If you have this paper, could you post some data from it? I would like to see: size and shape of each electrode, current and voltage in, heat out, claimed excess heat. This would provide some more data points on the volume vs. surface controversy. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / John Moore / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 12 Apr 90 15:11:22 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Apr11.203300.9262@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: ]First, the possibility is the fluxuations are just "high frequency ]pickup" acting on long antennae like leadins. In such a case the ]fluxuations would be meaningless noise, that must be sorted out. The observations that I made (measurements would be too strong a term ;-)) showed a signal that I don't get with the same length (2 foot) leads attached to an equivalent resistor. Also, the "experiments" were done in a relatively RF free area. The cells are relatively low impedance (8 ohm) so are not too susceptible to pickup. However, it certainly wouldn't hurt to take the precautions you said when trying to do a precision measurement. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.12 / Arnie Frisch / Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: arnief@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Arnie Frisch) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 12 Apr 90 22:08:54 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <842@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: >I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. Is this true, >and does anybody know the price of titanium (palladium is about $140 / oz.) ?? Titanium is, I believe, the eighth most common element in the earth's crust. I don't know it's refined cost (maybe $2 per pound) but the Russians make submarine hulls out of the stuff. Arnold Frisch Tektronix Laboratories cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenarnief cudfnArnie cudlnFrisch cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / Barry Merriman / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 13 Apr 90 01:21:20 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU writes: > James R. White@uncecs.ed writes: >>Sorry if I can't contain my admiration for this truly brilliant >>scientist who has made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of >>mankind. >I agree, but please say `scientists'. Pon and Fleischmann made this >discovery together. Aren't you being a bit hasty---it's not at all clear to me that P&F have discovered any useful phemomena at all. Its not even clear that they have discovered anything other than their own experimental artifacts. Certainly, if I had to make a guess right now, I'd go for the big zero. Instead of proclaiming their brilliance based on an as yet non-existent discovery, lets just look at the facts of what is _known_ now. (1) Pons and Fleischman thought up a very creative experiment, based on an interesting interpretation of some anomalies in prior electrochemical work. (2) Pons and (to a lesser extent) Fleishman have behaved in a highly unscientific manner, withholding access to their experimental data and laboratory, making premature press releases, putting on glitzy shows with the hot water heater (gee, where did it get to...?), the rush for patents (to edge out Jones), wasting the time of many experimenters, etc. (3) The jury is definitely out on whether they have discovered an energy source, but existing theory and the preponderance of experiments (including their own) are against them. Based on (1), we should give them an A+ for creativity, and an A+ for effort; their conjecture was a great creative act, and their tenacity in pursuing such an unlikely idea is commendable. Based on (2), we must give them a C for character (part of this is the responsibility of the U of Utah, too), and an F for scientific integrity. Face the facts: they traded scientific integrity for patents and fame. Understandable, but they get graded accordingly. Based on (3), they are currently getting a D for actual discovery, but with a (extremely small) chance of moving up to an A+. However, we will give them an A for stimulating new thinking. By the way---we should note that Jones deserves an A on all accounts: he had a similar highly creative idea, followed through, behaved in an upright manner personally and scientifically, and the preponderance of evidence suggests that he did discover a true fusion phenomena---though it appears to simply be fracto-fusioni (no ``new physics''). If anyone deserves the accolades, it is Jones more than P and F. (Jones gave a talk here a month ago, mainly trying to distance himself from the P & F effect. He wants nothing to do with them, and thinks they are giving the whole area a bad name.) I really can't understand why anyone would credit P&F with ``the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind'', except for the fact that they have nothing to lose by saying this. I assume you've invested heavily in Pd and Ti then? Personally, I'd be willing to give 100:1 odds that, during the next year, P&F cannot rigorously demonstrate that macroscopic amounts of nuclear power are being released in their cells. Any takers? Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / D Baranski-Walk / Funding lobbyist Originally-From: bwalker@EAGLE.MIT.EDU (Donna Baranski-Walker) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Funding lobbyist Date: 13 Apr 90 13:56:35 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Greg@sunkist mentioned funding lobbyist Robert Park. Who is Robert Park? Is he pursuing CNF funding? cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenbwalker cudfnDonna cudlnBaranski-Walker cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / John Robinson / Re: Coherent generation of virtual particles Originally-From: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Coherent generation of virtual particles Date: 13 Apr 90 16:07:55 GMT Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA In article <9004121426.AA10569@ctc.contel.com>, terry@ctc (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: >On 10 Apr 90 16:41:33 GMT jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) wrote >regarding Hagelstein's theory of cold fusion: > >> With the wave functions of a zillion protons overlapping, the >> neutron amplitude contributed by each can build up to a whole >> neutron. This is a virtual neutron, yet it is long-lived. > >My thanks to James for posting a more expanded version of what >(I assume) is Hagelstein's theory. It's pretty close to what >I was expecting, since Hagelstein is consistently very strong on >coherency concepts. ... >With that introduction I can tell you succinctly why I don't >find coherency in the generation of virtual particles very >convincing: It is very much an example of Miracle Shifting. >It is saying that *IF* the very, very highly localized strong >(and weak!) forces of individual protons could somehow, someway, >and in some fashion simultaneously link together and exhibit >coherent behavior, then long-lived virtual neutrons would be >possible. > >This is a miracle, and in terms of orders of magnitudes, it >is probably *worse* than the original assumptions about cold >fusion via simple compression! Okay. Let me try to apply a little amateur quantum dynamics to that one. This is more to make sure I get the theory, but I hope it will help elucidate this theory for others, or even inspire someone. The mediators of the strong and weaks forces are particles, but can also be viewed as waves. Therefore you can get very strong probability increases through superposition (constructive interference). I assume that Hagelstein is saying that somehow the physical arrangement in a palladium lattice is just perfect for the protons in D+ to have their wavefunctions superpose and create pockets of probability high enough that real neutrons appear (much sooner than the life of the universe) out of the coherent virtual particle field. The necessity as I understand it is that, though the *average* strong and/or weak force field falls off very fast, there might be peaks in it that have appreciable magnitude. If the coherence can get these peaks to add up somehow, the theory has a chance. To do this proability computation you need to know the wave function of the correct bosons (W and Z and friends), which may not yet be known to sufficient accuracy (or does an accurate mass figure for the particles provide the necesasry function). This is a problem if the particle physicists haven't got this accuracy. Or maybe the "Hagelstein effect" will some day provide the way to measure the fields of these hard-to-isolate (read, heavy and short half-life) bosons. A possible problem as I understand things is that the superposition of linear fields in 3-space (assume a volume effect for now) should only show an ideal increase in intensity that grows with at most the cube of the number of particles involved, whereas the (average) falloff of the strong and weak fields is much more rapid that inverse-cube. However, allowing the postulated peaks, maybe they fall off not in amplitude but in "peak narrowness" (to meet the observed average behavior), but if you can align the peaks properly, the effects can happen equally strongly at large distances as at short. The weak and strong fields are already known to have non-linear shape (esp. the strong); maybe they also have bizarre wave shape as well. Amother problem is that Uncertainty ought to provide a lower bound on how "narrow" a wave function peak could be, or is it only on our measurement of it? (Conversely, the peaks could be there, but they are too small to ever measure individually - we can only observe them through superposition effects. Now *that* sounds like a Miracle Shift that doesn't conserve MM! :-) So, do we know enough about the particle physics of the weak and strong force mediators to rule out theories like this? Is it necessary to go through all the calculations (probably)? Another particle to consider: does the virtual particle soup include any muons? Could combine Jones' work back in nicely, though it would lead to the question of where the lost fusion products went to. Finally, could someone explain to me what it means for a virtual neutron to be "off its mass shell"? Thanks for listening. -- /jr, nee John Robinson Life did not take over the globe by combat, jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr but by networking -- Lynn Margulis cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenjr cudfnJohn cudlnRobinson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / James White / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 13 Apr 90 16:25:20 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <8829@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >** Does anyone have the phone number for the Journal of Fusion Technology? ** >** Even the city would be fine. I need to get an OK from them before ** >** scanning this paper. ** I don't know if this is the same Journal, but here is an address: Fusion Technology 555 N. Kensingon Ave. LaGrange Park, Illinois 60525 > ... When I got the Pons paper >all it says is, "The open cell calorimetry we did is good enough." >There are many simple fixes that could easily take care of legitimate concerns >(stirring etc) and in the last year Pons has not done these fixes. I found >this very bothersome. Stirring is not a legitimate concern. Pons has demonstrated that the temperature in his cells is uniform to within .01 degree. Other groups have seen the excess heat with stirring or with calorimeters whose accuracy is not affected by the heat distribution. On the other hand, stirring adds complexity to the calorimeter. Rapid stirring could also alter the chemistry in the cell and increase contamination from the cell walls. There is no longer any question that the excess heat phenomena is real. No conceivable error or combination of errors could explain the large amounts of excess heat that a number of groups are now seeing. Thus, what Pons should be doing (and what he is doing) is to set up a large number of simple yet accurate calorimeters, and try a number of variations of the original experiment. Anyone who refuses to believe the many high quality results that a number of groups are now reporting will not be convinced by any calorimetry. They will only be convinced when the effect is thoroughly understood. >Jon Webb: >>I agree, but please say `scientists'. Pon and Fleischmann made this >>discovery together. > >The way Hawkins explained it to me, he designed and ran all of the >experiments that worked. He said Pons and Fleischmann were asking him all >sorts of questions about how to do it (last May when I visited him). Pons and Fleischmann would have told Hawkins what experiments to do and generally how to do them. Hawkins may have contributed some crucial detail, but he probably won't share the Nobel prize. Grad students usually don't. >I skimmed through the paper and all sorts of things jumped out at >me (need to use lots of cells with cheap equipment to see anything...). A good scientist can get far better results with inexpensive equipment than a mediocre scientist with expensive equipment. Pons doesn't need lots of cells "to see anything", He can now get excess heat in almost every cell. He needs lots of inexpensive cells to study the effect. It would take 8 years to do as many experiments as he can do in a single 3 month run with 32 cells. >I am sure that even the "hard-core skeptics" would be convinced if Pons were >able to send out working cells to just a half dozen labs around the >country. If pons really has 29 working cells he could advance his case >no end by giving 6 of them away and without hurt his research much. Wrong. There are more than 6 other groups that have solid excess heat results, but that hasn't convinced the skeptics. Six more such results wouldn't make any difference. >What is needed is some good measurements by experienced people, >closed cell calorimetry, or at least stirring!!! Then you will be happy to know that there are plenty of good measurements by experienced people. Pons himself was well known as a brilliant electrochemist long before his discovery of cold fusion. Huggins had been at Stanford for 35 years, and directed the Center for Materials Research for 17 years. He had studied diffusion in semiconductors and has studied diffusion of electrochemically implanted lithium, hydrogen, and sodium in solids. He has studied the thermodynamic properties and kinetic properties of electrochemically doped materials. Just before the cold fusion announcement He was using electrochemical methods to study hydrogen in solids, including palladium. It is not surprising that Huggins was one of the first to replicate the excess heat phenomena. Huggins now uses a highly accurate closed cell calorimeter that is designed so that the accuracy is not affected by where the heat is produced (an important point for a closed cell calorimeter, where a lot of heat is generated in the recombination catalyst). Other groups also see excess heat in closed cell calorimeters, such as the Appleby group at Texas A&M, a group at Oak Ridge, a group at Case Western Reserve, etc. > ... "Logic" that attempts to >prove that a suspect experiment is a good one is not convincing. How about "logic" that attempts to prove that a good experiment is suspect? First skeptics said they would only believe the results if there were an H2O control. After this was done, the skeptics demanded that the effect be demonstrated in a closed cell before they would believe it. Now that many groups have done that, the skeptics still aren't satisfied. Trying to convince skeptics with better calorimetry is like trying to convince creationists with more fossils. It is a futile waste of time. Those researching cold fusion now realize this, so they are concentrating their efforts on studying and understanding the phenomena. cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / Terry Bollinger / A retraction... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A retraction... Date: 13 Apr 90 16:10:38 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Nature just published a rather biting "cold fusion as the Philosopher's Stone" for creating gold from, say, lead. I have not seen it yet, but it is certainly an (ahem) familiar approach to roasting the tritium results. (The comparison itself is not bad, by the way, since creating tritium via electro-chemistry most certainly *is* form of transmutation, just as much as the old lead-to-gold concept that they yearned for in the middle ages.) Since I wrote a "how to make gold" diatribe myself a couple of few weeks ago, I'd just like to clarify something: PUBLIC NOTICE: For what its worth, I'd like to publically retract my more severe criticisms about the accuracy of the various tritium results. The reason has nothing to do with and "new" information or any drastic change of heart. It's just that I went too far in criticizing complex experimental work without knowing the details. Once again, I'd suggest you talk to someone like Bill Johnson to get a "hands on" evaluation of the accuracy (or lack thereof) of tritium experiments. (Be sure to pin him down on details, not opinions. Gotta keep those LANL guys in line, you know... [:-)> ) Moving back to "safer" ground, do I think *something* peculiar is going on in the tritium experiments? Using the broadest sense of the word "peculiar," yes, I suspect quite strongly that something peculiar is going on. I flatly do not see how so many disparate groups could be fooling themselves so completely and publicly without there being *some* type of oddball phenomenon going on. The various sociological phenomena I can think of (I won't list them since they could be construed as derogatory) to explain such a thing just seem more far-fetched than the much more direct interpretation that there really is some type of peculiar physical phenomenon that is causing groups in many coutries to get unexpected results. Could that phenomenon simply be exceptionally effective separation of existing tritium? Darned if I know -- I'd suggest you ask the experimenters. Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 13 Apr 90 14:12:59 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA I decided to go ahead and post the data on the working cells: Electrode diameter in cm/Electrode length/Current in mA/cm**2/Excess heat in watts 0.1 10.00 8 0.00750 0.1 10.00 64 0.07900 0.1 1.25 64 0.00100 0.1 10.00 128 0.16000 0.1 1.25 128 0.00500 0.1 10.00 256 0.31300 0.1 1.25 512 0.08200 0.1 10.00 512 1.05000 0.1 1.25 1024 1.03000 0.2 10.00 8 0.03600 0.2 10.00 64 0.49300 0.2 10.00 64 0.00600 0.2 10.00 64 0.02400 0.2 10.00 128 1.65000 0.2 1.25 128 0.02800 0.2 1.25 256 0.05600 0.2 1.25 512 0.37800 0.2 1.25 512 0.60300 0.2 1.25 1024 2.80000 0.4 10.00 8 0.15300 0.4 10.00 64 1.75000 0.4 8.75 64 0.20000 0.4 1.25 64 0.11700 0.4 10.00 64 0.00050 0.4 1.25 128 1.05000 0.4 1.25 256 0.31100 0.4 1.25 512 3.35000 0.4 1.25 512 1.65000 I found no clean relationship between electrode volume or electrode area and excess heat. The standard deviation of the ratios were comparable and fairly large, even when I dropped apparent outliers. By the way, it appears from this table that Pons must have more working cells than just 28. Otherwise it's unlikely that he could divide them neatly into three groups of approximately equal size, etc. Also he mentions in the paper that they only recently got 0.8 cm diameter electrodes working, and none of this data is for electrodes that large. So he might have more data supporting his claim that there is a relationship between electrode volume and heat than he is reporting here. -- J cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenWebb cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / Dave Mahan / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 13 Apr 90 20:42:20 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System In article <2539@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > [ analysis deleted here ] > >I really can't understand why anyone would credit P&F with >``the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind'', except >for the fact that they have nothing to lose by saying this. I assume >you've invested heavily in Pd and Ti then? > >Personally, I'd be willing to give 100:1 odds that, during >the next year, P&F cannot rigorously demonstrate >that macroscopic amounts of nuclear power are being released in their cells. >Any takers? > >Barry Merriman Well, make that 2 years and 100:1 and I'll put a dollar on it!! I feel that actual progress is going to be slow in realtime, but at 100:1, I can afford the buck. -dave cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenmcmahan cudfnDave cudlnMahan cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.13 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 13 Apr 90 13:23:25 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 12-Apr-90 Re: Pons paper / > Journal of.. John Moore@anasaz.UUCP (700) > If you have this paper, could you post some data from it? I would > like to see: size and shape of each electrode, current and voltage in, > heat out, claimed excess heat. The table is too long to type in, and it would be violating the copyright to do that anyway. I'll summarize. There are 9 cells with 0.1 cm diameter electrodes, 10 with 0.2 cm electrodes, and 9 with 0.4 cm electrodes (oops, that makes 28, I miscounted the first time). The majority of the rods are 10cm in length, and all but one of the rest are 1.25cm. Electrolyte is either 0.1 molar LiOD, 0.5 molar Li2SO4, or 0.1 molar LiOD + 0.45 molar Li2SO4. Most of the cells have the LiOD electrolyte. Current density varies from 8 to 1024 mA/cm**2 in powers of 2. There are columns for measured cell potential, input heat, excess heat, approximate specific excess heat, and specific excess heat from regression analysis. The excess heat varies from 0.0005 to 3.35 watts. There's an obvious relationship between current density and excess heat, and a relationship with rod diameter. The highest approximate specific excess heat, 105 watts/cm**3, was measured for the smallest rod -- 0.1 cm diameter x 1.25 cm in length. But there is a comparable high value (71.2 watts/cm**3) for a 0.2 cm x 1.25 cm rod. The other high measurements are 13.4 w/cm**3 for a rod 0.1 cm x 10 cm, 15.3 w/cm**3 for 0.2 cm x 10 cm, 21.4 w/cm**3 for 0.4 cm x 1.25 cm, and 10.5 w/cm**3 for 0.4 cm x 1.25 cm. -- J cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenWebb cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Paul Dietz / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 14 Apr 90 01:59:57 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department Something nagged me when I read this latest paper. Pons and Fleischmann seem remarkably obscure in describing their cell. For example, they talk about heat transfer by radiation through the dewar walls, but nowhere do they even say how big the dewwar is (and therefore how much area is being radiated from). Nor do they say what the temperature in the cell typically is, or how big a change in temperature is produced by the excess enthalpy (although I suppose you could infer from figure 5 that, in that case, the cell was normally at about 31 C, or about 1 C warmer than the bath (more during the burst). I suppose more details will appear (someday) in the companion papers, but they could have at least included a scale for figure 1. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / James White / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 14 Apr 90 01:42:02 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <2539@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >I really can't understand why anyone would credit P&F with >``the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind'', except >for the fact that they have nothing to lose by saying this. I assume >you've invested heavily in Pd and Ti then? When I say P&F have made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind I am referring to the importance to mankind of having a cheap, clean, inexhaustible energy source. Scientifically speaking, CNF may be just another interesting solid state effect. I am also assuming that a cheaper catalyst than palladium will be found. (So I am NOT invested in Pd. As for titanium, its price would actually go down if energy costs dropped.) The bursts of excess heat that have already been reported are sufficiently intense and sustained to be useful, assuming they can be made reproducible in an inexpensive catalyst. >Personally, I'd be willing to give 100:1 odds that, during >the next year, P&F cannot rigorously demonstrate >that macroscopic amounts of nuclear power are being released in their cells. >Any takers? This is rather vague. P&F have already rigorously demonstrated that large amounts of excess heat are being produced in their cells, and this has been confirmed by a number of other laboratories. The amount of excess heat is far to large (50MJ/cm^3) to be accounted for by any known non-nuclear explanation. This doesn't rule out the possibility of an unknown non-nuclear effect. But that is rather unlikely, especially since the production of tritium shows that some nuclear reactions are taking place. P&F are brilliant electrochemists but lousy physicists, so the final proof that the excess heat is due to a nuclear process will probably come from some other group. Thus, by a strict logical interpretation of your wager you will probably win since it won't be P&F that rigorously demonstrate that the excess heat is nuclear. cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 14 Apr 90 03:55:26 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <1990Apr13.162520.3170@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: >First skeptics said they would only believe the results if there were >an H2O control. After this was done, the skeptics demanded that the >effect be demonstrated in a closed cell before they would believe it. >Now that many groups have done that, the skeptics still aren't satisfied. >Trying to convince skeptics with better calorimetry is like trying to >convince creationists with more fossils. It is a futile waste of time. >Those researching cold fusion now realize this, so they are concentrating >their efforts on studying and understanding the phenomena. "Experts" don't know what the !#%*! they're talking about when they venture outside their area of expertise (and sometimes, not even then!). Perhaps the "pro" forces (Pons et al.) would get a less hostile reaction from the "con" forces (the establishment--what a loaded term!) if they would refrain from rendering judgements THAT THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE. Specifically, they should desist from claiming that the Effect is the result of nuclear processes in general, or nuclear fusion in particular. They can't prove that is the case, and they have not earned the right to make authoritative pronouncements on the subject. Also, physicists who have not earned the right to make authoritative statements about electrochemistry should refrain from making *ss*s of themselves by challenging some of the world's foremost authorities in electorchemistry on their own specialty! Those who have expertise in BOTH disciplines can be quoted as authorities. Others should defer to them. Until someone proves he knows PRECISELY what is causing the effect (whether it's a new source of energy or a new source of energy measurement error), by formulating a theory which succussfully predicts all possible ways of reliably producing the "Effect" (such that all reproducible-on-demand experiments which exhibit the effect are predicted by the theory), the Effect remains unexplained and its "validity" remains undetermined. It is a wave function which has not yet collapsed. The "pro" forces have not yet convinced the "con" forces that the Effect is reproducible on demand. The only way to do so is to reproduce the Effect on demand whenever it is demanded. Period. Do that long enough, and the critics WILL eventually move on to the next point: measurement error and flawed experiment design. The critics will NOT put this to rest until either a successful theory is formulated, no one can think of any further sources of error, or the error is discovered. The critics have not yet exhausted their list of possible sources of error. It is valid to disagree with a criticism of one's experiment, but the critics must still be convinced that their criticism was unfounded (perhaps by means of some other experiment). "Measurement error" and "flawed experiment design" are theories, just as much as "cold fusion" or "Dicke radiance" are. What experiments have the critics done which reliably, on demand, can reproduce this "error" predicted by their theory? Such a theory must explain the difference between "working" cells which (apparently) produce "excess" heat, and "non-working" cells which (apparently) don't. Such a theory must permit any competent person to build either an apparently working cell or an apparently non-working cell as and when desired. Absent such a theory, vague hand-waving about measurement error and hypothetical flaws in the design of the experiment is nothing more than a "Mystery Shift!" An enexplained "error" is STILL an unexplained phenomenon! Who knows WHAT could be hiding under that rock?! Jumping to conclusions in the absence of reproducible evidence is neither professional nor scientific. Many people on both sides are clearly guilty of this to some degree. They deserve to be censured by their colleagues. A "science" is a discipline or endeavor which uses the "scientific method" to discover knowledge and validate truth. The effectiveness of the scientific method depends upon the professionalism, honesty and integrity of its practitioners. A "pseudo-science" may claim to be a science, and may even perform the rituals of the scientific method, but it lacks the requisite professionalism, honesty and integrity. In view of this, I find the behavior of "scientists" on BOTH sides of this issue to be very disturbing. Sign me "Unconvinced by either side." __ >>> Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne, they do not speak for me! Alan Lovejoy | "Do not go gentle into that good night, AT&T Paradyne | Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day; UUCP: alan@pdn | Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" -- Dylan Thomas cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Vincent Cate / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 14 Apr 90 19:58:04 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI >James R. White: >In article <8829@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >>** Does anyone have the phone number for the Journal of Fusion Technology? >>** Even the city would be fine. I need to get an OK from them before >>** scanning this paper. > >I don't know if this is the same Journal, but here is an address: >Fusion Technology >555 N. Kensingon Ave. >LaGrange Park, Illinois 60525 Information ((708) 555-1212 ) does not know of any Fusion Technology or Journal of Fusion Technology in LaGrange. Does anybody on sci.physics.fusion have access to this journal? It would seem amazing if nobody here did... If I can not get a phone number, maybe somebody who wants to see this paper on the net could write a letter to the journal and get them to mail me a letter giving me permission. Since I did not see any new information about how to do cold fusion, or any improvements in experimental method, I don't feel like spending any effort on getting this paper out. Sorry. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Vincent Cate / Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Date: 14 Apr 90 21:38:04 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI One thing I have not seen mentioned is this interesting note at the bottom of the table on page 22. It says, "Measurements using electrolytes labelled Y and M have been made since 23rd March, 1989." This covers only 9 of the 28 cells. The strong implication is that the other 19 cells were done before March 23rd. The "watts in" below comes from the "Qinput" in the table. The "excess" below was calculated by dividing the the "Qexcess" in the table by the "Qinput" and rounding to two digits. Several columns from the table have not been reproduced. 0.1 cm diameter electrodes: watts in excess 0.0304 25% 0.412 19% 0.032 3.1% Y 0.984 16% 0.089 5.6% Y 2.93 11% 1.491 5.5% 7.27 14% 4.04 25% 0.2 cm diameter electrodes: watts in excess 0.058 62% 1.07 46% 1.30 0.46% Y 0.956 2.5% M 5.52 30% 0.25 11% Y 0.898 6.2% M 2.77 14% 3.00 20% M 5.13 55% Y 0.4 cm diameter electrodes: watts in excess 0.137 110% 2.66 66% 3.10 8.5% 2.24 5.2% 0.198 0.25% M 8.50 12% 2.38 13% 5.69 59% 7.23 23% Cells over 10% excess before March 23rd: 16 out of 19 listed Cells over 10% excess after March 23rd: 2 out of 9 listed The two cells with significant excess in the last year were both with 0.2 cm diameter rods that were 1.25 cm long. It seems that the larger rods/cells do not work so well (0.8 cm used as blanks). This makes it look like Pons has not been very successful in his attempts to reproduce the experiment during the last year. Maybe it was just the change in electrolyte. But why don't they list any new results with the other electrolyte? And if they were so successful with the other electrolyte why were they even bothering to change the electrolyte? It would seem that at the point they were at a year ago, getting to where the experiment was consistently reproducable (so you could demo to DOE people etc) would be a much higher priority than fooling around with other electrolytes. I don't know how many cells Pons has done in the last year, but I'll bet it is well over a hundred. If he has only gotten 2 cells that have made significant heat in the last year, or less than 2% of his cells have really worked, I don't think he can really claim to be able to reproduce the experiment. I am a little puzzled by this because I did not think they had done so many cells before March 23rd. Does anyone know what is going on? Did they not mean to imply that the other results were before March 23rd? -- Vince "Our view has always been that a palladium electrode that does not show excess enthalpy in D2O is the most appropriate blank." Pons and Fleischmann cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / John Moore / Re: A retraction... Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: A retraction... Date: 14 Apr 90 17:33:53 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9004131610.AA13137@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: ]Using the broadest sense of the word "peculiar," yes, I suspect quite ]strongly that something peculiar is going on. I flatly do not see how ]so many disparate groups could be fooling themselves so completely and ]publicly without there being *some* type of oddball phenomenon going on. The polywater affair had similar sorts of things - lots of labs reporting results, others unable to replicate. Went on for years before it was proven that the effect was due to subtle contamination. -- 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 Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Vincent Cate / Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Date: 14 Apr 90 21:56:28 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI In article <8864@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > 0.2 cm diameter electrodes: > watts in excess > 0.0304 25% > ... > > 0.2 cm diameter electrodes: > watts in excess > 0.058 62% > ... > > 0.4 cm diameter electrodes: > watts in excess > 0.137 110% > ... For all rod sizes the highest percentage excess is at the lowest input power listed. This really makes me wonder how much excess heat there would be if there was no input power at all. It would be an interesting number. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.14 / Vincent Cate / Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Date: 14 Apr 90 22:08:47 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI In article <8864@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > 0.2 cm diameter electrodes: > > watts in excess >... > 0.25 11% Y >... > 3.00 20% M > 5.13 55% Y > and > Cells over 10% excess before March 23rd: 16 out of 19 listed > Cells over 10% excess after March 23rd: 2 out of 9 listed Ooops. That is 3 out of 9 new cells listed are over 10% excess. Sorry, -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.15 / Todd Courtois / Low Temperature Titanium Italian Labs experiments? Originally-From: tcourtoi@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Low Temperature Titanium Italian Labs experiments? Date: 15 Apr 90 18:48:26 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 Awhile back I remember seeing something on this newsgroup about Jones confirming some work by some researchers at an Italian national lab. These researchers were working in some tunnel in a mountain, using titanium chips cooled to liquid N temp or so. Could someone post or e-mail me the details of what *has* been confirmed about the level of neutrons, etc. observed and current theories as to why neutrons are observed (as in, what mechanism), even if at extremely low levels. Thanks! Todd Courtois tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu cudkeys: cuddy15 cudentcourtoi cudfnTodd cudlnCourtois cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / Ted Dunning / Re: Oscillating power supplies Originally-From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Oscillating power supplies Date: 16 Apr 90 02:57:59 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science In article <1990Apr9.054600.13934@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: Path: opus!lanl!lambda!topgun.agps.lanl.gov!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!zaphod. mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!nic.MR.NET!ns!logajan From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Date: 9 Apr 90 05:46:00 GMT References: <1990Apr7.214406.24387@uncecs.edu> <1612@anasaz.UUCP> Sender: news@ns.network.com Organization: Network Systems Corporation, Mpls., MN Lines: 29 In article <1612@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >I have seen regulated supplies oscillate at over 1 MHz. It is true that this can be a complicated problem with variable supplies, but fixed supplies can be made as immune to this problem as desired. not that pons or most experimenters are making any great efforts to do this. ... I would think that inductors would be favored in constant current applications while capacitors would be favored in constant voltage applications. not really. Also, it is not clear to me that oscillations increase the amount of power going in to a cell. see below. If the oscillation amplitude is less than the bias voltage such that there is never a current reversal due to voltage reversal, then the average power dissipated is equal to the bias voltage (assuming a sinusoidal supperimposed oscillation.) even correcting the assumed typo, this isn't true. take a simple case, voltage in, e = 1+sin(t) volts, load is r=1 ohm, and so the current is e/r = 1+sin(t). average input voltage is 1 volt, average current is 1 amp, but for power p = e i = 1 + 2 sin(t) + sin(t)sin(t) = 1 + 2 sin(t) + (1+cos(2t))/2 average power, E(p) = 1.5 If you do get current reversals, then your simple voltage readings will become misleading (i.e. a DC meter may read zero volts on typical AC.) the real problem is that you need to measure root mean square voltage, and even then, unless you have phase information, you are screwed. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / James White / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 16 Apr 90 03:23:40 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <7754@pdn.paradyne.com> alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) writes: >The "pro" forces have not yet convinced the "con" forces that the Effect is >reproducible on demand. The only way to do so is to reproduce the Effect >on demand whenever it is demanded. Period. Do that long enough, and the >critics WILL eventually move on to the next point: ... Some critics argue that the effect can't be real until it is made reproducible on demand. That is nonsense. (Earthquakes can't be reproduced on demand, does anyone doubt they exist?) If the effect weren't real it couldn't be demonstrated in even one error-free experiment. Thus, the effect only needs to be reproduced often enough so that all possible sources of error can be eliminated. This level of reproducibility has already been achieved. (Demand reproducibility would make the effect much easier to study, of course.) > ... The critics will NOT put this to rest until >either a successful theory is formulated, no one can think of any further >sources of error, or the error is discovered. The critics have not yet >exhausted their list of possible sources of error. ... The critics HAVE exhausted their list of possible sources of error. That is why they are reduced to harping on possibilities that have been decisively eliminated or are orders of magnitude too small. Some critics are so desperate that they abandon logic and try to dismiss the phenomena as "mass delusion". cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / James White / Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Date: 16 Apr 90 03:27:43 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <8864@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >One thing I have not seen mentioned is this interesting note >at the bottom of the table on page 22. It says, "Measurements >using electrolytes labelled Y and M have been made since >23rd March, 1989." This covers only 9 of the 28 cells. >The strong implication is that the other 19 cells were done >before March 23rd. No, the statement said that all the experiments using the new electrolytes have been made since 23rd March, 1989, and it meant just that. 10 of the experiments using the old electrolyte were also done after 23rd March, 1989. The newer experiments are the ones with an entry in the "Regression Analysis" column. > ... It seems that the >larger rods/cells do not work so well (0.8 cm used as blanks). Pons made it clear that it was only the .8 cm rods that they were using at that time that gave null results. They were getting results from newer .8 cm rods that had been prepared in a different manner, but these runs were not yet complete. >I don't know how many cells Pons has done in the last year, but I'll >bet it is well over a hundred. If he has only gotten 2 cells that have >made significant heat in the last year, or less than 2% of his cells have >really worked, I don't think he can really claim to be able to reproduce >the experiment. Actually, 11 of the new experiments in the table meet your >10% definition of "significant". And note that this paper has already been approved for publication. That means that it had to have been submitted months ago. Also, Pons runs most of his experiments for three months. Then you have to add the time for analyzing the data and writing the paper. This takes us back to around the middle of last year. Pons did not have as many cells operating back then as he has now. Certainly the number of experiments completed when he started this paper were well under a hundred. Of these some were controls, some had to be turned off for safety reasons (an intense heat burst caused them to approach 100degC), some were experiments with oddball electrolytes that didn't work out, etc. Also, The results were not the primary focus of this paper. Out of about 16 pages of text there were 2 discussing the results. I assume that one of the other two papers that have been accepted for publication (but which I haven't seen) will cover the results in detail. But even if they do, they still won't have the more recent results for the same reason as described above. Pons was heavily criticized for making his results available before they had gone through peer review, so now he is being careful to put everything through peer review first. Thus, we now have to wait. Note that when a group claims near 100% reproducibility, what they mean is that when all conditions are what they consider to be ideal, they virtually always get good results. But most of their experiments will use a variety of conditions to both search for better conditions and to generally study the phenomena. Pons, for instance, said at the conference that 1A/cm^2 gave much more consistent results than lower currents. This was based on far more than the two such results reported in the paper, which averaged 112.8W/cm^3 excess heat for a 1mm rod and 75.42W/cm^3 for a 2mm rod. Yet only two of the 19 new results mentioned in the paper used this current density. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / Scott Mueller / Morrison article update Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Morrison article update Date: 16 Apr 90 05:08:13 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix > Date: 11 Apr 90 23:21 > From: MORRISON@ch.cern.decnet.vxprix > To: d_broadhurst@uk.ac.open.acs.vax > Message-ID: <9004112117.AA10564@dxmint.cern.ch> > Subject: Cold Fusion. > > >X-Vms-To: MINT::"d_broadhurst@vax.acs.open.ac.uk" Update of version published in Physics World, February 1990. CERN/EP 90-36 20 February 1990. The Rise and Decline of Cold Fusion. Douglas R. O. Morrison CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. 1. INTRODUCTION We are all ecologists now. So when Profs. Fleischmann and Pons announced on 23rd March 1989, that at Utah, they had caused deuterium ions to fuse giving out heat using electolysis in a simple cell at room temperature - Cold Fusion - we all wanted to believe it. At first we were a bit sceptical, but then came more information - they had measured excess heat and observed neutrons, gammas, and tritium! And next day there was independent confirmation from Steve Jones of nearby Brigham Young University. Other confirmations followed quickly. The early days of April were the high point when perhaps 500 million people had heard of Cold Fusion, Fleischmann and Pons, and had dreams of sea water yielding limitless amounts of heavy water that could provide energy without pollution! But scientists quickly realised a terrible discrepancy - for each Watt of power there should be 10 E12 neutrons per second but only a few were observed - less than one per second for Jones. Hopes were briefly revived again on 18 April when Prof. Scaramuzzi of Frascati showed results of apparently high statistical significance and suggested fusion as a dynamical effect. Since then hundreds of experiments have been reported and most of them found no effect while some found positive results. The world became divided between "Sceptics" and "Believers" with the latter concentrated in some parts of the world such as Utah and Texas. After a while one felt that Cold Fusion could not be understood by normal Science alone and Pathological Science was invoked. This article reviews the present status of experimental results and attempts to understand the phenomenon of Cold Fusion. It has been well known for a century that Palladium and certain other metals can absorb large quantities of hydrogen. The idea came independently to Fleischmann and Pons and to Jones that if deuterium could be forced into Palladium, two deuterium nuclei would come so close together as to fuse giving out more power than was being put in. To do this they used a simple electrolytic cell with heavy water as the electrolyte and with Palladium or Titanium as the cathode at which the deuterium would be released. The d-d fusion processes are well-studied and are; d + d ---> 3He (0.8 MeV) + n (2.45 MeV) (1) d + d ---> t (1.0 MeV) + p (3.0 MeV) (2) d + d ---> 4He + gamma (23.8 MeV) (3). 2. MILESTONES 13 March Fleischmann informs David Williams at Harwell who start experiments. 23 March Fleischmann and Pons press conference claim heat, neutrons, gammas and tritium 24 March BYU Press release - Jones claims neutrons 31 March Fleischmann lecture at CERN - very successful but admits they had not tested with normal water. 7 April Meeting of American Electrochemical Society, Texas - great triumph. 9-12 April First copies of Fleischmann and Pons paper received -found to be unsatisfactory. Growing doubts, especially because of discrepancy between amount of excess heat and very low numbers of neutrons claimed David Williams says Harwell have not observed neutrons at the levels claimed. The number of characteristics of Pathological Science keeps rising. 15 April Most people believe in Cold Fusion except those receiving electronic mail news who know of null experiments and of discrepancies. 18 April Scaramuzzi (Frascati) apparently finds strong evidence for a dynamic origin for Cold Fusion using Titanium, D2 gas pressure and temperature 24 April Report that Fleischmann and Pons claim helium has been detected. Doubts about Scaramuzzi results on Email Network variations. 2,3 May American Physical Society meeting. Strong negative results from Nathan Lewis (Cal Tech) and Moshe Gai(Yale - BNL). Regionalisation of Results reported - negative results in Northern Europe and in Region 1 of the USA (major labs plus North-east). Positive results from Southern and Eastern Europe, Region 2 of the USA, and the rest of the world. High score on Pathological Science characteristics - 7 out of 12. 8 May American Electrochemical Society meeting - media triumph for Cold Fusion - but Sceptics are excluded except token ones after protests. 23-25 May Santa Fe meeting on Cold Fusion organised by Los Alamos for DOE. Most Americans (though not Fleischmannn nor Pons) plus some others attended. Attention given to neutron bursts reported by Menlove of Los Alamos and Jones. Gai and Jones agree to do joint experiment at Yale. Although there were more negative results than positive, the organisers tried to be "fair" and have equal numbers of positive and negative results presented so that for most watching on satellite TV the conclusions were unclear. 15 June Harwell press conference - major series of experiments costing 320 000 pounds and using 4 million pounds worth of equipment, have found no effect and hence are being stopped. And this despite initial help from Martin Fleischmann. However other positive and negative results continue to be reported. Utah particularly encouraged by reports of large amounts of tritium found at Texas A&M 12 July DOE panel give interim report - say "the experiments reported to date do not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from the phenomenon attributed to cold fusion". "No special programmes to establish cold fusion research centres.... are justified" August National Cold Fusion Research Institute established in Utah with money from the State of Utah. it is hoped to get funding from the EPRI (Electrical Power Research Institute) which has been subsidising other groups. August Japanese Fusion Institute organises Cold Fusion studies. 15, 16 Sept. Conference in Varenna. Italian groups either cannot repeat positive results or find alternative explanations of effects. SeptemberReports of experiment in Pons's lab with counters under a table which had Pons's cells on top. They did not find neutrons or gammas. Lecture in Utah summarising for the first time results and theory and concluding is Pathological Science. Director of National Cold Fusion Research Institute, Hugo Rossi says they have found nothing so far and if still unsuccessful by February will consider stopping. Interviews of people or administrators working on Cold Fusion not allowed - censorship? 28 Oct. Gai and Jones report no neutrons nor neutron bursts October NSF and EPRI sponsor conference - restricted attendence with token sceptics - media success for Cold Fusion. 12 Nov. DOE Panel final report confirms earlier opinion November Rossi resigns as Director of National Cold Fusion Research Institute December Japanese press (and Wall Street Journal) gives prominence to reports of large number of neutrons from two Japanese groups.( Later examination causes these results to be doubted - see below). Reports of some 200 scientists working on Cold Fusion. Book of papers from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Bombay describing some 6 experiments where neutrons or tritium were observed. Over 50 scientists and engineers besides a large number of technicians from more than ten divisions worked on these experiments. 1990 January Stan Pons starts series of 32 experiments to be followed by a second series of 32 experiments at the National Cold Fusion Research Institute 29-31 March Conference on Cold Fusion, Salt Lake City. 26-29 July, Tesla Symposium, Colorado Springs, 3. EXPERIMENTAL STATUS OF EXPERIMENTS The present (up to early December 1989) experimental situation based on experiments that are at least moderately well described (most are unpublished and are received by my electronic mail network or privately, so that the collection cannot be complete but is large and any bias small); A. Neutrons 1.1 Steady Production. Ten positive results of which two have been withdrawn (Fleischmann and Pons and Georgia Tech). Of the six of these for which the actual measurement rate (before correction) and the background rate are known, all had a neutron level 3 to 5 times the background. Thus although the claimed rate varied between 0.04 and 40000 neutrons per second, no one had observed a rate that was many times background and all were far from the rate of 1 E12 n/s which one Watt of power should give. Nineteen experiments have reported no significant production of neutrons. If we take the level of Jones et al. as unity, then in general terms, eight of the experiments report upper limits that are about a factor of ten lower and four give upper limits that are about a factor of hundred lower than Jones et al. A.2 Dynamic Effects - temperature and pressure changes, Frascati-type. Prof. Scaramuzzi showed provisional results suggesting that by varying the pressure and temperature, the resulting non-equilibrium conditions could produce neutrons. He has not been able to reproduce these results since April. Three other groups were able to observe this effect initially but then were not able to reproduce it and indeed found reasons to explain that their positive observations were mistaken(acoustical effects, humidity, etc.). Four other groups have reported finding no effect and two have given upper limits that are a factor of a thousand less than that of Frascati. A.3 Bursts of Neutrons. At Los Alamos, Howard Menlove, Steve Jones et al. found bursts of neutrons at a very low level. Four other groups have found no bursts. Steve accepted Moshe Gai's invitation to do a joint experiment at Moshe's lab at Yale. They reported to the Dept. of Energy Panel that they had found no bursts that could not be accounted for by cosmic rays. Wada et al. of Nagoya that after a high voltage discharge through D2 gas from lightly loaded Pd cathodes (D/Pd < 0.3), a series of decreasing bursts of neutrons were detected. They claimed a peak rate 10 000 times background but only used one BF3 counter and these are notoriously unreliable, could not check if the counts were caused by neutrons (since the cathode was damaged) and did not try a control with normal hydrogen gas. B. Gammas. The only positive result was that by Fleischmann and Pons and that has been withdrawn. Nine groups have reported finding no gammas, with levels as low as one gamma per second. C. X-Rays. When palladium is excited it emits 21 keV X-rays. The creation by fusion of protons, tritons, 3He or gammas in the palladium should cause the palladium to be excited. Four labs have reported that no 21 keV X-rays have been observed giving strong evidence for the absence of fusion products and hence of fusion. D. Tritium. The situation is confused. The original claims of Fleischmann and Pons have been withdrawn. Texas A&M report copious production with published rates corresponding to E-3 to E-8 Watts. In Los Alamos a few cells are said to give tritium but some 70 do not. Two groups have unpublished reports of finding deuterium. Five groups find no tritium production and give low upper limits. If the Texas A&M findings were correct, enormous rates of neutrons should have been produced (since the rates of reactions (1) and (2) are known to be equal) and these are not observed. E. Charged Particles. In a recent headline-making report in Japanese newspapers, Taniguchi et al. of Osaka report measurement of charged particles using a silicon surface barrier detector placed next to one wall of the detector which is actually a 10 micron thick palladium and steel cathode. The counting rates are very low and no attempt was made to exclude cosmic rays which must have given occasional higher counts (as was found for instance by Gai and Jones. F. Calorimetry. The original Fleischmann and Pons electrolytic cells had a simple design and are "open" which means the D2 and O2 gases produced are allowed to escape. many later workers used similar cells. The estimates of excess heat depend on the calibration where the cell is heated and its rate of cooling observed. It has been shown that the results depend critically on the calibration and there are important assumptions frequently employed. A safer technique is to use a constant temperature bath, CT, where the cells and their surroundings are heat to a temperature slightly higher than ambiant - any excess heat is measured by the reduction of heating required to restore the constant temperature. The best design is a "closed" cell where the D2 and O2 gases are recombined with a catalyst (usually Pd) inside the cell and the whole kept at a constant temperature. Of the 8 labs that reported excess heat, all were "open" and not kept at constant temperature. While most of the reports were of 8 to 50% excess heat (or more accurately power), Fleischmann and Pons have claimed 10 to 50 Watts. Of the 14 labs reporting no excess heat, 7 were of this "open" type and gave upper limits of 0.2 to 2% excess heat or < 0.3 Watts. Of the 5 labs using constant temperature cells, all found no excess heat giving upper limits between 0.3 and 9% or 0.1 Watt. Two labs (British Columbia and Karlsruhe) used "closed" cells. They gave upper limits of 0.3% of the 4 to 18 Watt range and 1 to 3% of the 10 to 30 Watt range resp. The balance of the evidence is that excess heat cannot be produced in a useful manner. The positive results are generally said to give excess heat erratically and in bursts which are claimed to last for many hours. It is hard to prove or to disprove such claims and many neutral people feel that some interesting physics might come out of further careful peer-reviewed studies. On the other hand when Dr Salamon and his colleagues had his neutron and gamma detectors installed under the table in Dr Pons's lab and Dr Pons's group had four cells running on that table for a total period of 5 weeks in May and June, it is surprising that they were not able to produce any excess heat for their colleagues and indeed no neutrons and gammas were observed. G. Muon - induced Fusion Since it is known that muons can replace electrons in a D2 molecule pulling the nuclei together and causing fusion (Steve Jones is an expert on this), it was hoped that muons would do the same in palladium. Muon beams have been fired into Palladium at MIT and KEK but no effect has been found. KEK deduce that cosmic ray muons should produce less than 1 E-6 neutrons per second. Tests with ciosmic rays confirm this. H. High Pressure High D2 gas pressures of 105 kbar and a megabar have been tried but no appreciable number of neutrons have been observed. I. Is there a Secret? In Pathological Science when an effect cannot be repeated, it is often said that there is a secret and the reason that someone does not find it is not because the effect does not exist, but because he does not have the special technique or secret. Hence in early April asked both Martin Fleischmann and Steve Jones if there were a secret - both replied laughingly that there was no secret - a simple table-top experiment! 4. Previous knowledge of Deuterium in Palladium A major criticism of the original proposers who expected deuterium fusion in metals such as palladium, is that the literature shows that the deuterium ions are actually much further apart in the Palladium than they are in simple gaseous deuterium so that no useful fusion is to be expected. In gaseous or liquid deuterium the two deuterium nuclei have a separation of 0.74 A. The palladium nuclei in the crystal are 3.89 A apart but as the deuterium is loaded in they are moved apart to 4.03 A. When the deuterium is first loaded, up to D/Pd = 0.8, the deuterium nuclei go into the octahedral spaces and are 2.85 A apart. If it is possible to increase the loading (e.g. by ion implantation), then the O-D separation is 1.74 A. To increase the probability of fusion it is necessary to bring the deuterium ions much closer together, e.g. when a muon replaces an electron, the nuclei are pulled together and the separation is only 0.0035A and the fusion rate is reasonable. Thus the expectation of fusion in a continuous fashion is unreasonable. For it to occur in a dynamic fashion is also unlikely as there is lots of space for the deuterium ion to wander between the ions in the lattice. Furthermore there is a theory of hydrogen ions in Palladium which is very well tested (by neutron and muon scattering, etc.) and which describes the distribution of the electrons very completely. Similarly one does not expect muons to cause measurable fusion in loaded palladium. 5. Theories of Cold Fusion Most theories assume that Cold Fusion exists with the rate claimed and then try to explain how it occurs. They do not start from what is already known about the distribution of ions and electrons in the metal. A frequent assumption is that since the fusion products (neutrons, protons, gammas) are not observed but heat is, then the whole lattice takes up the energy. But since a single ion can take up only keV while the energy released in fusion is a thousand times more, MeV , it is assumed that thousands of ions must share the energy. However there is a major objection to such theories - the time for the fusion interactions is less than 1 E-20 seconds while the time for the lattice to respond and pass along energy is about 1 E-10 seconds so that there is a discrepancy of many orders of magnitude. 6. Experimental and Theoretical Conclusion In conclusion, both experimentally and theoretically, the balance of the evidence is that fusion does not occur in metals such as palladium in electrolytic cells at any significant rate. As for the question of the heat excursions claimed, if they have any reality, they are not associated with fusion at cold(room) temperatures. 7. Influence of the Media One respect in which cold fusion differs significantly from previous examples of Pathological Science, is the major role that the media has played. The initial announcements were made by press conferences - this is not conventional in Science, but could be justified if it was really believed that this was a major new source of pollution-free energy. But then there was a rash of press releases. The State of Utah was very anxious to solve its economic problems and to contribute in a major way to science, but it is questionable whether it was wise to employ immediately the originator, Dr. Cassidy, of "pork-barrel science" - this is the technique of funding projects not by peer-review and going through the normal democratic and open channels, but by arranging for a local senator or congressman to add the project on to another bill which had nothing to do with the proposal. Since then media techniques have been fully exploited to promote cold fusion, but what is new is that twice meetings were organised to which invitatees were carefully chosen - "we only want people who have found something as they have something positive to contribute" - but excluding those who have upper limits as this is negative! While it is sometimes said that cold fusion has allowed non-scientists to see Science in action, it is not sure this is necessarily a typical example, more a very extreme poor example which could cause harm - as one person said to me "I used to think doctors never made a mistake, now with cold fusion, I am beginning to change my mind about Science too". 8. Final report of the DOE Panel. The Final Report in November by the American DOE Cold Fusion Panel concluded very diplomatically, that "the experimental results on excess energy from calorimetric cells reported to date do not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from the phenomena attributed to cold fusion". Further it said that as not all results are fully explainable, some small experiments are justified - but unlike the Interim Report it did not say that these experimental proposals should be peer-reviewed before being funded. This is a pity as one of the arguments about "pork-barrel science" was that funding was given without peer-review. 9. Pathological Science How to understand the contradictory results? In 1953 Irving Langmuir gave a delightful lecture on Pathological Science (reprinted in the Oct. 1989 issue of Physics Today) where he discussed some cases such as N-Rays, where a number of good scientists reported wrong results. He gave six characteristics of such cases. One, which I have slightly modified, is to say that there are three phases; in Phase One the original report is quickly confirmed; in Phase Two there are about equal numbers of positive and negative results; and in Phase Three there is an avalanche of negative results. In preparing a review of Cold Fusion for the May APS meeting, was surprised to find that in Northern Europe and the USA area 1 (the major labs and the North-West) the results were almost all negative whereas in Eastern and Southern Europe, Asia, Latin America and USA area 2 (the rest of the USA) the results were almost entirely positive. The numbers were statistically significant being one positive and 18 negative in the first regions and 25 positive and 2 negative in the second case. Thus the first area was already in Phase Three while the other was in Phase One. During the month of May this Regionalisation of Results continued with the first area giving 2 positive and 16 negative while the remaining regions of the world switched to six positive and 11 negative, i.e. it entered Phase Two. This regionalisation has continued with most of the world finding negative results (in Phase Three) and only Utah, Texas, India and now Japan being in Phase Two where both positve and negative results are reported. The final conclusion may be that a desire to achieve the result expected in one's local community, does influence a certain number of scientists for a long or a short time. Most face up to the totality of evidence fairly quickly, but a few never do. Thus after Blondlot's N-Rays were exposed as illusionary, he none the less published a book on N-Rays a year later, omitting the negative evidence. 10. Conclusion This is a brief summary of what has become in a short time a subject with a vast literature which touches on many aspects of chemistry and physics and which is sometimes very interesting scientifically, sometimes funny and sometimes sad. Cold Fusion will live for a long time in people's memory. -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / Wm Davidsen / Unfounded claims Originally-From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Unfounded claims Date: 16 Apr 90 12:45:17 GMT Organization: GE Corp R&D Center ]From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) ]Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology ]Date: 14 Apr 90 03:55:26 GMT ]Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida ]Perhaps the "pro" forces (Pons et al.) would get a less hostile reaction ]from the "con" forces (the establishment--what a loaded term!) if they ]would refrain from rendering judgements THAT THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE. ]Specifically, they should desist from claiming that the Effect is the result ]of nuclear processes in general, or nuclear fusion in particular. They can't ]prove that is the case, and they have not earned the right to make ]authoritative pronouncements on the subject. There is no other (known) explanation for the energy densities they have been measuring. That is, you can disagree with their measurements, but if you accept the measurements you have no other explanation for energy at that density other than nuclear processes. Therefore you either agree that the processes are nuclear or postulate some whole new field of physics. There was a good explanation posted recently of why the energy of the highest output cells can't be chemical or capacitive. Note that this doesn't prove the measurements are correct, just that *if* they are correct you have to accept nuclear processes as the source. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me cudkeys: cuddy16 cudendavidsen cudfnWm cudlnDavidsen cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / Terry Bollinger / Good point on polywater (?) Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Good point on polywater (?) Date: 16 Apr 90 19:49:54 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 14 Apr 90 17:33:53 GMT john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) wrote: > In article <9004131610.AA13137@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry > Bollinger x4157) writes: > >] Using the broadest sense of the word "peculiar," yes, I suspect quite >] strongly that something peculiar is going on. I flatly do not see how >] so many disparate groups could be fooling themselves so completely and >] publicly without there being *some* type of oddball phenomenon going on. > > The polywater affair had similar sorts of things - lots of labs reporting > results, others unable to replicate. Went on for years before it was > proven that the effect was due to subtle contamination. This is a good point, and I admit that my recollections about the time span for polywater results (months vs. years) could be wrong. But there is also a good lesson about "peculiar" results in polywater, for the various labs were indeed looking at a real and rather subtle physical phenomenon -- "essense of fingerprint oil," wasn't it? (Or maybe sodium silicate? Sigh. The trouble with "peculiar" results in this broad sense is that it does not necessarily mean "interesting." For example, I don't really consider fracto fusion to be interesting from a *fusion* viewpoint, although it is interesting from a *materials* perspective. (Think of the deuterium as being a simply one of many possible "detectors" for hot spots in materials processing. In that context, it's the hot spots that are interesting, not the fusion per se.) "Peculiar" for tritium may or may not prove to be interesting, but I do suspect it will be found to be based on some quite real (and not very obvious) physical phenomenon. And who knows -- maybe, just maybe, that phenomenon will also prove to be "interesting." Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / A Beveridge / Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Originally-From: ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Pons can NOT reproduce CNF experiment? Date: 16 Apr 90 14:03:56 GMT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center I find it curious that after months of complaining that Pons would not pub- lish any paper, when he does, it is not shared with the net. Rather it is editted and commented on, but not distributed, because it "shows nothing new." It is possible the these effects are mass delusion. It is also possible that the critics are suffering from similar delusion. These are the comments of a sociologist, not a physicist, but the continuing controversey is very interesting. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenANDQC cudfnAndrew cudlnBeveridge cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.16 / Steve Shellans / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: steves@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 16 Apr 90 21:08:27 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <1990Apr13.162520.3170@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: > [... much earnest support of Pons, his qualifications and results omitted...] > >kinetic properties of electrochemically doped materials. Just before >the cold fusion announcement He was using electrochemical methods to ^ OK, OK, so he's good. But he ain't _that_ good. :-) Steve Shellans Tektronix, Beaverton OR cudkeys: cuddy16 cudensteves cudfnSteve cudlnShellans cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Matt Kennel / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: pa1159@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 17 Apr 90 05:42:12 GMT Organization: University of California, San Diego In article <1990Apr10.164133.1205@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: > >Actually, the reaction I had in mind was more like: > >a zillion protons <==> a zillion-1 protons + > a virtual neutron + a virtual neutrino + a virtual positron > >a virtual positron + an electron <==> nothing two .511 MeV very observable photons. > >a virtual neutron + a proton --> a deuterium > >When the palladium is charged, lattice sites are occupied with deuterium >up to a loading factor of 1. Then, the protium impurity enters a spread-out >state similar to a conduction electron. Each proton would like to have a >small amplitude of being a neutron associated with it. What does this mean? Do you mean that there is some finite transition probability between the "proton" state and the "neutron" state of the "nucleon" particle? (One can regard as protons + neutrons as specific "spin" states of a 2-state nucleon) > With the wave >functions of a zillion protons overlapping, the neutron amplitude contributed >by each can build up to a whole neutron. Wave functions multiply, not add! This is a virtual neutron, yet >it is long-lived. Each of the zillion protons can be thought of as >shareholders that have invested their desire to have a virtual neutron >component towards sustaining the virtual neutron. When the virtual >neutron reacts with a proton, the energy must be paid out to these >shareholders. The virtual neutrino gets enough energy to become >real, plus about as much energy as any one proton gets. By conservation of momentum + energy I think Paul Dietz has estimated that the neutrino will get nearly all of the energy compared to a _single_ proton in a p + p -> e+ + d + neutrino Matt Kennel pa1159@sdcc13.ucsd.edu cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpa1159 cudfnMatt cudlnKennel cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / 2011_552@uwova / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: 2011_552@uwovax.uwo.ca (Terry Gaetz (Astronomy, U. Western Ontario)) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 17 Apr 90 16:19:05 GMT In article <1990Apr9.031531.12520@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: [...] > There is something I don't understand about > the idea he described that had protons fusing to make deuterons. > As far as I could tell, the overall reaction was > > p + e- + p --> d + neutrino. > > (the "pep" reaction). Leaving aside whether this really would go at a > nonnegligible rate (Koonin calculated it's really slow in ordinary > hydrogen molecules, even with the small reduced mass), I don't see why > it would be necessary to posit some magical means of depositing the > energy back into the lattice. Most of the energy (say 99.95% of it) > should be carried off by the neutrino (easy to see from conservation > of momentum). The deuteron should be left with maybe 200 eV of [...] Am I missing something here? Bahcall ("Nuclear Astrophysics") lists the pep reaction as producing a monoenergetic neutrino with 1.442 Mev. The deuteron binding energy is 2.2245 Mev (Clayton, "Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis") which leaves nearly 0.8 Mev to be disposed of, enough to make a nice gamma. > Paul F. Dietz -- Terry Gaetz -- gaetz@uwovax.uwo.ca -- gaetz@uwovax.bitnet cudkeys: cuddy17 cuden2011_552 cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Paul Dietz / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 17 Apr 90 17:25:14 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <5742.262b09b9@uwovax.uwo.ca> 2011_552@uwovax.uwo.ca (Terry Gaetz (Astronomy, U. Western Ontario)) writes: >Am I missing something here? Bahcall ("Nuclear Astrophysics") lists the pep >reaction as producing a monoenergetic neutrino with 1.442 Mev. The deuteron >binding energy is 2.2245 Mev (Clayton, "Principles of Stellar Evolution >and Nucleosynthesis") which leaves nearly 0.8 Mev to be disposed of, >enough to make a nice gamma. You forgot that we need .782 MeV to make the neutron from the proton + electron (free neutrons do decay, remember). Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Vincent Cate / Pons Paper Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons Paper Date: 17 Apr 90 18:01:42 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) >I find it curious that after months of complaining that Pons would not pub- >lish any paper, when he does, it is not shared with the net. Rather it is >editted and commented on, but not distributed, because it "shows nothing >new." Now now. The reason it is not distributed is that it has a copyright and I have not gotten permission yet. Most of the papers I get from the authors, without a copyright, and with permission to put on the net. This one is different. When after my first post nobody could give me the phone number I wondered if anyone out there even wanted to see the paper. What I said was that if I could not get the number I was not going to put any more effort into getting permission but that if someone (like Andrew Beveridge) were to get me such permission I would put it on the net. Thanks to Clay Biiker, Frank Yashar, John Fleming, and Steve Behling I now know that the Journal of Fusion Technology is published by the American Nuclear Society and their number is: 708-352-6611 However, it seems the person with the athority to give me permission is out of town right now so they will have to get back to me with their decision. So Andrew, I suppose you could call them and let them know you would appreciate it if they were to let me put it on the net but I am not going to do it without permission. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Ted Long / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: Ted.Long@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Ted Long) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 17 Apr 90 01:15:15 GMT Organization: Universal Electronics Inc. (Gateway) One thing that has puzzled me for some time re:this entire "cold fusion" affair;platinum/palladium catalyst matrices have been used for decades in radiochemical syntheses,many of which,I am sure,have used tritiated or deuterated H2O as solvents or solutes.....WHY?!? have no neutron release phenomena been noticed until recently??? If I were whipping up a batch of 3H or 2H labelled whatever in my lab,you better believe I would provide for continuous monitoring of b/g levels. .....Most Curious......... Ted -- Ted Long ...!{dhw68k,zardoz,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!Ted.Long Ted.Long@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenLong cudfnTed cudlnLong cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / 2011_552@uwova / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: 2011_552@uwovax.uwo.ca (Terry Gaetz (Astronomy, U. Western Ontario)) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 17 Apr 90 19:54:09 GMT In article <1990Apr17.172514.6432@cs.rochester.edu>, dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: > In article <5742.262b09b9@uwovax.uwo.ca> 2011_552@uwovax.uwo.ca (Terry Gaetz (Astronomy, U. Western Ontario)) writes: > >>Am I missing something here? Bahcall ("Nuclear Astrophysics") lists the pep >>reaction as producing a monoenergetic neutrino with 1.442 Mev. The deuteron >>binding energy is 2.2245 Mev (Clayton, "Principles of Stellar Evolution >>and Nucleosynthesis") which leaves nearly 0.8 Mev to be disposed of, >>enough to make a nice gamma. > > You forgot that we need .782 MeV to make the neutron from the proton + > electron (free neutrons do decay, remember). Ahhh. So the quoted binding energy was with respect to the p+n state rather than the p+e+p state. (Actually, if I had been thinking more clearly about it, the monoenergetic neutrino was itself a tipoff: if the energy could be shared between a neutrino and a photon, one would expect a continuous distribution for both.) (Blush!) Thanks for the clarification. > Paul F. Dietz -- Terry Gaetz -- gaetz@uwovax.uwo.ca -- gaetz@uwovax.bitnet cudkeys: cuddy17 cuden2011_552 cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / MORRISON@VXPRI / Cold Fusion News No. 22 Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.CH Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Douglas R O Morrison's Cold Fusion Notes No. 22 Subject: Cold Fusion News No. 22 Date: 17 Apr 90 23:39:52 GMT Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 20:31 GMT +1 Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Date: Tue, 17 Apr 90 20:31 GMT +1 Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.CH Subject: Cold Fusion News No. 22 Dear E632 and WA84 Colleagues, CERN, 13 - 17 April 1990. COLD FUSION NEWS No. 22 FIRST ANNUAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE. Summary 1. Impressions of the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference 2. Paper by Pons and Fleischmann 2.1 Content of Paper 2.2 Comments 3. New Results from the Experiment of Salamon et al. in Pons's lab 4. National Laboratories 5. Japan 6. India 7. Solar Neutrinos 8. Oppenheimer-Phillips mechanism 9. Selling a Patent Corrections LEP Progress SUMMARY The two main items are the second paper from Pons and Fleischmann and the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference which was the most unusual meeting I have attended. Here I will give the overall impression of the Conference. On return from a Collaboration meeting, hope to have time to give further and more detailed comments. On 23rd March, the first anniversary of the announcement, there was a meeting of the Supervisory Board of the National Cold Fusion Institute, NCFI. By chance I attended the last part of the meeting which was open once you got past the locked doors of the NCFI. Reports were given of the last quarter's activities. Great attention was paid to a statement by Haven Bergeson that there may be a hint of something, though he did not want to say too much as it was outside the normal range of the counter - later I saw this very preliminary peak which was inconsistent with the other data and which normally one would check first. There were some gentle questions and then the State of Utah's board approved continuation of funding(see below), though money will run out soon and there have been no offers of funding apart from a gift from an anonymous donor (was told who he is - a hero in some societies but not in other societies). A major topic is the experiment of Mike Salamon et al. who did not observe any neutrons or gammas when positioned below four of Pons's cells. They have new strong evidence against any fusion product emission at a time when Prof. Pons said one of his cells gave heat. This was published by Nature during the conference. Now there are strong rumours of a law suit against Salamon, Bergeson and the other authors - do hope this is not correct as a law court is not the best place to settle a scientific argument - though it may be good for lawyers. Obtained more precise information about what is happening in Japan and India. Thought that there was now no cold fusion experiments being performed in Europe, but have now heard of three labs in Southern Europe performing experiments. 1. IMPRESSIONS OF THE FIRST ANNUAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE The conference was quite unlike any scientific meeting I have ever attended because in addition to the attempt to be scientific, there was a strong fervour that seemed almost religious among most of the people present. The use of the words "Believers" for the good guys and "Skeptics" for the others, is indicative. The first talk was by Stan Pons and was firstly a rebuttal of some of the criticisms and secondly a very mathematical description of their calorimetry (I have been trying to urge Martin Fleischmann to do a simpler experiment with a constant temperature bath and a closed calorimeter which would not require such complicated corrections - no luck). At the end of Stan's talk a paper was distributed and will be discussed. The final talk was by Martin and was not technical but was very successfully inspirational for, something I had not seen before at a scientific meeting, most of the audience got to their feet applauding strongly and longly. I naturally applauded, for I like Martin - estimated about 80 to 90% of the audience were on their feet but it was difficult to estimate precisely as I was sitting down. All of the talks were by people who are Believers, except for Nate Hoffman who said he was neither a Sceptic nor a Believer. The result was that the 10% of the world's data that was positive, was fully presented, but the other 90% that was negative, was not presented. Both at the meeting and at a local TV discussion plus phone-in show, I protested that at a Scientific meeting ALL the data must be presented and discussed. This did not happen but at least it was admitted by Believers that most of the results were negative. The meeting had about 230 people signed up of whom perhaps ten to twenty were sceptics and of whom three (Richard Petrasso, Steve Kellogg and myself asked questions several times (note at the start of each session the Chairman read out a formula saying that audio or video recording was not allowed - though the organisers made one - and questions should only be addressed to the matter that had been presented - at one time this caused the Chairman to try and cut me off when I commented on something the speaker had said in answering a question - though he apologised privately later). It was quite possible for sceptics to attend but none were asked to speak except one who refused nor were any asked to be members of the two panel discussions. At a Scientific meeting am accustommed to there being review talks and to there being summing-up talks - i.e. to give some perspective. Here there was no serious attempt to summarise the subject or theory. It was a series of isolated talks. No one took all the positive results and asked whether they were self-consistent or not. Rather one counted the number of positive results. It was said you could get more positive results if you did certain things, but no one took all the positive results and asked if this were true. The nearest thing to a review talk was by David Worledge of the Electrical Power Research Institute, EPRI, who seemed to accept the positive tritium results but to have reservations about the others. He considered the problem of reproducibility to be dominant and said the EPRI would not fund major studies until the reproducibility problem was solved but would fund many short experiments. I agreed with many of his comments. Up to now I have not seen a single good clean convincing experiment giving excess heat and nuclear products at a reasonable rate and at a correlated time. I had hoped that we would hear the results of the series of experiments with 32 cells that Stan Pons started in January at the NCFI, but no results were available. There have been many theories of Cold Fusion. Believers said that their problems were (1) how to explain the non-reproducibility, (2) the low rate of nuclear products compared with the heat claimed and (3) the ratio of tritium to neutrons said to be a hundred million instead of the ratio of one from theory and from experiment. However before the conference I was told that a famous Italian physicist would explain all these problems. This he did (reference to an earlier paper is Il Nuovo Cimento 101(1989)845 ) and was one of the dominating characters of the Conference. Prof Guilano Preparata of Milan is indeed well-known for his unusual theories - have since been told by several people that he has explained the gravitational wave results of Weber that are in disagreement with other results and theory by many orders of magnitude and also he has explained the results of a French scientist who found that water has some remarkable properties - the more you dilute it the stronger its effects become - and who was exposed by Nature and contradicted by commissions of enquiry. There were about 100 media people there. The Press Conferences were fascinating. Some local journalists were favourable to Cold Fusion but most of the media were doubtful. A very senior official of the NCFI attacked the media which did not go down too well - it caused one journalist to say you think we are stupid but when Dr.B. says that he observed tritium production for twelve days and then shows a graph with a peak followed by a steadily falling curve, that we do not realise that it should rise continuously so that really what he observed was a high rate for a short time and then a decay for ten days [a contradiction not commented on by the regular scientists in the meeting]. The media expected Fleischmann and Pons to attend at least one press conference, and protested when told this would not happen. They protested even more when they learnt that there had been a private "press" conference for a very few selected journalists. All good religions must have a Devil that you can boo. John Maddox and his journal, Nature, well fulfilled this role. There was another physicist whose name began with K who also elicited some reaction. However in general the tone of the meeting was friendly - in this it ressembled a scientific meeting where one could disagree but still stay friends, more than a religious one. Was in the bar until midnight with some of the strongest Believers trying to play Liar's Poker - but found out we were playing different rules! The good humour was such that at the end of the meeting Richard Petrasso took the microphone with difficulty, from Martin and said that "there are exciting things that need to be explained", and said that in addition to the particles that Martin had listed as possible candidates to explain the results namely "Wimps, Champs, Dineutrons, Dubions and Morrisons", one should add :"Skeptions". For the all-important question of Funding; the DOE has said they would give two million dollars next year - for cooperative experiments. However in Pathological Science, such experiments are rare - the only previous one in Cold Fusion was between Moshe Gai and Steve Jones It was a good short experiment but finished in serious disagreements. However Steve Jones announced an amazing joint experiment between BYU and U. of U. - which he said jokingly, deserves the Nobel Peace prize! The leaders would be Steve and Hever Bergeson. Good Luck! Have not heard yet if the experiments chosen for funding by DOE will be peer-reviewed. There are two sections of EPRI that independently award funding. It is possible that the total would come to over a million dollars. As long as there is funding, research will continue. So when I am asked if there will be a Second Annual Cold Fusion meeting - I answer "Yes", though I would also expect there will be a smaller attendance by participants and by media. This is assuming there is no "smoking gun" or messy law suits. 2. PAPER BY PONS AND FLEISCHMANN After the end of the opening talk by Dr. Pons a paper was made available. As this is only the second written document from them, it will be described and commented on. 2.1 CONTENT of PAPER The paper was signed by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann (not yet by Marvin Hawkins though it contains new experimental data). It is 25 pages long plus four figures. It is entitled "Our Calorimetric Measurements of the Pd/D system: Fact and Fiction". In a footnote is written "This paper has been accepted for publication in, and copyright has been assigned to, the Journal of Fusion Technology. It will appear in the July issue. Two other papers dealing with this subject, including the full paper corresponding to the preliminary note, have been accepted for publication in other journals and will appear shortly" - one will be in the J. Electroanal. Chem. The abstract says "In this paper, we emphasise the technique, model and experimental procedures exactly as we have used them during the last few years in our calorimetric investigations. We have chosen to give this summary in the context of what others have said we have done and what we actually did". The first part of the paper answers 7 criticisms and is followed by a short Discussion. Table 1 list 28 rods which gave excess power and Table 2 lists 8 Palladium and 6 Platinium rods which gave no excess power and which are called blank experiments. The criticisms answered are (1) Recombination, (2) Gas and liquid purity determinations, (3) Mixing, (4) Control of water baths, (5) Estimate of heat transfers, (6) Heat transfers - Black Box model, (7) Blank experiments. The greatest part of the paper is mathematical analyses of heat transfers in parts (5) and (6). In Part (5), the heat transfer from the cells to the water bath is analysed in terms of radiation and conduction, in particular when a calibration is made by adding joule heating using the electrical heater (basically this means that the cell's temperature is raised for three hours and the rate of heating and cooling are observed. In Part (6), a "black box" model is introduced. The transient from the inhomogeneous non-linear differential equation is fitted to the experimental data. As the curvature of the hyperspaces converges badly, simplifications are used and the optimization is reduced to four parameters and this allows an error matrix to be evaluated. The resultant calculated error in the total output enthalpy is found to be about 0.1% which is in the range 0.1 to 10 mWatts. In the Discussion, it is pointed out and Dr. Pons showed a graph, that the excess enthalpy rises as the current density increases and there is "no indication of a limit". At 1 A/cm2 the excess enthalpy reaches 100 W/cm3. However at intermediate current densities (shown as 64 mA/cm2) there is a scatter of results, much greater than the experimental errors, and this is taken as a sign of a threshold phenomenon. The above are considered "baseline" excess enthalpies. In addition "bursts" have been observed and the most prolonged of these is shown, lasting some 500 hours. The power output is 17 to 40 times the total enthalpy input to the cells. These burst and baseline outputs are 100 to 1000 times any that could be generated by a chemical process; "We fail to see how such large specific enthalpies could be attributed to anything other than a nuclear process". They say it is not clear whether these excesses are linked to the production of tritium or neutrons though "the tritium levels increase markedly following a "burst" (factors of eight have been observed in the NCFI laboratories) but these increases are insignificant compared to the heat produced, if we assume the "normal" tritium output channel is responsible" - [by more than ten orders of magnitude actually]. The position on Blank experiments is unusual "Our view has always been that a palladium electrode that does not show excess enthalpy in D2O is the most appropriate blank". However the paper gives more conventional controls in that six experiments are reported with platinium rods and no excess heat was found. Five experiments are reported with palladium electrodes and normal LiOH instead of LiOD as the electrolyte (could not find any statement that H2O was used instead of D2O, but this is a reasonable assumption) and no excess heat was observed. The paper concludes "We note that the use of energy efficient systems would give energy producing systems even for some of the baseline excess enthalpies already produced." In the question time afterwards, Dr. Pons told Richard Petrasso that gamma ray measurements would be discussed by Dr. Fleishmann, but this did not happen. In a reply Dr. Pons said that they believed that volume effects were dominant but that there was strong evidence from other experiments that surface effects are also important. 2.2 COMMENTS It is interesting to analyse the results given in Table 1. In the original 23 March 1989 press conference, the results were expressed as the ratio of the power out to the power in and it was said that for one Watt in four Watts out were obtained. A week later this ratio rose to ten. These were apparently "baseline", i.e. steady power production and gave great encouragement to the dream of "inexhaustible source of energy". Hence in Table 1 we would expect excess heat in the range 300% to 900%, but in fact 27 of the 28 have less than 70%, and of these 22 have less than 30% and 9 less than 10%. Thus all except one cell has less than 70% excess power. Looking at the one cell that has an excess enthalpy of more than 70%, it has 112%. This sounds encouraging. Now a frequent criticism of people who fail to observe excess heat is that their current density was too low. As mentioned above, 64 mA/cm2 is considered a threshold. Now the one cell with a value of 112% had a current density of 8 mA/cm2. In considering the above numbers it should be recalled that the error in the total output enthalpy is claimed to be 0.1%. In Table 1 errors from the regression analysis are given to between 0.1% to 5%. However no errors are given for the experimental values though it should be possible by studying the spread of measurements during the long period of time each cell was run for (there is said to be a three month mean measurement cycle time). In the text it is written "The increase in the excess enthalpy with current density is very marked and at least of the order I squared". However it is instructive to ask how the percentage excess varies with current density.For current densities of 8, 64, 128, 256, 512, and 1024 mA/cm2, the average excess heat values are 68%, 17%, 25%, 10%, 23% and 40%. In view of the very wide spread of results given above it is difficult to draw any clear conclusion other than to say that the authors could claim roughly comparable percentage excess heat at all current densities. Thus the excess enthalpy would increase as the current density to the power one of the current and not at least two as claimed. In the paper the "allegations in Nature that we had not carried out blank experiments" are refuted by noting that there was reported one blank experiment with a sheet electrode. However in Table 2 it can be seen that the current density was 0.8 mA/cm2 which has elsewhere been considered to be too small. 3. NEW RESULTS FROM THE EXPERIMENT OF SALAMON ET AL. IN PONS'S LAB It will be recalled (Cold Fusion News No 18, 30 July) that Mike Salamon et al. set up their apparatus to measure neutrons, gammas, electrons and protons below a table in Pons's lab on top of which were four cells. This paper has just been published in Nature of 29 March (i.e by coincidence during the Cold Fusion Conference), vol 344(1990)401. They report upper limits between a picoWatt(E-12) and a micro- Watt(E-6) during the five weeks of running in May and June 1989. This was even though a cell was observed to boil for two hours (they were told by Dr. Pons that they should not "reference these events as being due to release of excess thermal energy"). The Salt Lake Tribune reported Dr. Pons as saying "We are not at all surprised by their results" as the cells they were monitoring were running at barely detectable levels. "We have purposely kept the power amounts low on these cells" explaining that he and colleague Martin Fleischmann are trying to "lower our error bars" in their heat detection. With the second Pons and Fleischmann paper, it is now possible to estimate numerically what these "barely detectable limits" are. They are 0.1 to 10 milliwatts. These values are many orders of magnitude greater than the upper limits of Salamon et al. and hence it must be concluded that the barely detectable heat that Dr. Pons was observing is not of nuclear origin. i.e. not fusion. A new controversy has arisen. Dr. Pons informed the authors that during the period when their apparatus was off during a power failure, "there was a two-hour segment in which there was an excessive thermal release from cell 2-1". At first the authors thought they could not have detected such an event as the power was off, however K. Dexler told them that neutrons would activate the 23Na of their sodium iodide detector to produce 24Na and this decays with the very convenient half-life of 15 hours! Re-analysing their data they were able to give upper limits of 10 mWatts(E-2) for the d(d,p)t rection and a microWatt (E-6) for the d(d,n)3He reaction. This would seem to be even stronger evidence that whatever was causing Dr. Pons to claim excess heat, is not fusion. Since the Fleischmann-Pons claim of excess heat is said by the authors not to be Chemistry and has been shown by Salamon et al. not to be Nuclear, there appears to be only one explanation. 4. NATIONAL LABORATORIES The comment has often been made that National Laboratories have not observed Cold Fusion. Hence there was relief for Believers when scientists from Los Alamos and Oak Ridge presented positive results from their labs. Indeed one very strong Believer sent me a Fax asking my opinion of the work of Scott et al. at Oak Ridge reporting the existence of excess heat, neutron emission, gamma ray activity and tritium formation. Below is a summary of my reply; a) Tritium; in my notes is written "within errors canNOT say any tritium" and in their conclusion they did not claim any tritium. b) Neutrons; Their biggest effect is 21 +/- 3 1/2 over a period of four hours. This is only one bin. It is a rate of 0.0015 neutrons/second which is about E-15 Watts or a femtoWatt. Later there was a result suggesting an excess rate of 30 neutrons per day or 1/3 E-15 Watts or 1/3 femtoWatt. Again this rate is so low it seems doubtful for a single counter. There seems to have been only one counter whereas experience has shown many times that a single 3He or BF3 counter often gives spurious signals. Thus a single counter is not trustworthy. c) Gammas; They find an excess in the bin 2.64 to 3.14. Where does this come from? - mostly likely from radioactivity, especially Thorium. I missed hearing any numerical estimate of the rate e.g. in Watts d) Excess Heat; A variation of the power in the low range of joules/second was shown - missed hearing any numerical estimate of Watts or of the ratio of power out to power in. This is the only result worth further study - would be pleased to have details of calibration, temperature control etc. Overall there seem to be major inconsistancies of many orders of magnitude in the power outputs. The experiment is a small one, surprisingly so for so large a laboratory. Both Oak Ridge and Los Alamos seem to have been doing minor experiments and not making full use of the facilities available. The only US National lab that seems to have made a substantial effort on Cold Fusion is Sandia - and they found no effects. In other Western countries some national labs have made major investigations - at Harwell in the UK, at Karlsruhe in West Germany, at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, at Mol in Belgium. All found nothing. The biggest Cold Fusion experiment in the world was at Harwell where six million dollars worth of apparatus was used and it cost half-a-million dollars. Here they did not use one neutron counter but 56 counters so that any erratic behaviour by one could be excluded by the other 55. 5 JAPAN Since the earliest days, the threat that Japan might develop an American discovery, has been brandished. At the CF Conference, Dr. Ikegami of the National Institute for Fusion Science told me that the Institute was established for Hot Fusion research. It has six large divisions working on different types of Hot Fusion. There is also a section for special projects of which Dr. Ikegami is the leader. When the Utah results were announced, his section allocated 2% of its budget of $5 million to Cold Fusion - that is $ 0.1 million. In February there was a meeting of Japanese interested in Cold Fusion and some thirty papers were presented. Of these about ten were theoretical, ten found no effect and ten found positive effects. These were essentially universities or similar institutions. There are known to be a number of private organisations working on Cold Fusion, but the scale of their activities and their results have not been made available. 6. INDIA The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC, has been working extensively on Cold Fusion. The Director, Dr. P. K. Iyengar, gave a very interesting introductory talk. He showed an impressive photograph of BARC and said 13 000 people worked there of whom 3000 were scientists. He said they had never budgeted for this type of research, so 140 volunteers have done the work but no money has officially been spent. A publication, BARC 1500 describes the work of six groups during April to September 1989. Dr. M. Srinivasan presented the results in detail and gave a generally excellent impression of competence. The results of the six groups were that neutrons were produced in bursts but in small quantities, and that tritium was produced abundantly, the ratio n/t being about E-8. However this was based on six values, namely E-8, E-9, E-7, E-8, E-3 and 1.4 E-6 which to me suggests a very wide spread and the average is less than E-8. Steve Kellogg said that if the tritium came from the reaction d + d ---> t + p, then the tritium should once in 5000 times give the reaction t + d ---> 4He + n and this neutron would have 14 MeV which would be easily recognisable. Dr. Srinivasan said they had looked for energetic neutrons but had not found them. Since BARC 1500, some 6 or 7 experiments have been performed. On March 15th tried a Pd/Ti cell and said "if do not get neutrons on first day will pack up" - got neutrons on the first day. This seems to me to be a dangerous technique, almost as bad as a professor telling a research student that he would not get a doctorate if he did not find a certain result. Although there were earlier reports of work on Cold Fusion elsewhere in India, there were no reports of work other than at BARC. 7. SOLAR NEUTRINOS In the last Cold Fusion News, the importance of a possible disagreement between the solar neutrino flux measured and theoretical expectations, was shown. The present best experiment to measure this is the Kamiokande detector in Japan. However it was proposed to shut down this detector to install a Cold Fusion cell. Explained this to Steve Jones who was not aware of this and of the possible importance of the present maximum of the sun spot cycle. However have just had a message that the Kamiokande experiment is continuing measurements and results will be presented at the important bi-annual Neutrino conference to be held in CERN in June. 8. OPPENHEIMER-PHILLIPS MECHANISM People have been seeking for a mechanism to increase the probability of deuterons penetrating the potential barrier, as normal calculations show that there is the enormous factor of ten to the power -40. one hope was that the Oppenheimer-Phillips mechanism might help. This was because the Coulomb field acts only on the proton of the deuteron and not on the deuteron centre of mass. Thus the deuteron could be polarised and the hope was that the neutron would lead into the palladium nucleus reducing the barrier factor. This has now been calculated by S.E. Koonin and M. Mukerjee (Caltech report MAP-129) who find the effect is negligible, changing the rate by less than 1%. 9. SELLING A PATENT Many people have taken out patents, and one who has a good track record of successful patents, is reported to be on the point of selling it for a million dollars. However the money has to be put into escrow and if if the system works as advertised, the money will be paid. Douglas R. O. Morrison. CORRECTIONS The article "Rise and Decline of Cold Fusion", CERN report CERN/EP 90-36, seemed to be appreciated as restoring some balance at the conference, however some corrections to it and to News No.21 were given to me. 1. Japan does not have a National Cold Fusion Research Institute - as explained above there is a Fusion Institute which was intended for Hot Fusion research. 2. On the 24 March 1989, Steve Jones did not have a press conference - the announcement was made by BYU - Steve was told he could be absent. 3. The fun particle invented by Edward Teller which he called the Meshugtron from the word "meshuga" - this word is from Yiddish and not Hebrew. LEP PROGRESS LEP and the four LEP experiments are all running well with the normal amount of interuptions. A record beam accumulation of 3.1 mA has been obtained (but not for physics). The low beta squeeze has been reduced from 7 to 4.3 cm and this was found to give a 50% increase in rates in the experiments. At times they are obtaining 10 Z0 events per minute. Each experiment has about 15 thousand new Z0 events this year. cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenMORRISON cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Poirier local / Variations and Instrumentations for CF Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com ( Poirier local) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Variations and Instrumentations for CF Date: 17 Apr 90 23:16:47 GMT Here are some assorted ideas on cold fusion I've been saving up for a while. 1) Has any successful CF run been carried out inside a Faraday cage? (One thinks a closed cell would be more amenable to this than an open one.) It's far fetched, but one hates to think that the extra energy is simply absorbed EM. What a howl if it turns out that biased, deuterated Pd is simply a good absorber of radio station KROK or whatever. 2) Stirring has been rightly pooh-poohed as an issue in the instrumentation of temperature measurement, as witness the multi-sensor and dye injection results. For another thing, it would serve to complicate the calculation of input (mechanical) energy. But stirring might be an important experimental variation affecting cells' function. The size and location of evolved gas bubbles on the metal surface certainly affects where and how fast deuterium can enter the cell. Stirring would be one way of modulating bubble effects. Incidentally, one expects that current density per unit surface area, electrode shape, and style of metallurgical processing also affect the effective distribution of bubble size and persistance on the electrode. Lots of variables affecting a little-investigated aspect; hmm, no surprise if it turns out to be significant. 3) Something so obvious I'm flabbergasted to not remember seeing it mentioned anywhere: Someone please point an imaging infrared scanner at an active cell! This will show exactly where heat is coming from; whether it is point sources within the metal, or uniform, or at bubble boundaries, or if little jets of heat are streaking out into the electrolyte, or what. If we're talking about (please correct me) the order of three watts excess heat for a good cell, that should be easily detectable. 4) On the basic science front, someone made mention of negative results from muon bombardment of (presumably pure) palladium. Given that at least some of the active cells used a LiOD electrolyte; that lithium is deposited on the electrode by the time excess heat starts; that the observable-to-date reaction products in no way fit a d-d fusion profile; and that Li+ has only one electron shell whilst Pd+ has a bunch: isn't anyone's curiosity aroused about bombardment of lithium with muons? Does it fuse, or perhaps release other weird species? Please someone post if this is a known puppy already. (I'd guess on general principles that it is known-but-classified-secret, but I can hope otherwise.) 5) In a similar vein on the experimental front, has anyone tried putting lithium into the palladium electrode directly, by metallurgical means? The possibilities include alloys, or distinct-phase implants. The latter might be accomplished by imbedding lithium wire in the source palladium sponge (whatever that is) before processing it into electrodes. 6a) Addressing the problem of how MEV-order fusion reactions can couple any significant energy into KEV-order electron shells or chemical bonds, I have an idea, wild though it be. What if fusion-level energy (name your favorite reaction) is coupled into a heavy-metal nucleus by simply having a high-energy fusion reaction product slam into it? The metal nucleus would probably go tearing off into the metal crystal, wreaking havoc in its wake much greater than what one could get from the much smaller, much faster, and much less charged original reaction product. I'd guess, many orders of magnitude greater. I'm sure someone out there feels more competent than I to compute the energy coupling of an MEV palladium+something nucleus travelling through deuterated palladium metal or perhaps lithium or D2O. At the very least, there ought to be some instrumentation added to detect *heavy* particles leaving the apparatus. 6b) Now admittedly this doesn't answer the question of how it happens that our reaction product almost never seems to miss a target as angularly small, relative to the presumed octahedral reaction site's distance to the metal nucleus, as a .22 rifle cartridge is from a football field away. Perhaps the reaction site is closer. Or perhaps "Hagelsteinian" (sp?) superposition kicks in to somehow aim the nascent fusion reaction in a direction precisely determined by the periodic structure of a particular crystalline form of the deuterated metal. In fact, I suppose perhaps the role of deuterium in the whole process could be merely to deform the metal lattice into such a superpositioning aiming structure. Then again I could be all wet, Cheers and good luck, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpoirier cudfnPoirier cudlnlocal cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.17 / Charles Poirier / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 17 Apr 90 19:54:41 GMT In article <2539@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Personally, I'd be willing to give 100:1 odds that, during >the next year, P&F cannot rigorously demonstrate >that macroscopic amounts of nuclear power are being released in their cells. > >Barry Merriman I'd be wary about taking that bet seriously. Some people will insist it's collectible right now. Others are going to see satisfactory rigor only when it's rigor mortis, of the first lucky stiff who hits it really big at Palladium Roulette. Cheers, Charles Poirier cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / Bill Bolosky / Re: Capacitive Energy Limits Originally-From: bolosky@cs.rochester.edu (Bill Bolosky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Capacitive Energy Limits Date: 18 Apr 90 18:30:31 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <9004090139.AA00866@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: >I've been quietly doing a rather detailed analysis on the upper bounds >of capacitive energy storage, and I will tell all of you this: There >is simply no way in which capacitive mechanisms could account for the >energy levels quoted above. It is a flat-out physical impossibility. [stuff deleted] > >Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that this result tends to >eliminate *all* energy storage mechanisms that involve changes to >electron orbitals. [more stuff deleted] >So what does all of this imply? Well for one thing, it means that >if *any* of the 10 MJ/cm3 or greater results are correct, then >*something* is almost certainly producing new energy that was not >previously within the atomic/molecular domain of the solid. (Please >not that this is not the same thing as saying that it is nuclear.) [...] > > Cheers, > Terry Bollinger I've been thinking about this a bit. I don't disagree with Terry's analysis (nor do I agree; I'm unqualified). However, I'm not sure that the conclusion that he makes in the last paragraph necessarily follows. The reason is this: as far as I can tell, the energy density figures presented assume that all energy comes from the Pd rods. If what is happening is indeed a storage phenomenon, is there any reason to believe that the Pt or (more importantly) the D2O + electrolyte bath is not participating in the storage? Seems to me that the volume of the Pd is very small relative to the entire cell, and therefore a more appropriate conclusion for his analysis would be that if any of the 10 MJ/cm3 results are correct, then either new energy is being produced or energy is being stored not only in the Pd rod, but also elsewhere. Bill cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenbolosky cudfnBill cudlnBolosky cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / Bill Bolosky / Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Originally-From: bolosky@cs.rochester.edu (Bill Bolosky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of NCFI conference (long) Date: 18 Apr 90 18:35:24 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1990Apr9.031531.12520@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: [Mentions the possibility that the reaction is:] > p + e- + p --> d + neutrino. [And goes on to say:] >However, if that's correct, the actual fusion rate is thousands of >times higher than anyone had been assuming, and cells making watts of >heat are actually making tens of kilowatts of neutrinos. > > Paul F. Dietz > dietz@cs.rochester.edu I understand that neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect. However, with such a truly huge amount of them, how hard would it be to tell if this is happening? What techniques are used for neutrino detection, and how hard are they to apply to such a large source? Bill cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenbolosky cudfnBill cudlnBolosky cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 18 Apr 90 21:02:27 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <1990Apr16.032340.28146@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: >In article <7754@pdn.paradyne.com> alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) writes: >>The "pro" forces have not yet convinced the "con" forces that the Effect is >>reproducible on demand. The only way to do so is to reproduce the Effect >>on demand whenever it is demanded. Period. Do that long enough, and the >>critics WILL eventually move on to the next point: ... > >Some critics argue that the effect can't be real until it is made >reproducible on demand. That is nonsense. (Earthquakes can't be reproduced >on demand, does anyone doubt they exist?) If the effect weren't real it >couldn't be demonstrated in even one error-free experiment. Thus, the >effect only needs to be reproduced often enough so that all possible >sources of error can be eliminated. This level of reproducibility has >already been achieved. (Demand reproducibility would make the effect >much easier to study, of course.) In the real world, reproducibility is not a binary property, but a continuous function, measured as the probability that any particular attempt to reproduce an effect will succeed. If the effect is reproducible 30% of the time, then 30 out of 100 experiments should show it. But this does not mean that when one experimenter is able to reproduce the effect thirty times out of 30, and another fails 70 times out of 70, that the effect is 30% reproducible! If one experimenter flips a coin a million times, and it always comes up heads, then it's time to suspect that something fishy is going on! And the fact that some other experimenter flips a coin a million times, and always gets tails, only makes things worse, not better. Obviously, those who have succeeded in reproducing The Effect either have special "coins," or a special way of "flipping" them. That is not in doubt. The controversy is over whether that specialness is scientifically and/or economically interesting, or is just the result of flaws in the design of the "coins" or in the "flipping" procedure. When other experimenters design "coins" and "flip" them as specified, but don't see The Effect AT ALL, it is understandable that certain Questions are raised... When someone is able to specify the experiment in such a way that just about any competent experimenter can reproduce The Effect with some non-zero probability of success for each attempt--and that probability does not vary wildly among different experimenters--THEN The Effect will be considered reproducible. But not until then. As for earthquakes, they differ from "cold fusion" experiments in two very important ways: many, many observers experience the same earthquake at the same time (and can make INDEPENDENT measurements of it), and no one claims to be able to cause them at will by performing some well-defined procedure. >> ... The critics will NOT put this to rest until >>either a successful theory is formulated, no one can think of any further >>sources of error, or the error is discovered. The critics have not yet >>exhausted their list of possible sources of error. ... > >The critics HAVE exhausted their list of possible sources of error. >That is why they are reduced to harping on possibilities that have >been decisively eliminated or are orders of magnitude too small. >Some critics are so desperate that they abandon logic and try to >dismiss the phenomena as "mass delusion". Documented instances of "mass delusion" of scientists have occurred in the past--within the last hundred years, in fact. Suspecting "mass delusion," given the facts, is therefore NOT an abandonment of logic. The critics are NOT satisfied that all the errors on their lists have been unequivocably ruled out. It's true that the critics may just be wrong, uninformed, and perhaps pontificating on subjects beyond their expertise in some cases. But there are valid criticisms by authoritative critics which have not been fully addressed. Reproducibility is at the top of the list, followed by Consistency of Results and Comprehensive Battery of Control Experiments. __ >>> Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne, they do not speak for me! Alan Lovejoy | "Do not go gentle into that good night, AT&T Paradyne | Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day; UUCP: alan@pdn | Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" -- Dylan Thomas cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Unfounded claims Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Unfounded claims Date: 18 Apr 90 21:09:41 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <2226@crdos1.crd.ge.COM< davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: <]From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) <]Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology <]Date: 14 Apr 90 03:55:26 GMT <]Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida < <]Perhaps the "pro" forces (Pons et al.) would get a less hostile reaction <]from the "con" forces (the establishment--what a loaded term!) if they <]would refrain from rendering judgements THAT THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE. <]Specifically, they should desist from claiming that the Effect is the result <]of nuclear processes in general, or nuclear fusion in particular. They can't <]prove that is the case, and they have not earned the right to make <]authoritative pronouncements on the subject. < < There is no other (known) explanation for the energy densities they >> Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne, they do not speak for me! Alan Lovejoy | "Do not go gentle into that good night, AT&T Paradyne | Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day; UUCP: alan@pdn | Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" -- Dylan Thomas cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / John Moore / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 18 Apr 90 04:54:17 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <188.262A6F13@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG> Ted.Long@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Ted Long) writes: ] ]One thing that has puzzled me for some time re:this entire "cold fusion" ]affair;platinum/palladium catalyst matrices have been used for decades in ]radiochemical syntheses,many of which,I am sure,have used ]tritiated or deuterated H2O as solvents or solutes.....WHY?!? have ]no neutron release phenomena been noticed until recently??? ] If I were whipping up a batch of 3H or 2H labelled whatever in my lab,you ]better believe I would provide for continuous monitoring of ]b/g levels. ].....Most Curious......... The excess neutron flux, if it exists, is extremely small. You could point a counter at it a lot an never notice it if you weren't looking pretty hard. There have been some strange results reported historically about H-Pd and D-Pd systems. The thermodynamics of H-Pd and D-Pd have not been satisfactorily explained, although they have been extensively studied for over 100 years. Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.19 / Johnny Eriksson / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: bygg@sunic.sunet.se (Johnny Eriksson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 19 Apr 90 00:31:38 GMT Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden In article <2061@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > ... >Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) >for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. There was a patent application for such a system, filed by a guy named John Tandberg, sometimes in the 20's. It was turned down, however, since the patent office people simply did not understand what it was about. Also, the legend goes that Mr. Tandberg was unable to produce a working apparatus, due to it heating up too much. The company for which he was working, Electrolux, is nowadays well known for its refridgerators. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenbygg cudfnJohnny cudlnEriksson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / barry@mesquite / Mixing Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Mixing Date: 18 Apr 90 21:05:15 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Recent reports say Pons has verified the mixing in his cells by dye injection. I'd just like to point out that even this technique could be fallible. If the rate of diffusion of dye in water is greater than that for heat, then the dye can appear well mixed, while the heat is not. Whether this occurs or not I do not know---it depends on the diffusivity of the dye he is using. However, this is not an idle speculation. One practical case where this has been a source of confusion is fluid dynamics experiments. Here, they wanted to visulaize the evolution of vorticity, not heat, in air, and they commonly use smoke as a marker. It turns out smoke difusses faster than vorticity, which has led to erroneous observations. If you want to try this at home, just blow a smoke ring (= a vortex ring). The smoke will dissipate, but in fact the ring-shaped flow is still present (you just can't see it). Whether this is a problem also depends on what the dye actually looks like when it diffuses---if is is wildly jumbled, then its probably ok. But if the spread is diffusion dominated, it could be a problem. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenbarry cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.19 / Rick Ellis / Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: rick@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Rick Ellis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 19 Apr 90 04:19:48 GMT Organization: Universal Electronics Inc. (Gateway) In a message of , Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head (andrew@dtg.nsc.com ) writes: LS@TGPEH> I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. LS@TGPEH> Is this true, Hardly. Titanium makes up 0.63% of the Earth's crust by weight. -- Rick Ellis ...!{dhw68k,zardoz,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!rick rick@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenrick cudfnRick cudlnEllis cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Terry Bollinger / Catch up comments... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Catch up comments... Date: 20 Apr 90 00:07:06 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, Time to catch up on some comments I've been meaning to make. Also, both Charles Poirier and Paul Dietz have pointed out a couple of important issues/additions regarding my Transformer Argument, and I'd like to point them out. INFRARED SCANNING? SOUNDS GOOD TO ME! On 17 Apr 90 23:16:47 GMT poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) wrote: > Someone please point an imaging infrared scanner at an active cell! Sounds like a darn good idea, although it might have to be something other than simple infrared -- transparency of the electorlyte will be an important issue. Does anyone know of any attempts to do this? HEAVY-ION TRANSFORMERS > What if fusion-level energy ... is coupled into a heavy-metal > nucleus ... ? The metal nucleus would ... go tearing off ... > wreaking havoc in its wake much greater than what one could get > from the much smaller, much faster, and much less charged > original reaction product. An important point I skipped over in my Transformer Argument: heavy ions make pretty good transformers because their massive charge lets them couple rather strongly with electrons. Thus, for example, if one could imagine a completely "clean" fission reaction -- no neutrons left over, no gammas radiated, etc., just two large ions high-tailing it away from each other (plus as many neutrinos as you care to use -- they really are invisible for all practical purposes), then (and only then) you would get a pretty good transformer. Even here, though, damage to the crystal lattice would be pretty extensive, and I suspect you'd get quite a burst of X-rays from the disruption of the inner shells of the original ion. (Paul Dietz? Do you happen to have any data on the X-ray implications of such fissions?) I know that X-rays are in a very substantial output of conventional runaway fusion reaction, but I'm only taking an off-hand guess about their origin in the disruption of the inner electron shells. Nonethless, I think it's safe to say that no known nuclear reaction (fission or fusion) is clean enough to meet the heavy-ion transformer requirements -- one would (once again) need to increase the MM substantially by introducing a "magically" clean initial reaction. In the more specific case of the rather interesting "momentum transfer" scenario Charles just mentioned, the biggest problem you would encounter is how to rapidly accelerate the ion in the first place without producing easily noticed electromagnetic radiation, whose frequency would depend on how fast you accelerated the ion. This should be doggone easy to detect, pretty much regardless of the frequency range *except* (I will admit) infrared. (Yes, if you someone out there wants to calculate the acceleration and/or deceleration needed to make various types of ions radiate *only* in the infrared, feel free. But note that such accelerations will almost certainly be hard to do in a solid -- too many atoms sitting around acting like brick walls.) ENERGY *DISPOSAL* (VS. TRANSFORMATION) -- AN IMPORTANT POINT! Both Charles Poirier and Paul Dietz have pointed out an important omission from my transformer argument -- energy disposal. Recall the comment I made about the transformed energy needing to be able to "make contact" with the huge balloons (atoms) surrounding them? Well, Paul and Charles both immediately pointed out that one could have *most* of the energy leak out by just such a mechanism, so that only a tiny fraction of the original value was left -- and what was left would then be in the same energy range as the atom. This argument is even more interesting given the fact that, as Paul Dietz has stated on the net, neutrinos are absolutely ideal candidates for this kind of energy drain. These things are so ghostly that (my best recollection, not a calculation) if a one kilogram mass suddenly turned into pure neutrinos right next to you, it wouldn't hurt you one bit. (This would depend on the specific energy level of the neutrinos -- some energies would be more likely to be absorbed by specific elements.) As with heavy ion transformers, though, just saying it don't necessarily make it so. One still must devise a reaction that dumps nearly everything into neutrinos. I have no comment on the recently posted "p + e + p --> D + neutrino" reaction except this: it depends entirely on the postulated existence of a very large number (lots of heat being produced as you may recall) of very long lived virtual neutrons. And with that, I'll finish this letter. As a separate letter (coming to your terminal shortly if you are on bitnet), you will be getting my latest comments on virtual neutrons. I've tried to resist, but I just can't stand it any longer. I do think there may be just one or two weeeeee little problems... Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / Alan Lovejoy / Re: Unfounded claims Originally-From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Unfounded claims Date: 18 Apr 90 21:09:41 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida In article <2226@crdos1.crd.ge.COM< davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: <]From: alan@oz.nm.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) <]Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology <]Date: 14 Apr 90 03:55:26 GMT <]Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida < <]Perhaps the "pro" forces (Pons et al.) would get a less hostile reaction <]from the "con" forces (the establishment--what a loaded term!) if they <]would refrain from rendering judgements THAT THEY ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE. <]Specifically, they should desist from claiming that the Effect is the result <]of nuclear processes in general, or nuclear fusion in particular. They can't <]prove that is the case, and they have not earned the right to make <]authoritative pronouncements on the subject. < < There is no other (known) explanation for the energy densities they >> Disclaimer: I do not speak for AT&T Paradyne, they do not speak for me! Alan Lovejoy | "Do not go gentle into that good night, AT&T Paradyne | Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day; UUCP: alan@pdn | Rage, rage against the dying of the light!" -- Dylan Thomas cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenalan cudfnAlan cudlnLovejoy cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / John Moore / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 18 Apr 90 04:54:17 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <188.262A6F13@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG> Ted.Long@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Ted Long) writes: ] ]One thing that has puzzled me for some time re:this entire "cold fusion" ]affair;platinum/palladium catalyst matrices have been used for decades in ]radiochemical syntheses,many of which,I am sure,have used ]tritiated or deuterated H2O as solvents or solutes.....WHY?!? have ]no neutron release phenomena been noticed until recently??? ] If I were whipping up a batch of 3H or 2H labelled whatever in my lab,you ]better believe I would provide for continuous monitoring of ]b/g levels. ].....Most Curious......... The excess neutron flux, if it exists, is extremely small. You could point a counter at it a lot an never notice it if you weren't looking pretty hard. There have been some strange results reported historically about H-Pd and D-Pd systems. The thermodynamics of H-Pd and D-Pd have not been satisfactorily explained, although they have been extensively studied for over 100 years. Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.19 / Johnny Eriksson / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: bygg@sunic.sunet.se (Johnny Eriksson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 19 Apr 90 00:31:38 GMT Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden In article <2061@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > ... >Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) >for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. There was a patent application for such a system, filed by a guy named John Tandberg, sometimes in the 20's. It was turned down, however, since the patent office people simply did not understand what it was about. Also, the legend goes that Mr. Tandberg was unable to produce a working apparatus, due to it heating up too much. The company for which he was working, Electrolux, is nowadays well known for its refridgerators. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenbygg cudfnJohnny cudlnEriksson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.18 / barry@mesquite / Mixing Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Mixing Date: 18 Apr 90 21:05:15 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Recent reports say Pons has verified the mixing in his cells by dye injection. I'd just like to point out that even this technique could be fallible. If the rate of diffusion of dye in water is greater than that for heat, then the dye can appear well mixed, while the heat is not. Whether this occurs or not I do not know---it depends on the diffusivity of the dye he is using. However, this is not an idle speculation. One practical case where this has been a source of confusion is fluid dynamics experiments. Here, they wanted to visulaize the evolution of vorticity, not heat, in air, and they commonly use smoke as a marker. It turns out smoke difusses faster than vorticity, which has led to erroneous observations. If you want to try this at home, just blow a smoke ring (= a vortex ring). The smoke will dissipate, but in fact the ring-shaped flow is still present (you just can't see it). Whether this is a problem also depends on what the dye actually looks like when it diffuses---if is is wildly jumbled, then its probably ok. But if the spread is diffusion dominated, it could be a problem. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenbarry cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.19 / Rick Ellis / Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: rick@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Rick Ellis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 19 Apr 90 04:19:48 GMT Organization: Universal Electronics Inc. (Gateway) In a message of , Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head (andrew@dtg.nsc.com ) writes: LS@TGPEH> I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. LS@TGPEH> Is this true, Hardly. Titanium makes up 0.63% of the Earth's crust by weight. -- Rick Ellis ...!{dhw68k,zardoz,lawnet,conexch}!ofa123!rick rick@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenrick cudfnRick cudlnEllis cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Terry Bollinger / Catch up comments... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Catch up comments... Date: 20 Apr 90 00:07:06 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, Time to catch up on some comments I've been meaning to make. Also, both Charles Poirier and Paul Dietz have pointed out a couple of important issues/additions regarding my Transformer Argument, and I'd like to point them out. INFRARED SCANNING? SOUNDS GOOD TO ME! On 17 Apr 90 23:16:47 GMT poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) wrote: > Someone please point an imaging infrared scanner at an active cell! Sounds like a darn good idea, although it might have to be something other than simple infrared -- transparency of the electorlyte will be an important issue. Does anyone know of any attempts to do this? HEAVY-ION TRANSFORMERS > What if fusion-level energy ... is coupled into a heavy-metal > nucleus ... ? The metal nucleus would ... go tearing off ... > wreaking havoc in its wake much greater than what one could get > from the much smaller, much faster, and much less charged > original reaction product. An important point I skipped over in my Transformer Argument: heavy ions make pretty good transformers because their massive charge lets them couple rather strongly with electrons. Thus, for example, if one could imagine a completely "clean" fission reaction -- no neutrons left over, no gammas radiated, etc., just two large ions high-tailing it away from each other (plus as many neutrinos as you care to use -- they really are invisible for all practical purposes), then (and only then) you would get a pretty good transformer. Even here, though, damage to the crystal lattice would be pretty extensive, and I suspect you'd get quite a burst of X-rays from the disruption of the inner shells of the original ion. (Paul Dietz? Do you happen to have any data on the X-ray implications of such fissions?) I know that X-rays are in a very substantial output of conventional runaway fusion reaction, but I'm only taking an off-hand guess about their origin in the disruption of the inner electron shells. Nonethless, I think it's safe to say that no known nuclear reaction (fission or fusion) is clean enough to meet the heavy-ion transformer requirements -- one would (once again) need to increase the MM substantially by introducing a "magically" clean initial reaction. In the more specific case of the rather interesting "momentum transfer" scenario Charles just mentioned, the biggest problem you would encounter is how to rapidly accelerate the ion in the first place without producing easily noticed electromagnetic radiation, whose frequency would depend on how fast you accelerated the ion. This should be doggone easy to detect, pretty much regardless of the frequency range *except* (I will admit) infrared. (Yes, if you someone out there wants to calculate the acceleration and/or deceleration needed to make various types of ions radiate *only* in the infrared, feel free. But note that such accelerations will almost certainly be hard to do in a solid -- too many atoms sitting around acting like brick walls.) ENERGY *DISPOSAL* (VS. TRANSFORMATION) -- AN IMPORTANT POINT! Both Charles Poirier and Paul Dietz have pointed out an important omission from my transformer argument -- energy disposal. Recall the comment I made about the transformed energy needing to be able to "make contact" with the huge balloons (atoms) surrounding them? Well, Paul and Charles both immediately pointed out that one could have *most* of the energy leak out by just such a mechanism, so that only a tiny fraction of the original value was left -- and what was left would then be in the same energy range as the atom. This argument is even more interesting given the fact that, as Paul Dietz has stated on the net, neutrinos are absolutely ideal candidates for this kind of energy drain. These things are so ghostly that (my best recollection, not a calculation) if a one kilogram mass suddenly turned into pure neutrinos right next to you, it wouldn't hurt you one bit. (This would depend on the specific energy level of the neutrinos -- some energies would be more likely to be absorbed by specific elements.) As with heavy ion transformers, though, just saying it don't necessarily make it so. One still must devise a reaction that dumps nearly everything into neutrinos. I have no comment on the recently posted "p + e + p --> D + neutrino" reaction except this: it depends entirely on the postulated existence of a very large number (lots of heat being produced as you may recall) of very long lived virtual neutrons. And with that, I'll finish this letter. As a separate letter (coming to your terminal shortly if you are on bitnet), you will be getting my latest comments on virtual neutrons. I've tried to resist, but I just can't stand it any longer. I do think there may be just one or two weeeeee little problems... Cheers, Terry ------------------- cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.19 / William Johnson / Re: Variations and Instrumentations for CF Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Variations and Instrumentations for CF Date: 19 Apr 90 17:08:25 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <302@xyzzy.UUCP>, poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com ( Poirier local) writes: > Here are some assorted ideas on cold fusion I've been saving up for a > while. Okay, as self-appointed s.p.f nuclear physics guru :-), I'll give some of them a try. Be aware that my use of the term "successful" in the following doesn't imply that I think *any* of the experiments reporting positive results have really "succeeded" in producing cold fusion ... > 1) Has any successful CF run been carried out inside a Faraday cage? Yes and no. Most, if not all, of the "fractofusion" experiments (Frascati, Menlove, etc.) have been performed inside stainless-steel pressure vessels that should certainly function as a Faraday cage up to some point. The vessels are little bomb-shaped gadgets (and would probably produce hand-grenade-like shrapnel if they failed while being filled with deuterium gas, a fact that had me cowering behind large objects when we worked on them ...) with a few fittings on the ends; one would expect that their electromagnetic environments inside would be fairly well isolated. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure that none of the FPH-style electrochemical experiments were as well shielded; possibly someone at Texas A&M or Stanford can show me wrong. > 2) Stirring has been rightly pooh-poohed as an issue in the instrumentation ^^^^^^^ A *lot* of people would argue with this ... > 3) Something so obvious I'm flabbergasted to not remember seeing it > mentioned anywhere: Someone please point an imaging infrared scanner at > an active cell! This will show exactly where heat is coming from; whether > it is point sources within the metal, or uniform, or at bubble boundaries, > or if little jets of heat are streaking out into the electrolyte, or what. A good idea; I'm not aware of anyone who's done it. I'll pass it on to some friends. Be aware, though, that this would be hard to bring off in a lot of groups. Same old problem of experiments being done on a shoestring ... > 4) On the basic science front, someone made mention of negative results > from muon bombardment of (presumably pure) palladium. Given that at least > some of the active cells used a LiOD electrolyte; that lithium is deposited > on the electrode by the time excess heat starts; that the observable-to-date > reaction products in no way fit a d-d fusion profile; and that Li+ has only > one electron shell whilst Pd+ has a bunch: isn't anyone's curiosity aroused > about bombardment of lithium with muons? Ah ... back to the halcyon days of my thesis work (observation of fission and neutrons from reactions of muons with actinides). This one I can address in more depth. First: > (I'd guess on general principles that it is known-but-classified-secret, but > I can hope otherwise.) Nah. There's a vast literature on such things. I'll aim you at a review article if you're interested. As for what happens when a lithium (or other) atom eats a muon: First comes an electromagnetic cascade by which the muon heads to a bound state comparable to the 1s electronic state. This manifests itself in the production of photons ("muonic x-rays") of characteristic energies. After tens of nanoseconds or more, the muon either decays (leading to an energetic electron and neutrinos) or is captured by a proton in the nucleus (resulting in creation of a neutron and the usual neutrino). In the latter case the nucleus is excited by a few MeV and proceeds to de-excite in whatever way is characteristic of that nucleus and excitation energy. (The "independence hypothesis," a generally well-established tenet of nuclear physics, states that the nucleus doesn't "care" how it got to a given excited state; the de-excitation of that state always proceeds in the same way, at least macroscopically, so the fact that the muon did the exciting doesn't matter.) The normal mode of de-excitation among light nuclei is emission of a neutron or two; one would expect excited helium-6 (the result of muon capture on lithium-6) to do likewise, and since helium-7 (from mu capture on Li-7) is unbound, at least one neutron would certainly be the result. There is nothing "magic" about this process, and in any event, it liberates less recoverable energy (what with the neutrino) than went into creation of the muon. The glory days of experiments looking at these things are now well in the past, say the early seventies or so. I'm quite sure that lithium was studied back then; I'll look it up if there's enough interest, but don't expect any miracles there. > 5) In a similar vein on the experimental front, has anyone tried putting > lithium into the palladium electrode directly, by metallurgical means? I think so, although I'm not aware of any "successful" experiments having done so. Again, corrections from TAMU and Stanford would be welcomed. Be aware that calorimetry of an electrode so treated would probably be, to put it mildly, complicated ... In fact, I've wondered if the groups claiming heat have correctly accounted for the possibility of stuff being leached off the cell walls and being deposited, possibly exothermically for one reason or another, on the electrodes. I gave up chemistry years ago :-) and won't touch that one. > 6a) Addressing the problem of how MEV-order fusion reactions can couple any > significant energy into KEV-order electron shells or chemical bonds, I > have an idea, wild though it be. What if fusion-level energy (name your > favorite reaction) is coupled into a heavy-metal nucleus by simply having a > high-energy fusion reaction product slam into it? The metal nucleus would > probably go tearing off into the metal crystal, wreaking havoc in its wake Ah, but long before it went "tearing off," certain other things would happen. For starters, some fraction of the time -- the fraction depends on a lot of things but is calculable -- the "metal nucleus" would be excited by the reaction product, and would emit characteristic (and easily detected) things within 10^-15 second or less, i.e., before it had time to "wreak havoc" in the crystal. Among these things, for example, would be gamma rays, and even the rather mediocre gamma-ray detectors associated with the FPH gang (and used by them to claim the presence of neutrons, IMHO incorrectly) would see them. No such observations have been reported. (BTW, Mike and Noel, I'm still looking forward to some spectra ...) Second, some of the fusion products would react with deuterium in the lattice (or water) rather than with the heavy-metal nuclei, giving rise to other easily-observed things. In fact, it is precisely the absence of neutrons from this source -- see some of Paul Dietz's and my postings in times gone by about this -- that makes nuclear physicists so skeptical of the reports of tritium without neutrons. -- 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: cuddy19 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Terry Bollinger / Oops! Forgot a *MAJOR* virtual neutron miracle! Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Oops! Forgot a *MAJOR* virtual neutron miracle! Date: 20 Apr 90 13:12:18 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, Well, I missed one *humdinger* of a virtual neutron miracle. It's a pretty fundamental one, too, so it's worth mentioning: MIRACLE SIX-AND-A-HALF: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO SPIN CONSERVATION?? Both the electron and the proton are spin 1/2 particles (as are all particles which "occupy space" to form ordinary matter). And so is the neutrino. (Despite its ghostly behavior, the neutrino *is* a type of "ordinary" matter, rather than a field or force particle (boson) like the photon.) No matter how one adds or subtracts two 1/2 spins, one gets a *whole* number -- meaning a boson, or force particle. But the neutron has 1/2 spin, and is an "ordinary matter" particle (fermion). This little problem is in fact the very reason why W. Pauli first proposed the neutrino for neutron decay -- he needed it to conserve spin in the reaction: n --> p + e Spin conservation is very, *very* fundamental. It applies without exception at every level of scale of the universe, from particles (as spin conservation) to galactic superclusters (as conservation of angular momentum). I've never heard a hint, not even a hint, of any process that violates conservation of angular momentum, which is the general principle of which spin conservation is a particular case. Throwing away spin is too much of a miracle to ask for even here, so perhaps the Miracle is that the 1/2 spin will somehow be transferred into the palladium lattice. That would still be very much a miracle, because (figuratively speaking) 1/2 spin units have little labels attached to them that say "make this thing into a fermion!" Unlike larger spin units such as, say, 1, you cannot just attach go blindly attaching 1/2 spin units to *systems* of particles and think it's going to work out OK. Other approaches? Well, one could postulate *another* virtual neutrino to carry that spin away -- and darn the added virtual energy cost! (You know the saying: "A neutrino here, a neutrino there, and first thing you know it adds up to real energy!") +--------------------------+------------------------------------+ | Terry Bollinger, | "Experts don't know what the !#%*! | | Information Expert | they're talking about when they | | (terry@ctc.contel.com) | venture outside their area of | | Contel Technology Center | expertise." --Alan Lovejoy | +--------------------------+------------------------------------+ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Dieter Britz / Comments, various. Originally-From: BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Comments, various. Date: 20 Apr 90 17:28:37 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway My my, this list has got busy while I was away for just two weeks - lots of MAILS to catch up with. Here are a few comments on what I read (without real quotes; I print/deleted it all, so must paraphrase): Cell Power: First, the issue of how to measure the electrical power going into an electrochemical cell. I am an electrochemist with a fair electronics background, so I'm on my home ground here: electrochemists use a control circuit called a potentiostat to control electrode potential; these can also be easily switched into the galvanostatic mode, in which the current is controlled, which I take it Pons, Fleischmann and Hawkins do. These gadgets work very well and you can take it from me that the current is steady with no noise to speak of. If gas is evolved, then the cell voltage will fluctuate, as has been pointed out (conversely, if you control the electrode potential, it will be practically rock-steady, and the current will fluctuate). The electrical power p is given at any instant by p = i * E with i the current and E the absolute value of total cell voltage. If this voltage does not fluctuate so much that it crosses zero (which will never happen in these experiments), the mean power

over a long period is

= i * and therefore, there is no problem; you need only filter the measured cell voltage, measure its mean over a given period, in order to calculate the mean power during that period. What some of you are perhaps confused with is ac power. If you have, say, a fluctuating voltage applied to a resistor, then the current, too, will fluctuate; then the above equation will not work. In a galvanostat (or any reasonable constant current supply) the current, as I say above, is steady - or in any case has noise fluctuations of such small magnitude that they don't matter. Forget this effect. Local Heat Effects: Pons et al have evidently shown films of a dye dispersing very quickly into their cell, and claim that this shows that all heat produced disperses as quickly. Barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu correctly points out that heat and mass transport are not the same but you can be sure that if the electrolyte is well mixed, the heat will also be well mixed. But what about the Pd electrode? Evidence for electrolyte uniformity tells us nothing about how warm the electrodes are. I've looked at the thermodynamics of the local reactions occurring around (and in) the two electrodes. Overall, the cell reaction is - after the initial period, where the Pd is charged with deuterium - simple electrolysis of water, with a known enthalpy. I identify four reaction regions: inside the Pd, where (only initially) PdD(x) is formed; at the Pd surface, where D2 gas is formed; at the other (Pt) electrode, where O2 bubbles off, and in the electrolyte, where water is made from recombination of D+ and OH-, respectively formed as byproducts at the two electrodes. When tha palladium is saturated with D, the major reactions are the last three. They have different enthalpies - the one in the electrolyte is exothermic, the other two are endothermic. This is in fact the trouble with the way PFH measure the heat produced, and the reason that closed-system calorimetry is essential. The suggestion by Charles Poirier, to take an infrared picture of the whole cell, is a good one - it would show the temperature distribution. PFH's "Calorimetry": I don't understand why they stick to their very primitive method, about the worst there is. To use it, they need all sorts of calibrations and corrections, not to mention assumptions. If they want us to believe in the heat their cells (or some of them) produce, they'll have to do better. You use calibrations, corrections and assumptions, if there is no other way; here, there clearly is. They should read the analysis of Balej and Divisek (look it up in my bibliography if you're out there, PFH!). Tritium: Unless I got it wrong, people who detect T do so in the gas evolved; however, if any T is made, this will happen inside the Pd, and would freely exchange with all the D in there already. I do believe that PdD(x) is quite stable, so why should this T come out, except in minute quantities? You searchers after T should look at the Pd, not the evolved gas. Earlier on, there was mention that different batches of heavy water contain widely different levels of T. During a long electrolysis, the D2O depletes and needs topping up. If another batch is then used for this, T might be "found". This is easy to fix: mix a sufficient supply beforehand and use only this. I trust this is being done? The phone number of Fusion Technology: Ring George H. Miley or Chris Stalker at (217) 333-3772. I got this out of the journal itself, from the "Call for technical notes on cold fusion" page. Hawkins?? The original PFH paper had Hawkins missing; this was later corrected by the authors, and the correct reference has all three names. Poor old Hawkins nevertheless routinely gets forgotten. Innocent or not, he should be included and share the gains, or the blame. Brilliant scientists: James White calls Pons a brilliant electrochemist; later he favours Fleischmann similarly. Pons is in fact quite well known for his work in at least one other area of electrochemistry but I don't know about brilliant. Fleischmann, his one-time teacher, comes much closer, being very well known in the field; like Bockris, he's one of the Grand Old Men of electrochemistry - and also known, like Bockris, for some idiosyncracies. These do not detract from their competence. It seems to me significant that Fleischmann always expresses himself much more carefully than Pons, sometimes at variance with Pons. I can't explain, though, why he would coauthor a paper as badly written as their first one on cold fusion, even if they were in a hurry, nor why either Pons or he, who both have lots of research money, would use such primitive gear - unless they wanted to recapture the string-and-sealing-wax days of Rutherford. Believe it or not: Why must we choose? I tend not to believe in cold fusion, but noone at this stage can be sure. The affair has all the hallmarks of a grandiose fizzle - but if someone does come up with good evidence, I'd have to believe it, of course. The way to enlightenment is more evidence, not heated mudslinging or lawsuits. Someone must come up with something better than "a hitherto unknown nuclear reaction", like a theory for such a process; PFH must define the proper operating conditions so that others (and they themselves!) can reproduce the effects, if any. "We had some cells that boiled - it's definitely nuclear" is not good enough. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / rolfe petschek / Re: Mixing Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Mixing Date: 20 Apr 90 17:06:52 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <2574@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@MATH.UCLA.EDU (Barry Merriman) writes: >Recent reports say Pons has verified the mixing in his cells by >dye injection. I'd just like to point out that even this technique >could be fallible. If the rate of diffusion of dye in water is >greater than that for heat, then the dye can appear well mixed, >while the heat is not. > Well in non stirred systems it is usual that the diffusivity of molecules is .01 or less of that of heat. Don't see how stirring would change this (except to make the diffusivities the same). I assume that there are no big thermodynamic effects e.g. the dye is more or less an ideal solution in the electrolyte. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Associate Professor of Physics Case Western Reserve University Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Larry Wall / Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Originally-From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Date: 20 Apr 90 19:00:58 GMT Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA When you characterize the weak and electromagnetic interactions as so very different (which they are, of course) it bugs me just a little. Suppose we assume a Really Big Miracle like low temp electroweak tunneling. How many of your little miracles would this perhaps alleviate? It seems to me that photons are much more useful than "weakons". Just stirring the pot... Larry Wall lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenlwall cudfnLarry cudlnWall cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / K Chin-Purcell / Re: Variations and Instrumentations for CF Originally-From: ken@wj.msc.umn.edu (Ken Chin-Purcell) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Variations and Instrumentations for CF Date: 20 Apr 90 21:13:39 GMT Organization: Minnesota Supercomputer Center In article <48959@lanl.gov>, mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: > In article <302@xyzzy.UUCP>, poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com ( Poirier local) writes: > > > 3) Something so obvious I'm flabbergasted to not remember seeing it > > mentioned anywhere: Someone please point an imaging infrared scanner at > > an active cell! This will show exactly where heat is coming from; whether > > it is point sources within the metal, or uniform, or at bubble boundaries, > > or if little jets of heat are streaking out into the electrolyte, or what. > > A good idea; I'm not aware of anyone who's done it. I'll pass it on to > some friends. Be aware, though, that this would be hard to bring off in a > lot of groups. Same old problem of experiments being done on a > shoestring ... Something quick and cheap: make a shadowgraph. Get a bright point light source (a cheap laser or a bright lamp), make a moderately parallel beam (e.g. back the laser up 30' and use a single long focal length lens). Shine the beam though a tank with flat sides and onto a piece of paper (taped to the other wall? :') ). The heat changes the index of refraction of the fluid, causing shadows. Technicaly you are seeing the second derivative of the index of refraction, but who cares. All a shadowgraph will really tell you is qualitatively where the hot spots are in a cell. I used to use shadowgraphs for heat transfer experiments with plasma torches. For no extra money and a few hours work it is an easy way to visualize (and photograph!) heat transfer in a fluid. ||| Ken Chin-Purcell ||| also known as ken@msc.umn.edu and (612) 626-1340 ||| Minnesota Supercomputer Center, University of Minnesota cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenken cudfnKen cudlnChin-Purcell cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / William Johnson / Re: Comments, various. Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments, various. Date: 20 Apr 90 22:34:49 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <9004201450.AA28577@danpost.uni-c.dk>, BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: (His usual excellent review, from which I pick the following fragment:) > Tritium: > Unless I got it wrong, people who detect T do so in the gas evolved; however, > if any T is made, this will happen inside the Pd, and would freely exchange > with all the D in there already. I do believe that PdD(x) is quite stable, so > why should this T come out, except in minute quantities? You searchers after > T should look at the Pd, not the evolved gas. Earlier on, there was mention > that different batches of heavy water contain widely different levels of T. > During a long electrolysis, the D2O depletes and needs topping up. If another > batch is then used for this, T might be "found". This is easy to fix: mix a > sufficient supply beforehand and use only this. I trust this is being done? Good to hear from you again, Dieter! How was your trip? We'll talk by e-mail next week, but first: Most of the experiments I know of, successful or un, that look for tritium do so in the *liquid* phase. The normal procedure is: (1) draw a milliliter or so of electrolyte from the cell (replacing it with heavy water -- one should take a sample of the heavy-water stock at the same time, more about that in a minute); (2) Do a vacuum distillation on the sample to get rid of any LiOD or other stuff that might cause trouble later (this is optional and most groups omit it, since experience seems to show that the LiOD doesn't really mess you up); (3) add an aliquot of a water-soluble scintillator that lights up when a beta particle wanders along; (4) stuff the "scintillation cocktail," as the resulting mix is known, into a scintillation counter that records flashes of light (UV) from the scintillation; (5) let it sit there recording flashes for a while, until sufficient statistics are obtained to deduce a counting rate. Dividing this rate (corrected, if need be, for any scintillations that occur when no sample is present) by the counter's absolute efficiency then yields the decay rate of tritium in the original electrolyte sample. (I also note in passing that the Storms/Talcott experiment does look at the gas phase in a somewhat indirect way: they recombine the D2 and O2 over a palladium [or was it platinum? -- I forget] mesh external to the cell, then treat the resulting D2O as in the above procedure. But the same detection procedure, based on liquid samples, applies.) I lack the expertise to evaluate your contention that the T would stay put in the palladium, but I have heard from a few people that exchange with D+ in the water should proceed rapidly enough for any excess T to escape the electrode in reasonable quantities. One also might be able to "discharge" any absorbed hydrogen, whether D or T, by application of a back current; I believe that several of the Storms/Talcott cells were treated in this way, although I don't know if any of the ones alleged to have produced tritium were. Your comments about depletion are well founded, and a carefully-done experiment should always take samples of the heavy-water stock every so often (and *certainly* every time it switches to a new bottle of heavy water). Given this, it's fairly straightforward to develop a recursion relation predicting the T enrichment from electrolyte replenishment. The Storms/Talcott paper talks some about this. I don't know about any of the other experiments, but they (and we) have been trying to use heavy water from one particular batch (which had an unusually low T content) whenever possible; experience seems to show that different bottles from that batch all have about the same tritium content. The content can vary from batch to batch, however, by as much as an order of magnitude; I have a feeling that some of the shoddier "positive results" (I won't name names ...) may have stemmed from inattention to this. > The phone number of Fusion Technology: > Ring George H. Miley or Chris Stalker at (217) 333-3772. I got this out of > the journal itself, from the "Call for technical notes on cold fusion" page. Since you mentioned it, s.p.f readers should be aware that this journal does run a regular cold-fusion section and that most of the papers in it can be followed by the informed layman, at least up to a point. A lot of them are pretty speculative "theoretical" things, but a few experiments do get written up there too. > Why must we choose? I tend not to believe in cold fusion, but noone at this > stage can be sure. The affair has all the hallmarks of a grandiose fizzle - > but if someone does come up with good evidence, I'd have to believe it, of > course. The way to enlightenment is more evidence, not heated mudslinging or > lawsuits. Someone must come up with something better than "a hitherto unknown > nuclear reaction", like a theory for such a process; PFH must define the > proper operating conditions so that others (and they themselves!) can > reproduce the effects, if any. "We had some cells that boiled - it's definitely > nuclear" is not good enough. Well said, and I (another "agnostic" leaning toward disbelief) agree entirely. -- 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: cuddy20 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.21 / W Bernecky / 3-body fusion? Originally-From: bernecky-robert@CS.YALE.EDU (William Robert Bernecky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 3-body fusion? Date: 21 Apr 90 14:05:29 GMT Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT 06520-2158 Does anyone know if any of the "heat gusher" cathodes have been assayed for Ag and/or Cd? As unlikely as it seems to me, perhaps we have a 3-body problem D+D+Pd-> ?. Would any of the physicists care to comment? (Is this even an energy producing reaction?). I only suggest this since the experimental evidence strongly rules against "normal" D+D reactions,i.e. it aint happening. As for Morrison's comment: >...I have not seen a single good clean convincing experiment giving excess > heat and nuclear products at a reasonable rate and at a correlated time. This might not be all that easy to do, especially if T is produced and consumed in the bulk of the cathode. If the T results are to be believed, they suggest that T is released from the bulk suddenly, perhaps due to strain fractures. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenrobert cudfnWilliam cudlnBernecky cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.21 / barry@joshua.m / T measurements Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: T measurements Date: 21 Apr 90 19:34:37 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Since people have been talking about T detection, and since a few anomolously large T measurements by certain groups are the only evidence for significant nuclear reactions taking place, I thought I would chime in with the voice of doom. The simple point is: _if_ T measurements are done using a scintillation cocktail and counting the scintillations, then you are making a direct measurement _only_ of a chemical process occuring in the cocktail, not of T itself. Thus the signal may just be the signature of some other chemical process. This point has been discussed before, but since I have an anecdote to tell, I thought I'd bring it up again. Anecdote: Shortly after the P&F press conference, a group of graduate students, postdocs and professors in the UCLA (where I am) experimental plasma physics group carried out several cold fusion experiments based on the P&F model. As a part of this, they looked for gammas, neutrons and T. They initially got positive results. But, instead of rushing to a press conference, they did careful checking for errors. And---you guessed it---the strong T signal from their cocktail was due to other chemical reactions. (Their other ``positive signals'' also turned out to be spurious.) They discontinued their experiments, and never published the results, but they may have written a tech report on it. If anyone is interested, I can ask one of them for the exact details (he told me once, but I've forgotten them.) Its quite possible that the few groups who get strong T signals are making such a misidentification---in addition to the possibilty of T contamination of D2O. Since the T measurements do not seem to be reproducible across research groups, and since the big labs that you would expect to be on the ball (Harwell, Los Alamos, and the recently reported monitoring of Pons' cells for nuclear byproducts) do not get strong T results, error seems a likely hypothesis. (Note: I'm not claiming that microscopic amounts of T due to fracto-fusion are absent---just the large amounts that could account for ``excess heat''.) Moral: experimental groups should keep in mind what is being detected directly (e.g. scintillations, heat) and what is being inferred (T, nuclear reactions), and look for alternate sources of the direct effects. (A basic point, but perhaps overlooked on occasion.) Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenbarry cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Wm Davidsen / Calorimetry Originally-From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Calorimetry Date: 23 Apr 90 12:42:55 GMT Organization: GE Corp R&D Center BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) says: } Subject: Comments, various. } Date: 20 Apr 90 17:28:37 GMT } PFH's "Calorimetry": } I don't understand why they stick to their very primitive method, about the } worst there is. To use it, they need all sorts of calibrations and corrections, } not to mention assumptions. If they want us to believe in the heat their cells } (or some of them) produce, they'll have to do better. You use calibrations, } corrections and assumptions, if there is no other way; here, there clearly is. } They should read the analysis of Balej and Divisek (look it up in my } bibliography if you're out there, PFH!). While your point about the PFH results may be well taken (I've talked to people who still think the results are far too large to be explained by any error), other people have seen excess heat using other methods, such as Huggins. I find it hard to believe that all the people who see excess heat are incompetent, or that all the errors show excess heat instead of some showing a new endothermic process. I am certainly willing to say "new physics" at this point, but I haven't decided if that implies fusion or commercial viability. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me cudkeys: cuddy23 cudendavidsen cudfnWm cudlnDavidsen cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Paul Dietz / Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Date: 23 Apr 90 13:24:27 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <9004200149.AA03984@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > At the very least, some X-rays >should derive pop out of that "p + e + p --> D + neutrino" >that's currently under discussion. Actually, no, since the recoil energy of the deuteron here is only 545 eV. The energy needed for K and L excitations of Pd is > 24 KeV and > 3 KeV, respectively. Paul cudkeys: cuddy23 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Garen Erdoisa / A question... Originally-From: Scamper@cup.portal.com (Garen Lee Erdoisa) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A question... Date: 23 Apr 90 17:26:39 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) I have been following this news group since it started, however do not consider myself qualified to comment on Chemistry or Physics in regards to the Cold Fusion susposedly taking place. Here is my question: If the effect is really some type of cold fusion, then would the difference in temprature between Hot fusion (millions of degrees F) and cold fusion (aproximately room temprature) account for some of the (if I am reading this right) missing energy of the possible reactions. It is my understanding that Hot fusion in labratory environments and in the cores of stars, takes place because of the high pressure forcing protons together AND the high kinetic energy from the plasma? being so hot that this combination of heat and pressure forces fusions to occure on a small scale, but enough to heat stars etc. PFH's origional hypothisis were that forcing D into Pd by electrochemical means would enable them to attain pressures comparable with the cores of stars. However there is this missing component to that type of fusion, namely (where is the heat? ie:kenetic energy) comming from to force the susposed cold fusions to occure? Is it just the pressure? does that kind of pressure create it own kenetic energy (even if only seen on an atomic scale by the interacting atoms? Under that kind of pressure, are they still atoms? or a Plasma? (It seems to me that it would more likely be a plasma under that kind of pressure) excuse me if this has already been discussed, but in following the confrence, I don't remember seeing anyone discuss the pressure aspect of PFH's Hypothesis. Garen_Erdoisa@cup.portal.com SUN!PORTAL!cup.portal.com!Scamper 72277.1260@Compuserve.COM cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenScamper cudfnGaren cudlnErdoisa cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Paul Hager / Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 23 Apr 90 20:42:23 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington Is anyone out there trying alloys? Last year, a group of us were attempting CNF in a friend's garage with the goal being an electrode of either Mg2Ni or TiFe. We documented the whole thing in a video called (appropriately) COLD FUSION (it was subtitled "A meditation in the spirit of John Keats' Ode to a Graecian Urn on the asymptotic nature of scientific truth and the quest for the perfect 1975 Volvo 164 E"). We were going great guns on the project until I got in touch with Hans Bethe (who I'd had some limited contact with in Ithaca about 10 years earlier). He gave me the lowdown on Hagelstein's work and some other tidbits in advance of the APS conference that resulted in our dismantling our experiment. Now I have all this heavy water sitting in my closet. Anyway, I see a lot of you folks have been undeterred by the negative results. I can understand why people might want to continue trying to replicate the original work with Pd but maybe some brave soul can pick up where we left off and try magnesium and nickle. I got married last year and my wife (in order to commemorate our CNF efforts) got me a wedding ring made out of Palladium. That's all for now. Keep up the good work. -- paul hager hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu *** Combat global warming -- build nuclear power plants *** cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenhagerp cudfnPaul cudlnHager cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Comments, various.; a pox on virtual neutrons Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments, various.; a pox on virtual neutrons Date: 23 Apr 90 18:09:15 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 20-Apr-90 Comments, various. > Dieter Britz@VM1.NoDak.E (6975) > I don't understand why they stick to their very primitive method, about > the worst there is. To use it, they need all sorts of calibrations and corrections, not to mention assumptions. I think anyone experienced in experimental work knows that careful analysis of *any* experimental system involves adjustments, calibrations, corrections, and assumptions that are idiosyncratic of that system. Switching to a different system that appears simpler can involve a lot of learning as you find out how to do the calibrations and corrections inherent to that system. Pons and Fleischmann are using a familiar system; they've observed the effect there; and they know the calibrations and corrections that that system requires. It's perfectly reasonable to continue using that system, especially when their results are being confirmed by others using different systems. I think Terry Bollinger's explanations are lots of fun, but there are two problems: 1) He hasn't actually seen anything by Peter Hagelstein describing his theory. He's basing all his criticisms on James White's speculations on Hagelsteins's theory in his review of the NCFI conference (message id <1990Apr7.214406.24387@uncecs.edu>). It may be that Hagelstein invokes the weak force, virtual neutrons, etc. in the way Terry thinks he does, or not. He doesn't know. He's also not working out the math in the way Hagelstein (probably) did -- so there might be a subtle effect he can't account for in his armchair speculations. 2) The history of nuclear physics theories isn't encouraging. I remember reading an anecdote in ``A Random Walk in Science'' about an experimenter meeting a theorist in the hall. The experimenter had a new graph, which he showed to the theorist. The theorist immediately explained the result, also hinting that doing the experiment was unnecessary, since the result was predictable from existing theory. At that point the experimenter realized he had the graph upside down, and inverted it. The theorist then immediately explained the new graph, again implying that the experiment was really unnecessary. And all the theories -- or refutations of theories -- in the world won't undo the excess heat multiple groups are now observing in cold fusion experiments. The thing I like about Hagelstein's new theory is that it exactly fits the observed data: some trititum, some heat, and nothing else -- no neutrons, no gammas, just a slight, probably undectable increase in the deuterium/protium ratio. It's also encouraging since it predicts that the end products of cold fusion are (relatively) benign. But whether it will stand or fall, that depends on what else it predicts, and I think no one can say much about that without seeing the theory in full detail. -- J cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenWebb cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Mike Pelt / Re: Hagelstein's theory Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Hagelstein's theory Date: 24 Apr 90 01:28:30 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <4aAoH=i00jukIQGnlk@cs.cmu.edu> Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU writes: >The thing I like about Hagelstein's new theory is that it exactly fits the >observed data: some trititum, some heat, and nothing else -- no >neutrons, no gammas, just a slight, probably undectable increase in the >deuterium/protium ratio. It's also encouraging since it predicts that >the end products of cold fusion are (relatively) benign. Hagelstein's theory would also mean that cold fusion heaters are "breeders", continuously producing more of the deuterium catalyst. I wonder, are any of Pons' cells producing enough heat that they could, with a suitable number of thermocouples, provide the current they need to keep themselves running? Probably not; thermocouples are pretty pathetic in the efficiency department. -- "A people who expect to be ignorant Mike Van Pelt and free expect what never will, Headland Technology and never can, be." (was: Video Seven) -- Thomas Jefferson ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Charles Poirier / Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 23 Apr 90 16:00:33 GMT In article <196.262D4185@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG> rick@ofa123.FIDONET.ORG (Rick Ellis) writes: >In a message of , Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head >(andrew@dtg.nsc.com ) writes: > LS@TGPEH> I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. >Hardly. Titanium makes up 0.63% of the Earth's crust by weight. And I recall (though I could be wrong) that what makes high-strength titanium so expensive is the difficulty of removing a contaminant that makes it quite brittle. What contaminant? Of all things... Hydrogen! Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Charles Poirier / Re: Mixing Originally-From: poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Mixing Date: 23 Apr 90 15:51:03 GMT In article <2574@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@MATH.UCLA.EDU (Barry Merriman) writes: >experiments. Here, they wanted to visulaize the evolution of vorticity, >not heat, in air, and they commonly use smoke as a marker. It turns >out smoke difusses faster than vorticity, which has led to erroneous >observations. If you want to try this at home, just blow >a smoke ring (= a vortex ring). The smoke will dissipate, but in fact the >ring-shaped flow is still present (you just can't see it). An interesting point, possibly relevant to dye mixing. As an irrelevant aside, I wonder though whether the smoke effect described above is properly modeled as a predominantly diffusion effect. I would think that the visible particles of smoke are larger and more dense than air particles, and thus would strictly diffuse pretty slowly in still air. (I realize we're not concerned so much with the diffusion of individual air molecules as with the disposition of their collective vortex pattern, but the statement stands anyway.) On the other hand, I think the smoke particles, being more dense, would be subject to a centrifugal pseudo-force acting to drive them out of the vortexes they are supposed to mark, and that this might be the faster process. Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / William Johnson / Re: T measurements Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: T measurements Date: 23 Apr 90 16:33:34 GMT Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory In article <2593@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu writes: > Since people have been talking about T detection, and since > a few anomolously large T measurements by certain groups are the > only evidence for significant nuclear reactions taking place, I > thought I would chime in with the voice of doom. > > The simple point is: _if_ T measurements are done using a > scintillation cocktail and counting the scintillations, then > you are making a direct measurement _only_ of a chemical process > occuring in the cocktail, not of T itself. Thus the signal may > just be the signature of some other chemical process. Well, yes and no. It is well known that certain aqueous solutions can exhibit "chemiluminescence" when mixed with the scintillants used in tritium counting. In the early days of cold fusion, a few people thought they had tritium based on counts that proved to come from chemiluminescence of the LiOD in the electrolyte. When the electrolyte was vacuum-distilled or otherwise treated, these counts, and the positive "results" they engendered, went away. (I have heard claims that FPH themselves got messed up by chemiluminescence in their original paper claiming observation of tritium; I don't know whether this is true or not and have no comments myself.) However, there are ways to get around the chemiluminescence problem. First, one can vacuum-distill the electrolyte before adding the scintillant, so that any ionic species are removed. Second, I am told that keeping the electrolyte (or other) samples in complete darkness for some hours before (and during) the counting reduces interference from chemiluminescence to a very low level. Both of these steps have been applied to at least some of the samples from experiments claiming tritium "production," and in several cases (the one I'm most familiar with is Texas A&M) the inferred tritium concentrations are about the same whether the samples are processed in one of these ways or not. This argues that what's being seen really is tritium rather than a weird chemical effect. > This point has been discussed before, but since I have an anecdote > to tell, I thought I'd bring it up again. [anecdote, involving preliminary positive results that disappeared under careful scrutiny, omitted] > They discontinued their experiments, and never published the > results, but they may have written a tech report on it. If > anyone is interested, I can ask one of them for the exact details An excellent cautionary tale; the love fest in Utah of a couple of weeks ago shouldn't blind us to the fact that most experimental groups not only have seen only negative results, but also have decided that their results weren't even worth publishing, being as they were, exactly what was expected. > Its quite possible that the few groups who get strong T signals > are making such a misidentification---in addition to the possibilty > of T contamination of D2O. Since the T measurements do not seem > to be reproducible across research groups, and since the big labs > that you would expect to be on the ball (Harwell, Los Alamos, and > the recently reported monitoring of Pons' cells for nuclear byproducts) do > not get strong T results, error seems a likely hypothesis. Personally, I'm fairly convinced that the more "reputable" groups that report seeing tritium really are seeing tritium rather than chemical effects; the measurements just aren't that hard to do, and do reliably, if you're careful. However, I definitely am *not* ready to accept that they're "making" the tritium as opposed to introducing it via contamination. IMHO, the most valuable thing for "believers" who think they're "making" tritium to do right now is to address their -- many -- critics, not by making bald statements that "it 'can't' be contamination," but by making specific measurements to exclude the contamination mechanisms the critics have raised and still seeing tritium being "made." To the best of my knowledge, the groups that have tried to respond this way have either made those specific measurements or continued to "make" tritium ... but not both. Infer from that what you will ... -- 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: cuddy23 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Paul Hager / Re: Hagelstein's theory Originally-From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Hagelstein's theory Date: 24 Apr 90 13:27:31 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington I've seen some tantalizing posts referring obliquely to Hagelstein's new theory. I thought he had gotten out of the CNF business. Could someone post a synopsis? -- paul hager hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu "It's a terrible thing to lose your mind." -- Vice-President J. Danforth Quayle cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenhagerp cudfnPaul cudlnHager cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Terry Bollinger / Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Date: 23 Apr 90 15:12:31 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 20 Apr 90 19:00:58 GMT lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) wrote: > When you characterize the weak and electromagnetic interactions as so > very different (which they are, of course) it bugs me just a little. > Suppose we assume a Really Big Miracle like low temp electroweak tunneling. > How many of your little miracles would this perhaps alleviate? It seems > to me that photons are much more useful than "weakons". Well, the weak spot for tunnelling is simply the extremely large mass of weak force bosons (W+, W- and Z0). It's just another way of saying the same old thing -- the weak force is very, very, very weak. The reason it is so weak is that the bosons which mediate it are very, very heavy. (Photons, which are the bosons for the electromagnetic force, have zero rest mass and thus provide a force field that extends to infinity.) If I could suggest a way out of this, I'd love to do so -- but I can't think of any *serious* suggestions by which one could do so, at least not within the normal-matter energy range of which we are speaking. There is of course electroweak unification at *very* high energies, but that's not of much help (or relevance) for ordinary cold matter. It is unfortunate, since the PEP reaction would be just dandy for making clean, hard-to-identify (hydrogen in, moderately hot deuterium and a ghostly neutrino out, and nothing else). By the way, for anyone who would like to see a very nice summary of solar fusion mechanisms, including PEP, take a quick look at the latest Scientific American: John N. Bahcall, "The Solar Neutrino Problem." Scientific American, May 1990, pp. 54-61. As you can rather quickly see from the page 58 reaction summary, PEP is the most attractive of the mechanisms listed due to its "hidden" products and minimal high-energy outputs (ignoring neutrinos). Another attractive reaction would be the [ He3 + He3 --> He4 + 2 p ] one listed just below PEP, which is orders of magnitude easier to accomplish and also produces only relatively heavy ions whose energy can be dissipated (transformed) rather easily via electromagnetic coupling. Unfortunately, it bears no relationship at all to the actual reactants in palladium anomolies! A LITTLE GAME... All that aside, I'm feeling playful this morning, so let me introduce you to a little game I call Farfetching, a term which I stole from Ursula Leguine's (sp?) classic science fiction novel, "The Left Hand of Darkness." A "Farfetch" is a little "world" in which you may introduce whatever miracles you like, for whatever purpose you like. You then construct whatever kind of little world you want, regardless of how it relates to reality. Any miracles used, however, must be stated clearly and concisely, and not hidden in verbage or window- dressing (vs. useful) equations. (This game should sound familiar -- we do it on the Net all the time!) *HOWEVER* -- and unlike the Net at times! -- once the Farfetch is closed, it is *also* the responsibility of you and everyone else interested to do your dead-level best to blast the structure of the Farfetch into smithereens. Miracles should be examined in the light of hard mathematics and known experimental results, and logical flaws should be attacked mercilously. Furthermore, *all* consequences of the assumed miracles should be examined thoroughly, and analyzed for Consistency with Reality. This is a point that Bill Johnson has brought up nicely a couple of times by mentioning that if cold fusion is made *too* easy, the world at large will have a strong tendency to vaporize. So. Larry Wall asked for a *Really Big Miracle*, so I'm going to oblige him -- but *only* within the context of a Farfetch, because I'm not for one minute going to present *that* kind of a miracle as a serious theory! So taking a deep breath (forgive me physicists for I am about to sin!), here we go... ENTER FARFETCH Planck's constant is not. Constant, that is. It can vary from place to place, and the way in which it varies is linked in some way to the electromagnetic force. Cold fusion occurs when Planck's constant becomes so large that previously forbidden events, such as the PEP fusion reaction, become possible via quantum time/energy uncertainty. Has anyone ever analyzed what would happen if in a limited local region of spacetime Planck's constant could magically, say, double from its known value of 6.6260755 x 10**-34 Joule seconds? Triple? Quadruple?... or so forth until *some* type of interesting matter-to-energy conversion that was previously forbidden becomes statistically significant. Is there any kind of symmetry operation in mathematics that would permit simultaneous existence of local space/time regions with integer multiples of Planck's constant? If such n*h symmetry operations could exist mathematically, what types of new fields would be implied by them? And what kinds of mediating particles? Would the fields be related in any way to the known fundamental forces of gravity, EM, strong, and weak? LEAVE FARFETCH (AND BEGIN CRITIQUE...) ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! Do you have any *idea* what this would do to the fabric of the universe??? Planck's constant is fundamental to *all* quantization effects in matter and energy! Playing games with it is about the same (or worse) than doodling around with the speed of light. And if local variability of the constant was permitted even for an instant, what would the implications for matter in the *rest* of the universe be? Furthermore, I find it hard to believe there is *any* mathematical operation that would permit such regions to exist side-by-side in spacetime, although I frankly admit that I do not have the background needed to trounce this ridiculous idea a mathematical perspective. And what about the *general* implications? After all, we're not talking about a nice, neat, highly selective operation here -- we're talking about allowing just about *any* type of energetically favorable reaction sequence that could happen over an extended (say nanosecond) period of time to take place as if it all occurred instantaneously! Classic distinctions of past and future for atomic-level events would be severely blurred, and in some cases would effectively disappear. Increasing the Planck constant would also change the stable energy levels that form atoms, causing some sort of drastic reorganization that would probably entail all sorts of high-level energy outputs. And why in the world should *palladium* of all things contain the right "triggers" for doing such a thing? What's to keep, say, a nice, orderly crystal of some type from precipitating the same type of quantum disaster? Why would't this thing be observed *everywhere*? In short, this has to be one of the strangest and most peculiar ideas anyone has posted yet on this net, and there have been some *strange* ones posted! I'm just glad I was able to get the first shot at critiquing it. Sheesh. .... (Drumming their fingers they ask, "does this guy *always* behave in this way?" "Only on Mondays," he replies, "particularly when I've had too much caffeine.") .... On the more serious side, I am planning on posting parts of my capactitive work on the net sometime in the near future. While it certainly doesn't match all of the current experimental results, it does have a few nice points and might be worth chewing on. No big surprises -- my previous Net letters have already outlined the basic constraints and the basic idea of how a "self structuring" capacitor might (that's *only* a "might!") be possible in a two-phase material that meets certain rather severe constraints. Apbistia, Terry cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Garen Erdoisa / Re: Hagelstein's theory Originally-From: Scamper@cup.portal.com (Garen Lee Erdoisa) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Hagelstein's theory Date: 24 Apr 90 17:22:16 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Just a thought, if Hagelstiens theory is correct, then using tritium as a catalist instead of D should show a measureable increse in the D to T ratio. For example: In the origional expierments a ratio of 99.5% D2O and 0.5% H2O producing more D from fusions of H atoms. The D being so produced just mixes with the rest of the already present D being used as a catalist. Why not try a solution of 95.5% T2O with 0.5% H20 and remove all of the D2O that is possible (idealy D2O should aproach 0.0% solution to start) Then when the Tritium acts as the catalist, you should still get fusions of the H atoms but they would make D and be detectable as such in the evolved gasses, (or in the electrode itself). Just a reminder that PFH sugested extreme caution when doing the expierment using Tritium because of the potential for release of radiation if fusion of tritium occures instead of the expected fusion of Hydrogen into D. Still skeptical but still interested. Garen Erdoisa ------------------------------ Scamper@cup.portal.com SUN!PORTAL!cup.portal.com!Scamper 72277.1260@Compuserve.COM cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenScamper cudfnGaren cudlnErdoisa cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Peter Cash / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 24 Apr 90 17:30:31 GMT Organization: Convex Computer Corporation; Richardson, TX In article <1303@sunic.sunet.se> bygg@sunic.sunet.se (Johnny Eriksson) writes: >In article <2061@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >> ... >>Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) >>for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. >There was a patent application for such a system, filed by a guy >named John Tandberg, sometimes in the 20's. It was turned down, >however, since the patent office people simply did not understand >what it was about. Also, the legend goes that Mr. Tandberg was >unable to produce a working apparatus, due to it heating up too >much. Is this an urban legend, or what? How did you find this out? Can you give a reference? It would be most interesting if it were verified. >The company for which he was working, Electrolux, is nowadays well >known for its refridgerators. Er...they just make vaccuum cleaners, as far as I know. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ | Die Welt ist alles, was Zerfall ist. | Peter Cash | (apologies to Ludwig Wittgenstein) |cash@convex.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ cudkeys: cuddy24 cudencash cudfnPeter cudlnCash cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Allan Duncan / Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Originally-From: aduncan@rhea.trl.oz.au (Allan Duncan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Date: 24 Apr 90 05:44:04 GMT From article <1990Apr23.132427.527@cs.rochester.edu>, by dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz): > In article <9004200149.AA03984@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > >> At the very least, some X-rays >>should derive pop out of that "p + e + p --> D + neutrino" >>that's currently under discussion. > > Actually, no, since the recoil energy of the deuteron here is > only 545 eV. The energy needed for K and L excitations of Pd > is > 24 KeV and > 3 KeV, respectively. > > Paul Well in the work I do, 545 eV is called X-rays! Question - what do you call the bit of spectrum between deep UV and soft X-rays? Allan Duncan ACSnet a.duncan@trl.oz ARPA a.duncan%trl.oz.au@uunet.uu.net UUCP {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia. cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenaduncan cudfnAllan cudlnDuncan cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / Terry Bollinger / A good point... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A good point... Date: 25 Apr 90 16:30:05 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 23 Apr 90 18:09:15 GMT Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU (Jon Webb) wrote: > I think Terry Bollinger's explanations are lots of fun, but there are two > problems: > 1) He hasn't actually seen anything by Peter Hagelstein describing his > theory. He's basing all his criticisms on James White's speculations > on Hagelsteins's theory in his review of the NCFI conference (message id > <1990Apr7.214406.24387@uncecs.edu>). It may be that Hagelstein invokes > the weak force, virtual neutrons, etc. in the way Terry thinks he does, > or not. He doesn't know. This is quite true and is a good, solid criticism of my "pox on neutrons" letter. I have not seen the latest Hagelstein paper. My criticisms are in fact based on White's summaries, not the original paper. (I do have copies of earlier papers, and have gone through them a bit. They are unduly obtuse, and tend to reinforce a view that someone else has mentioned: Jones and company seem to be the only major players who have written truly first-class papers about unusual palladium/titanium results.) Having been pinned mercilously to the wall, I'll issue a statement: If, and *only* if, Hagelstein's paper does not invoke *any* of the concepts listed below, I'll cheerfully and fully retract my Pox letter as a criticism of the latest Hagelstein theory. But if even *one* of them appears -- I ain't retractin' nuthin! The concepts are: 1) *Any* significant long-range (Ansgstrom) weak interaction effects. 2) Coherency effects for *any* force other than electromagnetic. 3) Virtual neutrons of *any* type other than those invoked to explain the normal intermediate reactions of the PP and PEP fusion reactions. In particular, this means *any* type of "long lived" virtual neutrons. 4) *Any* unexplained selectivity. This would include, for example, neutrons always "going" towards protons vs. palladium nuclei. (Hmm. Why am I not overly worried?) > He's also not working out the math in the way Hagelstein (probably) > did -- so there might be a subtle effect he can't account for in > his armchair speculations. I have a friend who has an interesting quote from Einstein on his wall. It goes like this: "If you can't explain something simply, you probably don't understand it well." Nature is subtle. It is the role of scientists to find those features of nature which are truly subtle, and then tell the world about them as clearly and succinctly as they can. If Hagelstein's theory is based entirely on subtlety, let him finish his job and *then* tell us about it. Apabistia, Terry cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / Paul Dietz / x-rays? Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: x-rays? Date: 25 Apr 90 14:05:56 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department In article <1365@trlluna.trl.oz> aduncan@rhea.trl.oz.au (Allan Duncan) writes: >From article <1990Apr23.132427.527@cs.rochester.edu>, by dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz): > [[discussion of x-rays from putative 545 eV deuterons in palladium]] >Well in the work I do, 545 eV is called X-rays! > >Question - what do you call the bit of spectrum between deep UV and >soft X-rays? It's called the "vacuum ultraviolet" or "extreme ultraviolet". The first name should be the clue: the stuff is very strongly absorbed by matter. None would be detectable, I think, even if it were being generated in a cell. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.20 / Terry Bollinger / A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A Pox on Virtual Neutrons! Date: 20 Apr 90 01:49:40 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway VIRTUAL NEUTRONS VS. REALITY IN GENERAL Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com) April 19, 1990 (No copyright, but proper acknowledgment of any quotes from this or other letters would be greatly appreciated.) INTRODUCTION I've been trying very hard not to dump on virtual neutrons again, but I can't resist. I'm annoyed with them. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that my original "dactylon" proposal (a deuteron that mysteriously swallows two electrons for, say, 10**-13 seconds) has a significantly lower MM (Miracle Measure) than the virtual neutron proposal. That is, the "dactylon" appears to require *fewer* miracles overall than does the (Hagelstein?) virtual neutron proposal. I'll explain that a bit as I go. MEASURING MIRACLES Below is a list of specific miracles needed to make the virtual neutron scenario work. After I describe each one, I'll do a radical thing -- I'll *assume* the miracle exists, so that I can then go on to the next one. MIRACLE ONE: ANGSTROM-LEVEL WEAK INTERACTIONS The "weak" interactions ain't called "weak" for nothing. They are *very* limited in scope. In fact, my best understanding is that the maximum distance over which weak interactions have any kind of decently nonzero chance of occurring is about 10**-18 meters. That's about 10 *billionths* of a typical one-Angstrom atomic radius. In other words, if an atom were 100 kilometers (62 miles) in diameter, the largest scale over which the weak interaction would have a measurable chance of working is one *millimeter*. (On this same size scale, a proton would be about one meter across.) Unlike the electromagnetic or gravitational forces, the weak force does not just fade out rather gradually (e.g., 1/r**3) with distance. Instead, it keels over about as fast as a snowball at the X-ray focal point of an H-bomb. If you move, say, a drastic *two* millimeters away from the surface of that 1 meter proton, the weak interaction will be so drastically reduced that it will be of no practical consequence. So what happens to said weak force when you move 100,000,000 millimeters away from said proton? You get a Miracle, of course! It works just great!! All sorts of low-level weak interaction probability fields suddenly appear, just waiting to interact constructively with one another. So on to the next point, which is... MIRACLE TWO: *WHAT* ATOMIC-LEVEL CONSTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE?!? Constructive interference (yes, I have sloppily grouped it in with "coherency" on a couple of occasions) is a great thing, and it's really not all that radical. When a whole crowd of people pushes and releases, pushes and releases a large gate all at the same time, it's no big surprise that the gate is *far* more likely to give way than if everyone pushes and releases it at random times. Don't let all the wave terminology throw you off -- constructive interference of something like the weak force works in exactly the same way as the people pushing on that gate. If everyone pushes at the same time, the individual forces will add together. If they don't, well, usually nothing much happens. The idea in weak force constructive interference (I will assume) is that the weak force will radiate outwards like ripples in a pond (are these the "superradiants," perchance?) and interfere constructively with the patterns radiating from other nucleons. Ah, but there's an itsy-bitsy problem here. And I do mean itsy- bitsy. The atoms, you may recall, are about 100 km in diameter, and the weak force only extends about one millimeter. I don't know its wavelength (feel free), but by definition it must be no larger than the range over which it works, and it probably is a *whole* lot smaller. Es macht nichts. Either way, its reeeeal *small* when compared to an atom. Now supposedly palladium has "just the right" atomic structure to allow weak force waves to "match up" as they travel from nucleus to nucleus. Don't forget that all this time the 100 km atoms are bouncing around over distances of miles at a time due to thermal jostling. (This is a room temperature system, folks.) Even worse, to be an accurate representation, these little trips would have to occur, oh, say, a *trillion* times each second. Now tell me seriously: In the situation I just described, what do you thing the odds would be on placing and keeping a stick *exactly* 100,000,000 millimeters long between the one-meter proton in your atom and the one-meter proton in the next atom? And how about simultaneously doing that for *billions* of sticks extending to other atoms? While I'm at it, I should also mention a little point about the weak interaction: it really is an *interaction*, not a "force" in the classical sense of something which tries to "move" objects. This is important because it means that the weak interaction has no chance of being "self-aligning" -- that is, it can't nudge particles just a tad to get them in line. (There are cases in which a true "force" field such as electromagnetic *can* in fact contribute to its own interference pattern by nudging charged particles.) The bottom line is, if it's not *exactly* lined up to begin with, weak force interference doesn't happen. So what happens when the supposed long-distance weak force fields try to line up at the atomic level? The answer is... It's a Miracle! It works just great! The nucleons all line up perfectly, so on we go to the next point, which is... MIRACLE THREE: *WHAT* NUCLEON-LEVEL CONSTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE?!? This is a short one. Nucleons (protons and neutrons) are made of quarks, which whiz around at very high energies within the nucleons. When you get right down to it, the weak force does not come from these proton per se -- it comes from these quarks. The weak force shows up at the proton surface only because the quarks happen to spend a lot of their time there, trying to get out. (It's the ultimate prison, really. *Very* hard to escape from, and even when quarks just get placed into some silly meson or something that imprison them all over again.) The point? Quite simple. The sticks really must extend *inside* the one meter protons and latch on to the quarks, which are moving around at an incredible rate. So what happens when this whole new level of complexity pops up? Why, a Miracle occurs, of course! The quarks either slow down (quite impossible actually) or become Mysteriously Synchronized by Unknown Means, which allows us to go on to the next point, which is... MIRACLE FOUR: THE "DECIDING DEMON" Maxwell's demon is a great thing. It allows one to do things that are just doggone hard otherwise, such as sorting out hot molecules from cold ones. The virtual neutron scenario also has a dandy little demon in it, whom I will name the Deciding Demon. The problem is that like any other form of constructive interference, weak force constructive interference should affect *all* of the contributing particles equally. (Remember the gate. What happens to all of the people when it finally breaks? They *all* fall through.) This could be unpleasant. Most thermonuclear explosions are. Thus it is that I suggest a Deciding Demon who will choose *which* nucleons will go blewy at any one instant, despite the fact that they are all linked by a coherent weak field. Alas, (since I rather like the Deciding Demon), one *might* be able to avoid an outright miracle in this case. If one assumes that weak constructive interference occurs at the level of individual *crystals*, you *might* be able to keep you whole experiment from going off in a single thermonuclear flash. Fortunately, this approach does at least require a Substantial Increase in the already rather large Miracle One (Angstrom-Level Weak Interactions), so my nice little Demon might still be needed. MIRACLE FIVE: [ PROTON + ELECTRON + WEAK INTERACTION ] -- DOES *NOT* EQUAL -- [ NEUTRON ] Don't you just *hate* jogging to the crest of a big hill and *then* noticing that there is an even bigger hill up ahead? Oops. Looks like that's what we just did. You see, a neutron weighs about 1.51 electron masses more than a proton plus an electron. That's about 0.77 Mev of energy missing, and that's a *lot* of energy. And at last, we get to invoke an honest-to-gosh *known* effect to explain this little faux pas. It's called quantum time/ energy uncertainty, and it works pretty much like the better known position/momentum uncertainty -- except that the implications are a *lot* weirder. What it means is that if the time period is short enough, almost any amount of energy can be "borrowed" to, say, construct an electron-positron pair. These pairs are *called* virtual, but they are in fact quite real -- they just don't last very long. As long as they do exist, however, they can do everything that "real" particles can. Sort of like buying a Lincoln Continental with money from a loan shark -- you may have fun for a couple of days, but then it'll be time to say bye-bye to this world. So where is the miracle? Well, mostly it pops up in the fact that you are more-or-less going to have to postulate a virtual neutrino with exactly the right energy -- because that is the component that is missing from the left-hand (proton + electron) side of the equation. To the best of my knowledge, that is *not* the same thing as saying that the weak force is abundantly available, because the weak force only *mediates* neutron construction from (or decay into -- time reversal more-or-less applies here) the other particles. This is a *very* specific sort of virtual appearance that we are talking about here -- and for that same reason, not a very likely one. But lo! It Happens, and the necessary virtual neutrino with the necessary virtual energy appears! So on we go to the next miracle, which is... MIRACLE SIX: WHERE *DID* THAT ELECTRON COME FROM? There's no free lunch folks. When a neutron decays, it spits out the electron with considerable energy. Time reversal symmetry demands that to *make* a neutron, this pattern must be reversed in time -- in other words, the electron needs to come shoosting in at a nice (and quite specific) clip, at just about the right angle. *Then* it can combine with the proton and neutrino. Simply having electrons *around* is not quite enough. They must be presented to the future neutron in a rather specific way, and that is not likely to be very much like the electron orbitals in the vicinity of the proton. Chalk it up as only a Minor Miracle, since it's at least a discernible possibility. MIRACLE SEVEN: VISITATION BY IN-LAWS Have you ever had visitors who just keep staying, and staying, and staying... I think you get the picture. The next miracle needed is that of hanging around *waaaay* past your allotted time -- which is exactly what that silly virtual neutron we just created is going to have to do if it is to be of any value. You see, the energy difference "borrowed" to make the virtual neutron is about 0.77 Mev. At that energy level it's a *real* short trip, quite close to the time duration of electron- positron virtual pairs. Alas, my references and memory have failed me on that one -- I don't recall *how* short the time scale is. But I do remember that it make more typical atomic intervals look like long walks through the park. Don't forget -- either this virtual neutron is going to have to do some traveling to get to its destination, or it's destination (a proton) is going to have to travel to it. In either case, it's going to be a jaunt over *atomic* distances (about 100 km in the analogy I've been using). That's an *incredibly* long distance for *any* kind of virtual particle. But amazingly, astoundingly... it Happens! The particle decides to hang around in flat violation of the Uncertainty Principle, one of the most absolute principle and unavoidable principles known in quantum mechanics. A Miracle! MIRACLE EIGHT: WHERE *DID* THAT PROTON COME FROM? Neutrons are not charged. Thus, they could care less about getting together with protons, which will look to them like little marbles at the far end of football fields. Ditto for the protons -- which will not be able to move much anyway, due to their surrounding electron clouds. Thus, it's up to the virtual neutron to do most of the traveling, trying to find a location (a proton) for which it is as blind as bat. This could be a *loooong* search, folks, but... A Miracle happens! The neutron makes a direct beeline for the nearest proton, and... MIRACLE NINE: WASN'T THAT NEUTRON IN A *COHERENT* FIELD? Ooops. Didn't the whole argument for the existence of this cute little virtual neutron depend on it being at a precise locus within a very precisely aligned (understatement) coherent weak field? Doesn't that mean that all of the Magic will disappear as soon as the virtual neutron moves away from its very precisely defined position in the coherent weak field? Tsk tsk. But remarkably... It Happens! The virtual neutron has achieved a live of its own, so to speak, and continues to persist in its Magic trek to the nearest proton. (I guess the Deciding Demon is the one who tells him *which* proton to head for. Hmmm.) And now -- at last! -- finally! -- COLD FUSION OCCURS! And all of the virtual energy debts are paid off. With one problem... MIRACLE TEN: THE TRANSFORMER ARGUMENT STILL APPLIES The Uncertainty Principle still applies here, and I would be *most* surprised if *all* of the possible variants of proton-and- "virtual neutron" fusion failed to produce *some* type of detectable high-energy products. At the very least, some X-rays should derive pop out of that "p + e + p --> D + neutrino" that's currently under discussion. And that, my friends, ends the miracles. I think I got at *least* half of them... but then, I've always been an optimist. AND WHAT OF THE DACTYLON? My parting shot is this: When I facetiously "designed" the dactylon, I was quite careful *not* to create a whole multitude of miracles. After all, a great way to create excess miracles in theories is to keep attempting to invoke *known* physics in ways that simply do not work. In the dactylon, the miracles are right up front. Why should a deuteron absorb two electrons? Darned if I know -- I can't think of a shred of reason why it should. Why should the resulting particle last a long time? Darned if I know -- I've never heard of such a thing. But once you assume these two extraordinary (they really are) miracles, Standard Physics takes over -- at least far enough to cause fusion. For the resulting negatively charged dactylon will head in a beeline for the nearest positively charged proton, and will then try to form a *very* small atom with it -- a couple of hundred times smaller than mu-hydrogen, in fact! It might even be able to emulate muons further my pulling together *two* deuterons. The result? You've got me -- lithium-6? I really have no firm idea, since it's such an outlandish thought. CONCLUSION So what's the point of all this? Simple: When theorizing about bizarre results, don't obfuscate the miracles -- solve them. If there's anything at all to this palladium/titanium anomalies stuff, that might just turn out to be pretty good advice. Cheers, cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.24 / Paul Hager / Re: Hagelstein's theory Originally-From: hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Paul Hager) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Hagelstein's theory Date: 24 Apr 90 13:27:31 GMT Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington I've seen some tantalizing posts referring obliquely to Hagelstein's new theory. I thought he had gotten out of the CNF business. Could someone post a synopsis? -- paul hager hagerp@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu "It's a terrible thing to lose your mind." -- Vice-President J. Danforth Quayle cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenhagerp cudfnPaul cudlnHager cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.23 / Terry Bollinger / Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Date: 23 Apr 90 15:12:31 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On 20 Apr 90 19:00:58 GMT lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) wrote: > When you characterize the weak and electromagnetic interactions as so > very different (which they are, of course) it bugs me just a little. > Suppose we assume a Really Big Miracle like low temp electroweak tunneling. > How many of your little miracles would this perhaps alleviate? It seems > to me that photons are much more useful than "weakons". Well, the weak spot for tunnelling is simply the extremely large mass of weak force bosons (W+, W- and Z0). It's just another way of saying the same old thing -- the weak force is very, very, very weak. The reason it is so weak is that the bosons which mediate it are very, very heavy. (Photons, which are the bosons for the electromagnetic force, have zero rest mass and thus provide a force field that extends to infinity.) If I could suggest a way out of this, I'd love to do so -- but I can't think of any *serious* suggestions by which one could do so, at least not within the normal-matter energy range of which we are speaking. There is of course electroweak unification at *very* high energies, but that's not of much help (or relevance) for ordinary cold matter. It is unfortunate, since the PEP reaction would be just dandy for making clean, hard-to-identify (hydrogen in, moderately hot deuterium and a ghostly neutrino out, and nothing else). By the way, for anyone who would like to see a very nice summary of solar fusion mechanisms, including PEP, take a quick look at the latest Scientific American: John N. Bahcall, "The Solar Neutrino Problem." Scientific American, May 1990, pp. 54-61. As you can rather quickly see from the page 58 reaction summary, PEP is the most attractive of the mechanisms listed due to its "hidden" products and minimal high-energy outputs (ignoring neutrinos). Another attractive reaction would be the [ He3 + He3 --> He4 + 2 p ] one listed just below PEP, which is orders of magnitude easier to accomplish and also produces only relatively heavy ions whose energy can be dissipated (transformed) rather easily via electromagnetic coupling. Unfortunately, it bears no relationship at all to the actual reactants in palladium anomolies! A LITTLE GAME... All that aside, I'm feeling playful this morning, so let me introduce you to a little game I call Farfetching, a term which I stole from Ursula Leguine's (sp?) classic science fiction novel, "The Left Hand of Darkness." A "Farfetch" is a little "world" in which you may introduce whatever miracles you like, for whatever purpose you like. You then construct whatever kind of little world you want, regardless of how it relates to reality. Any miracles used, however, must be stated clearly and concisely, and not hidden in verbage or window- dressing (vs. useful) equations. (This game should sound familiar -- we do it on the Net all the time!) *HOWEVER* -- and unlike the Net at times! -- once the Farfetch is closed, it is *also* the responsibility of you and everyone else interested to do your dead-level best to blast the structure of the Farfetch into smithereens. Miracles should be examined in the light of hard mathematics and known experimental results, and logical flaws should be attacked mercilously. Furthermore, *all* consequences of the assumed miracles should be examined thoroughly, and analyzed for Consistency with Reality. This is a point that Bill Johnson has brought up nicely a couple of times by mentioning that if cold fusion is made *too* easy, the world at large will have a strong tendency to vaporize. So. Larry Wall asked for a *Really Big Miracle*, so I'm going to oblige him -- but *only* within the context of a Farfetch, because I'm not for one minute going to present *that* kind of a miracle as a serious theory! So taking a deep breath (forgive me physicists for I am about to sin!), here we go... ENTER FARFETCH Planck's constant is not. Constant, that is. It can vary from place to place, and the way in which it varies is linked in some way to the electromagnetic force. Cold fusion occurs when Planck's constant becomes so large that previously forbidden events, such as the PEP fusion reaction, become possible via quantum time/energy uncertainty. Has anyone ever analyzed what would happen if in a limited local region of spacetime Planck's constant could magically, say, double from its known value of 6.6260755 x 10**-34 Joule seconds? Triple? Quadruple?... or so forth until *some* type of interesting matter-to-energy conversion that was previously forbidden becomes statistically significant. Is there any kind of symmetry operation in mathematics that would permit simultaneous existence of local space/time regions with integer multiples of Planck's constant? If such n*h symmetry operations could exist mathematically, what types of new fields would be implied by them? And what kinds of mediating particles? Would the fields be related in any way to the known fundamental forces of gravity, EM, strong, and weak? LEAVE FARFETCH (AND BEGIN CRITIQUE...) ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! Do you have any *idea* what this would do to the fabric of the universe??? Planck's constant is fundamental to *all* quantization effects in matter and energy! Playing games with it is about the same (or worse) than doodling around with the speed of light. And if local variability of the constant was permitted even for an instant, what would the implications for matter in the *rest* of the universe be? Furthermore, I find it hard to believe there is *any* mathematical operation that would permit such regions to exist side-by-side in spacetime, although I frankly admit that I do not have the background needed to trounce this ridiculous idea a mathematical perspective. And what about the *general* implications? After all, we're not talking about a nice, neat, highly selective operation here -- we're talking about allowing just about *any* type of energetically favorable reaction sequence that could happen over an extended (say nanosecond) period of time to take place as if it all occurred instantaneously! Classic distinctions of past and future for atomic-level events would be severely blurred, and in some cases would effectively disappear. Increasing the Planck constant would also change the stable energy levels that form atoms, causing some sort of drastic reorganization that would probably entail all sorts of high-level energy outputs. And why in the world should *palladium* of all things contain the right "triggers" for doing such a thing? What's to keep, say, a nice, orderly crystal of some type from precipitating the same type of quantum disaster? Why would't this thing be observed *everywhere*? In short, this has to be one of the strangest and most peculiar ideas anyone has posted yet on this net, and there have been some *strange* ones posted! I'm just glad I was able to get the first shot at critiquing it. Sheesh. .... (Drumming their fingers they ask, "does this guy *always* behave in this way?" "Only on Mondays," he replies, "particularly when I've had too much caffeine.") .... On the more serious side, I am planning on posting parts of my capactitive work on the net sometime in the near future. While it certainly doesn't match all of the current experimental results, it does have a few nice points and might be worth chewing on. No big surprises -- my previous Net letters have already outlined the basic constraints and the basic idea of how a "self structuring" capacitor might (that's *only* a "might!") be possible in a two-phase material that meets certain rather severe constraints. Apbistia, Terry cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / / Re: Unfounded claims Originally-From: winters@gumby.paradyne.com (0000-John Winters(0000)) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Unfounded claims Date: 25 Apr 90 11:10:02 GMT Organization: AT&T Paradyne, Largo, Florida There is yet a third alternative. Could be Chemistry, could be Physics, or could be those fields have become non sciences, more concerned with funding than finding. Thus anything new (physics) would be rejected as antiestalisment. As economic pressures increase (bank failures, etc.) "scientists" are likely to become less concerned with finding than funding. (and fighting.) Mass delusion will be the order of the day. cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenwinters cudln cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / Wilson Heydt / Re: Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Originally-From: whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Shucks, I'll suggest a *dandy* miracle myself! Date: 25 Apr 90 19:03:19 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA In article <9004231512.AA09614@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > >ENTER FARFETCH > > [an intriguing idea . . .] > >LEAVE FARFETCH (AND BEGIN CRITIQUE...) Isaac Asimov's _The_Gods_Themsleves_ examines a universe with a drastically different value for Planck's constant--and what happens when it interacts with ours. (He proposes the difference between unversies being driven by the differences in "fundamental" constants.) I suggest that book for ideas on how to critique your Farfetch. --Hal ======================================================================= Hal Heydt | An earthquake is Mother Nature's Analyst, Pacific*Bell | "silent" pager going off . . . 415-823-5447 | whh@pbhya.PacBell.COM | cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenwhh cudfnWilson cudlnHeydt cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / Clark Jones / Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Originally-From: jones@sj.ate.slb.com (Clark Jones) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons paper / Journal of Fusion Technology Date: 25 Apr 90 22:00:19 GMT Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, Tempe, AZ In article <7805@pdn.paradyne.com> alan@oz.paradyne.com (Alan Lovejoy) writes: [much good stuf on reproducability deleted] > >As for earthquakes, they differ from "cold fusion" experiments in two very >important ways: many, many observers experience the same earthquake at the same >time (and can make INDEPENDENT measurements of it), and no one claims to be >able to cause them at will by performing some well-defined procedure. Alan, You really should be a tad more careful in selecting your wording, as I rather suspect that you wouldn't have to peruse too many back issues of _The Naitonal Enquirer_ to find _SOME_ one who "claims to be able to cause [earthquakes] at will by performing some well-defined procedure"! ;-) ;-) ;-) (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.) Hmmm... you know, my tachyon-resonance suggestion is looking better these days! :-) Clark Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are mine and NOT those of Schlumberger because they are NOT covered by the patent agreement! cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenjones cudfnClark cudlnJones cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Paul Koloc / Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Titanium vs. Palladium Date: 26 Apr 90 07:03:49 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <842@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) writes: >I have been told that titanium is more scarce than palladium. Is this true, >and does anybody know the price of titanium (palladium is about $140 / oz.) ?? The significant Stillwell Pt and Pd mine in Montana is coming on line and palladium hit a new low (since P&F) of 120 $/troy oz yesterday. Titanium requires about four times the electrical energy to reduce it to the metal from the oxide than does aluminum. Otherwise, it is plentiful. Before Stillwell the USA had meager Pt and Pd resources. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Ted Dunning / Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Originally-From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Date: 26 Apr 90 14:55:25 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science In article <1990Apr26.001321.1215@agate.berkeley.edu> greg@purina.berkeley.edu (Greg) writes: For those of who missed it, here's an item from the latest What's New: ... For all we know, he could be writing bald-faced lies. keep in mind that what's new isn't exactly an unbiased source. it really is premature to be charging anyone with out and out fraud. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Greg / Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Originally-From: greg@sizzlean.berkeley.edu (Greg) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Date: 26 Apr 90 17:34:36 GMT Organization: U.C. Berkeley In article ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) writes: >In article <1990Apr26.001321.1215@agate.berkeley.edu> greg@purina.berkeley.edu (Greg) writes: > For those of who missed it, here's an item from the latest What's New: > ... For all we know, he could be writing bald-faced lies. >keep in mind that what's new isn't exactly an unbiased source. it >really is premature to be charging anyone with out and out fraud. Firstly, What's New isn't my source for the Pons home water heater stint. Secondly, What's New may not be the whole truth, but it is the truth. Thirdly, I'm not charging Pons with fraud. I'm saying that he has zero credibility. I don't especially care how or how much he bends the truth in his papers or press releases, and I don't want to put him on trial. I want to point out that he has the intention to mislead. The difference between a scientist and a non-scientist is intentions. A scientist must have the intention to learn the truth and inform others of the truth. By this measure Pons is 0% a scientist. --- Greg cudkeys: cuddy26 cudengreg cudlnGreg cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Vincent Cate / Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Date: 26 Apr 90 19:49:09 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I called up the Journal of Fusion Technology again to see what was going on. I was only able to talk with an Ellen Berk who talked to Marybeth Gardener (manager of publications) who said that I could NOT put the paper on the net. There is some chance that after they publish it in July that they would let me put it on the net, if I write a letter explaining everything (I don't plan on it). They were very firm on this. This is the first cold fusion pre-print I had any trouble getting permission to put on the net. Please feel free to try to try to convince them to give me permission. Their number is (708) 352-6611. Please don't ask me to mail you a copy of the paper or scan it in anyway, I won't. Greg: >The difference between a scientist and a non-scientist is intentions. >A scientist must have the intention to learn the truth and inform >others of the truth. By this measure Pons is 0% a scientist. I agree. The Pons we all see acts far more like a lawyer (patents, copyrights, threats of law suits, gag orders, etc) than a scientist. We have gone a year now without any good information on what exactly he is doing in his experiments. I think this is unforgivable. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.25 / fusion@zorch.S / I see you have 22. Here is 21 if it helps. Originally-From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: I see you have 22. Here is 21 if it helps. Date: 25 Apr 90 22:26:08 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix > Date: 14 Apr 90 22:44 > From: MORRISON@ch.cern.decnet.vxprix > To: D_BROADHURST@uk.ac.open.acs.vax > Message-ID: <9004171413.AA18720@dxmint.cern.ch> > Subject: Thanks for message. Here is latest CF News. Am preparing another. > > >X-Vms-To: MINT::"D_BROADHURST@vax.acs.open.ac.uk" Dear E632 and WA84 Colleagues, 18 March 1990. COLD FUSION NEWS No. 21 - ONE YEAR AFTER. SUMMARY OF THE YEAR and UPDATE The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion will be held on 28 to 31 March 1990. Here we review the past year in particular new results and information since the last CF News in November. On 23 March 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced at a Press Conference that they had produced excess heat and fusion products in a simple table top experiment. They had used heavy water and an electrolytic cell with a palladium cathode and had obtained Fusion at room temperatures - Cold Fusion. The dream of unlimited power with little pollution! - the solution of an ecological problem. Rapid confirmation from Steve Jones's and other groups launched world-wide excitement about Cold Fusion. However there was a major discrepancy between the amount of power claimed from deuterium fusion and the very low rate of the fusion products which should be produced by the fusion. This made many doubt and in Cold Fusion News No. 4 (9 April) it was stated that more and more of the characteristics of Wrong Results in Science were being observed - or Pathological Science - the name introduced by Irving Langmuir in 1953. The Regionalisation of Results was discovered and presented on 2 May to the American Physical Society (CF News No. 13) where it was noted that Northern Europe and the major labs and the North-East of the USA found almost no fusion while reports from the Rest of the World were overwhelmingly in favour of Cold Fusion. The world was said to be divided into "Believers" and "Sceptics". Conferences were held which were mainly for Believers with positive results - this despite protests that in Science both positive and negative results should be considered simultaneously. However the Sceptics with negative results, continued to gain in number and sophistication of their experiments, in various regions of the world - this was described in Pathological Science terms as three phases; In Phase 1 there is the original announcement followed by rapid confirmation Phase 2 has about equal numbers of positive and negative results Phase 3 has an avalanche of negative results (CF News No. 4). The world followed this evolution in 1989 with Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe now all reporting only negative results. However in 1990 we have a new phenomenon which requires the introduction of PHASE 4 - most results are positive! What is happening is that in much of the world scientists have made their experiments and found nothing and they have read the literature and concluded that there is nothing serious in Cold Fusion, so they have stopped tests, press conferences and there are only a few publications of older experiments. On the other hand "Believers" are continuing tests and are publishing their positive results. The two statements below are correct; A. there are now more positive results being presented (or published?) than negative ones B. The rate of new positive results is decreasing. The rate of new negative results is decreasing much more quickly, so that the ratio of negative to positive results is rising. It is up to the reader to chose which statement he likes. In July the Cold Fusion Panel with co-chairs John Huizenga, a distinguished chemist, and Norman Ramsey a physicist who was a 1989 Nobel laureate, and which was set up by the DOE, gave an interim report saying that no "convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result" had been seen and "No special programmes to establish Cold Fusion research centres are justified". In August the National Cold Fusion Institute in Salt Lake City was established. The funding came from the State of Utah. In August a Cold Fusion Research Institute was established in Japan. It has not been easy to get information about experiments in Japan though a few early experiments were boosted in the newspapers, though looking at the papers suggested some of them were of poor quality, e.g using a single BF3 counter. However there could be many commercial experiments that are not reported. It has been said that several hundred people may be working on Cold Fusion. In India the large Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC, reported that six experimental teams had found evidence for Cold Fusion and several hundred people were working on it. In November the final report of the DOE Panel appeared confirming the conclusions of the interim report, There was one curious omisssion - in the interim report it was said that small experiments might be justified to study some unexplained effects reported and these experiments should be peer-reviewed, but in the final report the peer-review requirement was not made. In January Stan Pons began a series of 32 experiments at the NCFI to determine the best conditions and materials, and he was intending to start a further series of 32 experiments. The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion will be held next week, 28 to 31 March at Salt Lake City. The programme is crowded starting at 08.30 and going on to 20.15. A persual of the programme is interesting. There are no experimental talks from Europe although at one time some regions' media were filled with stories of positive results. However there is one European theoretian down to talk - Prof. G. Preparata of Milan. There are no speakers from Japan. From BARC there is the Director, Dr. P.K. Iyengar and an experimentalist. There is a theoretian from the National Taiwan University. All others are working in the USA and as far as I could judge there are 17 experimental talks, 7 theoretical and 9 where it was difficult to be sure from the title. One has the impression that all the talks will be positive though some of the people going to the conference are not "Believers". Among the theoretical speakers are Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger and Peter Hagelstein from MIT. There are also two panel discussions whose members would all be considered "believers". The Governor of Utah, The Honorable Norman S. Bangarter will attend a Reception. Desert at the Reception will be provided by Mrs. Fields Cookies. The role of the media has been important. The Wall Street Journal had an article on 9th March which was favourable to Cold Fusion. It was entitled "Doubts Recede over Cold Fusion but an Explanation Remains Elusive". The article concentrates on work at Los Alamos by Edmund Storms and Carol Talcott who have reported large amounts of tritium. At first they had trouble reproducing their effect but claim that 7 of their last 9 cells gave tritium. They recorded up to 80 times higher tritium levels than in the new heavy water. The Indian experimenters at BARC are quoted as having obtained as much as 20000 times more tritium than originally present. David Worledge of the Electrical Power Research Institute, EPRI, (who are the only source of research funds since the DOE officially stopped funding) says that 22 different cells have given tritium. More experiments have been reporting excess heat; mentioned are Charles Scott of Oak Ridge National Lab, Prof Huggins of Stanford University and Prof Bockris of Texas A&M. Prof Bockris is quoted as saying "There's no doubt of the existance of an effect", unquestionably a nuclear reaction of some sort. The big problem is that "we still can't reproduce it at will". Dr. Storms sent me a copy of his paper and a compilation(author not given) of positive results which lists 12 groups having observed tritium production. There is, however, not a list of experiments which failed to find tritium and the upper limits they gave. It is clear the Wall Street Journal technical section is not the same as the Science section of the New York Times. If some subject is known to be controversial, the NYT takes care to consult experts with other views; for example members of the DOE Panel who would have warned readers of their study. They might also have pointed out that the levels of tritium reported are many orders of magnitude less than that expected from the excess heat claimed. The first book on Cold Fusion has appeared - it seems hastily written and had poor reviews in Nature and The San Francisco Chronicle. Two other books should appear shortly, also written by experienced writers - one is by Frank Close who is a theoretical physicist and the other by Gary Taubes - the two books can be expected to be written in contrasting styles and to be more complete than the first. British ITV has had a programme about Cold Fusion with Frank commenting. On 26 March the BBC will show a programme on Cold Fusion in the respected "Horizon" science series. For the 23 March anniverary many newspapers will have articles. A major feature of the past year is that it has allowed many people to have a glimpse of modern Science and scientists in action - the circumstances were extreme but maybe that is a good way to test a structure. It is unusual to announce important new results by press conference and then to give too few details (though it could be argued that the possible importance of the effect justified it). However it was seen that means of communication are now extremely rapid - by television, newspapers, telex, telefax and electronic mail. The latter is now the preferred means of communication among scientists, particularly physicists who are involved in international experiments and who have extensive networks already set up. Experiments were performed quickly world-wide and the results exchanged. Meetings were held at which all could present their results freely (it is an aberration that astonished many that at a few meetings only allowed positive results - this is not normal Science). A consensus soon emerged that room temperature fusion could not provide power. Everyone was disappointed for if it were true it would have been important for the world. While by far the greatest number of experiments did not observe any fusion products, some did and this has encouraged some scientists to continue. The fact that all agree to, that the positive findings are erratic and irreproducible, encourages these scientists but is discouraging to most. Even more discouraging to most scientists is that while those claiming power say they observe watts, those claiming fusion products observe them at a rate corresponding to nanoWatts or picoWatts or even less. The names "Believers" and "Sceptics" was applied by believers. It might be more accurate to say that among those who have worked on or closely followed Cold Fusion, there are three classes - two small ones, "Believers" and "Sceptics" and one large one, "Non-believers" The Regionalisation of Results is a fact though very disagreeable. It could be considered as a reminder that Scientists are People first and Scientists second. OTHER INFORMATION There are many other items of news - here are a few. 1. Argentine Ingenuity. On Friday I received two papers from Dr. Granada of the National Atomic Energy Commission and two other institutes in Argentina. Both papers have been accepted by the J. of Nuclear Science and Technology. The first long paper describes how the application of a pulsed current through a cell gives a correlated neutron production in a repeatable manner. As the counting rate is very low, about 0.1 neutrons/sec, they do not claim fusion nor give a number of standard deviations. To reduce their background to make the neutron signal stand out, the normal technique is to go underground. However since there are no Gran Sasso or Frejus or Mont Blanc tunnel laboratories in Argentine, they had to find another solution - so they went underwater in a submarine! (a conventionally powered one they state). This reduced the background by a factor of 70 and they state they observe a three standard deviation effect. However these numbers suggest that they were not observing any effect in their first experiment and their graphs seem to bare this out. 2. Joint Sceptics - Believers Experiment At the Santa Fe meeting in May, Moshe Gai challenged Steve Jones to do a joint experiment with him by placing one of his cells that he said gave neutrons, inside Moshe's detector. Steve, as a good sport, accepted. The experiment was performed in August and went happily. IN early November a brief note was given to the DOE panel saying that no neutron bursts had been found, apart from some associated with cosmic rays. Thus it seemed an ideal solution had been found, Believers and Sceptics work jointly and establish the truth. This would be new as in my Pathological Science studies, I have not come across a case where this happened fully. However there was soon major disagreements as Steve calculated that the experiment of 10 days was too short to measure the neutron bursts that Jones and Menlove had reported finding at Los Alamos. Since then there have been many rather heated exchanges, so it seems that history repeats itself and Believers and Sceptics cannot do joint experiments, desirable though this would be. Maybe this is another characteristic of Pathological Science that I should add to the present 18. Have just heard that Nature has refused the Jones-Menlove paper. 3. Explanation of an Excess Heat Measurement It had been suggested By Dick Garwin at Santa Fe that if the incoming current was measured by a DC device, then if there happened to be an oscillation, the AC current coming in would not be recorded. This would upset the heat balance and be recorded as an excess heat. A. Bruggeman et al. of the Nuclear Research Centre at Mol in Belgium at first found excess heat after two months. However the effect was observed in both D2O and H2O cells; also no neutrons were observed but a previously non-observed defect occurred in the gamma measurement circuit giving an ordered peak pattern in channels corresponding normally with energies from 4 to 8 MeV. The tritium yield increased by 65% which is a normal enrichment. It was clear that the "excess heat" was not due to nuclear reactions. It was shown that this "excess heat" could be reproduced by adding an AC current. Also it was shown that the circuit used earlier could oscillate. They are to be congratulated on their honest and full description of their work - alas too rare. When I told Martin Fleischmann of this, he said that they check for this and it was not the explanation of the effects they observe. 4. Excess Heat from Minnesota Prof. Oriani reported last year that he had observed large bursts of excess heat. The effects were erratic but could last as long as 10 hours. He was welcomed in Salt Lake City and given considerable media attention. When I phoned him in January he told me that after the accidental fire, he rebuilt his apparatus but had not been able to repeat his experiment. His name is not on the list of speakers at the First Annual Cold Fusion conference. Incidently he is the first person I have met who was at the actual seminar in 1953 at General Electric where Irving Langmuir gave his talk on Pathological Science - he said it was a great talk and it stuck in his memory. 5. Edward Teller Invents a New Particle. At the NSF/EPRI meeting in Washington where only positive results were presented, Edward Teller suggested that it might be possible to explain some of the major contradictions by postulating a new particle with appropriate properties. He called it the "Meshugtron". He explained to me that he gave it that name as "Meshuga" means crazy in Hebrew. He does not believe the results suggest cold fusion (for he is an expert on the subject and knows one cannot simply ignore all the other experiments that have been performed, some of which he had himself proposed). However he enjoyed trying to invent a new particle for which he gave an appropriate name. 6. Fusion from Fracture of Crystals? It has been shown that fusion should occur at vanishingly low rates in static conditions when deuterium is loaded into metals such as Deuterium. However it has been suggested that if a crystal fractures under stress(e.g. from the loading) then the deuteron ions might be accelerated by the transient high fields across the cracks to reach an energy high enough to cause fusion(would this be "hot" fusion?). Calculations at the Santa Fe meeting suggested that the numbers were not right for such an occurence However Menlove et al. claim to observed ions with TiD(0.8) and Klyuev et al claim (Sov. Tech. Phys. Lett. 12(1986) 551) to have detected neutrons from the fracture of single LiD crystals. Dr P. B. Price of Berkeley, Nature 343 (1990)542, reported that he had tried to repeat the experiment with LiD crystals and found no effect at 90% confidence. He then shows that in TiD2 and PdD2 this effect would be most unlikely. 7. Visit to BYU and the National Cold Fusion Institute At BYU Steve Jones showed me his lab. They are doing some interesting work but it seemed on a surprisingly small scale - one would have expected that they would have been much better funded. One experiment is to look for neutrons (they are fortunate in having a really experienced neutron expert) from a titanium sample where the deuterium is loaded under pressure. Was surprised to find that their loading is very light with D/Ti only about 0.3. This is different from the philosophy elsewhere when one tries for the highest possible loading of deuterium. The National Cold Fusion Institute has developed quickly and lots of good quality equipment is being installed. The people seemed reasonably free and open A first set of 32 cells had just been installed for a carefully planned series of tests to try and establish conditions and materials which would give reproducible effects. It was planned to start a second set of a further 32 cells for further tests. Unfortunately Stan Pons was occupied with a funding agency so that I could not see these series of tests. Incidently an advantage of Salt Lake City in winter is the proximity of Alta which is one of great centres of powder skiing with 12 1/2 metres of snow per year. 8. Solar Neutrinos and Cold Fusion Particle Physics is in the strange situation just now of having a theory, called the Standard Model, SM, which works in the sense that almost every time one does an experiment it is in agreement with the SM. Yet one knows that the model must be wrong and expects that by going to higher energies, e.g. the SSC or LHC, new physics will be found. One of the few places where there is a disagreement is with neutrinos from the Sun. An experiment over the last 20 years by Davis et al. has given an average rate of 2.33 +/- 0.25 SNU which is much lower than the theoretical values of Bahcall of 7.9 +/- 0.8 SNU. A second major discrepancy is suggested by the variation of the neutrino flux with time which it has been suggested is inversely proportional to the number of sunspots. Several fascinating theoretical explanations for these two effects have been proposed. Recently the large Japanese neutrino detector, Kamiokande, (which had a major success in detecting neutrinos from Supernova 1987A) observed 4.2 +/- 0.7 SNU which agreed closely with the values obtained by Davis's much smaller experiment. As the sunspots are close to a maximum now, people are awaiting new results from Kamiokande. At a recent meeting Davis called out "Now is the time". However some members of the Kamiokande experiment want to close it down for a long period to install a Cold Fusion cell in its centre! For what it is worth, in a recent lecture on Pathological Science, it was suggested that both results are probably Pathological. The belief of Bahcall that he can determine the flux of neutrinos from the centre of the sun to only 11% seems to show an excessive belief in his assumptions - and it is interesting to note that Turck-Chieze et al. calculate with almost the same input values, a value of 5.8 +/_ 1.3 SNU which is consistent with the experimental value of Kamiokande. It is to be hoped that Kamiokande will continue to study this important question where it can make a unique contribution at the present time. FINAL COMMENT There has been much more happening since my November CF news but have been too busy with my normal work, however this is a not-unrepresentative sample. It will be very interesting to see if at the First Annual Cold Fusion confernce, new evidence will be presented, e.g. from the 64 cell experiment at NCFI, which will change peoples judgements. Douglas R. O. Morrison. cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenfusion cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Greg Shippen / Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Originally-From: greg@mips.COM (Greg Shippen) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Date: 26 Apr 90 20:37:33 GMT Organization: MIPS Computer System Inc. In article <1990Apr26.173436.12527@agate.berkeley.edu> greg@math.Berkeley.EDU (Greg) writes: > >Thirdly, I'm not charging Pons with fraud. I'm saying that he >has zero credibility. I don't especially care how or how much he bends >the truth in his papers or press releases, and I don't want to put him >on trial. I want to point out that he has the intention to >mislead. > >The difference between a scientist and a non-scientist is intentions. >A scientist must have the intention to learn the truth and inform >others of the truth. By this measure Pons is 0% a scientist. >--- >Greg He who would be without sin let him cast the first stone... It is particularly easy to criticize these men when YOU don't think you have discovered a potentially world revolutionizing process. Right or wrong, Pons believes that he has discovered a non-chemical source of energy. Had you believed as he does, I am *very* skeptical as to whether you, I or anybody else would have the required discipline (over years) to behave as Greg proposes. I grant the man his right to defend what he believes is the truth in court -- if his truth is really error then in the end the error will be made known. I also grant the man his right to defend the potential financial benefits of his work -- particularly when the *potential* benefits are larger than you or I could imagine. Both efforts require lawyers (unfortunately :-). "Proper" behavior as a scientist is easy when your research/discovery is never going to reach the evening news or appear in Nature. P&F certainly could have done some things better. Given the opportunity, I suspect that they would do things different. It's all water under the bridge. Those who like to bash P&F need to realize that their "discovery" will either stand or fall on its own merits. It doesn't need additional obscuring noise from the peanut gallery. -- Gregory B. Shippen MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!greg 928 Arques Ave. greg@mips.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 991-0441 cudkeys: cuddy26 cudengreg cudfnGreg cudlnShippen cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Andrew MacRae / Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Originally-From: acm@grendal.Sun.COM (Andrew MacRae) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons' integrity reaches a new low. Date: 26 Apr 90 22:09:58 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Mt. View, Ca. In article <1990Apr26.173436.12527@agate.berkeley.edu> greg@math.Berkeley.EDU (Greg) writes: >The difference between a scientist and a non-scientist is intentions. >A scientist must have the intention to learn the truth and inform >others of the truth. By this measure Pons is 0% a scientist. What does informing others of the truth have to do with scientific method? Are the researchers working in commercial labs any less scientists because their work is deemed confidential? I was always under the belief that the scientific method described a way to go about conducting one's research. I never realized that there was an obligation to send one's results to Nature magazine before holding a press conference. Nor did I realize that calling oneself a 'scientist' obligated one to publish their results. F & P have been criticized for being 'un-scientific' in holding a press conference. I don't believe that press conferences have anything to do with the scientific method, either pro or con. If F & P (or any other scientist) were to dance naked on top of a bar while announcing their findings, that shouldn't change the validity of their results one iota. How can the media by which results are communicated have any bearing on the results themselves? And, how can *not publishing* results have any effect on the acuracy of the results. Yes, I realize that by publishing fully the details of an experiment a scientist may then benefit from the comments of other scientists. Further I realise that such comments might expose the falicies of results. However, I don't believe that failure to do so somehow invalidates all of one's research, nor more than I believe that publishing in Nature magazine rather that holding a press conference is somehow 'more scientific'. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenacm cudfnAndrew cudlnMacRae cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.26 / Chuck Sites / Neutron screening Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Neutron screening Date: 26 Apr 90 05:06:40 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky This is a question I never had answered. In a low momentum fusion reaction like CNF what prohibits neutron screening from occuring and potentially effecting the branching ratios. First let me describe what mean by neutron screening. If I had a wall of pure imaginary "nutronium" and two charges on opposite sides, would these charges still feel the effects of the Coulumb force? If they do feel this force, then how is this force transmitted, when the space that this force is traveling through is, for lack of a better word, occupied. I've had several people tell me that "No, Neutrons do not block the electro-static force.", but no one has explained to me why, or how these forces are allowed to pass through filled space of the neutrons. Could someone help me with question. It's been bothering me for quite a while. A reference is all thats needed. Thanks, Chuck ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . \Chuck Sites uunet!coplex!chuck Copper Electronics |Cold Fusion / . . . o o o o \chuck@coplex | AT&T: 502-454-7218 Wrk: 968-8495 |as real as / o o o o O O O O O \It ain't over until the entropy reaches Max! |it gets. / O O O O O ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / Pierre Hilaire / Re: Neutron screening Originally-From: pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutron screening Date: 27 Apr 90 02:27:35 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA In article <115@coplex.UUCP> chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) writes: > >If I had a wall of pure imaginary "nutronium" and two charges on >opposite sides, would these charges still feel the effects of the Coulumb >force? If they do feel this force, then how is this force transmitted, >when the space that this force is traveling through is, for lack of a >better word, occupied. Well, the two charges interact by the electromagnetic interaction whose mediator is the photon. Since at low energies the neutrons are (to a first order) insensitive to the EM interaction those photons will not feel at all the presence of the neutrons and so the Coulomb force will be unchanged by their presence. The term "occupied space" is very misleading since a wall of low energy neutrons consists mainly of empty space. At very high energies where the EM and weak interactions unify things become more complicated (those W's and Z0's begin to fool around with the photons), but be assured that we are far from that case in room temperature materials! Pierre St Hilaire MIT Media Lab cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpierre cudfnPierre cudlnHilaire cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / Scott Mueller / BITNET vomit Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: BITNET vomit Date: Fri, 27 Apr 90 20:25:01 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Some BITNET gateway is vomiting Fusion Digests back onto sci.physics.fusion. I sent email to 'vmsbitnw@rohvm1.bitnet' and 'postmaster@rohvm1.bitnet' last night about it, but it does not appear to have been fixed yet. Anything that contains a 'Reply-To:' line of 'FUSION%ZORCH@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV' is most likely one of these dumps. If these people don't get their act together, they could cause real disruption of the group, getting into an infinite loop with my gateway software. Below is a copy of one of the message headers, for people who are into that kind of stuff. My apologies for any inconvenience this causes. -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public |Path: zorch!vsi1!apple!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!cunyvm!rohvm1!vmsbitnw |From: fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG |Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion |Subject: conclusion of "Horizon" transcript |Message-ID: <9004261842.AA07623@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> |Date: 25 Apr 90 22:55:41 GMT |Sender: Netnews interface |Reply-To: FUSION%ZORCH@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV |Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix |Lines: 315 |Originally-From: d_broadhurst@vax.acs.open.ac.uk |Approved-By: fusion@ZORCH.SF-BAY.ORG |Comments: Original Sender was:: FUSION@NDSUVM1 |Comments: To: fusionlist@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG |To: netnews interface -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / / New Theory Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New Theory Date: Fri, 27 Apr 90 14:54 EST Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway We have a theory for the cold fusion process. We call it coulombic annihilation fusion (CAF). CAF has the following characteristics: 1) large amounts of heat are released in a physical process (not a chemical process); 2) the heat can be released with hydrogen atoms, H-1, or deuterium atoms,H-2; 3) when deuterium is used, small amounts of tritium can be produced; 4) neutron production should be orders of magnitude less than tritium production; 5) Pd(II) and Li(I) is a suitable couple, but not ideal; 6) Ti(II) will work; 7) many other materials will also work; 8) electrolysis can be used, but its only function is to generate monatomic hydrogen atoms. We can explain CAF using a new and novel theory of the atom. In order to whet your appetite we give below the ionization energies of all two-electron atoms (calculated from our theory). In a two-electron atom [He, Li(I), Be(II), etc] there are electrostatic interactions and magnetic interactions and E(elec) = - [(Z - 1) e**2]/[8 pi (e0) r] E(mag) = 2 pi (u0) e**2 (hbar)**2/[(me)**2 r**3] where r is the radius of each electron = (a0) [ 1/(Z-1) - sqrt(0.5(0.5 + 1))/(Z(Z-1))] Z is the atomic number of the atom e is the charge on an electron = 1.6022E-19 C e0 is the permittivity of free-space = 8.8542E-12 C**2 /N m**2 u0 is the permeability of free-space = 4 pi E-7 N/A**2 hbar is Planck's constant bar = 1.0546E-34 J s me is the electron rest mass = 9.1095E-31 kg a0 is the Bohr radius = 5.2918E-11 m 6.2415E18 J = 1 eV The ionization energy for He is E(ionization) = - E(elec) + E(mag) The ionization energy for all positively charged two-electron atoms is E(ionization) = - E(elec) - (1/Z) E(mag) Please note that the equation for the ionization energy of two-electron atoms includes only fundamental constants. We could include a table of the calculated and experimental values, but we would like the net readers to prove to themselves that this equation is valid. If this generates any *positive* interest we will give more details of the theory over the net. The theory explains CAF and predicts some other *very interesting* phenomena. Theoretically yours, John J. Farrell Chemistry Department Franklin & Marshall College and Randell L. Mills Mills Technologies -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / Chris Phoenix / Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Date: 27 Apr 90 17:23:10 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. In article <9031@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >I agree. The Pons we all see acts far more like a lawyer (patents, >copyrights, threats of law suits, gag orders, etc) than a scientist. >We have gone a year now without any good information on what exactly >he is doing in his experiments. I think this is unforgivable. Why do I get the feeling that if cold fusion works he'll be forgiven, at least in the history books? -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy27 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Date: 27 Apr 90 13:51:38 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 26-Apr-90 Pons Paper / Journal > of Fus.. Vincent Cate@sam.cs.cmu. (1213) > This is the first cold fusion pre-print I had any trouble getting > permission to put on the net. Vince, did you ever try this before? I would be very surprised if the manager of publications of *any* journal would give you permission to distribute via the network a paper they were planning to publish. -- J cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenWebb cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / Ted Dunning / Re: New Theory Originally-From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New Theory Date: 28 Apr 90 02:54:29 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science In article <9004271930.AA15327@ames.arc.nasa.gov> J_FARREL%FANDM.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU writes: We have a theory for the cold fusion process.... .... If this generates any *positive* interest we will give more details of the theory over the net. ok, i'll bite. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ (how is that for positive interest? (nearly 10% according to my calculations) The theory explains CAF and predicts some other *very interesting* phenomena. well, i am interested, and everybody else here in this group is an interesting phenomena, so go for it. but seriously, please go right ahead and post this theory. i can't guarantee everyone will be polite, but i imagine that there are several who will look critically (in a positive sense) at it, which is probably more what you want anyway. go for it. cudkeys: cuddy28 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / Vincent Cate / Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons Paper / Journal of Fusion Tech Date: 28 Apr 90 03:28:30 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Chris Phoenix: >Vincent Cate: >>I agree. The Pons we all see acts far more like a lawyer (patents, >>copyrights, threats of law suits, gag orders, etc) than a scientist. >>We have gone a year now without any good information on what exactly >>he is doing in his experiments. I think this is unforgivable. > >Why do I get the feeling that if cold fusion works he'll be forgiven, at >least in the history books? Even then. I don't think history would be nice to him. Imagine that it is the year 2000 AD and the first cold fusion power plants are finally coming online. (Since U.S. regulations make it take twice as long for the same company to build a nuclear plant in the U.S. as in Japan, they will probably be finished first in Japan (or somewhere else)). Anyway, people will notice that they could have stopped polluting the air a year or two sooner if Pons had given out details of his experiment sooner. I think people will be pissed. (I know, it is the stupid-environmentalists (not all of them) who have kept us from having environmentally gentle nuclear power). Jon Webb: >Vince Cate: >> This is the first cold fusion pre-print I had any trouble getting >> permission to put on the net. > >Vince, did you ever try this before? I would be very surprised if the >manager of publications of *any* journal would give you permission to >distribute via the network a paper they were planning to publish. :-) No, really. This is the first time I have gotten a pre-print saying that the copyright had been given to a journal. The majority of the papers I get from the authors. There have been a couple where I did not get then from the authors and checked with the author first and they said sure. I think Pons is being careful not to let preprints float around too much because he thinks people are upset that he has let non-refereed information out. Press releases and the like don't bother me at all. The thing that pisses me off is that he is holding back information. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / John Moore / Re: T measurements Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: T measurements Date: 28 Apr 90 15:44:21 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <2593@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@MATH.UCLA.EDU (Barry Merriman) writes: ]The simple point is: _if_ T measurements are done using a ]scintillation cocktail and counting the scintillations, then ]you are making a direct measurement _only_ of a chemical process ]occuring in the cocktail, not of T itself. Thus the signal may ]just be the signature of some other chemical process. ] ]to be reproducible across research groups, and since the big labs ]that you would expect to be on the ball (Harwell, Los Alamos, and ]the recently reported monitoring of Pons' cells for nuclear byproducts) do ]not get strong T results, error seems a likely hypothesis. In fact, Los Alamos has reported T results from their own cells. Their Tritium measurement lab also confirmed the tritium counts in the Texas A&M cells. If Los Alamos Tritium experts (who, by the way, are lurking here on the net) don't know how to control for chemical scintillation effects, I would be terribly surprised. None of this, of course, rules out Tritium contamination... that's another problem. -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john john@anasaz.UUCP Voice: (602) 951-9326 (day or eve) FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 ......: Short petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / Ulf Dahlen / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: uda@majestix.ida.liu.se (Ulf Dahlen) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 28 Apr 90 21:10:39 GMT Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden In article <101718@convex.convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes: >In article <1303@sunic.sunet.se> bygg@sunic.sunet.se (Johnny Eriksson) writes: >>In article <2061@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >>> ... >>>Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) >>>for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. > >>There was a patent application for such a system, filed by a guy >>named John Tandberg, sometimes in the 20's. It was turned down, >>however, since the patent office people simply did not understand >>what it was about. Also, the legend goes that Mr. Tandberg was >>unable to produce a working apparatus, due to it heating up too >>much. > >Is this an urban legend, or what? How did you find this out? Can you give >a reference? It would be most interesting if it were verified. It's certainly true. He was a Swede and the story was published in a Swedish technical journal ("Ny Teknik", sorry, don't remember which issue). It was also published (a translation) in alt.fusion. This was all nearly a year ago when all this cold fusion was hot news... >>The company for which he was working, Electrolux, is nowadays well >>known for its refridgerators. > >Er...they just make vaccuum cleaners, as far as I know. They make refridgerators, vacuum cleaners and a lot of other things! It's a Swedish company. __________ Ulf Dahlen Work: Dept of Computer & Info Science, University of Linkoping, Sweden Email: uda@ida.liu.se, uda@liuida.UUCP Home: Troskaregatan 51:23, S-583 30 Linkoping, Sweden "The beginning is a very delicate time." cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenuda cudfnUlf cudlnDahlen cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / Chuck Sites / Re: Neutron screening Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutron screening Date: 28 Apr 90 11:31:38 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky In article <2288@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) writes: > In article <115@coplex.UUCP> chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) writes: [Two charges seperated by a neutronium sheet question] > > Well, the two charges interact by the electromagnetic > interaction whose mediator is the photon. Since at low energies the > neutrons are (to a first order) insensitive to the EM interaction > those photons will not feel at all the presence of the neutrons and so > the Coulomb force will be unchanged by their presence. What has bothered me from the begining is the permittivity of free space constant in the Coulumb force equation; F = 1/4piEo (q1q2/r^2). Since the photon must travel through something quite different from a vacum, should there not be a change in the magnitude of the force due to a change in the permittivity? > > Pierre St Hilaire > MIT Media Lab Still a bit confused. Chuck cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.29 / Barry Merriman / Re: New Theory Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New Theory Date: 29 Apr 90 04:37:29 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9004271930.AA15327@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: > >We have a theory for the cold fusion process. >We can explain [Cold Fusion] using a new and novel theory of the atom. >The theory explains [Cold Fusion] and predicts some other >*very interesting* phenomena. Uh---you're neglecting just one thing. We _already_ have a very complete theory of the atom. Its called quantum mechanics. As you know, the predictions of quantum mechanics have been experimentally verified to extremely high precision, and its never been contradicted. Since any new theory must be consistent with the established province of QM, I see little room for a new theory of the atom. Also, the only reason we would need a new theory is to explain some new physical phenomena. So far, Cold Fusion hardly qualifies as such. I wish that those of you who have invested so much effort in proposing new theories of physics predicting Cold Fusion (and you know who you are :-)) would invest just one tenth the effort in trying to think up mundane explanations for the observed experimental anomalies. You're a lot more likely to hit on something. >In order to whet your appetite we give below the ionization energies of >all two-electron atoms (calculated from our theory). It is interesting thast you could compute these binding energies (assuming you've got them right to high accuracy). What that suggests to me is that you've probably taken some aspect of QM and done something tautological to it, or derived something that had to be true based on dimensional analysis (After all, there's only a few reasonable expressions for the binding energy of small atoms, modulo the constants.) Still, it doesn't whet my appetite that much, since I've seen alot of people make up little arguments that get one or two predictions right, and little else (for example, all the formulas for the fine structure constant). Go ahead and post your theory, but I wish I had a nickel for everyone that has crossed this newsgroup. I'd be able to set up my own Cold Fusion experiment! Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.27 / Patrick Smith / Picking and choosing data points Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Picking and choosing data points Date: 27 Apr 90 18:05:53 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah Recently, Vince Cate mentioned that Huggins (of Stanford) was unable to produce even one "working" cell during the entire summer of 1989. Yet Huggins comments to the press have indicated that his group has consistently produced considerable amounts of excess heat. Similarly, the PFH group was unable to produce a single "working" cell during the five week period that Saloman et. al. were measuring radiation levels. Yet Pons has repeatedly claimed that if other groups would just do the experiment as he and his colleagues have outlined, then they would also see the "effect". It seems to me that these groups may be "picking and choosing" their data points to put the inferred CNF effect in the best light. Years ago I was involved in a joint research project between two research groups. One of the groups had claimed to have fabricated a new semiconductor material with substitutional impurities in concentrations which were generally considered immiscible. Nevertheless, their pulished data did bear out that premise. Our group agreed to perform additional measurements on these materials. But I found that getting any kind of cooperation from the individuals who had actually done the work was strangely difficult. At first I didn't understand why, but after making measurements on various samples of the material (obtained through great pressure), it became clear that they had done a lot of picking and choosing of data points. When I attempted to pin them down on the apparent discrepancy, they presented a moving target. The point is, if I choose the data points that I present, then I can show almost any desired effect, or match almost any curve. I think that the groups who are making the claims have a responsibility to either publish ALL of the data, or to practice their craft in silence. -Patrick Smith cudkeys: cuddy27 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.28 / Bruce Dunn / Is anyone archiving this group? Originally-From: a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Is anyone archiving this group? Date: 28 Apr 90 19:17:43 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada Is anyone archiving all the messages from this group? Whether cold fusion turns out to be real or to be pathological science, the online discussions, theories, and data are likely to be interesting in the future for science historians. If no-one is doing this, what is the possibility of piecing together a partial record before everything gets erased? -- Bruce Dunn Vancouver, Canada a752@mindlink.UUCP cudkeys: cuddy28 cudena752 cudfnBruce cudlnDunn cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.30 / Scott Mueller / Re: Is anyone archiving this group? Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Is anyone archiving this group? Date: Mon, 30 Apr 90 14:36:23 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix In article <1587@mindlink.UUCP> a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) writes: > > Is anyone archiving all the messages from this group? Whether cold fusion >turns out to be real or to be pathological science, the online discussions, >theories, and data are likely to be interesting in the future for science >historians. Zorch has been archiving the CNF discussion since article 1 of alt.fusion, over a year ago. I run a mailing list that forwards the fusion discussion to non- Usenet sites, e.g. those on the BITNET. With the exception of the first 100 or so alt.fusion articles, which are saved individually, I have saved the contents of alt.fusion/sci.physics.fusion as copies of the digests sent out over the mailing list. I do have a few holes in my collection due to some system downtime over the past year-plus, so if there should happen to be anyone else out there with an archive who has stuff from late November 1989 and late January 1990, I could use a copy... -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.30 / Jeff Bonwick / Re: New Theory Originally-From: jeffb@portia.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Bonwick) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New Theory Date: 30 Apr 90 06:45:09 GMT Organization: Stanford University In article <2650@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <9004271930.AA15327@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: >> >>We have a theory for the cold fusion process. >>We can explain [Cold Fusion] using a new and novel theory of the atom. > >>The theory explains [Cold Fusion] and predicts some other >>*very interesting* phenomena. > >Uh---you're neglecting just one thing. We _already_ have a very complete >theory of the atom. Its called quantum mechanics. As you know, the predictions >of quantum mechanics have been experimentally verified to extremely high >precision, and its never been contradicted. Since any new >theory must be consistent with the established province of QM, I see >little room for a new theory of the atom. Yes, and before Einstein, we had a _VERY_ complete theory of gravitation. >I wish that those of you who have invested so much effort in proposing >new theories of physics predicting Cold Fusion (and you know who >you are :-)) would invest just one tenth the effort in trying to think >up mundane explanations for the observed experimental anomalies. >You're a lot more likely to hit on something. Actually, I have seen far more "mundane error" explanations than novel theories, at least on this newsgroup. Michelson and Morley used some pretty crude gear to measure a very subtle thing. Their results did not jive with existing theory. They published anyway. Much of the scientific community dismissed the results as simple measurement error. Sound familiar? >>In order to whet your appetite we give below the ionization energies of >>all two-electron atoms (calculated from our theory). > >It is interesting thast you could compute these binding energies (assuming >you've got them right to high accuracy). What that suggests to me is that >you've probably taken some aspect of QM and done something tautological >to it [stuff deleted] Or maybe you've expanded it! Relativity did not trash Newton's theories, it simply expanded them to be valid at high speeds. Perhaps QM is similarly just a special case of something bigger. (If anything, relativity is harder to swallow: Newton's laws were SO simple, they were hard to part with. Few people would lose any sleep over QM's demise. If anything, QM seems a lot like the old mathematical models for the Sun's orbit around the Earth -- accurate, but extremely complex. A simple change of viewpoint simplified the formulas immensely, and made previously intractible problems trivial.) Please DO keep posting new ideas here. That's what's great about this group -- it contains ramblings, not just polished results. We get to see each other's thougts, raw, unfiltered. Let's not suppress the creativity that has come to characterize sci.physics.fusion. The uninhibited atmosphere is refreshing. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjeffb cudfnJeff cudlnBonwick cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.04.30 / Mike Pelt / Tritium from Volcanos: The Jones Theory Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium from Volcanos: The Jones Theory Date: 30 Apr 90 21:18:08 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology Some time ago, Dr. Jones posted a message saying that his group was performing tests on tritium levels in the water around the volcano that was erupting in Alaska. Has anyone heard of the results of these tests? -- Mike Van Pelt Headland Technology/Video 7 Use a pun, go to jail. ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo4 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.01 / Terry Bollinger / CAF Theory Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: CAF Theory Date: Tue, 1 May 90 10:03:27 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On Fri, 27 Apr 90 14:54 EST (John J. Farrell and Randell L. Mills) wrote: > We have a theory for the cold fusion process. We call it coulombic > annihilation fusion (CAF)... > > If this generates any *positive* interest we will give more details > of the theory over the net. By all means, please post your theory. You can probably expect a good scouring, but if your ideas are good, I think you'll get more support than harassment. I for one am not about to wax satirical about any theory presented in good faith for s.p.f review. And by the way, posting your theory on s.p.f. first will ensure that you will have hundreds of witnesses who will in all likelihood scream bloody murder if anyone subsequently tried to take credit for your ideas in, say, the press. My NSF contacts are in computer science, but I can express myself moderately well and would guarantee that I for one would complain loudly and very explicitly to the NSF Physics department (next door same floor) if a successful theory was posted on s.p.f. and someone else then tried to heist it. The fireworks might be reeeeeal interesting. (Please note that I did say "a *successful* theory" -- meaning in this case one that is consistent and gains general acceptance. I ain't gonna go hollering to NSF for a theory that don't work!) Actually, you've already established priorty by posting a very clear "signature" of your theory, whatever it may be. (You've certainly got me curious. That's a *novel* set of equations you posted!) My only request is that you clearly state what your "deviation point" (or points) from standard theories are *before* getting too far into the elaboration of the theory. I hate wading through pages of equations only to discover that the crucial concept can be stated in one English sentence. (Especially if I disagree with the sentence!) Cheers, Terry -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.01 / Terry Bollinger / Phone number Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Phone number Date: Tue, 1 May 90 10:27:26 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, Someone with an (Indian?) accent just tried to call me. I suspect it was someone from s.p.f., because they were using the fact that I work at Contel and my extension (which appears in my headers) to locate me. I prefer e-mail, but if anyone out there needs to contact me by phone my work number is 703-818-4157. My work location is Chantilly, Virginia, in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Cheers, Terry Bollinger -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.01 / John Herman / Re: CAF Theory Originally-From: herman@marlin.NOSC.MIL (John W. Herman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: CAF Theory Date: 1 May 90 22:12:35 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego -- Is this related to the theory described by another computer scientist in a letter to EDN magazine last December? One where all the great mysteries of science and QM were explained quite simply? -- John Herman ARPA: herman@marlin.nosc.mil Phome: (619)553-1466 Code 712 271 Catalina Blvd San Diego, Ca. 92512-5000 cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenherman cudfnJohn cudlnHerman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.04 / rose@malibu.se / Whats been happening? Originally-From: rose@malibu.sedd.trw.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Whats been happening? Date: 4 May 90 21:34:25 GMT Is there something wrong with the board. I haven't seen anything new in 3 days. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenrose cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.04 / Dieter update / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz with an update Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Fri, 4 May 90 16:21 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Here is the latest crop (I'm repeating myself). It seems that - Science Watch notwithstanding - that there continues to be a steady stream of papers - about 10/fortnight. This 4-week lot brings us 26 papers, and of these, about 3-4 ought to cause some excitement and/or puzzlement: those of Arata (10**8 neutrons/s!), of Gozzi et al (heat AND neutrons, though still not in the right amounts) and for fractofreaks, the paper of Segre et al. There is comfort, too, for infidels in the shape of a few papers reporting careful work resulting in nothing and a demolition job by David Lindley. Something for everybody. Dieter ============================================================================= COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 4-May. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abell GC, Matson LK, Steinmeyer RH, Bowman RC Jr, Oliver BM; Phys. Rev. B: Condesn. Matter 41 (1990) 1220. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:126702 (1990). "Helium release from aged palladium tritide". ** Tritium decays by beta emission and forms He; so if you let PdT(x) stand, you accumulate He in the Pd. An interesting question for cold fusion people looking for He, where should they look for it? In the solution or gas outside the Pd, or inside? In other words, how fast does any He come out? These authors examine this and find that, for small He "loadings" (<0.5 He/Pd), the He is practically not released. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- American Physical Society; Spring 1989 Meeting, Special Session on Cold Fusion, Baltimore, Md, 1-2 May 1989; Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 34 (1989) 1859. (No title). ** About 30 short abstracts of talks delivered at the meeting by Gai, Jones, Koonin, Lewis, Morrison, Rafelski and many others. Most of these talks were subsequently published as papers in journals, so I do not cite each abstract. Anyone interested can look them up. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arata Y, Zhang YC; Proc. Jpn. Acad., Ser. B 66 (1990) 1. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146711 (1990). "Achievement of intense 'cold' fusion reaction". ** (I quote:) A Pd cathode of large size was activated by repeating intensive absorption and explosive exhaust of D compulsively due to the powerful on-off effect to induce intense mobility and a huge inner pressure of D within the Pd cathode. This characteristic played a role in achieving cold fusion. A considerable number of neutrons far beyond the background level, sometimes reaching >= 10**8 n/s, were detected. The phenomena were observed 10 times in one month, and the period was 30 min for the shortest and 40 h for the longest. The total number of neutrons generated was estimated to be 10**13 for 40 hours at the maximum, and it would be difficult to consider other any process than the nuclear fusion by D-D reaction. The large amount of excess heat produced during electrolysis was not due to unobserved nuclear fusion proposed by FPH (1989) but due to reaction heat produced by the intense absorption and explosive exhaust of the D into and out of the Pd. The Pd cathodes used by all other researchers were far smaller than the present one. This is likely the reason why the new on-off effect phenomenon and the generation of intense cold fusion was not found so far. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Banas J, Ciechanowski M, Dulinski M, Kreft A, Molenda J, Morstin K, Stoklosa A, Wozniak J; Nucl. Geophys. 3 (1989) 321. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:126738 (1990). "Geophysical aspects of cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter". ** An attempt to reproduce FPH's and Jones+' results. Nothing was found, but cosmic radiation was found to cause background fluctuations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bennington SM, Benham MJ, Stonadge PR, Fairclough JPA, Ross DK; J. Electroanal. Chem. 281 (1990) 323. "In-situ measurements of deuterium uptake into a palladium electrode using time-of-flight neutron diffractometry". ** Like x-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction can analyse the structure and composition of materials like PdD(x) but with the advantage that neutrons can penetrate more deeply into the bulk; x-rays can only do near-surface measurements. So with neutrons, the authors were able to measure the x in PdD(x). This has now been attempted by several methods such as accounting for evolved gas, by gravimetry, by resistance measurements and others. Loadings (x) of up to 2 have been claimed, whereas 0.8 or so is assumed normal. The present paper reports a maximum of 0.78, in line with expectations. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Campbell RB, Perkins LJ, Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 383. "A study of 'cold fusion' in deuterated titanium subjected to high-current densities". ** Since the cold fusion electrochemists have made much of the actual current densities employed (which does not impress the mainstream electrochemists), the authors here take pre-deuterated titanium (TiD(x), x = 0.9) and simply pass electric current through it, comparing the resulting (ohmic) heat with that in plain Ti hydride. Two different current densities gave no heat beyond ohmic, and no neutrons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chemla M, Chevalet J, Bury R, Perie M; J. Electroanal. Chem. 277 (1990) 93. "Experimental investigation of thermal and radiation effects induced by deuterium discharge at the palladium electrode". ** In short: there weren't any. The team is expert in electrochemical calorimetry and used their experience on a cell in which both the cathode and anode were deuterium-charged palladium, which avoids certain problems of heat calculation, as well as oxygen evolution. The overall cell reaction is transfer of D from one electrode to the other. Tritium was also monitored in the electrolyte. There were some heat excursions but these could all be accounted for; also, normal water, H2O, produced such excursions. No tritium was found. Since the authors are experts at microcalorimetry, one might take their error figure for measured heat (3-5%) as an important, realistic figure. In conclusion the authors note that there are claims of excess heat from other workers, which are not easily accounted for. They call for a theoretical and practical study of possible surface effects that may lead to higher loading of the palladium with deuterium, than is normally achieved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Corrigan DA, Schneider EW; J. Electroanal. Chem. 281 (1990) 305. "Tritium separation effects during heavy water electrolysis: implications for reported observations of cold fusion". ** But for the last few words of the title, this paper might have ended up in group 4, related areas. Here, the authors examine in a very thorough manner the separation effects when electrolysing heavy water containing a little tritium. As is well known, T is gradually enriched because D2 is formed preferentially at the electrode. The results are much as expected from conventional chemistry, using conventional values for S (ratio of fraction T/D in gas phase to ratio in liquid phase) which FPH have fiddled with a little. One could, however, level at the paper the charge of using a circular argument, which goes: assume that the tritium increase is all due to electrolytic enrichment, what would the separation factor S have to be? A suitable value is found (2-10) and when this is used, the results can be fully explained in terms of electrolytic enrichment. OK: S is normally taken to be about 4, and FPH take it to be 1, so there is some point to this. This paper will not convince believers of cnf. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Davies JD, Pyle GJ, Squier GTA, Bertin A, Bruschi M, Piccinini M, Vitale A, Zoccoli A, Jones SE et al; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A 103 (1990) 155. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146704 (1990). "Search for 2.5 MeV neutrons from D2O (heavy water) electrolytic cells stimulated by high-intensity muons and pions". ** D-charged Pd and Ti cathodes were exposed to high-intensity beams of muons and pions. Upper limits of a few emitted neutrons per 1000 stopped muons or pions were observed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fleischmann M, Pons S, Hawkins M; J. Electroanal. Chem. 263 (1989) 187. "Errata". ** A whole page of corrections to the original FPH paper in the same journal, starting with the omission of Hawkins from the author list. For this reason, that earlier paper should have the same three authors as this one when cited. The other errors appear to be errors of detail, and do not basically alter the claims. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gozzi D, Cignini PL, Petrucci L, Tomellini M, De Maria G, Frullani S, Garibaldi F, Ghio F, Jodice M; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A 103 (1990) 143. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146703 (1990). "Evidences for associated heat generation and nuclear products release in palladium heavy-water electrolysis". ** During galvanostatic (const. current) charging of Pd with deuterium, nuclear and thermal effects were found simultaneously, after 6 days of electrolysis at 200 mA/cm**2. The event lasted 4 minutes and emitted 7.2*10**5 neutrons, while the electrode heated to 150 degC. Excess T was estimated (?) at 2.14*10**11 atoms. However, the calculated excess heat is 3 orders of mag. less than expected from the no. of neutrons. Electrode characterisation after the events is reported. (I will get hold of a copy of this and supply more details.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hassam AB, Dharamsi AN; Phys. Rev. A 40 (1989) 6689. "Deuterium molecule in the presence of electronic charge concentrations: implications for cold fusion". ** Could it be that, if a D2+ pair straddles an "ambient localized negative charge concentration" in the PdD(x) lattice, that this would contraction of the D-D bond distance, sufficient to make cold fusion possible? The authors use the Born-Oppenheimer approximation to find out and, depending on the negative charge, reductions by a factor of 3-5 (enough to cause Jones+ rates) and even 10 (enough for FPH rates) are possible in principle. More work is required. Prior (unpublished?) work of Koonin is cited. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hietschold M; Wiss. Z. Tech. Univ. Karl-Marx-Stadt 31 (1989) 635. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146680 (1990). "Electric field control for cold nuclear fusion? - a suggestion". ** (The abstract is a bit garbled but...) It is hypothesised that trapping of deuterons at the Pd surface or in lattice interstitial positions, combined with high local fields might activate d's to fuse. Then again, it might not. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Isagawa S, Kanda Y, Kondo K, Miyajima M, Sasaki S, Suzuki T, Yukawa T; KEK Rep. 1989, 89-15, 16 pp., Natl. Lab. High Energy Phys., Tsukuba, Japan. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146783 (1990). "Tests for cold fusion in electrochemically deuterized palladium". ** An attempt to confirm FPH's and Jones+' results by detecting n and T using similar electrolytic cells and D2O, and a variety of Pd electrode shapes and electrolyte compositions. During one month, nothing significant was observed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kyoto University (CNF Test Group, Res. React. Inst., Osaka, Japan); Kyoto Daigaku Genshiro Jikkensho Gakujutsu Koenkai Koen Yoshishu 24 (1990) 45. (In Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:126727 (1990). "Search for cold nuclear fusion at the research reactor institute". ** There have been intense efforts at the Institute to verify FPH's or Jones+' results, under various conditions. No evidence of neutron, gamma or heat production has been seen. The Frascati experiment was also attempted, as well as the Los Alamos one, using good equipment, capable of distinguishing between noise and neutrons. So far, nothing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Liu F, Rao BK, Khanna SN, Jena P; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 891. "Nature of short range interaction between deuterium atoms in palladium". ** How close can two deuteriums get in PdD(x)? Are there maybe other metal hydrides in which they can get closer and make CNF more likely and cheaper? Both the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, and the Hartree-Fock method are used, and in all cases, nothing special which might favour cold fusion is found. As also found by others, the D-D distance in PdD(x) is greater than that in D2 gas. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lomovskii OI, Eremin AF, Boldyrev VV; Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 309 (1989) 879 [Phys. Chem] (In Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:127601 (1990). "Isotopic thermal effect in reactions related to hydrogen evolution on palladium catalytic particles". ** (I quote:) An attempt was made to explain ... H evolution on Pd particles from aqueous solutions as the result of chemical conversion during the substitution of H by D. In the capacity of a model reaction, the autocatalytic deposition of Cu from solutions during reduction by HCHO in the presence of metallic Pd as catalytic particles is selected. ... The observed effects are not explained by the differences in the H and D bonding energies in compounds participating in the reactions. Applications to cold fusion experiments are suggested. (Make what you will of this. I will get a copy and report). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lomovskii OI, Eremin AF, Boldyrev VV; Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 309 (1989) 904 [Phys. Chem] (In Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:147802 (1990). "Isotopic thermal effect in reactions including hydrogen evolution on palladium catalytic particles". ** Reads like either the same as their other article a few pages before this one, or maybe an extension to it. Autocatalytic chemical Cu deposition on Pd particles is used. The rate of heat evolution during the formation of H on Pd particles is plotted. The effect is not explained by the difference between bonding energies of H and D in compounds participating in the reaction. On the other hand, it is also possible that an isotope effect is the source of the comparative superheating of Pd electrodes during the electrolysis of D2O. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prelas MA, Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 240. "Advanced energy conversion methods for cold fusion". ** Discusses several possibilities for how to produce energy from cold fusion, if this proves a real phenomenon. The basis of these speculations is that cold fusion might give off charged particles which can be made to produce photons. The article develops various themes for how to use these in practice, including the production of chemicals by irradiation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Salamon MH, Wrenn ME, Bergeson HE, Crawford KC, Delaney WH, Henderson CL, Li YQ, Rusho JA, Sandquist GM, Seltzer SM; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 401. "Limits on the emission of neutrons, gamma-rays, electrons and protons from Pons/Fleischmann electrolytic cells". ** (What about Hawkins?) This team was invited by Pons into his laboratory and set up to measure the title particles under/around Pons' cells over a period of 67 hours. They list a number of possible fusion reactions which would produce one or more of these types of radiation, including the secondary fusion of fusion-generated tritium with deuterium, and internal conversion of two deuteriums to (4)He plus an occasional electron, as suggested by the two innocent chemists Walling and Simons. All measurements were done with great care and the measured radiation levels translated into expected excess heat in watts. As has been widely publicised even before publication of this paper, the team found next to nothing - the highest heat output (as a maximum value) was around a milliwatt, most measurements gave much less still. As has also been widely discussed, there was a two-hour power failure and a longer period during which the team's monitors were not working, and Pons apparently states that something was happening just within this period. This is answered by the authors, however: had there been any significant radiation during this time, it would have left measureable traces in the form of (24)Na in their gamma detector; no (24)Na was observed, so no neutrons were given off at any time. Unfortunately, believers will say that the authors have assumed known nuclear reactions, still leaving the possibility of that elusive hitherto unknown one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Segre SE, Atzeni S, Briguglio S, Romanelli F; Europhys. Lett. 11 (1990) 201. "A mechanism for neutron emission from deuterium trapped in metals". ** This is one of the first papers (I know of) that attempts more than an arm-wave at a theory of what has been called fracto-fusion. It is theorised that small temperature changes in a MD(x) lattice (M being a given metal) will move the system away from equilibrium. For metals such as Cu, temperature decreases will do this, while for transition metals (Pd, Ti etc), teperature increases will. Then, D2 gas will tend to form, expanding into bubbles to cause voids and cracks and potential fields etc - the familiar fracto-picture. The paper lists a number of necessary conditions for fracto-fusion, which ought to help experimenters looking for it. The tentative conclusion is that it is possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shohoji N; J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 9 (1990) 231. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146798 (1990). "Unique features of hydrogen in palladium metal lattice: hints for discussing the possible occurrence of cold nuclear fusion". ** (I quote:) The fusion of D in Pd was analyzed in terms of hysteresis behavior, retention of crystal structure upon hydride formation, and electrode metal holding its solid shape during cathodization without disintegration. Other possible candidate metals for electrodes are Ni, Ce and Ac. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slanina Z; Thermochim. Acta 156 (1989) 285. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:126743 (1990). "Towards molecular-thermodynamic aspects of postulated palladium/deuterium low-temperature nuclear fusion: a useful example of a failure of the conventional translation partition function". ** A study of the partition function of translation in a cubical box of very small dimensions. As the box is assumed smaller and smaller, there appear deviations from the conventional macroscopic partition function. This was applied to H isotopes in cubic cells of Pd, and the results might go towards an explanation of CNF. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takahashi Y; Kagaku (Kyoto) 45 (1990) 54. (In Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:146653 (1990). "After effects of the cold nuclear fusion experiments". ** A survey of the papers following those of FPH and Jones+ (10 references). No paper reports the excess heat of FPH although some do report some neutrons or protons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wei SH, Zunger A; Solid State Commun. 73 (1990) 327. "Stability of atomic and diatomic hydrogen in fcc palladium". ** Another attempt to calculate the bond distances of D-D within the PdD(x) lattice. Like others, the authors find that these are greater than in D2 gas, for a wide range of loadings x. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zahm LL, Klein AC, Binney SE, Reyes Jr JN, Higginbotham JF, Robinson AH; J. Electroanal. Chem. 281 (1990) 313. "Experimental investigations of the electrolysis of D2O using palladium cathodes and platinum anodes". ** These authors tried to reproduce as closely as possible the experiments of FPH (though not using jam jars), measuring cell temperature with thermocouples and monitoring for neutrons, gamma raddiation and tritium. Oddly, they found five temperature "events" but smothered them by topping up with more D2O whenever they were observed. No evidence of tritium production or radiation above background was found. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; Science 247 (1990) 36 (6. April). "Utah scientist: No cold fusion" (Briefings section). ** Report on the Salamon et al paper in Nature, and of Pons' response, i.e. that the Salamon team left out a positive result. The Salamon et al paper does discuss this, however. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 365 (29. March). "Farewell (not fond) to cold fusion". (Editorial). ** A comment referring to the polemic elsewhere in the same issue of Nature, by David Lindley, and summarising the past year of cold fusion. Clearly, the editors of Nature have written off cold fusion as a real phenomenon, and talk of Pons and Fleischmann possibly "making a clean breast of it" at the forthcoming conference (see N. Hall, below) - which they did not do. The editors feel that the cold fusion affair has damaged the image of science by the associated secrecy, and suggest that the scientists involved should now come forward and tell us exactly what they have done and admit that cold fusion has no economic potential. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; New Scientist 126 (1990) 29 (no. 1713, 21 April). "Citations track the fate of cold fusion" (In Brief section). ** Cites an issue of Science Watch, published by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Philadelphia, and shows their graph of citations of the FPH paper from April 1989 to January 1990, in monthly lumps and divided into positive, neutral and negative citations. This shows a decline in the monthly number of papers by January 1990, citations of FPH running at about 2/month. The numbers are small and no trend can be seen in the distribution of positive, neutral and negative citations, but overall, the ratio of (+,0,-) is (0.27,0.21,0.52). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hall N; New Scientist 126 (1990) 25 (no. 1711, 7. April). "Utah keeps embers of cold fusion aglow". (This Week section). ** Report on the first annual conference held at the National Cold Fusion Center at the University of Utah. About 200 people attended, 40 gave papers of positive results. However Petrassi, who was there, said that none of these show the expected number of nuclear particles, indicating non-nuclear effects. Nevertheless the Center's director Fritz Will speaks of solid progress, pointing to excess heat consistently found (10-30%) as well as x-rays from bombardment of PdD with charged particles. The Salamon et al paper is also mentioned in the report. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 375 (29. March). "The embarrassment of cold fusion". (Commentary). ** An incisive and acid summary of the year's cold fusion. Lindley sums up the cold fusion affair, taking it apart bit by bit, citing the diminishing claims of Fleischmann and Pons, the Salamon measurements, Petrasso's criticism, the anomalies necessitating a new physical process, the contradictions (did the controls with H2O produce heat, or didn't they?) and the He apparently found but which should have stayed inside the palladium. He also throws cold water on virtually all theories that have been advanced to explain cold fusion; they all appear to make a lot out of tiny effects or invoke effects that cannot operate under the relevant conditions. As far as David Lindley (and Nature) is concerned, cold fusion is not only dead, it never lived. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miley GH; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 115. Editor's response to 'Comments on cold fusion' by Bill Nevins. ** The Editor of Fusion Technology explains that he has several reasons for opening a cold fusion section in the journal. Among these are the fact that it is a potentially valuable technique if it can be verified, and the fact that Miley himself is involved in cold fusion experiments and is personally convinced that something interesting and real is going on. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nevins B; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 115. "Comments on cold fusion". ** "Do you really want to rapidly publish a bunch of 'halfbaked' work on cold fusion? I expect that Pons and Fleischmann will find the error in their power balance within the next month or so, and all those authors will be desperately trying to withdraw their papers". This was written April 22, 1989... See GH Miley, the Editor's, response. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zorpette G; IEEE Spectrum, Feb. 1990, p. 23. "The media event". ** A good resume of the cold fusion situation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion (background facts etc) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Powell GL, Laesser R; Oak Ridge Report 1988, Y-2395; Order No. DE89005304, 41 pp. Avail NTIS. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:127527 (1990). "Solubility of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium in palladium metal". ** These were measured over a wide range of temperature (296-1460K) and used to calculate enthalpies of reaction, isotope separation factors and phase boundaries. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnupdate cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.04 / Dieter Britz w / Cold fusion bibliography update update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz with an update addition Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update update. Date: Fri, 4 May 90 16:49 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway When I sent in my last update, I forgot to mention two things: 1. I have replaced section 5 - Vince Cate's list of scanned articles he has - with his new list of 19-Apr. Thanks, Vince. 2. I have gone through the grand list and made a few corrections here and there, and in those cases where I have caught up with the article instead of just the Chemical Abstract, removed the reference to CA. Nothing to get excited about, just fussy me cleaning up. Dieter ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.05 / Bruce Dunn / Archives of this group Originally-From: a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Archives of this group Date: 5 May 90 11:24:01 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada I recently asked if anyone was archiving the messages from this group. A couple of people have indicated that they have complete or nearly complete copies of the messages. One person indicated that there was already a sociologist using messages from the group as a resource in investigations of the cold fusion flap. I would like to suggest that if anyone is considering wiping their archives, they first check to see if anyone in this group would first like a copy. -- Bruce Dunn Vancouver, Canada a752@mindlink.UUCP cudkeys: cuddy5 cudena752 cudfnBruce cudlnDunn cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.07 / Dieter Britz / Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Date: Mon, 7 May 90 08:32 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway (I have submitted this before but it never appeared, so here we go again:) cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes > In article <1303@sunic.sunet.se> bygg@sunic.sunet.se (Johnny Eriksson) writes: > >In article <2061@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > >> ... > >>Also there is the strange case of the patent issued (1920's?) > >>for using a D-Pd system to produce helium. > > >There was a patent application for such a system, filed by a guy > >named John Tandberg, sometimes in the 20's. It was turned down, > >however, since the patent office people simply did not understand > >what it was about. Also, the legend goes that Mr. Tandberg was > >unable to produce a working apparatus, due to it heating up too > >much. > > Is this an urban legend, or what? How did you find this out? Can you give > a reference? It would be most interesting if it were verified. The best reference is the book "Vaar Alkemist i Tomegraend" by S. Soederberg (Editor) and others, as annotated in my bibliography. Learn Swedish, borrow and read this book (heh heh); it is all about Tandberg and relates among other things his attempts to repeat Paneth and Peters' work - which these blokes dropped after only about 6 months, realising that the He, which they thought had to come from fusion of hydrogen, in fact came from elsewhere. I don't know whether Tandberg was aware of the retraction but he plugged away at this for some decades, and even anticipated PFH and Jones+ by using electrolysis to charge up palladium with deuterium. I don't know whether he found any excess heat but I doubt it (I had to return the book and can't check). The mention of Paneth and Peters reminds me of something I have felt uncomfortable about in this affair: any scientific claim or theory has to suggest means of possibly falsifying it; in fact, it must run the gauntlet of several crucial falsification attempts. It has been said (perhaps in this group) that a scientist proposing such a theory must him/herself try to do the falsification. This, I think, is an overstatement - it's enough if others try it. It would be all the more noble, and all that, if PFH were to do their utmost to find conventional (non-nuclear) explanations for their results but you can't knock them too much for letting others have a go at this. However, it does seem to me that they have rather overplayed their insistence that all their results stand unchallenged and that all criticisms are worth nothing. This is why I think they ought to do better calorimetry - to answer the falsifiers: most careful calorimetry has shown precisely zero excess heat, with few if any exceptions. PFH must answer these results. They can't go on insisting that they use crude tools but know how to use them properly, if they want to convince others. Paneth and Peters, in 1926/7, set a good example. First they carefully analysed their results and, not finding any source of the helium their apparatus seemed to produce, let themselves be forced to conclude that it had a fusion origin. They kept looking for error sources, however, and within 6 months or so found them and retracted their claim. They did not spend this time simply reproducing their original results, or taking people to court. Maybe I have hit a good point here: DO PFH want to convince us? Or are they so convinced of The Truth that all they want now is to work out the engineering details, in order to make a cold fusion tea boiler they can sell? Or whatever. Look at PFH's work in another light: although they do not cite anything that may have led them to try their experiments, they must have had fusion in mind when they did. They would have expected to produce lots of tritium, helium, neutrons, protons, x-rays etc, as well as heat. What did they find? Depending upon whether you are a True Believer or a skeptic you'll say either excess heat or nothing. In either case, no tritium, etc. The TB must then say "Wasn't that lucky? They stumbled on just the right experiment that provokes this hitherto unknown nuclear reaction!" The skeptic will say "They got nothing, and isn't it strange that this system, which did nothing for PFH, started a lab-rush all over the world, founded a great heap of pro- and anti-theories and even produced some apparent results?" I tend to think that it's not so strange at all. As you have been reminded before, there was a lab-rush for polywater, and it was found, again and again. Go forth and falsify. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy7 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / Dave Mahan / Re: Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Originally-From: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Date: 8 May 90 00:49:57 GMT Organization: NetCom- The Bay Area's Public Access Unix System In article <9005070625.AA24526@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > Look at PFH's work in another light: although they do not cite anything >that may have led them to try their experiments, they must have had fusion in >mind when they did. They would have expected to produce lots of tritium, >helium, neutrons, protons, x-rays etc, as well as heat. What did they find? >Depending upon whether you are a True Believer or a skeptic you'll say either >excess heat or nothing. In either case, no tritium, etc. The TB must then say >"Wasn't that lucky? They stumbled on just the right experiment that provokes >this hitherto unknown nuclear reaction!" The skeptic will say "They got >nothing, and isn't it strange that this system, which did nothing for PFH, >started a lab-rush all over the world, founded a great heap of pro- and >anti-theories and even produced some apparent results?" I tend to think that >it's not so strange at all. As you have been reminded before, there was a >lab-rush for polywater, and it was found, again and again. I have always wondered how PFH managed to use an unsystematic approach and obtain the answers they did with CNF. Most folks that are trying to get CNF can't seem to, how did PFH get so lucky as to hit upon the secret with little or no background into controlling the parameters required to obtain it on their initial attempts? Seems kind of strange to me, or perhaps just EXTREMELY lucky? >Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk -dave cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenmcmahan cudfnDave cudlnMahan cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / rose@sunset.se / Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold "Fission"? Date: 8 May 90 19:53:41 GMT In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone have any info on this? Let's make some assumptions as to the method. The Deuterium atom somehow enters the Pd atom creating AG (104 to 109) , if memory serves. It takes energy to make the Silver which, presumably, then decays releasing energy. Since I don't have a table of nuclides handy could someone calculate the net energy change and decay modes/time. How much energy would be required to fuse the D and the Pd? Also what would be the final stable isotopes? Personally, I think the fusion process much more likely than fission. cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenrose cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / horst@uicsgva. / Glass Contamination Originally-From: horst@uicsgva.csg.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Glass Contamination Date: 8 May 90 19:30:00 GMT In his summary of the NCFI conference, James White writes: >I used to think that the vast number of negative experiments were as >carefully done as the scientists that did them claimed, and that the >reason they were negative was that they just didn't hit on the right >conditions. Some necessary impurity might be missing, for instance. >But that isn't the case at all. Hoffman has analyzed a number of >electrodes that gave positive results as well as a large number of >electrodes that gave negative results. Both groups were covered with >gunk. But while the positive group gave some Palladium signal from >at or very near the surface, the negative group gave no Palladium >signal even after over 1000 angstroms had been removed from their >surface! Also, the negative group tended to have much more Zirconium >and Aluminum on them. Most of this gunk came from the glass container. >It is too bad that the scientists reporting negative results didn't >realize that a hydroxide solution etches ordinary glass. It may be >that some contamination of the right type is helpful, but the >what comes out of ordinary glass in .1M LiOD is a mess. >Huggins at Stanford uses quartz, BTW. There has been no discussion of this on the net. It sounds like a possible explanation many of the negative results. Does anyone have information on the types of containers used in the various positive and negative experiments? It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between results and the use of glass containers. -- Bob Horst, horst@bach.csg.uiuc.edu cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenhorst cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / Terry Bollinger / Re-enter n*h Farfetch... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re-enter n*h Farfetch... Date: Tue, 8 May 90 17:48:19 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway RE-ENTER n*h FARFETCH: In an n*h space where n is sufficiently large, many of the classic differentiators between fusion reactions would be minimized due to greatly increased "borrowing" of future energy. At high enough values of n, the mass of the nucleons (the smaller the better) and the energy of the resulting fusions (the larger the better) should become the dominant issues in determining which classes of fusion reactions will be favored, as opposed to factors such as the slowness of weak force interactions that dominate in 1*h space. In particular, lightweight fusion reactions which involve nucleon conversions reactions, such as PEP and PP, shouuld in sufficiently high n*h spaces become statistically favorable over the simpler "nucleon re-arrangement" reactions, such as p + D, that dominate in 1*h space. This would mean that as n increases for an n*h space, the earliest energy-producing reaction that would be achieved would probably be the production of deuterium from two protons and an electron -- that is, the PEP reaction, which in normal 1*h space is one of the least likely reactions. The Transformer Argument would also be affected, since high n*h values quite possibly would result in significant increases in the degree of electromagnetic coupling between excited nuclear shells and (chemical domain) electron shells. In short, the increased coupling between newly fused nuclei and electron clouds might allow heat energy to be dissipated directly to the electron shells as heat, rather than as gamma emissions or fission events. LEAVE FARFETCH AND BEGIN CRITIQUE These are ballparks, not detailed calculations. For reasons which may not be readily apparent in such a ballpark calculation, it's quite possible that an n*h space might turn out *not* to favor proton-proton fusions. For example, the de Broglie wavelengths of the protons will depend on their kinetic velocities as well as their masses. Since the protons will have higher average kinetic velocities than deuterons, it's not at all clear that there will truly be a significant increase in the likelyhood of proton-proton fusions over other reactions. Increasing the value of n should also increase the physical size of the electron orbitals substantially, so than any "gain" in the liklihood of fusion might be lost due to the increased spacing of the nuclei. And of course, there is absolutely *no* discernable reason as to why n*h spaces, even if they could exist, would elect to do so in such a bizzarely ordinary place as the middle of a palladium rod. Relativity did not superscede Newtonian physics until the extreme limits of mass and velocity were explored. For *ordinary*, everday situations, the predictions of relativistic physics and Newtonian physics are identical. Palladium is very, *very* ordinary by QCD standards. It is thus very, *very* difficult to come up with a plausible reason as to how such an incredibly gross violation of QCD could be triggered by such a mundane experimental setup. Cheers, Terry JUST FOR (TOTALLY IRRELEVANT) FUN Bosons (force particles) are "allowed" to be in the same place at the same time. Fermions (matter particles) are *not* "allowed" to occupy the same space at the same time, since their wave functions are antisymmetric. This can be readily demonstrated by crossing the (boson) beams of two flashlights -- the photons cross through each other's paths with no difficulty, even when the beams are very intense (e.g., lasers). In contrast, crossing the (fermion) "beams" of two water hoses produces a spectacular spray as the water particles attempt to occupy the same spaces at the same time. Now it happens that helium II (superfluid helium) behaves as strangely as it does because at very low temperatures, the helium atoms -- each containing two protons, two neutrons, and two electrons -- are able to some degree to "forget" that they are fermions and behave as composite bosons. In a sense, helium II "forgets" that it is ordinary matter and behaves a bit like a collection of force particles! So now at last the question: What exactly will happen if you cross two "beams" (streams) of helium II? Will they spray out like water, or will they pass right through each other like photons? Interesting little question, isn't it? cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / John Pimentel / Re: Cold Fusion News Originally-From: jp@frog.UUCP (John Pimentel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold Fusion News Date: 8 May 90 18:58:00 GMT Organization: Charles River Data Systems I have a con_fusion about cold fusion namely about the significant counts over background. Anyone care to give input? -- ----------------------CUT HERE------------------------------- EVEN IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO. STANDARD DISCLAIMER ALWAYS APPLIES. THESE ARE MY IDEAS EVEN IF YOU LIKE THEM AND CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THEM. CALL 1 (800) 555-2121 or 711 TO HAVE YOUR MESSAGE PLACED HERE. --------CUT HERE AGAIN...AND AGAIN...AND AGAIN---------------- cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjp cudfnJohn cudlnPimentel cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.03 / / NEW THEORY Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: NEW THEORY Date: Thu, 3 May 90 13:12 EST Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway We were hoping that someone would use our equations to calculate the radii, electrostatic, magnetic, and ionization energies for several two-electron atoms and compare these values to the experimental ionization energies. We believe that these equations are an impressive accomplishment of our new theory of the atom. Maybe someone is trying these equations now. To get you started, we post some values below: atom r E(elec) E(mag) Calc Ionization E Ionization E (a0) (eV) (eV) (eV) (eV) He 0.567 -23.99 0.63 24.62 23.59 Li(I) 0.356 -76.51 2.54 75.66 75.64 We have spent most of the last year writing a book about this new theory. The title, authors, abstract, and information on how to purchase the book are given below. Title: The Grand Unified Theory Length: 150 pages Authors: Randell L. MIlls President, Mills Technologies Box 142 Cochranville, PA 19330 John J. Farrell Professor of Chemistry Franklin & Marshall College Lancaster, PA 17604 Abstract: The fundamental laws of nature are derived and are shown to be applicable on all scales. Electricity and magnetism (Maxwell's equations), gravity (curvature of space-time by matter); Einstein's General Relativity), transformations among space-time inertial frames (Einstein's Special Relativity), Newtonian mechanics, and the strong and weak forces are unified. Creation of matter from energy equations are derived and these equations govern the existence of the fundamental particles. From these equations, exact values for the fundamental constants are determined. Major physical observables (for example: energy levels of one- two-, and three-electron atoms; excited states of helium; the nature of the chemical bond; the spin angular momentum of the electron; the magnetic moment of the proton and the neutron; the energy of beta decay of the neutron) are calculated from derived, closed-form equations that contain fundamental constants only. The agreement between the calculated values and known experimental values is at least 1 part per thousand. The book can be obtained by sending a check for $25.00 to Mills Technologies, Box 142, Cochranville, PA 19330. We will do what we can over the net, but communicating equations over the net is slow and tedious. We will put material on the net as time and energy permits. About all we can do over the net is give enough to convince you that the theory is novel and that it is worth a serious examination by the scientific community. Theoretically yours, John J. Farrell Chemistry Department Franklin & Marshall College and Randell L. Mills Mills Technologies cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.09 / William Johnson / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 9 May 90 16:23:58 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <266.2646b345@sunset.sedd.trw.com>, rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com writes: >In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes >that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone >have any info on this? I don't have anything specific on what's been claimed -- if anybody else does, please post it -- but as self-appointed s.p.f nuclear physics guru :-), here are some of the relevant numbers. >Let's make some assumptions as to the method. The Deuterium atom somehow enters >the Pd atom creating AG (104 to 109), if memory serves. It takes energy to make >the Silver which, presumably, then decays releasing energy. Since I don't have a >table of nuclides handy could someone calculate the net energy change and decay >modes/time. How much energy would be required to fuse the D and the Pd? Also >what would be the final stable isotopes? Well, first things first. Can energy be "made" with these processes? I consult my handy table of mass excesses to find the following: The reaction Pd-104 + H-2 = Ag-106 is exothermic by roughly 11 MeV, the reaction Pd-105 + H-2 = Ag-107 by about 13 MeV, and Pd-106 + H-2 = Ag-108 and Pd-108 + H-2 = Ag-110 by about 11 MeV again. One must also consider the reactions Pd-x + H-2 = Pd-(x+1) + H-1; for x=105 this is exothermic by some 7 MeV, for the others about 4 MeV. (These reactions are of a type known as Oppenheimer-Phillips reactions that are known to be more important for low-energy deuterons than the straight capture implied in the first set of reactions given above; I'll expand on O-P reactions some other time if anyone is interested.) None of these exactly represent "fission" in the usual sense of the word as used by nuclear physicists, so for completeness in understanding what the illustrious professor wants us to believe, let's consider some reactions that *are* more nearly fission: for example, Pd-106 + H-2 = V-54 + Cr-54. This one is exothermic by some 30 MeV or more. Perhaps we are onto something? Alas, no. The problem is exactly the one that arises every time nuclear processes are invoked to explain cold "fusion": there should be nuclear observables, and there aren't any. First, all of these reactions should be accompanied by release of lots of prompt gamma rays (i.e., gamma rays emitted within 10^-15 sec or so of the time of the reaction). Second, and more important, most of them -- and at least one of every "class" of reaction given above -- result in formation of something that's radioactive and decays by emission of gammas that will be visible long after the reaction itself occurred. Consider, for example, the first class of reactions given above (of the form Pd-x + H-2 = Ag-[x+2]). For x=105 the resulting silver isotope (Ag-107) is stable, but for the others, unstable isotopes with half lives ranging from 25 minutes to 120 years (Ag-108m) are produced. All of these decay with emission of gamma rays of known energies that should be visible through gamma-ray spectroscopy. None, to the best of my knowledge, have been seen, and the failure of Fleischmann to remark on unexpected gamma-ray lines in the spectra he showed at his colloquium earlier this year suggests to me that no such lines were seen at Utah either, though I can't be sure of this. Similar arguments apply for the fission-like reactions. The situation with the Oppenheimer-Phillips reactions is less clear since most of the resulting palladium isotopes are in fact stable or (in the case of Pd-107) long-lived with no gamma emission. However, Pd-109, putatively produced by an O-P reaction on Pd-108 (which comprises over a quarter of all palladium nuclei in natural palladium), is *not* stable; it has a half life of about 14 hours -- just the value that should make its emissions highly detectable in cold-fusion experiments, more about that shortly -- and emits a bunch of gamma rays, including one at 88 keV (actually from its Ag-109 daughter) that is duck soup to detect via spectroscopy. Again, this has not been seen. I stress the half life of Pd-109 because of something arising in the Pons vs. Salomon imbroglio, of which otherwise the less said the better. It has been reported that Salomon (who took various nuclear measurements on FPH cells, seeing nothing) was unable to take data for a 2-hour period during which it was claimed that the cell produced a burst of heat. Well, if the burst had been due to O-P reactions, there would have been *lots* of Pd-109 left after Salomon and company got back on line, and the gamma rays would still have been detectable, if anyone was looking for them. Draw your own conclusions. So we are left with the same problem that makes us so skeptical of d+d (which, parenthetically, should be vastly favored over Pd+d on energetic grounds anyway) as a cold-fusion explanation: there should be nuclear observables (in this case gammas rather than the neutrons that should come from d+d), and there aren't any. Furthermore, no invocation of "magic" to alter branching ratios, come up with some strange tunneling mechanism to make the reaction go (required since deuterons normally won't react with palladium unless they have energies of a few MeV, due to the Coulomb barrier), etc., is "magical" enough to arm-wave away the emissions of the radioactive products. It just doesn't work. I suspect that the "What's New" remark was made with a heavy dose of sarcasm rather than as a "real" news report; it would be in the WN style, and any nuclear physicist reading it is going to pick up on the same physics objections as I did. >Personally, I think the fusion process much more likely than fission. Personally, I think experimental error much more likely than either ... but if the proper measurements are done, we can find out. -- 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: cuddy9 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.09 / Dieter Britz w / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz with an update addition Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Wed, 9 May 90 11:23 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway A few more; of these, it seems to me the Schwinger is the most interesting, with his suggestion of the p+d reaction, producing only (3)He and heat, no neutrons etc. The He, as has been mentioned before, will not escape the Pd and ought to be easy to find there (?). It seems to me also that in this theory there may lie a clue to the irreproducability of cnf: this fusion reaction relies on the presence of protons in the Pd (or Ti? Schwinger does not mention Ti) and they must come from the residual impurity of light water H2O in the D2O used. The H2O level must fluctuate widely from one experiment (or cell) to the other. Is success/failure correlated with the H/D ratio in the final palladium (hydride/)deuteride? It's testable. Pons, are you reading this? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 9-May. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chatterjee L; Indian J. Pure Appl. Phys. 27 (1989) 787. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:167123 (1990). "Muon production for energy applications: cold fusion". ** Muon catalized cold fusion needs a good source of muons. This paper discusses the problem of reducing costs of muons from an accelerator. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dickinson JT, Jensen LC, Langford SC, Ryan RR, Garcia E; J. Mater. Res. 5 (1990) 109. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:166471 (1990). "Fracto-emission from deuterated titanium: supporting evidence for a fracto-fusion mechanism". ** Measurements of emission of charged particles, photons and radiofrequency signals upon the deformation and fracture of polycrystalline Ti and TiD(x). There is preliminary evidence of charge separation (necessary for the fracto- fusion theory). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hora H, Cicchitelli L, Miley GH, Ragheb M, Scharmann A, Scheid W; Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. 12D (1990) 393. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:166518 (1990). "Plasma and surface tension model for explaining the surface effect of tritium generation at cold fusion". ** Introduces the mechanism of an exotic D plasma, with possible short nuclear distance by thermal motion, in order to explain the surface mechanism of D reactions in Pd and Ti (i.e. cold fusion). The resulting swimming electron layer resulting from this new theory, together with high D concentrations near the metal surface and thus short D-D distances can increase fusion rates. (And I thought it was supposed to be a bulk effect). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jin S, Ding Y, Liu Y, Wu B, Yao D; Chin. Phys. Lett. 7 (1990) 28. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:166538 (1990). "The possibilities of cold nuclear fusion of deuterium". ** I think they mean the possibility, sing. This was examined theoretically, and the fusion rates found too low. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schwinger J; Z. Phys. D: At., Mol. Clusters 15 (1990) 221. "Nuclear energy in an atomic lattice. 1". ** A notable physicist has a go at a theory of CNF. Starting from scratch and invoking virtual phonons, schwinger finds that lattice coupling can diminish the Coulomb barrier in a way that strongly favours fusion of protons with deuterons (p+d), rather than (d+d); the reaction is p+d -> (3)He plus heat. A new twist, which could go towards explaining the absence of emitted radiation in the presence of heat. (3)He is a stable isotope and (see Abell et al) would not escape from the Pd. The theory is quite testable - look for (3)He in the metal, not the evolved gas; there ought to be lots of it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sioda RE; Bull. Electrochem. 5 (1989) 902. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:167736 (1990). "Heat effects during room-temperature electrolysis of deuterium oxide". ** Presents a simple model to predict thermal effects in cells which give off gases. Also carried out an experiment in D2O + Na2SO4, with 2 Pt electrodes, give the cell voltage and compare with the thermodynamic one. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yao YD, Wang CW, Lin EK, Wu JK; J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 9 (1990) 228. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:167779 (1990). "Observation of cathodic charging on a palladium electrode in heavy water". ** Did some electrolysis experiments with Pd and Pt sheet, in different electrolytes in D2O, and monitored for gammas and neutrons. The spectra cannot be reconciled with nuclear reactions, and the heat was the same for Pt sheet as for Pd. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.09 / john welsh / Re: Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Originally-From: johna@cbnewsj.att.com (john.a.welsh) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Urban legends, falsification and other runnings off Dieter's mouth. Date: 9 May 90 20:04:13 GMT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories In article <9005070625.AA24526@danpost.uni-c.dk>, BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > > Paneth and Peters, in 1926/7, set a good example. > First they carefully analysed their results and, not finding any source of > the helium their apparatus seemed to produce, let themselves be forced to > conclude that it had a fusion origin. They kept looking for error sources, > however, and within 6 months or so found them and retracted their claim. > They did not spend this time simply reproducing their original results, or > taking people to court. When P&P issued their retraction, what did they determine the source of the Helium was? Is the Pons & Fleichman device so similar that it could have the same source? I also remember a long while ago in this newsgroup and in news articles that the fusion cell was referred to as a fancy cigar lighter. Apparently somebody in the 1800s invented a chemical heat generating device. What was that system's source of heat? cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjohna cudfnjohn cudlnwelsh cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / Joe Weening / Please ignore the "for sale" message from Vermont Originally-From: weening@shelby.stanford.edu (Joe Weening) Newsgroups: su.test,na.test Subject: Please ignore the "for sale" message from Vermont Date: 8 May 90 21:30:12 GMT Please ignore the message entitled "FOR SALE: VERMONT BUSINESS and HOMESTEAD". It was sent to you because of an error in the configuration of Stanford's USENET system. It is not the fault of the person who posted it, so please do not send her any complaints. (You can send complaints to usenet@shelby.stanford.edu.) The system will be fixed so that this does not happen in the future. cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenweening cudfnJoe cudlnWeening cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.10 / James White / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 10 May 90 17:16:59 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <1990May9.162359.14713@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> J_FARREL%FANDM.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU writes: >We were hoping that someone would use our equations to calculate >the radii, electrostatic, magnetic, and ionization energies for several >two-electron atoms and compare these values to the experimental >ionization energies. We believe that these equations are an impressive >accomplishment of our new theory of the atom. ... >Abstract: The fundamental laws of nature are derived and are shown >to be applicable on all scales. ... Major physical observables >(for example: energy levels of one- two-, and three-electron atoms; >excited states of helium; the nature of the chemical bond; the spin >angular momentum of the electron; the magnetic moment of the >proton and the neutron; the energy of beta decay of the neutron) are >calculated from derived, closed-form equations that contain >fundamental constants only. The agreement between the calculated >values and known experimental values is at least 1 part per thousand. I used the equations to calculate from Z=3 to Z=20. The "err" entry is the error for the ionization potential where err = (calc-observed)/observed. While Z=3 is reasonably close, Z=4 and Z=5 are 5 parts per thousand too high. The error then decreases, passing through zero around Z=10, and then increases to nearly 8 parts per thousand at Z=20. Frankly, it looks suspiciously like an empirical fit. Is this error due to the theory being an approximation to reality, or to the equations being an approximation to the theory? Does the theory suggest a simple numerical procedure that gives exact answers? Is there a simple numerical procedure applicable to any three dimensional system such as a molecule? You mention protons and neutrons. Are you able to calculate the mass of these and other hadrons from first principles? Z= 3, r=1.88208e-11, ee= -76.5096, em= 2.5431, e= 75.6620, err= 0.000317 Z= 4, r=1.38202e-11, ee= -156.2900, em= 6.4229, e= 154.6843, err= 0.005142 Z= 5, r=1.09380e-11, ee= -263.2973, em= 12.9557, e= 260.7061, err= 0.005159 Z= 6, r=9.05594e-12, ee= -397.5225, em= 22.8285, e= 393.7178, err= 0.004185 Z= 7, r=7.72847e-12, ee= -558.9626, em= 36.7279, e= 553.7158, err= 0.003005 Z= 8, r=6.74131e-12, ee= -747.6162, em= 55.3406, e= 740.6986, err= 0.001872 Z= 9, r=5.97821e-12, ee= -963.4826, em= 79.3530, e= 954.6656, err= 0.000817 Z=10, r=5.37054e-12, ee=-1206.5614, em=109.4517, e=1195.6162, err=-0.000151 Z=11, r=4.87515e-12, ee=-1476.8523, em=146.3231, e=1463.5502, err=-0.001052 Z=12, r=4.46352e-12, ee=-1774.3553, em=190.6538, e=1758.4675, err=-0.001893 Z=13, r=4.11604e-12, ee=-2099.0702, em=243.1302, e=2080.3679, err=-0.002692 Z=14, r=3.81879e-12, ee=-2450.9969, em=304.4388, e=2429.2513, err=-0.003456 Z=15, r=3.56161e-12, ee=-2830.1355, em=375.2661, e=2805.1177, err=-0.004198 Z=16, r=3.33690e-12, ee=-3236.4858, em=456.2986, e=3207.9671, err=-0.004922 Z=17, r=3.13887e-12, ee=-3670.0478, em=548.2227, e=3637.7994, err=-0.005638 Z=18, r=2.96304e-12, ee=-4130.8215, em=651.7249, e=4094.6146, err=-0.006349 Z=19, r=2.80587e-12, ee=-4618.8069, em=767.4918, e=4578.4126, err=-0.007058 Z=20, r=2.66454e-12, ee=-5134.0040, em=896.2097, e=5089.1935, err=-0.007770 cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.10 / Robert Rackerby / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: rr@pnet12.cts.com (Robert Rackerby) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 10 May 90 05:36:08 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet12], Del Mar, CA rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com writes: >In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes >that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone >have any info on this? > >Let's make some assumptions as to the method. The Deuterium atom somehow enters >the Pd atom creating AG (104 to 109) , if memory serves. It takes energy to make >the Silver which, presumably, then decays releasing energy. Since I don't have a It seems to me that when the Deuterium atom somehow enters the Pd atom you have just described FUSION. Isn't Fission taking big ones and making little ones and Fusion taking little ones and making big ones? rr UUCP: ucsd!serene!pnet12!rr ARPA: crash!pnet12!rr@nosc.mil INET: rr@pnet12.cts.com cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenrr cudfnRobert cudlnRackerby cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.08 / Deborah / FOR SALE: VERMONT BUSINESS and HOMESTEAD Originally-From: debo@io.UUCP (Deborah O'Hanlon) Newsgroups: misc.forsale,ne.forsale,na.forsale Subject: FOR SALE: VERMONT BUSINESS and HOMESTEAD Date: 8 May 90 14:18:38 GMT Organization: Interleaf Inc, Cambridge, MA [Posting for a friend, please do NOT respond via email, thanks.] VERMONT BUSINESS and HOMESTEAD FOR SALE Wood furniture manufacturer of original designed tools, tables, and accessories. 5000 sq. ft. fully equipped shop in converted dairy farm. 4000 sq. ft. storage. Office, showroom, apartment in 1820 farmhouse. 8 acres with pond in rural Vermont community. National sales. Seeking buyer for business and/or real estate. Partnership possibilities considered. (803) 453-4924 cudkeys: cuddy8 cudendebo cudlnDeborah cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.10 / William Johnson / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 10 May 90 23:53:08 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <1764@serene.UUCP>, rr@pnet12.cts.com (Robert Rackerby) writes: > rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com writes: > >In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes > >that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone > >have any info on this? > > > >Let's make some assumptions as to the method. The Deuterium atom somehow enters > >the Pd atom creating AG (104 to 109) , if memory serves. It takes energy to make > >the Silver which, presumably, then decays releasing energy. Since I don't have a > > It seems to me that when the Deuterium atom somehow enters the Pd atom you > have just described FUSION. Isn't Fission taking big ones and making little > ones and Fusion taking little ones and making big ones? Just to resolve the underlying semantic point: if we consider a "generic" nuclear reaction to look like A [+B] ---> C [+D] [+E] [+...], i.e., we start with nucleus A and maybe B and finish with C and maybe D and others, then: * If C and D both exist and are each about half the mass of A, then the process is usually called "fission." * If A and B exist and C and D (and optionally E...) exist but one of C and D is much heavier than the other, *neither* "fusion" nor "fission" is usually used to describe what is going on; other terms -- direct reactions, spallation reactions, deep inelastic collisions, and others -- are usually used instead. * If B does *not* exist and D is an alpha particle (He-4 nucleus), i.e., if A spontaneously transmutes into C plus an alpha particle, then A is said to have undergone "alpha decay." Neither "fission" nor "fusion" is used to describe the process. * The term "fusion" is normally (although with some exceptions) used to describe the very limited set of reactions in which A and B are both hydrogen nuclei of some kind and C (and D if it exists) are different from A and B. I realize this is somewhat pedantic, but maybe it will help in sorting out the things people are saying. The reactions cited in the reference above are just plain old nuclear reactions, not fusion or fission as the phrases are normally used. The reactions d+d=p+t, d+d=He-4, etc., that are the focus of most cold-fusion interest are fusion reactions. I have no idea what Fleischmann meant by "fission" of palladium; if anybody has seen the original reference, I'd be glad to comment on it. -- 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 cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.11 / L Chiaraviglio / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: chiaravi@pewter.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 11 May 90 05:32:15 GMT Organization: Department of Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington In article <50804@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >Just to resolve the underlying semantic point: if we consider a "generic" >nuclear reaction to look like > A [+B] ---> C [+D] [+E] [+...], i.e., we start with nucleus A and maybe >B and finish with C and maybe D and others, then: >[. . .] >* The term "fusion" is normally (although with some exceptions) used to > describe the very limited set of reactions in which A and B are both > hydrogen nuclei of some kind and C (and D if it exists) are different > from A and B. Having read (-: and even partly understood :-) a number of articles on stellar evolution and associated processes, I would say that the definition of "fusion" should not be so strict. I say this because of all of the examples of nuclear reactions occurring even in main-sequence stars in which one or both of A and B are something other than hydrogen. Thus, it seems most appropriate to leave fusion as describing the rather extensive set of reactions in which C gets the majority of the material contributed by A and B. In one case that I can think of right off-hand, a fusion equation has A, B, and C all on the left-hand side of the equation, and D on the right-hand side gets all of the matter! (Hint: A, B, and C are all the same in this case, and are not hydrogen.) | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR) Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu Alt Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenchiaravi cudfnLucius cudlnChiaraviglio cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.11 / William Johnson / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 11 May 90 15:26:19 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <44650@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, chiaravi@pewter.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: > In article <50804@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: > >Just to resolve the underlying semantic point: if we consider a "generic" > >nuclear reaction to look like > > A [+B] ---> C [+D] [+E] [+...], i.e., we start with nucleus A and maybe > >B and finish with C and maybe D and others, then: > >[. . .] > >* The term "fusion" is normally (although with some exceptions) used to > > describe the very limited set of reactions in which A and B are both > > hydrogen nuclei of some kind and C (and D if it exists) are different > > from A and B. > > Having read (-: and even partly understood :-) a number of articles on > stellar evolution and associated processes, I would say that the definition of > "fusion" should not be so strict. [veiled reference to the helium-burning reaction in stars omitted] You're right; my definition was not intended to be rigorous. Several stellar processes -- the helium-burning reaction you allude to, carbon-nitrogen cycle, probably some others -- are typically called "fusion" as well. My purpose in offering those definitions, however, was mainly to clear up the semantic confusion purely in the context of cold fusion. To recap that: The reactions d+d=[stuff], d+p=He-3, d+t=He-4+n are what are normally called "fusion" reactions. The reactions Pd+d=Ag, Pd+d=(different-Pd)+p are neither fusion nor fission reactions as those terms are usually used. Reactions similar to Pd-104+d=V-53+Cr-53 are "fission" reactions in one sense of the word. I still have no idea what Fleischmann meant by "fission" of palladium, because it is extremely abnormal to talk of palladium "fissioning." Absolutely no reactions such as the "fission" reaction I mentioned have been observed for elements as light as palladium, except when the energy of the deuteron is extremely high. (In this case, the deuteron, on hitting the palladium nucleus, simply blows bits and pieces off; such a reaction is normally called "spallation" rather than fission.) The non-fusion, non-fission reactions leading to silver isotopes, etc., are much more likely -- MUCH more likely -- than "fission" given low-energy deuterons; this is old and exceedingly well documented nuclear physics. -- 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: cuddy11 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.12 / Mark Iverson / Re: Glass Contamination Originally-From: marki@tahoe.unr.edu (Mark N. Iverson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.research,sci.chem,sci.bio,sci.physics Subject: Re: Glass Contamination Date: 12 May 90 00:28:15 GMT Organization: Desert Research Institute - Atmospheric Sciences Center In article <308200002@uicsgva.csg.uiuc.edu> horst@uicsgva.csg.uiuc.edu writes: > >In his summary of the NCFI conference, James White writes: > >>I used to think that the vast number of negative experiments were as >>carefully done as the scientists that did them claimed, and that the >>reason they were negative was that they just didn't hit on the right >>conditions. Some necessary impurity might be missing, for instance. >>But that isn't the case at all. Hoffman has analyzed a number of >>electrodes that gave positive results as well as a large number of >>electrodes that gave negative results. Both groups were covered with >>gunk. But while the positive group gave some Palladium signal from >>at or very near the surface, the negative group gave no Palladium >>signal even after over 1000 angstroms had been removed from their >>surface! Also, the negative group tended to have much more Zirconium >>and Aluminum on them. Most of this gunk came from the glass container. >>It is too bad that the scientists reporting negative results didn't >>realize that a hydroxide solution etches ordinary glass. It may be >>that some contamination of the right type is helpful, but the >>what comes out of ordinary glass in .1M LiOD is a mess. >>Huggins at Stanford uses quartz, BTW. > >There has been no discussion of this on the net. It sounds like >a possible explanation many of the negative results. Does anyone >have information on the types of containers used in the various >positive and negative experiments? It would be interesting to see >if there is a correlation between results and the use of glass >containers. > >-- Bob Horst, horst@bach.csg.uiuc.edu [sorry, but I just couldn't hold back any longer...] Geez, wonder why? An ol' timer (alchemist) here said it's common knowledge amongst chemists that alkaline solutions etch glass, and that the released ions would be attracted to the electrodes. Something most physicists (apparently) don't know, or didn't remember (the etching that is)! ...think it's time for all good scientists to put aside their petty differences (experimentalists vs theorists, physicists vs chemists, etc.) and do some INTERDISCIPLINARY (sp?) work. Geez, what a novel idea. Science has taught us that the (human) animal has a tendency to form groups (its us against them, guys!), and engage in other types of behavior, consciously or subconsciously, that are not exactly in line with the objectives of the scientific method. So, to generate a bit of discussion while waiting for more news... Why doesn't the scientific community use the knowledge that it gains from its own revered method, to IMPROVE itself? THERE"S ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT! [well, it has in the case of the double/triple blind test methodology...] Oh, well. Perhaps when the (human) animal evolves to the level of a human... I'm optimistic... ...and just a wee bit idealistic! ;-) but hey, someone has to be. mark n. iverson -- Mark N. Iverson uunet!unrvax!tahoe!marki / We dance round in a ring and suppose, marki@tahoe.unr.edu (scientists)->| but The Secret sits in the middle, marki@clouds.unr.edu \ and knows. -- R. Frost cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenmarki cudfnMark cudlnIverson cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.11 / Matt Visser / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: visser@wuphys.wustl.edu (Matt Visser) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 11 May 90 16:53:30 GMT Organization: Physics Dept, Washington U. in St Louis John Farrel writes: >From: J_FARREL%FANDM.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU >Subject: New Theory > >We can explain CAF using a new and novel theory of the atom. > >In a two-electron atom [He, Li(I), Be(II), etc] there are electrostatic >interactions and magnetic interactions and > >E(elec) = - [(Z - 1) e**2]/[8 pi (e0) r] > >E(mag) = 2 pi (u0) e**2 (hbar)**2/[(me)**2 r**3] > >where r is the radius of each electron = > (a0) [ 1/(Z-1) - sqrt(0.5(0.5 + 1))/(Z(Z-1))] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ sqrt(3/4)? >Z is the atomic number of the atom >e is the charge on an electron = 1.6022E-19 C >e0 is the permittivity of free-space = 8.8542E-12 C**2 /N m**2 >u0 is the permeability of free-space = 4 pi E-7 N/A**2 >hbar is Planck's constant bar = 1.0546E-34 J s >me is the electron rest mass = 9.1095E-31 kg >a0 is the Bohr radius = 5.2918E-11 m >6.2415E18 J = 1 eV > >The ionization energy for He is > E(ionization) = - E(elec) + E(mag) > >The ionization energy for all positively charged two-electron atoms is >E(ionization) = - E(elec) - (1/Z) E(mag) > >John J. Farrell >Chemistry Department >Franklin & Marshall College > >and > >Randell L. Mills >Mills Technologies Some comments: I am not too surprised that your estimates are qualitatively correct based on simple dimensional analysis (but I would be very surprised if there is more to your model than a qualitative fit to the data). Let's start by rewriting (in quasi TeX): r = (a_0) [ 1-sqrt{3/4}/Z ]/ (Z-1) (You might want to check the bracket placement on your original posting, that was a rather convoluted way of writing ``sqrt{3/4}''.) Now introduce the Rydberg constant (the ground state binding energy of the Hydrogen atom in the simple nonrelativistic Schrodinger theory) R = {1/2} {e^2/4pi e_0} {1/a_0} = {1/2} alpha^2 m_e c^2 Where ``alpha'' is the ``fine structure constant'' (approx 1/137). Then your formula for the electrical energy is simply E_e = - R (Z-1)^2 / (1-sqrt{3/4}/Z) (much simpler expressed this way, isnt it?). Since you have the overall scale of the effect right (by dimensional analysis, it couldnt very well be anything but the Rydberg), the only question is how good your estimate for the Z dependence of the effect is. Now there is a long history of approximation techniques used to estimate ionization energies in two (or more) electron atoms. A good text book is: Intermediate quantum mechanics, by Hans Bethe and Roman Jackiw (Benjamin, Reading, Massachussets, 1968), see esp p 47-48, but all of chapter 3 devotes itself to two electron atoms. Check especially the Hylleraas semi-empirical estimate [eq (3-67)]. Your estimate has the correct leading Z^2 behaviour, but already seems to have problems at the order Z level. Note that I am not too worried about your estimates of the ``magnetic energy'' [presumably this is some version of spin orbit coupling?] Lets write your estimate for E_m in terms of Rydbergs, noting that hbar/a_0 = alpha m_e c mu_0 e_0 = c^2 Then we find E_{mag} = alpha^2 R ( [Z-1]/[1-sqrt{3/4}/Z] )^3 The important point is the extra factor of (alpha)^2 which greatly suppresses ``magnetic energy'' effects. Note that E_{mag}/E_e = alpha^2 ( [Z-1]/[(1-sqrt{3/4}/Z)^2] ) So that even by the time you get out to uranium (Z=92), the magnetic ``energy'' is still a couple of hundred times smaller than the electric energy. Worse, when accounting for the extra factor of Z in your ionization energy formula, we see that magnetic effects are NEVER large, always being a factor of (alpha)^2 smaller than the electrical contribution to ionization energy. >>>>>>>>>E(ionization) = - E(elec) - (1/Z) E(mag) <<<<<<<<<<< I would expect to see larger effects from the fact that you have not used the reduced mass of the electron--nucleus system. The reduced mass differs from the elecron mass by one part in a couple of thousand, which is already about ten times larger than your magnetic contribution. In summary: I do not of course know how you arrived at your formula, but I suspect that your ``new theory'' simply reduces to an approximation technique for deriving a semi-empirical estimate for the ionization energies. Matt. -- ############################################################################ Matt Visser, Physics Department, Washington University, St. Louis 63130-4899 visser@wuphys.wustl.edu ############################################################################ cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenvisser cudfnMatt cudlnVisser cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.12 / H B / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: "H.B." Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: Sat, 12 May 90 09:56:58 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Society for Scientific Exploration, 9th Annual Meeting, Stanford, August 9-11, will have session on Cold Fusion, all day Friday. Moderator David Worledge, speakers to include Bockris, Gangadharan, Huggins. Call for contributed papers has been issued, abstracts requested by 31 May to Dr. Edwin C. May, SRI International, 333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park CA 94025 cudkeys: cuddy12 cudfnH cudlnB cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.14 / decomyn@pengui / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 14 May 90 01:14:42 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <50804@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >* The term "fusion" is normally (although with some exceptions) used to > describe the very limited set of reactions in which A and B are both > hydrogen nuclei of some kind and C (and D if it exists) are different > from A and B. > This definition seems a bit more limiting than is called for. I much prefer the following: * The term "fusion" is normally used to describe the set of reactions in which A and B are both nuclei of the same type (e.g. both H, both He), or in which A and B are similar in atomic number [or mass if you prefer], and C (and D if it exists) are different from and usually of greater mass than A and B. >-- >Bill Johnson | Anticipating computer news systems by >Los Alamos National Laboratory | 1900 years, Juvenal wrote: "Difficile >(mwj@beta.lanl.gov) | est saturam non scribere." Brendt Hess decomyn@penguin.uss.tek.com cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendecomyn cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.11 / rose@sunset.se / Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: UUCP@ofa123.fidonet.org (UUCP) Originally-From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold "Fission"? Date: 11 May 90 18:17:20 GMT Organization: Universal Electronics Inc. (Gateway) Originally-From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com Message-ID: <266.2646b345@sunset.sedd.trw.com> Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone have any info on this? Let's make some assumptions as to the method. The Deuterium atom somehow enters the Pd atom creating AG (104 to 109), if memory serves. It takes energy to make the Silver which, presumably, then decays releasing energy. Since I don't have a table of nuclides handy could someone calculate the net energy change and decay modes/time. How much energy would be required to fuse the D and the Pd? Also what would be the final stable isotopes? Personally, I think the fusion process much more likely than fission. -- uucp: UUCP Internet: UUCP@ofa123.fidonet.org BBS: 714 544-0934 2400/1200/300 cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenrose cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.14 / Dolphin / Re: d+d --> (4)He Originally-From: oliver@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Dolphin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: d+d --> (4)He Date: 14 May 90 20:03:26 GMT Organization: UCSC Open Access Why do people insist that there must be great numbers of elecrons given off in a CF reaction? I would think that the majority of the reactions would be d+d --> (4)He, which shouldn't give off any radiation. -Dolphin cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenoliver cudlnDolphin cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.16 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Date: Wed, 16 May 90 16:34 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Below I give you my latest "findings" - in the case of Attas et al, and Morrison, they were non-findings: these were pointed out to me, I had missed them. I hope other people finding stuff I have missed will do me this favour. The Attas et al is a good example of an effort to find error sources, in this case clearly successful. The Dagani report of the Utah conference is a rehash of stuff already mentioned on this net but it goes into the bibliography. The other items by and about Paneth et al, complete my collection of papers by/on them. In the last spf edition, John A. Welsh asks about the source of helium, and whether FPH used a device similar to that of P&P (once again, I have wiped the file and must paraphrase - when will I learn?). Here is a chronology of papers on this early work (they are now all in the grand list): 1. Paneth F, Peters K; Ber. 59 (1926) 2039. 2. Paneth F, Peters K; Naturwiss. 14 (1926) 956. 3. Anon.; Nature 118 (1926) 455. 4. Anon.; Nature 118 (1926) 526. 5. Paneth F, Peters K, Guenther P; Ber. 60 (1927) 808. 6. Paneth F; Naturwiss. 15 (1927) 379. 7. Paneth F; Nature 119 (1927) 706. As I say, papers 1 and 2 are the same, as are (in content), papers 5, 6 and 7. Paneth refers (1,2) to earlier suggestions that one might fuse hydrogen into helium; he and Peters first attempted - like others had done - to use electric discharges to do it (like the experiment of Wada in 1989!), without success, and then considered that palladium might squeeze hydrogen atoms together. It was already widely known that palladium absorbs H. They first passed H2 through red-hot Pd but they then reasoned that this was not necessary, but that a large surface area was; so they used various forms of palladium sponge and palladised asbestos. They correctly reasoned that if fusion took place, He must be detected. In fact, Paneth was an expert in the microanalysis of He and they were able to detect very small amounts of it. They were therefore aware of He contamination in the air, in glass, asbestos and metals, and meticulously allowed for this, or tried to prevent it, by repeated heat treatment of these components, and by doing blank experiments without hydrogen. These proved their downfall: passing hydrogen through their cell seemed to produce He, while the blank did not. After careful consideration they were forced to conclude that He had been formed by fusion. They also estimated the amount of heat that should accompany this, and concluded that it was much less than the chemical heats, and thus not detectable by them. They also reasoned that the energy might be given off as gamma radiation and tried to measure this, again without any success but this was inconclusive, as the gammas may have been absorbed by the Compton effect, they point out. Helium, then, was the crucial finding. All this was reported in Nature (3; a quick note upon reading about this in the German Morgenpost) and (4; a more thorough description, the author having read the article. He/she pinpoints the problems and is neutral). P&P kept looking for a possible source of helium, however, and eventually found it (5,6,7): both the glass and the asbestos were found to become more permeable to He in the presence of hydrogen. So the control experiments without H were not controls at all, and the extra He emitted in the presence of H was an artifact, after all. This also explained the slow increase of He produced with time. P&P state that this finding eliminates most, but not all of their positive results but that in the light of this they retract the lot. Also, the remaining results were at a level that was at their He-detection limit. In many ways, this work is an example to us in 1989/90. P&P stayed within the realm of known reactions. In the face of failure, they did not retreat into hypothetical "new" reactions. They were at all times fully aware of the requirements for proving the reaction, and of the possible pitfalls. In fact, instead of gloating over positive results, they kept looking for error sources. They were able to account for the lack of heat and/or gamma radiation. They did what they thought were control experiments. Here, too, there is a curious parallel: it has been suggested that a FPH-type control experiment with H2O might not be a proper control, as the physicochemical heat effects might be sufficiently different (electrolyte conductivities, chemical reaction enthalpies) to cause differences. The Nature piece, incidentally, mentions that what P&P are suggesting is that 4 H atoms fuse to become He; the clear inference is that this is rather unlikely. I wonder whether P&P knew about deuterium? Had they had a source of it, they would undoubtedly have tried it. This, I hope, answers John A. Welsh's question. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 16-May. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attas EM, Chambers KW, Dueck W, Dutton R, McIlwain AK; Nature (London) 344 (1990) 390 (29. March). "Solar flares and 'cold fusion'". ** This team monitored neutron emission from a FPH-type cell, and found a couple of bursts of neutron activity - one larger, one smaller. Instead of rushing into print or to their nearest patent office, however, they then checked solar flare records: at precisely the same time the neutron emissions occurred, there were solar flares, the larger correlating with the larger neutron burst, the smaller with the smaller. Solar flare records are thus another item on the list of things every cnf experimenter must check for. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paneth F, Peters K; Naturwiss. 14 (1926) 956 (in German). "On the transmutation of hydrogen to helium". ** This is a copy/reprinting of the authors' paper in Ber. 59 (1926) 2039. Lest it be thought that this is an example of multiplying publications, the authors explain in 1927 that the journal asked for permission to print the paper. It contains exactly the same material as the original. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paneth F; Nature (London) 119 (1927) 706. "The transmutation of hydrogen into helium". ** Paneth retracts, in much the same wording as the other paper in Ber. 60 (1927) 808, his and Peters' claims to have produced helium by the fusion of hydrogen in palladium. Although they had done control experiments without hydrogen, they had not been aware that hydrogen itself renders both glass and asbestos more permeable to helium, so the control was not a control. This still left them with some unaccounted positive results but in view of this major error source, they retract their fusion claim. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anon.; Naturwiss. 15 (1927) 379 (in German). "Recent experiments on the transmutation of hydrogen into helium". ** The authors explain that, since there was a reprinting of their 1926 paper on the subject in this journal, it is reasonable to also publish the retraction in the same journal, as well as in the other (Ber. 60 (1927) 808). The paper, then, is the same as the original - also, for the same reason, published in Nature by Paneth (1927). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dagani R; Chem. Eng. News 68(16) (1990) 28 (April 16). "Advocates, skeptics alike still puzzled by cold fusion". ** Report of the 1st Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, March 1990, Salt Lake City, Utah. Most attendees appeared to be either positive, hopeful or at least openminded; very few real skeptics attended (Petrasso and Kellogg were there). Pons insisted that he keeps getting excess heat, up to 100-1000 times what is expected from conceivable chemical reactions. F&P also still claim tritium but give no details. Forthcoming publications are promised, one (July) in Fusion Technology and a 100-page article in J.Electroanal.Chem. (there is no mention of whether this has been accepted; 100 pp is a big slice of that journal). Nine labs claim tritium; Murphy of Texas A&M claims both D2O and Li are necessary. Problems are obvious, such as the strange ratios, e.g. T/n should be unity but isn't, etc. This leads to desperate suggestions: some delegates suggest that there might be several different nuclear reactions occurring, some in the bulk (producing heat), some at the surface (tritium?). These chemists are aware of the fact that He, if formed in the Pd, would be trapped there, and F&P have had their electrodes analysed for He - none was found. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morrison DRO; Physics World 3(2) (1990) 35. "The rise and ecline of cold fusion". ** A critical status report written in Feb-90. Among other things, it lists the possible known D-D fusion reactions (which the facts refuse to fit), gives the "milestones" in a separate box and a critical assessment of all the important results and claims. The author gives away his leanings by ending the article with a paragraph on pathological science, clearly putting "cold fusion" in the same category as n-rays, and pointing out an interesting correlation between the attitude towards cold fusion and geography - it seems that this issue, like so many others, it's "us vs. them". ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.16 / Gerry Gleason / Re: Glass Contamination Originally-From: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.research,sci.chem,sci.bio,sci.physics Subject: Re: Glass Contamination Date: 16 May 90 15:46:39 GMT Organization: Zenith Data Systems In article <3968@tahoe.unr.edu> marki@tahoe.unr.edu (Mark N. Iverson) writes: [ stuff about cold fusion, and a comment about the lack of interdisciplinary work ] >Science has taught us that the (human) animal has a tendency to form >groups (its us against them, guys!), and engage in other types of behavior, >consciously or subconsciously, that are not exactly in line with the >objectives of the scientific method. So, to generate a bit of discussion >while waiting for more news... > Why doesn't the scientific community use the knowledge that it > gains from its own revered method, to IMPROVE itself? THERE"S > ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT! >[well, it has in the case of the double/triple blind test methodology...] >Oh, well. >Perhaps when the (human) animal evolves to the level of a human... IMHO, it is clear that over-specialization is a major problem not only in science as well as many other human endevours. On the other hand, I would point to a different source than the tendency to form groups (although this is probably a factor). Bucky Fuller points to the need of the king or power elite to be able to control individuals that have the technical knowledge essential for their power, but are probably more intelligent and educated than they themselves are. Solution, divide and conquer. With narrow expertise and even being prevented from cross-disciplinary investigations (professional jealousy or explicit legal/social barriers), the techies (priests) were totally dependent on the state. The fact that they were allowed better than average respect and lifestyle probably helps to maintain this system as well. I, too, am an idealist, and look forward to a world where a persons ideas are judged only on their merits, and not the quality of their academic or professional pedigree. Gerry Gleason cudkeys: cuddy16 cudengerry cudfnGerry cudlnGleason cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.16 / Robert Eachus / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Date: 16 May 90 22:11:00 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA In article <9005161425.AA28148@danpost.uni-c.dk> BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > Attas EM, Chambers KW, Dueck W, Dutton R, McIlwain AK; > Nature (London) 344 (1990) 390 (29. March). > "Solar flares and 'cold fusion'". > ** This team monitored neutron emission from a FPH-type cell, and found a > couple of bursts of neutron activity - one larger, one smaller. Instead of > rushing into print or to their nearest patent office, however, they then > checked solar flare records: at precisely the same time the neutron emissions > occurred, there were solar flares, the larger correlating with the larger > neutron burst, the smaller with the smaller. Solar flare records are thus > another item on the list of things every cnf experimenter must check for. This sounds to me like a very surprising (but possibly positive) result. If their experiment was well shielded*, this would imply the source of neutrons was driven by solar neutrinos. If the Palladium Deuterium system is has a high neutrino cross section, this might explain all the other PFH observations including the heat. Even if the only thing to come out of this was a better "neutrino telescope" that would be useful new science. If the muon catalysis reaction is significantly favored in Palladium/Deuterium, that would be a different type of "interesting" result. * I would guess that some shielding was employed, but not enough to eliminate all "cosmic ray" type particles. (Including muons!) But it might be worthwhile to repeat the experiment in a mine shaft or just check for time of day sensitivity. Detecting a solar flare at midnight would eliminate a lot of possible communication paths. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy16 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.17 / Pierre Hilaire / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Originally-From: pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update, and some history. Date: 17 May 90 02:29:50 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA In article eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes: > > This sounds to me like a very surprising (but possibly positive) >result. If their experiment was well shielded*, this would imply the >source of neutrons was driven by solar neutrinos. If the Palladium >Deuterium system is has a high neutrino cross section, this might >explain all the other PFH observations including the heat. Even if >the only thing to come out of this was a better "neutrino telescope" >that would be useful new science. > This is certainly not the case, for at least two reasons. First, neutrinos interact very weakly with matter and there is no reasons why the D/Pd should have a larger cross section. Neutrinos interact only by the weak interaction, so any aberrant electromagnetic/strong interaction effect (if any!) in the D/Pd system should have no effect on the neutrino cross section. Second, to my knowledge there is little correlation between neutrino flux and solar flares. Solar neutrinos come from deep inside the sun where the fusion reactions take place, whereas solar flares correspond to the release of magnetic energy in the sun's outer regions. The solar flares should produce negligible amounts of neutrinos when compared to the core's fusion reactions. Pierre St-Hilaire MIT Media Laboratory cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpierre cudfnPierre cudlnHilaire cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.18 / Donn Seeley / 'such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests' Date: 18 May 90 22:29:13 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept There's some hot political news this week. Earlier we heard that Stanley Pons had threatened to sue U physicist Michael Salamon over a paper published in Nature which presented evidence that no byproducts of nuclear reactions were being generated in Pons's lab last year. The details of this flap are now coming out and they aren't very pleasant, as reported in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune (5/18): [Pons's lawyer Gary] Triggs wrote a letter April 3 to Dr Salamon in which he called on the physicist and his co-researchers to retract the paper they published in the scientific journal Nature. ... The researchers reported they found no sign of known fusion reactions [over] five weeks. 'Please be advised that any damages suffered by my clients proximately caused by any act or omission on the part of yourself or any other coauthor on the subject paper will not be tolerated,' Mr Triggs' letter to Dr Salamon stated. 'I have been instructed by my clients to take such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests in this matter.' Even uglier than this, there are implications that the University is indirectly underwriting Triggs' actions to threaten various people: [Triggs] has received payments of more than $50,000 from the University of Utah for legal work related to cold fusion... 'Triggs represents Stan and Martin and is advising them on a number of issues, including patent prosecution issues,' said Greg Williams, with Van Cott Bagley Cornwall and McCarthy [the state's attorneys]. 'He is not representing the university.' ... Mr Triggs was paid out of funds in the office of technology transfer, the university department that assists in turning useful scientific research into profitable ventures. The office is one of the departments under the supervision of [U Vice President for Research James J] Brophy. ... 'How they [pay for] it is their business,' said Mr Triggs. 'I simply send the bills.' ... [He] said he had not billed anyone for the Salamon letter. 'I think that's between me and my clients, but I think it's a matter that affects the entire (cold fusion) program.' Mike Salamon is understandably upset that the U is funding Pons's personal attorney, who in turn is threatening Salamon, a U employee, over research that the U requested. Dr Salamon said in a written statement [that] Mr Triggs has sent several letters to people threatening them with legal action. 'These people include several of my colleagues and myself at the University of Utah (even a U of U undergraduate received such a letter). I am extremely disturbed, in fact disgusted, that the University has apparently been financially supporting such detestable activity, activity which is antithetical to the spirit of free academic inquiry. 'What is particularly obscene about this is that my colleagues and I at the University of Utah are being threatened with legal action for honest scientific work done at the behest of the University of Utah, and yet the administration has so far refused to provide us with any legal counsel whatsoever.' The U has tried to tiptoe around this issue: Dr Brophy said Mr Triggs was 'certainly' not working for the university when he wrote the letter, and said he saw no problem in the university paying Mr Triggs even though he was involved in a legal matter between faculty members. Perhaps 'conflict of interest' is not a familiar term to Dr Brophy? Wondering if I'll be getting a letter from Mr Triggs, 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: cuddy18 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.19 / John Logajan / Re: 'such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: 'such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests' Date: 19 May 90 05:32:57 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation, Mpls., MN donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) writes: >Even uglier than this, there are implications that the University is >indirectly underwriting Triggs' actions to threaten various people: I appreciate Donn's report on this affair. But I feel moved to warn Donn and others that trying to judge the merits of tort actions is incredibly difficult. We all end up arguing our own personal prejudices. -- - 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: cuddy19 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.18 / James White / New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New P+P->D theory Date: 18 May 90 22:14:56 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service There was a little confusion over what was from Hagelstein's theory and some of my musings over it. First I gave a review of Hagelstein's theory as I understood it. He had protons becoming virtual neutrons at a rate greatly enhanced due to coherency. Then, the virtual neutrons (being neutral) ignored the coulomb barrier and reacted with another proton. I don't remember any explanation of why H2O killed the excess heat (even though protons were reacting). Nor do I remember any explanation of how virtual neutrons that would be expected to last only 1e-21 sec could get to another proton. There were many things I didn't like about this theory as I understood it. But it made me seriously consider using P+P->D. It was the only reaction presented that really explained the experimental fact that there is not nearly enough tritium or helium in the electrodes to explain the excess heat. So I have come up with my own P+P->D theory which I like much better. Parts of it may have been subconsciously absorbed from the presentations of Hagelstein and others, however. Here is the theory I came up with. It has evolved some since my last posting and now avoids Terry's criticisms of the last version. First, I describe the delocalized state that I believe the protons enter in loaded palladium. Then I explain why palladium seems to only give excess heat when loaded using D2O rather than H2O. Then I describe the quantum wave effect that gives rise to P+P->D fusion of the delocalized protons. Finally I give some examples of observations that seem unrelated to cold fusion, but which could be explained using the quantum effect described here. According to the Schroedinger wave equations, the wave function wants to have its greatest amplitude at the deepest part of a potential well, but it also wants to spread out. The desire to spread out is inversely related to the mass of the particle. A light particle, like an electron, has a very strong tendency to spread out. A proton has a much stronger tendency to settle into the deepest part of a potential well, but will spread out if the well is shallow enough. In the case of a palladium lattice, When hydrogen nuclei are added, they will sit in the potential wells formed by the face-centered-cubic crystal structure. But after a loading factor of 1 has been reached, all these wells will be occupied. If more hydrogen is added, where will it go? There are other potential minima that could be occupied, but if these are shallow enough and the barriers in between them low enough, then the Schroedinger equation will cause the wave function of a proton to spread out and simultaneously occupy all the wells in a large volume. If a number of protons are added they will occupy the same set of wells, with their wave functions overlapping. Electrons do this sort of thing all the time in solid state lattices. But because of their higher mass, protons will only do this if the strict condition of shallow wells with low barriers is met. It is an experimental fact that CNF does not occur in most metals. My explanation for this fact is that in most metals the hydrogen is localized in well defined potential wells. Only a few alloys, such as PdD, cause the protons to spread out, allowing fusion to take place. Actually, they may not be all that rare. Nobody has ever looked for them. They would probably have low solubilities for hydrogen, since it is harder to put a hydrogen into a shallow potential well that is only slightly less than the barriers in between. The hydrogen that does go in will be highly mobile. And such alloys would have to be loaded with ordinary hydrogen, not deuterium. But the excess heat should kick in almost immediately. Right now everyone looking for new catalysts is using deuterium and looking at metals that dissolve lots of hydrogen. But if protons are reacting, why do experimenters see excess heat with D2O but not H2O? Well, the voltage drop between the palladium electrode and the electrolyte is known to be higher for D2O than it is for H2O. This higher potential could make it easier to reach a loading factor greater than one. Also, it may be that PdH is not as good as PdD at meeting the requirements for causing additional protons to enter the delocalized state. On the other hand, there would be a strong tendency for deuterium to become part of the PdD alloy, with the protium impurity entering the delocalized state. A prediction: in a closed cell calorimeter with the total protium impurity in the electrodes and electrolyte limited, the total amount of excess heat cannot exceed what would be expected from fusing all of that protium impurity into deuterium. Actually, I have heard rumors of excess heat with H2O. But anyone getting such a result would consider it an embarrassment because of the widespread misconception that this is impossible. Thus, these researchers want to find conditions where D2O gives excess heat but H2O does not. In order to understand how overlapping wave functions can lead to fusion, we need to understand where the uncertainty principle comes from. Contrary to popular belief, it is not really a fundamental law of physics. It is a fundamental property of waves, and it can be mathematically derived from wave equations. The uncertainty principle applies to physics because of the wavelike properties of matter. A particular wave function will have an uncertainty of position and momentum associated with it, and there is no wave function where these uncertainties are less than what the uncertainty principle calls for. Consider the classic example of a particle confined in a square one-dimensional potential well. The wave function wants to spread out, but it also wants to remain smooth. So instead of abruptly dropping to zero at the edge of the well, it will decline near the edge and slide smoothly to zero outside the well. This means that there is an amplitude of finding the particle outside the well, where the particle does not have enough energy to be. We could describe this in terms of the uncertainty principle; the particle can be where it doesn't have enough energy to be for a limited amount of time. For a real particle, there is another "dimension" that the wave function can spread out in -- particle type. The wave function of a proton wants to spread out and have an amplitude of being a W+ and a neutron. This amplitude will be very small because of the huge mass of the W+. But the W+ will then produce an amplitude of a positron and a neutrino. So the wave function of a pure proton is not static, but will spread out over time into a wave function that has an amplitude for being a proton, neutron, positron, and neutrino. Note that all this is still the wave function of a single entity. The neutron amplitude will be rather small, due to the mass difference between a proton and a neutron. If you "test" for the neutron by bringing another proton near and seeing if you get a deuteron, then the probability of finding a neutron is extremely small (since it is the square of the amplitude). After this test the amplitude of being a neutron is reset to zero. Note that since the recovery of the amplitude will be linear and probability goes as the square, frequent testing will strongly suppress the chance of seeing a neutron. This curious phenomenon has recently been observed experimentally (but in a different system). Note that it is easy to see this from the wave functions, but it would be very perplexing to someone who was trying to interpret reality in terms of virtual particles rattling around like billiard balls under the constraints of the uncertainty principle. Now lets consider what happens to our static, spread out, overlapping protons. Instead of a positron component, the wave functions of the electrons in the region will be reduced. This lowers the mass penalty of the neutron state. But having a neutron wave function spread out over other protons is not a static situation. Those protons are potential wells, and the neutron wave function will build up in these wells, depleting the amplitude elsewhere. But this is also not a static situation, and the amount of the proton that is in the neutron state will increase to make up for this depletion. In effect, the fact that most of the neutron part of the wave function is in a bunch of potential wells causes the neutron state to be more energetically favorable than the proton state, and when the particle reaches equilibrium, it will be essentially all neutron. But where is that neutron? Its wave function seems to be spread out over a large number of protons. The energy due to binding the neutron is associated with the wave function. Thus, the excess energy of the reaction is spread out over a large number of protons. This is an unstable situation. The neutron must pick one of the protons to be bound to (this is called "wavefunction collapse"), and the excess energy must be disposed of. There is a neutrino hanging around that can carry off the energy from one of these protons, but the rest must radiate it as electromagnetic radiation. The energy of these photons depends on the number of protons involved, but might be in the soft X-ray region. During my tour of the NCFI, I saw a setup for measuring X-rays. They had minimized the thickness of the electrolyte and the cell wall. The detector recorded a peak at the lower limit of its energy range. Even the very thin cell wall and electrolyte would have absorbed these X-rays so strongly that the emitted intensity would have to be enormous for the peak to be real. Given that virtually no radiation has been detected at any other energy, it seemed odd that so much energy should happen to be generated right where the detector could barely see it. For this reason I didn't think much of the result. But now that the above theory predicts just such an intense emission, I find the result much more reasonable. The scientists at the NCFI were going to make the cell wall even thinner, which should greatly enhance the peak (if it's real). Where else might cold fusion (P+P->D) occur? It does not really need a large number of protons to be involved (although that helps). All that is needed is for the wave functions of two protons to overlap, and stay that way for a period of time. One possibility is in the middle of Jupiter. Under those conditions hydrogen is believed to be compressed into a dense metallic solid form. This could allow the necessary overlap. However, the high temperature (about 50,000 deg) would tend to disrupt the wave functions before the neutron part has a chance to build up. Nevertheless, some fusion might occur, and indeed Jupiter radiates a lot more energy than it receives from the sun. The conventional explanation for Jupiter's excess heat is that the heat was locked in during Jupiter's formation, and that as Jupiter cools it contracts, generating more heat. This theory requires some very optimistic assumptions and I do not find it convincing (now that there is an alternative). Saturn is even more interesting. It radiates more than twice the energy that it receives from the sun, and even optimistic assumptions cannot explain this. There is an attempt to explain this excess heat as being generated by helium diffusing to the center of the planet, but I never found this convincing (even before there was an alternative). I propose that cold fusion (P+P->D) is generating the excess heat in Jupiter and Saturn. There is yet another interesting star in our solar system, the big bright one at the center. The core of the sun is plenty dense, but the extremely high temperature would prevent the wave functions from overlapping long enough for a significant buildup of the neutron part to occur. Still, a small increase in the neutron amplitude might occur. Calculations of the rate of P+P reactions currently do not include this effect. So if this effect is significant, then the observed rate of reaction in the sun would occur at a lower temperature than is currently believed. Neutrino detectors only see 1/3 the expected flux, but these detectors are only sensitive to neutrinos produced by an extremely temperature dependent side reaction. I propose that this neutrino deficit is due to the temperature inside the sun being cooler than is currently believed, which is made possible by the CNF effect. Note that competing CNF theories that use D+? can't explain the neutrino deficit, since any deuterium produced inside the sun is instantly consumed anyway. The earth also produces excess heat, but this is easily explained by assuming sufficient amounts of uranium and thorium inside the earth. But recall the 30 day volcanic eruption that released 3000 curies of tritium into the atmosphere. According to the above theory, this tritium would have been produced by P+D->T. However, the P+P->D reaction should be far more common, and after 4 billion years significant amounts could have accumulated. So, is the concentration of deuterium on earth higher than the cosmic abundance? Is it ever! There is about one atom of deuterium for every 6,000 atoms of protium on earth, but the cosmic abundance is about one in 30,000. This has been a major puzzle, but it is easily explained with the P+P->D cold fusion reaction. Note that this is the only cold fusion reaction that could explain the earths excess deuterium (D+? reactions would consume deuterium). I personally believe that the P+P->D cold fusion reaction is the most probable explanation for the observed excess heat and tritium. Also, the P+P->D mechanism provides a natural explanation for the excess heat of Jupiter and Saturn, the neutrino deficit of the sun, and the excess deuterium on earth. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.22 / L Chiaraviglio / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 22 May 90 08:02:00 GMT Organization: Department of Biology at Indiana University, Bloomington In article <1990May18.221456.13930@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: >[. . .] >The earth also produces excess heat, but this is easily explained by >assuming sufficient amounts of uranium and thorium inside the earth. >But recall the 30 day volcanic eruption that released 3000 curies of >tritium into the atmosphere. According to the above theory, this tritium >would have been produced by P+D->T. [. . .] But why should a proton fuse with a deuteron plus an electron to form tritium plus a neutrino when it can fuse with the deuteron alone to form helium-3 (and no neutrino -- I guess it would emit a gamma ray instead), which not only gives off more energy but also requires a less complicated reaction sequence? | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu BITNET: chiaravi@IUBACS.BITNET (IUBACS hoses From: fields; INCLUDE RET ADDR) Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@vm.cc.purdue.edu Alt Internet-gatewayed BITNET: chiaravi%IUBACS.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenchiaravi cudfnLucius cudlnChiaraviglio cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.23 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 23 May 90 04:40:45 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <45472@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: >In article <1990May18.221456.13930@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) >writes: >>[. . .] >>The earth also produces excess heat, but this is easily explained by >>assuming sufficient amounts of uranium and thorium inside the earth. >>But recall the 30 day volcanic eruption that released 3000 curies of >>tritium into the atmosphere. According to the above theory, this tritium >>would have been produced by P+D->T. [. . .] > > But why should a proton fuse with a deuteron plus an electron to form >tritium plus a neutrino when it can fuse with the deuteron alone to form >helium-3 (and no neutrino -- I guess it would emit a gamma ray instead), which >not only gives off more energy but also requires a less complicated reaction >sequence? In pure quantum theory, the correct way to model a system of n particles in three dimensions is in a 3n dimensional space. This is very difficult to do. When applied to overlapping wavefunctions of hydrogen nuclei, one of the results is an anti-correlation in the positions of the nuclei. That is, the probability of finding two nuclei within a small volume is less than would be expected from the probability of finding a single nuclei in that volume. So even though the wavefunctions are overlapping, the nuclei still avoid each other due to coulombic repulsion. The proton wavefunction near a deuterium nuclei will see a wide coulomb barrier and a very small (but deep) potential well in the middle. The net result is that the wave function will have a negligible amplitude near the deuterium and P + D -> He-3 will seldom happen. The proton has a small neutron amplitude associated with it, however. This neutron state is really part of the proton's wavefunction and goes where the proton state goes in the normal three dimensions. But my theory assumes that the neutron state does not follow the proton with respect to the anti-correlations. That is, while the amplitude of the proton will be reduced near the deuterium due to coulombic repulsion, the neutron amplitude will not. It will see only the small but deep well at the center, allowing P + D -> T fusion by the mechanism described in my theory. cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.22 / Lawrence Curcio / Re: Fusion controls Originally-From: Lawrence Curcio Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion controls Date: Tue, 22 May 90 13:16:39 -0400 (EDT) Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Perhaps it's time that chemists and physicists adopt some techniques from the medical sciences. I suggest the use of control, or "Placebo," cells. The data should be collected automatically, and analyzed by people, or machines, without knowledge of which is a real cell, and which isn't. Do a standard statistical workup. Notice that this kind of procedure would allow for radon and solar flare effects, as well as for investigator bias. We have reached the point where experiments without controls or blind analysis are no longer controversial; they are unacceptable. -Larry Curcio (CMU) -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy22 cudfnLawrence cudlnCurcio cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.24 / Chuck Sites / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 24 May 90 07:47:00 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: The only flaw I can see in James's argument is the conservation of charge. I think the reaction he is describing is not P+P->D, but rather P + (P + -e) -> D + neutrino + (+e + -e), where +e + -e becomes a virtual positron-electron pair. In the presents of a metal, with lots of (read Plank's constant) free electrons moving about, and under the pressures introduced by electrolysis (read 10's of Kbars), such a skeem seems plausable. However, I have a few concerns about James's idea. The first is the is the fact that P+P reactions are extremely rare. I've read somewhere that a 1 Amp beam of protons bombarding a proton rich source only produces a P+P->D + neutrino + beta, once every 10E10 YEARS! In other words, P+P is a weak interaction. The other concern I have with Jame's theory is that it is implying the decay of P-> n + neutrino + +e, before, the formation of D. Proton decay is rare, very, very, very rare. I think it is somewhere in 10E36 years range. What I am saying is that I don't believe that wave function of the neutron is going to magically seperate from the proton to find the potential well of target proton. Not, at least, without some other body to perturb it's harmonics. Despite, these points, it may be worth pursing in the off chance that that palladium under electrolysis is providing a special enviroment where a PEP reaction is occuring, and is the source of the excess heat in CNF. You never know, the idea might suceed. I can see the headlines now: "NEW THEORY ON COLD FUSION IS A WEAK THEORY" :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) gggroan.. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . \Chuck Sites uunet!coplex!chuck Copper Electronics |Cold Fusion / . . . o o o o \chuck@coplex | AT&T: 502-454-7218 Wrk: 968-8495 |as real as / o o o o O O O O O \It ain't over until the entropy reaches Max! |it gets. / O O O O O ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.24 / Terry Bollinger / Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Date: Thu, 24 May 90 12:47:17 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, I'm busy with my real work & getting bored with CNF & getting more and more interested in classical quantum mechanics for its own sake. [QM is hilarious stuff -- sort of the ultimate joke by Mother Nature, you know. As in, "You mean *that's* what the universe is *really* like?? Oh come *on*!" Relativity has a few chuckles here and there, but QM is an absolute side-splitter. I love it!] At any rate, I thought I'd drop a couple quick comments on two "theories" that have been mentioned recently on s.p.f. I'd call them Farfetches myself, but that's just my own terminology for interesting ideas that have not been mathematically quantified. (I started to say "three" theories when I began this, but I'm not sure that curve fitting to monotonic discrete functions using very few data points is something I'd normally call a "theory," or even a "Farfetch." We'll just let that stuff sit a *wee* little bit, 'ay?) THEORY #1: Schwinger's "virtual phonons." (Gee, "virtual" must be "in!") INCISIVE COMMENTS: Pfffpht! [Further elaboration available on request.] (Hint: Ever wonder what keeps liquid helium liquid near absolute zero? Think on it and see if it gives you a data point for comparison.) THEORY #2: J. White's proton wavefunction dispersion ideas Change in tone here, folks. I genuinely like what J. White is trying to do, although I consider it an interesting Farfetch rather than an actual theory. What I like most about it is the straightforward way in which he has presented it. He makes some curious assumptions, but doesn't seem to be doing any intentional obfuscation. I think this approach benefits the exchange and exploration of new ideas. I have some ideas as to where I think there are some problems, but I need to do more checking before commenting. What I instead would like to point out is that White *seems* to have opened up a curious little prospect for odd results while staying within the bounds of standard QM. I'll try to state the issue he seems to be addressing in my own words. Perhaps Dieter or one of those (mostly very quiet) actual physicists who read s.p.f could then provide a reference or pointer that would either clarify or close out this line of thought. The wavefunctions that represent protons in room temperature systems should be relatively large, probably in atomic range. Furthermore, the geometry of these wavefunctions should be constrained in some way by the geometry of the unit cells of the crystal lattice. Does anyone know of any detailed analyses of what happens to such low-temperature (low momentum, actually) wave functions when they are constrained by oddly shaped, periodic unit cells? I should hasten to add that this is what T. Bollinger found most interesting about J. White's ideas -- he may well have an entirely different interpretation on the subject. But I have to admit that all of the stuff I've seen on fusion has been focused on high- temperature systems in which the overall behavior is fairly accurately modeled by bowling balls, at least until the particles nuzzle up and get kinky. It *probably* doesn't make that much difference, but I've never seen an analysis and would like to know if this subject area has been explored. (Frankly, I would also guess that it *has* been explored by someone, perhaps as a thesis topic if nothing else.) Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.25 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 25 May 90 03:10:39 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <141@coplex.UUCP> chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) writes: > The only flaw I can see in James's argument is the conservation of >charge. I think the reaction he is describing is not P+P->D, but rather >P + (P + -e) -> D + neutrino + (+e + -e), where +e + -e becomes a >virtual positron-electron pair. In the presents of a metal, with >lots of (read Plank's constant) free electrons moving about, and under >the pressures introduced by electrolysis (read 10's of Kbars), such a skeem >seems plausable. I was using "P+P->D" as the name of the reaction. It is an abbreviation rather than a complete formula. In my article I pointed out that the proton had a neutrino amplitude as well as a neutron amplitude, and that the amplitude of the electron wavefunctions will be reduced. There are a number of isotopes that can decay either by emitting a positron or by capturing an electron. For light nuclei, there is very little electron wavefunction within the small nucleus, and the positron decay is strongly preferred. Nuclei with large atomic number, on the other hand, are much larger and have a much higher electron density within the nucleus. Thus, the nucleus will reduce the electron amplitude rather than create a positron amplitude, which means it will decay by electron capture. Scanning through a physics handbook, the largest atomic number that I can find where positron decay is mentioned is polonium-207 (with positron .5% vs electron capture 99.5%). This cannot be explained by assuming a positron is generated and then annihilated, especially since no gamma is generated during an electron capture (except when the resulting nucleus is in an excited state, of course). Also, it cannot be explained if the electron capture and positron branches are independent. But having the electron amplitude drop rather than having a positron amplitude increase explains things just fine. In my theory, the proton wavefunction is spread out over a large volume, and there is more than enough electron wavefunction in that volume to completely suppress any positron amplitude. (And "pressures introduced by electrolysis" have little effect on the electron wavefunctions.) > However, I have a few concerns about James's idea. The first is the >is the fact that P+P reactions are extremely rare. I've read somewhere that >a 1 Amp beam of protons bombarding a proton rich source only produces a >P+P->D + neutrino + beta, once every 10E10 YEARS! In other words, P+P is >a weak interaction. When bombarding protons with protons, the neutron amplitude of a proton doesn't have a chance to change, and it is very small. Thus, the probability of one proton finding the other in a neutron state (which goes as the square of the amplitude) is very very very small. On the other hand, consider a neutron decaying into a proton. Here the proton amplitude starts out small, but it is energetically favorable, so it can build up over time. The result is that a neutron decays into a proton with a halflife of about ten minutes. In my theory, the energy difference is reversed, with the neutron state being more energetically favorable than the proton state. This is because I have the neutron state spread out over a large number of deep potential wells (other protons), and because the most of the wavefunction of the neutron state will be concentrated in these wells. Thus, the halflife of the delocalized protons will be on the order of ten minutes, with the resulting neutrons being where the neutron wavefunctions were accumulating -- near other protons (making deuterium). Note that this rate of reaction means that a lot of excess heat can be produced with only a small number of protons being in the delocalized state. > The other concern I have with Jame's theory is that >it is implying the decay of P-> n + neutrino + +e, before, the formation >of D. No, in my theory the decay of a proton into a neutron and the binding of that neutron to another proton is a single inseparable event. It is not correct to say that one occurs before the other. > Proton decay is rare, very, very, very rare. I think it is somewhere >in 10E36 years range. This number is for proton decay where baryon number is not conserved (P -> e+ + neutrino + energy). It has nothing to do with a proton decaying into a neutron. > What I am saying is that I don't believe that wave >function of the neutron is going to magically seperate from the proton >to find the potential well of target proton. In modern solid state theory, conduction electrons are treated as all being spread out over the whole lattice, with the wavefunction of each overlapping all the others. I am assuming that protons do the same thing in the PdD catalyst. The neutron part of the proton will be delocalized in the same way as the proton part. However, each proton wavefunction will overlap thousands of other protons, and the neutron part will also. The neutron part then concentrates in the potential wells of the other delocalized protons, causing the neutron state to be more energetically favorable than the proton state. The neutron part does not separate from the proton part. In fact, this is necessary to explain why not much tritium is produced; the delocalized protons avoid the lattice deuterium, and so the neutron part does also. (However, according to quantum theory, coulombic repulsion between delocalized protons results in an anti-correlation, which I am assuming does not apply to the neutron part.) cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.25 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Date: Fri, 25 May 90 16:16 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway While catching up with actual reading of previously only abstracted papers, I came across a new one, and an error I made. The Mintmire et al paper I entitled "Evidence of emission of neutrons from a titanium-deuterium system" is in fact by Deninno & Co., and I give you this one (it's not exciting); I also reproduce, more fully, the real Mintmire et al paper, which I already had, to clear up any confusion I have caused. The Kondo and Cunnane+ are new. A note is in order on the Sanchez et al paper in Solid State Commun. 71 (1989) 1039: I had given it a short comment but it actually deserves more attention. Although Bill Johnson tells me that the techniques are somewhat slipshod, and the information provided by the paper too scanty, the authors do find what looks like a neutron burst well clear of the background, AND they find a gamma bump, followed by a definite rise in the tritium level in the electrolyte (not He, as I had written earlier); moreover, this rise takes place over a few hours and the authors mention the expected slow diffusion of T out of the metal. A cell which emitted no neutrons or gammas showed a constant T level, as expected. It seems to me that results like this - correlating several different measurements - are needed to convince the skeptics, not one-parameter results where something briefly sticks up above the background. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions/corrections 25-May. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cunnane VJ, Scannell RA, Schiffrin DJ; J. Electroanal. Chem. 269 (1989) 163. "H2 + O2 recombination in non-isothermal, non-adiabatic electrochemical calorimetry of water electrolysis in an undivided cell". ** This very careful piece of work examines the question of whether there is significant recombination of electrolytically generated hydrogen/deuterium and oxygen in a FPH-type cell, i.e. undivided and open in the sense that the evolved gases escape the system. The method is to measure the enthalpy of water electrolysis as the difference between the electrical energy input and the heat arising in the cell, using platinum electrodes and light water electrolyte + 0.1M LiOH in a cell otherwise similar to that of FPH, except that it is contained in a Dewar flask and the heat measurements are performed rather more carefully, but still - as done by FPH - essentially by noting the temperature at a point in the cell, at steady state. Together with some calibrations and comparisons using heating elements, this permits the calculation of reaction enthalpy to within about +- 3%; this is presumably somewhat better than in the FPH experiment, where no such great care was taken. The result is that the enthalpies come out about right within the stated error, so that no significant recombination takes place. The inference is reasonable that this also held for the FPH system. At high current densities (> about 300 mA/cm**2) the deviations are rather larger due to evaporation and gas heating effects increasing the error, but the effect is in the direction opposite to that which would indicate recombination. Although in the FPH case, there was palladium exposed to the gases (not the case here), the results rule out the possibility that the excess heat claimed by FPH could be due to the recombination reaction. It is pointed out, however, that possible errors in the heat balance can become quite large if less care is taken with the measurements than here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DeNinno A, Frattolillo A, Lollobattista G, Martinis L, Martone M, Mori L, Podda S, Scaramuzzi F; Phys. Lett. A 138 (1989) 51. "Evidence of emission of neutrons from a titanium-deuterium system". ** This looks very much like the authors' paper in Nuovo Cimento etc, with the same figures and results. May-89. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kondo J; J. Phys. Soc. Japan 58 (1989) 1869. "Cold fusion in metals". ** Presents a simple electrons-in-jellium model for calculating fusion rates. Applying this to D2 and dd(mu), produces the known fusion rates within an order of magnitude. He then applies the model to deuterons in metals, and arrives at a screening length (d-d distance) of 0.12 A which gives a cold fusion rate of 1E-30/pair/s; reducing the length to 0.064 results in 1E-19 as claimed by FPH. Kondo does not say why we should reduce it, though, and the 0.12 A is an order-of-magnitude result. Other workers have found 0.3 A to be enough. Kondo concludes that either rate is, in any case, not enough to cause appreciable heating effects. Jun-89. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mintmire JW, Dunlap BI, Brenner DW, Mowrey RC, Ladouceur HD, Schmidt PP, White CT, O'Grady WE; Phys. Lett. A 138 (1989) 51. "Chemical forces associated with deuterium confinement in palladium" ** Evidence is that D-D distance in PdD(x) is larger than in D2 gas, repulsion greater than even in solid H at 4K. So: no go! This is one of several papers that try to judge the likelihood of CNF by looking simply at D-D interaction in the PdD(x) lattice, as if the only role of Pd is that of squeezing D's together (which FPH of course try to suggest with their figure of 10**26 atm chemical potential). Pd evidently does not do this, the 0.3 A required for claimed fusion rates cannot be attained. Jun-89. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.25 / Paul Koloc / Re: Cold "Fission"? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold "Fission"? Date: 25 May 90 08:11:41 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <50804@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >In article <1764@serene.UUCP>, rr@pnet12.cts.com (Robert Rackerby) writes: >> rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com writes: >> >In Sci.Physics the article "Whats new" says that Fleischman no longer believes >> >that Fusion is occuring but that Pd fission is the energy source. Does anyone >> >have any info on this? . . . . >> >> It seems to me that when the Deuterium atom somehow enters the Pd atom you >> have just described FUSION. Isn't Fission taking big ones and making little >> ones and Fusion taking little ones and making big ones? > >Just to resolve the underlying semantic point: if we consider a "generic" >nuclear reaction to look like > A [+B] ---> C [+D] [+E] [+...], i.e., we start with nucleus A and maybe >B and finish with C and maybe D and others, then: >* If C and D both exist and are each about half the mass of A, then the process > is usually called "fission." .. . .. skipping non-fusion definitions .. . .. skipping non-fusion definitions.. . .. skipping non-fusion definitions > The term "fusion" is normally (although with some exceptions) used to > describe the very limited set of reactions in which A and B are both > hydrogen nuclei of some kind and C (and D if it exists) are different > from A and B. An addition, if A + B are light nucleii and predominately produce a C and D [+.. ] that are viable nucleii (not a neutron, beta, etc.) then this reaction is termed "aneutronic". Note that both fission and fusion will produce non-aneutronic reactions. An example of an aneutronic reaction is: protium + Boron(isotope 11) --> 3 alpha where "protium" is ordinary "light" hydrogen and alpha is He(isotope 4). > I realize this is somewhat pedantic, but maybe it will help in sorting out > the things people are saying. The reactions cited in the reference above > are just plain old nuclear reactions, not fusion or fission as the phrases > are normally used. The reactions d+d=p+t, d+d=He-4, etc., that are the focus > of most cold-fusion interest are fusion reactions. .. . . In addition, consider the aneutronic reaction: Deuterium + Lithium(isotope 6) --> 2 Helium(isotope 4) plus loads of heat The animals came two by two, and so fusion continued! +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 26 May 90 04:13:45 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math I see one major flaw with this ``theory'' , and since I don't like to see these pseudo-theories of CF propagate, I'll try to extinguish this one. Essentially, all you are saying is: suppose that a free proton has a small probability of turning into a neutron (plus some change) bound to a nearby nucleus. This final state is very low energy, so this transition will become very probable. This is simply false. Quantum Mechanics does not say that low energy states will be achieved with high probability. (For instance, if the Hamilitonian is time-independent, the probability for finding a system in a certain energy eigenstate doesn't change form the initial value!) In short, you must provide a mechanism---either a force, or a consequence of uncertainty---that will tend to turn protons into neutrons. In the absence of such an effect, it will never occur, no matter how energetically favorable it might be. For a simple analogy, consider the process of a particle in a potential field tunnelling through a potential barrier. Here there are two energyu states: the state on the left of the barrier, and the state on the right of the barrier. Suppose the particle starts on the left. Suppose the region on the right is at a super low energy. By your argument, the barrier should be no problem, since the final state is such a low energy. But the only _mechanism_ available to move the particle across the barrier is quantum mechanical uncertainty, and this only allows it to penetrate an amount that depends on the wavelength of the particle and the height of the barrier---no dependence on whats on the other side! In your case, you want the proton state to transition to the (bound) neutron state---but you ignore the ``barrier'' between these states. Not only is there an energy barrier of about 1 MeV between a proton and a neutron---which you try to avoid by saying the transition from free proton to bound neutron is direct---there is also no principle that allows you to ``tunnel'' through this abstract barrier of particle type. Thus, until you have said what type of force would convert a proton to a neutron, you have said nothing. And you can't simply say its the time reverse of neutron decay: just because a process is likely (n -> p + stuff) does not mean the time reverse is likely. If you think that, try waiting around for dye to diffuse out of a mixture. In article <1990May25.031039.5528@uncecs.edu> jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: > >On the other hand, consider a neutron decaying into a proton. Here the >proton amplitude starts out small, but it is energetically favorable, >so it can build up over time. The result is that a neutron decays into >a proton with a halflife of about ten minutes. In my theory, the energy >difference is reversed, with the neutron state being more energetically >favorable than the proton state. This is because I have the neutron >state spread out over a large number of deep potential wells (other >protons), and because the most of the wavefunction of the neutron state >will be concentrated in these wells. Thus, the halflife of the delocalized This time reversibility argument is blatantly false, for the reason just cited. > >In modern solid state theory, conduction electrons are treated as all >being spread out over the whole lattice, with the wavefunction of each >overlapping all the others. I am assuming that protons do the same thing >in the PdD catalyst. The neutron part of the proton will be delocalized >in the same way as the proton part. >However, each proton wavefunction >will overlap thousands of other protons, and the neutron part will also. >The neutron part then concentrates in the potential wells of the other >delocalized protons, causing the neutron state to be more energetically >favorable than the proton state. The neutron part does not separate from >the proton part. Although this doesn't effect your (non) theory, this is false. The neutron component will separate spatially from the proton component, in the same way that, in a Stern-Gerlach experiment, a spin up electron component separates spatially from a spin down electron component in the presence of a magnetic field---different forces will have different effects on the two components. What would really happen is the free neutron component would localize around some nearby nuclei, but also have a component that goes much farther into the material (decaying exponentially with the probabity of capture increasing). The neutron wave function would end up spread over a region a few centimeters across (the mean distance to absorption in these materials)---much broader than the proton wave function, which is constrained by coulomb forces. > >In fact, this is necessary to explain why not much >tritium is produced; the delocalized protons avoid the lattice deuterium, >and so the neutron part does also. (However, according to quantum >theory, coulombic repulsion between delocalized protons results in an >anti-correlation, which I am assuming does not apply to the neutron part.) This type of reasoning is one of many examples where you see fit to modify QM to fit your needs. Ridiculous! In summary, you have a non-theory that says some unknown force will tend to cause a transition from a free proton state to a bound neutron state, simply becaue the latter is a low energy state. But in fact, lower energy does not mean probable or even possible. Your ``theory'' is no different than postulating a miracle, and all your talk about delocalized wave functions, etc---while nice science fiction---simply obscures the real physics needed (and absent) to create such a transition. Barry Merriman Perhaps now you will devote your next theory to explaining how experimental artifacts and human psychology can lead to widespread confusions about complicated experimental systems, and lead normally clear thinking scientists to abandon basic scientific method and established results. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / Chuck Sites / Re: Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Date: 26 May 90 06:28:43 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: [ All deleted because there isn't much I can add to his posting ] [ I hope, Terry, James, and others and enhance it. ] Hi, I thought it might be interesting to increase the depth of this discusion a bit, because of all of all the PP reactions I've read of, J. White's was one of the more plausable and well thought out uses of QM in a "hand waving argument" that I've read in s.p.f. As an explanation of the excess heat seen in CNF, I'm more of a believer Nathan Lewis's explanation. However, J. White's idea when corrected for some of the problems I see in it, is qualitativly, one of the better arguments I've read. Perhaps it could be built into a substantial paper. Go for it James! The problems I saw with this idea are a few, but they seem like important points to look into, before I would feel comfortable with this "Farfetch-em" as Terry calls it. 1st. Through-out J. Whites posting, he refers to the reaction p+p->D. I suspect, this is really, a short cut method, of saying, p+e+p->D+neutrino He does mention that the wave function of positron, created by decay of p->n + +e + neutrino, is nullified by the electron's wave function of the Pd crystal lattic. So if what J. White is arguing for, is the decay of a proton (which I think you will agree is extreem farfetch-em) before the formation of D, by p+n->D, then there exist the problem of the positron. Since the positron will seek out an electron very fast, there should be the 0.511 Mev gamma from -e + +e -> gamma. [A late note: I just caught a responce from James about this, and he says the p->n+v+beta transition I mentioned above occurs during the formation, and is an integral part of p+p->D. reaction mentioned above. The result is that the creation of +e is supressed and thus avoids -e + +e -> gamma problem. ] 2nd. In J. Whites posting, he gives us a picture for the wave function of the proton as being a composit of a neuton, beta, and neutrino wave functions. I'm a bit nieve about this, but it would seem to me that this is not true. That is that the wave functions of the neutron, beta and neutrino, will not become apparent until wave function of the proton is disturbed in some manner. In escents, I don't believe the wave function of the neutron, beta, and neutrino will seperate until the harmonics of the proton are disturbed. However, one of the more interesting points in J. Whites idea, is that due to Pd's crystal structure when loaded with H and D, the wave function of the proton is spreads out, and in the way I read it, the wave function of the proton may be more subseptable to being destrurbed and thus seperating into it's harmonic components! It is from these, that I feel what he is describing, is a reaction like p+e+p->D + neitrino. As a sequence of events, the pep reaction would occur by in the following sequence. 1. Two protons are forced together by electro-static pressure. 2. Free electrons are attracted to the protons, by the Coulumb force. 3. The crystal strucure of the Pd. does not allow the electrons to form a 2H molecule, instead, one of the protons which is suseptible to decaying, decays to a neutron, a neutrino, by electron capture. 4. The proton and newly create neutron forms a deuterium nucleus. 5. Energy is disbursed by relaxation of the electron cloud, and by disurbances of crystal lattic, by an excited D atom. Anyway, I like James's "theory", "Farfetch-em", what have you. It has certainly made me re-read my QM. Have fun, CHuck ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . \Chuck Sites uunet!coplex!chuck Copper Electronics |Cold Fusion / . . . o o o o \chuck@coplex | AT&T: 502-454-7218 Wrk: 968-8495 |as real as / o o o o O O O O O \It ain't over until the entropy reaches Max! |it gets. / O O O O O ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / Jeff Bonwick / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: bonwick@honesty.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Bonwick) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 26 May 90 08:41:27 GMT Organization: Stanford University Computer Science Department In article <2786@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >I see one major flaw with this ``theory'', and since I don't like to see these >pseudo-theories of CF propagate, I'll try to extinguish this one. ... >Thus, until you have said what type of >force would convert a proton to a neutron, you have said nothing. ... >This time reversibility argument is blatantly false, for the reason just cited. ... >Although this doesn't effect your (non) theory, this is false. ... >This type of reasoning is one of many examples where you see fit to modify >QM to fit your needs. Ridiculous! ... >In summary, you have a non-theory that says [...] ... >Your ``theory'' is no different than postulating a miracle, and all your talk >about delocalized wave functions, etc---while nice science fiction---simply >obscures the real physics needed (and absent) to create such a transition. ... >Perhaps now you will devote your next theory to explaining how >experimental artifacts and human psychology can lead to widespread >confusions about complicated experimental systems, and lead normally clear >thinking scientists to abandon basic scientific method and established >results. Ahem. This is sci.physics.fusion, not alt.flame. This newsgroup serves as an open forum for friendly discussion. It is not a journal. It is not the Proceedings of the 107th Symposium on the Absolutely Provable. It is a place where people come to give their theories a test drive. You should feel PRIVILEGED to be able to share the unfiltered thoughts of bright people all over the world. Imagine if someone had archived all of Al Einstein's posts to sci.physics.gravity -- the historic value! Unless, of course, he never had the guts to post -- because sci.physics.gravity was a war zone, not an open forum: It's not Newtonian, so it's not correct, so fuck off. Jeff Bonwick (bonwick@na-net.stanford.edu) cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbonwick cudfnJeff cudlnBonwick cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 26 May 90 20:18:13 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <2786@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >I see one major flaw with this ``theory'' , and since I don't like to see these >pseudo-theories of CF propagate, I'll try to extinguish this one. ... >For a simple analogy, consider the process of a particle in a potential >field tunnelling through a potential barrier. Here there are two energyu states: >the state on the left of the barrier, and the state on the right of the barrier. >Suppose the particle starts on the left. Suppose the region on the right >is at a super low energy. By your argument, the barrier should be no problem, >since the final state is such a low energy. But the only _mechanism_ available >to move the particle across the barrier is quantum mechanical uncertainty, >and this only allows it to penetrate an amount that depends on the >wavelength of the particle and the height of the barrier---no dependence >on whats on the other side! I was not arguing that the reaction should go because the driving energy was huge. The neutron has a halflife of 15 minutes with a .782MeV driving energy. In my theory this energy is reversed because the neutron is spread out over, and concentrates in, the potential wells of other protons. Thus, the proton will decay into a bound neutron with a halflife on the order of 15 minutes due to a driving energy on the order of an MeV. But modern theory does say that the rate of a weak interaction depends strongly on driving energy, and this is firmly supported by experiment. For instance, baryons containing a strange quark (which has to decay through the weak interaction) have a driving energy on the order of 200MeV. Their halflife is on the order of 1e-10 seconds. Compare that to the 15 minute halflife of a neutron (which is also a baryon). In the limit where the driving energy is greater than the mass of the W, (which mediates the weak force when a change in charge is involved, and which has a mass of about 83GeV) then the weak interaction is as strong as the electromagnetic interaction. >... >And you can't simply say its the time reverse of neutron decay: just >because a process is likely (n -> p + stuff) does not mean the time >reverse is likely. If you think that, try waiting around for >dye to diffuse out of a mixture. Your "dye" analogy involves the statistical laws of thermodynamics, which do not apply to individual particle interactions. That protons can decay into neutrons is well established in both theory and experiment. If you look at a chart of the nuclides you will see that isotopes which have too many protons and too few neutrons will decay through the weak interaction. This decay involves a proton changing into a neutron, and occurs because this is energetically favorable under these circumstances. The halflife of p->n in these isotopes is similar to the halflife of n->p in isotopes where n->p is energetically favorable. (although individual isotopes can vary widely due to internal structure.) >>... The neutron part does not separate from the proton part. > >Although this doesn't effect your (non) theory, this is false. The neutron >component will separate spatially from the proton component, in the >same way that, in a Stern-Gerlach experiment, a spin up electron >component separates spatially from a spin down electron component >in the presence of a magnetic field---different forces will have different >effects on the two components. This is not a good analogy. If you have a pure spin up electron, it will stay that way (assuming you leave it alone). The neutron state, on the other hand, is connected to the proton state through the weak interaction. You can strip away the neutron state, but the wavefunction of the resulting proton will not be in static equilibrium, and the neutron state will reappear. A proton with a small neutron component is the most energetically favorable state. The difference between this and a pure proton is exceedingly small, but it is there. It is not energetically favorable for the neutron state to be where there is no proton amplitude, however. But if the neutron state is spread out over other protons (as happens in my theory) then it is energetically favorable for the neutron state to concentrate in the deep potential wells of these protons. > What would really happen is the >free neutron component would localize around some nearby nuclei, but >also have a component that goes much farther into the material >(decaying exponentially with the probabity of capture increasing). The >neutron wave function would end up spread over a region a few centimeters >across (the mean distance to absorption in these materials)---much >broader than the proton wave function, which is constrained by coulomb >forces. If this were true, then neutron exchange reactions between nuclei of differing neutron affinities would be very common and very rapid (much less than a second when the weak interaction isn't there slowing things down). This is obviously not the case, as the earth couldn't even exist if it were. >>In fact, this is necessary to explain why not much >>tritium is produced; the delocalized protons avoid the lattice deuterium, >>and so the neutron part does also. (However, according to quantum >>theory, coulombic repulsion between delocalized protons results in an >>anti-correlation, which I am assuming does not apply to the neutron part.) > >This type of reasoning is one of many examples where you see fit to modify >QM to fit your needs. Ridiculous! Feynman modified quantum mechanics to fit his needs: "The electron does anything it likes. It goes in any direction at any speed, forward or backward in time, however it likes, and then you add up the amplitudes and it gives you the wave-function." This resulted in a theory, QED, that could predict things like the electron g-factor to high accuracy. This example is particularly appropriate because applying Quantum Field Theory might give just the sort of behavior that I am assuming. After all, QED works in three dimensional space, and doesn't use the 3n dimensional space of conventional quantum theory. It is the 3n dimensional space which causes the anti-correlations that I have to assume don't apply to the neutron component. So it may turn out that I am not modifying current theory at all. Unfortunately, the calculations involved in showing this are very difficult. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / Terry Bollinger / Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Originally-From: terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Date: Sat, 26 May 90 19:35:51 EDT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Hi folks, Just wanted to say I've found some of the net conversation very interesting, mainly because it's the first time in some while that it's munching on a topic that hasn't been beaten to death before. But I should confess that when I call a theory a "Farfetch," one might take that as a cautionary note. Remember Part Two of the Farfetch game? The Return to Sanity, in everyone does their level best to trash the contents of the Farfetch? It's a very productive process, but it's a lot easier on one's ego if the one who does the theory is the same person who freely points out where the miracles are. I think James has been pretty open so far by pointing out this "neutron wave" idea as being outside of normal QM. It's an interesting deviation -- a heck of a lot mellower than my looney Planck's variable Farfetch! -- but it's still a major deviation, and it needs quantification What worries about it is that I *think* I'm beginning to smell Virtual Neutrons again... (And y'all know how I just *loooove* virtual neutrons! [:-)> ) .... Just to confuse everyone and confirm my reputation as a mugwump, I've started working on my capacitive hypothesis again -- as an actual theory, not a farfetch. Scott's (Oak Ridge) interesting and well-executed closed system calorimetry data has an endothermic early phase that has piqued my interest in battery theories again. By no means whatsoever can a battery hypothesis explain some of the results that have been reported, but it just *might* help explain how people could keep finding heat anomolies without any significant nuclear signatures. (And a few simple algebraic equations might be a healthy change for s.p.f., 'ay?) .... For those of you (I know you are out there!) who are wondering what in the heck is going on and why did Terry suddenly lose his mind a bit more than he normally does, let me try to give a little bit of less formal explanation. (All you QM jocks out there should now skip to the next posting!) ........................................................................ FIELDS & WAVES (OR WAS IT MEADOWS AND PONDS?) Terry Bollinger May 26, 1990 Copywrite 1990 by Terry Bollinger (terry@ctc.contel.com). No restrictions whatsoever on copying, EXCEPT please keep my name, e-mail address, and this copywrite notice attached to any lengthy quotes. (Quotes on the sci.physics.fusion news network do NOT have to include this copywrite notice!) FOUR FORCES AND FOUR SCALES OF SIZE As you've probably heard before, there are only four basic forces that structure matter and make the universe go round: 1. Gravity ... which holds galaxies and solar systems 2. Electromagnetic ... which holds together atoms and molecules 3. Strong ... which holds together atomic nuclei and, at a deeper level, the quarks from which protons and neutrons are constructed 4. Weak ... which holds together nothing, but is a necessary complication for explaining certain types of particle transformations As indicated by the examples I just gave, the *scale* on which these forces operate is vastly different. The stronger the force is, the smaller will be the "objects" for which it is the dominant factor. Thus gravity is of no discernable relevance whatsoever in describing the interactions of, say, electrons and protons in an atom, whereas the much stronger electromagnetic force is *the* force which determines the structure of an atom. But this kind of indifference works the other way, too. The strong force which holds together atomic nuclei is of very little relevance to the structure of the atom as a whole, primarily because the scale at which it works is enormously smaller. The weak force is even worse; its interactions take place at a scale much smaller than a proton or neutron. Thus it is that, like it or not, the universe as a whole is surprisingly strongly partitioned into "domains" that are determined by the strength of the various fundamental forces. The structure of the galaxies and solar systems, at least when viewed from a gravitational perspective, are suprisingly indifferent to the details of the electromagnetic force, and the details of atoms are surprisingly indifferent to the details of the strong force that holds together quarks and nucleons. By no means is this separation absolute; it's just a very strong tendency. COLD FUSION FROM A "PARTITIONING OF FORCES" PERSPECTIVE So what does all of the above have to do with cold fusion? Well, it turns out that pretty much the whole cold fusion controversy can be quite accurately represented as a "partitioning of forces" problem. In short: o Palladium hydride systems are very, very strongly dominated by the electromagnetic force -- that is, their behavior is in the atomic/ chemical domain (and scale, since there are size implications also) o Nuclear reactions -- of all kinds -- are very much within the strong force domain, and are thus rather rigidly isolated from the chemical domain, at least for ordinary conditions. (In this case the electromagnetic force *is* still relevant, however, since repulsion of protons determines the stability and size of nuclei.) What this means that unless you drive an electromagetically dominated system to severe extremes -- say by using a particle accelerator to achieve very high energies -- it simply is not capable of intruding on the nuclear domain. The nuclear domain could care less about what goes on at the "next level up" in the atomic domain. PREREQUISITES FOR COLD FUSION: GOTTA CATCH A GOOD WAVE! And now I can state the problem: If cold fusion does in fact exist -- that is, that a electromagnetically-dominated environment can produce events in the nuclear domain -- then *some* type of force that is relevant to the atomic domain must have the very peculiar ability to shove two nucleons together, and must do it in an extraordinarily clean way. Now as it happens, there is another way you can state this problem. You must find some type of *wave* that is relevant to both the atomic domain and the nuclear domain. And at least for starters, that wave must have dimensions that are at least in the same ballpark as atoms. Why is that? Well, it's a matter of scale again. Surfers can't ride tides for a very simple reason: the waves are too big and diffuse to be of any relevance. They can't ride sound waves, either, but for the opposite reason: the waves are too small to be of any relevance. Only when waves of roughly the same size scale as the surfer appear can the surfer "synch up" with the waves and interact with them significantly. Curiously enough, this wave analogy turns out to be just another way of saying what I said earlier: the various waves of the fundamental forces tend to work at very different scales, and thus tend to "ignore" each other unless pushed to extremes. Nuclei are nearly 100,000 times smaller than atoms largely because the "waves" that are relevant to them -- those of the strong force -- are very much shorter and more intense than those of the electromagnetic force. (By the way, 100,000 is a *big* difference in scale, folks. It means that if an atom could be enlarged to the size of a marble, you would *still* need an electron microscope to see its nucleus!) In terms of waves, the weak force is even worse than the strong force, because it's waves are even shorter -- so short that in most cases the weak force has very little relevance even to nuclear events. A neutron in free space takes several minutes (an eternity by nuclear standards) to decay into a proton, electron, and neutrino for precisely that reason -- it takes that long for the weak force to "find an opening" for altering an event on the much larger scale of the nucleons. CUTTING OUT CANDIDATE FORCES FOR "COLD FUSION" I've mentioned before that I was not impressed with any line of argument that required coherency from any force other than the electromagnetic force. You may by now have a better feel for why I was so adamant on that point: *none* of the other forces act on a scale that is comparable to the atomic domain, and thus *none* of these forces are good candidates for "coupling" between the atomic and nuclear domains. Therefore cold fusion cannot exist. Right? *RIGHT?!?* OOPS -- ONE WAVE CANDIDATE OMITTED! I like to argue my cases by elimination, as you may have noticed. 'Tis an effective technique for removing a lot of crap without having to go through the individual scatological candidates on a case-by-case basis. Thus I was both pleased and annoyed when I realized that James White had poked a nice hole in my wave-elimination argument: I'd skipped over quantum mechanical waves, mostly because they do not represent a force at all. But they *are* waves, and thus need to be included to make the elimination argument complete. So what are quantum mechanical waves, you ask? [Hey! You! The guy saying "Huh, I already *know* that!" I told you to skip to the next e-mail, remember?!] Well, they are very bizarre little things that, when squared, define the probability of finding a particular particle within a particular region of space at a particular time. They are the little beasts responsible for such bizarre effects as particle tunneling, in which a particle "forgets" which side of a barrier it is on and thus passes through it. No one really knows what "media" these wave "travel" in, which is the first question one asks of any decently ordinary wave -- e.g., tsunmis travel in water, sound travels in air -- but travel they do, and their behavior is very much that of classical waves. They can fade, they can bounce off of barriers, they can dissipate like ripples in a pond, and they can interfere both constructively (becoming stronger) and destructively (becoming weaker). The mathematics that is used to model their behavior is exactly that of classical wave analysis, without any fundamental modifications. Indeed, even the famous Uncertainty Principle turns out to be nothing more than an application of Fourier (frequency) analysis to the behavior of quantum waves. There's just one *wee* little strange thing about them: they are waves of the square root of probability, and nobody -- not me or anyone else that I know of -- has the foggiest idea what that really means. It just is. Many an experiment was run, many a hypothesis was attempted (Bohr's was a great shot at it, but it only got half way there), and the final result was, well... waves of the square root of probability. The QED (electromagnetic) variant of this "waves of the square root of probability" stuff is in fact the best, most accurate, and most thoroughly proven theory of physics ever devised. In *most* cases, these little probability waves give about the same kinds of results that you'd normally expect from a "bowling ball" analysis of how particles move about. But not always. The tunneling effects we're so fond of bandying about on the net are a case in point. Tunneling happens when the probability wave for a particle has trouble terminating abruptly at the wall of a barrier -- waves tend to be that way -- and instead dribbles over a bit to the other side. For most waves that would be no big deal, but for probability waves it means that there's going to be a region of space on the other side of that barrier for which there suddenly *is* a possibility of finding the particle there -- even though the particle itself flatly cannot cross the barrier. *That*, folks, is what tunneling is *really* about -- probability waves that have trouble fitting cleanly into small spaces and tending to leak over a bit. The magical appearance of a particle on the wrong side of wall thus is naught but a little side effect of the probability wave's having trouble keeping its tummy from hanging out a bit over its belt. TIME TO CLOSE THIS ONE OUT... Of writing books there is no end, someone once said -- so what is the point of all of this? Simply this: Waves sometimes do funny things when confined to small space, and *some* of the waves that represent protons and deuterons -- they're called wavefunctions, by the way -- may (or may not) be roughly atomic in dimensions. And they will also be constrained into odd little shapes and funny little spaces by the shape of the unit cells of whatever material they happen to be in. If the wavelengths can in fact be similar to atomic dimensions, funny little things -- e.g., little nodes of increased probability near the edges of a unit cell -- *could* perhaps occur. Waves are waves, and as I said, they sometimes do funny things when you squeeze them too tightly. For example, protons that should be far apart *might* -- in the right combination of circumstances -- include secondary probability nodes in that are closer together than they have any right to be in a decent, law-abiding society. Do I truly *think* something like that is going on? To be quite honest, no, I flatly do not believe any such thing is going on. I think that by the time you work out all of the math, you would find that no matter how you shaped the unit cell or cooled down the protons (to increase their DeBroglie -- probability -- wavelengths), you would discover that the protons will stay exactly where you would think they should be via a more classical (particle) analysis. That is, smack where they should be in their interstitial positions. But as I said, I like to argue by elimination, not special cases. And unfortunately, I simply don't know enough wave mathematics to be able to say flat out that there could *never* be odd probability nodes in any of the possible constructions of unit cells. There is probably some very simple principle -- e.g., the translated effects of Coulumb repulsion on the wave function -- that can be used to rapidly and fully dispose of such possibilities. But I don't know what that general principle is -- yet -- and so for now, I find James' "Catch the New Wave" direction (sans disguised virtual neutrons, perhaps) more interesting than anything else I've seen lately. (And besides, it gave me a chance to yak to a captive audience about how marvelously bizarre QM is!) .......................................................................... Cheers, Terry cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenterry cudfnTerry cudlnBollinger cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.26 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 26 May 90 19:22:55 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990May26.084127.19945@Neon.Stanford.EDU> bonwick@honesty.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Bonwick) writes: [all my nasty remarks deleted] > >Ahem. This is sci.physics.fusion, not alt.flame. While my editorial comments about the New P+P->D theory were definitely flamey---hey, thats how I felt---I still stand by the scientific question posed there: Simply identifying a low energy terminal state for a system does not mean the system can transition to that state with high probability. >You should feel PRIVILEGED to be able to share the unfiltered thoughts of >bright people all over the world. Imagine if someone had archived all of >Al Einstein's posts to sci.physics.gravity -- the historic value! Unless, >of course, he never had the guts to post -- because sci.physics.gravity was >a war zone If I really had a theory, I would rather post it to a war zone and have people really try to tear it to pieces, and also get some heat about it---If I and my theory could withstand that, then we would be ready for the big time. On the other hand, if the group were always full of half-baked theories getting warm receptions, I probably wouldn't bother to put a real theory there, since the audience is not sufficiently discriminating. Essentially, we have a difference of opinion about what the direction of this group should be---and of course, everyone has their own opinion, and I'm not saying mine is the only valid one. But I would like to see the main emphasis on reporting what is really going on in the CF community, and suggestions of likely avenues of enquiry, rather than far-flung theories. Finally, a note on far-flung theories: There have been times in the past when it was necessary to append ``ridiculous'' propositions onto physics: the constancy of the speed of light, the quantization of energy, non-conservation of parity, the correlation between opposite-moving electron (``cooper pairs'') in standard superconductors, etc. But these are just a tiny fraction of possible ridiculus extensions, and what sets them apart is that they were all backed either by substantial experimental support or by certain mathematical simplicities they created, or both. In particular, if you modify the Hamiltionian of QM appropriately (the newtonian analog of postulating a new force) you can produce a huge variety of wild effects---the best example of this is the ad-hoc term added on to ``explain'' superconductivity via cooper pairs: they just stuck on a term that gave the desired effect. But they only did this in the face of substantial evidence that superconductivity was real. I have no doubt that you can ad-hoc-ly modify the Hamiltonian to get PF style cold fusion, but so what? (This just means you add a new force that makes things want to fuse). PFCF is far from an experimental reality, and most such modifications would have many side effects known not to exist. For e.g., if we allowed the particular modification suggested by J. White, you would also need to explain why it doesn't cause H2 gas to fuse into D, plus a host of other fusion reactions that such an add hoc ``force/correlation'' trying to convert free P into bound N would create. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.27 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 27 May 90 02:21:47 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Well, I'm glad to see J. White is not perturbed by my flames :-). His theory, as I understand it now: (a) protons can be changed to neutrons when acted on by the weak force. (True) (b) The weak force acting on a system of particles (here, quarks) drives it to a lower energy state, the rate being faster the lower the final energy. (True) (b) Consider a lattice of nuclei of a type that strongly favor binding with a neutron. A free proton released into this lattice has a lower energy state as a bound neutron, therefore by (a) and (b), the weak force will drive it to this state. The result: Fusion. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: The weak force is a short range force, and the free proton and target nucleus are far apart, so the weak force cannot bring them together. The reason the free proton is far away from the target nucleus is simply the coulomb repulsion between the two. No amount of QM mumbo-jumbo is going to overcome the fact that the protons will be localized away from other protons due to coulomb repulsion. Thus the weak force cannot bring them together as in P + P -> D + change. In simple terms: the quarks that make up the free proton cannot feel the weak attraction of the surrounding nuclei; only the long range electric repulsion is felt, so there is nothing that will bring them together to ``fuse''. Note that in (a), p -> n + change occurs only _inside_ nuclei, where distances are short enough for the weak force to act. The same is true of (b) of course---these weak processes only occur inside nuclei, because they are so short range. The same argument rules of any similar use of the strong force, which is attractive but also short range. I don't see any QM modifications overcoming these basic objections, which are based only on the scale of the forces involved. When you wavefunctionize everything, the protons will still avoid other protons, and thats all that matters. Your miniscule neutron amplitude can do anything it wants because its gonna stay small, _always_---the weak force will not drive a transition from the free proton state to a bound neutron state, since this is a long rnge interaction. By the way: This I think is a bad sign---many months ago there was a spate of ``theories'' here that said cold fusion is ok as long as we ignore the problems with the length and time scales involved in coulomb, weak and strong forces. Now these ``theories'' are back to haunt us again. So pointless. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.27 / rolfe petschek / Re: Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Bollinger comments on two CNF "theories"... Date: 27 May 90 15:40:35 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <9005241647.AA03927@ctc.contel.com> terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes: > [much deleted] > >THEORY #2: J. White's proton wavefunction dispersion ideas > >Change in tone here, folks. I genuinely like what J. White is trying >to do, although I consider it an interesting Farfetch rather than an >actual theory. What I like most about it is the straightforward way >in which he has presented it. He makes some curious assumptions, but >doesn't seem to be doing any intentional obfuscation. I think this >approach benefits the exchange and exploration of new ideas. > >I have some ideas as to where I think there are some problems, but I >need to do more checking before commenting. What I instead would >like to point out is that White *seems* to have opened up a curious >little prospect for odd results while staying within the bounds of >standard QM. I'll try to state the issue he seems to be addressing >in my own words. Perhaps Dieter or one of those (mostly very quiet) >actual physicists who read s.p.f could then provide a reference or >pointer that would either clarify or close out this line of thought. > > > The wavefunctions that represent protons in room temperature systems > should be relatively large, probably in atomic range. Furthermore, > the geometry of these wavefunctions should be constrained in some > way by the geometry of the unit cells of the crystal lattice. > > Does anyone know of any detailed analyses of what happens to such > low-temperature (low momentum, actually) wave functions when they > are constrained by oddly shaped, periodic unit cells? > Sure. This is well established. Nothing much (see below). In addition it is the claim of my electrochemical colleague Ernst Yeager that the protons and deutriums in Pd are not delocalized. The local wavefunctions of particles which spread out quantum mechanically change virtually not at all. Well studied examples are various electrons in d-f bands, also sometimes called "heavy" electrons. Essentially there are localized states with some small amplitude for tunneling between them. This tunneling has very little effect on the local wavefunctions (even for s+p states where the delocalization is _huge_ the effects are like 10-20%). If these states all have the same energy then there can be huge changes in macroscopic properties which interest solid state physicists (like myself). Such macroscopic properties include the conductivity, heat capacity etc. but _not_ the probability that two particles closely approach one another. Essentially only very low energy processes (energy scale being roughly the tunneling energy, which for p in Pd would be something like 10^-4ev at most (almost certainly less) are effected, these can matter for "details" of the long distance behavior, not for high energy processes like p->n+nu+e- or cold fusion. Most solid state text books have discussions at various levels, start say with the tight binding model of electrons in a solid. Incidentally this is also why 'heavy electrons' in solids are almost totally irrelevant to cold fusion, 'heavy' refers only to the large distance scale behavior, not to the scales relevant to fusion. The fact that such small changes in high energy processes generally occur in the solid (or more generally "condensed" state make me reasonably confident that, _if_ there is anything to cold fusion it must have to do with a new force/particle. Hummm. Well you know about my previous posting along this line. On the other hand it really isn't the Pd which has been terribly carefully treated in CNF, maybe the purification of D from p+D makes for concentration of wierd particles which cause the alleged CNF. Doubt it, however. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 [fax 4671] Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 02:37:19 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service In article <2796@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >... >Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: The weak force is a >short range force, and the free proton and target nucleus are far apart, >so the weak force cannot bring them together. The reason the free proton is >far away from the target nucleus is simply the coulomb repulsion between >the two. Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: You are treating protons like billiard balls. Protons do not bounce around like billiard balls; their behavior is determined by their wavefunctions. So if you want to argue that the mechanism of my theory makes no sense in terms of billiard balls, then fine, I agree. But that is irrelevant because in reality particle behavior is based on wavefunctions. > No amount of QM mumbo-jumbo is going to overcome the fact >that the protons will be localized away from other protons due to coulomb >repulsion. ... Take this statement, replace "protons" with "electrons" (which are also charged fermions), say it to a solid state physicist, and enjoy the strange look he gives you. In modern solid state theory, all electrons are viewed as being spread out over the entire lattice. The wavefunction of every electron overlaps that of every other electron (although they are not in the same quantum state). They are not localized by their coulomb repulsion. Call this "QM mumbo-jumbo" if you like, but it is very successful. It correctly predicts many things that make no sense if viewed in terms of billiard ball style electrons. In my theory I am simply applying the work that has been done in solid state theory to protons. Electrons and protons are both charged fermions, with the important difference being their mass. For a given depth of potential wells in the lattice, the tendency to delocalize goes as the inverse square root of the mass, so protons have about 1/43 of the tendency to delocalize as electrons. So while electrons have a very strong tendency to delocalize, protons will only exhibit this behavior if the lattice wells are very shallow. The wavefunctions of the delocalized protons overlap, and so it is not correct to say they are spatially separated. The neutron part of the wavefunction is spread out over the wavefunctions of all the other delocalized protons. Thus the neutron part of the wavefunctions is able to see and concentrate in the deep potential wells of the other protons, causing the neutron state to be a lower energy state than the proton state. This then allows the proton to decay into a bound neutron as described in my theory. cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 06:52:42 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math James R. White writes: >Barry Merriman writes: >>... >>Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: The weak force is a >>short range force, and the free proton and target nucleus are far apart, >>so the weak force cannot bring them together. > >Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: You are treating >protons like billiard balls. But that is irrelevant because >in reality particle behavior is based on wavefunctions. Certainly---but this obfuscation will not bring the protons close together! As you yourself have said, the wavefunction of each proton is delocalized, but the wavefunctions of any two protons are _anticorrelated_. All this means is: any given proton could be found anywhere in the lattice, but you won't ever find two protons close together. (Actually, this is what I meant when I said the protons will be far apart---the probability of finding two close together is small. This statement makes sense classically and quantum mechanically.) If one takes into consideration the anticorrelation of the proton wave functions---which is simply the quantum mechanical manifestation of the coulomb repulsion (and in addition, pauli exclusion)---the probability of finding two protons close enough for a weak interaction will be infinitesimally small. >In modern solid state theory, all electrons are viewed as being spread out >over the entire lattice. The wavefunction of every electron overlaps that >of every other electron (although they are not in the same quantum state). Right. And if you compute the probability of finding two electrons within a distance d of eachother---where d is much smaller than the distance at which the eloctrostatic repulsion dominates the electron's energy level---you will get a very small probability, because the electrons don't have enough energy to get that close. The same for your delocalized protons. You are not going to get around the fact that basic conservation of energy will prevent charged particles from getting real close to eachother. That they are delocalized means they can roam freely, it doesn't mean they get real close to eachother. >In my theory I am simply applying the work that has been done in solid state >theory to protons. No, you are not. All of the interesting effects in solid state theory are due to cooperative/interactive phenomena amongst the electrons which are free to move and interact. (Their interactions lead to the band structure of solids, and their movements can lead to coherent effects like superconductivity.) But---a big but---solid state theory does not require or predict that the electrons get close (fermi scale distances) to eachother for these effects. In your theory, it is central that the protons have a probability of being close enough for a weak interaction. Solid state theory provides _no support_ for this hypothesis. > >The wavefunctions of the delocalized protons overlap, and so it is not correct >to say they are spatially separated. No---it is correct. It is completely correct to say that the probability of finding two protons fermi-scale close is very small. Technically, this probability is just sum of Psi(x_1,...x_n)^2 dx^n over all points (x_1,...x_n) such that some two of the x_i,x_j lie in the same dx-sized box, where Psi(x_1,...x_n) is the n-proton wavefunction, and dx is is the volume of a fermi-scale sized box. I am claiming this will be extremely small for any collection of protons at room temerature. (Or, any collection of electrons at room temperature, for that matter!). In summary: just because the individual particles can be anywhere (``delocalized wavefunction'') does not mean there is a high probability of finding two particles very close together. Here ``very'' means much closer than coulomb repulsion will allow. For this reason, J. Whites theory---which requires fermi-scale close protons to initiate the weak interactions---will not work. Of course, if you want to believe the weak interactions can somehow overcome this barrier, thats fine. Just remember its science fiction, not physics. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Dieter Britz / Theories and flame(flame) extinguishers Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Theories and flame(flame) extinguishers Date: Mon, 28 May 90 11:48 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In IN%"FUSION%ZORCH%AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV@VM1.NoDak.EDU" 25-MAY-1990 19:40:42.69 (that's the way I get this list) terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes > ...But I have to admit > that all of the stuff I've seen on fusion has been focused on high- > temperature systems in which the overall behavior is fairly accurately > modeled by bowling balls, at least until the particles nuzzle up and > get kinky. It *probably* doesn't make that much difference, but I've > never seen an analysis and would like to know if this subject area > has been explored. If this means what I think, then you may have some reading to do, Terry. In my bibliography, there is quite a number of theoretical papers trying to throw light on the state of deuterons and electrons in a crystal lattice of PdD(x). They mostly start with Schroedinger's equation, using traditional approximation assumptions plus a few extras, and end up with a possible cold fusion rate; some suggest other possible nuclear reactions. E.g. a few like Schwinger, have suggested the more probable p+d reaction. These papers are written by professionals who presumably know what they are about. It's significant that they don't agree. You may get some ideas to help you in your own theories by reading, e.g., Benesh+, Burrows, Cottingham+, Delley, Feng, Henis+, Hora+, Horowitz, Leggett+ - I'm only halfway through a list of stuff I've been actually reading. It's easy to get the impression that it's all going on right here in this list but there are lots of physics types out there thinking and writing about cold fusion. Sorry if I misinterpret you, mate. In IN%"FUSION%ZORCH%AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV@VM1.NoDak.EDU" 27-MAY-1990 04:23:38.33 we have bonwick@honesty.Stanford.EDU (Jeff Bonwick) flaming a flame of Merryman's: > Ahem. This is sci.physics.fusion, not alt.flame. This newsgroup serves > as an open forum for friendly discussion. It is not a journal. It is > not the Proceedings of the 107th Symposium on the Absolutely Provable. > It is a place where people come to give their theories a test drive. Sure, Jeff, Merryman expressed himself a bit strongly but if White's theory is in fact based on nonsense, we ought to know about it. Let him look at Merryman's points and tell us what he thinks. The "open forum" thing can be nice, but we do want to stay within the realm of the possible, don't we? The trouble with broad-minded amateurs is that they often lack essential knowledge of facts and history. What would you say if I came up with a theory of cold fusion that assumed equal masses for deuterons and electrons? If a professional then said "ridiculous!", would you call that a narrow-minded flame? Actually, physicists are not that narrow-minded and rigid. If someone here has a good idea, one way to sharpen the wit is to write it up as a journal paper. I've suggested this to Terry about his Bohr jacket, and I still think it deserves a letter to Nature, or the like - without the clown suit of course. Speculation is not frowned upon in physics journals - but you do have to stay within correct mathematics, and known facts, and know the field to some extent, to make sure your idea is not 80 years old and was dismissed at the time, for good reason. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy28 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Paul Schinder / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: schinder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Paul Schinder) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 12:31:27 GMT Organization: Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca NY I'd like to interject a comment into what seems to be degenerating into a flame war. White's speculation seems extremely farfetched to me, with an astrophysicist's knowledge of the weak interaction and quantum field theory. I know next to nothing, though, about solid state physics, or what's likely to happen in a lattice. But physics is still a quantitative science. No amount of English will convince me that White's idea is correct. A *calculation* of the rate at which fusion occurs, based on reasonable premises, might, and will at least give us a real (i.e. a quantitative mathematical) theory to argue about. I realize it may not be that easy, but solid state physics has developed ways of dealing with similar problems. -- Paul J. Schinder Department of Astronomy, Cornell University schinder@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenschinder cudfnPaul cudlnSchinder cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Paul Dietz / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 15:40:40 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <2798@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >have enough energy to get that close. The same for your delocalized >protons. You are not going to get around the fact that basic >conservation of energy will prevent charged particles from getting >real close to eachother. That they are delocalized means they >can roam freely, it doesn't mean they get real close to eachother. ... > ...J. Whites theory---which requires fermi-scale close >protons to initiate the weak interactions---will not work. If I interpreted correctly what Mr. White was saying, he was assuming that these supposed delocalized protons would find themselves in a state where it is energetically favorable to undergo electron capture. This would be necessary, otherwise, the "virtual neutron" component of wave function would track the proton component very closely, and would not have significant amplitude to be near other nuclei. However, this is really hard to believe, because (1) these neutrons could also react with palladium, and (2) just what are these protons doing in such an energetically unfavorable state, some 400+ keV above the ground state? Surely there are lower energy states they could fall into without resorting to weak interactions. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy28 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Vincent Cate / Pons and his lawyer Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons and his lawyer Date: 28 May 90 15:58:58 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI |From: piner@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Richard Piner) |Subject: "What's New" 05/25/90 |Date: 25 May 90 22:51:14 GMT | | ... | |3. AT WHAT POINT DOES FOOLISH SCIENCE BECOME BLATANT MISCONDUCT? |Perhaps when a lawyer is hired to intimidate critics into with- |holding contradictory evidence. In an article in Nature on 29 |Mar 90, ten scientists at the University of Utah who were allowed |to monitor cold fusion cells in Pons' laboratory reported that |over a five-week period last year they found no fusion emissions. |Each coauthor has since received a demand from Pons' lawyer that |the article be retracted or they will face legal action. And it |gets uglier: the Salt Lake City Tribune reports that the lawyer |has been paid more than $50,000 dollars by the University of Utah |for legal work related to cold fusion ($68,000 to date). The |stunned coauthors say they undertook the monitoring at the behest |of the University. There are reports that scientists involved in |assaying the Utah cathodes for helium and at least one journalist |have also been threatened with legal action. This challenge to |free academic inquiry raises serious questions about the resolve |of University of Utah officials to police academic misconduct. | |Robert L. Park (202) 232-0189 The American Physical Society I think Pons and the U of Utah have gone off the deep end. If Pons has any measurements of significant fusion products he ought to release them and tell everyone how to reproduce his experiments. Sicking a lawyer on a group of people because they reported finding no significant fusion products when monitoring Pons' experiments seems downright evil. The fact that Pons is doing this, instead of releasing his own results, causes me further reduce my estimate of the chances of Pons-level-CNF being real. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 18:17:13 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Certainly---but this obfuscation will not bring the protons close >together! As you yourself have said, the wavefunction of each >proton is delocalized, but the wavefunctions of any two protons >are _anticorrelated_. All this means is: any given proton could be found >anywhere in the lattice, but you won't ever find two protons close together. Personally, I consider using classical analogies for quantum mechanical situations to be obfuscation. The rest of the above is fine. >If one takes into consideration the anticorrelation of the proton >wave functions---which is simply the quantum mechanical manifestation of the >coulomb repulsion (and in addition, pauli exclusion)---the probability >of finding two protons close enough for a weak interaction will >be infinitesimally small. First, the anti-correlation is not due to Pauli exclusion. It is due to the fact that according to conventional quantum theory, the proper way to model n particles in 3 dimensions is as a single wavefunction in 3n dimensions. The position of all n particles is represented by a single position in 3n space. Points in 3n space that correspond to any two protons being close together will be energetically unfavorable (due to coulomb repulsion), and the amplitude of the wavefunction at that point in 3n space will be suppressed. Translated back into 3 dimensions, this means that protons will avoid each other, even though their wavefunctions overlap. Barry's claim that the protons are too far apart for a weak interaction has a problem. The problem is that while true, it is irrelevant. The range of the weak interaction is far less than the size of a proton. When a proton rich nucleus decays through electron capture, a single proton becomes a neutron. No other nucleon is directly involved. The environment of the nucleus merely causes the neutron state to be more energetically favorable than the proton state. All proton wavefunctions have a small neutron component. If the wavefunction is in an environment where the neutron state is energetically favorable, then the proton will decay into a neutron. The weak interaction merely links the proton and neutron parts of the wavefunction. It does not have anything to do with deciding which of these states is energetically favorable. Now back to the delocalized overlapping proton wavefunctions. The protons will be anti-correlated due to their coulomb repulsion, but the neutron state will not feel this coulomb repulsion. So does the neutron state also anti-correlate with the other protons? In my theory I *assume* the answer is no. Thus, the neutron state is spread over the other protons, which look like deep potential wells due to the strong force. This means that there will be a correlation between the neutron states and the other protons. That is, the amplitude of the neutron state will be highest in the deep potential wells of the other protons. The result of this is that the neutron state will be more energetically favorable than the proton state, and the proton can decay into a bound neutron. cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Chris Phoenix / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 18:26:34 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. In article <2798@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >James R. White writes: >>Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: You are treating >>protons like billiard balls. But that is irrelevant because >>in reality particle behavior is based on wavefunctions. > >Certainly---but this obfuscation will not bring the protons close >together! As you yourself have said, the wavefunction of each >proton is delocalized, but the wavefunctions of any two protons >are _anticorrelated_. All this means is: any given proton could be found >anywhere in the lattice, but you won't ever find two protons close together. I'm sure I'm going to make myself look stupid here--I learned most of my QM from this newsgroup and reading QED--but isn't the question whether the different parts of the proton wavefunction can go different places? It sounds to me like Barry is saying "*The* proton wavefunction is anticorrelated, so will tend to keep the protons from fusing." James is saying "The proton wavefunction splits up into a neutron and a proton component, and although the proton components are anticorrelated, the neutron components aren't affected by Coulomb forces (or aren't anticorrelated by anything) and so they can seek out other protons. So what's the word? Can different parts of the proton wavefunction do different things? If so, can the neutron part get close enough to other protons to "pull" the protons together? Or am I hopelessly confused? -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy28 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Richard Mathews / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: richard@locus.com (Richard M. Mathews) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 10:20:14 GMT Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Inglewood, CA barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Thankfully, we can see the error in reasoning clearly: The weak force is a >short range force, and the free proton and target nucleus are far apart, >so the weak force cannot bring them together. I agree that this is the problem with the theory, but being an expert bullshitter let me play with this a little. A proton (or really the down quarks in the proton) will always be emiting and reabsorbing W+ bosons. The Feynman diagram looks like p| | >~~~ | ~ n| ~ | ~W+ | ~ >~~~ | p| Because of the mass of the W+ it can't stay around for very long (since delta_E * delta_t < hbar). This is the reason why the weak force is limited to nuclear distances, and it is the reason why White's theory does not seem like it will work. If the W+ moves at the speed of light for a time of hbar/(m*c**2) it will get no farther than hbar/(m*c). I don't remember the mass of the W+ offhand, but this crude calculation gives something like a nuclear radius. It is also possible for the W+ to split into a positron and neutrino. These recombine to reform the W+ which then combines back into the neutron/proton. (sorry, I won't try to draw this Feynman diagram in ASCII). The positron/neutrino have much less mass than the W+, so it is easier to believe them getting farther from the neutron. J. White seems to be arguing that the neutron and positron will be able to get far enough apart for the neutron to wander off and interact with a proton. I'm still not convinced that this helps. Another possibility is that the electron comes into play first (remember the electron in p+e+p=>n+nu?). The following interaction between an electron and protron is possible: | | p| |e- | | <~~~~~~> | W+ | | | n| |nu | | | | <~~~~~~> | W+ | p| |e- | | With the proton and electron both delocalized, it would be reasonable to see this weak interaction taking place all the time (but the key word here is "weak"). In general, the p and e- will not have enough energy to produce a stable n+nu. There will be "borrowed energy" (about .8 MeV). The neutron/neutrino can exist for only a small time because of this. This is, however, much longer than the time that a virtual W+ can exist. Could the neutron amplitude build up inside the potential wells of nearby protons in this time? Before this "theory" is thrown away forever, I'd be curious to see some calculations. Just to put it all together, here are the diagrams for the complete reactions (with the proton/electron interaction described above and with a positron/electron reaction as described by White): | | | | ~ D| | D| | ~gamma | | | | ~ /\ | /\ |nu /| / \ | / \ | / | / \ | / \ \ / | | n| |nu | n| \ /e+ | | | | | | \/ | | | | | | ~ |e- | <~~~~~~> | | ~ | | | W+ | | <~~~W+ | p| p| |e- p| p| | | | | | | | (note that these are really the same Feynman diagram [except for the photon] with the electron moving backwards in time as a positron for a little bit). The reaction rate for this reaction would be very slow with just the 3 particles. The question raised by White's "theory" is whether the delocalization of a huge number protons can provide an environment where the reaction rate is higher. I think not, but I am left with some doubt. Richard M. Mathews Locus Computing Corporation richard@locus.com lcc!richard@ucla-se.ucla.edu cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenrichard cudfnRichard cudlnMathews cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.28 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 28 May 90 17:22:11 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <10326@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> schinder@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu (Paul Schinder) writes: Summary: Math, not English, is the language of physics. I agree totally. In english, we can manipulate known quantities (wires, voltages, atoms, protons, even wavefunctions) in known ways (rig up a cathode of Pd, load it with D, do a double slit experiment,...) and make certain simple deductions based on considerations of known effects. But, postulating and discussing bizarre quantum effects, or extending standard theories inot nonstandard regimes is of little value here, _even_ if the idea were correct! For only a mathematical formulation can illuminate the situation precisely. For example, arguing and debating ``Cooper pairs'' would not allow us to explain or make plausible superconductivity---only the mathematics is the deciding factor (even that does not explain things---it just shows that the wild cooper pair correlation works...not real satisfying). So, while I feel I've identified a fundamental problem of length scales with J. Whites theory, if it is to be pursued from here, it must be done on a more rigorous level. We've reached a point of diminishing returns in english. Thats it for me on this subject. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / John Moore / Re: Pons and his lawyer Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pons and his lawyer Date: 29 May 90 00:00:05 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9443@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: ]The fact that Pons is doing this, instead of releasing his own results, ]causes me further reduce my estimate of the chances of Pons-level-CNF ]being real. Unless there is more going on than meets the eye (which I doubt), Pons' behavior seems pretty bad to me! It doesn't bode well for CNF. -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john john@anasaz.UUCP Voice: (602) 951-9326 (day or eve) FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 ......: Short petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Dieter Britz / Terry's SQRT(probability) wave problem Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Terry's SQRT(probability) wave problem Date: Tue, 29 May 90 08:34 GMT+2 Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In IN%"FUSION%ZORCH%AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV@VM1.NoDak.EDU" 27-MAY-1990 etc terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes (I paraphrase): > .. nobody ... has the foggiest what that [waves of the square root of > probability] really means... nobody knows what media these waves > travel in... the answer is "wrong question". For something to be periodic doesn't mean that it is a wave of something you can lay your hands on, travelling in a medium you can feel. Think of the palladium deuteride crystal lattice: if you plotted (say) potential energy "felt" by an electron in that space, you'd get a function that is periodic in three dimensions - gets smaller as you get close to the positive nuclei arranged in order. This doesn't mean you can taste potential energy, or that it's travelling. Likewise, the probability of an atom being in a given state is a periodic function in some space; the fact that the maths spits it out as the square root doesn't make it less tangible. If it's a comfort to you, Terry, the square of a sinusoidal wave is still sinusoidal - remember those trig-equalities? But still the probability isn't going anywhere. This reminds me of someone once wondering what the square of velocity "really means", as in m*v**2; we often operate mathematically with intangibles. There was a time people had trouble with negative numbers and asked "how can you have -9 cows?" and this no longer bothers us - it's just an operation. Looking forward to your next instalment, Terry. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy29 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Ric Werme / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: werme@Alliant.COM (Ric Werme) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 29 May 90 13:28:17 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA In article <10326@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> schinder@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu (Paul Schinder) writes: > >I'd like to interject a comment into what seems to be degenerating >into a flame war. Me too. There are basically two tests of a theory: 1) How well it stands up to the slings and arrows of people who say nature doesn't work that way. 2) How well it explains observed phenomena and predicts the outcome of future experiments. One of the attractive things about the theory is that it suggests all sorts of experiments that could be done to test it. It's unfortunate that most of us don't have the facilities to try them, so I fear we'll have to settle for heated discussion. -- | A pride of lions | Eric J Werme | | A gaggle of geese | uucp: decvax!linus!alliant | | An odd lot of programmers | Phone: 603-673-3993 | cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenwerme cudfnRic cudlnWerme cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / / NEW THEORY Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: NEW THEORY Date: Tue, 29 May 90 14:37 EST Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In response to Robert Rackerby ORG%"fusion.zorch.SF-Bay.ORG" rr@pnet12.cts.com >Frankly it looks suspiciously like an empirical fit. Is this error due to >the theory being an approximation to reality, or to the equations being >an approximation to the theory? Does the theory suggest a simple >numerical procedure that gives exact answers? Is there a simple >numerical procedure applicable to any three dimensional system such >as a molecule? You mention protons and neutrons. Are you able to >calculate the mass of these and other hadrons from first principles? Thank you for doing the calculations. It is not a numerical fit. It is a closed form solution to the two-electron atom. A numerical fit would be quite easy. But a numerical fit that contained only fundamental constants and such simple equations would not be easy. In fact, we are not so sure it can be done. [Can someone come up with an equation for the hydrogen atom that contains only fundamental constants and is not the right equation?] Besides, we would never attempt such a feat. What would be the purpose? We have the correct theory and it is not Schrodinger's wave mechanics. We used Maxwell's equations and Newtonian mechanics. The radii that you calculated are the actual radii of the electrons. The electron is not a smeared out entity. Each bound electron has a definite radius. In the hydrogen atom (ground state) the radius is the Bohr radius, a0. Bohr was almost right. But the electron is not a *point particle* in orbit at a0. The electron is a spherical shell of mass/charge density (infinitely thin; two- dimensional) at a0. We call it an orbitsphere. In the ground state of hydrogen, the radial function is given by the Dirac delta function R(r) = delta(r - a0) It is the spinning orbitsphere that gives rise to the spin angular momentum and the magnetic field. We believe that the small errors you observed between the experimental values and the calculated values are not from the theory. The errors are (1) in part due to the fact that we have not applied the relativistic corrections, (2) in the values for the fundamental constants, and, possibly, (3) in the experimental measurements. Theoretically yours, John J. Farrell Chemistry Department Franklin & Marshall College and Randell L. Mills Mills Technologies cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Don Davis / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: ded@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Don E. Davis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 29 May 90 17:07:49 GMT Organization: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab > >[all my nasty remarks deleted] > >> >>Ahem. This is sci.physics.fusion, not alt.flame. > > >While my editorial comments about the New P+P->D theory were >definitely flamey---hey, thats how I felt---I still stand by the... > > >Barry Merriman No one is objecting to you taking potshots at the theory. That is one of the purposes of this newsgroup. But your original posting was unnecessarily personal. I don't care what you think of the person behind this theory or his motivations. We (and I don't blush at speaking for everyone here) want discussion of the issues, not ad hominem nonsense. Your second posting was much more civil. Keep up the good work. me cudkeys: cuddy29 cudended cudfnDon cudlnDavis cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Richard Mathews / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: richard@locus.com (Richard M. Mathews) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 29 May 90 14:46:09 GMT Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Inglewood, CA barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >``Cooper pairs'' would not allow us to explain or make plausible >superconductivity---only the mathematics is the deciding factor >(even that does not explain things---it just shows that >the wild cooper pair correlation works...not real satisfying). Cooper pairs really bug me, so I'll digress a bit to flame about them before getting back to fusion. Cooper pair correlation works, but only sort of. It is easy to perform an experiment and graph the maximum magnetic field as a function of temperature (I once did this experiment in an undergraduate lab). You'll find that the graph only approximates Cooper's prediction. It is easy to come up with an empirical formula which does better. Cooper theory is the standard model, but it is clearly wrong. All it is is much better than any other theory we have (enough better to win a Nobel prize). >But, postulating >and discussing bizarre quantum effects, or extending standard theories >inot nonstandard regimes is of little value here, _even_ if the >idea were correct! For only a mathematical formulation can >illuminate the situation precisely. I've decided that there is a more serious problem with White's theory than the lack of a mathematical description. If delocalization of the protons and electrons were enough, one would expect a cold plasma to have a comparable fusion rate. Experiments agree with the standard theory here -- the probability of fusion is so low that it would be "miraculous" to observe any fusion at all. For White's theory to make any sense it must SPECIFICALLY state what it is about the metal lattice which makes fusion more likely there. I could sit down and try to calculate the fusion rate of delocalized protons in the presence of delocalized electrons, but I won't get any answer different than anyone else has gotten unless I know exactly what the factor is I need to include to consider the metal. In other words, the theory not only does not come with a mathematical description, it doesn't come with enough words to make a mathematical description possible. Combined with the fact that experimental evidence for cold fusion is still incredibly weak, if not non-existent, I don't see any reason to spend time devising the mathematics to go with this theory. The best theory is still that experimenters are fooling themselves, if not (in a few cases) outright lying or intentionally obscuring facts known to them. Richard M. Mathews Locus Computing Corporation richard@locus.com lcc!richard@ucla-se.ucla.edu cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenrichard cudfnRichard cudlnMathews cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Date: 29 May 90 18:01:35 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 25-May-90 Cold fusion > bibliography mi.. Dieter Britz@VM1.NoDak.E (6102) > A note is in order on the Sanchez et al paper in Solid State Commun. 71 (1989) 1039: I had given it a short comment but it actually deserves > more attention. Although Bill Johnson tells me that the techniques are > somewhat slipshod, and the information provided by the paper too scanty, > the authors do find what looks like a neutron burst well clear of the background, > AND they find a gamma bump, followed by a definite rise in the tritium > level in the electrolyte... I found this paper to be pretty impressive. It seems to be the most unambiguous evidence for cold fusion yet: neutrons, gammas, and tritium all at the same time. They were even able to move the neutron detector during the bursts, and verify that when they moved it away the counts went down, and back up again when they moved it near the cell. Also, it is published in a reputable journal (although with an editorial comment that these results are not reproducible, and not explainable). I'd be interested in hearing more from those (e.g., Johnson) who have problems with the paper. -- J cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenWebb cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / W Hutchison / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: wgh@ubbpc.UUCP (William G. Hutchison) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.skeptic Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 29 May 90 15:29:59 GMT Organization: Unisys UNIX Portation Center, Blue Bell, PA In article <1990May18.221456.13930@uncecs.edu>, jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) writes: > [ ... ] > > There were many things I didn't like about this theory as I understood it. > > [ ... ] I don't understand the theory either, but as a general heuristic, I recommend against 'explaining' something that probably does not occur. It seems to me that 'explaining' cold fusion is about as useful as 'explaining' telepathy: to be more explicit, both of these phenomena seem not to occur under carefully controlled experiments. -- Bill Hutchison, DP Consultant rutgers!cbmvax!burdvax!ubbpc!wgh (work) Unisys UNIX Portation Center uunet!eidolon!wgh (home) P.O. Box 500, M.S. B121 "X does not just have bells and whistles -- Blue Bell, PA 19424 it has carillons and calliopes" - me, 1990 cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenwgh cudfnWilliam cudlnHutchison cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Barry Merriman / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 29 May 90 18:54:57 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math While I have exhausted my comments on the plausibility of J. White's theory ( I agree that given his responses, the question is still ambiguous at the level of english language descriptions; the Feynman Diagram that were generously sent in were quite an improvement, and support my claim that the length (= time) scales for weak interactions are too small; but then J. White will point out that we must average over all such Feynman diagrams to get the actual probabilities, and this smearing out over a large area again abiguifies things. ) I would like to take a different approach, based on In article 3874 werme@alliant.Alliant.COM (Ric Werme) writes: > >There are basically two tests of a theory: >1) How well it stands up to the slings and arrows of people who say > nature doesn't work that way. Applying this test, the J. White theory seems unlikely, but its ambiguous. >2) How well it explains observed phenomena and predicts the outcome > of future experiments. >unfortunate that most of us don't have the facilities to try them, >so I fear we'll have to settle for heated discussion. Not so. For these experiments have already been done: as we all know, Pd, Ti, and various alloys loaded with H have all been studied intensely. Why has the P + P -> D process been unnoticed for so long (in J. Whites theory, its a pretty robust process, so its not likely to be disturbed---it doesn't depend on special coherence effects like in so many other theories.) Even beyond this, in J. Whites theory, why is H2 gas stable against turning into D gas? cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / Richard Mathews / Re: Terry's SQRT(probability) wave problem Originally-From: richard@locus.com (Richard M. Mathews) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Terry's SQRT(probability) wave problem Date: 29 May 90 20:59:59 GMT Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Inglewood, CA BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >In IN%"FUSION%ZORCH%AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV@VM1.NoDak.EDU" 27-MAY-1990 etc >terry@ctc.contel.com (Terry Bollinger x4157) writes (I paraphrase): >> .. nobody ... has the foggiest what that [waves of the square root of >> probability] really means... nobody knows what media these waves >> travel in... >the answer is "wrong question". For something to be periodic doesn't mean >that it is a wave of something you can lay your hands on, travelling in a >medium you can feel. Think of the palladium deuteride crystal lattice: if >you plotted (say) potential energy "felt" by an electron in that space, >you'd get a function that is periodic in three dimensions - gets smaller >as you get close to the positive nuclei arranged in order. This doesn't >mean you can taste potential energy, or that it's travelling. Good point, but bad example. The potential energy relates directly to the energy of the electromagnetic fields (classically) or to the virtual photons flying back and forth (quantum mechanically). The issue of whether something actually waves reminds me of the issue of whether it makes sense to talk of "force at a distance." We now firmly believe that a purely "local" Theory of Everything is possible and that forces propagate at no more than the speed of light and are carried by virtual particles. An equation like F=GMm/r**2 looks like a pure mathematical abstract, while an explanation based on simple interactions following the rules of Feynman diagrams allows the mathematics to follow from the physical model. So, too, we may find that the mathematical construct of the wave amplitude disappears with a reasonable model for what happens underneath that. It actually seems to me that a good theory of quantum gravity has a reasonable chance of combining a geometrical explanation with wave theory. Richard M. Mathews Locus Computing Corporation richard@locus.com lcc!richard@ucla-se.ucla.edu cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenrichard cudfnRichard cudlnMathews cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Fri, 1 Jun 90 23:56:13 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I have got hold of the BBC Horizon transcript, as well as the issue of Science Watch, both mentioned on this list. Science Watch is a nice little thing, worth subscribing to, I thought - until I checked the price... The Horizon thing gives a few interesting details, worth reading. E.g. Williams telling about the difficulties with neutron measurements, echoed by James Mahaffey of Georgia IT, who found out that you need to protect the detector from temperature changes, or you'll get spurious neutron counts. I was reminded of this, reading the Yaroslavskii papers. I had previously only read two of these, as abstracts only, and was a bit mystified. I was halfway through translating the latest one - for me, an excruciatingly slow job - when I found all three in translation, so here they are. They seem like more Soviet fracto-something stuff, Yaroslavskii's theory involves microcracks and high fields, although in a nonconducting medium (there is some doubt that a high voltage field can be sustained in (conducting) PdD for long enough). Yaroslavskii detected large numbers of neutrons, apparently - but did he shield his detectors from the large temperature swings he put his samples through? I cannot understand his final sentence about possible nuclear reactions in living cells; I don't see how his results indicate this. I did check the original, and it's translated properly, unlike (maybe) the references to pentane. I was not able to check this, not having the originals of the two earlier papers. Not too important, either. I am continuing with the job of catching up with actual reading of papers only quoted as abstracts in the big list, and am modifying the list accordingly. I'll only mention these if any radical changes are needed, such as the Yaroslavskii papers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 1-Jun. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; Science Watch 1(3) (1990). (An ISI publication; the same people who produce Science Citation Index). "The hottest fields of 1989" (p. 1) and "Scientists vote on cold fusion: their verdict? No, not likely" (p. 7). ** Cold fusion ranks no. 1, with 10 core papers in 1989. There is some commentary, most of it familiar; SW says the weight of evidence is against cold fusion. On p. 7 there is an interesting graph of monthly citations of the FPH paper, broken up into positive, neutral and negative citations. It seems from this graph that the peak has been passed by Jan-90. Also, neutrals were almost always fewer than either positive or negatives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- British Broadcasting Corporation; Transcript of a Horizon TV broadcast, 26th March 1990. "Cold fusion" ** A copy of this transcript can be ordered by sending 1.75 pound sterling to Cold Fusion, PO Box 7, London W36XJ. Such notables as Fleischmann, Pons, Marcel Gaudreau, David Williams, John Maddox, Nathan Lewis, Richard Petrasso, Douglas Morrison, Steven Jones and Moshe Gai (plus others) are given a few words, some of it quite interesting and illuminating ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yaroslavskii MA; Sov. Phys. - Doklady 34 (1989) 637. (Originally in Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR [Fiz.] 307 (1989) 369). "Neutron emission during plastic deformation of deuterium-containing solids under pressure". ** Y is the author of a book on "rheological explosions" (RE): what happens when some materials are compressed strongly. Plastic deformation and the release of much energy, up to some 100's of keV, are released. When rock material, mixed with D2O and frozen to 77K, were compressed to 38 kbar, RE took place and x-rays as well as neutrons were emitted, detected by two parallel detectors. The neutrons came in bursts and a total of 10E06 neutrons were estimated, after allowing for the 1% detector efficiency. Y proposes the fusion reaction d+d->(3)He+n. These experiments were carried out in 1986 and reported at a symposium that year but first published in Dokl. in Jul-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yaroslavskii MA; Sov. Phys. - Doklady 34 (1989) 648. (Originally in Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR [Fiz.] 307 (1989) 600). "Nuclear reactions induced by temperature changes and phase transitions in solids". ** After the rheological explosions, Y now examines the emission from mixtures of D2O with calcite (10 mg in about 7g D2O) and pentane, cycled down to 77K and up to melting. Both ways, and also while melting, the mix emits neutrons in bursts or packages, with up to 1000 pulses per burst. Again, allowing for detector efficiency, a total of 10E06 neutrons were emitted from the sample in all. Y interprets this as the fusion reaction d+d->(3)He+n. Jul-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yaroslavskii MA; Sov. Phys. - Doklady 34 (1989) 813. (Originally in Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR [Fiz.] 308 (1989) 95). "Possible mechanism for the initiation of nuclear reactions during temperature changes and phase transitions in condensed materials". ** Following the two earlier papers with experimental evidence for neutron emission of deuterated mixtures under stress, Y now offers more evidence, and a theory of the phenomenon. Freezing down to 77K and subsequent thawing of D2O with added chalk and some soluble electrolytes, causes the emission of neutrons, as detected by two parallel detectors with 1% efficency. Although in the first of the earlier papers Y states that a D2O-pentane mixture also emits neutrons, he states here that pentane in fact quenches the emission - this may be a translation problem, I have seen the original of this one and it does mention the quenching, but have not seen the other paper in the original. The theory is that freezing and thawing/melting causes phase changes and moving crystal boundaries, and therefore "frozen" electric fields as a response to osmotic forces set up by partitioning ("solid phase electrolysis"). This causes microcracks which slowly turn into ellipsoidal micropores over as long as a week, emitting neutrons the while, due to the fusion reaction d+d->(3)He+n. On a somewhat cryptic note, Y then concludes that all this points to the possibility of controlled nuclear reactions in living organisms. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy1 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / Donn Seeley / 'there was no reason to identify the source' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'there was no reason to identify the source' Date: 1 Jun 90 21:28:51 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept As predicted, there was plenty of startling news in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune (6/1). I'll give the most amazing part first: The following statement came from [U of U] College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi and 22 faculty members representing all of the college's departments: 'After learning that an unnamed donation, described as "external funding" in the latest quarterly report of the Cold Fusion Institute, was in fact from the University Research Foundation, I called a meeting of a group of College of Science faculty to discuss the implications of this apparent deception. 'The perception that desperate means are now being used to continue support of claims unsubstantiated by peer review of the data is unavoidable. It was the sense of the group that a complete and objective financial audit and scientific review must precede any further state or university funding of this project, and in a separate document we are asking the chair of the board of directors of the institute, as well as the university, to convene such review panels in consultation with the faculty of the University of Utah,' the statement concluded. ... Dr Rossi, who at one time was the interim director of the fusion institute, said he wanted to make it clear that the statement came from faculty in all departments in his college, including the chemistry department, to put to rest the notion that there is a battle between physicists and chemists over how the fusion situation has been handled. Apparently Stanley Pons has now lost so much credibility with his own department at the university that his department chair has joined in calling for an investigation of his research activities. The fact that Rossi used to be acting director of NCFI is even more troubling; support for cold fusion activities at the U may be eroding quickly. The university and NCFI administrations are struggling with damage control. I was told that James Brophy, the U VP for Research, would not consent to be interviewed by the Tribune for this story and indeed his name does not turn up -- instead U President Chase Peterson gets the hot seat: 'The request for a study of the financing and science of the fusion institute will be reviewed, I'm sure, thoughtfully and thoroughly by the board of directors of the institute as well as by the president's office,' Dr Peterson replied. 'The University of Utah stands for open, even contentious, objective study and debate in this area no less than in any other, and it has a proud history of academic freedom which will be sustained.' As you can tell, the response was less than entirely forthcoming. The statements about openness and objectivity are interesting in the light of the U's position in the dispute over funding for Pons's lawyer and his threatened lawsuits. Peterson was also on the spot for the administration's role in obscuring the source of the $500,000 'anonymous' donation: ... Peterson said there was no intent to mislead anyone about the donation. 'We assign hundreds of large and small amounts of money to different parts of the university during the year, and we rarely discuss the source of the particular fund, not does anyone generally care.' 'In this case, as with most donations from the research foundation to university research, there was no reason to identify the source.' A May 3 press release from the fusion institute referred to the money as a 'recent anonymous gift of $500,000,' which has been used to bring in three visiting scientists from Malaysia, Poland and South Dakota. Dr Peterson said that after a report in the Tribune referred to the donation as anonymous, he called Institute Director Fritz Will to clarify it. 'I called him to say that it was inappropriate to suggest the gift represented support of the fusion study from an outside person or corporation.' No one from the university or the institute passed on that clarification to the Tribune or to members of [the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council]. Notice how President Peterson's response avoids stating outright that he disclosed the source of the money to Dr Will. Here are Dr Will's own chagrined comments: Dr Will said he never knew until Wednesday what the source of the money was. He said he was asked after the money was sent if he was comfortable with not knowing the source, and he said he was. When asked who had asked him if he was comfortable with the arrangement, Dr Will said, 'I'd rather not say.' The F/EAC reaction was not very encouraging for the administration: The revelation prompted disdain from members of the panel that oversees the state's $5 million fusion investment. ... 'I'm a little upset about it because it was inferred that it was a private, anonymous donor and therefore we could consider it as an effort by the university to secure outside funding,' said Mr Hixson, who chairs the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council. 'This, to me, is not quite the same thing. I'm going to have to look into it. At this stage, I can tell you I'm not very happy about it.' ... Mr Hixson said his charge under the legislation releasing the state money does not empower him to control how the institute is managed. 'My concern is over the money and state getting their money's worth.' He added that he remains 'very satisfied' with the scientific progress that the institute has shown. Another member of the state committee, Salt Lake attorney Mitchell Melich, concurred with Mr Hixson. 'I don't believe the university is fair with our council if it refuses to say where the money is from when we find out now it is university money. I'm still puzzled why they continue to remain secretive with what's happening.' Mr Melich also made reference to a recent report of a faculty committee appointed by Dr Peterson, which called for significant changes in the administrative structure. 'It's very unfortunate, I think, that this should come up at this time in view of problems that apparently exist at the university as a result of the report that the faculty committee has submitted.' I think the days of state funding for cold fusion may be at an end... Some heads could roll before we're done, 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: cuddy1 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.30 / Barry Merriman / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 30 May 90 08:02:30 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9005291916.AA10737@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: >We have the correct theory and it is not >Schrodinger's wave mechanics. >We used Maxwell's equations and Newtonian mechanics. >Each bound electron has a definite radius. ... the electron is not >a *point particle* in orbit at a0. The electron is a >spherical shell of mass/charge density at a0. Actually, thats an amusing idea. The reason classical point electrons had to be abandoned was that while orbiting the nucleus they would radiate away energy (since accelerated charges radiate) so fast that the electron orbit would spiral into the nucleus in a fraction of a second. Thus Maxwell + Newton does not allow a planetary model of the atom. But---if you model the electron as a spinning spherical shell of charge it will reabsorb all the energy it radiates, so the net loss is zero. (Easy to see from Gauss's Law that a spherically symetric charge ditribution cannot radiate.) Thus, at least, you can have a stable model of the atom this way. If you take the shell radius as Bohrs radius, you probably can get some amusing, perhaps even accurate, predictions. However, I don't think you could ever build this into a complete theory of atomic structure that mimics all the results of Quantum Mechanics. For example--- * Why are only certain electron Energy/Angular Mom./Radii states allowed? * Where does ``Pauli Exclusion'' come from in you picture? * To avoid radiating away all their energy, electrons can only be spinning spherical shells---how does this allow for more complicated atoms (where the standard orbitals aren't spheres)? * Since an electron _is_ a spherical shell, how does it ever radiate, as in a transition between energy levels, (as spherical charge densities cannot radiate as long as they don't break the spherical symmetry). * What about the general interaction of electrons with matter---how do you achieve the results of a double slit experiment in your classical model? * etc In short, while this classical model may extend the range of validity of classical calculations a bit, I doubt it is up to the task of becoming a true quantum theory of electrodynamics. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.31 / James White / Re: New P+P->D theory Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New P+P->D theory Date: 31 May 90 04:37:50 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service barry@mesquite.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article 3874 werme@alliant.Alliant.COM (Ric Werme) writes: >>2) How well it explains observed phenomena and predicts the outcome >> of future experiments. >>unfortunate that most of us don't have the facilities to try them, >>so I fear we'll have to settle for heated discussion. > >Not so. For these experiments have already been done: as we all know, >Pd, Ti, and various alloys loaded with H have all been studied intensely. >Why has the P + P -> D process been unnoticed for so long (in J. Whites theory, >its a pretty robust process, so its not likely to be disturbed---it doesn't >depend on special coherence effects like in so many other theories.) >Even beyond this, in J. Whites theory, why is H2 gas stable against turning >into D gas? (This was explained in the original posting, but perhaps not clearly enough.) My theory requires the wavefunctions of the protons to overlap in normal three dimensional space. The overlap must involve a large fraction of the wavefunction, the tiny amount of overlap in H2 gas is nowhere near enough. If an alloy has well defined potential wells, then the protons will behave as if they are localized in these wells, and the necessary overlap will not occur. The alloys in which the solubility of H has been studied tend to be the ones that absorb H readily. Such alloys absorb H because they have well defined potential wells. Note that palladium has potential wells, and it absorbs H freely. According to my theory, palladium is not a CNF catalyst. However, when palladium is loaded with D to a loading factor of 1, all these wells will be filled. Thus, it is PdD, not Pd, that is the catalyst. PdH might also work, but it is harder to electrolytically load H into Pd to the necessary loading factor. Thus, the alloys most likely to be CNF catalysts won't absorb H readily. They may have to be plated with a hydrogen absorbing coating and electrolytically loaded using ordinary water. The excess heat should start fairly quickly, however; at a loading factor of, say, .001 plus whatever it takes to saturate the defects and grain boundaries. Finding such an alloy would support my theory, but not finding one does not necessarily refute it. A test that can disprove my theory would be to do a CNF experiment in a carefully sealed closed cell with protium contamination minimized. If such a cell produces more excess heat than can be accounted for by reacting all the protium present, then the excess heat can't be due to P+P->D. Sooner or later somebody who has good reproducibility will do this experiment (as there are now a number of proton consuming theories). But it may be a while. cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / Donn Seeley / the proverbial deuterons hit the fan Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: the proverbial deuterons hit the fan Date: 1 Jun 90 06:08:20 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept I'll have to make this quick, since I need to get up early to make a presentation tomorrow... The 10 o'clock news on channel 2 tonight led off with a new scandal, this time involving funding for NCFI. Apparently the $500,000 'anonymous' donation to NCFI actually came from a foundation controlled by the University of Utah. This foundation derives its income from rent on office space in University Research Park (where NCFI is located, coincidentally) and other similar sources. The order for the transfer of funds apparently came from the U President's office... U VP for Research James Brophy was asked to explain this and all he could say was that 'anonymous donation' was inappropriate terminology, and that they are not using that terminology any more. This seems to be a blatant attempt at 'pump priming', to make investment in NCFI seem more attractive. Brophy apparently thinks it works, since he defended the U by saying that EPRI was ready to commit $170,000 to NCFI, although the proverbial ink wasn't dry on the agreement. After this news, I'd be very surprised if the EPRI donation goes through... According to friends in the Physics Department, this morning's Salt Lake Tribune will have details on this fiasco and the negative reaction from the U's College of Science (including Chemistry!). I'll try to get the news out as soon as I can, since what I've heard (and can't repeat) makes me think that this could be the beginning of the end... Channel 2's reporter didn't think U President Chase Peterson would resign over this issue, 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: cuddy1 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / Paul Koloc / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 1 Jun 90 08:52:22 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <2818@sunset.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <9005291916.AA10737@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: > >>We have the correct theory and it is not >>Schrodinger's wave mechanics. >>We used Maxwell's equations and Newtonian mechanics. > >>Each bound electron has a definite radius. ... the electron is not >>a *point particle* in orbit at a0. The electron is a >>spherical shell of mass/charge density at a0. > >Actually, thats an amusing idea. The reason classical point electrons had to be >abandoned was that while orbiting the nucleus they would radiate >away energy (since accelerated charges radiate) so fast that the >electron orbit would spiral into the nucleus in a fraction of a second. >Thus Maxwell + Newton does not allow a planetary model of the atom. > >But---if you model the electron as a spinning spherical shell of charge >it will reabsorb all the energy it radiates, so the net loss is zero. .. . > .. . .. However, I don't think you could ever build this into a complete >theory of atomic structure that mimics all the results of Quantum Mechanics. >* etc > >In short, while this classical model may extend the range of validity >of classical calculations a bit, I doubt it is up to the task of becoming >a true quantum theory of electrodynamics. > >Barry Merriman Even more amusing is to assume that electrons have a four dimensional "delta" shaped distribution, suggesting that time is quantized. In such a scenario their extent in time would be centered slightly on (in?) the past time portion of the "now" existence pulse. Further, radiation would depend on "electron jumps" along an electric field, which are generally radial in the case of the bound electron. A "jump" is the electron position change would takes place from one frame to the next. During this portion of "time" between frames, the electron is virtual. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / John Robinson / Re: Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Originally-From: jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Date: 1 Jun 90 20:25:07 GMT Organization: BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation, Cambridge MA Thanks for the nice story. I, at least, like these and *do* read them through. We now know (well, "standard" theory accepts) that there are only three forces - the weak and EM are the same. Is it too much to ask your story to explain that too? Unification of weak and EM happens at very high temperatures, we are told. But what is temperature other than an electromagnetic state - potential EM energy stored in the more rapid motions of bound particles in molecules, where the binding and radiation are still EM in nature. So the unification happens by pouring on more of one force - EM - and ("a miracle occurs") causing the weak force to look like EM. That's as much as I understand so far. But is there a role for this unification in a possible explanation, like James', of CNF? Another question - does the unification also allow for (if you could figure out how to do it) building up enough weak force to cause unification from the weak force side? The coherence/wave argument about protons may be conspiring to eke a real neutron out of their joint soup sounds like a way of doing, shall I coin a term, "weak heating" of a collection of particles bound by EM in a regular pattern. Sort of a confinement vessel, a palladamak. Is there a theory of QWD (quantum weak dynamics) like QED and QCD? Another question: why should the weak and EM force, which are separated in the strength/distance scale by the strong force, unify first? (accepting the next standard theory that strong unification happens at even higher energy levels). -- /jr, nee John Robinson Life did not take over the globe by combat, jr@bbn.com or bbn!jr but by networking -- Lynn Margulis cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenjr cudfnJohn cudlnRobinson cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.01 / David Bailey / Inquiry on the early FPH experiments Originally-From: dbailey@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (David H. Bailey) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Inquiry on the early FPH experiments Date: 1 Jun 90 21:13:54 GMT Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA I have just spoken with a fellow in the U.K. by the name of Frank E. Close, who has been writing a book about the cold fusion saga. At this point he is largely finished writing, but he is trying to tie down a few historical details about which there is some confusion. One of these concerns the original "meltdown" of the palladium block that presumably was the start of the Pons-Fleishmann-Hawking experiments. In Time magazine on May 8, 1989, it was reported that this event took place in 1985. However, in early postings on alt.fusion and, as I recall, in at least one early magazine article, it was reported that for most of the time during 1985 - 1988, there were no positive results at all, and that the "meltdown" did not occur until October 1988. Also, it was reported that the other data reported in the first FPH paper was not taken until December 1988 or January 1989. Does anyone have the early alt.fusion postings archived who could check for items relevant to this question? Also, does anyone recall or have copies of any of press reports that could shed light on this topic? Or better yet, does anyone have any personal knowledge of the early PFH work that could clarify this issue? Please send replies to me at dbailey@nas.nasa.gov and to Dr. Close at fec%ukacrl.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu. Thanks in advance. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudendbailey cudfnDavid cudlnBailey cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.02 / MORRISON@VXPRI / Cold Fusion news No.23 and out. Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.ch Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Douglas Morrison's 'Cold Fusion Notes' No. 23 (5/27/90 - 6/1/90) Subject: Cold Fusion news No.23 and out. Date: 2 Jun 90 01:51:29 GMT Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 01:25 GMT +1 Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Date: Sat, 2 Jun 90 01:25 GMT +1 Originally-From: MORRISON@VXPRIX.decnet.cern.ch Subject: Cold Fusion news No.23 and out. Dear E632 and WA84 Colleagues, 27 May 1990. COLD FUSION NEWS No. 23 LAWYERS THREATEN LEGAL ACTION. ACADEMIC FREEDOM MENACED. STOP-PRESS - FINANCIAL SCANDEL - THE END? SUMMARY The lawyer of Dr. Pons has written to Mike Salamon et al. asking them to retract the paper they wrote describing how they had found no fusion products while working in Pons's lab and further he threatened him and his colleagues. It seems the centuries old method of scientific discussion and experiment is being replaced by legal injunctions requiring silence on the other side. This is the first time such a thing has happened, as far as I know, and should be discouraged now. In the past governing organisations have used legal and organisational means to support Pathological Science and examples are given and related to Cold Fusion. Some further comments are made on the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference. Some interesting corrections are made. STOP PRESS - financial scandal breaks - this might be the end. 1. LEGAL AFFAIRS 1.1 The Legal Situation 1.2 What can Salamon et al. do? 1.3 Why did legal action occur at this moment of time? 1.4 Financial Situation 2. PATHOLOGICAL SCIENCE - USE OF ORGANISATIONAL PRESSURE 2.1 Galileo 2.2 Aryan physics 2.3 Soviet genetics - Lysenko 2.4 Soviet physics. 2.5 Conclusions 3. FURTHER COMMENTS ON THE FIRST ANNUAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE 3.1 Experimental summary 3.2 Results of Scott et al. 3.3 Some Theoretical presentations 4. SITUATION IN JAPAN 5. CORRECTIONS 5.1 Origin of Meshuga 5.2 Guilano Preparata 6. STOP- PRESS - FINANCIAL SCANDAL 7. WHAT IS THE FUTURE? 1. LEGAL AFFAIRS 1.1 THE LEGAL SITUATION The story of Cold Fusion has taken an unpleasant twist which could end it prematurely. For some weeks I had been hearing that Dr. Pons was talking of taking legal action against Mike Salamon who was leader of the group from the University of Utah who had been asked to install counters in Pons's lab to find fusion products from four of his cells placed on the table above. During five weeks of running in May and June, no signal was found and the result was published in Nature on 29 March 1990. The story broke on 18th May in the Salt Lake Tribune; "Triggs(who is the lawyer of Dr. Pons) wrote a letter April 3 to Dr. Salamon in which he called on the physicist and his scientific co-researchers to retract the paper they published in the scientific journal Nature" "'Please be advised that any damages suffered by my clients proximately caused by any act or omission on the part of yourself or any other co-author on the subject paper will not be tolerated. I have been instructed by my clients to take such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests in this matter'" The letter talks of "my clients" - who are they? (Triggs) "has received payments of more than $50 000 from the University of Utah for legal work related to Cold Fusion. "'Triggs represents Stan and Martin and is advising them on a number of issues, including patent prosecution issues' said Greg Williams, with Van Cott, Bagley, Cornwall and McCarthey (the state's attorneys). 'He is not representing the University'". Now what is a "patent prosecution issue" - does it mean proceeding with a patent, or does it mean prosecuting people who get in your way? Anyway the State's attorneys seem aware of Mr. Triggs's activities "Mr. Triggs was paid out of funds in the Office of Technology Transfer, the University department that assists in turning useful scientific research into profitable ventures. The Office is one of the departments under the supervision of (University Vice-President for Research, James) Brophy". "'How they (pay for) it is their business' said Mr. Triggs. 'I simply send the bills'.....(he) said he had not billed anyone for the Salamon letter. 'I think that is between me and my clients, but I think it's a matter that affects the entire (cold fusion) program'. When I saw Mike Salamon at the end of March, he did not seem too worried about the rumours - he felt he had finished with Cold Fusion and was busy working on other things - though he appreciated that he was likely to figure prominantly in Gary Taubes' forthcoming book. His reaction to the legal letter was typically direct; "Dr. Salamon said in a written statement (that) Mr. Triggs has sent several letters to people threatening them with legal action. 'These people include several of my colleagues and myself at the University of Utah (even a U of U undergraduate received such a letter). I am extremely disturbed, in fact disgusted, that the University has apparently been financially supporting such detestable activity, activity which is antithetical to the spirit of free academic enquiry" "What is particularly obscene about this is that my colleagues and I at the University of Utah are being threatened with legal action for honest scientific work done at the behest of the University of Utah, and yet the administration has so far refused to provide us with any legal counsel whatsoever" This new issue of why the University was supporting some employees and not others, was raised with the University; "Dr. Brophy said that Mr. Triggs was 'certainly' not working for the University when he wrote the letter, and said he saw no problem in the University paying Mr. Triggs even though he was involved in a legal matter between faculty members". How can Dr. Brophy say this? He is very charming man and seems to do most of the Public Relations work on Cold Fusion, but as someone said, has he not heard of "conflict of interest"? Have now received more information. Of the ten authors of the paper by Salamon et al., nine have received legal letters, the tenth, Haven Bergeson is an employee of the National Cold Fusion Institute. Several other people have also received letters including the writer, Gary Taubes and David Lindley who is an Associate Editor of Nature and is based in their Washington office - he received his letter personally, not as an employee of Nature. 1.2 WHAT CAN SALAMON et al. DO? It would be good to believe that they can continue to speak out freely. However the Law of Tort is very complicated and scientists' notions of truth and natural justice could mislead them. An American friend who is a professor, and two colleagues spoke out about an abuse. The man concerned sued them for a million dollars each. Their University and the State both agreed to defend them free of cost and said they should win. They knew they should win, but a million dollars is a lot of money and it would mean losing house and everything. Eventually they did win easily, but it took over a year. And there was a major catch - the University and the State's lawyers said they would be pleased to defend them and they had a winning case, provided they did not say anything that could cause it to be lost. Hence their lawyers forbade them to say anything - they were muzzled by their own lawyers while the other man continued to say scandalous things about them and they could not reply! At some stage Mike and the others will need lawyers. And these lawyers may well ask them not to comment further. Thus it is possible that they will be muzzled for some period. But the rest of the scientific community which believes in academic freedom is not muzzled. Does this mean that the use of legal restraints works? Yes and No. Yes, in the sense that the people attacked are probably muzzled so that in the short term the legal tactic to win a scientific argument is successful. No, probably it is not successful in the long term, for it turns scientists against those who use the law to silence oponents in a scientific discussion. The continuing story of the scientific publishers, Gordon and Breach is illustrative. A retired professor Henry Barschall studied the cost effectiveness of various periodicals issued by different publishers. He defined cost effectiveness, CE, as the cost per printed character divide by the frequency of articles being cited. The CE values varied by a factor of 850 and Gordon and Breach came near the bottom. Normally one ignores such indices or one could point out that the CE index was seriously flawed - for example Fleischmann and Pons original paper is very frequently cited, though not everyone considers it a model paper. However Gordon and Breach decided to use the law and sued Barschall. And since Barschall's article had been published in the American Institute of Physics's monthly journal, Physics Today, they tried to stop Physics Today being displayed. Thus a judge in Zurich was given a list of Institutions, Universities and CERN and an attempt was made to to forbid them from displaying Physics Today or if they displayed it, certain bits had to be removed. It was pointed out that CERN being an international organisation, the court had no jurisdiction. Robert Park quotes Fred Spillhaus, the Executive Director of the American Geophysical Union as suggesting that scientists not only refrain from publishing in the low quality, high cost journals that have proliferated in recent years, and also they should refuse to serve such journals as reviewers or editors. Then the Association of Research Libraries formally honoured Barschall for his "contributions to research libraries and the scholarly academic community", citing "the personal risks he has taken in pursuit of access to scientific information" Thus in the long term it is probable that the attempt to silence Mike and the others, will hurt those who use legal means in an unscientific manner. Sometimes the best way to fight fire is with fire. Mike et al. are quite prepared to make their logbooks available, but although they have requested to see the logbooks for Pons's four cells, these have never been made available to them. This could be important as at one period one of the cells started to boil for two hours and no fusion products were observed - it was turned off on the instructions of Dr. Pons. The lab workers considered this to be a typical example of excess heat as claimed, but in a curious letter from Dr. Pons, he asked that they should not "reference these events as being due to release of excess thermal energy". Much later Dr. Pons wrote that "there was a two-hour segmentin which there was excessive thermal release from cell 2-1..... unfortunately your computer and detector were not under power at that time since they had not been reset from a power failure which had occurred in the lab". Salamon et al. agree that 48 hours of data were lost after a lightning strike but as was later pointed out to them, any neutrons produced could convert the 23Na of their detector to 24Na and as this decays with a 15 hour half-life, they should have detected a strong signal - but did not. It is clearly very important that if the Salamon et al. experiment is being attacked, then these logbooks of Dr.Pons should be available for inspection by a court. Thus it would perfectly appropriate for Mike Salamon to ask a court for an injunction to ensure that these logbooks not be destroyed and, better, that copies of these logbooks be deposited with the court. 1.3 WHY DID THE LEGAL ACTION OCCUR AT THIS MOMENT OF TIME? The experiment was performed in May and June 1989 and Dr. Pons was made aware of the results at that time. In Cold Fusion News No.18 on 30 July, the first report of the experimental results was given. When the draft paper was written, Dr. Pons was asked to comment on it. His reply struck me as unusual, but he did not request the paper not be published, and it was submitted last year. So why were the legal letters only sent out now? (In the saga of Cold Fusion there was already a time when critical notebooks disappeared - but that is another fascinating story). 1.4 FINANCIAL SITUATION It is interesting to consider the financial situation of the National Cold Fusion Institute. It was funded with $4.5 million from the State of Utah, but it has so far failed to attract any outside funding agency (though an anonymous private person has given some money). These funds are fast running out and there are no convincing results to show. For the lawyers the situation was even more serious - of the $500 000 available it was said on 23 March, that the money would run out this summer, assuming that legal fees of $30 000 per month were paid - this was said to a "normal" amount, though activity did not appear to be great. Now there are reports that some of the potential "profits" from Cold Fusion exploitation were being offered to investors. The price was high - 2% of the "profits" for $1.5 million; up to a maximum of 20% was available. If 20% of the potential profits were disposed of this way, then many million dollars would be available for continuing the National Cold Fusion Institute (apart from other uses such as funding lawyers). Now if one is offering "profits" to investors, it is necessary to give them a prospectus. And by law this prospectus has to be fair. Clearly this is not a time to have discordant experimental results widely presented. 2. PATHOLOGICAL SCIENCE - USE OF ORGANISATIONAL PRESSURE. Irving Langmuir in the original work, listed six characteristics of Pathological Science. However with more study, found this inadequate and in 1976 I listed 12, and now with still more examples, in particular Cold Fusion, list 15 with the three most significant being given weights. Sometimes am offered suggestions for other characteristics but I prefer each to apply to more than one example. Thus now when legal means are used for the first time to bolster an experiment, was inclined not to include it as a characteristic as it was an isolated case. However on consideration there are quite a number of examples where legal and organisational means have been used to assist wrong scientific ideas. Some well-known and some less well-known examples are given below and the effectivenness of the pressure commented on. 2.1 GALILEO One of the most widely known example was the legal action taken against Galileo in 1633 for opposing the idea that the earth was the centre of the world and suggesting a heliocentric system. The persecution was such that Galileo, an ill man of 70, recanted. 2.2 ARYAN PHYSICS When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they used organisational and legal means to force out Jewish professors and support their pseudo-scientific beliefs on race. Also they did not believe in Einstein's relativity theory and even attacked Einstein and all theoretical physicists as Jews or products of the Jewish spirit. There was talk of German or Aryan physics. People who did not support these ideas were attacked. Thus in 1937, Heisenberg was attacked. His mother went to see the mother of the sinister Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the secret police, the Gestapo. After Heisenberg sent a letter to Himmler and friends intervened, Himmler stopped attacks on Heisenberg. The organisational pressure was successful in that Jewish scientists were driven out of universities and other institutions and protests by other scientists were silenced. The teaching of theoretical physics was often restricted and pseudoscientific theories were presented with no opposition. 2.3 SOVIET GENETICS - LYSENKO In the Soviet Union, Michurin and later Lysenko, refused to believe in the ideas of Mendel on heridity and the concept of spontaneous mutation. They rejected all the numerous experiments on which the science of genetics were based. Instead they believed that if a characteristic could be acquired, it them became heriditary. Lysenko published in newspapers, special scientific journals and pamphlets (an early example of using the media, as the press conferences and Deseret News in Cold Fusion). When his analysis of his own experiments was shown to be wrong - he rejected mathematics. When his work was shown to be in contradiction with a great body of experimentation in genetics - he rejected genetics (one is reminded of believers in Cold Fusion who are happy to believe that in d-d fusion one can obtain a ratio for tritium to neutron production of 100 million to one whereas there is a large body of experiments at all energies down to zero which finds unity in agreement with the very general considerations of charge symmetry. Only last week I was accused of using "conventional science" by saying this). Lysenko was supported by the local political authorities, especially Khrushchev, even though his results could not be repeated outside the Soviet Union (an early example of the Regionalisation of Results as I observed with Cold Fusion; also the local authorities in Utah support Cold Fusion). Money was invested in planting according to his theories - great losses resulted but scientists who reported such facts were dismissed. Gradually most scientists who believed in genetics were made silent or dismissed. N. I. Vavilov who had originally supported Lysenko, opposed his ideas and in 1939 said "We will go to the stake, we will burn, but we will not renounce our convictions". In 1940 he was arrested. His brother, the physicist S. I. Vavilov, and others tried to help, but he died in prison in 1943. In August 1948, the V.I. Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences held a session where Lysenko's supporters dominated. A few people still tried to say they believed in genetics but were shouted down. At the end of the meeting, Lysenko gave the final talk and the entire assembly rose and applauded( the only scientific meeting at which there was a similar spirit and where after the final speaker, most of the audience rose to their feet and applauded, was the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference where Dr. Fleischmann was the final speaker). The above three examples of Pathological Science are partly taken from a new book by Morris Goran, "The Dangerous Ideas of Science", published by Peter Lang. 2.4 SOVIET PHYSICS What is not so well known, is that after the "success" of the session of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in asserting political control over that subject, the authorities started to organise a similar session to control physicists with the aim of routing out the "idealism in physics" and "cosmopolitism" of leading Soviet scientists, as well as the concepts of relativity and quantum mechanics(at CERN Martin Fleischmann suggested that his surprising new results meant that conventional ideas had to be abandoned, that maybe quantum mechanics was wrong - John Ellis kindly said he was prepared to abandon some ideas but not quantum mechanics!. V. I. Vavilov had become the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences and at the end of 1948 he and the Minister of Higher Education, appealed to Malenkov, the Secretary of the Central Committee for permission to hold a meeting of leading physicists and mathematicians to overcome "evident shortcomings" such as; "Idealistic philosophical trends which seek corroboration from modern physics are not uncovered and duly criticised. Idealistic philosophical conclusions from concepts of modern theoretical physics (quantum mechanics and relativity) are particularly dangerous for the students' minds" "Some Soviet scientists often embrace these idealistic trends instead of resolutely unmasking them(which get into Soviet higher educational institutions through the loophole of physics) as contradicting Marxism and Leninism". In December 1948, an organising committee was set up to make the meeting comparable with the V. I. Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. As previously, every speech and report had to thoroughly rehearsed and checked by the committee. The committee held 42 meetings up to 16 March 1949. Most of the 29 speeches were aimed to unmask, brand, condemn and deal with "idealism" and "cosmopolitism" in Soviet physics. Some, mainly people from the Institutes of the the USSR Academy of Sciences, tried to avoid this. While Vavilov was expected to set the tone, however his report did not satisfy the committee as most of it was a serious analysis of the development of Soviet physics, and the committee debated it for two days. The main theses were "Physics is a partisan science", "some Soviet scientists in their books articles and speeches, make ideological mistakes when repeating conclusions made by bourgeois idealist physicists". Names mentioned were Academicians Frenkel and Ioffe, Corresponding members Fok, Tamm and Markov "who have adopted a servile attitude towards idealistic wisdom". The speech of professor Akulov was so strong that it aroused indignation - Academician Andronov said "the only effect of this speech on me was of disgust.... Accusing Academicians Papelekski and Mandelshtam of being German spies is dirty, unsubstaniated and slanderous". It was expected that many prominant scientists including P. L. Kapitza, A. F. Ioffe, L. D. Landau, V. A. Fok, I. E. Tamm, Ya. I. Frenkel, M. A. Markov and V. L. Ginsburg would have been victims. Fortunately between 16 and 21 March, this major meeting was cancelled. It is not known exactly why, but the sinister Beria, chief of the secret police, who was also responsible for the Atom bomb project, asked Kurchatov, the physicist who was head of the project, if it was true that quantum theory and relativity were an idealist contraption and had better be cast off. Kurchatov replied "We are working on the A-Bomb project now. The A-Bomb is based on the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. Should we discard them, the project would have to be discarded as well". Probably Beria passed the information on to Stalin and the meeting was cancelled saving Soviet physics and physicists. When I gave a talk (on "N-Rays, Cold Fusion and Pathological Science") at a major physics institute in Moscow, I noticed a large portrait of an interesting looking man on the wall of the auditorium and asked who he was. Was told it was a very fine scientist, Vavilov. Asked how it was possible that such a man could be involved in such things. It was explained to me that Vavilov did not want to be President of the Academy but the only other candidate was Vyshinsky who was a horrible man. He was initially a Menschevik but changed to being a Bolschevik and apparently felt he had to more cruel to show his belief. He was responsible for many deaths in the Ukraine before becoming Chief Prosecutor. A personal experience of him was recounted to me. So Vavilov sacrificed himself to avoid disaster. 2.5 CONCLUSION Recounting these stories of Galileo, German science, Lysenko and Soviet physics, is not pleasant, but we must not forget they actually happened - that legal and organisational power can be used to support Pathological Science. And can be successful for some time, good people can be made to conform. This is the reason that I am so strongly against this new practise of using threatening legal letters to silence scientists who may report experimental results that are contrary to others. It should be stopped NOW before it is used again. Science can only flourish if ALL results are freely available. 3. FURTHER COMMENTS ON THE FIRST ANNUAL COLD FUSION CONFERENCE. 3.1 Experimental Results - General At the end of the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, it was possible for Believers, who made up about 200 of the 230 attendees, to be reasonably happy. Apart from odd comments and someone saying that 90% of the World's results, including the best experiemnts, were negative, there was a steady flow of positive results. Previously there had been unwelcome comments that none of the big National Labs had positive results, but now there were some from two - Oak Ridge, ORNL, and Los Alamos. At the final Round Table discussion (as usual the table was straight not round), Dr Storms gave out a summary of the Positive Results. For 25 groups, their results for tritium, neutrons, and heat were classified mainly as Yes, No or "?" For tritium the totals were 15 Yes, 1 no and 9 "?" . For neutrons the score was 13 Yes, 0 No, and 11 "?". For heat there were 12 Yes, 0 No, and 12 "?". It looked impressive and sent many away with a good feeling. However some points should be made; (1) This was only 10% of the groups -the other 90% that obtained negative results were excluded, and this exclusion was not commented upon - unusual for a report labelled "Los Alamos". (2) As far as I could make out the "?" entry meant that the quantity had not been measured, or the result had been withdrawn. (3) I am familar with many of the measurements and think the conclusion in some cases should have been "No" and not "yes". (4) Some results I had not seen and were not presented such as Alqasmi from the Arab Emirates. (5) No attempt was made to see if the results agreed with one another. (6) Claims of high rate of cells giving effects were made but no set of statistics were given. The highest rate, 80%, has been several times claimed by Appleby and his group. When one of his group presented their results, this claim was not made. However in the discussion Dr. Bockris mentioned it and it was confirmed. I then pointed out that if 5 cells are operating then if 80% of the time they are giving excess heat, then the probability of none of the five performing during a visit was 3000 to one and if there were 7 cells, the odds of none giving excess heat was 80000 to one. But when the DOE panel made their visit, none of the cells was working. The Chairman intervened to say this subject had not been raised during the talk and by the rules could not be discussed, however I pointed out that the speaker had talked about it during the discussion. The speaker then said he thought one cell was in fact working during the visit, but John Huizenga, the Co-Chairman of the DOE Panel, could confirm for me that no cell was working. Similarly during my visit none of the 7 cells there was working. Later the Chairman apologised and said he hoped I did not think he was trying to restrict the discussion. 3.2 HELIUM PRODUCTION This is one of the murkiest regions of Cold Fusion. At one time Dr.Pons claimed that helium 4 had been observed. But then the cathodic rods were said to be sent to Johnson-Matthey for analysis. Although the analysis should not have taken very long, no results came out. The DOE panel was told "soon". At the NSF/EPRI meeting in October it was said that the result had been made meaningless by mishandling of the rods, though it was hard to see how touching the surface could remove helium created deap inside the rod. At this Conference D. T. Thompson of Johnson-Matthey managed to give a long technical talk that gave no result. Nate Hoffman who said he was neither a believer nor a sceptic, gave a carefully worded talk (for he was not entirely a free agent) which hinted but did not quite say, that they had found no helium. Other experiments have analysed their rods and found no helium, but then if they did not claim to observe excess heat or fusion products, it could be argued that they would not be expected to observe helium. Still if people claim to observe Watts of excess heat for hours, then easily measurably amounts of helium should be observable. It smells of cover-up. 3.3 RESULTS OF SCOTT ET AL. After the conference two Believers asked me how I regarded the results of Scott et al. from Oak Ridge National Lab. giving positive results for excess heat, neutron emission, gammas and tritium formation. This is the experiment that seems to have impressed Believers most. I already made some comments on the work from my notes, but have since received a copy of the paper of Scott et al. My comments are; a) tritium - like the others I had the impression that they had observed tritium, but my notes actually say "Within errors cannot say any tritium" Also the paper by Scott et al., accepted by Fusion Technology, 4/17/90, does not claim any tritium formation in the conclusions. b) Neutrons - the effects are surprisingly small, about 25 extra counts per day which would correspond to about 0.0003 neutrons per second. After correction for inefficiencies, this becomes 0.23 neutrons per second. If the neutrons came from fusion this would correspond to less than E-12 Watts or one picoWatt. The authors conclude "the detected rates are too low, by many orders of magnitude to explain the observed energy excesses in terms of conventional d-d fusion theory". The operating conditions (current density, electrolyte temperature and concentration) were changed rather frequently. Some of the best neutron peaks occurred when fusion was not indicated. There is only one neutron counter whereas experience has shown that one should have several. Also no control seems to have been made for Cosmic Rays or solar showers, etc. c) Gammas - "The most significant increases in gamma ray counts occurred in the energy range 2.64 to 3.14 MeV; therefore, mean values of the count rate for this range have been included' But why? this is an unexpected energy range and more likely indicates that something is wrong. it would be good if the authors were to explain their unconventional energy spectrum. They also say "Surprisingly, there were no statistically significant increases in the gamma-ray rate count in the energy region of 2.12 to 2.63 MeV(the energy level where gamma rays are emitted from neutron interactions with proton". Thus it seems any anomaly is claimed even if it the wrong effect. d) Excess heat - Initially an open cell was used (as do Fleischmann and Pons) but this was found to be unsatisfactory because of "inherent incertainty". The results a closed cell were considered "most significant" in the paper. As there is still heat loss from the top of the cell, a future design is being made to rectify this problem. For the open cell, after 540 hours, heat excesses were observed ranging up to 11% (error is about 3%), but after a few hours they tended to fade away. Looking at fig. 8, these are not the biggest effects which are negative energy balances which also last much longer, about 60 hours when the run finished. In the paper these negative results are explained by noting that the current had been increased to 800 mA/cm2, and "This was probably due to increased heat loss to the environment". Unfortunately for this "explanation", the temperature of the electrolyte had been lowered at this time, and was lower than previously. Further it is interesting to recall that this cell was open similar to F&P's and who claim that increasing the current to the range of 800 mA/cm2 should greatly increase the heat excess instead of driving it negative. For the closed cell, the power balance during the first 740 hours was more negative, but later there were two periods of excess power which lasted several hours (i.e. small compared to 740 hours) with "relatively modest excesses with maximum values of about 6%". Later after 1320 hours there was a sustained excess of 5 to 10%. Two comments can be made; A) Since neutrons are claimed and no tritium (limit 200 Bq/L), this result is in contradiction with the belief of Believers that the tritium to neutron ratio is about 100 million to one B) For a major laboratory like Oak Ridge, this is a very small effort with only one neutron and one gamma counter -other national labs such as Harwell, Karlsruhe, Sandia did much more complete experiments (e.g. Harwell used 56 neutron counters) - and they found nothing, no tritium, no neutrons, no gammas and no excess heat. I am still waiting for one single good convincing experiment. 3.4 SOME THEORETICAL PRESENTATIONS As a Nobel prize winner, Julian Schwinger commanded great respect and it was quite out of character that he was not at a press conference or on a panel - in fact he was hard to find. Will not try to reproduce his theory but seemed to saying d-d fusion creates excited states of 4He and lots of phonons. Carleton Detar asked questions about the absence of barrier penetration factors. Afterwards Richard Petrese and I tried to get him to say what the final state was - Was it 4He? No it could be something else; Was it 3He? No it could be something else; Was it 3H? No it could be something else. The point of the questions were that we could then compare with experimental results. Finally I asked if he assumed baryon number conservation - end of discussion. Guiliano Preparata was one of the main characters of the conference, speaking frequently and powerfully. He started by pointing out all the problems of Cold Fusion - it sounded as if he was a Sceptic, but then explained he would present a solution that could account for them all, including the "Believers" ratio of tritium to neutron production of 100 million to one. His talk was a modification of his paper, T. Bressani, E. Del Guiice and G. Preparata, Il Nuovo Cimento, 101(1989) 845. I made a serious effort to understand it by spending three sessions of 1, 2 and 2 hours with one of the authors. They calculate that the 10 d-shell electrons of Palladium oscillate coherentlty with an amplitude of 0.3 A and the deuterons also oscillate coherently with an amplitude also of 0.3 A. They then consider the "superradient" dynamics of a plasma of deuterium nuclei in a metal matrix. While I could follow some of the calculations, my real problem was that when I unearthed the assumptions, I could not find justifications for them and in fact they seemed in contradiction with my image of potential in a three-dimensional Palladium lattice ( a two-dimensional lattice was drawn in the transparencies). So finally we agreed to differ. Another paper is being written. However if the theory deduces that the tritium to neutron ratio is 100 million to one, and if experimentally, this has not been established, for example the work of Scott et al. then this must require some serious modification of the theory. Have just found a write-up of the talk - it is Milan preprint MITH-90/3 and is entitled "Theoretical ideas on Cold Fusion" by Guilano Preparata Peter Hagelstein had a theory which also seemed to depend on superradients in the Dicke sense which accelerates the coherent reaction. Again if one assumes baryon conservation, what is the form of the product baryons, 4He, 3He plus neutrons or tritium and protons and why have they not been found? 4. SITUATION IN JAPAN Am told that in Japan the situation is still unclear as when Prof. Ikegami came back from the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, he wrote an article for a major popular science magazine without making any critical comments. But most scientist outside of Cold Fusion, do not believe in it. As a counter balance, there is an article in the science magazine, Kagaku which has the Scientific American level of articles. It is in vol 60, (1990) pages 395 - 397 and is mainly based on a note of mine (it is freely available and will give a copy to all who read Japanese). 5. CORRECTIONS 5.1 ORIGIN OF MESHUGA. When Edward Teller decided to try and explain all the contradictory results on Cold Fusion (even though he does not believe in it), he invented a new particle which he gave the name "Meshugtron" He explained to me that this was from the word "meshuga" meaning crazy. In news No.21 I said the word was from Hebrew, but later was told this was wrong, so in No.22 gave a correction to say it was a Yiddish word. Have now received delightful and erudite letters from a friend at the Technion in Haifa, Jacques Goldberg Firstly he says meshuga is a Hebrew word, being applied by Avilek to King David. It has been used as an adjective in Deut 28-24, Jeremiah 29-26, Osias 9-7, Kings 11, 11-9 and Samuel 1, 21-16. While Meshuga is a Hebrew word, there is a Yiddish word Meshuge'a which means drivINg rather drivEN into a state of being crazy. There is a claim that there was a thriving Jewish community in the Mainz-Worms region when the second temple was being built, about 350 BC and this is about the time when the oldest known manuscripts of the bible were being written. However it is unlikely that they invented Yiddish and wrote it into the Bible in time. To trace this claim, it would be necessary to contact the author, but he was murdered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1945. There is much more, but you should contact Jacques. 5.2 GUILANO PREPARATA I had been told that Dr. Preparata had explained some anomalous theories of water, but when he protested, I went back to the papers and could not find any refernce to it among his papers on the structure of water. Asked my source, whom I regard as a very reliable person, who confirmed his belief and we searched together in the library. On thinking further, he started to realise that he had been given a paper on water and had been told it explained the anomalous water theory, so he naturally threw the paper away. However we now realise that this statement to him was incorrect. Thus I would like to withdraw completely what was written about water in No.22 and apologize to Dr. Preparata. There was also a comment about Dr. Preparata and gravity waves that needs expansion now that I have done some research on it. Dr. Weber has claimed the observation of gravity waves and this claim is rejected by the scientific community. However Dr. Weber has a new theory of coherent motion in the antenna which he claims (as recently as March at a Californian meeting) gives an enhancement of his signal of 40 orders of magnitude (!) and hence his observation of gravitational waves was correct. Dr. Preparata investigated this and in Nuovo Cim. 101B (1988)625, claimed to found a flaw. But in Milan preprint MITH 89/11, Dr. Preparata noted the analyses of coincidences between events recorded at the antennas of Rome and Maryland and the neutrinos detected at Mont Blanc, Kamioka and Baksan at about the time when Supernova 1987A exploded. Such a coincidence would require the gravitational waves emitted to be 6 orders of magnitude stronger than standard theory. Dr Preparata investigated this and found a mechanism giving 5 orders of magnitude, as required! He used his ideas of "superradience" and that a high degree of order and coherence exists in solids. He concludes that "Weber's intuition that the coherent behaviour of the atoms in a bar greatly enhance their gravitational interaction is seen to be confirmed, though through a different logics". Now it happens that I worked extensively on Supernova 1987A. The idea that there were two neutrino burst some four hours apart and that the first burst gave a strong gravitational wave, is still held by a very few. The only detailed rejection of this hypothesis that I know of is one that I wrote in a review of Supernova 1987A which appeared as CERN EP 88-9 also was published in Usbecki vol 156 p719 of Dec. 1988. STOP-PRESS - REPORTS FINANCIAL SCANDAL The National Cold Fusion Institute has a funding problem as the money, $4.5 million, given from the State of Utah was meant to be seed money and it was expected that industry would pour in many more millions. However industry has studied Cold Fusion, has even received cells that are claimed to be working, but because of tight agreements are not allowed to say if these cells worked - though from comments it is clear that they did not work. So industry has given almost no money to NCFI. At the Supervisory meeting on 23 March, it was said that an anonymous person had given a donation. I was told the identity of this donor and it seemed very reasonable and in character. However Gary Taubes who is writing a book of Cold Fusion and who is unhappy with what he finds (to say the least), investigated and found out that the mysterious donor was none other than the University of Utah itself. And the name I was given may have been disinformation? The trouble is that this money, $500 000 was in a foundation controlled by U. of U. It derives its income from rent on office space in the University Research Park (where NCFI is located) and from proceeds from university owned patents. The story should have appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday but as Dr. Brophy, the Vice-President for Research, did not return the Trib's phone calls, they gave him another day. So it really broke last night, 1 June on the channel 2 News at 10. Dr. Brophy had some problems but has said that "anonymous donation" was an "inappropriate terminology" and that they would not use that terminology any more - one is back with the wonderful jargon of the Nixon White House! Have now been sent the full text of today's article in the Tribune by Tim Fitzpatrick (Thanks to sender). The money was referred to in the Institute's quarterly report as "external funding" and a May 3 press release called it a "recent anonymous gift of $500 000" which had been used to bring in three visiting scientists from Malaysia, Poland and South Dakota. "The revelation prompted disdain from members of the panel that oversees the State's $5 million investment. Panel Chairman Raymond l. Hixson said 'I'm a little upset about it because it was inferred that it was a private, anonymous donor and therefore we could consider it as an effort by the University to secure outside funding. This, to me, is not quite the same thing. I'm going to have to look into it. At this stage, I can tell you I'm not very happy about it". Faculty members also were not happy. "The following statement came from College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi and 22 Faculty members representing all of the college's departments; 'After learning that an unnamed donation, described as "external funding" in the last quarterly report of the Cold Fusion Institute, was in fact, from the University Research Foundation, I called a meeting to discuss the implications of this apparent deception'. 'The perception that desperate means are now being used to continue support of claims unsubstantiated by peer review of the data is unavoidable. It was the sense of the group that a complete and objective financial audit and scientific review must procede any further state or university funding of this project, and in a separate document we are asking the chair of the board of directors of the institute as well as the university, to convene such review panels in consultation with the faculty of the University of Utah'". "Dr. Rossi, who was at one time the interim director of the fusion institute, said he wanted to make it clear that the statement came from faculty in all departments in his college, including the Chemistry Department, to put to rest the notion that there is a battle between physicists and chemists over how the fusion situation has been handled". I am very pleased with this statement, in particular the call for Peer Review which I regret was dropped from the final DOE report (though a weaker phrase was employed) as consider this an essential part of the scientific process which can greatly reduce (though not eliminate) Pathological Science. It is also good that now that Dr. Pons has given up the Chairmanship of the Chemistry Department and Cheeves Walling has taken over, that there is now a normal relationship between all Science departments. There is a rule in politics that when something exciting is happening, one should be there - for the last two weeks Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have been at a conference in Portugal and discussed Cold Fusion very little. There is the question of how those implicated reacted; Dr. Brophy has already been mentioned with his "inappropriate terminology". The U President, Chase Peterson said "there was no intention to mislead anyone" according to the Tribune. "we assign hundreds of large and small amounts of money to different parts of the university during the year, and we rarely discuss the source of the particular fund, nor does anyone generally care". "Dr. Peterson said that after a report in the Tribune referred to the donation as anonymous, he called Institute Director Fritz Will to clarify it. 'I called to say that it was inappropriate to suggest the gift represented support of the fusion study from an outside person or corporation'". Curious, this seems in contradiction with Dr. Peterson's previous comment that it did not matter and no one cared! "Dr. Will said he never knew until Wednesday what the source of the money was. He said he was asked after the money was sent if he was comfortable with not knowing the source, and he said he was". Strange this does not seem to quite agree with the statement above of Dr. Peterson. "When (Dr. Will was) asked who had asked him if he was comfortable with the arrangement, Dr. Will said 'I'd rather not say'". Dr. Fleischmann was in Southampton this last week. In view of the serious nature of the stories I was hearing, I tried to warn him by letters, many phone calls and even a draft version of this News, as I liked him and found he had put forward many fine principles that were the hallmark of not merely a good scientist (which he has amply shown himself to be), but also a responsible and moral scientist. However he consistently avoided replying. Maybe this was to protect a colleague, though the lawyer's comments suggest otherwise. I cannot but feel disappointed. So who was responsible for this fiasco? Probably not any one person but rather a group of people, with a hint of paranoia, who reinforced one another. 7. WHAT IS THE FUTURE? From my studies of Pathological Science, it is possible to make some guesses. The National Cold Fusion Institute will continue a bit but will fade away even though the Tribune says that the Electrical Power Research Institute has approved in principle the giving of $172 000 "but the patent lawyers are still ironing out final details before the money will be sent". This is a relatively small sum. Those groups that have found positive results will not suddenly find errors and withdraw their papers. Rather they will publish work en route but then will stop publishing. They will say they have never found anything wrong with their experiments. There will be a few more publications of positive results from groups who have not heard it is dead. Fleischamnn and Pons will write a book, and will find a publisher. It will describe the positive results but barely mention the negative results. Many other books and articles apart from those of Gary Taubes, Frank Close and David Peke, will be published and Science Historians will feed on it for ever. I hope I am wrong partly. I have come to like the University of Utah and Utah (especially the great skiing at Alta). There are many fine people and scientists there. The University has clearly suffered from the Cold Fusion incident, but it seems a cleansing is already under way. I happened to get to know some people working on artificial hearts - there was a premature beginning with the Jarvik heart (in which Dr. Chase Peterson was involved as PR man with almost daily press conferences), but they have recovered from that and now are doing some of the most advanced work on something that is greatly needed and that is sure to come in time. Let us hope that the similar false start on studies of metals structure and metal hydrides that were done for Cold Fusion, will also lead to something. This is probably my last Cold Fusion News. Let us be sympathetic for the unfortunate and humble for ourselves. Good Night and Good Luck! Douglas R. O. Morrison. cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenMORRISON cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.02 / Richard Mathews / Re: Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Originally-From: richard@locus.com (Richard M. Mathews) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fields & Waves (or was it Meadows & Ponds?) Date: 2 Jun 90 23:09:00 GMT Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Los Angeles, CA jr@bbn.com (John Robinson) writes: >Unification of weak and EM happens at very high temperatures, we are >told. But what is temperature other than an electromagnetic state - No, temperature is any energy, electromagnetic or otherwise. >So the unification happens by pouring on more of one force >- EM - and ("a miracle occurs") causing the weak force to look like >EM. I happens by pouring in energy, not force. >That's as much as I understand so far. But is there a role for >this unification in a possible explanation, like James', of CNF? The energies required are so many orders of magnitude beyond what is available that this can be discounted. This was the point of the Feynman diagrams I posted. >Another question - does the unification also allow for (if you could >figure out how to do it) building up enough weak force to cause >unification from the weak force side? The coherence/wave argument >about protons may be conspiring to eke a real neutron out of their >joint soup sounds like a way of doing, shall I coin a term, "weak >heating" of a collection of particles bound by EM in a regular >pattern. Sort of a confinement vessel, a palladamak. Is there a >theory of QWD (quantum weak dynamics) like QED and QCD? The Weinberg-Salam theory of the electro-weak force is a direct extension of QED. In QED all forces are transmitted by photons. In the Weinberg-Salam theory, the force carriers are photons, W+, W- and Z^0. The masses of the last three are a couple of orders of magnitude greater than the mass of a proton -- this makes the weak force act somewhat differently than the electro-magnetic force. If the particles which are interacting have sufficient energies, this mass becomes negligible in comparison, so the forces become unified. Any interaction which can exchange photons is also likely to exchange the other force carriers. This is a bit of a hand waving explanation, but it gives the basic idea. Richard M. Mathews Locus Computing Corporation richard@locus.com lcc!richard@ucla-se.ucla.edu cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenrichard cudfnRichard cudlnMathews cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.03 / Donn Seeley / 'I am not inclined to become the scapegoat of anyone in this' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'I am not inclined to become the scapegoat of anyone in this' Date: 3 Jun 90 06:24:39 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept After Thursday evening's revelations, it didn't take long for more trouble to develop. Friday night's report on the 10 PM news on channel 2 did not bode well for the University administration. During the afternoon, College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi and a group of faculty representing departments in Science (including physicist Michael Salamon) attended a closed meeting with U President Chase Peterson. After delaying for a day, Peterson conceded to the full investigation demanded by the college and said, 'No new [cold fusion] projects will be funded pending this audit.' U professors will participate in the investigation, as requested. Channel 2 reporter Rod Decker was waiting with a camera crew in the hall as the faculty members emerged; he thrust a microphone in front of a math professor named Carlson and asked bluntly if Peterson should resign. (Rod is so tactful! :-) Carlson was less blunt but he was obviously displeased with Peterson, and he ended up saying that he thought Peterson could no longer be 'effective' as president. Decker proceeded to ask Peterson to his face if he was going to resign. Peterson's careful reply went, 'I have considered the possibility of resignation hundreds of times in the past seven years, and I am sure I will consider it again in the future.' This was hardly the vigorous response I expected -- the meeting with the faculty must have shaken him badly. NCFI Director Fritz Will was quoted as fearing a conspiracy, saying that 'a group of people is about to try to kill cold fusion.' You could almost hear the wagons being circled... Saturday's headline in section B of the Deseret News undoubtedly gave Peterson even less cause for cheer: 'Peterson says "palace revolt" at the U won't threaten his job.' The article quotes only the remark Peterson made on TV on the topic of resignation, so Peterson's defense of his job still seems remarkably restrained. The story's most interesting section follows up on Thursday's conflict between Peterson and Will over who had the responsibility to disclose the fact that the notorious $500,000 'anonymous' donation actually came from university funds. On Friday morning, Peterson was still maintaining that Will had been notified that the funds were not from an outside donor: ... 'I got a hold of Fritz Will and said, "You shouldn't give that impression." And I suggested that he use terms such as "a gift from an unspecified source" or something like that.' Will flatly contradicted Peterson: ... Will, in a separate interview, said that until Wednesday -- when former institute director Hugo Rossi informed him about the source of the money -- he never knew who gave the $500,000. 'I was made to believe that it was an unnamed private donor who wanted to remain anonymous,' he said. 'I have never received any telephone calls or any other communication from President Peterson that it was inappropriate to suggest that the gift represented support of the fusion study from an outside person.' For what it's worth, Friday's Deseret News went so far as to name the 'anonymous donor' who the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council had been led to think had given the money: Utah industrialist John Huntsman, the wealthy head of Huntsman Chemical Corp. Anyway, Will didn't stop there: 'I am not inclined to become the scapegoat of anyone in this,' Will said. 'I have a clean [conscience] and clean record -- and I am not about to have my record of unblemished integrity changed in any way.' I'm still surprised that it took until Friday afternoon for the administration to realize that it had a problem: Peterson called the Deseret News Friday afternoon to ask for a meeting to clear up any misunderstanding over the issue. In the president's office, Peterson, with Will by his side, backed up Will's version and clarified his earlier comment, saying he had left messages for Will but was never able to speak to him directly about it until Wednesday. 'Obviously he never got the message,' said Peterson, stressing that Will was not in any way at fault. It's possible that Will, who is not a native English speaker, did not catch the double entendre in Peterson's remark... The two went on to state their commitment to an investigation, and volunteered to return the $500,000 to the URF: Peterson said he and Will welcome the financial and scientific audit requested by Rossi ... The financial audit would be conducted in cooperation with the [F/EAC] ... 'My conscience is absolutely clear. I have nothing to hide, and for that reason we not only invite an internal audit, but we want to have that audit conducted as soon as possible,' Will said. ... 'My recommendation to the board of trustees of the institute will be in writing, at the latest on Monday, that the $500,000 be returned to the university at least as a goodwill gesture,' Will said ... Will is one of the institute's five board members. His recommendation still must be voted on by the board. 'It is a goodwill gesture to the university because I have a certain feeling that there will be a certain faction of the faculty who will take exception to the fact alone that university funds were earmarked for cold-fusion research because they are plainly against ... cold fusion research,' Will added. None of the money has been spent. ... By the way, the F/EAC will meet on Monday to discuss new developments, according to Friday's News. In the meantime, Saturday's Salt Lake Tribune noted that the state prosecutor's office is looking into the incident: Deputy Attorney General Joseph Tesch said Friday he is 'reviewing the facts' surrounding the University of Utah's transfer of $500,000 to [NCFI] ... Mr Tesch, who said he represents the [F/EAC], said he would not describe his review as an investigation. 'To call it an investigation gives an aura that is disputed by the facts. 'My initial review is there is nothing illegal that occurred,' he said. 'I suspect that will be the final conclusion, but I want all the facts before concluding that.' He thought he would have that review completed by early next week. Wonder what will happen on Monday? 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: cuddy3 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.03 / Jeff Berkowitz / Cold fusion scandal Originally-From: jjb@crg8.sqnt.com (Jeff Berkowitz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion scandal Date: 3 Jun 90 18:29:54 GMT Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc Will history remember this incident as "Heavywatergate"? :-) :-) -- Jeff Berkowitz N6QOM uunet!sequent!jjb | Bugs are God's way of saying Sequent Computer Systems | you have too much free time. cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjjb cudfnJeff cudlnBerkowitz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.03 / Donn Seeley / update to Douglas Morrison's Cold Fusion news no. 23 Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: update to Douglas Morrison's Cold Fusion news no. 23 Date: 3 Jun 90 20:38:46 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept [Dr Morrison sent me an updated version of number 23 -- since the changes are small, I'll just post the differences. I have put copies of numbers 17 through 23 (all that I've managed to save) in the pub directory on albion.utah.edu (aka hellgate.utah.edu) for anonymous ftp. -- Donn] *** /u/donn/articles/misc/from/morrison-23 Fri Jun 1 19:47:23 1990 --- morrison-23a Sun Jun 3 14:25:39 1990 *************** *** 237,246 **** month were paid - this was said to a "normal" amount, though activity did not appear to be great. Now there are reports that some of the potential "profits" from Cold Fusion exploitation were being offered to investors. The price was ! high - 2% of the "profits" for $1.5 million; up to a maximum of 20% was ! available. If 20% of the potential profits were disposed of this way, then ! many million dollars would be available for continuing the National Cold Fusion ! Institute (apart from other uses such as funding lawyers). Now if one is offering "profits" to investors, it is necessary to give them a prospectus. And by law this prospectus has to be fair. Clearly this is not a time to have discordant experimental results widely presented. --- 237,248 ---- month were paid - this was said to a "normal" amount, though activity did not appear to be great. Now there are reports that some of the potential "profits" from Cold Fusion exploitation were being offered to investors. The price was ! high - 2% of the "profits" (future royalty income) for $1.5 million; up to a ! maximum of 20% was available. If 20% of the potential profits were disposed of ! this way, then many million dollars would be available for continuing the ! National Cold Fusion Institute (apart from other uses such as funding lawyers - ! the exact sharing of these royalties was not too clear, though the initial ! agreement spread them around, including the patent holders). Now if one is offering "profits" to investors, it is necessary to give them a prospectus. And by law this prospectus has to be fair. Clearly this is not a time to have discordant experimental results widely presented. *************** *** 436,441 **** --- 438,450 ---- confirm for me that no cell was working. Similarly during my visit none of the 7 cells there was working. Later the Chairman apologised and said he hoped I did not think he was trying to restrict the discussion. + There was an incident at the discussion after Dr. Pons's talk, when Steve + Jones showed a newspaper cutting of July 1989 with a photograph of Dr. Pons + with a very large cell instead of the surprisingly small cell that they have + used to obtain their results. He said this cell will produce fusion-heated + hot water. Steve asked what had happened? He got no answer and the audience + murmured in disapproval. But the question was a legitimate one if a respected + scientist appears of his own free will at a press conference. 3.2 HELIUM PRODUCTION This is one of the murkiest regions of Cold Fusion. At *************** *** 665,671 **** of $500 000" which had been used to bring in three visiting scientists from Malaysia, Poland and South Dakota. "The revelation prompted disdain from members of the panel that oversees ! the State's $5 million investment. Panel Chairman Raymond l. Hixson said 'I'm a little upset about it because it was inferred that it was a private, anonymous donor and therefore we could consider it as an effort by the University to secure outside funding. This, to me, is not quite the same thing. --- 674,680 ---- of $500 000" which had been used to bring in three visiting scientists from Malaysia, Poland and South Dakota. "The revelation prompted disdain from members of the panel that oversees ! the State's $5 million investment. Panel Chairman Raymond L. Hixson said 'I'm a little upset about it because it was inferred that it was a private, anonymous donor and therefore we could consider it as an effort by the University to secure outside funding. This, to me, is not quite the same thing. *************** *** 719,725 **** seem to quite agree with the statement above of Dr. Peterson. "When (Dr. Will was) asked who had asked him if he was comfortable with the arrangement, Dr. Will said 'I'd rather not say'". ! Dr. Fleischmann was in Southampton this last week. In view of the serious nature of the stories I was hearing, I tried to warn him by letters, many phone calls and even a draft version of this News, as I liked him and found he had put forward many fine principles that were the hallmark of not merely a --- 728,739 ---- seem to quite agree with the statement above of Dr. Peterson. "When (Dr. Will was) asked who had asked him if he was comfortable with the arrangement, Dr. Will said 'I'd rather not say'". ! The Governor of Utah, the Honourable Norman S. Bangerter, gave a brilliant ! and carefully crafted speech at the first Annual Cold Fusion Conference. Noted ! that he was full of enthusiasm for supporting Utah activities, but he never ! actually said he believed in Cold Fusion. Clearly he was mislead by technical ! people. He is a survivor. ! Dr. Fleischmann was in Southampton this past week. In view of the serious nature of the stories I was hearing, I tried to warn him by letters, many phone calls and even a draft version of this News, as I liked him and found he had put forward many fine principles that were the hallmark of not merely a *************** *** 726,734 **** good scientist (which he has amply shown himself to be), but also a responsible and moral scientist. However he consistently avoided replying. Maybe this was to protect a colleague, though the lawyer's comments suggest ! otherwise. I cannot but feel disappointed. So who was responsible for this fiasco? Probably not any one person but rather a group of people, with a hint of paranoia, who reinforced one another. 7. WHAT IS THE FUTURE? From my studies of Pathological Science, it is possible --- 740,755 ---- good scientist (which he has amply shown himself to be), but also a responsible and moral scientist. However he consistently avoided replying. Maybe this was to protect a colleague, though the lawyer's comments suggest ! otherwise. And he was in Utah early in April when his lawyer's letters were ! sent. How can a scientist with such fine principles send a non-scientific ! legal letter to colleagues asking them to retract a published paper? ! I cannot but feel disappointed. So who was responsible for this fiasco? Probably not any one person but rather a group of people, with a hint of paranoia, who reinforced one another. + The Deseret News which previously had been strongly in favour of Pons and + Fleischmann, carried essentially the story and added that the Supervisory + committee had been led to believe that the anonymous donor of the $500 000 + was Utah industrialist, John Huntsman. 7. WHAT IS THE FUTURE? From my studies of Pathological Science, it is possible *************** *** 747,755 **** Fleischamnn and Pons will write a book, and will find a publisher. It will describe the positive results but barely mention the negative results. Many other books and articles apart from those of Gary Taubes, Frank Close ! and David Peke, will be published and Science Historians will feed on it for ever. ! I hope I am wrong partly. I have come to like the University of Utah and Utah (especially the great skiing at Alta). There are many fine people and scientists there. The University has clearly suffered from the Cold Fusion incident, but it seems a cleansing is --- 768,789 ---- Fleischamnn and Pons will write a book, and will find a publisher. It will describe the positive results but barely mention the negative results. Many other books and articles apart from those of Gary Taubes, Frank Close ! and David Peat, will be published and Science Historians will feed on it for ever. ! I hope I am partly wrong. ! Will there be another "Cold Fusion" effect? Yes, Pathological Science does ! not disappear when one example is exposed. It will continue and there will be ! other examples. Cold Fusion was more spectacular than most because it used ! a dream, an ecologist's dream of unlimited energy without pollution; also ! because it had some experienced and determined Public Relations people with ! executive power. But it is important to put this in perspective. Some 99% of ! results are correct and of the 1% that are mistaken, most are contradicted by ! similar experiments and soon forgotten. It is only a few, a very very small ! proportion of all the thousands of experiments that are performed, which ! survive for a while until the scientific method of free discussion, ! consideration of all the facts, and peer review triumph. ! (Am trying to write an article on Pathological Science, so would appreciate ! if one waits for copies as I get rather a lot of requests). I have come to like the University of Utah and Utah (especially the great skiing at Alta). There are many fine people and scientists there. The University has clearly suffered from the Cold Fusion incident, but it seems a cleansing is cudkeys: cuddy3 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.04 / Jim Bowery / The Holy Physics Church Originally-From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: The Holy Physics Church Date: Mon, 4 Jun 90 21:43:49 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Douglas Morrison claims that the histories of Galileo, Aryan physics, Soviet genetics and Soviet physics portray a pattern in which the lonely light of scientific insight and discovery is suppressed by exercise of established authority. He goes on to claim that the cold fusion situation reflects this pattern in that Dr. Pons is suppressing the scientific insight and discovery by physicists that there are no fusion by-products resulting from his cold fusion apparatus, and is, therefore, analogous to the Holy Roman Church and other authorities of their times. Regardless of the merit of this analogy, there is another analogy which is at least as cogent. For example, the Holy Roman Church was viewed as the source of knowlege and insight about the nature of the universe during the time of Galileo. Despite its obvious limitations from our perspective, its priests were considered to be the posessors of Truth. They were given the full support and credibility of The Church. The livelihoods of many priests depended on their credibility in the area of knowlege being explored by Galileo. Indeed, the attacks visited upon Galileo by The Church were motivated by Galileo's perceived threat to the credibility and livelihood of the established authorities of the time. Viewed from this perspective, which is more akin to the Holy Roman Church as source of knowlege and insight about the nature of the universe, enjoying political and economic support from the existing regime and which is more akin to the lone scientist appearing to threaten the authorites? Pons or the post-Manhattan physics community? --- Typical RESEARCH grant: $ Typical DEVELOPMENT contract: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenjim cudfnJim cudlnBowery cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.06 / Michael Salamo / 'Dear Dr. Salamon' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Originally-From: Michael Salamon, Physics Department, University of Utah Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'Dear Dr. Salamon' Date: 6 Jun 90 05:30:07 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept The following was released to me by Dr Salamon. Typos and grammatical errors are mine except where noted. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [letterhead] C. Gary Triggs, P.A. Attorney at Law 207 East Union Street Post Office Drawer 579 Morganton, North Carolina, 28655-0579 [computer-printed text] April 3, 1990 Professor M.J. Salamon Department of Physics University of Utah Salt Lake City, UT 84112 SENT VIA FAX (hard copy mailed) Re: NATURE matter Dear Dr. Salamon: As attorney for Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann, I have been asked to contact you concerning your paper recently published in NATURE. In speaking with Dr. Pons, he advises me that he had previously outlined some of the concerns they had concerning the publication of the paper in NATURE. It is my understanding that those concerns include the following: 1) That the paper is factually inaccurate. 2) That there was apparently some selection of data presented in your paper. 3) That the experiments conducted did not reveal the presence of a particular in situ gamma ray calibration standard. 4) That the date of publication of your letter was engineered for editorial reasons by NATURE with or without your knowledge. 5) That certain questions exist as to whether or not your experiments were predesigned to provide the negative results reported. 6) That serious inconsistencies exist between your published paper and other data circulated by you from the experiments which have been available to my clients. It is unfortunate that these issued could not have been resolved earlier particularly in light of the fact that many of the same problems were made known to NATURE prior to the publication of the paper and were obviously ignored. It is my understanding from speaking with Dr. Pons that you may have responded to the comments made to NATURE; however, those comments were not made available to either Dr. Pons or Dr. Fleischmann. It would certainly seem, in light of all of the attendant circumstances, that the paper as published is untenable and therefore should be voluntarily retracted. It is the sincere hope and belief of my clients that you were an unwitting participant in the actions of NATURE to sensationalize the negative results and publish the same immediately prior to the beginning of the recent conference. If this is true, I would hope that you would step forward and acknowledge the problems and thus help to end the undue ridicule and negativism created by the publication of this paper. In the event you choose not to retract this paper, it is our position that, out of an abundance of fairness, you should at least give any other coauthor who wishes to remove his name from the paper the opportunity to do so. I have been instructed by my clients to take whatever action is deemed appropriate to protect their legal interests and reputations. Obviously, these are very serious matters and so there is no misunderstanding, I wanted to make our position known to you well in advance of the first round of publications of my clients' data on Friday, April 6, 1990. If I have not heard from you by return FAX, or within a reasonable time prior to the beginning of publication of my clients' data, I will assume that you intend to take no further action and will therefore proceed as deemed appropriate to present an accurate picture of what occurred and attempt, so far as possible, to correct any misconceptions caused by your paper. Please be advised that any damages suffered by my clients proximately caused by any act or omission on the part of yourself or any other coauthor of the subject paper will not be tolerated. I have been instructed by my clients to take such legal action as is deemed appropriate to protect their interests in this matter. I sincerely hope that this matter can be resolved in a friendly fashion and therefore call upon you out of a sense fundamental fairness [sic] and scientific honesty to step forward and acknowledge the problems that exists [sic] with the paper so the record can be straightened out. I look forward to hearing from you and determining your thoughts concerning this matter. Yours very truly, C. Gary Triggs [signed] C. Gary Triggs CGT/ef pc: Stanley Pons Greg Williams James Brophy M.E. Wrenn K.C. Crawford W.H. Delaney C.L. Henderson Y.Q. Li J.A. Rusho G.M. Sandquist S.M. Seltzer ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Notice how James Brophy is in the list of recipients, and Martin Fleischmann is not. I don't know Greg Williams; I assume the names given with initials are coauthors of the NATURE paper. Salamon told me last week that he still hasn't seen any detailed enumeration of Pons's specific complaints about his paper, thus he doesn't have anything that he can make an argument with. I suppose it's possible that NATURE received a more specific list of complaints from Pons, but if so, Salamon apparently hasn't seen it. For completeness, here is the text of Salamon's statement to the press when the story broke: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Tim Fitzpatrick, Salt Lake Tribune Originally-From: Michael Salamon, Physics Department, University of Utah Stan Pons' lawyer, Gary Triggs, has been sending letters to people all around the country threatening them with legal action if they say anything negative about cold fusion. These people include several of my colleagues and myself at the University of Utah (even a UU undergraduate received such a letter!). I am extremely disturbed, in fact disgusted, that the Univeristy [sic] has apparently been financially supporting such detestable activity, activity which is antithetical to the spirit of free academic inquiry. What is particularly obscene about this is that my colleagues and I at the University of Utah are being threatened with legal action for honest scientific work done at the behest of the University of Utah, and yet the administration has so far refused to provide us with any legal counsel whatsoever. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- My understanding of the state of the affair right now is that no legal proceedings have been filed by Triggs against any of the coauthors of the NATURE paper, and that the U has stopped making payments to Triggs. I don't know whether Triggs submitted a bill for the letter, or to whom it might have been submitted. Rumor has it that Salamon and his coauthors are not the only winners of threatening letters from Triggs, 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: cuddy6 cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.06 / Donn Seeley / 'mounting dissatisfaction with how things were going' Originally-From: donn@albion.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 'mounting dissatisfaction with how things were going' Date: 6 Jun 90 07:00:04 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept This is going to have to be very quick, since I don't have a lot of time (especially after typing in the Triggs letter!). Sources for the following were the channel 2 news, the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News. Early on Monday the Institutional Council, the U's governing board, met to discuss the recent problems at the U. IC chair James Jardine expressed support for President Peterson, although the IC also supports a bigger voice for professors and wants a role in the upcoming audit. Some IC members were concerned that the IC had not taken a sufficiently active part in following the fusion affair and suggested that IC representatives sit on the fusion review committee. Another suggestion from the IC was that the review committee should include some external reviewers as well as internal ones, and faculty representatives agreed to this. Members of the board of regents also met and gave qualified support to Peterson. But later on Monday afternoon another bombshell hit. The Academic Senate, the legislative body for the U's faculty members, met and passed a resolution which read in part: 'The academic senate respectfully requests that the Institutional Council and the Board of Regents examine the question of whether continuation in office of the current president is in the best interest of the University of Utah and the community which it serves.' A few faculty who favor Peterson supported the resolution because they felt that a prompt decision, either in favor or against, would help move the U out of its current state of chaos. I have the impression that most of the faculty were in favor of Peterson's resignation, however. Dr Sandra Taylor of the History Department introduced the resolution on behalf of a group of faculty, commenting, 'I think the group felt that for the past couple of months there has been mounting dissatisfaction with how things were going.' She went on to say that the fusion affair was 'the straw that broke the camel's back' and that it was yet another example of how the U was 'lurching from one crisis to another.' The upshot of this was that the Board of Regents agreed to consider the matter at their regular June 22nd meeting. Peterson said that he was taking demands for his resignation seriously, but he didn't commit to staying or leaving. In the meantime, the F/EAC said that it will start selecting auditors for the state's investigation on Thursday... Stanley Pons returned to Salt Lake in the midst of this latest crisis, and gave channel 2 an off-camera interview in which he tried to mollify critics. He said that he was willing to cooperate with the audit, and in fact he was ready to turn over all of his raw data to a review team, with one reservation. He said that he has written a 66-page definitive paper that he hopes will be published next month, and he wants to hold onto the data until after the paper comes out. He noted that he isn't the only person who will have to sign off to release previously confidential information in the hands of NCFI... Trying to get a lot of work done before I leave town on Friday, 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: cuddy6 cudendonn cudfnDonn cudlnSeeley cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.06 / / NEW THEORY Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: NEW THEORY Date: Wed, 6 Jun 90 17:10:54 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Barry Merriman ( barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu) writes: >Actually, thats an amusing idea. The reason classical point electrons >had to be abandoned was that while orbiting the nucleus they would >radiate away energy (since accelerated charges radiate) so fast that the >electron orbit would spiral into the nucleus in a fraction of a second. >Thus Maxwell + Newton does not allow a planetary model of the >atom. >But---if you model the electron as a spinning spherical shell of charge >it will reabsorb all the energy it radiates, so the net loss is zero. >(Easy to see from Gauss's Law that a spherically symetric charge >ditribution cannot radiate.) Thus, at least, you can have a stable >model of the atom this way. If you take the shell radius as Bohrs >radius, you probably can get some amusing, perhaps even accurate, >predictions. >However, I don't think you could ever build this into a complete >theory of atomic structure that mimics all the results of Quantum >Mechanics. >For example--- >* Why are only certain electron Energy/Angular Mom./Radii states >allowed? >* Where does ``Pauli Exclusion'' come from in you picture? >* To avoid radiating away all their energy, electrons can > only be spinning spherical shells---how does this allow >for more complicated atoms (where the standard orbitals aren't >spheres)? >* Since an electron _is_ a spherical shell, how does it ever radiate, as >in a transition between energy levels, (as spherical charge densities >cannot radiate as long as they don't break the spherical symmetry). >* What about the general interaction of electrons with matter---how > do you achieve the results of a double slit experiment in your >classical model? >In short, while this classical model may extend the range of validity >of classical calculations a bit, I doubt it is up to the task of becoming >a true quantum theory of electrodynamics. BINGO! You saw immediately the non-radiative nature of the electron orbitsphere. It is perfectly reasonable that you don't believe that we could build this into a complete theory of atomic structure. But, let us begin--- 1. The condition for non-radiation by a moving charge is derived from Maxwell's equations. For non-radiative states, the charge-density function must not possess space-time Fourier components that are synchronous with waves travelling at the speed of light. [See Haus, H. A., American Journal of Physics, 54, 1126-1129, 1986.] This statement is not only a mouthful, it is mental anguish to those not familiar with the subject. We will not belabor the point here. Sufficient to say that a two-dimensional spherical shell of mass/charge density (a bound, atomic electron) will not radiate and there are other possibilities for molecules. [Note that the one-electron wave functions, Schrodinger, will radiate. Conclusion: the one-electron wave functions are incorrect.] For atomic hydrogen, the non-radiative condition is r = n (a0) where n = 1,2,3..... 2. For atoms, *all* of the bound electrons are spherical surfaces. The so-called s-orbital is an orbitsphere of uniform mass/charge density. [Note that such a system has (spin) angular momentum!] Non- uniform charge densities are given by the spherical harmonics. [That is, consider a soap bubble. The soap can be uniform throughout the bubble or the mass can vary slightly from place to place.] Thus, the electron can have other (orbital) angular momentum. 3. The reason energies are quantized is that the orbitsphere creates a hole or cavity (a resonator cavity) that can trap radiation. Only very specific radiation can be trapped because only certain non-radiative states exist. The photon is not lost nor does it disappear. The photon forms a standing wave in the cavity and the electric field lines of the photon are in opposition to the electric field lines of the proton. That is, in effect, the photon reduces the nuclear charge. This is why the electron expands. [The quantum numbers n,l,m come from the boundary condition, mentioned above, and solution of LaPlace's equation for the trapped photons.] 4. The radius of the electron orbitsphere increases (with increasing absorption of energy) until the electron is ionized. At this point the electron is a two-dimensional plane wave. There is no problem explaining the double-slit experiment. The de Broglie equation holds for free and bound electrons. 5. This is *not* a classical theory. It is a quantum theory using Maxwell's equations. Special and general relativity are correct and explainable with the theory. Theoretically yours, John J. Farrell Chemistry Department Franklin & Marshall College and Randell L. Mills Mills Technologies cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.06 / Mark North / Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.chem Subject: Recombination Catalyst Date: 6 Jun 90 18:59:41 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Does anyone have any information or references on the construction of the catalyst required to maintain a closed FPH cell. Currently, we are using 3m of Pt wire onto which we have plated platinum black (as suggested by Scott of ORNL). Unfortunately, this configuration does not allow us to reach the current density that we desire before it gets wet and shuts down. If anyone has any information or folklore on recombination catalysts your help will be welcome. Thanks, Mark H. North Code 524 NOSC 619-553-2800 cudkeys: cuddy6 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / Cameron Bass / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: crb7q@hudson.acc.Virginia.EDU (Cameron 'Dale' Bass) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 7 Jun 90 00:10:33 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <9006061550.AA03300@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: ]1. The condition for non-radiation by a moving charge is derived from ]Maxwell's equations. ] ] For non-radiative states, the charge-density function must not ] possess space-time Fourier components that are synchronous ] with waves travelling at the speed of light. ] ][See Haus, H. A., American Journal of Physics, 54, 1126-1129, 1986.] This ]statement is not only a mouthful, it is mental anguish to those not ]familiar with the subject. We will not belabor the point here. Ohmygod. Not the American Journal of Physics again. Let's see ... I can remember the Beckmannscience discussions included an article on the measurement of the speed of light that is rife with error. I also remember the first and the last time I looked for a reference in the Am. Jour. Phys. The subject was Feynmann's sprinkler problem. I had given the problem to a Fluid Mechanics class and one of the students managed to dig up some articles in the aforementioned journal. There are four articles on the problem. Three are so full of basic theoretical fluid dynamic errors as to render them unintelligible. The fourth is an experiment that does not accurately represent the problem that he is trying to represent. Can you say 'brain-damaged referees'; sure I knew you could. Oh and by the way, 1) Belabor the point. I am familiar with fourier analysis as well quantum mechanics as well as Maxwell's equations as well as light speed as well as the term synchronous. What in the blazes does the above statement mean? 2) What does this have to do with fusion? If you have a new quantum theory, please try Phys. Rev. Lett. We would be more than happy to read about your discovery there. dale bass -- C. R. Bass crb7q@virginia.edu Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia (804) 924-7926 cudkeys: cuddy7 cudencrb7q cudfnCameron cudlnBass cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / Mark North / Re: Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.chem Subject: Re: Recombination Catalyst Date: 7 Jun 90 02:44:20 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego > Simple solution: Heat it. > More complex solution: Precharge your system with nitrogen or some > other gas or gases, to lower the partial pressure of D2O. I received the above reply privately but decided to answer it publicly because I have come to suspect there are others out there who are still attempting to reproduce the announced effect but may be reluctant to stick their neck(s) out. Here's my neck, so chop. As to the first suggestion. I have tried this. I have heated the wire to an estimated 200 deg C which is the highest temperature I dare. The wire is wound on a Teflon form which will not stand much more than this. The results have been disappointing. I am guessing that the vapour pressure of the H20 (in this test case) is so great that it saturates the catalyst surface regardless of the boost of heating. In any case, I wish to avoid any controversy involving the additional complication of the generated heat. (Even though this can be easily accounted for). Let me point out that this catalyst has worked flawlessly for up to four days at 200ma current in a 'standard' FPH cell. In fact, the system actually pulls a slight vacuum which I attribute to the H2 and O2 gasses being absorbed into the electrolyte. Any comments on this? It seems obvious to me that I could do better if I had more Pt surface area. Perhaps someone knows an optimal way to plate platinum black onto Pt wire. It has been pointed out to me that there is a commercial product available that apparently consists of finely divided Pt on a carbon backing but the numbers that accompanied this suggestion indicate to me that the Pt surface area of this product is not substantially greater than what I have. However, I am not certain of this and intend to get some and try it. Now, as to the second more complex solution. I will try this tomorrow but it seems to me that the rate of recombination will be slowed by the inert gas so that nothing will be gained. Stand by. I also should point out that for this test case I am using a copper cathode so that there is no problem with excess oxygen caused by the absorption of hydrogen which would occur if the cathode were Pd. I would like to thank the two people who have so promptly responded and if either one of them would like to claim their comments -- please do. Mark cudkeys: cuddy7 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / John Moore / Re: Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.chem Subject: Re: Recombination Catalyst Date: 7 Jun 90 02:50:55 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1108@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) writes: ] ] ] ]Does anyone have any information or references on the construction ]of the catalyst required to maintain a closed FPH cell. Currently, we ]are using 3m of Pt wire onto which we have plated platinum black (as ]suggested by Scott of ORNL). Unfortunately, this configuration does ]not allow us to reach the current density that we desire before it ]gets wet and shuts down. If anyone has any information or folklore on ]recombination catalysts your help will be welcome. When we designed our recombination cell, we planned on using CATYLATOR recombiners. These are made to recombine hydrogen in lead/acid batteries, so they should be able to handle a lot of current. The #3 cube can handle 3 amperes, and the #6 "puck" can handle 6. These things come in a porous ceramic, with a "proprietary" catalyst inside. They are sold by Hydrocap Corp. 975 N.W. 95 Street Miami, FL 33150. (305)-696-2504 The folks there were extremely knowledgable about them (can you say chemist?). We never tried them because we decided to wait out the CNF storm before committing any more personal time and money. We're still waiting :-( P.S. Let me know how it works! I'll be looking southwest for the mushroom cloud. -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john john@anasaz.UUCP Voice: (602) 951-9326 (day or eve) FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253 ......: Short petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / millikan@voodo / Re: Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: millikan@voodoo.ucsb.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.chem Subject: Re: Recombination Catalyst Date: 7 Jun 90 16:19:32 GMT Organization: UC, Santa Barbara. Physics Computer Services -Message-Text-Follows- In article <1108@manta.NOSC.MIL>, north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) writes... > > > >Does anyone have any information or references on the construction >of the catalyst required to maintain a closed FPH cell. Currently, we >are using 3m of Pt wire onto which we have plated platinum black (as >suggested by Scott of ORNL). Unfortunately, this configuration does >not allow us to reach the current density that we desire before it >gets wet and shuts down. If anyone has any information or folklore on >recombination catalysts your help will be welcome. > We use two recombination catalysts in each cell. The first is a cold one consisting of palladium on charcoal that we smear over a large area of the wall just above the electrolyte level. Since this sometimes gets "flooded out", we also have a self-supporting Pt coil in the gas space above the electrolyte. This coil is electrically heated red hot by a separate power supply. We are not doing calorimetry, so the added heat does not bother us. This system has worked well most of the time, but when a highly charged cell goes unstable, we have had them blow there tops off. MILLIK@VOODOO Roger C. Millikan Chemistry Department University of California Santa Barbara CA 93106 (805) 961-2621 cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenmillikan cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / Chris Phoenix / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 7 Jun 90 12:15:34 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. In article <1990Jun7.001033.16337@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@hudson.acc.Virginia.EDU (Cameron 'Dale' Bass) writes: > ... > 2) What does this have to do with fusion? > > If you have a new quantum theory, please try Phys. Rev. Lett. > We would be more than happy to read about your discovery there. Seems like a new quantum theory, if it's true, could have a lot to do with fusion. Personally, I enjoy reading them even if I don't understand them. So my opinion, which admittedly shouldn't count for much, is that people should feel free to talk about theories which are only tangentially related to fusion, and which appear to be implausable. After all, cold fusion is only tangentially related to conventional fusion, and is equally implausable! And it's not like there's a lot of bandwidth on this group... Perhaps we could start a convention that people posting theories or farfetches should put "THEORY" in the subject line, and then you could just put that in your kill file, but it hardly seems worth the trouble. -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy7 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.07 / Alan Waterman / HELP! Need info on reaction rates and theoretical smallest reactor Originally-From: sorka@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (Alan Waterman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: HELP! Need info on reaction rates and theoretical smallest reactor sizes Date: 7 Jun 90 23:42:25 GMT Organization: UCSC Open Access I'm doing a paper on colonization of the solar system. I know what the various exhaust velocities are for various reactions. This will give me my final velocity with the mass ratio known. What I need to know is what is the smallest type of plasma fusion reactor we should ever expect to see and how much mass is being converted/unit time? I need to know this so I can determine accelerations. It does not need to be too precise, but it does need to be within an order of magnitude. cudkeys: cuddy7 cudensorka cudfnAlan cudlnWaterman cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.08 / Paul Schinder / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: schinder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Paul Schinder) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 8 Jun 90 02:12:22 GMT Organization: Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca NY In article <13980@csli.Stanford.EDU> cphoenix@csli.stanford.edu (Chris Phoenix) writes: >In article <1990Jun7.001033.16337@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@hudson.acc.Virginia.EDU (Cameron 'Dale' Bass) writes: >> ... >> 2) What does this have to do with fusion? >> >> If you have a new quantum theory, please try Phys. Rev. Lett. >> We would be more than happy to read about your discovery there. > >Seems like a new quantum theory, if it's true, could have a lot to do with >fusion. Personally, I enjoy reading them even if I don't understand them. But we haven't *seen* a new quantum theory in this group (where are the *details*, and why weren't Barry Merriman's questions, any one of which puts the NEW THEORY into the garbage can, answered). I'm certainly not wasting money or time on a book based on what we've seen so far, because it does not agree with experimental evidence (I'll give a for instance in a minute), and doesn't even come close to explaining all the things quantum theory does (and doesn't get that which it claims to get as accurately as QM). It was clear from yesterday's post that the proponents of the NT don't understand quantum theory (the probability for an electron to radiate from the ground state is *zero*; do they really think that physicists would use a theory for 70 years that has such a fundamental disagreement with experiment? The arrogance of such, ahem, non-professional "physicists" is utterly amazing at times. Do they really think they have more insight into physics than such people as Schrodinger, Dirac, Fermi, Feynmann, etc., etc.?) That's why I agree with Dale Bass: if you want to publicise and debate a physics theory, a good refereed physics journal is the *only* place to do it. For one thing, they're widely available, for another, someone competent in the sub-field (the referee) and with no personal stake in the theory will at least superficially look at and make comments on the paper. It's not a perfect system, but it works pretty well. Now for the for instances. There is abundant evidence that electrons are structureless point particles down to the limit (about 10^{-16} cm) to which they've been observed. They are not spherical shells. The probability that an electron is in a given place around a nucleus is computable from Schrodinger's equation, and agrees with experiment. Electrons are *not* found exclusively on spherical shells. For a good (but dated) look at the quantum mechanics of one and two electron atoms, look at the book by Bethe and Salpeter. You'll find that QM gets the energy levels right to much better than a few percent in those cases for which they've been calculated. Don't forget all the other phenomena that QM (electron and neutron diffraction, for example) successfully explains. But if the proponents of the NT really want to continue with this, here's what they should do. Instead of computing things that agree with experiment and QM, find something *new*, something that is *not* in agreement with QM, and for which no experiment has been done. That way there's *no way* that they simply looked up the answer in a QM book or in an experimental paper and deluded themselves into thinking they had another way to get the "right" answer. Write up the mathematical details, and submit it to Phys Rev Letters. If it gets published, I'm sure some experimentalist will quickly set up an experiment to test the prediction of the "new" theory. >So my opinion, which admittedly shouldn't count for much, is that people >should feel free to talk about theories which are only tangentially related >to fusion, and which appear to be implausable. After all, cold fusion is >only tangentially related to conventional fusion, and is equally implausable! >And it's not like there's a lot of bandwidth on this group... >Perhaps we could start a convention that people posting theories or farfetches >should put "THEORY" in the subject line, and then you could just put that in >your kill file, but it hardly seems worth the trouble. >-- >Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my >cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." >...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger >now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... -- Paul J. Schinder Department of Astronomy, Cornell University schinder@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenschinder cudfnPaul cudlnSchinder cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.08 / Dieter Britz / RE: Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: Recombination Catalyst Date: Fri, 8 Jun 90 14:20:29 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) asks > Does anyone have any information or references on the construction > of the catalyst required to maintain a closed FPH cell. and he got several suggestions, all problematical. The reason you want to recombine the evolved D2 and O2 gases is to allow a "closed" system - it will still be open where the electrical leads come in. Recombination would give back the energy you used to break up water, making the thermodynamics and the heat calculations simpler. It would also give back the water itself, so you wouldn't have to top it up. The trouble is that, for all this to work, you would need close to 100% recombination. The catalyst (or whatever) would need to be able to keep up with the rate of evolution of the gases. The wetting problem is inherent - after all, you are making water. You could use a fuel cell arrangement, which works in an electrolyte. In either case, whether using a catalyst or a fuel cell, to achieve your 100% recombination, you'd have to have recirculation, say have the catalyst in a longish tube, keep pumping the gases through it, and ditto with the fuel cell. My feeling is that you would end up measuring the amount of gas still being vented from the system, and correcting for it, as well as for water vapour coming out with it. This being so, you may as well forget about recombination altogether and carefully measure what comes out. It would be nice then to actually prevent recombination by dividing your cell with a membrane - say, a glass frit - but that would cause changes in the electrolyte composition, different in the two halves and is probably undesirable. So you'd need to check on the deficit of evolved gas. Divisek, Fuerst and Balej (J. Electroanal. Chem 278 (1989) 99) used this method, and it has the added advantage of giving you (by the D2 deficit) the amount of D2 absorbed by the Pd and therefore the loading factor. It means doing involved calculations to account for water evaporation, heat carried out by the water vapour and gases, etc, but you can't get away from these in any case. Read the paper of Divisek et al, and also those of Chemla et al in C.R. Acad. Sci. Ser 2 309 (1989) 987 and in J. Electroanal. Chem. 277 (1989) 93. I like Chemla et al's transfer electrolysis, in which two Pd electrodes are used; one is charged with deuterium discharged from the other. Good luck. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy8 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.08 / Paul Dietz / "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Fusion" Date: 8 Jun 90 15:56:03 GMT Organization: U of Rochester, CS Dept, Rochester, NY Today's (6/8/90) NY Times reports that Dr. Wolf at Texas A&M has retracted his claim of tritium production in cold fusion experiments. He found that palladium from Hoover & Strong, Inc., in Richmond, VA, was contaminated with tritium. "Our results are consistent with contamination. And it's nontrivial. We can offer no support for tritium being produced by cold fusion," Wolf said. Palladium from the same source was used by two other groups: Bochris at Texas A&M (about 2/3 of their work used palladium from Hoover & Strong, although from a different batch), and Storms and Talcott at Los Alamos. Storms said one of their positive results used a sample from Texas A&M from the same batch of palladium, and was "clearly wrong." He said he could not rule out contamination in the other 11 positive results he has claimed, but he was still hopeful for cold fusion. It is not yet known if the batch used by Bochris was contaminated. "I think it's over," said Dr. Kevin G. Lynn (BNL). "A lot of this has been bad science, with a few sincere people making an honest effort to understand what was going on. Now these people have results plagued with systematic errors. It's the nail in the coffin." Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy8 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.08 / Randell Jesup / Re: "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Originally-From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Fusion" Date: 8 Jun 90 20:34:40 GMT Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA In article <1990Jun8.155603.26749@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >Today's (6/8/90) NY Times reports that Dr. Wolf at Texas A&M has >retracted his claim of tritium production in cold fusion experiments. >He found that palladium from Hoover & Strong, Inc., in Richmond, VA, >was contaminated with tritium. "Our results are consistent with >contamination. And it's nontrivial. We can offer no support for >tritium being produced by cold fusion," Wolf said. > >Palladium from the same source was used by two other groups: Bochris >at Texas A&M (about 2/3 of their work used palladium from Hoover & >Strong, although from a different batch), and Storms and Talcott at >Los Alamos. Storms said one of their positive results used a sample >from Texas A&M from the same batch of palladium, and was "clearly >wrong." He said he could not rule out contamination in the other 11 >positive results he has claimed, but he was still hopeful for cold >fusion. It is not yet known if the batch used by Bochris was >contaminated. One problem with this: Since the company in question mainly processes palladium for the jewelry trade, it being tritium contaminated would be a signifigant health risk, I would think. Secondly, Wolf (from my reading of the article in the WSJ) tested for contamination AFTER using them in h2o cells. Finding tritium may merely mean that you're getting P+D->T, as has been discussed here (there's some D in normal water), etc. The only way to properly test for tritium contamination is BEFORE using it in an experiment, and I'm sure Wolf is smart enough to know that (or hope so). Wolf's statement that "the only explanation is that they must have had tritium in them before the experiment" is as bad as some people say C-F supporters are. Also, how the hell would it have gotten sufficiently tritium contaminated in the first place to show this? T is far more rare than D. Lastly, Wolf said the "contaminated" sample was in a "blank" (aka H2O) experiment. If so, why didn't that experiment show the same results as the D2O experiments? And why don't ALL samples from that batch of palladium show it? etc, etc. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjesup cudfnRandell cudlnJesup cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.09 / Mark North / Re: Recombination Catalyst Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recombination Catalyst Date: 9 Jun 90 00:25:38 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <9006080816.AA05889@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) asks >> Does anyone have any information or references on the construction >> of the catalyst required to maintain a closed FPH cell. > >and he got several suggestions, all problematical. The reason you want to >recombine the evolved D2 and O2 gases is to allow a "closed" system - it will >still be open where the electrical leads come in. Recombination would give >back the energy you used to break up water, making the thermodynamics and the >heat calculations simpler. It would also give back the water itself, so you >wouldn't have to top it up. All correct except that we are using electrical feedthrus so the cell is completely closed. > The trouble is that, for all this to work, you would need close to 100% >recombination. The catalyst (or whatever) would need to be able to keep up >with the rate of evolution of the gases. The wetting problem is inherent - >after all, you are making water. You could use a fuel cell arrangement, which >works in an electrolyte. In either case, whether using a catalyst or a fuel >cell, to achieve your 100% recombination, you'd have to have recirculation, >say have the catalyst in a longish tube, keep pumping the gases through it, >and ditto with the fuel cell. One can keep up with the rate of gas evolution if one has enough surface area and the catalyst is non-wettable. Thanks to a respondent to my original post I have found such a catalyst (Thanks John Moore). There is another related issue, however, and that is the excess oxygen that one gets due to the absorption of D into the Pd. In our set up this must be vented but it will be measured and it will provide us with a measurement of the loading factor. This, of course, will be a difficult measurement but fortunately the success of the work does not hinge on this. HOWEVER -- This may all be moot since today's announcements of wholescale retractions. On a personal note: I am a scientist and so naturally skeptical but that doesn't prevent me from hoping the effect is real. My biggest job is to see to it that my hopes don't cloud my vision or my integrity as they seem to have done to B.S. Pons ( as Schwinger calls him). I find his behaviour absolutely despicable. I intend to publish my results and if he doesn't like what he sees then let him sue. I'll be here if the Navy doesn't can me for blowing $150K of taxpayers' money on his ego trip. Mark BTW - The Navy says I don't speak for them. cudkeys: cuddy9 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.09 / Paul Dietz / Re: "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt on Results Pointing to Cold Fusion" Date: 9 Jun 90 02:24:44 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <12459@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) writes: > One problem with this: Since the company in question mainly >processes palladium for the jewelry trade, it being tritium contaminated >would be a signifigant health risk, I would think. Could be. > Also, how the hell would it have gotten sufficiently tritium >contaminated in the first place to show this? T is far more rare than D. Possible reason: palladium used in some apparatus got contaminated with tritium. It was sold back to H&S as scrap, and was melted down and recast. Some tritium strayed along. I seem to recall reading about various hydrogen-absorbing metals being used for tritium separation & storage in fusion engineering, and also as controlled leaks for feeding gas into accelerators. I imagine someone who has a tritium/helium-3 mix and wanted to separate the tritium -- say, to maintain the DT gas charge in boosted fission weapons -- could filter the mixture through palladium. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.05.29 / William Johnson / Re: Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography mini-update (with erratum). Date: 29 May 90 20:39:57 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <9005251810.AA16227@danpost.uni-c.dk>, BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > A note is in order on the Sanchez et al paper in Solid State Commun. 71 > (1989) 1039: I had given it a short comment but it actually deserves more > attention. Although Bill Johnson tells me that the techniques are somewhat > slipshod, and the information provided by the paper too scanty, the authors > do find what looks like a neutron burst well clear of the background, AND > they find a gamma bump, followed by a definite rise in the tritium level in > the electrolyte (not He, as I had written earlier); moreover, this rise takes > place over a few hours and the authors mention the expected slow diffusion of > T out of the metal. A cell which emitted no neutrons or gammas showed a > constant T level, as expected. It seems to me that results like this - > correlating several different measurements - are needed to convince the > skeptics, not one-parameter results where something briefly sticks up above > the background. Let me expand on this a bit. First, my thanks to Dieter for calling this paper to my attention. It may be too strong to say that the work described in this paper is "slipshod"; it is perhaps more accurate to state that, because the experimental details are lacking, there are insufficient grounds for concluding that the work is *not* slipshod -- quite a different statement. This lack of detail is not necessarily due to a flaw in the paper, but may just be an inescapable result of where it got published. It is a "communication" that probably had to conform to editorial requirements for such. I don't normally read this journal, being a nuclear rather than solid-state physicist, but at least in the nuclear world, "communications," "letters," etc., have to be quite short to be published, hence avoid most of the experimental detail. The problem, however, is that there are solid reasons for believing cold fusion measurements to be "slipshod" unless proven otherwise. There are always odd little observations (or, in the present case, *non*observations) alluded to in the papers that cause the critical observer to wonder if things were done carefully. (Some examples from this paper follow below.) Consequently, the natural -- and usually correct -- tendency among researchers is not to take papers like this seriously until it is *proven* that the measurements really are careful. The Sanchez paper has a few little things that do make one wonder. One is the use of BF3 tubes, of ill-defined geometry, to detect neutrons -- which duly are detected after moving the tubes, etc. The problem with that, as has been pointed out in this newsgroup on several occasions, is that BF3 tubes are notoriously prone to false counts due to thermal stress, microphonics, humidity changes (this, btw, was monitored by Sanchez and group, so they clearly were at least aware of the potential for trouble), and so on. Once one has a working detector, the best one can do is not to mess with the thing -- precisely so that any unexpected observations *cannot* be dismissed out of hand as due to a detector going bonkers. That isn't the way the Sanchez team worked, however, at least if I read the paper correctly. Some other little puzzles from the paper were: non-observation of evidence of neutron capture in their gamma-ray detector (which one would have expected if the gamma ray from capture in the water bath was observed, as it was claimed to be); failure of the non-"active" cell to grow in any tritium at all, as one would expect to occur due to the old differential-electrolysis problem; and the fact that the increases in tritium in the electrolyte weren't really all that large (given the unusually high starting levels) when they did occur. All of these things lead the critical reader to wonder just how careful the work really was. Possibly these observations -- and in many ways, they're just the tip of the iceberg -- will give the reader some idea of just how hard these experiments are. Sure, it's easy enough to set up a sodium iodide detector and BF3 tubes and "count" a cold-fusion cell, and even to tabulate the resulting spectra or neutron count rates in comprehensible form. But it is *quite* another thing to do the ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL error analysis and systems studies that are required if the results are to be believable. All this notwithstanding, I think this is one of the more interesting papers that report "positive" results, and I would be very interested in hearing more reports from this group. Anything else in the bibliography from them, Dieter? Do keep us informed. -- 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 cudmo5 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.11 / Patrick Smith / Local News Briefs Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News Briefs Date: 11 Jun 90 16:27:15 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah Since Donn Seeley seems to be out of town, and a lot has been happening here, I thought I'd summarize the latest local news. The Friday evening (June 8) local TV news described the day as the worst yet for Cold Fusion. According to a NYT article, two Texas A&M teams and the Storms-Talcott group at Los Alamos now believe that previous observations of tritium formation were due to contamination of palladium (as mentioned by Paul Dietz). Also, there was a brief interview with a scientist (I don't recall his name) who had run tests on six P&F type cells from the Bahbba Atomic Research Institute in India, which had been reported to have produced copious amounts of tritium. He claimed that five of those cells could not have produced the observed tritium. No details were given. Perhaps someone else has more information on this. FUSION CENTER TO UNDERGO AUDIT, REVIEW. Saturday morning SL Trib; June 2. U of U President Chase N. Peterson said friday that a financial audit and a scientific review of the NCFI will proceed before any new work is initiated. Dr. Peterson made the remarks after meeting with 22 professors and College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi. The group had called for the audit after hearing news that a $500,000 donation that had been termed "anonymous" and "external" had in fact come from the university's own research foundation... [Dr. Peterson] said the scientific review would be conducted by faculty to be appointed in the next few days and should be completed in a few weeks. He acknowledged there may be difficulties in obtaining access to the laboratory of Pons and Fleischmann, but he was confident it could be obtained... Dr. Peterson, while acknowledging that the latest cold fusion chapter had produced something of a siege on campus, said he had no plans to resign his position, "But I've considered it hundreds of times before in the past seven years, and I will consider it again in the future."... Meanwhile, fusion institute director Fritz Will said he will recommend that the $500,000 be refused by the institute... Dr. Will said he felt his integrity had been impugned by statements made by Dr. Peterson, specifically that the U. president had told Dr. Will the money could not be referred to as coming from an outside source... Dr. Peterson said the request for the audit by Dr. Rossi and the professors was "entirely appropriate," but Dr. Will felt the group was "trying to kill" cold fusion at the U of U... Dr. Peterson said the group also discussed the role of Gary Triggs... PETERSON FIT TO RUN U.? ASK TEACHERS. Tuesday morning SL Trib; June 5. The U of U's Academic Senate overwhelmingly approved a resolution qustioning President Chase N Peterson's ability to run the school in the wake of his administration's quiet transfer of $500,000 to the NCFI... "We were all being embarrassed by things that were happening, the breaking of the cold fusion story, the Sorenson fiasco...," [Dr. Taylor] said, adding the events have affected the recruiting of qualified faculty, graduate students and even undergraduate students. "We felt that, in terms of our own lives and careers, it was having a very negative effect," she added... Mr. Hixson said [the F/EAC] panel plans to hear from Dr. Peterson, institute director Fritz Will and a representative of the College of Science faculty members who demanded the audits. That representative will likely be College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi, a former interim director of the institute and a current member of the institut's board of trustees... PETERSON WON'T ACT YET ON VOTE AT U. Wednesday morning SL Trib; June 6. Embattled U of U President Chase Peterson tuesday said he won't be taking any action about his future this week... Dr. Peterson was criticized last year because the announcement that U. researchers Pons and Fleischmann had discovered cold fusion had been made at a press conference before being first published in a research journal. A furor erupted last summer when the president announced the U of U School of Medicine would be renamed in honor of businessman J Sorenson in return for a $15 million gift of stock. Opposition was so strong that Dr. Peterson had to back down and return the gift. PANEL ORDERS REVIEW OF U. FUSION DATA. Friday morning SL Trib; June 8. In an attempt to assuage doubts and tensions, the state's F/EAC Thursday ordered financial and scientific reviews of the U of U's cold fusion research in the wake of a dubious $500,000 "donation" and faculty unrest. During a special meeting at the State Capitol, council members called for two teams of experts to examine laboratory data and ledgers at the NCFI, with their findings tentatively due in August... Council members also entertained often pointed remarks Thursday by Hugo Rossi, the U's College of Science Dean and the NCFI's first director, and Fritz Will, who has been the institute's director since February. "We feel the integrity of the [science-research] process at the U of U is suffering deeply," said Dr. Rossi, representing 22 College of Science faculty members seeking "restoration" of that process. Dr Will cited the "irony" and hinted at a "conflict of interest" behind Dr. Rossi's request for audits of the NCFI's research and financial affairs, since the dean had been the institute's director at the outset. "If I were still director, I would still want this review," countered Rossi, who until his resignation last Friday had remained a member of the NCFI's board of trustees... I really don't understand Will's remarks. It isn't necessarily "ironic" that Rossi should call for an audit of the NCFI's science, since he was in a very good position to observe it first hand. Clearly, Rossi was not impressed by what he saw. That, in my opinion, is at least as damaging as the evaporation of scientific support from the Texas A&M and Los Alamos teams. Also, why is it necessarily a "conflict of interest"? Why would it be in Rossi's best interest to "kill cold fusion"? I think that there may be only one good answer to that question! -Patrick Smith cudkeys: cuddy11 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.12 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Tritium, etc. Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium, etc. Date: 12 Jun 90 19:38:57 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA From Robert Park's What's New, 8 June 1990 (sci.physics.fusion): > TRITIUM CONTAMINATION OF THE PALLADIUM USED > IN CATHODES has been identified as the source of some of the > [positive results]. Kevin Wolf, a Texas A&M physicist who has > reported small amounts of tritium in cold fusion > cells, has traced the origin to a single supplier of palladium. The > same palladium was used at Los Alamos and in the Chemistry > Department at A&M by John Bockris. The contaminated > palladium does not explain the occasional large tritium bursts > reported by Bockris... (Park is consistently biased against cold fusion). Anyway, it appears that there is still something left to explain about reported tritium, even if you throw out the tritium found in contaminated palladium samples. > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 11-Jun-90 Local News Briefs > Patrick J. Smith@giga.sl (6190) > the evaporation of scientific support from the Texas A&M and > Los Alamos teams Is that in fact what has happened? I've only seen what is reported on the net, and it seems to me that the groups are saying that some of their tritium comes from contamination. Are they also withdrawing their other results, e.g., heat? Also, what is the situation with Huggins at Stanford? > Excerpts from netnews.sci.physics.fusion: 11-Jun-90 Local News Briefs > Patrick J. Smith@giga.sl (6190) > really don't understand Will's remarks. It isn't necessarily "ironic" > that Rossi should call for an audit of the NCFI's science, since he was in a very good position to observe it first hand. When Rossi was director they had a hard time getting positive results are the NCFI. After he left, they started getting positive results. Clearly Rossi thinks that they are faking them or ignoring sources of error. But from Will's point of view, Rossi is jealous. Gee, this is starting to sound like Twin Peaks... -- J cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenWebb cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.13 / Ric Werme / News artcle in "Electric Light and Power", June 1990 Originally-From: werme@Alliant.COM (Ric Werme) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: News artcle in "Electric Light and Power", June 1990 Date: 13 Jun 90 20:43:12 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA Here is a short article from EL&P, a trade magazine for the power utility industry. -- Lines like this are in boldface -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: New cold-fusion group promises 100W generator Chicago - The lure of a virtually inehaustible, non-polluting energy supply has prompted cold-fusion researchers at the University of Utah to form the National Cold Fusion Institute (NCFI) and promise a working 100W generator by year's end. -- Gee whiz, no grid needed! -- American Power Conference attendees here had a few "gee-whiz" reactions when James Brophy, VP for research, U, explained that future cold-fusion generators could: > Eliminate the transmission/distribution grid with 10-kW home units. > Supply 5000 years of US energy needs by using the top 10 in. of Lake Superior, without any acid rain, greenhouse effect, or radioactive waste. > Power electric vehicles. > Supply power for space travel. -- Water for tea 90% of the time -- Recent experiments at the U have been working 90 percent of the time, but are capable of little more than boiling water, Brophy admitted. Researchers, unclear of the underlying mechansism involved, can't figure out why 10 percent refuse to work, or how to turn the reaction on and off. Is it really fusion? That question is "not yet settled, but there clearly seems to be something" more than a chemical reaction. The energy output is 1.1-1.5 times the input, "well in excess of breakeven, and 100 times greater than any possible chemical reaction, Brophy explained. Among the nearly 30 labs that confirm some replication of the original experiment are three national labs, Brophy said. Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Brookhaven have produced excess heat, tritium, and/or neutrons in cold fusion experiments. -- Patent applications -- Researchers at the U have filed nine of the more than 50 patent applications related to the process. (For more on fusion progress, see EL&P May, p.23) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's nice to know that in these days of gloom, at least one person still carries the torch of promise. Shame on all you nay-sayers and miracle bashers! :-) Sorry - Dad had already tossed the May issue, so I can't type in that reference. -- | A pride of lions | Eric J Werme | | A gaggle of geese | uucp: decvax!linus!alliant | | An odd lot of programmers | Phone: 603-673-3993 | cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenwerme cudfnRic cudlnWerme cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.13 / A Beveridge / U of U President Resigns Originally-From: ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: U of U President Resigns Date: 13 Jun 90 22:08:07 GMT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center Because he gave $500,000 of University controlled foundation money to the NCFI, Pres. Peterson was under real fire. (See recent Chronicle of Higher Education.) Today the New York Times carries a story that indicates he resigned. This may mark the passing of Cold Fusion. ------- Andrew A. Beveridge Department of Sociology Queens College and Graduate Center City University of New York 209 Kissena Hall Flushing, NY 11367 718-520-7093 ------- Andrew A. Beveridge Department of Sociology Queens College and Graduate Center City University of New York 209 Kissena Hall Flushing, NY 11367 718-520-7093 cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenANDQC cudfnAndrew cudlnBeveridge cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.14 / Barry Merriman / Re: News artcle in "Electric Light and Power", June 1990 Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: News artcle in "Electric Light and Power", June 1990 Date: 14 Jun 90 03:51:41 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <3916@alliant.Alliant.COM> werme@alliant.Alliant.COM (Ric Werme) writes: >Here is a short article from EL&P, a trade magazine for the power utility >industry. >Title: New cold-fusion group promises 100W generator >James Brophy, VP for research, U, explained that future cold-fusion generators >could: [save the free world] This sounds like a reference to the infamous desktop water heater Pons was promoting about 6 months ago. I seriously doubt anything will come of it. I talked to Nathan Lewis at Caltech shortly after Pons unveiled the device, and also shortly after the closed door testimony ---which Lewis attended---that took place before a congressional committee last winter. Lewis said that Pons made no mention of the device during his testimony (even though he had unveiled it publicly prior to the meeting). If it were realistic, its odd that Pons wouldn't mention it at such a key meeting. (Notes: Lewis said the closed door session turned into a ``dog and pony show'' because the money people were in attendence (DOE, NSF, etc). (The ``closed door'' was intended to promote openness among attendees, but that didn't last long.) Lewis also said he is out of the cold fusion business, totally. Looks like he did a pretty good job of calling it, though.) And if they really had a working water heater, why does their institute have so much trouble getting funding (except from the University :-)? Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.14 / Barry Merriman / Re: U of U President Resigns Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: U of U President Resigns Date: 14 Jun 90 22:32:12 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article (Andrew A. Beveridge) writes: > >Today the New York Times carries a story that indicates he resigned. >This may mark the passing of Cold Fusion. Strictly speaking, political machinations have no implications for the validity of scientific ideas (thankfully). But, we could argue IF: cold fusion research were making positive progress at U of Utah THEN: we could overlook the sins of overly zealous administrators; since the second clause is apparently false, the first one should be as well. --------------- By the way, yesterday I was questioned for a survey of people who had turned down employment at the U of Utah in the last year. They asked what my opinion of the state, University, etc, was. One thing I said is that the way the State so readily pumped $5 million into research on such a speculative concept lowered my opinion of them. And the way the University has been bungling this Cold Fusion stuff has lowered my opinion of them, too. The reason the states actions are so ridiculous is that most of the money went info setting up a fancy research center---before they'd even verified the reality of the underlying phenomena. It would have been much more prudent to allocate, say, $1,000,000, to fund a years worth of intensive verification studies. That would be enough for plenty of equipment (considering the simplicity of the set-up), 4 full time PhD. researchers and 5--10 grad students---more than a lot of projects have going for them! -------------- Barry Merriman PS: Now that the current brand of Cold Fusion is rapidly fading away (and at this point, I can't imagine any _new_ research starting up, and I can imagine a lot of groups shutting down til there is more ``probable cause''), perhaps we could devote this group to _other_ routes to fusion?!? News and speculation both welcome. (But please, read my lips---no new particles! :-)). All that really matters is that it be economically and technologically feasible. And for space based applications---my biggest interest---it should have high power density and high power/mass ratio, and a means of producing thrust would be nice (for rockets). After all---this is sci.physics.fusion, not sci.physics.fusion.cold! Fusion is the goal---I don't care whether its hot, cold, or lukewarm. cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / Mark North / Re: U of U President Resigns Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: U of U President Resigns Date: 15 Jun 90 03:20:54 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego >PS: Now that the current brand of Cold Fusion is rapidly fading away > (and at this point, I can't imagine any _new_ research starting up, > and I can imagine a lot of groups shutting down til there is > more ``probable cause''), perhaps we could devote this > group to _other_ routes to fusion?!? News and speculation both welcome. > (But please, read my lips---no new particles! :-)). Let's wait till the patient flatlines, shall we? Also, news is fine, and has helped me in my research considerably but wild speculation has no place in a sci. group. Before you reach for your flame thrower consider this - So far, as well as I can tell there hasn't been any consistent experimental results on which to base a wild speculation let alone a reasonable one. Some few of us are still attempting a difinitive experiment to provide the theorists with grist for their mill. (And are getting funded to do so). This is not to say that difinitive work has not already been done. (Lewis for example). I get the feeling we experimentalists are shooting at a moving target, if you get my drift. It seems all the speculation is based on the original announcement and ignors subsequent experimental evidence to the contrary. > > All that really matters is that it be economically and technologically > feasible. And for space based applications---my biggest interest---it > should have high power density and high power/mass ratio, and a means > of producing thrust would be nice (for rockets). Actually, there are 'other' applications (than energy) that would be very useful so let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. But also, let's not get carried away. Mark The Secretary (of the Navy) disavows me. cudkeys: cuddy15 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / Les Earnest / Scientific Journal Suggests Fraud Possible In Texas A&M Cold Fusion Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Scientific Journal Suggests Fraud Possible In Texas A&M Cold Fusion Date: 15 Jun 90 05:17:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By PAUL RECER, AP Science Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Experiments at Texas A&M University may have been manipulated to give results that supported the concept of cold fusion, a prominent science journal says in a report to be published Friday. Science, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and one of the mostly widely read learned journals in the world, said the Texas institution has conducted no formal investigation though fraud is widely suspected. ''The result is that after a year of experiments that most scientists view with a great deal of skepticism anyway, the A&M researchers are still haunted by this specter of possible fraud,'' the journal said. John Fackler, dean of the College of Science at A&M, said in an interview Thursday he had no reason to believe that fraud has occurred and that there were no plans to investigate the cold fusion experiments. ''I have no concrete evidence of anything other than possibly fairly sloppy chemistry,'' he said. Cold fusion experiments in the A&M laboratory of John Bockris last year were among the first in the world to report finding tritium, a form of hydrogen that can be key evidence of a fusion reaction. Fusion is the merger of hydrogen atoms into helium with the release of substantial energy. It is the principal reaction of the sun and of thermonuclear weapons, and is believed by most scientists to take place on a substantial scale only when the hydrogen has been heated to millions of degrees. ''Cold'' fusion, in which the reaction would take place and liberate energy in the form of heat at ordinary temperatures, would be a stunning scientific breakthrough - and mystery - if it really happens. Bockris reported the tritium within weeks after Stanley Pons at the University of Utah, and his collegue Martin Fleischmann, announced to a stunned scientific community that they had achieved fusion in a laboratory jar. The Utah announcement set off a worldwide scramble to confirm the possibility of cold fusion, but most experimenters could not duplicate the Pons-Fleischmann results and the concept now has few supporters among scientists. Science said that A&M's quick findings of tritrium gave early support of the Pons-Fleischmann findings, and were instrumental in a decision by the state of Utah to invest $5 million in cold fusion research. A&M, the magazine said, received an additional $150,000 from the Electric Power Research Institute. Yet, Science said, ''suspicions were raised almost from the first that the tritium in the A&M cells (experiments) was put there by human hands.'' The magazine said that some scientists had suggested that the tritium detected in the A&M experiments was a result of someone deliberately ''spiking'' the chemical analysis. This could be done, Science said, by injecting tritiated water, which contains some tritium atoms in place of hydrogen in the water molecules, into the flasks of heavy water, or deuterium oxide, that are used in the cold fusion experiments. Deuterium is another form of hydrogen. Tritium detectors in place to detect any fusion reaction would then give readings of increased tritium. Science said that Bockris and members of his team reported finding tritium on numerious occasions - including six different experiments in one week - while scores of other laboratories around the country could find nothing, or reported tritium at levels of only a fraction of that reported by A&M. The magazine said that although suspicions of fraud became the subject of conversations and even memos, Bockris did not act on suggestions by collegues that efforts be made to secure the experimental apparatus and protect it from tampering. ''Although the origin of Bockris's tritium may not be resolved for years, the tritium episode has become a case study in the damage done when questions of fraud, legitimately raised, are not seriously addressed by either the lab chief or his institution,'' Science said. The journal article also said that the A&M case ''raises crucial questions about how rumors and allegations of fraud should be investigated while ensuring academic freedom and protecting the reputations of scientists.'' Bockris declined to comment and other members of his staff referred questions to university officials. One member of his research group, doctoral candidate Nigel Packham, told Science he and Bockris were not ready to abandon their results. AP-NY-06-14-90 2309EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / Greg Shippen / It would be a real shame... Originally-From: greg@mips.com (Greg Shippen) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: It would be a real shame... Date: 15 Jun 90 16:57:53 GMT Organization: Mips Computer Systems, Inc. It would be a real shame if the scientific community didn't thoroughly investigate this potentially interesting and significant phenomena because politics, money and ego got in the way of a few or even the majority of the researchers involved... Will this subject be relegated to research by former investigators of perpetual motions machines before the validity of this "effect" is finally settled because no reputable researchers would risk their careers pursuing such an increasingly controversial subject? I for one sincerely hope not. Gregory B. Shippen MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. {ames,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!greg 928 Arques Ave. MS 2-01 greg@mips.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 524-8141 cudkeys: cuddy15 cudengreg cudfnGreg cudlnShippen cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / Nash David / RE: resignation of UU president posting Originally-From: dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Nash, David) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: resignation of UU president posting Date: 15 Jun 90 21:02:58 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College A few days ago, right after I first found out about the net, I noticed an article mentioning that the president of the University of Utah had resigned (presumably 'cos of the cold fusion controversy and all the financial messes the University has got itself into), and that this was mentioned in the NY Times. This spawned a few "RE: " articles on this subject, most mentioning the effect this would likely have on fusion research, but no one else seems to have mentioned the resignation story _per se_. Has anyone confirmed this story? I haven't seen any articles about this on the net or in our local rag (the LA Times), and SURELY there must be a couple of net-readers at the University of Utah who have something to say... -------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nash (Yet another escapee from behind the Zion Curtain.) (dnash@hmcvax.bitnet, dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu) 'The best thing for being sad is to learn something.' - Merlyn, _The Once And Future King_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy15 cudendnash cudfnNash cudlnDavid cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / A Beveridge / RE: resignation of UU president posting Originally-From: ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: resignation of UU president posting Date: 15 Jun 90 23:56:21 GMT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center The article was actually from UPI. I would also like a local reaction. We used to get good information from the Deseret News. ------- Andrew A. Beveridge Department of Sociology Queens College and Graduate Center City University of New York 209 Kissena Hall Flushing, NY 11367 718-520-7093 cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenANDQC cudfnAndrew cudlnBeveridge cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.16 / Steven Bellovin / Re: resignation of UU president posting Originally-From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: resignation of UU president posting Date: 16 Jun 90 20:37:48 GMT In article <7490@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Nash, David) writes: > Has anyone confirmed this story? The story was on the AP wire at least a day or two before the posting reached here. It would seem to be accurate. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudensmb cudfnSteven cudlnBellovin cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.17 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Sun, 17 Jun 90 05:20:12 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I don't know whether anyone is still out there reading this but here goes. The Law paper in New Scientist may be way off the topic but seemed interesting to me. If in some alloys (admittedly at very low temperatures), you can get heavy electrons, some cold fusion believers might say why not in palladium deuteride as well? Even cooperative effects are mentioned, so it's all there. The Granada paper reads like careful, solid work with restrained conclusions; they have very low neutron emission rates but good statistics to say that these rates can hardly be background noise. Some authors are warming up to not-so-cold fusion, using terms such as "luke warm" and "semicold" for cluster impact fusion, reported by Beuhler et al (I have it in section 4, as peripheral to cold fusion). Rabinowitz and Worledge see parallels to cold fusion, since the normally expected fusion rates are way below those reported in both cases, and Kim reckons that the troublesome 1:1 branching ratios quoted to explain away cold fusion may not hold at low-energy-induced fusion, where it may be an unwarrented assumption. Cluster impact fusion seems to back this up. Spinrad suggests an easy experiment to do (but be careful), and Steinert wants to zap PdD(x) with high-powered lasers (I was wondering when this would be suggested). Can someone out there (IS there anybody??) give us a summary of what I have seen referred to as "wholesale retractions"? So far, all I know that Kevin Wolf et al have retracted their tritium results and implies that this also wipes the Storms/Talcott results. What else has been retracted? If no more, then why should these be the "nail in the coffin"? What about the strong and unambiguous famous excess heat results of Huggins (strangely, not yet published: WHY NOT?). If excess heat is found, believers can do without tritium, too - it may still be that elusive hitherto unknown nuclear reaction. Or can it be that the tritium retraction has demoralised the excess people? I thought science doesn't work that way, if you have a result, you have a result... Dieter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 14-Jun. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anghaie S, Froelich P, Monkhurst HJ; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 500. "On fusion/fission chain reactions in the Fleischmann-Pons 'cold fusion' reaction". ** Tries to deal with the problem of explaining the anomalous FPH results (i.e. the heat/neutron discrepancy) by looking at possible surface nuclear processes between dueterium, the two Li isotopes, OD- etc. If, for example, a rare cold fusion of two deuterons initiates a chain of following nuclear reactions, and this is suitably multiplied, this might explain the results. Various candidate chains are considered and some calculations made. For some, heat without nuclear particles might be observed but (4)He is always produced, so it should be checked for in all experiments. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Baranowski B, Filipek SM, Szustakowski M, Farny J, Woryna W; J. Less-Common Met. 158 (1990) 347. "Search for 'cold fusion' in some Me-D systems at high pressures of gaseous deuterium". ** The authors, experienced in high-pressure generation of metal hydrides, decided that this is a better route to PdD(x), as the loading is easier to control, more stable, and higher loadings can be achieved, than with electrolysis. Neutrons were monitored with liquid scintillation-, silver activation- and a CR-90 nuclear track detectors. Temperature of the metal samples was monitored. A large piece of Pd (5.63 cm**3, 5 times the large piece considered dangerous by FPH) was put under D2, at 0.8 GPa pressure and kept that way for 5 months. Loading factor is about unity, i.e. the octahedral sites in the Pd are filled. No heat nor neutrons were detected, beyond background. Raising the pressure to 2.56 GPa begins to fill some of the tettrahedral sites; this still showed nothing. A higher loading of 2 is achievable with Ni (NiD2) at 0.75 GPa, where it was held for 2 months without any emissions. Just in case there is anything special about electrolytic charging, the authors did this, too, under 0.6 GPa D2 pressure; still no emissions. Thus, 'cold fusion' is an error. Mar-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goedkoop JA; Energiespectrum 13(6) (1989) 156 (in Dutch). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:205681 (1990). "Cold nuclear fusion in condensed matter?" ** "A review with 12 refs. on the theory of cold fusion and recent developments." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Granada JR, Mayer RE, Guido G, Florido PC, Larreteguy A, Gillette VH, Patino NE, Converti J, Gomez SE; J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 27 (1990) 222. "Thermal neutron measurements on electrolytic cells with deuterated palladium cathodes subjected to a pulsed current". ** The team started with an experiment of charging palladium with deuterium with a constant current over a period of over 2 weeks, without any results. Here, they report a new experiment, in which the charging current is turned on and off at some 10 s intervals, over a long period. Neutrons were carefully monitored using 18 correlated (3)He detectors; overall efficiency was found to be about 17%. Several palladium electrode shapes were used, and a control with light water, H2O. Results show modest neutron fluxes above the background, but statistical analysis shows that it is about 95% certain that the results are not simply noise. The authors do not commit themselves to a neutron rate emission because of experimental uncertainties but they do seem 95% certain that neutrons were emitted. Mar-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jorgensen CK; Chimia 43 (1989) 142. "Scenarios for nuclear fusion in palladium-deuterium alloys at ambient temperatures". ** A hand-waving look, in the light of quantum mechanics, at possible cold fusion scenarios (i.e. explanations): 1. if deuterons are to collide at all, it is most likely to occur at the octahedral sites in the PdD; 2. lithium might be incorporated into the Pd, and the reaction Li+d->2(4)He might explain the neutron/heat imbalance; 3. there may be weakly interacting heavy particles (WIMPs) involved; there are not likely to be any in the palladium, because of its recent chemical treatment, but the heavy water or the LiOD might introduce them, and WIMPs might catalyse cold fusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kim YE; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 507. "Cross section for cold deuterium-deuterium fusion". ** The experiments of Beuhler et al (1989, see Section 4) with fusion induced by (D2O)(x)+ cluster impact, suggest that at low energies, the branching ratio for d-d fusion - known only from high-energy fusion - may not apply, and that the tritium branch may be favoured. The same might be indicated by the FPH results. Kim suggests further investigation of this. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nakazawa M, Shibata T, Iguchi T, Akimoto T, Niimura N, Oyama Y, Aizawa O; Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkaishi 32 (1990) 114. (In Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:206091 (1990). "Cold fusion and low level neutron measurements". ** "A review, with 10 refs., of methodology of low level neutron detection for cold nuclear fusion". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabinowitz M, Worledge DH; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 344. "An analysis of cold and lukewarm fusion". ** FPH- or Jones+-type cold fusion is having a hard time becoming accepted; the single publication on cluster-impact ("lukewarm") fusion of Beuhler et al has not raised any obvious objections, although the two phenomena have much in common: surprisingly high fusion rates, given the applied energies. The Beuhler et al neutron emissions are about 25 orders of magnitude (OOM) larger than expected from theory. The authors attempt to find factors that could enhance the fusion rates for both lukewarm and cold fusion. For the former, compression and electron screening can account for 10 OOM; for the latter, a change in effective mass of deuterons in the palladium lattice can account for FPH-level rates. Further, no great temperature effect is expected for cold fusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spinrad BI; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 343. "On cold fusion". ** A conjecture: since palladium hydride is still a conductor, a high electron density inside it can be achieved by "pushing" electrons into it. This may be what is happening in the FPH experiments. The electrons might then enhance fusion rates by shielding deuterons from each other. This suggests the experiment of charging palladium with deuterium and then putting it into contact with a charged plate - standing well back. Mar-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steinert C; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 206. "Laser-induced 'semicold' fusion". ** Suggests the combination of palladium deuteride and laser-induced fusion; i.e. shoot a high-power laser at PdD(x) and stand back. Some possible configurations are suggested. Jan-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takata N, Kaneko H, Nozaki K, Sakuta K, Tanimoto M; Denshi Gijutsu Kenkyusho Iho 53 (1989) 1438 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:205728 (1990). "A preliminary attempt to measure neutrons from cold fusion". ** Electrolysis experiment. A neutron detector near the cell was matched by another 6 m away, both of the (3)He type. Loadings of Pd with D of 0.79, 0.83 and even 1.2 were achieved with various electrolytes but in none of these were any neutron emissions observed. The upper limit for neutrons was 10E-25/pair/s or 2 orders of magnitude smaller than Jones+. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wiesmann H; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 350. "Examination of cathodically charged palladium electrodes for excess heat, neutron emission, or tritium production". ** An attempt at a FPH reenactment, monitoring for temperature, neutrons and tritium in the electrolyte and using palladium plates. No evidence for cold fusion was found. Mar-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Law S; New Scientist 126 (1990) no. 1717, 19. May, p.57. "Electrons switch on to heavy metal". ** In some alloys - notably UPt(3) and CeCu(2)Si(2), among others, there seem to be electrons with an enhanced effective mass and these alloys are called heavy-electron superconductors. "It appears that the positive metal lattice slows down the motion of the electrons to such an extent that they can scatter strongly from one another. This novel scattering produces a 'dynamic' contribution to the electrical potential the the electron feels. It is the principle of the origin of the enormous mass of the quasiparticles". No references are given but the workers in this area are named. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.17 / andrew@dtg.nsc / Re: resignation of UU president posting Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: resignation of UU president posting Date: 17 Jun 90 04:36:39 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara In article <13144@ulysses.att.com>, smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes: > In article <7490@jarthur.Claremont.EDU>, dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Nash, David) writes: > > Has anyone confirmed this story? > > The story was on the AP wire at least a day or two before the posting > reached here. It would seem to be accurate. this is also reported by robert l. parks in his "what's new?" bulletin on sci.physics, as of a few day's ago. don't remember if he quoted a source. -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman that asteroid has our names on it andrew@dtg.nsc.com " 'course, the 'addock's very nice " cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenandrew cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.17 / / NEW THEORY Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: NEW THEORY Date: Sun, 17 Jun 90 17:01:19 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In response to Barry Merriman: 1. Your comment, "sounds like a nice idea, even if it doesn't work out completely," was our initial reaction to the idea. It still is. 2. We have tried to keep the focus on those ideas that will lead to understanding fusion (CAF). But here is a short response to your question about gravity. The origin of gravity is the curvature of space- time. The curvature , K, of ordinary matter is given by 1/(rn^2), where rn is the radius of the radial delta function (for an electron, the radius of the the orbitsphere). It is this local, positive curvature of the electron that causes gravity. All ordinary matter, comprised of leptons and quarks, has positive curvature. In response to Paul Schinder and Dale Bass: 1. We did answer Barry Merriman's questions. He didn't say we were correct, but he did say we had some interesting and clever ideas. At this point, we couldn't ask for more. 2. Yes, an electron in the ground state does not radiate. This is consistent with Maxwell's equations (using orbitspheres). This is not consistent with the one-electron functions (Schrodinger) unless you propose that electrons operate by different rules than ordinary charged particles. We will not attempt to do the Fourier transforms over the net (sorry, I have enough trouble when I can use superscripts, subscripts, summation signs, and so on, with a word processor). 3. Sorry. We thought it was OK to propose new ideas. We didn't realize that Schrodinger, Dirac, Fermi, Feymann, etc gave us all of the answers. In fact, we thought they might appreciate a continuation of their work. [Einstein thought Schrodinger was incorrect. We agree with Einstein.] 4. The electric field of a spherical shell of charge -e *outside* of the shell is as if there was a point charge of -e at the origin (nucleus). Also, the shell is infinitely thin; the electron, therefore, has no volume. [*Inside* of the shell, of course, the electric field is zero.] In a hydrogen atom, you superimpose the electric field of the electron and the electric field of the proton. The result is (1) for r < the radius of the orbitsphere, the electric field is that of the proton at the nucleus and (2) for r > the radius of the orbitsphere, the electric field is zero! [This is one of the concepts necessary for understanding coulombic annihilation fusion.] 5. We have the book by Bethe. True, Schrodinger's Mechanics gives the answer to the two-electron atoms to better than a few percent (using perturbation theory or the variational principle). If you try our equation for two-electron atoms you will see that it fits the data to about 0.1% (relativistic corrections not applied as yet). 6. Sorry that you are not enthusiastic about the American Journal of Physics. We did a literature search on H. A. Haus (full professor at MIT). We found 171 publications; a few of the journals are: IEEE J. Quantum Electron.; J Appl Phys; Phys Rev Letters; Phys Rev; J. Opt Soc Am; Phys Rev A (Gen Phys). We have no way of evaluating the American Journal of Physics. In any event, we think that it is the idea that counts--not the journal. 7. We are not proposing objects moving faster than light or that the speed of light varies with speed of the measuring object. We are not offering a reward for anyone who proves us right or wrong. We are perfectly aware that the theory must agree (by and large) with experimental measurements. We have stated that the theory is consistent with Maxwells' equations, general and special relativity. We *do* maintain that the Schrodinger solutions are incorrect, but we agree that the energies and angular momenta are quantized. We also maintain that new rules are not necessary for small particles. 7. If you believe we are crazy, fine. If you don't want to buy the book, fine. The book was the quickest way to lay claim to the ideas. It is not for the layman and we are not likely to get our return (on the cost of the book) from sales. We had written paper for Phys Rev Lett, but we were advised, by some people that we have great respect for, not to submit it. The problem is that presenting a wholesale revision of Schrodinger's mechanics is not an easy task. If you give a short introduction, you are faced with a multitude of questions: what about this? what about that? if it doesn't predict this, then it is wrong. This is understandable. A new theory does have to agree with a large body of experimental data and be able to explain the data in a more satisfactory way than the old theory. We believe that this new theory has the potential to do the job, but not in a short paper. We were advised to write and publish a book first. Papers will come later. 8. We have a number of ideas on new phenomena that flow from the theory. We proposed a rather major one in the book. We are experimentalists at heart. We are doing the experiments. We have had number of requests to repeat the abstract for the book and ordering instructions. Title: The Grand Unified Theory Length: 150 pages Authors: Randell L. MIlls President, Mills Technologies Box 142 Cochranville, PA 19330 John J. Farrell Professor of Chemistry Franklin & Marshall College Lancaster, PA 17604 Abstract: The fundamental laws of nature are derived and are shown to be applicable on all scales. Electricity and magnetism (Maxwell's equations), gravity (curvature of space-time by matter); Einstein's General Relativity), transformations among space-time inertial frames (Einstein's Special Relativity), Newtonian mechanics, and the strong and weak forces are unified. Creation of matter from energy equations are derived and these equations govern the existence of the fundamental particles. From these equations, exact values for the fundamental constants are determined. Major physical observables (for example: energy levels of one- two-, and three-electron atoms; excited states of helium; the nature of the chemical bond; the spin angular momentum of the electron; the magnetic moment of the proton and the neutron; the energy of beta decay of the neutron) are calculated from derived, closed-form equations that contain fundamental constants only. The agreement between the calculated values and known experimental values is at least 1 part per thousand. The book can be obtained by sending a check for $25.00 to Mills Technologies, Box 142, Cochranville, PA 19330. Theoretically yours, John Farrell and Randy Mills cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / N Schraudolph / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 18 Jun 90 05:40:40 GMT J_FARREL%FANDM.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU writes: [among other things] >Title: The Grand Unified Theory >Authors: Randell L. MIlls > John J. Farrell Sorry, this seems to be part of an ongoing argument, and I missed the story so far. This book certainly has a promising title, but the circumstances of publication do look a little odd. Therefore, if anybody out there has ordered the book, please enlighten me whether this is a serious theory (crazy or not) or just hot air. -- -- Nici Schraudolph, C-014 nschraudolph@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nschraudolph@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093 ...!ucsd!nschraudolph cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / rolfe petschek / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: 18 Jun 90 13:23:31 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <9006141439.AA04643@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >I don't know whether anyone is still out there reading this but here goes. >The Law paper in New Scientist may be way off the topic but seemed >interesting to me. If in some alloys (admittedly at very low temperatures), >you can get heavy electrons, some cold fusion believers might say why not in >palladium deuteride as well? Even cooperative effects are mentioned, so it's >all there. Well, I think that you should know that the term "heavy electron" has to do only with the behavior of the electron on distance scales large compared to atomic spacings, it has nothing (or more properly very little) to do with the behavior of the electron on distance scales comparable to the separation between nuclei. Thus "heavy electrons" in the classical solid state sense are completely irrelevant to the possibility of cold fusion. When I get upset I usually say that this (I am a solid state theorist) follows from usual chemical reasoning. Essentially the usual idea is that electrons are, in the usual way well understood both by physicists and chemists, bound closely to their respective nuclei, with the usual mass that electrons have. They then tunnel, relatively infrequently from one nucleus to the other. This slow tunneling results in relatively sluggish "high mass" motion on large length scales. It effects the motion of 'close' (atomic size or less) particles only in so far as distant changes in electric change can have such effects. These effects are therefore very small. If you would like more details, feel free to send me e-mail. I did not succeed to reach you from the address on the net. Rolfe -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 [fax 4671] Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 [fax 4671] Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.15 / Richard Piner / "What's New" 06/15/90 Originally-From: ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) Originally-From: piner@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Richard Piner) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Nails In the Coffin Subject: "What's New" 06/15/90 Date: 18 Jun 90 11:36:25 GMT Date: 15 Jun 90 22:37:27 GMT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept, W.Lafayette, IN I send a copy of a couple of items form What's New June 15, 1990. This rep- resents the view of establishment physics. ========================================================================= Path: cunyvm!psuvm!psuvax1!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu! usc!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!iuvax!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!newton.physics.purdue.edu! piner Originally-From: piner@newton.physics.purdue.edu (Richard Piner) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: "What's New" 06/15/90 Message-ID: <3807@newton.physics.purdue.edu> Date: 15 Jun 90 22:37:27 GMT Organization: Purdue Univ. Physics Dept, W.Lafayette, IN Lines: 63 3. UTAH FACULTY ARE RECLAIMING THE UNIVERSITY FROM THE HUCKSTERS. On Monday, President Chase Peterson, responding to a vote of no confidence by the faculty senate, announced his early retirement. The following day, the Vice-President for Academic Affairs issued a statement affirming the University's "absolute adherence to the principles of academic freedom and free scientific inquiry," and outlining the steps being taken to resolve the issues raised by the attempts of a lawyer to intimidate faculty into recanting findings that contradicted cold fusion claims (WN 25 May 90). The University has severed all connection with the lawyer, a boyhood friend of Pons, and affirmed its obligation to defend its faculty from legal attack. The University has also agreed to a financial audit of the cold fusion effort and to a full scientific review. 4. AND AT TEXAS A&M, THE WORD "FRAUD" IS FINALLY OUT IN THE OPEN. In an article in today's Science magazine, stories that have been circulating for months were made public. The article stops just short of pointing a finger, but a strong circumstantial case is made that cold fusion cells in the Chemistry Department at A&M were deliberately spiked with tritium. The A&M administration, which has steadfastly refused to investigate, has now responded by criticizing Science for airing the controversy. With the tritium reports impeached, there is not much left of cold fusion claims but a couple of labs that can't seem to get calorimetry straight. But stay tuned, the tragicomic story of the double- blind, round-robin helium assay of Pons's cathodes is yet to come out. (Erratum: Last week, What's New identified Kevin Wolf as a physicist; Wolf is a fellow of the APS, but he is in Chemistry.) Robert L. Park (202) 232-0189 The American Physical Society cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenpiner cudfnRichard cudlnPiner cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / B Simon / The Sociology of CF Originally-From: eass06@castle.ed.ac.uk (B Simon) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: The Sociology of CF Date: 18 Jun 90 15:09:56 GMT Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service Greetings, I am a new initiate to this net and I am currently involved in research on the sociology of science and more specifically the cold fusion case. During the last few weeks I have had an opportunity to check in on the discussions in this newsgroup and while I still have a lot of catching up to do on the past history I am excited by the future prospects of this topic. Currently, I am trying to make a detailed study of the CF debate as it has been portrayed in the journal Nature. I wonder if anybody out there would like to help me by offering their opinions as to how they felt Nature handled the story, especially considering the strong conviction of the March 29th editorial arguing that cold fusion was now passe (and of course since we're still talking about it, it obviously is not). Also, if anybody has archived the newsgroup discussions I would dearly love to have a look at them, especially if they contain some insights on the articles that appeared in Nature during the year. In addition, I welcome any discussions with anybody on general topics in the sociology of CF and with specific reference to questions of replication and closure. Finally, I would add my two cents on the recent events in the continuing saga of CF. Many might argue that the resignation of Peterson and the inquiry going on at the U of U spell major trouble for the future of CF. Others have argued in return, that the political troubles at Utah have no effect on the science of CF and that there are still quite a few experiments still going on which treat CF as an issue for serious consideration . Both views seem to make some sense. Certainly, the science of CF has not been eliminated since there are still quite a few groups in the world working on the subject, yet the politica and social situation does seem to have some effect, not only on the science that has been done but also on the science that has yet to appear. An example that springs to mind is the recent report that the Texas A&M group's tritium results were suspected of being fraudulent. Such accusations can be devastating in science and I would argue that they arise not through any major fault in the science but rather because any pro-CF results are quickly becoming synonomous with extreme radicalism and heresy. As the press, the public and even scientists become more and more convinced that CF is not a possibility so it appears that any new postive results are treated with the upmost scepticism even so far as to accuse the scientists of fraud. It would seem that the Pons and Fleishman affair have made the job of other CF scientists rather more difficult. But how is the science affected by such accusations? Nothing may change about the specific claims of the Texas group but certainly the way in which those claims are accepted and evaluated will, as well as any claims from other groups that are like those of the Texas group. In this way, the science, at least as it appears to the community at large will be effected by the political and social status of CF. Again, I would appreciate the help of anybody on the net who could help unravel the sociological riddles of cold fusion. Cheers, Bart Simon Science Studies Unit 34 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh, Scotland EH8-9JT cudkeys: cuddy18 cudeneass06 cudfnB cudlnSimon cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / Kevin Horn / Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: kevin@argosy.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 18 Jun 90 19:31:21 GMT Organization: MasPar Computer Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA From "What's New" June 15, 1990: > >4. AND AT TEXAS A&M, THE WORD "FRAUD" IS FINALLY OUT IN THE OPEN. >In an article in today's Science magazine, stories that have been >circulating for months were made public. The article stops just >short of pointing a finger, but a strong circumstantial case is >made that cold fusion cells in the Chemistry Department at A&M >were deliberately spiked with tritium. I have strong doubts about the reality of cold fusion, but I am finding the behavior of its detractors disgraceful. I have seen this and other accusations of fraud at A&M reported, but none of the reports cites the slightest shred of evidence for it! The best they can seem to come up with is that "some people" (which people?) have been muttering for some time that the A&M results must be fraudulent, and complaints that round-the-clock security (hardly the norm) was not provided to prevent anyone from tampering with the experiments. Their attitute seems to be, "Cold fusion is nonsense, hence anyone who reports positive results is either incompetent or a fraud." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin S. Van Horn | The means determine the ends. kevin@argosy.maspar.com | cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenkevin cudfnKevin cudlnHorn cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / Robert Eachus / Re: The Sociology of CF Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: The Sociology of CF Date: 18 Jun 90 22:14:16 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA I was originally going to respond to this by e-mail, since it is not really a fusion issue as such, but I realized that a lot of what needs to be said directly concerns issues which do belong in sci.physics.fusion. What we have seen in the CNF controversy is typical of all new discoveries in science, from hielocentric theories to quantum mechanics (or if you prefer, from Martian canals to N-rays). When new discoveries threaten existing theories, existing experts in the field use every menas at their disposal to attack the new ideas. When the attack involves experiment and theory, it is usually considered to be part of the scientific method, even though the motives are highly non-scientific. The result is that in many cases, good science gets buried with bad. A typical example is the polywater controversy. An experimental scientist discovered a repeatable experiment which seemed to indicate that there was a form of water with strange properties. Some scientists could repeat the experiment, others couldn't. Eventually, it was discovered that the experiment depended on the type of glass used, and could be explained as a chemical reaction between water and glass. Was the original experiment flawed? No. Were the scientists who repeated the experiment successfully naive? Again No. Were the scientist who couldn't repeat the results wrong? No. Did the discovery of the actual process involved invalidate the original discovery? Of course not..it explained how to repeat the experiment 100% of the time. So. No hoax, no attempted fraud, no bad science, just a discovery which turned out to be less exciting than it first appeared. However, this is not the way it was reported. What do we have in the case of CNF? We have apparently four different experimental scenarios, with theories which may explain two of them as interesting but not very (fractofusion, and picofusion) and two which are very hard both to reproduce and to explain (or explain away) -- PFH and ion bombardment. The PFH setup has generated the most controversy (and the most accusations of fraud), but to say that "this system has been difficult to study for years" is not an explanation. Even if the phenomena which occurs in PFH cells is finally explained to be something other than fusion, it seems that we have several new mechanisms for fusion which were unsuspected before a year ago. So cold fusion is real science, even if it never heats your coffee. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy18 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / Patrick Smith / Local News Briefs Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News Briefs Date: 18 Jun 90 17:05:08 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah PETERSON TO RETIRE AFTER '90-91 YEAR. Tuesday Morning SL Tribune; June 12. by Katherine Kapos. Saying his effectiveness as a leader was nearing its end, embattled U of U President Chase N Peterson announced Monday he would retire in 1991. "It is my intention to dedicate this remaining year to accomplishing my remaining goals and to position this university for new leadership following the 1990-91 academic year," said Dr. Peterson, who read solemnly from a statement. "At that time I will retire as president and move on to other opportunities." ..."I believe the period of time I can effectively provide leadership is nearing an end." ...For more than a year, the 60-year old leader has battled one controversy after another. First he was criticized over the premature announcement that University researchers Pons and Fleischmann had discovered cold fusion. Another furor erupted when he announced the medical school and medical center would be renamed after businessman James Sorenson in return for a $15 million gift. Public outcry was so strong that Peterson was forced to return the gift... And last week, the U. Academic Senate, discontent with an anonymous transfer of $500,000 to the NCFI that actually came from within the University, gave its leader a vote of no confidence, asking the Institutional Council and Board of Regents to review Dr. Peterson's leadership abilities. Critics believe the faculty action was the catalyst for the resignation. Dr. Peterson rejects that assumption. "Some have asked if, because one of the important constituency groups I serve has questioned my leadership, do I intend to quit? The answer is a firm no," he said. "I still have goals to consolidate and advance before I step from this responsibility." ..."I intend to do what I can to reduce the present level of unproductive controversy on campus so we all can focus on the enormous strengths and contributions of faculty, staff, and students," said the president. "Productive controversy, on the other hand, is the stuff of great universities and should not be avoided." ...Despite prior discontent, faculty members pledged their support to the president... JOURNAL SUGGESTS FRAUD IN A&M FUSION STUDIES. Friday Morning SL Trib; June 15. by Tim Fitzpatrick. Fridays issue of the widely read and respected journal Science features an investigative artical on the possibility of research fraud in the cold fusion experiments of Texas A&M University chemist John Bockris. Dr. Bockris, a long time acquaintance of U of U fusion researcher Martin Fleischmann, was one of two outside scientists brought in by the U. a year ago to persuade the state F/EAC to release $5 million in state funding. One of the first to claim confirmation of cold fusion after the U.'s March 1989 announcement, Dr. Bockris has been one of cold fusion's most vocal champions and was at one point under consideration for the job of director of the U.s NCFI. The artical, written by Gary Taubes, a science writer who is workingon a book on cold fusion, does not directly allege that fraud occurred in the experiments, but it does describe the circumstantial evidence, and it chides Texas A&M officials for their "laissez-faire response" to that evidence. At evidence are Dr. Bockris' measurements of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that has been considered an undeniable indicator that a nuclear-fusion reaction had taken place. Other institutions, including the U of U, have reported seeing tiny amounts of tritium, but Dr. Bockris' claims have far exceeded the quantities measured at any other lab. "Suspicions were raised, almost from the first that the tritium in the A&M cells was put there by human hands," the artical states. "As time went on, even members of Bockris' group would express their doubts about the `miracles' that seemingly favoured the team." Dr. Bockris declined to be interviewed about the artical, which was the lead story in the journal's news section, but Texas A&M College od Science Dean John Fackler denied that the school's administration had been lax. "We have been very much concerned with what is scientifically correct." He said they had found no "serious evidence" of fraud, but acknowledged that Dr. Bockris' results had little meaning when no one else had been able to duplicate them. "Until they are reproduced, one has to assume the results are simply spurious." The story was another black mark for the beleaguered research field, but NCFI Director Fritz Will said it will not deter the Institute from its work. He also said he spoke with Dr. Bockris, who told him that while he can't vouch 100% for all his co-workers, he remains confident. As for tritium experiments at the Institute, Dr. Will said the amounts seen, about 1 1/2 to 3 times background, were so low "we have not made any big point of them." Among the circumstantial evidence cited by Science was the observation that the most dramatic results were reported shortly before visits from scientists of the EPRI, which provided funding for Dr. Bockris. The article noted that Dr. Bockris' lab, as well as other labs on campus where cold fusion work has been carried out, had several sources of "tritiated water" that could have been used to "spike" the cells... Fusion cells that had shown high amounts of tritium were later found to have as much as 90% [light] water, rather than the heavy water the experiment is supposed to use. That [light] water could be another indication that the "tritiated water" was introduced into the cells. "There's a concern about that," said John Fackler, who added that it is possible the normal water is just condensation from the moist Texas atmosphere. Dr. Fackler quoted from a letter he received from Dr. Bockris: "Could the cells have been spiked? Obviously, yes... However, there is no basis for making the suggestion." Dr. Bockris appeared before the [Utah] state panel in a closed session last June in which he described his tritium measurements in detail. He also later requested that some of the [Utah] state funding be used at Texas A&M, but NCFI officials decided that all the money would be spent in-state... The article also quoted lab assistants of Dr. Bockris who later left to work elsewhere. One was quoted as telling another team member: "Too many goddamn miracles in this laboratory." INSTITUTE BEGINS `DOUBLE-BLIND' FUSION TEST. Saturday Morning SL Trib; June 16. by Tim Fitzpatrick. NCFI director F. Will said friday the Institute has begun "double-blind" tests to search for tell-tale signs of tritium in palladium from the institute and from the laboratory of Texas A&M chemist John Bockris, whose tritium results have come under a cloud. Dr. Will acknowledged that a story in the respected Journal Science, which suggested fraud was involved in Dr. Bockris' research, "certainly will not help" the cold fusion cause, but he hoped the "crask program" of tritium analysis will answer some questions. He also asked the news media to "cool it a little bit... Let's give these scientists the chance to pursue the work they want to do." Even Texas A&M official J. Fackler, who was not ready to say that Bockris' work was fraudulent, admitted the results may be spurious because they had not been reproduced, but Dr. Will disputed that contention. He said 24 labs worldwide had seen tritium in cold fusion experiments, which he took as duplication. But, he acknowledged that only the Babha Research Institute in India has reported *amounts* of tritium comparable with the Bockris results. The others, including the U of U, [report] amounts [at least] 1,000 times smaller. Even in the case of the results from India, complete scientific papers have not been forthcoming. "Nobody is really in a position to scrutinize these results," Dr. Will said. The Institute has concentrated its efforts on the mysterious excess heat... Dr. Will said the institute is pursuing tritium and neutron measurements to establish "a nuclear footprint"... Other laboratories have claimed producing excess heat, but again, no one has reported the *amounts* of heat that Pons and Fleischmann have. Dr. Will said that in the case of heat, however, ...other researchers have come within [an order of magnitude]... I'm looking for a copy of the Kevin Wolf retraction article, which *someone* threw away. Will send it soon. ************************************************************************ Barry Merriman wrote: "This sounds like a reference to the infamous desktop water heater Pons was promoting about 6 months ago..." Actually, about the time of the Cold Fusion Conference at the NCFI last March, P&F again promised to produce a demonstration device, and said on local TV and radio that it should be ready in about two months (late May, early June?). So far, nothing. Pons was quoted in the Daily Utah Chronicle as saying: "And yes, the direction we are taking will lead to the building of a demonstration device and to sustained levels of excess heat... At this point we will be making a decision, probably within the next three or four days, as to which direction to take in developing a demonstration device that will give out unequivocal large amounts of heat for extended periods of time." (March 26) I heard Dr. Will on the radio a few days ago saying that he hoped that, all of the recent furor aside, there are a few "enlightened" underwriters of research who will, nevertheless, be willing to fund an extended search for "the truth." What puzzles me is this: If the NCFI really has 90% reproducibility, then they can certainly demonstrate the phenomenon. And if they can demonstrate the phenomenon, then they can most likely find investors. Jon Webb suggested that jealousy might be a motive behind Rossi's "behaviour." In the Sept. 26 SL Trib, Rossi is quoted as saying: "...the institutes more than 20 electrochemical cells... have produced no excess heat and no fusion products such as neutrons or tritium. "Its gotten to be time for us to start wondering if we're doing anything wrong... We have a conference coming up here next February. If we don't have any papers to present, then this place will be closing up shop..." Later that week Brophy required institute scientists to agree not to discuss their work with the press without first going through his office. The news reports from the institute immediately improved, prompting some U of U faculty to complain that Brophy was not painting an accurate picture. Rossi resigned in mid November, about a month after positive results were first reported from the NCFI. I think that it is somewhat reckless of Brophy to claim 90% reproducibility. Nevertheless, Fleischmann recently claimed that they had nearly put the reproducibility problem to rest. So it should be easy to construct a demonstration device, shouldn't it? REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: I would like to obtain copies of Morrisons Cold Fusion News articles #1-13, #15, and #16. I have #14, and #17-23, as well as Morrisons `Rise and Fall...', all done in latex format, if anyone is interested. I also have Dieter Britz' Cold Fusion Bibliography done in latex format which I'll send unless Dieter objects (but it's long). Send requests via email along with instructions on how to use that miserable utility. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.19 / rbg1173@uxa.cs / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: rbg1173@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 19 Jun 90 05:51:00 GMT That abstract sounds pretty familiar. About, well it must have been over six months ago, a paper (< 10 pages) was sent to our lab with that exact same abstract. And it was from Pennsylvania!! That's right. Although I thought it said Johnstown. Well anyway, I read it, or at least part of it. You were complaining about the fact that matter is mostly empty space, etc. You ended up writing a book too, huh? Wow. Where did you get all the money, and how do you have time for this? ******************************************************************************* * * * * Roger Brockenbrough * rog@draco.ece.cmu.edu * * * * ******************************************************************************* cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenrbg1173 cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.19 / Patrick Smith / Local News Briefs Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News Briefs Date: 19 Jun 90 01:12:00 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah The only local newspaper report of the Kevin Wolf retraction was the following AP article carried by the Deseret News. There's really nothing more here than mentioned by Paul Dietz, but nevertheless: TEXAS WOES HAVE NO BEARING ON U., FUSION INSTITUTE CHIEF SAYS. Deseret News, Saturday, June 9, 1990. Associated Press. Reports that the Palladium used in cold fusion experiments in Texas might have been contaminated have no bearing on the work under way at Utah's NCFI, an official said Friday. Kevin Wolf, a physicist at Texas A&M U's Cyclotron Laboratory, has said the palladium rods used in his nuclear fusion experiments might have been contaminated with tritium... If so, experiments that produced what many researchers believe is a signature of a nuclear process could be cast in serious doubt. However, NCFI researchers have only recently begun focussing on the production of tritium in addition to analyzing the source of excess heat produced by the experiments, said... Fritz Will. And in any case, he said, the palladium rods used at the institute are purchased from a different supplier than Wolf's. "My impression is that people would be well advised to analyze thoroughly the palladium they've used in their experiments," Will said. But Ronald Parker, director of the Plasma Fusion Center at MIT, said skeptical scientists have long speculated that contamination might be responsible for the evidence of tritium in such experiments. "The thing that does astonish me is that something this (basic) wasn't detected earlier," he said. "Tritium is the thing that would still pique the interest of many scientists. Now that there seems to be a logical explanation, maybe it's the last nail." ...Will said that most, if not all, of the palladium rods used at the institute were purchased from Johnson-Mathey... Wolf has said his palladium rods were purchased from Hoover & Strong... An official there has said that the company refines and processes palladium primarily for the jewelry trade, and thus isn't as concerned about purity as scientists might be... Will also emphasized that Wolf's research efforts are among three at Texas A&M -the others are... under the direction of John Bockris of the chemistry dept. -and that only Bockris and Wolf had reported seeing evidence of tritium. "Among these two groups, Bockris continues to hold onto his reported findings of very high tritium levels in his cold fusion type experiments," Will said. Bockris has said about 2/3 of his work used palladium from Hoover & Strong, although not from the batch that Wolf analyzed. Of related interest are the following quotes from Science Mag., October 13, 1989: But Wolf's group and a second team at Texas A&M led by John Bockris have found that they can reliably get tritium from almost every cell they set up. Their first concern was that they were inadvertently using palladium that had been contaminated with tritium and that somehow the electrolysis was releasing the tritium, making it appear as if the tritium were produced by a fusion process. Both groups have tried to remove every possible source of contamination, including possible sabotage by an overzealous team member or some outside trickster. Now the essential test is to do the experiment with a proper blank control -- cells with regular water in place of heavy water so that no deuterium-deuterium fusion is possible. Wolf is running an experiment with six fusion cells and six control cells with regular water. As Science went to press, one of the six cells with heavy water had produced a large amount of tritium, but Wolf had not finished taking data on the control cells. "It doesn't prove anything until we run all the light-water blanks," he said. If several of the fusion cells do indeed show tritium and none of the blank cells do, that would be strong evidence for a nuclear process taking place in the cells. ************************************************************************* REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: Dave Bailey wrote: "I have just spoken with... Frank E. Close, who... is trying to tie down a few historical details about which there is some confusion. "One of these concerns the original `meltdown' of the palladium block that presumably was the start of the Pons-Fleishmann-Hawking experiments. In Time magazine on May 8, 1989, it was reported that this event took place in 1985. However, in early postings on alt.fusion and, as I recall, in at least one early magazine article, it was reported that for most of the time during 1985 - 1988, there were no positive results at all, and that the "meltdown" did not occur until October 1988. Also, it was reported that the other data reported in the first FPH paper was not taken until December 1988 or January 1989. "Does anyone have the early alt.fusion postings archived who could check for items relevant to this question? Also, does anyone recall or have copies of any of press reports that could shed light on this topic? Or better yet, does anyone have any personal knowledge of the early PFH work that could clarify this issue?" Hawkins has stated that the famous (or infamous) "cube" experiment began during the summer of 1988, and that nothing was observed for a period of many weeks. Sometime in October of 1988, the temperature in the cell was observed rising steadily over a period of a few days. Over night, part of the palladium cube vaporized. It destroyed the cell, the hood, a table, and burned the concrete floor. Hawkins has stated point blank that this was the very first "positive" result achieved by the team. Period. But there is more. He implied that Pons might be changing dates in lab journals to suggest a much older origin of the CNF experiments. This was one of the sources of trouble between Hawkins and Pons. Hawkins felt that he had a key to the success of their cells, and he has kept that key to himself. He said that Pons was always questioning him on his procedures. By changing the dates, Hawkins importance in the "discovery" would be erased, since he had only been with the project since the previous summer. But why would Pons do such a thing? One answer suggests itself immediately. After the October, 1988 meltdown, Pons and Fleischmann sent a research grant proposal to the DOE, who forwarded the proposal to Jones at BYU. Jones had an established reputation in the field and, by coincidence, was also claiming, with his colleagues, the discovery of a new form of fusion in metals. He called up Pons and suggested a collaboration. Pons felt that this was a case of research piracy and has never made a secret of those feelings. A meeting was arranged between the two groups in which, eventually, they agreed to send their papers to Nature simultaneously, and in the same envelope, on March 24, 1989. On March 23, 1989 the U of U held their press conference. They clearly wanted to establish priority over the BYU team. But another problem remained. Jones had been working on similar cold fusion phenomena for some 5 years. And in this country, the first to invent (not the first to file) has priority in patent collisions. From what has been said and written, I've come to believe that the P&F experiments on cold fusion began with observations of anomalous heat while conducting similar electrolysis experiments during April-May, 1988. After some discussion of the possibility that they had observed a cold fusion reaction, they decided to give it a try, and began during the summer of 1988. The meltdown was observed during October of 1988. And the CNF war began. Fleischmann was quoted in the November 4, 1989 SL Trib as saying: "Yes, we were extremely fortunate in having materials which gave a relatively high level of excess heat production... If we had done the experiment and been unsuccessful for two or three times, we would have abandoned it, no question." I'm looking for any information to either disprove this, or substantiate it. -Patrick Smith cudkeys: cuddy19 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.19 / Vincent Cate / Hawkins (was Re: Local News Briefs) Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Hawkins (was Re: Local News Briefs) Date: 19 Jun 90 17:32:57 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Patrick J. Smith: >Hawkins has stated that the famous (or infamous) "cube" experiment began >during the summer of 1988, and that nothing was observed for a period of >many weeks. Sometime in October of 1988, the temperature in the cell was >observed rising steadily over a period of a few days. Over night, part >of the palladium cube vaporized. It destroyed the cell, the hood, a table, >and burned the concrete floor. Hawkins has stated point blank that this >was the very first "positive" result achieved by the team. Period. > >But there is more. He implied that Pons might be changing dates in lab >journals to suggest a much older origin of the CNF experiments. This was >one of the sources of trouble between Hawkins and Pons. Hawkins felt that >he had a key to the success of their cells, and he has kept that key to >himself. He said that Pons was always questioning him on his procedures. >By changing the dates, Hawkins importance in the "discovery" would be >erased, since he had only been with the project since the previous summer. > > ... >I'm looking for any information to either disprove this, or substantiate it. >-Patrick Smith I talked with Hawkins on 5/25/89. I don't remember the date of the "meltdown" but Hawkins did say that it was shortly after this that Pons came to him and asked him to work on CNF and I think he had been working on it for less than a year. Hawkins claimed that all the experiment did was melt through a table top and did NOT melt a hole in the concrete (I guess it could have left marks from melted table stuff). He said that they just could not find all of the electrode in the morning. This was the only reason to say "vaporized" - they could not find all of it. It could be that part was lost when it was broken into pieces or that some melted and was lost in the melted table stuff. When I spoke with Hawkins it had been about 3 weeks since he stopped working on CNF. He claimed to be the one who had designed and run all of the experiments since shortly after the "meltdown". He also claimed to be the only one that knew how to get working cells and said that people from the lab were asking him lots of questions (including Pons). He said that the only "working" cell Pons and Fleischmann ever got was the "meltdown" - all of the others they made were duds. Hawkins was pissed that he was not getting credit for his work (especially since he felt he really did all the work). He complained that a U of U student newspaper did not even list his name below a picture including Pons and Fleischmann and himself. He called up the paper and they said that the university had only identified P and F in the picture. He did not indicate to me that Pons had changed any dates; however, he did imply that the whole CNF work at U of U was only about a year old and it does seem like Pons has claimed they were working on it much longer than that. -- Vince PS Has anyone tried to reproduce the "meltdown"? If a spark caused an expolosion of the hydrogen and oxygen in the cell to break the testtube, the hydrogen would be released from the paladium, since there would be no electrical pressure holding it in. As the hydrogen is released lots of heat is released, this causes the paladium to be able to hold less, ... My guess is that you would have enough heat to melt a table top without even getting another spark to start the hydrogen burning as it came out. Seems like it would be easy to try (do it outside and only with parental supervision). cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.19 / Donald Lindsay / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 19 Jun 90 19:08:50 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI In article <581@argosy.UUCP> kevin@locke.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) writes: >I have strong doubts about the reality of cold fusion, but I am finding >the behavior of its detractors disgraceful. Agreed. Entirely too many people - the author of "What's New" among them - have apparently found it easy to be snide. I am very unhappy that the organization he claims to represent hasn't slapped his wrist. It isn't just cold fusion, either. A recent Scientific American had snide comments about the author of the bombardment-by-tiny-comets hypothesis. I don't like it when people are subjected to near-slanders. Tomorrow, the target may be me, or you, or someone restrained from defending themselves. And what if cold fusion had panned out? What about the next unexpected breakthrough? Is it going to have to triumph, not only over probing questions, but over officially sanctioned rudeness? Silly me. I wonder why I expected better. -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon Computer Science cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenlindsay cudfnDonald cudlnLindsay cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.18 / William Johnson / Review of the Arata paper Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Review of the Arata paper Date: 18 Jun 90 14:49:16 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. John Nickerson passed me a copy of the Arata paper (the one claiming neutron count rates of 10^8/s or more from a FPH-style electrochemical cell) with the suggestion that I critique it for the net. Thanks, John, for the paper; I've been spending a lot of time on airplanes lately, giving me some time to read the thing, and here's what I think of it. The summary of what I think of it, I am sorry to say, is "Not much." Optimists or those who don't trust my evaluation are invited to read it themselves; the reference is Proc. Japan Acad., _66_, pp. 1-6 (1990). To review what it's about: this paper, by two people from the "Welding Research Institute, Osaka University," cites "indisputable proof" [sic] of cold fusion through observation of three experiments. One consisted of the usual electrochemical cell operated at the usual hundreds of milliamps per cm^2 of electrode surface within a water bath, which was monitored with BF3 and He-3 neutron detectors. Massive excursions in count rate in the BF3 detector were seen on several occasions and "illustrated" with pulse-height spectra of the signals seen during these excursions and also with Cf-252 and AmBe neutron sources. (It is precisely these spectra that produce my low opinion of this paper -- but we must not get ahead of the story.) A second experiment involved a rather slipshod study of "[t]he thermal behavior of the Pd cathode containing a large amount of deuterium..." I frankly didn't understand the point that was being made in this experiment, which apparently looked at the time behavior of temperature changes when current was applied to or removed from the cell. The third experiment involved a crude sort of calorimetry in conjunction with observations of neutrons that were claimed to be seen above background, then made to go away by moving the detector away. The paper concludes with a strange discussion section in which it is asserted that "small size cathodes have been a fatal problem for 'cold' nuclear fusion, but researchers is have not been [sic] conscious of the importance of electrode sizes as of yet." This all sounds impressive, but it's not. IMNSHO, the neutron pulse-height spectra shown in the paper immediately damn the results as faulty. To see why, an explanation of the workings of BF3 tubes is required. When a thermal neutron -- one whose velocity has been reduced to ca.2200 cm/sec by multiple scattering off things in its environment -- runs into a BF3 tube, it has a very high probability of being captured by the boron and inducing a nuclear reaction. ("Fast" neutrons have a *much* lower probability of undergoing reactions with the gas in the tube, an extremely important point as will be seen.) The reaction is B-10 + n = Li-7 + He-4 and the end products ricochet around the tube for some nanoseconds or more, causing ionization as they do so. Most of the time the Li and He deposit all of their energy in the gas, creating a number of ion pairs that is roughly constant from neutron to neutron. Occasionally, however, one of the two products runs into the wall of the tube rather than creating ions in the gas. As the size of the pulse coming out of a proportional counter is (more or less) proportional to the number of ion pairs made, one can predict from this that the pulse-height spectrum produced by lots of neutrons hitting BF3 tubes should consist of a large peak, corresponding to the many neutrons whose reaction products dump all their energy in the gas, plus a "tail" on the low-energy side of the peak from the ones whose end products bang into the wall. The shape of this spectrum in a function only of the details of the construction of the tube, not of the energy of the neutrons coming from the source; remember that only the thermal neutrons react with the tube anyway. This is precisely what the Arata paper shows for the pulse-height distributions associated with the Cf-252 and AmBe sources, as it should. However, it is *NOT* what is shown for the "neutrons" allegedly being produced by cold fusion! In that pulse-height distribution, we see a long smear extending out past the (I think) expected location of the peak, with only a small peak possibly superposed on it. To me this argues very compellingly that the "neutrons" associated with the cold-fusion cell are nothing more than some manner of electronic artifact. Several statements in the paper suggest strongly that Arata and Zhang are not aware of the significance of this observation, and all of their neutron observations, IMHO, must be considered suspect as a result. I think careful refereeing would have caught this, but there are some other things that suggest that this paper was not refereed very well. The graphics in the paper are very poor, and there are a lot of True Believer buzzwords. These and other things suggest to me that the paper could have benefited from some careful reviewing and editing. Between this and the impression that the authors didn't really know that much about neutron detection -- but then turned around and used it as the main point of their paper -- my inclination is to dismiss the whole paper as valueless. Sorry, True Believers -- if there are any left after the recent events in Utah and College Station ... -- 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: cuddy18 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.19 / John Moore / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 19 Jun 90 23:23:43 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9663@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: ]In article <581@argosy.UUCP> kevin@locke.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) writes: ]>I have strong doubts about the reality of cold fusion, but I am finding ]>the behavior of its detractors disgraceful. ] ]Agreed. Entirely too many people - the author of "What's New" among ]them - have apparently found it easy to be snide. I am very unhappy ]that the organization he claims to represent hasn't slapped his ]wrist. There was a discussion of What's New some months back in sci.physics. What's New is a very biased publication which frequently heaps scorn on those who go against its biases. There have been many attacks in it on the Reagan, and later Bush administration. SDI is a favorite target, as is any Bush appointee. I don't believe that What's New is an official publication of APS. If it is, they certainly don't have much credibility with me! -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 Voice: (602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / Dick Dunn / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 03:42:35 GMT Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: > kevin@locke.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) writes: > >I have strong doubts about the reality of cold fusion, but I am finding > >the behavior of its detractors disgraceful. > > Agreed. Entirely too many people - the author of "What's New" among > them - have apparently found it easy to be snide... Come on. There's reason to be snide. Why are people expecting the un- believers in CNF to be so far above showing human emotion? It's been over a year, with no reliable, replicated results. Some of the "detractors" have invested a lot of time and effort in what has so far been a wild goose chase. Nor is it as if the CNF believers have been particularly noble. Scientists are humans. The idea of CNF, at the outset, was wildly at odds with what was "known" then. There was plenty of reason for skepticism; I think the early reactions were remarkably restrained. But people's patience has worn thin, and with good cause. There's no reason to hide that. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenrcd cudfnDick cudlnDunn cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Wed, 20 Jun 90 14:54:58 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway OK, several people have let me know there is still interest in this thing, so we go on. I have caught up with some articles I got from Chem. Abstr., and Chris Burger has kindly pointed out the three papers in Z. Naturforsch. below, which I was able to look up, as we have this journal in my building. Schwinger waves his hands a little - but he does provide more detail in another article. Frodl et al speculate (as others have) that lithium may be involved and - provided you believe that their reaction is the only one (the ol' branching ratios again..) they reckon you should be able to measure it. The Komarov et al team eats the cake and has it as well: they explain why you might claimed fusion rates by a sort of resonance effect, but then say that it would be so weak that you might not detect it. So they support both the positive and negative experiments, smiles all round, and no law suits from anybody. The other papers reiterate what others have said before. I'd like to add my bit to the debate on fraud in the Bockris school, purely in principle. Bockris is a very eminent figure in electrochemistry, a first rate scientist. He does get personal and has quite heated arguments with people but he has always attracted great amounts of research money and no doubt still does, long after he ought to be retired. I don't understand why he got so heavily stuck into cold fusion but it will take a lot of evidence to convince me that he would fake results - it's not credible. He does make enemies and there is the possibility of malicious spiking, as has been said. I believe, though, that Bockris will find out what is going on and say so. Dieter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 20-Jun. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frodl P, Roessler OE, Hoffmann M, Wahl F; Z. Naturforsch. 45A (1990) 757. "Possible participation of lithium in Fleischmann-Pons reaction is testable". ** The "unknown nuclear reaction" just might be (6)Li + d -> 2 (4)He plus nothing but energy (heat). This reaction has been suggested previously by Jones et al. In fact, it has other possible branches, and the authors leave these aside for the moment. Lithium is able to get into Pd. Assuming that all the heat claimed by FPH comes from this reaction, then there should be measurable consumption (of up to 3% or so) in the Li concentration in the 0.1M LiOD electrolyte used by FPH. Go forth and try it. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Goldanskii VI, Dalidchik FI; Phys. Lett. B 234 (1990) 465. "On the possibilities of 'cold enhancement' of nuclear fusion". ** The authors claim that 3 years ago, the editor of JETP Lett. (i.e. of the Soviet journal Pis'ma etc) rejected Deryaguin's paper on the emission of neutrons from heavy ice or LiD under fracture. Their subsequent publications have remained largely unnoticed, in contrast with FPH and Jones+. Here, the rpesent authors take a look at some possible mechanisms for the claimed cold fusion rates. Coulombic shielding, large effective electron mass, barrier penetration, and stimulation by radiation are considered, and rejected on quantitative theoretical grounds. Thus there remains only energetic activation by, for example, fracture micro-cracks, as suggested by the Soviet fracto-fusion school. G&D do admit that this is not yet theoretically substantiated. Jan-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Komarov VV, Melsheimer O, Popova A; Z. Naturforsch. 45A (1990) 759. "Deos cold fusion exist and is it measurable?" ** Considers the dynamics of a deuteron sitting in the Pd lattice, and another one coming in. Considering all other deuterons as distant perturbations only, a quantum mechanical treatment then indicates a possible resonance effect leading to close d-d approach and cold fusion rates as claimed. If this is assumed to be a surface effect taking place within the first few monolayers, then one can expect about 1-10 particles emitted per s, which is a weak effect and therefore perhaps not observable, as has happened in some experiments. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schwinger J; Z. Naturforsch. 45A (1990) 756. "Cold fusion: a hypothesis". ** Just a suggestion, without any supporting theory (which is presented by the author in his paper in Z. Phys. D: At., Mol. Clusters 15 (1990) 221), that the nuclear reaction giving rise to the observed effects is not a d-d, but a p-d one. This has the consequence that "controls" with light water may not be true controls and also cause cold fusion due to traces of deuterium; and implies some test experiments. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabet E, Tenenbaum A; Physics Lett. A 144 (1990) 301. "Nuclear reactions from lattice collapse in a cold fusion model". ** Another phase-change explanation of cold fusion, here on a micro scale. Under nonequilibrium conditions, the random movement of deuterons in Pd- or Ti-deuteride might lead to d-deficient micro-volumes, which may collapse, due to the dependence of the molar volume of PdD(x) on x. This sudden collapse causes energy transfer from the collapsing metal atoms to deuterons and in some small fraction of cases, this may drive them together with enough force for fusion. Estimated fusion rates are within a ballpark of claimed rates. Mar-90. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / SRIRAM P / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: ps7@prism.gatech.EDU (SRIRAM,P) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 14:52:24 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology In article <2484@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: > >There was a discussion of What's New some months back in sci.physics. >What's New is a very biased publication which frequently heaps scorn >on those who go against its biases. There have been many attacks >in it on the Reagan, and later Bush administration. SDI is a favorite >target, as is any Bush appointee. I don't believe that What's New >is an official publication of APS. If it is, they certainly don't >have much credibility with me! ************************************** It is unfortunate, but editorial boards of many good professional societies sometimes have embarassing slants in opinion on specific issues. If you compare the stuff in What's New with what comes out in the APS magazine Physics Today, you will notice significant parallelism. It is on this basis that I have expressed overall support for the What's New postings, though I may not agree with specific issues. Hey, this is not too bad compared to how silly the Aerospace professional society (AIAA) is making all us Aero Engineer types look by putting out a policy paper that recommends a serious effort to consider a defence against wayward asteriods on a collision course with Earth - what with nuclear tipped missiles etc., or SDI-2.... Sriram. -- SRIRAM,P. Georgia Institute of Technology Altanta, Georgia 30332-0150 Internet: ps7@prism.gatech.edu cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenps7 cudfnSRIRAM cudlnP cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / Paul Schinder / Re: NEW THEORY Originally-From: schinder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Paul Schinder) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NEW THEORY Date: 20 Jun 90 18:31:20 GMT Organization: Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca NY In article <9006150319.AA00546@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: > >In response to Paul Schinder and Dale Bass: > >1. We did answer Barry Merriman's questions. He didn't say we were >correct, but he did say we had some interesting and clever ideas. At >this point, we couldn't ask for more. I didn't see the response about the Pauli exclusion principle. I also didn't see the respose as to *what* keeps the electrons on "orbitspheres". I may have missed them, I may simply by now have forgotten. He asked several other questions that got right to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, his article has long since expired, so I can't resurrect them. Perhaps Barry would care to comment as to whether he felt his questions were answered? > >2. Yes, an electron in the ground state does not radiate. This is >consistent with Maxwell's equations (using orbitspheres). This is not >consistent with the one-electron functions (Schrodinger) unless you Yes, it is. I'd advise you to go read and understand a book about quantum electrodynamics before making silly claims about a theory that it's pretty obvious you don't understand. You cannot think classically about quantum systems. >propose that electrons operate by different rules than ordinary charged >particles. We will not attempt to do the Fourier transforms over the >net (sorry, I have enough trouble when I can use superscripts, >subscripts, summation signs, and so on, with a word processor). No, the behavior of electrons is described by the Dirac equation. So are muons, tauons, quarks, neutrinos. (Question: what is the magnetic moment of the electron as predicted by your theory? Better get it right, this is known to extremely high accuracy, and *agrees* with the theoretical value given by quantum electrodynamics). > >3. Sorry. We thought it was OK to propose new ideas. We didn't >realize that Schrodinger, Dirac, Fermi, Feymann, etc gave us all of the >answers. In fact, we thought they might appreciate a continuation of >their work. [Einstein thought Schrodinger was incorrect. We agree >with Einstein.] It is certainly OK to propose new ideas. It is then incumbent upon the proposer to suggest experiments that will distinguish between existing theory and the new idea, and also to exhaustively explore the consequences of the new idea, to see whether or not the new idea can be shot down by existing experimental evidence. That is what Schrodinger, Dirac, Fermi, Feynman, etc. did. Einstein proposed at least one (and I believe others) experiment that I know of (you've heard of the EPR paradox?). The experiment, in a different form, was done. Schrodinger was right, Einstein was wrong. Do you think Einstein was infallible or something? What exactly is it about SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1) (the standard model of strong and electroweak interactions) that you find in violation of experimental evidence, so that a new theory is necessary? "I don't understand it" is not a reason. "I don't like it" is not a reason. Other people do understand, people who have learned the required mathematics. And much more importantly, the standard model agrees with experiment (an *enormous* number of experiments) to, in many cases, extremely high accuracy. Certainly there are no indications, to my knowledge (I'm an astrophysicist, not a particle physicist) that the standard model is in trouble. (Question: what does your theory have to say about gauge bosons? What is the ratio of the masses of the Z0 and the W+?). > >4. The electric field of a spherical shell of charge -e *outside* of the >shell is as if there was a point charge of -e at the origin (nucleus). Also, >the shell is infinitely thin; the electron, therefore, has no volume. >[*Inside* of the shell, of course, the electric field is zero.] In a hydrogen >atom, you superimpose the electric field of the electron and the electric >field of the proton. The result is (1) for r < the radius of the >orbitsphere, the electric field is that of the proton at the nucleus and (2) >for r > the radius of the orbitsphere, the electric field is zero! [This is >one of the concepts necessary for understanding coulombic >annihilation fusion.] Yes, so what? What does this have to do with atomic structure? Electrons are not spherical shells. They act as point particles to the limit of our ability to observe them (which is *far* smaller than atomic dimensions), and their behavior is described to extremely high accuracy by the standard model. Experimental fact which your theory seems to disagree with. What about Van der Wall's forces, necessary to chemistry. If the electric field were *exactly* zero outside all atoms, how do they bind? > >5. We have the book by Bethe. True, Schrodinger's Mechanics gives >the answer to the two-electron atoms to better than a few percent >(using perturbation theory or the variational principle). If you try our >equation for two-electron atoms you will see that it fits the data to >about 0.1% (relativistic corrections not applied as yet). But James White showed that the formula you posted to the net didn't work that well. You have a better one? Why did you post one that wasn't good, then? > >7. We are not proposing objects moving faster than light or that the >speed of light varies with speed of the measuring object. We are not >offering a reward for anyone who proves us right or wrong. We are >perfectly aware that the theory must agree (by and large) with >experimental measurements. We have stated that the theory is >consistent with Maxwells' equations, general and special relativity. We >*do* maintain that the Schrodinger solutions are incorrect, but we >agree that the energies and angular momenta are quantized. We also >maintain that new rules are not necessary for small particles. Is angular momentum quantized in an ad hoc manner, as in the Bohr theory? I remind you that quantization of angular momentum is a *consequence* of Schrodinger's equation. It falls out. It does not have to be put in by hand. > >7. If you believe we are crazy, fine. If you don't want to buy the book, >fine. The book was the quickest way to lay claim to the ideas. It is not >for the layman and we are not likely to get our return (on the cost of >the book) from sales. We had written paper for Phys Rev Lett, but we >were advised, by some people that we have great respect for, not to >submit it. The problem is that presenting a wholesale revision of >Schrodinger's mechanics is not an easy task. If you give a short >introduction, you are faced with a multitude of questions: what about >this? what about that? if it doesn't predict this, then it is wrong. This is >understandable. A new theory does have to agree with a large body of >experimental data and be able to explain the data in a more satisfactory >way than the old theory. We believe that this new theory has the >potential to do the job, but not in a short paper. We were advised to >write and publish a book first. Papers will come later. Get used to it. That's the way physics is done. If you're going to replace the standard model, then you're going to have to explain to the same level of accuracy *everything* that the standard model explains. A new theory has to agree with *every* reliable experiment within its realm, not just a "large body". To be useful, it must also predict something new, that the old theory doesn't, so that distinguishing experiments can be made to decide between the two. The Bohr theory and its modifications died 70 years ago at the hands of experimentalists. Trying to resurrect its corpse, as you seem to be doing, is not going to get you very far. -- Paul J. Schinder Department of Astronomy, Cornell University schinder@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenschinder cudfnPaul cudlnSchinder cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / luther@ohstpy. / Re: Hawkins Originally-From: luther@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Hawkins Date: 20 Jun 90 18:38:13 GMT In article <9661@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > PS Has anyone tried to reproduce the "meltdown"? If a spark caused an > expolosion of the hydrogen and oxygen in the cell to break the testtube, > the hydrogen would be released from the paladium, since there would > be no electrical pressure holding it in. As the hydrogen is released > lots of heat is released, this causes the paladium to be able to hold > less, ... My guess is that you would have enough heat to melt a table > top without even getting another spark to start the hydrogen burning > as it came out. Seems like it would be easy to try (do it outside > and only with parental supervision). During a set of CNF experiments at the VDG lab at Ohio State Univ., (which gave negative results), one of the electrodes used in a cell was removed after it had been "operating" for about 10 days and then sitting in the cell without current for about 24 hours. The intention was to cut a slice of the electrode to be sent to the Chemistry department. When the electrode was removed with tweezers in prep for cutting it became very warm and eventually (after about 10 sec.) glowed white hot. At this point the rod was dropped into a beaker of water to prevent it from becoming a danger to the handler. The suggested reason for this behavior was that the removal of the rod from the solution coupled with the pressure from the tweezers caused the hydrogen to be released from the paladium, etc. The handler was Will Brooks. If you would like more info you might be able to reach him via bitnet at WBROOKS@PITTVMS. _______________________________________________________________ | | e-mail: | | Bryan A. Luther | luther@mps.ohio-state.edu | | Physics Department | | | Ohio State University | "No matter where you go | | | there you are." | | Disclaimer: "Who said that?" | -Buckeroo Banzai | |_________________________________|_____________________________| cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenluther cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / John Moore / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 18:24:53 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <10640@hydra.gatech.EDU> ps7@prism.gatech.EDU (SRIRAM,P) writes: ]though I may not agree with specific issues. Hey, this is not too bad ]compared to how silly the Aerospace professional society (AIAA) is making ]all us Aero Engineer types look by putting out a policy paper that ]recommends a serious effort to consider a defence against wayward ]asteriods on a collision course with Earth - what with nuclear tipped ]missiles etc., or SDI-2.... Sorry to diverge from fusion, but I couldn't let this one get by... I've read that the per-capita risk from an asteroid strike is much greater than the per-capita risk of dying as a passenger in a commercial air-liner). We spend billions to avoid the latter - is it so silly to worry about the former? [note where the followups are directed] -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 Voice: (602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / McQueen / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: sem@mbunix.mitre.org (McQueen) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 20:01:23 GMT Organization: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA In article <2484@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >In article <9663@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: >] >]Agreed. Entirely too many people - the author of "What's New" among >]them - have apparently found it easy to be snide. I am very unhappy >]that the organization he claims to represent hasn't slapped his >]wrist. > >There was a discussion of What's New some months back in sci.physics. >What's New is a very biased publication which frequently heaps scorn >on those who go against its biases. There have been many attacks >in it on the Reagan, and later Bush administration. SDI is a favorite >target, as is any Bush appointee. I don't believe that What's New >is an official publication of APS. If it is, they certainly don't >have much credibility with me! The most recent issue of Physics Today (June 1990) has the following (reference p. 45, "AIP in 1989: An Annual Report"): "One of those who helped to meet the demand for information was Robert Park, an unusually skilled expositor and executive director of The American Physical Society's Office of Public Affairs. Through his weekly newsletter, "What's New," and his numerous newspaper articles, he reached countless decision makers, science writers, physicists and other citizens in 1989." Far from rebuking Park, the APS seems to be upholding him as their official spokesman. If anyone, especially members of APS, feel he does not represent their views, perhaps a letter to the APS would be appropriate. -- --------------------------- sem@mbunix.mitre.org S. E. McQueen The MITRE Corporation 1259 Lake Plaze Dr. Colorado Springs, CO 80906 719-380-3325 cudkeys: cuddy20 cudensem cudlnMcQueen cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / Greg Hennessy / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg S. Hennessy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 22:55:30 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <2504@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: #I've read that the per-capita risk from an asteroid strike is #much greater than the per-capita risk of dying as a passenger #in a commercial air-liner). Reality check: How many people have died in the last 10 years from asteroids? How many 747's have crashed? The risk of dying from an asteroid is LOW. -- -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w cudkeys: cuddy20 cudengsh7w cudfnGreg cudlnHennessy cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / John Moore / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 03:07:43 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Jun20.225530.7673@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg S. Hennessy) writes: ]In article <2504@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: ]#I've read that the per-capita risk from an asteroid strike is ]#much greater than the per-capita risk of dying as a passenger ]#in a commercial air-liner). ] ]Reality check: How many people have died in the last 10 years from ]asteroids? How many 747's have crashed? ] ]The risk of dying from an asteroid is LOW. ] Invalid logic. The probability of dying from an asteroid is LOW. The probability of dying in a 747 crash is LOW. However, when a 747 crashes, a few hundred die. When an asteroid hits, maybe a couple BILLION die. Take the probability and multiply be the cost, to get the comparable risk to society. I can't give you accurate numbers, but I can give you approximate ones. Lets say an asteroid large enough to kill 1/4 of the population hits once every 10 million years. Let's say you live 70 years. The odds of an asteroid hitting during any one year of your life is 7/1,000,000. The odds of the asteroid hitting during your entire life are 5 in 10,000 or 1 in 2000. [This assumes that the asteroid events are independent. It also assumes that my calculator can take .999993 to the 70th power and get the right answer.]. If you have a 1/4 chance of dying from this event, then you have a 1/8000 chance of dying from an asteroid. While LOW, this is MUCH higher than the risks of excess cancer allowed by federal law for pollutants (1/1,000,000 I believe). Furthermore, the impact [so to speak ;-)] on society will be extreme whenever this inevitable event occurs. -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 Voice: (602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Paul Schauble / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 04:04:26 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) > Hey, this is not too bad > compared to how silly the Aerospace professional society (AIAA) is making > all us Aero Engineer types look by putting out a policy paper that > recommends a serious effort to consider a defence against wayward > asteriods on a collision course with Earth - what with nuclear tipped > missiles etc., or SDI-2.... > > Sriram. > > -- > SRIRAM,P. > Georgia Institute of Technology > Altanta, Georgia 30332-0150 > Internet: ps7@prism.gatech.edu Why is this silly? According to a paper presented at the meeting of the American Geophhysical Society meeting earlier this year, your chances of being killed by an asteriod are 1/6000. For comparison, your chances of being killed in a scheduled airliner accident are 1/20,000. Asteroids are less frequent, but affect a lot more people. Shouldn't we be putting at least as much effort into avoiding asteroid crashes as we put into avoiding airliner crashes? ++PLS k cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenPLS cudfnPaul cudlnSchauble cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / A Beveridge / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: ANDQC@CUNYVM (Andrew A. Beveridge) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 11:16:04 GMT Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center In article <30997@cup.portal.com>, PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) says: > >> Hey, this is not too bad >> compared to how silly the Aerospace professional society (AIAA) is making >> all us Aero Engineer types look by putting out a policy paper that >> recommends a serious effort to consider a defence against wayward >> asteriods on a collision course with Earth - what with nuclear tipped >> missiles etc., or SDI-2.... >> >> Sriram. >> >> -- >> SRIRAM,P. >> Georgia Institute of Technology >> Altanta, Georgia 30332-0150 >> Internet: ps7@prism.gatech.edu > >Why is this silly? According to a paper presented at the meeting of the >American Geophhysical Society meeting earlier this year, your chances of >being killed by an asteriod are 1/6000. For comparison, your chances of >being killed in a scheduled airliner accident are 1/20,000. Asteroids are >less frequent, but affect a lot more people. > >Shouldn't we be putting at least as much effort into avoiding asteroid crashes >as we put into avoiding airliner crashes? > > ++PLS It is just this sort of argument that makes Scientists look stupid and self- serving. Those, for example, who were against SDI felt that it was wasting scientific resources on an effort that could only be seen as a "fools er- rand." Now that there are no Russians to worry about, the scientific com- munity will need to come up with some sort of threat to stave off a real threat: to their budgets!!!! Dr. Park operates the same way, except he seems to be somewhat more inter- ested in the advancement of science. The consistent opposition of the sci- entific elite to SDI, in Sci Am at the APS, is enlightened self-interest. As to Asteroids and SDI, it reminds me of the old joke: A man was sitting on a park bench ripping up paper and throwing it on the ground. Another man came a long and asked him: "Why are you ripping up the paper." The first man replied: "To keep the elephants away." The second man was startled: "But except for Zoos and circuses, there are no elephants around here for thousands of miles." "See, its working," said the first man. ------- Andrew A. Beveridge Department of Sociology Queens College and Graduate Center City University of New York 209 Kissena Hall Flushing, NY 11367 718-520-7093 cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenANDQC cudfnAndrew cudlnBeveridge cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / David only / Re: NDW THEORY Originally-From: dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU (David Coleman summer 90 only) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NDW THEORY Date: 21 Jun 90 13:38:38 GMT Organization: University of Maryland, Astronomy I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I have NEVER seen so high a typos to words ratio in my entire life as I saw in your article. It was downright illegible (i.e "Ynur bnmment"). What kind of editor do you use? Are you fingers epileptic? ^^^ |____Uh-oh, it can't be contagious! In article <9006140318.AA00546@ames.arc.nasa.gov> writes: > >1. Ynur bnmment, "sounds likd a nice idea, even if it doesn't work ott >compldtely," was our initial reaction to the idea. It sthll hs. >of the the orbhtsphere(. It ir this lncal, positivd curvature of the >1. Wd did anrwer Barry Mdrriman's questinns. He didn't ray we were... >thhs pnint, we couldn't asj for more. > >2. Yes, an electron in the ground state dods... >conristent with Maxwell's equatinns ... >consistent with the one,dlectron functinns... >realizd th`t... >anrwers. In fact, ve thought they might appreciatd a conthnuation of >wrhte and publish a book fhrst. P`pers will cnme later. >thdory. We prnposed a rather lajor one in the booj. Ve ard >experhmentalists at heart. We ard dohng the experiments. >Wd have had number of requestr to repdat the abstract for the booj and Amicitia Subjugat Omnia Hweohthte... (Hwe-oath-T) ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- David E. Coleman dcolem@suns.umd.edu 8125 48th Ave, Apt. 612 College Park, MD 20740-2486 1-(301)-474-7424 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- "Unknowingly, he picked up a whirly blue throwstone with strange hieroglyphics on the opposite side he didn't see, and he tossed it into the sunlit stream; A note said he opened a gate to some place indescribable." ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- cudkeys: cuddy21 cudendcolem cudfnDavid cudlnonly cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.20 / Avatar / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: sorgatz@ttidca.TTI.COM ( Avatar) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 20 Jun 90 23:22:13 GMT Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica In article <2484@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: +In article <9663@pt.cs.cmu.edu> lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: +]In article <581@argosy.UUCP> kevin@locke.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) writes: +]>I have strong doubts about the reality of cold fusion, but I am finding +]>the behavior of its detractors disgraceful. +] +]Agreed. Entirely too many people - the author of "What's New" among +]them - have apparently found it easy to be snide. I am very unhappy +]that the organization he claims to represent hasn't slapped his +]wrist. + +There was a discussion of What's New some months back in sci.physics. +What's New is a very biased publication which frequently heaps scorn +on those who go against its biases. There have been many attacks +in it on the Reagan, and later Bush administration. SDI is a favorite +target, as is any Bush appointee. John and the others have a very valid point. I find Mr. Parks stuff full of political tripe and bias. The last three times I've made an issue out of this however, I was told (politely) to get lost. The issue of cold fusion is full of "maybes", the fact that such things might actually be possible shakes the theoretical foundations of that which we agree to be 'physics'. This scares a lot of people...especially the older foogies amongst us.."NAH! CAN'T BE! THOSE PEOPLE MUST BE FRAUDS!"..but what if they aren't ?!! Better yet, why is it that an established hierarchy (like the scientific community) always finds it so easy to just laugh rather than prove the other side is wrong? Answering this might prove interesting...nylon had to be 'invented' several times before the chemical world of experts would believe. WHERE'S THE PROOF??!! -Avatar-> (aka: Erik K. Sorgatz) KB6LUY +-------------------------+ Citicorp(+)TTI *----------> panic trap; type = N+1 * 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90405 +-------------------------+ {csun,philabs,psivax,pyramid,quad1,rdlvax,retix}!ttidca!sorgatz ** (OPINIONS EXPRESSED DO NOT REFLECT THE VIEWS OF CITICORP OR IT'S MANAGEMENT!) cudkeys: cuddy20 cudensorgatz cudlnAvatar cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Greg Hennessy / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg S. Hennessy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 15:26:49 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <2515@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: #Invalid logic. The probability of dying from an asteroid is LOW. The #probability of dying in a 747 crash is LOW. However, when a 747 crashes, #a few hundred die. When an asteroid hits, maybe a couple BILLION die. #Take the probability and multiply be the cost, to get the comparable #risk to society. I see. I think your assumptions may be a little on the high side, but I concede the point. -- -Greg Hennessy, University of Virginia USPS Mail: Astronomy Department, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2475 USA Internet: gsh7w@virginia.edu UUCP: ...!uunet!virginia!gsh7w cudkeys: cuddy21 cudengsh7w cudfnGreg cudlnHennessy cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Ken Clubok / Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Originally-From: clubok@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Ken "The Snake" Clubok) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Date: 21 Jun 90 16:35:40 GMT Organization: Harvard University Science Center Cambridge, MA In article <30997@cup.portal.com> PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) writes: > >Why is this silly? According to a paper presented at the meeting of the >American Geophhysical Society meeting earlier this year, your chances of >being killed by an asteriod are 1/6000. For comparison, your chances of >being killed in a scheduled airliner accident are 1/20,000. Asteroids are ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >less frequent, but affect a lot more people. > I didn't think they scheduled airliner accidents. Could that be why the rate is so low? ;^} Seriously, though, the 1/6000 figure seems high. If the average lifespan is 70 years, then that means asteroids hit every 70*6000=420,000 years, if we assume that an asteroid has a 100% chance of killing you. I could be wrong, but I thought that the period for major asteroids was more on the order of millions of years. Ken Clubok clubok@husc4.harvard.edu clubok@husc4.bitnet cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenclubok cudfnKen cudlnClubok cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Dick Dunn / The burden of proof Originally-From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: The burden of proof Date: 21 Jun 90 20:23:02 GMT Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO sorgatz@ttidca.TTI.COM ( Avatar) follows on from the discussion of snide remarks and general playground behavior to ask: > Better yet, why is it that an established hierarchy (like the scientific > community) always finds it so easy to just laugh rather than prove the other > side is wrong? Answering this might prove interesting...nylon had to be > 'invented' several times before the chemical world of experts would believe. > > WHERE'S THE PROOF??!! Taking this in a slightly more general sense than just the "What's New" material and the Texas A&M potshots, it's an important question. It is often not productive to set out to "prove the other side is wrong." If the burden of proof rested with the "establishment," it would have to investigate not only every new interesting phenomenon but every crackpot idea that came along. You'd spend all your time re-establishing what we already think we know, finding errors in careless experiments and bad logic. For this reason, it makes a lot more sense to place the initial burden of proof on the researcher who asserts there's something new, and to expect reasonably high standards of research, analysis, and reporting before accepting a tentative result as worthy of more widespread testing. The question "WHERE'S THE PROOF??!!" rests initially with the side advancing a new idea. Yes, it costs science to "miss" or "ignore" a valuable new idea...but it also costs to chase up blind alleys ending in a discovery that initial research was somehow flawed. The more novel or unusual a new claim is (or the more it is at variance with accepted theory and results) the more initial proof and care is expected because, frankly, the odds are higher that the result is an artifact of experimental error. There will always be folks who sneer at *any* new idea or putative new discovery. Maybe that's unfortunate; they can generate a lot of useless noise. Occasionally they'll be the ones to pull the rest of us out after we've been led down the path. And there will also always be folks who latch on to any new idea, no matter how weird, and proclaim that the conservative reaction of mainstream science is censorship, etc. These folks also generate a lot of useless noise, but occasionally they'll force us to see that a wacko new idea happens to be right. In between the two extremes, most of us sit back and reserve judgment until we've been convinced that there's probably something interesting going on, and it's solid enough to have a serious look. But the null hypothesis doesn't carry the initial burden of proof. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenrcd cudfnDick cudlnDunn cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / David only / Re: Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Originally-From: dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU (David Coleman summer 90 only) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Date: 21 Jun 90 20:46:25 GMT Organization: University of Maryland, Astronomy In article <3279@husc6.harvard.edu> clubok@husc4.UUCP (Ken "The Snake" Clubok) writes: > I could be >wrong, but I thought that the period for major asteroids was more on the >order of millions of years. > >Ken Clubok >clubok@husc4.harvard.edu >clubok@husc4.bitnet You *are* wrong, some comets have periods up to 25 million years, but the average asteroid, big or small, has an average orbital period of about 5 years. Amicitia Subjugat Omnia Hweohthte... (Hwe-oath-T) ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- David E. Coleman dcolem@suns.umd.edu 8125 48th Ave, Apt. 612 College Park, MD 20740-2486 1-(301)-474-7424 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- "Unknowingly, he picked up a whirly blue throwstone with strange hieroglyphics on the opposite side he didn't see, and he tossed it into the sunlit stream; A note said he opened a gate to some place indescribable." ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- cudkeys: cuddy21 cudendcolem cudfnDavid cudlnonly cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Kevin Horn / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: kevin@argosy.UUCP (Kevin S. Van Horn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 19:39:01 GMT Organization: MasPar Computer Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA In article <30997@cup.portal.com> PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) writes: >[...] For comparison, your chances of >being killed in a scheduled airliner accident are 1/20,000. Asteroids are ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Geez, I knew the FAA likes to keep tight control of everything that happens in the skies, but I didn't know they went to the extreme of scheduling airliner accidents! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kevin S. Van Horn | The means determine the ends. kevin@argosy.maspar.com | cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenkevin cudfnKevin cudlnHorn cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Nash David / Re: Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Originally-From: dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu (Nash, David) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Asteroids and Airplains (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Date: 21 Jun 90 22:46:16 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College In article <6711@umd5.umd.edu>, dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU (David Coleman summer 90 only) writes... >In article <3279@husc6.harvard.edu> clubok@husc4.UUCP (Ken "The Snake" Clubok) writes: >> I could be >>wrong, but I thought that the period for major asteroids was more on the >>order of millions of years. >> >>Ken Clubok >>clubok@husc4.harvard.edu >>clubok@husc4.bitnet > >You *are* wrong, some comets have periods up to 25 million years, but the average >asteroid, big or small, has an average orbital period of about 5 years. > > I believe the original poster has in mind not the ORBITAL period of an asteroid, but rather the interval of time in which it is likely to swat the Earth. *BIG* difference... Said interval (could be considered a "period", of sorts) is on the order of hundreds of thousands to millions of years, in most cases. Does this thread _really_ belong in sci.physics.fusion? Lots of this has appeared in sci.astro, ...and in the process probably spawned a lot of killfiles with "asteroid", "nuke", &c. in them...(A lot of the time, it looked like a battle between people brandishing lots of physics equations and, of course, coming up with totally contradictory answers. What, today's physics students can't agree on how to do mechanics? :-) :-) :-) > >Amicitia Subjugat Omnia Hweohthte... (Hwe-oath-T) > ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- >David E. Coleman dcolem@suns.umd.edu >8125 48th Ave, Apt. 612 >College Park, MD 20740-2486 1-(301)-474-7424 > ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- >"Unknowingly, he picked up a whirly blue throwstone with strange hieroglyphics >on the opposite side he didn't see, and he tossed it into the sunlit stream; >A note said he opened a gate to some place indescribable." > ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Nash (Yet another fugitive from behind the Zion Curtain.) (dnash@hmcvax.bitnet, dnash@hmcvax.claremont.edu) * .* * * * * * 'The best thing for being sad is to learn something.' - Merlyn, _The Once And Future King_ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy21 cudendnash cudfnNash cudlnDavid cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / William Johnson / Asteroid bombardment wipes out cold fusion over Usenet Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Asteroid bombardment wipes out cold fusion over Usenet Date: 21 Jun 90 14:08:43 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Regarding the risk of asteroid bombardment, s.p.f contributor A writes: >>> [...] To which contributor B replies: >> {...} Which A rebuts: > (...) etc. Look, folks: if you want to talk about asteroids, there is a perfectly good newsgroup called sci.astro where such a discussion belongs. In fact, not only does it belong there, it *is* there. People have been thrashing this through in that group for several weeks now. Meanwhile, over here in s.p.f, the discussion is masquerading under the topic of "Fraud," so that we can't even put it in kill files since "fraud" is certainly very topical in the real cold fusion discussions and the asteroid debators also post useful stuff re fusion, though not in the asteroid articles. I do not mean to be rude, but please: at least until cold fusion is dead and buried -- and at the very least, its sociological implications will live on even after the science is refuted, as it may soon be -- let us try to keep the s.p.f discussions topical, whether to cold fusion or (as several have expressed an interest in seeing) the more traditional (and probably more valid!) approaches to controlled thermonuclear reactions. Asteroid bombardment is interesting in its own right, to be sure, but fusion it ain't. No hard feelings, and no insults intended to contributors A and B alluded to in the above, which is why I don't name names. Yours for topical and manageable newsgroups ... -- 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: cuddy21 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / James White / RE: Asteroids and Airplanes and Nuclear War (was Re: Fraud at Texas Originally-From: u800552@lanl.gov (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: Asteroids and Airplanes and Nuclear War (was Re: Fraud at Texas A&M) Date: 21 Jun 90 22:03:33 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. I find this thread almost as interesting as the thread on racing chainsaws. I have now idea how this subject came up, but . . . Now if I understand this correctly the odds of being killed by an asteroid have been shown to be larger than the odds of being killed in an airline accident. It is argued that research should be directed toward figuring out how to deal with an incoming asteroid. The odds of being killed as a result of an accident in a nuclear plant have been shown to be somewhere around the odds of being killed by a meteor, but we continue to spend millions of dollars per year in this country on reactor safety research. The odds of being killed by cancer or heart disease is pretty high, and probably should be getting lots of funding. What about the odds of being killed in a nuclear war? That's got to be up there too (and growing with the proliferation of weapons technology). I wonder if Star Wars research is getting its fair shair? -- James R. (Bob) White || U800552@beta.lanl.gov Los Alamos National Laboratory || Phone (505)-667-3853 (Work) N-6 / MS K559 || Phone (505)-662-7554 (Home) Los Alamos, NM 87544 USA || FTS 843-3853 cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenu800552 cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Paul Schauble / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 22 Jun 90 03:27:08 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) > In article <30997@cup.portal.com>, PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) says: > > > >> Hey, this is not too bad > >> compared to how silly the Aerospace professional society (AIAA) is making > >> all us Aero Engineer types look by putting out a policy paper that > >> recommends a serious effort to consider a defence against wayward > >> asteriods on a collision course with Earth - what with nuclear tipped > >> missiles etc., or SDI-2.... > >> > >> Sriram. > >> > >> -- > >> SRIRAM,P. > >> Georgia Institute of Technology > >> Altanta, Georgia 30332-0150 > >> Internet: ps7@prism.gatech.edu > > > >Why is this silly? According to a paper presented at the meeting of the > >American Geophhysical Society meeting earlier this year, your chances of > >being killed by an asteriod are 1/6000. For comparison, your chances of > >being killed in a scheduled airliner accident are 1/20,000. Asteroids are > >less frequent, but affect a lot more people. > > > >Shouldn't we be putting at least as much effort into avoiding asteroid crash es > >as we put into avoiding airliner crashes? > > > > ++PLS > > It is just this sort of argument that makes Scientists look stupid and self- > serving. Those, for example, who were against SDI felt that it was wasting > scientific resources on an effort that could only be seen as a "fools er- > rand." Now that there are no Russians to worry about, the scientific com- > munity will need to come up with some sort of threat to stave off a real > threat: to their budgets!!!! > > Dr. Park operates the same way, except he seems to be somewhat more inter- > ested in the advancement of science. The consistent opposition of the sci- > entific elite to SDI, in Sci Am at the APS, is enlightened self-interest. > > As to Asteroids and SDI, it reminds me of the old joke: > > A man was sitting on a park bench ripping up paper and throwing it on the > ground. Another man came a long and asked him: "Why are you ripping up the > paper." The first man replied: "To keep the elephants away." The second man > was startled: "But except for Zoos and circuses, there are no elephants aroun d > here for thousands of miles." "See, its working," said the first man. > > > ------- > Andrew A. Beveridge > Department of Sociology > Queens College and Graduate Center > City University of New York > 209 Kissena Hall > Flushing, NY 11367 718-520-7093 Thank you, Andrew. That's the finest example of aggressive ignorance I've seen on the net this year. I'll add it to my collection. First, I didn't say anything about SDI. Secondly, if you have an argument with the 1 in 6000 chance, I suggest you make use of your obviously superior knowledge and present a more correct paper at the next AGS meeting. Or perhaps submit to one of the referred journals in that field. I'm sure that your extensive credentials in the area will make your publication welcome. I'll await the paper. Third, perhaps your're saying that dying in an aircraft crash is so much more horrible than dying in a meteor impact that the latter needs no attention. Or perhaps you're saying that low probability events need no attention. If so I hope you're equally opposing a large number of other environmental regulations that ae spending large amounts of money preventing less likely problems. Either way, I disagree. ++PLS cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenPLS cudfnPaul cudlnSchauble cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / John Moore / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 21 Jun 90 20:49:12 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Jun21.152649.23627@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> gsh7w@astsun.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg S. Hennessy) writes: ]In article <2515@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: ] ]#Invalid logic. The probability of dying from an asteroid is LOW. The ]#probability of dying in a 747 crash is LOW. However, when a 747 crashes, ]#a few hundred die. When an asteroid hits, maybe a couple BILLION die. ]#Take the probability and multiply be the cost, to get the comparable ]#risk to society. ] ]I see. I think your assumptions may be a little on the high side, but ]I concede the point. ] Unfortunately, my assumptions may or may not have been high, but my math was wrong (thanks, Greg Hennesy for pointing it out). I divided the real risk by 70 before starting, which was in error. On the other hand, as has been pointed out here, a paper (or letter) was recently published which got about the same answers as I did. Hope they did their math better! Geee... I wish something interesting would happen in cold fusion so we can get back to it. Asteroids are fun, but cold fusion is what we're supposed to be talking about ;-) -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 Voice: (602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Dieter Britz / Heat effects Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Heat effects Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 14:17:27 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Bryan Luther quotes his colleague Will Brooks, who observed PdD getting hot in air. This effect has been published: see Kreysa et al, J. Electroanal. Chem. 266 (1989) 437. They scorched a table by laying a D-charged Pd electrode on it. To make sure this was not, after all, due to cold fusion, they did the same with hydrogen-charged Pd and the electrode temperature went from 20 degC to 418 degC in 74 s. The heat released greatly exceeds the amount stated in FPH's paper as "excess heat", and this is the point of Kreysa et al's table-scorching. It puts paid to all those papers gravely saying that "there is no possible chemical explanation" for the heat observed. I have not seen the Kreysa et al result quoted by anybody, let alone by excess heat believers. Electrochemists (including FPH, Bockris, etc) know that palladium is a catalyst for burning hydrogen with oxygen. The most plausible explanation of Hawkins' heat effect is that the D2O level in the cell got low (D2O gets used up by the electrolysis), and deuterated Pd got exposed to the oxygen coming off the platinum electrode and going out through the same hole the Pd electrode went through, together with extra D2 from the Pd. This has also been said before. I reproduce below an old reference I've had in the bibliography but for which the abstract (which up to yesterday was all I had) did not make the point clear. Sioda shows that you can apparently get an excess heat of 8% or so without any hitherto unknown nuclear reaction. This is how the Sioda reference now looks in the bibliography: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sioda RE; Bull. Electrochem. 5 (1989) 902. "Heat effects during room-temperature electrolysis of deuterium oxide". ** This is a simple open-cell comparison of a cell in which light water is electrolysed at platinum electrodes and another with heavy water. Resistor heating is used to measure Newton's law parameters, which agree for the two cells; nevertheless, the heavy water cell outputs more heat corresponding to about 8% more power, possibly due to different amounts carried away by water evaporation etc. Dec-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A comment on Avatar's "WHERE'S THE PROOF?": you reckon that the old-fogey establishment is scared of cold fusion and doesn't want to know about it. This is at considerable variance with the fact that I have amassed 270 published papers on the subject, involving (at a guess) about 600 scientists. Physicists, chemists, electrochemists, engineers and others raced for their labs and/or desks as soon as the news broke. Most of these people are what Avatar would call old fogeys (or foogies, as he has it). All this frantic activity has resulted in very few positive results and most of these are highly questionable; indeed, those hardest to explain away are being retracted right now. Your question "where's the proof" is a good one, mate. Your mental picture of poor old Pons and Fleischmann against a hostile establishment is not the reality. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy22 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Steven Bellovin / Re: NDW THEORY Originally-From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NDW THEORY Date: 22 Jun 90 14:44:37 GMT In article <6708@umd5.umd.edu>, dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU (David Coleman summer 90 only) writes: > > I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I have NEVER seen so high a typos to > words ratio in my entire life as I saw in your article. It was downright > illegible (i.e "Ynur bnmment"). What kind of editor do you use? > Are you fingers epileptic? > ^^^ > |____Uh-oh, it can't be contagious! Leaving apart your intolerant (and ignorant, I might add) comments about epilepsy, the problem is that some node on the net is mangling and resending articles. Check news.admin for details. cudkeys: cuddy22 cudensmb cudfnSteven cudlnBellovin cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Scott Mueller / Re: Asteroid bombardment wipes out cold fusion over Usenet Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Asteroid bombardment wipes out cold fusion over Usenet Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 18:25:21 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix In article <54784@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: [Comments about keeping asteroid bombardment discussion out of s.p.f] >No hard feelings, and no insults intended to contributors A and B alluded to >in the above, which is why I don't name names. Yours for topical and >manageable newsgroups ... I'd like to second and expand upon Bill's call to keep sci.physics.fusion focused on topic. I run the "official" mailing list gateway out of s.p.f, with a captive audience of a couple of hundred people who get digests of the newsgroup in their mailboxes. The folks don't even *have* the option of skipping over irrelevant articles in most cases. Please help to keep unrelated material out of sci.physics.fusion. Thanks, -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Robert Eachus / Re: Heat effects Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects Date: 22 Jun 90 21:10:19 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA In article <9006220941.AA04044@danpost.uni-c.dk> BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > Sioda shows that you can apparently get an excess heat of 8% or > so without any hitherto unknown nuclear reaction. I'm sorry, but I find this a very misleading reading of a paper which claims nothing of the sort! As I understand Sioda, it is a CONFIRMATION of excess heat, combined with some hypotheses about where it comes from which are different from the hypotheses of PFH. If you wish to question Sioda's results do so. If you wish to support his hypotheses fine. But questioning the results ("apparently"), then accepting the speculation as gospel--this offends me. I appreciate the work Dieter has been doing on the bibliography, but I think that in this case some personal prejudice leaked through. I personally also believe that the excess heat observed by Sioda was not due to fusion, but I don't confuse that with having proof of what causes the phenomena. Note that if someone does come up with "proof" that the excess heat is caused by say a difference in oxygen solubility and transport in highly basic D2O and H2O, (actually, that might not be a bad guess) PF&H will be pilloried by the press for getting the observations right and the theories wrong. (Which is why science by press conference is a bad idea.) Flame retardant: Anyone who posts to this group has opinions and lots of us post them. The thing that bothered me was that this posting mixed reporting of fact and opinion in a misleading way. I am sure that this was unintentional, but this group seems to be split into Heat+Fusion and No Fusion thus No Heat camps. I'd like to see more people trying to find explanations for the observations that don't require nuclear reactions. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy22 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / Jack Campin / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 22 Jun 90 13:12:35 GMT Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie, Unthank john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) wrote: > I don't believe that What's New is an official publication of APS. If it > is, they certainly don't have much credibility with me! This came up a few months ago. As I remember it, the answer was: yes, it is an official publication of the APS, but that doesn't mean that what Park says reflects APS policy. They publish it because they think he's a stimulating person to have around. -- -- Jack Campin Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland 041 339 8855 x6044 work 041 556 1878 home JANET: jack@cs.glasgow.ac.uk BANG!net: via mcvax and ukc FAX: 041 330 4913 INTERNET: via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk BITNET: via UKACRL UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenjack cudfnJack cudlnCampin cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.21 / Charlie Gibbs / Garbled messages (was Re: NDW THEORY) Originally-From: a218@mindlink.UUCP (Charlie Gibbs) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Garbled messages (was Re: NDW THEORY) Date: 21 Jun 90 21:00:27 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada In article <6708@umd5.umd.edu> dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU (David Coleman summer 90 only) writes: >I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I have NEVER seen so high a typos to >words ratio in my entire life as I saw in your article. It was downright >illegible (i.e "Ynur bnmment"). What kind of editor do you use? I saw that one too. Actually, I think I have an explanation. If you check an ASCII code table, you'll notice that each character that is garbled should have its low-order bit set but doesn't. The example above, "Ynur bnmment", should probably read "Your comment". The letter "o" (ASCII hex 6F) is twice changed to "n" (hex 6E), while "c" (hex 63) is changed to "b" (hex 62). Every character I checked follows the same pattern. I'd say a bad link is dropping bits. We now return you to our review of the movie "Meteor." :-) Charlie_Gibbs@mindlink.UUCP Honk if your horn is broken. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudena218 cudfnCharlie cudlnGibbs cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.22 / John Woods / Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Originally-From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Re: Fraud at Texas A&M Date: 22 Jun 90 21:59:00 GMT Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us In article <9663@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) writes: > I don't like it when people are subjected to near-slanders. Tomorrow, > the target may be me, or you, or someone restrained from defending > themselves. And what if cold fusion had panned out? What about the > next unexpected breakthrough? Is it going to have to triumph, not > only over probing questions, but over officially sanctioned rudeness? Well, why not? Continental Drift managed it. Scientists are human, too (surprise!). Cold Fusion has been a circus from Day One, the media representing the dancing bears and P&F's lawyer (you know, the one threatening to sue any and everyone who publishes contrary results?) being the angry clown. Until some real replication shows up, the proponents are just going to have to dodge the elephants. -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnWoods cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.23 / Alan Duester / asteroids and paranoids Originally-From: ames!harvard!aqua.whoi.edu!capnal (Alan Duester) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: asteroids and paranoids Date: Sat, 23 Jun 90 06:49:18 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway For those of you who have been arguing about the improbability of large asteroid impacts, I might mention that the June 4 *Aviation Week* quotes the AIAA as claiming that in 1989, an asteroid with impact energy of 1000-2500 one megaton H-bombs crossed the earth's orbit SIX MINUTES after the planet was there. Nobody saw it coming. Personally, I'm praying somebody screwed up and it was six minutes angular position, not time. ' Nuff said. Defense is not silly, it's necessary if the race, or at least civilization, is going to survive *long term*. Andrew can whine paranoic and think no farther than his next cheeseburger if he wishes. Interesting as this is, let's get back to Fusion and take the rest of this discussion over to one of the space groups. send mail request to subscribe to Space Digest to: space-request+@andrew.cmu.edu (possibly remove the + from the address, I think that's a newer address) Or at least offer concrete suggestions on how to destroy them nasty asteroids using cold fusion... :) ========================================================================= "The farther it gets from the bench it was built on, the more real the real world gets." - Todd Johnson Al Duester, Ocean Engineer, MS S201 # SPAN: 6308::capnal Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution # INTERNET: capnal@aqua.whoi.edu Woods Hole, MA 02543 # GEnie: A.DUESTER (508) 548-1400 x2474 (ans. Machine, voice messages) (508) 457-2000 auto-receptionist for touch tone phones ========================================================================= cudkeys: cuddy23 cudencapnal cudfnAlan cudlnDuester cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.23 / Mark North / Re: Heat effects Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects Date: 23 Jun 90 19:06:53 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <9006220941.AA04044@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >point clear. Sioda shows that you can apparently get an excess heat of 8% or >so without any hitherto unknown nuclear reaction. This is how the Sioda I agree with this assessment but see below. >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Sioda RE; Bull. Electrochem. 5 (1989) 902. >"Heat effects during room-temperature electrolysis of deuterium oxide". >** This is a simple open-cell comparison of a cell in which light water is >electrolysed at platinum electrodes and another with heavy water. Resistor There is no such comparison made in this paper! There was only one cell and it contained D2O. >heating is used to measure Newton's law parameters, which agree for the two >cells; nevertheless, the heavy water cell outputs more heat corresponding to >about 8% more power, possibly due to different amounts carried away by water >evaporation etc. Dec-89. >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- What two cells? I have been following, reading and saving your posts for quite some time now. In fact, our group regularly discusses your synopses because often times the referenced papers are not available. I would hate to think that your others were as misinterpreted as this one. Please tell me that you dropped the ball on this one and that this is not evidence of some underlying bias on your part. My reading of this paper tells me this: He carefully measured the heat transfer characteristics of an open D2O cell. He then ran the cell as in FPH and observed that the heat evolution was 8% greater than expected based on a calculation that assumes a cell voltage equal to the known electro- chemical potential for this particular reaction. I believe what he is saying (without pointing any fingers or naming names) is that someone who makes this kind of measurement and assumption (as FPH did) can be fooled to the tune of 8% excess heat. He then postulates that this discrepancy can be attributed to various exothermic reactions that take place in the cell but are otherwise unaccounted for. All this merely reinforces my belief that these measurements must be done in a 'closed' cell in which a minimum number of assumptions must be made. Mark cudkeys: cuddy23 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.23 / Dave Spain / Re: Heat effects Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects Date: 23 Jun 90 19:20:09 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA In article eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes: [...comments on Deiter Britz's posting deleted...] > > Note that if someone does come up with "proof" that the excess >heat is caused by say a difference in oxygen solubility and transport >in highly basic D2O and H2O, (actually, that might not be a bad guess) >PF&H will be pilloried by the press for getting the observations right >and the theories wrong. (Which is why science by press conference is >a bad idea.) > [...] >I'd like to see more people trying to find explanations for the observations >that don't require nuclear reactions. > > Robert I. Eachus I wholeheartedly agree. Its been awhile since I've read this (or any) newsgroup, but I wish to thank the person (whose name I don't recall) who raised the question about the original cube observation and asked if anyone had tried to answer the question as to why the cube had gotten so hot to begin with. This has been hanging for a long time. I guess no one took it seriously enough to address it. Could it be that herein lies the explanation for the excess heat observations? Thanks to Vincent Cate (and others) for suggesting the possibility of oxygen contamination, ignition and the release of hydrogen from the palladium. I have questions concerning this though. Can a charged palladium rod become this hot from just the freeing of the hydrogen trapped inside or does there have to be an ignition source to cause it to burn with oxygen in the air? If so why does the rod get so hot? Wouldn't this be primarily a surface effect with most of the heat going off into the air? Why would it heat a rod (cube) to "white-hot" temperatures? Maybe I'm just underestimating the amount of heat generated by a hydrogen-fire or the amount of hydrogen being given out by the rod. I remember the long discussions in this group about what is an endothermic vs exothermic reaction. But my common sense makes me skeptical that the "mere" physical act of exuding hydrogen would be enough to do generate so much heat. Am I right to be this skeptical? It has been mentioned that palladium acts as a catalyst for hydrogen and oxygen reactions. Is this the reason one doesn't need an ignition source? Is the bulk of the heat coming not from open-air burning but because of this catalytic reaction? If so how does this affect cells that allowed recombination of D2 and O? Does the palladium have to stay completely immersed in electrolyte solution to avoid any catalytic reactions within the cell? I guess I'm asking for a further explanation of the CHEMISTRY ;-) behind this. (Sorry if this takes us away from physics, but when it comes to CNF I think addressing the Chemistry ought to take precedence anyways). Please forgive my ignorance on these topics but they are quite aways away from my specialty (this IS a computer net right? :-) if all this is covered territory, please just Email me a reply. Dave Spain cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.23 / Dave Spain / Re: Heat effects Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects Date: 23 Jun 90 19:39:19 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA I have some more question along this thread. Why was Martin Fleischman(sp?) so quick to rule out heat from any known chemical reactions? Could someone on the net explain why those that observe excess heat say that the amounts don't jibe with known chemical reactions? Among those that do measure excess heat, are the amounts of overage the same? Or do they differ enough to allow for a chemical possibility? (Assuming for the sake of argument, that this is not just experimental error) I suppose its possible that there can be some unaccounted for chemical contamination of the cells that COULD allow for a chemical explanation for this excess heat, but what convices the EXPERTS that this cannot be? Dave Spain cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.24 / Ranjan Muttiah / Re: asteroids and paranoids Originally-From: muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: asteroids and paranoids Date: 24 Jun 90 18:15:29 GMT Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network In article <9006230113.AA11555@aqua.whoi.edu> ames!harvard!aqua.whoi.edu!capnal (Alan Duester) writes: >For those of you who have been arguing about the improbability of large >asteroid impacts, I might mention that the June 4 *Aviation Week* quotes >the AIAA as claiming that in 1989, an asteroid with impact energy of >1000-2500 one megaton H-bombs crossed the earth's orbit SIX MINUTES >after the planet was there. Nobody saw it coming. >cheeseburger if he wishes. Interesting as this is, let's get back to >Fusion and take the rest of this discussion over to one of the space groups. No don't! The asteroid missed the earth at about the same time that P&F announced that they had observed anomalous heat being generated in their cell. So no more heat is being produced since there are no more asteroids passing the earth at close range :-). cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenmuttiah cudfnRanjan cudlnMuttiah cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Warren Lavalle / comp.mail.maps is an already existing moderated , valid group Originally-From: Warren Lavalle Newsgroups: world Subject: comp.mail.maps is an already existing moderated , valid group Date: 25 Jun 90 10:40:07 GMT In an earlier control article, samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!eds1!devon!mbitow!root requested that comp.mail.maps be changed from moderated to unmoderated samsung!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!eds1!devon!mbitow!root says: Pathalias map distribution group. This control message is to change it back to moderated, like it should be. -- News Administrator news@pws.bull.com 900 Middlesex Tpk, Bldg. #2, Billerica, MA. 01821 "Know Bull" cudkeys: cuddy25 cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Dieter Britz / Heat effects and flame retardants Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Heat effects and flame retardants Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 14:27:45 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) > In article <9006220941.AA04044@danpost.uni-c.dk> BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU > (Dieter Britz) writes: >> Sioda shows that you can apparently get an excess heat of 8% or >> so without any hitherto unknown nuclear reaction. > I'm sorry, but I find this a very misleading reading of a paper > which claims nothing of the sort! As I understand Sioda, it is a > CONFIRMATION of excess heat, combined with some hypotheses about where > it comes from which are different from the hypotheses of PFH. If you > wish to question Sioda's results do so. If you wish to support his > hypotheses fine. But questioning the results ("apparently"), then > accepting the speculation as gospel--this offends me. Sorry this offends you, Robert. When we talk about "excess heat" in the context of cold fusion, we imply heat that cannot be explained by conventional physical or chemical - i.e. non-nuclear - means. Sioda used two platinum electrodes, thus excluding cold fusion, and looks at heat losses etc. When I say "apparently" I mean what Sioda calls the "unaccounted part of the supplied electric power ... constitutes 8.35%". Thus there is an apparent excess heat, unexpected from his model. I don't question his results. I found this 8.35% figure very interesting, since it is in the same ballpark as "excess heat" observed by people who then assign it to nuclear effects, saying that it can't be anything else. This is one of the important points in the cold fusion debate, (at this moment, what with tritium retractions, heat is the only evidence left) so I don't think I am biased by noticing it. I don't think I misread Sioda at all - although his final conclusion paragraph is not very clear (to me). Maybe you can tell us just what Sioda is driving at? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 16:18:50 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I have at last (partly) caught up with the rest of you and got hold of, and read, the items in the "Comments" department. They have all been referred to on the list. I note from the NY Times article that I must now get hold of the real thing in the Wall Street Journal of the day before (June 7), which is the source of the tritium retractions. To make it easier for our libary here: has anybody out there seen it, and can tell me the page number and title? The NY Times item is a secondary report. Arata and Zhang (whose other paper Bill Johnson recently discussed) have put out what looks like the same thing, in Japanese. The other papers (and my annotations) tell their own story. Hope nobody gets offended by my bias... Dieter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 25-Jun. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aleksan R, Avenier M, Bagieu G, Bouchez J, Cavaignac JF, Collot J, Cousinou MC, Declais Y, Dufour Y, Durand R, Faure R, Favier J, Kajfasz E, De Kerret H, Koang DH, Lefievre B, Lesquoy E, Mallet J, Nagy E, Obolensky M, Pessard H, Pierre F, Stutz A, Wuethrick JP; Phys. Lett. B 234 (1990) 389. "Limits on electrochemically induced fusion of deuterium by neutron flux measurements". ** Attempted to reproduce cold fusion by electrolysis of D2O. A very sensitive neutron detector ((6)Li doped organic liquid scintillator NE320) was used to detect neutrons. An upper limit of about 50 n/s was obtained, which is 30 times smaller than that claimed by FPH, and less than that of Jones+. Jan-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arata Y, Zhang YC; Kaku Yugo Kenkyu 62 (1989) 398. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:224669 (1990). (In Japanese). "Achievement of intense 'cold fusion' reaction". ** Under conditions of intense charge and discharge of deuterium into/out of palladium, intense neutron emission due to cold fusion was observed. This was called the on-off effect. A large inner pressure of deuterium is a necessary condition for the cold fusion reaction. A large amount of excess heat produced during electrolysis was not, however, due to a nuclear reaction but due to the heat of reaction and the explosive exhaust of the D "into and out of" the Pd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chambers GP, Eridon JM, Grabowski KS; Phys. Rev. B: Condens. Matter 41 (1990) 5388. "Upper limit on cold fusion in thin palladium films". ** If, as stated by FPH, the excess heat comes from some new nuclear reaction not producing neutrons, tritium or helium, it is likely to be producing alpha particles or protons, which are detectable. This paper tests this hypothesis by charging palladium with an ion beam of deuterium, reaching a loading of 0.56. This can be done in vacuum, making particle detection easy. None were detected, however. It is possible that under these conditions the FPH effect does not operate. Mar-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Halley JW, Valles JL; Phys. Rev. B: Condens. Matter 41 (1990) 6072. "Estimate of nuclear fusion rates arising from a molecular-dynamics model of palladium deuteride". ** If cold fusion takes place in metals, while not doing so in fluids, it must be due to solid state effects, and tunnelling. A molecular dynamic model of PdD(x), with x = 1, 3, 4, 5 was attempted, assuming a static Pd lattice and using the WKB approximation. A very low expected fusion rate of 1E-150/s per pair was calculated, even for x = 4 or 5. These values agree with those of Legget and Baym but not with those of Koonin et al, who reached higher values (though still much lower than those claimed by Jones+ etc). Also, the authors considered but rejected quantum coherency effects. Mar-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabinowitz M; Mod. Phys. Lett. B 4 (1990) 233. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:224695 (1990). "High temperature superconductivity and cold fusion". ** There are parallels between high-temp superconductivity and cold fusion. In the former, charge carrier effective mass and, in the latter, the d effective mass, (may) play a role. A new theory including the effects of proximity, electron shielding and decreased effective mass of the fusing nuclei can account for the cold fusion results. There is a relation between the recent cluster impact fusion experiments and cold fusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Broad W; New York Times June 8, 1990. "Contamination at 3 Labs Casts Doubt On Results Pointing to Cold Fusion". ** Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M and Edmund K. Storm and Carol Talcott of Los Alamos all retract their tritium findings; the tritium was in the palladium they used, in the first place (they used the same source). This was reported the previous day in the Wall Street Journal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 561 (14 June). "Utah faculty protest cold fusion dealings" ** Report of the controversy at Utah about the legal threats to the Salamon team and the not-so-anonymous donation of $500000 to the cold fusion institute. Interestingly, this report now also makes it clear that Nature rejected FPH's original manuscript, unless it were revised (their lawyer Gary Triggs attempted to change Nature's minds); an earlier Nature editorial had stated that the non-appearance of this article in Nature should not be seen to imply anything about the article's quality. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 561 (14 June). "Disappearing tritium" ** Report, without citations, of the withdrawals of the tritium results of Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M and Storms et al of Los Alamos, and the consequences to the cold fusion debate. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pool R; Science 248 (1990) 1301 (15 June). "Wolf: My tritium was an impurity". ** Kevin Wolf, whose evidence for tritium had been one of the hardest to dismiss, has now found that it probably resided in the palladium used in his group's experiments. This, despite standard precautions to eliminate it by prolonged heat treatment before the experiments. The item includes a comment by Wolf on the suspicions of fraud with respect to the tritium results of the Bockris group in the same complex. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taubes G; Science 248 (1990) 1299 (15 June). "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M". ** Lengthy report of the strange tritium results in Bockris's and others' labs at Texas A&M. It appears that the suspicion of fraud has been entertained for some time, judging from the security measures (thought to be) taken in these labs. Despite these suspicions, and the rather too-good results, it seems that Bockris was not willing to share the doubts, or do much to quell them. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Marc Groot / Re: NDW THEORY Originally-From: marc@noe.UUCP (Marc de Groot) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NDW THEORY Date: 25 Jun 90 08:01:57 GMT Organization: Noe Systems, San Francisco In article <6708@umd5.umd.edu> dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU writes: > >I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I have NEVER seen so high a typos to >words ratio in my entire life as I saw in your article. It was downright >illegible (i.e "Ynur bnmment"). What kind of editor do you use? All of the errors in the above article were generated by subtracting 1 from the ASCII value of certain randomly chosen characters. In the example above, "Ynur bnmment" which should have been "Your comment" has three incorrect letters. Each incorrect letter comes one earlier in the alphabet than the letter than should have appeared. While the errors look like typos, they were surely generated by a program. -- Marc de Groot (KG6KF) |"The all-American boy prefers beauty to brains Noe Systems, San Francisco | because he can see better than he can think." UUCP: uunet!hoptoad!noe!marc | -Farrah Fawcett Internet: marc@kg6kf.AMPR.ORG | cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenmarc cudfnMarc cudlnGroot cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.24 / B Simon / re: Heat Effects Originally-From: eass06@castle.ed.ac.uk (B Simon) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: re: Heat Effects Subject: re: Heat Effects Date: 24 Jun 90 14:32:52 GMT Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: re: Heat Effects Summary: Expires: Sender: Reply-To: eass06@castle.ed.ac.uk (B Simon) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Edinburgh University Computing Service Keywords: There is something that has been bugging me for some time since I've started reviewing the CF literature, perhaps you lot can enlighten me. It seem that the criticisms of heat effects come in two categories, the first is that there is no evidence excess heat, and the second is that there is evidence for excess heat but it excess is caused by something other than fusion. Scientists in the first category seem to accuss FPH and others of bad calorimetry (Lewis comes to mind) while scientists in category two take the experimental results at near face value and try to find a reasonable (read communally acceptable) explanation. As critics of cold FUSION these two categories of scientists seem to be in divergent camps (I should note that the overall bias in Nature seems to be the 'no fusion, no heat' view, category 1). My intuition is to side with the second group if only for the reason that you don't need good calorimetry to figure out if there is excess heat coming from the 'explosion' that FPH report. What is happening then? What are these scientists after who deny not only fusion effects but heat effects as well? It's as if, for these scientists, FPH's reported 'explosion' didn't exist. So who on this net wants to argue that there is no evidence of excess heat effects (whether fusion or not) and why? For that matter, why does Robert Eachus (for example) believe that there is evidence for excess heat? Perhaps the question involved is more fundamental, should we take what scientists report at face value, and then find ways of assimilating (or not) their reported observations with accepted knowledge? Or, do we not only question a scientist's interpretation of their results, but the actual observations of those results as well? The latter is an argument for referring to CF as an example of pathological science (something I am personally not yet ready to do). Like Robert Eachus I am prone towards a 'no fusion but yes heat' view, but this view, like the 'yes fusion, yes heat' view, does not seem to have that much support in terms of actual experimental replications. This no doubt serves to leave one wondering if those who said they 'saw' heat actually 'saw' what they said they 'saw'. Methinks that if one wonders about this too long one may be prone to thinking that those who said they 'saw' something must have faked it. Bart Simon Science Studies Unit 34 Buccleuch Place Edinburgh, Scotland EH9-1JT **Remember - Old cold fusion never dies it just becomes less profitable** cudkeys: cuddy24 cudeneass06 cudfnB cudlnSimon cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Ralph Alpher a / sci.astro Originally-From: Ralph Alpher at Union College Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: sci.astro Date: Mon, 25 Jun 90 20:50:09 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway [Editorial note - I've changed this text over to mixed-case for readability. Also, keep in mind that this is a BITNET subscriber, so he's looking for a mailing list that gateways the Usenet newgroup sci.astro much as the one here at Zorch gateways sci.physics.fusion. Scott Hazen Mueller] There have been several allusions to a sci.astro net in recent mailings on fusion. Could someone please tell me how to subscribe to this astronomy net? Thanks. Ralph Alpher (ALPHERR@UNION.BITNET) cudkeys: cuddy25 cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Robert Eachus / Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Date: 25 Jun 90 22:14:12 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA What I was complaining (flaming?) about was the slant which played up the speculation while downgrading the actual results. As I said, I assume that this was unintentional, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Now on to the meat... To say that the Sioda results can't be fusion because there is no palladium (or no deuterium :-), impies that we understand the mechanism of the PFH apparatus, and it is the only way to create cold fusion. Even if I were willing to admit that the FPH process is nuclear fusion, I would be very reluctant to assume that it required palladium. (Or titianium?) My feeling, or opinion, or whatever, it that there is something there which needs to be explained, but it probably doesn't involve nuclear processes. Experiments like that of Sioda should sooner or later lead to a clear understanding of what is going on. I would love to see an experiment where several different techniques were used to measure the heat generated, and the results were different. That is the sort of paper that jounals don't like, but theoreticians do. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy25 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Robert Eachus / Re: Heat Effects Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat Effects Date: 25 Jun 90 22:41:58 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA In article <4880@castle.ed.ac.uk> eass06@castle.ed.ac.uk (B Simon) writes: For that matter, why does Robert Eachus (for example) believe that there is evidence for excess heat? I'm not sure that I do. I would rather say that there seems to be a long history of difficulties in measuring correctly the palladium/deuterium system. The almost simultaneous annoucement of the Jones, et. al. paper and PFH, made it seem important to the scientific community to understand this system. I suspect that there is something, which will seem obvious once it is pointed out, about why the FPH system seems to generate excess heat. The only thing that I claim to know is that the effect is very difficult to measure and that the effect seems specific to these systems. If someone came up with an explanation involving the effect of magnetic fields on the vapor pressure of D2O, I wouldn't find it surprising. But I would rather accept a "storage battery" type of explanation where some mechanism is storing and releasing energy in an unpredictable manner. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy25 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.25 / Randell Jesup / Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Originally-From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Date: 25 Jun 90 21:38:41 GMT Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA In article <9006250829.AA27982@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >conventional physical or chemical - i.e. non-nuclear - means. Sioda used two >platinum electrodes, thus excluding cold fusion, and looks at heat losses >etc. When I say "apparently" I mean what Sioda calls the "unaccounted part of >the supplied electric power ... constitutes 8.35%". Thus there is an apparent >excess heat, unexpected from his model. I don't question his results. Until he has found a way to account for it, I'd say that exactly what is happening is an open question. If it is a surface effect and not a volume effect, it's possible (though unlikely) that it could happen with platinum as well (or any pt-group metal, or who knows?) You're making the assumption that other people's assumptions as to why "heat" is happening are true, and then using this to say heat isn't happening. The logical flaw is that even if this accounts for all the heat results (which we don't know), it merely knocks out dependence on Pd (at least until that 8.35% is fully accounted for). >saying that it can't be anything else. This is one of the important points in >the cold fusion debate, (at this moment, what with tritium retractions, heat >is the only evidence left) so I don't think I am biased by noticing it. I Excuse me, I think you're over-reading the rectractions. The only retraction I know of is Wolf. In fact, Edmund Storms of LANL is quoted in this weeks Science News as saying that only 1 of 11 positive-result cells involved palladium from Hoover & Strong. "We don't think our wire has been contaminated". Second, did Wolf actually retract his results, or just raise the fact that they may be a problem with them? Also, from the quotes given here before, the only proof of contamination has been in Pd used in "blank" cells, with H2O. As far as I know, there have been no reports (or testing) of unused samples of Pd from that batch or company, which would give more convincing evidence of contamination. If you think the evidence is clear, there's no need to overstate the evidence. If it isn't clear, and you find yourself overstating, sit back and think _why_ you want to overstate, and whether your conclusion might be hasty or perhaps insufficiently supported. I think the wolf info could be important, but it's way from fully proven that all the tritium results are flawed. Perhaps this is overstating, but it almost seems as if people are grasping at straws to knock down tritium results (the "it wasn't guarded, so maybe someone spiked it with tritium" bit seems a bit far-fetched - all you scientists, do you religiously guard against any possibility of anyone in your team/lab/whatever possibly "spiking"/whatever things normally?) -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenjesup cudfnRandell cudlnJesup cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.26 / Dieter Britz / Red face department (more heat effects) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Red face department (more heat effects) Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 14:26:50 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) > In article <9006220941.AA04044@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz > writes: >>----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>Sioda RE; Bull. Electrochem. 5 (1989) 902. >>"Heat effects during room-temperature electrolysis of deuterium oxide". >>** This is a simple open-cell comparison of a cell in which light water is >>electrolysed at platinum electrodes and another with heavy water. Resistor > There is no such comparison made in this paper! There was only one cell > and it contained D2O. >>heating is used to measure Newton's law parameters, which agree for the two >>cells; nevertheless, the heavy water cell outputs more heat corresponding to >>about 8% more power, possibly due to different amounts carried away by water >>evaporation etc. Dec-89. >>----------------------------------------------------------------------------- > What two cells? I have been following, reading and saving your posts for > quite some time now. In fact, our group regularly discusses your synopses > because often times the referenced papers are not available. I would hate to > think that your others were as misinterpreted as this one. Please tell me > that you dropped the ball on this one and that this is not evidence of some > underlying bias on your part. > My reading of this paper tells me this: He carefully measured the heat > transfer characteristics of an open D2O cell. He then ran the cell as in > FPH and observed that the heat evolution was 8% greater than expected based > on a calculation that assumes a cell voltage equal to the known electro- > chemical potential for this particular reaction. I believe what he is saying > (without pointing any fingers or naming names) is that someone who makes > this kind of measurement and assumption (as FPH did) can be fooled to the > tune of 8% excess heat. He then postulates that this discrepancy can be > attributed to various exothermic reactions that take place in the cell > but are otherwise unaccounted for. All this merely reinforces my belief > that these measurements must be done in a 'closed' cell in which a > minimum number of assumptions must be made. > Mark You are quite right, I slipped up on this one, my apologies. I have once again reread the paper, and he does indeed have only one cell, in which he does two experiments: first he uses resistor heating to measure the cell's heat capacity, switches the heat off to get the cooling rate constant; then he places two platinum electrodes in the cell (which contained heavy water all the time) and electrolyses, again following temperature changes during electrolysis and after switch-off. What I meant by two cells was one with D2O and one (the same cell) with H2O - I must have wanted him to do it and imagined that he did... Sorry for the confusion I have caused. I can't be sure, of course, but I don't believe I slip up often. This paper was, in my opinion, written in a pretty diffuse manner, not making its point very clear, and I'm still not sure what Sioda's conclusions are trying to say. Here is the new and final form of the Sioda paper in the grand list: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sioda RE; Bull. Electrochem. 5 (1989) 902. "Heat effects during room-temperature electrolysis of deuterium oxide". ** This is simple open-cell calorimetry of a cell in which heavy water is electrolysed at platinum electrodes. Resistor heating is used to measure Newton's cooling rate parameter, which remains constant; nevertheless, under electrolysis some heat, corresponding to about 8% power, is unaccounted for, possibly due to gas evolution or electrochemical side reactions. Dec-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Actually, I think you misread the paper also. The "unaccounted part of the supplied electric power" - i.e. the 8.35% - is a loss, not a gain; again, I slipped up. The total power supplied is first assumed to go into heating and the (electro-)chemical reaction, but this assumption leads to a voltage (1.682V) higher than the thermodynamic 1.261 V. So, Sioda says in effect, some of the power is going elsewhere - maybe into evolving gases, reduction of dissolved oxygen or oxidation of dissolved deuterium. So we actually have a heat deficit here. The point of the paper is then, that if you want to do calorimetry, you must account for a lot more than resistive heating due to current going through an electrolyte, plus the electrochemical reaction. This has been said before by, e.g., Balej and Divisek, who did manage to balance their heats. Sioda's experiment is not a very good one. He says that, for the second experiment, platinum electrodes were introduced; this would change the heat capacity of the cell (so there really were two cells..). Also, he reports the unaccounted heat as 8.35%, an unreasonably accurate figure. eass06@castle.ed.ac.uk (B Simon) asks >It seem that the criticisms of heat effects come in two categories, the >first is that there is no evidence excess heat, and the second is that >there is evidence for excess heat but it excess is caused by something other >than fusion. Scientists in the first >category seem to accuss FPH and others of bad calorimetry (Lewis comes >to mind) while scientists in category two take the experimental results at near >face value and try to find a reasonable (read communally acceptable) >explanation. >What is happening then? What are these scientists after who deny not >only fusion effects but heat effects as well? It's as if, for these >scientists, FPH's reported 'explosion' didn't exist. >... etc Bart Simon The problem here is that we have, if anything, a low-level, irreproducible, effect. So we hear from some that they have excess heat and others (I have to say, the more careful workers) can account for all their heat effects by conventional (non-nuclear) explanations. One type of criticism then goes for the poor quality of FPH's calorimetry. What this means is that you can't be sure that they do, in fact, have excess heat; maybe they do, maybe they don't. The excess heat results, like the neutron detections etc, are in a small minority among all those that have had a go at it. This doesn't mean we can simply dismiss them but it makes it likely that they didn't do their work very carefully. As I have said before, if FPH wanted to convince us of their excess heat, they have to do more thorough calorimetry; saying that they have a good feel for their method, is not enough. If I measure a length to the nearest mm with a rule showing only cm marks and claim that my eye is good at estimating mm, the obvious answer is get a better rule. If FPH or someone else does do careful calorimetry and observe convincingly an excess heat larger by some multiple than the (known and stated) error, we'd have to think about where this might be coming from. As it is, there really is nothing to explain, and their "explanation", what is more, invokes hitherto unknown processes. There are several different accounts of the "exploding electrode". There was noone present when it did whatever it did, so we don't know whether it exploded, or just got very hot. The stories differ. As I have said, Kreysa has shown that when you expose a D-charged piece of Pd to air, it gets hot enough to scorch a table, and if FPH's electrode simply got hot, this explains it. If it exploded, we have no explanation. But the "evidence" is slim indeed. A single occurrence, nobody saw it, the public has different versions of what happened - this is not scientific evidence. I can't believe that Fleischmann (or Bockris) would fake anything but these people are, I think, jumping to strong conclusions on weak evidence. As I have also said before, I don't believe FPH want to convince us, or they'd be trying harder. It is interesting that cold fusion generates so much emotion. A similar situation is the recent claims for levitation. Someone seemed to measure a loss of weight by a spinning object; very interesting, a very faint effect. Others who tried it find no such weight loss, yet the original claim, as far as I know, still stands. But I am not aware of any large-scale controversy (unless sci.physics buzzes with it), or any large group wanting to believe in this one. Why with cold fusion? Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy26 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.26 / Alan Duester / Re: Asteroids & paranoids Originally-From: ames!harvard!aqua.whoi.edu!capnal (Alan Duester) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Asteroids & paranoids Date: Tue, 26 Jun 90 16:58:38 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway >>capnal@aqua.whoi.edu: >>cheeseburger if he wishes. Interesting as this is, let's get back to >>Fusion and take the rest of this discussion over to one of the space groups. > >muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah): >No don't! The asteroid missed the earth at about the same time that >P&F announced that they had observed anomalous heat being generated >in their cell. So no more heat is being produced since there are >no more asteroids passing the earth at close range :-). By golly, you're right! Quick, write that patent on tidal effects on neutron spin! }:) cudkeys: cuddy26 cudencapnal cudfnAlan cudlnDuester cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.26 / Patrick Smith / Early CNF History: An Important Correction. Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Early CNF History: An Important Correction. Date: 26 Jun 90 00:26:50 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah In a recent post of mine, I made comments on the early history of the CNF affair. In response, I received the following mail message from Dr. Jones at BYU: Dear Patrick, I noticed your interesting commentary on the net. Unfortunately, it spreads a notion which is incorrect and I hope we can do something about this. You say, correctly: "Jones had an established reputation in the field and, by coincidence, was also claiming, with his colleagues, the discovery of a new form of fusion in metals." Then follows this misleading statement: "He called up Pons and suggested a collaboration." Where did you get this idea? It is wrong. I had been working on cold fusion with DOE funding since May 1986. When the funding agent (Ryszard Gajewski) asked me to review the P/F proposal, I accepted, and I accepted the conditions that go with it. In particular, I did not pirate any of P/F ideas. I wish the proposal could be made public so that all could see what is in it, and contrast that with the BYU work. (When Pons rejected the DOE funding, this public disclosure was avoided, I understand.) Maybe it is finally becoming clear without this that our work is very different from that of P/F. Now, I believe that science progresses best by working together. Therefore, I called Dr. Gajewski and suggested that he might wish to inform Dr. Pons of the ongoing BYU work, and particularly of the neutron detector development here. So it was Dr. Gajewski who told Pons of the BYU work, then, in December, 1989, Dr. Pons called me. In particular, he asked me to send information regarding our neutron spectrometer, which I did. I did not ask for more information about his research. Now read again the widely-publicized comment/accusation by Pons, cited in The Scientist, as well as David Peat's book Cold Fusion: "In all my scientific life," Pons is quoted as saying, "I have never seen a situation where a proposal was sent to a certain person, who calls up and says, 'Tell me more,' and who then immediately reveals himself as the reviewer and suggests collaboration. I had no idea when he was going to go public." (from D. Peat, Cold Fusion..., p.74.) Notice how subtly this statement implies that I called him up, etc., but it does not say that I did! Morever, I freely told P/F and Peterson of our plans to go public when they visited BYU on February 23 (P/F) and March 6, 1989 (P,F, and Peterson). I pondered whether to be open about this, but thought of the golden rule, in truth, and therefore was open with them. I suggested back-to-back publications. I still feel this was the Christian thing to do. It was Chase Peterson who insisted on publication before May, when I was scheduled to give an invited [talk] on my research at the Spring APS meeting. I feel that their press conference, in which they went so far as to deny knowing of anyone else engaged in this type of research, was a clear breach of agreements made between scientists and university presidents on March 6, 1989 at BYU. It is sad, truly. I do not take delight in seeing their current troubles. I do wish that our research on anomalous neutron emissions was not mixed up in with their "excess heat"/ commercial power production claims, which now are seen to be extravagant. Your help in correcting this widespread and false notion that I called Pons after reviewing his proposal would be sincerely appreciated. You may quote this letter if you wish. Sincerely, Steven E. Jones, BYU Physics Dept. I do regret my part in disseminating information which is absolutely false, but perhaps that posting will actually help set the record straight. I take this opportunity to apologize to Dr. Jones and his associates, and also to thank them for helping to clarify the (rather murky) origins of PFH styled cold fusion. Sincerely, Patrick J Smith cudkeys: cuddy26 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.27 / Ranjan Muttiah / Re: Asteroids & paranoids Originally-From: muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Asteroids & paranoids Date: 27 Jun 90 01:46:18 GMT Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network In article <9006261527.AA19613@aqua.whoi.edu> ames!harvard!aqua.whoi.edu!capnal (Alan Duester) writes: >>>capnal@aqua.whoi.edu: >>>cheeseburger if he wishes. Interesting as this is, let's get back to >>>Fusion and take the rest of this discussion over to one of the space groups. >> >>muttiah@stable.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah): >>No don't! The asteroid missed the earth at about the same time that >>P&F announced that they had observed anomalous heat being generated >>in their cell. So no more heat is being produced since there are >>no more asteroids passing the earth at close range :-). > >By golly, you're right! Quick, write that patent on tidal effects on >neutron spin! }:) Close!! The calculations are finished; read all about it in the patent claim :-). cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenmuttiah cudfnRanjan cudlnMuttiah cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.27 / Dieter Britz / HELP!! Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: HELP!! Date: Wed, 27 Jun 90 14:51:53 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Tying up some loose ends in the bibliography, I find I do not have an exact reference (i.e. author if any, page number, title) for the two primary newspaper reports of cold fusion. There was a press conference at the U of U and an article on 23-Mar-89 in both the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. Anybody out there with the data (is it too much to ask, "with the text"?). Our librarian here would be able to get me copies in any case but more info would make it easier for her. Really, people ought to publish in sensible, accessible newspapers like Politikken, or Information, or Berlingske Tidene, all good quality Copenhagen papers. Thanks in advance. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.27 / Mark Iverson / Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Originally-From: marki@tahoe.unr.edu (Mark N. Iverson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heat effects and flame retardants Date: 27 Jun 90 20:56:21 GMT Organization: Desert Research Institute - Atmospheric Sciences Center In article <12947@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) was responding to some comments in article <9006250829.AA27982@danpost.uni-c.dk> by Dieter Britz . In Mr. Jesup's article, the following bit of wisdom appears... > If you think the evidence is clear, there's no need to overstate the >evidence. If it isn't clear, and you find yourself overstating, sit back >and think _why_ you want to overstate, and whether your conclusion might >be hasty or perhaps insufficiently supported. to which I would like to add the following bit of wisdom that everyone should invoke on a regular basis... "If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants." Bertrand Russell, in _An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish_ being able to "sit back and think _why_..." [Jesup] is the same as Russell's reference to self-examination ["on examination..."]. Unfortunately, this takes a high level of self-awareness which the VAST majority of people are incapable of. As Carl Jung said, the vast majority of people are largely unconscious of what they are doing and, more importantly, what motivates their behavior. >-- >Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. >{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup >Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" - mark -- Mark N. Iverson uunet!unrvax!tahoe!marki / We dance round in a ring and suppose, marki@tahoe.unr.edu (scientists)->| but The Secret sits in the middle, marki@clouds.unr.edu \ and knows. -- R. Frost cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenmarki cudfnMark cudlnIverson cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.28 / / Heat vs. "Apparent Heat" Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Heat vs. "Apparent Heat" Date: Thu, 28 Jun 90 23:15:22 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway There seems to be some confusion as to what is actually measured in the Sioda experiment or, for that matter, in the PFH experiments. None of the simple calorimetry measurements actual measure the heat output. They measure the temperature at a single point in the cell and from that deduce a heat flux on the basis of a long chain of assumptions. One assumption often made is that the calibration of a cell using a resistive heater and H2O will still be valid when the cell is switched to D20 and a different heat source. Perhaps what Sioda tried to demonstrate is that some of the usual assumptions don't pan out very well. I don't think anyone should conclude that the Sioda experiment saw an unexplained heat flux 8% above the power input. Dick Blue [who thinks S. Jones has gotten off too easy] cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.29 / Alan Duester / asteroids & A.Week correction Originally-From: ames!harvard!aqua.whoi.edu!capnal (Alan Duester) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: asteroids & A.Week correction Date: Fri, 29 Jun 90 20:10:28 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The recent Aviation Week had a letter from the authors of the quoted paper chastising the A. Leak news editor for needlessly endangering the human race. :) The miss time of the asteroid was 6 hours, not minutes. cudkeys: cuddy29 cudencapnal cudfnAlan cudlnDuester cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.29 / Jones G / Re: NDW THEORY Originally-From: jonea@Sol34.essex.ac.uk (Jones A G) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: NDW THEORY Date: 29 Jun 90 17:11:24 GMT Organization: University of Essex, Colchester, UK In article <6708@umd5.umd.edu> dcolem@suns.UMD.EDU writes: > >I'm sorry, but I can't help it. I have NEVER seen so high a typos to >words ratio in my entire life as I saw in your article. It was downright >illegible (i.e "Ynur bnmment"). What kind of editor do you use? >Are you fingers epileptic? >>of the the orbhtsphere(. It ir this lncal, positivd curvature of the Perhaps they used their new theories to design a new, improved modem? _______________________________________________________________________________ DeathAdder couldn't resist that one. Alun Jones *is* DeathAdder. cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenjonea cudfnJones cudlnG cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.06.30 / WMB / Fusion in Pd Lattice Originally-From: "E. Harris Walker" (WMB) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion in Pd Lattice Date: Sat, 30 Jun 90 06:32:03 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway On the possibility of Lattice Enhancement of D-D Fusion; Transmutation of Elements by Neutron Exchange in a Lattice The following is a brief statement concerning one approach that seemed to offer some possibility of explaining the peculiar cold fusion claims. A careful examination of the mechanism, however, did not yield a viable mechanism. Since considerable effort may be required to investigate such a possibility, I thought some information about this idea should be made available in order that others would avoid reproducing the same effort. The following gives an abstract of the expected outcome as initially envisioned: The reaction Pd(n) + D => Pd(n-1) + T with the subsequent decay of the palladium to an isotope of rhodium by orbital electron capture or to silver by beta emission is proposed as a mechanism to account for the peculiar characteristics of "cold fusion". The probability of a neutron excursion to interatomic distances, ordinarily prohibitively low, is suffi- ciently enhanced in a lattice as to account for the thermal surges and tritium production without noticeable gamma radiation, as reported by some researchers. There are two points here. The first is the possibility that the Pd(n) + D => Pd(n-1) + T reaction could occur, the second is the possibility that effects in the lattice might alter the otherwise severe prohibition against neutron tunneling out of the Pd nucleus to distances like the 3.89x10-8 cm of the Pd-D spacing. As to the first of these, I believe that by now it is well recognized that if the nuclear reaction takes place in such a way that it is coupled to something like the palladium nucleus, then there will be no gamma emitted. The gamma is no longer required to conserve momentum in the reaction. This also means that the cross section for the reaction will be much larger than it would have been had it been limited by the gamma emission. Unfortunately, it turns out that the above reaction is not allowed energetically. None of the isotopes will give an excess energy, even assuming tunneling could occur. Moreover, we find that the reaction D + Pd(n) => H + Pd(n+1) is not allowed because of spin violation. However, if in the lattice neutron tunneling could occur, even at a rate down by only some twenty or thirty orders of magnitude, then the following reaction could come into play: D + Pd(n) + D => (H + n + Pd(n) + D) => (H + Pd(n+1) + D) => (H + Pd(n) + n + D) => H + Pd(n) + T + energy where the virtual steps involving neutron tunneling are enclosed in parentheses. The energy here would come off as an energy associated with the recoil of the Pd nuclei, and go directly into heat, since these nuclei are coupled together by way of the neutron currents involved in the hypothetical tunneling. The reason for using this peculiar way of expressing what is ordinarily written as simply D + D => H + T is that I want to emphasize that the neutrons are tied to the Pd nuclei by way of tunneling currents within the lattice. There is no direct D-D collision here. Now let us say something about neutron tunneling. A nucleus, let us say a Pd nucleus, holds its neutrons in an approximately square potential well. Any particular neutron can tunnel out of that well a short distance. However the chance of finding a particular neutron a distance, x, outside the well falls off in proportion to exp -(2Bx), where B is the square root of 2m(V-E)/(Hbar), m=neutron mass, V=depth of the potential well, about 42mev, E is the neutron energy in the well, about 35mev, and hbar is, of course, about 1.054x10-27 cgs. The result is that if you are any distance outside the nucleus at all -- at least distances of relevance to cold fusion -- then the neutron probability is really just about zero. You get numbers like exp-563000! If you look at why this happens in the math, you find that in setting up the problem, boundary conditions require that the solutions having the form exp+(Bx), which could become large at large distances have to be thrown away because they go to infinity as x => infinity. However, these terms are not thrown away if we set up the problem for a lattice. Is it possible that in the crystal lattice neutron tunneling occurs more freely than for the isolated nucleus? Whatever the answer, it is certain that the effect is still going to be a small effect, so in order that we have a chance to find out what the effect is, we need an exact solution of the Schroedinger equation to work with. The Kronig - Penney model is just what is called for here. It is a one-D model, but it can be generalized to 3-D if needed. More than that, the square well potential that it deals with is a good representation of the nuclear lattice. The potential looks like this: V| | ************ ************ ********* * * E * * * * *-------* * * * * * * * * * * * * __*********__________*********__________*********________ -b 0 a x Here the coordinates are x and V, the wells have a width a, and the barriers have a width b. The energy, E, of the neutron in the well is also shown. It will be noticed that the problem is set up to run from -b to +a, where a is the diameter of the nucleus and b is the distance between nuclei. In their original article, Kronig and Penney set their problem up this way, and while it is arbitrary just how one chooses to label things, once it is set up this way, it is very important to be careful to stick to this arrangement. One cannot half way through the problem start treating the range 0 to a+b as equivalent. The basic problem is to be found in most solid state references, for example, Kittel's Introduction to Solid State Physics. There you will find the problem is set up for you, but the details are not worked out for the wave function, psi, or for the probability density, psi* psi. Let me give the result here, since neither Kittel nor Kronig - Penney in their original paper give the necessary details. I will use the symbol A for Kittel's "alpha" and B for "beta", as above. I also use D for "a" and L for "b" that appear in the graph above. I will also use Fortran-like statements, but all the quantities, like I and J, are floated. The quantity C = SQRT(A**2+B**2). I will also skip most obvious multiply signs, "*". One first has to solve the compatibility equation for A: tan(DA) = (2A*SQRT(C**2-A**2))/((2A**2-C**2)(tanh(L*SQRT(C**2-A**2)))) which, of course, is most easily done by graphing each side of the equation as a function of A. This is easily done graphically, but carry it out to as many digits as you can -- at least ten significant figures. Now to obtain the normalization coefficient P: B=SQRT(C**2-A**2) Note: If A>B is not satisfied you probably don't have a solution. C=A/B $ K=2*pi/(D+L) $ pi=3.14159..... F=(A-K)D $ G=(A+K)D $ W=sin(G) $ Z=cos(G) $ G=cos(F) $ F=sin(F) J=sin(KL) $ E=cos(KL) $ O=exp(-BL) $ H=O**2 S=+2GO-E(1+H)-CJ(1-H) T=+2FO-J(1+H)+CE(1-H) U=+2ZO-E(1+H)+CJ(1-H) V=-2WO-J(1+H)-CE(1-H) Q=U**2+V**2 $ R=(SU+TV)/Q $ I=(TU-SV)/Q $ Q=R**2+I**2 W=sin(2AD) $ Z=cos(2AD) $ G=1/H $ J=A**2+B**2 $ E=A**2-B**2 F=1+Q P=1/SQRT(DF-(WR+(1-Z)I)/A+((1-H)(JF+2ER-4ABI)+(G-1)(JF+2ER+4ABI))/(8B**3) +L(2EF+4JR)/(4B**2)) Now with psi* psi = Y, we have for x in the range -b to 0: Y=(P/(2B))**2(exp(2BX)(JF+2ER-4ABI)-2EF-4JR+exp(-2BX)(JF+2ER+4ABI)) And in the range 0 -b 0 +a x When we use these equations to look at Y in the place where deuterons would be in the lattice of a Pd crystal, we find that there are computational difficulties because we are taking differences of numbers that only differ in, say, the 20th digit. We need an approximation that will be good in the region -b>1. This turns out to be: p Y+2Bexp(-2B(X+L)), -L>1. When all is said and done, this turns out to be far, far too small to save cold fusion. More than this, because the Kronig-Penney model is a general solution, because this result can be generalized to three dimensions, and because the square well potential is such a good representation of the potential well for the neutron in the nucleus, it is unlikely that any effort along these lines will evidence any possibility for the occurrence of cold fusion. E. H. Walker P.S. Maybe,... You remember I said that the cross section for the D-D reaction would be much larger if, because of the nuclear lattice coupling, no gammas were required in order to satisfy momentum conservation? The cross section could be much larger. This would mean that the tunneling within a Pd-D-Pd-D-Pd-D-Pd... lattice just might be significantly enhanced. E.H.W. I would appreciate comments as to whether you think that it would be worthwhile for me to publish a note on this in the literature. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenMIL cudlnWMB cudmo6 cudqt2 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.02 / / BYU Neutron Detector Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: BYU Neutron Detector Date: Mon, 2 Jul 90 22:23:42 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The neutron detector used by Steven Jones for his "cold fusion" measurements is described in a paper: "A neutron coincidence spectrometer" J. B. Czirr and G. L. Jensen, Nuclear Instruments and Methods A284 (1989) 365-369. I don't know whether this has been included in the CNF bibliography, but I think it should be. The only clue that this is in fact the detector Jones used is in the acknowledgements where it says in part, "We thank Professors Steven E. Jones and E. Paul Palmer for encouragement and support in adapting the spectrometer to the present applications in cold fusion research." The spectrometer employs liquid scintillator (BC-505) and Li6 glass scintillator plates viewed by two PM tubes with summed outputs. Because of the mix of two different scintillators the time response is rather complex and the paper goes on at length about such things as neutron-gamma discrimination. There are two differing modes of operation, the simplest being the one employed by Jones, I think, and that mode provides the poorest gamma rejection and little or no information about the energy of the neutrons detected. The key bit of info is near the end of the paper where the authors say "An estimate made from this spectrum indicates that approximately one percent of the gamma-ray portion extends into the neutron-capture region." That is to say that for equal count rates for neutrons and gammas, one percent of the events identified as neutrons will be gamma rays incorrectly identified. Now Gai, Kashy and others have operated neutron detectors with much better gamma rejection, and their results show a room background with something like 10^4 times as many gammas as neutrons. That leads me to guess that Jones was probably counting gammas at a rate perhaps 100 times the neutron rate, hence very good background subtraction is essential for any meaningful neutron measurement at the level Jones reported. How good was Jones' background subtraction? I think he fudged the background subtraction. I don't have a copy of Jones paper so I can't check the numbers so if somebody else can take a look to confirm this I would appreciate a second, third,...opinion. As I recall the background was renormalized by a factor of 0.42 before subtraction. That's what I call a fudge factor! Dick Blue cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.03 / / P/F article Wall Street Journal "March 23, 1989' Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: P/F article Wall Street Journal "March 23, 1989' Date: Tue, 3 Jul 90 14:29:47 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Dieter asks for page number of P/F article 1st appearing in Wall Street Journal on or about March 23, 1989. My records show it appeared in the Midwest Edition of Wall Street Journal on Friday, March 24, 1989 Page A1 or Page A2. Text not now available to me. JJOYCE@UMKCVAX1 Bitnet. cudkeys: cuddy3 cudln cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.03 / Patrick Smith / Local News Clippings Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News Clippings Date: 3 Jul 90 17:33:03 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah I was surprised to see the following editorial by Gary Sandquist, head of the nuclear lab at the U. which tried (unsuccessfully I think) to replicate the Pons-Fleischmann-Hawkins results. IF U IS TO PROSPER, IT NEEDS RISK TAKER LIKE PETERSON. by Gary M. Sandquist. SL Trib; Sunday, June 10, 1990. (Dr. Sandquist is a U of U professor of mechanical engineering and a member of the Academic Senate) Chase Peterson, president of the U of U, is under siege - by his medical school, the physical scientists, some administrators and many of his faculty. The president has been surrounded by controversy regarding several issues -his cold fusion announcement, the aborted Sorenson gift to the medical school, the university's administrative structure, and recent administrative resignations and his proposal to combine the offices of provost and academic vice president. It is interesting that these issues share a common basis -that of financial matters at the U -a perennial issue which had borne heavily upon Peterson and all previous presidents throughout their tenure. It is informative and hopefully provocative to briefly examine the positive record of the Peterson administration since 1983. Chase Peterson assumed the presidency in the fall of 1983... From 1984 to 1989 research funding at the university increased from $69 million to $105 million... the major 5-year fund-raising drive concluded June 9 yielded $205 million... Many faculty assess the entire "cold fusion" experience as unproductive and even damaging to the university's image. However, the current facts regarding cold fusion are noteworthy. Presently about 60 independent researchers around the world have now reported cold fusion experiments showing evidence of excess heat, tritium, neutrons, gamma rays and even helium-3. The evidence is continually mounting that some form of nuclear reaction is occurring. The critical question is what nuclear reactions are occurring. Furthermore, and most importantly, can these nuclear reactions be controlled and enhanced to adequately increase the nuclear energy output? Chase Peterson is a mover and a shaker. He is self-confident and assertive -articulate and cogent. He is a dominant force among the college and university presidents in the state.... Admittedly, Peterson and his admin. are also responsible for mistakes and judgement errors, and failures -even glaring, public failures. But the responsibility of preserving and enriching an educational enterprise which requires an half-billion dollar annual budget carries a high risk. I believe the university faculty and staff will commit a far greater error in seeking a safe, accommodating president and administration who make few mistakes because they take few risks... FUSION DONATION ON HOLD, PETERSON SAYS. by Katherine Kapos. SL Trib; Thursday, June 14, 1990. Cold fusion researchers will not spend the $500,000 donation from the university's Research Foundation until a review of the project's financial and scientific status is complete, President Peterson has told the U. Institutional Council. Dr. Peterson also admitted, during the council's monthly meeting, that he should not have kept the controversial donation secret, but did so for "intellectual, economic, and strategic" reasons "The request and transfer of the funds was entirely proper," Dr. Peterson told the council, "but in hindsight, keeping it quiet was a mistake on my part." The council meeting followed an early morning press conference where Dr. Peterson announced he would retire... at the end of the 1990-91 academic year. At the heart of Peterson's decision to retire was the revelation that a $500,000 gift to the NCFI was actually made by the university's own research foundation. The action caused discord on campus and prompted the Faculty Senate to adopt a resolution which asked for a review of Peterson's seven year presidency. Last week, the state's Fusion/Energy Advisory Council also called for an examination of both the laboratory data and ledgers of the Cold Fusion Institute... The Advisory Council will form two teams of experts by the end of this week. Institutional Council members asked that they be allowed to participate, in some capacity, with the reviews. Committee findings are expected in late August. "The $500,000 won't be used until a review of the financial and technical status of the research is complete," said Dr. Peterson, adding that a private business has offered to pay for the studies. The secret donation was warranted on an intellectual basis, as a way to find the truth about fusion, Peterson said. Six campuses have confirmed the Pons-Fleischmann experiment and two physics Nobel Prize laureats think fusion is "interesting science that should be pursued." U. SENATE DROPS REVIEW ISSUE BECAUSE PETERSON IS RETIRING. by Katherine Kapos. SL Trib; Saturday Morning; June 23, 1990. The U of U Academic Senate no longer wants a review of President Chase Peterson's administration, now that their leader has decided to retire at the end of the 1990-91 academic year. Two weeks ago, Dr. Peterson -the U.'s 11th president -said he would dedicate the next year to accomplishing his remaining goals and positioning the university for new leadership. Following the announcement, the Senate's Executive Committee unanimously aproved a motion that declared its previous request "moot" and no longer in need of further action by the Institutional Council or the Board of Regents. In a letter to Regent Chairman Douglas S Foxley, the Executive Committee also "recognized and applauded" president Peterson's achievements during the past seven years. On June 4, faculty members gave their leader a vote of no confidence by asking for a review of his administrative abilities. At the heart of the vote was an "anonymous" transfer of $500,000 to the NCFI that actually came from within the university. "We commend his timely and statesmanlike decision that will help resolve the recent divisions within the university," according to the letter, signed by Joseph L Taylor, U. vice president of academic affairs. The faculty pledged to work with the president and the governing board during the upcoming year to "ensure that this period will be productive for the university and to prepare a secure foundation for his successor." cudkeys: cuddy3 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.03 / William Johnson / Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Date: 3 Jul 90 21:24:32 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. The previous newsfeed for Douglas Morrison's excellent cold fusion notes has dried up (temporarily, I hope), so following a request, I'm posting his most recent contribution. It's long, but well worth reading. A minor correction: the "tritium expert" cited in it is Jacob Bigeleisen, professor of chemistry at SUNY/Stony Brook (and my landlord many years ago), rather than "Bigelstein" as in the article. -------- Dear E632 and WA84 Colleague, 23 June - 2 July 1990. COLD FUSION UPDATE TRITIUM RESULTS EVAPORATE - POSSIBLE FRAUD? The 23 Cold Fusion News letters that I distributed were meant to be essentially scientific though they gave some news as well. As there are so many good null experiments and so few good experiments that find positive results favouring Cold Fusion, I decided that there was no scientific point in continuing. However surprisingly many people ask me what is happening, and since there have been some dramatic developments casting very serious doubts on the tritium experiments, which Believers consider to be their strongest evidence, this is an update. Hence this Update is not intended to be conventionally scientific. It may concern those interested in Pathological Science: also senior scientists and scientific directors since there is growing activity among US politicians about scientific fraud and misuse of funds - e.g. the National Science Foundation started an Inspector General's office a year ago and now has appointed a criminal investigator. Fraud is very, very rare (in my own field of Particle Physics the most recent example I know of was in 1924 when the positron was "discovered"). The result is that often scientific administrators react badly throwing buckets of whitewash over their colleagues but acid at the honest whistle blower and the media - whereas they could be starting an immediate investigation which they can announce if challenged. Will those who do not wish to receive an Update please let me know. SUMMARY Kevin Wolf of the Cyclotron lab at Texas A&M has announced that there was contamination of tritium in the palladium rods he used and this could explain the tritium that he had previously claimed. Many scientists at Texas A&M had been worried about the possibility of fraudulant addition of tritium to the samples of electrolyte sent for analysis from Dr. Bockris's lab and which gave exceedingly high levels of tritium. There was a bottle containing tritium in light water in the lab. The samples were found to contain light water. Despite repeated requests, Dr. Bockris did not take adequate precautions to prevent someone spiking the samples. The Senate of the University of Utah has asked the President to resign. He says he intends to leave next year. Experiments and conferences on Cold Fusion continue. SUBJECTS 1. Tritium in Original Palladium Rods 2. Possible Fraud in Dr. Bockris's lab. 3. Other Tritium Claims 4. University of Utah Tries to Cleanse Itself 5. Cold Fusion Experiment in Kamiokande Detector 6. Future Conferences on Cold Fusion and Anonomolous Effects. 7. When did Cold Fusion begin? 8. Problems in Dealing with Fraud. 1. TRITIUM IN ORIGINAL PALLADIUM RODS At Texas A&M there are four groups that have worked on Cold Fusion, those of Kevin Wolf, Dr. Bockris, Dr. Appleby and Dr. Martin. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Kevin Wolf who is a nuclear chemist working at the Cyclotron lab, might have an explanation of the small amounts of tritium he had observed from two of his cells. This was out of dozens of experiments he had run and he was currently operating 100 cells He had been attempting to explain why he found so little tritium and so rarely compared with his neighbour, Dr. Bockris who frequently found enormous amounts. One test was to dissolve completely palladium rods as received from the manufacturer, Hoover and Strong, and those used in light water blank cells. He found low levels of tritium contamination in both cases. He considered this tritium in the original palladium rod might be an explanation of his occasional findings of small amounts of tritium in the electrolyte. Dr. Bockris said he was startled but as the level was so much lower than his labs' observations "I haven't changed my mind". He noted that "about 2/3 of our work" used rods from Hoover and Strong, although not from the same batch of metal. The Wall Street article continues "The chemist also noted that it is highly unlikely that positively charged tritium atoms could escape from the negatively charged palladium. Therefore even if the palladium was contaminated, the tritium could not leak out into the surrounding heavy water, he argued". This statement may surprise scientists. The Hoover and Strong Vice President, Dan Pharr said he was unfamiliar with Cold Fusion research - he worked for the jewelry trade and was not concerned about low level contamination. People who are experts in palladium and reactors are not surprised as palladium is often used as a catalyst to combine gases in nuclear reactors. Appreciable tritium comes from CANDU reactors which use heavy water, less tritium will come from pressurized water reactors and almost none from boiling water reactors. The palladium is often recycled later. Hence it is not surprising that different samples of Palladium could contain very different amounts of tritium. One of Dr. Wolf's cells, D6, did give large amounts of tritium. This was in late September and was after three months with no positive results, then just before a visit by EPRI funding agency, both cell D6 and number 4 of Bockris's lab, gave large amounts of tritium. The cell D6 was in front of Wolf's gamma ray counter which did not indicate any gammas - this could indicate that no nuclear process had taken place. The Electrical Power Research Institution, EPRI, has given money for fuel cell work at Texas A&M for some years and increased their grant when Cold Fusion was announced. In the autumn of 1989, Texas A&M University asked for $1.4 million which was an order of magnitude more - it was for Drs. Bockris, Wolf and Appleby labs. Dr. Wolf "said evidence that many of the experiments have produced low levels of neutrons is still 'pretty solid'". David Worledge of EPRI which is funding many Cold Fusion groups including Drs. Wolf and Bockris, "explained that attempts to produce tritium in 'cold fusion' experiments didn't hold much further promise in trying to resolve the controversy. The question was more likely to be resolved by new experiments to detect neutrons and to explain the production of excess heat". Thus while a short time ago tritium was considered the strongest evidence, now Believers are shifting to other experiments. This is in agreement with one of the characteristics of Pathological Science where the belief stays the same but the supporting evidence varies. 2. POSSIBLE FRAUD IN DR BOCKRIS'S LAB 2.1 Account Science, the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has published a long article by Gary Taubes about possible fraud in the tritium claims coming from the lab of Dr. Bockris. Because of the seriousness of writing about fraud, the article is very carefully written (it was two months in preparation). It is important to be clear about what it does NOT say; 1. It is does not say there was definitely fraud 2. It does not accuse any specific person of fraud. However it does discuss the balance between academic freedom and the need to guarantee the integrity of Research. It does say that despite many warnings, both oral and by memos, Dr. Bockris and the Texas A&M authorities did not respond adequately to the problem. Also while no legal statement has been made, every person can make their own judgement of what is a reasonable explanation of the happenings described below. The amounts of tritium production obtained in Dr. Bockris's lab are so enormous and so far from the close-to-background values obtained in other labs that they are frequently quoted by Believers and were instrumental in getting the $5 million released for setting up the National Cold Fusion Institute. At the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion there were 15 groups reporting positive tritium production and as Chemical and Engineering News wrote, Believers "point to the observed emissions of tritium as the unassailable signature of a nuclear reaction". On 22 April 1989, Nigel Packham of Bockris's group started looking for tritium in the electrolyte solution in the cell. He gave the 3 cells to the Cyclotron Institute who told him that there a trillion of atoms of tritium per millilitre "When I heard this number, my jaw dropped" said Packham. Similar huge quantities of tritium occured from time to time, and people noted that this "miracle" tended to coincide with important occassions such as a visit of a funding agency. One research student who left said that there were just "Too many goddamm 'miracles' in this laboratory" for him. It can be noticed that the tritium counting rate tended to have a sharp spike and then a long fall-off which corresponded to the radioactive decay of the tritium and dilution of the electrolyte (as gases boiled off and the liquid level was restored) whereas if fusion was occuring for a few days, as excess heat observers claimed, then the counting rate would rise steadily for these days and then when the fusion stopped, the rate would slowly decrease. So the sharp jump could be interpreted as an unusually sharp burst of fusion or it could be interpreted as someone having spiked the electrolyte sample with tritium. Dr Appleby who was observing excess heat for long periods of time, was surprised by the tritium results and asked Dr. Bockris "Look, concerning this tritium - are you sure that someone hasn't been spiking your cells?" In June 1989 when the DOE panel visited Texas A&M, Jacob Bigelstein, who is an expert on tritium, was particularly sceptical when he found that tritium was being claimed but no neutrons though by charge symmetry and experiments, 1 E5 to 1 E9 neutrons per second (a lethal dose) should have been observed. However Packham showed results for cell A7 where Bockris had wanted to catch a cell in the act of producing tritium. The curve showed zero counts at noon, a very slight increase at 2 pm, 500 000 disintegrations per minute per ml (dpmml-1) at 6 pm and 760 000 dpmml-1 at midnight. Packham had drawn a smooth curve through the points indicating a smooth rise in the tritium rate but Bigelstein said "Well, your data do not uniquely define that curve, I could equally well draw the following kind of graph through your data - go flat across at zero until a point around six hours, go straight up with a step function and go flat across again" Kevin Wolf said "Jake are you implying that someone spiked that sample?" Bigelstein replied "Kevin, you said that. I would never say such a thing". Normally cells are followed for weeks or months, but it seems cell A7 was only followed for 12 hours. Also since this experiment was so important, it is astonishing it appears not to have been repeated in almost a year. Another surprising feature of this critical experiment was that tritium was observed within six hours whereas Dr. Bockris and other Believers often claim it takes weeks or months. Bigelstein asked if there was any tritium in the lab and Packham said there was a bottle of tritiated water, five millicuries worth. In a 18 December memo to John Fackler, Dean of the College of Science at A&M, Bockris wrote "This possibility (that the tritium was put there by someone), has been taken seriously by us from the beginning.... we have monitored a certain flask containing tritiated water purposely left in its original position. Not only did we note the original level of the water in the flask but also we measured its tritium content. It has remained unchanged..." However this is in disagreement with a memo dated 4 September from Packham which says that there are many bottles uncontolled in the lab. It was claimed the cell was carefully guarded, e.g. in November Packham said the cells "were under guard for that time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There was one cell (A7)... that shows the build up of tritium as a function of time, where four people were standing there the whole 12 hours in front of the cell when the samples were taken". However Ramesh Kainthla, an Indian post doc who was the senior member of the team, who took the samples at 6 pm and midnight, said " If you think people were watching the cells all the time that is not true. Watching the cell meant a person in the lab, and once in a while (that person) came in and checked that the current was passing." "If you want to do some mischief, you do not need a couple of hours. You can do it in a very, very short period of time." In July, Charles Martin who was working on Cold Fusion but not getting positive results, suggested to Bockris at a meeting, that he would run Bockris's cells in his, Martin's lab, and restrict access. However Bockris did not take this offer. However he did take Packham off the job of sampling the tritium "I tried to take Packham off" Bockris says, "because by that time all these stories were floating around. Nigel spikes the tritium. Everyone thinks Nigel spikes the tritium." Dr Martin copied Bockris's cells and procedure carefully and he controlled access. For the case of two cells with Palladium donated by Bockris, he even ran them at home in his second bedroom. Finally in January, Dr. Martin wrote the final results to Dean Fackler - that none of the 83 cells had given significant signs of tritium. When Fackler asked Bockris why Martin could not replicate his results, he replied on February 2nd "My tentative judgement of today is that a new field of chemistry has been formed. As for "why cannot Dr. Martin succeed?... we cannot succeed either for long periods of time (e.g. 6 to 8 weeks). The important thing is when we do succeed which may be 10 weeks after we switched on the electrolysis." Yet miracle cell A7 gave tritium in only six hours. In the group's first paper is written "interference with the experiments is considered improbable because of positive results from the Cyclotron Institute to which entrance is prohibited except by the usual personnal at the Institute." Indeed when Kevin showed me his work, I had to sign in and was given a monitor. Also Kevin had to unlock the door of his neutron counting room. However it turns out there is no guard nights or weekends and Dr. Youngblood, the Director of the Institute, told Dean Fackler that "at least 35 faculty and lab personnal had keys that would open that door". The above is consistent with No. 5 of Irving Langmuir's six characteristics of Pathological Science: "Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment." However on controlling and thinking, these excuses do not stand up. This has often happened to me with Cold Fusion. These are very suspicious hints of fraud and the Science article contains much more, but is not absolute proof, though it would suggest that precautions should be taken. However stronger evidence on the possibility of fraud came from Kevin Wolf when he tested the electrolyte from a fusion cell run in Dr. Bockris's lab and which had shown a high level of tritium. It had been sealed in a container since the previous year. He found it contained large amounts of light water. Now if there were fusion of the D2O there should be no H2O produced, but if the sample had been spiked with tritiated water from a bottle one would expect some H2O. On hearing this I contacted Texas A&M and was told there was an explanation - during normal operation there was some contact with the air and H2O could have got in(or as John Fackler put it "there's a concern about that... it is possible that the normal water is just condensation from the moist Texas atmosphere). This sounded to me like Characteristic No. 5 again and I suggested that quantative tests be done comparing the amount of H2O in the sample with tritium with that in other cells with no tritium. However this had been done - Nigel Packham and others had tested 8 cells, two of them sealed, and found 30 to 90% H2O, an enormous amount while Kevin Wolf checked 50 cells in his own lab and "found no more than 1% - usually much less in 48 of them." This might seem strong evidence in favour of spiking but Packham has told Science that he and Bockris are not ready to abandon their results. Kevin Wolf said that "The proper conclusion is that things (in the Bockris lab) were so uncontrolled and so sloppy (that) those studies don't mean anything." According to AP, John Fackler said last week that "he had no reason to believe that fraud had occurred and that there were no plans to investigate the cold fusion experiments." "'I have no concrete evidence of anything other than fairly sloppy chemistry.'" At the NCFI, the Director Dr. Will said that their source of palladium was not from Hoover and Strong. He said the amounts of tritium they had seen, about 1/2 to 3 times background, were so low "we have not made any big point of them." According to the SL Tribune he said the Institute has begun "double-blind" tests to search for tritium. He said 24 labs world-wide had seen tritium but only BARC had reported amounts comparable with the Bockris results but as complete scientific papers from BARC have not been forthcoming, "Nobody is really in a position to scrutinize these results." 2.2 POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS In view of this information there would seem to be two reasonable interpretations; A) there was fraud B) there was very sloppy science Either way, the claims of Dr. Bockris's group should be excluded from compilations of results as unsafe. Experience has shown it is very difficult to prove fraud in a court of law. However scientists who are accustommed to studying lots of data and drawing their own conclusions, can decide for themselves whether the probability of fraud is 50%, 90% or 99% or whatever. 3. OTHER TRITIUM CLAIMS At the end of the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, a Los Alamos document was issued which listed 15 labs reporting the observation of tritium (my notes give a lower number, but it is not very important). As far as my notes go, only two of these reported enormous production of tritium. One was Dr. Bockris's group which is discussed above, and the other was the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC in India. The latter's results tend to show a sharp rise and then a descent similar to results of Bockris. Thus the possibility of spiking should not be excluded - it might be wise if they were to repeat Dr. Martin's technique of taking one set of samples of cells and isolating them (though not necessarily taking them to their bedroom!) With the BARC work there are two differences; 1. The tritium results were obtained by several different divisions of BARC and it is said that these divisions are independent. 2. "A unique feature .... is that the first bursts of neutrons and tritium occurred (in 8 out of 11 cells) on the very first day of commencement of electrolysis, when hardly a few Amp-hrs of charged had been passed." The first of these could be considered strong evidence against spiking while the second could raise doubts. Several groups at BARC also measured neutrons. They claim that the ratio of tritium to neutron production is 1 E6 to 1 E9 (though there are also values of 1 E3 and 1 E4) and the Bockris/Wolf groups also claim ratios of about this. At the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference this was tuned to 1 E8 and this value was repeated as a criterion that satisfactory theories should meet - and some did! However there are a very large number of experiments which have proved that this ratio is very close to one and hence in agreement with charge symmetry and not 100 000 000 as Cold Fusion Believers suggest. In a voluminous "Review of the Investigations of the Fleischmann - Pons Phenomena" by Bockris, Lin and Packham, graphs are shown of the variation with time of the tritium counts for 5 labs. Four of them are consistent with the sudden occurrence of tritium and then decay while the fifth is different in that there appears to be frequent increases and decreases in the counting rate so that it could not be due to a single afflux of tritium. However there are two worrying features about this experiment; 1. The counting rates are very low, 100 to 400 dpmml-1. Now the DOE panel report says that D2O normally contains some tritium giving counting rates of 120 to 180 dpmml-1. Also due to different characteristics of d and t nuclei, there is electrolytic enrichment causing the amount of tritium to increase, so that special care is needed to consider values of less than 1000 dpmml-1 as anything other than electrolytic enrichment 2. There are reports that there is a nearby building that occasionally vents off tritium and also a nearby accelerator which can greatly increase the background. There are no detailed reports of adequate precautions being taken by the authors to avoid such local contamination. 4. UNIVERSITY OF UTAH STARTS TO CLEANSE ITSELF 4.1 Legal Letters The letters that Mr. Triggs the personal lawyer of Drs. Fleischmann and Pons (probably mainly Pons as he is an old friend of Pons and lives in North Carolina) sent Mike Salamon and his co-workers asking them to retract a published paper and enjoining them to silence, have caused great offense. The American Physical Society will discuss this at its next executive meeting. Also members are offering to help with a legal defense fund. However that should not be necessary as Joseph Taylor, who is a law professor and vice-president for academic affairs has said the university will defend Salamon et al. if he is sued "in the line of duty." Note that solves the retraction problem, but if Mike makes a statement outside the line of duty, then he could still be sued and the University might not be able to defend him! However a little sanity has returned (would like to think that my series of protests to Martin Fleischmann helped since in the past he has often corrected excesses). Nature writes that on June 5, Mike "received a letter from Triggs apologizing for 'any concerns or misconceptions' his first letter may have caused and assuring him that there is no intent 'to limit in any way the lawful excercise of your academic freedom'. The letter adds that Pons and Fleischmann now 'intend to settle (the) dispute in the court of science through publication". Better, but note that the people who asked Triggs to write the first letter have not themselves commented, and also there is still an implied threat to Mike that he must excercise his freedom "lawfully" - am sure he will, but the law of Tort is still a minefield for scientists who believe that if something is true, you can say it. From what I have heard, Prof Taylor is a wise person - immediately after the 23 March 1989 press conference he told Chase Peterson in strong terms that it was a major mistake. That the University paid Triggs $68 000 for patent work although he is not a patent lawyer, has raised some questions. 4.2 Resignation of President Peterson and NCFI Audit After the College of Science Dean, Hugo Rossi, and 22 professors protested about misuse of $0.5 m of funds being offered to the National Cold Fusion Institute, NCFI, the University president, Chase Peterson agreed to a scientific audit to be conducted by the faculty and said its members would be appointed in the next few days. Also there would be a financial audit. He said he would not resign, "I've considered it hundreds of times before in the past seven years, and I will consider it again in the future". On Monday 4 June, the Institutional Council, the U's governing board met and the chair, James Jardine supported Peterson, though others were less strong. But in the afternoon the Academic Senate met and passed a resolution which read in part "The academic senate respectfully requests that the Institutional Council and the Board of Regents examine the question of whether continuation in office of the current president is in the best interest of the University of Utah and the community which it serves". The resolution was proposed by a History professor and seconded by a professor of Chemical Engineering. A professor of Human Genetics said "the university cannot continue to lurch from crisis to crisis" and an English professor said "I've resisted this moment for a number of years.... but it seems to have come to this." It appears that there were many things that people were unhappy about and Cold Fusion was the straw that broke the camel's back. Dr. Pons returned from Europe and gave an off-camera interview where he said he would co-operate with the audit and in fact he was ready to turn over all of his raw data to a review team, with one reservation - he said they had written a 66 page definitive paper that he hopes will be published next month and he wants to hold on to the data until after the paper comes out. This reservation at first may sound reasonable but is ridiculous as at the First Annual Cold Fusion conference at the end of March, Pons gave and distributed a paper of 25 pages plus figures in addition, which he said contains the essentials - so this looks like a typical delaying tactic. At present even Hawkins does not have access to the raw data even though he did most of the work. It is to be hoped that the Senate audit committee will insist on obtaining the raw data immediately to avoid any chance of them being accidentally lost (there are rumours of a critical tape containing raw data on the gamma peak from neutrons being accidentally wiped clean). However the Salt Lake Tribune wrote that on 11 June, President Peterson announced he would retire in 1991. '"It is my intention to dedicate this remaining year to accomplishing my remaining goals and to position this university for new leadership following the 1990-91 year. At this time I will move on to other opportunities". Despite prior discontent, faculty members pledged their support to the president.' The NCFI Director, Fritz Will has said he will refuse the controversial $0.5 million. Funding is becomming a still bigger problem for the Institute as their hopes of getting $160 000 from EPRI decreased when David Worledge of EPRI said "We should not proceed with the contract negotations until the dust settles." The F/EAC (the NCFI supervisory committee) is in the process of choosing members for the two external committees for science and management/financial reviews of NCFI. Some people are unhappy about this since the history of the F/EAC has not been brilliant. Are they the best organisation to choose people which will investigate also their role? And will the review committees contain people who are well-informed sceptics of Cold Fusion? Who decided that the F/EAC was the best organisation to choose a review committee since the University was supposed to do it? The SL Tribune says that Dr. Bockris was at one time a candidate for the position of Director of the NCFI. People who turned down offer of jobs from the University of Utah have received a questionnaire asking them their opinion of the State, of U. of U. etc. Cold Fusion and NCFI have been mentioned in the answers. 5. COLD FUSION EXPERIMENT AT THE KAMIOKANDE DETECTOR The Japanese experiment Kamiokande has probably the best detector of neutrinos from the sun and from any nearby supernova as its results for SN 1987A showed. They have decided to place a Cold Fusion cell in the heart of their detector towards the end of this year. The point is that while well-informed Japanese scientists tend not to believe in Cold Fusion, there is no major Japanese experiment that has been done on it. Also the public are not well informed. Thus in the magazine Kagaku (which is the Japanese equivalent of the Scientific American) I have just found out that my notes reviewing ALL Cold Fusion experiments were preceded by an article where Dr Ikegami of the Japanese National Fusion Institute mentioned only the results presented at the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference and which were only positive and where he concluded that there should be something in it. The cold fusion experiment would be done this year and I am assured that it will not significantly interfere with their work on Solar neutrinos which is of great interest as was shown by the controversy at the recent Neutrino '90 conference where it was not clear whether the theoretical flux of solar neutrinos was different from the experimental values. The cell is so small compared with the large volume of the Kamiokonde detector, that the effect of its presence is negligable. 6. FUTURE CONFERENCES ON COLD FUSION AND ANOMALOUS EFFECTS Despite recent problems, conferences continue to have sessions on Cold Fusion and there is one conference devoted to it. This is at Brigham Young University. It is markedly different from certain other conferences where only positive results were presented. It is called "Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid Systems". The requirements for papers are clearly stated, e.g. "3. Anomalous Tritium Production in Deuterium/Solid Systems Papers are requested that support or refute the anomalous production of tritium in such systems. Only those experimental results that include comparitive blank runs and documentation of initial tritium content should be presented." This is very different from some recent conferences and one detects the hand of Steve Jones. Abstracts should be sent to Steve before 15 September. The Technical Secretary of this International Workshop is Nate Hoffman at Rockwell International Corp., PO Box 1449, Canoga Park, Ca 91304. Fax (818) 700 5118. 7. WHEN DID COLD FUSION BEGIN? Recently people have been trying to find out when Cold Fusion started. Steve Jones has a document witnessed by a notary, which gives the date for BYU as 1986. But when did Pons and Fleischmann start? For their patents to be sellable it is the date of the first experiment which counts, not the first to give a press conference. They have repeatedly emphasised that they had been working on Cold Fusion for five years before March 1989, but have not seen or heard of any firm evidence that justifies this claim. It appears that their first successful "experiment" was the melt-down of their palladium block. According to Time magazine (8 May 1989) this was in 1985 but there are other indications that this only occured in about the summer of 1988. And their first conventional experiments may have started in April/May 1988 and they began to get results in December 1988, i.e long after Jones et al. These dates are not well established but when Dr. Pons makes his lab notebooks available to the enquiry as he has promised, it will become clear. It is not sure whether the "melt-down" of the palladium block could be considered an experiment as it occured at night when no one was present and there were inadequate measuring and recording devices. 8. PROBLEMS OF DEALING WITH FRAUD Scientists are educated to study and believe experimental results. And when young they do. Their culture makes them very trusting and there results an exceptionally good working atmosphere. However magicians such as Randi say that scientists, especially physicists, are the easiest people to deceive. This is because they virtualy never encounter fraud in their work and rarely hear lies. The consequence is that when there are good grounds for suspecting fraud, scientists generally do not know how to deal with it. Let us distinguish two cases; 1) If there is no suggestion of fraud, then for the sake of academic freedom and for good working relations with your colleagues, then I feel very strongly that one should not start or have a special investigative office. 2) If there are serious doubts and if they have been expressed widely, then the the priorities are different. The reputation of the supervisory institution is at risk. It and the people implicated need to have a clear opportunity to defend themselves. In other words an enquiry should be set up as soon as possible. Institutions often defend themselves by internal enquiries which are whitewash jobs. From the historical point of view, this often succeeds but it leaves a bad taste and good people tend to leave the institution. Dick Feynman's wonderful account of the Challenger enquiry in his last book, is an example of a whitewash that mainly succeeded apart from Dick's actions. Supervisors sometimes feel that inviting in the person for him to explain is an adequate enquiry but there is the fundamental problem that it is very difficult to say to a colleague to his face that there are doubts. To have a real enquiry it is necessary to have outside people who are experts in the subject. I was at the 23 March 1990 meeting of the National Cold Fusion Institute supervisory board where the dubious results and the even more dubious financial statement were approved and the correct questions were sometimes asked but mildly and and any answer was accepted with little thought as to whether it was correct or adequate - the questioning seemed a formality. So the fact that someone was questioned and gave answers does not mean very much. It is necessary to have a record of the questions and answers which are agreed by all, for often the explanations change with time or turn out to be untenable when checked. And a follow up is needed to check, often experimentally, if the explanations are correct. Note that what is suggested here does not in any way restrict academic freedom. In conclusion, fraud is very, very rare, but if a number of people seriously consider it the most likely explanation, then it is best to have an independent enquiry quickly. Douglas R. O. Morrison. PS. LETTER OF DR STORMS TO SCIENCE Have just received a copy of the letter that Dr. Storms of Los Alamos has sent to the Science magazine on June 25. It contains some results that he said he sent to Gary Taubes on 9 April. In it he describes adding some tritium to one of his cells (it is a semi-closed cell with a catalyst) and he compares the variation with time of the tritium counting rate and the ratio of counts from the electrolyte and the gas, with what was observed with Dr. Bockris's cells which gave tritium counts. He concludes the two factors are different and hence the suspicion of the fraudulent addition of tritium is irresponsible. As Dr. Storms letter does not seem to address the basic problem, some comments will be made; 1. Firstly it is important to note what was NOT considered in his letter; a) That light water was observed in those of Bockris's cells that gave tritium b) That the amount of light water was 30 to 90% in the cells that gave large amounts of tritium but only 1% or less in Kevin Wolf's cells that gave little or no tritium. 2. It was an excellent initiative of Dr. Storms to try the experiment of adding tritium but two main features should have been taken into consideration; c) the basic question of light water - he should have added a tritium -light water mix which could reproduce the final mixture of the sample with 30 to 90% light water and a tritium counting rate of about 1 000 000 dpmml-1. d) One should compare like with like. Apart from the fact one cell was closed and the other open, there are two major differences between the the Storms and Bockris experiments; i) The tritium counting rate in the Storms experiment increases over some 20 days and is thus inconsistent with a single spike. In the published results of Bockris et al., the rate jumps suddenly up and the increase seems to occur in six hours or less. ii) The counting rates in the two experiments differ enormously, so different that the two experiments cannot be safely compared. In Storms's experiment the counting rate is very low, in the hundreds of dpmml-1. In the Bockris experiments the counting rate is about a million dpmml-1. The rate in the Storms experiment is so low that the DOE panel warned that with the increase in tritium due to separation by electrolysis, one should treat counting rates of less than 1000 dpmml-1 with care. It is perhaps of interest to compare the power estimated from the experiments of Storms, Bockris and Fleischmann and Pons. Assuming Storms increases his counting rate by 100 dpmml-1 in 10 days, then the average power is about 1 E-9 Watts or a nanoWatt (note 100 dpmml-1 is about the normal content of tritium in D2O - it varies from about 75 to 200 dpmml-1). Assuming Bockris achieves a rate of 7 E5 dpmml-1 in 10 hours, then the average power would be a few E-4 Watts or about less than a milliWatt from all sources. Fleischmann and Pons claim to have measured excess heat of about 10 Watts which would have given a tritium rate of 1 E11 dpmml-1. In their first paper they indicated a tritium rate corresponding to less than 1 E-7 Watts or a tenth of a microWatt. If someone should wish to test experimentally the effect of spiking as a possibility, then it would be best done by adding a tritium/H2O mixture identical to that in the bottle in Dr. Bockris's lab (the mix is known since Dr Bockris said he had measured the radioactivity and the level in the bottle) Then an amount should be added which gave 30 to 90% H2O. Scientists do not like the idea or suspicion of fraud. It would be nice if it were to just to go away. But with a vigourous investigative journalist who is finishing has a commercial aspect, this is unlikely. A rapid external enquiry might be the best way to settle this very, very rare occurrence. -- 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: cuddy3 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.08 / John Moore / Re: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Date: 8 Jul 90 03:14:17 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <55878@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: ] ]The previous newsfeed for Douglas Morrison's excellent cold fusion notes has ]dried up (temporarily, I hope), so following a request, I'm posting his most ]recent contribution. It's long, but well worth reading. A minor correction: Thank you for doing so! A couple of comments. The article took a sharp attack on the Tritium results - especially those of Bockris. The basic form of the attack was the claims that spiking of the results was likely: This is supported by the following: -failure to securely guard the experiment -inconsistencies of tritium results -sudden spikes of tritium -the finding of large amounts of H2O in the samples Finally, a strong implication is made that all of this is typical of "pathological science." While I agree that the tritium results are suspicious, I always have trouble with suggestions of fraud. If cold fusion is typical of pathological science, then so are accusations of fraud - ie, if you don't like the results of an experiment, blame it on (1) poor procedure (2) fraud. We have seen both of these in this debate. I think we would also see both of these in any case where the experimental results were difficult to replicate, and challenged existing knowledge. EVEN IF THE EXPERIMENTS WERE CORRECT. Having said this, led me add that I, for one, do in fact hold little hope for "cold fusion" at this date - my comments are not those of a "believer" - I'm not even much of a "hoper" at this point ;-( I would, however, like to comment on a few of the attacks, if just for completeness: (1) experiments are rarely well guarded. Fraud is in fact rare in science, and when present is usually conducted by someone who already has legitimate access. (2) inconsistent tritium is consistent with other "cold fusion" results - they are all inconsistent. As such, it doesn't lend a whole lot to the fraud suspicions. (3) Sudden bursts are also consistent. (4) It is my understanding that deuterium oxid, in contact with the atmosphere, will rapidly become heavily contaminated with H2O, just due to normal surface exchanges (requiring no isotopic specificity). I don't know the magnitude of expected contamination, but I believe it is fairly large. This might explain the light water found in the tritium speciments. Can anyone give us the quantitative answers? (5) The tritium contamination of the rods is interesting (and sad), but really has no bearing on the Bockris results. By the way, if the rods are really randomly contaminated (as implied by the previous article), maybe only highly contaminated rods give heat, from a tritium fusion :-) [smiley because I find that pretty darn unlikely, too - but a fair cheap shot!] -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Voice: (602) 951-9326 FAX:602-861-7642 Advice: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.09 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 14:18:43 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Awfully quiet on this list ... noone come up with brilliant Theories To Explain Everything lately? Anyway, I am still finding more articles on our favourite subject. Some of the items below - i.e. the Russian ones - are old ones, already in the big list, but I hadn't read them. I had a visit from a friend from Moscow (Dr. A. Mendkovich), and he read through them, giving me the precis below. Thanks, Andrej, I can do it, in principle, but it is a long and painful process. Also, in the process of cleaning up small problems in the list and adding the month of publication, I checked up on the Jackson paper in Nature, which I had given short shrift before. Thanks, also, to John Travis, who answered my plea for the vital statistics of the original Wall Street Journal and Financial Times articles on cold fusion in March '89. These will follow, when I have them. Dieter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 9-Jul. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jackson JC; Nature (London) 339 (1989) 345 (1-Jun). "Cold fusion results still unexplained. Comments". ** Proposes that the energy release is not due to fusion of deuterons but a chain reaction involving radiative capture, by Pd nuclei, of neutrons produced by photodisintegration of deuterons. Neutrons weakly bound to protons in d are transferred to Pd nuclei: n + (104)Pd --> (105)Pd + gamma. The gammas will knock more neutrons off deuterons. Detailed maths will be needed but J suspects that the cross sections will bring the chain close to being self-sustaining. This scheme would explain the heat/neutron anomaly of FPH. J suggests electrochemical experiments with Be, which can also undergo photochemical reactions. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosyachkov AA, Triletskii VS, Cherepin VT, Chichkan SM; Pis'ma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 49 (1989) 648 (In Russian). "Detection helium-3 and tritium formed during ion-plasma saturation of titanium with deuterium". ** They detected helium-3 and tritium, at a Ti target shot at with an ion beam of deuterium with an energy up to 9 keV. Mass spectroscopy was used for the detection. This humble commentator does not feel great confidence in the results, which consist of tiny pimples on the mass specs, at 100* magnification. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Koval'chuk EP, Romaniv ON, Pazderskii YuA, Aksiment'eva EM, Babei YuI, Kovalchuk AE; Fiz.-Khim. Mekh. Mater. 25 (1989) 119 (In Russian). "Electrochemically stimulated radiation by metals". ** Electrolysis of D2O at Ni and Fe; 20-40 events/sec were observed with D2O, none with H2O. "Events" were apparently beta emissions, said to come from the reaction n --> e+e- (my strong guess is that they had no neutron detectors). No details are given as to background, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lipson AG, Sakov DM, Klyuev VA, Deryagin BV, Toporov YuP; Pis'ma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 49 (1989) 588. (In Russian). "Generation of neutrons by mechanical action on titanium in the presence of deuterated material". ** Ball mill treatment of titanium shavings in the presence of D2O and deuterated polymer. A block of 7 neutron counters was used, 15 cm from the mill. 0.3 counts/s were observed in a mixture of Ti + 10% D2O + 4% polymer. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lomovskii OI, Eremin AF, Boldyrev VV; Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 309 (1989) 879 [Phys. Chem] (In Russian). "Isotopic thermal effect in reactions related to hydrogen evolution on palladium catalytic particles". ** Palladium is a catalyst for the oxidation of formaldehyde by Cu++ in an aqueous solution: 2CH2O + Cu++ --(Pd)-> Cu + H2 + 2HCOO- + 2H2O. A mechanism for this reaction is proposed. The role of the Pd is the transport of electrons from site to site, to facilitate the intermediate reactions. When H2O was replaced by D2O, calorimetry showed some heat effects that are not simply explained by the thermodynamics of the reaction, and may have connection with cold fusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Parmenter RH, Lamb WE Jr; Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87 (1990) 3177. "More cold fusion in metals: corrected calculations and other considerations". ** A reexamination of their previous calculations of possible fusion rates in PdD(x), which lead to a value of 1E-30. Now, it seems that about 1E-18 is possible, larger than the rates inferred by Jones+ (who have similar results with palladium electrodes). The application of the model to titanium is not as easy, due to uncertainties in values of, e.g., specific heat and elastic constants of the deuteride, so no reliable numbers can be calculated. Apr-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rajagopalan SR; Curr. Sci. 58 (1989) 1059. "Cold fusion produces more tritium than neutrons". ** Comments on the BARC cold fusion measurements of Iyengar and others. In many of these, neutrons were found, up to about 1E06/s, coming in bursts. Tritium was also carefully monitored, taking account of enrichment effects. Tritium was observed beyond these effects, at much higher levels than the neutron flux. This seems to support the assumption of an aneutronic process taking place. BARC experiments with Ti also showed neutrons and tritium, which was found to be localised in hot spots in the Ti. Rajagopalan suggests that the FPH results can be explained without invoking an unknown nuclear reaction. He claims that "it is now known" that in metal lattices, the branching ratio for dd fusion favours tritium production by a factor of 1E08 over that for neutrons. So 1E04 neutrons should be accompanied by 1E12 tritium atoms. Calculation of the heat expected from FPH's electrodes then gets within about 50% of FPH's results, not bad when taking into account gas emission and fusion rate fluctuations. Thus the reaction giving (4)He need not be invoked. Rajagopalan states that papers should provide more details of electrode size and conditions, and tritium as well as He analysis is essential. R concludes with a rudimentary theory of what is happening, being either crack formation and fractofusion, or the transmutation of the metal (Pd or Ti) by neutrons (see Jackson, Nature 339 (1989) 345). Oct-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Santhanam KSV, Rangarajan J, Mandal KC, Haram SK; Curr. Sci. 58 (1989) 1139. "Excess enthalpy during electrolysis of D2O". ** These authors did some electrolysis experiments with a Ti electrode in an open cell in a dewar flask, and measured the temperature. Preliminary cyclic voltammetry showed that there are differences between the characteristics for heavy and light water; there was no desorption peak in the case of D2O. From calibrations, the temperature changes in the cell attributable to the various partial processes (heat of electrolysis, adsorption of D2, recombination of D2 with O2) were calculated. These calculations cannot explain the heat effects observed. Oct-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; Science 248 (1990) 1487, 22-Jun. "Cold fusion claims a victim" (Briefings section). ** The victim is U of U's president Chase N. Peterson, because of his bungling of the $500000 "anonymous donation" affair. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bishop JE; The Wall Street Journal June 7 (1990) B4. "Scientist says 'cold fusion' tests may have had some impure rods". ** The "nail-in-the-coffin" article, in which Kevin Wolf is reported to say that at least some of his palladium electrodes were contaminated by tritium. Bockris, however, in whose lab much greater amounts of tritium have been found, rejects this as an explanation. He is still convinced that they found tritium generated in the cells. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joyce C; New Scientist 126 (1990), no.1721, 16-Jun, p.22. "Gunfight at the cold fusion corral". ** A summary of the recent troubles at the U of U; i.e. the "anonymous" donation by the University to the cold fusion institute, and the legal threats to the Salamon team. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maddox J; Nature (London) 345 (1990) 652; 21-Jun. "An apology". ** John Maddox, the editor of Nature apologises to I.M. Klotz and J.J. Katz, both of the USA, who had submitted what appears to be a sociology of science paper, in which they compared the cold fusion affair with the alleged discovery, in the last century, of Acarus crossii. There was an editorial foul-up, a reviewer ended up with a paper on the Acarus affair and Klotz and Katz were left high and dry. Maddox apologises. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.09 / rolfe petschek / Re: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Date: 9 Jul 90 14:19:21 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <2658@anasaz.UUCP> john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) writes: >In article <55878@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >] >]The previous newsfeed for Douglas Morrison's excellent cold fusion notes has >]dried up (temporarily, I hope), so following a request, I'm posting his most >]recent contribution. It's long, but well worth reading. A minor correction: > >This is supported by the following: > -failure to securely guard the experiment > -inconsistencies of tritium results > -sudden spikes of tritium > -the finding of large amounts of H2O in the samples > But, surprisingly there is no mention of the H/T ratio in the Tritiated sample in the Bockris lab and how it compares to the H/T ratio in the samples which may have been spiked. As both the H and T content seem to vary by orders of magnitude the H/T ratio would also be expected to do so and therefore if the two H/T ratios mentioned above are comparable (and it is suggested that there should be ample evidence to allow this calculation) then many of the reasonable objections to fraud would loose their force. Similarly if these ratios are very different then the suggestion of fraud would be weakened somewhat. Vague hints from numbers in the article and the likely 'heat' of a T sample in a lab suggest that this ratio might not be too far off. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.09 / Paul Koloc / Re:"What's New" 6/15/90 --> More Inertial Fusion Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re:"What's New" 6/15/90 --> More Inertial Fusion Date: 9 Jul 90 10:56:13 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <646.2686C5DB@ofa123.fidonet.org> Ping.Huang.@.914/207@ofa123.fidonet.org (Ping Huang @ 914/207) writes: >>2. THE HOUSE WILL VOTE NEXT WEEK ON AN ENERGY APPROPRIATIONS BILL that >> .. . also calls for .. . funding .. . Inertial fusion is up, magnetic >> is down, cold is out. >Can someone explain a bit more about inertial fusion? >I recall magnetic fusion (using magnetic 'bottles' to contain >the hydrogen gases) but inertial? does it have anything to do >with using lasers to rapidly heat up hydrogen pellets and >letting inertia keep the hydrogen atoms at a high enough density >for fusion to take place? A critical volume (triple) product of plasma pressure (density* Temperature) and time must be maintained to achieve fusion. Two general approaches are magnetic and inertial. Magnetic devices generally can produced fairly good confinement times because time depends on device size and that can be achieved relatively certainly and at a fairly predictable cost. They have fallen very short on the achievable plasma pressure, however. So while one year they can make gains on temperature, it is at the expense of density or the next year they can feature a gain in density. It's a gain (game) they use to keep the money flowing from the suckers in congress. It works well, and they estimate they can milk the tokamak concept for another twenty to fifty years! Inertial confinement, produces mucho pressure but for a very short confinement time. It can't be made large, SO FAR, because of the heating approaches that are most popular are tremendously inefficient. These sources are usually laser beams or particle beams. However, there is a third form of inertial confinement, called "Inertial Magnetic Confinement". The Japanese have a form of this where they utilized a laser to set up a Spheromak like plasmoid within a very tiny heavy metal conducting shell. Read things in reverse.. so it is magnetic inertial confinement not inertial magnetic confinement. In the Japanese case, the plasmoid forms a strong currents one of which in turn gives rise to a surrounding magnetic insulating poloidal vacuum field. Since there is essentially no room between the conducting shell and the plasmoid ring for the this magnetic energy, it simply displaces the plasmoid by compression (the less massive of the two inertial bodies) thereby producing strong compression heating. Since the shells can be quite massive and the currents are long lived, these objects have triple product densities about three times what equivalent ordinary laser inertial confinement shots do. The Russians also do work in this area and there is a rumor that they have a classified project at Krasnaya Pachra, that produced "plenty big burst" of neutrons". It consisted of an shaped thin metal liner compression of an Spheromak ring caught on the fly after being ejected from its formation device. Dan Wells stopped and merged together two Spheromak rings which he has slammed together head on. At the instant of collision, he did and inertial theta pinch compression of a plasma cylinder which encapsulated the magnetized vacuum field of the merged Spheromak. Due to the high kinetic energy and momentum in the compressing plasma sheath, it inertially compressed flux field and plasma of the Spheromak core, and produced peak pressures considerably higher then the peak fields in the driving coil. Even that rather tiny experiment (by comparison to the Russian one) produced a easily detectable numbers neutrons. Wells is now retired and writing classical music, the last I heard. In the whacko world of science funding by bureaucrats ( at least I don't understand the flippant attitude), the work wasn't funded, "Since it doesn't make sense that neutrons can be produced if the peak coil pressures are inadequate". Three cheers for publick service! Never mind that neutrons were repeatably observed, or that this would support exactly one of the tasks of science: to solve inconsistencies. In addition isn't neutron output from a deuterium plasma of direct interest to those chartered to solve early versions of fusion energy production. Notice that a magnetic configuration ITSELF may be inertially compressed by either laser or a separate magnetic source. A Magnetic drive seems to be much more efficient than a laser or even a particle beam drive. But that may not be the ultimate. Finally, simple direct mechanical inertial compression can be applied to produce fusion in a special Spheromak with a plasma shell or (PLASMAK)tm magnetoplasmoid and with internal anomalously highly conducting relativistic currents. Pressure balance is provided by a dense gas blanket, and fluid compression to thousands of atmospheres should work quit well and quickly to provide wide spread use of well engineered and environmentally safe machines in about ten years. We have one theoretical problem. It relates to the plasmoid's lifetime which seems to be about 10^3 or 10^4 or so better than would be expected based on kinetics or collisionality. Relativistic distortions of the current electrons fields at higher gamma may be one of the more important neglected factors. As a consequence a PLASMAK(tm) fusion generator should easily attain values comfortably in excess of the desired triple product. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / Dieter Britz / Tritium problems Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium problems Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 14:28:56 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) asks > (4) It is my understanding that deuterium oxid, in contact with > the atmosphere, will rapidly become heavily contaminated with > H2O, just due to normal surface exchanges (requiring no isotopic > specificity). I don't know the magnitude of expected contamination, > but I believe it is fairly large. This might explain the > light water found in the tritium speciments. Can anyone give > us the quantitative answers? Take out the word "rapidly", and you're quite right. We do, in fact, have some evidence: in the item by Robert Pool, "Wolf: My tritium was an impurity", Science 15-Jun-90, 1301, Wolf is quoted as saying that he found up to 1% H2O contamination in cells in his own lab - he does not say but I take it that these cells had been operating for some time. If these cells are similar to those of Bockris and Packham, we can expect a similar extent of exchange with atmospheric water vapour. You will appreciate that one cannot generalise the process. While at a given temperature and a given humidity, and infinite stirring of both the D2O and the air in contact with it, the exchange rate is quite measurable and probably known, the long-term actual rate would have to include transport effects and these will vary widely from one kind of cell to another. It seems to me that Wolf's <1% figure is a good practical figure. I feel that we'll not be able to decide whether there has been fraud or not at Texas A&M - unless someone makes a detailed confession. Until this takes place, I agree with Douglas Morrison that, because of either fraud or just sloppy work, those Texas results have to be disregarded. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy10 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Tue, 10 Jul 90 14:36:14 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Here's another mini-batch. The Lipson item replaces the same one from the last batch: I have just seen it in English in JETP. Moreover, it also replaces the older one I have had in the grand list for some time, where for some reason I had dropped Lipson's name; i.e. in the list, it goes under Sakov, Klyuev, etc, same Pis'ma edition. Sorry about that; I'd like to blame Chemical Abstracts but I'll bet I just copied it incorrectly. Where would we be if CA got things wrong? The Roth et al paper is interesting from the point of view of those experiments in which deuterium loading was achieved by ion implantation. I had not realised (I guess you all knew) that self targeting and the emission of neutrons under such a beam is a very well known phenomenon. See the group 4 articles of Fiebinger and Robinson; I can now drop such terms as Gamow cross section, self targeting and neutron flux saturation, with great aplomb. So if you want to detect cold fusion, you have to switch off the beam first, which is what Roth et al did. It does seem to me that their number for the upper limit on the cold fusion rate, E-23/pair/s, is a bit doubtful, being derived from a background of in all 3 measured protons during about 3E05 s, and the metal foil volume. Ah well. As in astronomy, we are happy with orders of magnitude. Dieter. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 10-Jul. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Briand JP, Ban G, Froment M, Keddam M, Abel F; Phys. Lett. A145 (1990) 187. "Cold fusion rates in titanium foils". ** In a previous paper, this team had detected cold fusion by the x-rays produced when the neutrons hit metal atoms. They have now improved their technique, and use it on Ti instead of Pd (as previously). Background detector noise is now down by a factor of 100, efficiency up 3 times. Electrolysis was used, in soups containing Jones+-like metal ions. They conclude that even with properly pretreated Ti, the D does not penetrate more than 2-3 mu into the Ti, due to deposition of metals. So, on the one hand, Jones+ fusion rate should be revised by a couple of orders of magnitude, due to the much smaller volume. On the other hand, the present team finds next to nothing, even from Ti fully loaded by D2 gas, nor (a fracto-experiment) from loaded Ti cracked right in front of the detector. Apr-90 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lipson AG, Sakov AG, Klyuev VA, Deryagin BV, Toporov YuP; JETP 49 (1989) 675 [English translation from the Russian original in Pis'ma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 49 (1989) 588. "Neutron emission during the mechanical treatment of titanium in the presence of deuterated substances". ** Vibrational dispersion of Ti shavings in 10% D2O and/or 4-5% (D3CD=CD2)x (i.e. low polymer) produced neutrons. Freezing increased the count but this decreased again later, confirming the micro-crack theory. This paper seems to be very similar to their paper in Nature. The neutron rate was 0.3/s measured, or 5-6 times the background, or 10-30 n/s (presumably due to detector attenuation). There is no mention how Ti metal in contact with D2O should produce the deuteride. Jun-89. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oyama N; Ohsaka T; Hatozaki O; Yamamoto N; Kurasawa Y; Kasahara S; Imai Y; Oyama Y; Nakamura T; Rep. Res. Cent. Ion Beam Technol., Hosei Univ., Suppl. 1990, 8 p.1. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:242099 (1990). "Various approaches for cold fusion examination". ** Conducted electrolysis as well as high-pressure loading experiments with Ti and La-Ni alloys. Deuterium loading, measured by weight was in the range 0.6-0.93 depending on electrode pretreatment, temperature, current density, etc. Excess heat was observed over a period of several days, but no tritium and no neutrons above background, which corresponded to 0.3/evnts/s. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roth J, Behrisch R, Moeller W, Ottenberger W; Nucl. Fusion 30 (1990) 441. "Fusion reactions during low energy deuterium implantation into titanium". ** The authors state that it is essential to have a high metal loading with deuterium, like 2 D per metal atom. To get this, they say, we need deuterium ion implantation. The beam, however, leads to "self targeting", a process known for over 30 years, where the beam hits previously deposited deuterons (the references are given). This is not cold fusion. So the question is: do we detect fusion when the beam is off? The team used a 0.3-6 keV beam, shot at Ti foil, and measured protons coming out at the rear of the foil. During the beam, the proton flux agreed with earlier work, obeying the Gamov cross section relation and diffusion behaviour observed 30 years ago. The background before the beam was 2 emitted protons in 2.4E05 s; and after bombardment, 1 proton in 0.54E05 s. From this, the background, and the volume of the foil, they arrive at an upper fusion rate limit of E-23/pair/s, "in reasonable agreement" with the results of Jones+. One could also say that if there's fusion, you can't detect it. Mar-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Czirr JB, Jensen GL; Nucl. Instr. Methods A284 (1989) 365. "A neutron coincidence spectrometer". ** This is the way to measure low-intensity neutron fluxes of MeV neutrons. The apparatus relies (I quote) on total energy absorption to measure neutron energy. A coincidence signal is required from the capture of thermalised neutrons in Li-6 glass scintillators incorporated in the detector body. This dual signal from a single neutron provides powerful discrimination against background events from gamma rays or ambient low-energy neutrons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fiebinger K; Angew. Phys. 9 (1957) 213 (in German). "Die Bildung von 'Selbsttargets' fuer die Kernreaktion D(d,n)He(3) und ihr Zusammenhang mit dem Problem der Wasserstoffdiffusion in Metallen". ** I have the impression that Fiebinger was (one of?) the first to relate the saturation of neutron emission from a metal bombarded with a deuteron beam to the diffusion of the deuterons into the bulk of the metal. Here, he used metals like Au, Ir, Rh, Ag, Pd, Pt and others. This paper and the one by Robinson et al is relevant to cold fusion experiments in which the deuteride is made by deuteron beam bombardment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robinson MT, Southern AL, Willis WR; J. Appl. Phys. 31 (1960) 1474. "Diffusion of deuterium in deuteron-irradiated copper". ** The aim was to measure the diffusion coefficient of deuterium in Cu. It was already well known in 1960 that a beam of deuterons shot at a metal will lead to neutron emission, due to self targeting, i.e. the beam hitting d deposited earlier, and this effect, together with the diffusion into the bulk, leads to saturation of the neutron emission, here at a level of some 30-40E03 /s. The authors set up some mathematics, in order to get from the neutron emission to diffusion coefficients. This paper and the one by Fiebinger is relevant to cold fusion experiments in which the deuteride is made by deuteron beam bombardment. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy10 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / Allan Holtz / people Originally-From: vvcns@earth.lerc.nasa.gov (Allan Holtz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: people Date: 10 Jul 90 11:47:42 GMT Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center is anybody out there? cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenvvcns cudfnAllan cudlnHoltz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / Scott Mcgee / Re: people Originally-From: smcgee%albion.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Scott Mcgee) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: people Date: 10 Jul 90 16:15:56 GMT Organization: University of Utah CS Dept In article <1990Jul10.114742.26700@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov> vvcns@earth.lerc.nasa.gov writes: >is anybody out there? I'm here. I don't know about anybody else however! I just keep waiting for something interesting to be posted. Scott Buttered bread always lands * Scott McGee butter side down! (Unless * email : smcgee%albion@cs.utah.edu it sticks to the ceiling!) * Would YOU mistake these opinions as anyone's but my own? cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenedu cudfnScott cudlnMcgee cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.11 / Charles Poirier / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: 11 Jul 90 20:33:30 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. In article <9007101155.AA13874@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > > The Roth et al paper is interesting from the point of view of those >experiments in which deuterium loading was achieved by ion implantation. I >had not realised (I guess you all knew) that self-targeting and the emission >of neutrons under such a beam is a very well known phenomenon. "Well-known" and "widely-known" are two different things. "Well-understood" is yet another. I'd guess that most readers of this group (as myself) never heard of deuteron self-targeting before now. >Roth J, Behrisch R, Moeller W, Ottenberger W; Nucl. Fusion 30 (1990) 441. >"Fusion reactions during low energy deuterium implantation into titanium". >** The authors state that it is essential to have a high metal loading with >deuterium, like 2 D per metal atom. To get this, they say, we need deuterium >ion implantation. The beam, however, leads to "self targeting", a process >known for over 30 years, where the beam hits previously deposited deuterons Most interesting. Self-targeting occurs during ion implantation. No offense meant, but is it just an assumption that it does *not* occur during electrolysis? Is the self-targeting mechanism well-understood, or is what is known just a "cross-section" level description of the parameters and results of a specific experimental design? If the latter, I would describe the effect as well-known, but not necessarily well-understood. I realize the energies involved in implantation versus electrolysis are very different, but perhaps electrolysis results in a small but significant amount of self-targeting? It's worth some discussion at least. Self-targeting is exactly the sort of phenomenon which could make cold fusion go. The fact that it is *known* to exist, albeit within a different range of energies, should make the prospect more interesting rather than less. There is also the obvious parallel, that actual operation of the ion beam (and not just a static loading level) is required to generate a flux of neutrons (or was it really protons?) via self-targeting, and an actual electrolytic current (by some reports) is required for cold fusion. >(the references are given). This is not cold fusion. Begging the question, is cold fusion "this"? We should be interested in the reality, rather than the label we apply to it. To say "this is not cold fusion" is just to say that the labels do not match, without examining whether one or both of the labels may be wrong in the first place. Let us make such an examination before dismissing out of hand an interesting lead. Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.13 / Scott Mueller / Announcing another opinion poll Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Announcing another opinion poll Date: Fri, 13 Jul 90 22:28:52 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Bill Johnson seems to be having some trouble getting this out from LANL, so as his co-conspirator I am posting it for him. Please send responses via email to me at the address given below, or directly to Bill at mwj@beta.lanl.gov. ---------------------- Long-time sci.physics.fusion readers may remember that about a year ago, I conducted a thumbnail poll of s.p.f readers regarding the question of "proof" in cold fusion experiments. The question has recently come up again, not so much in terms of cold fusion itself as in its relevance for how s.p.f has been used. Therefore, I'm asking for readers' help one more time. I'd appreciate it if you would respond to the following questions via e-mail (please do *not* post your responses). They are a superset of the previous poll, and one of the interesting things is to see if some of the answers have changed. If you responded to the previous poll, have changed your mind about something and remember how the change went, please indicate that too. Scott Hazen Mueller (original s.p.f architect who continues to run the gateway through Zorch) is also involved in this little polling effort, and he asks me to include the following: "I run the gateway between email and the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics.fusion. I can be reached electronically from the Internet at scott@zorch.sf-bay.org or scott%zorch@ames.arc.nasa.gov. From BITNET I can be reached at FUSION@NDSUVM1, and from UUCP I am (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott." [Use this address for poll responses if you can't send them directly to me for some reason. -- MWJ] "We are especially interested in seeing your response if you are receiving this survey via some means other than Usenet News. For example: via electronic mail through NDSUVM1; in a conference on another networking system, perhaps CoSy; or perhaps printed out and passed around your office. "If you cannot reach us via electronic mail, feel free to send your response via ordinary postal mail. Please send letters to: Fusion Survey 10122 Amador Oak Ct. Cupertino, CA 95014 USA" Thanks for taking the time for this. Please try to reply by 7/27 if possible. Scott and I will post a summary of findings, which may also show up in a paper we're working on (stripped of any personal information, of course -- no names, addresses, institutions, etc., will be mentioned explicitly in any eventual paper). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. (from previous poll) Complete the following "Credo" statement so that it best describes your perception of "proof" required for cold fusion: For cold fusion to be shown to exist, researchers at [institution A] must demonstrate [phenomenon B] under [conditions C]. Choices for A: a. any laboratory b. any university laboratory c. any government laboratory d. any industrial laboratory e. more than one laboratory (indicate whether university, government, etc., as appropriate) f. other Also indicate if you would add the word "prestigious" to the description that you choose. Choices for B: a. excess heat b. tritium production c. production of nuclear observables (neutrons, gamma rays) d. excess heat plus tritium production e. excess heat plus nuclear observables f. tritium plus nuclear observables g. heat, tritium AND nuclear observables h. other Choices for C: a. in at least 1 cell b. in at least 2 cells c. in at least 10 cells d. in a significant fraction of all cells they run e. on demand f. other (specify) 2. Do you feel that this condition has been met by now? (yes/no) 3. Do you feel that this condition *will be* met at some point? (yes/no) 4. Which of the following reports did you hear via the net *before* you heard them through other media: a. Original FPH report of cold fusion b. Announcement of the Santa Fe cold-fusion workshop c. Reports/critiques of papers from the Santa Fe workshop d. Descriptions of other experiments (list) e. Letter from FPH lawyer to Salamon team threatening to "take whatever action is appropriate" to protect FPH interests f. "Anonymous" donor of $500k to NCFI turns out to have ties to U of Utah g. "Retraction" of Wolf tritium results h. _Science_ report of worries about possible fraud in Bockris group 5. (optional, from previous poll) What is your educational status (degree level, field) and field of employment (computer science/engineering/ physical science/other, student/university faculty/national laboratory/ industry/other)? Have you ever been involved in a cold-fusion experiment? 6. (optional) Where do you live and work? (city, state/province, country) 7. From 1=not at all important to 5=very important, rank the importance of the network cold fusion information... A. ...in your work? B. ...as a general information source? 8. (optional) Append any comments you deem appropriate: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks again for your help. Responses via e-mail, please. -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.|(408) 253-6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.11 / vvcns@venus.le / Purpose Originally-From: vvcns@venus.lerc.nasa.gov Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Purpose Date: 11 Jul 90 16:05:33 GMT Organization: NASA/Lewis Research Center Does anybody know what this group is for? cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenvvcns cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / William Johnson / Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Latest cold-fusion notes from Douglas Morrison Date: 10 Jul 90 22:02:05 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Here's another update from Douglas Morrison. Note that it is basically the same article that I posted on 7/3, with a few additions and corrections. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD FUSION UPDATE TRITIUM RESULTS EVAPORATE - POSSIBLE FRAUD? The 23 Cold Fusion News letters that I distributed were meant to be essentially scientific though they gave some news as well. As there are so many good null experiments and so few good experiments that find positive results favouring Cold Fusion, I decided that there was no scientific point in continuing. However surprisingly many people ask me what is happening, and since there have been some dramatic developments casting very serious doubts on the tritium experiments, which Believers consider to be their strongest evidence, this is an update. Hence this Update is not intended to be conventionally scientific. It may concern those interested in Pathological Science: also senior scientists and scientific directors since there is growing activity among US politicians about scientific fraud and misuse of funds - e.g. the National Science Foundation started an Inspector General's office a year ago and now has appointed a criminal investigator. Fraud is very, very rare (in my own field of Particle Physics the most recent example I know of was in 1924 when the positron was "discovered"). The result is that often scientific administrators react badly throwing buckets of whitewash over their colleagues but acid at the honest whistle blower and the media - whereas they could be starting an immediate investigation which they can announce if challenged. Will those who do not wish to receive an Update please let me know. SUMMARY Kevin Wolf of the Cyclotron lab at Texas A&M has announced that there was contamination of tritium in the palladium rods he used and this could explain the tritium that he had previously claimed. Many scientists at Texas A&M had been worried about the possibility of fraudulant addition of tritium to the samples of electrolyte sent for analysis from Dr. Bockris's lab and which gave exceedingly high levels of tritium. There was a bottle containing tritium in light water in the lab. The samples were found to contain light water. Despite repeated requests, Dr. Bockris did not take adequate precautions to prevent someone spiking the samples. The Senate of the University of Utah has asked the President to resign. He says he intends to leave next year. Experiments and conferences on Cold Fusion continue. SUBJECTS 1. Tritium in Original Palladium Rods 2. Possible Fraud in Dr. Bockris's lab. 3. Other Tritium Claims 4. University of Utah Tries to Cleanse Itself 5. Cold Fusion Experiment in Kamiokande Detector 6. Future Conferences on Cold Fusion and Anonomolous Effects. 7. When did Cold Fusion begin? 8. Problems in Dealing with Fraud. 1. TRITIUM IN ORIGINAL PALLADIUM RODS At Texas A&M there are four groups that have worked on Cold Fusion, those of Kevin Wolf, Dr. Bockris, Dr. Appleby and Dr. Martin. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Kevin Wolf who is a nuclear chemist working at the Cyclotron lab, might have an explanation of the small amounts of tritium he had observed from two of his cells. This was out of dozens of experiments he had run and he was currently operating 100 cells He had been attempting to explain why he found so little tritium and so rarely compared with his neighbour, Dr. Bockris who frequently found enormous amounts. One test was to dissolve completely palladium rods as received from the manufacturer, Hoover and Strong, and those used in light water blank cells. He found low levels of tritium contamination in both cases. He considered this tritium in the original palladium rod might be an explanation of his occasional findings of small amounts of tritium in the electrolyte. Dr. Bockris said he was startled but as the level was so much lower than his labs' observations "I haven't changed my mind". He noted that "about 2/3 of our work" used rods from Hoover and Strong, although not from the same batch of metal. The Wall Street article continues "The chemist also noted that it is highly unlikely that positively charged tritium atoms could escape from the negatively charged palladium. Therefore even if the palladium was contaminated, the tritium could not leak out into the surrounding heavy water, he argued". This statement may surprise scientists. The Hoover and Strong Vice President, Dan Pharr said he was unfamiliar with Cold Fusion research - he worked for the jewelry trade and was not concerned about low level contamination. People who are experts in palladium and reactors are not surprised as palladium is often used as a catalyst to combine gases in nuclear reactors. Appreciable tritium comes from CANDU reactors which use heavy water, less tritium will come from pressurized water reactors and almost none from boiling water reactors. The palladium is often recycled later. Hence it is not surprising that different samples of Palladium could contain very different amounts of tritium. One of Dr. Wolf's cells, D6, did give large amounts of tritium. This was in late September and was after three months with no positive results, then just before a visit by EPRI funding agency, both cell D6 and number 4 of Bockris's lab, gave large amounts of tritium. The cell D6 was in front of Wolf's gamma ray counter which did not indicate any gammas - this could indicate that no nuclear process had taken place. The Electrical Power Research Institution, EPRI, has given money for fuel cell work at Texas A&M for some years and increased their grant when Cold Fusion was announced. In the autumn of 1989, Texas A&M University asked for $1.4 million which was an order of magnitude more - it was for Drs. Bockris, Wolf and Appleby labs. Dr. Wolf "said evidence that many of the experiments have produced low levels of neutrons is still 'pretty solid'". David Worledge of EPRI which is funding many Cold Fusion groups including Drs. Wolf and Bockris, "explained that attempts to produce tritium in 'cold fusion' experiments didn't hold much further promise in trying to resolve the controversy. The question was more likely to be resolved by new experiments to detect neutrons and to explain the production of excess heat". Thus while a short time ago tritium was considered the strongest evidence, now Believers are shifting to other experiments. This is in agreement with one of the characteristics of Pathological Science where the belief stays the same but the supporting evidence varies. 2. POSSIBLE FRAUD IN DR BOCKRIS'S LAB 2.1 Account Science, the official journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has published a long article by Gary Taubes about possible fraud in the tritium claims coming from the lab of Dr. Bockris. Because of the seriousness of writing about fraud, the article is very carefully written (it was two months in preparation). It is important to be clear about what it does NOT say; 1. It is does not say there was definitely fraud 2. It does not accuse any specific person of fraud. However it does discuss the balance between academic freedom and the need to guarantee the integrity of Research. It does say that despite many warnings, both oral and by memos, Dr. Bockris and the Texas A&M authorities did not respond adequately to the problem. Also while no legal statement has been made, every person can make their own judgement of what is a reasonable explanation of the happenings described below. The amounts of tritium production obtained in Dr. Bockris's lab are so enormous and so far from the close-to-background values obtained in other labs that they are frequently quoted by Believers and were instrumental in getting the $5 million released for setting up the National Cold Fusion Institute. At the First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion there were 15 groups reporting positive tritium production and as Chemical and Engineering News wrote, Believers "point to the observed emissions of tritium as the unassailable signature of a nuclear reaction". On 22 April 1989, Nigel Packham of Bockris's group started looking for tritium in the electrolyte solution in the cell. He gave the 3 cells to the Cyclotron Institute who told him that there a trillion of atoms of tritium per millilitre "When I heard this number, my jaw dropped" said Packham. Similar huge quantities of tritium occured from time to time, and people noted that this "miracle" tended to coincide with important occassions such as a visit of a funding agency. One research student who left said that there were just "Too many goddamm 'miracles' in this laboratory" for him. It can be noticed that the tritium counting rate tended to have a sharp spike and then a long fall-off which corresponded to the radioactive decay of the tritium and dilution of the electrolyte (as gases boiled off and the liquid level was restored) whereas if fusion was occuring for a few days, as excess heat observers claimed, then the counting rate would rise steadily for these days and then when the fusion stopped, the rate would slowly decrease. So the sharp jump could be interpreted as an unusually sharp burst of fusion or it could be interpreted as someone having spiked the electrolyte sample with tritium. Dr Appleby who was observing excess heat for long periods of time, was surprised by the tritium results and asked Dr. Bockris "Look, concerning this tritium - are you sure that someone hasn't been spiking your cells?" In June 1989 when the DOE panel visited Texas A&M, Jacob Bigeleisen, who is an expert on tritium, was particularly sceptical when he found that tritium was being claimed but no neutrons though by charge symmetry and experiments, 1 E5 to 1 E9 neutrons per second (a lethal dose) should have been observed. However Packham showed results for cell A7 where Bockris had wanted to catch a cell in the act of producing tritium. The curve showed zero counts at noon, a very slight increase at 2 pm, 500 000 disintegrations per minute per ml (dpmml-1) at 6 pm and 760 000 dpmml-1 at midnight. Packham had drawn a smooth curve through the points indicating a smooth rise in the tritium rate but Bigeleisen said "Well, your data do not uniquely define that curve, I could equally well draw the following kind of graph through your data - go flat across at zero until a point around six hours, go straight up with a step function and go flat across again" Kevin Wolf said "Jake are you implying that someone spiked that sample?" Bigeleisen replied "Kevin, you said that. I would never say such a thing". Cell A7 had a special history. For some months it had been running and giving no tritium, then at 12 noon, the current was increased with the dramatic results described above. Also since this experiment was so important, it is astonishing it appears not to have been repeated in almost a year. Another surprising feature of this critical experiment was that tritium was observed within six hours of the increase in current whereas Dr. Bockris and other Believers often claim it takes weeks or months. If this worked like clockwork, why not repeat? Bigelstein asked if there was any tritium in the lab and Packham said there was a bottle of tritiated water, five millicuries worth. In a 18 December memo to John Fackler, Dean of the College of Science at A&M, Bockris wrote "This possibility (that the tritium was put there by someone), has been taken seriously by us from the beginning.... we have monitored a certain flask containing tritiated water purposely left in its original position. Not only did we note the original level of the water in the flask but also we measured its tritium content. It has remained unchanged..." However this is in disagreement with a memo dated 4 September from Packham which says that there are many bottles uncontolled in the lab. It was claimed the cell was carefully guarded, e.g. in November Packham said the cells "were under guard for that time 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There was one cell (A7)... that shows the build up of tritium as a function of time, where four people were standing there the whole 12 hours in front of the cell when the samples were taken". However Ramesh Kainthla, an Indian post doc who was the senior member of the team, who took the samples at 6 pm and midnight, said " If you think people were watching the cells all the time that is not true. Watching the cell meant a person in the lab, and once in a while (that person) came in and checked that the current was passing." "If you want to do some mischief, you do not need a couple of hours. You can do it in a very, very short period of time." In July, Charles Martin who was working on Cold Fusion but not getting positive results, suggested to Bockris at a meeting, that he would run Bockris's cells in his, Martin's lab, and restrict access. However Bockris did not take this offer. However he did take Packham off the job of sampling the tritium "I tried to take Packham off" Bockris says, "because by that time all these stories were floating around. Nigel spikes the tritium. Everyone thinks Nigel spikes the tritium." Dr Martin copied Bockris's cells and procedure carefully and he controlled access. For the case of two cells with Palladium donated by Bockris, he even ran them at home in his second bedroom. Finally in January, Dr. Martin wrote the final results to Dean Fackler - that none of the 83 cells had given significant signs of tritium. When Fackler asked Bockris why Martin could not replicate his results, he replied on February 2nd "My tentative judgement of today is that a new field of chemistry has been formed. As for "why cannot Dr. Martin succeed?... we cannot succeed either for long periods of time (e.g. 6 to 8 weeks). The important thing is when we do succeed which may be 10 weeks after we switched on the electrolysis." Yet miracle cell A7 gave tritium in only six hours. In the group's first paper is written "interference with the experiments is considered improbable because of positive results from the Cyclotron Institute to which entrance is prohibited except by the usual personnal at the Institute." Indeed when Kevin showed me his work, I had to sign in and was given a monitor. Also Kevin had to unlock the door of his neutron counting room. However it turns out there is no guard nights or weekends and Dr. Youngblood, the Director of the Institute, told Dean Fackler that "at least 35 faculty and lab personnal had keys that would open that door". The above is consistent with No. 5 of Irving Langmuir's six characteristics of Pathological Science: "Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment." However on controlling and thinking, these excuses do not stand up. This has often happened to me with Cold Fusion. These are very suspicious hints of fraud and the Science article contains much more, but is not absolute proof, though it would suggest that precautions should be taken. However stronger evidence on the possibility of fraud came from Kevin Wolf when he tested the electrolyte from a fusion cell run in Dr. Bockris's lab and which had shown a high level of tritium. It had been sealed in a container since the previous year. He found it contained large amounts of light water. Now if there were fusion of the D2O there should be no H2O produced, but if the sample had been spiked with tritiated water from a bottle one would expect some H2O. On hearing this I contacted Texas A&M and was told there was an explanation - during normal operation there was some contact with the air and H2O could have got in(or as John Fackler put it "there's a concern about that... it is possible that the normal water is just condensation from the moist Texas atmosphere). This sounded to me like Characteristic No. 5 again and I suggested that quantative tests be done comparing the amount of H2O in the sample with tritium with that in other cells with no tritium. However this had been done - Nigel Packham and others had tested 8 cells, two of them sealed, and found 30 to 90% H2O, an enormous amount while Kevin Wolf checked 50 cells in his own lab and "found no more than 1% - usually much less in 48 of them." This might seem strong evidence in favour of spiking but Packham has told Science that he and Bockris are not ready to abandon their results. Kevin Wolf said that "The proper conclusion is that things (in the Bockris lab) were so uncontrolled and so sloppy (that) those studies don't mean anything." According to AP, John Fackler said last week that "he had no reason to believe that fraud had occurred and that there were no plans to investigate the cold fusion experiments." "'I have no concrete evidence of anything other than fairly sloppy chemistry.'" At the NCFI, the Director Dr. Will said that their source of palladium was not from Hoover and Strong. He said the amounts of tritium they had seen, about 1/2 to 3 times background, were so low "we have not made any big point of them." According to the SL Tribune he said the Institute has begun "double-blind" tests to search for tritium. He said 24 labs world-wide had seen tritium but only BARC had reported amounts comparable with the Bockris results but as complete scientific papers from BARC have not been forthcoming, "Nobody is really in a position to scrutinize these results." 2.2 POSSIBLE CONCLUSIONS In view of this information there would seem to be two reasonable interpretations; A) there was fraud B) there was very sloppy science Either way, the claims of Dr. Bockris's group should be excluded from compilations of results as unsafe. Experience has shown it is very difficult to prove fraud in a court of law. However scientists who are accustommed to studying lots of data and drawing their own conclusions, can decide for themselves whether the probability of fraud is 50%, 90% or 99% or whatever. 3. OTHER TRITIUM CLAIMS At the end of the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, a Los Alamos document was issued which listed 15 labs reporting the observation of tritium (my notes give a lower number, but it is not very important). As far as my notes go, only two of these reported enormous production of tritium. One was Dr. Bockris's group which is discussed above, and the other was the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, BARC in India. The latter's results tend to show a sharp rise and then a descent similar to results of Bockris. Thus the possibility of spiking should not be excluded - it might be wise if they were to repeat Dr. Martin's technique of taking one set of samples of cells and isolating them (though not necessarily taking them to their bedroom!) With the BARC work there are two differences; 1. The tritium results were obtained by several different divisions of BARC and it is said that these divisions are independent. 2. "A unique feature .... is that the first bursts of neutrons and tritium occurred (in 8 out of 11 cells) on the very first day of commencement of electrolysis, when hardly a few Amp-hrs of charged had been passed." The first of these could be considered strong evidence against spiking while the second could raise doubts. Several groups at BARC also measured neutrons. They claim that the ratio of tritium to neutron production is 1 E6 to 1 E9 (though there are also values of 1 E3 and 1 E4) and the Bockris/Wolf groups also claim ratios of about this. At the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference this was tuned to 1 E8 and this value was repeated as a criterion that satisfactory theories should meet - and some did! However there are a very large number of experiments which have proved that this ratio is very close to one and hence in agreement with charge symmetry and not 100 000 000 as Cold Fusion Believers suggest. In a voluminous "Review of the Investigations of the Fleischmann - Pons Phenomena" by Bockris, Lin and Packham, graphs are shown of the variation with time of the tritium counts for 5 labs. Four of them are consistent with the sudden occurrence of tritium and then decay while the fifth is different in that there appears to be frequent increases and decreases in the counting rate so that it could not be due to a single afflux of tritium. However there are two worrying features about this experiment; 1. The counting rates are very low, 100 to 400 dpmml-1. Now the DOE panel report says that D2O normally contains some tritium giving counting rates of 120 to 180 dpmml-1. Also due to different characteristics of d and t nuclei, there is electrolytic enrichment causing the amount of tritium to increase, so that special care is needed to consider values of less than 1000 dpmml-1 as anything other than electrolytic enrichment 2. There are reports that there is a nearby building that occasionally vents off tritium and also a nearby accelerator which can greatly increase the background. There are no detailed reports of adequate precautions being taken by the authors to avoid such local contamination. 4. UNIVERSITY OF UTAH STARTS TO CLEANSE ITSELF 4.1 Legal Letters The letters that Mr. Triggs the personal lawyer of Drs. Fleischmann and Pons (probably mainly Pons as he is an old friend of Pons and lives in North Carolina) sent Mike Salamon and his co-workers asking them to retract a published paper and enjoining them to silence, have caused great offense. The American Physical Society will discuss this at its next executive meeting. Also members are offering to help with a legal defense fund. However that should not be necessary as Joseph Taylor, who is a law professor and vice-president for academic affairs has said the university will defend Salamon et al. if he is sued "in the line of duty." Note that solves the retraction problem, but if Mike makes a statement outside the line of duty, then he could still be sued and the University might not be able to defend him! However a little sanity has returned (would like to think that my series of protests to Martin Fleischmann helped since in the past he has often corrected excesses). Nature writes that on June 5, Mike "received a letter from Triggs apologizing for 'any concerns or misconceptions' his first letter may have caused and assuring him that there is no intent 'to limit in any way the lawful excercise of your academic freedom'. The letter adds that Pons and Fleischmann now 'intend to settle (the) dispute in the court of science through publication". Better, but note that the people who asked Triggs to write the first letter have not themselves commented, and also there is still an implied threat to Mike that he must excercise his freedom "lawfully" - am sure he will, but the law of Tort is still a minefield for scientists who believe that if something is true, you can say it. From what I have heard, Prof Taylor is a wise person - immediately after the 23 March 1989 press conference he told Chase Peterson in strong terms that it was a major mistake. That the University paid Triggs $68 000 for patent work although he is not a patent lawyer, has raised some questions. 4.2 Resignation of President Peterson and NCFI Audit After the College of Science Dean, Hugo Rossi, and 22 professors protested about misuse of $0.5 m of funds being offered to the National Cold Fusion Institute, NCFI, the University president, Chase Peterson agreed to a scientific audit to be conducted by the faculty and said its members would be appointed in the next few days. Also there would be a financial audit. He said he would not resign, "I've considered it hundreds of times before in the past seven years, and I will consider it again in the future". On Monday 4 June, the Institutional Council, the U's governing board met and the chair, James Jardine supported Peterson, though others were less strong. But in the afternoon the Academic Senate met and passed a resolution which read in part "The academic senate respectfully requests that the Institutional Council and the Board of Regents examine the question of whether continuation in office of the current president is in the best interest of the University of Utah and the community which it serves". The resolution was proposed by a History professor and seconded by a professor of Chemical Engineering. A professor of Human Genetics said "the university cannot continue to lurch from crisis to crisis" and an English professor said "I've resisted this moment for a number of years.... but it seems to have come to this." It appears that there were many things that people were unhappy about and Cold Fusion was the straw that broke the camel's back. Dr. Pons returned from Europe and gave an off-camera interview where he said he would co-operate with the audit and in fact he was ready to turn over all of his raw data to a review team, with one reservation - he said they had written a 66 page definitive paper that he hopes will be published next month and he wants to hold on to the data until after the paper comes out. This reservation at first may sound reasonable but is ridiculous as at the First Annual Cold Fusion conference at the end of March, Pons gave and distributed a paper of 25 pages plus figures in addition, which he said contains the essentials - so this looks like a typical delaying tactic. At present even Hawkins does not have access to the raw data even though he did most of the work. It is to be hoped that the Senate audit committee will insist on obtaining the raw data immediately to avoid any chance of them being accidentally lost (there are rumours of a critical tape containing raw data on the gamma peak from neutrons being accidentally wiped clean). However the Salt Lake Tribune wrote that on 11 June, President Peterson announced he would retire in 1991. '"It is my intention to dedicate this remaining year to accomplishing my remaining goals and to position this university for new leadership following the 1990-91 year. At this time I will move on to other opportunities". Despite prior discontent, faculty members pledged their support to the president.' The NCFI Director, Fritz Will has said he will refuse the controversial $0.5 million. Funding is becomming a still bigger problem for the Institute as their hopes of getting $160 000 from EPRI decreased when David Worledge of EPRI said "We should not proceed with the contract negotations until the dust settles." The F/EAC (the NCFI supervisory committee) is in the process of choosing members for the two external committees for science and management/financial reviews of NCFI. Some people are unhappy about this since the history of the F/EAC has not been brilliant. Are they the best organisation to choose people which will investigate also their role? And will the review committees contain people who are well-informed sceptics of Cold Fusion? Who decided that the F/EAC was the best organisation to choose a review committee since the University was supposed to do it? The SL Tribune says that Dr. Bockris was at one time a candidate for the position of Director of the NCFI. People who turned down offer of jobs from the University of Utah have received a questionnaire asking them their opinion of the State, of U. of U. etc. Cold Fusion and NCFI have been mentioned in the answers. 5. COLD FUSION EXPERIMENT AT THE KAMIOKANDE DETECTOR The Japanese experiment Kamiokande has probably the best detector of neutrinos from the sun and from any nearby supernova as its results for SN 1987A showed. They have decided to place a Cold Fusion cell in the heart of their detector towards the end of this year. The point is that while well-informed Japanese scientists tend not to believe in Cold Fusion, there is no major Japanese experiment that has been done on it. Also the public are not well informed. Thus in the magazine Kagaku (which is the Japanese equivalent of the Scientific American) I have just found out that my notes reviewing ALL Cold Fusion experiments were preceded by an article where Dr Ikegami of the Japanese National Fusion Institute mentioned only the results presented at the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference and which were only positive and where he concluded that there should be something in it. The cold fusion experiment would be done this year and I am assured that it will not significantly interfere with their work on Solar neutrinos which is of great interest as was shown by the controversy at the recent Neutrino '90 conference where it was not clear whether the theoretical flux of solar neutrinos was different from the experimental values. The cell is so small compared with the large volume of the Kamiokonde detector, that the effect of its presence is negligable. 6. FUTURE CONFERENCES ON COLD FUSION AND ANOMALOUS EFFECTS Despite recent problems, conferences continue to have sessions on Cold Fusion and there is one conference devoted to it. This is at Brigham Young University. It is markedly different from certain other conferences where only positive results were presented. It is called "Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid Systems". The requirements for papers are clearly stated, e.g. "3. Anomalous Tritium Production in Deuterium/Solid Systems Papers are requested that support or refute the anomalous production of tritium in such systems. Only those experimental results that include comparitive blank runs and documentation of initial tritium content should be presented." This is very different from some recent conferences and one detects the hand of Steve Jones. Abstracts should be sent to Steve before 15 September. The Technical Secretary of this International Workshop is Nate Hoffman at Rockwell International Corp., PO Box 1449, Canoga Park, Ca 91304. Fax (818) 700 5118. 7. WHEN DID COLD FUSION BEGIN? Recently people have been trying to find out when Cold Fusion started. Steve Jones has a document witnessed by a notary, which gives the date for BYU as 1986. But when did Pons and Fleischmann start? For their patents to be sellable it is the date of the first experiment which counts, not the first to give a press conference. They have repeatedly emphasised that they had been working on Cold Fusion for five years before March 1989, but have not seen or heard of any firm evidence that justifies this claim. It appears that their first successful "experiment" was the melt-down of their palladium block. According to Time magazine (8 May 1989) this was in 1985 but there are other indications that this only occured in about the summer of 1988. And their first conventional experiments may have started in April/May 1988 and they began to get results in December 1988, i.e long after Jones et al. These dates are not well established but when Dr. Pons makes his lab notebooks available to the enquiry as he has promised, it will become clear. It is not sure whether the "melt-down" of the palladium block could be considered an experiment as it occured at night when no one was present and there were inadequate measuring and recording devices. 8. PROBLEMS OF DEALING WITH FRAUD Scientists are educated to study and believe experimental results. And when young they do. Their culture makes them very trusting and there results an exceptionally good working atmosphere. However magicians such as Randi say that scientists, especially physicists, are the easiest people to deceive. This is because they virtualy never encounter fraud in their work and rarely hear lies. The consequence is that when there are good grounds for suspecting fraud, scientists generally do not know how to deal with it. Let us distinguish two cases; 1) If there is no suggestion of fraud, then for the sake of academic freedom and for good working relations with your colleagues, then I feel very strongly that one should not start or have a special investigative office. 2) If there are serious doubts and if they have been expressed widely, then the the priorities are different. The reputation of the supervisory institution is at risk. It and the people implicated need to have a clear opportunity to defend themselves. In other words an enquiry should be set up as soon as possible. Institutions often defend themselves by internal enquiries which are whitewash jobs. From the historical point of view, this often succeeds but it leaves a bad taste and good people tend to leave the institution. Dick Feynman's wonderful account of the Challenger enquiry in his last book, is an example of a whitewash that mainly succeeded apart from Dick's actions. Supervisors sometimes feel that inviting in the person for him to explain is an adequate enquiry but there is the fundamental problem that it is very difficult to say to a colleague to his face that there are doubts. To have a real enquiry it is necessary to have outside people who are experts in the subject. I was at the 23 March 1990 meeting of the National Cold Fusion Institute supervisory board where the dubious results and the even more dubious financial statement were approved and the correct questions were sometimes asked but mildly and and any answer was accepted with little thought as to whether it was correct or adequate - the questioning seemed a formality. So the fact that someone was questioned and gave answers does not mean very much. It is necessary to have a record of the questions and answers which are agreed by all, for often the explanations change with time or turn out to be untenable when checked. And a follow up is needed to check, often experimentally, if the explanations are correct. Note that what is suggested here does not in any way restrict academic freedom. In conclusion, fraud is very, very rare, but if a number of people seriously consider it the most likely explanation, then it is best to have an independent enquiry quickly. Douglas R. O. Morrison. PS. LETTER OF DR STORMS TO SCIENCE Have just received a copy of the letter that Dr. Storms of Los Alamos has sent to the Science magazine on June 25. It contains some results that he said he sent to Gary Taubes on 9 April. In it he describes adding some tritium to one of his cells (it is a semi-closed cell with a catalyst) and he compares the variation with time of the tritium counting rate and the ratio of counts from the electrolyte and the gas, with what was observed with Dr. Bockris's cells which gave tritium counts. He concludes the two factors are different and hence the suspicion of the fraudulent addition of tritium is irresponsible. As Dr. Storms letter does not seem to address the basic problem, some comments will be made; 1. Firstly it is important to note what was NOT considered in his letter; a) That a large amount of light water was observed in the electrolyte from a cell that gave a high level of tritium b) It has been suggested that the moist Texas air could cause the electrolyte to gain light water. The two tests of this disagree. The Bockris group found 30 to 90% of H2O in 8 cells even though 2 of them were sealed. Kevin Wolf found 1% or less (usually much less) in 50 cells. It would be good for some neutral third party to do some tests where the conditions varied - changing the humidity, sealed or not, etc. Or do a few calculations - for it seems strange that a sealed cell could give 30 to 90% light water. 2. It was an excellent initiative of Dr. Storms to try the experiment of adding tritium but two main features should have been taken into consideration; c) the basic question of light water - he should have added a tritium -light water mix which could reproduce the final mixture of the sample with 30 to 90% light water and a tritium counting rate of about 1 000 000 dpmml-1. d) One should compare like with like. Apart from the fact one cell was closed and the other open, there are two major differences between the the Storms and Bockris experiments; i) The tritium counting rate in the Storms experiment increases over some 20 days and is thus inconsistent with a single spike. In the published results of Bockris et al., the rate jumps suddenly up and the increase seems to occur in six hours or less. ii) The counting rates in the two experiments differ enormously, so different that the two experiments cannot be safely compared. In Storms's experiment the counting rate is very low, in the hundreds of dpmml-1. In the Bockris experiments the counting rate is about a million dpmml-1. The rate in the Storms experiment is so low that the DOE panel warned that with the increase in tritium due to separation by electrolysis, one should treat counting rates of less than 1000 dpmml-1 with care. It is perhaps of interest to compare the power estimated from the experiments of Storms, Bockris and Fleischmann and Pons. Assuming Storms increases his counting rate by 100 dpmml-1 in 10 days, then the average power is about 1 E-9 Watts or a nanoWatt (note 100 dpmml-1 is about the normal content of tritium in D2O - it varies from about 75 to 200 dpmml-1). Assuming Bockris achieves a rate of 7 E5 dpmml-1 in 10 hours, then the average power would be a few E-4 Watts or about less than a milliWatt from all sources. Fleischmann and Pons claim to have measured excess heat of about 10 Watts which would have given a tritium rate of 1 E11 dpmml-1. In their first paper they indicated a tritium rate corresponding to less than 1 E-7 Watts or a tenth of a microWatt. If someone should wish to test experimentally the effect of spiking as a possibility, then it would be best done by adding a tritium/H2O mixture identical to that in the bottle in Dr. Bockris's lab (the mix is known since Dr Bockris said he had measured the radioactivity and the level in the bottle) Then an amount should be added which gave 30 to 90% H2O. Scientists do not like the idea or suspicion of fraud. It would be nice if it were to just to go away. But with a vigourous investigative journalist who is finishing has a commercial aspect, this is unlikely. A rapid external enquiry might be the best way to settle this very, very rare occurrence. -- 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 cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.10 / William Johnson / Announcing another opinion poll Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Announcing another opinion poll Date: 10 Jul 90 23:22:31 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Long-time sci.physics.fusion readers may remember that about a year ago, I conducted a thumbnail poll of s.p.f readers regarding the question of "proof" in cold fusion experiments. The question has recently come up again, not so much in terms of cold fusion itself as in its relevance for how s.p.f has been used. Therefore, I'm asking for readers' help one more time. I'd appreciate it if you would respond to the following questions via e-mail (please do *not* post your responses). They are a superset of the previous poll, and one of the interesting things is to see if some of the answers have changed. If you responded to the previous poll, have changed your mind about something and remember how the change went, please indicate that too. Scott Hazen Mueller (original s.p.f architect who continues to run the gateway through Zorch) is also involved in this little polling effort, and he asks me to include the following: "I run the gateway between email and the Usenet newsgroup sci.physics.fusion. I can be reached electronically from the Internet at scott@zorch.sf-bay.org or scott%zorch@ames.arc.nasa.gov. From BITNET I can be reached at FUSION@NDSUVM1, and from UUCP I am (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott." [Use this address for poll responses if you can't send them directly to me for some reason. -- MWJ] "We are especially interested in seeing your response if you are receiving this survey via some means other than Usenet News. For example: via electronic mail through NDSUVM1; in a conference on another networking system, perhaps CoSy; or perhaps printed out and passed around your office. "If you cannot reach us via electronic mail, feel free to send your response via ordinary postal mail. Please send letters to: Fusion Survey 10122 Amador Oak Ct. Cupertino, CA 95014 USA" Thanks for taking the time for this. Please try to reply by 7/20 if possible. Scott and I will post a summary of findings, which may also show up in a paper we're working on (stripped of any personal information, of course -- no names, addresses, institutions, etc., will be mentioned explicitly in any eventual paper). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. (from previous poll) Complete the following "Credo" statement so that it best describes your perception of "proof" required for cold fusion: For cold fusion to be shown to exist, researchers at [institution A] must demonstrate [phenomenon B] under [conditions C]. Choices for A: a. any laboratory b. any university laboratory c. any government laboratory d. any industrial laboratory e. more than one laboratory (indicate whether university, government, etc., as appropriate) f. other Also indicate if you would add the word "prestigious" to the description that you choose. Choices for B: a. excess heat b. tritium production c. production of nuclear observables (neutrons, gamma rays) d. excess heat plus tritium production e. excess heat plus nuclear observables f. tritium plus nuclear observables g. heat, tritium AND nuclear observables h. other Choices for C: a. in at least 1 cell b. in at least 2 cells c. in at least 10 cells d. in a significant fraction of all cells they run e. on demand f. other (specify) 2. Do you feel that this condition has been met by now? (yes/no) 3. Do you feel that this condition *will be* met at some point? (yes/no) 4. Which of the following reports did you hear via the net *before* you heard them through other media: a. Original FPH report of cold fusion b. Announcement of the Santa Fe cold-fusion workshop c. Reports/critiques of papers from the Santa Fe workshop d. Descriptions of other experiments (list) e. Letter from FPH lawyer to Salamon team threatening to "take whatever action is appropriate" to protect FPH interests f. "Anonymous" donor of $500k to NCFI turns out to have ties to U of Utah g. "Retraction" of Wolf tritium results h. _Science_ report of worries about possible fraud in Bockris group 5. (optional, from previous poll) What is your educational status (degree level, field) and field of employment (computer science/engineering/ physical science/other, student/university faculty/national laboratory/ industry/other)? Have you ever been involved in a cold-fusion experiment? 6. (optional) Where do you live and work? (city, state/province, country) 7. From 1=not at all important to 5=very important, rank the importance of the network cold fusion information... A. ...in your work? B. ...as a general information source? 8. (optional) Append any comments you deem appropriate: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks again for your help. Responses via e-mail, please. -- 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 cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.16 / Dieter Britz / Self targeting Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Self targeting Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 14:26:56 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) >Most interesting. Self-targeting occurs during ion implantation. No offense >meant, but is it just an assumption that it does *not* occur during >>electrolysis? Interesting thought. What you are getting at, I guess, is that the electrolytically produced deuterium might in some way act in the same way as deuteron particles smacking into the metal from a beam? This seems to bring in the sometimes stated requirement of a current actually flowing, rather than a high enough x in PdD(x). This would be a surface effect... and would contradict the by now standard assumption that you must electrolyse for many hours to get the effect, I think. It can also be tested: as with the beam, switch off the current, and watch the go off in sympathy. First, though, you'd have to have that elusive , like a measurable neutron or proton flux... Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.16 / Richard Scott / Purpose Originally-From: rik@Sun.COM (Richard Scott) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Purpose Date: Mon, 16 Jul 90 17:23:18 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway From daver!zorch!fusion Sat Jul 14 02:22:38 1990 To: fusionlist@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Originally-From: vvcns@venus.lerc.nasa.gov Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Purpose Date: 11 Jul 90 16:05:33 GMT Organization: NASA/Lewis Research Center Does anybody know what this group is for? -------------------- For additions, changes or deletions contact fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!fusion-request -------------------- I believe it's for people like myself who are interested in the on-going Cold Fusion saga... (I'm at Sun Microsystems...) Richard cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenrik cudfnRichard cudlnScott cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.16 / Patrick Smith / Local News Clippings Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News Clippings Date: 16 Jul 90 22:31:18 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah WILL UTAH'S FUSION REVIEW PANEL GET COLD RECEPTION? by Tim Fitzpatrick; SL Trib; Tuesday July 3, 1990. Members of the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council, meeting Monday to slightly modify their plans for appointing a scientific panel to review cold fusion research at the U of U, acknowledged a stumbling block to that review may be getting Pons and Fleischmann to cooperate fully. Council Chairman Raymond Hixson called a special meeting of the council to remove the requirement that the review panel members be unanimously approved. "It's realizing that, in the end, we won't be able to satisfy everybody." He said the final decision on appointees will still rest with his council. The review was prompted by concerns from the U's scientific faculty that work at the NCFI was being carried out without "peer review" or other outside scrutiny, as is common in scientific research. Such outside involvement has been avoided for two reasons, U. officials have said: 1) Patent considerations make the university reluctant to let outsiders in, and 2) Drs. Pons and Fleischmann feel they have been abused in the past by the early release of their data. The two scientists are but two of the more than 20 scientists working at the Institute, but they continue to claim the most dramatic results. Addressing the first point, Mr. Hixson said all reviewers will be required to sign confidentiality agreements, and their final report may have portions that will not be made public. But he promised the bulk of their report would have to remain public. The second point may be more sticky. Mr. Hixson said he has had conversations with Dr. Pons in which the chemist has promised to cooperate with the review panel, but Mr. Hixson acknowledged there is still concern over whether Drs. Pons and Fleischmann will be fully open. At issue is the 32-cell array of cold fusion experiments they have operated at the institute since January, which represents the most expensive work done at the institute to date. Drs. Pons and Fleischmann say cells in the array have produced the same startling rates of up to 300% energy production they claimed fifteen months ago, but the pair has not shared any specific data with anyone besides Institute Director Fritz Will. Mr. Hixson said Drs. Pons and Fleischmann are "working hard" at the institute, but "imaginations work overtime as to whether anything is getting done." "That presents the problem, I think," added USU provost Karen Morse, a council member who participated in the meeting via telephone hookup from Logan. As for whether the state council can demand the data, Mr. Hixson said he did not know at this point. "That's a legal consideration." The chemists and their attourney, Gary Triggs, were unavailable for comment Monday. Under the current plan, a review panel of about four scientists will be chosen by the state council from a list of up to 24 names. Up to eight names will come from the U. faculty, eight from Dr. Will, and eight from the state council itself. The timetable calls for the appointment of the panel by mid-July and the completion of their report by the end of August, but council members admitted that may be pushed back... REVIEWERS TO GET DATA ACCESS, SAYS FUSION BOSS. by Tim Fitzpatrick. SL Trib. Saturday Morning; July 7, 1990. F. Will, director of the NCFI, promised friday that reviewers will have full access to the institute's experiments. The state F/EAC is organizing a review of the scientific results at the institute at the prompting of U of U science faculty members who are concerned that the institute's findings lacked proper outside review. Members of the state council expressed concern Monday that the reviewers may not be given full access to the work of Pons and Fleischmann. Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have been working on a 32 cell "matrix" of cold-fusion cells since January, but they have been reluctant to share many details of those experiments. Both chemists have been out of state, and are not due back until next week. "There will be absolutely no question that those data, with all detail, will be made available," said Dr. Will. "I don't think there should be a review unless the review team can see all the data. This is an absolute requirement. There's no way out." Dr. Will also said a long awaited paper from Drs. Pons and Fleischmann will be published in the July 25 issue of the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. The paper has been anticipated for more than a year. That paper will cover experiments done a year ago, and will not include results from the "matrix," but it will have the most complete explanation of their calorimetry, or heat measurements, ever given. Drs. Pons and Fleischmann in their original statements made 15 months ago said they had found mysterious heat in such quantities that it could only have come from a nuclear reaction. Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have used a complex mathematical model to explain their results, and cold fusion skeptics have questioned why they do not use more direct measurements. Dr. Will believes the paper "will certainly have a positive effect" in part because it has been so long coming, and also because it explains their methods. "There's no question that those equiped to look into the mathematics will be impressed by the thoroughness of the mathematical approach taken." He also said that some may be "slightly disappointed" by the fact that the data is a year old. The data includes reports of heat "bursts" that were up to 20 times the electrical energy put into the cells, but Dr. Will noted that no such bursts have been seen by Drs. Pons and Fleischmann or anyone else for nearly a year. "Nobody in the world has found any heat burst that have even come close to that." Drs. Pons and Fleischmann said earlier this year that they were still getting heat in the area of three times (300 percent) the energy put in in the "matrix" experiments, but Dr. Will said it was more in the area of 20%. cudkeys: cuddy16 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.17 / rolfe petschek / Re: Self targeting Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Self targeting Date: 17 Jul 90 17:39:19 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <9007161146.AA22518@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) >>Most interesting. Self-targeting occurs during ion implantation. No offense >>meant, but is it just an assumption that it does *not* occur during >>>electrolysis? > >Interesting thought. What you are getting at, I guess, is that the >electrolytically produced deuterium might in some way act in the same way as >deuteron particles smacking into the metal from a beam? Actually it seems to me quite plausible that, as the electrolysis continues there are different current densities/deuteron densities/PdD phases in various parts of the sample. Also voids, cracks, dislocations, grain boundaries etc. Whether or not these act to increase the density of D in various regions or not I do not know, though experiments with a tracer (probably Tritium is easiest/best) might be informative. I doubt that these are big effects on relevant time scales, but I would not rule this out a priori. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.18 / M Harrington / Books Originally-From: mbh@pnet12.rfengr.com (Matthew Harrington) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Books Date: 18 Jul 90 07:56:15 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet12], Del Mar, CA Hello I do not have access to sci.physics, or else I'd post this message there. Anyhow, I'm trying to find decent physics books to read that are designed for the layman. I'm looking for more books like A Brief History of Time and The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. Can anyone suggest a few titles/authors? Or, could some kind soul with access to sci.physics post a similar message there and direct responses to my email address below? Thanks in advance, Matt Harrington University of California, San Diego UUCP: ucsd!serene!pnet12!mbh ARPA: crash!pnet12!mbh@nosc.mil INET: mbh@pnet12.cts.com cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenmbh cudfnMatthew cudlnHarrington cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.20 / William Johnson / Reminder: poll opinions wanted Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Reminder: poll opinions wanted Date: 20 Jul 90 15:31:29 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Last week I posted a call for participation in an opinion poll about cold fusion. I'd just like to remind readers that that poll is still in progress and that I'm interested in receiving opinions from *any* reader of this, whether a cold-fusion experimenter, totally uninformed lay reader, or anything in between (as most of us are). Many thanks to those who've responded thus far; the responses have provided an interesting insight into what the s.p.f readership seems to think of cold fusion, and of s.p.f itself. I've tried to reply to those who sent messages, but about 5 or 6 of the replies have bounced, so if you sent something and haven't heard back, sorry about that, and don't worry about it. People having trouble sending to me are invited to send instead to Scott Hazen Mueller, who runs the fusion distribution through the Zorch gateway. His addresses, both e-mail and surface mail, are in the earlier posting with the poll. Come to think of it, wouldn't be a bad idea for all responses sent between 7/20 and 7/28 to go to Scott, as I'll be incommunicado during that period. Thanks again to everyone who has participated in this so far, or plans to. -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.21 / Mark Thorson / Re: Books Originally-From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Books Date: 21 Jul 90 04:38:52 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Try _The Tao of Physics_ cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnThorson cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.23 / Lee Naish / Book/Cold fusion notes archive site Originally-From: lee@munnari.oz.au (Lee Naish) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Book/Cold fusion notes archive site Date: 23 Jul 90 00:16:26 GMT Organization: Comp Sci, University of Melbourne Recently it was mentioned that some journalist has written a book on the cnf saga. Could someone please mail me the reference. Also is there somewhere I can ftp all the old "cold fusion notes" from? Some people in the History and Philiosophy of Science department here are interested. Lee Naish (lee@cs.mu.OZ.AU) cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenlee cudfnLee cudlnNaish cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.23 / andrew@dtg.nsc / japanese neutrons Originally-From: andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: japanese neutrons Date: 23 Jul 90 15:32:31 GMT Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara The Wall Street Journal today (Monday) reports that the Japanese at NTT have seen "gigantic bursts of neutrons lasting 2 to 3 seconds": this is actually reported to be 1e6 to 2e6 per second. They use deuterium-loaded palladium in a vacuum. The neutron blast was reported to have occurred as they were evacuating the reaction vessel. Anyone have more? -- ........................................................................... Andrew Palfreyman Incidentally, in English, the name of the planet andrew@dtg.nsc.com is "Earth". - Henry Spencer cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenandrew cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.23 / Randell Jesup / Japanese results Originally-From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Japanese results Date: 23 Jul 90 17:56:31 GMT Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA From the front page of the WSJ on Monday, July 23, 1990: "Japanese scientists said they produced signifigant "cold fusion" test results. The Nippon Telegraph group reported a burst of neutrons up to 50 times as large as those claimed by University of Utah chemists in March 1989. Skepticism about "cold fusion" has grown because other U.S. scientists failed to detect large numbers of neutrons." -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenjesup cudfnRandell cudlnJesup cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.23 / Barry Merriman / Re: japanese neutrons Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: japanese neutrons Date: 23 Jul 90 17:27:18 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1322@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com writes: >The Wall Street Journal today (Monday) reports that the Japanese at NTT >have seen "gigantic bursts of neutrons lasting 2 to 3 seconds": this is >actually reported to be 1e6 to 2e6 per second. They use deuterium-loaded >palladium in a vacuum. The neutron blast was reported to have occurred >as they were evacuating the reaction vessel. This still seems consistent with the general theory of fracto-fusion, so is probably nothing to get excited about. A release of 10^6 n/s is only a power of (assuming 14MeV n's) 2.2 micro-Watts. And considering there are about 10^24 deuteriums present, this is only a fusion probability of 10^-18/sec. Barry Merriman x cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.25 / tiq@vaxa.cc.uw / Re: Japanese neutrons Originally-From: tiq@vaxa.cc.uwa.oz.au Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Japanese neutrons Date: 25 Jul 90 05:50:01 GMT Organization: University of Western Australia I presume that this report refers to the paper by E. Yamaguchi and and T. Nishioka in the April 1990 issue of Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Vol 29, 4, L666-669. This is probably a first for cold fusion: a "positive" result appearing in a scientific journal before the popular press ! Basically these people loaded a Pd foil with deuterium gas and then put the sample in a vacuum chamber and outgassed it. They observed an enormous burst of neutrons (10E6 n/s) and an accompaning explosive release of gas and a temperature rise of the sample. The novel aspect of this experiment was that the Pd foil was coated with an Au film on one side (so no D could escape) and a Mn-O layer on the other side. The diffusion of D through the latter film is less than that of D in Pd and hence the authors argue that by pumping on the sample they can super saturate the PdD/Mn-O interface with D. They claim the loading exceeds 1 at the interface. The first experiment produced 10E6 n/s for 2-3 seconds, and simultaneously an explosive release of the gas. Afterwards the sample was found to be deformed and the Au film appeared to have alloyed with the Pd indicating that the foil temperature was in excess of 1000 deg C. A second and third experiment produced similar results, the event occurring after pumping on the sample for about 150 seconds. Twenty subsequent experiments (including some with H) gave nothing ! The neutron background was ca. 10 n/s. The major problem with this experiment is that only a SINGLE BF3 neutron counter was used and we have heard from Bill Johnson and others how unsatisfactory this arrangement usually is. The correlation of the events is interesting though. I guess the heat can be explained if the desorption of the gas is exothermic. Anyone know if this is the case for Pd/D ? Todd Green University of Western Australia AARNET/Internet: tiq@fennel.cc.uwa.edu.au cudkeys: cuddy25 cudentiq cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.25 / Bhagirath Joshi / Re: Japanese results Originally-From: bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Japanese results Date: 25 Jul 90 17:54:03 GMT Organization: Stardent Computer, Newton MA In article <13367@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup) writes: > > From the front page of the WSJ on Monday, July 23, 1990: > >"Japanese scientists said they produced signifigant "cold fusion" test results. >The Nippon Telegraph group reported a burst of neutrons up to 50 times as large >as those claimed by University of Utah chemists in March 1989. Skepticism This is besides the point. To assume the cold fusion to be possible only if neutrons are detected is down right wrong. It is like telling Gallilio that his observations are wrong. The pity of the situation is that MIT scientists and others( Organized bunch who feed on the federal funds) failed to realize that this could be something new. It could be the way in which Our Radio active waste problem could be solved. It is possible that in cold fusion, because of the proximity and extremely short distances involved nuclear reactions are taking place, which alter the state of matter without giving out high energy particles. Only their energy states are changed and heat (Low energy radiation) is given off. I hope they realize this soon and give enough grants to those poor Utah scientists who deserves to be treated better. It is the pity that we see these 14th century blunders in this 20th century. Bhagirath S. Joshi cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenbjoshi cudfnBhagirath cudlnJoshi cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.25 / Bhagirath Joshi / Re: japanese neutrons Originally-From: bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: japanese neutrons Date: 25 Jul 90 18:00:31 GMT Organization: Stardent Computer, Newton MA In article <152@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1322@berlioz.nsc.com> andrew@dtg.nsc.com writes: >>The Wall Street Journal today (Monday) reports that the Japanese at NTT >>have seen "gigantic bursts of neutrons lasting 2 to 3 seconds": this is >>actually reported to be 1e6 to 2e6 per second. They use deuterium-loaded >>palladium in a vacuum. The neutron blast was reported to have occurred >>as they were evacuating the reaction vessel. > >This still seems consistent with the general theory of fracto-fusion, >so is probably nothing to get excited about. > >Barry Merriman I do not agree with the general thought that the only use of fusion is "Power Production" In fact this discovery and Utah Scientists' achivement is a major breakthrough. Looks like many of U.S. Scientists need retraining. Looks like they are blinded by their previous success and think they know everything. Please rethink cold fusion in the light of Nuclear waste treatment. Bhagirath S. Joshi (Consultant) cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenbjoshi cudfnBhagirath cudlnJoshi cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.26 / Dieter Britz / Notes of a fussy bibliographer Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Notes of a fussy bibliographer Date: Thu, 26 Jul 90 14:36:04 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Here are a few minor corrections to the existing bibliography; three, to be precise. The references should now read: 1. Bhattacharjee JK, Satpathy L, Waghmare YR; Pramana 32 (1989) L841. 2. Lipson AG, Klyuev VA, Toporov YuP, Deryagin BV, Sakov DM; Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 15(17) (1989) 26 (in Russian). 3. Rusov VD, Zelentsova TN, Semenov MYu, Radin IV, Babikova YuF Kruglyak YuA; Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 15(19) (1989) 9. (In Russian). In no. 1, I previously had the journal as "Pranama"; sorry about that. With nos. 2 and 3 I found out that the issue number - which I normally do not include - is important because in this journal, the page numbers start with 1 in each issue, instead of in each volume, as is customary. So if you look for page 26 in Vol. 15 - as I did - you have to look through many issues. I am not sure whether that particular Pis'ma (Letters) gets translated (no, it's not JETP); if so, maybe the translators use the customary paging. Another batch of newies is following soon. Very quiet on this list lately. Dieter. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy26 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.26 / Ted Dunning / Re: japanese neutrons Originally-From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: japanese neutrons Date: 26 Jul 90 16:55:40 GMT Organization: NMSU Computer Science In article <1990Jul25.180031.4462@Stardent.COM> bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) writes: ... Please rethink cold fusion in the light of Nuclear waste treatment. please rethink cold fusion in light of serious sloppiness in experimental technique and bizarre public and private misconduct on the part of these same `poor utah scientists'. -- Offer void except where prohibited by law. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudented cudfnTed cudlnDunning cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.26 / Barry Merriman / Re: Japanese results Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Japanese results Date: 26 Jul 90 18:52:09 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Jul25.175403.4358@Stardent.COM> bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) writes: > > It is possible that in cold fusion, because of the proximity and extremely > short distances involved nuclear reactions are taking place, which alter > the state of matter without giving out high energy particles. Only their > energy states are changed and heat (Low energy radiation) is given off. > I hope they realize this soon and give enough grants to > those poor Utah scientists who deserves to be treated better. > It is the pity that we see these 14th century blunders in this > 20th century. Did you forget to add :-)'s ? I would say that CF has definitely received its fair share of research funds and attention over the past 1.5 years. I think at this point it is quite justifiable to keep it a (very) low funding priority, at least until some new theoretical/experimental insights suggest otherwise. While CF isn't impossible, as time has gone by, its become harder and harder to see how it could be possible. (And, also, fracto-style fusion seems to explain some of the more ``positive'' experiments). cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.26 / Barry Merriman / Re: Nuclear Waste treatment Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Nuclear Waste treatment Date: 26 Jul 90 18:57:52 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Jul25.180031.4462@Stardent.COM> bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) writes: > Looks like many of U.S. Scientists need retraining. Looks like > they are blinded by their previous success and think they know > everything. No, I only know what I see---which is 1.5 years of effort, with no developments suggesting CF is of major importance and many negative results. > Please rethink cold fusion in the light of Nuclear waste treatment. This seems totally unjustified. No ``transmutation of elements'' has been thouroughly documented, and even if you accept tritium production, its doubtful this could be used to transmute the heavy radioactive elements into stable (usually lighter) elements. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.26 / Barry Merriman / Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 26 Jul 90 23:25:16 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <168@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > >bjoshi@Stardent.COM (Bhagirath Joshi @stardent) writes: > >> Please rethink cold fusion in the light of Nuclear waste treatment. > There is little hope for transmuting nuclear waste (especially from CF). But, fusion (or at least plasma physics) does provide a nice approach to control of toxic _chemical_ waste---which now pose a greater health hazard than nuclear wastes, I would say. The idea: Toxic chemical wastes (PCB's, Dioxin, industrial solvents, etc) are, at the molecular level, just compounds of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and a few other friendly elements. _If_ these nasty chemicals could be broken down into their constituent elements, they would be totally harmless, and permanently neutralized---the ultimate possible form of waste control. This suggests we heat the offending chemicals up til they break apart into atoms. The problem is, this requires a temperature on the order of 10,000--20,000 degrees Kelvin (= 1--2 eV), but chemically fueled fires ---say, in a furnace---can only achieve temperatures of about 2,500 degrees Kelvin. The only reasonable means of creating the needed temperatures is to create a plasma (highly ionized gas) heated to a few 10,000's of degrees, (cold by fusion standards, where the temp is 10,000 times higher) and then drop the offending chemicals into the ``plasma torch''. The only drawback is that plasmas are very low density, and so have limited destructive ability (low heat capacity). Still, a sufficiently large plasma torch can destroy practical amounts of toxic wastes. Its all a matter of when it becomes cost effective---which should be soon, given the burgeoning environmental concerns. (The cost is roughly the cost of heating the waste to a temperature of 10,000 degrees---not real expensive, but much more expensive than dumping the chemicals in a land fill, or, cheaper yet, the Love Canal. Roughly, it would require (to give every atom 1 eV of energy) 10^10 Joules/ton of waste. If the cost of electicity is 10 cents/kwhr, this would be about $300/ton for toxic waste destruction---not too bad, considering the problem waste is being totally eliminated!) One way fusion could play a role---beyond the plasma physics connection---is to provide cheap, non-waste generating power to drive the plasma torches. So, not only could fusion reduce the production of nuclear wastes in the future, it could help clean up the chemical wastes as well. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.27 / Richard Hammond / Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: hammondr@sunroof.crd.ge.com (Richard A Hammond) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 27 Jul 90 13:27:10 GMT Organization: General Electric Corporate R&D Center In article <172@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) suggests using a plasma to destroy toxic chemical (not nuclear) wastes by breaking the molecules apart in the plasma. he points out the problem is that it requires lots of energy. I recall reading an article about a portable toxic chemical destroyer being developed by Westinghouse. It is a tractor trailer with an electric arc used to generate the plasma. It required a huge amount of electrical power to run, just as Barry predicted. I don't know whether it was a prototype or going into production. Rich Hammond cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenhammondr cudfnRichard cudlnHammond cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.27 / mjl / Re: Reminder: poll opinions wanted Originally-From: mjl@ut-emx.UUCP (mjl) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Reminder: poll opinions wanted Date: 27 Jul 90 08:08:43 GMT Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas Since you asked... I personally think that cold-fusion has a minimal chance of being a significant source of electrical power at all, as the evidence now stands. This is purely based on the current outlook, mind you; research (at a _few_ institutions) is still probably worthwhile. I would also like some of the attention focused on CNF spill over into the "hot" fusion program, which IMHO is much better qualified for settling into the role of providing our energy needs next century. I am, of course, biased. It has been interesting. The transformation at this institution was impressive (if that's the word), after the P&F press conference. The magnetic fusion plasma physicists who had been working in the field their whole lives were visibly shaken (I am a post-doc). However, it was a good experience for all, I think; it reminded us of our "purpose" and may have injected new enthusiasm into the field. Most agreed, that if CNF lived up to P&F's expectation, we'd all lose our jobs but humanity would benefit greatly. The people here tended to reserve judgement until further experimental results started coming in (and you know the story from there). Some of the people here worked on the problem from the theory end for a while, but I think that's virtually ended now. My first and last post on the subject, Maurice LeBrun Institute for Fusion Studies mjl@fusion.ph.utexas.edu University of Texas at Austin cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenmjl cudlnmjl cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.27 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: Fri, 27 Jul 90 16:35:21 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The flood goes on; naturally, if the tritium contamination is the nail in the coffin, this will not result in a dip in papers coming out for a few months yet. Typical submission-publication delays are normally 1 year; cold fusion has evidently been handled with more speed but 6 months is still about average. Granada et al have gone underwater (a submarine, I believe) and get more unmistakable neutron emissions - although I look forward to an explanation in their next paper, for the discrepancy between the previous 30% above background and now twice background which is 1/70 of the previous. More theory, from the Japanese, which is a bit hard to get hold of, so you get Chem. Abstr. quotes. Naerger & Co. present a nifty calorimeter and try it out on a cold fusion experiment, finding nothing (well, some of you will cry "how do you know it doesn't happen on platinum? Huh?"). More proton detection (with a null result) from East Germany (oops! it's just plain Germany now), careful analysis of electrode poisoning from the Swiss and someone who tried to see whether there is any d-t fusion (there wasn't). Plus a couple of old and newer news items. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 27-Jul. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Granada JR, Mayer RE, Florido PC, Gillette VH, Gomez SE; J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 27 (1990) 379. "Neutron measurements on electrolytic cells (Pd-D2O) performed under very low background conditions". ** The previous paper by these authors showed that in pulsed-current electrolysis experiments, there appeared to be a small but significant neutron flux during current flow, although it was only about 30% above the background. This paper is a preliminary report of a second experiment, done under water at a depth of 50 m (with the bottom at 100 m) which reduced the background neutron flux by a factor of 70, even though the detector assembly was only 2/3 effective, due to an electronic fault. Again, a definite neutron flux from the Pd electrode was observed, this time about twice the background, or 6 sd's above it. The authors promise an analysis of the results in a forthcoming paper. Apr-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ichimaru S, Nakano A, Ogata S, Tanaka S, Iyetomi H, Tajima T; J. Phys. Soc. Jpn 59 (1990) 1333. "Statistical-mechanical theory of cold nuclear fusion in metal hydrides". ** Stat-mech Fermi-Thomas approximation look at coulombic screening in Pd-H and Ti-H systems. Calculations cannot account for experimental claims, under the given assumptions. However, there may be effects such as metal lattice periodicity or lattice defects or nonequilibrium, bringing d's together. Isotopic effects favour the p-d reaction, especially in Ti, where higher hydrogen (or deuterium) loadings can be achieved. Apr-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kozima H; Rep. Fac. Sci., Shizuoka Univ., Shizuoka, Japan 24 (1990) 19. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:13118 (1990). "On a mechanism of the electrochemically induced nuclear fusion". ** "A mechanism is proposed to explain a d-d fusion in a process of D2O electrolysis with Pd (or Ti) cathode. Exptl. data obtained by S.E. Jones et al (1989) were explained qual". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kozima H, Hasegawa K, Suganuma H, Oe S, Sekido K, Fujii M, Yasuda M, Onojima T; Rep. Fac. Sci., Shizuoka Univ., Shizuoka, Japan 24 (1990) 23. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:13119 (1990). "On a mechanism of the electrochemically induced nuclear fusion II". ** "A numerical est. of a fusion cross section for the electrochem.-induced nuclear fusion is presented according to the mechanism proposed by K. (1990) and using the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin approxn. To fit the data with the exptl. results, possible factors to enhance the fusion probability are speculated". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kozima H, Oe S, Hasegawa K, Suganuma H, Fujii M, Onojima T, Sekido K, Yasuda M; Rep. Fac. Sci., Shizuoka Univ., Shizuoka, Japan 24 (1990) 29. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:13120 (1990). "Experimet=ntal investigation of the electrochemically induced nuclear fusion". ** "Preliminary results of expts. on the electrochem.-induced nuclear fusion are reported. An electrolysis of D2O + LiOH.H2O soln. was used is [sic] the expt. with Pd plate cathode and Pt wire anode. To detect n liberated in a reaction d + d --> (3)He + n, a n dose rate meter 2202D was used. Obsd. amt. of n (ca. 6E-3 /cm**3/s) is comparable to the data (ca. 6E-3/cm**3/s for Ti) reported by S.E. Jones et al (1989)". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Naerger U, Hayden ME, Booth JL, Hardy WN, Whitehead LA, Carolan JF, Balzarini DA, Wishnow EH, Blake CC; Rev. Sci. Instrum. 61 (1990) 1504. "High precision calorimetric apparatus for studying electrolysis reactions". ** This team developed an accurate microcalorimeter (0.3% in abs. energy balance), along the lines of an older (1947) design. Basically, the closed cell has catalytic recombination of evolved gases, so can be closed, and the heat evolved is measured by heat exchange with a long convoluted tube of fluid going through the cell. In the old, 1947 design, the tube went straight to the source of heat and then outwards; here, it goes inward from the outside. This isolates the cell from environmental (thermal) interferences, although it becomes slightly less accurate. It was able to detect 20 mW of heat. The team then tried it out on a cold fusion experiment, comparing electrolysis at a Pt electrode (0.1 M LiOD in D2O, the standard soup) with ditto at a Pd electrode, previously loaded with deuterium to 0.78 D/Pd (measured by weight). Within the 0.3% scatter, the two cells gave the same results. If you assume that no cold fusion takes place in/at Pt, then neither does it at Pd. May-90. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ohta T; Hyomen Kagaku 11 (1989) 896 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:13018 (1990). "Is cold fusion possible? A proposal of the concept of "surfusion". ** "A review with 6 refs is given on the history of cold fusion, condensed matter confinement nuclear fusion, fracture induced nuclear fusion and surface confinement nuclear fusion". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schilling KD, Gippner P, Seidel W, Stary F, Wohlfarth D; Z. Phys. A: At. Nucl. 336 (1990) 1. "Search for charged-particle emission from deuterated palladium foils". ** Emphasise - as others have done - that protons would indicate a nuclear reaction; are detected at close to 100% efficiency; and have a much lower background than neutrons. So protons it is. The usual thin Pd foil is used, with a p-detector close to it. A loading of x = 0.4 (PdD(x)) is reached, not sure whether any beta phase formed. No protons were detected above the background; the cold fusion upper limit becomes about 1E-24/s/pair. May-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Southon JR, Stark JW, Vogel JS, Waddington JC; Phys. Rev. C: Nucl. Phys. 41 (1990) R1899. "Upper limit for neutron emission from cold deuteron-triton fusion". ** Although theory seems to favour dd over dt fusion, theory is out by 30 orders of magnitude compared to experimental claims, so this, too, may be wrong. A Ti cathode was preloaded to a t/Ti ratio of about 0.5 using T2 gas. This tritide was quite stable; no leakage was detected from it. This was then used as the cathode in a solution of 0.1 M lithium carbonate in D2O, adjusted with HNO3 to pH 2.5. A NE213 scintillation neutron detector, coupled to an RCA 8850 photomultiplier, was used to detect neutrons, in such a way as to exclude neutrons from dd fusion. Detector efficiency was about 1.3%. No difference between background and running cells was found, setting an upper limits for dt fusion at 1E-23/s/pair. So either there is no such thing as cold fusion, or the wrong conditions were used. May-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ulman M, Liu J, Augustynski J, Meli F, Schlapbach L; J. Electroanal. Chem. 286 (1990) 257. "Surface and electrochemical characterization of Pd cathodes after prolonged charging in LiOD + D2O solutions". ** Long electrolysis leads to accumulation of impurities on the Pd cathode, and the hydrogen evolution reaction (better: hydrogen production) is known to be very sensitive to these. One effect observed is that for a given current, the overvoltage becomes higher with time. This is clearly seen in a comparison between a 220 hour electrolysis in an untreated electrolyte with one for 16 h in a preelectrolysed solution (removes some of the impurities): in the latter case, lower overvoltages are seen. The team performed surface analysis after electrolysis, using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Apart from large values for carbon and oxygen, platinum, lead, zinc, chromium and in some cases copper, calcium, magnesium and sodium were found, differing in concentrations according to conditions. Particularly Pb and Zn will increase the overvoltage. The Ca and Mg came from the D2O used, as did Cu and Cr (note that we are talking about ultratrace bulk amounts, which accumulate at the surface during electrolysis). There were differences between LiOD made up from LiOH + D2O, and from Li metal + D2O (the metal contains some Ca and Mg). The point emerges that even relatively short electrolysis leads to deposits. Zn is particularly bad, increasing the overvoltage; codeposited Pt (from the anode) cannot counteract the Zn. The poisoning by Zn opens the way to secondary reactions, among them the incorporation of Li into Pd and Zn and possibly the formation of ZnD2 and LiD. All this causes a pronounced blocking of the electrode surface and this, in turn, causes local strong electric fields. Jun-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yanokura M, Minami M, Yuyatani M, Aratani M; Rep. Res. Cent. Ion Beam Technol., Hosei Univ., Suppl. 1990, 8, 179. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 112:242100 (1990). "Light elements analysis in palladium electrodes by the heavy ion Rutherford scattering". ** "Hydrogen and helium isotopes were measured in a palladium electrodes to get fundamental result on cold fusion by using heavy ion scattering anal. After electrolysis, at. ratio of deuterium and palladium increases to 1.5, but a significant amt. of neutrons cannot be detected". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cookson C; Financial Times (London) 23.3.1989, pp. 1, 28, 26. "Test tube nuclear fusion claimed" and (p.26) "Nuclear fusion in a test tube". ** Simultaneously with the Wall Street Journal article (see Bishop????), this is one of the two newspaper reports on cold fusion that startled the world in March 1989. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dagani R; Chem. & Eng. News, 18. June 1990, p. 5. "Cold fusion dogged by more controversy". ** A round-up of the recent troubles, mentioning the resignation of Univ. of Utah president, Chase N. Peterson and the background to this; the legal threats to the Salamon team by lawyer Gary Triggs (and his retraction of the threats) and the tritium contaminations, as well as the doubts about Bockris' high tritium levels. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marshall E; Science 249 (1990) 14 (6 Jul). "Science beyond the pale". ** This is a somewhat general article about scientists who - rightly or wrongly - find themselves at odds with the scientific establishment. The astronomer Halton Arp is the main example. Wegener gets a mention. Cold fusion is mentioned in the context of "most screwy ideas just turn out to be screwy ideas" and Robert Park executive director of the APS complains that between $50-100 million have been spent disproving this preposterous idea. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.27 / Randell Jesup / Re: Reminder: poll opinions wanted Originally-From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Reminder: poll opinions wanted Date: 27 Jul 90 18:38:55 GMT Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA In article <34550@ut-emx.UUCP> mjl@emx.UUCP (Maurice LeBrun) writes: >I personally think that cold-fusion has a minimal chance of being a >significant source of electrical power at all, as the evidence now >stands. This is purely based on the current outlook, mind you; >research (at a _few_ institutions) is still probably worthwhile. While we disagree on the likelyhood somewhat, prospects are certainly dimmer than they were at the onset. Research should go on until we have a thorough understanding of the various phenomena and/or problems with measurement. The controversy has certainly shown the lack of knowlege of other fields of science (on both sides), and has certainly caused a fair amount of looking into sensitivity and error rates/causes of instruments and techniques. There have been true benefits, as well, regardless of whether the P&F (heat) results turn out to be true. People have been prompted to look into all sorts of areas that they would have ignored, such as branching ratios, fractofusion, and various other theoretical issues. Originally, everyone said the branching ratio was 50%, but a number of people on closer examination say it may be different at lower temperatures or different conditions (though not enough to account for the reported tritium/neutron results). I think the scientific community (and it's various parts) needs to be shaken up every so often, to avoid becoming excessively conservative or hidebound. Even if the cause of the shaking turns out to be mistaken, it will often cause a fallout of original ideas, as well as open up some of the closed minds to new ideas. (Of course this applies to many things other than science, but that's for another discussion...) >It has been interesting. The transformation at this institution was >impressive (if that's the word), after the P&F press conference. The >magnetic fusion plasma physicists who had been working in the field >their whole lives were visibly shaken (I am a post-doc). However, it >was a good experience for all, I think; it reminded us of our >"purpose" and may have injected new enthusiasm into the field. Most Glad to hear it. Go for it, we need fusion energy for the long-term survival and growth of our civilization, IMHO. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenjesup cudfnRandell cudlnJesup cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.28 / J Chandross / Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 28 Jul 90 00:05:54 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) > The idea: Toxic chemical wastes (PCB's, Dioxin, industrial solvents, etc) are, > at the molecular level, just compounds of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, > and a few other friendly elements. _If_ these nasty chemicals could be broken > down into their constituent elements, they would be totally harmless, and > permanently neutralized---the ultimate possible form of waste control. > > This suggests we heat the offending chemicals up til they break apart into > atoms. Uh-uh. Dioxins are created at high temperatures. And they are very, very stable. While the risks commonly associated with dioxins are typically outrageously exaggerated, you still don't want to manufacture the stuff in any quantity. A better way to deal with radioactivity is vitrification. That takes a lot of energy and is a good candidate for cheap power. The resulting product is very stable and does not leach. Jonathan A. Chandross Internet: jac@paul.rutgers.edu UUCP: rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!jac cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenjac cudfnJonathan cudlnChandross cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.29 / John Moore / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: 29 Jul 90 16:08:07 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9007271501.AA03544@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: ] Granada et al have gone underwater (a submarine, I believe) and get more ]unmistakable neutron emissions - although I look forward to an explanation ]in their next paper, for the discrepancy between the previous 30% above ]background and now twice background which is 1/70 of the previous. Well... How's this ;-) Cold fusion systems act as neutron amplifiers - reacting to ambient neutrons (probably thermal) in some way that results in more neutrons. Hence, the lower the background, the lower the excess neutron counts. OK, theorists, arm your pencils.... go for it.... [alright, so I have no idea how such a thing could happen, since cold fusion cells are not made of fissile materials. But, it does fit the data :-) ] -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Voice: (602) 951-9326 Wishful Thinking: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.30 / Dieter Britz / Plasma waste chemical treatment Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Plasma waste chemical treatment Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 14:23:10 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Both barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) and hammondr@sunroof.crd.ge.com (Richard A Hammond) suggest the use of plasma torches to break down dangerous waste chemicals. Although this is getting away from our favourite topic, let me add that I recently read (in New Scientist, I think) that the Australian outfit CSIRO has developed this idea and is producing a plant. There are already interested firms in Australia, wanting to use it. So it might be a commercially viable process. I am pleased about this, because some of the most objectionable chemicals are hard to detect in the environment even at dangerous levels and it has been easy for offenders to release them at night, and get away with it. Maybe some of these people have a conscience, after all. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.30 / rp / New experiment Originally-From: rp@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (rp) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New experiment Date: 30 Jul 90 10:34:09 GMT Organization: MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Lexington, MA On July 23, 1990, an article appeared on the front page of the Boston Herald concerning a cold fusion experiment from the University of Hawaii. The effort was headed by a Bruce Liebert in Mechanical Engineering. The claim is an observation of 10x more energy output than input for a device using a "molten salt electrochemical technique". I have seen no reference to this in this forum and query whether anyone can comment about it. -- Richard Pavelle UUCP: ...ll-xn!rp ARPANET: rp@XN.LL.MIT.EDU cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenrp cudlnrp cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.30 / Barry Merriman / Re: New experiment Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New experiment Date: 30 Jul 90 17:55:32 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1971@xn.LL.MIT.EDU> rp@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (rp) writes: > >the claim is an observation of 10x >more energy output than input for a device using a "molten >salt electrochemical technique". No, I haven't heard anything. And, I was talking to the Nuclear Fusion Engineers here at UCLA last week, and they didn't mention it---so obviously it isn't sending shock waves through the fusion community. Besides, P and F have claimed gains of up to 50x---so why should we get excited about a mere 10x ? :-) cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.31 / Robert Poole / Re: Japanese results Originally-From: tarquin@athena.mit.edu (Robert P Poole) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Japanese results Date: 31 Jul 90 01:33:21 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bhagirath S. Joshi seems to think that the cold fusion debate boils down to politics. However, he seems to be ignoring some basic facts of physics. True, fusion need not give off energetic particles to be real fusion. However, given the kind of setup that was used, and given that the most quantum-mechanically probable interaction between the Deuterons was one which would involve the release of a neutron, I don't see why the scientists are wrong in assuming that they should look for neutrons. As someone commented shortly after the Pons and Fleischmann debacle, "Either they discovered the world's slowest neutron bomb, or they are really dead and don't realize it yet." Instead of rehashing this hopeless mess with the Palladium metal, why don't we concentrate on REAL "cold fusion" -- muon catalyzed fusion? It is proven workable, and as soon as someone develops a reliable method for generating muons at a fast enough rate, we will have all the cheap and safe power we need. Muon catalyzed fusion, for those who don't know, was featured last year in Scientific American. It involves fusion reactions taking place at hundreds or thousands of degrees C, instead of millions, which is ideal for running steam turbines. Think about it. -- Robert P. Poole tarquin@athena.mit.edu 46 Massachusetts Avenue MIT Course VIII 311B Bexley Hall "I love the smell of napalm early in the Cambridge, MA 02139 morning. Smells like... victory!" cudkeys: cuddy31 cudentarquin cudfnRobert cudlnPoole cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.31 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 18:36:31 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Below, I give you the new form of the Yaroslavskii item, which I now have in translation in Sov. Phys. Dokl; I have changed the title to the same as the translators used. My own rendering was correct but you may prefer the translated reference. In particular, I was doubting my eyes, translating the bit about nuclear reactions in living organisms but the professionals make it the same. There is no explanation of why Yaroslavskii thinks this. As to the DeNinno, I confess I goofed again - on checking some submission dates, I found that my previous reference (Phys. Lett. A138 (1989) 51) is in fact that of the Mintmire paper. Chem. Abstracts straightened me out and you have the correct reference below. I don't know how I got it wrong; my apologies. Please replace these two items in your list. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yaroslavskii MA; Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 308 (1989) 95 (in Russian), or Sov. Phys. Dokl. 34 (1989) 813. "Possible mechanism for the initiation of nuclear reactions during temperature changes and phase transitions in condensed materials". ** "Propose a mechanism for n-emission during cooling and heating of heavy water solutions of some salts, from liquid nitrogen to complete melting. Some experiments were done in September 1988. After correction for the efficiency of the neutron detectors (8 SN17 in parallel), the results indicate neutron bursts of 300 counts/s, with the intrinsic background at about 1/s, most prominently during melting. Y has a theory: numerous microcracks formed due to thermal stresses become ellipsoidal pores by diffusion at their vertices, in a matter of minutes. These pores, in the dielectric medium with its frozen-in electric field yield energies up to tens of keV, sufficient for fusion reactions. Of special interest to the author is "the distinct possibility, following from these results, of controlled nuclear reactions in living organisms". Sep-89 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DeNinno A, Frattolillo A, Lollobattista G, Martinis L, Martone M, Mori L, Podda S, Scaramuzzi F; Europhys. Lett. 9 (1989) 221. "Evidence of emission of neutrons from a titanium-deuterium system". ** This looks very much like the authors' paper in Nuovo Cimento etc, with the same figures and results. Jun-89 ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy31 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.07.31 / Barry Merriman / Re: Muonic Fusion Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Muonic Fusion Date: 31 Jul 90 05:25:57 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Jul31.013321.13159@athena.mit.edu> tarquin@athena.mit.edu (Robert P Poole) writes: >Instead of rehashing this hopeless mess with the Palladium metal, why don't we >concentrate on REAL "cold fusion" -- muon catalyzed fusion? It is proven >workable, Only in the sense that muons do catalyze fusion in a deuterium gas at low (1000 degrees K) temeratures. However, last I heard, they needed to get the number of fusions catalyzed per muon (before the muon decays away) up by a factor of 6 from what they can do currently in order to reach an energy breakeven point. >and as soon as someone develops a reliable method for generating >muons at a fast enough rate This is non-trivial, since the generation of muons (mainly via particle accelerator techniques) is inefficient and not suited to making huge quantities, and they have to be generated right next to the reactor, since they only live a microsecond. (enough time to travel a few kilometers, at most) The fact that Steve Jones (of CF fame) has redirected his efforts towards other kinds of cold fusion, after working on muonic fusion for many years (though he may still be working on it) suggests that it is not an easy route to fusion---though certainly it is interesting. (Jones wrote the Sci. Am. article, by the way.) Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.01 / Barry Merriman / Re: Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Date: 1 Aug 90 02:54:14 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Dieter Britz writes: > >Below, I give you the new form of the Yaroslavskii item >"Proposed mechanism for n-emission during cooling and heating of heavy >water solutions of some salts..." >Of special interest to the author is "the distinct >possibility, following from these results, of controlled nuclear reactions in >living organisms". Oh---so that explains why drinking heavy water is toxic! ;-) cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.01 / sheely@groucho / Re: Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography: change/correction Date: 1 Aug 90 17:28:44 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow >Oh---so that explains why drinking heavy water is toxic! ;-) As I understand it, heavy water is toxic due to its inability to take part in osmosis within cells. It becomes dangerous when a significant amount of the bodies water has been replaced. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudensheely cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.01 / Chuck Sites / Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography update. Date: 1 Aug 90 16:58:10 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Schilling KD, Gippner P, Seidel W, Stary F, Wohlfarth D; >Z. Phys. A: At. Nucl. 336 (1990) 1. >"Search for charged-particle emission from deuterated palladium foils". >** Emphasise - as others have done - that protons would indicate a nuclear >reaction; are detected at close to 100% efficiency; and have a much lower >background than neutrons. So protons it is. The usual thin Pd foil is used, >with a p-detector close to it. A loading of x = 0.4 (PdD(x)) is reached, not >sure whether any beta phase formed. No protons were detected above the >background; the cold fusion upper limit becomes about 1E-24/s/pair. May-90 >----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This one really gets me. For a negative result these guys sure didn't try very hard to achive CF. I mean has there *ever* been a positive result using palladium foil? Second if the loading factor was that low, how can they even hope to see any effect? What these guys have done is to say, in palladium foil at a loading factor of x = 0.4 (PdD(x)) the upper limit for CF becomes 1E-24/s/pair. This is too bad. I think proton detection would be an excellent experiment to run because it could, once and for all, end the tritium contamination debate ah-la Texas A&M by detection of the D+D -> T+p reaction. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.02 / Dieter Britz / Neutrons are doing it Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Neutrons are doing it Date: Thu, 2 Aug 90 17:06:46 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore): >In article <9007271501.AA03544@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz > writes: >] Granada et al have gone underwater (a submarine, I believe) and get more >]unmistakable neutron emissions - although I look forward to an explanation >]in their next paper, for the discrepancy between the previous 30% above >]background and now twice background which is 1/70 of the previous. >Well... How's this ;-) Cold fusion systems act as neutron amplifiers - >reacting to ambient neutrons (probably thermal) in some way that results >in more neutrons. Hence, the lower the background, the lower the excess >neutron counts. OK, theorists, arm your pencils.... go for it.... >[alright, so I have no idea how such a thing could happen, since cold > fusion cells are not made of fissile materials. But, it does fit the > data :-) ] Well, the following item in my list seems to suggest something similar: Shani G, Cohen C, Grayevsky A, Brokman A; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 53. "Evidence for a background neutron enhanced fusion in deuterium absorbed palladium". ** This shows that neutrons will enhance natural fusion rates. Thus, a 2.5 MeV neutron peak is emitted from a Pd-D system in a high-background lab but not in a "clean" one. Compressed D2 gas shows the same effect. Pd was charged with D from the gas phase at 3 kg/cm**2. Within 2 hours, the pressure had dropped, indicating absorption to PdD0.6. This was then sealed into a stainless tube under the same pressure of D2 and placed near a counter. Under high-level neutron background (0.05 count/s/cm**2) a 2.5 MeV peak is seen (difference between the sample and pure Pd), but at low levels (0.0002 counts/s/cm**2), nothing. Oct-89 .. so the theorists have already armed their pencils (?). But this result would also be consistent with the neutron background itself having a peak. You can't win. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy2 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.02 / Barry Merriman / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 2 Aug 90 06:45:53 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <58641@bbn.BBN.COM> wbe@BBN.COM (Winston Edmond) writes: > There's another interesting question that could be asked. If the CNF >experiments were deliberately conducted above the atmosphere -- in space -- >what would happen? Would there be enough of a fusion effect to make a >practical space-environment power source? The short answer is no, because the particle density of the solar wind is far too small. Typical parameters of the solar wind are (Chen, pg 14) n (density) = 10^6 particles/m^3 kT (temperature) = 10 eV V (velocity) 3x10^5 m/s Now, in order to fuse (say D-D or D-T), we need particles with an energy of 10,000 eV---so these particles are not energetic enough. But, even if we assumed every single particle could initiate a fusion (via some weird CF mechanism, or during a high energy flare) we would still only get Fusion Power per Square Meter = (density)x(speed)x(Energy of Fusion) = 10^6 x 10^5 x 10 MeV /m^2 sec = 10^-7 Watts/m^2 !!! Considering the solar constant (radiant energy from the sun) is about 1000 Watts/m^2, this fusion energy is insignificant. I once asked Steve Jones (of BYU) if the muons in the upper atmosphere could be used to source muonic fusion up there---he said no; again the density is far too low. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Bob McKay / Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: rim@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au (Bob McKay) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 3 Aug 90 00:25:47 GMT From article , by jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross): > A better way to deal with radioactivity is vitrification. That takes a > lot of energy and is a good candidate for cheap power. The resulting > product is very stable and does not leach....... > .....in its initial form. However it's difficult to be sure what its leaching properties will be after a couple of hundred thousand years of internal irradiation. A far more promising alternative is the synthetic rock proposed by Prof Ted Ringwood and his team at the Australian National University. That involves the manufacture of minerals that mimic naturally occurring rocks which have demonstrably coped with known levels of radiation on geological timescales with known degrees of breakdown. Of course, the synthetic versions will have to cope with different radionucleide mixes than the naturally occurring ones, but that the radiation profiles won't differ greatly, and the different chemical/crystallographic effects of the small amounts of radioisotopes involved should be accurately predictable. Bob McKay Phone: +61 6 268 8169 fax: +61 6 268 8581 Dept. Computer Science ACSNET,CSNET: rim@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz Aust. Defence Force Academy UUCP: ...!uunet!munnari!csadfa.cs.adfa.oz!rim Canberra ACT 2600 AUSTRALIA ARPA: rim%csadfa.cs.adfa.oz@uunet.uu.net cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenrim cudfnBob cudlnMcKay cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 14:24:02 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway This fortnight, only about 5 items in Chem. Abstr. instead of the usual 10-12; is this the nail-in-the-coffin effect or just a local fluctuation, as you might get from a single neutron detector? The McCracken et al is a useful paper, pointing out some weaknesses in others' work (i.e the Frascati team). The Simanek is for the experts; if you are into QM theory, read it - I get no useful numbers out of it but have a feeling he's saying "yes, maybe". The Yamaguchi is written in such a way that a lot is left to one's imagination. It also suffers from the use of a single neutron detector (I think...) although how you'd get such a large burst by accident I don't know. There seem to be some errors in the paper, such as the reference to nitrogen. Much is made of the gold film on the plate's back but then, when it's evaporated off by the first explosive outgassing, the second one still works. There is a faint suggestion of a gas with mass 3 released - T, or (3)He? I can't read Polish and don't like my chances in any case of getting hold of that journal, so the Zak will have to remain a Chem. Abstr. quote. The announcement of the second, long awaited FPH paper - now augmented by more authors, and Hawkins has not been left out this time - is good news, I guess. The critics will have something concrete to criticise; at last, we'll be able to read why FPH+ think their calorimetry is good enough as is. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 3-Aug. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- McCracken GM, Bailey M, Croft S, Findlay DJS, Gibson A, Govier RP, Jarvis ON, Milton HJ, Powell BA, Sadler G, Sene MR, Sweetman DR, van Belle P, Watson HHH; J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 23 (1990) 469. "Experimental search for 'cold fusion' in the deuterium-titanium system". ** A very careful attempt to repeat the Frascati experiment of DeNinno et al. D2 absorption in Ti, cooling and heating were performed. Three separate types of neutron counters were used simultaneously. Nothing was found. The authors point out some problems. Although the counters, together, showed no neutron emission, one of them did by itself. So, if only one had been used, spurious neutrons might have been reported. Also, the baking temperature of 475 K said to have been used by the DeNinno team leaves an oxide layer, impervious to D2, so no D2 is absorbed; a higher baking temperature is needed. The authors state that the diffusion coefficient of D in Ti is 0.013*exp(-Q/RT), with Q = 52 kJ/mol; at 300K, this makes 2E-11 cm**2/s. So charging for 1E04 s and using diffusion theory gives a loaded layer only 9 microns deep, throwing doubt on claims of deep loading. May-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Simanek E; Physica A (Amsterdam) 164 (1990) 147. "Quantum tunnelling through a fluctuating barrier. Enhancement of cold-fusion rate". ** The Feynman functional integral formulation of quantum mechanics is used to derive tunnelling rate enhancement of cold fusion in a Pd lattice. Strong temperature dependence of this enhancement is found. Enhancement is positive above Tc, the temp corresponding to "the energy spacing of the bath oscillator". Additionally, due to the covalent Pd-D bonding, Pd lattice oscillations induced by thermal phonons will assist in the tunnelling. No real numbers are given. Mar-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yamaguchi E, Nishioka T; Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Part 2 29(4) (1990) L666. "Cold fusion induced by controlled out-diffusion of deuterons in palladium". ** The authors observed a "gigantic neutron burst" and inferred intense heat effects, at a Pd plate charged with D2. One side of the 1mm Pd plate was coated with a thin film of Au, which blocks outgassing of D2 on that side. The key process on the other side is then the "formation of D accumulation layers by controlling the D-atom out-diffusive transport with heterostructures". This is done by coating that side with a <100 Aangstrom of something containing Mn and O (no more is said about it). The idea is that the Au-covered side is - after loading under 0.5 atm D2 - in the alpha phase and the other side, at least during outgassing (I think) in the beta form. The paper is not 100% explicit about the steps. After D-loading for 24 hours, the samples were placed in a chamber which was evacuated, and a BF3 neutron counter placed near it, as well as a Varian TPS-451S leak detector for gases of mass number < 6. Three hours after evacuation, a 2-3 sec burst of neutrons at an intensity of 0.1-0.2 mSv/h, simultaneously with "explosive release of gas from the samples" and biaxial bending of all the plates due to the uniform expansion of the surfaces with the Mn-O film. Also, the Au film was gone, from which a temperature of at least 1064 degC is inferred. D2 was reintroduced, followed by re-evacuation and this time, there was another neutron burst of 0.06-0.09 mSv/h after 150 s (they don't mention whether they reapplied the Au film). Then they introduce 1 atm of nitrogen [sic] and evacuated. Again, the same neutron emission and gas release after 150 s. 20 more separate experiments did not show any of these events. Other experiments using H2 gave no explosive release nor neutrons. The authors legitimise their BF3 counter by calibrating with a D+ beam experiment (self targeting) and get the correct measurements. They calculate that if the observed event is at 2.45 MeV, then 0.1 mSv/h corresponds to 72 n/s/cm**2 or about 1-2 * E06 n/s from their plate. This is about 2.5-5 * E06 larger than that reported by Jones et al and 25-50 larger than FPH's. Also, the gas eveloved must have been D2, because the leak detector showed a mass of 4, as well as some of mass 3 ("slightly detected"). The heat could come from decomposition of PdD(0.6), as suggested by Pauling. The authors then go on to some speculations about the origin of the explosive outgassing, to do with lattice strain under bending, the Gorsky effect and "degradations of the Pd crystals". Apr-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zak J; Inz. Apar. Chem. 28(5) (1989) (in Polish). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:30258 (1990). "Low-temperature fusion of light nuclei in the Fleischmann-Pons reaction". ** "A discussion with 3 refs is given on radiation obsd during an electrolysis of D2O with Pd cathode. The properties of D in the crystal lattice of Pd are described. The possibility of electrochem-induced cold fusion is discussed". From the issue number, I take it this came out in May 1989. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenberg DS; Nature (London) 346 (1990) 326 (26. July). "Cold fusion and other matters". ** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, 6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. Cold fusion gets a good mention here. Swinger is impressed with the way money has been obtained but notes that others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a thing. There are lots of other money eaters with flimsy bases. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lindley D; Nature (London) 346 (1990) 303 (26 Jul). "Cold fusion. Second round". ** A sneak preview of the second, long-awaited FPH paper - only now there are more authors (and Hawkins has not been left out) - in J. Electroanal. Chem., 25 July issue, 1990. Only electrochemistry and calorimetry is mentioned, no word about emission of nuclear particles or radiation. Evidently the team still believes they have something. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy3 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / 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: Fri, 3 Aug 90 14:45:55 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenfusion cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / / More CNFing Around Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: More CNFing Around Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 14:46:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway > Research should go on until we have a thorough understanding of > the various phenomena and/or problems with measurements. We have heard many justifications for continued research into cold nuclear fusion, but the above point of view seems equivalent to saying that lots of lousey measurements incorrectly interpreted provide justification for more of the same. I am not aware of any phenomena involving the detection of nuclear reaction products that has been properly demonstrated, documented and reproduced by more than one investigator. Most reports have never gotten beyond the preliminaries of the initial flush of an "unexpected result" and are never even reproduced by the original investigators. For example, has anyone heard about any further positive results from S. Jones? As for explaining the problems with the measurements, particularly the calorimetry, that is really up to the people reporting the strange results in the first place. I can speculate as to what is wrong with the Utah calorimetry, but I can't say for sure what their problem is, particularly when they have been so tight with truly complete descriptions of their methods and the raw data. As it now stands by most reports the U of Utah folks seem more inclined to repeating their mistakes rather than carefully r rethinking about possible problems with their thechnique. In my book they have done very little with the $5M to support their original claims. In summary, unless you believe there is still some magic about getting the electrolysis to produce CNF, you can't discount the numerous negative results obtained at most of the world's foremost laboratories by well-qualified experimenters using the best equipment. Anyone who wants to put their "positive" results up against these results ought to be ready for very complete reexamination of the methods that led to those results. Dick Blue, a Flaming Experimentalist cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Scott Mueller / Submission for sci.physics.fusion Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Submission for sci.physics.fusion Date: Fri, 3 Aug 90 14:54:47 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway This message generated manually... -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.| +1 408 253 6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Charles Poirier / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 3 Aug 90 20:48:20 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. In article <197@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >I once asked Steve Jones (of BYU) if the muons in the upper >atmosphere could be used to source muonic fusion up there---he >said no; again the density is far too low. How low is that? If you could put a big focusing magnet up there, you might be able to concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume of deuterium. What amount of concentration (if any) is achievable, I have no idea. But if it works for electrons in electron microscopes, why not for charged muons? Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the structure? Would it be possible to duplicate "for free" (without injecting energy, a la particle accelerators) the conditions that generate upper- atmospheric muons, artifically, in an orbiting structure, and to focus them onto a deuterium target? Are the upper-atmospheric muons a cosmic-ray byproduct, or what? Just curious, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Beckman / Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: beckmann@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Beckman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 3 Aug 90 21:31:57 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder > A far more promising alternative is the synthetic rock proposed >by Prof Ted Ringwood and his team at the Australian National University. That >involves the manufacture of minerals that mimic naturally occurring rocks >which have demonstrably coped with known levels of radiation on geological >timescales with known degrees of breakdown. Of course, the synthetic versions >will have to cope with different radionucleide mixes than the naturally >occurring ones, but that the radiation profiles won't differ greatly, and the >different chemical/crystallographic effects of the small amounts of >radioisotopes involved should be accurately predictable. > A similar method, using synthetic basalt with calcined wastes incorporated in it, has been demonstrated by INEL (Idaho National Engineering Lab), and has been ready for about 10 years. The basalt has been tested in nature as fireproof, waterproof, earthquakeproof and decomposition-proof for the last 100 million years. However, this is simply a publicity stunt to appease the panic makers under the mistaken assumption that they are rational and genuinely interested in safety. That such extreme measures are quite unnecessary follows from a comparison with coal ash (never mind highly toxic chemical wastes!). After 500 years, nuclear wastes are less toxic than the coal ash produced from the same delivered electricty. (The toxicity is measured by the volume of water necessary to dilute the toxin to drinking water standards.) There are many other such points -- but what's the use? Those who WANTED to understand have understood long ago. Petr Beckmann cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbeckmann cudlnBeckman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / John Moore / Re: Neutrons are doing it Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutrons are doing it Date: 3 Aug 90 03:38:04 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <9008020923.AA12962@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: ]Well, the following item in my list seems to suggest something similar: ] ]Shani G, Cohen C, Grayevsky A, Brokman A; Solid State Commun. 72 (1989) 53. ]"Evidence for a background neutron enhanced fusion in deuterium absorbed ]palladium". ]** This shows that neutrons will enhance natural fusion rates. Thus, a ]2.5 MeV neutron peak is emitted from a Pd-D system in a high-background lab ]but not in a "clean" one. Compressed D2 gas shows the same effect. ] Pd was charged with D from the gas phase at 3 kg/cm**2. Within 2 hours, the ]pressure had dropped, indicating absorption to PdD0.6. This was then sealed ]into a stainless tube under the same pressure of D2 and placed near a ]counter. Under high-level neutron background (0.05 count/s/cm**2) a 2.5 MeV ]peak is seen (difference between the sample and pure Pd), but at low levels ](0.0002 counts/s/cm**2), nothing. Oct-89 ] ].. so the theorists have already armed their pencils (?). But this result ]would also be consistent with the neutron background itself having a peak. ]You can't win. I doubt that this result is consistent with a peak in the background. One would hope that in such an experiment the neutron background spectrum was measured WITHOUT the Pd-D system present to rule out such a thing! -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Voice: (602) 951-9326 Wishful Thinking: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Barry Merriman / Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: 3 Aug 90 20:08:22 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9008031013.AA26072@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, >published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, >6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. Cold fusion gets a >good mention here. Swinger is impressed with the way money has been obtained >but notes that others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a >and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a >thing. Well, I don't think this is very accurate. Tokamak researchers have made much progress in understanding their machines over the last 25 years, and achieved pretty good parameters (with _verifiable measurements_). Also, there is substantial theory guiding and reinforcing their work, again unlike CF. To say they have a flimsy base and have shown nothing is ridiculous. Barry Merriman PS I would like to see better ideas than the Tokamak, but at the moment, its definitely the best developed and most practical reactor design. PSS Current planning is for Tokamak research to continue another 50 years before commercialization. That would make it a product with a 80 year development period---must be some kind of record! (Not to mention about 20 billion dollars in development costs!) cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.04 / Barry Merriman / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 4 Aug 90 02:37:57 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Aug3.204820.23652@dg-rtp.dg.com> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com () writes: >In article <197@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >the [muon in the upper atmosphere] density is far too low [for muonic fusion] > >How low is that? If you could put a big focusing magnet up there, you might >be able to concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume If you want to take this route, I think you'll need _large_ concentrations. If we have a device of inlet area A containing the target deuterium gas, and if the density of muons is n, and they have velocity near c (speed of light), and if each muon captured engages in 600 fusions (optimistic) we get the total power output of our device is P = (no./sec of muons into device)x(no. of fusions per muon)x(energy per fuse) = n x c x A x 600 x 10 MeV => power per unit area P/A = n (in m^-3) 10^-7 Watts Assuming we want a power flux comparable to that of solar power, 1000 W/m^2, we need a density of n = 10^10 muons/m^3 But, since they are generated by cosmic rays, which have a density of about 10^6/m^3, the muon density comparable and we probably need to concentrate the muons by a facor of at least 10^4 in density. This implies a collecting area for the concentrator that is thousands of meters on a side on a side. The only conceivable way to have a magnet on that scale is to use the earth's existing magnetic field, and perhaps excite additional waves in it, to trap and channel muons to the magnetic poles. This would allow for the concentration factors needed, maybe. (But its alot of work just to get 1000 W/m^2 ! And the earths standard field is too weak to trap muons, so some excitations would be needed.) >Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large >focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the >structure? You couldn't focus the muons---they aren't created that far up. They are created in the ionosphere by incoming cosmic rays. So, all you could hope to do is focus the cosmic rays. But this is difficult---their gyration radius in a magnetic field of strength B (in tesla) is about r = mc/qB = 1 meter/ B/tesla. This needs to be kept small to focus them. Thus you would need tesla strength magnets, on a scale of miles, in orbit. Sort of like putting the superconducting supercollider in orbit---not likely! >energy, a la particle accelerators) the conditions that generate upper- >atmospheric muons, artifically, in an orbiting structure, and to focus them >onto a deuterium target? Are the upper-atmospheric muons a cosmic-ray >byproduct, or what? Yes, they are a cosmic ray byproduct, and it takes energies in the GeV range to make them. No point in doing it in the upper atmosphere if were gonna make them ourselves. Without a good muon source, muon catalyzed fusion isn't feasible. The muons created in the upper atmosphere just don't provide enough, so we will have to make them ourselves. Only particle accelerators can reach the energy needed to creat muons, and even large accelerators like SLAC and CERN can't give us the muon densities we need for a powerplant. Conversely, the prospect of having to build a large particle accelerator at every muonic powerplant is not encouraging (except to particle physicists!), and makes this of limited use for space based power. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.05 / Paul Koloc / Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: 5 Aug 90 01:54:49 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <201@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <9008031013.AA26072@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >>** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, >>published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, >>6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. .. . >>others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a >>and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a >>thing. > >Well, I don't think this is very accurate. Tokamak researchers >have made much progress in understanding their machines >over the last 25 years, and achieved pretty good parameters >(with _verifiable measurements_). Also, there is substantial >theory guiding and reinforcing their work, again unlike CF. >To say they have a flimsy base and have shown nothing is ridiculous. In the early days tokamak fusion made real progress, rather progress per $$ DOLLAR $$. Now it doesn't. It does have a good experimental data base, but the numbers are bent to keep the work funded. Theory groups still do not grasp or have a consensus agreement on transport. The problem isn't physics anyway, it is engineering. One can not produce a pressure vessel device that reduces applied pressure by a hundred or more and expect that it can react matter that requires the application of nearly optimum materially obtainable pressures to ignite. For example, the pressure on the toroidal field (16T) coils of a tokamak would be about one thousand atmospheres, while the best plasma pressure that could be expected (proportional to the product of fuel density and burn temperature -- see more on this below -- ) would be a fraction of ten atm. Compare that to the interior of a Star. Consequently, the TOKAMAK can NOT be considered to be a candidate as an experimental fusion reactor, let alone the monstrous extrapolation to reliable commercial service. This does not consider its other major draw backs: complexity, maintenance, and an insurmountable "Wall Problem. Then there are the political questions relating to its massive high energy neutron flux and tritium inventories and processing. There are a couple of Czech proverbs: "If the device costs too much more than was expected it won't be a benefit." and, "If a device can NOT be made to work in ten years, it will never be a success." For those of more technical persuasion: Three parameters must be optimized, SIMULTANEOUSLY, for fusion to work. First, the fuel must reach and maintain or exceed the ignition TEMPERATURE throughout the burn. Second, the DENSITY of the fuel must be high enough throughout the burn that most of the fuel successfully fuses. The burn must last for a sufficient TIME for this to happen. Further, the product of the density times the burn time must exceed a critical value which is determined by the condition that the energy release from fusion is sufficient during burn to equal or exceed the loss of energy from the plasma, thus assuring it remains at or above the critical temperature throughout the burn. SIMULTANEOUSLY SIMULTANEOUSLY SIMULTANEOUSLY These numbers have been "improved individually" or the product of pairs of them have been improved to show "progress". But in each case, it was done ONLY at the expense of the remaining parameter(s) and so it is meaningless as a measure of fusion progress. There has been essentially NO SUBSTANTIAL progress toward fusion in tokamaks in recent years nor will it be very meaningful for there to be an announcement of a rigged up "SCIENTIFIC" burn in the next several years (decades??). That includes the use of even that low ignition point and most despicable fuel, "DT" (deuterium:tritium; 1:1). Engineering interpretation sheds a clearer light. Engineers build machines. TIME is pretty much determined by the SIZE of the machine. (Size goes with inductance and time with L/R ). What remains is Density and Temperature. But the latter is dictated by the fuel characteristics, so only the former is free to adjust. As it turns out, since the product of density and temperature is pressure, the engineer only has to optimize pressure. This is best done in a compressible toroidal device of subset of Spheromak. We think that pressures of many tens of kilobars to hundreds of kilobars can be sustained for sufficiently long burn times. There are other advantages that put the potential of this technology in the realm of fantastic. >PS I would like to see better ideas than the Tokamak, but at the >moment, its definitely the best developed and most >practical reactor design. Let's not be so morbid! Barry, Be so kind as to send me your surface mailing address. >PSS Current planning is for Tokamak research to continue >another 50 years before commercialization. That would make it >a product with a 80 year development period---must be some >kind of record! (Not to mention about 20 billion dollars in >development costs!) That figure is a pittance of what might be going down the drain in the USA alone. Think of all the nations being led down the path. Trouble with Democracies is they install fresh neophytes every decade or so; some become responsible for funding "fusion". It makes it tough for them to cut through the "CONVOLUTED science, put out by the internationally coordinated efforts of skilled "BIG physics" bureaucrats. The fusion program has pretty much decayed into an organized scam for continuing to rip money out of environmentally and energy aware and science loving governments since it was realized the tokamak was "not the answer" at least eight to ten years ago. I know many of the players and have been there when these things were discussed. Furthermore, except for the Japanese and Italians and a few other bomb loving nations like (need those neutrons) Libya and Israel, there has been NO FUNDING of new concepts by governments. Of course, I exclude from this the meager funding resulting from "heroic" legal or political action such as from Bussard, Coppi, Wells, Maglich, and yes... our dearest and later martyrs P&F. Is Hirsch next? I suspect that the SSC is a product of a similar evolution. The lesson from this: Chop COLOSSAL GOVERNMENT SCIENCE projects. NOW! +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Paul Koloc / Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: 6 Aug 90 01:06:25 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Aug5.015449.17834@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@promethe.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <201@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>In article <9008031013.AA26072@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >> ooooo ooooo ppppp sssss O O O O P P S O O O O Ppppp Sssss O O O O P S ooooo ooooo P ssssS In the Reply-To line of my previous poster on this subject the address should be: > Reply-To: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) ^^ *******NOT******** > Reply-To: pmk@promethe.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Thanks pmk@prometheus cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Dieter Britz / Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: Mon, 6 Aug 90 15:54:21 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway rim@csadfa.cs.adfa.oz.au (Bob McKay) writes >From article , by > jac@paul.rutgers.edu (Jonathan A. Chandross): >> A better way to deal with radioactivity is vitrification. That takes a >> lot of energy and is a good candidate for cheap power. The resulting >> product is very stable and does not leach....... >> >.....in its initial form. However it's difficult to be sure what its leaching >properties will be after a couple of hundred thousand years of internal >irradiation. A far more promising alternative is the synthetic rock proposed >by Prof Ted Ringwood and his team at the Australian National University. That >involves the manufacture of minerals that mimic naturally occurring rocks >which have demonstrably coped with known levels of radiation on geological >timescales with known degrees of breakdown. Of course, the synthetic versions >will have to cope with different radionucleide mixes than the naturally >occurring ones, but that the radiation profiles won't differ greatly, and the >different chemical/crystallographic effects of the small amounts of >radioisotopes involved should be accurately predictable. I wasn't going to get involved in this discussion, since it is NOT about cold fusion, but... For a start, that bit about "does not leach" is not true. Any analytical chemists knows that if you want no ions in solution, don't use any kind of glass. What scientists, talking to politicians, mean when they say something like this is "it doesn't leach more than I reckon it ought to" - more on that below. Yes, synrock and basalt sound good - but any kind of glass (I think these substances would be in the glassy form) will not only eventually crystallise but also allow salts to leach out, albeit at a very slow rate - maybe slow enough for Homo sapiens. Two aspects to this: the first is the politics of what to choose. I'm a bit of a pessimist here. Synrock and basalt sound good to me - better than dumping in the sea, certainly, if we must have the stuff - and we do already have it, in large amounts, waiting for a good idea for its disposal. But the choices will probably not be made on a rational basis but on the basis of local politics. This is illustrated by the types of nuclear reactors built in the various countries. The Candu reactors seemed to me the most rational, requiring no uranium enrichment, and being very reliable (I may be out of date here). Why is it only Canada that uses them? There are other examples. Let's say the Australian synrock is proven to be the best; will it be used? The USAmericans will probably use their own basalt anyway (buy American); in the reverse case, Australians - if they had large amounts of waste to dispose of, which they fortunately don't - would mumble about "Australian conditions" and use synrock - unless, of course, the USA threatens with some sort of economic retaliation. I think I'm making my point. The other point is that we are talking about really long times. There was a suggestion once of putting all the waste into steel bombs and dropping it onto the Antarctic icecap; the bombs would sink to the bottom and lie there under 1000's of m of ice, forever out of sight and mind. Sounds reasonable but think: the last 100 years have seen changes in human life that were inconceivable 100 years ago. How can we hope to project by millions of years? How can we be sure that in 100000 years, Homo will not want to do something down there? writes >As for explaining the problems with the measurements, particularly >the calorimetry, that is really up to the people reporting the >strange results in the first place... As I have said before, those people (i.e. FPH) are obviously not concerned about convincing "us", or they'd be less cryptic. As long as they can get the money, that's OK with them. But this also means that we don't have to believe what they say. barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes >In article <9008031013.AA26072@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz >>** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, >>published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, >>6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. Cold fusion gets a >>good mention here. Swinger is impressed with the way money has been obtained >>but notes that others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a >>and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a >>thing. >Well, I don't think this is very accurate. Tokamak researchers >have made much progress in understanding their machines >over the last 25 years, and achieved pretty good parameters >(with _verifiable measurements_). Also, there is substantial >theory guiding and reinforcing their work, again unlike CF. >To say they have a flimsy base and have shown nothing is ridiculous. OK, I didn't quite make myself clear. True, the tokamakians have made great leaps in understanding their machines and all that. Greenberg's (and my) point is, though, when are they going to show us some useful machines? That's a lot of money for a long time, for a promise. Understanding tokamaks is not an end in itself, like astronomic research; these people are saying, all the time, that this is the energy future of mankind, etc. That's what I call the flimsy base. Greenberg has, I think, his tongue in his cheek just a little. I agree also that some essential technologies ought to be pursued, even if they take 100 years and a lot of money, as long as there is a good chance of success. I don't like lies, though, such as "fusion is pure, cheap energy, no nasty radiative byproducts, etc etc". Clearly, it will not be cheap and there will be hot waste and tritium produced along with all that lovely energy. How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large scale solar energy? Bockris has been advocating what he calls the hydrogen economy for decades and more should be spent on that, I reckon. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy6 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Patrick Swoboda / Fusion power for space applications Originally-From: swoboda@pawl.rpi.edu (Patrick M Swoboda) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion power for space applications Date: 6 Aug 90 12:46:33 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY I need some reference material on using fusion power for space applications. Any books or articles on the subject would be helpful. Thanx Patrick Swoboda cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenswoboda cudfnPatrick cudlnSwoboda cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Charles Poirier / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 6 Aug 90 17:53:46 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. Firstly, thanks to Barry for the nice reply. In article <204@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Aug3.204820.23652@dg-rtp.dg.com> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com () writes: >>...concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume > >>Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large >>focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the >>structure? > >You couldn't focus the muons---they aren't created that far up. They are >created in the ionosphere by incoming cosmic rays. So, all you could hope to >do is focus the cosmic rays. But this is difficult---their gyration radius >in a magnetic field of strength B (in tesla) is about >r = mc/qB = 1 meter/ B/tesla. This needs to be kept small to focus them. >Thus you would need tesla strength magnets, on a scale of miles, >in orbit. Sort of like putting the superconducting supercollider in >orbit---not likely! Actually, what I had in mind was along the lines of orbiting a really big gas bag (thousands of meters), containing an artificial ionosphere. (Leave alone what happens when a micrometeorite hits this poor bag!) Encircle the bag with an equally big focusing coil. Is there any hope for this arrangement? Note that, being in space, the focal length wouldn't have to be very short -- in case this helps out the engineering problem. I would guess the gas in the bag would self-ionize, if ions are required for the process. I don't have any idea how big the bag would have to be -- but I imagine you could boost the cosmic-ray reaction cross section by upping the bag pressure way beyond the (very low, I think) ionospheric pressure (but still a fraction of an Atm probably). Note that for a high-orbit rig, you'd get a contribution of cosmic rays from a larger solid angle than the ionosphere gets, shielded as it is by the Earth below, and (maybe) by too-dense atmospheric fringe to the sides. Whether you could easily focus the resulting wide-angle muon flux, (or whether you can focus any of it at all), I don't know. Speaking of the 1000 W/m^2 solar radiation, though, it occurs to me that if you had a 1000-meter bag up there anyway, you could aluminize the inside of one half of it, and have a gigawatt toaster oven. Perhaps cosmic-ray muons for cold fusion are irrelevant at that point. Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / N Schraudolph / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 6 Aug 90 21:48:06 GMT BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >[...] I don't like lies, though, such as "fusion is pure, cheap energy, >no nasty radiative byproducts, etc etc". Clearly, it will not be cheap and >there will be hot waste and tritium produced along with all that lovely >energy. Not to mention the huge amounts of medium and low activity waste generated by the high turnover rate for reactor parts exposed to neutron radiation. I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot ex-reactor to get rid of... On a side note, given that the dismantling of an old reactor typically takes on the order of ten years, how do the planners intend to achieve such a high turnover without sacrificing safety? D-D fusion *may* one day put an end to all our energy problems, but D-T fusion certainly won't. >How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large >scale solar energy? Bockris has been advocating what he calls the hydrogen >economy for decades and more should be spent on that, I reckon. I couldn't agree more. Who's gonna lobby for it though? -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 nici%cs@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nici%cs@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 ...!ucsd!cs!nici cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / Chris Phoenix / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 00:21:54 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot >ex-reactor to get rid of... I know very little about it, but I understood that the deterioration was mainly mechanical (breaking crystal structure, or something). Couldn't you just forge a new reactor vessel from the old one and re-use it that way? How hot would it be, anyway? What level of radiation, and what half-life? Would you then have a hot reactor-vessel-forging-plant to get rid of? Not that I'm advocating D-T fusion, you understand... -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy7 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / N Schraudolph / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 04:46:11 GMT cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) writes: >I know very little about it, but I understood that the deterioration was >mainly mechanical (breaking crystal structure, or something). Couldn't >you just forge a new reactor vessel from the old one and re-use it that way? I think that would be possible, except that then you would start out with a hot reforged vessel - ie. the longer you re-use it, the hotter it gets. But as far as I remember the main problem is simply that it takes ages to safely disassemble a hot reactor vessel. Now if you want to forge and reassemble a new one from hot material you're talking about a reactor that's inopera- tional for refurbishing most of the time, hence inefficient. >How hot would it be, anyway? What level of radiation, and what >half-life? Would you then have a hot reactor-vessel-forging-plant to >get rid of? I'd wager a "probably not" to your last question, since only the neutron radiation produced by the D-T reaction "infects" other material, making it radioactive. That secondary radiation is probably mostly beta decay. As for half-live and level, I don't remember the details. Any materials experts out there? What isotopes do you get if you bombard the average steel and concrete with neutrons? -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 nici%cs@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nici%cs@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 ...!ucsd!cs!nici cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Date: 7 Aug 90 14:25:07 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot >ex-reactor to get rid of... Could a reference be supplied? Two years sounds 'way off. It's true that there would be a lot of neutron flux (about 3/4 of the energy output of DT fusion appears in the form of neutrons, the remainder being alphas), so you would run into neutron embrittlement of steels, activation of various materials, etc. However, fission reactor vessels endure a heavy neutrons for an order of magnitude longer, at least. One of the many challenges that has been identified by hot-fusion researchers is developing suitable low-activation materials to minimize the amount and nastiness of radioactive waste. Hot fusion isn't squeaky-clean. However, the words "a hot ex-reactor..." put people in mind of a fission plant, which is laden with hot waste, especially long- lived actinides, that wouldn't be found in a dead tokamak or inertial- confinement reactor. As for tritium, yes, it's rude stuff, but there is a substantial body of knowledge on how to handle it safely, so tritium recovery ought not be a show-stopper. --Joe Disclaimer: I would never have the chutzpah to speak for my employer on this particular subject, but I can try to find and relay information. cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / Dr Daugherity / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 19:46:03 GMT Organization: Texas A&M University In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >>How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large >>scale solar energy? Bockris has been advocating what he calls the hydrogen >>economy for decades and more should be spent on that, I reckon. > >I couldn't agree more. Who's gonna lobby for it though? Actually, the Center for Electrochemical Systems and Hydrogen Research at Texas A&M **IS** lobbying for research and development funds, with some success. The present Director is Professor Appleby, who I believe succeeded Prof. Bockris in that position. I understand Canada and [West] Germany plan to use hydrogen as an energy vector, e.g., from hydroelectric plants. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M--- cudkeys: cuddy7 cudendaugher cudfnDr cudlnDaugherity cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.08 / Paul Koloc / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 8 Aug 90 07:18:38 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > >>[...] I don't like lies, though, such as "fusion is pure, cheap energy, >>no nasty radiative byproducts, etc etc". Clearly, it will not be cheap and >>there will be hot waste and tritium produced along with all that lovely >>energy. > >I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. .. > >On a side note, given that the dismantling of an old reactor typically takes >on the order of ten years, .. . . D-D fusion *may* one day put an end to >all our energy problems,.. > The problem here is the critical FUEL DEPENDENT triple product needed to achieve fusion burn including fuel density, temperature, and burn time, CAN NOT be achieved in tokamaks or presently researched iertial confinement devices IF THEY are to BURN SAFE or much SAFER FUELS, ie DHe3, pB11. It does not look as if they will be commercially viable. Half of the DD fuel reactions produce neutrons, although they are not as energetic as the neutrons produced by its DT cousin. If the fusion concept is extremely compact, burns an aneutronic fuel at 10^6 w/cc burn densities, has its thermal energy absorbed in liquid density blankets, then fusion looks very interesting. We are going to be pushing hard for a commercial burn attempt with DHe3 using our PLASMAK(tm) concept, if we can get past the censors. When?? Certainly this decade, probably about five years, and perhaps as few as three. DoE (TOKAMAK USA) have refused to take a serious look, & the alternative concepts group lack resources to give any alternate concept a complete and honest review. Their crushing power is from: "They who have the Gold, RULE But, there are a loads of other untapped "they"s. Competing with Uncle; So What, This doesn't take but relatively few sheckles. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ + +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.08 / Rob Tow / Re: Heavy Water Biology Originally-From: tow@arisia.Xerox.COM (Rob Tow) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heavy Water Biology Date: 8 Aug 90 18:27:57 GMT Organization: Xerox Palo Alto Research Center In article <1990Aug01.172844.19784@groucho> sheely@neon.chem.uidaho.edu (Eugene V. Sheely) writes: >>Oh---so that explains why drinking heavy water is toxic! ;-) > > As I understand it, heavy water is toxic due to its inability > to take part in osmosis within cells. It becomes dangerous > when a significant amount of the bodies water has been replaced. This is not exactly true... From "The Biology of Heavy Water", Joseph J. Katz, Scientific American (I think sometime in 1961 - my photocopy doesn't say): "[..] As its name implies, heavy water has a 10 percent higher density than water does and a 25 percent greater viscosity. Its freezing point (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and boiling point (214.5 degrees Fahrenheit) are both distincly higher. Many salts and some gases, including carbon dioxide and oxygen, are less soluable in heavy water, and acid solutions of D2O are distinctly more acid than corresponding solutions of H2O. In biological systems all of these factores might be expected to produce noticeable effects. Of such effects perhaps the most significant is the "kinetic isotope effect", that is, the change in the rate of a chemical reaction that results from the substitution of a heavy isotope for a light one. Chemical bonds between deuterium and other atoms are slightly but measureably more stable than the corresponding bonds involving ordinary hydrogen. Calculation indicates that a carbon-deuterium bond may undergo reaction at only a seventh the speed of a carbon-hydrogen bond. Experiments have borne this out, and have shown in general that carbon-deuterium bonds react at a rate one half to one seventh that of bonds involving the common isotope. [...] [30% deuterated mice] are normal except in one important respect - they produce no young. Even a low level of deuterium impairs the ability of the male to produce normal spermatozoa, and in females deuteration during pregnancy interferes with gestation and induces fetal abnormalities. When the concentration of D2O in the body fluid of a mouse approaches 30 percent, the picture changes drastically for the worse. the mouse shows symptoms of weakness, it is easily irritated, its coat roughens, it loses weight rapidly, and it is prone to convulsions. When the deuterium level is raised still further, its body temperture drops rapidly, all its physiological functions are greatly depressed, and within a short time it dies. Rats react in a similar fashion. At low deuterium levels they fail to gain weight. When the deuterium content of the blood plasma rises to 20 percent, they cease to groom themselves and develop skin lesions and necrosis of the tail, as if suffering froma vitamin deficiency. At still higher concentrations, they become more excitable and aggressive, as do mice. With 30 percent D2O in their blood plasma, some rats actually go into convulsions when handled, resembling in this respect animals poisoned with strychnine. At about 35 percent the rats become A lethargic, lapse into a coma and soon die. [Blue green algae may be 100% deuterated; they exhibit giantism and other abnormalities.] ----- Also, its is worth noting that recent research has uncovered significant hydrogen atom tunneling effects in biological enzyme reactions; the rates are definitely dependent on the isotope - see, for example, "Hydrogen Tunnelling in Enzyme Reactions", by Yuan Cha, Christopher J. Murray, and Judith P. Klinman, in Science, Vol. 243, 10 March 1989, pages 1325-1330. --- Rob Tow Member Research Staff Electronic Document Lab Xerox PARC 3333 Coyote Hill Drive Palo Alto, CA 94304 (415)-494-4807 cudkeys: cuddy8 cudentow cudfnRob cudlnTow cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.08 / Greg Kuperberg / Re: Heavy Water Biology Originally-From: greg@garnet.berkeley.edu (Greg Kuperberg) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Heavy Water Biology Date: 8 Aug 90 22:27:38 GMT Organization: U.C. Berkeley In article <11496@arisia.Xerox.COM> tow@arisia.UUCP (Rob Tow) writes: > [Blue green algae may be 100% deuterated; they exhibit giantism > and other abnormalities.] Now I see what the problem is with federal science funding these days. It's deuterated! ---- Greg Kuperberg What is the best defense against a drive-by shooting? cudkeys: cuddy8 cudengreg cudfnGreg cudlnKuperberg cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.08 / Chris Phoenix / Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 8 Aug 90 21:33:00 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. I just heard about a concept called neutral-beam fusion. I don't know much about it, except that the idea is to have the particle beam moving in a daisy pattern so that you have lots of beams meeting in the center. The inventor supposedly has almost achieved break-even on his fourth prototype, expects break-even on the fifth, energy production on the sixth, and commercial viability on the seventh. And calculates that it's scalable, so that something the size of a 20-gallon drum could be built (and produce 5 megawatts). DISCLAIMER: All of this information is several years out of date. Can anyone tell what has happened since then, and if this is a potentially viable process? -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy8 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / Pierre Hilaire / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 01:38:18 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA In article <14819@csli.Stanford.EDU> cphoenix@csli.stanford.edu (Chris Phoenix) writes: >I just heard about a concept called neutral-beam fusion. I don't know >much about it, except that the idea is to have the particle beam moving in >a daisy pattern so that you have lots of beams meeting in the center. This sounds like the MIGMA design, although I am quite sure the particle beam in that design had to be charged (else how could you curve the trajectories of those particles into a daisy pattern using magnetic fields?). The MIGMA is another design which uses aneutronic fuel (I think it was Li fusion). I read a story about its inventors a few years ago. Interestingly, they also complained about a lack of interest (and funding) from DOE and the fusion "establishment". According to them, DOE won't fund any aneutronic concepts because they are interested in fusion chiefly as a source of neutrons to breed nuclear weapon fuel. I am always suspicious about these "conspiracy" stories, but it sure looks like a lot of interesting ideas are underfunded while lots o' bucks are being spent on technologies which have a vanishing probability of ever being practical (D-T , Yeesh!!). My most recent info on the MIGMA is unfortunately also at least two years old, so I do not know what is happening now. Pierre St-Hilaire MIT Media Laboratory cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenpierre cudfnPierre cudlnHilaire cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / Mephisto / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: slbg6790@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Mephisto) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 05:09:20 GMT Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) writes: >In article <14819@csli.Stanford.EDU> cphoenix@csli.stanford.edu (Chris Phoenix) writes: >>I just heard about a concept called neutral-beam fusion. I don't know >>much about it, except that the idea is to have the particle beam moving in >>a daisy pattern so that you have lots of beams meeting in the center. > This sounds like the MIGMA design, although I am quite sure >the particle beam in that design had to be charged (else how could you >curve the trajectories of those particles into a daisy pattern using >magnetic fields. >My most recent info on the MIGMA is unfortunately also at least two >years old, so I do not know what is happening now. > Pierre St-Hilaire > MIT Media Laboratory The MIGMA design was co-conceived by one of the ex-faculty here at the University of Illinois, Dr. Brad Micklich, who was working at the DOE-run Argonne Nat'l Lab the last I heard of him. The idea tries to avoid the huge waste of generating a Maxwellian distribution of hydrogen ions simply to get a high-energy tail with any appreciable fusion cross-section. Two monoenergetic charged particle beams are aimed into a magnetic field, which loops them back through an event center to increase the fusion probability. Hopefully, you get the energy investment from generating the particle beams back before the beams randomize due to coulomb scattering. As far as the exact claims for efficiency, all I know is that they "looked very promising." I don't know how anyone would get in touch with him, but if you're really interested, Argonne N. L. (Argonne, IL - a suburb of Chicago) would be a good place to start. Stan Balog UIUC Nuc Eng gradual student Disclaimer: I didn't say it! No one heard me say it! There's nobody that can prove anything! cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenslbg6790 cudlnMephisto cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / Paul Dietz / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 13:58:27 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <1990Aug9.050920.3905@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> slbg6790@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Mephisto) writes: >The MIGMA design was co-conceived by one of the ex-faculty here at the >University of Illinois, Dr. Brad Micklich, who was working at the >DOE-run Argonne Nat'l Lab the last I heard of him. Surely you mean Bogdan Maglich. Last I heard (some time back) his equipment from the latest of several companies was locked up by the creditors after the company ran out of money. It had achieved a central density something like 1000 times less than needed for a reactor. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 14:51:04 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA A partial bibliography on the migma concept: R. Macek and B. Baglich, Particle Accelerators Vol. 1, No. 2 (1970), p. 121. B. Maglich et al., Physical Review Letters Vol. 27, No. 14 (1971), p. 909. B. Maglich, Atomkernenergie Vol. 32 (1978), p. 100. B. Maglich, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A, Vol. 271, No. 1 (1988), pp. 13, 167. J.P. Blewett, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A, Vol. 271, No. 1 (1988), p. 214. J.P. Blewett, Particle Accelerators Vol. 34, Nos. 1-2 (1990), p. 13. Read 'em and reap. --Joe Disclaimer: My employer would probably rather I posted on rec.humor, but doesn't have the funding and manpower to give me a hard time about it. :) cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 15:03:42 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA In article <3118@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, Pierre St-Hilaire passes along this (nth-hand) report about the "inventors of the MIGMA": > According to them, DOE won't fund any aneutronic concepts because they > are interested in fusion chiefly as a source of neutrons to breed > nuclear weapon fuel. I am always suspicious about these "conspiracy" > stories Indeed. There are always opinions (some of them quite bitter) about the things DOE is and isn't funding, but that particular opinion, whoever's it might be, seems truly out of left field. At the time the migma concept was first described in the literature, weapons based on uranium, plutonium, and tritium had been in mass production for many years. Speaking strictly for myself, --Joe cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.09 / rolfe petschek / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 9 Aug 90 18:08:59 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <6429@helios.ee.lbl.gov> jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov writes: >In article <3118@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, Pierre St-Hilaire passes along >this (nth-hand) report about the "inventors of the MIGMA": > >> According to them, DOE won't fund any aneutronic concepts because they >> are interested in fusion chiefly as a source of neutrons to breed >> nuclear weapon fuel. I am always suspicious about these "conspiracy" > >might be, seems truly out of left field. At the time the migma concept >was first described in the literature, weapons based on uranium, plutonium, >and tritium had been in mass production for many years. > Hot (and cold) fusion rates are decrease rapidly with increasing charge of the nuclei involved in the reaction. All aneutronic reactions involve reactants with charge more than 1 (as DT). Thus any "hot fusion" concept which will work for aneutronic fuels is likely to work first for neutron producing fuels. I would expect this is the source for the funding decision. Not to confuse things but inertially confined fusion has been use for military related research, to study the prompt effects of (militarily interesting) DT neutrons on equipment. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.10 / Barry Merriman / Migma Fusion Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Migma Fusion Date: 10 Aug 90 17:00:13 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math A question was raised about Migma Fusion. Here are some facts. (See "Energy Futures", Herman, 1976; call no. TJ163.25.UGH55, pg 220-222) The Migma idea is to accelerate a beam of + ions, curve it into a circular pattern using magnetic fields, and have it collide with itself in a small region to produce ion-ion fusions. ("Migma" refers to the flower shaped pattern of the beam path). They plan to use fuels that generate only charged fusion products, and directly convert they products to electricity. (So, in other words, ''aneutronic'' fuels.) The biggest problem with this approach is achieving a high density of particles in the collision zone (typically a 1 cm^3 region), since the particles are all + and repel. The essence of the Migma idea was developed in Switzerland in 1969, as a method to induce ample nuclear reactions for scientific study. Similar work was being done at Rutgers. In 1973, their chief researcher, Bogdan Maglich, saw the potential for a power producing device, left rutgers, and formed his own company, Fusion Energy Corporation (Princeton, NJ P) Box 2005, Zip 08540 as of 3/76) to develop the Migma reactor concept. They had $3,000,000 in startup capital, and spent $2,000,000 in their first two years. At that point, (1975) they had a staff of 40, and proposed a $45 million demonstration program that was intended to produce a demo breakeven device in _1982_ (Obviously they didn't make it.). Their reactor consists of a 3 foot diameter, 2 inch high, vacuum chamber, with all the fusion activity confined to the central 1 cm^3. They predict they need 10^16 fusions/sec to break even. However, their existing device (1975) could only produce 18,000 fusion per second (off by 12 orders of magnitude!). Also, they need to get 10^15 particles squeezed in the central cm^3 to reach breakeven, but their basic approach is limited to 10^11 because of repulsions. They plan to try to inject electrons too to partially neutralize the central region. They predict their demo breakeven machine will be one meter across, generate 10kW of power, and have a million dollar magnet on it. (As of 1975) Maglich (chairman and chief researcher) says he hopes to market the Migma Reactor in 1990 (Again, he obviously didn't make it.). He also says lack of federal funding for non-plasma fusion hinders his research, but they have gotten continuous backing from private backers. Maglich predicts that by 1985, a $200 million dollar Migma Reactor will be able to generate 1 MW of _electric_ (not thermal) power. (Again, he was wrong.) Comments: The last I heard of Maglich that I recall firmly was an article on Migma in Omni circa 1983. Still going strong, but no great results. I think I saw mention of Migma several years back, but don't recall precisely. Ideas vaguely related to Migma have been proposed and investigated by others. ``Accelerator Fusion''---the idea of shooting an accelerater beam of D+ into a solid T target, was proposed by John Dawson (and others?). Basic estimates show this cannot produce useful power, because of the energy needed to accelerate the beam. The gain (energy out/energy in) is limited to about 3, and this is thermal energy---once its converted to electrical, with 30% efficiency, the best you could do is breakeven. Not interesting. Dawson also proposed ``fusion on a wire''---take a plasma of positive ions (a non-neutral plasma), run a wire through it, and put a low voltage on the wire. This low potential traps the + ions, and confines them long enough to fuse. The wire is so thin, that incoming particles will orbit it instead of hit it, since they probably have angular momentum about it (which must be conserved). Problems: (1) can't get high density of particles due to repulsion; (2) Collisons dissipate angular momentum, and allow the ions to rapidly spiral in to the wire and fry it. I feel the Maglich/Migma saga is typical of many private/non-conventional fusion ventures (e.g. KMS, INESCO, etc)---big predicitons, no results. The reason is no that their ideas lack merit---its that they lack the funds to do the needed research. (even a small plasma physics experiment---1 m^3 chamber + several 0.5 Tesla magnets + instruments---costs at least $500,000 to set up, not to mention staff and space. Even a small reactor concept would cost on the order of $10 million to prototype. Prototype tokamaks now go for nearly $1 billion (CIT).) These funds are not being withheld due to any ``conspiracy''---its simply that fusion devices are extremely expenisve to build, and funding agencies wont part with that kind of money for unproven concepts. Thus, rather than a conspiracy, its a catch 22: to prove your concept, you need a device, but to get a device funded, the concept must be proven. The Tokamak simply got lucky---it was the first design to get promising confinement, back at a time when the projects were fairly small (thus cheap). So it absorbed most of the initial funding. This has sustained progress at a level that keeps funds coming in. But, it has secured this evolutionary niche for itself---very difficult for a new candidate to cohabitate. My theory is that the only way for novel ideas to get funded is to first prove the concept via computer simulation, which is becoming feasible. Thsi will allow for cheap but accurate initial evaluation of ideas which would be otherwise hard to evaluate. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / N Schraudolph / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Date: 11 Aug 90 02:31:18 GMT jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) writes: >Could a reference be supplied? Two years sounds 'way off. It's true that >there would be a lot of neutron flux (about 3/4 of the energy output of >DT fusion appears in the form of neutrons, the remainder being alphas), Sorry, can't remember - it was some years ago, and in Germany. Maybe the advances in low-activation materials you mention have outdated my figure? Or has the POSSIBILITY of developing such material led to the better estimates? In any case, I'll gladly yield to better information. Does anybody have comparative figures for neutron flux & capture for fission and fusion reactors? >As for tritium, yes, it's rude stuff, but there is a substantial body >of knowledge on how to handle it safely, so tritium recovery ought not >be a show-stopper. My point was more the use of neutronic fuels in general. Another point I remember from that German article is that (tokamak) fusion reactors would seem to require lithium as a cooling agent - can anybody comment on that? How much is known about the safe handling of activated lithium under high pressure? -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 nici%cs@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nici%cs@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 ...!ucsd!cs!nici cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Paul Koloc / Re: Migma to Tokamak Fusion Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Migma to Tokamak Fusion Date: 11 Aug 90 13:44:34 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <231@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >on the order of $10 million to prototype. Prototype tokamaks >now go for nearly $1 billion (CIT).) Hardly! Although that was the "touted" figure, it does not include the "hand-me-downs" from the TFTR or the research program. I think 2.5 is a closer value. >These funds are not being withheld due to any ``conspiracy''---its simply >that fusion devices are extremely expensive to build, and funding >agencies wont part with that kind of money for unproven concepts. Some concepts are expensive and others are NOT! It has NOTHING to do with cost! It is official policy that DOE won't fund NEW alternatives; they might attract the attention of congress. These new concepts compete strongly for funds and ATTENTION and against a very expensive and flaky tokamak program. Why? Because, any budget whacking Congress person might think... "Hell's Bells, Why those people need two of them fusion gizmos?? " , and what happens then??, ------- W H A C K -------. Goodbye Mirror machine! And that was "away back when there weren't no REAL bad budget crisis". " If it ain't conspiracy then it is damn criminal project management." >The Tokamak simply got lucky---it was the first design to get >promising confinement, back at a time when the projects were fairly >small (thus cheap). So it absorbed most of the initial funding. >This has sustained progress at a level that keeps funds coming in. Luck?? The DOE has NEVER funded a new startup idea, unlike the Russians, Nippon and Italia. Initially funding was because the Russians invented it, developed and achieved really relatively fantastic results with the tokamak and then allowed the Westerners to come in and make their own measurements because the West couldn't believe it. In fact, the data turned out better. The BIG progress in tokamaks has stopped with ASDEX (super "H" mode). One might notice that Physicists tend to school like fish, but on an international scale, especially around a constant funding source. What is wonderful about the tokamak is that it is guaranteed that it will never work but will allow governments to spend an ever increasing budget on them as they produce an ever decreasing improvement. It has the noblest of goals that no one dares to oppose. This is notwithstanding the recent progress which is pathetic and the realized future extrapolations which are dismal. But H A R K .. . 60 more years of ever increasing bucks going into the worldwide tokamak museum projects.. WOW !! It boggles my mind. >But, it has secured this evolutionary niche for itself---very difficult >for a new candidate to cohabitate. Especially if you mind getting rammed and then eaten by a tyrannis rex. >My theory is that the only way for novel ideas to get funded is >to first prove the concept via computer simulation, which is becoming >feasible. Twos will allow for cheap but accurate initial evaluation of >ideas which would be otherwise hard to evaluate. Better a three pronged approach! The nature of the 4th state has more to it than can be conquered in a narrower assault. But, ignore my cat calls and keep up the great job. Your doing all the right things and thinking! Very much appreciated. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Paul Koloc / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 11 Aug 90 11:29:23 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Aug9.135827.6933@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@banana.cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <1990Aug9.050920.3905@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> slbg6790@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Mephisto) writes: > >>The MIGMA design was co-conceived by one of the ex-faculty here at the >>University of Illinois, Dr. Brad Micklich, who was working at the >>DOE-run Argonne Nat'l Lab the last I heard of him. > > Surely you mean Bogdan Maglich. Last I heard (some time back) his >equipment from the latest of several companies was locked up by >the creditors after the company ran out of money. It had achieved >a central density something like 1000 times less than needed for >a reactor. Somehow, Maglich's experimental results pushed the focused point concept toward the a "localized plasma" approach. This is a major set back. Although the original principle has merit, production of even modest fusion power requires a higher cross-section than is available from the vacuum environment necessary to preserve the necessary sharp beam focusing. For each order of magnitude increase in central density, Maglich needs a new machine whose design design is extrapolated from its forerunners and the data they provided. MIGMA needs several orders of plasma density more in the reacting zone before success on the level of a tokamak burn density is achieved. One of the problems is that the particle scattering increases to very serious levels with each successful increase in reacting zone density. Consequently, the whole concept is still not "out of the woods". Nor is the scattering only in the plane so that the critical zone of reaction is a "volume", not a disc in a plane. Re-focusing beams under these condition may be intractable. Even IF the MIGMA does work eventually, the best any one unit can do power-wise is very modest due to the very limited volume of the target area. The concept might be thought of as a nuclear "candle". If developed, it will be beneficial in many, many applications. It could serve as a kind of fusion electric charging source to start "big fusion engines", to be a neutron source for decontaiminating radioisotopes (with appropriate fuels), station keeping, etc. A working COLD fusion device would also be appropriate to SOME of these applications. Like other devices which have a fusion plasma surrounded by a solid first wall, it has a serious a vacuum systems engineering problem. Keeping such a chamber ultra clean strikes me as impossible. Further, it does not have any special pressure leverage to increase plasma pressure. However, they seemed to be migrating toward a more Spheromak like topology. Hmmmmm! Bogdan lives near Princeton Junction, NJ. and still is active is a couple of pro-MIGMA enterprises, including one that is non-profit. Some of his funding is from a protected source "off-shore". He has creativity in his financing of his operations through corporate stock. New corporations rise from the ashes of the old. I'm not sure what this means for his early investors, but it does provides a plentiful and continuing opportunity for loads of new ones. Another body to breach the barbed barrier? +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Paul Koloc / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 11 Aug 90 12:20:07 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Aug9.180859.25689@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> rpetsche@mrg.CWRU.EDU (rolfe g petschek) writes: >Hot (and cold) fusion rates are decrease rapidly with increasing charge of the >nuclei involved in the reaction. All aneutronic reactions involve >reactants with charge more than 1 (as DT). Thus any "hot fusion" >concept which will work for aneutronic fuels is likely to work first for >neutron producing fuels. I would expect this is the source for the >funding decision. UNFORTUNATELY, this is very logical; sounds very complete and reasonable. However it is true ONLY if the device is pressure limited, as most of the DOE approaches are. The reaction rate, rather REACTIVITY, doesn't vary quite as indicated here. What does vary is the burn TEMPERATURE. In a WORKABLE fusion device, adiabatic compression is the primary heating mechanism. Consequently, a low ignition temperature highly neutronic fuel such as DT is at a distinct disadvantage. What is desirable is high density burn rates or maximized power output per unit volume. This does two things. It reduces the sheer volume of the device drastically, and it consumes the fuel a very fast rate so that it can be recharged and impurities can be flushed out. To achieve this, a strong compression is needed, but since compression also heats, the lower ignition point fuels can not be compressed to an advantageous density. In our concept, burning an aneutronic DHe3 would allow us to compress the fuel to densities and temperatures the would: (1) -- minimize parasitic neutron output and, (2) -- burn up the fuel in a few milliseconds. By collecting the fusion energy in a liquid density highly compressed gas blanket and then expanding the blanket through an inductive MHD generator, operation at 60 hertz is possible. This produces an electrical conversion efficiency of 65 to 85%. The fast neutrons of a DT reaction would not heat such a compression blanket but would produce overwhelming degradation and heating of the compression device. This can not be emphasized to much. Since the density goes as the cube of the compression ratio and the burn rate goes with the density squared, the power output varies with the sixth power of the compression ratio. That means that the burn rate for higher Z elements is FASTER (provided the pressure need to drive the compression is achievable). It's just an example of the value of backward thinking. Be on Mars in two weeks, and Fly surface to surface, Use PLASMAK(tm) twin 100 gigawatt engines We use P-Boron fuel* *undeuterated - - or was that unadulterated +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Barry Merriman / Tokamaks (long) Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tokamaks (long) Date: 11 Aug 90 05:14:59 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math Here is some hard data ( and comments) on tokamak progress and performance, and on the lifetime of parts, and induced radioactivity (see the end for these), partly in response to: (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >The problem [of making a energy producing tokamak] isn't physics anyway, >it is engineering. Well, the ``anomolous transport'' in tokamaks that causes energy to diffuse out 10--100 faster than classical theory (and thus cool the plasma and put out the ``fire'') is still not adequately understood. This is a key physics issue. If it could be understood and controlled (a big if), it would greatly improve tokamak performance. On the engineering side, my fusion engineering colleagues at UCLA tell me they could build an energy producing engineering test reactor now, if they just had the funds. Even though they don't completely understand tokamak plasmas, they say simply increasing the size of the device by a factor of 3 or so (in diameter) would slow down the energy loss to walls enough to get a net energy out of the plasma. They liken the situation to the status of jet airplanes in the 50's---supersonic fluid dynamics was not fully understood, but they knew enough to build working jets. They think the fusion program should bifurcate into a research program (basically what we have now), and an engineering program working towards commercial power, each with their own tokamaks. >One can not >produce a pressure vessel device that reduces applied pressure by a >hundred or more and expect that it can react matter that requires the >application of nearly optimum materially obtainable pressures to >ignite. >Consequently, the TOKAMAK can NOT be considered to be a candidate as >an experimental fusion reactor I don't understand your pressure argument against tokamaks---even though the pressures on the device are enormous, we have materials that can withstand them. So whats the problem? >For those of more technical persuasion: Three parameters must be >optimized, SIMULTANEOUSLY, for fusion to work. The full set of desired parameters is T (temperature), n (density), t (confinement time of the heat in the plasma), n * t (the ``Lawson number''), and beta (plasma pressure/confining magnetic field pressure. For energy breakeven in a D-T plasma, in a tokamak style device, they (for more info, my sources are mainly: Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion, 1988, Vol 1, and The physics of Plasma-Wall Interactionsin Controlled Fusion, 1984, intro lectures.) need have achieved( 1988 ) gain over 1970 values (various machines) T = 20 keV 32 keV 60x t = 1 sec 1.3 sec 150x n * t= 3 10^14 s/cm^3 2 10^14 s/cm^3 200x beta = 6% 5% 30x As you can see, they have made huge progress over two decades. >These numbers have been "improved individually" or the product of pairs >of them have been improved to show "progress". But in each case, it >was done ONLY at the expense of the remaining parameter(s) and so it >is meaningless as a measure of fusion progress. Partly true--they do optimize one parameter at the expense of others, but not to the degree you imply. For example, the JET reactor (1988) hase achieved, all in the same experiment, T = 5 keV t = 0.3 sec n * t = 1.5 10^13 s/cm^3 beta = 1% Note that none of these SIMULTANEOUS parameters is more than a factor of 5--10 smaller than what needs to be achieved. Within an order of magnitude, i.e.. And, for the bottom line---energy---JET and TFTR have achieved Q (= fusion energy out/heating energy in) of 0.1 for D-D plasmas, which corresponds to Q = 0.5 if a D-T plasma were used. Thus, in some sense, its fair to say they are within a factor of two of breakeven. >essentially NO SUBSTANTIAL progress toward fusion in tokamaks in recent >years Well, I think the numbers above speak for themselves. Most of these developments have been in the last decade, since the major new machines came online. >nor will it be very meaningful for there to be an announcement of >a rigged up "SCIENTIFIC" burn in the next several years (decades??). Well, some researchers feel it is essential to have a machine like the proposed Compact Ignition Tokakmak (CIT) to study the physics of the fast alpha particles created when a device burns, and the rapid jump in temperature (from 20keV up to 100keV) that will occur when it ignites (releases enough energy in the form of trapped alpha particles to sustain the burning). (This process is just like lighting a fire---when enough heat is released to maintain temperatures at the combustion point, your fuel rapidly burns, raising its temperature till it loses heat at the rate the burning provides it. Then it is stable at this higher temperature, till the fuel is gone.) However, other researchers argue that we don't need a special device to study ignition physics. >That includes the use of even that low ignition point and most >despicable fuel, "DT" (deuterium:tritium; 1:1). Its only despicable in that it releases its energy mainly as neutrons, and that tritium is radioactive. But after years of fission experience, we know how to deal with high neutron fluxes, and tritium has a short halflife (13 years) and is only needed in small amounts for fuel (400 grams per day for a large (1 GW) power plant, plus an on site inventory of 10--40 kg). The radiation hazard from T is so slight that shielding is not necessary---only if it is ingested is it dangerous, because it produces free radicals when it decays. So I don't see any major problems with this fuel. Also, the neutron-induced radioactivity of the surrounding materials is minor (see below). Ultimately, we'll be able to burn the cleaner fuel D-He3, anyway. >Engineering interpretation sheds a clearer light. Engineers build >machines. TIME is pretty much determined by the SIZE of the machine. As I said above---they just want to build a bigger machine. >This is best done in a >compressible toroidal device of subset of Spheromak. We think that >pressures of many tens of kilobars to hundreds of kilobars can be >sustained for sufficiently long burn times. There are other advantages >that put the potential of this technology in the realm of fantastic. Why don't you detail the advantages---and the support---for this potential technology. >The fusion program has pretty much >decayed into an organized scam for continuing to rip money out >of environmentally and energy aware and science loving governments Well, I think you phrase it too strongly. No doubt Fusion research has become an industry in itself, but the researchers I know seem fairly dedicated to the ultimate goal of energy production. (Though they are certainly protective of their budgets.) >since it was realized the tokamak was "not the answer" at least >eight to ten years ago. Not the ultimate answer, but it seems like it will work ok, given the numbers above, etc. >there has been NO FUNDING >of new concepts by governments. Depends what you mean by new. They've had a large multipole experiment here at UCLA in the past, and they have the racetrack experiment now (a stretched out tokamak). Multipoles certainly qualify as alternative, I think. > and yes... our dearest and later martyrs P&F. Well, I think P&F got what they deserved, for sloppy science and sloppy behaviour. I wouldn't put them in the same class as other fusion mavericks with respectable achievements. > Chop COLOSSAL GOVERNMENT SCIENCE projects. > NOW! Again, I suggest you calm down a bit, lest people think you are irrational about the subject. Big science projects aren't inherently bad, but sometimes can be abused. What annoys me more is that each B-2 stealth bomber---of the 75 we're now slated for---costs $800 million---as much as a typical big science project! In particular, the CIT didn't get funded, but would cost just one B-2's worth. (Or 1/10 of the SSC.) Science gets a few big projects tossed to it, (lately of a dubious nature, like the space station and SSC) while the military gets hundreds. Hopefully in the future there will be more balance between military funding and scientific funding---particularly projects like fusion that are directly relevant to the future of our world. Regarding Induced Radioactivity in Fusion Reactor Walls: One beauty of fusion is that the only radioactivity created in the process is that induced in the reactor walls---which can be made _arbitrarily small_ by propoer choice of materials. Contrast this to fission, where the reactions _themselves_ produce long-lived, highly toxic, wastes, and/or weapons grade isotopes. (Of course, the small amounts of T used as fusion fuel are radioactive, but the half-life is short---13 years---and it decays into the inert gas He3 + a low energy electron (6keV). More importantly, though, the fusion reactions don't create rad waste as do fission reactions. So there is nothing _intrinsic_ to fusion that requires rad waste be created.) Back to the Reactor Walls: (See Rob Conn's article in Fusion, edited by Ed Teller, Vol 1 B, 1981 for a thorough discussion. That is also my primary source.) First, lets consider how long the wall will last before it must be replaced. For comparison, note that the fuel cladding in fission reactors is commonly replaced every 2--4 years. But, the high enrgy neutron flux off a fusion reactor is greater than that for a fission reactor, so the walls receive a more severe load. (This is because no. of neutrons/energy released is greater in fusion than fission reactions.) However, special long-lifetime materials are being developed for use in fusion walls, so this partly offsets the difference. The lifetime of wall materials is measured in the number of Mega Watt years of neutron loading per square meter it can withstand. To convert this into an actual lifetime, you need to know the neutron flux received by the wall. A typical reactor might receive 1 Mega Watt/ m^2 on its walls, so I'll use this figure to convert to lifetimes. Projected lifetimes for various wall materials (Conn, fig 68) range from 2--20 years, with steel based walls all around 2--3 years. Titanium and vanadium Ti alloys would last 10 years. Still, their are large uncertainties due to lack of experience (though most work and experience is with steel, so those projections are more reliable). Given this, its safe to say that the first wall would need to be replaced every 2--5 years, though efforts to develop longer lived materials are ongoing. This replacement schedule is no worse than fuel claddings for fission reactors (though the replacement process is more complicated). (Note that major fusion reactor designs, such as the Starfire commercial reactor design, schedule in about 20--40% down time for planned repairs and maintainance.) Now lets consider the induced radioactivity. For a first wall in operation for 2.5 years, with 1 MW/m^2 neutron flux, Figure 53 of Conn's article show a graph of radioactivity (measured in disintegration rate per received neutron power) vs. time after shutdown. Two materials---316 Stainless Steel and 20% Vanadium+80% Titanium---both lose esssentially _all_ their induced radioactivity after 10 years. (The 316 SS drops to a level 8 orders of magnitude from its initial level then stays there for 10^6 years, and the Va20Ti drops 10 orders of magnitude, with essentially all activity vansihing at 10 years.) (Also, Aluminum 2024 loses 7 orders of magnitude activity in 100 years) This is compared with radiactive wastes from a liquid metal fast-breeder _fission_ reactor, which take 10^6 years to loose their radioactivity. Also, 316 SS and Va20Ti have good lifetimes as first wall materials (Va20Ti has a 12 year lifetime, and 316 SS could have up to a 15 year lifetime if operated at low enough temperatures). Elements that have long halflives when activated are Ni63( half-life = 92 yr),Mo93 (10^4 yr), Ni59 (10^5 yr), Tc99( 10^5 yr), Mn53 (10^6 yr). These can be avoided in reactor designs by substituting other elements for them in alloys---for example, Mn55 instead of Ni55. The ubiquitous copper (likely to be present in magnets and conductors) does not have a long halflife when activated; the longest half life is 1 yr for activated copper, and most isotopes of copper last only minutes. So it will not pose any radiation hazard. (Indeed, an all copper machine would be good, except it tends to contaminate and extinguish the plasma). In general, a quick look through the table of isotopes in the CRC handbook shows most have halflives on the order of seconds to hours. Further, the decay mode is usually beta decay, which is not very penetrating. Thus activated materials by and large don't pose long term radiation risks. Several proposed commercial reactor designs call for 316 SS or Va20Ti for first wall materials. The above data shows that these should lead to reasonably low maintainance designs with no induced radioactivity lasting beyond 10 years. Not bad, I'd say. Finally, while we're talking radiation, lets discuss that ill-reputed fuel, tritium (T). Tritium is radioactive, with a 12.3 year half life, and decays via a low energy beta emmision to the inert He3. The 6keV beta emitted is not harmful unless ingested (i.e. shielding against tritium is not needed). In the body, the beta from triated water (more dangerous than tritium in air) causes damage via free radical chemical reactions---much like other pollutants. Because tritiated water is heavy, it is only slowly incorporated into biological molecules and thus tends to be flushed from the body before it is incorporated into tissues. In fact, the half-life for tritiated water to remain in the body is only 5-13 days (depending on fluid consumption, etc). So, an ingested dose of tritiated water would be essentially gone after a month or two----long before much of the tritium would have decayed and done damage. Moral: this stuff ain't plutonium. Also, the amount of T onsite at a 1000 MW D-T fusion power plant is roughly 400 grams for daily use, plus an inventory of 10-40kg. The relatively low toxicity of tritium and small onsite inventories seem to make the tritium issue a manageable problem---not the major drawback some people portray it to be. Barry Merriman NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, UCLA Dept. of Math, Asst Prof., UCLA Dept. of Math, Postdoctoral Researcher, UCLA Dept. of Nuclear Engineering cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Barry Merriman / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 11 Aug 90 06:10:39 GMT In article <1990Aug6.175346.8255@dg-rtp.dg.com> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com () writes: >Actually, what I had in mind was along the lines of orbiting a really >big gas bag (thousands of meters), containing an artificial ionosphere. >Encircle the bag with an equally big focusing coil. Is there any >hope for this arrangement? In essence, no. One could pose many objections, but here is a fundamental one: rather than creating muons to induce fusions to make energy, you'd have been bettor off doing directly using the enrgy of the incoming cosmic rays. So no need for all the fancy muonic fusion setup. To see this, note that each incoming cosmic ray has an energy of a few GeV, and you could harness this if you wished (since the ray is a charged particle, and could be converted directly to electric energy, for .e.g.). As Monty Hall would say, ``do you want to keep your 1 GeV of cosmic ray energy, or trade it for the enrgy of muonic fusion behind door number 2?''. Well, lets compare. The cosmic ray typically creates a very high energy muon (the muon is relativistic, i.e. its kinetic energy is larger than its rest mass energy---these relativistic speeds are why the muon lives to reach the earth surface), so even though it only takes about 0.1 GeV to create a muon, most of the rest of the energy goes into kinetic energy, rather than making more muons. The upshot is you get about one (very high energy) muon per 1 GeV cosmic ray. Then, in order to give you back 1 GeV of fusion energy, the muon must engage in about 50 fusions, which is about all we can get (we can get about 150, optimally, in earth labs). Thus, even if you got 150 fusion out of the muon, you only would have tripled the original input energy of the cosmic ray---but now its thermal energy, and if you convert it to electricity with 30% efficeincy, you just get back the 1 GeV electric energy you had to start with---at the cost of errecting a muonic fusion plant in space! So, the moral is, you're better off just using the energy nature gives you as cosmic rays---it is not amplified by using it to drive muonic fusion. [Another objection I can't resist: if you do muonic fusion, most of the nergy comes off as neutrons, and can only be captured by absorbing them in several feet of dense material. Surrounding a mile-across gasbag with two feet of concrete in orbit would be quit a task!] Is the cos-ray energy a useful amount to tap directly? Now that I have my new CRC Handbook handy, I can answer that definitively. Total incoming cosmic ray energy (charged particles from the sun and galaxy, and phtons from the sun, galaxy and beyond, ranging in energy from 1GeV to 10^11 GeV) is only about 10^14 eV/m^2/sec. Or, in power flux, 10^-5 Watts/m^2. Compare this with the 1000 W/m^2 available from solar radiation, and you see the cosmic rays are an incredibly trivial source of energy. > >Speaking of the 1000 W/m^2 solar radiation, though, it occurs to me that >if you had a 1000-meter bag up there anyway, you could aluminize the inside >of one half of it, and have a gigawatt toaster oven. Perhaps cosmic-ray >muons for cold fusion are irrelevant at that point. Exactly---solar power is a very good energy source in outerspace. Even a 1000 MW (electric) reactor would only require a solar cell panel 2 kilometers on a side. Forget the cosmic rays. They really are a minute effect, in terms of energy content. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Barry Merriman / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 11 Aug 90 09:03:53 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: > >>[...] I don't like lies, though, such as "fusion is pure, cheap energy, >>no nasty radiative byproducts, etc etc". Clearly, it will not be cheap and >>there will be hot waste and tritium produced along with all that lovely >>energy. The mere fact that there is waste produced (and T is not produced, unless you specifically decide to breed it in a blanket) is not important. The questions are how much, how toxic and how long does it last. As I indicated in my other posting on Tokamaks, the answers are very little if you use the right materials, not nearly as toxic as fission reactor wastes, and it lasts about 10 years (again with the right materials). > >Not to mention the huge amounts of medium and low activity waste generated >by the high turnover rate for reactor parts exposed to neutron radiation. Huge meaning one reactor inner wall every several years---which amounts to a cube about the size of a several refrigerators that could be stored 10 years till it wasn't active anymore (at all, essentially). >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot >ex-reactor to get rid of... Not get rid of---it only needs temporary storage. > >On a side note, given that the dismantling of an old reactor typically takes >on the order of ten years, That refers to a fission reactor, which was not designed with dismantling in mind. And thats 10 years for the entire reactor, not just a segement of the reactor vessel. (In fact, I read that it will take them nearly 50 years to fuly decomission a fission reactor they have shut down after decades of service in Britain.) >how do the planners intend to achieve such a high >turnover without sacrificing safety? Plants have scheduled downtime for such maintainance, and the walls will be segmented (like an orange) for easy access and replacement. With proper materials, they may actually only need replacement every 5--20 years, too (though 2--5 is within the abilities of known materials). >D-D fusion *may* one day put an end to >all our energy problems, but D-T fusion certainly won't. > I don't see it---in terms of rad waste production, there is very little difference between D-D and D-T fusion: both release plenty of high energy neutrons to activate surrounding materials, and since D-D burns at a higher temperature, it release more gamma and x-rays to make up for the fewer neutrons (half as many as D-T) produced. The only difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Also, running at higher temps wears out the walls sooner, probably increasing repairs on a D-D device. What will reduce rad waste is fuels that don't release energetic neutrons, like D-He3. But these burn at very high temperatures (in fact, tokamaks may not be the right type of device for these fuels. Multipole Reactors may be better.) >>How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large >>scale solar energy? > >I couldn't agree more. Who's gonna lobby for it though? Large scale solar is not going to be enough to meet the industrialized world's energy needs 100--200 years down the road. Do a few simple estimates of how much solar energy can be extracted, and how much energy will be needed to bring a world population of 15 billion (thats about the limiting population of the earth, by current guesses) up to indutrialized standards. Solar simply isn't concetrated enough---though it can certainly play a role in the energy picture. Also, its no good for long distance (interplanetary/interstellar) large payload space voyages---something I'm rather interested in. Fusion power is better suited to that. Fossil fuels _and_ uranium supplies will all be exhausted within 300 years, max (_if_ we choose to burn these resources entirely, creating nuch waste in the process). At some point during the next 300 years you'll need a fusion reactor. But you can't wait till the last minute---it will take on the the order of a century just to install all the reactors (10,000--100,000 or so worldwide) that we'll need. So we really need the reactor fully developed 100 years before we expect to have to rely on it totally. To me, that means fairly soon. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.11 / Barry Merriman / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: barry@joshua.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 11 Aug 90 09:22:03 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Aug8.071838.23663@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >If the fusion concept is extremely compact, burns an aneutronic fuel at >10^6 w/cc burn densities, has its thermal energy absorbed in liquid >density blankets, then fusion looks very interesting. Only problems: confining the plasma, heat removal, high radiation losses due to high high temperature fuels. >We are going >to be pushing hard for a commercial burn attempt with DHe3 using our >PLASMAK(tm) concept, if we can get past the censors. I don't think there are censors, in the sense implied. If your idea is good, you should be able to convince any given fusion scientist that it is promising. The only problem is convincing granting agencies, not indidviduals. Any references? Anyway, doing a DHe3 burn seems foolish---if you have any chance at that, then you should be able to easily achieve a D-T burn. And doing that would instantly have everyone beating down your door (witness the P&F affair). So why the insistance on DHe3---an excuse for failure? Also, He3 is too rare on earth for a practical large scale fuel. We need to wait til we can mine it on the moon, where it is plentiful, before wholesale deployment of He3 fuels is feasible. (Though this may be a good motivation for returning to the moon.) Even though alternative ideas don't get much funding, they do get some: witness Jones' muonic fusion work, for example. cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.13 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: Mon, 13 Aug 90 14:49:01 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Even without Chem. Abstracts, I have a few items of interest, including Opus II of FPH, which I'll have to call something else (FPALH??) - maybe FPH-1990. If the Taubes item in Science, with Wolf's tritium retraction, was the nail in the coffin of cold fusion, maybe FPH-1990 is the claw hammer that pulls it out again. Take heart, all you believers. FPH-1990 make a good case, as far as I can see - but read the paper yourself; it's big. To me, it's a good sign that they now find that the larger (i.e. bulky) the electrode, the smaller the effect (per cm**3); so it's a near-surface phenomenon (if any), which makes sense. They also come out and call the unknown nuclear process largely aneutronic and atritonic. One is permitted to wonder, then, why they were upset at Salamon et al's report of no neutron emission... but never mind. The comment items require no comment from me; neither does the McBreen paper in Section 4. The other item in that section I owe to the FPH-1990 paper. Already in 1934 Oliphant (now Sir Mark Oliphant, an Australian) and others found evidence of d-d fusion, using a deuteron beam - similar to the "self- targeting" experiments in the 50's, referred to a few weeks ago. This 1934 effort appears, from the wording, to be the discovery of tritium. As well, there is a hint that protons and neutrons are emitted in quite unequal amounts - an early hint at a non-50:50 branching ratio in a solid matrix? Or was that the undoubtedly primitive measuring equipment they had? A small change (for you; an hour's work for me): soon, my copy of the grand list will have, for most items, two dates in the form date_1/date_2. The first is the submission date (or just month), the second that of publication. I collected a lot of these for a special purpose and want to immortalise them. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 13-Aug. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fleischmann M, Pons S, Anderson MW, Li LJ, Hawkins M; J. Electroanal. Chem. 287 (1990) 293. "Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system". ** A 50+ pages paper, to back up their preliminary note of 15 months earlier. The authors here meticulously explain and justify the methods they use, and present new results, confined to excess heat measurements. Other measurements such as of tritium, are "to be published". The calorimetry is described in detail; the controversial question of mixing is addressed and it seems that this is not a problem. That is, measured temperature rises cannot be due to local hot spots. Gas recombination has been prevented. Careful calibrations were made, and this time, a number of control experiments were run. These all produce zero excess heat +/- very small error limits. Errors are estimated, and are - where there is excess heat - small in relation to the excess heats. The excess heats - measured at steady state - are clearly a function of current density, and electrode size. Up to about 100 w/cm**3 steady state excess heat was calculated. In contrast to the preliminary note (FPH 1989), the present more comprehensive results show that the larger the palladium electrodes (in terms of diameter), the smaller the excess heat/cm**3; in fact, the largest Pd electrode, of 8 mm diameter, was used as one of the controls in D2O electrolysis. Other controls are Pd in H2O and Pt in both H2O and D2O. All showed zero excess heat. About half of the paper consists of appendices on calorimetry, analysis of calorimetry results, mathematical and numerical procedures and some comments on the authors' previous paper. The authors conclude once more that a nuclear, rather than a chemical process must be responsible for the excess heat results; they express concern that many attempts at verification have focussed simply on neutron emission, since this nuclear process appears to be largely aneutronic (and possibly atritonic). Dec-1989/Jul-90 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anderson DM; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, the Associate Provost for Research etc at Texas A&M charges Gary Taubes with careless reporting, claiming that there were sufficient controls in the labs of Bockris and others to eliminate fraud or other misconduct. The Administration was aware of Tabes' concerns and did, in fact, investigate. They conclude that at worst, inexperience with poorly reproducible results are to blame. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bockris JO'M; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, Bockris says that the cold fusion experiments run in his labs are very laborious and time-consuming. "What was the purpose, then, of printing a gossip-based account which, by strong innuendo, suggests that a graduate student of mine faked his results?", he asks. He goes on to say that even if there were tritium in the Pd electrodes, it would not come out under the cathodic conditions and cites 26 other labs that have found tritium. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taubes G; Science 249 (1990) 464 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to the letters of Anderson, Bockris and Worledge in the same issue, Taubes writes that Bockris was informed prior to publication and asked for comments, which were incorporated into the article. Among other things, the article notes that the only other lab reporting tritium is the Bhabha Centre in India. All other labs mentioned by Bockris have either very small increments or have not formally reported any results. The spiking experiments of Storms and Talcott, intended to prove that Bockris's spikes are due to tritium emitted by a cold fusion reaction, do not in fact prove this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Worledge DH; Science 249 (1990) 463 (3-Aug). (Letter). ** Referring to Taubes' "Cold fusion conundrum at Texas A&M" in Science 248 (1990) 1299, Worledge comments on that part of the article mentioning EPRI's funding of cold fusion research. Like Bockris, he points out the large number of tritium (and other) claims all over the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- McBreen J; J. Electroanal. Chem. 287 (1990) 279. "Absorption of electrolytic hydrogen and deuterium by Pd: the effect of cyanide adsorption". ** It is well known that substances that adsorb at an electrode may affect electrochemical reactions taking place at that electrode; in this case, CN- ions adsorption affects oxide formation and ingress of hydrogen or deuterium at Pd, as well as inhibiting egress of these gases. Li+ aids ingress of H or D, in relation to Na+. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oliphant ML, Harteck P, Rutherford; Nature 134 (1934) 413. "Transmutation effects observed with heavt hydrogen". ** A beam of diplons - i.e. deuterons - were shot at ammonium slats and phosphoric acid, in which hydrogen has been replaced by deuterium. While beams of protons H+ show no results, the diplon beam causes an intense emission of fast protons and neutrons, at about 3MeV energies. The authors show that two fusion reactions, leading to, respectively, (3)He and the new species (3)H or tritium, take place. They note that both species appear to be stable. Interestingly, they also note that the tritium-producing reaction is "less frequent" than the one producing (3)He and protons. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy13 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.13 / / Lithium Blankets Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Lithium Blankets Date: Mon, 13 Aug 90 14:50:41 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway As a partial answer to the question posed by Nicol Schraudolph: For fusion reactors which output a significant fraction of the energy produced in the form of fast neutrons, a lithium blanket serves multiple purposes. The nuclear reactions with the lithium such as 6Li + n -> 4He + t converts the neutron energy plus the reaction Q-value (it's exoergic) to the kinetic energy of charged particles which is rapidly thermalized. These reactions also make the lithium a very effective neutron shield, and the blanket "breeds" tritium to replenish the fuel supply. All in all I think the lithium blanket concept looks pretty good as a way to extract energy from the fusion process. Dick Blue cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.13 / Paul Dietz / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 13 Aug 90 15:24:21 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <235@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Fossil fuels _and_ uranium supplies will all be exhausted within >300 years, max [...]. At some point during the next >300 years you'll need a fusion reactor. This argument is flawed. Supplies of fissile materials only run out soon if you don't breed. With breeding, not only do existing uranium supplies last some 60 times longer, but much lower quality ores, which contain much more uranium, can also be used, as can the more abundant element thorium. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy13 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.13 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Date: 13 Aug 90 16:23:43 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA As good a starting place as any for both systems studies and safety issues (radiation and otherwise) is the TIBER II/ETR Final Design Report, UCID-21150, vols. 1-3, published by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Also available from the National technical Information Service, US Dep't of Commerce, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161, for a fee. --Joe JTCHEW@lbl.gov Just @LBL, not speaking for it. cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.14 / William Johnson / Readers' poll on cold fusion closed; results follow later this week Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Readers' poll on cold fusion closed; results follow later this week Date: 14 Aug 90 17:01:49 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. My thanks to all the people who responded to the s.p.f readers' poll regarding cold fusion and the use of s.p.f to discuss it. There have been no new responses to the poll for several days now, so we are proclaiming the poll closed. Some of the results are interesting and more than a little unexpected. Scott and I will be posting results later this week, with a few comments. Raw data (stripped of personal identifications) might be made available if anyone wants to do any followups beyond what we're doing; check with me if you're interested. Again, thanks to everybody that answered. -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.14 / Barry Merriman / DOE funding Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: DOE funding Date: 14 Aug 90 05:03:14 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <231@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > >It has NOTHING to do with cost! It is official policy that DOE won't >fund NEW alternatives; they might attract the attention of congress. I'm not up on current DOE funding policies. Is it actually written down that they wont fund new alternatives, or are you just saying that this appears to be the case? For example, I recall Bussard eventually got some DOE money, and I thinkk dome of the Muonic fusion work was DOE funded (though I'm not sure.) Perhaps laser fusion too, at KMS Fusion, Inc. And isn't there something like $5 million (from DOE) per year set aside for work on novel approaches to fusion? >The DOE has NEVER funded a new startup idea, unlike the Russians, Nippon >and Italia. Again, I'm not so sure. You are right about the tokamak, though (i.e. we copied the russians). And they certainly have not been supportive of attempts to commercialize fusion, such as Bussard's Riggatron. One interesting thing related to DOE funding is this: in the latest Business Week (in an article on Robotics), it said the DOE will have to spend as much as $100 BILLION over the next 30 years to clean up dozens of sites where wastes from _weapons production_ have been dumped. Why does DOE have to underwrite the DOD? That $3 billion/year could have gone a long way towards developing fusion energy, rather than cleaning up weapons byproducts. (In fact, if you believe that figure, the DOE cleanup budget will be 6 times the fusion budget!) >what is wonderful about the tokamak is that it is guaranteed that it will >never work but will allow governments to spend an ever increasing budget Well, while I too would like better approaches than the tokamak, (after all, its unlikely that the essentially first device they came up with is going to be the ultimate), I'm not so pessimistic about it. In fact, I'd be willing to give 10:1 odds that the tokamak program will be able to deliver a commercially viable reactor in 50 years. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.14 / Barry Merriman / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 14 Aug 90 17:53:33 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Aug13.152421.3602@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@banana.cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: > >Supplies of fissile materials only run out >soon if you don't breed. With breeding, not only do existing uranium >supplies last some 60 times longer, but much lower quality ores, which >contain much more uranium, can also be used, as can the more abundant >element thorium. This is true---though the downside of breeding is large inventories of Plutonium, which pose a danger both from nuclear wastes and weapons. A few figures: (from R. Moir's article on The Fusion-Fission Fuel Factory, in Fusion, Vol 1, ed. Ed Teller, 1981). How long will non-breeded fuels last? Assuming roughly 200 (light water) fission reactors in the US in 1990, and a 5% growth rate in fission produced power, there will be 530 by 2010 and 864 by 2020. The estimate of the US Uranium reserves (in the form of U_3-O_8) depends on how low grade of ore you include (low grade costs more to refine). If we are willing to use up to $50/kg ore (1980 price), the estimate is 4 +/- 2 million tons. Each reactor requires 480 tons to startup, and 171 tons a year to run (producing 1 GW electric of power). The bottom line is that US estimated reserves (4 Mton) will be used up by *2014* (a mere 25 years away!). (The actual range is 2002--2020) If the growth rate is slower, say 2.5%, we run out in 2025. More efficient fission reactors (heavy water reactors) could extend this a bit, to 2028. Similar depletion will occur in the rest of the world. This shows why current fission reactors cannot takeover electrical production on large scale. So, its clear that---without fuel breeding---fission reactors will run out of fuel within 40 years, and maybe as soon as 15 years. Definitely within most of our lifetimes. Breeding: In breeder concepts, the so called ``fertile elements'', U238 and Th232, are transmuted via neutron bombardment, to the ``fuel elements'' (used to fuel fission reactors) Pu and U233. It is actually possible to breed (i.e. transmute) as much or more fuel than is consumed. Most breeder concepts require little mining of new fuel, and would extend the fission fuel reserves by a large factor. (Paul Dietz's figure is 60 times longer in time---which would be on the order of 1000 years; I don't have any figure of my own.) The down side is massive production of long lived, highly toxic, nuclear wastes, power plants with large Plutonium inventories and Plutonium for possible use in weapons. (Aside: If we really mean to have breeders become the dominant energy source, that means everbody gets `em, and lots of them. For a topical example, Iraqi would probably have 10 or so. Somehow, the notion that every country will be able to breed large amounts of nuclear waste and weapons Plutonium doesn't make me feel safe...) Back to the argument about breeding vs. fusion: One attractive idea is to combine breeding and fusion: the idea is that fusion reactions provide ample neutrons with which to breed fuels for fission reactors. The fusion reactor would only have Q (= fusion energy out/heating energy in) = 1--2. This would be feasible long before the Q = 5--10 needed for a stand alone fusion reactor is achieved. The fusion breeder has two big advantages over the breeders based solely on fission reactors: (1) In the fusion breeder, the fuel is bread _outside_ the region where the neutrons are created: this allows flexibility in deciding what fuels to breed. For example, a fusion breeder could breed only Uranium fuels, thus avoiding the problem of Plutonium production. (At the cost of a less efficient reactor). This selectivity is difficult in fission reactors, since the fuel breeding and burning take place in the same region. (2) The fusion breeder will help further fusion research, (by giving us practical reactor experience, increased funding, etc) and move us closer to the desirable goal of fusion power. In contrast, all-fission breeding does little to help fusion (unless we get so tired of the nuclear wastes that it makes fusion look desirable :-)) The downside of the fusion breeder is that more research is needed to creat one, vs. a fission breeder. --- So, even if one decides that fission fuels should be extended by breeding, this still does not remove the incentive to develop fusion reactors. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / JOSEPH CHEW / History Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: History Date: 15 Aug 90 14:22:31 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA In <256@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, Barry Merriman writes: > Why does DOE have to underwrite the DOD? on the subject of weapons-plant cleanup. My hypothesis: Historically, the Atomic Energy Commission undertook nuclear matters in the 1940s because the then-War Department was not geared up to do it themselves. This situation became institutionalized, and when the AEC was bucked up to Cabinet-level status and christened the DOE in the mid-70s, this baggage came along. Besides, those sites were stunk up on DOE's watch, and it's only reasonable that DOE should do the cleanup. (One of the running themes of Adm. Watkins's term as Energy Secretary is an attempt to change the institutional culture that allowed such things to happen.) --Joe Disclaimer: Personal reply not to be confused with official LBL or DOE doin's. cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / Hal Lillywhite / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 15 Aug 90 13:50:38 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <260@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In breeder concepts, the so called ``fertile elements'', U238 and Th232, >are transmuted via neutron bombardment, to the ``fuel elements'' >(used to fuel fission reactors) Pu and U233. It is actually possible >to breed (i.e. transmute) as much or more fuel than is consumed. So why not use Th232 to breed U233 and avoid the production of Pu? Is this technically feasible and if so could it be done in a Uranium environment so that the U233 could not be chemically separated from the surrounding matrix, thus making it more difficult to concentrate to weapons grade? cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / Paul Dietz / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 15 Aug 90 15:25:44 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <5566@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) writes: >So why not use Th232 to breed U233 and avoid the production of Pu? >Is this technically feasible and if so could it be done in a Uranium >environment so that the U233 could not be chemically separated from >the surrounding matrix, thus making it more difficult to concentrate >to weapons grade? It is technicaly feasible to breed this way. Indeed, unlike in the U238/Pu239 system, a breeding ratio of slightly beter than 1 can be achieved with Th232/U233 in a graphite or heavy water moderated thermal reactor, due to U233's superior thermal neutron economy. However, I don't know if this is proliferation resistant, since the U233 isn't mixed with any U238. If you do add U238, plutonium is produced, which we were trying not to do. You also get some U234, but I don't know the impact of that on the utility of the U233 in weapons. Note that the ability to greatly extend uranium resources with thermal breeders shows that a limit on fissile material is not a problem, even if we don't want to breed lots of plutonium or make fast reactors. Final point: arguments that uranium reserves would run out in a few decades if all our energy came from fission ignores an important fact. Mining companies will not explore for new reserves unless existing reserves will soon be depleted. They like to keep about a 30 year reserve on hand. The figure is currently about 150 years. There is good reason to believe other sources can be found. For example, the uranium in marine phosphates in Morocco (which are mined for fertilizer anyway) would, if added to current reserves, double their size. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy15 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / William Johnson / Re: DOE funding Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: DOE funding Date: 15 Aug 90 16:09:42 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <256@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >In article <231@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > > > >It has NOTHING to do with cost! It is official policy that DOE won't > >fund NEW alternatives; they might attract the attention of congress. This is patent nonsense, as Barry proceeds to point out. > I thinkk dome of the Muonic fusion work was DOE funded (though > I'm not sure.) Perhaps laser fusion too, at KMS Fusion, Inc. Certainly some of the muonic work was at least *supported* -- slight distinction from "funded" -- by DOE, including some here at Los Alamos. Any number of other schemes (heavy-ion-induced inertial fusion, various laser methods [some conventional, some less so], even -- dare I say it? -- cold fusion) have received money from DOE, either directly or indirectly. An example of the latter is so-called "Institutional Supporting Research and Development" money here at Los Alamos, which is a pot of money generated by "taxing" other, explicitly funded programs so that people with crazy but potentially interesting ideas can propose them and get startup money. If the ideas pan out, followon funding may then become available from other parts of DOE. I'm pretty sure that the other national laboratories have comparable programs, all derived from DOE funds (among others). It definitely sounds to me as though Mr. Koloc's comments have a distinct aroma of sour grapes. > One interesting thing related to DOE funding is this: in the latest > Business Week (in an article on Robotics), it said the DOE will have to spend > as much as $100 BILLION over the next 30 years to clean up > dozens of sites where wastes from _weapons production_ have been dumped. > > Why does DOE have to underwrite the DOD? That $3 billion/year could > have gone a long way towards developing fusion energy, rather than > cleaning up weapons byproducts. This is getting somewhat away from "fusion" issues, and I suggest asking the question in another newsgroup if you don't like the answers you get here. (Usual disclaimer: what follows is mine, not Los Alamos'; I don't work for DOE and have no great interest in defending them, but you gotta call 'em the way you see 'em.) Anyway, the basic reason is that "production" of nuclear weapons is a complex activity that, for statutory reasons, deeply involves DOE and has done so for many years. One place that is a notorious focus for cleanup, Rocky Flats, is "operated by Rockwell International under contract with the U.S. Department of Energy. The primary mission of the plant is the development and production of specific components for nuclear weapons," to quote from a recent document I got describing the cleanup (available to the public via NTIS, let me know if you're interested, it's nothing very exciting). It is somewhat inaccurate to say that soaking DOE for the cleanup of Rocky "underwrites" DOD for this reason; the mess that needs cleaning up was created with DOE funds. Yes, $3B/yr would fund research on a *lot* of things! And there is widespread concern among scientists at DOE laboratories (once again my opinion only, standard disclaimers apply) that our ability to do innovative science is going to be hamstrung, not only because of the loss of funding to the cleanup operations but also because the cleanup comes attached to a lot of "compliance" baggage of doubtful wisdom. But at the same time, the cleanup is needed, at least at some places, and there's only just so much money to go around. Again, followups on DOE spending on cleanup should go somewhere else; maybe sci.environment for what's being paid for, and sci.research for general discussions of funding issues in federally-supported research. -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / S Muehleisen / Tempratures in eV's? and other stuff. Originally-From: Stephen A. Muehleisen Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tempratures in eV's? and other stuff. Date: Wed, 15 Aug 90 20:14:12 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Prof. Barry Merriman recently wrote "Well, some researchers feel it is essential to have a machine like the proposed Compact Ignition TokaKmark (CIT) to study the burns, and rapid jumps in temperatures (from 20keV up to 100keV)" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ One of my questions is how do you express temperature in Energy units? What are the conversion factors, whatever that you use to do this? Prof. Merriman also mentions the half-lifes of various Metals. Is there a book that list them and/or describes how they are calculated? Let me add in passing that this net has become much more interesting (IMHO) since COLD fusion has faded from the limelight. Thank You Steve Muehleisen SMUEHL@KSUVM.KSU.EDU (bitnet) | 1001 Fremont Apt.#1 | KSU canceled "Intro SMUEHL@MATT.KSU.KSU.EDU (internet) | Manhattan, KS 66502 | to Plasma Phys" :( MUEHL@KSV.MFENET (mfenet) | (913) 537-1575 | not enough $$ :( :( cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenSMUEHL cudfnStephen cudlnMuehleisen cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / William Johnson / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 15 Aug 90 18:39:26 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <5566@vice.ICO.TEK.COM>, hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) writes: > In article <260@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > > >In breeder concepts, the so called ``fertile elements'', U238 and Th232, > >are transmuted via neutron bombardment, to the ``fuel elements'' > >(used to fuel fission reactors) Pu and U233. It is actually possible > >to breed (i.e. transmute) as much or more fuel than is consumed. > > So why not use Th232 to breed U233 and avoid the production of Pu? > Is this technically feasible and if so could it be done in a Uranium > environment so that the U233 could not be chemically separated from > the surrounding matrix, thus making it more difficult to concentrate > to weapons grade? I'll answer this, but first, a request. Sci.physics.fusion was set up for discussion of issues pertaining to *fusion* (originally, "cold fusion," but as interest in that has waned, more "traditional" fusion technologies as well). The several current discussions of *fission* power in s.p.f are out of place under the group's charter and constitute net.noise for the fusion discussions that are still occurring. Furthermore, they cover ground already covered in various other newsgroups -- sci.physics, sci.energy, sci.environment -- some of which draw on a much larger pool of correspondents than s.p.f does and consequently have some real expertise lying around. (Admittedly, some of the other groups, notably sci.environment, also have much worse signal/noise ratios than s.p.f, leaving the reader more of a job in separating wheat from chaff; but that's exactly why some of us want to keep s.p.f discussions topical, so it doesn't go the same way.) The precise topic you raise here has been discussed several times in sci.physics and sci.energy in the last year or so. I'd like to request that any further discussion of it also be moved to those groups and out of s.p.f, along with other things about fission that have little to do with the charter of the group. That said, I will go ahead and answer your question here in s.p.f. :-) The thorium cycle does have some attractive features for the reasons you cite, among others, and it has been proposed at various times (for example, during the Carter administration) as a superior alternative to the U/Pu breeder cycle that is now more commonly accepted. However, it has a fundamental physics problem that reduces its attractiveness considerably, namely the fact that production of U-233 also results in production of U-*232* through an alternate, and completely unavoidable, reaction path. U-232 is a particularly nasty thing to have around, as it has a short to medium half life (some years) and its decay eventually results in emission of an unusually penetrating gamma ray that is difficult to shield. This shielding problem, combined with the short half life which guarantees that a relatively small mass of U-232 will emit a *lot* of gammas, causes terrible problems in safe handling of the irradiated thorium. Consequently there is a general consensus that this breeder cycle isn't really superior to the U/Pu one, although it should be noted that this consensus is derived about as much from political concerns as from technical ones. Followups to sci.physics, please. -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.15 / Barry Merriman / PLASMAK? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: PLASMAK? Date: 15 Aug 90 05:11:31 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >In our concept, burning an aneutronic DHe3 would allow us to compress >the fuel to densities and temperatures the would: > (1) -- minimize parasitic neutron output and, > (2) -- burn up the fuel in a few milliseconds. >By collecting the fusion energy in a liquid density highly compressed >gas blanket and then expanding the blanket through an inductive >MHD generator, operation at 60 hertz is possible. > Use PLASMAK(tm) twin 100 gigawatt engines Could you give us a brief, but complete, sketch of the PLASMAK concept? Also, could you tell us who you are? Not in the sense of ``just _who_ do you think you are!''---I just mean that, given that you are president of a company that wants to commercialize fusion, I'm curious about your background in the fusion world, and the history of your company. Finally, do you have a patent on the PLASMAK reactor? I'm not asking because I plan to steal the idea---rather, I'm interested in patents in the commercial fusion biz. It seems the current patent laws are inadequate to encourage private investors to develop fusion devices, since the time it takes to go from original concept (when the patent is granted) to commercial prototype for such complex devices is about the length of the patent (17 years)! Thus, after spending tens of millions of dollars for the needed decades of development, you finish your device right about the time the patent expires. Not a very good deal for the inventor. This certainly would have been the case with the Riggatron, had Bussard's INESCO not folded, first. cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / James Crotinger / Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Originally-From: jac@gandalf..llnl.gov (James Crotinger) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Neutral-beam fusion? Date: 16 Aug 90 06:12:44 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory In article <1990Aug9.135827.6933@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@banana.cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: > > Surely you mean Bogdan Maglich. Last I heard (some time back) his >equipment from the latest of several companies was locked up by >the creditors after the company ran out of money. It had achieved >a central density something like 1000 times less than needed for >a reactor. > That's the guy. He gave a talk at MIT on the MIGMA several years ago. It was very exciting, however I was thoroughly unimpressed by their analysis of the plasma physics issues which come into play when the density increases. Somewhat later Marshall Rosenbluth published one or more papers which predicted nasty instabilities for the MIGMA if you pushed it hard. I haven't heard a thing about it recently. > Paul F. Dietz > dietz@cs.rochester.edu Jim -- ========================================================================= James A. Crotinger Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory // jac@gandalf.llnl.gov P.O. Box 808; L-630 \\ // (415) 422-0259 Livermore CA 94550 \\/ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjac cudfnJames cudlnCrotinger cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / Dieter Britz / Conferences request Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Conferences request Date: Thu, 16 Aug 90 14:23:33 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Having become an incurable collector, I now want a list of all cold fusion conferences, complete with name of the conference, name of session (if any), place and date. From The FPH-1990 paper plus my own records, I have, so far: Cold fusion conferences (chronological) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meeting, American Physical Society, Baltimore, 30 April 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 175th Meeting, Electrochem. Soc., Special Session "Electrochemically Induced Cold Fusion", Los Angeles CA, 8 May 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on Cold Fusion Phenomena, Santa Fe, NM, 23-25 May 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fifth Internat. Conf. on Emerging Nuclear Energy Systems, Kae, 3-6 July 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cold Fusion Session, 40th Meeting, Internat. Soc. Electrochem., Kyoto 11-18 September 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 176th Meeting, Electrochem. Soc., Hollywood, FL, October 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop on Cold Fusion, National Science Foundation and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), October 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual Conference, Case Center for Electrochemical Science, Cleveland OH, 30-31 October 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meeting, American Soc. of Mechanical Engineers, San Francisco December 1989. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Cold Fusion Center at the University of Utah, Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah April 1990. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone out there with more data, and can fill in missing stuff in the above list? I.e. what was the exact date for the Workshop, "Oct-89", etc? I don't intend to include conferences in which cold fusion was not at least a major theme. Please post any such info to me directly; I'll summarise eventually on this list/group. Thanks in advance. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy16 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / Paul Koloc / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 16 Aug 90 12:48:54 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <236@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Aug8.071838.23663@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>If the fusion concept is extremely compact, burns an aneutronic fuel at >>10^6 w/cc burn densities, has its thermal energy absorbed in liquid >>density blankets, then fusion looks very interesting. >Only problems: confining the plasma, heat removal, high radiation >losses due to high high temperature fuels. Plasma confinement is a function of pressure. Since the topology is Spheromak-like, the BETA* or engineering Beta (ratio of the toroidal plasma pressure to the applied pressure at the Separatrix (conducting shell or Mantle in this case) is about 10+. Because of the design the maximum pressures that can be applied are about twenty kilobars. That means that the plasma confinement pressures on the toroidal axis can be 200 kilobars. That represents alot of Tesla and far beyond the capacity of coil systems. Heat removal is through Bremsstrahlung cooling into the compression blanket which is at liquid densities. That heats the blanket and in a closed chamber can drive more compression heating of the PLASMAK plasmoid. At such high pressures the fuel density is so high it can react quickly and the blanket can be then expansion cooled against magnetic fields, thus driving currents in an inductive MHD device. Since it is the blanket that is directly heated by the fusion cooling radiation, and it is also the media that drives the currents, then there is no need to lower the temperature so that it can be transferred through steel pipes to heat water to drive a steam turbine generator. This is how it is done in todays Carnot inefficient devices. Consequently, its conversion efficiency is optimal, with perhaps one third the waste heat of all other large output thermal electric sources in use today. That is a large jump in thermal load reduction! >>We are going >>to be pushing hard for a commercial burn attempt with DHe3 using our >>PLASMAK(tm) concept, if we can get past the censors. >I don't think there are censors, in the sense implied. If your >idea is good, you should be able to convince any given fusion >scientist that it is promising. The only problem is convincing >granting agencies, not indidviduals. Any references? The DOE has no interest in solving the problem only in WORKING on solving the problem. THEY ALONE determine what is to be worked on there is no independent operation by outside companies tolerated. They have control because it licences radioactive substances and regulates nuclear energy. IT is ABSOLUTE and it corrupts. On the other hand there are others, that NEED the POWER DENSITY and CLEAN BURN this technology can produce when fully developed. Those are the ones the DOE can not control, and those are the ones that can give this technology a full and fair hearing. >Anyway, doing a DHe3 burn seems foolish---if you have any chance at that, >then you should be able to easily achieve a D-T burn. And doing that >would instantly have everyone beating down your door (witness the >P&F affair). So why the insistance on DHe3---an excuse for failure? It is far, far easier (cheaper and quicker) for this device to burn DHe3 than to burn D-T. Tritium handling is hideous and this device works when the energy output can be removed as cooling radiation. That dense mass of 14 MEV neutrons blasting out at the rate of 50 megawatts per cubic centimeter might be your cup of tea but you can leave me out. >Also, He3 is too rare on earth for a practical large scale fuel. >We need to wait til we can mine it on the moon, where it is plentiful, >before wholesale deployment of He3 fuels is feasible. >(Though this may be a good motivation for returning to the moon.) First.. This is only one series of shots. There certainly is enough around to run a demo device. It is aneutronic and next will be PB11. Whoa!! Does not Tritium decays to Helium3? It's just like having 12 year old Kentucky bourbon. If you got the tritium for me, Brother, we're in business! Jupiter may become easier yet. But by that time we will be burning PB11. >Even though alternative ideas don't get much funding, they do get some: >witness Jones' muonic fusion work, for example. That's what I indicated ... some... little .. not nearly enough, we agree?? Btw Jones told me, he thinks he has made micro Ball Lightnings! +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / Paul Koloc / Re: DOE funding Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: DOE funding Date: 16 Aug 90 15:11:36 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <60170@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >In article <256@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >It is official policy that DOE won't fund NEW alternatives; >This is patent nonsense, as Barry proceeds to point out. >> >In article <231@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >> I thinkk dome of the Muonic fusion work was DOE funded (though >> I'm not sure.) Perhaps laser fusion too, at KMS Fusion, Inc. I also wrote: Of course, I exclude from this the meager funding resulting from "heroic" legal or political action such as from Bussard, Coppi, Wells, Maglich, and yes... our dearest and later martyrs P&F. Is Hirsch next? Leaving out Kip was a bit of an over sight; considering his whereabouts, he well may have some minute change in physics law that will avenge him. Bob Hope would love your spin. This guy literally give his LIFE trying to get funding while before Congress. Damn that CIA spray works :-) As far as Munonic fusion, well Hmmm! that more technique than apparatus. It would enhance a broad spectrum of devices. >distinction from "funded" -- by DOE, including some here at Los Alamos. >Any number of other schemes (heavy-ion-induced inertial fusion, various laser >methods [some conventional, some less so], even -- dare I say it? -- cold >fusion) have received money from DOE, either directly or indirectly. An >example of the latter is so-called "Institutional Supporting Research and >Development" money here at Los Alamos, which is a pot of money generated by >"taxing" other, explicitly funded programs so that people with crazy but >potentially interesting ideas can propose them and get startup money. If the >ideas pan out, follow on funding may then become available from other parts of >DOE. I'm pretty sure that the other national laboratories have comparable >programs, all derived from DOE funds (among others). Boo! DOD is a special power density USER. DoE is a study program. We are talking DoE Headquarters. The LANL is a terrific DOD Lab.. Their laser devices are funded from the DOD. The heavy ion Inertial Fusion is in the same category. In fact, things are so bad, that the DOD had to fund Tom Jarboe's Spheromak,CTX, and the work of that wonderful little genius Z-pinch chap J. Hammel, recently deceased. The RFP magnetic fusion group had to do a dance, not unlike private firms, to put together a joint venture, with Canadian and private sector funding on their "H" machine. After LANL gave up the lot of other projects, DoE finally funded this machine, then turned around, trimmed the allocation, and and later pared it down even more. They have made headway/$. Why??? It's easily an order of magnitude better than tokamak and Hdqrs must have something to fall back on... BTW the numbers on ITER spell failure. Of course, not the public numbers. Hey guys the clamp is on.. when people start counting on their "egg (ISR) money", we are in a recession for sure, a science recession. We all overlook on the bright side. Just limit blinded view to two decades. Goodbye Mirror! Come on let's hear it -- So long, tokamak. Oh you can't get to mars on a tokamak, A tokamak, a tokamak. But, if you keep trying it will Break your back, and break you fiscally too. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / Paul Koloc / Re: DOE funding Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: DOE funding Date: 16 Aug 90 13:15:46 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <256@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>In article <231@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >> >>It has NOTHING to do with cost! It is official policy that DOE won't >>fund NEW alternatives; they might attract the attention of congress. > >I'm not up on current DOE funding policies. Is it actually written >down that they wont fund new alternatives, or are you just saying >that this appears to be the case? I believe the policy is now that funding of new alternatives should not restart until 2040 when some imaginary tokamak engineering achievement is accomplished. That way they can remain "focused" or is fu_____sed. That came from Clarke, former fusion boss, who is now in the international scam called iter (pronouced ee-ter). I think the policy was formulated by Furth and given force by the the mafia of fusion or MFAC (now MPAC). There is only an acting head at DoE fusion. Nice dear sweet person. M. Davies. >For example, I recall Bussard eventually got some DOE money, and >I thinkk dome of the Muonic fusion work was DOE funded (though >I'm not sure.) Perhaps laser fusion too, at KMS Fusion, Inc. Heroic ! The true Heros of this country. Guts John Wayne and these precious names. It took Bussard's Hill contacts to get him the "dime". Kip Siegel of KMS croaked right there while giving testimony Congress!!, in order to get his company some money. What timing! And Bussard! A true Giant. This guy is at it again!! but.. mum's the word. ps.. it ain't doe. >And isn't there something like $5 million (from DOE) per year set aside >for work on novel approaches to fusion? If they support some aspect of tokamak (the NATIONAL FUSION PROGRAM GOALS) ===== maybe ... if the price of concrete hasn't gone up to much. >Why does DOE have to underwrite the DOD? The BETTER half of DoE maybe its DoD side. But some good comes from this. We need the tritium collected so it can decay to a clean fuel He3 :-) >>what is wonderful about the tokamak is that it is guaranteed that it will >>never work but will allow governments to spend an ever increasing budget > . .. . . . . In fact, I'd >be willing to give 10:1 odds that the tokamak program will be able >to deliver a commercially viable reactor in 50 years. You should live so long; but with your grand sense of humor you just might +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / John Moore / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 16 Aug 90 16:07:26 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. In article <1990Aug16.124854.8726@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@promethe.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: ]Btw Jones told me, he thinks he has made micro Ball Lightnings! Can you tell us more? This sounds fascinating! -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Voice: (602) 951-9326 Wishful Thinking: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.16 / Barry Merriman / Re: Tempratures in eV's? and other stuff. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Tempratures in eV's? and other stuff. Date: 16 Aug 90 15:23:34 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9008151851.AA12560@ames.arc.nasa.gov> Stephen A. Muehleisen writes: > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > One of my questions is how do you express temperature in Energy units? >What are the conversion factors, whatever that you use to do this? The basic conversion between the energy units, E, and temperature, T, follows from the relation (1) k T = E where k = Boltzman's constant = 1.38 x 10^-23 Joules/Kelvin. Solving for T, and converting from Joules to electron-volts as the energy unit, T = 7.24x10^22 (E/J) Kelvin = 7.24x10^22 (E/J) (1.602 x 10^-23 J/eV) Kelvin = 11600 (E/eV) Kelvin Thus, the bottom line is that each eV of energy corresponds to a temperature of 11,600 degrees Kelvin. Typical plasma temperatures range from 1 eV = 11,000 K (simple lab plasmas, neon tubes) to 100 eV = 1,100,000 K (solar wind, interplanetary), to 1000 eV = 1 keV = 11,000,000 (early fusion reactors) to 10 keV = 110,000,000 (current tokamak plasmas) to (someday) 100 keV = 1,100,000,000 K (1 billion degrees!) (advanced fuels) As you can see, these numbers in degrees are quite large---the eV is a much more convenient unit. It takes awhile to get used to measuring temperatures in eV (sometimes people just use volts---dropping the ``e''). Just remember the basic, rough conversion that 1 eV or 1 V corresponds to 10,000 K. The basic relation k T = E comes from the definition of the temperature of a material in thermodynamics. The temperature is defined (roughly) as the average kinetic energy of the atoms in the material, with k as the constant of proportionality. Thus, for a typical particle of mass m, speed v, at temperature T, we'd expect to have 1/2 m v^2 = k T (actually, its 3/2 k T, for technical reasons). Since temperature corresponds to the energy of the constituent particles, this shows why its natural to use energy units in plasma and accelerator physics: we usually know how much energy we've given the particles, because we accelerated them through a known voltage. Further, we also naturally know the energy in terms of the accelerating voltage drop---via E = charge x Voltage---hence energy is usually given in Volts or eV ( since basic particles have charge e). >Prof. Merriman also mentions the half-lifes of various Metals. Is there >a book that list them and/or describes how they are calculated? The CRC handbook of Chemistry and Physics has the half lives and decay modes (and much, much more!) for all known isotopes. There is now a ``student edition'' available for about $35. Very handy. Barry Merriman cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.17 / Dieter Britz / Ball Lightning Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Ball Lightning Date: Fri, 17 Aug 90 14:54:51 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore): >In article <1990Aug16.124854.8726@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@promethe.UUCP (Paul M. > Koloc) writes: >>Btw Jones told me, he thinks he has made micro Ball Lightnings! >Can you tell us more? This sounds fascinating! This looks like a paper I've just read and will add to my list today, by T. Greenland, J. Phys. B 23 (1990)(10) 1679. He examines the consequences of "hot spots", rather than a homogeneous deuteron concentration in the metal lattice and, somewhere along the paper, postulates the existence of "fire balls", i.e. bunches of deuterons in a small volume, sharing a given energy. It turns out that this does not lead to any higher fusion rate than individual energetic deuterons "ploughing through the lattice" but that may be open to question. Maybe Jones got the idea from this. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.17 / Paul Koloc / Re: Tokamaks (for the hardy - still too long) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Tokamaks (for the hardy - still too long) Date: 17 Aug 90 07:04:30 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <233@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Here is some hard data ( and comments) on tokamak progress >and performance, and on the lifetime of parts, and induced radioactivity >(see the end for these), >partly in response to: > > (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>The problem [of making a energy producing tokamak] isn't physics anyway, >>it is engineering. > >Well, the ``anomalous transport'' in tokamaks that causes energy >to diffuse out 10--100 faster than classical theory (and thus >cool the plasma and put out the ``fire'') is still not adequately >understood. This is a key physics issue. If it could be understood and >controlled (a big if), it would greatly improve tokamak performance. Big deal, the plasma does behave better in super H mode discharges. So what, that doesn't "feed the bull dog". The transport is chiefly due to electron thermal gradients (radial). These are caused by a cold skin on the plasma vacuum surface. This "skin" is cold for two major reasons. First, the electron conductivity is low because initially the system has been heated ohmically and the vacuum is not quite up to snuff so the plasma/vacuum edge is diffuse. The ability for particles to diffuse across flux surfaces varies inversely with conductivity. Consequently, diffusion is high and this also means that there is a noticeable loss of associated heat which further cools the edge. The second reason for thermal loss at the edge is because it is the repository for "wall and limiter crap" the high Z stuff that radiates (cools) like gangbusters. Of course if conductivity can be made high, much of this might be reversed. To solve the problem the German program has mixed teams of engineers techys, and even physicists participate if they can listen, and integrate as well as expound. The best solution for this piece of junk was a combination of nature and super excellent workmanship. The machine was ASDEX. It was built really well. It was clean. It had magnetic divertors, (pond scum skimmers). The result was a surprise! -- The Super High mode or "Super H mode". In the Super mode the plasma ran like a well oiled tire down Wolf Trap Pass. It was quiet, it was stable, it was hot, and it was hot everywhere. It did not have much impurity in its plasma "skin". The device produced a terrific, clean vacuum region, and at the plasma boundary, a sharp step function in density existed. Microscopically, though, there was a strange new skin, an electrostatic skin produced. This happened because the ions being heavier than electrons carry the momentum and therefore penetrate the vacuum field more deeply right at the edge. This makes for an electric field, because as a test particle approaches the surface from the vacuum side it picks up the net positive charge from the ion layer and further it decreases back to neutral as it moves through the electron layer and into the neutral plasma. This electric field pulls electrons toward the vacuum field and the magnetic field turns them back. As the current drive EMF starts the toroidal currents, this field also accelerates the electrons that are the "hottest" and penetrate most deeply into the thinner ion region. Here they can be accelerated to light speed and runaway because the mean free path is sufficiently long for them to gain more energy than they lose on each collision. Electrons in the main body of the plasma don't runaway. Consequently, an extremely highly conducting layer (meniscus like??) forms at the vacuum field plasma interface. This further clamps diffusivity, increases the sharpness of the edge, and reduces the thermal losses to that of radiation cooling. Radiation cooling produces a uniform cooling throughout the plasma. The only thing now that drives a radial thermal gradient is the uneven heating caused by the higher current density on axis and the fact the heating goes with the current density squared. But with Super H mode it's only a little higher current density, so this hit isn't nearly as bad as before. There are other "machine related" diffusion enhancers, for example turbulance caused by the integral number of toroidal field coils. An infinite number would be much better, and even better yet would be to shrink the TF coil function to the current in the plasma ring as in my Spheromak/PLASMAK(tm) topology. Yep! Toks are bad news. Then there is the "Sawtooth".. so named because experimenters saw the toroidal current intensity produce a time resolved waveform with a regular Sawtooth wave that suddenly sets in during discharge. What is now happening is a kind of tug of war. To keep the toroidal tube of plasma from flopping around and smacking the wall a very strong toroidal field is generated from fixed field coils to "freeze into" and then "stiffen" the plasma. However, the toroidal plasma current is the source for its own poloidal (locally azimuthal) field. The combined field from the two is a helical field. It is this resultant field that the plasma current tries to react to, by "following" the flux lines. This gives the plasma current a more helical or azimuthal component briefly. This saps the toroidal current component of a bit of its strength, thereby also weakening the azimuthal (poloidal) component of the resultant helical field. As a consequence, the field is again less helical and the brute strength of the toroidal component of field then snaps the current back pretty much "in line" (circular) and the toroidal component of current again jumps back up allowing the process to restart. The plasma effect of this is to "slosh" the plasma about and mix it up in the central region, thus mediating the thermal gradient. That's a good thing. In reality, the tokamak is simply following the instinctual urge inbred in all magnetized plasmas to try to slide along an evolutionary topological line to the Spheromak/PLASMAK(tm) configuration. The attempt by the current track more helically is to exactly transform itself to more Spheromak like Kernel toroidal ring. Of course, MAN in his infinite "wisdumb" knows better, and puts those monster TF coils in there to restrict choice. No uppity plasma is going to show him nothin'. And who looks for such things. Princeton is a tokamakplatz, etc, etc. If they change to a bloutomak or whatever they might lose funding. So.. that status quo marches on. >they could build an energy producing engineering test reactor now, >if they just had the funds. Even though they don't completely understand >tokamak plasmas, they say simply increasing the size of the device >by a factor of 3 or so (in diameter) would slow down the energy loss I thought TFTR was a Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor and was initially scheduled to burn DT in 1983? :-) my, how people forget. Hmmm! Do I detect the "Solution of Bob Conn?? Bigger - Bigger - Biggest. Yep, Heard this all before. What's amazing is the CIT was the solution of "compactness" through stronger fields. Ask Bob Hirsch, He's heard it before, too. Bob was recommending the window of opportunity for tokamak be closed way back in '83. Another problem with these "Reactor Studies" is that the engineers are using extrapolated numbers for materials that don't yet exist, and plasma scaling factors that are from a piper's dream. The story goes that with the Conn approach the final "COMMERCIAL" working size is just right for the earth to be fitted with two tokamaks. One each placed at a magnetic pole. This expedient would not only cut down costs for the vertical field, but there is enough snow there to help cool the liquid Helium generators for three or four years. >I don't understand your pressure argument against tokamaks---even though >the pressures on the device are enormous, we have materials that >can withstand them. So what's the problem? The problem: Magnet A can handle 1000 atmospheres 16 Tesla. Using this the tokamak can only produce 10 ATM of plasma pressure. Obviously, that's not enough to drive fusion well above a viable threshold.. say one or two orders of magnitude. Scheme two A high tensile strength chamber handles 20 000 atm Using this a Spheromak or PLASMAK device can produce up to 220,000 atmospheres of plasma pressure. Such a device can compression heat and burn pB11*. * only in PLASMAK machines. Incidentally, betas of Spheromak topologies are huge compared to tokamaks. >>For those of more technical persuasion: Three parameters must be >>optimized, SIMULTANEOUSLY, for fusion to work. >The full set of desired parameters is T (temperature), n (density), >t (confinement time of the heat in the plasma), >n * t (the ``Lawson number''), and beta (plasma pressure/confining >magnetic field pressure. .. >Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion, 1988, Vol 1, >and The physics of Plasma-Wall Interactions Controlled Fusion, 1984, > > need have achieved( 1988 ) gain over 1970 values > (various machines) >T = 20 keV 32 keV 60x >t = 1 sec 1.3 sec 150x >n * t= 3 10^14 s/cm^3 2 10^14 s/cm^3 200x >beta = 6% 5% 30x > >As you can see, they have made huge progress over two decades. They perhaps didn't play the "up" one, down the other two game back then, so your comparison is not quite fair. Better to compare those results with .. . the ones from JET. >T = 5 keV >t = 0.3 sec >n * t = 1.5 10^13 s/cm^3 >beta = 1% Note: 5 keV is not 32 keV lost 6.4 .3 seconds is not 1 second lost 3 1.5 * 10^13 is not 3 * 10^14 lost 20 Hmmm! that looks like a factor of over three hundred. That's a lot of BS to scam the novices. BREAKeven has not yet been achieved! HOW SO? If commercial fusion happens COMMERCIAL Break Even is tremendously more stringent, and for the machine to operate successfully AT CBE it must have an order of magnitude better parameters minimum to allow deterioration. >Note that none of these SIMULTANEOUS parameters is more than a factor >of 5--10 smaller than what needs to be achieved. Within an order of >magnitude, i.e.. WRONG... COMMERCIAL .. big diff. also its the triple product of the variance that rules. >And, for the bottom line---energy---JET and TFTR have achieved >Q (= fusion energy out/heating energy in) of 0.1 for D-D plasmas, >which corresponds to Q = 0.5 if a D-T plasma were used. >Thus, in some sense, its fair to say they are within a factor >of two of breakeven. Sounds like power not energy; and it's probably Statistical malarky, anyway. Time, incorporate time. Q?? haven't heard that defense, since the Mirror was retired. Remember, in reality we are speaking to a device that must produce net POSITIVE energy to the grid, AND, at a competitive or at least workable price. >>essentially NO SUBSTANTIAL progress toward fusion in tokamaks recent >>years > >Well, I think the numbers above speak for themselves. Most of these >developments have been in the last decade, since the major new >machines came on-line. They represent NOT ANY """SUBSTANTIAL""" progress toward COMMERCIAL fusion. Consider the rate of improvement but also consider the rate of increase in COSTS. >Well, some researchers feel it is essential to have a machine >like the proposed Compact Ignition Tokamak (CIT) to study the >physics of the fast alpha particles created when a device >burns, and the rapid jump in temperature (from 20keV up to 100keV) >that will occur when it ignites (releases enough energy in the >form of trapped alpha particles to sustain the burning). It won't be a tokamak. DT burns a little unstably. That's a hell of a BETA increase, and if it happens it will balloon the plasma and blow holes through the first wall. >>That includes the use of even that low ignition point and most >>despicable fuel, "DT" (deuterium:tritium; 1:1). >Its only despicable in that it releases its energy mainly as neutrons, >and that tritium is radioactive. And that the neutrons are proverbial "freight trains" at 14 MEV. > But after years of fission experience, >we know how to deal with high neutron fluxes, and tritium has a short half-life >(13 years) and is only needed in small amounts for fuel (400 grams >per day for a large (1 GW) power plant, plus an on site inventory >of 10--40 kg). The radiation hazard from T is so slight that >shielding is not necessary---only if it is ingested is it dangerous, >because it produces free radicals when it decays. You agree it's despicable. Comparing it to fission is proof enough for that. A large plant is 10 Gigawatts, and that's output NOT input. You better kick those numbers up 100 or so. That stuff is inefficient. >>Engineering interpretation sheds a clearer light. Engineers build >>machines. TIME is pretty much determined by the SIZE of the machine. >As I said above---they just want to build a bigger machine. But, COSTS exponentiate and consider that COMMERCIAL BREAKEVEN infers INVESTMENT breakeven. The bigger the machine the further away commercial reality recedes, NOT the contrary. >>This is best done in a >>compressible toroidal device of subset of Spheromak. We think that >>pressures of many tens of kilobars to hundreds of kilobars can be >>sustained for sufficiently long burn times. There are other advantages >>that put the potential of this technology in the realm of fantastic. >Why don't you detail the advantages---and the support---for >this potential technology. It's EXTREMELY clean, light, small, simple, cheap, powerful, reliable, rugged, and portable by comparison to toks. DoE has the sole authority for developing energy for grid power in the USA. They support a 27 year old russian invention. Spheromaks will not make a good commercial investment. But, this is .. was America so anything is .. was possible.. Right. .. >>there has been NO FUNDING >>of new concepts by governments. >Depends what you mean by new. They've had a large multipole experiment >here at UCLA in the past, and they have the racetrack experiment >now (a stretched out tokamak). Multipoles certainly qualify as >alternative, I think. That stuff is ancient history from the 70's!! New - last 5 years or maybe 10 years. >> Chop COLOSSAL GOVERNMENT SCIENCE projects. > NOW! > the CIT didn't get funded, but would cost just one B-2's worth. A CIT, if the a magnet coil lets go along with its tritium inventory at the appropriate time will probably do more damage than a B-2. Could make quite a deterrent against outside invaders. Oh.. Let's pack CRYOGENIC coils as close to our 20 keV plasma as possible. Really good engineering design.. Is that a UCLA seconded attribute?? That's a hell of a thermal gradient. Cool Cool Heat Heat >Science gets a few big projects tossed to it, >(lately of a dubious nature, like the space station and SSC) Right on! >Regarding Induced Radioactivity in Fusion Reactor Walls: >One beauty of fusion is that the only radioactivity created in the >process is that induced in the reactor walls---which can be made >_arbitrarily small_ by proper choice of materials. Horse biscuits. The vacuum integrity of the first wall can never be maintained day in and day out in such an environment, and you don't have that much choice of materials. The near perfect vacuum is absolutely essential. This is not a high pressure coal burner where the heat transfer pipes aren't that critical and some ablation can be tolerated. Note: Fission devices and coal burners can be enlarged because the matrix density of heat transfer pipes can be increased to compensate. Not so in a bigger and bigger and biggest of all the universe tokamak.. The radiation flux from its plasma increases with volume but the wall area doesn't. Hmmm! Of course, UCLA knew it wasn't going to ignite. Right?? >(Of course, the small amounts of T used as fusion fuel are radioactive, Small??????? you mean Tonnage or Curies?????? That stuff will be all through the metal and lithium and the huge tritium processing plant that must be on site to handle this stuff. Think your estimates are a bit conservative. >but the half-life is short---13 years---and it decays into >the inert gas He3 + a low energy electron (6keV). Ahhhhh! He3, the much much much mega better form of tritium.. Now you are making fine music. Abandon the tok and swing over to the more advanced concepts. >Back to the Reactor Walls: (See Rob Conn's article >in Fusion, edited by Ed Teller, Vol 1 B, 1981 for a thorough discussion. Bob is DoE's fusion engineer. DoE says tokamak! Here Bob, Make a case for a reactor!" and Bob did his best. But talk to Lidsky. He's the notorious "Wall expert". We really get out of the fantasy academic circuit all together; perhaps ask Clint Ashworth from PG&E what he thinks about these "DoE studies". They would have to use Tokamaks, they are very clever and experienced power people. They have built devices for decades, they really know what to look for, and they have turned their back side to it. Simply put, as a reactor concept, the tokamak is NUTS. The stresses in the coils are impossible, the coolant is trapped by the magnetic flux.. How is the coolant liquid Lithium pushed around?? Use of Helium makes the thing a sponge. bugs, bugs.. >That is also my primary source.) > >First, lets consider how long the wall will last before it must >be replaced. For comparison, note that the fuel cladding in >fission reactors DO NOT compare this to fission. NONE ZERO DIFFERENT BALL GAME! Ultrahigh vacuum service against a relentless 5 or 10 mega watts/m^2 of Xray, neutrons, etc.. It is the total ensemble of radiation that is going to blow this thing to hell, and the super special service that the MOST exposed microvolume (first wall surface) must maintain against this onslaught, if its vacuum mission is to be fulfilled. BUT It doesn't have a chance. It won't happen. Plasma State is plasma state, solid state is solid. A high power density plasma will convert its surrounding solid state into higher energy states and finally to its own state. It doesn't have to go all the way to generate a wall catastrophe. Only a teeny weeny little dinky itsy bitsy conversion is necessary, and the result is the vacuum region becomes fatally compromised. In chess do you put your King in front of your pawn?? The ONLY design that can handle fusion (5 million times the energy density of chemical energy) is one that incorporates a highly conducting high pressure plasma first wall. The higher the burn density the BETTER such a wall works. It boosts its temperature and that enhances its wall function. Further, the chemistry can be low Z. That's engineering. To surround a THERMONUCLEAR PLASMA with a solid wall with only a thin vacuum field which is of no avail against non-plasma state matter penetration, is just plain NUTS. YES.. By not using integrated teams to develop fusion and instead letting the program become dominated as "physics" or "science" has allowed a group of similarly molded humans to reveal weaknesses. Whenever a single family and species aren't mixed with others, they flock or "school" like fish. When the king pin fish turns slightly, the next one turns and a wave washes across the school like a ripple across a pond. That's what the tokamak is, a ripple in the school of plasma physicists. >The lifetime of wall materials is measured in the number of >Mega Watt years of neutron loading per square meter it can withstand. Great definition ... for a fission burner or a coal burner It doesn't work for fusion when the service is so critical that the most minute changes can drastically affect performance. >Also, the amount of T onsite at a 1000 MW D-T fusion power >plant is roughly 400 grams for daily use, plus an inventory >of 10-40kg. Where is it? What about the Lithium blanket, etc. .. They have to have copious amounts of Lithium for breeding more tritium and the processing of that is a hairy one. >The relatively low toxicity of tritium and small onsite Righto! It doesn't KILL it just generates reams of LAW SUITS, hordes of DEMONSTRATORS, and COSTS like blazes. >inventories seem to make the tritium issue a manageable >problem---not the major drawback some people portray it to be. Tell that to the Judge and Jury Ahhh! LIFE with MILD RADIOACTIVITY is so wonderful... Why do I strive to avoid it like the plague it is.. ?? ? Monument to man's ingenuity the match Monument to science's stupidity the Tokamak +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.17 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: Fri, 17 Aug 90 17:06:48 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway A longish list this time, thanks in part to Todd Green (an Australian), who went to the trouble to look up Phys. Abstracts and found 17 items that I had missed. I've read some of these and give them below. I'll post the rest when I've got hold of them and read them. The texts below, of the Roessler et al and the Tesch (which I will not get) are due to Todd. In the process, I found a few more, rather old ones (from Physics World). Thanks, Todd; in future, I'll go through Phys. Abstr. as well, as they come. The Roessler paper makes a testable suggestion - switching cold fusion off! The Greenland one has been mentioned, discussing the possibility of "fire balls" (but rejecting them); this may be behind Jones' statement that he may have ball lightning in his metal samples, as quoted by Koloc. Howald looks at Pd-Li phase properties and suggests the involvement of Li in fusion reactions. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 17-Aug. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alberg MA, Wilets L, Rehr JJ, Mustre de Leon J; Phys. Rev. C 41 (1990) 2544. "Upper limits to fusion rates of isotopic hydrogen molecules in palladium". ** Calculation, using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation, of fusion rates of H2 (H being any given hydrogen isotope) molecules in PdH. Find that fusion rates are enhanced over those for H2 gas but the rates are still 10-20 orders of magnitude lower (at ca. 1E-33/pair/s) than claimed. Sep-89/Jun-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Balian R, Blaizot J-P, Bonche P; J. Phys. (France) 50 (1989) 2307. "Cold fusion in a dense electron gas." ** The authors calculate the Coulomb penetration factor for two deuterons immersed in a dense electron gas, using the Born-Oppenheimer approximation. They find that electronic densities orders of magnitude larger than those which could be expected in metallic palladium are required in order to bring the cold fusion rate to an observable value, or screening lengths down to 0.1A. Jun-89/Sep-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brudanin VB, Bystritskii VM, Egorov VG, Shamsutdinov SG, Shyshkin AL, Stolupin VA, Yutlandov IA; Phys. Lett. A 146 (1990) 347. "Does cold nuclear fusion exist?". ** Experimental attempt to verify cold fusion, by both electrolysis of D2O at Pd and D2-saturation of Pd, as well as electrolysis of D2-charged Pd. Pure D2O, as well as 50:50 D2O:H2O were used and currents from 1-125 mA/cm**2. The authors seem not to have used LiOD but note that "at high currents", sodium carbonate was added to raise conductivity. In the D2 gas experiments, a loading of 0.5 was achieved. Two SNM-14 boron-containing neutron detectors were used, calibrated at 0.32% efficiency; x-rays were also measured. Nothing was found above background levels. The authors comment on the use of Li salts: cosmic neutrons react with (6)Li to produce tritium, so Li should be avoided if tritium is to be detected. Jun-89/Jun-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Brudanin VB, Bystritskii VM, Egorov VG, Shamsutdinov SG, Shyshkin AL, Stolupin VA, Yutlandov IA; Phys. Lett. A 146 (1990) 351. "Once more about cold nuclear fusion". ** To add to their other paper on p.347, the authors have tried experiments with Ti, again using electrolysis and D2 gas loading, as well as temperature cycling as in the Frascati trials. No neutrons were found. Jul-89/Jun-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Coelho PRP, Saxena RN, Morato SP, Goldman ID, De Pinho AG, Nascimento IC; Publ. IPEN 1990 297, 10pp (Inst. Pesqui. Energ. Nucl. Com. Nac. Energ. Nucl., 05499 Pinheiros, Brazil). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:47771 (1990). "Search for neutron emission during the electrolysis of heavy water". ** A liquid scintillator NE213 detector with pulse shape discrimnation was used ... electrolysis ... Pd electrode. Emission rate implies (2.9 +/- 1.0)*E-24 fusions/pair/s, as compared with Jones+ ca. 1E-23, at Ti. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cowley SC, Kulsrud RM; Report, Plasma Phys. Lab., Princeton Univ., PPPL-2657, Order-No DE90001822, 24pp, avail. NTIS. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:47772 (1990). "Some considerations of 'cold fusion' including the calculation of fusion rates in molecules of hydrogen isotopes". ** "Fusion rates in molecules of hydrogen isotopes were calculated analytically as an asymptotic expansion in the ratio of the e- mass to the reduced mass of the nuclei. A mechanism by which a sufficiently localised e- in solid can have a large enough effective mass for FPH rates is presently unknown. The calculation indicates that H-D rates exceed D-D rates < 1E-23 /molec/s. The D-D fusion rate is enhanced by 1E05 at 10000K if the excited vibrational states are populated with a Boltzmann distribution and the rotational excitations are suppressed. The suggestion that exptl. results could be explained by bombardment of cold d by keV d is unlikely from an energetic point of view." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crowley BJB; Nucl. Fusion 29 (1989) 2199. "Nuclear fusion in high density matter." ** H is believed to exist in hydrides as atomic ions. If many such ions can be made to congegrate on a single site, fusion might occur. This is the approach taken here, considering deuterons as a dense plasma. This ends with a fusion rate equation. In order to produce Jones+ rates, a density of 500g/cm**3 is needed. The conclusion is that cold fusion is unlikely; but C speculates on localised fusion or transient nonequilibrium causes. He notes, however, that attempts at corroboration indicate that there may be nothing to explain. He then discusses the implications of his calculations for possible fusion processes taking place inside planets and certain types of stars. C also makes the suggestion that p-d fusion, rather than d-d, should be looked for, as it is favoured. Jul-89/Dec-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenland T; Physics World 2 (1989) 16. "Numbers off an envelope". ** Some rough calculations of screening parameters and effective electron masses to enable the claimed fusion rates of Jones+, FPH (neutrons) and FPH (excess heat). Results look unlikely. ?/May-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greenland T; J. Phys B 23 (1990) 1679. "Issues connected with cold fusion: a room temperature mechanism for the production of x-rays". ** Assuming (as in fracto-fusion postulates) that fusion is the result of energetic deuterons moving through the Pd or Ti lattice, the neutrons should produce x-rays at "hot spots". Without accounting for these hot spots, G estimates the yield of these x-rays. Results indicate that neutrons, rather than x-rays, are the most sensitive probe for the existence of these hot spots. G suggests some further experiments to throw light on hot spot theories. He also examines another possibility: instead of individual energetic deuterons "ploughing through the lattice", there could be bunches of deuterons sharing a certain energy inside a small volume ("fire balls"). This turns out not to lead to greater fusion rates than single deuterons doing their stuff. Oct-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howald RA; CALPHAD 14 (1990) 1. "Calculation on the palladium-lithium system for cold fusion". ** Propses a mechanism, involving Li atoms in the Pd lattice, to explain some of the puzzling aspects of cold fusion. Experiments showed that high Li concentrations can build up in the Pd near the surface during electrolysis, and Li is reasonably soluble in Pd, easily up to PdLi(0.125) and is expected to be present as Li+ ions. This opens up the possibility of fusion reactions involving Li. The paper deals in detail with Pd-Li phase systems, providing thermodynamic and calculated phase data. Nov-89/Jan-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kulakov AV, Orlenko EV, Rumyantsev AA; Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Energ. Transp. (1990)(1) 158 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:47719 (1990). "Physical mechanism of the so-called cold fusion". ** "... Coulomb potential barrier hindering the fusion reaction of nuclei ..[normally].. is lowered at the expense of shielding in the dense degenerated plasma of a crystal. The barrier is also lowered as a result of the action of quantum exchange forces connected with the indiscernibleness of identical particles. These forces are connected with the properties of rearranging symmetry of d wave function. The exchanging forces join in the distance of the order of 1E-09 cm which leads to the effective attraction of nuclei". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morrison D; Physics World 2 (1989) 17. "A view from CERN". ** There were some seminar at CERN in the early days of cold fusion, with Jones and Fleischmann attending. DM reports. Mentions that, among other things, that although the d-d distance in a metal lattice is greater than that in D2 gas (0.74 A), it is still possible that during electrochemical charging, they move closer together. He suggests experiments with other metals such as V or Nb. ?/May-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross K, Bennington S; Physics World 2 (1989) 15. "Solid state fusion (?)". ** General, good description of the hot reports on cnf, and discussion of the problems these raise. ?/May-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Roessler OE, Becker J, Hoffmann M, Nadler W; Z. Naturforsch. A44 (1989) 329. "Fermi gas like hypothesis for Fleischmann-Pons experiments." ** Pauli repulsion, which is stronger than Coulomb repulsion, is absent in a gas of bosons. Coulomb repulsion is absent in a gas of fermions whose two Fermi seas are at a low relative temperature. To explain Fleischmann-Pons (1989) cold fusion, it would suffice to assume that the deuterium nuclei dissolved in the palladium crystal, which are spin-1 bosons, nevertheless show an absence of Coulomb repulsion the Fermi (1957) way. This can be achieved by postulating that the bosons are delocalised in the Bloch fashion (1985), and that at the same time the properties of a cold Fermi gas apply to the constituent fermions (the protons and neutrons) that make up these composite bosons. A testable implication is submitted: by applying a strong magnetic field in conjunction with an RF source (NMR technique), it would be possible to align the spins of the bosons. Hereby these composite bosons will become 'doubly polarised' (1988) since both subspins are equal. This would suddenly introduce Pauli repulsion amongst all the constituent subparticles, the protons and neutrons. The cold fusion should therefore come to a virtual stop immediately. Apr-89/Apr-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sohlberg K, Szalewicz K; Phys. Lett. A 144 (1990) 365. "Fusion rates for deuterium in titanium clusters". ** Calculations for hydrogen atoms placed in small Ti clusters, using the ab initio Hartree-Fock self-consistent field method. The possibility is explored that there might be a stable H atom configuration in a Ti llattice with d-d distance smaller than that in D2 gas. Results show that the H atoms are reasonably mobile in the Ti lattice. There are no stable close d-d states. The closest configuration - occupation of adjacent tetrahedral sites - gives a d-d distance > than that in D2 gas. Fusion rates of 1E-84/s result. Aug-89/Mar-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takata N, Kaneko H, Nozaki K, Sakuta K, Tanimoto M; Bull. Electrotech. Lab. (Japan) 53 (1989) 16. (In Japanese). Cited in Phys. Abstr. 93:72314 (1990). "A preliminary attempt to measure neutrons from cold fusion". ** Electrolysis at a Pd rod, 10 cm long, 1 cm diameter in 1.1 M D2SO4 + 0.05 M Li2O. Saturation of Pd with D was monitored by the ratio of D2/O2 volumes evolved. Both cell and neutron detector were placed at the centre of a moderating water bath; neutrons were detected at 1.8% efficiency, the background count was 0.005/s. Another detector was placed at 6 m distance for differential comparison. No significant signals were observed; giving an upper bound on cold fusion of 1.6E-25/s/pair. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tesch S; Radio. Fernsehen Elektro. (East Ger.) 39, (1990) 53 (In German). Cited in Phys. Abstr. 93:72320 (1990). "Yet again 'cold' nuclear fusion." ** "The author brings us up to date with the latest results of experiments attempting to duplicate the Fleischmann and Pons demonstration in March 1989 of cold fusion during the electrolysis of deuterium on palladium electrodes (by claiming to have detected neutrons, gamma radiation and tritium). As a background, he summarises the F and P experiment and describes various known methods of nuclear fusion. He then brings the subject up to date (1.19.1989) by commenting on the results of a few experiments (largely in the German-speaking world) attempting to reproduce F and P's discovery. Finally, he mentions the damage caused by the attendant media publicity." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vaidya SN, Mayya YS; Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 2 Lett., 28, (1989) 2258. "Theory of screening-enhanced D-D fusion in metals." ** WKB treatment. The enhancement in d-d fusion rates in metals brought about by the combined screening of electrostatic interactions by the conduction electrons and mobile deuterons, is investigated using the jellium model. It is assumed that under electrolytic conditions, deuterium exists as itinerant deuterons in metals such as palladium. The authors derive an expression for the screening constant treating electrons as fermions and deuterons as bosons. The screening by charged bosons is a novel concept and is found to be sensitively dependent upon the temperature. E.g., at 150K, a fusion rate of about 1E-21 /pair/s is calculated, although the smaller mobile deuteron fraction at this temperature might work against this. The d-d fusion rate is found to increase substantially when the electron-deuteron screening of the Coulomb barrier is incorporated. The authors give a figure for the diffusion coefficient of D in Pd at 300K of 1E-06 cm**2/s, without a reference. Jun-89/Dec-89 ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.17 / sheely@groucho / Ball Lightning Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Ball Lightning Date: 17 Aug 90 22:40:19 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow >]Btw Jones told me, he thinks he has made micro Ball Lightnings! > >Can you tell us more? This sounds fascinating! >-- I'm not quite sure what Btw Jones stands for, however, if this refers to Steve Jones of BYU this is partially correct. Steve has had students trying to produce ball lightning in the lab for quite some time now. By arcing across some surfaces, a ball of light can be created, which will remain for a few seconds after the electric leads have been removed. Steve has demonstrated this to many of his friends as they have visited the university. They have not come to any concensouse as to what exactly is taking place (or at least as far as I'm aware). If Steve's ball of light is indeed the same as ball lightning remains to be seen. The properties of this "micro ball" have not yet been fully determined. cudkeys: cuddy17 cudensheely cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.17 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK Concept and patents Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK Concept and patents Date: 17 Aug 90 13:06:48 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <261@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>In our concept, burning an aneutronic DHe3 would allow us to compress >>the fuel to densities and temperatures the would: >> (1) -- minimize parasitic neutron output and, >> (2) -- burn up the fuel in a few milliseconds. >>By collecting the fusion energy in a liquid density highly compressed >>gas blanket and then expanding the blanket through an inductive >>MHD generator, operation at 60 hertz is possible. > >> Use PLASMAK(tm) twin 100 gigawatt engines >Could you give us a brief, but complete, sketch of the PLASMAK >concept? The term PLASMAK(tm) Configuration is derived from "all Plasma Mantle and Kernel" Configuration. It is a Spheromak with two important differences. First, the central region within the Separatrix which includes the torus and surrounding vacuum insulating field are grouped as a the Kernel. This is Spheromak like except that the currents are energetic with gammas up to 20. The other major difference is that the conducting shell is not a solid metal, but rather a dense plasma or Mantle, which blends into its surrounding gas (fluid) blanket at its outer boundary. The Mantle sits on the Separatrix and neutralization of the outer boundary of the Kernel vacuum field is achieved through the presence of a "skin" relativistic sheet current that resides in the sharp boundary innermost edge of the Mantle. It works like the Super H Mode plasma currents discussed in another post. Incidentally, this hypothesis of Super H mode operation is esoteric. Evidence for its existence is only that the boundary is sharp, and a burst of X-rays occur with the break up of H mode discharges, but not Normal mode. >Also, could you tell us who you are? Very obscure American with a problem that must be resolved. Will the PLASMAK(tm) concept work as I envision. The problem is that every confrontation has been affirmative.. . so far. That includes the recent and most major one, fully successful and reliable formation in open atmospheric pressure gas. >Not in the sense of ``just _who_ do you think you are!''---I just >mean that, given that you are president of a company that wants >to commercialize fusion, I'm curious about your background in the >fusion world, and the history of your company. I'm curious about that myself! So far it seems to be pretty pathetic. My introduction of the idea to Furth (70's) and then other Labs, never won enough interest in the PLASMAK(tm) concept for them to do anything. The Spheromak is as far as the Labs went. Besides, the Spheromak is not satisfactory as a commercial device. Differentiation of the toroidal family: Spitzer? Stellarator-- zero plasma current Russian tokamak -- one "" "" -- toroidal Ours spheromak -- two "" "" -- "" "", poloidal "" plasmak -- three "" "" -- "" "", "" "", Mantle A PLASMAK(tm) reactor can be compressed without loss of stability to the highest plasma pressures for more heating and density (faster burn rates) and it has a wall that is IMPERVIOUS to radiation and a fluid blanket that can transfer the fusion energy directly to electric power by expansion cooling with high throughput into an inductive MHD generator. No build of up of damage or impurities here! >Finally, do you have a patent on the PLASMAK reactor? Yes, here and in key industrial countries. >I'm interested in patents in the commercial fusion biz. >It seems the current patent laws are inadequate to >encourage private investors to develop fusion devices, >since the time it takes to go from original concept >(when the patent is granted) to commercial prototype >for such complex devices is about the length of the patent (17 years)! Don't dispare.. The invention should be a parent type and a break through (developable in ten years or less from the unset of adequate funding). That being the case, other "layers" of secondary patents, if by the original inventor, are usually more then adequate protection for two or even three cycles. Foreign patents are 20 years, and the DoE processes patents dealing with nuclear energy, although the patent office actually issues them. The original filing in 73 was split in plasma and nuclear components. Plasma issued in 76, and the nuclear issued in 89!!! Thank you DoE. They didn't allow ANY FUSION patents but were overturned in the Court of Patent Appeals by a German inventor, backed by GE a couple of years ago. We now have just or are just now filing our first layer of "improvement" patents. >Thus, after spending tens of millions of dollars for the needed >decades of development, That's cheap! and it won't take decades with the money in place. Remember, that although the USA has stacks of managers in merged merged corporations and damn few high tech ones with a bend for fusion, the rest of the world is not in such sad shape. The American inventor is quite welcome in other exotic places and has the advantage or mystic of foreign "expert" with new ideas. Here the MBAs want build clones or to cut the bucks and save the "future products" money for next month's bottom line. Sterile thinking doesn't only infect the Government Big Physics programs. >you finish your device right about the time the patent expires. >Not a very good deal for the inventor. This certainly >would have been the case with the Riggatron, had Bussard's >INESCO not folded, first. But, the Riggatron was a tokamak so the Russians have the parent concept; which means that Bussard, Coppi, and Shaney would have been strapped and probably would have to deal with money and Uzi bearing Corporations from the outset. They did. But that is a another story. Weaker patents mean more costly court defenses. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.21 / rose@sunset.se / P&F Article Originally-From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: P&F Article Date: 21 Aug 90 16:25:53 GMT I've been looking for the P&F article, but, the local library does not carry the Journal. Does anyone have the address of the Journal of ElectroAnalytic Chemistry or know where I can obtain a reprint of the article. Anyone else read it? Have comments/flames? Thanks in Advance Marc Rose cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenrose cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.21 / William Johnson / Results of sci.physics.fusion readers' survey Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Results of sci.physics.fusion readers' survey Date: 21 Aug 90 19:30:10 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Readers of s.p.f will recall that about a month ago, Scott Hazen Mueller and I posted a group of questions intended to survey s.p.f readers' feelings about happenings in the cold-fusion saga. Thanks to all the people who responded to this; your cooperation is appreciated. I'm posting some of the findings here. A total of 49 people responded in terms that allowed tabulation according to the original structuring of the survey (given below), plus a couple more whose responses couldn't be cast in the requested form. This is down slightly from the 72 responses the previous time a survey was run (a little more than a year ago). This seems consistent with a decline in s.p.f readership that I think is also suggested by Brian Reid's Arbitron data, coinciding with the growing perception that cold fusion is a chimera. The objective of the poll was not so much to learn anything about fusion, cold or otherwise, but rather to learn how s.p.f readers use the newsgroup to keep up with what's going on. As such it is something of a commentary on the use of Usenet to monitor a technical (if somewhat eccentric ...) field in which things were happening rather rapidly, but not involving computer use/programming in any significant way. I'd be interested in hearing about any comparable surveys run in some of the comp.* groups that would give similar insights as to how those groups are used. Anyway, here's the survey, with results compiled. Enjoy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. (from previous poll) Complete the following "Credo" statement so that it best describes your perception of "proof" required for cold fusion: For cold fusion to be shown to exist, researchers at [institution A] must demonstrate [phenomenon B] under [conditions C]. Choices for A: a. any laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 b. any university laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 c. any government laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 d. any industrial laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 e. more than one laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 f. other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Also indicate if you would add the word "prestigious" to the description that you choose. . . . . . . . . . . 4 [Comments: No big surprises here. Choices b-d were leftovers from the previous version of the poll and could have been omitted from this one without losing anything.] Choices for B: a. excess heat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 b. tritium production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 c. production of nuclear observables (neutrons, gamma rays) . . . . . . . 10 d. excess heat plus tritium production . . . . . . . 0 e. excess heat plus nuclear observables . . . . . . . 11 f. tritium plus nuclear observables . . . . . . . . . 3 g. heat, tritium AND nuclear observables . . . . . . 6 h. other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 [Comments: Most of the "other" responses took the form of an either/or. This is a perfectly reasonable response -- in fact, I would have chosen it myself -- but listing all the combinations would have made the question too long. Several people pointed out that tritium is, after all, a nuclear observable. The phrasing of the choices was intended to emphasize the fact that tritium, unlike the other nuclear observables, is not detected in "real time" (i.e., at the same time as it is produced), an important distinction for understanding the indicators' sensitivity to experimental screwups.] Choices for C: a. in at least 1 cell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 b. in at least 2 cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 c. in at least 10 cells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 d. in a significant fraction of all cells they run . 15 e. on demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 f. other (specify) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 [Comments: The consensus in favor of on-demand demonstrations is interesting. A similar consensus was noted in the last version of this survey. It is really quite a strong condition that seems to me to be more appropriate to demonstrating "understanding" of a process rather than proof that it occurs. Possibly this is a reaction to all the PR monkeyshines that have surrounded cold fusion from day one.] 2. Do you feel that this condition has been met by now? (yes/no) Yes: 0 No: 49 [Comments: This is actually quite an interesting finding! One concern that Dieter Britz had raised was the possibility that readership of s.p.f had declined to the point where only True Believers were still following it. This is not the case, obviously -- but all you people out there already knew that. :-)] 3. Do you feel that this condition *will be* met at some point? (yes/no) Yes: 4 No: 32 Not sure: 11 (*): 2 [Comments: 2 people indicated a N to FPH-style cold fusion but a Y to either "fractofusion" or something at the Jones level, hence the starred responses. To be honest, I am surprised that more people didn't attempt to draw this distinction.] 4. Which of the following reports did you hear via the net *before* you heard them through other media: a. Original FPH report of cold fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 b. Announcement of the Santa Fe cold-fusion workshop . . . . . . . 37 c. Reports/critiques of papers from the Santa Fe workshop . . . . 40 d. Descriptions of other experiments (list) . . . . . . . . . . . 39 e. Letter from FPH lawyer to Salamon team threatening to "take whatever action is appropriate" to protect FPH interests . . . 45 f. "Anonymous" donor of $500k to NCFI turns out to have ties to U of Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 g. "Retraction" of Wolf tritium results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 h. _Science_ report of worries about possible fraud in Bockris group . . . . . 40 [Comments: Several interesting observations here. The question was "loaded" in a sense, as the FPH report happened before sci.physics.fusion _per se_ even existed! The 9 yes answers to part a are therefore a little hard to understand -- maybe people thinking back to alt.fusion. The other answers are within statistical error of each other and seem to show that, at least among people who responded to the survey, s.p.f has been quite an important information source. (This isn't too surprising; the survey didn't look at a "random" selection of Usenet users, so the responses probably came from the more regular and diligent readers, who would also tend to get their information from s.p.f rather than the papers.) Finally, among the relatively few (9) cold-fusion experimenters who replied, the net was about as valuable a news source as it was to the layman, at least within statistics.] 5. (optional, from previous poll) What is your educational status (degree level, field) and field of employment (computer science/engineering/ physical science/other, student/university faculty/national laboratory/ industry/other)? Have you ever been involved in a cold-fusion experiment? (Responses to this were too varied to summarize concisely; broken out by place of employment only ...) College/university, student . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 College/university, non-student or unspecified . . . 15 Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 National laboratory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Involved in a cold-fusion experiment: 9 out of 49. [Comments: Surprisingly few students in this sample, although it's possible that some of the others who mentioned working for a university were students but didn't so indicate. May have something to do with the survey having been run during the summer. I had hoped to get more responses from experimenters, particularly outside the United States.] 6. (optional) Where do you live and work? (city, state/province, country) United States: . . . . . . . . . . 41 New England/Central Atlantic . . . . . 11 South Atlantic/Southeast . . . . . . . 8 Midwest/Great Plains . . . . . . . . . 4 Mountain States/Southwest . . . . . . 7 Pacific Coast . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Canada: . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 (2 from BC, 1 each from Manitoba and Ontario) Other: Australia, Israel, UK and Denmark, 1 each. [Comments: A disappointment in some regards. One of Scott's expectations, based on some e-mail, was that a substantial s.p.f readership would be found in Europe, where there is some evidence for greater "scientific" use of various networks and mailing lists than in the US. Clearly the survey provides no particular evidence for this. Wonder why? Is the European use of networks/mailing lists less than we think it is? Or are all the Europeans just fed up with talking about cold fusion? Another interesting bit of trivia: no responses from the state of Utah! How about that ...] 7. From 1=not at all important to 5=very important, rank the importance of the network cold fusion information... A. ...in your work? (1) . . . 36 (2) . . . 6 (3) . . . 3 (4) . . . 0 (5) . . . 3 [Comments: No big surprises, but one little one. People who have been involved in cold-fusion research seem to rate the net slightly higher than those who haven't, but it isn't a dramatic effect. It was slightly surprising that there *were* some non-workers who thought the net was moderately important to their work! I can understand one or two -- Dieter, for example -- but what are the others up to?] B. ...as a general information source? (1) . . . 0 (2) . . . 3 (3) . . . 7 (4) . . . 10 (5) . . . 29 [Comments: The wording here was deliberately left vague so that people could form and apply their own definitions of what constitutes "importance." Apparently a lot of readers think the net is pretty important! :-) Cold-fusion researchers were slightly less likely than laymen to respond 4 or 5, but the difference is not statistically significant.] 8. (optional) Append any comments you deem appropriate: [Comments: By far the best response to this was the following: > I keep waiting for Pons to either (1) describe his experimental setup in > sufficient detail for anyone to duplicate his results, or (2) start a > business selling cold fusion kits via ads in the backs of comic books. Really, what can one add to a comment like that? :-) Many thanks to all the people who had the nice things to say.] -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.21 / Paul Koloc / Re: Ball Lightning Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Ball Lightning Date: 21 Aug 90 13:37:21 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <4AC5AF3AC51F204030@vms2.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: > >john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore): > >>In article <1990Aug16.124854.8726@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@promethe.UUCP (Paul M. >> Koloc) writes: >>>Btw Jones told me, he thinks he has made micro Ball Lightnings! > >>Can you tell us more? This sounds fascinating! Not really, the conversation was late at night after a long APS session on "cf" and we were comparing notes on alternative approaches. He described the apparatus consisting of a very small VanderGraf generator connected to an insulated (except for the tip) needle electrode which he placed on or a hair above a thick glass. The pulses would produce a "bb" or small pea sized plasmoid which would roll about the surface of the glass for a time on the order of a half second. I never attempted to repeat the work and I'm not sure how it works. I will say that charging surfaces can produce energy storage for pulses of extraordinary fast rise times and duration. For example, the "snapping " one hears associated with static discharges while removing a sweater from a silk or rayon shirt in exceptionally dry air are caused by magnetoacoustic shocks and not heating. Rise times of sub-nanosecond are likely. All it takes to produce "Ball Lightning" is a fast, high EMF and magnetic helicity (and some plasma). Well it it may be a little trickier than that :-). Anyway, those ingredients certainly could have present. >T. Greenland, J. Phys. B 23 (1990)(10) 1679.. postulates .. . . "fire >balls", i.e. bunches of deuterons in a small volume, sharing a given energy. >. .. . Maybe Jones got the idea from this. It may have been just one of those accidental discoveries or it could have been something else. .. He didn't say For more on Ball Lightning, check sci.skeptic; It is Jones of BYU +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.22 / John McCauley / Archive sites Originally-From: jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Archive sites Date: 22 Aug 90 02:05:37 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Has anyone archived this newsgroup? I am thinking about archiving this newsgroup (and putting them up for anonymous ftp), but I only have recent articles. Thanks, Scott cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.22 / John Travis / Doug Morrison's Cold Fusion notes Originally-From: jstravis@athena.mit.edu (John S. Travis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Doug Morrison's Cold Fusion notes Date: 22 Aug 90 19:12:30 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hi, Doug Morrison (from CERN?) wrote about 20 "Cold Fusion Notes" from what I have heard that helped describe the events to those out in the world. Were they on this newsgroup. I would deperately like to get ahold of copies of them, either in printouts, on disk, or ftping compressed files. Does ANYONE have them available. Thanks, john travis jstravis@athena.mit.edu (617)225-9227 cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenjstravis cudfnJohn cudlnTravis cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.23 / HENRY BAUER / MICRO BALL LIGHTNING Originally-From: HENRY BAUER Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: MICRO BALL LIGHTNING Date: Thu, 23 Aug 90 19:31:27 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway A review of technological applications of micro ball lightning was given at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (Stanford, 9-11 August 1990) by Harold Puthoff of the Institute for Advanced Study at Aust in. cudkeys: cuddy23 cudfnHENRY cudlnBAUER cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.23 / Chuck Sites / Re: Doug Morrison's Cold Fusion notes Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Doug Morrison's Cold Fusion notes Date: 23 Aug 90 17:16:07 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky jstravis@athena.mit.edu (John S. Travis) writes: >Hi, Doug Morrison (from CERN?) wrote about 20 "Cold Fusion Notes" >from what I have heard that helped describe the events to those >out in the world. Were they on this newsgroup. I would deperately like >to get ahold of copies of them, either in printouts, on disk, or ftping >compressed files. Does ANYONE have them available. Me too! How about someone posting a zoo archive of his notes here, given his permmission of course. Chuck Sites chuck@coplex cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.24 / Barry Merriman / Re: MICRO BALL LIGHTNING Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: MICRO BALL LIGHTNING Date: 24 Aug 90 02:17:45 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9008231833.AA02771@ames.arc.nasa.gov> HENRY BAUER writes: >A review of technological applications of micro ball lightning was given at >the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration (Stanford, >9-11 August 1990) by Harold Puthoff of the Institute for Advanced Study at Aust >in. The same Harold Puthoff of "Russel Targ and Harold Puthoff" infamy---i.e. the two physicists that for years researched psychic phenomena, such as remote viewing, and proclaimed that Uri Geller had psychic powers after he managed to fool them with some dice rolling tricks? I'm glad to see he's gotten back into an area where he's presumable more competent. cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.25 / Paul Dietz / D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 25 Aug 90 02:45:58 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <235@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >What will reduce rad waste is fuels that don't release energetic neutrons, >like D-He3. But these burn at very high temperatures (in fact, >tokamaks may not be the right type of device for these fuels. >Multipole Reactors may be better.) Paper studies have been done of D-3He burning tokamaks at Wisconsin. At the higher temperatures and high fields, most of the energy comes off as synchrotron radiation. Some of this submillimeter radiation is drawn off for direct conversion to electrical power by a VLSI rectenna array. The rest is reflected back into the plasma. Because of the orientation of the outgoing waveguides and reflectors, this returned radiation contributes angular momentum to the plasma, and sustains most of the plasma current (80 MA). Neutron wall loading is 0.1 MW/m^2. >Also, [solar is] no good for long distance (interplanetary/interstellar) >large payload space voyages---something I'm rather interested in. Sure it is -- beamed power. Indeed, beamed solar is probably better for interstellar travel than fusion. Granted, you need big transmitters and receivers/mirrors. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.25 / Kent Dolan / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: Sat, 25 Aug 90 15:34:01 GMT Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>Also, [solar is] no good for long distance (interplanetary/interstellar) >>large payload space voyages---something I'm rather interested in. > >Sure it is -- beamed power. Indeed, beamed solar is probably better for >interstellar travel than fusion. Granted, you need big transmitters >and receivers/mirrors. Have to disagree with this one on sociological grounds. When you start off on a journey where there is every chance the civilization behind you will collapse before you reach your destination, you don't "string a long power cord" behind you, you carry your own fuel or gather it along the way. Kent, the man from xanth. cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenxanthian cudfnKent cudlnDolan cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.25 / James White / Proceedings of Conference on Cold Fusion Originally-From: jrw@uncecs.edu (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Proceedings of Conference on Cold Fusion Date: 25 Aug 90 18:15:56 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service Last week I received my copy of the Conference Proceedings of The First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion. It has about 350 pages and contains 35 papers. In case anyone is interested they give the phone number (801)581-5571. I'm afraid that I'm too busy with other things to read it right now, but I glanced at the papers by Huggins (at Stanford). Huggins' group submitted three papers. One paper described the design and calibration of their calorimeter. It is a closed cell calorimeter designed so that it doesn't matter where the heat is dissipated (important for a closed cell, where some heat is dissipated in the catalyst). It has redundant temperature sensors, etc. Another paper is about using computer modeling to thoroughly understand the results of calibrating this calorimeter. The third paper discusses results from this calorimeter. The best result mentioned is run P9. This run generated 22.5 MJ/mole over 10 days, and was still going strong when the experiment was terminated. The total excess heat vs time for P9 is shown in two figures, one of which shows just the first 20 hours. When the current is first turned on, the energy balance quickly drops to nearly -500 kJ/mole. This is expected and is due to deuterium charging the electrode and oxygen leaving through a bubbler, rather than recombining and generating heat in the catalyst. The net energy would now be expected to remain flat, but after about 4 hours it is clearly climbing. After 13 hours it has passed through zero, and after 240 hours it has produced 22.5MJ/mole. When analyzed, no helium was found in the bulk of this electrode. The paper mentioned a few details about how the electrode was prepared. One interesting point is that after some processing, the palladium is melted and allowed to cool, and then hammered into the shape of a "fat dime". It seems to me that I have heard several people who have seen excess heat mention cold working, including Thompson of Johnson-Matthey, where Pons got his rods from. This seems to contradict the claim that cast electrodes are best. cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenjrw cudfnJames cudlnWhite cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.27 / Paul Houle / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 27 Aug 90 02:43:24 GMT Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology I've done some rather detailed studies on solar-powered systems for interstellar travel, and it seems to me that the most practical systems would use a huge array of relatvely small collectors. With VNM's, a single seed device sent to the asteroid belt could ultimately construct millions of collector-transmitter units, each with a collector radius of prehaps a mile. Such collector-transmitter units could then be pressed into service as inefficient solar-sail vehicles as they begin a decade-long spiral towards the sun, where they assemble into either a gigantic microwave phased-array antenna or into a mammoth collection of lasers. This type of system could generate beams of energy that would disperse only slightly over interstellar distance. The total power of a system useful for interstellar commerce could be up to ten times that impinging upon the earth, and the microwave varient might possibly be used as a fearsome weapon capable of sterilizing planets at interstellar distances. This kind of system, needless to say, could also bring great concentrations of energy anywhere in the solar system, so that the April Fool's particle accelerator from Scientific American might someday be a reality. Imagine a ganymede-sized LINAC or proton synchrotron and the planet-gidling microwave antennas that would power it! -- --->>>> ---->>>>> Fantastic Hacks with the Cosmic Ordering Principle ----->>>>>> Remember: Evolution wins by Knockout! ---->>>>> cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.27 / Paul Koloc / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 27 Aug 90 16:21:06 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Aug25.024558.23415@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <235@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>What will reduce rad waste is fuels that don't release energetic neutrons, >>like D-He3. But these burn at very high temperatures (in fact, >>tokamaks may not be the right type of device for these fuels. >>Multipole Reactors may be better.) > >Paper studies have been done of D-3He burning tokamaks at Wisconsin. >At the higher temperatures and high fields, most of the energy comes >off as synchrotron radiation. Some of this submillimeter radiation is >drawn off for direct conversion to electrical power by a VLSI rectenna >array. The rest is reflected back into the plasma. This is very optimistic. The problem is that there is an allocation huge first wall area set asides that won't support the "mirroring of cyclotron radiation". These space allocations are for needs such as ports for continuous high throughout vacuum pumping, as well as the need for auxiliary heating device intrusions, limiters, divertors, etc. On top of all of this consider the very limited reflectivity of the remaining available surface which has to be coated and recoated to trap impurities and refresh the first wall surface. Remember, too, these are the same chaps (U. Wisconsin) that championed the cause of DHe3 and are strong advocates of mining it from the moon. I support that effort whole heartedly. DeHe3 is to be the choice fuel for our first fusion research burns and development devices (prototype power generators). As for the paucity of He3, the other source is tritium conversion from natural decay (12yrs), and the tritium can be bred from the neutrons originating from burning DD. Other beneficial cooperative industry could be worked out, especially the use of DD neutron yields to transmute a net amount of radioactive wastes to short lived ones that then quickly decay to stable isotopes. I think that burn temperatures around 70-75 kev in D-He3 are optimal for reduced neutron output (2%) from the side reactions of D-D. Operating with enriched He3 also helps. >>Also, [solar is] no good for long distance (interplanetary/interstellar) >>large payload space voyages---something I'm rather interested in. >Sure it is -- beamed power. Indeed, beamed solar is probably better for >interstellar travel than fusion. Granted, you need big transmitters >and receivers/mirrors. That's a lot of mirror to control, but think of the spectacular effect on comets passing into the beam or the catastrophic effect to some farmers crops from a rogue mirror. High power density PB11 should work just fine. Not only that, but you have the power to use in planetary atmospheres, in the umbra, and can covert engine electric generators to drive your surface industrial and "homesteading" activities. Keep Sod Dam Meer From an Annex Of the Mercurial Mirror Propulsion Complex +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.28 / Paul Houle / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 28 Aug 90 01:33:21 GMT Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology I think that it's perfectly possible to use D-T reactors to breed He3, which could then be burned in spaceship, vehicle, and urban reactors where compact systems that produce low amounts of neutrons would be strongly favored. Now, that doesn't mean it would actually be practical from an economic standpoint. I've recently been toying around with different ideas for fusion reactors, and I'm trying to think of a principle, similar to that of the hydrogen bomb, that would make it possible to build an ICF reactor burning what I call a multistage fuel - I've considered things ranging from using a D-T pellet to ignite a proton-lithium or proton-boron reaction, and also thought alot about hybrid reactors that use the neutron flux from the reactor to force-fission and breed U238. Would be nice if you could force the fission reaction path and supress breeding to plutonium, but you can't have everything. -- --->>>> ---->>>>> Fantastic Hacks with the Cosmic Ordering Principle ----->>>>>> Remember: Evolution wins by Knockout! ---->>>>> cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.28 / Dieter Britz / RE: P&F article Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: P&F article Date: Tue, 28 Aug 90 14:46:44 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Marc Rose (rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com) asks >I've been looking for the P&F article, but, the local library does not carry >the Journal. Does anyone have the address of the Journal of ElectroAnalytic >Chemistry or know where I can obtain a reprint of the article. >Anyone else read it? Have comments/flames? >Thanks in Advance Which "P&F" article are you looking for? Their first one of 1989, or Opus II of July 1990? The first one was quite short and I'm willing to send you a copy if you let me have your mailing address (send to me directly). Opus II is 56 pp long... Your "local library" is probably the wrong place to look. There must be a technical library somewhere nearby, like at a university or the like. Try them; even if they don't have the journal, they can get you a copy through the usual interlibrary arrangements. You could, of course, try the publishers themselves: Elsevier Sequoia S.A., Avenue de la Gare 50, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland, and ask for a free reprint of either Fleischmann, Pons, Hawkins, J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (1989) 301 and errata in J. Electroanal. Chem. 263 (1989) 187, and/or Fleischmann, Pons, et al, J. Electroanal. Chem. 287 (1990) 293. In this case, since they appear to be very proud to have published in this area, they might even comply. Good luck. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy28 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.28 / Mike Pelt / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 28 Aug 90 08:47:06 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <1990Aug28.013321.11374@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: >I've recently been toying around with different ideas for fusion >reactors, and I'm trying to think of a principle, similar to that of >the hydrogen bomb, that would make it possible to build an ICF reactor Which reminds me -- I've seen a writeup of a method of generating power using fusion, using entirely existing technology -- no breakthroughs needed at all, just a little engineering. It's crude, brute-force and awkwardness, but it would work. It's essentially nuclear-pumped geothermal -- Big chamber, *WAY* underground, water pipes around the outside, and drop in another surplus tactical nuke every time it shows signs of cooling off. There are, no doubt, many practical difficulties, and it certainly fails any test of Political Correctness. (And you thought "all the usual people" waxed apocalyptic about fission plants! Can you imagine what they'd say about this one?) -- Mike Van Pelt Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde, Headland Technology Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide, (Was: Video 7) Slosh it around and impregnate your brain ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp With dichlordiphenyltrichloroethane. cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.29 / robiner@oberon / Lab Setup Originally-From: robiner@oberon.usc.edu Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Lab Setup Date: 29 Aug 90 07:27:42 GMT Organization: University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA Could some kind soul out there give me some information on the latest cold fusion 'succesful' experiments. For instance, in the labs which are producing bursts of heat and/or neutrons have these bursts been coorelated with any other cells in the same lab at the same time? Has there been any indication of what the bursts do coorelate with? Thanks in advance, =steve= cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenrobiner cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.28 / John DuBois / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: spcecdt@deeptht.UUCP (John DuBois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 28 Aug 90 22:08:48 GMT Organization: The Armory In article <1990Aug25.024558.23415@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >Paper studies have been done of D-3He burning tokamaks at Wisconsin. >At the higher temperatures and high fields, most of the energy comes >off as synchrotron radiation. Some of this submillimeter radiation is >drawn off for direct conversion to electrical power by a VLSI rectenna >array. The rest is reflected back into the plasma. This is the first I've heard of VLSI rectenna arrays in a long while. Has any work actually been done on them yet? Any prototype devices? John DuBois cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenspcecdt cudfnJohn cudlnDuBois cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.30 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: Thu, 30 Aug 90 17:17:28 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Some more items, some of them from Todd Green's list, which I am catching up with gradually, plus a few older items. I find the Rolison and Trzaskoma paper interesting, as it seems to show that under electrolysis you get a deuterium loading in Pd higher than can be sustained at zero current; that is, x > 0.72 in PdDx, the stoichiometric composition. This touches on the claims that "nonequlilibrium" conditions are necessary for cold fusion to take place. The stuff evidently decomposes (down to x = 0.72?) by bubbling when the charging current is cut. Sahni removes a puzzling anomaly postulated by Schommers and Politis (Feynman would never have believed it), and confirms my feeling that all papers invoking dielectric effects at short distances are on the wrong track. The Yagi paper comes up with quite a different material - silica - and still finds neutrons, using a single detector. Laugh if you like. This paper could be thought of as a warning to amateurs in neutron measurement trying to prove cold fusion on the quick. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 30-Aug. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Liu Z, Xie K, Qi S, Cao J, Li N, Yu X, Lin Z; Chin. Phys. Lett. 7 (1990) 125. "Photoemission studies of Pd/D system with high deuterium content". ** Measured the ultraviolet photoelectron emission spectra (UPS) of PdDx vs x, in order to help understand cold fusion (only the Jones et al paper is referred to). Pd foil was cleaned by several cycles of sputtering and annealing (450 degC), until XPS (x-ray emission) no longer showed C and S impurities. Different preparations were examined. One foil sample was treated at 450 degC and 2E-05 Torr D2 gas; this showed peaks similar to H-treated Pd but one that was not observed with Pd treated with D2 at room temperature. Another was given the same treatment used in the group's cold fusion experiments: oxidation at 500 degC in O2 for 1.5 h, followed by reduction at 600 degC in H2 for 1.5 h, then loading under high pressure H2, which was removed again by heating and pumping. Then the Pd was charged with D by D2 under "50 kg/cm**2 pressure" and measured (XPS showed no C or S). Measurement was repeated after heat treatment in vacuum for various lengths of time, and showed a change in the spectra. Results indicate that the deuteride behaves as the hydride, and deuterium is dissociatively absorbed by Pd, and diffuses into the lattice. Only a limited amount of the deuterium is ionised in the lattice, however, especially at high loadings. The electrons from the ionised deuterons occupy the Pd 4d holes and the delocalised states in the 5s band, and there are various shifts in properties. Oct-89/Mar-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ohashi H, Morozumi T; J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 26 (1989) 729. "Decoding of thermal data in Fleischmann & Pons paper". ** As Kreysa (1989) did, the authors take a close look at FPH's heat analysis and find it wanting - as well as their experiment. The possibilities of recombination, or burning of palladium deuteride all could explain the large excess heats claimed. So recombination should be prevented in future experiments, and there should be some signs of nuclear reactions, to convince the world that a nuclear reaction is taking place. Some of these points appear now to be answered by the FPH-90 paper. Jun-89/Jul-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rolison DR, Trzaskoma PP; J. Electroanal. Chem. 287 (1990) 375. "Morphological differences between hydrogen-loaded and deuterium-loaded palladium as observed by scanning electron microscopy". ** Palladium foils (0.127 mm) were carefully etched and rinsed, using ultrasonics, and their crystal surfaces SEM'ed under various conditions of electrolysis, in light and heavy water containing LiSO4 and modest current densities of 10-130 mA/cm**2. With both types of water, electrolysis changes the post-etch rough crystalline surfaces to more homogeneous surfaces of greater surface area; but the structures were different for light and heavy water. Lattice expansion upon deuteriding is greater than that upon hydriding, explaining this effect. As well, upon current switch-off, R&T observed bursts of outgassing, presumably due to decomposition of hydride/deuteride; this was greater for D than for H. R&T suggest that the use of single crystal Pd to obtain the "Fleischmann-Pons effect" would be unproductive. May-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sahni VC; Mod. Phys. Lett. B4 (1990) 497. "Comment on 'Cold fusion in condensed matter: is a theoretical description in terms of usual solid state physics possible?'" ** Comment on the paper of Schommers and Politis (1989) in which they suggest that Pd ions play a part in bringing deuterons together. Sahni points out that there is an error in SP's paper and that there will be repulsion, rather than attraction, between deuterons, and further that at small distances, dielectric effects cease to operate. Sahni leaves open the question of the existence of other solid state effects to make cold fusion possible. Jan-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Schneider JH; Fusion Technol. 16 (1989) 377. "How a rectangular potential in Schroedinger's equation could explain some experimental results on cold nuclear fusion". ** Theoretical calculations of the transmission coefficient for barrier penetration in d-d fusion, appear to show that it's possible. Jul-89/Nov-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yagi M, Mitsugashira T, Satoh I, Hara M, Shiokawa Y, Inoue K, Masumoto K, Suzuki S; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. Lett. 137 (1989) 421. "Measurement of neutron emission from a SiO2-D2 system". ** During previous experiments with the Ti-D system, where that team observed neutron emission, they became aware of neutron emission from quartz-D interaction; quartz was used for the ampoule for the experiment. Here, various forms of quartz were tried, such as crushed quartz glass, sands, glass wool, anhydrous silica and silica gel. D2 gas was adsorbed onto the samples at -196 degC and generally, between 1E-05 and 1E-06 mol(D2)/g(sample) was adsorbed. The neutron detector, calibrated as having a 0.13% efficiency, then detected neutron emissions similar to those for the Ti-D system, about 3 times the background. Emissions from blank samples were negligible. Sep-89/Dec-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Donne AJH, Oomens AAM; Nat. Tech. (Netherlands) 58(2) (1990) 118 (in Dutch). "Sun on Earth. Trends in fusion research". ** A descriptive survey of fusion research, ending with a small section on cold fusion, without reference to the FPH paper. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Douglas J; EPRI J. 14 (1989) 20. "In hot pursuit of cold fusion". ** An early, thorough article on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Weber R; Schweiz. Tech. Z 86(12) (1989) 25 (in German). "Kernfusion im Wasserglas?" ** Again, an early summary of the FPH affair. Weber notes that, if F or P had not been well known scientists beforehand, their results would have been ignored. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rafelski J, Jones SE; Scientific American July (1987) 66. "Cold nuclear fusion" ** This is a very clear description, including some of the prehistory, of muon-catalysed fusion of hydrogen isotopes - the process which, long before 1989, got the name "cold (nuclear) fusion". There is some discussion of some of the determinants of commercial utility of the process. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.30 / John DuBois / Re: D-3He in tokamaks Originally-From: spcecdt@deeptht.santa-cruz.ca.us (John DuBois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: D-3He in tokamaks Date: 30 Aug 90 05:25:37 GMT Organization: The Armory In article <4136@hsv3.UUCP> mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: ... +It's essentially nuclear-pumped geothermal -- Big chamber, *WAY* +underground, water pipes around the outside, and drop in another +surplus tactical nuke every time it shows signs of cooling off. I saw a reference to this in a book from the '60's. I believe it was actually tried as part of "atoms for peace"; a nuke set off in a way intended to maximize steam generation. Didn't even remotely work... the steam leaked away, etc. John cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenspcecdt cudfnJohn cudlnDuBois cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.30 / Vincent Cate / Cold Nuclear Fission / Peripheral Systems Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.energy,sci.physics.fusion,sci.environment,sci.skeptic Subject: Cold Nuclear Fission / Peripheral Systems Date: 30 Aug 90 18:30:36 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI There is an inventor (Paul Brown) and a company (Peripheral Systems) that are making unbelievable claims about large quantities of electricity being produced directly from small amounts of radioactive materials. Since this bypasses the heat stage used in nuclear power plants or RTGs and can not be nearly as good as they have claimed I think that "Cold Nuclear Fission" is the correct name for it. I believe that Peripheral Systems in general and Paul Brown in particular are making fraudulent claims. These claims make their nuclear battery appear far better than it can possibly be and make me wonder if they have even built working batteries. The numbers they give out would indicate that they are getting more electrical power out of radioactive materials than is available in the radiation from them. For example, the radiation from Strontium-90 is about 2.3 watts per gram (not all of this is usable). In their annual report Peripheral has claimed they could get 70 watts from 1 gram of Sr-90. They have also said they could get 70 watts from 1.5 curie (1/100 gram) of Strontium-90. Another time Brown led a reporter to write that 1/100 of a gram could run an electric heater. It is impossible to produce 70 watts of electricity from 2.3 watts of radiation so these claims and others they have made are false and make their battery sound fantastic to investors. Misleading investors is securities fraud and against the law. Steelhawk hired Pickard Lowe and Garrick to check out the "ionic battery" (not the RNB for which bogus claims have been made). Steelhawk started talking with PLG in December and had an agreement in Feb 1990. The ionic battery is a DC device that is about the same as a Burke cell (see patent 3,409,820 by Burke) except that it feeds back some of the electricity it produces to maintain an electric field instead of using a separate battery for the field. Brown seems to think that this is different enough to get a patent and given our patent office he is probably right. PLG has given Steelhawk a report that said that the ionic battery looks legitimate (not exactly public but Steelhawk will give out the intro and the conclusion). From this peripheral systems has come out with press releases using quotes from PLG's report on the ionic cell and claims this report refutes scientific and press claims that the ionic cell contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. However, it does no such thing. The scientific and press claims were about the RNB and, more to the point, about the amount of electricity produced per amount of fuel. Checking around (Peripheral, SteelHawk and PLG) it seems PLG has not been involved with the RNB in any way. Nobody at PLG has ever seen an RNB. RNB stands for Resonant Nuclear Battery. Brown is quoted in Aerospace and Defense as saying, "Independent and Peripheral-sponsored tests indicate that we are getting more than 25% conversion efficiency." When I talked with Brown he said that he was misquoted and there has been no independent verification of this. Since they first filed on the RNB in 1986 this seems odd. Since they have had a patent (#4,835,433) since May 1989 and are giving talks about how it works and showing pictures of the device it seems very odd to not be willing to show the device in action. Brown told Claire Poole of Forbes that previous claims in the press were misquotes (seems there was some newspaper article) when she talked with him in 1989. Then he told her that he got 70 watts from 1.5 curie of radioactive material (see Forbes article). He told me that he did not know where she got that number. Now their 1989 annual report (the 1990 one is not out yet) has claimed 70 watts from 1 gram of strontium-90 (140 curies). This still turns out to be bogus. When asked Brown will not say how many grams of what material it really took to get 70 watts. It seemed that he did not know. Since radioactive materials are not cheap, being off by another factor of 100 makes a big difference in the potential market size. For example Brown has claimed (December 1989 Hazmat World) that they will be able to sell devices for $1/watt of power (for example a 50,000 watt device would cost $50,000). However with the prices I got from Brown (10 cents/curie -- so $14/gram for Sr-90), at 25% efficiency it is on the order of $100/watt just for strontium-90 fuel. Regular nuclear power plants are around $2/watt, so the difference between $1/watt and $100/watt is really drastic. At $1/watt there would be a multi-billion dollar market and at $100/watt or more there would be a far more limited market. Brown told me that the ionic cell will be about $5,000. It is not clear exactly how much power this will produce. In Brown's paper presented at the the June 1990 American Nuclear Society conference he claims 0.01 to 5 watts. So at best it is $1,000/watt and it might be as bad as $500,000/watt. Brown claimed that the military wanted to buy 10,000 of these $5,000 devices every month. Since nobody even seems sure how much power the battery is going to produce this must not be anything close to a firm order but the way he said it it sounded like it was. The old president (Talbert) was either fired or asked to resign recently. Part of the reason seems to be the way he has been passing out incorrect information. Brown says that Peripheral will not be making any more press releases or passing out news articles like they did in the past. In my opinion it has been very wrong to pass out news articles that had errors. For example, one in WARD'S Engine Update says that the PLG report says "the energy balance of the RNB is perfect and does not contradict the laws of thermodynamics." when what the report really says has "ionic" and not "RNB" in that sentence. The above may be due to an error by a reporter but my guess is that most of the reporters got the quotes right (they tape interviews) and that Brown really said most all of these errors. The problem with the amount of energy per gram of radioactive material implied by the 1989 Peripheral Systems Annual Report is on page 4. It says that 70 watts of electricity was produced from 1 gram of strontium-90 and 50,000 watts from 2 lbs of stuff (55 watts/gram). This is far above the amount of energy available in the radiation. Here are my calculations which have been checked by 3 different Nuclear engineers (two point out that I should really use only 0.535 Mev/decay since the energy in a neutrino can not be used, but even with this generosity Brown is way off): Specific activity of Sr-90: 139 curies/gram Curie: 3.7e10 decays/sec Max energy per decay: 2.8 MeV/decay Energy equality: 1 MeV = 1.6e-13 joules Power: 1 joule/sec = 1 watt A good source for the above is "CRC - Handbook for Radioactive Nuclides" Using the above: curie decay/sec MeV joule watt 1 gram * 139 ----- * 3.7e10--------- * 2.8 ---- * 1.6e-13 ----- * 1 ---- gram curie decay MeV j/sec We get that one gram of Sr-90 produces: 2.3 watts of radiation So with 100% efficiency in converting to electricity the most you could get would be 2.3 watts of electricity per gram. Numbers in the annual report imply 70 watts of electricity is produced per gram of strontium-90. Given the energy in the radiation and the reported efficiency of 25% it should take about 100 times as much fuel as they are claiming. Given that not all of the 2.8 MeV is usable, they are really off by about a factor of 500. Brown agrees with my numbers and admits that the annual report is wrong. Brown told me that he did not write the annual report and that a marketing or public relations person got these numbers from an incorrect newspaper article and put them in the annual report. He also says he never noticed this error before. Since there is only about one page of the report that is about the nuclear battery, and it has his picture, I don't see how he could have missed it for over a year. It makes a big deal out of how much power can be produced from such a little amount of fuel, and even compares this to the amount of amount of fuel used in other devices. If he had done the experiments he claims to have then he should have known that it took over 100 times as much fuel as the annual report said. This type of error should have jumped out at him. My guess is that he really wrote it or at least provided the numbers. In a London Times article Brown has led the reporter to write that "A battery with the power output of a single bar electric fire will contain just 1/100 of a gram of strontium-90." A "single bar electric fire" is a small space heater, around 500 to 1,000 watts. Again, with 1 gram of strontium-90 you can not get more than 2.3 watts, so these numbers are really bogus. In Hazmat World (who seems to have interviewed Brown) they say that Peripheral got 70 watts of electricity off of 1 ounce of radioactive material. If this is strontium-90 then this is another bogus claim. I have never seen a claim for the 70 watt device that seemed close to reality (like, say 500 grams of strontium-90). Wayne Klein of the Idaho Securities Exchange says that securities fraud charges were brought against Nucell and they were convicted. After this Nucell claimed the SE drove jobs out of Idaho and Nucell left. Klein said Nucell was making all of these claims about nuclear batteries but turned out not to even have a permit for radioactive materials. I really doubt that you can buy the quantities of fuel needed to radiate 50,000 watts from normal decay without a permit (if it were U-235 this would be more than enough to make a nuclear bomb). If it were so easy to get fuel I think kids and terrorists would be building nuclear bombs, since the only hard part is getting the fuel. I am not sure when Brown claims to have done the 50,000 watt device, it may have been after leaving Idaho. Even with a permit this would be a lot of fuel. Klein also said something about Brown making false claims about his education. Dave Lavigne of RCL hinted that Talbert (ex-president of Peripheral) had stock in more names than his own and might have been doing some insider trading. RCL has put out a buy recommendation (I believe on several occasions but at least once) pushing the stock. Peripheral also sold licensing rights to First Northwest Capital Inc. for a very low price. FNCI bought $100,000 of Peripheral stock and paid another $100,000 outright. This seems incredibly low given either the amount that peripheral has invested or the amount it should be worth if real (if 25% efficient etc). It also seems odd that a startup that is short on cash and needs the cash it has to develop an amazing new product would be buying all sorts of other companies (Peak Beam Systems Inc, PENCO, X-Ray Inc, and TriSys). Another Brown quote (seems to be misleading investors by alot) this one from Hazmat World December 1989 page 24 (second page of article): ``"The actual applications are unlimited," Brown suggests. "If or when we get this to a fully developed product, the implications are tremendous. We're talking about a low-cost, compact device that could be beneficial anywhere power is needed. For pennies a day, you could flood the desert, or drive an electric car until the wheels fell off. It could change the energy industry as we know it."'' Given the prices of radioactive materials and the real amount needed to run Brown's batteries the above statement is unreasonable. I have not really checked prices but radioactive material is not cheap. Another quote from the San Jose Mercury News, ``The cost of such a battery will be competitive with other power sources, Talbert said. "There's really no expensive components in it," he said.'' Radioactive material is expensive in the quantities really needed. It does not seem to be even near price competitive (off by a factor of 100). In Business Week they say "Brown predicts the battery will generate electricity for 3 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is more than competitive with conventional sources." Also it says that Talbert "thinks the battery could supplement - or even supplant - nuclear reactors and coal-fired generators." Given the real amounts of fuel needed they are not close to being economically competitive. In Insight they report that at Oak Ridge people used 8,000 grams to produce 500 watts giving 0.063 watts per gram of strontium-90. Then "The Nucell prototype is said to yield 7,500 watts per gram of strontium-90; it required only about 1 centigram of the isotope." This is just not real. As the included calculations show there is at the very most 2.3 watts of energy radiated per gram of strontium-90. Claims of 7,500 watts/gram are false. I talked with Brown on 7/28 and 7/29 at the International Tesla Symposium. At this time he told me that the 50 kw device they built ran for 15 minutes, the 70 watt device ran for 3 weeks and the 5 watt device ran for months untouched. I have reason to believe that the 5 watt device does not yet exist. I have the strongest of doubts about the 50 kw device. I am sure that 1 gram of Sr-90 is not enough to produce 70 watts. Just in case you are impressed by Brown giving a talk at this conference let me tell you that it was organized by a relator in Colorado Springs (Mr McInnis (719) 576-1985) and the "scientist" talking before Brown believed that the future could affect the past and her experimental results were that a computer crashed once. This was a very bogus conference. Several physicists that I know have pointed out that even real physics conferences will let anyone speak. This is in strong contrast to conferences in many other fields. I know a physicist who corresponded with Brown about errors in Brown's calculations around 2 years ago. It seems Brown had made some mistakes and was under a very mistaken impression about how many watts of radiation were put off per gram of fuel. My guess is that from these mistaken calculations he made up his "experimental results". This physicist mailed copies of his letters to Brown to me (they are not here yet) and said that I could tell people about the letters from Brown. He was not sure he should give me copies of Brown's letters (possible problem with copyright and/or non-disclosure) but said a subpena for the documents would make it possible for him to give them out. Ewart Blackman told me something I found interesting. Brown got one of his power output numbers by calculating how many watts it must have taken to burn out a wire that blew one time (like how many watts for 1/10 second to blow a wire). The clear problem with this is that there is a lot of energy stored in the capacitor and inductor so it could output a high wattage for a short time without producing any energy at all. So this burst of energy is a really bogus way to come up with numbers for energy production. Two more bogus claims are in the patent. This is particularly strong because it (like the annual report) is straight from them. They claim to have gotten 9,000 watts off of the following combination: 1 milicurie of radium, 200 grams of uranium, 100 grams of thorium. They claim that there is a synergistic effect between the radioactive materials and that more power can be obtained by adding a second milicurie of radium. The synergistic effect stuff is bogus. It takes a lot of energy to cause an atom to split (like a gamma-ray) and given the amount of material (well under a critical mass) there could not have been much of this going on. Brown refused to tell me which isotope of uranium and thorium he used but even if the uranium were U-235 (instead of the common U-238) the watts/gram would still be many orders of magnitude off. PHONE NUMBERS: Peripheral Systems and Nucell (800) 468-8215 Pickard, Lowe and Garrick (714) 650-8000 Stan Kaplan Peripheral Systems FAX number (303) 624-8526 Steelhawk Resources Ltd 1-800-565-9990 Mike Cartmell RCL Northwest Inc - broker for peripheral (800) 688-1114 Dave Lavigne Forbes magazine (713) 228-2272 Claire Poole Triumf - Ewart Blackmore - (604) 222-1047 Oregon Securities Exchange (503) 378-4387 Idaho Securities Exchange (208) 334-3684 - Wayne Klein Seattle Securities Exchange Commission (206) 442-7990 Derel Hegal ARTICLES: Peripheral Systems Annual Report May 1989 Tesla Technology and Radioisotopic Energy Generation - Brown July 1990 Peripheral RNB Patent #4,835,433 The Beta Voltaic Effect ... - Brown June 1990 RCL Northwest Inc Buy recommendation 2/28/90 San Jose Mercury News, August 12, 1989, Page 9A. - * from mother Peripheral Systems "Dear Shareholder" of May 18 1990 Peripheral Systems Inc correction press release - * through PLG Soup-can Physics - Forbes March 6 1989 p 142 - * from CMU library Financial Markets - Vol 1 No 6, May 1990 Investors Eye New Battery Technology - Today's Investor May 11 1990 Multiple Uses Seen for Improved Battery - IPN May/June 1990 WARD'S Engine Update July 1, 1990, page 5 Researchers harness energy from nuclear waste - Hazmat World Dec 1989 Crisis Investing - The Robb Report - June 1990 International Tesla Symposium handout - July 1990 Nuclear battery mops up waste - The Sunday Times - LONDON - Nov 12, 1989 A Pint-size Power Source Packing an Atomic Punch - Bus Week Aug 29 1988 Nuclear Battery Taps Fission By-product - Insight - Aug 29 1988 Steelhawk press release of May 10 1990 Steelhawk press release of June 13 1990 Steelhawk press release of Feb 1 1990 Note from Mike Cartmell Intro and Conclusion of PLG Ionic Battery report PLG description and Kaplan Johnson Bley description Burke Patent #3,409,820 I know a few more things that I have told a few people I would not give out (they may have just been afraid of me giving it to the press). Most of it is not good for Brown or Peripheral. If there were a court case I could come up with some more things. Brown has been quoted with many bogus numbers for battery power and quantity of radioactive material. When confronted and asked for the real numbers he agreed that reported numbers were wrong but that the real numbers were proprietary. It is as if he is willing to give out bogus numbers to the press and print bogus numbers in the annual report but he keeps the real numbers top secret. The RNB may or may not actually produce some electricity but Brown's claims make it look far better than it can possibly be. I am surprised that he has not been charged with securities fraud since leaving Idaho. If there are any reporters reading this who would like to do a story please give me a call. If you know a reporter who might be interested feel free to forward this to them. If you know someone who has invested in this company they might appreciate your telling them the above. -- Vince Name: Vincent Cate Email: vac@cs.cmu.edu Home Phone: (412) 361-1447 Work Phone: (412) 268-3077 FAX: (412) 681-1998 Address: 6938 Meade St, Apt 2 Pittsburgh PA, 15208 cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.30 / Dick Jackson / Cold Fusion Status: What is it? Originally-From: jackson@ttidcc.tti.com (Dick Jackson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Status: What is it? Date: 30 Aug 90 14:55:05 GMT Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica Two questions (actually more). Assuming that electrolytic c.f. is dying (is it?), how will the topic be wrapped up? Will there be recantations by those who announced positive results from poorly designed experiments/ measurement procedures? Or will it just fizzle out? More interesting, perhaps: where is the so called fracto-fusion? My evaluation is that results announced for this phenomenon can not be explained away as easily(?) as for the P&F kind. But we are not hearing much about it, one way or the other. Why? Dick Jackson cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjackson cudfnDick cudlnJackson cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.01 / tiq@vaxa.cc.uw / Comments on FPALH paper (long) Originally-From: tiq@vaxa.cc.uwa.oz.au Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Date: 1 Sep 90 04:33:56 GMT Organization: University of Western Australia Apart from Dieter Britz's contribution, there has been little discussion on this group about the new Fleischmann and Pons paper, so in an attempt to get the ball rolling again, here are some more details and comments about the paper. Firstly, the paper is almost entirely devoted to calorimetric studies and apart from a bit of hand-waving in the conclusions, there is little mention of any nuclear stuff. They state that "... other data will be discussed elsewhere.", so presumably the next paper will contain the nuclear measurements. The point is made later in the paper that the title of the original paper was supposed to be "Electrochemically Induced Fusion of Deuterium?" but the question mark was accidently omitted ! The paper gives a bit more detail about the experimental procedures used. Calibrations of the cell's heat output are performed at least daily, and all the relevant cell data (ie temperatures, currents and voltages) are logged every 5 minutes with a microcomputer. Temperature variations in the cells are shown to be less than 0.01 deg C which appears to address the "inadequate stirring" arguments suggested by some. They also state that D2/O2 recombination rate was measured and found to be less than 1%, so this also cannot account for the observed excess heat. Others have suggested that the excess heat may be due to an oscillation of the galvanostats or a significant AC component to the input power to the cells. To counter this they describe stabilising circuits employed on the galvanostats to prevent instability, and show a negligible ( < 0.04%) AC component to the current. Over half of the paper is devoted to an explanation and justification of their excess heat measurements using a "black box" model of their calorimeter. They claim that despite the complex mass and energy flows associated with electrolysis in an open cell, all these effects are adequately accounted for in the model. A measurement of excess heat involves non-linear regression fitting of the model to a temperature transient caused by the addition of heating calibration pulse. They claim an error of ca. 0.1 % but this is derived from the goodness of fit of the model to the data rather than from replicate measurements. The almost zero excess enthalpy observed in 13 blank measurements does, however, suggest that the claim of 0.1% error is not unrealistic. The bulk of the results are measurements of "baseline" excess heat on 19 different cells employing 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 cm diameter rods, and current densities from 64 to 1024 mA/cm2. Excess specific enthalpies from .019 to 105 Watts/cc are observed and, above about 512 mA/cm2, these increase rapidly with increasing current density. Probably a better figure of merit, however, is the percentage excess heat (ie over and above the Joule heating applied to the cell). This varied from 0.25% to 55%, with a mean of about 15%. In contrast, the original paper reported excess heat from 5% to 112% and with a mean of 45%, so it's a moot point if any real progress has been made in optimising the heat production. The data does suggest that the percentage excess heat also increases with current density but the scatter is very large, and the data in the original paper suggested the opposite. The variability of replicate measurements does, however, improve with increasing current density. The authors admit that the new data is not so indicative of a bulk effect and the volume versus area question is still unresolved. It is not stated anywhere in the paper what percentage of the electrodes actually produce excess heat or indeed how long on average before the heat appears. The excess enthalpies reported were measured at very long times (usually after more than 30 days) which does suggest that very long electrolysis times are necessary - but at least one cell was producing excess heat after 1 week. Cells are reported to have produced from 5 - 50 MJ/cc of excess enthalpy in "baseline" form. This is 100-1000 times the enthalpy produced in typical chemical processes. A total of 13 blank measurements are also reported using either Pd electrodes in light water or Pt electrodes in heavy water. In all cases a very small ( < 0.5%) negative excess enthalpy is observed but this is attributed to simplifications in the black box model which slightly underestimate the excess energy. Interestingly enough they claim that the data for some of the blanks was available before the March 23 press conference but Pons, at one time after this, claimed excess heat from light water cells. In addition to measurements of continuous, "baseline" level heat they also report the production of "bursts" of excess heat. Data for two bursts is presented, the largest lasted 18 days and produced 16MJ/cc of heat. The enthalpies produced were up to 40 times the Joule heating produced in the cell. The smaller burst lasted 3 days and produced about 5 MJ/cc. From the figures it appears that the cells were producing baseline excess heat both before and after the bursts occurred. Both of these bursts occured at 64 mA/cm2, the lowest current densities employed in the experiments. This is a bit unusual considering the tendency of the baseline excess heat to increase with increasing current density. Temperature data for a third burst are reported but the cell electrolyte was near boiling - a regime where the calorimetric techniques employed are not strictly valid. As far as the secret for producing excess heat goes there is apparently none, or at least none is revealed in this paper. They don't appear to melt, anneal or pre-treat the electrodes in any special way prior to the electrolysis. Nor is there anything special about the electrolyte composition. The data sort of suggests that the electrolysis at high current densities for long times is beneficial for producing excess heat but there are no other real clues. In conclusion, I'm not sure if this paper is really going to change many peoples minds. Most are not going to swallow a nuclear explanation, in the absence of nuclear products, no matter how high the excess enthalpies become. The experiments do, however, appear to have been carefully done and all (well, nearly all) the experimental procedures are adequately described. Additionally, many of the earlier criticisms (eg inadequate stirring, recombination, absence of blanks etc. ) now appear irrelevant, so the sceptics are going to have to suggest other reasons for the heat measurements being incorrect. Anyway, get hold of the paper and decide for yourself ! ----------------------------------------------------------- Todd Green (tiq@vaxa.cc.uwa.oz.au) Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry University Of Western Australia. ----------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy1 cudentiq cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.01 / Paul Schauble / Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Originally-From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Date: 1 Sep 90 21:37:46 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Strange hunch occurs to me as I read that summary. We've had several reports on surface analysis of used palladium rods. They are generally covered with a thick layer of crud electroplated out of the the electrolyte. Wouldn't it be delightfully ironic if the location of fusion was that layer of crud? Of course you need to run the rod for weeks before anything happens. You have to build up that layer. Seriously, I expect that when it's finally understood what's going on here, th it will turn out to be another Chiliean copper episode. FWIW. ++PLS cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenPLS cudfnPaul cudlnSchauble cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.02 / William Johnson / Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Date: 2 Sep 90 20:16:04 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <33442@cup.portal.com>, PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) writes: > Strange hunch occurs to me as I read that summary. > > We've had several reports on surface analysis of used palladium rods. They are > generally covered with a thick layer of crud electroplated out of the the > electrolyte. > > Wouldn't it be delightfully ironic if the location of fusion was that layer > of crud? Of course you need to run the rod for weeks before anything happens. > You have to build up that layer. Well, some experiments that I'm familiar with in fact have taken various steps (some rather amusing ...) to try to add some rigor to the deposition of that "crud." These steps have generally entailed treating the electrode with various materials (my favorite was arrowroot starch ... not merely "starch," but *arrowroot* starch ...) prior to the start of electrolysis. The rationale behind these treatments was that the role of the "crud" was somehow or other to make the electrolysis produce dendrites on the palladium, it being speculated at one point that dendrite formation was linked to tritium production and (supposedly ...) hence to fusion. There is a certain logic to this. Certainly it has been known for a long time among people that do electroplating for "artistic" purposes that adding various weird things to electrolytes can cause unexpected but generally sought-after changes in the "polish" of the surface produced. One of the favored additives for one of the commercially-important electroplating processes, maybe the one used for depositing silver, was turkey blood ... and I am *not* joking. The problem, of course, remains the usual one: no evidence whatever that any of these strange treatments produces "fusion," or at least, nuclear observables. In the absence of such observables, one must continue to hold the arrowroot starch, turkey blood, etc., to be alchemical in nature. Your question does lead to an interesting corollary, however. I have wondered ever since I heard the arrowroot-starch report whether strange chemistry at the palladium surface, involving the uncontrolled deposition of "crud" from the reaction vessel just as you describe, may be screwing up the *calorimetry* measurements. Being a physicist, I have a vague horror of the wet chemistry involved in these measurements; if there are any literature references to calorimetry being messed up by such things, I don't know about them. Dieter, can you help us out? -- Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given (mwj@lanl.gov) | over to the sepulchre of oblivion." (Bunin) cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.02 / Rainer Sachs / Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Originally-From: sachs@cartan.berkeley.edu (Rainer Sachs) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Date: 2 Sep 90 22:38:44 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley In article <61954@lanl.gov> mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >In article <33442@cup.portal.com>, PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) writes: >> >> We've had several reports on surface analysis of used palladium rods. They are >> generally covered with a thick layer of crud electroplated out of the the >> electrolyte. ... > >Well, some experiments that I'm familiar with in fact have taken various steps >(some rather amusing ...) to try to add some rigor to the deposition of that >"crud." ... [it is known that when] >electroplating for "artistic" purposes adding various weird things to >electrolytes can cause unexpected but generally sought-after changes ... > One of the favored additives for one of the >commercially-important electroplating processes, maybe the one used for >depositing silver, was turkey blood ... and I am *not* joking. ... >Bill Johnson | "Such things and deeds as are not written >Los Alamos National Laboratory | down are covered with darkness, and given I have heard rumors that one of the big Japanese labs is obtaining major cold-fusion results using bat feces and scorpion pincers mixed with the turkey blood. This is a typical example of American bumbling. Americans were in on the original invention. And in America there is an unusually fortunate geographical coincidence of a huge bat feces deposit with a major scorpion supply, both near to one of the few labs world wide capable of carrying out full spectrum research on the subject (turkey blood is also readily available). The guano-mandible complex is as important, potentially, as was the English iron-coal complex in the 19th century. Yet, once again, we are allowing the Japanese to dominate the field. cudkeys: cuddy2 cudensachs cudfnRainer cudlnSachs cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.03 / Mike Pelt / Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Comments on FPALH paper (long) Date: 3 Sep 90 06:51:45 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology In article <1990Sep2.223844.23347@agate.berkeley.edu> sachs@cartan.berkeley.edu.UUCP (Rainer Sachs) writes: >I have heard rumors that one of the big Japanese labs is obtaining >major cold-fusion results using bat feces and scorpion pincers mixed >with the turkey blood. Don't forget the Eye of Newt. (How's Japan positioned vs. us in the newt department?) -- Mike Van Pelt When the fog came in on little cat feet Headland Technology/Video 7 last night, it left these little muddy ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp paw prints on the hood of my car. cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.04 / / No neutrons, still more! Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: No neutrons, still more! Date: Tue, 4 Sep 90 15:07:46 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Monday's Phys. Rev Letters has an impressive paper on research demonstrating the lack of neutron production in several of the "cold fusion" methods. The reference is: "Limits on neutron emission following deuterium absorption into palladium and titanium," D. Aberdam, et al., PRL 65, #10, 1196,3Sept90. Eighteen authors from 8 institutions in France seem to have pulled together lots of expertise to duplicate experimental conditions of Fleischmann and Pons, S. Jones, and A. De Ninno experiments and then looked for neutrons with a very good detector in a lab deep underground so cosmic-ray neutrons are rare. I will take the liberty to reproduce the abstract: "No evidence of neutron emission was observed following deuterium loading into palladium and titanium in both electrochemical and pressurization experiments. Upper limits obtained with a detector having a very clean neutron signature are at least 100 times lower than values reported in recent publications giving evidence of cold fusion. The deduced fusion rate limits were lower than 2X10^-26 per second per pair of deuterons." It's time for S. Jones to drop his claims for having detected neutrons unless he is going to provide some new evidence in support of his original result. Dick Blue cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Beckman / Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Originally-From: beckmann@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Beckman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion and Waste treatment Date: 3 Aug 90 21:31:57 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder > A far more promising alternative is the synthetic rock proposed >by Prof Ted Ringwood and his team at the Australian National University. That >involves the manufacture of minerals that mimic naturally occurring rocks >which have demonstrably coped with known levels of radiation on geological >timescales with known degrees of breakdown. Of course, the synthetic versions >will have to cope with different radionucleide mixes than the naturally >occurring ones, but that the radiation profiles won't differ greatly, and the >different chemical/crystallographic effects of the small amounts of >radioisotopes involved should be accurately predictable. > A similar method, using synthetic basalt with calcined wastes incorporated in it, has been demonstrated by INEL (Idaho National Engineering Lab), and has been ready for about 10 years. The basalt has been tested in nature as fireproof, waterproof, earthquakeproof and decomposition-proof for the last 100 million years. However, this is simply a publicity stunt to appease the panic makers under the mistaken assumption that they are rational and genuinely interested in safety. That such extreme measures are quite unnecessary follows from a comparison with coal ash (never mind highly toxic chemical wastes!). After 500 years, nuclear wastes are less toxic than the coal ash produced from the same delivered electricty. (The toxicity is measured by the volume of water necessary to dilute the toxin to drinking water standards.) There are many other such points -- but what's the use? Those who WANTED to understand have understood long ago. Petr Beckmann cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbeckmann cudlnBeckman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Charles Poirier / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 3 Aug 90 20:48:20 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. In article <197@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >I once asked Steve Jones (of BYU) if the muons in the upper >atmosphere could be used to source muonic fusion up there---he >said no; again the density is far too low. How low is that? If you could put a big focusing magnet up there, you might be able to concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume of deuterium. What amount of concentration (if any) is achievable, I have no idea. But if it works for electrons in electron microscopes, why not for charged muons? Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the structure? Would it be possible to duplicate "for free" (without injecting energy, a la particle accelerators) the conditions that generate upper- atmospheric muons, artifically, in an orbiting structure, and to focus them onto a deuterium target? Are the upper-atmospheric muons a cosmic-ray byproduct, or what? Just curious, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.03 / Barry Merriman / Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: 3 Aug 90 20:08:22 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <9008031013.AA26072@danpost.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >** An interview by Greenberg with the legendary (i.e. mythical) Grant Swinger, >published in The Grant Swinger Papers, 2nd Ed. Science & Government Rept, >6226 Northwest Station, Washington DC 20015: 1990, $8.95. Cold fusion gets a >good mention here. Swinger is impressed with the way money has been obtained >but notes that others do the same thing. E.g. tokamak fusion gets $4E08/a >and - just like cold fusion, but now for 30 years (!) - has not shown a >thing. Well, I don't think this is very accurate. Tokamak researchers have made much progress in understanding their machines over the last 25 years, and achieved pretty good parameters (with _verifiable measurements_). Also, there is substantial theory guiding and reinforcing their work, again unlike CF. To say they have a flimsy base and have shown nothing is ridiculous. Barry Merriman PS I would like to see better ideas than the Tokamak, but at the moment, its definitely the best developed and most practical reactor design. PSS Current planning is for Tokamak research to continue another 50 years before commercialization. That would make it a product with a 80 year development period---must be some kind of record! (Not to mention about 20 billion dollars in development costs!) cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.04 / Barry Merriman / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 4 Aug 90 02:37:57 GMT Organization: UCLA Department of Math In article <1990Aug3.204820.23652@dg-rtp.dg.com> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com () writes: >In article <197@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >the [muon in the upper atmosphere] density is far too low [for muonic fusion] > >How low is that? If you could put a big focusing magnet up there, you might >be able to concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume If you want to take this route, I think you'll need _large_ concentrations. If we have a device of inlet area A containing the target deuterium gas, and if the density of muons is n, and they have velocity near c (speed of light), and if each muon captured engages in 600 fusions (optimistic) we get the total power output of our device is P = (no./sec of muons into device)x(no. of fusions per muon)x(energy per fuse) = n x c x A x 600 x 10 MeV => power per unit area P/A = n (in m^-3) 10^-7 Watts Assuming we want a power flux comparable to that of solar power, 1000 W/m^2, we need a density of n = 10^10 muons/m^3 But, since they are generated by cosmic rays, which have a density of about 10^6/m^3, the muon density comparable and we probably need to concentrate the muons by a facor of at least 10^4 in density. This implies a collecting area for the concentrator that is thousands of meters on a side on a side. The only conceivable way to have a magnet on that scale is to use the earth's existing magnetic field, and perhaps excite additional waves in it, to trap and channel muons to the magnetic poles. This would allow for the concentration factors needed, maybe. (But its alot of work just to get 1000 W/m^2 ! And the earths standard field is too weak to trap muons, so some excitations would be needed.) >Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large >focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the >structure? You couldn't focus the muons---they aren't created that far up. They are created in the ionosphere by incoming cosmic rays. So, all you could hope to do is focus the cosmic rays. But this is difficult---their gyration radius in a magnetic field of strength B (in tesla) is about r = mc/qB = 1 meter/ B/tesla. This needs to be kept small to focus them. Thus you would need tesla strength magnets, on a scale of miles, in orbit. Sort of like putting the superconducting supercollider in orbit---not likely! >energy, a la particle accelerators) the conditions that generate upper- >atmospheric muons, artifically, in an orbiting structure, and to focus them >onto a deuterium target? Are the upper-atmospheric muons a cosmic-ray >byproduct, or what? Yes, they are a cosmic ray byproduct, and it takes energies in the GeV range to make them. No point in doing it in the upper atmosphere if were gonna make them ourselves. Without a good muon source, muon catalyzed fusion isn't feasible. The muons created in the upper atmosphere just don't provide enough, so we will have to make them ourselves. Only particle accelerators can reach the energy needed to creat muons, and even large accelerators like SLAC and CERN can't give us the muon densities we need for a powerplant. Conversely, the prospect of having to build a large particle accelerator at every muonic powerplant is not encouraging (except to particle physicists!), and makes this of limited use for space based power. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Patrick Swoboda / Fusion power for space applications Originally-From: swoboda@pawl.rpi.edu (Patrick M Swoboda) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion power for space applications Date: 6 Aug 90 12:46:33 GMT Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY I need some reference material on using fusion power for space applications. Any books or articles on the subject would be helpful. Thanx Patrick Swoboda cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenswoboda cudfnPatrick cudlnSwoboda cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / Charles Poirier / Re: Solar flares, neutrons Originally-From: poirier@ellerbe.rtp.dg.com (Charles Poirier) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Solar flares, neutrons Date: 6 Aug 90 17:53:46 GMT Organization: Data General Corporation. RTP, NC. Firstly, thanks to Barry for the nice reply. In article <204@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Aug3.204820.23652@dg-rtp.dg.com> poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com () writes: >>...concentrate a large area of muon flux into a small volume > >>Of course, someone is bound to complain that you can't maintain a large >>focusing structure in the upper atmosphere for free. How about orbiting the >>structure? > >You couldn't focus the muons---they aren't created that far up. They are >created in the ionosphere by incoming cosmic rays. So, all you could hope to >do is focus the cosmic rays. But this is difficult---their gyration radius >in a magnetic field of strength B (in tesla) is about >r = mc/qB = 1 meter/ B/tesla. This needs to be kept small to focus them. >Thus you would need tesla strength magnets, on a scale of miles, >in orbit. Sort of like putting the superconducting supercollider in >orbit---not likely! Actually, what I had in mind was along the lines of orbiting a really big gas bag (thousands of meters), containing an artificial ionosphere. (Leave alone what happens when a micrometeorite hits this poor bag!) Encircle the bag with an equally big focusing coil. Is there any hope for this arrangement? Note that, being in space, the focal length wouldn't have to be very short -- in case this helps out the engineering problem. I would guess the gas in the bag would self-ionize, if ions are required for the process. I don't have any idea how big the bag would have to be -- but I imagine you could boost the cosmic-ray reaction cross section by upping the bag pressure way beyond the (very low, I think) ionospheric pressure (but still a fraction of an Atm probably). Note that for a high-orbit rig, you'd get a contribution of cosmic rays from a larger solid angle than the ionosphere gets, shielded as it is by the Earth below, and (maybe) by too-dense atmospheric fringe to the sides. Whether you could easily focus the resulting wide-angle muon flux, (or whether you can focus any of it at all), I don't know. Speaking of the 1000 W/m^2 solar radiation, though, it occurs to me that if you had a 1000-meter bag up there anyway, you could aluminize the inside of one half of it, and have a gigawatt toaster oven. Perhaps cosmic-ray muons for cold fusion are irrelevant at that point. Cheers, Charles Poirier poirier@dg-rtp.dg.com cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpoirier cudfnCharles cudlnPoirier cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.05 / Dieter Britz / RE: Crud Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: Crud Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 17:38:35 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Dick Jackson (jackson@ttidcc.tti.com) asks >.. Assuming that electrolytic c.f. is dying >(is it?), how will the topic be wrapped up? Will there be recantations by >those who announced positive results from poorly designed experiments/ >measurement procedures? Or will it just fizzle out? good question; one I've wondered about myself, hoping one day to be free of that bibliography... I don't think there will be any more recantations like Wolf's (I'll bet he's glad to get out), it'll just fizzle. Unless, of course, there really IS excess heat... found by others... >More interesting, perhaps: where is the so called fracto-fusion? another good one. The Soviets are having a cease fire in their barrage, it seems. It can't be the couple of thorough (Western) papers that found nothing? mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) asks >... I have wondered >ever since I heard the arrowroot-starch report whether strange chemistry at >the palladium surface, involving the uncontrolled deposition of "crud" from >the reaction vessel just as you describe, may be screwing up the *calorimetry* >measurements. Being a physicist, I have a vague horror of the wet chemistry >involved in these measurements; if there are any literature references to >calorimetry being messed up by such things, I don't know about them. Dieter, >can you help us out? A deposit of crud (i.e. deposited metals such as Pb, Zn, Pt etc, as measured by some workers, as well as adsorbed organic impurities in the electrolyte, always present) can either take part in some chemical reaction or act as a surface modifier. The first is not likely to affect calorimetry, as the layer is very thin; when people call it "thick", they are comparing it with a monolayer. As a surface modifier, the layer can act as an inhibitor of an electrochemical reaction. It has been suggested, for example, that some adsorbed organics will inhibit the reaction of "deposited" H- or D-atoms to form the H2 or D2 gas, and therefore aid the formation of the palladium hydride during the charging phase. I.e., when water is electrolysed, the first step is the formation of H-atoms, which can either enter the Pd, or find each other and make H2 which then joins a bubble forming. This effect is unlikely to be important after long electrolysis since by that time, I'd say the Pd is as charged up with D as it can get (at the respective current density), but it would affect the rate of charging. For the FPALH paper, this is immaterial, since they wait for steady state. At this point, the crud might raise the overpotential; in effect, crud will inhibit, in one way or another, the electrochemical reaction leading to H-atoms and a larger overvoltage is needed for a given current density. This will not affect the calorimetry, either, since FPALH measure that overvoltage and allow for it in their calculations. This leaves only exotic effects, such as dendrite formation, as mentioned by Bill, perhaps aided by the crud layer. These will not directly affect the calorimetry but may of course (as has been suggested) be the cause of that elusive hitherto unknown nuclear process causing heat but no particle emission, causing thousands of physicists to groan "no no no" in their sleep these days. On the subject of crud, there is a story known to electrochemists, that at some electroplating works, the plater once went on holidays (I am told that this a rare event in the USA), and someone else watched the vat. The platings turned out poor, even though the man had left detailed instructions. It turned out that he always sat at the side of the vat to eat his lunch (I guess you don't get time for lunch either in the USA), and threw bits of his sandwiches he didn't want into the vat. He hadn't told them about that secret ingredient. I am glad this list is back on track, actually discussing cold fusion... Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy5 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.06 / N Schraudolph / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 6 Aug 90 21:48:06 GMT BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >[...] I don't like lies, though, such as "fusion is pure, cheap energy, >no nasty radiative byproducts, etc etc". Clearly, it will not be cheap and >there will be hot waste and tritium produced along with all that lovely >energy. Not to mention the huge amounts of medium and low activity waste generated by the high turnover rate for reactor parts exposed to neutron radiation. I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot ex-reactor to get rid of... On a side note, given that the dismantling of an old reactor typically takes on the order of ten years, how do the planners intend to achieve such a high turnover without sacrificing safety? D-D fusion *may* one day put an end to all our energy problems, but D-T fusion certainly won't. >How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large >scale solar energy? Bockris has been advocating what he calls the hydrogen >economy for decades and more should be spent on that, I reckon. I couldn't agree more. Who's gonna lobby for it though? -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 nici%cs@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nici%cs@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 ...!ucsd!cs!nici cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.06 / Jim Bowery / New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Originally-From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 90 02:57:33 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway It's interesting that they didn't use any non-Li salts in their blanks to see if the Li was significant. It's also interesting that this paper, unless it is fraudulent, provides strong evidence that the anomolous heating phenomenon is highly significant and that the price of palladium is essentially unchanged. Most of the counter-criticisms on page 294 seemed reasonable with the exception the three most important references have not yet been published and the statement "Surprisingly, much of the research effort has been directed at a search for neutrons due to (He+n reaction), without first attempting to verify the production of excess enthalpy. Predictably, the search for neutrons without excess enthalpy is a fruitless one." Two things wrong with this last statement: 1) It is perfectly reasonble for researchers to search for nuclear products from what is ostensibly, a nuclear reaction especially in the absence of any theories that would explain real excess enthalpy other than nuclear. 2) The neutron search in the absence excess enthalpy is, essentially, what Jones et al claimed to have been successful doing simply because the excess enthalpy generated by a barely detectable neutron signature would be unmeasurable. Few researchers have claimed neutron production at levels that would create measurable excess enthalpy. Final comment: The silence over this paper is deafening. Hmmmmmmm...... --- Typical RESEARCH grant: $ Typical DEVELOPMENT contract: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenjim cudfnJim cudlnBowery cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / Chris Phoenix / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 00:21:54 GMT Organization: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford U. In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot >ex-reactor to get rid of... I know very little about it, but I understood that the deterioration was mainly mechanical (breaking crystal structure, or something). Couldn't you just forge a new reactor vessel from the old one and re-use it that way? How hot would it be, anyway? What level of radiation, and what half-life? Would you then have a hot reactor-vessel-forging-plant to get rid of? Not that I'm advocating D-T fusion, you understand... -- Chris Phoenix | "I've spent the last nine years structuring my cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU | life so that this couldn't happen." ...And I only kiss your shadow, I cannot see your hand, you're a stranger now unto me, lost in the dangling conversation, and the superficial sighs... cudkeys: cuddy7 cudencphoenix cudfnChris cudlnPhoenix cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / N Schraudolph / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 04:46:11 GMT cphoenix@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Phoenix) writes: >I know very little about it, but I understood that the deterioration was >mainly mechanical (breaking crystal structure, or something). Couldn't >you just forge a new reactor vessel from the old one and re-use it that way? I think that would be possible, except that then you would start out with a hot reforged vessel - ie. the longer you re-use it, the hotter it gets. But as far as I remember the main problem is simply that it takes ages to safely disassemble a hot reactor vessel. Now if you want to forge and reassemble a new one from hot material you're talking about a reactor that's inopera- tional for refurbishing most of the time, hence inefficient. >How hot would it be, anyway? What level of radiation, and what >half-life? Would you then have a hot reactor-vessel-forging-plant to >get rid of? I'd wager a "probably not" to your last question, since only the neutron radiation produced by the D-T reaction "infects" other material, making it radioactive. That secondary radiation is probably mostly beta decay. As for half-live and level, I don't remember the details. Any materials experts out there? What isotopes do you get if you bombard the average steel and concrete with neutrons? -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, C-014 nici%cs@ucsd.edu University of California, San Diego nici%cs@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093-0114 ...!ucsd!cs!nici cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenschraudo cudfnNici cudlnSchraudolph cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Originally-From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases Date: 7 Aug 90 14:25:07 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >I recall estimates that the entire reactor vessel of a D-T fusion plant >would have to be exchanged every two years because of neutron-induced >deterioration of the materials. Each exchange leaves you with a hot >ex-reactor to get rid of... Could a reference be supplied? Two years sounds 'way off. It's true that there would be a lot of neutron flux (about 3/4 of the energy output of DT fusion appears in the form of neutrons, the remainder being alphas), so you would run into neutron embrittlement of steels, activation of various materials, etc. However, fission reactor vessels endure a heavy neutrons for an order of magnitude longer, at least. One of the many challenges that has been identified by hot-fusion researchers is developing suitable low-activation materials to minimize the amount and nastiness of radioactive waste. Hot fusion isn't squeaky-clean. However, the words "a hot ex-reactor..." put people in mind of a fission plant, which is laden with hot waste, especially long- lived actinides, that wouldn't be found in a dead tokamak or inertial- confinement reactor. As for tritium, yes, it's rude stuff, but there is a substantial body of knowledge on how to handle it safely, so tritium recovery ought not be a show-stopper. --Joe Disclaimer: I would never have the chutzpah to speak for my employer on this particular subject, but I can try to find and relay information. cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.08.07 / Dr Daugherity / Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Originally-From: daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Waste disposal and flimsy bases. Date: 7 Aug 90 19:46:03 GMT Organization: Texas A&M University In article schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) writes: >BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >>How about spending a small fraction of that sort of money on large >>scale solar energy? Bockris has been advocating what he calls the hydrogen >>economy for decades and more should be spent on that, I reckon. > >I couldn't agree more. Who's gonna lobby for it though? Actually, the Center for Electrochemical Systems and Hydrogen Research at Texas A&M **IS** lobbying for research and development funds, with some success. The present Director is Professor Appleby, who I believe succeeded Prof. Bockris in that position. I understand Canada and [West] Germany plan to use hydrogen as an energy vector, e.g., from hydroelectric plants. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M--- cudkeys: cuddy7 cudendaugher cudfnDr cudlnDaugherity cudmo8 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.06 / Barry Merriman / Re: Crud Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Crud Date: 6 Sep 90 05:46:34 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, In article <3BD39F05841F218090@vms2.uni-c.dk> Dieter Britz writes: >I am glad this list is back on track, actually discussing cold fusion... with a capital ``Discuss''---since there are no firm results, discussion is about all that is possible. Even though this group was set up in the wake of FPH, I think it should ultimately focus on fusion---that is the goal after all---rather than any particular route to fusion. (Particularly ones that appear to not work!). Its true that since no one understands Cold Fusion experiments, they make a great topic for discussion (much like the weather.) But I'd rather discuss ideas that can be probed more rigorously, and don't have to invoke rewriting physics to work. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.06 / Barry Merriman / Fusion BreakEven!? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion BreakEven!? Date: 6 Sep 90 05:50:02 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, I was told by a friend that some group had achieved breakeven in their fusion reactor a couple days ago. Since I swore off the mass media, I don't hear these things. Is it true? -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.07 / John Logajan / Re: Crud Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Crud Date: 7 Sep 90 03:07:37 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >...ultimately focus on fusion rather than any particular route to fusion. >(Particularly ones that appear to not work!). Heh heh, that doesn't leave much to talk about. -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, 612-424-4888, Fax 612-424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.07 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 16:02:28 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The top item is due to Dick Blue; thanks, Dick. Once again, a most carefully done experiment without results. They didn't spit in their cells. The Govorov is interesting (despite its brevity on detail and ornate wording, driving this poor translator crazy), in that it is, I think, the first Soviet cold fusion paper that does not make propaganda for fractofusion; in fact, they disprove it, they reckon. The Russel et al, and Lewins I am not going to try to get, you just get the Chem. Abstr. note Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 7-Sep. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aberdam D, Avenier M, Bagieu G, Bouchez J, Cavaignac JF, Collot J, Durand R, Faure R, Favier J, Kajfasz E, Koang DH, Lefievre B, Lesquoy E, Pessard H, Rouault A, Senateur JP, Stutz A, Weiss F; Phys. Rev. Lett. 65 (1990) 1196. "Limits on neutron emission following deuterium absorption into palladium and titanium". ** This group has a new type of neutron detector which will detect any neutron with an energy > 1MeV and allows discrimination against Compton electron background. This was used in an underground lab, where the neutron background was a low 1.7 n/day. Both electrochemical and pressurization cold fusion experiments were done, closely following the example of FPH, Jones+ and DeNinno+. In some of the electrochemical runs, the currents were abruptly changed several times, to test for dynamical effects. Dynamical effects were also attempted with the gas absorption runs (up to 60 bars), by temperature changes between that of liquid N2 and 950 degC, both fast and slowly. In all cases, something like 1E-26n/pair/s was measured as an upper limit, or a factor of 100 below Jones et al's results. No bursts were observed. Dec-89/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Govorov BV, Gryaznov VM, Yeremin NB, Karavanov AN, Roshan NR, Tulinov AF, Tyapkin IV; Zh. Fiz. Khim. 64 (1990) 539 (in Russian). "Study of neutron emission from palladium alloy deuterides". ** Refer to FPH and Jones+, and to the fractofusion explanation of cold fusion, as given by Golubnichi et al. (Lipson et al are not mentioned). To test this, the authors used two alloys, Pd-Sm (80:20 by mass) and Pd-Ru (94:6 by mass), which suffer greatly different hydrogen embrittlements, Pd-Sm fragmenting much sooner than Pd-Ru upon absorption of hydrogen. The idea (I take it) is that there should thus be similarly different neutron emissions, if these are due to fracturing. Deuterium was absorbed as a gas (1 atm), with the metal in a U-tube immersed in a variable temperature bath, cycled between liquid N2 temperature and 500K. 12 proportional neutron counters were used, with an overall counting efficiency of 0.105 +- 0.005, together with another 3 detectors for monitoring background neutron counts. Results show clear evidence for neutron emission when the deuterated alloys were brought to 500K (but I am not clear about the units on the graph, or in the text), but no essential difference between the two alloys, so the fractofusion theory is not upheld here. Jul-89/Feb-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Russell FM; Rept. RAL-89-037, Order no. PB89-235808, 13 pp. Rutherford Appleton Lab., Sci. Eng. Res. Counc., Chilton UK; avail. NTIS. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:66596 (1990). "Supra-ballistic phonons". ** "Energetic particles moving within a solid, either from nuclear reactions or externally injected, deposit energy by inelastic scattering processes which eventually appears as thermal energy. If the transfer of energy occurs in a cryst. solid then it is possible to couple some of the energy directly to the nuclei forming the lattice by generating phonons. Here, the transfer of energy from a compd. excited nucleus to the lattice is exmnd. by introducing a virtual particle [letter] pi. By including a pi in the nuclear reaction a substantial amt. of energy can be coupled directly to the lattice. In the lattice the particle behaves as a spatially localized phonon of high energy, the so-called supra-ballistic phonon. By multiple inelastic scattering the supra-ballistic phonon eventually thermalises. The possibility of a pi removing excess energy from a compd. nucleus formed by the cold fusion of D is examd." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comments ^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lewins JD; Nucl. Eng. (Inst. Nucl. Eng.) 30 (1989) 181. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:66464 (1990). "The fusion trail goes cold". ** "A discussion with no refs on the scientific and political controversy concerning recent (Fleischmann et al, 1989, Jones et al 1989) and historical (Paueth [sic] and Peters, 1926) reports of cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy7 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.07 / / How can "experts" screw up? Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: How can "experts" screw up? Date: Fri, 7 Sep 90 23:03:55 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway About the only way "cold fusion" will come to a satisfactory end is if the experts figure what they are doing wrong. Perhaps we can help by doing a little brainstorming. When we get it all worked out, a message to Profs. P & F should wrap it all up real nice and neat. Let's start by considering how the input power is measured: Apply a constant current and measure the voltage every 5 minutes using a PC-based data acquisi- tion system. It's got to work! - at least as long as things are all well behave d. But what happens if the resistance of the cell changes due to bubbles, crud on the electrodes, changes in the electrodes, etc. Does the constant current source really maintain a constant current? Next, from the description of the data logging, the voltage is measured by some off-the-shelf multiplexed A to D converter card plugged into a PC. Does anyone know anything about this device? Is it described at length in the latest P&F paper? Now we have been told P and F know their calorimetery so how could they get in trouble making measurements on this particular system? I don't know from nothing about electrochemistry, but the one thing about this system that seems a bit tricky to me is the fact that you have a fair bit of stored energy involved in pushing the deuterons into the palladium. If the applied voltage drops a bit you presumably get some of that energy back and the energy output will rise above the energy input, momentarily, right? Does anyone know how steady the "steady-state operation" of these cells really is? We have heard stories about cells operating at or near boiling. Where does the heat of vaporization fit into the overall energy balance? Is it possible for a significant amount of very local boiling to occur right at the heat source (the palladium) that would not be detected by the thermistor which measures cell temperature? I, for one, felt from the beginning that for a series of measurements that are supposed to have extended back for 5 years or so, there have been damn few hard facts given about the experimental details. All we seem to get is some BS about fifth-order polynomial fits to cooling curves. Are there believers out there who understand how calorimetry as practiced by Pons and Fleischmann is sure to give correct results? cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.09 / Chuck Sites / Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion bibliography additions Date: 9 Sep 90 05:32:29 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky BRITZ%kemi.aau.dk@VM1.NoDak.EDU (Dieter Britz) writes: >------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Aberdam D, Avenier M, Bagieu G, Bouchez J, Cavaignac JF, Collot J, Durand R, >Faure R, Favier J, Kajfasz E, Koang DH, Lefievre B, Lesquoy E, Pessard H, >Rouault A, Senateur JP, Stutz A, Weiss F; Phys. Rev. Lett. 65 (1990) 1196. >"Limits on neutron emission following deuterium absorption into palladium and >titanium". >** This group has a new type of neutron detector which will detect any neutron >with an energy > 1MeV and allows discrimination against Compton electron >background. This was used in an underground lab, where the neutron background >was a low 1.7 n/day. Both electrochemical and pressurization cold fusion >experiments were done, closely following the example of FPH, Jones+ and >DeNinno+. In some of the electrochemical runs, the currents were abruptly >changed several times, to test for dynamical effects. Dynamical effects were >also attempted with the gas absorption runs (up to 60 bars), by temperature >changes between that of liquid N2 and 950 degC, both fast and slowly. > In all cases, something like 1E-26n/pair/s was measured as an upper limit, >or a factor of 100 below Jones et al's results. No bursts were observed. > Dec-89/Sep-90 Considering the results from some previous experiments where under dynamic situations neutron emissions are way beyond background, and are repearable upon the occurance of the stimululi, (Like the Japanese results talked about in an earlier CNF-Bio), I really wonder what these folks where trying to prove. The way I've read BLUE's posting about this paper and this summary, I already have the impression it's purpose was solely to generate a negative bias among scientist about the P&F effect and its sugjested source of energy, Cold Fusion. I think most of us have concluded that the P&F effect is probably something different and is probably not releated true fusion. (What about near-fusion? or energy transfered from the nucleus quntum mecahnically to lattic electrons.) Regardless, from what I've read, the Jones level of fusion is repeatable, and if this is the case, then either alot of experimenters have equipment that all generate the same 3 levels above background (1E-23 fusions/sec), or our background has increased 3 levels for the 2.54MeV peak. It would be interesting for these folks to repeat the same experiments above ground and compare results. Chuck Sites chuck@coplex cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.10 / Bernie Roehl / Re: New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Originally-From: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Date: 10 Sep 90 20:59:50 GMT Organization: University of Waterloo In article <0093C46949848C20.00002F5E@dcs.simpact.com> jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) writes: >without first >attempting to verify the production of excess enthalpy. Predictably, >the search for neutrons without excess enthalpy is a fruitless one." >Two things wrong with this last statement: 1) It is perfectly reasonble >for researchers to search for nuclear products from what is ostensibly, >a nuclear reaction especially in the absence of any theories that would >explain real excess enthalpy other than nuclear. I think the sentence was intended to mean "the absence of excess enthalpy implies that the experiment is not being performed correctly, so one should not be surprised that there are no neutrons". Though I am very skeptical of P&F at this point, their statement does make some sense when taken in this way. -- Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept Mail: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu OR broehl@watserv1.UWaterloo.ca BangPath: {allegra,decvax,utzoo,clyde}!watmath!watserv1!broehl Voice: (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work] cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenbroehl cudfnBernie cudlnRoehl cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.11 / rolfe petschek / Re: New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Originally-From: rpetsche@mrg.PHYS.CWRU.Edu (rolfe g petschek) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: New F&P Paper (random comment #247) Date: 11 Sep 90 13:51:35 GMT Organization: CWRU Physics Department In article <1990Sep10.205950.21407@watserv1.waterloo.edu> broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) writes: >In article <0093C46949848C20.00002F5E@dcs.simpact.com> jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) writes: >>without first >>attempting to verify the production of excess enthalpy. Predictably, >>the search for neutrons without excess enthalpy is a fruitless one." > >I think the sentence was intended to mean "the absence of excess enthalpy >implies that the experiment is not being performed correctly, so one should >not be surprised that there are no neutrons". Though I am very skeptical of >P&F at this point, their statement does make some sense when taken in this >way. > You have it exactly backwards: if there is *measureable* excess enthalpy being observed then there is viritually no need to measure nuclear observables except by seeing if the graduate student dies (or at *least* nuclear observables should be easy). If you are not seeing excess enthalpy, however, it may still be that the experiment is succeeding well enough to make for some nuclear products. If there is measureable excess enthalpy and nuclear products are not self-evident then there must be something very new going on. -- Rolfe G. Petschek Petschek@cwru.bitnet Associate Professor of Physics rgp@po.cwru.edu Case Western Reserve University (216)368-4035 Cleveland Oh 44106-2623 cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenrpetsche cudfnrolfe cudlnpetschek cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.11 / / Cold fusion myths Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion myths Date: Tue, 11 Sep 90 23:45:36 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway With the accumulating negative evidence for the production of any of the expected products of reactions involving deuterons there has been a continuing stream of suggestions of something unexpected in the way of nuclear reactions, and I suppose "near fusion" would mean a reaction in which some nucleons end up in states that we didn't know were possible. What can I say other than to repeat that nuclear physics is a mature discipline, that the D + D system has been studied in great detail under lots of different circumstances in gas and solid matrices, and that there seem to be number of conservation laws that must apply in Utah as well as the rest of the universe. If you have 2 protons and 2 neutrons in the initial state it is a safe bet you will have them somewhere in the final state and a sure thing that you have 4 baryons in the final state. If you want to get a palladium nucleus involved, that still is familiar territory for nuclear physics and it doesn't leave much wiggle room. As to the question whether the Jones level of fusion if repeatable, what is the hard evidence? Jones has published one paper in which one experiment is said to have produced neutrons. There is some doubt about the validity of that result because the detector used doesn't reject gamma rays very well and the background subtraction may not have been correct. Has Jones obtained any new results under improved experimental conditions? Has anyone else, using detectors with adequate gamma rejection and good experimental technique, published results that confirm the Jones experiment? Until one or the other of these happens I would say that it is not clear that fusion at the Jones level can be induced by electrolysis of heavy water on any combination of electrodes in a repeatable manner. Dick Blue (Insert clever quote here) BLUE@MSUNSCL cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.12 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 331 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 331 papers on cnf) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 13:44:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Found a few more; the flow continues to decrease. Obviously, FPALH has not yet affected the publications pipeline. The Balke+ is yet another thorough paper at odds with positive results, which will anger the True Believers, as will the Jow+, whose approx. 2% calorimetry accuracy is more in line with that of other calorimetry experts and in sharp contrast with the 0.1% claimed in FPALH (which noone, however, seems able to put down). Same thing for the Rice-Evans+, which proves (to me) that the gamma peak at about 2.22 MeV is an artifact. Nothing in the Oyama+ paper is new, at least not to electrochemists. Exactly the same experiment, using the quartz crystal microbalance, has been done by Cheek and O'Grady, and published in Jan-90, two months before this paper was submitted. They also disagree on facts. The Meyer-ter-Vehn and Yague items are historically interesting, especially the former, on "real" (i.e. muon) cold fusion, giving all the old references. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 12-Sep. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Balke B, Cox L, Fackler O, Mugge M, Souers PC, Tsugawa RT, White RM; Phys. Rev. C Nucl. Phys. 42 (1990) 30. "Limits on neutron emission from 'cold fusion' in metal hydrides". ** Tried to measure neutrons from pressurised gas charged Ti sponge, shavings and Pd wire, under different conditions of charging and pretreatment. Using careful multiple neutron detection, in all cases, nothing above background was detected, no temperature response. After elimination of false readings of various kinds, no neutron bursts at all were found. Also tried loading with HD and DT gas; still no neutrons. These meticulously run experiments throw considerable doubt on all previous positive experiments with gas charging, finding 2-5 orders of magnitude lower neutron emissions than these other studies (Frascati, LANL). Mar-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jow TR, Plichta E, Walker C, Slane S, Gilman S; J. Electrochem. Soc. 137 (1990) 2473. "Calorimetric studies of deuterated Pd electrodes". ** Used a twin-cell calorimeter, with both cells (control with Pd and H2O or Pt with D2O, working cell with Pd and D2O) in a large Al block. Both glass and stainless cells were tried, with the Pd in the form of wires of 1mm and 0.5 mm diameter. There was no recombination. Currents of up to 600 mA/cm**2 were applied for 2-12 weeks, and calorimetry done for several days at a time. Deuterium loadings D/Pd of between 0.65 and 0.70 were measured thermogravimetrically. Within experimental error (about 2%), no excess heat was found. Jan-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oyama N, Yamamoto N, Hatozaki O, Ohsaka T; Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. Part 2, 29 (1990) L818. "Probing absorption of deuterium into palladium cathodes during D2O electrolysis with an in situ electrochemical microbalance technique". ** The quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), is used here to weigh absorbed hydrogen isotopes in Pd, sputtered as a film (45-1000 nm) on top of a film of Cr (2 nm) and Au (300 nm) on the quartz plate. Cyclic voltammetry - i.e. cycling the applied potential forward and backward - is used, monitoring both current and QCM frequency changes, df. On Au, df (due to H-deposition) goes back to zero on the reverse scan, while on Pd, it does not, in the few minutes the scan took, indicating absorption of H into the Pd interior. A constant-current run with both normal and deuterated electrolytes showed double the df for D as for H, since D is double the weight of H. This shows these isotopes are absorbed into Pd. From df, the team calculate a loading D/Pd of about 0.58; this is less than the total current comes to, indicating some loss as, e.g., D2 bubbles. X-ray diffraction confirmed the presence of some beta-phase Pd deuteride. The results differ from those of Cheek and O'Grady, who found that df was twice that expected from the Sauerbrey equation, probably due to mechanical changes in the film due to D-loading. They used coulometry to measure the loading, and got quite reasonable numbers, implying no loss. Oyama et al promise more work on the kinetics of absorption of H into and its diffusion in Pd, and some calorimetry. Mar-90/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rice-Evans P, Evans H; Eur. J. Phys. 11 (1990) 251. "Search for neutrons from cold nuclear fusion". ** Scintillation neutron counters have poor gamma resolution, high-resolution intrinsic Ge detectors are better, and are used here. Palladium foil (2*1*0.025 cm**3) in LiNO3/D2O, 10 days electrolysis at 0.1A, followed by 56h while measuring neutrons, with 0.05A flowing. The neutrons from the reaction d+d--> (3)He + n(2.45 MeV) are expected to thermalise in the water bath to 2.224 MeV gammas; these were looked for. The results show a peak at 2.204 MeV, due to (214)Bi in the building walls, but nothing at all at 2.224 MeV. So, these precision measurements say "no" to cold fusion. Oct-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yague AR; Metal. Electr. (Spain) 54(618) (1990) 134 (in Spanish). "Cold nuclear fusion and its history". ** A run-through of the history of cold fusion, starting with Paneth and Peters, through Frank's and Sakharov's ideas of the 1940's, Alvarez's discovery of muon catalysed fusion (which got the name "cold fusion", in 1957), Rafelski and Jones's work along the same lines, a thumbnail sketch of the background to the Jones+:FPH relationship, publication problems and world-wide attempts to reproduce the phenomenon. The breadth of all this is, unfortunately, not matched by the reference list, which is skimpy, referring mostly to what appear to be Spanish popular science publications. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Meyer-ter-Vehn J; Phys. Bl. 35 (1979) 211 (in German). "Catalysed fusion processes". ** A description and historical review of hydrogen fusion catalysed by muons, heavy leptons and quarks - the latter being speculative. Frank suggested muon catalysed fusion in 1947; this was discussed again by Sakharov in 1948, and proved by Alvarez in 1958, then later taken up by Rafelsky and Jones. The author discusses various possibilities of making practical use of the process, e.g. in combination with laser fusion, etc. ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.12 / Dieter Britz / RE: How can "experts" screw up? Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: How can "experts" screw up? Date: Wed, 12 Sep 90 13:50:11 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway (I think tha's Dick Blue) >About the only way "cold fusion" will come to a satisfactory end is if the >experts figure what they are doing wrong. Perhaps we can help by doing a >little brainstorming. When we get it all worked out, a message to Profs. >P & F should wrap it all up real nice and neat. >But what happens if the resistance of the cell changes due to bubbles, crud >on the electrodes, changes in the electrodes, etc. Does the constant current >source really maintain a constant current? Next, from the description of >the data logging, the voltage is measured by some off-the-shelf multiplexed >A to D converter card plugged into a PC. Does anyone know anything about this >device? Is it described at length in the latest P&F paper? I have, some time ago, explained that variations in voltage do not matter if the current is kept constant, and FPALH use a control circuit we can rely on. In fact, the paper gives the data on current oscillations (very very low). The mean power over a given time is then that current times the mean voltage. They do state that they use Keithley Model 199 DMM multiplexers; in any case, a/d conversion is elementary these days and does not need specifying. >We have heard stories about cells operating at or near boiling. They report steady state results, and if a cell started boiling, they report conditions just before this happened. They discuss this under the heading "...bursts in enthalpy". Cells that boiled were switched off. >the one thing about this system that >seems a bit tricky to me is the fact that you have a fair bit of stored energy >involved in pushing the deuterons into the palladium. If the applied voltage >drops a bit you presumably get some of that energy back and the energy output >will rise above the energy input, momentarily, right? A good point; we know there is build-up of crud, which causes a change (at constant current) in overpotential, and undoubtedly a change in the loading gradient near the surface. So are we getting bursts of heat due to decomposition of PdD(x), as suggested by Pauling about 15 months ago? Is the steady state heat output itself due to decomposition? We don't know. What is needed is the integral of input power vs output heat, right from the start; in this way, you'd include the energy changes due to deuterium loading and could make a better calculation. This would be much harder to do; FPALH chose to give us instantaneous input vs output when some steady state is reached, where you might, as you suggest, be "paid back" for what you put in earlier. >vaporization fit into the overall energy balance? Is it possible for a >significant amount of very local boiling to occur right at the heat source >(the palladium) that would not be detected by the thermistor which measures >cell temperature? They make a good case against this. Thermal equilibrium in the radial direction takes place in < 3s, so you'd see such local effects. >All we seem to get is some >BS about fifth-order polynomial fits to cooling curves. A bit unfair. Previous criticism has focussed on their rough analysis; now that they do it properly, we can't complain about the complexity. You make some good points, Dick. Even though you "don't know from nothing about electrochemistry", as you say, maybe you should read the FPALH paper more carefully, so that you don't knock them in the wrong places. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy12 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.12 / John Travis / Morrison's Cold Fusion Notes Originally-From: jstravis@athena.mit.edu (John S. Travis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Morrison's Cold Fusion Notes Date: 12 Sep 90 15:07:20 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology I, and many others, have looked for Dr. Morrison's excellent Cold Fusion Notes. He personally respondede to my inquiry pointing out that the Notes were about 400 pages and that it was impractical for him to fulfill every request. However, he has offered to provide them to someone willing to distribute them or make them available(ie via an ftp site ?). I am looking into this myself, but am unsure of the limitations of my account. Is there anyone willing to take on this task(i imagine it is not too burdensome) or has room in an appropriate ftp site--i think an ftp site would be the best solution. John Travis 617-569-7419 jstravis@athena.mit.edu cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenjstravis cudfnJohn cudlnTravis cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.15 / sam atabaki / BOOKS FOR SALE --- COMPUTERS / ELECTRONICS Originally-From: atabaki@motcsd.csd.mot.com (sam.atabaki) Newsgroups: misc.forsale,misc.forsale.computers,na.forsale Subject: BOOKS FOR SALE --- COMPUTERS / ELECTRONICS Date: 15 Sep 90 02:11:23 GMT Organization: Motorola CSD, Cupertino CA I have the following books I want to sell. All are brand NEW and have not been used. Please send e-mail listing the books you are interested in. NOTE: the letter "s" or "h" next to the number of pages denotes soft-bound or hard-bound, respectively. NAME YEAR PAGES LIST PRICE ============================================ ==== ===== ==== ===== Computer Architecture & Communications Neil Willis 1986 272h 24.95 15 The 8086/8088 Book; R. Rector, G. Alexy 1980 530s 32 20 Hard Disk Management with MS-DOS & PC-DOS D. Gookin, A. Townsend 1987 308h 27.95 20 1-2-3 Ready to Run, 21 Business Templates (includes a floppy diskette) S. Bennett, P. Randall 1987 307s 35 20 LOTUS 1-2-3 Simplified (2nd ed.); D. Bolocan 1986 255h 21.95 14 Handbook of LAN Technology; P. Fortier 1989 551h 50 28 Programming the IBM PC BASIC; N. Graham 1984 285s 20 10 Understanding Computers & Data Processing C. Parker 1987 600s 40 20 Encyclopedia of Computer Science; A. Ralston 1978 1523h 80 30 The Handbook of Computers and Computing A. Seidman, I. Flores 1984 874h 60 30 The Illustrated Dictionary of Electronics R. Turner 1982 893h 24.95 15 Electronics Engineer's Reference Book, 5th ed. 1984 1500h 65 30 F. Mazda The Power of Turbo BASIC Programming L. Wortman 1988 280h 25.95 15 Electronic Databook; R. Graf 1983 407h 24.95 15 Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary of Electronics; J. Douglas-Young 1981 606h 40 20 Complete Guide to Reading Schematic Diagrams 1979 303s 22 10 Handbook of Advanced Troubleshooting 1983 306h 25 15 LOTUS 1-2-3, The Microsoft Reference; E. Adamis 1986 395s 24.95 15 80386 Microprocessor Hardware Ref. Manual Intel 1988 250s 25 12 80386 Microprocessor Programmer's Ref. Manual Intel 1986 460s 25 14 80387 Programmer's Reference Manual; Intel 1987 260s 25 12 80386 Assembly Language Reference Manual; Intel 1988 700s 40 25 80286 Hardware Reference Manual; Intel 1987 260s 25 12 80286/80287 Programmer's Ref. Manual; Intel 1987 450s 25 14 8086/88 & 80186/188 Hardware Ref Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 8086/88 & 80186/188 Programmer's Ref Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 iAPX 8088 Book, with 80188; Intel 1983 330s 25 10 8087 Support Library Ref. Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 ASM86 Assembly Language Ref. Manual; Intel 1985 400s 25 10 Microprocessor & Peripheral Handbook (Vol 1&2) Intel 1989 2520s 50 20 MS-DOS User's Guide By Microsoft 1984 270s 25 10 MS-DOS Programmer's Reference By Microsoft 1984 320s 30 15 Microsoft BASIC User's Guide (8 1/2 x 11) 1984 100s 18 7 Microsoft BASIC Reference Manual (8 1/2 x 11) 1984 200s 25 10 cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenatabaki cudfnsam cudlnatabaki cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.15 / sam atabaki / BOOKS FOR SALE --- COMPUTERS / ELECTRONICS Originally-From: atabaki@motcsd.csd.mot.com (sam.atabaki) Newsgroups: misc.forsale,misc.forsale.computers,na.forsale Subject: BOOKS FOR SALE --- COMPUTERS / ELECTRONICS Date: 15 Sep 90 02:11:23 GMT Organization: Motorola CSD, Cupertino CA I have the following books I want to sell. All are brand NEW and have not been used. Please send e-mail listing the books you are interested in. NOTE: the letter "s" or "h" next to the number of pages denotes soft-bound or hard-bound, respectively. NAME YEAR PAGES LIST PRICE ============================================ ==== ===== ==== ===== Computer Architecture & Communications Neil Willis 1986 272h 24.95 15 The 8086/8088 Book; R. Rector, G. Alexy 1980 530s 32 20 Hard Disk Management with MS-DOS & PC-DOS D. Gookin, A. Townsend 1987 308h 27.95 20 1-2-3 Ready to Run, 21 Business Templates (includes a floppy diskette) S. Bennett, P. Randall 1987 307s 35 20 LOTUS 1-2-3 Simplified (2nd ed.); D. Bolocan 1986 255h 21.95 14 Handbook of LAN Technology; P. Fortier 1989 551h 50 28 Programming the IBM PC BASIC; N. Graham 1984 285s 20 10 Understanding Computers & Data Processing C. Parker 1987 600s 40 20 Encyclopedia of Computer Science; A. Ralston 1978 1523h 80 30 The Handbook of Computers and Computing A. Seidman, I. Flores 1984 874h 60 30 The Illustrated Dictionary of Electronics R. Turner 1982 893h 24.95 15 Electronics Engineer's Reference Book, 5th ed. 1984 1500h 65 30 F. Mazda The Power of Turbo BASIC Programming L. Wortman 1988 280h 25.95 15 Electronic Databook; R. Graf 1983 407h 24.95 15 Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary of Electronics; J. Douglas-Young 1981 606h 40 20 Complete Guide to Reading Schematic Diagrams 1979 303s 22 10 Handbook of Advanced Troubleshooting 1983 306h 25 15 LOTUS 1-2-3, The Microsoft Reference; E. Adamis 1986 395s 24.95 15 80386 Microprocessor Hardware Ref. Manual Intel 1988 250s 25 12 80386 Microprocessor Programmer's Ref. Manual Intel 1986 460s 25 14 80387 Programmer's Reference Manual; Intel 1987 260s 25 12 80386 Assembly Language Reference Manual; Intel 1988 700s 40 25 80286 Hardware Reference Manual; Intel 1987 260s 25 12 80286/80287 Programmer's Ref. Manual; Intel 1987 450s 25 14 8086/88 & 80186/188 Hardware Ref Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 8086/88 & 80186/188 Programmer's Ref Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 iAPX 8088 Book, with 80188; Intel 1983 330s 25 10 8087 Support Library Ref. Manual; Intel 1985 200s 20 10 ASM86 Assembly Language Ref. Manual; Intel 1985 400s 25 10 Microprocessor & Peripheral Handbook (Vol 1&2) Intel 1989 2520s 50 20 MS-DOS User's Guide By Microsoft 1984 270s 25 10 MS-DOS Programmer's Reference By Microsoft 1984 320s 30 15 Microsoft BASIC User's Guide (8 1/2 x 11) 1984 100s 18 7 Microsoft BASIC Reference Manual (8 1/2 x 11) 1984 200s 25 10 cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenatabaki cudfnsam cudlnatabaki cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.13 / Preston Smith / Re: No neutrons, still more! Originally-From: Preston.Smith@f15.n233.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Preston Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: No neutrons, still more! Date: 13 Sep 90 03:15:34 GMT Organization: FidoNet node 1:233/15 - The Cloud Chamber, Urbana IL While we are reading the journals, try the recent Fusion Technology Tech Note on the cold fusion work being done in the Trombay research facility. If you wish to doubt the nuetron levels, okay, but try to argue away the incredible tritium concentrations. -- Preston Smith Internet: Preston.Smith@f15.n233.z1.FIDONET.ORG ------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenSmith cudfnPreston cudlnSmith cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.19 / Chuck Sites / Re: cold fusion myths Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: cold fusion myths Date: 19 Sep 90 02:07:12 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky BLUE%MSUNSCL.BITNET@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU writes: > > >With the accumulating negative evidence for the production of any of the >expected products of reactions involving deuterons there has been a >continuing stream of suggestions of something unexpected in the way of >nuclear reactions, and I suppose "near fusion" would mean a reaction in >which some nucleons end up in states that we didn't know were possible. No. What I was refering to was the excitation of the nucleus using something like the shell model as a means of transfer energies of of near fusion events. It seems to me entirely possible, that a collision of deterium nuclei that does not reach the threshold energy and does not breach the Coulumb barrier, still might be able to transfer energy from one nucleus to another. Normally this is kenetic by Coulumb repulsion, but then this is not a normal enviroment, nor is it a normal collision. If one takes into account electron screening in these near fusions, acting to both reduce the Coulumb barrier and absorb some of the kenetic energy from the close collisions, it's easy to say this is no textbook case. Would something like this explain the source of the excess energy seen in P&F's calorimetry? I'm hesitant to say, but it might bring the equation closer to break even. All that would be needed is some other form of energy (like a slow chemical reaction) to drive thier measurements over the edge to excess enthalpy. >What can I say other than to repeat that nuclear physics is a mature >discipline, that the D + D system has been studied in great detail under >lots of different circumstances in gas and solid matrices, and that there >seem to be number of conservation laws that must apply in Utah as well >as the rest of the universe. If you have 2 protons and 2 neutrons in the >initial state it is a safe bet you will have them somewhere in the final >state and a sure thing that you have 4 baryons in the final state. If >you want to get a palladium nucleus involved, that still is familiar >territory for nuclear physics and it doesn't leave much wiggle room. Absolutely. Notice what I described earlier. Electron screening of a near fusion reaction where electron screening cushions the kenetic repulsion of the nuclei. That sounds pretty close to to what would occur when D2 forms. However, according to P&F in thier pre-print "In spite of this high concentration (of deterium) D2 is not formed; i.e. the s-character of the electron around the nuclei is is very low and the electrons form part of the band structure of the oeverall system." A careful reading of thier original paper shows, that thier entire premise (of a fusion reaction) is based on this one claim. Consider what might occur if this claim is not true under certain conditions. As I see it, a simple reaction like PdD + D -> Pd + D2 might release enough energy to push their calorimetry past break-even. But look at what might happen in such a case. Say the Pd lattice is saturated with enough D that the reaction I described forms a small chemical chain reaction. This might explain the ignition that P&F saw. Still, the kenetics that could be introduced by such a reaction might have enough energy to induce small amounts of true fusion, considering how borderline the system is to initiating fusion. >As to the question whether the Jones level of fusion if repeatable, what >is the hard evidence? I thought it was shown that the Jones level of fusion (10E-23 fusion/sec) was explainable as fracto-fusion. Fracto-fusion ie. the fracturing of the Pd lattice causes energetic ions to move through the lattice quite rapidly there by increasing the potential for fusion, fits into the skeem I described above. If formation of D2 did occur in Pd, there would be a good chance that fracturing would occur by D2 removing electrons from lattice bonds. I looked around and found two references that obtained neutron counts close to the Jones's level. J. Roth, by ion implantation, and Coelho reached counts of 1e-24 by electrolysis. > Jones has published one paper in which one experiment >is said to have produced neutrons. There is some doubt about the validity >of that result because the detector used doesn't reject gamma rays very >well and the background subtraction may not have been correct. Has Jones >obtained any new results under improved experimental conditions? Has >anyone else, using detectors with adequate gamma rejection and good >experimental technique, published results that confirm the Jones >experiment? Until one or the other of these happens I would say that >it is not clear that fusion at the Jones level can be induced by >electrolysis of heavy water on any combination of electrodes in a >repeatable manner. Perhaps Steve Jones can answer this himself. I've seen him on the net before. Anyway when you are meassuring neutrons at this level, I agree experimental technique and well designed detectors becomes extreemly important. In fact, I feel gamma measurements across a broad spectrum (perhaps into X-ray) would be the best test of a fusion, or near fusion reaction. By studying the the energy peeks, it should be easy to discriminate background from what is actually going on with the system. >Dick Blue (Insert clever quote here) >BLUE@MSUNSCL Regards, Chuck Sites Chuck@coplex ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . \Chuck Sites uunet!coplex!chuck Copper Electronics |Cold Fusion / . . . o o o o \chuck@coplex | AT&T: 502-454-7218 Wrk: 968-8495 |as real as / o o o o O O O O O \It ain't over until the entropy reaches Max! |it gets. / O O O O O ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.25 / Patrick Faith / Re: RE: How can "experts" screw up? Originally-From: PLFaith@cup.portal.com (Patrick L Faith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: RE: How can "experts" screw up? Date: 25 Sep 90 03:39:02 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Why do the experts screw up: well seems to me we have been doing cook book physics for quite some time without any good theory ... i.e. we look at the ways of doing experiments ... etc ... but have no good way of predicting quantum effects of large particle complexes/molecules. Super conductors are another good example of this , ya some people have their pet super-conductor simplifications for calculating molecular matrix effects .... but they are ALL aproximations, and not grounded to the underlying quantum mechanic properties. Sure I know how hard it is to do the equations on large molecules ... let alone crystals ... but thats the problem. Instead of argueing the experiments we should e able to compute the probability of a fusion event in a specific crystal matrix ... of course no one can perform the calculation .. so we argue like alchemist about experimental aproaches because are theoritical basis is lacking. PLai are = our ; p.s. if someone has a program that will solve the Schrodinger equation for large molecules and crystals - please mail it to me :) cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenPLFaith cudfnPatrick cudlnFaith cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.13 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Re: Cold fusion myths Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion myths Date: 13 Sep 90 14:55:35 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA There is a theory that is consistent with what has been observed, and which doesn't invoke any really obvious impossibilities: that is Hagelstein's theory, in which the nuclear reaction is basically p+p+e- --> d+heat (occasionally, p+d+e- --> t+heat) (I might have left out a neutrino or two), with the energy from this spread out over many protons (I believe it was), so that the only thing you observe is excess heat -- no neutrons, no gammas. On the other hand, Terry Bollinger did a fairly good job of tearing this theory to pieces here. My point is, it's not necessary to invoke completely unknown nuclear reactions or unknown particles to explain what is going on in P&F; you just have to find some way of monkeying with the probabilities, as Hagelstein claimed to. -- J cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenWebb cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.17 / Steven Weller / Re: How can "experts" screw up? Originally-From: stevenw@disk.UUCP (Steven Weller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: How can "experts" screw up? Date: 17 Sep 90 14:28:49 GMT Organization: Digital Information Systems of Ky (DISK), Louisville, Ky How can experts screw up ? An ex is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure. -- : Phone: (502) 425 9560 << Steven Weller >> Fax: (502) 426 3944 : : Windsor Systems, 2407 Lime Kiln Lane, Louisville, KY, 40222 USA : : "A substance almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea" : : stevenw@disk.UUCP or uunet!ukma!corpane!disk!stevenw : cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenstevenw cudfnSteven cudlnWeller cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.27 / tiq@fennel.cc. / Fusion Conference - misc results Originally-From: tiq@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion Conference - misc results Date: 27 Sep 90 12:56:45 GMT Organization: University of Western Australia Well, if anyone is still interested, there is a nice review of the 1st Annual Cold Fusion Conference in the journal Platinum Metals Review, volume 34, pages 136-141 (1990). The article is by D.T Thompson (from Johnson and Matthey) who also presented a paper at the conference. A lot of the stuff in it has already been mentioned in reviews by James White and Douglas Morrison in s.p.f but there are one or two additional things that are sort of interesting. Apparently, J&M have now analysed a number of cathodes from Pons' lab including ones that work and a couple of 'duds'. Some of the heat producing ones had altered internal morphology. eg one rod showed apparent recrystallisation of a portion of its length - something which would require a temperature of > 300 C. This effect apparently couldn't be reproduced by mechanical action (sawing or filing) or by electrolysis in light water using virgin rods. Also, they have preliminary time-of-flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) data that shows that the 6Li:7Li isotopic ratio at the electrode surface of one rod was 4% whereas in the original LiOD it was 11%. Someone else - Appleby I think - has also looked for changes in the 7Li:6Li ratio in heat producing rods but found no change (sigh). Anyway, SIMS seems to be the ideal way to check for "hitherto unknown nuclear processes" that supposedly don't produce neutrons, gammas or tritium. Just measure the isotopic ratio of all the components (Li, Pd and impurities) before and after excess heat production - if there's no change, whatever's happening isn't nuclear. -------------------------------- Todd Green (tiq@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au) cudkeys: cuddy27 cudentiq cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.27 / Vincent Cate / Morrison's notes available for FTP Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Morrison's notes available for FTP Date: 27 Sep 90 18:23:12 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I have set up a FTP directory for Morrison's notes. I do not yet have all of them but you can get copies of what I have. They can be anonymous FTPed from sam.cs.cmu.edu out of the directory /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison. You must "cd" to either this directory or the one above since all others on the path are not available to anonymous people. So you can type: ftp sam.cs.cmu.edu anonymous anonymous cd /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison prompt mget * quit to get copies of all of the notes I have so far. If you are interested in any of the old papers I have, get a copy of the README file in the "ftp" directory. Morrison: > Dear Reader, 17 September 1990. > Here are copies of the Notes and Updates on Cold Fusion >that I have distributed to my Colleagues of the E632 and WA84 experiments. >Have been requested to make the complete set more widely available and >so have sent them to Vincent Cate who has kindly agreed to arrange their >distribution. Have been advised that for copyright reasons, I should add >a Copyright sign, however anyone can make a copy for themselves and may >use short excerpts as they wish with the normal references. > Best Wishes, > Douglas R. O. Morrison. I will post again when I have copies of all of Morrison's notes. - Vince PS Sam's internet number is 128.2.254.181 cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.26 / Patrick Smith / 18 month anniversary Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: 18 month anniversary Date: 26 Sep 90 15:40:44 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah Although a few local TV and radio stations mentioned the work of the mechanical engineer at the University of Hawaii (Bruce Liebert et al), the 18 month anniversary of the "Announcement" passed almost unnoticed - except for the following article. Actually, it's been dead quiet here for quite some time. Last March, Pons declared that they would have a demonstration device ready by the beginning of June, but still no sign of that. Note especially the mention, in this article, of 20 percent excess heat. Referring to the recent paper published by Fleischmann et al, a July 7 article stated: The data includes reports of heat "bursts" that were up to 20 times the electrical energy put into the cells, but Dr. Will noted that no such bursts have been seen by Drs. Pons and Fleischmann or anyone else for nearly a year. "Nobody in the world has found any heat burst that have even come close to that." Drs. Pons and Fleischmann said earlier this year that they were still getting heat in the area of three times (300 percent) the energy put in in the "matrix" experiments, but Dr. Will said it was more in the area of 20 percent. Apparently, Fleischmann et al are themselves unable to replicate the "heat bursts" reported by them 18 months ago. So much for "optimization". I'm inclined to wonder at this point if their foot dragging on getting the scientific review committee together is because they have nothing to demonstrate (except old data). Are they stalling, hoping that they will somehow regain the "old magic" before the review takes place? Also, even though Dr. Will tries to be optimistic, note the comments made by him near the end of the article. Certainly there's bitterness, but perhaps a hint of resignation as well. -Patrick Smith ************************************************************************* IT'S BEEN 18 MONTHS -- WHERE IS U. COLD FUSION GOING? by Tim Fitzpatrick; S. L. Tribune; Sunday - September 23, 1990 It is now 18 months after the University of Utah brought forth cold fusion. The nuclear science community remains entrenched against it. Research funding in this country is virtually non-existent. The U's National Cold Fusion Institute is awaiting a complete review to determine whether its work has any scientific merit. And the Institute's director is carrying on the university's tradition of brimming with optimism. "The quality of the work we are doing is such that we will have no trouble at all passing with flying colors," Fritz Will said of the upcoming review. "We will emerge as a stronger organization with enhanced reputation." Dr. Will points to the handful of experimenters worldwide who continue to report varying quantities of nuclear products and a mysterious "excess heat" emerging from cold-fusion type experiments. "The signs obtained here and elsewhere in the world are ever more positive, and becoming stronger every month." And the University recently filed another patent application related to cold fusion research, the 10th so far. Dr. Will said he could not comment on it for legal reasons. The upcoming review was prompted by disenfranchised U. College of Science faculty who had watched their intitution's reputation take a beating in the wake of the March 23, 1989, announcement that two chemists had produced nuclear fusion in a "simple, tabletop experiment." The final straw was the revelation in June that U. President Chase N. Peterson had allowed the quiet transfer of $500,000 to cold fusion research. The two chemists, B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, have become much more reclusive since those heady early days of press conferences and Capitol Hill appearances, but they continue to pursue their work. Dr. Will still considers that work to be among the most important done at the university. Their earlier measurements have been roundly criticized, and their work over [the] past year has yet to be published. Still, Dr. Will said independent verification of their data by another institute scientist has buoyed his confidence. The review was originally scheduled to be completed by September 1, but getting commitments from suitable experts has pushed it back. Dr. Will said he hopes the yet-to-be-named review panel will visit the institute by the end of October. The state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council, appointed by Gov. Norm Bangerter to oversee the state's $5 million commitment to cold fusion, has not met since June because it was awaiting the review, but council chairman Raymond L. Hixson said this week that the delays have changed that. "It's dragging on so long in terms of getting those reviewers together that I thought I better get the council together to hear from the university," he said. He is shooting for around October 10, but no date has been set. A complete financial audit was also part of the review, and Utah State Auditor Tom L. Allen said the audit would be available in a couple of weeks. He said it does contain some "recommendations for improvement," but he declined to elaborate before its release. Regardless of [the] review's outcome, the institute faces extinction if more money cannot be found. The $5 million granted by the Utah State Legislature will run out at the end of the current fiscal year June 30, 1991. A $170,000 grant from the Electric Power Research Institute has been held up pending the review, as has all fund raising, Dr. Will said. "We are not even making an attempt to get that money loose from EPRI, nor are we trying to go out there and attempt to get that funding." As for federal funding sources, Dr. Will sees a conspiracy. "The government agencies have been put under so much pressure from the big forces in the American Physical Society. The Office of Naval Research will not make any money available for cold fusion this year, likewise the DOE has a very restricted budget." That leaves corporate sources, which have been equally reticent. Dr. Will spent 30 years as a scientist for General Electric before joining the institute, and GE was at one time considered a likely financial supporter. But relations between the university and the company "went sour" last fall, and GE has not shown much interest since. He said the small amounts of excess heat energy claimed, calculated at around 20 percent excess, have not impressed GE scientists. "Twenty percent is simply no longer good enough," he said. "It was exciting in the first few months, but it is simply not good enough now." *************************************************************************** cudkeys: cuddy26 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.29 / c Administrator / Where is the news going ? Originally-From: root@cass.ma02.bull.com (cass System Administrator) Newsgroups: world Subject: Where is the news going ? Date: 29 Sep 90 12:10:15 GMT Organization: Bull HN, USIS/ISPT - Advanced Technologies for Business Systems. Where does the news go once bounces from our machine ? cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenroot cudfncass cudlnAdministrator cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / John McCauley / Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 3 Oct 90 16:53:36 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey [Some of you may have heard press reports about reaching breakeven conditions on Princeton's Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor, TFTR. Here are some more details summarized from a PPPL (Princeton Plasma Physics Lab) news report. For even more details, see Dale Meade's paper in the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) conference proceedings. I haven't seen it yet.] Dr. Meade will report [at the IAEA meeting] that TFTR has produced a world-record plasma temperature of 400 million degrees centigrade. In other experiments TFTR produced 50,000 W of fusion power from deuterium-deuterium reactions - also a world's record...... Dr. Meade will further report that the Q-values measured in recent TFTR plasmas can be projected to Q = 0.5 - 0.7 in deuterium-tritium plasmas. This is within the accepted breakeven range of Q = 0.5 - 1.0. The Q value is the ratio of fusion-power output to heating-power input. Breakeven is achieved when the power required to heat the plasma is equal to the fusion power obtained from the plasma. Scott cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / Ethan Vishniac / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 3 Oct 90 19:02:06 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas In article <3053@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: > > Dr. Meade will further report that the Q-values measured in recent TFTR > plasmas can be projected to Q = 0.5 - 0.7 in deuterium-tritium plasmas. This > is within the accepted breakeven range of Q = 0.5 - 1.0. The Q value > is the ratio of fusion-power output to heating-power input. Breakeven > is achieved when the power required to heat the plasma is equal to the > fusion power obtained from the plasma. I assume that the definition of fusion-power output here does not include the sorts of efficiency factors that would be involved in a real functioning fusion plant. What would such factors be like? 10%? 1%? Less? I know that some engineering work has been done on this so a crude (and probably optimistic) answer must be available. -- I'm not afraid of dying Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas I just don't want to be {charm,ut-sally,emx,noao}!utastro!ethan there when it happens. (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU - Woody Allen (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenethan cudfnEthan cudlnVishniac cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / Les Earnest / Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Date: 3 Oct 90 19:48:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By JOSEPH NEFF, Associated Press Writer NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Physicists at Princeton University say they have developed a fusion reactor capable of producing as much energy as it consumes, a step that brings them closer to harnessing the energy of the H-bomb. Scientists said Tuesday the breakthrough allows them to move ahead with developing fusion as an alternative to coal and nuclear power. But they cautioned that the project, which has spanned 15 years and cost $1 billion, faces several major hurdles - including determining how to extract the energy from the reactor - and could be decades away from commercial use. Scientists said their Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor at Princeton can reach the break-even point. ''It's step one, the first real threshold you have to get across to get an engineering device whose ultimate objective is to produce much more energy than you put in,'' said Robert Sachs, a physics professor at the University of Chicago. The researchers, at the Princeton Plasma Physics Research Laboratory, have combined atoms of a heavy form of hydrogen called deuterium to form helium and energy. The next step, which researchers hope to achieve in 1993, would use a mixture of deuterium and a radioactive form of hydrogen called tritium to generate large amounts of energy in the Tokamak reactor. Dennis Manos, principal research physicist at the Princeton labs, said that with modifications, the reactor will be capable of generating 10 million watts of power a day. Manos said the Joint European TORUS laboratory in England is working on a similar form of energy and is observing many of the same findings as their Princeton counterparts. The process used at Princeton has nothing to do with the so-called ''cold fusion'' claimed by scientists at the University of Utah last year, Manos said. The Utah scientists said they had produced energy from fusion at low temperature with simple apparatus, possibly opening the way to an almost limitless supply of cheap energy. But other scientists generally have rejected their claims. Fusion, which powers the sun and the stars, creates energy by combining, or fusing, two hydrogen atoms into a heavier helium atom. By contrast, fission, which powers conventional nuclear plants, releases energy by splitting atoms. The hydrogen bomb uses fusion to cause mass destruction. Proponents say fusion eliminates the danger of reactor meltdowns, produces less radioactive waste than current nuclear plants do, and is produced from a readily available source - hydrogen. ''It is a potentially safer technology, but it has a long way to go when you compare it with existing commercial fission technology,'' Manos said. Manos described the Tokamak as a doughnut-shaped fireplace lit by blowtorches. Deuterium is heated to the point where atoms break into plasma, a mixture of free electrons and free nuclei. Scientists then bombard the plasma with a high-tech blowtorch - radio waves and high-energy particle beams. Tokamak has attained 50,000 watts and a world record temperature of 400 million degrees Centigrade with the deuterium mixture, Manos said. The next step, which is scheduled for 1993, is to see if a deuterium-tritium mixture will burn in Tokamak. Manos compared it to developing a way to ignite a wet log in a fireplace. After that, the trick will be to set up a controlled-fusion reaction that will keep going without prodding by the particle beam. ''You take the blowtorch away from the wet log and see if the log still burns,'' Manos said, adding such a step is at least a decade away. The Soviet Union, the United States, Japan and the European Economic Community hope to develop a test reactor sometime after the year 2000, he said. Manos and Sachs cautioned that even if a test reactor is built researchers will still have to find a way to get at the power. ''How to extract the energy from the reactor in a useful way is an engineering question no one has yet answered,'' Sachs said. AP-NY-10-03-90 0656EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / Ethan Vishniac / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 3 Oct 90 20:55:14 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas I wrote: > I assume that the definition of fusion-power output here does not > include the sorts of efficiency factors that would be involved in > a real functioning fusion plant. What would such factors be > like? 10%? 1%? Less? I know that some engineering work has been > done on this so a crude (and probably optimistic) answer must be > available. I just opened up this week's Science to find a review by H.P. Furth which claims that a `Q' of about 30 will be necessary to build a functioning power plant. By comparison, the Princeton group is reporting a Q of slightly less than 1 (extrapolating to a D-T mixture). -- I'm not afraid of dying Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas I just don't want to be {charm,ut-sally,emx,noao}!utastro!ethan there when it happens. (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU - Woody Allen (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenethan cudfnEthan cudlnVishniac cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / John McCauley / efficiency of tokamak fusion Originally-From: jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Originally-From: jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: efficiency factors for tokamaks Subject: efficiency of tokamak fusion Date: 3 Oct 90 20:20:47 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Originally-From: jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: efficiency of tokamak fusion References: Sender: jsm@phoenix.princeton.edu Followup-To: Distribution: world Organization: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey Keywords: In article <37861@ut-emx.uucp> ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes: > >I assume that the definition of fusion-power output here does not >include the sorts of efficiency factors that would be involved in >a real functioning fusion plant. What would such factors be >like? 10%? 1%? Less? I know that some engineering work has been >done on this so a crude (and probably optimistic) answer must be >available. Look at Chapter 1 of "Plasma Physics for Nuclear Fusion" by Miyamoto, MIT Press, 1976. (Also have heard of (not seen) "Tokamaks" by John Wesson, Clarendon Press, 1987.) [If you want more details, just track down the references at the end of each chapter]. A thermal-to-electric energy efficiency of about 1/3 is assumed for the Lawson criterion. This involves lithium-6 blankets to absorb neutrons. Quite similar technology is in liquid breeders. Dale Meade probably also quoted a projected Lawson product for recent TFTR discharges, I don't have that number. I think that the Q = 0.5 to 1.0 number is the ratio of fusion-heat-energy-out to fusion-heating-energy-in projected to DT fuel from DD fuel. Of course, with a heat source of 300 million K and a heat sink of 300 K, some schemes might be more than 90% efficient. Scott cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / John McCauley / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 3 Oct 90 22:02:11 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory In article <37869@ut-emx.uucp> ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes: >I wrote: >> I assume that the definition of fusion-power output here does not >> include the sorts of efficiency factors that would be involved in >> a real functioning fusion plant. What would such factors be >> like? 10%? 1%? Less? I know that some engineering work has been >> done on this so a crude (and probably optimistic) answer must be >> available. > >I just opened up this week's Science to find a review by H.P. Furth >which claims that a `Q' of about 30 will be necessary to build a >functioning power plant. By comparison, the Princeton group is >reporting a Q of slightly less than 1 (extrapolating to a D-T mixture). > Yup, that's right. Of course, Furth heads the Princeton group (PPPL). Meade is head of TFTR, PPPL's big machine. (Read: Furth is Meade's boss). TFTR was designed to achieve only the 'break even' region -- easier to build things in $300 million steps rather than plunk down $4 billion on an engineering prototype that might not work. (Ask someone what happened to MFTF B, LLNL's mirror that was mothballed the day it was dedicated after $600 million in construction cost.) The US Fusion program's next machine, the Compact Ignition Torus (CIT) is designed to achieve the ignition region, from Q > 10 to Q = inf. (Q = inf simply means that the plasma can sustain itself on its own heat and does not require external energy, i.e. ignition). The Lawson criterion for ignition I think is less than one order of magnitude greater than the Lawson breakeven criterion. (So build a machine three times the size of TFTR and you might be there.) Of course, to get the 50 kJ of fusion energy from TFTR requires 30+ MW of heating or almost 2 GJ of raw electricity. If DT were used, the numbers would be 20 MJ and 2 GJ. The plasma heating on TFTR is cheap but inefficient. Scott P.S. Of course, you can always line your Tokamak with U-238. Yuk! cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.03 / Barry Merriman / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 3 Oct 90 19:39:35 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <3053@idunno.Princeton.EDU> jsm@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: >Dr. Meade will report [at the IAEA meeting] that TFTR has produced a >world-record plasma temperature of 400 million degrees centigrade. In >other experiments TFTR produced 50,000 W of fusion power from >deuterium-deuterium reactions - also a world's record...... > >Dr. Meade will further report that the Q-values measured in recent TFTR >plasmas can be projected to Q = 0.5 - 0.7 in deuterium-tritium plasmas. This Any idea how these numbers compare to those from the last IAEA meeting (2 years ago)? I'm curious as to their rate of improvement over the past couple years. Also, I suspect JET will make a similar announcement. I've heard they get extrapolated Q of 0.8 or so. Finally, any word on how much longer TFTR will be in operation? I've heard people suggest that it will be shut down in the next few years, because it is expensive to operate and is not really producing any new results anymore. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.04 / c Administrator / cancel <1990Sep29.121015.27562@cass> Originally-From: root@cass (cass System Administrator) Newsgroups: world Subject: cancel <1990Sep29.121015.27562@cass> Date: 4 Oct 90 11:35:31 GMT Organization: Bull HN, USIS/ISPT - Advanced Technologies for Business Systems. This article was probably generated by a buggy news reader. cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenroot cudfncass cudlnAdministrator cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.04 / Paul Koloc / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 4 Oct 90 07:41:20 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <621@lyman.pppl.gov> jsm@lyman.UUCP (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: >In article <37869@ut-emx.uucp> ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes: >>I wrote: >>> I assume that the definition of fusion-power output here does not >>> include the sorts of efficiency factors that would be involved in >>> a real functioning fusion plant. What would such factors be >>> like? 10%? 1%? Less? I know that some engineering work has been >>> done on this so a crude (and probably optimistic) answer must be >>> available. >> >>I just opened up this week's Science to find a review by H.P. Furth >>which claims that a `Q' of about 30 will be necessary to build a >>functioning power plant. By comparison, the Princeton group is >>reporting a Q of slightly less than 1 (extrapolating to a D-T mixture). I'll check this out tomorrow. With the beams on and using fuel pellet injection with a laser assisted heating pulse, this "50,000w" may have been a very localized event. That's localized in space AND time. If it was milliseconds then at 50000 watts that's getting down to the gasesous energy output of a cow during a single tail lift. Also the extrapolation leaves much to be desired since these people STILL do not have the transport correct. If it was a localized heating pulse and density driven, the extrapolation could be non-linear and for engineering reality --this is just about useless. Don't get me wrong, these are vital strategies to keep fusion alive. Unfortunately the bad mouthing of Cold fusion in public has come back to to haunt the mag community. Seems fusion cold or hot is fusion and what's good and what's bad sort of end up blended into soiled white. Now is not the time to be sporting dirty linen "toga in pleadings before Congress". >TFTR was designed to achieve only the 'break even' region -- easier >to build things in $300 million steps rather than plunk down $4 billion >on an engineering prototype that might not work. (Ask someone what >happened to MFTF B, LLNL's mirror that was mothballed the day it was >dedicated after $600 million in construction cost.) Hmmm? Fusion Program salvation time.. Harold?? The TFTR is to burn DT in '93 about 10 years after it was first scheduled to do so. Why not before this?? When the machine contains a DT plasma most of the plasma particles will never achieve a fusionable collision, but a few will. These are particles from the high velocity wing of the thermal distribution function, so that a relative numerical plethora of DT fusion counts will take place. Since half of those produce fast neutrons which will transmute surrounding structural and wall materials to radio isotopes, the machine will become a biological radiation hazard fairly quickly. That means it will be an non-operating plasma experimental device. As a experimental plasma devices tokamaks did serve well. The down side is that they won't be able to put a DT tokamak into the Smithsonian as an example of the general level of bureaucratic intelligence for the future generations to marvel at.. sort of like Piltdown man. We find in this example, an application that requires the need for optimized high plasma pressure. Yet the tokamak gives us of Inverse pressure leverage.. >5 atm plasma pressure verses our input of ~1000 atmospheres peak applied toroidal field pressure (rounded CIT numbers). >The US Fusion program's next machine, the Compact Ignition Torus (CIT) >is designed to achieve the ignition region, from Q > 10 to Q = inf. >(Q = inf simply means that the plasma can sustain itself on its own heat >and does not require external energy, i.e. ignition). CIT is in BIG, BIG trouble and only has a fifty/fifty chance of surviving. > (So build a machine three times the size of TFTR and you might be there.) The field energy storage of the toroidal field coils is already of order gigajoules. That is roughly equivalent to a two thousand pound WWII Bomb (the block buster). The big push now is for ITER (sounds like "eat 'er") and it (like congress) is trying to please everybody and line a few pockets. It will be a large/compact torus of pulsed/ continuous operation. How they can do that efficiently in one machine has everyone in disbelief! However, the cost is only 5 gigabucks, (so far) -- before the middlemen come in and double it for their cut. That means, that we could build it here in the USA, -- Texas say and call it SSC or perhaps son of S&L. Shucks, that kind of money don't mean nawthin down chere. Sorry Austin, jest kickin' dust. I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm I'm calm +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.04 / Fraering Philip / Re: Ball Lightning Originally-From: dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Ball Lightning Date: 4 Oct 90 22:28:53 GMT Organization: Univ. of Southwestern LA, Lafayette In article <1990Oct3.194928.2458@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: PD>You can get ball lightning papers published. As proof, just look at PD>"Quantitative analysis for ball lightning", Zue-Heng Zheng, Phys. Lett. PD>A, vol. 148, no. 8,9, pp. 463-469, 9/3/90. Physics Letters is not a PD>fringe journal. Thank you very much! I wish I had found out about this earlier when I posted a non-inclusive summary of BL theories... PD>Zheng's model, by the way, is quite interesting. It makes specific PD>predictions about the lifespan and dimensions of lightning balls that PD>seem to be in accord with the data. The model is that a lightning PD>ball is a spherical shell of weakly ionized air which acts as a PD>resonant cavity for a standing electromagnetic wave. The wave pushes PD>electrons and ions to nulls in the field by the ponderomotive force. PD>This maintains the inside of the shell free of plasma (but not of PD>neutral atoms and molecules). Ohmic dissipation in the shell PD>maintains the plasma. For 10 cm radiation, the ohmic dissipation PD>needed to sustain the ball in air at sea level is calculated to be PD>about 50 W; a ball lasting 30 seconds must store 1500 W of energy. PD>According to this model, ball lightning would be easier to form PD>in gases with lower ionization energies; for example, in metal vapors. BTW, I've changed the follow-up line to include sci.physics and sci.physics.fusion; I figured that that ought to be more appropriate... Also, BTW, Paul Koloc's theory seems to fit observation as well, and also predicts a relationship between the probability of BL generation by a given discharge and the alignment of the discharge with an external magnetic field. At least, it explainss the dearth of sightings here when I was looking for some... (the major source of BL locally was point-of-impact generated balls). Anyone who knows more than me (the other 4,999,999,999 people on the planet) want to comment? Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu cudkeys: cuddy4 cudendlbres10 cudfnFraering cudlnPhilip cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.05 / F Seeger / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: seeger@thedon.cis.ufl.edu (F. L. Charles Seeger III) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 5 Oct 90 08:12:31 GMT Organization: UF CIS Dept In article <621@lyman.pppl.gov> jsm@lyman.UUCP (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: | |Yup, that's right. Of course, Furth heads the Princeton group (PPPL). Meade |is head of TFTR, PPPL's big machine. (Read: Furth is Meade's boss). So, Scott, I've been disconnected from the fusion community for about seven years. What's up with Furth's brainchild, the Heliac (previously called the Sloth Stellarator)? And how has TFTR done with respect to disruptions? TIA, Chuck -- Charles Seeger E301 CSE Building Office: +1 904 392 1508 CIS Department University of Florida Fax: +1 904 392 1220 seeger@ufl.edu Gainesville, FL 32611-2024 cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenseeger cudfnF cudlnSeeger cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.04 / rose@sunset.se / Lattice effects on radioactivity Originally-From: rose@sunset.sedd.trw.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Lattice effects on radioactivity Date: 4 Oct 90 18:48:03 GMT Several months back there was a posting (in s.p.f) regarding the effect on radio-nuclies being in a solid (e.g. in a crystalline lattice). There was some mention of actual tests being performed with radioactive isotopes being inserted into a crystal and then testing the half-life/activity level. Does anyone have either the original posting and responses or information regarding this effect/tests. Thanks in advance Marc Rose cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenrose cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.05 / Paul Koloc / Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent Fusion results from Princeton Date: 5 Oct 90 16:01:42 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Oct4.074120.4332@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>In article <37869@ut-emx.uucp> ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) writes: >>>I just opened up this week's Science to find a review by H.P. Furth >>>which claims that a `Q' of about 30 will be necessary to build a >>>functioning power plant. By comparison, the Princeton group is >>>reporting a Q of slightly less than 1 (extrapolating to a D-T mixture). I wrote: >I'll check this out tomorrow. With the beams on and using fuel pellet >injection with a laser assisted heating pulse, this "50,000w" may have >been a very localized event. That's localized in space AND time. If >it was milliseconds then at 50000 watts that's getting down to the >gasesous energy output of a cow during a single tail lift. Also the >extrapolation leaves much to be desired since these people STILL do not >have the transport correct. .. . The maximum extrapolated achieved Q was 0.3 but they reported it in a press release as "in the range of [1] breakeven for an equivalent DT conditions". I suppose that 0.3 is in the range of 1.0 if it's getting close to funding time. If their extrapolation was optimistic then it can be forgiven, since the upgrade DT burn would include enhanced beam gun heating power. Of course, that's not the 30 needed for commercial break even. Just think what thirty would do to the walls in terms of radiation damage to its vacuum integrity characteristics. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.10 / Vincent Cate / Morrison notes available for FTPing Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Morrison notes available for FTPing Date: 10 Oct 90 17:42:21 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I now have all of the Morrison notes. They can be anonymous FTPed from sam.cs.cmu.edu out of the directory /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison. You must "cd" to either this directory or the one above since all others on the path are not available to anonymous people. So you can type: ftp sam.cs.cmu.edu anonymous anonymous cd /afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison binary prompt mget * quit to get copies of all of the notes I have so far. They are compressed ".Z" files so you use "uncompress" or "zcat" to read them. If you are interested in any of the old papers I have, get a copy of the README file in the "ftp" directory. Morrison: > Dear Reader, 17 September 1990. > Here are copies of the Notes and Updates on Cold Fusion >that I have distributed to my Colleagues of the E632 and WA84 experiments. >Have been requested to make the complete set more widely available and >so have sent them to Vincent Cate who has kindly agreed to arrange their >distribution. Have been advised that for copyright reasons, I should add >a Copyright sign, however anyone can make a copy for themselves and may >use short excerpts as they wish with the normal references. > Best Wishes, > Douglas R. O. Morrison. - Vince PS Sam's internet number is 128.2.254.181 cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.11 / Loren Petrich / Whatever Happened to Cold Fusion? Originally-From: loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Whatever Happened to Cold Fusion? Date: 11 Oct 90 10:27:28 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory I wonder whatever happened to cold fusion? All the excitement seems to have died down. Is that because its advocates have had little to show for themselves? SERIOUSLY. I know I may be starting a Flame War, but I think that this is one issue that must be addressed. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: loren@sunlight.llnl.gov Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try: loren%sunlight.llnl.gov@star.stanford.edu cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenloren cudfnLoren cudlnPetrich cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.11 / Scott Whitmore / Commercial fusion power Originally-From: uriel@oak.circa.ufl.edu (Scott Whitmore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Commercial fusion power Date: 11 Oct 90 18:45:06 GMT Organization: University of Florida CIRCA VAX Cluster What kind of numbers are likely to be involved in future fusion power plants? (MW-thermal? MW-electric?) Or is it too early to tell...? ========================================================================== Scott Whitmore | Me? Represent the University of Florida? Ha! uriel@maple.circa.ufl.edu | "Believe the unbelievable; 24-510 Tolbert Hall | Come be a fool as well." University of Florida | -- Michael Card Gainesville,FL 32612 | "God's Own Fool" ========================================================================== cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenuriel cudfnScott cudlnWhitmore cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.12 / Charles Brabec / Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Originally-From: brabec@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Charles Brabec) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Date: 12 Oct 90 17:43:07 GMT Organization: Princeton University In article <1990Oct12.152423.13517@watserv1.waterloo.edu> broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) writes: >In article LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: >>[From Associated Press] >> Dennis Manos, principal research physicist at the Princeton labs, >>said that with modifications, the reactor will be capable of >>generating 10 million watts of power a day. > ^^^^^ ^^^^^ > >Excuse me? > >-- I'd like to elaborate on that announcement based on the talk around the Princeton Grad. School. A day or two after the announcement came out, we were treated to a tour of the facilites, and got a more accurate explaination of the results. First, The "break-even" point is accepted as not necessarily 1-to-1 but actually anything in the 0.5-to-1 to 1-to-1 range is called "break even." Second, I'm not to clear on this, so if someone knows better, please correct me. I gather the 0.7-to-1 that they claim is an efficiency projection based on their experiments. They did the experiment, then projected their efficiency based on such things as perfectly efficient techniques, etc. (I.e. no energy loss to such "real life" things as entropy, etc.) The experiment is also done with duterium and efficiency projected to tritium results. (Although I gather the tritium experiment is their next step). The bottom line is: they actually, experimentally show a result which is much, much (1000 times or more) worse than 1-to-1. Basically, its a step in the right direction, but don't be mislead by hyped-up claims. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Charles J. Brabec -- "I know now that there's one thing you've all -- -- Graduate Student (Slave) -- overlooked: intelligence and education that -- -- Applied Math / Physics -- hasn't been tempered by human affection isn't -- -- Princeton University -- worth a damn." -- -- brabec@acm.princeton.edu -- -Daniel Keyes, _Flowers_for_Algernon_ -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- All opinions expressed are entirely my own. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenbrabec cudfnCharles cudlnBrabec cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.12 / Bernie Roehl / Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Originally-From: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Date: 12 Oct 90 15:24:23 GMT Organization: University of Waterloo In article LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: >[From Associated Press] > Dennis Manos, principal research physicist at the Princeton labs, >said that with modifications, the reactor will be capable of >generating 10 million watts of power a day. ^^^^^ ^^^^^ Excuse me? -- Bernie Roehl, University of Waterloo Electrical Engineering Dept Mail: broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu OR broehl@watserv1.UWaterloo.ca BangPath: {allegra,decvax,utzoo,clyde}!watmath!watserv1!broehl Voice: (519) 885-1211 x 2607 [work] cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenbroehl cudfnBernie cudlnRoehl cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.13 / Todd Courtois / Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: tcourtoi@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Todd Courtois) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 13 Oct 90 15:51:28 GMT Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711 I have developed a *completely* different idea for carrying out low-temperature fusion. I will be starting some simple experiments soon to prove that it will work..but in the meantime I would like to take some initial steps toward protecting my patent rights. Do the experienced lab scientists or patent-knowledgable folk out there have any suggestions? Yes, I do keep a notebook of these ideas and sign and date it. I have also heard it's advisable to have someone "witness" the notebook and sign it... however, I'm doing all of this on my own and I can't think of anyone around me who would be 1) able to understand my ideas 2) trustworthy. Let me know. ----------------------------------------------------- tcourtoi@jarthur.claremont.edu ccourtois@hmcvax.claremont.edu "We could be naked without belief" cudkeys: cuddy13 cudentcourtoi cudfnTodd cudlnCourtois cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.13 / A Annala / Re: Cute! Originally-From: annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) Newsgroups: sci.physics.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom,sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cute! Date: 13 Oct 90 22:35:56 GMT Organization: USC Neuroscience Program, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520 In article <2976@marob.masa.com> betz@marob.masa.com (Tom Betz) writes: >Wonder who forged this one? Forgery or not it could be an interesting topic. For example, anyone in netland have an officially declassified copy of UCRL-4725 (Weapons Testing During June 1956) and/or UCRL-5280 (Weapons Testing During June 1958). If they have been officially declassified it would be very nice to see a copy. These are the numbers of two documents which were apparently declassified by the government, released to depository libraries, and subsequently our government (e.g. FBI/CIA) tried to steal back all of the public copies. Perhaps someone would care to venture a guess about what Stanislaw Ulam (Adventures of a Mathematician, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976, pp. 219-220) meant when he described the crucial design concept which he developed (absent Ed Teller) to make the super project possible: "Perhaps the change came with a proposal I contributed. I thought of a way to modify the whole approach by injecting a repetition of certain arrangements... I thought of an iterative scheme." Could this be some kind of recursive reaction wherein the neutrons from the first stage fission device set off fast fissions in a U-238 wrapper around the second stage fusion device, thus causing shock compression and heating of the Li6-D ==> T-D core of the second stage. When fusion begins in the second stage, additional neutrons are liberated causing additional fast fissions in the U-238 wrapper. A recusive process of fusion liberating neutrons which cause fast fissions in a U-238 jacket which then causes additional shock compression and heating of the T-D core. Of course, if you strip away most of the U-238 wrapper, then a lot more neutrons escape from the device and it disassembles rapidly. Ultimately, peeling away the U-238 wrapper produces a device capable of illuminating a target with massive amounts of radiation and little blast. Another tell tale passage (John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy, New York:Farrar, Straus & Giroux, pp. 158-159) describes how to make a nuclear shaped charge capable of cutting a hole ten feet in diameter a thousand feet into solid rock. The essence of his concept is that one can use a V shaped mass of U-238 illuminated by neutrons from a one kiloton fission device to create an equivalent of a chemical shaped charge with nucleau energy. This basic concept combined with the Ulam proposal speaks volumes about a workable device design. In any case, I'd be curious about what other people think of foolishness like the Howard Morland November 1979 (orig) and December 1979 (errata) Progressive Magazine "exploding styrofoam" conceptual design. Moreland suggests (without adequately considering the coupling of neutrons from the first stage fusion device to the U-238 wrapper of the second device and the subsequent coupling of the neutrons from the second stage fusion device to the U-238 wrapper) that styrofoam with voids containing some volative material (e.g. isopentane) couple soft xrays from the first stage fission device to shock compression and heating of the second stage fusion device. This appears to be the strangest piece of disinformation put into the public domain in many years. Even serious books on history of the super project now quote this specious design as actual fact. Was styrofoan even invented at the time of the "mike" blast? Or more to the point, at the time of the design analysis by Stanislaw Ulam? The really terrifying thing about these thermonuclear device designs is that by implication (from the new ICF fusion power plant target design published papers -- particularly from Sandia labs and Winterberg) it is becoming all too possible to develop thermonuclear devices which can be triggered without any "special nuclear" materials. These first neutrons in these devices would be liberated by T-D fusion driven from chemical explosive energy source. The lack of public debate (arising from a lack of public knowledge of general design concepts -- which are substantially different from detailed design information needed to construct an acutal device) has led us to a situation where we have grown complacent about the possibility (or perceived impossibility) of uncontrolled proliferation of thermonuclear devices. The bottom line is that we are now subject to the risk that a terrorist nation state could devote sufficient effort to the development of such devices that they could become a reality in the all too volatile situation of the world today. cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenannala cudfnA cudlnAnnala cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.14 / q liu / Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Originally-From: qpliu@phoenix.princeton.edu (q.p.liu) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Princeton Scientists Report Fusion Reactor Can Break Even Date: 14 Oct 90 18:51:18 GMT Organization: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory In article <1990Oct12.152423.13517@watserv1.waterloo.edu> broehl@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Bernie Roehl) writes: >In article LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: >>[From Associated Press] >> Dennis Manos, principal research physicist at the Princeton labs, >>said that with modifications, the reactor will be capable of >>generating 10 million watts of power a day. > ^^^^^ ^^^^^ > >Excuse me? It looks like a prediction for a fusion reactor capable of a meltdown. :) (A trick to fool inews) cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenqpliu cudfnq cudlnliu cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.15 / M Kucherawy / Inertially Contained Fusion ? Originally-From: mskucherawy@trillium.waterloo.edu (Murray S. Kucherawy) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Inertially Contained Fusion ? Date: 15 Oct 90 17:06:54 GMT Organization: University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada I'm looking for any published information about inertially cooled fusion for someone in my residence who has no access to Usenet. Have any papers been published on the topic, that are available via FTP or archive servers? Is this group archived anywhere? Please reply by e-mail, as I am not subscribed to this newsgroup. ============================== Murray S. Kucherawy ========================== University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 2A Math (Comp Sci/Comb. & Opt.) Internet: mskucherawy@.UWaterloo.ca UUCP: uunet!watmath!mskucherawy ::= { watmath | dahlia | trillium | orchid } cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenmskucherawy cudfnMurray cudlnKucherawy cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.15 / Jeff Bonwick / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: bonwick@cathy.Eng.Sun.COM (Jeff Bonwick) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 15 Oct 90 23:56:27 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article <9095@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> tcourtoi@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Todd Courtois) writes: > > >I have developed a *completely* different idea for carrying >out low-temperature fusion. I will be starting some simple >experiments soon to prove that it will work..but in the >meantime I would like to take some initial steps toward >protecting my patent rights. > >Do the experienced lab scientists or patent-knowledgable folk >out there have any suggestions? Yes, I do keep a notebook >of these ideas and sign and date it. I have also heard it's >advisable to have someone "witness" the notebook and sign it... >however, I'm doing all of this on my own and I can't think >of anyone around me who would be 1) able to understand >my ideas 2) trustworthy. May I humbly suggest that you focus on getting the thing to work first? Jeez, I hope P&F didn't set some kind of precedent... cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenbonwick cudfnJeff cudlnBonwick cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.14 / John Logajan / Protecting your inventions Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Protecting your inventions Date: 14 Oct 90 01:01:12 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation Someone asked how to protect their idea rights while they are still working on them (such as keeping log books etc.) In the US you can send a Disclosure Document to the US Patent Office. A Disclosure Document is anything you want to say or diagram about your invention/research. Of course, the more specific you are, the better. The Patent Office will retain your Disclosure Document for two years from the date they receive it. It will be held in confidence. If you make improvements or corrections you merely send in updated Disclosure Documents. Don't forget to supply name/addrress etc on your documents -- and SIGN and DATE them. Send to: Commissioner of Patents; US Patent Office, Washington DC 20231. -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, 612-424-4888, Fax 612-424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.17 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 344 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 344 papers on cnf) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 14:47:18 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Just to break the plasma fusion dominance, here are some more cold fusion items I've found. Nothing very exciting but -. Celani+ appear to me to think that fracto-something is not a nuclear reaction, I could be wrong. Christman points out from experience the fact that D2O has widely varying tritium contamination, which others have warned about. The Chubbs outline The Chubb Theory, and dream of large-scale cold fusion reactors (Chubb-Chubb Reactors?). The Ewing+ team reiterates another oft-repeated warning: if you want to detect neutrons and not artefacts, you must use multiple detectors. Harith+ want to help with coulombic screening by getting more electrons in between the reluctant deuterons; Pd has, after all, 46 in all, so why don't they all get out there and help? Still, 46 is a crowd, and the d's might get shy. Leakeas invokes the Hulthen potential (a new one on me) for tunnelling. Pons and Fleischmann defend their original paper, it's not as bad as everyone says, they say. Ritley+ think that the overall cell resistance might exaggerate the effects of small voltage or current fluctuations; they seem to assume that cold fusionists control either current or voltage, and don't monitor the respective other, which is mostly not so. Your calorimetry would be rather weak if you didn't. Sona+ have two positive results: in one they find T but no n; in the other they find n but no T. Bad luck. Some people will not call these results positive, you just can't please some people. The long-heralded Storms + Talcott paper has hit the public. It has been widely sneak-previewed as one of the solid bits of evidence of tritium production. They sample untold numbers of electrolyte aliquots, a heroic series. In some of these, they found tritium. As has been discussed on this net, if tritium is produced inside the Pd, it is expected to come out rather slowly. There is, however, one theory that does put tritium directly into the electrolyte: Bockris' surface dendrite theory, where sharp points facilitate fusion. S&T do not, however, say anything about the mechanism, they just take samples from the electrolyte and give the results. The tritium levels found are not very high. There seems to be a lot of contamination, shown by the fact that they use 2000-year-old well water as a low-level standard; this has a tritium background (after 2000 years?) of 19 counts/min, against the "normal" background of 140. This suggests to me that their labs are contaminated - although I know nothing about what "normal" is, normally. Their best cells go up to about 3 times this background. One is allowed to wonder whether Los Alamos is the best place for measuring low levels of tritium... While Harith+ offer crowds of electrons for screening, Van der Merwe offers pairs of muons - if one muon can do a good job, would not two do it even better? The answer is yes, they would. No clue here, though, how you can get them to do it. I owe to Todd Green the tip-off about the Braun papers. Braun is the editor of the J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. and has been following the cnf scene closely. He kindly sent me all of them, including the elusive no. 1. No. 7 is on the way. These papers are tables of cold fusion papers that Braun has read, with some annotations. They seem to be covered already in this list, but I'll have to check carefully for non-overlap, when I get the time. My Korean is weak :) so I can't do better than to quote the abstract of the Cho paper, which probably will interest theorists trying to explain (or explain away) cold fusion by quantum mechanics. There is apparently some interest in cluster beam impact fusion, a la Friedlander et al; however, I've decided to more or less drop it from the list, since it is not cold fusion. Some of the early attempts at cold fusion were done by shooting beams of D+ at the target metal, in order to deuterate it, and this is OK, but these people quickly found out about self targeting. The word cold fusion implies fusion without brute force, and a high speed cluster of D2O(n)+ or D(n)+ hitting PdDx at high energy sounds like brute force to me. I'm not saying it's not interesting, just that it isn't cold fusion. Any objections? Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 16-Oct. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celani F, Spallone A, Pace S, Polichetti B, Saggese A, Liberatori L, Di Stefano V, Marini P; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 718. "Further measurements on electrolytic cold fusion with D2O and palladium at Gran Sasso Laboratory". ** Electrolysis experiments with Pd were performed in the low-background underground lab, measuring gamma and neutron radiation. The diagram shows that two (3)He detectors, two NaI detectors and a plastic scintillator were used. It appears that the electrolyte was 0.1M LiOH in heavy water. Electrolysis current density was 60 mA/cm**2, at hyperpure, vacuum-annealed Pd. There were some definite gamma events on all detectors, calculating out as up to 1E-19 fusions/pair/s. These gamma events were unaccompanied by neutron events, so the authors conclude that an aneutronic process is taking place. They also state that it was not possible to exclude fractoemission effects. Future work is planned. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christman DR; C&EN September 17 (1990) 78. "Cold fusion". ** The author is a retired chemist, and recounts his experience, of "many years ago" at Brookhaven National Labs, working with heavy water. At one point he was asked to analyse D2O for tritium. The range of T content in about 30 different D2O samples varied by three orders of magnitudes. Christman suggests strongly that tritium in D2O used in cold fusion experiments be checked before each experiment, before drawing conclusions. ?/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chubb TA, Chubb SR; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 710. "Bloch-symmmetric fusion in PdD(x)". ** The Chubbs have an unpublished theory which as yet has not been confirmed or accepted by others. This theory says that at high loading like x = 1, a BBC (Bose Bloch condensate) may form, allowing one or both of the reactions d+d-->(4)He or d+d-->(8)Be--> 2 alpha + 47.6 MeV, which could account for a lot. The authors speculate about future commercial solid state fusion reactors. They plan a demonstration experiment using gas discharge. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ewing RI, Butler MA, Ginley DS, Schirber JE; IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 37 (1990) 1165. "A sensitive multi-detector neutron counter used to monitor 'cold fusion' experiments in an underground laboratory: negative results and positive artifacts". ** The team has reported their results in two other papers, and here describes the neutron detector used. It consisted of three independent detectors, each one comprising 11 gas proportional counters; thermal neutrons were detected via the (3)He (n,p) reaction. The laboratory was situated underground in a low-background environment, down by a factor of 700 below that at the surface. A total of 339 counting hours produced the same number of counts as a control. There was a single coincidence peak (counts on all three), but this was statistically not significant. There were a number of false signals from single detectors, not shared by the others. These artifacts, which have a number of causes, might confuse a cold fusion experimenter using a single detector. From the measured neutron flux, an upper limit of 66 neutrons per hour can be inferred. ?/Jun-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harith MA, Palleschi V, Salvetti A, Salvetti G, Singh DP, Vaselli M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 704. "Theoretical and experimentel studies on the cold nuclear fusion phenomena". ** Start with screening theory, and calculate cold fusion rates somewhat higher than from classical models. Furthermore, the authors suggest that the palladium offers a potential 46 electrons for screening, and it would be of interest to know how many can take part. Other theories have assumed the helium atom affinity in Pd or Ti is independent of the degree of deuteration but this needs to be examined experimentally, the authors say. An experiment is then described, using D2 pressure charging of Pd and a differential calorimeter. This publication goes as far as to establish one potential artifact in such measurement, and calculate a heat of hydrogen absorption in Pd at 20 bars pressure, of (9.37+/-0.05) kcal/mol, somewhat at variance with some published values. A future paper will report results of the full experiment. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leakeas CL; Report AL-TR-89-053, Astronaut Lab., Edwards AFB, CA (USA). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:121885 (1990). "Tunnelling effects on low energy fusion cross sections". ** "Recently, the claim of discovery of cold fusion among the isotopes of H in a metal lattice has raised many questions as to the cross sections of some fusion reactions at low energies. The quantum phenomena [sic] of tunnelling and its effects on the fusion process were investigated. Attention is paid to penetrabilities in the Hulthen potential, which gives a reasonably accurate approxn. of the potential inside the metal lattice. Cross section data are given for the DD, DT, and pD reactions. Graphs are given showing the fusion cross section crossover point between the DD and DT reactions and the increased penetrabilities due to enhance [sic] tunnelling effects". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pons S, Fleischmann M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 669. "Calorimetric measurements of the palladium/deuterium system: fact and fiction". ** A defense of their paper FPH-89, in the form of more details. Some of this overlaps with their second paper, FPALH-90. The points made here include (1) a low-cost calorimeter is required for experiments which must be run for an average of 3 months; (2) recombination of D2 with O2 gas did not occur, as these gases were never in contact with the Pd electrode; (3) appreciable stray currents did not flow since >99% Faradaic efficiency was measured; (4) the cell acts as an extremely well-stirred system in the thermal sense; (5) there were in fact blank experiments reported in FPH-89 (they cite the Pd plate at low current and state that the best blank is a deuterated Pd electrode with no excess heat), and here they report many more blanks; (6) that, apart from long term, steady state excess heats, there were much larger bursts, with factors up to 40 relative to the input heat; and that (7) the integrated long-term heat shows an excess far greater than can be explained by any conceivable chemical process. Mar-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ritley KA, Dull PM, Weber MH, Carroll M, Hurst JJ, Lynn KG; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 699. "The behavior of electrochemical cell resistance: a possible application to cold fusion experiments". ** Some experiments show that the overall "cell resistance", i.e. that calculated from cell voltage and current in an electrochemical cold fusion cell, changes with temperature and current. The authors suggest that therefore, one must monitor both voltage and current in order to correctly account for joule heating of the cell. If there are temperature excursions in such a cell, these could, for example, come from a voltage or current fluctuation. There may also be changes in electrolyte concentration with time, and these must be accounted for. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sona PG, Parmigiani F, Barberis F, Battaglia A, Berti R, Buzzanca G, Capelli A, Capra D, Ferrari M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 713. "Preliminary tests on tritium and neutrons in cold nuclear fusion within palladium cathodes". ** Did 12 experiments with electrolytic D-loading of Pd, and two of them showed positive results: one cell produced tritium without neutrons, the other neutrons without tritium, both at significant levels. The conditions that seem to be necessary are solution preelectrolysis, long wait at zero current prior to electrolysis, and care in avoiding CO2 contamination. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Storms E, Talcott C; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 680. "Electrolytic tritium production". ** 53 electrolytic cells were run, electrolysing heavy water containing LiOD, at Pd electrodes; the electrolyte was sampled at intervals for tritium for each cell. Some of the cells appeared to produce tritium up to about twice that originally present, while others did not. Reverse electrolysis (Pd as anode) after charging revealed no extra tritium, so none was produced within the Pd. Surface pretreatment of the Pd electrodes with paraffin vapour and H2S, followed by cathodic cleaning, appeared to improve the results, assumed to be a poisoning effect aiding deuteration of Pd in competition with gas formation. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Van der Merwe PdT; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 696. "Enhanced fusion induced by affiliated muons". ** Highly theoretical paper, looking at the possibility and the consequence of muon pairs cooperating in assisting d-t fusion. The rough result is that a pair of muons leads to about 10 times the fusion rate for d-t, d-t and p-d fusions. The paper gives little indication of why the muons should associate, being repelled from each other, beyond the statement that in the hydride crystal lattice, something might push them together. Nov-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 136(3) (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 1". ** A short collection of publications relevant to cold fusion, news of which had just broken. The FPH and Jones+ papers and some newspaper reports are listed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 137 (1989) 407. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 2". ** Braun lists more cnf papers he has read, and provides a rough but useful classification, ticking off heat, neutrons, gamma rays, tritium, theory and hypotheses/comments, as applicable. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 161. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 3". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 323. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 4". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 5". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 245. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 6". ** More papers on cold fusion. Braun comments that the situation is quiet. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picasso LE; Acc. Inoss. 56 (1989) 5 (in Italian). "Fusione: Fredda o calda?" (Fusion: Cold or hot?) ** General comment, summarising orthodox fusion approaches such as plasma fusion with magnetic or inertial confinement, muon catalysed fusion, and the surprising unorthodox chemically induced fusion. Prof. Picasso concludes with the hope that after the preliminary rush to reproduce and explain the results of Jones+ and JPH, there will now follow a period of more considered investigation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cho, Y-S; Taehan Kumsok Hakhoechi 28 (1990) 92 (in Korean). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:119420 (1990). "Low-temperature ultrasonic attenuation peak in alpha'-palladium deuteride (PdD(x))". ** "The ultrasonic attenuation of low-temp. peaks in the PdD(0.67) was studied. The peak is seen only for longitudinal waves, but not for transverse ones, and is obsd. only in the deuterides, but not in the hydrides. The low-temp. peak is correlated with relaxation phenomena due to redistribution of LO phonons by ultrasonic waves. Ultrasonic attenuation of the PdD(0.67)H(0.02) sample was measured. The low-temp. peaks of the PdD(0.67)H(0.02) and the PdD(0.67) do not show significant differences within the limit of exptl. error. Ultrasonic attenuations of the PdD(x) (x=0.64-0.72) decreased with increasing D concn.". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.17 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 333 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 333 papers on cnf) Date: Wed, 17 Oct 90 15:05:05 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway My records say that I sent this on 18-Sep, but I don't see it in the net lists, or in the archives. So either my memory misleads me, or there were some submissions lost during the foul-up. In any case, here it is again: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just to break the deathly quiet (or am I missing out on some brilliant discussions?), here are a few odd papers, two actually on cold fusion (the Lewis et al, and Vaiman et al, neither of them exciting). I will not even try to get the Russian one, as it's from a local academy (Uzbek), not the national one. Anyway, we already have lots of negative papers. In the process of chasing up other kinds of cold fusion, I have looked up the two old papers by Frank and Alvarez; the former is credited with suggesting muon catalysed fusion, the latter with experimentally verifying it. The Robinson et al paper interested me (maybe not you) because of the measurement of loading vs. depth, although here in a steel and only down to a few microns. Also, the paper confirms the action of a poison - it helps the charging, at least at these modest poison concentrations. Dieter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 18-Sep. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lewis LN, Kosky PG, Lewis N; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1990) 81. "On the search for non-electrochemical cold fusion: production of D2 off of high surface area Pd colloid". ** Yet another way to deuterate Pd: the reaction of triethyl-SiX with Na2PdCl4 in normal (if X=H) or deuterated (if X=D) methanol produces Pd colloid and X (i.e. H or D) at its surface. Thus one can expect the Pd to absorb the hydrogen/deuterium, and we have yet another cold fusion experiment. The team carried out both the control (X=H) and test (X=D) in a Dewar and emasured the rise in temperature; they were roughly the same, so no excess heat. They also monitored gamma and neutron emission with a variety of gear, and found nothing. So, they say, there is no need to worry about the possibility of high energy emission from high surface area Pd, deuterated by nonelectrochemical means, as some have warned (i.e FPH and one AH Alberts). Mar-90/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vaiman LA, Valiev AN, Ketko AYa, Kiseleva EV, Skorodumov BG, Ulanov VG, Yatsevich IO; Izv. Akad. Nauk UzSSR, Ser. Fiz.-Mat. Nauk (1989)(6) 62 (in Russian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:85842 (1990). "Observation of reactions in cold fusion during sorption or desorption of deuterium from palladium from the gas phase". ** "A possibility was considered of observing cold nuclear fusion during the absorption or desorption of D2 in Pd from the gaseous phase. Pd black was electrodeposited on a thin Pd plate. The plate was situated in vacuum in a duralumin chamber. At the chamber window, there was an Si detector (thickness 100 microns) coupled through an amplifier to an amplitude analyzer. Its purpose was to detect the energy spectrum of p from the interaction p + d --> p + (3)H [sic]. The spectrometric device was calibrated with the help of a (242)Am alpha-particle source. This made it possible to measure the spectra at 0-3 MeV. The peak of p from the above mentioned interaction was expected at about 3 MeV. The background was about 6 counts, which were distributed in 40 channels of the analyzer. The measurements were based on 10-min exposures after the application of the D2 gas into the chamber at a pressure of 1.5 atm. No differences from the background value were obsd. in 12 exposures. The 2nd expt. was aimed at a possible detection of n from the interaction d + d --> n + (3)He. In this case, the chamber was situated in the SNM-18 ring-shaped source. The processes of the Pd satn. with D2 up to highly concd. beta-phase with its subsequent desorption did not result in cold nuclear fusion" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alvarez LW, Bradner H, Crawford FS Jr, Crawford JA, Falk-Vairant P, Good ML, Gow JD, Rosenfeld AH, Solmitz F, Stevenson ML, Ticho HK, Tripp RD; Phys. Rev. 105 (1957) 1127. "Catalysis of nuclear reactions by mu-mesons". ** Out of many hydrogen bubble chamber mu-meson tracks, a few ended by starting a new track, also of a mu-meson. This is compatible with H-D fusion catalysed by the mu-meson. The energy of the resulting emitted meson is also about that of the mass difference between the H-D input and (3)He output of such a fusion reaction. A note added in proof shows how an increase in the deuterium content in the bubble chamber predictably increases the number of the events, supporting the thesis. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frank FC; Nature (London) 160 (1947) 525. "Hypothetical alternative energy sources for the 'second meson' events". ** Earlier work had shown that many of the tracks made by cosmic mesons ended by producing a secondary meson of about 4 MeV energy, in the photographic emulsions. F proposes and rejects a number of explanations of this effect; all all them in terms of a nuclear decay. But "nuclear build-up" - i.e. fusion - cannot be rejected. A meson might be captured by a proton and the pair act like a hydrogen atom but with the meson much more tightly bound, due to its great mass compared to an electron. From a distance, the atom would appear like a slow neutron and be able to closely approach other nuclei without Coulombic repulsion; e.g. protons or deuterons, and then fuse with expulsion of the meson. This is in fact an early hypothetical description of muon catalysed fusion, discovered 10 years later by Alvarez et al. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Robinson SL, Moody NR, Myers SM, Farmer JC, Greulich FA; J. Electrochem. Soc. 137 (1990) 1391. "The effects of current density and recombination poisons on electrochemical charging of deuterium into an iron-base superalloy". ** Hydrogen embrittlement is an important problem with metals such as steels. To test alloys, a favourite method is to surface-charge it electrolytically with hydrogen, preferably at constant current. In this investigation, loading profiles down to 3 microns are measured for poisoned and unpoisoned IN903 superalloy. The deuterium isotope is used to enable the profile measurement, done by nuclear reaction analysis, after removal of the specimen from the electrolyte (1N D2SO4 in D2O). In the presence of the poison (5 mg/l NaAsO2), a greater loading was achieved, due to the poison's preventing the formation of D2 gas bubbles from the adsorbed deuterium atoms formed from the primary electrochemical step. The profiles clearly showed some near-surface deuterium loss during the move from cell to the vacuum chamber where the profile was measured, but allows an inference of surface deuterium concentration during charging. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================ Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================ -- cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.17 / V User / Re: Inertially Contained Fusion ? Originally-From: pat@ritcsh.cs.rit.edu (VerticalTab User) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Inertially Contained Fusion ? Date: 17 Oct 90 21:38:58 GMT Organization: Computer Science House @ RIT, Rochester, NY In article <> mskucherawy@trillium.waterloo.edu (Murray S. Kucherawy) writes: >Have any papers been published on the topic, that are >available via FTP or archive servers? >Is this group archived anywhere? >Please reply by e-mail, as I am not subscribed to this newsgroup. Please post information on where this group is archived or 'vailable through FTP. Thanks. -- ______Pat_Fleckenstein____pat@ritcsh.csh.rit.edu___paf3580@ritvax.bitnet_______ "The most incomprehensible thing about the world, is that it is comprehensible" -Albert Einstein cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenpat cudfnVerticalTab cudlnUser cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / / Can Experts Screwup? Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Can Experts Screwup? Date: Fri, 19 Oct 90 01:14:54 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway The spirit in which I have raised the question above was to encourage some thought about the experimental methods employed by PFH and others to obtain such remarkable results. It seems to me that should proceed any rush to devise models for nuclear processes, previously unknown, to account for these results. Dieter Britz has assured use that the proper averaging of the cell voltage is taken care of, but I think the low sampling rate (12 samples per hour, as I recall) still leaves room for statistical fluctuations almost as large as some of the "effects" reported. However, I'm off on another kick just now. Let us construct the following model for the a cold fusion experimental set-up: The cell is powered by an ideal constant current source, the voltage applied to the cell is sampled at 5 min intervals, and the enthalpy production is deduced from a single temperature sensor in a simple calorimeter cell. The voltage signal is to be described by a slowly varying average with an artibrary superposition of step-function deviations from the average, i.e. changes that occur in a time span short compared to the sampling interval and the equilibration time for the cell. These variations may have amplitude comparible to the average with a single constraint that they average to zero, i.e. up steps are matched (eventually) by down steps. We add one more feature to our model, that the cell contains an energy storage device such that on an up step of the voltage the stored energy increases and on a down step some of the stored energy is released to contribute to the enthalpy production. I believe it follows that on each up step the temperature rise lags significantly and likewise there is a lag on down steps. Next ingredient in the picture is to assume that the temperature is always read at a fixed short interval after the voltage has been read by the scanner. If the voltage sample comes after an up step, the temperature will be "low" due to the time lag and the enthalpy production will be underestimated, for at least the interval to the next voltage sample. If the voltage sample comes after a down step the enthalpy production will be overestimated. The question I pose is the following: "Are these off-setting errors?" Dick Blue | a politician is an arse upon MSU/NSCL | which everyone has sat except a man They don't know | e.e. cummings I do this. | -- cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / Paul Koloc / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 19 Oct 90 02:18:16 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <143746@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> bonwick@cathy.Eng.Sun.COM (Jeff Bonwick) writes: >In article <9095@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> tcourtoi@jarthur.Claremont.EDU (Todd Courtois) writes: >> >> >>I have developed a *completely* different idea for carrying >>out low-temperature fusion. .. . >> I would like to take some initial steps toward >>protecting my patent rights. >> >May I humbly suggest that you focus on getting the thing to work first? >Jeez, I hope P&F didn't set some kind of precedent... It's difficult to get a fusion concept to work without spending a considerable fortune. However, cold fusion might be a candidate for a quite low cost "proof of principle" demonstration. A lot of minds have picked up on that and it is an area of intense interest by gifted and crackpot alike. The point made by the second poster is important, since, patents have value only if the technology in the specifications results in something of significant commercial or defense value. Now not only are patent costs rising, but governments are going broke from their various scams, which means they now have annual patent fees that are anything but trivial. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / Charlie Ih / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: ih@udel.edu (Charlie Ih) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 19 Oct 90 16:22:27 GMT Organization: University of Delaware In article <1990Oct19.021816.4900@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <143746@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> bonwick@cathy.Eng.Sun.COM (Jeff Bonwick) writes: >>> >>>I have developed a *completely* different idea for carrying >>>out low-temperature fusion. .. . > >..are patent costs rising, but governments are going broke from their >various scams, which means they now have annual patent fees that are >anything but trivial. > When I first heard about cold fusion, I was skeptical based on the physics I know. I had hoped new physics had been discovered. It is like to squeeze marbles (to fuse) together (in air) in order to get fusion started. The F&P's method is equivalent to continually squeeze the marbles into rubber or soft gelatin. Then you claim that marbles are fused together inside the gelatin. Thus unless new physics has been discovered, cold fusion is unlikely. Discover new physics is no trivial matter. I think the annual patent fees is about $1,000. If an individual has several patents and wants to keep them for 10 years, it is certainly not a small amount even it may not cover the government cost. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenih cudfnCharlie cudlnIh cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / William Johnson / "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Date: 19 Oct 90 17:26:49 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. If anyone out there is still following cold fusion ... A conference will be held next week in Salt Lake City that Steve Jones, among others, announced on the net several months ago. It has approximately the title listed above and is aimed at reports of "careful" experiments involving measurements of nuclear phenomena -- good solid background measurements, detailed descriptions of exactly what is being measured, and so on. If I remember the call for papers correctly, voodoo electrochemistry need not apply, unless it is done *very* carefully. I haven't heard any concrete information about any of the papers but ours. However, there have been rumblings from various quarters that suggest that this conference is going to be, to put it mildly, pretty negative. I'll be at a different professional meeting at the time and can't go myself, but another member of our collaboration will be there and will give a paper (basically the wrapup paper on a thoroughly negative experiment), and I will pass along his observations when we get back from our respective trips. Meanwhile, I'd love to hear reactions from any other s.p.f readers who attend, and I'd also like to hear what (if anything) the Utah media have to say about the thing. Donn, if you're still out there, any chance that you or other Utah readers can help with that? -- Bill Johnson | "A man should never be ashamed to own he Los Alamos National Laboratory | has been in the wrong, which is but saying, Los Alamos, New Mexico USA | in other words, that he is wiser to-day !cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov) | than he was yesterday." (A. Pope) cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / David Duncan / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: news@ariel.unm.edu (USENET News System) Originally-From: david@cie.uoregon.edu (David Duncan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 19 Oct 90 16:41:28 GMT Organization: University of Oregon Campus Information Exchange According to "The LASER Book" by C. L. Laurence, p17-18, the first person to come up with optical pumping, the word laser, the need for an optical resonator to make the thing work, an to envision that the laser could be used to start fusion reactions kept everything in notebooks, which he had notarized (back in 1957 - his name was Gordon Gould, grad student at Columbia) Columbia). When he tried to patent the fundemental laser concepts, he was erroneously told that he had to have a working model. In 1959, Townes and Schawlow were given the same patent that 9 monthes previous had been denied to Gould. Gould, the inventor of the laser, was out of luck. Originally-From: david@cie.uoregon.edu (David Duncan) Path: cie!david Get a patent or publish. Showing them to someone else to back up when you wrote them only gets you a ticket to fight it out in court. Are you rich? cudkeys: cuddy19 cudendavid cudfnDavid cudlnDuncan cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / John Logajan / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 19 Oct 90 21:40:24 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation david@cie.UUCP (David Duncan) writes: >When he tried to patent the fundemental laser concepts, he >was erroneously told that he had to have a working model. In 1959, Townes >and Schawlow were given the same patent that 9 monthes previous had been >denied to Gould. Gould, the inventor of the laser, was out of luck. I'm sure the net will be flooded with "updates" to this post, but just in case :-) Gould *was* victorious a couple of years ago in proving he was first. The courts have declared Gould the patent holder of right. -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, 612-424-4888, Fax 612-424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.19 / Pierre Hilaire / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 19 Oct 90 22:47:12 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA > When he tried to patent the fundemental laser concepts, he >was erroneously told that he had to have a working model. In 1959, Townes >and Schawlow were given the same patent that 9 monthes previous had been >denied to Gould. Gould, the inventor of the laser, was out of luck. >From: david@cie.uoregon.edu (David Duncan) > Gould was actually not so much out of luck. After lengthy trials he was finally awarded its patents. and since 1988 every laser manufacturer has to give a 5% royalty to his company (Patlex inc.) Given the size of today's laser market, this represents LOTS of green bills! But the issue took 20 years to resolve! And anyway, Gould was a PhD student at the time. And we all know that grad students are scum... Pierre St-Hilaire (PhD student at) MIT Media Laboratory cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenpierre cudfnPierre cudlnHilaire cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.20 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 344 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 344 papers on cnf) Date: Sat, 20 Oct 90 16:33:45 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Just to break the plasma fusion dominance, here are some more cold fusion items I've found. Nothing very exciting but -. Celani+ appear to me to think that fracto-something is not a nuclear reaction, I could be wrong. Christman points out from experience the fact that D2O has widely varying tritium contamination, which others have warned about. The Chubbs outline The Chubb Theory, and dream of large-scale cold fusion reactors (Chubb-Chubb Reactors?). The Ewing+ team reiterates another oft-repeated warning: if you want to detect neutrons and not artefacts, you must use multiple detectors. Harith+ want to help with coulombic screening by getting more electrons in between the reluctant deuterons; Pd has, after all, 46 in all, so why don't they all get out there and help? Still, 46 is a crowd, and the d's might get shy. Leakeas invokes the Hulthen potential (a new one on me) for tunnelling. Pons and Fleischmann defend their original paper, it's not as bad as everyone says, they say. Ritley+ think that the overall cell resistance might exaggerate the effects of small voltage or current fluctuations; they seem to assume that cold fusionists control either current or voltage, and don't monitor the respective other, which is mostly not so. Your calorimetry would be rather weak if you didn't. Sona+ have two positive results: in one they find T but no n; in the other they find n but no T. Bad luck. Some people will not call these results positive, you just can't please some people. The long-heralded Storms + Talcott paper has hit the public. It has been widely sneak-previewed as one of the solid bits of evidence of tritium production. They sample untold numbers of electrolyte aliquots, a heroic series. In some of these, they found tritium. As has been discussed on this net, if tritium is produced inside the Pd, it is expected to come out rather slowly. There is, however, one theory that does put tritium directly into the electrolyte: Bockris' surface dendrite theory, where sharp points facilitate fusion. S&T do not, however, say anything about the mechanism, they just take samples from the electrolyte and give the results. The tritium levels found are not very high. There seems to be a lot of contamination, shown by the fact that they use 2000-year-old well water as a low-level standard; this has a tritium background (after 2000 years?) of 19 counts/min, against the "normal" background of 140. This suggests to me that their labs are contaminated - although I know nothing about what "normal" is, normally. Their best cells go up to about 3 times this background. One is allowed to wonder whether Los Alamos is the best place for measuring low levels of tritium... While Harith+ offer crowds of electrons for screening, Van der Merwe offers pairs of muons - if one muon can do a good job, would not two do it even better? The answer is yes, they would. No clue here, though, how you can get them to do it. I owe to Todd Green the tip-off about the Braun papers. Braun is the editor of the J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. and has been following the cnf scene closely. He kindly sent me all of them, including the elusive no. 1. No. 7 is on the way. These papers are tables of cold fusion papers that Braun has read, with some annotations. They seem to be covered already in this list, but I'll have to check carefully for non-overlap, when I get the time. My Korean is weak :) so I can't do better than to quote the abstract of the Cho paper, which probably will interest theorists trying to explain (or explain away) cold fusion by quantum mechanics. There is apparently some interest in cluster beam impact fusion, a la Friedlander et al; however, I've decided to more or less drop it from the list, since it is not cold fusion. Some of the early attempts at cold fusion were done by shooting beams of D+ at the target metal, in order to deuterate it, and this is OK, but these people quickly found out about self targeting. The word cold fusion implies fusion without brute force, and a high speed cluster of D2O(n)+ or D(n)+ hitting PdDx at high energy sounds like brute force to me. I'm not saying it's not interesting, just that it isn't cold fusion. Any objections? Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 16-Oct. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Celani F, Spallone A, Pace S, Polichetti B, Saggese A, Liberatori L, Di Stefano V, Marini P; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 718. "Further measurements on electrolytic cold fusion with D2O and palladium at Gran Sasso Laboratory". ** Electrolysis experiments with Pd were performed in the low-background underground lab, measuring gamma and neutron radiation. The diagram shows that two (3)He detectors, two NaI detectors and a plastic scintillator were used. It appears that the electrolyte was 0.1M LiOH in heavy water. Electrolysis current density was 60 mA/cm**2, at hyperpure, vacuum-annealed Pd. There were some definite gamma events on all detectors, calculating out as up to 1E-19 fusions/pair/s. These gamma events were unaccompanied by neutron events, so the authors conclude that an aneutronic process is taking place. They also state that it was not possible to exclude fractoemission effects. Future work is planned. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christman DR; C&EN September 17 (1990) 78. "Cold fusion". ** The author is a retired chemist, and recounts his experience, of "many years ago" at Brookhaven National Labs, working with heavy water. At one point he was asked to analyse D2O for tritium. The range of T content in about 30 different D2O samples varied by three orders of magnitudes. Christman suggests strongly that tritium in D2O used in cold fusion experiments be checked before each experiment, before drawing conclusions. ?/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chubb TA, Chubb SR; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 710. "Bloch-symmmetric fusion in PdD(x)". ** The Chubbs have an unpublished theory which as yet has not been confirmed or accepted by others. This theory says that at high loading like x = 1, a BBC (Bose Bloch condensate) may form, allowing one or both of the reactions d+d-->(4)He or d+d-->(8)Be--> 2 alpha + 47.6 MeV, which could account for a lot. The authors speculate about future commercial solid state fusion reactors. They plan a demonstration experiment using gas discharge. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ewing RI, Butler MA, Ginley DS, Schirber JE; IEEE Trans. Nucl. Sci. 37 (1990) 1165. "A sensitive multi-detector neutron counter used to monitor 'cold fusion' experiments in an underground laboratory: negative results and positive artifacts". ** The team has reported their results in two other papers, and here describes the neutron detector used. It consisted of three independent detectors, each one comprising 11 gas proportional counters; thermal neutrons were detected via the (3)He (n,p) reaction. The laboratory was situated underground in a low-background environment, down by a factor of 700 below that at the surface. A total of 339 counting hours produced the same number of counts as a control. There was a single coincidence peak (counts on all three), but this was statistically not significant. There were a number of false signals from single detectors, not shared by the others. These artifacts, which have a number of causes, might confuse a cold fusion experimenter using a single detector. From the measured neutron flux, an upper limit of 66 neutrons per hour can be inferred. ?/Jun-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harith MA, Palleschi V, Salvetti A, Salvetti G, Singh DP, Vaselli M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 704. "Theoretical and experimentel studies on the cold nuclear fusion phenomena". ** Start with screening theory, and calculate cold fusion rates somewhat higher than from classical models. Furthermore, the authors suggest that the palladium offers a potential 46 electrons for screening, and it would be of interest to know how many can take part. Other theories have assumed the helium atom affinity in Pd or Ti is independent of the degree of deuteration but this needs to be examined experimentally, the authors say. An experiment is then described, using D2 pressure charging of Pd and a differential calorimeter. This publication goes as far as to establish one potential artifact in such measurement, and calculate a heat of hydrogen absorption in Pd at 20 bars pressure, of (9.37+/-0.05) kcal/mol, somewhat at variance with some published values. A future paper will report results of the full experiment. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leakeas CL; Report AL-TR-89-053, Astronaut Lab., Edwards AFB, CA (USA). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:121885 (1990). "Tunnelling effects on low energy fusion cross sections". ** "Recently, the claim of discovery of cold fusion among the isotopes of H in a metal lattice has raised many questions as to the cross sections of some fusion reactions at low energies. The quantum phenomena [sic] of tunnelling and its effects on the fusion process were investigated. Attention is paid to penetrabilities in the Hulthen potential, which gives a reasonably accurate approxn. of the potential inside the metal lattice. Cross section data are given for the DD, DT, and pD reactions. Graphs are given showing the fusion cross section crossover point between the DD and DT reactions and the increased penetrabilities due to enhance [sic] tunnelling effects". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pons S, Fleischmann M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 669. "Calorimetric measurements of the palladium/deuterium system: fact and fiction". ** A defense of their paper FPH-89, in the form of more details. Some of this overlaps with their second paper, FPALH-90. The points made here include (1) a low-cost calorimeter is required for experiments which must be run for an average of 3 months; (2) recombination of D2 with O2 gas did not occur, as these gases were never in contact with the Pd electrode; (3) appreciable stray currents did not flow since >99% Faradaic efficiency was measured; (4) the cell acts as an extremely well-stirred system in the thermal sense; (5) there were in fact blank experiments reported in FPH-89 (they cite the Pd plate at low current and state that the best blank is a deuterated Pd electrode with no excess heat), and here they report many more blanks; (6) that, apart from long term, steady state excess heats, there were much larger bursts, with factors up to 40 relative to the input heat; and that (7) the integrated long-term heat shows an excess far greater than can be explained by any conceivable chemical process. Mar-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ritley KA, Dull PM, Weber MH, Carroll M, Hurst JJ, Lynn KG; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 699. "The behavior of electrochemical cell resistance: a possible application to cold fusion experiments". ** Some experiments show that the overall "cell resistance", i.e. that calculated from cell voltage and current in an electrochemical cold fusion cell, changes with temperature and current. The authors suggest that therefore, one must monitor both voltage and current in order to correctly account for joule heating of the cell. If there are temperature excursions in such a cell, these could, for example, come from a voltage or current fluctuation. There may also be changes in electrolyte concentration with time, and these must be accounted for. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sona PG, Parmigiani F, Barberis F, Battaglia A, Berti R, Buzzanca G, Capelli A, Capra D, Ferrari M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 713. "Preliminary tests on tritium and neutrons in cold nuclear fusion within palladium cathodes". ** Did 12 experiments with electrolytic D-loading of Pd, and two of them showed positive results: one cell produced tritium without neutrons, the other neutrons without tritium, both at significant levels. The conditions that seem to be necessary are solution preelectrolysis, long wait at zero current prior to electrolysis, and care in avoiding CO2 contamination. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Storms E, Talcott C; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 680. "Electrolytic tritium production". ** 53 electrolytic cells were run, electrolysing heavy water containing LiOD, at Pd electrodes; the electrolyte was sampled at intervals for tritium for each cell. Some of the cells appeared to produce tritium up to about twice that originally present, while others did not. Reverse electrolysis (Pd as anode) after charging revealed no extra tritium, so none was produced within the Pd. Surface pretreatment of the Pd electrodes with paraffin vapour and H2S, followed by cathodic cleaning, appeared to improve the results, assumed to be a poisoning effect aiding deuteration of Pd in competition with gas formation. Dec-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Van der Merwe PdT; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 696. "Enhanced fusion induced by affiliated muons". ** Highly theoretical paper, looking at the possibility and the consequence of muon pairs cooperating in assisting d-t fusion. The rough result is that a pair of muons leads to about 10 times the fusion rate for d-t, d-t and p-d fusions. The paper gives little indication of why the muons should associate, being repelled from each other, beyond the statement that in the hydride crystal lattice, something might push them together. Nov-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 136(3) (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 1". ** A short collection of publications relevant to cold fusion, news of which had just broken. The FPH and Jones+ papers and some newspaper reports are listed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 137 (1989) 407. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 2". ** Braun lists more cnf papers he has read, and provides a rough but useful classification, ticking off heat, neutrons, gamma rays, tritium, theory and hypotheses/comments, as applicable. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 161. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 3". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 144 (1989) 323. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 4". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 1. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 5". ** More papers on cold fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radionucl. Chem. Lett. 145 (1989) 245. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 6". ** More papers on cold fusion. Braun comments that the situation is quiet. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Picasso LE; Acc. Inoss. 56 (1989) 5 (in Italian). "Fusione: Fredda o calda?" (Fusion: Cold or hot?) ** General comment, summarising orthodox fusion approaches such as plasma fusion with magnetic or inertial confinement, muon catalysed fusion, and the surprising unorthodox chemically induced fusion. Prof. Picasso concludes with the hope that after the preliminary rush to reproduce and explain the results of Jones+ and JPH, there will now follow a period of more considered investigation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cho, Y-S; Taehan Kumsok Hakhoechi 28 (1990) 92 (in Korean). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:119420 (1990). "Low-temperature ultrasonic attenuation peak in alpha'-palladium deuteride (PdD(x))". ** "The ultrasonic attenuation of low-temp. peaks in the PdD(0.67) was studied. The peak is seen only for longitudinal waves, but not for transverse ones, and is obsd. only in the deuterides, but not in the hydrides. The low-temp. peak is correlated with relaxation phenomena due to redistribution of LO phonons by ultrasonic waves. Ultrasonic attenuation of the PdD(0.67)H(0.02) sample was measured. The low-temp. peaks of the PdD(0.67)H(0.02) and the PdD(0.67) do not show significant differences within the limit of exptl. error. Ultrasonic attenuations of the PdD(x) (x=0.64-0.72) decreased with increasing D concn.". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.20 / Kevin Quitt / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 20 Oct 90 16:56:38 GMT Organization: DeMott Electronics Co., Van Nuys CA In article <3747@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> pierre@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Pierre St. Hilaire) writes: > >> When he tried to patent the fundemental laser concepts, he >>was erroneously told that he had to have a working model. In 1959, Townes >>and Schawlow were given the same patent that 9 monthes previous had been >>denied to Gould. Gould, the inventor of the laser, was out of luck. >>From: david@cie.uoregon.edu (David Duncan) >> > Gould was actually not so much out of luck. After lengthy >trials he was finally awarded its patents. and since 1988 every laser >manufacturer has to give a 5% royalty to his company (Patlex inc.) >Given the size of today's laser market, this represents LOTS of green >bills! But the issue took 20 years to resolve! Actually, considering the market back then and now, he's making off like a bandit. It the companies hadn't fought him, they wouldn't have had to pay very much at all in royalties. Now, however... -- _ Kevin D. Quitt demott!kdq kdq@demott.com DeMott Electronics Co. 14707 Keswick St. Van Nuys, CA 91405-1266 VOICE (818) 988-4975 FAX (818) 997-1190 MODEM (818) 997-4496 PEP last 96.37% of all statistics are made up. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenkdq cudfnKevin cudlnQuitt cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.22 / Paul Koloc / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 22 Oct 90 07:23:58 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <33994@nigel.ee.udel.edu> ih@udel.edu (Charlie Ih) writes: >I think the annual patent fees is about $1,000. If an individual >has several patents and wants to keep them for 10 years, it is >certainly not a small amount even if it may not cover the government >cost. The United States Government in the past (since the Constitution) has aggressively protected the patent systems and the protection it gives inventors. This has paid off in huge dividends. For example, the United States was one of the most outstanding in its overall ingenuity, and consequently, very sizeable taxes were collected from the excellent profits of ventures based on inventions protected under the US patent system. Recently, there has been a significant shift. Venture Capitol companies now like to fund "sure fire proven" new technology. The money now goes into funding successful "clones" of some breakout product from athletic shoes to PC's. It seems the Japanese, Siemanns etc, are now important customers of the US Patent Office. They are the ones that obtain a licence the for original technology from the US inventor and then go one to do all of the refinement and application patents. This leaves the inventor with a greatly weakened position (ends up with less money) and the US Government loses out on all of that "profit" tax and income tax that it would otherwise receive if the development and manufacture were to be done in the United States, instead of another country. To make matters worse, some Government agencies seek out foreign firms for "sales" of patent licences on inventions of the agency's workers. It's less complicated and they can avoid favoritism of one American firm over another, by selling to a foreign market. And, just think of the revenue they raised for their agency by making such a deal. Then too, what if some crumby little twerp of a genius does invent some widget of enormous value, he may find that he can't handle the new fee. Then it's tough luck -- to the inventor, -- to the tax base for the Government, and even -- to the citizens of the United States, because they probably won't be able to enjoy the benefits of the widget on a timely basis. Ted Maiman produced THE first visible LASER at Hughes Research, Malibu. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.22 / Fraering Philip / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 22 Oct 90 19:01:32 GMT Organization: Univ. of Southwestern LA, Lafayette Yes, he was victorious, after some thirty-odd years in court. cudkeys: cuddy22 cudendlbres10 cudfnFraering cudlnPhilip cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.22 / erich@inmet.in / Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Originally-From: erich@inmet.inmet.com Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Legal protection for fusion ideas Date: 22 Oct 90 21:05:00 GMT May I suggest that in addition to your protection ideas that you also make a copy of your journal periodically and give it to a law firm to be stamped and sealed in their vault. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet: erich@inmet.inmet.com UUCP: uunet!inmet!erich cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenerich cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.22 / Bob Pendleton / Recent rumors from SLC Originally-From: bpendlet@bambam.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Recent rumors from SLC Date: 22 Oct 90 14:00:12 GMT Organization: Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah A rumor reported in the SLC Tribune and on local radio stations says that Pons and Fleischman are both out of the country (USA) and that it is suspected that they don't plan to come back. Take it for what it is worth. Bob P. -- Bob Pendleton, speaking only for myself. bpendlet@dsd.es.com or decwrl!esunix!bpendlet or utah-cs!esunix!bpendlet X: Tools, not rules. cudkeys: cuddy22 cudenbpendlet cudfnBob cudlnPendleton cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.23 / Dieter Britz / To patent, or not to patent, there is no question Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: To patent, or not to patent, there is no question Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 20:24:00 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Just to add a couple of small comments to the question of Jeff Bonwick's dilemma: on no account approach a "suitable" company, hoping that they might buy the idea off you, and you get (a little bit) rich without doing a thing! There was a report recently of a poor bloke who plagued A Certain Company for a couple of decades with the idea that isotopically pure (6)C diamond would be a much better conductor of heat, i.e. better even than normal diamond. They didn't want to know, and he kept trying. Now, they have suddenly had the novel idea that isotopically pure diamond is a very good heat conductor (it turns out to be 1.5 times as good), and deny that this bloke had anything to do with it... that's shabby, but no doubt legal. Not all companies are like that. Years ago, I invented something, and wrote to the Polaroid Co. about it. They very correctly sent me back a form to sign to protect me in case it was a Good Idea, before they even looked at it. It then turned out, of course, that they had been there about 20 years before... but they did handle it in a much better way than the above Certain Company did. To be safe: patent, if you are pretty sure you have something, mate. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== -- cudkeys: cuddy23 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.23 / Dieter Britz / RE: Can experts screw up? Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: RE: Can experts screw up? Date: Tue, 23 Oct 90 20:24:39 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway (Dick Blue writes >for these results. Dieter Britz has assured use that the proper averaging >of the cell voltage is taken care of, but I think the low sampling rate >(12 samples per hour, as I recall) still leaves room for statistical >fluctuations almost as large as some of the "effects" reported. True; you are expressing the sampling theorem. Roughly, one must sample faster than any changes in the sample signal. However, in FPALH's case, this would mean a sampling rate of about 0.3/s and would give them huge data files. >temperature sensor in a simple calorimeter cell. The voltage signal is >to be described by a slowly varying average with an artibrary superposition >of step-function deviations from the average, i.e. changes that occur >in a time span short compared to the sampling interval and the equilibration >time for the cell. These variations may have amplitude comparible to the >average with a single constraint that they average to zero, i.e. up steps >are matched (eventually) by down steps. We add one more feature to our model, >that the cell contains an energy storage device such that on an up step of >the voltage the stored energy increases and on a down step some of the stored >energy is released to contribute to the enthalpy production. I believe it >follows that on each up step the temperature rise lags significantly and >likewise there is a lag on down steps. Next ingredient in the picture is >to assume that the temperature is always read at a fixed short interval after >the voltage has been read by the scanner. If the voltage sample comes >after an up step, the temperature will be "low" due to the time lag and >the enthalpy production will be underestimated, for at least the interval >to the next voltage sample. If the voltage sample comes after a down step >the enthalpy production will be overestimated. The question I pose is >the following: "Are these off-setting errors?" The way I understand your hypothesis, you are either suggesting that FPALH were so unlucky as to always sample at just the wrong moments, or else you're suggesting an energy storage process. What might this be? The only one I can think of is a variation in the deuterium loading, with overvoltage. A variation with current would be conceivable (but not proven!) but I feel that at the high loadings they already have - probably around 0.8 - there is not much scope for an energy storage mechanism due to loading variations. The sampling theorem also implies or demands that you must filter the signal with a cut-off frequency at half the sampling frequency. I don't believe they did that, so it's possible that they had voltage spikes in between the samples, which would cause heating, and would not be reflected in the sampled voltage vs. time plot. Whether this would invalidate their analysis, I don't know. Incidentally, I have noted that FPH and FPALH are careful to refrain from suggesting just what nuclear process is doing the trick; they just call it an "aneutronic, atritonic nuclear process". I had occasion to look at the title of the original FPH paper, which I had forgotten, and there it is, clear as can be: "Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium". No doubt here. I guess they have backed off a little since then. I have a couple of juicy items in the pipeline, will soon be posting an update. Among them: cold fusion without deuterium, just plain hydrogen. Don't hold your breath, though, it's not very convincing, to put it mildly. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== -- cudkeys: cuddy23 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.24 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 353 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 353 papers on cnf) Date: Wed, 24 Oct 90 17:47:27 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway A few more, folks, hot claims this week. I've caught up with some old papers at last, and found some newies. A few theoreticals; Anghaie suggests (as has been done before) the involvement of fission; Danos reckons the Pd atoms might be involved and it is this that makes the hydride special, compared with plasma fusion; Jaendel tells us it all happens in bags of confined quantum electrodynamics and this allows the aneutronic, atritonic process (this'll be FPH's bag); Kim points out that cluster impact fusion indicates that branching ratios might be different, after all, while Rabinowitz throws cold water on cluster impact fusion itself, although in another paper he finds possibilities for cold fusion anyway. Takahashi et al invoke a cascade of reactions which, again, might explain all. On the experimental side, we have the startling claim of cold fusion using light water, from T. Matsumoto; I use the word "claim" advisedly, because I fail to see evidence of gamma emissions in the spectrum shown in the figure, i.e. noticable differences between the experiment and the background. See for yourselves. Friedman et al throw doubt on the famous Frascati results; O. Matsumoto reckons he(she?) found tritium, but again I'm not convinced, the figures shown can also be interpreted as enrichment, in my humble opinion. Takahashi et al find emissions at 3-7 MeV, and this tells them that, indeed, a hitherto unknown nuclear process is at play, just as FPH have said. Lastly, Rant suggest the use of small passive radiation detectors, and promise a paper with results. Let us hope these are not, like almost all previous results, maddeningly marginal. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 24-Oct. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anghaie S, Froelich P, Monkhorst HJ; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 500. "On fusion/fission chain reactions in the Fleischmann-Pons 'cold fusion' experiment". ** Suggest that the explanation of cold fusion rates may lie in fission/fusion chain reactions involving deuterons, (6)Li and (7)Li as consumables; protons, tritons, neutrons and (3)He as intermediates and (4)He and Be as products. Starting with some rather shaky (but non-essential) electrochemical arguments, leading to enormous concentrations of deuterons and Li+ ions at the Pd surface, the team suggests that weak fusion sets a chain reaction going, that could just be self-sustaining. Several possible chains are discussed. Criticality cannot, however, be achieved. Heat production without particle or tritium emission can be explained by this mechanism. (4)He is produced, and the authors suggest that people who find excess heat should look for (4)He. Dec-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Danos M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 484. "Coulomb-assisted cold fusion in solids". ** Previous theories of cold fusion have focussed on some (usually unspecified) way of overcoming the coulombic repulsion of deuterons, and have ignored the metal (Pd, Ti) atoms in the lattice. Danos now involves them in this rough quantitative treatment, in which the Pd atoms are seen as possible catalysts of deuteron fusion, sharing in the liberating energy and momentum. Danos concludes that fusion enhancements of up to 10**40 are possible in principle. Nov-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friedmann H, Hundegger P, Kirchmayr HR, Pavlik A, Vonach H, Wiesinger G, Winkler G; Kerntechnik 55 (1990) 161. "Search for 'cold fusion'". ** The authors made an attempt to verify cold fusion. Having failed with electrolysis, they turned to Frascati-type experiments, especially as the apparatus for this was already available. Ti and TiFe alloy were gas-charged with D2 at 200 degC and 50 atm, with thermal cycling. Two separate BF3 neutron counters were used. The neutron flux, corrected for counting efficiency, came to about 8E-24 fusions/s/d with Ti, and 1.4E-25 for TiFe, both as upper limits. Since some theories (e.g. fractofusion) result in short-time neutron bursts, these were also looked for, in the form of coincidence readings on both detectors. These gave readings of 1.9E-24 (Ti) and 2.2E-26 (TiFe) (same units). The team concludes that their superior equipment shows that there is no cold fusion and that the Frascati results are due to faults in the measuring equipment. Nov-89/Mar-90. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jaendel M; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 493. "Cold fusion in a confining phase of quantum electrodynamics". ** A new theory, spurred by anomalous results of experiments with heavy ion collisions and cold fusion. This involves the confining phase of quantum electrodynamics (CQED) and the "bag model". In cold fusion, deuterons and electrons enter a CQED region and (4)He comes out, along with energy at 5 MeV. Experiments to test the theory are suggested. Oct-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kim Y; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 507. "Cross section for cold deuterium-deuterium fusion". ** One of the problems with experimental cold fusion results has been that, apparently, they violate the known branching ratio for d-d fusion: at roughly 1:1, the process should produce (3)He and tritium, with a minute fraction going into (4)He. From cluster impact fusion (Beuhler et al, 1989), it appears that these ratios may not be invariant, after all. Kim suggests that in cold fusion, too, the low-energy conditions may lead to unexpected branching ratios. He suggests experiments to confirm this. Dec-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsumoto O, Kimura K, Saito Y, Uyama H, Yaita T; Denki Kagaku 58 (1990) 471. "Detection of tritium in cathode materials after the electrolysis of D2SO4-D2O solution". ** The authors have previously reported the emission of neutrons from cold fusion. Tritium, too, is to be expected, and this time they have looked at this. Firstly, they immersed the cathode material, after electrolysis, in the liquid scintillator that measured tritium; then they also placed the cathode in a glass tube attached to a mass spectrometer, and heated the sample to drive out the gases. In the scintillation count, a dummy Pd electrode gave 32.9+/-1.6 counts, a cathode from a cold fusion electrolysis gave 40.6+/-1.8, and palladised Pt, after electrolysis showed 35.0+/-1.6 counts. Mass spectra showed tritium (as well as other masses) in the Pd, but also in the D2 gas given off. The authors conclude that tritium was formed in the Pd by a nuclear reaction. Dec-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsumoto T; Fusion Technol. 17 (1990) 490. "Cold fusion observed with ordinary water". ** Based on the Nattoh model of cold fusion, in which deuterons associate into nattohs or clumps, M suggests that protons, too, might do it, producing as a first product (2)He, which then might emit a positron to become a deuteron. An electrolysis experiment with H2O + 3% NaCl on Pd was run, and a single Ge(Li) detector used to monitor gamma radiation. A background curve is shown and compared with the experimental curve, and M claims that this shows an effect at energies below 130 keV. This humble abstracter cannot see the "extraordinary enhancement of the signals" which M states shows that "a cold fusion reaction really occurred in ordinary water". M concludes with the hope that a cold fusion reactor using seawater is possible. Nov-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabinowitz M; EPRI J. (Jul/Aug 1989) 42. Reprinted in IEEE Power Eng. Rev., (Nov-89) 9. "A theoretical framework for cold fusion mechanisms". ** The four essential ingredients for sustained controlled nuclear fusion are tunnelling probability, collision frequency, fusion probability and sustaining the reaction. These factors are examined. Tunnelling can be enhanced in a metal deuteride matrix; collision frequencies can be higher by many orders of magnitude in such a lattice, than outside it, due to decreased degrees of freedom (particles confined to two dimensions, or even one). R does some calculations and concludes that cold fusion rates such as reported are within the realms of theory. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rabinowitz M; Mod. Phys. Lett. B4 (1990) 665. "Cluster-impact fusion: new physics or experimental error". ** R throws some doubt on the paper by Beuhler, Friedlander and Friedman (1989) in which these authors claim cluster impact fusion. This has attracted quite some attention, including that by cold fusion theorists, because of its implications for branching ratios. Rabinowitz suggests that the 25 orders of magnitude discrepancy between BFF's experiment and their theory could well be simply experimental error. Jan-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rant J, Ilic R, Skvarc J, Sutej T, Budnar M, Miklavzic U; Kerntechnik 55 (1990) 165. "Methods for in-situ detection of cold fusion in condensed matter". ** Most previous detectors used to detect possible emissions (neutrons, protons, x-rays, gamma rays) from cold fusion, used active devices such as (3)He or BF3 counters, recoil proton spectrometers, scintillators and solid state Ge and Si detectors. These authors suggest the use of passive activation threshold detectors and solid state nuclear track detectors (SSNTDs) as well as bubble damage detectors (BDDs) and thermoluminescence detectors (TLDs). The term "in-situ" means that these passive devices, being small and without electric connections, can be placed right next to or even into cavities inside the electrode from which there might be emissions. Different sorts of these can be stacked, the outside ones then shielding the inside ones from certain kinds of radiation, e.g. protons, so that only gammas arrive there. BDDs can be tailored to neutrons above a given energy, and are very sensitive. All these types have low backgrounds. The authors have submitted experimental cold fusion results to two journals. Feb-90/Mar-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takahashi A; J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 26 (1989) 558. "Opening possibility of deuteron-catalyzed cascade fusion channel in PdD under D2O electrolysis". ** Suggests that under the conditions of cold fusion in PdD, the predominant reactions would be d+d-->(4)He* and (4)He*+d-->(6)Li*-->(4)He+d+23.8MeV. This cascade would explain the FPH results, giving fusion rates of up to 1E-13 f/s per D atom. April-17-89/May-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Takahashi A, Takeuchi T, Iida T; J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 27 (1990) 663. "Emission of 2.45 MeV and higher energy neutrons from D2O-Pd cell under biased-pulse electrolysis". ** The authors update an earlier report, submitted to Fusion Technol., of positive cold fusion results; here, they obtained neutron emissions at 2.45 MeV and at higher energies 3-7 MeV, from biased-pulse electrolysis of 0.2-0.4 M LiOD in D2O, with a Pd cathode. Biased-pulse means alternating higher with lower current densities, e.g. 0.8A with 0.5A at about 2 cm**2, each level for a couple of minutes or so. Light irradiation simultaneous with either the high- or the low-level currents was also tried. Water temperature was measured with a thermocouple, neutrons by a cross-checking system of a (3)He with a NE213 detector, and tritium in aliquots taken from the electrolyte (to be reported later). The emissions at higher energies cannot be explained by hitherto known fusion reactions. May-90/July-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy24 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.24 / Les Earnest / Chief Fusion Research Nowhere To Be Found As Critical Review Deadline Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Chief Fusion Research Nowhere To Be Found As Critical Review Deadline Nears Date: 24 Oct 90 09:17:00 GMT [From Associated Press] SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The University of Utah has another week to persuade the state that it invested wisely in nuclear fusion but is facing an unexpected snag: Its chief researcher, electrochemist B. Stanley Pons, has vanished. Pons and British colleague Martin Fleischmann announced in March 1989 that they had achieved a sustained nuclear fusion reaction in a tabletop experiment. The announcement held out the prospect of a cheap, safe and virtually inexhaustible source of energy. Despite extreme scientific skepticism that continues today, the Legislature appropriated $5 million last fall to establish the National Cold Fusion Institute at the school and to protect the state's patent rights. University officials need to persuade the Fusion Energy Advisory Council, which oversees the state's investment, by Nov. 1 that the institute should be allowed to continue operating. Pons, a tenured professor and former chairman of the chemistry department, has put his house in Salt Lake up for sale and his telephone was disconnected Tuesday. Hugo Rossi, dean of the university's College of Science, said he doesn't know where Pons is, or what his plans are. ''Our understanding is that he has made satisfactory arrangements for his teaching obligation this fall, and he will be here to meet his obligation for winter quarter,'' Rossi said. James Brophy, the university's vice president of research, said officials are expecting a formal letter outlining Pons' plans for winter quarter. Last week, Brophy said Pons was visiting foreign laboratories, a common practice for senior researchers. The state council is meeting Thursday to review the status of the Pons-Fleischmann experiments and fusion patents over the last year. Pons and Fleischmann said their experiments - involving electrically charged platinum coils containing rods of palladium immersed in deuterium-rich heavy water - produced 100 times the energy needed to produce a reaction. ''We want to know where we stand on the program and what we have to do in the future to preserve our position in this science,'' said council chairman Raymond L. Hixson. ''We have gone this far with it. We had better be sure we are protected for future developments.'' AP-NY-10-24-90 0001EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.20 / Steven Beste / cancel <4554@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> Originally-From: denbeste@spdcc.COM (Steven Den Beste) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: cancel <4554@spdcc.SPDCC.COM> Date: 20 Oct 90 02:24:25 GMT Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA cudkeys: cuddy20 cudendenbeste cudfnSteven cudlnBeste cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.25 / / Sampling with correlations Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Sampling with correlations Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 22:09:34 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway To carry on the discussion regarding the effects of sampling on the FPH results, my speculation about the effect of correlations of the temperature measurements with the voltage measurements is based on my feeling that that is a "natural way" to set up the experiment if no thought is given to possible problems. In a given scan cycle you have two measurements (V,T)for each of n cells so you set up the sequence V1,T1,V2,T2,V3,T3....Vn,Tn. The scan runs too fast so you insert one or more delay times in the sequence, perhaps just a single delay after the completion of the 2n measurements. My point is that always measuring the pair V1,T1 in quick succession can have an unanticipated effect on the results, and it is not just a matter of luck. It could arise from a deliberate experimental decision - a basic screw-up. Next is the question of the lag in temperature response. There will be some lag even without any energy storage. Energy storage would just enhance the effect. My understanding, based on one experiment, is that the loading of D in Pd is voltage-dependent. If you raise the volts more D moves in and you see less bubling. If you lower the volts D comes out and you get more bubbles. Is this not so? Dick Blue NSCL/MSU -- cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.25 / Les Earnest / Cold Fusion Program Under Review Amid Angry Accusations, Countercharges Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Program Under Review Amid Angry Accusations, Countercharges Date: 25 Oct 90 20:44:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By LAURIE SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - State officials prepared to review the controversial ''cold fusion'' research program as one of the two scientists involved said angrily that he would miss the meeting because he had learned it only hours before. ''I'm infuriated,'' said Martin Fleischmann, a scientist at the National Cold Fusion Institute at the University of Utah. ''They have known for ages that we would not be available in October.'' Fleischmann spoke from his native England, where he is receiving medical treatment. The angry accusation from Fleischmann, which was quickly denied by the university, came hours after the other scientist involved in the research, B. Stanley Pons, requested a one-year sabbatical leave in a fax transmission from his attorney, University of Utah President Chase Peterson said. The state's nine-member Fusion Energy Advisory Council is reviewing the scientists' disputed work and was scheduled to discuss renewed funds at the meeting today. Pons had been scheduled to address the panel; university officials said they had tried unsuccessfully to notify Fleischmann. Curtailing financing is a possibility, said Randy Moon, the state's science adviser and a member of the council. The institute was founded in part with a $5 million state grant. ''Stan owes it to a lot of people to be able to report on his results,'' Moon said. ''A lot of people at the university have been counting on Pons to show the research is viable.'' Pons and Fleischmann set the scientific world on its ear in March 1989 when they announced they had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction in a jar at room temperature. Many scientists have been unable to duplicate their work and have disputed their claim. Some have suggested it resulted from lab errors. Fusion is the process that powers the sun and hydrogen bombs, fusing atoms rather than splitting them as nuclear reactors do. The process, which releases vast amounts of energy, is generally thought to require temperatures of millions of degrees to get started. Pons and Fleischmann's purported discovery of cold fusion held out the prospect of a cheap, safe and practically inexhaustible source of energy. Fleischmann spoke in a telephone interview today from his home in Tisbury, 70 miles west of London. He divides his time between Utah and England. ''I have been waiting for a review since June, I just couldn't wait any longer,'' he said. ''I still have commitments in England. I have to see to my health.'' Fritz Will, director of the National Cold Fusion Institute, said he had tried to get hold of both Pons and Fleischmann by phone and fax for several days. ''We have attempted to have the two present during an external review in October,'' Will said. ''We have abundantly explained; they have categorically refused.'' Fleischmann, 63, said he needed surgery to remove a nerve in his head, but had been willing to schedule the operation in Britain around the Utah review. Pons, he added, wanted a sabbatical so he could continue with the work in ''a vigorous fashion.'' ''This is a very major research project which cannot be done halfway,'' Fleischmann said. C. Gary Triggs, an attorney for both scientists, said Pons planned to return to the university in a week or so. He said Pons was requesting the sabbatical because he was faced with too many distractions while defending the cold fusion claims. AP-NY-10-25-90 1258EDT ********** cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.25 / Carol Springs / Re: Recent rumors from SLC Originally-From: carols@drilex.UUCP (Carol Springs) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent rumors from SLC Date: 25 Oct 90 20:23:38 GMT Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA In article <2815@bambam.UUCP> bpendlet@bambam.UUCP (Bob Pendleton) writes: >A rumor reported in the SLC Tribune and on local radio stations says >that Pons and Fleischman are both out of the country (USA) and that it >is suspected that they don't plan to come back. AP article appearing in the Boston Globe today (October 25): SALT LAKE CITY--As if political pressure, worldwide skepticism and demands for review are not headache enough for the directors of Utah's cold fusion research, now they cannot find their top scientists. Not only do they not know the whereabouts of electrochemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, who started the controversy over cold fusion, they cannot say if the pair will return. "We have tried to be in communication with both of them via the fax machine and the phone. We have been totally unsuccessful," Fritz Will, director of the National Cold Fusion Institute at the University of Utah, said yesterday. Their absence casts more uncertainty over the much-maligned Utah cold fusion program, which was launched with the pair's stunning announcement on March 23, 1989, that they had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature. Most experts do not believe that is what happened in their tabletop apparatus and say the results came from a mistake or miscalculation. Depending on who is speculating, Pons is rumored to be working in Japan, soliciting funding for his research in Europe or just vacationing. Will said Fleischmann reportedly is on a medical leave in England. The scientists' silence comes at a bad time for the institute, which faces an audit and scientific review demanded by university faculty and is scrambling for funding beyond a dwindling state appropriation of $5 million. -- Carol Springs carols@drilex.dri.mgh.com cudkeys: cuddy25 cudencarols cudfnCarol cudlnSprings cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / Jonathan King / more on missing fusion researchers Originally-From: jk3t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan King) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: more on missing fusion researchers Date: 26 Oct 90 01:52:28 GMT Organization: Psychology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Here's another article on the disappearance of Pons and Fleishmann SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- As if political pressure, worldwide skepticism and demands for review aren't headache enough for the directors of Utah's cold fusion research, now they can't find their top scientists. They not only don't know the whereabouts of electrochemists B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, who started the whole controversy over cold fusion, they can't say whether the pair will return. "That, at the present time, is not clear to us," said Fritz Will, director of the National Cold Fusion Institute at the University of Utah. "We have tried to be in communication with both of them via the fax machine and the phone. We have been totally unsuccessful," Will said. Their absence casts more uncertainty over the much-maligned Utah cold fusino program, which was launched with the pair's stunning announcement in 1989 that they had achieved a nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature. Their 1989 announcement conjured visions of a new energy source form fusion, which occurs when atoms of a light element are forced together and fuse, relasing a burst of energy. But most experts don't believe that's what happened in their tabletop apparatus, that the encouraging results came from some sort of mistake or miscalculation. Many scientists have lambasted the two for failing to publish in scientific journals a theory to explain their results, and for their inability to reproduce them at will. Depending on who's speculating, Pons is rumored to be working in Japan, soliciting funding for his research in Europe, or just vacationing. Will said Fleischmann reportedly is on a medical leave in his native England, but he isn't sure. Pons' son, Jon, was withdrawn last week from the second grade at Rosslyn Heights Elementary. His teacher, Charlotte Cundick, said she received a letter from the family telling her they were moving to France for a year or two. Pons' Salt Lake City home is listed for sale and his telephone number was disconnected this week. Will also has heard Pons is in France on a paid leave from the university, where he is a tenured professor and former chairman of its chemistry department. Chemistry Department Chairman Peter Stang said Pons had not asked for a leave, but it is not unusual for senior faculty to spend weeks working abroad without informing their dean or chair. Permanent loss of Pons and Fleischmann, while "certainly nothing desirable," would not hinder cold fusion research in Utah and the rest of the country, Will said. "Why should it? It has two discoverers, yes, but it's being picked up by dozens of other groups and being carried forward by these groups. We here in the institute ... will be aggressively pursuing the search," he said. [ellipsis in original] [This is becoming one of the weirdest science stores of all time; I wonder when the movie will be out...] jking cudkeys: cuddy26 cudfnJonathan cudlnKing cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / Dieter Britz / (6)C, did I say that? Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: (6)C, did I say that? Date: Fri, 26 Oct 90 16:14:39 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In one of my last "normal" postings (as opposed to bibliographic), I mention >isotopically pure (6)C diamond ... well, I was thinking of the atomic number, but it's nonsense, of course, ALL carbon has that atomic number or else it wouldn't be carbon. What I meant was (12)C. So sorry. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== -- cudkeys: cuddy26 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / L Chiaraviglio / Re: more on missing fusion researchers Originally-From: chi9@quads.uchicago.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: more on missing fusion researchers Date: 26 Oct 90 02:50:13 GMT Organization: Department of Biology at University of Chicago In article jk3t+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jonathan King) writes: |Here's another article on the disappearance of Pons and Fleishmann |[. . .] |Permanent loss of Pons and Fleischmann, while "certainly nothing |desirable," would not hinder cold fusion research in Utah and the rest |of the country, Will said. |[. . .] I wish Mark Twain were alive and writing today. . . -- | Lucius Chiaraviglio | Internet: chi9@midway.uchicago.edu cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenchi9 cudfnLucius cudlnChiaraviglio cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / Timothy Melton / Help Finding Cold Fusion References Originally-From: stdtm@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Timothy A. Melton) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Help Finding Cold Fusion References Date: 26 Oct 90 15:27:28 GMT Organization: Engineering Computer Network, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK I am considering writing a paper on cold fusion for a stat. mech. course I am currently taking. Could someone point me toward some good references? A logical starting point would be the original paper on cold fusion. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Tim -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Timothy A Melton University of Oklahoma stdtm@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu Department of Chemical Engineering cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenstdtm cudfnTimothy cudlnMelton cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / R Schumacher / Re: Recent rumors from SLC Originally-From: schumach@convex.com (Richard A. Schumacher) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Recent rumors from SLC Date: 26 Oct 90 17:50:29 GMT It would seem that all the State of Utah will get for its $5 million is a lesson in the value of peer review. cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenschumach cudfnRichard cudlnSchumacher cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.27 / Mark Johnson / Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 27 Oct 90 19:55:46 GMT >It would seem that all the State of Utah will get for its >$5 million is a lesson in the value of peer review. There seems to be a lot of harping about the monetary figure FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ... as though this is the biggest financial flop of all time. While I don't pretend to know whether C.N.F. is a complete fiasco, I would like to suggest that if it is, it is a very inexpensive one indeed. Consider HEAVEN'S GATE ... a Michael Cimino feature film starring Kris Kristofferson. Lost >$40M Apple Lisa ... the flop in between the ][ and MacIntosh. Lost upwards of $25M. Trilogy ... Famous Silicon Valley startup formed by Gene Amdahal to commercialize wafer scale integration. Funded to the tune of $300M, never delivered a product. Lincoln Savings Charles Keating and company manage to piss away a billion and a half bucks. Eastern Airlines Red ink to the tune of $-100M per quarter. I humbly suggest that a financial loss of $5M isn't, in itself, noteworthy. Not in an environment where people are willing, nay eager, to blow $20M in production costs for "Star Trek V - The Voyage Home" or to spend $10M to purchase airtime so consumers can be subjected to the piquant question "Why ask why? Drink Bud Dry." -- -- Mark Johnson MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques M/S 2-02, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 524-8308 mark@mips.com {or ...!decwrl!mips!mark} cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenmark cudfnMark cudlnJohnson cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.28 / William Baxter / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: web@garnet.berkeley.edu (William Baxter) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 28 Oct 90 00:17:21 GMT Organization: University of California, Berkeley In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) writes: >In article <42449@mips.mips.COM> mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes: >>I humbly suggest that a financial loss of $5M isn't, in itself, noteworthy. >And I not so humbly suggest that you are totally clueless. That $5M is only >the tip of the iceberg monetarily. Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). They must be evil, since they refuse to tow the party line. Time for a reality check. Here are some funding figures for the Department of Energy, from the Office of Management and Budget's FY1991 budget proposal. (figures in thousands of dollars) Program by Activities 1989 actual 1990 est. 1991 est. Naval reactors development 629,032 643,694 652,000 High energy physics 651,620 586,828 621,287 Nuclear physics 258,765 290,791 330,829 Solar and renewable energy 152,220 140,457 175,126 technology base Nuclear Fission 617,715 581,999 358,490 Magnetic Fusion 346,698 323,018 325,300 Coal research and development 265,370 309,550 112,733 Oil, gas, and shale research 46,968 62,144 54,371 and development Storage facility development 169,846 204,417 182,719 for Strategic Petroleum Reserve Natural gas regulation 54,739 56,569 57,301 Hydropower licensing regulation 26,050 31,136 35,795 Electric power regulation 24,503 25,700 26,448 Management and administration 166,707 172,356 159,419 -- William Baxter ARPA: web@{garnet,math}.Berkeley.EDU UUCP: {sun,dual,decwrl,decvax,hplabs,...}!ucbvax!garnet!web cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenweb cudfnWilliam cudlnBaxter cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.28 / Mark North / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 28 Oct 90 00:53:54 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article web@garnet.berkeley.edu (William Baxter) writes: > >In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) writes: > >>In article <42449@mips.mips.COM> mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes: >>>I humbly suggest that a financial loss of $5M isn't, in itself, noteworthy. > >>And I not so humbly suggest that you are totally clueless. That $5M is only >>the tip of the iceberg monetarily. Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >>year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >>two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). > >They must be evil, since they refuse to tow the party line. Time for a >reality check. Here are some funding figures for the Department of >Energy, from the Office of Management and Budget's FY1991 budget >proposal. (figures in thousands of dollars) > >[lot's of numbers deleted] So what's your point? If you have one I'll be glad to address it. Mark cudkeys: cuddy28 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.25 / Patrick Smith / Dr. Pons I presume? Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Dr. Pons I presume? Date: 25 Oct 90 17:50:58 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah Is this the end? Salt Lake City has been awash in rumors during the last week concerning Pons whereabouts, and the fate of the National Cold Fusion Institute (NCFI). About one week ago, TV news reports suggested that the NCFI might be closed down. The reason for this, apparently, was that the NCFI was established to develop ways to commercially exploit Pons and Fleischmann's discovery, and they've been unable to satisfactorily demonstrate the phenomenon, much less exploit it. Also, a radio news report claimed that U of U officials have been given until November 1 to complete a scientific audit that would determine the scientific merit of that discovery. The NCFI has been stalling on the scientific audit for some time. The audit was supposed to have been completed by September 1, but the committee members hadn't even been assembled, at last report. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the NCFI is stalling because they have nothing to demonstrate at this point. Also, radio news reports state that the U of U will have to complete the audit without their "top researcher, electrochemist B. Stanley Pons." Pons whereabouts were unknown, even by NCFI director Dr. Fritz Will. Finally, in todays Salt Lake Tribune, we find that, through his personal attourney, Gary Triggs, Dr. Pons has requested a one year sabbatical. Apparently, he pulled his children out of school, disconnected the phone, put the house up for sale, and is travelling abroad somewhere. Dr. Fleischmann is in England undergoing treatment for a medical condition. ************************************************************************* PONS SAYS U. WON'T BE LEFT IN COLD BY SABBATICAL. Thursday morning; October 25, 1990. by Tim Fitzpatrick. University of Utah cold fusion researcher B. Stanley Pons Wednesday requested a one-year sabbatical, but his lawyer said Dr. Pons has every intention of continuing his affiliation with the university. C Gary Triggs said in a telephone interview from his North Carolina office that the controversy over Dr. Pons' leaving Utah is a tempest in a teapot. "He is seeking a sabbatical for a year, which is nothing unusual," said Mr. Triggs. "Stan and Martin are committed more than ever to the university and the fusion work." University of Utah President Chase Peterson confirmed that Dr. Pons' immediate superior, chemistry department chairman Peter Stang, has received a faxed request for a sabbatical from Mr. Triggs late Wednesday afternoon. Dr. Peterson said a decision on the sabbatical would be up to the chemistry department. He said Dr. Pons is a tenured professor of the department and has been at the university long enough to apply for sabbatical leave. "The department has to rule on the sabbatical," Dr. Peterson said. "...There's nothing wrong with a sabbatical, and Stan probably deserves it after all he's been through in the past year and a half." He said U. officials had heard about the sabbatical request off and on for a few weeks, but this was the first formal indication. Dr. Stang declined comment until he had reviewed the letter and spoken with others. Rumours have swirled about Dr. Pons' relationship with the university after he left town a week ago. His house has been put up for sale and his son was withdrawn from school. But Mr. Triggs, who has represented Dr. Pons for several years, said the family had planned to sell the home for some time. "Stan long ago wanted to sell the house. He has a condominium in Park City they bought last year." Several people have indicated that Dr. Pons is currently in France, and Dr. Stang said he had heard second hand that he was in the Mediterranean city of Nice. But Mr. Triggs declined to say where his client is. "I'm just not at liberty to discuss those things." He did say Dr. Pons would be back at the university in a week or so. As for withdrawing his son from school, Mr. Triggs said, "I think it goes to say that if Stan and his family are travelling abroad they would have to withdraw from school." He did confirm that Dr. Fleischmann, who is also his client, has returned to his home in England for treatment for an undisclosed medical condition. "It's nothing major, but he has been undergoing treatment for a number of years, and this is another treatment." "He is not seriously ill, or anything," Mr. Triggs said. "You have to remember that Dr. Fleischmann lives in England. His wife is there." Mr. Triggs cannot understand why some university officials, including National Cold Fusion Institute director Fritz Will, have indicated uncertainty about Dr. Pons. "If he doesn't know where he is, I don't know why. He obviously knows where my office is, and he's made no effort to contact me." Dr. Will was not available to respond Wednesday because he was not taking media calls. His secretary said he was preparing for Thursday's meeting of the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council. Mr. Triggs said Dr. Pons is requesting the sabbatical because he and Dr. Fleischmann have spent far too much time having to play the politics when they should be paying attention to the science. "The only way that is ever going to happen," Mr. Twiggs [sic] said, "is when they have the time to dedicate to the science. Stan and Martin are scientists, not politicians." Mr. Twiggs [sic] said after one and a half years of an uneasy alliance between the scientists and the university, "the relationship is better than it has been in a long time. It's kind of frustrating to have all this negative stuff coming out when we're on the threshold of some really exciting things." Describing the controversial cold fusion claim as one of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century, Mr. Twiggs [sic] said his recent scientific work is going better than ever. "They've got some extremely exciting new patents which, unfortunately, I cannot discuss." The two researchers have isolated their experiments from other cold fusion researchers and have not published any scientific papers on their work from the past year. Members of the university's college of science faculty have sought a scientific review of their work and other research at the cold fusion institute. That review was originally scheduled to begin in August, but has been held up because of difficulties in finding and scheduling suitable reviewers. Scientists and some members of the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council, charged with overseeing the state's $5 million investment in cold fusion, have expressed concern about getting Drs. Pons and Fleischmann to cooperate fully with the review. Mr. Triggs said his clients have no problem with a review that is of a fair nature. They do not like to be subjected to innuendo. He also said they are hampered by legal concerns. "They are limited in the amount of cooperation they can give because of the patent retraints," he said. "It's very unfair at times for people, for whatever reason, to ask questions that would divulge patent information." cudkeys: cuddy25 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / John Mendenhall / Re: "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Originally-From: jjm@wicat.UUCP (John J. Mendenhall) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Date: 26 Oct 90 16:36:04 GMT Organization: WICAT Systems, Orem, Utah mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: >If anyone out there is still following cold fusion ... Please excuse my ignorance on this subject in general, and the lack of facts in my post, but... >A conference will be held next week in Salt Lake City that Steve Jones, There was a conference held in SLC yesterday that has the local media all ablaze. Evidently P&F were supposed to give an accounting of their project to the local authorities, but they were no where to be found. The State gave them 5 million dollars for their research, but everyone feels that there is nothing to be shown. Needless to say, some local officials are very nervous about this. The news report I saw mentioned that P&F sold their homes and moved their families to Europe. There was a newsreel showing one of them in France. Did they turn tail and run, or are they exploring new avenues of research. In either case, people in Utah are mad. Just a little tidbit, John Mendenhall jjm@wicat cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenjjm cudfnJohn cudlnMendenhall cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / Loren Petrich / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 29 Oct 90 16:27:02 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory In article <1990Oct29.082032.26490@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >>And I not so humbly suggest that you are totally clueless. That $5M is only >>the tip of the iceberg monetarily. Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >>year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >>two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). > >NO NEUTRONS - NO FUSION ??? .. > >Maybe, P&F should run the 360 megabuck + fusion program at DOE. > >I seriously doubt that earth's community can accept fusion energy WITH >neutrons, or at least a significant (involving greater than five percent >of the reactions) release of neutrons. > >So how is it that neutrons MUST be a part of a fusion reaction? This >sounds like tripe from people running "hot" experiments that then can't >come up with the pressure required to burn the "good stuff*". Neutrons are expected to appear from fusion reactions on very strong theoretical grounds. Nuclear physics is a well-explored field, and I think it is VERY safe to extrapolate from that. One important feature of nuclear interactions is that one can do the interchange p <--> n without changing any interaction strengths. This is "isospin symmetry". True, there are effects like the electromagnetic interaction and whatever is responsible for the p-n mass difference which break this symmetry, but these can usually be corrected for. Most cold-fusion reactions have been performed with deuterium (D). Its fusion reactions are: D(pn) + D(pn) -> T(pnn) + p D(pn) + D(pn) -> He3(ppn) + n D(pn) + D(pn) -> He4(ppnn) + gamma Inside the ()'s is the proton-neutron content. Nuclear reactions that emit gammas are typically very suppressed (say, 10^-8) compared to nuclear reactions that do not involve gamma emission, all other things being equal, as they are here. And the first two are known experimentally to go at approximately the same rate, as predicted from the isospin-symmetry hypothesis. True, most fusion-rate experiments have been conducted at a few MeV of energy, but extrapolation to low energies is well understood. So it is inevitable that D-D fusion should produce neutrons. It is unfortunate that none of the cold-fusion enthusiasts have seriously addressed the question of neutron-emission suppression. They seem to think that all the work on nuclear physics is somehow irrelevant to the cold-fusion question. If I am wrong here, then please correct me. Present me with some theoretical analysis that accounts for this (alleged) neutron suppression. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: loren@sunlight.llnl.gov Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try: loren%sunlight.llnl.gov@star.stanford.edu cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenloren cudfnLoren cudlnPetrich cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / Ramsey Haddad / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: haddad@wrl.dec.com (Ramsey Haddad) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: Mon, 29 Oct 90 19:21:17 GMT Organization: DEC Western Research Lab In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: > if they had gone through proper peer review there would >have been no doubt. I think that a fairly clear reading of the situation is this: P&F would have preferred to have had everything completely figured out and to have then submitted it for peer review. This way they could claim full credit. It was only when they incorrectly thought that Jones of BYU was trying to steal their ideas that they felt they needed to go public quickly. >Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). This only happened because of the arrogance and egos of said scientists. Why did *all* of them need to drop everything they were doing? Again, because they wanted all the credit for debunking or verifying the finding. They could have easily said, "Well, 5 other qualified people are verifiying this, I'll leave it to them." or: "This is all very sketchy and incomplete, I'll wait a year or so until it becomes clearer before I decide whether to spend any effort on it." If they feel that they wasted their time, they have no one but themselves to blame. And indeed, if you look at my field, Computer Science, this is how we handle plausible claims to solving the great unsolved "P vs. NP" question. So many people take the "This is too sketchy, I'll wait" position, that it requires a fair bit of dragooning to get anyone credible to perform the verification/disproving. -- Ramsey Haddad cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenhaddad cudfnRamsey cudlnHaddad cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.27 / Mark North / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 27 Oct 90 21:54:35 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <42449@mips.mips.COM> mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes: > >I humbly suggest that a financial loss of $5M isn't, in itself, noteworthy. And I not so humbly suggest that you are totally clueless. That $5M is only the tip of the iceberg monetarily. Then there's the loss of 6 months to a year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). If you think I'm annoyed, you're right. I'm one of those hundreds who gave these two the benefit of the doubt. This was foolishness on my part, however, because if they had gone through proper peer review there would have been no doubt. Getting back to the money issue. Even now, after this whole thing has been shown to be nonesense, there are still people out there getting money from their managers to work on this. So the total cost has yet to be tallied but it is FAR more than $5M. BTW your comparisons to movie making, etc are irrelevant. Mark cudkeys: cuddy27 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.26 / Patrick Smith / More Local News. Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: More Local News. Date: 26 Oct 90 22:01:37 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah More information about the situation between Dr. Pons, the F/EAC, the NCFI, and the university. Also, it appears from the following, exerpted from the second article, that the NCFI has had very little success in replicating the "baseline" excess-heat phenomenon, as opposed to the "bursts." Previous comments have indicated that neither the NCFI nor Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have been able to replicate the "bursts" of excess-heat over the past year. Besides Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, who have so far declined to release their results, only one group of institute scientists, the engineering group, reported seeing any excess heat in the past year. That was only one event lasting about 10 days last February. It occurred in one of seven cells run in the experiment, and the others turned up nothing. ********************************************************************** PONS WILL RETURN TO U. FOR FUSION REVIEW, SAYS ATTORNEY. Salt Lake Tribune; Friday morning - October 26, 1990. by Tim Fitzpatrick The state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council Thursday voted to send a letter to University of Utah President Chase N Peterson insisting that cold fusion researcher B. Stanley Pons return to Utah Nov. 7 to cooperate with a scientific review panel. During a meeting of the council at the Capitol, Assistant Attorney General Joseph Tesch telephoned Dr. Pons' attorney in North Carolina, C. Gary Triggs. That led to a conference call with Mr. Tesch, Mr. Triggs, and Dr. Pons, in which Dr. Pons agreed to return from his undisclosed location in Europe for the review, Mr. Tesch said. After more than a year of accomodating the elusive chemist and his colleague, Martin Fleischmann, council members indicated they can no longer consent to their spending state money without sharing their scientific results with anyone. "We feel very strongly about the need for their accountability," said council chairman Raymond L. Hixson. Dr. Peterson said the university would make an effort to have Dr. Pons there. "A university has to insist on accountability for its faculty and students and everyone else, including administration," he said. "Therefore if Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann receive support, they have to make their results accountable." The two men spent $1 million of $2.1 million in state funds spent on cold fusion research in the fiscal year ended June 30, and they have declined to share their data with other scientists at the National Cold Fusion Institute or publish any scientific papers on it. "In essence, we've coddled them, quite frankly," said Utah State University Provost Karen Morse, one of the two scientists on the council. In discussing the content of the letter to Dr. Peterson, the council stopped short of threatening to withdraw their funding if they did not cooperate, but they said the letter should make it clear they will not fund the research blindly. National Cold Fusion Institute Director Fritz Will, who has been among the two scientists' most fervent defenders against an onslaught of scientific criticism, also expressed disappointment with their lack of cooperation. Dr. Will said he has made consistent efforts to contact Drs. Pons and Fleischmann to have them attend Thursday's meeting, including a faxed message a week ago to Dr. Pons that called his attendance at the meeting "mandatory." The chemists' lawyer, Mr. Triggs, told The Tribune Wednesday that Dr. Will had made no attempt to reach Drs. Pons and Fleischmann through him, but Dr. Will said he will not work with a fellow scientist through his attorney. "I'm not willing to discuss science through a lawyer when the scientists are working for the National Clod Fusion Institute and receiving state funds," Dr. Will said. An associated press report quoted Dr. Fleischmann, who is at his home in Tisbury, England, as saying he was "infuriated" and accused university officials of not acting in good faith in trying to contact him about the meeting. Dr. Will dismissed that as a "tasteless" accusation. Mr. Triggs told The Tribune Wednesday that Drs. Pons and Fleischmann have been constrained in what they can report by patent considerations on the research, but council member and state science advisor Randy Moon dismissed that because council members have signed a "confidentiality agreement" and represent the state, which is the ultimate owner of any patents. Uncertain whether the two men would cooperate, the council voted to go ahead with a planned scientific review on Nov. 7, when four outside experts will be brought to the institute at Research Park for a one-day briefing. The experts will receive all the data from institute researchers other than Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, Dr. Will said. He hoped Dr. Pons' indication that he would return for the meeting meant that their stiudies also would be available to reviewers. The reviewers later will give a written report of their findings to the university and the fusion council. The review was prompted by U. College of Science faculty, who were upset by the U. administration's quiet transfer of $500,000 to the institute, which became public in June. The faculty members were most concerned by the lack of scientific accountability of Drs. Pons and Fleischmann. College of Science Dean Hugo Rossi said he believes the review should proceed even without the two chemists in order to protect the integrity of other scientists at the institute, some of whom are in his college. "If some researchers are recalcitrant, I don't think other researchers should suffer for that recalcitrance." But council member and USU physicist Wilford Hansen was concerned that a review without the two men could be "a terrible blow" because it would not address the central issue of their accountability. Other scientists at the institute have been giving talks on their research and cooperating with other scientists. "It's a no win situation if they aren't there," he said. "People around the world could make us look like fools." Dr. Will said the review was crucial to the institute, where efforts to raise outside money have been unsuccessful thus far, and one potential contributer, EPRI, has held back its committment pending the review. "Our chances of receiving external funding are virtually nil without the external review," he said. "We would become the laughing stock of the scientific community... if at this point we did not go through with the review." So far the institute and patent attorneys have spent all but about $1.3 million of the original $5 million state appropriation. Under the current budget, the rest will be gone by June 30, 1991. The council had originally planned to discuss budgeting and patent issues at the meeting, but time ran out. The council planned another meeting for Nov. 8. ********************************************************************** FUSION BEING VERIFIED, INSTITUTE DIRECTOR SAYS. Salt Lake Tribune; Friday, October 26, 1990. by Tim Fitzpatrick. NCFI Director Fritz Will told council members of a growing body of evidence around the world in support of cold fusion, but he acknowledged that most of the work nowadays is not in pursuit of the mysterious "excess heat" which the U of U hoped would lead to commercial energy production. Other researchers around the world have reported evidence of nuclear products, including neutrons, tritium, and X-rays. But even if their results are taken as evidence of nuclear fusion, the amounts are far below the energy put into the system to create the effects, meaning its value as an energy source is limited. Dr. Will and other institute scientists, excluding Pons and Fleischmann, presented summaries of their results from the past year Thursday to the state Fusion/Energy Advisory Council. Haven Bergeson, who heads the institute's physics group, presented evidence of small amounts of tritium, which is produced in nuclear fusion reactions. Although the amounts were only slightly above background levels, the experiments did appear to solve one of the most frustrating parts of the research, reproducibility. Dr. Bergeson said the effect was seen in eight out of eight cells. The results still did not convince Douglas Morrison, a physicist from the European nuclear laboratory CERN and cold fusion skeptic who was present at Thursday's meeting. He said the amounts of tritium are so small that they cannot be taken as evidence of fusion. Besides Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, who have so far declined to release their results, only one group of institute scientists, the engineering group, reported seeing any excess heat in the past year. That was only one event lasting about 10 days last February. It occurred in one of seven cells run in the experiment, and the others turned up nothing. Drs. Pons and Fleischmann originally reported getting four watts of excess heat for every one watt of electricity coming out, a 300 percent increase, and "bursts" of heat that reached up to 5000 percent. But their more recent results have claimed only in the 20% to 30% level, according to Dr. Will. Most scientists attributed the lower amounts to scientists, including Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, perfecting the experiment and eliminating many measurement errors contributing to the high results. But Dr. Will is not ready to dismiss those early, higher results. It is his hypothesis that those early "dirty" experiments provided the unknown catalysts to trigger the large amounts of heat. He said he has an idea about the triggering mechanism, but he did not want to discuss it with the press. "I think the group in India is already on to it." One recent excess heat experiment which has buoyed Dr. Will and others is the unusual work of two U. of Hawaii researchers who ran their device using molten salts at about 650 degrees Fahrenheit. They claimed to produce heat levels around 600 % with peak levels of 1500%. But Dr. Morrison said he saw a paper on that work presented in Hawaii, and "they havn't made all the checks. It's still too early." cudkeys: cuddy26 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / Paul Koloc / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 29 Oct 90 08:20:32 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >And I not so humbly suggest that you are totally clueless. That $5M is only >the tip of the iceberg monetarily. Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). NO NEUTRONS - NO FUSION ??? .. Maybe, P&F should run the 360 megabuck + fusion program at DOE. I seriously doubt that earth's community can accept fusion energy WITH neutrons, or at least a significant (involving greater than five percent of the reactions) release of neutrons. So how is it that neutrons MUST be a part of a fusion reaction? This sounds like tripe from people running "hot" experiments that then can't come up with the pressure required to burn the "good stuff*". >If you think I'm annoyed, you're right. I'm one of those hundreds who gave >these two the benefit of the doubt. This was foolishness on my part, >however, because if they had gone through proper peer review there would >have been no doubt. Don't panic. I wouldn't burn my stock just yet! What I have seen coming from most of the labs is shoddy metallurgy and electrochemistry. Consider past tech history examples such as the LASER. It could have been discovered at a much earlier date; and once it was theoretically known, it might have taken a few years before someone developed the correct technique to fire the first one up. As it was Maiman produced the first visible light beams in 1960. And more recently, look at the unlikelihood of ever finding the workable warmer class of super conductors; yet, they are with us. The level of the emotionalism over cold fusion from scientists and engineers, especially from the spokesman for hot fusion has astonished me. Looking at this travesty from afar, it is a touch of behavior here that gives one a vague impression of an occasional "feeding frenzy" and "packing" phenomena as seen with wild dogs. It reminds one of religious or ethnic hatreds that occasionally crop up. Why? I can't believe the reasons given to date (P&F are jerks). There has got to be something driving this thing from the subconscious fear reaction center (if there is such a thing). That means: At least at some level, the cold fusion "threat???" is being taken very seriously. That might be a few plus points for a gambling person. I'm watching this one for the long haul - - Although not so long by standards of the total expired time of the hot fusion program.) Good luck. * aneutronic fuels +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / JOSEPH CHEW / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 29 Oct 90 14:19:31 GMT Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA In article <42449@mips.mips.COM>, mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes... > > >It would seem that all the State of Utah will get for its > >$5 million is a lesson in the value of peer review. > >There seems to be a lot of harping about the monetary figure >FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ... as though this is the biggest financial >flop of all time. It's the principle of the thing. >While I don't pretend to know whether C.N.F. >is a complete fiasco, I would like to suggest that if it is, >it is a very inexpensive one indeed. Consider > > HEAVEN'S GATE ... a Michael Cimino feature film starring Kris > Kristofferson. Lost >$40M > > Trilogy ... Famous Silicon Valley startup formed by Gene > Amdahal to commercialize wafer scale integration. > Funded to the tune of $300M, never delivered a > product. > > Eastern Airlines Red ink to the tune of $-100M per quarter. It's as if Michael Cimino had filmed a documentary about the cowboys of Lapland...Gene Amdahl had built a factory to make ICs out of potato chips rather than silicon...Frank Borman had forsaken the airline business to run NY-to-LA steam passenger trains... >I humbly suggest that a financial loss of $5M isn't, in itself, noteworthy. >Not in an environment where people are willing, nay eager, to blow $20M in >production costs for "Star Trek V - The Voyage Home" or to spend $10M >to purchase airtime so consumers can be subjected to the piquant question >"Why ask why? Drink Bud Dry." Well, by the standards of some sectors of the economy, $5M may be chump change, but I can't think of a research center that wouldn't like to have it. What's more, you can't really compare public-sector funding, or even not- for-profit funding, with the things the private sector can do when there is a hope of turning a profit. And even by private-sector standards, you've got to wonder about the "due diligence" and "oversight" associated with that $5M. (I have trouble picturing a venture capitalist, even in Silicon Valley's high-rolling days, throwing $5M at me so easily, on such dubious grounds, with so little attention to what I'd be doing with it.) Those who must exercise good stewardship of the taxpayers' monies are playing by different rules and have to be judged thereby. --Joe "Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley" cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenjtchew cudfnJOSEPH cudlnCHEW cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / sheely@groucho / Re: "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: "Anomalous Effects in Deuterated Metals" conference next week Date: 29 Oct 90 18:20:40 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow In article <505@wicat.UUCP> jjm@wicat.UUCP (John J. Mendenhall) writes: >mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) writes: > >>If anyone out there is still following cold fusion ... > >Please excuse my ignorance on this subject in general, and the >lack of facts in my post, but... > >>A conference will be held next week in Salt Lake City that Steve Jones, The conference was held in Provo, Utah monday, tuesday and wendsday of last week. >There was a conference held in SLC yesterday that has the local media >all ablaze. Evidently P&F were supposed to give an accounting of >their project to the local authorities, but they were no where to >be found. The State gave them 5 million dollars for their research, >but everyone feels that there is nothing to be shown. Needless to >say, some local officials are very nervous about this. > >Just a little tidbit, > >John Mendenhall >jjm@wicat The review in Salt Lake City had nothing to do with the conference. At the conference a surprising amount of evidence and positive results suporting the Jones' et al. results was presented. No results suporting the Pons Fleshman claims were presented. Eugene Sheely sheely@neon.chem.uidaho.edu cudkeys: cuddy29 cudensheely cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / W Daugherity / Conspiracy theory Originally-From: daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Walter C. Daugherity) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Conspiracy theory Date: 29 Oct 90 19:23:50 GMT Organization: Texas A&M University First of all, I have no connection with or knowledge of the Texas A&M groups working on cold fusion beyond what I read in the papers (or Science :-)). Now, I'd like to pass on a conpsiracy theory that I haven't heard before. It was expressed to me by a nuclear engineer. His theory goes like this: Cold fusion is real, but the U.S. government/military establishment can't afford to let (Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi, et al.) know that, so the U.S. government/military establishment has cranked up a huge disinformation operation to discount it. The good news about this theory is that it explains everything (secrecy, counter results, missing persons, etc.). The bad news is that conspiracy theories are always wrong, by Occam's razor :-). A morsel of food for thought.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M--- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS cudkeys: cuddy29 cudendaugher cudfnWalter cudlnDaugherity cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / Mark North / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 29 Oct 90 19:29:50 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <85039@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes: > [ excellent brief lesson in nuclear physics of DD reactions ] I couldn't have said it better. Thank you for saving me the trouble. Mark cudkeys: cuddy29 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.29 / Barry Merriman / Pons in France Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pons in France Date: 29 Oct 90 23:41:14 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research Perhaps Pons has gone to consult with Dr. Benveniste. ;-) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Mark North / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 30 Oct 90 04:09:33 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <1990Oct29.192117.7936@wrl.dec.com> haddad@wrl.dec.com (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >> if they had gone through proper peer review there would >>have been no doubt. > >I think that a fairly clear reading of the situation is this: P&F would >have preferred to have had everything completely figured out and to have >then submitted it for peer review. This way they could claim full credit. Well of course this is moot. But my reading of their published statements was that they did have it all figured out and that they were claiming full credit. >It was only when they incorrectly thought that Jones of BYU was trying to >steal their ideas that they felt they needed to go public quickly. As I recall, perhaps incorrectly, they had made an agreement with Jones as to when an announcement would be made jointly. They then reneged and jumped the gun leaving Jones hanging out to dry. I do not recall hearing anything Jones did to make them think he might be 'stealing' their ideas. If any- one might be stealing it could have been them since Jones was in this business long before they were. > >>Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >>year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >>two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). > >This only happened because of the arrogance and egos of said scientists. >Why did *all* of them need to drop everything they were doing? Again, >because they wanted all the credit for debunking or verifying the finding. Perhaps you should examine your own ego. I get the funny feeling you are not being very objective here. When you impugn *all*, as you have, you are leaving yourself open to a charge of prejudice. I can say this concerning myself: When this was announced, though I felt the method of announcement unorthodox, I was intrigued and even excited at the prospects of such a wonderful development. Yes, I wanted a part of it insofar as I was able to contribute and I wanted to be at the forefront of the work simply because it had the potential to be exciting and fun and I happened to have expertise in a pertinent area of the research. If this is arrogant and egotistical then I am guilty. But I think not. What motivates most of us (scientists) and others, I hope, is just the shear fun of discovery and learning. Unfortunately, there are others of us (scientists) and others, I fear, who have baser motives but surely not all as you are saying. >They could have easily said, "Well, 5 other qualified people are verifiying >this, I'll leave it to them." or: "This is all very sketchy and incomplete, >I'll wait a year or so until it becomes clearer before I decide whether to >spend any effort on it." If they feel that they wasted their time, they >have no one but themselves to blame. When one is trained in a field of science one is expected to apply their training. Else what's the point? If I wait six months before I look at something I might be able to contribute to then I have a lot of catching up to do. Not to mention that which I will have missed totally for not being current. For example, I have been on top of this since day one, I read about two or three papers a day, I follow this forum, I talk to others working on this by phone and go to conferences. If I came into this six months after the fact I would be hopelessly behind probably useless my particular expertise notwithstanding. Now, have I wasted my time? Yes and no. I have certainly learned a lot and I'll probably be able to use what I have learned to good advantage in the future but in the long run I believe it would have been much better for all if this baby had died at birth. (I.e. peer review). Enough said. Mark cudkeys: cuddy30 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Paul Koloc / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 30 Oct 90 06:10:50 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <85039@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes: >In article <1990Oct29.082032.26490@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >>>.. . hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >>>two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). >> >>NO NEUTRONS - NO FUSION ??? .. >> >>So how is it that neutrons MUST be a part of a fusion reaction? This >>sounds like tripe from people running "hot" experiments that then can't >>come up with the pressure required to burn the "good stuff*". > > Neutrons are expected to appear from fusion reactions on very >strong theoretical grounds. Nuclear physics is a well-explored field, >and I think it is VERY safe to extrapolate from that. One important >feature of nuclear interactions is that one can do the interchange > > p <--> n > >without changing any interaction strengths. This is "isospin >symmetry". True, there are effects like the electromagnetic >interaction and whatever is responsible for the p-n mass difference >which break this symmetry, but these can usually be corrected for. P Q True, neutrons are expected from SOME fusion reactions. However, several fusioning fuels or FUEL COMBINATIONS produce very few or NO NEUTRONS. > Most cold-fusion reactions have been performed with deuterium >(D). Its fusion reactions are: > > D(pn) + D(pn) -> T(pnn) + p > D(pn) + D(pn) -> He3(ppn) + n > D(pn) + D(pn) -> He4(ppnn) + gamma It is true the Deuterium is one of the fusioning nuclei in the critical thermal bursts, However, Deuterium is NOT the ONLY light fusionable nuclei available to undergo the fusion reaction in these cold fusion experiments. I am speaking, directly, to the those reactions NOT producing tritium (or He3) but to those only producing heat plus a mystery ash which can't be found. This ash is too common to the universe and the reaction is highly confined to the outermost shell of the rods. Incidentally, this is usually stripped off for impurity analysis since it also contains lots of electrochemical "crud". >Inside the ()'s is the proton-neutron content. Nuclear reactions that >emit gammas are typically very suppressed (say, 10^-8) compared to >nuclear reactions that do not involve gamma emission, all other things >being equal, as they are here. And the first two are known >experimentally to go at approximately the same rate, as predicted from >the isospin-symmetry hypothesis. True, most fusion-rate experiments >have been conducted at a few MeV of energy, but extrapolation to low >energies is well understood. > > So it is inevitable that D-D fusion should produce neutrons. >It is unfortunate that none of the cold-fusion enthusiasts have >seriously addressed the question of neutron-emission suppression. >They seem to think that all the work on nuclear physics is somehow >irrelevant to the cold-fusion question. If I am wrong here, then >please correct me. Present me with some theoretical analysis that >accounts for this (alleged) neutron suppression. IF THE REACTION IS CONFINED TO ONLY D-D, then you're correct. BUT, for those few rods that do work (produce a terrific amount of heat from such a confined sub-volume) after so many, many hours of fuel "loading", it is NOT the correct fusion reaction nor is a feasible one (as you point out). Look further, it must not be obvious, otherwise others would have realized the mechanism long ago. It is not a tested fact, yet, either (it may not work, and I may be barking up the wrong tree). ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, Paul M. Koloc, 1990 +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Vincent Cate / Pathological Science Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pathological Science Date: 30 Oct 90 18:33:57 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI I have read the following article and would like to find more articles, or even books, on "Pathological Science". Does anyone know of any? AUTHOR Langmuir, Irving and Hall, Robert N. TITLE Pathological science: certain symptoms seen in studies of 'N rays' and other elusive phenomena characterize 'the science of things that aren't so.' SOURCE Physics Today v42 n10 p36(13) 1989 Oct Thanks for any info, -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Mike Pelt / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 30 Oct 90 19:20:34 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology >>It was only when they incorrectly thought that Jones of BYU was trying to >>steal their ideas that they felt they needed to go public quickly. I think "steal" is far overstating the case. They found out that Dr. Jones was independantly working on the same thing, and had also found something, and they wanted to publish first. That would seem to me to be a significant data point, for those so quick to poo-poo the whole thing: Two independant groups came up with some kind of anomalous results, prior to any announcement. Though I certainly conceed that Pons' precipitous departure from the country doesn't look good for his claims at all. By the way, what's the latest on Dr. Jones' work? Has anyone heard of any tritium results from the water samples he was taking near that Alaskan volcano? Does anyone have *ANY* other mechanism which could result in significant tritium release by volcanoes? (I.e., alpha emitters sometimes releasing tritium nucleii rather than helium-4.) If it's there, with a 10-year half-life, it obviously has to be produced in quantity by some sort of continuous process. -- Mike Van Pelt "I'm not a biologist, but I play one in Headland Technology/Video 7 front of Congressional hearings." ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp -- Meryl Streep cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.31 / Paul Shawcroft / Re: Pathological Science Originally-From: paul@hamblin.math.byu.edu (Paul Shawcroft) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Pathological Science Date: 31 Oct 90 00:06:16 GMT Organization: Brigham Young University -- Mathematics Department There is a book called _False Prophets: Fraud and Error in Science and Medicine_, by Alexander Kohn, 1986. It documents many cases of bad science, fraud, plagiarism, etc. cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenpaul cudfnPaul cudlnShawcroft cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Ramsey Haddad / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: haddad@wrl.dec.com (Ramsey Haddad) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 30 Oct 90 17:51:01 GMT Organization: DEC Western Research Lab In article <1302@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >In article <1990Oct29.192117.7936@wrl.dec.com> haddad@wrl.dec.com (Ramsey Haddad) writes: >> If they feel that they wasted their time, they >>have no one but themselves to blame. > >When one is trained in a field of science one is expected to apply their >training. Else what's the point? When one is trained in a field of science, one is expected to accept responsibility for ones own decisions about: what research to accept as solid and trustworthy, what research to dismiss as incomplete and suspect, and more importantly *what research avenues to persue*. Else what's the point? -- Ramsey Haddad cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenhaddad cudfnRamsey cudlnHaddad cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.30 / Steve Hix / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: fiddler@concertina.Eng.Sun.COM (Steve Hix) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 30 Oct 90 21:49:44 GMT In article <7798@dog.ee.lbl.gov>, jtchew@csa3.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW) writes: > In article <42449@mips.mips.COM>, mark@mips.COM (Mark G. Johnson) writes... > > >It would seem that all the State of Utah will get for its > > >$5 million is a lesson in the value of peer review. > >There seems to be a lot of harping about the monetary figure > >FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ... as though this is the biggest financial > >flop of all time. > > It's the principle of the thing. When someone says "it's not the money, it's the priciple..", it's the money. :} -- ------------ The only drawback with morning is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day. ------------ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenfiddler cudfnSteve cudlnHix cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.31 / Loren Petrich / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 31 Oct 90 15:47:45 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory In article <1990Oct30.061050.3337@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <85039@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes: >> [on neutron-proton symmetry and why neutrons are expected to appear] > >True, neutrons are expected from SOME fusion reactions. However, >several fusioning fuels or FUEL COMBINATIONS produce very few or >NO NEUTRONS. True, there are some reactions that produce no neutrons, like He3 + D -> He4 + p But this reaction requires a mix of D and He3, and what makes D-He3 reactions happen but not D-D reactions? >> Most cold-fusion reactions have been performed with deuterium >>(D). Its fusion reactions are: >> >> D(pn) + D(pn) -> T(pnn) + p >> D(pn) + D(pn) -> He3(ppn) + n >> D(pn) + D(pn) -> He4(ppnn) + gamma > >It is true the Deuterium is one of the fusioning nuclei in the >critical thermal bursts, However, Deuterium is NOT the ONLY light >fusionable nuclei available to undergo the fusion reaction in these >cold fusion experiments. I am speaking, directly, to the those >reactions NOT producing tritium (or He3) but to those only producing >heat plus a mystery ash which can't be found. This ash is too common >to the universe and the reaction is highly confined to the outermost >shell of the rods. Incidentally, this is usually stripped off for >impurity analysis since it also contains lots of electrochemical "crud". If this "ash" can't be found, then how can one tell how common it is in the Universe? And which reactions are these? In principle, they ought to be repeatable. >> [Why D+D -> neutrons] >IF THE REACTION IS CONFINED TO ONLY D-D, then you're correct. BUT, >for those few rods that do work (produce a terrific amount of heat from >such a confined sub-volume) after so many, many hours of fuel "loading", >it is NOT the correct fusion reaction nor is a feasible one (as you >point out). Look further, it must not be obvious, otherwise others >would have realized the mechanism long ago. It is not a tested fact, >yet, either (it may not work, and I may be barking up the wrong tree). But where would the He3 come from? One source is, of course, D+D. But that would produce an abundance of neutrons, which are, of course, not seen. The reaction sequence would be Initial state: only D Early reactions: D+D -> T and He3, with p's and n's Later reactions: D+D reactions with D+T -> He4+n, D+He3 -> He4+p Final state: D gone, unconsumed T and He3 remaining. For cold fusion, D+T is almost certainly more likely than D+He3, because the Coulomb barrier is lower. The first set, like D+D, has charges 1 and 1, while the second set has charges 1 and 2. Aneutronic fusion does not seem like a very convincing possibility, unless at temperatures at least as great as the H and He Coulomb barriers. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: loren@sunlight.llnl.gov Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try: loren%sunlight.llnl.gov@star.stanford.edu cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenloren cudfnLoren cudlnPetrich cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.31 / ALPHERR / Attack on GE Originally-From: ALPHERR Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Attack on GE Date: Wed, 31 Oct 90 21:23:31 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I was shocked to see the uninformed attack on GE in re isotopically pur e diamond. Clearly the writer is of the opinion that large industries are intrinsically evil. I worked for GE for 32 years, and was in the group that produced ManMade Diamonds, although I was not involved in the work. Discussion of the properties and production of isotopically pure diamond was ongoing in the early 1970s. GE had already ordered C12 methane for producing isotopically pure diamond seed crystals long before Seitz visited the GE R&D Center. I suggest you check with GE for theior side of the story before you put misinformation out on the net. AlpherR@Union -- cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenBITNET cudlnALPHERR cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.31 / Randell Jesup / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 31 Oct 90 21:41:10 GMT Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA In article <85180@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes: > Initial state: only D > > Early reactions: D+D -> T and He3, with p's and n's > > Later reactions: D+D reactions with D+T -> He4+n, D+He3 -> He4+p > > Final state: D gone, unconsumed T and He3 remaining. But the initial state is NOT only D, it's really a mix of D and p. (In fact, a mix of D, p, and T, plus other random things.) This opens the possibility of D+p -> T. Admittedly, unlikely under normal thermal/pressure fusion, but it is a possibility, and is aneutronic. -- Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com BIX: rjesup Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!" cudkeys: cuddy31 cudenjesup cudfnRandell cudlnJesup cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.10.31 / Mark North / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 31 Oct 90 23:08:43 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <15505@cbmvax.commodore.com> jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup) writes: > > But the initial state is NOT only D, it's really a mix of D and p. >(In fact, a mix of D, p, and T, plus other random things.) This opens the >possibility of D+p -> T. Admittedly, unlikely under normal thermal/pressure >fusion, but it is a possibility, and is aneutronic. > D + p -> 3He + gamma(5.4 Mev) This gamma has not been observed. Mark cudkeys: cuddy31 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / Mark North / archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Date: 1 Nov 90 00:23:13 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Is this newsgroup archived somewhere? I've seen this question asked before but have never seen a response. Did I miss it? Mark cudkeys: cuddy1 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / Paul Shawcroft / All that taxpayer money Originally-From: paul@hamblin.math.byu.edu (Paul Shawcroft) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: All that taxpayer money Date: 1 Nov 90 03:03:05 GMT Organization: Brigham Young University -- Mathematics Department Some comments have been posted recently regarding the money that the Utah Government spent to fund cold fusion. Here are my thoughts on the matter. As a Utah taxpayer, I am terribly upset at the way P&F have accounted (or not accounted) for all the money they've been given. They owe every Utah taxpayer an explanation. Now I know that a lot of research money comes from the taxpayers. But most or all of that money is distributed via agencies like the National Science Foundation or other government agencies. Those agencies carefully review funding requests and provide funds for projects that show some promise. Such is not the case in Utah's cold fusion deal. The state government basically gave P&F a credit card with a $5mil credit limit and said, "have fun!" There was hardly any review of their previous results and even if there had been it wouldn't have made any difference. Gov. Bangerter was determined to give that money away and so was the legislature. There were no more than 2 votes against the appropriation, as I recall. When the advisory council was first set up, it consisted mainly of a bunch of fusion cheerleaders. Only recently, it seems, are council members asking any tough questions. Only recently have they been insistent that P&F show us the results they have been claiming for many months. They are constantly saying that they have results that will make the doubters (physicists, mainly) "eat crow". Nothing has been brought forth. In summary, the cold fusion episode is just a 5 million dollar embarrass- ment that the U of U have to live with for a long time. My attitude will change as soon as the great results we've been promised are shown to be correct. But right now, Pons, Fleischmann, and the U of U administration (particularly Peterson and Brophy) owe Utah taxpayers an explanation, an apology and a REFUND! Paul Shawcroft Disclaimer: Since I'm a BYU student, this disclaimer is for real. The opinions expressed above are my own and only my own. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenpaul cudfnPaul cudlnShawcroft cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / Wilson Heydt / Re: How much is $5 million? Originally-From: whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: How much is $5 million? Date: 1 Nov 90 16:47:22 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA In regards to the recent flap over the $5 million spent by the state of Utah on Pons & Fleischmann's Cold Fusion efforts--and whether this is to be considered a large or a small sum of money . . . Consider that the _Olympias_ (the reconstruction of an ancient Greek trireme) cost about $1 million and the man behind the effort--John Coates--needs about $1.5 million to set up port facilities and build a "better" version correcting the mistakes in the first one. That $5 million would build at least *3* such ships--even though it wouldn't even be noticed in the construction of the SSC. I guess it's all relative . . . --Hal ======================================================================= Hal Heydt | Practice Safe Government Analyst, Pacific*Bell | Use Kingdoms 415-823-5447 | (seen on a bumper sticker) whh@pbhya.PacBell.COM | cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenwhh cudfnWilson cudlnHeydt cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / John McCauley / Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Originally-From: jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Date: 1 Nov 90 17:33:22 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory In article <1317@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) writes: >Is this newsgroup archived somewhere? I've seen this question asked before >but have never seen a response. Did I miss it? > >Mark I have been informally archiving sci.physics.fusion since 8/90. Scott Machine: lyman.pppl.gov (192.55.106.129) Directory: ~ftp/pub/archives/sci.physics.fusion/old ~ftp/pub/archives/sci.physics.fusion/current sci.physics.fusion/current is the current spool directory sci.physics.fusion/old is stuff since 8/90. Additions welcome! Mail jsm@lyman.pppl.gov if you have old articles. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.02 / / Wasted $5M Originally-From: ames!rutgers!crdos1.crd.ge.com!davidsen Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Wasted $5M Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 04:25:05 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I think the claim of wasting money on CNF is hasty and ill-considered. While there has not been a nice clean explanation, there has certainly been a lot of new thinking in the area, as well as muon and fracto fusion. I suspect that the benefits of that will emerge in pieces over the next decade or so. I confess that after the first month or so I did not expect CNF to be a short term source of cheap energy, but I still look at it as a valuable possibility for new physics. In the long run that may be as valueable, although not as short term. I think people would be better off to consider the issue of what information we can now discover, given that there are more physicists in the world today who have given this thought than ever before. Should research continue? Obviously some countries will go on, because they believe their scientists. Obviously people who think that Fleishman has "fled to England" have no idea that he lives there, and probably very little other useful information as well. Haloween will be over in a few dyas, maybe this forum can return to science and leave witch hunting for next year. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix. -- cudkeys: cuddy2 cudendavidsen cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.02 / / Last Gasps Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Last Gasps Date: Fri, 2 Nov 90 04:58:18 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway So why the sudden frenzy to invent new fusion reactions just as the Founding Fathers are showing a distinct tendency to crawl off in a dark corner to hide. Even those not well versed in nuclear reactions should understand that the cascading of improbable reactions leads to improbable squared. To sell the notion that d + p and d + 3He reactions will occur with higher probability than d + d when the concentration of p and 3He can only be traces relative to deuterium will require some "New Age" nuclear theory that is further off the wall than any we have seen thus far. Dick Blue MSU/NSCL -- cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / kenton yee / Re: Gauge Invariance of EM Potential Energy Originally-From: kyee@bnlux0.bnl.gov (kenton yee) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Gauge Invariance of EM Potential Energy Date: 1 Nov 90 22:08:52 GMT Organization: Brookhave National Lab, Upton, NY We know that free fermion masses (like the neutron's) is gauge invariant. But is the electron's mass gauge invariant? (The electron always comes attached to photons, so is never truly "free.") More precisely, let me ask the following: Let "E" be the pole of the electron propagator in full QED. Then E is normally identified with the measured electron mass. The measured value of the electron mass is gauge invariant. Now, imagine you're God and you're continuously decreasing the physical value of the QED coupling constant "alpha" (while keeping Lambda_qed and renormalization parameter mu and all other QED parameters FIXED). Eventually you approach a world in which QED is effectively absent. When physicists in this world measure the electron propagator pole, they no longer measure E, but some other value "E0." Now, I want to define the electromagnetic potential energy of an (earthly) electron's electromagneic field as V = E - E0. QUESTION: Is V gauge invariant? (The kneejerk answer is that since both E and E0 are gauge invariant, V must be gauge invariant. But I'm not convinced E is gauge invariant because the electron is not an asymptotic particle in the sense of a neutral particle---electrons always come with a cloud of photons. In fact, work by Fried indicates that, due to infrared photons, the electron propagator is not even of the free particle (exponential) form. E0, of course, is gauge invariant. ) ---Ken Yee (Brookhaven Labs) cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenkyee cudfnkenton cudlnyee cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / kenton yee / Re: gauge dependence of electron self-potential energy k Originally-From: kyee@bnlux0.bnl.gov (kenton yee) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: gauge dependence of electron self-potential energy k Date: 1 Nov 90 22:12:14 GMT Organization: Brookhave National Lab, Upton, NY We know that free fermion masses (like the neutron's) is gauge invariant. But is the electron's mass gauge invariant? (The electron always comes attached to photons, so is never truly "free.") More precisely, let me ask the following: Let "E" be the pole of the electron propagator in full QED. Then E is normally identified with the measured electron mass. The measured value of the electron mass is gauge invariant. Now, imagine you're God and you're continuously decreasing the physical value of the QED coupling constant "alpha" (while keeping Lambda_qed and renormalization parameter mu and all other QED parameters FIXED). Eventually you approach a world in which QED is effectively absent. When physicists in this world measure the electron propagator pole, they no longer measure E, but some other value "E0." Now, I want to define the electromagnetic potential energy of an (earthly) electron's electromagneic field as V = E - E0. QUESTION: Is V gauge invariant? (The kneejerk answer is that since both E and E0 are gauge invariant, V must be gauge invariant. But I'm not convinced E is gauge invariant because the electron is not an asymptotic particle in the sense of a neutral particle---electrons always come with a cloud of photons. In fact, work by Fried indicates that, due to infrared photons, the electron propagator is not even of the free particle (exponential) form. E0, of course, is gauge invariant. ) ---Ken Yee (Brookhaven Labs) cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenkyee cudfnkenton cudlnyee cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.02 / Mark North / Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Date: 2 Nov 90 00:28:06 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <665@lyman.pppl.gov> jsm@lyman.UUCP (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: ^^^^ Can I trust this to be an unbiased collection? 8^). Seriously, I tried to thank you via email but it bounced. Thanks. Mark e cudkeys: cuddy2 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.01 / Barry Merriman / Re: All that taxpayer money Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: All that taxpayer money Date: 1 Nov 90 22:36:41 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research A friend at U of U mentioned to me that the U of U library has been hit hard by budget cuts during the past few years---so much so that they frequently don't have newer journals or books. (They even had an aluminum recycling drive to raise money for few new Springer-Verlag books in the math dept.) I estimate that $5 million dollars could have bought about 100,000 new books---thats about 3 per student and faculty, and certainly would remove any shortages. So, $5 million _well spent_ could have a major impact on education at U of U. Of course, money can always be spent on other things, and conversely, to each project its own due funds---but in this case, I think they were definitely hasty. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.02 / Loren Petrich / A Curious Result on Cold Fusion Research Originally-From: loren@dweasel.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A Curious Result on Cold Fusion Research Date: 2 Nov 90 21:23:23 GMT Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory I got a paper reviewing the work on Cold Fusion from a certain Douglas R. O. Morrison of CERN in Geneva, Switzerland (morrison@vxprix.decnet.cern.ch) by e-mail. Its main conclusion is that Cold Fusion is probably yet another example of Pathological Science, and presents how the claims of acceptance and rejection behaved in the fashion that Irving Langmuir had described for Pathological Science. Langmuir's examples had included such classics as N-Rays and polywater. His three phases of treatment of such results by the scientific community are (1) initial confirmation, (2) equal numbers of positive and negative results, and (3) a large number of negative results. One of his most interesting results was how the proportions of positive and negative claims varied regionally. There were two main regions of Cold Fusion researchers, whose results had shown different behaviors. Region #1 includes the major labs and the Northwest in the United States, along with Northern Europe, while Region #2 includes the rest of the United States, Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia (principally India and Japan) and Latin America. In a review for the May 1989 APS conference on Cold Fusion (the effect was first announced in March that year), Morrison found that Region #1 was already in Stage 3, while Region #2 was in Stage 1. In that month, Region #2 shifted to Stage 2, and in the months since then, most of Region #2 has shifted to Stage 3, with the exception of some Stage 2 holdouts in India, Japan, Utah, and Texas. There is the question of what caused Region #1 to turn skeptical earlier than Region #2. I wonder if it is a matter of the technical competence available to deal with this sort of problem. The hypotheses I will suggest may cause some flames, so be warned. I would not be surprised in the Region #1 labs are more advanced technically than the Region #2 ones; that would certainly be the case for major labs in the wealthier countries of the world. This would have allowed the Region #1 people to work out what was going on with this putative phenomenon much quicker than the Region #2 people. I know that this may be taken as a put-down of the smaller labs of the world, but the slow realization may simply be a reflection of the difficulties of understanding this phenomenon. Any comments? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster: loren@sunlight.llnl.gov Since this nodename is not widely known, you may have to try: loren%sunlight.llnl.gov@star.stanford.edu cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenloren cudfnLoren cudlnPetrich cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.05 / Barry Merriman / P&F explained Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: P&F explained Date: 5 Nov 90 03:18:34 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research Here's one of the newer CF theories to hit the streets. Be sure and get this into your bibliography listing, Dieter :-). (taken from an advertisement for 'Citizens for Clean, Free Energy' in the 11/1/90 issue of the U of Utah student newspaper.) ------------------------------------------ An Open Letter To The National Cold Fusion Institute Pons and Fleischmann Did Create Cold Fusion Pons and Fleischmann worked with the Vibratory Bonding of Subatomic Particles. They teased molecules apart rather than bursting them, allowing them to make a change rather than forcing them to make a change. More specifically, the two chemists enticed Hydrogen molecules to change direction and location by allowing them to continue moving as they froze (positively identified) the Palladium atoms. The Palladium atoms and all their aspects stopped moving in relationship to other atoms. The Hydrogen continued to move and became captivated inside the Palladium. When the Palladium was allowed to be free and start moving again, it pushed the Hydrogen atoms upon each other. The Palladium is the element that acted forcefully upon the Hydrogen. The teasing was the stopping of the Palladium that allowed the Hydrogen the opportunity to continue moving and to move in a different way than it normally would. When the Palladium and the Hydrogen subsequently came together, a vibration in the movement caused the Hydrogen atoms to come into contact with each other. This forceful coming together also caused a crushing within the bonding of the Palladium so that heat was generated. Occasionally the linking of the Palladium and Hydrogen with each other caused helium to be released by teasing the Palladium into stopping. Pons and Fleischmann created Cold Fusion. The way this was done had much to do with the resonance of the mechanical device they used with the length of wirings (the number of molecules of the wires) in relation to the source, i.e. the battery. These things combined together in such a way that a resonance was formed that was exactly opposite to the resonance of the Palladium. That opposing resonance was impenetrable, not allowing the Palladium to move in the direction it was moving. The Palladium then stopped just long enough for the faster Hydrogen to move inside of it. When the Palladium started to move again, it compressed the Hydrogen. In repeating the experiment the wires should be made a little longer or shorter until the same opposing resonance is achieved. The battery should be as closely identical to the one originally used with just the same amount of molecules of liquid inside the battery (or cause an interaction of two voltages to change the set-up a little bit). It is the resonance to the Palladium that Pons and Fleischmann achieved and that is the key to the demonstration that Cold Fusion works and, indeed, was created by these two men. We feel that the process discovered by these dedicated scientists should be developed as a viable, accessible, inexpensive energy source for all the world's citizens. ----------------------------- So there you have it! Simpler than we all imagined, eh? :-) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.05 / Paul Koloc / Re: Salt Lake -> Find the ash and the reactant Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake -> Find the ash and the reactant Date: 5 Nov 90 05:37:06 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <85180@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich) writes: >In article <1990Oct30.061050.3337@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>In article <85039@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> loren@tristan.llnl.gov (Loren >Petrich) writes: >>> [on neutron-proton symmetry and why neutrons are expected to appear] >>True, neutrons are expected from SOME fusion reactions. However, >>several fusioning fuels or FUEL COMBINATIONS produce very few or >>NO NEUTRONS. > True, there are some reactions that produce no neutrons, like > > He3 + D -> He4 + p > > But this reaction requires a mix of D and He3, and what makes >D-He3 reactions happen but not D-D reactions? In HOT fusion with sufficient pressure (adiabatic heating) and operating at a temperature of 70-75 keV and using a 50-50 solution, most of the fusion reactions will be of the He(3) + D variety (95%+). In fact only about 2% of the reactions will involve neutrons since half of the D-D reactions produce neutrons. > If this "ash" can't be found, then how can one tell how common >it is in the Universe? The reason this element "can't" be found is not that it's not there, but that it is a relatively abundant element and therefore is ubiquitous, and would be present as an common impurity. It is almost as bad as looking evidence of a child's wanderings across a beach by following a trail of sand that was dribbling from a hole in the sand pail the child was carrying. In this case the hole would be teeny and there are more atoms of the ash in circulation within the lab then sand on the beaches. > And which reactions are these? In principle, they ought to be >repeatable. That is correct, assuming clever preparation is made. > But where would the He3 come from? That was your deduction. It is but one of the isotopes of possible aneutronic reactions with Deuterium! I didn't mention He3, nor did I suggest it. As far as I know He3 has NOT been used in ANY electrochemistry loaded cold fusion experiments, although it MIGHT be a POSSIBILITY for cold PLASMA loaded ones. What I did say was: " It is true the Deuterium is one of the fusioning nuclei in the critical thermal bursts, However, Deuterium is NOT the ONLY light fusionable nuclei available to undergo the fusion reaction in these cold fusion experiments. " > For cold fusion, D+T is almost certainly more likely than >D+He3, because the Coulomb barrier is lower. The first set, like D+D, >has charges 1 and 1, while the second set has charges 1 and 2. In cold fusion, tunneling is even more important than in Hot fusion. Some isotopes of certain light elements in certain crystalline metals have much, much larger mobility than other isotopes of the same element. Try this: Simply take all of the isotopes of salts in abundance in the electrolytes of "working" experiments and list them in order of atomic number and atomic weight. Pick those which are as light as or lighter than say Boron 11, and then see if there are any interesting aneutronic reactions available with Deuterium. You and others have already eliminated elements of hydrogen and helium and all of their isotopes as the "other partner" reactant. Other characteristics may be important. For example, also find from the elements listed those isotopes which have the greatest mobility in palladium. The best mobility of an isotope in a selected element may not match that of Deuterium, but it could stand out from other isotopes of the same element. > Aneutronic fusion does not seem like a very convincing >possibility, unless at temperatures at least as great as the H and He >Coulomb barriers. It would seem highly unlikely that "temperatures" to produce fusion could occur at all in matter in the solid state. Yet we know that tritium is likely generated from subterranean sources and from the lab evidence of Jones and others. We find a tendency for neutron and proton couplets or alpa clusters to form within nuclear soup. Maybe isotopes made up of such pairings could generate interesting low temperature nuclear chemistry within special metal matrices. Ridiculous ..probably, but.. Let's face it, without tunneling even hot reactions would not work well and we would have a huge galaxy full of nearly all very cold stellar mass objects. This particular heat producing cold fusion reaction HAS TO BE ANEUTRONIC, IF it works, even occasionally, as reported. NOT protium or tritium Deuterium is one .. . must find THE OTHER fuel constituent NOT helium .. . But don't quit yet, Boron is not far ahead. .. (Yawn) All Rights Reserved 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.05 / ALPHERR / Pathological Science -- Fraud in Science Originally-From: ALPHERR Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Pathological Science -- Fraud in Science Date: Mon, 5 Nov 90 21:26:24 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway For those wanting more information on pathological science and fraud in science, I recommend getting in touch with Prof. A. Higgins at SUNY-Albany, who manages a net called SCIFRAUD, which you can join via SCIFRAUD@ALBNYVM1. You can reach Higgins at ACH13@ALBNYVM1VX.BITNET. He has a biblio- graphy on line which is the result of collection over a period of many years. ALPHERR@UNION -- cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenBITNET cudlnALPHERR cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.05 / Wm Davidsen / Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 5 Nov 90 20:59:13 GMT Organization: GE Corp R&D Center I just heard an interesting one... one of our physicists was talking to an oil driller at a conference, and it came out that oil companies use neutron mapping of rock formations to determine characteristics of the formation. It seems that they lower a neutron emitter down a well, turn it on, and run their mapping hardware to find oil, or formations, or whatever. Now the interesting thing about this is the the driller says the neutron emmiter is a gadget which forces tritium into a lithium compound and causes enough fusion to do the job. I have no way of checking this out, but if this is a production process, as it appears, then it makes me doubt two of the statements often posted, (1) that you can't get fuion that way, and (2) that it is in some way aneutronic. I also wonder what this does to any patent claims. There is no claim that the process produces any measurable energy, certainly not breakeven, it's just a convenient way to get neutrons without having something radioactive around. Now could someone in oil country check this out? Neither the guy who passed the story to me nor the original oil man have any interest in CNF, they were talking about detectors, not emiters, at the conference. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) The Twin Peaks Halloween costume: stark naked in a body bag cudkeys: cuddy5 cudendavidsen cudfnWm cudlnDavidsen cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.05 / Paul Dietz / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 5 Nov 90 21:19:02 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <2835@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: > > I just heard an interesting one... one of our physicists was talking >to an oil driller at a conference, and it came out that oil companies >use neutron mapping of rock formations to determine characteristics of >the formation. It seems that they lower a neutron emitter down a well, >turn it on, and run their mapping hardware to find oil, or formations, >or whatever. > > Now the interesting thing about this is the the driller says the >neutron emmiter is a gadget which forces tritium into a lithium compound >and causes enough fusion to do the job. Borehole neutron sources are old hat. They are small vacuum tubes in which deuterons or trition ions are accelerated into a target containing deuterium or tritium. This is not cold fusion; fusion is induced by the good, old-fashioned impact of energetic nuclei. The neutrons are used to measure hydrogen density (by seeing how they thermalize) and to do elemental analysis of the rock formation (by looking at inelastic scattering gammas, capture gammas, and gamma emission from decay of activated nuclei). The journal Science recently had an article on geochemical well logging that describes the process in more detail. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy5 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / John McCauley / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 6 Nov 90 01:56:17 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory In article <1990Nov5.211902.14740@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <2835@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >> >> I just heard an interesting one... one of our physicists was talking >>to an oil driller at a conference, and it came out that oil companies >>use neutron mapping of rock formations to determine characteristics of >>the formation. It seems that they lower a neutron emitter down a well, >>turn it on, and run their mapping hardware to find oil, or formations, >>or whatever. ..... > >The journal Science recently had an article on geochemical well logging >that describes the process in more detail. > Also see if you can find "Neutron Sources for Basic Physics and Applications" ed. C.J. Cierjacks. Pergamon Press, 1983. ISBN 0-08-029351-4, LOC QC793.5.N462. Chapter IV suggests you look at "Symp. on Nuclear Techniques and Mineral Resources, Vienna," published IAEA (1977). Other applications of neutron sources: 1) explosive detection. Some international airports are already looking at luggage with neutrons. 2) medical. 'Healty' tissues are more rad-hardened than cancerous ones. Neutrons may be better than x or gamma rays. 3) 'safeguard' analysis of spent fuel rods. See if a reactor under IAEA safeguards is producing too much plutonium. 4) fusion materials research 5) initiators for fission weapons (ick). 6) burn away your high-level radwaste with neutrons. Yes, it does work. Yes, you get *lots* of low-level radwaste. Don't invest in this technology now. Hope this helps, Scott cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Mark North / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 6 Nov 90 04:10:14 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <2835@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: > > Now the interesting thing about this is the the driller says the >neutron emmiter is a gadget which forces tritium into a lithium compound >and causes enough fusion to do the job. > I think the purpose of the lithium is to provide enough tritium at low pressure to feed the neutron generator. There is no 'cold fusion' going on here. Mark cudkeys: cuddy6 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Mark Gellis / New Subject: A Question About the Potential of Fusion Originally-From: f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Mark Gellis) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New Subject: A Question About the Potential of Fusion Date: 6 Nov 90 06:48:28 GMT Organization: Purdue University As a non-scientist interested in science, I've been reading on the recent research regarding fusion energy, and I had an interesting thought. Supposedly, certain reactions like He3-Boron are supposed to be very useful for certain kinds of applications (low radiation, produces charged particles that can be manipulated for a spacecraft drive, etc.), but Boron and other elements or isotopes involved in these reactions are very rare, which means that such reactions would be expensive or impractical. Is there any reason why one could not use fusion reactions to breed these rare elements? Obviously, it would be more costly in terms of energy, etc. to do so, compared to certain reactions, but could it be done? If so, would it be especially difficult? Assuming that fusion power becomes one of the main sources of energy in the future, could it also become one of the main sources of industry, fusing simple elements into less common ones (at least up to iron) that are rare enough to make it worth the trouble--once the technical problems of fusion are solved, would it be that much trouble? I don't know...that's why I'm asking--to use such a complicated process. Thanks. Mark Gellis f3w@mentor.cc.purdue.edu cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenf3w cudfnMark cudlnGellis cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Paul Koloc / Re: P&F explained Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: P&F explained Date: 6 Nov 90 06:56:30 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <678@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Here's one of the newer CF theories to hit the streets. >Be sure and get this into your bibliography listing, Dieter :-). > >(taken from an advertisement for 'Citizens for Clean, Free Energy' >in the 11/1/90 issue of the U of Utah student newspaper.) >------------------------------------------- > > An Open Letter To The National Cold Fusion Institute > Pons and Fleischmann Did Create Cold Fusion [ lots of joyous stuff ] > When the Palladium and the Hydrogen subsequently came together, > a vibration in the movement caused the Hydrogen atoms to come > into contact with each other. This forceful coming together > also caused a crushing within the bonding of the Palladium so > that heat was generated. Occasionally the linking of the ^^^^ > Palladium and Hydrogen with each other caused helium to be > released by teasing the Palladium into stopping. Pons and > Fleischmann created Cold Fusion. . ... . The style sounds off biblical! Is this adiabatic compression heating, which is more commonly associated with hot fusion? Wonder how long it will take for someone to "invent" the transformation of other thermonuclear fusion auxiliary heating techniques to explain the cf "results". Good hunting Barry +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Herman Rubin / Re: All that taxpayer money Originally-From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: All that taxpayer money Date: 6 Nov 90 16:22:46 GMT Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department In article <660@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > A friend at U of U mentioned to me that the U of U library has > been hit hard by budget cuts during the past few years---so much > so that they frequently don't have newer journals or books. (They > even had an aluminum recycling drive to raise money for few new > Springer-Verlag books in the math dept.) > I estimate that $5 million dollars could have bought about 100,000 new > books---thats about 3 per student and faculty, and certainly would remove > any shortages. So, $5 million _well spent_ could have a major impact > on education at U of U. | Of course, money can always be spent on other things, and conversely, | to each project its own due funds---but in this case, I think they were | definitely hasty. If we knew the result of an experiment, we would not have to do it, and there would be no research, merely development of "tried and true" ideas. There might be a little progress from serendipity, but not much. Research is exploration into the unknown. Little of it will be useful, but there is no conceivable way to select the "right ways" from the "wrong ways." -- Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907 Phone: (317)494-6054 hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet) {purdue,pur-ee}!l.cc!hrubin(UUCP) cudkeys: cuddy6 cudencik cudfnHerman cudlnRubin cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Wilson Heydt / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 6 Nov 90 16:14:30 GMT Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA In article <2835@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >forces tritium into a lithium compound > >it's just a convenient way to get neutrons >without having something radioactive around. Excuse me? I hate to spoil your fun--but last time I checked, tritium was radioactive. Is it possible that someone is pulling your leg? --Hal ======================================================================= Hal Heydt | Practice Safe Government Analyst, Pacific*Bell | Use Kingdoms 415-823-5447 | (seen on a bumper sticker) whh@pbhya.PacBell.COM | cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenwhh cudfnWilson cudlnHeydt cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.07 / Mark North / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 7 Nov 90 00:28:55 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <6130@pbhya.PacBell.COM> whh@PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes: >In article <2835@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >>it's just a convenient way to get neutrons >>without having something radioactive around. > >Excuse me? I hate to spoil your fun--but last time I checked, tritium >was radioactive. Is it possible that someone is pulling your leg? > Tritium is far easier to handle (a beta emitter) than a neutron source such as Pu-Be or 252Cf. Properly encased tritium should show no external radioactivity. Mark cudkeys: cuddy7 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.06 / Barry Merriman / Re: All that taxpayer money Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: All that taxpayer money Date: 6 Nov 90 21:22:26 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research (Herman Rubin) writes: >(Barry Merriman) writes: >| Of course, money can always be spent on other things, and conversely, >| to each project its own due funds---but in this case, I think they were >| definitely hasty. > >If we knew the result of an experiment, we would not have to do it, ... >There might be a little progress from serendipity, but not much. > >Research is exploration into the unknown. Little of it will be useful, >but there is no conceivable way to select the "right ways" from the >"wrong ways." Don't the ``right ways'' have something to do with applying the scientific method to get the most out of discoveries (serendipitous or otherwise)? But beyond doing research, there should be ``right ways'' to manage/fund research. This is where I'm saying Utah really messed up. After all, the original P&F work was going on ``fine'' at a funding rate of $100,000/year---running several cells in a spare lab. Then, they get $5 million, and instead of plowing it directly into this upgrading the ongoing research, they spend it mostly on new buildings, bureaucracy and lawyers. I think we can all agree that that is a poor way to conduct research. (But a good way to cash in, if you already think you hit it big. :-) The bottom line is: the P&F experiments are intrinsically cheap---it costs only tens of thousands/year to build and monitor a fully instrumented P&F cell. $5 million should have been enough to fund such work for several years. Instead, the money is almost gone, and they still haven't resolved the problem. Note: a recent quote of F (last week) in the NY Times said that their fusion work was going very well. Now, a scientist would fib, would they? :-) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.03 / John McCauley / Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Originally-From: jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: archives of sci.physics.fusion and alt.fusion Date: 3 Nov 90 06:36:37 GMT Organization: Eastern Hot Fusion Establishment In article <1325@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >In article <665@lyman.pppl.gov> jsm@lyman.UUCP (John Scott McCauley Jr.) writes: > ^^^^ > >Can I trust this to be an unbiased collection? 8^). Seriously, I tried to >thank you via email but it bounced. Thanks. > >Mark > Oops: the reply-to line should have been jsm@lyman.pppl.gov. Well, it is about as biased as sci.physics.fusion has been since last August. Of course, the sysadmins here might have removed all the stuff not in accord with DOE culture..... Seriously, the more outrageous the abstract or article, the more laughs... So it is more likely that the boring hot stuff will get removed first. Scott cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / John McCauley / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: jsm@lyman.pppl.gov (John Scott McCauley Jr.) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 8 Nov 90 14:59:08 GMT Organization: Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory In article <1357@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >Tritium is far easier to handle (a beta emitter) than a neutron source >such as Pu-Be or 252Cf. Properly encased tritium should show no >external radioactivity. > > > > >Mark Very interesting: this attitude towards the relative safety of neutron sources seems to be the opposite of the policy here. True, a big advantage of using a neutron generator is that you can turn it off (you still might have to check for radiation caused by activation). Pu-Be, Am-Be, and 252Cf sources are always 'on'. So you have to take precautions. For a 5E7 n/s 252Cf source the following precautions are typical: 1) source is on tether (aviation cable) 2) source is handled at end of 10 foot fishing pole. 3) source is stored in a 6'x6' concrete drum when not in use 4) source is transfered in a 3'x3' steel pig filled with moderator when moved from room to room. Total weight of pig is 2300 lbs. 5) cannot use source alone 6) radiation monitors must be worn. The big safety advantage of the above type of source is that these sources are very difficult to break open (plus easy to locate if missing). For example, the 1" long x 0.5" dia source will not be dented if the 2300 lb pig rolls over it. Now lets look at sealed DT neutron generators: 1) 5-10 Ci of Tritium might get out if tube is ruptured. (likely most will be retained by getter system). 2) Tritium can diffuse through parts of the generator (target cooling cap) and get into the target cooling system. We are decomissioning a DT generator now and large parts of it are Tritium contaminated. Of course it is all relative -- those old glow in the dark emergency exit signs have 20 Ci or so of Tritium in them. Hope this helps, Scott P.S. Pu-Be is now very difficult to buy. Am-Be is much safer, so they say. cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenjsm cudfnJohn cudlnMcCauley cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / Steve Shellans / Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Originally-From: steves@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Date: 8 Nov 90 16:46:20 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. Last Sunday, on the TV program "60 minutes", they speculated that Iraq has (or shortly will have) A-bombs. They showed satellite photos of what was purported to be a uranium mine high in the mountains, and they obtained evidence that Iraq had purchased from a German company the rights to manufacture gasious diffusion equipment. My questions: 1. If that mine is indeed a uranium mine, could that fact be ascertained by radiation detected from a satelite? If the answer is 'no', what about a high-flying (100,000 ft) spy plane. 2. Same question with respect to a gasious diffusion plant. Thanks, Steve Shellans cudkeys: cuddy8 cudensteves cudfnSteve cudlnShellans cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / Arnie Frisch / Re: Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Originally-From: arnief@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Arnie Frisch) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Date: 8 Nov 90 18:12:24 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <7045@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM> steves@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) writes: > >Last Sunday, on the TV program "60 minutes", they speculated >that Iraq has (or shortly will have) A-bombs. They showed >satellite photos of what was purported to be a uranium mine >high in the mountains, and they obtained evidence that Iraq >had purchased from a German company the rights to manufacture >gasious diffusion equipment. > >My questions: > > 1. If that mine is indeed a uranium mine, could that fact be > ascertained by radiation detected from a satelite? > If the answer is 'no', what about a high-flying (100,000 ft) > spy plane. Maybe using specially designed hardware and lots of signal processing? It would take a lot of time (averaging), lots of passes, and probably cost a lot of money to do. > 2. Same question with respect to a gasious diffusion plant. Probably a lot harder (read nearly impossible). If we wait long enough to do something like this to prove he's trying to build a bomb - we'll probably be too late! cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenarnief cudfnArnie cudlnFrisch cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / William Johnson / Re: Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Does Iraq have the A-bomb? Date: 8 Nov 90 22:21:50 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <7045@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM> steves@tekchips.LABS.TEK.COM (Steve Shellans) writes: > >Last Sunday, on the TV program "60 minutes", they speculated >that Iraq has (or shortly will have) A-bombs. They showed [etc.] *****FLAME WARNING***** PLEASE GET THIS GARBAGE OUT OF SCI.PHYSICS.FUSION!! This group has a VERY explicit charter involving a particular branch of science. That charter has absolutely NOTHING to do with spy satellites, or Iraqi geology, or mines, and only by the most extreme twisting of the charter can it be construed as relating to bombs, atomic or otherwise. The questions raised in the referenced posting are perfectly germane for places like sci.military; you might even have a chance of picking up something useful there. They are NOT germane to the science of fusion, cold or otherwise; *please* do not discuss them here, as the signal/noise ratio in this group is already bad and getting worse. We now return you to your regularly scheduled polemics. -- Bill Johnson | "A man should never be ashamed to own he Los Alamos National Laboratory | has been in the wrong, which is but saying, Los Alamos, New Mexico USA | in other words, that he is wiser to-day !cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov) | than he was yesterday." (A. Pope) cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / Les Earnest / Scientist Ducks Reports, Fusion Review Closed To Public Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Scientist Ducks Reports, Fusion Review Closed To Public Date: 8 Nov 90 23:14:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By HILARY GROUTAGE, Associated Press Writer SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The University of Utah scientist who claimed to have discovered a cold fusion energy process made his first appearance in Utah in weeks Wednesday at the opening of a review his work by independent researchers. Electrochemist B. Stanley Pons ducked away from cameras while listening to the four-member review team's vows to conduct an unbiased review and keep open minds about his controversial experiments. Pons left Utah several weeks ago, putting his Salt Lake City home up for sale and pulling his 7-year-old son out of school. Later reports placed him in France. Pons dodged reporters Wednesday, and Fritz Will, director of the university's National Cold Fusion Institute, rebuffed reporters' questions about the scientist. Will would only say Pons was attending the meetings - which were closed to the public - and was expected to appear before the state Fusion Energy Advisory Council on Thursday. The state council oversees spending for fusion research and was responsible for dispersing $5 million last year to start the fusion institute. Pons and colleague Martin Fleischmann created a furor last month when they left Utah, apparently without making their destinations known to officials of the institute and the university. Fleischmann returned to his home in Tisbury, England, for medical treatment, and did not return for the review, Will said. The episode cast yet another shadow over the research that was unveiled on March 23, 1989, when the two announced at a news conference they had achieved a sustained nuclear fusion reaction in a simple tabletop experiment that produced more energy in the form of heat that was used to run it. Fusion long has been sought as a potential source of cheap and virtually inexhaustible energy. But few scientists have been able to duplicate their work and many remain skeptical. Researchers around the world have spent billions of dollars trying to reach that same energy surplus from hot fusion, the process that powers the sun and stars by combining, or fusing, two hydrogen atoms into a heavier helium atom. Participants in Wednesday's closed-door session were required to sign a confidentiality agreement, officials said. Dale F. Stein, a metallurgist and president of Michigan Technological University, promised a fair review of the work going on at the institute - even though he was a member of a national panel that recommended against providing federal funds for fusion research early on. ''I think that (Department of Energy) panel said there was reason to continue research'' even though it did not approve funding the University of Utah's fusion research, he said. ''I was very open and objective as a member of that panel.'' Stein and the others said the results of the review will not be available until mid-December. The other panel members are Stanley Bruckenstein, a professor of chemistry at State University of New York at Buffalo; Loren G. Helper, a chemist from Alberta, Canada; and Robert Adair, a professor of Physics at Yale University. Will told the council last month that dozens of researchers in the United States, Japan, India and elsewhere not only had produced excess heat, but evidence of such nuclear fusion indicators as tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, and neutrons, uncharged particles. Recently researchers from two laboratories - the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Hawaii - reported detecting positively charged atomic particles they said might be products of cold fusion reactions, according to Wednesday's Wall Street. A palladium rod used in the Hawaii experiment that produced unexpected heat showed helium atoms that might have been produced in a fusion reaction. AP-NY-11-07-90 2021EST ********** cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.09 / Mark North / Re: Scientist Ducks Reports, Fusion Review Closed To Public Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Scientist Ducks Reports, Fusion Review Closed To Public Date: 9 Nov 90 03:00:23 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) writes: >[From Associated Press] >By HILARY GROUTAGE, Associated Press Writer > SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The University of Utah scientist who claimed >to have discovered a cold fusion energy process made his first >appearance in Utah in weeks Wednesday at the opening of a review his >work by independent researchers. > [ ... ] > Dale F. Stein, a metallurgist and president of Michigan >Technological University, promised a fair review of the work going on >at the institute - even though he was a member of a national panel >that recommended against providing federal funds for fusion research >early on. > ''I think that (Department of Energy) panel said there was reason to >continue research'' even though it did not approve funding the >University of Utah's fusion research, he said. ''I was very open and >objective as a member of that panel.'' > Stein and the others said the results of the review will not be >available until mid-December. > The other panel members are Stanley Bruckenstein, a professor of >chemistry at State University of New York at Buffalo; Loren G. >Helper, a chemist from Alberta, Canada; and Robert Adair, a professor >of Physics at Yale University. I know Dale Stein and talked to him at the Sante Fe meeting. Although, at the time, I felt he was more skeptical than most (including myself) I believe him to be a fair, competent and unbiased person regarding this issue. Also, I know that Mich. Tech. has no axe to grind vis a vis 'Cold Fusion' (I was on sabbatical there in the physics department '87-'88). If anyone knows the other panel members it might be comforting to us all if similar things can be said about them and their institutions. Please post if you have pertinent information. Mark cudkeys: cuddy9 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.09 / Raul Baragiola / Ave Fenix? Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Ave Fenix? Date: 9 Nov 90 01:14:33 GMT Organization: University of Virginia My local newspaper said briebly Pons reappeared before the commitee. Has anyone information about the outcome? Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 368 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 368 papers on cnf) Date: Sat, 10 Nov 90 06:07:36 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Here's some relief from the comic relief we've been having here, what with inscrutable ashes and deuterium teasing the palladium, naughty naughty d. I've compared T. Braun's compilation, and found a few there that I had missed, like the Nordlander+, Wang+, Fishman+, Whaley and the Filipek items below, plus a few I'm chasing up and will add when I get 'em. Some of these are of course quite old by now. There are also a couple of Russians on the way, it's slow work, and a Brazilian (in Port.) which I'll add when I've done them, though I can see no great revelations as yet. Chem. Abstracts continue to show a goodly rate, so even if it's dead, there is stuff in the pipeline still. There are a few theory papers; all but the Paleschi+ and Zhu+ papers raise no hopes. Neither do the experimental papers except - if you think the results are significant which I do not - the Matsumoto paper. The neutron counts in the track recordings appear to show an excess for "real" over "dummy" cells but this excess is smaller than the variation between dummies, making me suspicious of selective sampling or presentation. The Sasaki+ item is just a description of what they intend to do. I don't understand the Soifer+ thing, will wait for the published translation with this one and report back, instead of doing it myself. I said I'd ignore cluster impact papers but break all vows here; cluster impact fusion keeps cropping up in association with cold fusion, so I might keep an eye on it anyway. The Filipek item is interesting to people who monitor deuterium loading by measuring electrode resistance, though in a slightly remote way. Czirr and Jensen will presumably soon sell their super duper neutron detector, especially designed for your cold fusion experiment. Let's keep the hydrogen captivated, and the palladium moving, and if you find any abundant ash, tell us. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 9-Nov. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Balke B, Cox L, Fackler O, Mugge M, Souers PC, Tsugawa RT, White RM; Phys. Rev. C42 (1990) 30. "Limits on neutron emission from 'cold fusion' in metal hydrides". ** Performed experiments to measure neutron emission from some metallic hydrogen getters at various temperatures and pressures. Two detectors, placed on opposite sides of the samples, were used, optimised for 2.5 MeV, and about 10% efficient. Temperatures were cycled between -197 degC and room temp., and pressures up to 50 atm used. Ti sponge and shavings, and Pd wire were tried. There were no significant neutron emissions. To detect short bursts, fast logic circuitry was then used, and again nothing detected. Same thing when, instead of D2 gas, HD and DT gas were tried. Mar-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chu L-Y, Lu D-H; Commun. Theor. Phys. 13 (1990) 33. "The estimation of nuclear fusion rate in crystal". ** A crystal has collective properties and an interior periodic field. C+L ask, what mechanism might there be to promote cold fusion? It turns out that collective properties can't do it because of wavelength problems. The periodic field, however, could bring deuterons together. This idea is examined in detail for PdDx (x <= 0.8). Thomas-Fermi statistics is invoked as well as the Schroedinger equation and WKB method, and the final result is a maximum of about 10**(-60) fusions/pair/s and, for titanium deuteride, 10**(-55). So no go, unless "there exist some unknown equilibrium effects". Sep-89/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Christensen OB, Ditlevsen PD, Jacobsen KW, Stoltze P, Nielsen OH, Noerskov JK; Phys. Rev. B40 (1989) 1993. "H-H interactions in Pd". ** Calculation of H-H interaction (H = any isotope) concludes that there can be no cold fusion. High loadings, e.g. tetrahedral occupancy, requires very high pressures. May-89/Jul-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fishman RS, Mahan GD; Phys. Rev. B40 (1989) 11493. "Binding of charged particles in lattice defects". ** Calculate the interaction between two positively charged particles in the presence of a spherical lattice defect with uniform electron density, using the jellium model, WKB method, and assuming a background charge density that neutralises the conduction electrons. If cold fusion occurs, it is unlikely that binding of deuterons in lattice defects is responsible. May-89/Dec-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Liu S, Qiu F, Sun Y; Fenxi Huaxue 18(4) (1990) 400, inside back cover (in Chinese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:139992 (1990). "Mass spectra analysis of the products of the so-called 'cold fusion'". ** "MS anal. of the products of cold fusion did not show the presence of (3)He, (4)He and T which should be present in nuclear fusions. A VG 7070E double focus MS, EI ionization source, and e energy 70 eV were used. The emission current, collected current, and instrument resolving power were 2 mA, 400 uA, and 1000, resp." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsumoto O, Kimura K, Saito Y, Uyama H, Yaita T; Denki Kagaku 58 (1990) 147. "Detection of neutrons in electrolysis of D2SO4-D2O solution by means of fission track method". ** Carried out electrolysis in D2SO4 solution instead of the more customary LiOD, because previous studies of hydrogen evolution have been used acid. A Pd plate, a palladized Pd plate or Pt plate were used, in normal electrolysis and glow discharge electrolysis (GDE), 50 mA in both cases (in GDE, one of the two electrodes hangs in the gas above the electrolyte; the gas is kept at a low pressure, here 70 Torr, and large voltages <= 1000 V or so are required). The paper does not make clear whether it is the Pd cathode or the Pt anode that is in the gas phase. The neutron detector, mounted below the cells, was a sandwich of a mica plate plus uranyl salt plate in a polythene bag. Neutrons make tracks in this sandwich and can be counted. In every case (different electrolysis methods, different cathodes), there were clearly more neutrons from D2SO4 in D2O than in dummy cells (by factors of 1.5-3.4) and no such differences between runs in H2SO4 and dummies. However, the fluctuations from one dummy to another were of similar magnitude. The authors conclude that cold fusion takes place, at a rate of about 10**(-24) fusions/pair/s, a little lower than the rate observed by Jones et al. Aug-89/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Norlander P, Noerskov JK, Besenbacher F, Myers SM; Phys. Rev. B40 (1989) 1990. "Multiple deuterium occupancy of vacancies in Pd and related metals". ** If cold fusion happens, then there should appear charged particles and neutrons, and these might cause crystal vacancies in the metal, leading to nucleation of dense D plasmas. The team use their "effective medium" theory to calculate energies of vacancy trapping for various transition metals. In Mo, Cu, Ni and Fe there is strong D-D repulsion, while it is weak in Nb and Pd. D-D spacing in Pd is down to 3.5 au, closer than the 5.2 au of octahedral occupancy - but not enough for cold fusion. 18-Apr-89/Jul-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oguro K; Zairyo 39(437) (1990) 228 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:85796 (1990). "Hydrogen absorbing alloys and low-temperature nuclear fusion". ** "A review with no references is given on the mechanism of absorption of H by alloys, the roles of the metal surface and bulk metal in H absorption, and Pd as an electrode for cold nuclear fusion". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paleschi V, Harith MA, Salvetti G, Singh DP, Vaselli M; Phys. Lett. A148 (1990) 345. "A plasma model of the process of cold nuclear fusion in metals". ** The authors aim to present a model of the interionic interactions and electron screening in metals that, without introducing the unrealistic concept of effective mass or charge, may account for observed cold fusion rates. The high density of H in Pd gives rise to a dense one-component plasma. Results show that efficient screening of the d potential obtains in metals at low temperatures and d-d short range correlation lead to enhanced cold fusion rates. Aug-89/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sasaki A; Kenkyu Kiyo - Miyagi Kogyo Koto Senmom Gakko 26 (1990) 47 (in Japan.). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:140016 (1990). "An approach to cold fusion". ** "Room temp. nuclear fusion was examd. using a different method from S.E. Jones et al (1989) assuming that their theory is correct, and a plan for the expts. is described. A low temp. plasma (low pressure and e- temp. ca. 1 eV used for processing) and high temp. d beam will be used but the target at which reaction will take place is at room temp. The equipment to be used is compared [sic] of a Ti wire, a Ti film target in a vacuum chamber, an extra electrode, and a plasma ion source. The plasma is formed by the discharge of ECR (heating). In the region of plasma formation, an electrode is set up to produce the d beam. In the 1st stage of the expt., <= 1 keV energy and ca. 10 mA electricity will be used. By adjusting the beam energy (accelerating voltage), the dependence of nuclear fusion reaction (if it occurs) on energy can be measured." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soifer NV, Goryachev VA, Salyuk AN, Sergeev AF; Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 312(4) (1990) 860 (in Russian). [This gets translated] Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:140047 (1990). "Neutron yield in electrolysis of heavy water". ** "Expts. were conducted to det. the sensitivity and efficient [sic] in recording n of fusion energy using existing counting systems. Electrolysis was conducted on ordinary H2O with electrodes of Pt, Pd and Ti in the form of sheets or wires, followed by electrolysis, under the same conditions, of D2O. Other materials tested as cathodes were stainless steel, Fe, and a Ti-5%V alloy. No n were detected during electrolysis of D2O from the soft conditions of c.d. 0.05 A/cm**2 up to discharge at the cathode (the c.d. up to the moment of discharge reached 200-300 A/cm**2), even if they (the n fluxes) amounted to 10**14-10**16 fold less than those obsd. in cold fusion". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wang XW, Louie SG, Cohen ML; Phys. Rev. B40 (1989) 5822. "Hydrogen interactions in PdHn (1 <= n <= 4)". ** Use local-density approximation with the Hedin-Lundqvist form of the exchange-correlation potential to calculate the named interactions. The total energy of absorption of hydrogen into the Pd hydride is also wanted. The Born- Oppenheimer approximation is used. As a comparison, calculations are first done for the beta phase, where H is in the octahedral sites; this works. All phases other than the beta phase (PdH) are unstable and in all, H-H distances are much greater than in H2 gas. So no hope for cold fusion. Jun-89/Sep-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Whaley KB; Phys. Rev. B41 (1990) 3473. "Boson enhancement of finite-temperature coherent dynamics for deuterium in metals". ** Unusual isotopic anomalies observed in tungsten/hydrogen systems suggest that at high concentrations, collective effects may obtain. Whaley presents a theory, using a generalised Hubbard Hamiltonian model acting on spin -1/2 states (fermions) for H and T, and -1 spin (bosons) for D. Results: for PdD, no good, but possibly for PdD2, but under special conditions. Boson screening is of interest. Oct-89/Feb-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zhu S-B, Lee J, Robinson GW; Phys. Lett. A144 (1990) 361. "Nonlinear effects on thermonuclear reaction rates". ** Coulomb screening and nonlinear effects, together with many-body collisions, may enhance nuclear fusion rates by many orders of magnitude at low temperatures. Dec-89/Mar-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zhu S-B, Lee J, Robinson GW; Chem. Phys. Lett 161 (1989) 249. "Kinetic energy imbalance in inhomogeneous materials". ** The authors focus on the relative momentum of the Pd and D atoms in PdDx. Molecular dynamic simulations are used, in two dimensions, for PdD, and show that barrier penetration is feasible and could enhance cold fusion rates by many orders of magnitude. Jun-89/Sep-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carraro C, Chen BQ, Schramm S, Koonin SE; Phys. Rev. A42 (1990) 1379. "Estimates of cluster-impact fusion yields". ** Cluster impact fusion has some strange properties, such as a constant rate with varying cluster size between 100 and 300 D2O's, at constant cluster energy. This means, after all, a decreasing energy per D atom in the whole cluster. The authors address the questions of thick-target yield, knock-on effects, and thermal spikes. They also attempt to simulate the process. Each model fails by many orders of magnitude. The authors consider that the effect may be due to experimental artifacts such as, e.g., single-molecule impurity in the beam. The effect itself is not doubted. Jan-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Czirr JB, Jensen GL; U.S. Patent US 4,931,649 (Cl. 250-390.07; G01T3/06), 5-Jun-90, Appl. 342,858. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:144483 (1990). "Neutron-coincidence calorimeter". ** A coincidence neutron detector, whose dual signal provides a mechanism for discrimination against background events, will be a useful device for low-level neutron measurements such as, e.g., in cold fusion studies. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Filipek SM, Szafranski AW, Warsza M, Majchrzak S; J. Less Common Met. 158 (1990) 177. "Isotopic effects in Ni-Si-H(D) and Ni-V-H(D) systems". ** This paper mentions that it may be relevant to cold fusion. It is concerned with the change in resistance of the title alloys with H- or D loading as well as with temperature. Some cold fusion papers have used the same effect seen in Pd to measure the loading. H and D behave differently and all alloys used here show maxima of Rp/R0 vs. p, with p the pressure of applied gas (H2 or D2), Rp/R0 the ratio of resistance at this pressure (at equilibrium) to that of the pure metal. The maxima are in the form of sharp peaks. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy10 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / / Nuclear Technology Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Nuclear Technology Date: Sat, 10 Nov 90 06:11:22 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Perhaps to shed some light on questions raised in recent days about other reactions besides D + D: There are lots of interesting possibilities for reactions amoung various light nuclei for the production of energy or for isotope production for specific applications. However, the efficiency of the reaction process is always limited by the same physics that says that cold fusion is "no go". At low energy (MeVs or less) the Coulomb interaction gets in the way twice: (1)the probability for a nuclear reaction upon collision between two nuclei is reduced by the Coulomb barrier, and (2) energitic ions impinging on a target rapidly lose energy via interactions with atomic electrons so the number of nuclear collisions that can occur before the ion loses most of its energy is limited. At higher energies the ions can penetrate more target material, but the acceleration process required to reach high energies is too inefficient so no one has been able to make a strong case for beam-induced fusion as a means of energy production so far. I may note in passing that there are active research efforts in this area. Another question had to do with radiation surveys from spy planes as as means of locating nuclear facilities in Iraq. Gamma detectors carried in normal planes at low altitudes are indeed used in this fashion. Remember the power plant for a Russian satelite that fell on the Canadian northland? In any case one can't make much of an issue over uranium mines. The stuff is just too common so the "bad guys" will usually be able to find it. As far as gasious diffusion plants go, if Iraq is going to play nuclear games I would guess they will be shopping for more up-to-date technology. Dick Blue Neutraphobia: a pathological fear of uncharged MSU/NSCL particles, especially neutrons. -- cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / Paul Schauble / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 10 Nov 90 05:23:20 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Out of curiosity... I'm told that you can get neutrons by bombarding Be with electrons. What's the reaction here? ++PLS cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenPLS cudfnPaul cudlnSchauble cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.08 / tjbryce@amhers / Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Originally-From: tjbryce@amherst.bitnet Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Date: 8 Nov 90 14:20:17 GMT I thought cold fusion was a farce? Wasn't it a mistake? Or have the results been validated? Also, what does eutronic mean? Tom TJBRYCE@AMHERST cudkeys: cuddy8 cudentjbryce cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / Mark North / Re: Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Date: 10 Nov 90 21:14:44 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <11121.273969a1@amherst.bitnet> tjbryce@amherst.bitnet writes: >I thought cold fusion was a farce? Wasn't it a mistake? Or have >the results been validated? > No, you're right it's pretty much of a farce. A farce characterized by sloppy technique and wishful thinking. (And honest error). Honest error is not a farce it's a mistake. Anyway, we have both here. >Also, what does eutronic mean? > Aneutronic, in this context, means a fusion reaction occuring in which no neutrons are produced. In a P&F type cell all likely fusion reactions will produce neutrons. None have been observed at the level necessary to explain claims of 'excess heat' (whatever that means). There are a couple of reactions which occur with probability 10 to 1000 times less than DD fusion (which produces copious neutrons). These reactions are D + Li and H + D. In the first case He would be produced and in the second gammas would be produced (no neutrons). Neither of these products have been observed. (Actually, the H + D would also produce an isotope of He). Early on much was made of the lack of neutrons by the skeptics so the True Believers searched around for a reaction that didn't produce neutrons. At this point many of the skeptics have moved on to more productive endeavours not bothering to point out to the TB's the flaws in their proposition. It has become clear that for some people no amount of evidence or logic will sway them. So you will continue to hear about this for some time but don't put any money on it. Unfortunately, many managers don't have the background necessary to recognize bogus science when they see it and will continue to fund the TB's until the managers patience or money runs out or until the TB's reputation has been ruined. Mark cudkeys: cuddy10 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / Mark North / Re: Cold fusion in production use? Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Cold fusion in production use? Date: 10 Nov 90 21:23:02 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <35799@cup.portal.com> PLS@cup.portal.com (Paul L Schauble) writes: >Out of curiosity... > >I'm told that you can get neutrons by bombarding Be with electrons. What's >the reaction here? > Well, I've not heard of this and it sounds pretty unlikely. Standard neutron generators are Pu-Be, Po-Be and Am-Be. In all three cases the active ingre- dient (Pu, Po or Am) is surrounded by Be. These are alpha emitters which produce neutrons by knocking one loose from Be on impact. Other neutron producers are any fission source such as 252Cf. One chooses a source by what energy characteristics of the neutrons one requires and other subtlties. Mark cudkeys: cuddy10 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.10 / Paul Koloc / Re: Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold fusion? Aneutronic? Hmmm... Date: 10 Nov 90 22:59:03 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <11121.273969a1@amherst.bitnet> tjbryce@amherst.bitnet writes: >Also, what does eutronic mean? It is a term coined by Bogdan Maglich, inventor of the MIGMA, a combination trapped particle beam collider and magnetic plasma confinement concept. Now back to the definition: a-neutronic means without neutrons and it is applied to nuclear reactions which yield less than 5% of the resultant ash or reactant products as neutrons. Both Fission (splitting of heavy nuclei) and Fusion (melding of light nuclei) reactions produce neutrons. In a range of heavier "light" nuclei the melding does not produce a neutron in the reactants, but instead two or more nucleii. For example, helium(isotope weight 3) will meld with heavy hydrogen (deuterium) nuclei to produce common Helium (isotope weight 4) and a proton (ordinary light hydrogen) Combining a proton with a boron nucleus(isotope weight 11) will produce three helium, although an intermediate carbon(isotope weight 12) is produced which instantaneously fissions to form a 3 Helium(4). A distinction** can be made between fusion and aneutronic energy: Fusion == light nuclei --> light nuclei + neutron Aneutronic == light nuclei [--> heavier light nuclei (virtual) ] --> light nuclei Of course both reactions yield energy. I tend to view aneutronic energy as a special case of fusion. ** may be helpful when selling this approach to a nuclear energy sensitized environmentally aware public. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.11 / Patrick Smith / Local News. Pons resurfaces in SLC. Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News. Pons resurfaces in SLC. Date: 11 Nov 90 22:20:44 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah On Wednesday, Pons reappeared in Salt Lake City to attend the meeting of the F/EAC. TV news cameras caught him in the back row holding a newspaper up in front of his face. **************************************************************** PANEL, PONS MEET AS COLD FUSION REVIEW HEATS UP. Salt Lake Trib; Thursday, November 8, 1990. by Tim FitzPatrick. Four scientists met with U of U researchers, including Stanley Pons, Wednesday in a review that will likely decide the fate of the university's National Cold Fusion Institute. The scientists, three Americans and one Canadian, met briefly with reporters before spending an all day, closed door session at the Research Park institute. They are expected to issue their report by mid December. "I think we'll do the best we possibly can," said Dale F Stein, a materials scientist and president of Michigan Technological University. He described the review as a "technical evaluation" that would not attempt to address the stigma of shabby science that has dogged cold fusion. "It really has nothing to do with integrity; we assume integrity in people, " he said. Dr. Pons, back in Utah from what was reportedly a trip overseas, declined to talk to reporters before the review began. He did say he would be at the Capitol thursday for a meeting of the state F/EAC. "Now that I've been notified I'll be there," he said. Council members two weeks ago criticized Dr. Pons and his British colleague Martin Fleischmann for failing to show at their meeting. The scientists maintain they were never told to be there, but institute director Fritz Will has disputed that. Dr. Fleischmann is at his home in Tisbury England undergoing treatment for an undisclosed medical condition. Karen Morse, USU Provost and fusion council member who said the council had "coddled" the two chemists, was among the scientists sitting in on Wednesday's review. The review is considered by Dr. Will and others to be crucial to the future credibility of the institute. After the initial $5 million investment by the Utah State Legislature, the institute has raised less than $100,000 in outside funding, and the remaining $1.3 million in state funds will be spent by next June. The review was prompted by U. Colledge of Science faculty members who were concerned about the scientific integrity of the cold fusion work, particularly that of Drs. Pons and Fleischmann. They have published no papers on their work from the past year despite more than $1 million in funding from the state. Hugo Rossi, Dean of the College of Science, said he met with his physics and chemistry chairs and they were pleased with the review panel. "We feel it's a good group of people with high national standing. We think it will be a careful review." In addition to Dr. Stein, reviewers are electrochemist Stanley Bruckenstein, A. Conger, Goodyear Professor of Chemistry at State University of New York at Buffalo; calorimetrist Loren G. Hepler, professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the University of Alberta; Dale F. Stein, and Robert Kemp Adair, Sterling professor of Physics at Yale University. John Huizenga, professor of nuclear chemistry at the University of Rochester and co-chairman of the DOE's committee on cold fusion, praised tyhe inclusion of Dr. Adair, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and former editor of the prestigious journal, Physical Review Letters. "He is a high energy particle physicist, and I think a very competent person," Dr. Huizenga said in a telephone interview. "From his scientific stature I would certainly say that Bob would do a good job." Dr. Adair said he has followed the cold fusion saga casually in the past. "Since I've been invited to be on the panel, I've paid a little more attention." Compliments for bringing in Dr. Adair also came from onew of his colleagues at Yale, associate professor of Physics Moshe Gai, who has been a vocal skeptic of cold fusion. "I couldn't think of anybody better than Bob Adair to be on that committee," Dr. Gai said in a telephone interview. "From his judgment, his openess to new ideas, he is a true scientist and I think he will do a perfect job." Dr. Adair is also the author of "The Physics of Baseball." He was appointed "physicist to the National League" by A. Bartlett Giamatti, former Yale president and Basebball Commissioner who died in 1989. The visiting scientists were reluctant to discuss specifics of the review with reporters, but Dr. Stein minimized the effects that news coverage would have on their effort. "The pressure from the media is not nearly as intense as the pressure we feel from our colleagues who will pass on the merit of what we do." Dr. Stein was a member of Dr. Huizenga's DOE panel, which recommended against major funding a year ago because, the panel's report said, the data "do not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result." cudkeys: cuddy11 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.12 / Patrick Smith / Local News. F/EAC meeting. Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Local News. F/EAC meeting. Date: 12 Nov 90 00:03:39 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah More information on the recent meeting of the F/EAC. Note that Dr. Will has revised his available funds upwards from $1.3 million to $1.8 million. The difference: $500,000. Has the U of U then quietly allowed Peterson's infamous "anonymous" transfer of money to the NCFI? ********************************************************************** WHY THE UPROAR OVER MY ABSENCE? ASKS PONS. Salt Lake Tribune; Friday, November 9, 1990. by Tim Fitzpatrick. U of U cold fusion researcher B. Stanley Pons Thursday described the uproar over his recent absence as "sterile furor," but he acknowledged he will be devoting part of his time to lab worl outside the university. Dr. Pons met behind closed doors with members of the state F/EAC, which oversees the states $5 million commitment to the research launched by [Pons and Fleischmann] in March 1989. The chemist declined to answer most questions from reporters, referring them to a press release distributed by his attourney, Gary Triggs. "The sterile furor surrounding our recent trip and our absence at the last meeting was truly unfortunate," the release said. "...We did not receive notice of the last meeting in time to attend. It was our understanding that the review would take place during the third week of November and that our attendance at any meeting prior to this would not be required." F. Will, director of the NCFI, has maintained that he notified both Dr. Pons and Dr. Fleischmann, who is undergoing medical treatment in England, that their attendance was required at the council's Oct. 25 meeting. The statements also disputed earlier statements by Dr. Will that Drs. Pons and Fleischmann had spent approximately $1 million in institute funds in their research. "The only project that we have administered at NCFI which commenced in November of 1989 was funded at approximately $325,000." "I am in the best position to know what the budgets are at the institute," Dr. Will countered. Council members indicated Dr. Pons was very willing to answer their questions during the session, which was closed for "patent reasons," according to council chairman Raymond L. Hixson. "He was very cooperative," said Mitchell Mellick, a SLC attourney and council member. He said he didn't understand why people were saying they could not get ahold of him." "He expressed the idea that he wants to work in Utah," Mr. Hixson said. "He said that over and over again." In his statement, Dr. Pons acknowledged his request for a sabatical leave from the university "to enable me to donate my full attention to our research. I intend to pursue our work in several labs with Martin Fleischmann." Dr. Pons did not say what labs he was referring to, but he acknowledged to a Tribune reporter that it included labs not associated with the U of U. He did not believe it would interfere with his committment to the university. "That's part of academic freedom," he said. When asked where Dr. Pons had been for the past month, his attourney C. Gary Triggs, said, "Travelling." That travel reportedly included an extended stay in France, although neither the chemist nor his attourney would confirm that. Dr. Pons sabbatical request has been passed on to Jerilyn McIntyre, the U.'s academic vice president. Dr. McIntyre said the request will have to be approved by the university's Institutional Council, but it would likely not be considered before the council's meeting in mid-December. Dr. Pons continues to have complete faith in his research, which has drawn criticism from off and on the university campus. He also disputed the contention that he had not published papers on work funded by the state. An addendum to his press release listed seven papers he has written on cold fusion. Two of those papers, published last July in the Journal of Fusion Technology and the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry, focused on work done last year before the institute was launched, but it included information from the institute funded work, according to Dr. Will. FUSION PANEL HAS HIGH HOPES DESPITE LOWER FUNDS. SLC Tribune; Friday, November 9, 1990. State F/EAC members Thursday expressed continued faith in the research at the NCFI, although they considered several cost cutting measures to make best use of the institute's dwindling resources. "The science is sound, and we've felt it has been all along," said Raymond L. Hixson, chairman of the council. Mr. Hixson said the committee was not considering cutting off the institute before it spends the remainder of the state's $5 million, but he said that could change if the independent scientific review began Wednesday should come in exceedingly negative. Institute director Fritz Will earlier estimated the remainder of the state's funds at about $1.3 million, but he now puts the figure closer to $1.8 million. That would carry the institute through to June 30, 1990, under the current budget. Council member and USU Provost Karen Morse raised the possibility of moving out of the institute's Research Park building, noting that it was her original position when the institute was launched in August 1989 that the money not go to "bricks and mortar." Dr. Will expressed reservations with moving out of the building because the building provides a "focal point" for attracting private investment. Council members also discussed the idea of appealing to the State Legislature for more funding. Senator Rex Black, D-SLC, indicated the legislature might be willing to consider it. But Mr. Hixson dismissed that idea. "I think it was a good investment for the State, but I'm not sure the state should fund more. If it is worth something, and I think it is, then someone in private industry should carry it forward." FUSION ADJUSTS TO BUDGET LIMITATIONS. Daily Utah Chronicle; Friday, November 9, 1990. by Rebecca Walsh. The NCFI has been forced to cut back its expenses in the event it may be unable to draw financial support from private corporations. Fusion researchers at the institute have already spent more than half of the original state funds given to the NCFI, according to F Will... Will told members of the state F/EAC that the institute has been adjusting certain research programs and personnel positions to be able to continue research until the end of the fiscal year. Will told council members at the state's financial review of the institute that by the end of the last fiscal year of the institute's operation, $2,755,220 of the original state appropriation of $5 million was spent. Will said, "Considerably less than half of the originally appropriated money is left to fund the institute. Our original hope of external funding has only yielded $100,000. We have restructured the institute" to deal with the possibility that no external funding will be forthcoming. Currently the fusion institute is prepared to operate until June 30 on the $1.3 million remainder of the state budget allocation. We are in a position to say now that the institute can function in that worst case scenario [of no external funding.] That is, only operating using state funding," Will said. Although the institute has only generated approximately $100,000 in external funding, Will said he is confident the NCFI will raise significant private and corporate funding, depending on the report of a scientific review panel. Wednesday, four scientists not affiliated with the U of U and the institute reviewed researchers data, including the research of Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann. The four member panel will issue a final analysis of the institute's results by Dec 15. Will said the scientific review board's report is essential to the institute's efforts to raise external funding. "Pending the conclusions of the external review, we have been approached by a third party which has expressed interest in supporting the NCFI," he said. This "third party" is willing to give $1.2 million to the institute if the external review upholds Utah cold fusion's scientific integrity. In addition, Will said the institute may be able to approach two other U.S. corporations for funding if the scientific review is positive. Until that external funding is donated, the institute will have to depend on the state legislature for future financial support of the institute. "Our current budget is $1.8 million annually. In order to do the type of research that is needed to spearhead cold fusion we would need that type of funds," Will explained. State Sen Wilford Black, D-SLC, said he thinks there's a "very good chance of getting funding out of the legislature." In the meantime, Will has submitted a restructuring proposal to U. President Chase Peterson to enable the institute's operation at that budgetary level. However, the proposal's approval has been postponed until Peterson returns from a visit to Budapest, Hungary on November 17. Joe Tesch, chief deputy attorney, said additional funding could be raised directly by the institute as a result of patents filed by fusion researchers {They may have to get the thing to work, first.}. [He] said eight patents have been filed and another could be confirmed in the future. [Pons] also issued a statement Thursday defending his and Fleischmann's secrecy surrounding their research, saying their efforts to receive patent rights for their work mandates reticence when speaking to the press and others. "We intend to maintain confidentiality of these applications until these sources are secured. (We have seen how such applications have been declined by potential sponsors in the past when there has been unjustified innuendo and interference by those who are intimidated by this research)," Pon's release stated. To further the institute's efforts to gain patent rights for much of the cold fusion research performed at the NCFI, Pons has requested sabbatical leave from the U. to give him time to work with Fleischmann. "I have... requested sabbatical leave from the University to enable me to donate my full attention to our research. I intend to pursue our work in several labs with Martin Fleischmann. "We want to assure you of our continued commitment to this work and to our responsibility to protect the patents in which you have a share," the release said. ******************************************************************* At this late date, I can only believe that this continued hiding behind patents is much more of a justification than a genuine reason. Pons is hiding more than just patents. -Patrick Smith cudkeys: cuddy12 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.12 / Raul Baragiola / CLUSTER IMPACT FUSION Originally-From: news@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: CLUSTER IMPACT FUSION Date: 12 Nov 90 03:16:35 GMT Organization: University of Virginia I am looking for the follow-up papers to the original paper by Beuhler et al (Phys. Rev. Lett.) on cluster impact fusion ("warm" fusion). Can someone provide the reference(s)? I am also looking for a preprint, which I know exists, but which I was unable to get. Thanks Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Path: watt.acc.Virginia.EDU!rb9a Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.12 / Henry Bauer / CNF Panel Originally-From: Henry Bauer Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: CNF Panel Date: Mon, 12 Nov 90 21:23:49 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Someone asked about the credentials of the panelists. I believe anyone in electrochemistry would agree that Stan Bruckenstein inspires trust as an accomplished scientist and a man of integrity and insight. -- cudkeys: cuddy12 cudfnHenry cudlnBauer cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.12 / Scott Cromar / cold fusion inquiry Originally-From: cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: cold fusion inquiry Date: 12 Nov 90 14:13:06 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. I have read quite a bit of criticism recently of P&F's cold fusion experiments, but I haven't read anything about Jones recently. It was my understanding that his results were considered more reliable. 1) Is there a consensus on the quality of his work (esp. his laboratory methods) 2) How has his work been progressing? (Has he survived on less than five megabucks per year?) I would appreciate answers either emailed to me or posted here. -Scott Cromar cromar@math.rutgers.edu or PO Box 6942/ Piscataway, NJ/ 08855 cudkeys: cuddy12 cudencromar cudfnScott cudlnCromar cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.13 / sheely@groucho / Re: cold fusion inquiry Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: cold fusion inquiry Date: 13 Nov 90 06:06:15 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow In article cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) writes: > >I have read quite a bit of criticism recently of P&F's cold fusion >experiments, but I haven't read anything about Jones recently. It was >my understanding that his results were considered more reliable. >1) Is there a consensus on the quality of his work (esp. his >laboratory methods) Steve Jones has had concederable experience working with experimentaion and data analysis of low level nuclear fusion. His well respected and accepted work in muon-catalyzed fusion is well known. Steve has been carefull throughout his experimental eforts in cold fusion to colaborate with people involved with the design of some of the most sensitive detection equipment available. >2) How has his work been progressing? (Has he survived on less than >five megabucks per year?) Steve believes his curent funding to be adequit for his need. with careful budgeting and with the setting up of good colaborations he has been able to carry on with research at many times less money than the Salt Lake institute and scientists have been aloted. There is certainly much work to be done, however at the recient conference in Provo, at Brigham Young University, many scientists from various countries (U.S.S.R, Itialy, Spain, Japan, China, U.S., Argentina, India, Tiwan, and probably others I've forgotten) presented positive results comparable to those first published by Jones. Neutrons, tritons and tritium were all observed by several different methods of detection. One of the most notable inhabitions to cold-fusion reactions which was discussed, was Cl, introduced into samples which were washed with HCl. Samples which had been washed in HCl before deuteration resulted in no fusions, whereas samples cleaned by other methods resulted in neutrons being detected. Eugene V. Sheely sheely@neon.chem.uidaho.edu Department of Chemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow Id. 83843 cudkeys: cuddy13 cudensheely cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.13 / Paul Koloc / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? Date: 13 Nov 90 11:20:45 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1379@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >.. .. . In a P&F type cell all likely fusion reactions >will produce neutrons. I don't agree > .. . .. . . [In cold fusion...] There are a couple >of reactions which occur with probability 10 to 1000 times less than >DD fusion (which produces copious neutrons). These reactions are D + Li >and H + D. We agree that the reaction can not be DD since the lack of an appropriate amount of neutrons is persuasive. The two remaining aneutronic? cases may behave completely differently for reasons other than their respective reactivities. Looking at D + H, the lack of gammas is persuasive and thus it is eliminated. However, the remaining case may be more complicated. In Palladium the much smaller magnetic moment of one of the isotopes of Lithium and of deuterium may be significant in that it would enhance mobility. Furthermore, the spin states of these same two element-isotopes may also contribute to modify the expected fuel pair reactivity in a highly loaded region of Palladium. As you mention Helium(4) would be expected to be formed and you also indicated that this product has not been observed. That may not rule out the presence of this reaction for the following reason. Helium(4) is a tough one to test for by comparison to tritium, for example. First of all, it is one of the two most plentiful isotopes in the universe, and consequently, we have Helium present in the air. For this reason it is expected that it would be present as an impurity to contaminate the palladium during either the experiment or transfer or physico-chemical analysis. If I am correct the assumption is that the specimens ARE contaminated with Helium and so a layer of the surface is stripped away and the tests are then carried out on the uncontaminated palladium cores. Deuterium certainly has the mobility to reach the core. If it were fusing to He(4) and a gamma then Helium would have been found. It was not and that reaction is unlikely from the outset. (In spite of what P&F hinted). On the other hand, Lithium does NOT have nearly the mobility of deuterium and consequently, any reaction involving it would have been confined only to the outermost layer of palladium which was removed for analysis. In any case, much of the Helium formed as very energetic alphas would probably degrade the metal structure. My guess is that such change(s) would probably enhance the exfusion of the generated Helium, especially since it was so close to the surface. Still, some Helium could be observable. Image intensified microscopic viewing of the surface during a "heat episode" should show tiny flashes of visible light produced fusion events. Again, there may be problem here because electrolysis current may also generate some light flashes. Local current streamers in flucuating more conducting channels will tend focus energy into tiny light producing jumping "arc spots". >Early on much was made of the lack of neutrons by the skeptics so the >True Believers searched around for a reaction that didn't produce neutrons. >At this point many of the skeptics have moved on to more productive >endeavors not bothering to point out to the TB's the flaws in their >proposition. Huh? > .. . It has become clear that for some people no amount of evidence >or logic will sway them. If everything was so logical then why would we ever have to run experiments. Perhaps we should "deduce" reality. Until that becomes the "true way of science" the results: " > .. . 'excess heat' (whatever that means). " should be explained. Careful thought, patience, and PERSISTENCE are usually necessary. When all of the options are exercised and gaps are filled, then if we don't get some "rippingly blasting results", I for one will give it up. Unlike Mark, I'm a little slower on that trigger. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Paul M. Koloc 1990 +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.13 / Jason Yungbluth / ? Originally-From: v122rcyc@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Jason E Yungbluth) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: ? Date: 13 Nov 90 13:50:35 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo no posts? The Harlequin cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenv122rcyc cudfnJason cudlnYungbluth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.13 / S Schaper / Electrolytic heat Originally-From: schaper@pnet51.orb.mn.org (S Schaper) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Electrolytic heat Date: 13 Nov 90 20:45:04 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN. It seems fairly clear that no common fusion reaction is taking place with Cold Fusion. However, is it not true that something curious is happening? (or is that false, also?) If so, is it not worthwhile to investigate this phenomenon even though it is very unlikely to produce cold fusion or a commercially useful energy source? ************************************************************************** Zeitgeist Busters! UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!schaper ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!schaper@nosc.mil INET: schaper@pnet51.cts.com cudkeys: cuddy13 cudenschaper cudfnS cudlnSchaper cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.14 / tiq@fennel.cc. / Cold Fusion Patents Originally-From: tiq@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Patents Date: 14 Nov 90 06:18:35 GMT Organization: University of Western Australia According to the latest New Scientist (10 November, 1990), the University of Utah has filed an International patent application (W0 90/10935) on cold fusion. The patent was filed in March 1990 and copies are apparently now available to the public. The inventors listed are Pons, Fleischmann, Walling and Simons, all from the Chemistry Department at the University of Utah, so Hawkins misses out again. The application claims protection in 40 countries but it appears that they may have blown the International rights by publishing an article in Fusion Technology before the application was lodged. The US patents are probably OK as they were filed before the Fusion Technology article was accepted. The application is apparently fairly vague on most details beyond the requirement to simply "charge" a Pd electrode with deuterium. Whether or not these patents have any value is ,I guess, a moot point. Todd Green Department of Physical and Inorganic Chemistry University of W.A. cudkeys: cuddy14 cudentiq cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.14 / Scott Mueller / Energy particles could signal cold fusion Originally-From: scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Scott Hazen Mueller) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Energy particles could signal cold fusion Date: Wed, 14 Nov 90 17:39:45 GMT Organization: SF-Bay Public-Access Unix This is a UPI wire service story, compliments of ClariNet, reprinted with permission. Call 1-800-USE-NETS or email info@clarinet.com for more information. GOLDEN, Colo. (UPI) -- A Colorado School of Mines researcher said Monday he has evidence that some sort of nuclear fusion is taking place in a tabletop experiment similar to one in Utah that caused a furor in the scientific community. Energy particles escaping from the experiment could be another sign that nuclear fusion can occur at room temperature, said physicist Ed Cecil. ``We've found indications some nuclear reactions are taking place,'' said Cecil, who said he has been trying to replicate solid-state fusion since University of Utah researchers announced March 1989 they had produced nuclear fusion in a relatively simple experiment. Cecil and his team and electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann at Utah use the same concept, combining deuterium atoms in such tremendous concentrations they claim the atoms fuse together, releasing energy. Pons and Fleischmann separate deuterium, a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron, from heavy water and use a palladium electrode in the heavy water -- made from oxygen and deuterium -- to capture and compress the deuterium atoms. But Cecil uses pure deuterium in its gas form in a sealed glass vessel containing a strip of heated titanium metal. Titanium, like palladium, absorbs deuterium as a sponge would soak up water. The Utah researchers have measured excess heat, plus some neutron emissions and low-energy X-rays. Cecil, however, said he has been measuring ``charged particles -- charged alpha particles and protons.'' An alpha particle is a positively charged nuclear particle identical to the nucleus of a helium atom, made up of two protons and two neutrons, and is ejected during some radioactive transformations. Cecil is not ready to call it cold fusion, or solid-state fusion, ``but I will say we've seen a number of positive results during the past couple of months. We're at the 80 percent or 90 percent confidence level.'' Critics of Pons and Fleischmann have said their reaction produces such low numbers of neutron emissions it cannot be classical nuclear fusion, it must be some sort of chemical reaction. Cecil, who has been at the Colorado School of Mines for 15 years and has his doctoract from Princeton University, said he is ready for the same criticism; he is seeing ``hundreds of reactions per second instead of billions.'' ``That's the amazing thing about this; conventional wisdom says it shouldn't be fusing at all. But something is happening in there,'' he said. ``There's an awful lot of good evidence that a nuclear reaction is taking place.'' Cecil said he also has run ``hundreds of hours' of control experiments using hydrogen gas instead of deuterium and measured no particles emissions, which he claims ''is very supportive`` of the solid-state fusion of deuterium. With his tiny experiment, he said, ``there is not enough evidence to say I could turn this into a heat producing reaction. We would need something producing millions of particles per second.'' The next step is to ``isolate all the conditions to nail this down,'' Cecil said, and confirm what is causing the emission of the energy particles. -- Scott Hazen Mueller | scott@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG or (ames|pyramid|vsi1)!zorch!scott 10122 Amador Oak Ct.| +1 408 253 6767 |Mail fusion-request@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG Cupertino, CA 95014|Love make, not more|for emailed sci.physics.fusion digests SF-Bay Public-Access Unix 408-996-7358/61/78/86 login newuser password public cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenscott cudfnScott cudlnMueller cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.14 / Nam Kim / Fusion Originally-From: v059nrrz@ubvmsa.cc.buffalo.edu (Nam H Kim) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion Date: 14 Nov 90 23:54:31 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Just exactly what is this folder for?!?!?!? for philosophical discussion on 'fusion' ..literally? ....fusion where baryon particles collide to destablize a nuclei of an atom thus resulting in a tremendous amount of energy from its strong force?!?!? If this folder is what I am thinking then I don't think there will be much posts here. Let's face it. Who's interested in it but Physics 'nuts' like me? but then again..if I am WRONG, please do pardon me. Shinobi Physics major. cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenv059nrrz cudfnNam cudlnKim cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.15 / Mark North / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? Date: 15 Nov 90 01:58:12 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <1990Nov13.112045.17911@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >In article <1379@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >>.. .. . In a P&F type cell all likely fusion reactions >>will produce neutrons. > > [ ... ] > >We agree that the reaction can not be DD since the lack of an >appropriate amount of neutrons is persuasive. > >The two remaining aneutronic? cases may behave completely differently >for reasons other than their respective reactivities. > >Looking at D + H, the lack of gammas is persuasive and thus it is >eliminated. > >However, the remaining case may be more complicated. In Palladium >the much smaller magnetic moment of one of the isotopes of Lithium and >of deuterium may be significant in that it would enhance mobility. The magnetic interaction in condensed matter is a second order effect and as such there is no reason to suppose it could dominate the much stronger electric interaction. Hence, this is unlikely. >Furthermore, the spin states of these same two element-isotopes may >also contribute to modify the expected fuel pair reactivity in a highly >loaded region of Palladium. Same point. The energetics of the spin states are a small perturbation on the electric interaction. > >As you mention Helium(4) would be expected to be formed and you also >indicated that this product has not been observed. > >That may not rule out the presence of this reaction for the following >reason. Helium(4) is a tough one to test for by comparison to tritium, >for example. You have it backwards. Tritium in solution is notoriously difficult due to possible contamination and chemiluminescence. I submit this is why there is still debate about the presence of Tritium and relatively little about the absence of Helium. >First of all, it is one of the two most plentiful isotopes >in the universe, and consequently, we have Helium present in the >air. For this reason it is expected that it would be present as >an impurity to contaminate the palladium during either the experiment >or transfer or physico-chemical analysis. If I am correct the assumption >is that the specimens ARE contaminated with Helium and so a layer of >the surface is stripped away and the tests are then carried out on >the uncontaminated palladium cores. I'm not sure what your point is here but the amount of Helium in the universe is irrelevant here on Earth. We have what we have. It's a background subtraction problem. > > [ a lot about Lithium - D ] > The D - Li reaction is down by 1-3 orders of magnitude from DD. If you have D - Li then you have DD which we know we don't have due to lack of neutrons. >>Early on much was made of the lack of neutrons by the skeptics so the >>True Believers searched around for a reaction that didn't produce neutrons. >>At this point many of the skeptics have moved on to more productive >>endeavors not bothering to point out to the TB's the flaws in their >>proposition. > >Huh? > I have moved on to more productive endeavours but I don't mind pointing out flaws when I see them. (I'm not saying you are a True Believer (TB) but your tenacity is begining to make me wonder). >> .. . It has become clear that for some people no amount of evidence >>or logic will sway them. > >If everything was so logical then why would we ever have to run >experiments. Perhaps we should "deduce" reality. We *have* run the experiments and they have been negative. >Until that becomes >the "true way of science" the results: > > " > .. . 'excess heat' (whatever that means). " > >should be explained. Careful thought, patience, and PERSISTENCE are >usually necessary. I hope you don't mean to imply that these qualities have not been applied to the majority of experiments finding negative results. >When all of the options are exercised and gaps >are filled, then if we don't get some "rippingly blasting results", >I for one will give it up. Unlike Mark, I'm a little slower on >that trigger. > I've been squeezing the trigger for over a year, I think that's long enough for me. But others may differ. Just don't kid yourself into oblivion. Mark cudkeys: cuddy15 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.15 / Jon.Webb@CS.CM / Cold Fusion Patent Application Originally-From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Patent Application Date: 15 Nov 90 13:27:42 GMT Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA There's a one page article in New Scientist (11/10) summarizing the recent patent application for cold fusion. It seems that this patent application is the most complete disclosure yet of Pons and Fleischmann's work -- apparently more complete than the JEAC article. The patent application number is W0 90/10935, filed by the University of Utah under the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Patent Cooperation Treaty. It should be available in any patent library. -- J cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenWebb cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.15 / Scott Cromar / Re: cold fusion inquiry Originally-From: cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: cold fusion inquiry Date: 15 Nov 90 21:41:28 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. In article <1990Nov13.060615.19551@groucho> sheely@groucho writes: ; In article cromar@math.rutgers.edu (Scott Cromar) writes: ; > ; >I have read quite a bit of criticism recently of P&F's cold fusion ; >experiments, but I haven't read anything about Jones recently. It was ; >my understanding that his results were considered more reliable. ; >1) Is there a consensus on the quality of his work (esp. his ; >laboratory methods) ; ; Steve Jones has had concederable experience working with ; experimentaion and data analysis of low level nuclear fusion. ; His well respected and accepted work in muon-catalyzed fusion ; is well known. Steve has been carefull throughout his experimental ; eforts in cold fusion to colaborate with people involved with ; the design of some of the most sensitive detection equipment ; available. ; (Information deleted) ; There is certainly much work to be done, however at the recient ; conference in Provo, at Brigham Young University, many scientists ; from various countries (U.S.S.R, Itialy, Spain, Japan, China, U.S., ; Argentina, India, Tiwan, and probably others I've forgotten) presented ; positive results comparable to those first published by Jones. ; Neutrons, tritons and tritium were all observed by several different ; methods of detection. (Information deleted) ; Eugene V. Sheely ; sheely@neon.chem.uidaho.edu ; ; Department of Chemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow Id. 83843 Thank you for your response. It was most helpful. I still have a few more questions, though. Back when the media was still covering Cold Fusion, it reported that some major universities had been unable to detect neutrons with the type of apparatus that Dr. Jones was using. Have these findings been reconciled with his? (Were their neutron detectors inadequate to the task, or have their been enough other confirmations that their results can be seen as inaccurate?) Has there been any additional work on his hypothesis that cold fusion may play a role in the internal heating of the earth? (I heard that he was planning to test samples from volcanoes or something, but I never heard how that worked out.) Thanks -Scott Cromar cromar@math.rutgers.edu cudkeys: cuddy15 cudencromar cudfnScott cudlnCromar cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / R Schroeppel / What happened at the BYU conference? Originally-From: fermat!r@la.tis.com (Richard Schroeppel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: What happened at the BYU conference? Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 03:25:57 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway We haven't seen much information about the recent BYU conference on "ultra-low-level" Jones-type cold fusion. For example, were there reports of any tritium in volcanic eruptions? Although this level of fusion wouldn't be an important near-term energy source, it would still have considerable scientific interest: It would still be new physics, and could be important in assessing the heat balance of the Earth and other planets; it might affect the trigger threshold for turning large planets into small stars. And the sun is still short of neutrinos. Would someone who attended please tell us more? Rich Schroeppel rcs@la.tis.com -- cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenr cudfnRichard cudlnSchroeppel cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Les Earnest / Energy particles could signal cold fusion Originally-From: les@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Energy particles could signal cold fusion Date: 16 Nov 90 02:48:37 GMT Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University [From UPI] GOLDEN, Colo. (UPI) -- A Colorado School of Mines researcher said Monday he has evidence that some sort of nuclear fusion is taking place in a tabletop experiment similar to one in Utah that caused a furor in the scientific community. Energy particles escaping from the experiment could be another sign that nuclear fusion can occur at room temperature, said physicist Ed Cecil. ``We've found indications some nuclear reactions are taking place,'' said Cecil, who said he has been trying to replicate solid-state fusion since University of Utah researchers announced March 1989 they had produced nuclear fusion in a relatively simple experiment. Cecil and his team and electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann at Utah use the same concept, combining deuterium atoms in such tremendous concentrations they claim the atoms fuse together, releasing energy. Pons and Fleischmann separate deuterium, a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron, from heavy water and use a palladium electrode in the heavy water -- made from oxygen and deuterium -- to capture and compress the deuterium atoms. But Cecil uses pure deuterium in its gas form in a sealed glass vessel containing a strip of heated titanium metal. Titanium, like palladium, absorbs deuterium as a sponge would soak up water. The Utah researchers have measured excess heat, plus some neutron emissions and low-energy X-rays. Cecil, however, said he has been measuring ``charged particles -- charged alpha particles and protons.'' An alpha particle is a positively charged nuclear particle identical to the nucleus of a helium atom, made up of two protons and two neutrons, and is ejected during some radioactive transformations. Cecil is not ready to call it cold fusion, or solid-state fusion, ``but I will say we've seen a number of positive results during the past couple of months. We're at the 80 percent or 90 percent confidence level.'' Critics of Pons and Fleischmann have said their reaction produces such low numbers of neutron emissions it cannot be classical nuclear fusion, it must be some sort of chemical reaction. Cecil, who has been at the Colorado School of Mines for 15 years and has his doctoract from Princeton University, said he is ready for the same criticism; he is seeing ``hundreds of reactions per second instead of billions.'' ``That's the amazing thing about this; conventional wisdom says it shouldn't be fusing at all. But something is happening in there,'' he said. ``There's an awful lot of good evidence that a nuclear reaction is taking place.'' Cecil said he also has run ``hundreds of hours' of control experiments using hydrogen gas instead of deuterium and measured no particles emissions, which he claims ''is very supportive`` of the solid-state fusion of deuterium. With his tiny experiment, he said, ``there is not enough evidence to say I could turn this into a heat producing reaction. We would need something producing millions of particles per second.'' The next step is to ``isolate all the conditions to nail this down,'' Cecil said, and confirm what is causing the emission of the energy particles. ****************** -- Les Earnest Phone: 415 941-3984 Internet: Les@Go4.Stanford.edu USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr. UUCP: . . . decwrl!Go4.Stanford.edu!Les Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenles cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Les Earnest / Cold fusion more and more persuasive Originally-From: les@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion more and more persuasive Date: 16 Nov 90 02:51:19 GMT Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University [From UPI] PROVO, Utah (UPI) -- Utah, New Mexico and Texas scientists conducting studies deep inside a Colorado mine have measured neutron emissions from their cold fusion experiments, a Brigham Young University physicist said Wednesday. The idea of going one-third mile underground was to eliminate any problems with cosmic rays, said Steven Jones, a BYU associate professor of physics who has been trying to unravel the phenomenon for seven years. The researchers are concerned about cosmic rays because they can produce ``false signals'' in measuring equipment ``and the neutron readings we're trying to measure are so small,'' said Jones. With the ``background'' problems eliminated inside the lead-zinc mine, Jones said, ``Yes, we did see neutrons, a statistically significant signal, enough above background to be sure there's really a true effect.'' Jones said he and Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M University and Howard Menlove at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory all conducted experiments inside the Colorado mine, and all measured neutron emissions, a byproduct of nuclear reactions. The BYU physicist began his research about the same time electrochemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann started their investigations of cold fusion at the University of Utah. Pons and Fleischmann went public in March 1989, claiming they were producing excess heat in a electrolytic cell containing palladium and platinum electrodes immersed in heavy water, water composed of oxygen and deuterium atoms. Deuterium is a form of hydrogen with an extra neutron. Jones, who uses deuterium gas and titanium instead of palladium in his research funded by the U.S. Energy Department and the Electric Power Research Institute, has been a critic of the Pons-Fleischmann claims. ``There is absolutely no experiment, not one, that has significant nuclear products to account for the heat,'' he said. ``It appears there's not one experiment that would establish (the heat) quantitatively as being fusion.'' In a speech to BYU astronomy and physics students and faculty he said all the cold fusion experiments ``point to either no effect or effects that are far too small to support the claims that the heat is due to fusion.'' According to Jones, the Pons-Fleischmann heat readings are ``in the realm of a chemical explanation.'' The research indicates, he said, two separate reactions -- a nuclear one producing neutrons and other emissions, and a chemical one producing heat. Jones believes the Utah researcher ``unfortunately overstated'' their discovery. In the BYU experiment, the deuterium gas is absorbed by the titanium metal. The small atoms are forced together in such tremendous concentrations, he believes, that they fuse, spitting out neutrons. And Jones said he is becoming ``more and more persuaded'' the reaction is fusion. His main effort has been to produce neutrons, partially because they can have a practical application in cancer treatment. But he said, ``We'd still have to beef it up by quite a bit'' to produce enough neutrons from his equipment for ``such applications as cancer therapy.'' Jones also said he finds ``the science exciting,'' and it has attracted the attention of many top scientists. ``The goal is clearly to get energy, if we can,'' he said. ``Fusion energy is an important goal for society,'' he said, and the research conducted on the latest breakthrough ``may impact other types of fusion research'' aimed at achieving controllable energy production from the fusing of atoms. ``It isn't cut and dried yet. We've just opened the door. Let's see where it leads,'' said Jones. Similar research now is being conducted at numerous U.S. universities and colleges, he said, and in Canada, China, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. ******************* -- Les Earnest Phone: 415 941-3984 Internet: Les@Go4.Stanford.edu USMail: 12769 Dianne Dr. UUCP: . . . decwrl!Go4.Stanford.edu!Les Los Altos Hills, CA 94022 cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenles cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / / I vote JONES: NO, CECIL: ? Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: I vote JONES: NO, CECIL: ? Date: Fri, 16 Nov 90 17:28:30 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Several of you have been asking about the credibility of the S. Jones result involving the detection of neutrons so I will repeat what I have said before. There are good reasons to doubt that Jones detected anything other than gamma rays coming from ordinary room background radiation. The detector used in the Jones experiment, in spite of claims to the contrary, is not well suited for the type of measurements Jones was trying to make. Furthermore the signal processing methods Jones used were very crude and did not even make the best use of information the detector may have been capable of providing. Much better detection methods have been employed by several laboratories around the world, and is usually the case, the better detectors give negative results. The basic problem with the Jones experiment was that it requires a capability to reject gamma rays (signals that would otherwise appear to be neutrons) with an efficiency ratio of the order of 10^-4. Jones only had a rejection ratio of about 100 so only about 1% of the pulses he attributes to neutrons were possibly genuine. Jones indicated he has new results (presented at the recent BYU meeting?), but the original experimental result was garbage. So now Cecil has come forward with new a wonder results. But following the bad precedents of others, the first information comes from a local newspaper rather than a scientific journal. Cecil claims to detect charged particles coming from a hot titanium surface exposed to deuterium, but what kind of detectors is he using? If he knows as much about detecting protons and alphas as Pons and Fleischmann know about neutrons don't rush to buy titanium futures. Hot titamium in a deuterium atmosphere sounds like a tough enviornment for a particle detector so Cecil could just be yet another experimenter whose signal-to-noise ratio is highly unfavorable. Dick Blue NSCL/MSU -- cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Paul Koloc / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 16 Nov 90 14:06:24 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1414@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >The magnetic interaction in condensed matter is a second order effect >and as such there is no reason to suppose it could dominate the much >stronger electric interaction. Hence, this is unlikely. That's not my point. In a metal crystal lattice the regular alignment of atoms provides pathways through which highly mobile atoms such as deuterium can glide. Since these pathways have "electric field walls" then a magnetic interaction would tend to "deflect" an otherwise mobile metal ion out of the straight and narrow pathway. Tritium and protium do not enjoy mobility in palladium for this reason. The Palladium lattice can be HIGHLY loaded much more easily with deuterium then its sister isotopes. >Same point. The energetics of the spin states are a small perturbation >on the electric interaction. Same misunderstanding There is a relatively small volume of the total Palladium lattice which lodges the light metal ion solutes. How tightly packed into these microvolumes the deuterium (or other element isotope combination) can be made in part depends on its spin state. In hot fusion three body collisions are probably not important. In a reacting plasma those particles in the higher velocity part of the distribution, can collide and during that collision are inertially compressed into a small volume for a fleeting instant. During this close encounter "tunneling" can occur resulting in a fusion event. The reaction rate depends on the closeness of the approach and the length of time it is maintained. The total close-encounter-time can be increased by adding more close encounters (near approach collisions). This is accomplished by substantially increasing density. The rate of collisions are important to determine the fusion power; it varies with the density squared. For a thermonuclear fusion plasma the density could be 10^13 while for a cold fusion experiment the average density might be 10^22. However, this last estimate should be modified to reflect the fact the light particles are confined to a small fraction of the Palladium volume so the actual density could be locally 10^24 (that right?). Note the square of the density ratio is 10^20+. So even if the reactivity is small, the power density (total reaction rate) from a cold fusion experiment could easily exceed the crumby five watts/cubic centimeter expected from a DT tokamak reactor. Another environmental difference, relates to lattice thermal activity. The micro volumes containing the light atoms could experience "a constant rhythmic three dimensional adiabatic compression" driven by the thermal activity in the lattice. In the tiny regions of the microvolumes, the effect could be on the order of multikilobars of pressure. This effect is a COLLECTIVE one. ANY increase in squeezing will increase the probability that a fusion reactions will take place. By comparison, a tokamak plasma experiences a average pressure of about five atmospheres (five joules/cc). In hot fusion electric field shielding by plasma electrons is not nearly as effective as the shielding of the conducting electrons in palladium, especially since the "stuffed microvolumes" are hanging in the conduction bands. So: Hot versus Cold A) Is it better to have tons and tons of close interaction time at not quite such a close approach to produce a fusion "channeled" reactions?? OR.. B) Is it better to have directional but closer approaches and a much less significant interaction time. Answer, isn't known. 1. Tokamaks don't have enough pressure as a credible thermonuclear fusion device. 2. We don't know what is happening in CF to make a reliable estimate. So 3. Let's toss the tokamak and move up to something more interesting on the magnetic fusion side. 4. Let's show why the calorimetry is certainly invalid or explain the heat of CF. Then 5. Let's go on to something else or commercialize. The numbers out so far (25yrs) show that a tokamak produces an insignificant fraction of fusion power compared to the total power that goes into trying to get it to do its thing. But of course that's old technology; we really can't expect much progress from something that for political reasons can't evolve to a more promising concept. On the other hand a cold fusion reaction by comparison MAY sporadically have already produced better out/in results and could be a real winner, provided the right fuel is used and .. . of course IT does WORK >You have it backwards. Tritium in solution is notoriously difficult due >to possible contamination and chemiluminescence. I submit this is why >there is still debate about the presence of Tritium and relatively >little about the absence of Helium. Since tritium is not abundant in nature and chemically reactive, it can be nearly eliminated as an impurity source with careful work. It is radioactive, and hence it (its emissions) can be detected in a teeny weeny itsy bitsy amount. It doesn't take much to release tritium from a slice of palladium (solution) and keep it trapped for measurement within an ampule of glass or ceramic. >I'm not sure what your point is here but the amount of Helium in the >universe is irrelevant here on Earth. We have what we have. It's a >background subtraction problem. Helium is very mobile and it is a relatively colossally more abundant than tritium. Therefore it presents a relatively huge subtraction "signal to noise problem" compared to tritium. After all the amount of helium expected to be present due to fusion isn't that much. Any slight presence of tritium should raise interest. >The D - Li reaction is down by 1-3 orders of magnitude from DD. If you have >D - Li then you have DD which we know we don't have due to lack of neutrons. Sounds correct, BUT, except for low level measurements from lattice destructive loading and unloading of palladium, titanium, essentially we don't see ANY deuterium fusion. There still must be an explanation for the "excess heat" ... remember. We don't want any loose ends, so we must look further. Are there any possible mechanisms to explain this? In hot fusion the effect of the higher charge of a stripped lithium would require a higher collisional velocity with deuterium (ignition temperature) to gain the close approach required for "tunneling effect" to allow a fusion reaction. Another way to produce a respectable reaction rate is to extend the time the two fuel species are in close proximity or to increase their close proximity (lower separation distance). For example, if each microvolume available for packing was no larger for lithium deuterium occupancy than it was for d-d, the average effective distance between the regions of strong nuclear interaction could actually be reduced for D-Li(6) and the tunneling (reaction rate) would increase. Since the ratio of the close to remote distance increases, the time spent in the close configuration would increase. Also the effective confinement pressure will also increase. This is the same effect that requires a need for a the stronger force to stuff a two person sleeping bag into "stuff bag" that was originally made to hold a single size. There may be other subtleties that might contribute significantly to an inverted reaction rate versus element. For example the lithium may "pull" conduction electrons, deeping its trapping. Still at this point, it is all speculation. What we need is a serious effort. >I hope you don't mean to imply that these qualities have not been applied >to the majority of experiments finding negative results. It's too early to tell. It does seem that the "positive" results tend to come from those best versed in the practice of physical electro- chemistry/metallurgical science and its TECHNOLOGY. IF such technical art and skill are slightly lacking, a "positive result" can be lost. If they only have a piece of this thing, that is to say the artisans aren't doing it quite right (say by assuming deuterium fusion), the results at best would be marginal. Further, having the most excellence in diagnostics skill and apparatus will not make up for the slight lack of experimental technical excellence in electrochemistry. There are other historical cases where a sizable number of "good labs" missed verifying nascent technology. Furthermore, there has been a perception that groups, at a certain set of highly managed facilities whose MAIN work is very, very, expensive thermonuclear fusion, would be shooting themselves in the foot, if they reported CF success. Such a perception can weigh on researchers. After all fusion is fusion to the average Jane or Joe and Congress has already whacked another 50 megabucks off the rather fruitless per buck hot mag fusion budget. Incidentally, Ron Davidson is replacing Harold P. Furth at PPPL (Princeton fusion). Ron booted an engineering physicist, L. Lidsky, from MIT's Fusion Center for discussing the tokamak "Wall Problem" in an editorial in the Center's fusion rag. Then OMB crunched the MIT fusion program.. of course no connection was admitted. >I've been squeezing the trigger for over a year, I think that's long >enough for me. But others may differ. Just don't kid yourself into >oblivion. Fusion requires PRESSURE, it's just that simple. Ask any star and perhaps the enhanced levels He(3) that comes from some deep volcanic vents. Don't let up on the your personal pressure to make fusion, Mark. $5*10^6 is hardly worth a sneeze. The happy note is the REALLY wasteful fusion funding is grinding to a slow, but critical tokamak eliminating level. So squeeze triggers all you want, as long as as they are palladium appropriately loaded with selected light and fusionable "stuff" :-). What makes me skeptical about "science says it can't be" is that too many times "text book science" turns out to have missed something. For example, in plasma physics there persisted for a couple of decades the belief that every possible magnetic confinement configuration was NOT stable. Science isn't mature... by definition. Let's keep the surprises coming. It isn't the Bible nor is it Canon law. Ahhhh! I bet someone in another time on a far away planet mused: Vacuum electron tubes, that's reality Solid state electronics.. what a joke. CF that is another story. All Rights Reserved Paul M. Koloc 1990 +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Vincent Cate / Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 16 Nov 90 18:52:52 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Les Earnest [From UPI] > PROVO, Utah (UPI) -- Utah, New Mexico and Texas scientists conducting >studies deep inside a Colorado mine have measured neutron emissions from >their cold fusion experiments, a Brigham Young University physicist said >Wednesday. > [...] > Jones said he and Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M University and Howard >Menlove at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory all conducted >experiments inside the Colorado mine, and all measured neutron >emissions, a byproduct of nuclear reactions. Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. The best experiments seem to be getting Jones level fusion (down in a submarine etc). Assuming that this is becoming more and more reproducible/understood and that Pons never is able to demo anything, how long should Jones have to wait? As I understand it in some cases 10 to 20 years can pass from the time someone gets an amazing discovery to the time they get the prize. What is a normal delay? -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Ethan Vishniac / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 16 Nov 90 19:58:07 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas In article <11125@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > > Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. The best > experiments seem to be getting Jones level fusion (down in a submarine etc). > Assuming that this is becoming more and more reproducible/understood > and that Pons never is able to demo anything, how long should Jones > have to wait? As I understand it in some cases 10 to 20 years can pass from > the time someone gets an amazing discovery to the time they get the prize. > What is a normal delay? Well.....the best experiments are getting Jones level results.... or nothing at all. This is still a long ways from being generally accepted. One of the things that I liked about his original paper was his citation of the correlation between volcanic emissions and tritium levels in Hawaii, which is a curious puzzle if he's wrong. (I don't mean by this that he must be right, merely that it was a cute thought, and an interesting point in its own right.) Assuming that all this pans out for him (which remains to be seen), he shouldn't bother learning Swedish anytime soon. Controversial results can sit for many years before garnering a Nobel. Probably the classic example was Einstein, who totally rewrote the foundations of classical kinematics with SR, and was awarded the Nobel prize for the photoelectric effect because of lingering doubts that SR was correct and of any physical importance in experiment. Pais's book on Einstein (which is a masterful scientific biography) discusses this. -- I'm not afraid of dying Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas I just don't want to be {charm,ut-sally,emx,noao}!utastro!ethan there when it happens. (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU - Woody Allen (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenethan cudfnEthan cudlnVishniac cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Robert Eachus / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: eachus@linus.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 16 Nov 90 23:19:34 GMT Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA A thought inspired by Paul's message: Assume for a minute that PFH fusion (and BYU fusion for that matter) exist and are strongly pressure sensitive. Now follow through on Paul's line of thought and assume that "working" cells involve vibrations of the metal lattice. What do we get? Three answers: How does the fusion occur? Deuterium diffuses into the lattice when the local planes of palladium atoms are far apart, and get squeezed a half cycle later. Since the entire crystal structure is doing the compression we have atomic/chemical forces amplified since moving one metal atom out of the way would require breaking the crystal. Where are the neutrons? Since there is no momentum to be carried away by the products. (Two deuterium atoms with no relative velocity and coupled to the lattice.) Not only is the D+D --> He reaction favored relative to hot fusion, but the coupling to the lattice allows energy to be carried away through the inelastic reaction with the matrix. In fact this coupling can (partially) drive the vibration mode, which may explain the bursts of energy. Why do only some cells (and some labs) succeed? This theory requires that 1) the metal be a pure single crystal (not quite, but a close approximation, so preparation of the electrode is crucial), 2) there must be a driver to initially excite one of the resonant modes of the crystal (cosmic rays? decay of embedded radioisotopes? clanking of glassware? you tell me), and 3) since leakage will occur near the edges, the material must not be a thin foil. If this theory (idle speculation?) is true, the test is easy: attach an rf driver to a well refined and drawn electrode and a variable frequency signal generator, get behind lots of parafin, and twiddle the nobs. (This is NOT a table top experiment. If the theory is true, you may be very famous and very dead. Remember that once the reaction starts, current anecdotal evidence says it won't stop when the driver is turned off, it will stop when the electrode melts. I wouldn't bet my life on the reaction being completely aneuronic.) (If this sounds very optimistic, it isn't really, good experimental practice says not to perform an experiment if you can't live with a success OR a failure.) Any takers? -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is... cudkeys: cuddy16 cudeneachus cudfnRobert cudlnEachus cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Mark North / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 17 Nov 90 02:10:09 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego > [ a bunch of amusing stuff ] You win. I quit. No way am I going to wade through your comments with my comments. Some were OK most were full of misconceptions and wishful thinking. This is not a flame, I do not wish to have the last word. Please keep posting. The bottom line will be evident soon enough and then you can send me a crow pie (baked in a fusion powered oven, I hope) or I will send you one 8^). (I would really like it to work if it could but 'no way' I'm afraid). Mark cudkeys: cuddy17 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.16 / Barry Merriman / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 16 Nov 90 23:56:56 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <11125@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > >Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. The best >experiments seem to be getting Jones level fusion (down in a submarine etc). Whether jones gets a Nobel prize will depend on whether the process occurs in abundance, naturally. If the mostly likely scenario is correct---``fracto-fusion''---He will definitely _not_ get the Nobel prize. Fusing of D's that get accelerated across voltages in microcracks is an interesting, but hardly Earth-shaking phenomena, and not likely to occur much in nature. You see, the essential importance of Jones research is in explaining the unusual abundances of Tritium, etc, observed in the deep Earth (and released volcanically). If he has found a process which does this, that would be scientifically noteworthy. If he has just found an amusing way to achieve a few fusions per second in a material, that would not. In that case, the discovers of muonic fusion would deserve a Nobel long before Jones, since their method is equally creative and much more succesful. If Jones' (unlikely) theory (that the fusion he observes is due to the formation of a metallic D state) is correct, and if this is achieved also within the Earth, then I would give him a moderate chance for Nobel, a long time from now. Remember that the founders of the ordinary routes to Fusion energy have yet to receive their Nobels---anyone who wants a Nobel _purely for fusion research_ must either (a) take their place in line. (b) make a major breakthrough in fusion energy production (c) show their fusion effect explains some important natural phenomena Jones only chance is (c) (given that the line in (a) is long and that (b) is not forthcoming). -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy16 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Marvin Minsky / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: minsky@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 17 Nov 90 08:39:56 GMT Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA In article <756@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > >Whether jones gets a Nobel prize will depend on whether the process >occurs in abundance, naturally. If the mostly likely >scenario is correct---``fracto-fusion''---He will definitely _not_ >get the Nobel prize. Fusing of D's that get accelerated across voltages >in microcracks is an interesting, but hardly Earth-shaking phenomena, >and not likely to occur much in nature. > Well, doesn't that overlook modern possibilities in material science and, especially, forthcoming nanotechnology. If the microcracks are sparse "in nature" -- that is, in contemporary palladium or titanium bars, there would be an incentive to find ways to fabricate the stuff to have more of those features -- say, in molar quantities. That could increase the activity by factors like 10**15 or so, couldn't it? Even if you obtained only one fusion at the cost of wrecking one microcrack, you might exceed breakeven, if the fabrication process isn't too expensive. cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenminsky cudfnMarvin cudlnMinsky cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Paul Dietz / Fracto-fusion (was Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize.) Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fracto-fusion (was Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize.) Date: 17 Nov 90 12:25:40 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <4076@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: >Even if you obtained only one fusion at the cost of wrecking one >microcrack, you might exceed breakeven, if the fabrication process >isn't too expensive. No, fracto-fusion could never reach breakeven, for fundamental reasons. The rate at which deuterium ions lose energy in matter is simply too large, by many orders of magnitude, compared to the fusion rate. Were this not so, one could achieve breakeven simply using a particle accelerator and a target. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy17 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Raul Baragiola / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 17 Nov 90 01:54:55 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <11125@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >Les Earnest [From UPI] >> PROVO, Utah (UPI) -- Utah, New Mexico and Texas scientists conducting >>studies deep inside a Colorado mine have measured neutron emissions from >>their cold fusion experiments, a Brigham Young University physicist said >>Wednesday. >> [...] >> Jones said he and Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M University and Howard >>Menlove at New Mexico's Los Alamos National Laboratory all conducted >>experiments inside the Colorado mine, and all measured neutron >>emissions, a byproduct of nuclear reactions. > > >Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. The best >experiments seem to be getting Jones level fusion (down in a submarine etc). >Assuming that this is becoming more and more reproducible/understood >and that Pons never is able to demo anything, how long should Jones >have to wait? As I understand it in some cases 10 to 20 years can pass from >the time someone gets an amazing discovery to the time they get the prize. >What is a normal delay? > > -- Vince Looks to me we will have to await *systematic* verification of those results. For now, experiments done at the ultra-low background lab beneath the Great Sasso in the Alps have produced negative results. By the way, background also arises from construction materials (I suppose that Jones did not use a nuclear submarine :-) ) Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Raul Baragiola / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 17 Nov 90 02:07:46 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article eachus@linus.mitre.org ( Robert I. Eachus) writes: > > A thought inspired by Paul's message: > > Assume for a minute that PFH fusion (and BYU fusion for that >matter) exist and are strongly pressure sensitive. Now follow through >on Paul's line of thought and assume that "working" cells involve >vibrations of the metal lattice. What do we get? Three answers: > > How does the fusion occur? Deuterium diffuses into the lattice >when the local planes of palladium atoms are far apart, and get >squeezed a half cycle later. Since the entire crystal structure is >doing the compression we have atomic/chemical forces amplified since >moving one metal atom out of the way would require breaking the >crystal. Atomic vibrations in solids have amplitudes of a small fraction (10-20%) of the lattice spacing, and they are not amplified by a concerting motion. > Where are the neutrons? Since there is no momentum to be carried >away by the products. (Two deuterium atoms with no relative velocity >and coupled to the lattice.) Not only is the D+D --> He reaction >favored relative to hot fusion, but the coupling to the lattice allows >energy to be carried away through the inelastic reaction with the >matrix. In fact this coupling can (partially) drive the vibration >mode, which may explain the bursts of energy. > For this to be true, the lattice must respond to take the excess momentum in times of the order of nuclear reaction times, which can be estimated as h-bar/Energy or of the order of 10^-22 secs (also the time for a fast particle (10^9 cm/s) to escape from the nucleus (~10^-13 cm). So this time is 9 orders of magnitude too short. I cannot comment on: "In fact this coupling can (partially) drive the vibration mode, which may explain the bursts of energy". I do not understand what you mean. Can you elaborate on this? Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Mark Muhlestein / More local news and a question Originally-From: mmm@iconsys.icon.com (Mark Muhlestein) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: More local news and a question Date: 17 Nov 90 03:17:16 GMT Organization: Sanyo/Icon International, Inc., Orem, Utah The following article appeared Thursday, Nov. 15, 1990 in the Provo, Utah Daily Herald. It is reproduced here without permission. BYU professor challenges `cold fusion' claim by Robb Hicken Herald Staff Writer A Brigham Young University professor offered evidence Wednesday challenging the credibility of the University of Utah's ``cold fusion'' experiment. Steven E. Jones, a professor of physics, said that while the ``cold fusion'' experiment produced some reaction, it was not enough to generate heat. In the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, Jones discussed cold nuclear fusion, or as he termed it, ``anomalous nuclear effects.'' Jones presented evidence he and other researchers recently collected in a deep lead mine near Leadville, Colo., which they believe proves nuclear fusion reactions can occur. ``Our results do not support these claims that the excess heat is due to fusion,'' he said. ``Our interpretation of the results refute the claims that there was fusion because (the number of neutrons produced) were far to [sic] small.'' Jones, working with Kevin Wolf of Texas A&M University and Howard Menlove of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, conducted experiments in the mine, 600 meters below the surface, to rule out the effects of cosmic rays. Using special sensor equipment designed by Menlove, all three scientists detected neutrons, indicators of fusion reactions, but the levels recorded were far below what would be needed to product heat. The experiments, which were done above ground as well as in the lead mine in Leadville, Colo., used deuterium and tritium. While the results are not trivial, the scientists still don't understand why there are such large bursts of neutrons produced, Jones said. Preparation of materials, and the use of the mine, were done to avoid any ``background'' disturbances which could invalidate the findings. While the finding of the neutrons is not significant enough to produce energy, it certainly ``makes you want to look at it a little more,'' Jones said. He described the discovery as significant, but in the range of how to control the materials, produce enough to generate heat, and create a new wave of the future, it was only scratching the surface. ``You can compare it to traveling to Mars,'' Jones said. ``In nuclear fission we are about 25 million miles in space. With nuclear fusion we are only a third of an inch off the ground.'' University of Utah researcher B. Stanley Pons and his British colleague Martin Fleischmann announced March 23, 1989 that they had achieved cold fusion in a simple table-top cell powered by a car battery. Difficulties in reproducing the two chemists' findings have brought considerable skepticism among scientists, said Jones. He used statistics from around the world that showed the number of neutrons produced were insignificant. Jones has been studying cold fusion for more than seven years and receives funding from the Department of Energy and the Electric Power Research Institute. Jones was a presenter at at recent international conference at BYU that attracted 150 scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Texas A&M University, the Reiss Foundation in Massachusetts, the University of Hawaii, Purdue University, the University of Arizona, and others in the United States. Presenters also visited from research centers in Japan, Germany, Italy, China, the Soviet Union, Canada and Yugoslavia. They discussed ``Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid Systems.'' ***** END OF ARTICLE ***** The article appeared on the front page, accompanied by a photo showing Jones explaining a diagram of the experimental setup. It's been over a year and a half now, and even though the evidence looks pretty grim for cold fusion, I still have this flicker of hope from time to time. In any case, it has been interesting. Can anybody say when and under what circumstances the patents that have been filed will be made public? Does a patent have to be granted first? -- Mark Muhlestein @ Sanyo/Icon uunet!iconsys!mmm cudkeys: cuddy17 cudenmmm cudfnMark cudlnMuhlestein cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.17 / Bruce Dunn / Tritium detection Originally-From: a752@mindlink.UUCP (Bruce Dunn) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tritium detection Date: 17 Nov 90 01:30:08 GMT Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada > north@manta.NOSC.MIL writes: > Org. : Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego > Person: Mark H. North > > > You have it backwards. Tritium in solution is notoriously difficult due > to possible contamination and chemiluminescence. I submit this is why > there is still debate about the presence of Tritium and relatively > little about the absence of Helium. > For general information, I can give some details about tritium detection. I am a biochemist, and detection and measurement of tritium by scintillation counting is a common task in labs that I have worked in. It is possible that there are some wrinkles in measuring tritium from cold fusion cells that don't apply to the type of samples that I have dealt with, but the principles are the same. To measure tritum in an aqueous solution, up to 5 ml or more of water is mixed with emulsifying agents and an organic scintillation cocktail. The cocktail is usually based on xylene or related aromatic hydrocarbons, and contains dissolved organic scintillators. The mixing is done in a sample vial with an approximate capacity of 20 ml. Beta particles released by the tritium dump their energy into the aromatic hydrocarbon, which in turn excites the organic scintillators. These emit photons, with the number of photons released per beta particle being dependant on the beta energy. The sample vial is counted in a dark chamber viewed by two photomultiplier tubes. Each tube has random noise, so to lower the background electronic circuitry is set for coincidence counting, in which a count is recorded only if both tubes see an event essentially at the same time. Most beta-induced events release enough photons to trigger both tubes, while noise is largely eliminated by the coincidence requirement. Counting background is about 20 counts/minute - given a 100 minute counting period, it is quite easy to measure 10 counts/minute over background. Counting efficiency is about 40%, meaning that 10 counts/minute is equivalent to 25 disintegrations/minute. This corresponds to about 11 pCuries, or 0.39 femtomoles of tritium. Chemiluminescence in the scintillation cocktail generates single photon events, which if present in large enough numbers will get past the coincidence circuitry by occasionally triggering both photomultiplier tubes simultaneously. Chemiluminescence is particularly a problem with alkaline samples, however it can be dealt with. For alkaline samples, the simplest thing is to put some acetic acid in the scintillation fluid to neutralize the mix. Modern scintillation counters can detect and correct for small amounts of chemiluminescence, while simultaneously warning the user what it is doing and flagging the sample as containing chemiluminescence. Finally, chemiluminescence is dependant on reactive materials, which are depleted as the reaction proceeds. The simplest cure for chemiluminescence is to put the samples in a warm dark place over the weekend before counting them. Any counts that are thought to be tritium can be subjected to a couple of checks. The scintillation counter produces an energy spectrum of the scintillations in the sample, in terms of the number of photons seen by the photomultipliers. The energy spectrum of the suspected tritium should match that of real tritium in the same scintillation cocktail. The counts should not decay away if the sample is left for a week or so - this will rule out chemiluminescence and possible contamination of the sample by short lived radio-isotopes from outside the experimental setup. Finally, if the tritium is thought to be in the form of water it should be possible to distill the original sample without losing the tritium. If anyone has any direct experience in trying to find tritium from cold fusion cells, I would welcome the information. -- Bruce Dunn Vancouver, Canada a752@mindlink.UUCP cudkeys: cuddy17 cudena752 cudfnBruce cudlnDunn cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.18 / Barry Merriman / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 18 Nov 90 03:19:38 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <4076@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: >In article <756@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >> >>fusion in microcracks is an interesting, but hardly Earth-shaking phenomena, >>and not likely to occur much in nature. >> > >there would be an incentive to find ways to fabricate the stuff >to have more of those features -- say, in molar quantities. That > >Even if you obtained only one fusion at the cost of wrecking one >microcrack, you might exceed breakeven, Possibly. So, before passing judgement, lets examine the ultimate potential of the fracto-fusion approach. In the fracto-fusion approach, electric fields across micro-cracks accelerate D's (or D,T) into eachother at energies high enough to creat fusion. The essence is: chemical energy of the substrate is converted into the kinetic energy of the D. So, the ultimate potential of the method (ignoring details of crack phenomena) would be to use all available chemical energy to accelerate D's. The available chemical energy in a material is on the order of 1eV/atom (if more energy than that were stored, the material would ionize!). In order to fuse, colliding D's need on the order of 1 MeV to overcome the coulomb barrier. Thus every 10^6 substrate atoms could enable one fusion. Since each fusion releases around 10 MeV, we get Q = 10 (Q = energy out/energy in). I doubt this best-case Q is high enough to be useful---for once you add in inefficiencies in the acceleration process, conversion of heat to useful energy, and the loss of substrate due to material damage (all those 1 MeV D's zipping around inside it), you would be lucky to achieve Q = 1. And even if Q = 1 were achieved, since the input power is chemically supplied, that means you have a nuclear power source that is about as powerful as a usual chemical power source. This is not at all like normal fusion and fission, which result in reactors with much more power density than chemical power sources. Such a device might be useful as a neutron source, but it would have little to recommend it as a power source (you get the rad-waste of nuclear energy coupled with the low power density of chemical energy---the worst of both worlds). -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Vincent Cate / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 19 Nov 90 02:48:34 GMT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) >Well.....the best experiments are getting Jones level results.... >or nothing at all. This is still a long ways from being generally >accepted. One of the things that I liked about his original paper >was his citation of the correlation between volcanic emissions and >tritium levels in Hawaii, which is a curious puzzle if he's >wrong. (I don't mean by this that he must be right, merely that >it was a cute thought, and an interesting point in its own right.) Along with the tritium from volcanic emissions it also explains the extra heat coming out of Jupiter and the helium in the diamonds. These sort of fit with Jones' old paper (~1986 ?) about rates of fusion under extreme pressure. His general theory and experiments explain several curious puzzles (not just one). I can't see how else one could explain the heat of Jupiter or the tritium from volcanos - seems Jones has to be right. Are there any other working theories for these? -- Vince PS I still say Jones is headed for a Nobel prize. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.18 / K Flanagan / Helium Originally-From: krf1061@isc.rit.edu (K.R. Flanagan ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Helium Date: 18 Nov 90 16:29:47 GMT Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology This might seem slightly off the topic of fusion but is still a good question, as most of you out there know Helium is obtained from natural gass wells. No the question how does Helium build up in these pockets. The pocket only acts to concentrate helium making it's way to the surface. Methane is an organic decay by product that was buried a long time ago, Helium is noble, and does not react with a single know substance so it quickly escapes. How would Helium have gotten inside the earth is it quickly difusses out of the sourounding materials. It is not found in organic materail either which is what it sourounded by in these wells. By this arguement what kind of reaction (fusion?) creates it inside the earth. -Kevin Flanagan Student R.I.T. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I love antiques; This terminal is 11 | My other computer is a HP 32S years old and preforms better than | Calculator most emulations I see out there | _____________________________________________________________________________ B.T.W. Please pardon all spelling errors, I can't opperate the spell checker on this system...ULTRIX illiterasy...I could give you the address of my 12th grade english teacher if you want a scape goat. cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenkrf1061 cudfnK cudlnFlanagan cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.18 / Raul Baragiola / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 18 Nov 90 15:20:41 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <763@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <4076@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: >>In article <756@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>> >>>fusion in microcracks is an interesting, but hardly Earth-shaking phenomena, >>>and not likely to occur much in nature. >>> >> >>there would be an incentive to find ways to fabricate the stuff >>to have more of those features -- say, in molar quantities. That >> >>Even if you obtained only one fusion at the cost of wrecking one >>microcrack, you might exceed breakeven, > >Possibly. So, before passing judgement, lets examine the ultimate >potential of the fracto-fusion approach. > >In the fracto-fusion approach, electric fields >across micro-cracks accelerate D's (or D,T) into eachother at energies >high enough to creat fusion. > >The essence is: chemical energy of the substrate is converted >into the kinetic energy of the D. So, the ultimate potential of the >method (ignoring details of crack phenomena) would be to use >all available chemical energy to accelerate D's. > >The available chemical energy in a material is on the order >of 1eV/atom (if more energy than that were stored, the material >would ionize!). In order to fuse, colliding D's need on the >order of 1 MeV to overcome the coulomb barrier. Thus every 10^6 >substrate atoms could enable one fusion. Since each fusion >releases around 10 MeV, we get Q = 10 (Q = energy out/energy in). > Colliding D do not to have energies of the order of 1 MeV to overcome the Coulomb barrier and fuse, since they can tunnel through the barrier at much, much lower energies. Otherwise, the sun would not shine. And also fusion power would be practically impossible. Fusion has been seen in the lab for a beam of ~2 keV D ions. So, for an energy release of 4 MeV, the energy gain (your Q) is ~2000. But this energy gain is valid only for those D that fuse. The inmense majority will slow down in energy due to excitation and ionization of the atoms in the solids. This is because atomic cross sections are more than a million times larger than fusion cross sections. This was pointed out by a netter a few days ago, who noticed that otherwise we could get breakeven with a particle accelerator. Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy18 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Ethan Vishniac / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: ethan@ut-emx.uucp (Ethan Tecumseh Vishniac) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 19 Nov 90 14:43:02 GMT Organization: The University of Texas at Austin; Austin, Texas In article <11151@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > His general theory and experiments explain several curious puzzles (not just > one). I can't see how else one could explain the heat of Jupiter.... This is *not* a topic on which I claim any special expertise (in spite of the fact that it is, technically, astronomy), but before all this started up I was informed by Roman Smoluchowski that Jupiter's heat is produced by the gradual settling of the core, in particular by the buildup of Helium in the core (and its depletion in the outer layers). This explanation is widely regarded as plausible, if not completely compelling. -- I'm not afraid of dying Ethan Vishniac, Dept of Astronomy, Univ. of Texas I just don't want to be {charm,ut-sally,emx,noao}!utastro!ethan there when it happens. (arpanet) ethan@astro.AS.UTEXAS.EDU - Woody Allen (bitnet) ethan%astro.as.utexas.edu@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenethan cudfnEthan cudlnVishniac cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / William Johnson / Re: Helium Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Helium Date: 19 Nov 90 16:56:52 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. In article <1990Nov18.162947.2482@isc.rit.edu>, krf1061@isc.rit.edu (K.R. Flanagan ) writes: > No the question how does Helium build up in these > pockets. The pocket only acts to concentrate helium making it's way to > the surface. Methane is an organic decay by product that was buried a > long time ago, Helium is noble, and does not react with a single know > substance so it quickly escapes. How would Helium have gotten inside the > earth is it quickly difusses out of the sourounding materials. It is not > found in organic materail either which is what it sourounded by in these > wells. By this arguement what kind of reaction (fusion?) creates it > inside the earth. In two words, alpha decay. The earth's crust is surprisingly rich in thorium and uranium ("surprisingly" in the sense that they're relatively abundant for their high atomic numbers), and their decay chains proceed via several steps involving emission of alpha particles, which after all are just helium-4 nuclei. Cosmic-ray-induced spallation reactions also produce some helium, but alpha decay of actinides is more important. The question of the conditions under which helium collects underground is a complicated one from a materials-science point of view, but there is no need to invoke fusion, or any other unexpected reaction, to explain the presence of the helium to begin with. -- Bill Johnson | "A man should never be ashamed to own he Los Alamos National Laboratory | has been in the wrong, which is but saying, Los Alamos, New Mexico USA | in other words, that he is wiser to-day !cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov) | than he was yesterday." (A. Pope) cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Hal Lillywhite / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 19 Nov 90 19:10:38 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. In article <11125@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. Well, I hope so. Of course since I am a BYU alumnus I couldn't be at all biased. :-) Realisticly I'm afraid there is a too much unknown at this time to have any confidence in Vincent's prediction. This could turn out in any of at least the following ways: 1. Jones et al may be proven wrong. The neutrons they have detected may be only statistical fluctuations or erroneous measurements. 2. They may have something on the order of muon induced fusion. Interesting but not significant. 3. They may explain some things like volcano emitted tritium, making the work significant but probably not of Nobel Prize significance. 4. This work may eventually (over many years) lead to a controlled fusion energy source. This would be of Nobel significance but it does not appear likely at present and even if it occurs is a long way off. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Hal Lillywhite / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 19 Nov 90 19:19:19 GMT Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or. In article <763@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >And even if Q = 1 were achieved, since the input power is chemically >supplied, that means you have a nuclear power source >that is about as powerful as a usual chemical power source. This is >not at all like normal fusion and fission, which result in reactors >with much more power density than chemical power sources. I don't think power density is the main issue here (although high power density would be an advantage in many applications). The issue is power available from a *large* fuel source. Most of the current sources of fuel are likely to become quite scarce in a few decades. However if we can find a way to burn deuterium we should have centuries worth of fuel available. cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenhall cudfnHal cudlnLillywhite cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Les Earnest / A&M Panel Finds No Evidence of Fraud in Cold Fusion Research Originally-From: LES@SAIL.STANFORD.EDU (Les Earnest) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: A&M Panel Finds No Evidence of Fraud in Cold Fusion Research Date: 19 Nov 90 20:52:00 GMT [From Associated Press] By WENDY BENJAMINSON, Associated Press Writer HOUSTON (AP) - Allegations that that investigations into the charges be dropped. It said the researchers whose work was questioned may have acted hastily but did not do severely substandard work. The report was written by three Texas A&M professors assigned to investigate the research at Texas that followed the March 1989 claim by scientists in Utah that they had achieved cold fusion in a beaker of room-temperature water. Such a discovery would create a cheap, clean and virtually inexhaustible supply of energy. Scientists all over the world rushed to confirm the discovery by B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and his British colleague, Martin Fleischmann. But the journal Science suggested in its June 15, 1989, issue that some A&M experiments had been tainted. One such experiment, conducted by A&M electrochemist John O'Malley Bockris, involved running a series of electrolytic cells modeled after those in Utah. Some cells sporadically produced tritium, a standard byproduct of nuclear fusion. The experiment was the strongest evidence anywhere for cold fusion. But critics questioned the results, saying the tritium was not accompanied by other fusion byproducts, and suggested the experiment had been spiked with tritium. The report issued Sunday concluded that spiking was unlikely, in part because scientists got different results when they tested the spiking theory by intentionally putting tritium in water. ``While it is not possible for us to categorically exclude spiking as a possibility, it is our opinion that possibility is much less probable than that of inadvertent contamination or other unexplained factors in the measurements,'' the report said. The report said that in general, the furor over the alleged discovery of cold fusion caused scientists at Texas A&M to rush their research and lose scientific objectivity, but concluded that none of the experiments was conducted fraudulently. ``The earliest attempts to reproduce those experiments were done hastily, using available material and improvised setups where necessary,'' the report said. ``This, coupled with the perceived pressures of racing against other groups, certainly led to some less than perfect experimental design.'' But the report added that even in their haste, researchers maintained generally normal standards. It also said that with the decreasing amount of attention, continuing research is being conducted properly. The A&M report noted that researchers are still trying to confirm Pons and Fleischmann's discovery, but so far have failed, leaving the general scientific community skeptical that the two actually achieved cold fusion. The internal report was written by John Poston, a nuclear engineer; Edward S. Fry, a physicist; and Joseph B. Natowitz, a chemist. AP-NY-11-19-90 1011EST- ********** cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenLES cudfnLes cudlnEarnest cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Matt Kennel / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: jbracher@weber.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 20 Nov 90 00:04:32 GMT Organization: Institute for Nonlinear Science, UCSD Dr Koloc, what do you propose as an alternate fusion technology other than tokamaks? Of course, they're hard to build, but the reason that they're still around is that, nonetheless, they seem to work better than competitors. If indeed, boosting pressure is the key, what will do it in a way that maintains the temperature? I.e., how do you do without magnetic confinement? (I already know about laser-fusion, the technology is about 5-10 yrs behind tokamaks) Who's been doing the research? Is there a review article in a journal somewhere? BTW: I'm not asking about P&F type cold fusion now, I think that's been rehashed enough. Matt K mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenjbracher cudfnMatt cudlnKennel cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / jim bowers / Re: Helium Originally-From: FQV@psuvm.psu.edu (jim bowers) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Helium Date: 20 Nov 90 01:03:35 GMT Organization: Penn State University In article <6339@lanl.gov>, you say: > >In article <1990Nov18.162947.2482@isc.rit.edu>, krf1061@isc.rit.edu (K.R. >Flanagan ) writes: >> No the question how does Helium build up in these >> pockets. The pocket only acts to concentrate helium making it's way to >> the surface. Methane is an organic decay by product that was buried a >> long time ago, Helium is noble, and does not react with a single know >> substance so it quickly escapes. How would Helium have gotten inside the >> earth is it quickly difusses out of the sourounding materials. It is not >> found in organic materail either which is what it sourounded by in these >> wells. By this arguement what kind of reaction (fusion?) creates it >> inside the earth. > >In two words, alpha decay. The earth's crust is surprisingly rich in thorium >and uranium ("surprisingly" in the sense that they're relatively abundant for >their high atomic numbers), and their decay chains proceed via several steps >involving emission of alpha particles, which after all are just helium-4 >nuclei. Cosmic-ray-induced spallation reactions also produce some helium, but >alpha decay of actinides is more important. > >The question of the conditions under which helium collects underground is a >complicated one from a materials-science point of view, but there is no need >to invoke fusion, or any other unexpected reaction, to explain the presence of >the helium to begin with. > >-- Well, the helium point is a very good point. I was just recently at a talk on granites and slate belts and one of the main "problems" brought up was how sediment "mud" get as hot as it gets. There is some anamolous heat source which causes a much higher geothermal gradient (35C/km as opposed to a more normal 15C/km) in slate belts (which were previously basins much like the ones oil wells are found in) that occur BEFORE the intrusion of the granites and are most likely responsible for the granite melting in the first place. One place where this high gradient is observed directly is in some Venesualian oil fields and current thought is that it is due to oxidation of organic matter. Of course where does the oxygen come from? No, I don't know if there is any He in the Venesualian oil fields but if I get the time I'll look it up. Jim Bowers cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenFQV cudfnjim cudlnbowers cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.19 / Barry Merriman / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 19 Nov 90 21:53:40 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov18.152041.8838@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) writes: >In article <763@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>In article <4076@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: >>>In article <756@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>>> >>In the fracto-fusion approach, electric fields >>across micro-cracks accelerate D's (or D,T) into eachother at energies >>high enough to creat fusion. >> >>The essence is: chemical energy of the substrate is converted >>into the kinetic energy of the D. >>The available chemical energy in a material is on the order >>of 1eV/atom. In order to fuse, colliding D's need on the >>order of 1 MeV to overcome the coulomb barrier. Thus every 10^6 >>substrate atoms could enable one fusion. Since each fusion >>releases around 10 MeV, we get Q = 10 (Q = energy out/energy in). >> >Colliding D do not to have energies of the order of 1 MeV to overcome >the Coulomb barrier and fuse, since they can tunnel through the barrier >at much, much lower energies. Otherwise, the sun would not shine. This is certainly true, but as you point out: >But this energy gain is valid only for those D that fuse. The inmense >majority will slow down in energy due to excitation and ionization of >the atoms in the solids. And because of this, I think my 1 MeV fusion threshold is more reasonable for the above calculation. True, you get plenty of fusion from a 10 keV plasma---but, any given D undergoes _many_ collisions before actually fusing, since the probabilty of fusion is low for any given collision. In my simplest picture of fracto-fusion, I imagine the D accelerated across a crack, colliding with another D, and if they don't fuse, they head off into the material and slow down rapidly by losing energy to atomic collisions. So, I figured that unless the D energy were high enough to make ``one shot'' fusion likely, it would not fuse. For a single collision to have a good chance of fusing, the D had better have around 1 MeV. To do it ``right'', one simply needs to work out a Lawson criteria for fracto fusion---but this will involve details of the cracks (say volume fraction), since the fusion can only occur in or on the boundary of the cracks---inside the lattice, the D would cool down quite quickly. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy19 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Barry Merriman / Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Jones in line for a Nobel prize. Date: 20 Nov 90 02:04:37 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <6333@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite) writes: >In article <11125@pt.cs.cmu.edu> vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > >>Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel prize. > >Well, I hope so. Of course since I am a BYU alumnus I couldn't be >at all biased. :-) > [1--3 omitted] >4. This work may eventually (over many years) lead to a controlled >fusion energy source. This would be of Nobel significance but it >does not appear likely at present and even if it occurs is a long >way off. If this were to occur, I think Jones would get the Nobel prize for ``largest scaling up in the history of science''. Right now they claim on the order of 1 neutron/sec, and a 1 GW reactor would imply about 10^21 neutrons/sec---scaling up by 21 orders of magnitude! -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / / Prizes for everyone! Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Prizes for everyone! Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 17:12:49 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway >Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel Prize... Let's get real, folks! If you think the account of one experiment as publish in the Provo newspaper is grounds for awarding the grand prize, you haven't learned much from the brief history of cold fusion. Let us at least wait until we have seen a full-blown publication in a journal that publishes real scientific papers, not press releases. Why, you may ask, is that so important? In order to evaluate S. Jones' results you need to know some details about what he did and how he did it. If you want to know about his first experiment you go read the paper published in Nature. Wrong! That little note in Nature contains no information about the detector Jones used, and for this type of measurement the detector is critical. Now we have a new result from Jones on a different type of measurement, but we should wait until we see some real details about the experiment because we cannot simply take Jones' word (or anyone elses for that matter) that his detector detects neutrons only and that backgrounds are properly measured and taken into account. Doing the experiment in a mine may lower the cosmic ray background, but what about gamma rays from natural radioisotopes? As an aside I wonder why Jones has not ever repeated his first experiment. Could it be that he too cannot reproduce that result so he simply moves on to another experiment and will never have to answer the hard questions about why he fudged the background subtraction or why only one run showed a positive result? Dick Blue NSCL/MSU -- cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Paul Koloc / Chemical versus Nuclear Power Density (was a Jones) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Chemical versus Nuclear Power Density (was a Jones) Date: 20 Nov 90 07:01:01 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <763@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In the fracto-fusion approach, electric fields >across micro-cracks accelerate D's (or D,T) into each other at energies >high enough to create fusion. > > . . . . In order to fuse, colliding D's need on the >order of 1 MeV to overcome the coulomb barrier. Thus every 10^6 >substrate atoms could enable one fusion. Since each fusion >releases around 10 MeV, we get Q = 10 (Q = energy out/energy in). > > . ... >And even if Q = 1 were achieved, since the input power is chemically >supplied, that means you have a nuclear power source >that is about as powerful as a usual chemical power source. This is >not at all like normal fusion and fission, which result in reactors >with much more power density than chemical power sources. Fission devices CAN develop very high power densities as evidenced by their "bomb" applications. In MOST OTHER APPLICATIONS they do NOT, for the engineering consideration, that the temperature can't exceed the melting (or pressure) limitation of the confining structure. Magnetic fusion with solid vacuum chamber walls has the same problem only worse. Their problem is that the walls must remain an extremely high grade vacuum barrier in spite of the "wished for" megawatts/meter squared of soft X-rays and copious neutron and other particle insults. A high pressure coal burner works better simply because of the high density of cooling tubes that can matrix the reacting (burner) region. These potential and real applications of nuclear technology to energy (power) production are rather pathetic, since while the energy density ratio of the fuels favor nuclear by the millions, the power density realized is subnormal to advanced chemical technology devices. We are interested in correcting that problem, but it's going to be a difficult task to get our solution developed, since it competes with a very troubled (Inter)National Fusion program. >Such a device might be useful as a neutron source, but it would >have little to recommend it as a power source (you get the >rad-waste of nuclear energy coupled with the low power density >of chemical energy---the worst of both worlds). IF.. you need a few neutrons, a pocket sized source is better and much, much easier to do environmental containment on. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Zerxes Bhagalia / Fusion Originally-From: v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Zerxes Bhagalia) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion Date: 20 Nov 90 12:22:21 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo If a rather large fusion reaction took place, would a partial vacuum be formed? Consider : 2 particles exist, each with a mass of 1 unit A fusion reaction occurs, fusing the 2 particles into 1 Some mass is transferred into energy, thus mass is lost So, the mass of the new particle is less than 2 units Do you understand my train of thought? +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | -------------- | | "He pulls a knife, _-------------_______________ Zerxes Bhagalia | | you pull a gun. ____________-------------____ V064LNEV | | He sends one of yours ________________------------_ UUCP: @UBVMS.cc.buffalo | | to the hospital. ______________-------________ BIT : @UBVMS.bitnet | | you send one of his ___________-------___________ State University of | | to the morgue." ________-------______________ New York at Buffalo: | | That's the American _------------________________ Aerospace Engineering | | way, and that's how ____-------------____________ Computer Science | | you get Hussein. _______________-------------_ Business Administration | | - Malone : Sean Connery [The Untouchables] -------------- | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenv064lnev cudfnZerxes cudlnBhagalia cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / sheely@groucho / Re: Helium Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Helium Date: 20 Nov 90 21:31:22 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow In article <90323.200335FQV@psuvm.psu.edu> FQV@psuvm.psu.edu (jim bowers) writes: > > Well, the helium point is a very good point. I was just recently at a > talk on granites and slate belts and one of the main "problems" brought > up was how sediment "mud" get as hot as it gets. There is some > anamolous heat source which causes a much higher geothermal gradient > (35C/km as opposed to a more normal 15C/km) in slate belts (which > were previously basins much like the ones oil wells are found in) > that occur BEFORE the intrusion of the granites and are most likely > responsible for the granite melting in the first place. > > One place where this high gradient is observed directly is in some > Venesualian oil fields and current thought is that it is due to > oxidation of organic matter. Of course where does the oxygen come from? > >No, I don't know if there is any He in the Venesualian oil fields but >if I get the time I'll look it up. > > Jim Bowers A more interesting thing to know is the He3/He4 ratio. The presence of He can be acounted for much better by present therory than can the variations in this ratio. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudensheely cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Dick Jackson / Re: Helium Originally-From: jackson@ttidca.TTI.COM (Dick Jackson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Helium Date: 20 Nov 90 16:25:45 GMT Organization: Citicorp/TTI, Santa Monica In article <90323.200335FQV@psuvm.psu.edu> FQV@psuvm.psu.edu (jim bowers) writes: ... > talk on granites and slate belts and one of the main "problems" brought > up was how sediment "mud" get as hot as it gets. There is some > anamolous heat source which causes a much higher geothermal gradient > (35C/km as opposed to a more normal 15C/km) in slate belts (which Well, that's an easy one. The answer is quantum black holes! Some Russion chappie has recently proposed this as an explanation for several geological phenomena, including the earth's magnetic field,volcanic hot spots and gravitational anomalies. He has even proposed a way to test the hypothesis, by sensitive gravimetric measurements around mountains. I don't understand how a qbh can be locked in position though (the theory requires at least a hundred of the little devils dotted around the earth - with a bigger one at the center). Maybe qbh's are responsible for cold fusion! :-) Dick Jackson cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenjackson cudfnDick cudlnJackson cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.21 / phys2108@waika / Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Originally-From: phys2108@waikato.ac.nz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Salt Lake and the 5 megabucks Date: 21 Nov 90 02:56:27 GMT Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand In article <1990Oct29.192117.7936@wrl.dec.com>, haddad@wrl.dec.com (Ramsey Haddad) writes: > In article <1295@manta.NOSC.MIL> north@manta.nosc.mil.UUCP (Mark H. North) writes: >> if they had gone through proper peer review there would >>have been no doubt. > > I think that a fairly clear reading of the situation is this: P&F would > have preferred to have had everything completely figured out and to have > then submitted it for peer review. This way they could claim full credit. > It was only when they incorrectly thought that Jones of BYU was trying to > steal their ideas that they felt they needed to go public quickly. This is a poor argument against peer review. > >>Then there's the loss of 6 months to a >>year of hundreds of scientists productivity which went into teaching these >>two miscreants some basic nuclear physics (e.g. no neutrons - no fusion). > > This only happened because of the arrogance and egos of said scientists. angry stuff deleted > Ramsey Haddad I think you miss the point, most of these people are in this for the challenge, and when something as radical as what P&F claimed came out alot of people all over the world became very interested and wanted to learn as much as possible, and did so, experimentally (much the same as what happened in high temperature SC). It appeared trivial (even to a humble grad student), and the willingness to challenge (or naivity) of experimentalists all over the world was exposed, it also took alot of there time as well. The main thing is that it challenged fundamental laws, which if proved wrong needed changing (thats exciting, not egotistical). geoff. cudkeys: cuddy21 cudenphys2108 cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Stanley Chow / Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Originally-From: schow@bcarh185.bnr.ca (Stanley T.H. Chow) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion: Cold Aneutronic? (longish) Date: 20 Nov 90 01:26:23 GMT Organization: BNR Ottawa, Canada In article <4042@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes: > >Dr Koloc, what do you propose as an alternate fusion technology other >than tokamaks? Of course, they're hard to build, but the reason that >they're still around is that, nonetheless, they seem to work better than >competitors. Hmmm, this sounds like pretty weak justification. For purposes of getting fusion technology, we like methods that *work*. On the other hand, for purposes of getting grant money, "better than competitors" is often enough. Please note I am not condeming tokamaks, just this lame excuse. Stanley Chow BitNet: schow@BNR.CA BNR UUCP: ..!uunet!bnrgate!bcarh185!schow (613) 763-2831 ..!psuvax1!BNR.CA.bitnet!schow Me? Represent other people? Don't make them laugh so hard. cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenschow cudfnStanley cudlnChow cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.23 / Paul Koloc / What's coming, elsewhere? (Was Cold Aneutronic) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: What's coming, elsewhere? (Was Cold Aneutronic) Date: 23 Nov 90 17:34:01 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <4042@network.ucsd.edu> mbk@inls1.ucsd.edu (Matt Kennel) writes: > >Dr Koloc, what do you propose as an alternate fusion technology other >than tokamaks? Of course, they're hard to build, but the reason that >they're still around is that, nonetheless, they seem to work better than >competitors. Tokamaks are hard to build, and therefore justify large expenditures making it the single solitary fusion concept that can keep the total fusion budget of the world's plasma techs "busy" for the next fifteen centuries, if need be. MICF and Spheromaks concepts have not been funded at a level yet to make a good evaluation of their ultimate prospects. In the government funding game, one biggy usually survives big in each catagory . Robert Bussard has a new concept (well, a reworked older untried one) and its funding was cut off with the Field's fiasco at US DARPA. Then there is our own PLASMAK(tm) concept, an advanced form of our first (Spheromak) concept, but with a gas compressible plasma shell. This has been funded internally just to see if such an object can exist with exceptionally long life time and stability. It can and it does. Now we will go forth from here.. >If indeed, boosting pressure is the key, what will do it in a way that >maintains the temperature? The compression not only increases pressure and density (cube of the compression ratio "cr" ) but it increases temperature (square of "cr"). The burn rate would increase by the sixth+ power of "cr". > I.e., how do you do without magnetic confinement? If a magnetic field can confine a plasma, then a plasma can confine a magnetic field. So .. . simply confine a central Kernel plasmoid ring within its own self generated fields and then trap the external vacuum boundary of that confining magnetic field within a highly conducting shell (Mantle) of plasma. External fluid pressure backed up by a high tensile strength material compression chamber wall will determine the ultimate confining external pressure. What is nice is that its internal magnetic topology "focuses" pressure on the fusion fuel ring so that its pressure can be a substantial fraction of an order of magnitude higher. It's not that the magnetic field is absent.. it's just that it is transparent to the user. :-) >(I already know about laser-fusion, the technology is about 5-10 yrs behind >tokamaks) Who's been doing the research? Not much around,. after all the international fusion effort the IAEA (a combined effort of the world's DoEs) is run by old "duffers". Consequently, they agree to fund what they know about in common.. Tokamaks, Stellarators and Mirrors. Those are the machines that produce most of the research literature. Laser fusion has "classified" objectives so there is a relative paucity of research publication. With meager private funding going into the innovative work, there is a reticence to publish outside of patents, because of the necessity to protect the risk of the hard earned investor dollars. > Is there a review article in a journal somewhere? Koloc, P. M. "PLASMAK(tm) Star Power for Energy Intensive Space Applications" FUSION TECHNOLOGY Vol. 15, Mar 89, pp 1136-1141 >BTW: I'm not asking about P&F type cold fusion now, I think that's been >rehashed enough. Until what is technically and/or scientifically causing the results AND non-results of CF is combed out of the research, press releases stop being sought after, and the and the world's cf researchers come to a consensus, we must continue to "rehash". Who knows, one of us my discover the missing key to unlock this thing, assuming it's there. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy23 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.24 / Mike Pelt / Possible explanation for Pons results Originally-From: mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Possible explanation for Pons results Date: 24 Nov 90 06:16:51 GMT Organization: Video 7 + G2 = Headland Technology The latest issue of Petr Beckmann's "Access to Energy" contains a report on two articles by Ali AbuTaha to be published in MIT's "Journal of Fusion Technology". AbuTaha seems to have shown that the stress energy in the crystal structure of cast palladium is sufficient to explain the energy output that Pons has reported. This energy is released when the deuterium loading disrupted the structure, like breaking a spring. This explains why cast palladium works and drawn doesn't -- and why a rod that has quit working can be fixed by melting and recasting it. AbuTaha's numbers aren't in this report, but Beckmann says that the paper "... shows _qualitatively_ that the heat of fracture is just of the order measured by P&F and the several respectable labs that were able to duplicate their effect." (heavy sigh) -- Mike Van Pelt | What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth? Headland Technology | Judging from realistic simulations involving a (was: Video Seven) | sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp | can assume it will be pretty bad. -- Dave Barry cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenmvp cudfnMike cudlnPelt cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.24 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? (Was Cold Aneutronic) Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? (Was Cold Aneutronic) Date: 24 Nov 90 03:07:16 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov23.173401.17318@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >Then there is our own PLASMAK(tm) concept, an advanced form of our >first (Spheromak) concept, but with a gas compressible plasma shell. >This has been funded internally just to see if such an object can >exist with exceptionally long life time and stability. It can and >it does. Now we will go forth from here.. > >If a magnetic field can confine a plasma, then a plasma can confine a >magnetic field. So .. . simply confine a central Kernel plasmoid >ring within its own self generated fields and then trap the external >vacuum boundary of that confining magnetic field within a highly >conducting shell (Mantle) of plasma. External fluid pressure backed >up by a high tensile strength material compression chamber wall will >determine the ultimate confining external pressure. You have said elsewhere that some folks write off your PLASMAK(tm) due to overzealous use of the Virial Theorem. (Aside: The Virial Theorem says that an ideal (no internal resistance) MHD (behaves like a fluid) plasma cannot ``confine itself'', i.e. it can't be in equilibrium (== net force of 0 on any bit of plasma) unless it is contained inside a conducting vessel. In the absence of such a vessel, it must expand.) So, how do you wiggle out from under the VT? My guess is that you don't plan to be in equilibrium. But perhaps you also think the Mantle can play the role of a conducting vessel, in part? In any case, VT applies only to establishing MHD equilibrium. This is a good regime for theorists to operate in, since the equations take on their simplest form. But what about nonequilibrium configurations? In particular, has anyone ever considered ``dynamic equilibrium configurations'', in which the forces on a plasma element don't sum to zero, but do oscillate in such a way that they time average to zero? -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.20 / Chuck Sites / New theory Originally-From: chuck@coplex.UUCP (Chuck Sites) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: New theory Date: 20 Nov 90 08:05:22 GMT Organization: Copper Electronics Inc.; Louisville, Ky The following is a "Farfetch-em" as Terry Bollinger liked to call em. I haven't seen one in a while so I thought it might be fun to give it a try. It's a hypothetical hand-waving solution (theory?) to the excess heat problem of cold fusion (ah-la Pon's, Fleishman and Hawkings) in hydrated metals under electrolysis. Look at it, play with it, criticize it, have fun with it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Excess Heat in Hydrated Metals By Chuck Sites I have been considering an explanation of the excess heat as seen by Pons and Fleshiman and others in electrolytically induced cold fusion. There have been many attempts to develope a theory of cold fusion as seen by P&F, Hugins, and others. Most are attempts to calculate the fusion rate of deterium embedded in palladium, and all seem to come up with lower than expected values when compared to the the excess heat found experimentally. I am going to sugjest another approach to the problem of the heat. Consider a crystal of metal. The arrangment of of the atoms in the lattic form a period potential which is well known as the zone theory of metals. In zone theory, a free electron moving through the lattice will experience the effect of a periodic potential. When the Schrodinger wave equation is solved for this system, one finds that the energy that the electron can have is descrete zones or bands. These descrete values then describe zones of energy that an electron can take on like those of a semiconductor (forbiden zones, and conduction zones). A diagram of periodic potential is shown below: V(x) V(x) ^ ^ Lattice spacing |.. _______ Atoms of the latice | a=b+c | \ / / | | |+ .. + .. + .. + .. + .. + | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +-+ +-+ +-+ +-+ Vo | | | | | | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |b| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | +--------------------------------------> -------+-------------------------> \ (x) |<-a->| (x) \__ Surface Potential Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Consider the same problem, only with a deterium ions. The deterium will feel a similar periodic potential, except the potential would be reversed reflecting the repulsive Coulumb force between the like charge of the D ion and the positive core of the latice atoms. From this, I think it can be shown that like the behaviour of electrons in zone theory, positivly charged ions will have a similar forbiden zones, as well as conduction zones, and these zones will be quantized in a similar manner. What we have then is a D atom which has a quantum wave function similar to a very heavy electron but has a broad but discrete (but bounded) energy "zone". Now lets assume this D ion then encounters a Pd atom (or some other impurity) after passing through the lattice and taking on the quantum energy levels of a periodic potential. If the energy level of D ion is higher than the energy needed to push the D ion through the periodic potential, then the result should be a transfer of the built up "zone" energy to the Pd lattice. If the D atom reaches an energy level equvilant to the conduction band for D ions and is stopped by an impurity, then the energy of the D ion equal to the quantum zone energy + kenetic energy of the D ion should be distributed to the impurity. (Whew!) Basicly then, what the farfetch-em says, is that when the D-ion reach the conduction zone (for D-ions in a periodic potential) the quantum energy of the conduction band is seen as excess energy (like lots of excess heat). Experimentaly there are some implications that I would like to note: Because excess heat would depend upon the having periodic potentials, clean D absorbing crystals are important. The tighter the lattice spacing of the crystal the better. Impurities (Targets) need to be far apart enough to allow the D ions to enter there conduction zones. Also implied is that there is a limit to the amount of loading of D in to metal (Pd, Ti and other D absorbing metals) before the lattice is overwelmed and motion of D ions through the lattice stops (at which point the D may clump up and fuse ah-la the Jones effect.) It also implies that there are non-conduction zones (ie. the lattice spacing of the Pd isn't correct) in which case excess heat won't be seen. So there. You have my farfetch-em. Have fun! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . \Chuck Sites uunet!coplex!chuck Copper Electronics |Cold Fusion / . . . o o o o \chuck@coplex | AT&T: 502-454-7218 Wrk: 968-8495 |as real as / o o o o O O O O O \It ain't over until the entropy reaches Max! |it gets. / O O O O O ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy20 cudenchuck cudfnChuck cudlnSites cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.24 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 24 Nov 90 18:45:49 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <791@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Nov23.173401.17318@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>Then there is our own PLASMAK(tm) concept, an advanced form of our >>first (Spheromak) concept, but with a gas compressible plasma shell. >>This has been funded internally just to see if such an object can >>exist with exceptionally long life time and stability. It can and >>it does. Now we will go forth from here.. >> >>If a magnetic field can confine a plasma, then a plasma can confine a >>magnetic field. So .. . simply confine a central Kernel plasmoid >>ring within its own self generated fields and then trap the external >>vacuum boundary of that confining magnetic field within a highly >>conducting shell (Mantle) of plasma. External fluid pressure backed >>up by a high tensile strength material compression chamber wall will >>determine the ultimate confining external pressure. > >You have said elsewhere that some folks write off your PLASMAK(tm) >due to overzealous use of the Virial Theorem. > >(Aside: The Virial Theorem says that an ideal (no internal resistance) >MHD (behaves like a fluid) plasma cannot ``confine itself'', >i.e. it can't be in equilibrium (== net force of 0 on any bit of plasma) >unless it is contained inside a conducting vessel. >In the absence of such a vessel, it must expand.) (This discussion relates to a spheroidal sandwich or "onion" of pressurized plasmas, fields, and surrounding chamber compressed fluids.) Of course the plasma fluid has no confining capability but a "tied" magnetic field does. You will note that I put the "confine itself" in parens. Since the "confining field" is itself externally confined by surrounding Mantle mediated pressure, the PLASMAK(tm) as a whole DOES NOT confine itself. Again, it is the conducting shell (Mantle) which itself is in pressure equilibrium (confinement) with its surrounding fluid blanket (such as ordinary gas pressure) that provides the external support for the "self Kernel plasma confining field". These fields are self confining only in the sense that all of the currents used to produce these fields are generated by the currents of the confined central Kernel plasmoid itself. (Their external boundary is neutralized by Mantle current.) Incidentally, "net force of zero" does NOT SIMPLY apply to systems which have "two dimensional surface tension" and this includes soap bubbles. Soap bubbles are "mostly" confined by external atmospheric pressure, and partially by their own surface tension. Here the surface integration of the VT should make a cut through the bubble surface and integrate over its inner surface to pick up he contribution from surface tension. This makes the region "simply connected". In a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid most of its high internal pressure comes from the interlinked flux and only about 8 to 10 % from the pressure at its external boundary (blanket pressure). >So, how do you wiggle out from under the VT? In the PLASMAK(tm) configuration, it is the interaction of both toroidal and poloidal field "lines" that produces the equivalent "surface tension" (actually an infinity of nested toroidal pressure bearing surfaces). The toroidal field produces compression of the plasma in the major radius and the poloidal field in the minor radial direction. Application of the VT to plasma systems WITHOUT BOTH COMPONENTS OF FIELD or no field at all reduce to a simple form, since there is NO NET internal pressure bearing (volume trapping) surface in these objects. For a PLASMAK(tm) case one must integrate over the multiplicity of nested magnetic pressure bearing surfaces as well as the external gas boundary. Consequently, it is "cheaper" to do a straight forward volume integration to obtain its total energy (pressure). > My guess is that you don't plan to be in equilibrium. In plasma physics, any SMALL plasmoid that has a constant size with a viable, and stable long lifetime on the order of a second, can be considered to be in equilibrium. The plasma is in pressure equilibrium with the sum of the plasma pressure (the smaller component in a lower Beta system) and the pressure transmitted to it from its magnetic topology (the larger component). > But perhaps you also think the Mantle can play the role of a conducting vessel, in part? It IS the vessel for the vacuum field it traps; however, the ultimate external pressure bearing surface is the high tensile strength pressure wall that traps the blanket (which the Mantle excludes). In the case of Ball Lightning it is gravitational compression of atmospheric gases that determine its external confinement pressure. The Mantle has all the conductivity needed, since its relativistic vacuum/plasma boundary layer current is collisionless (Magnetic diffusion times from 5 to 30 seconds). >In any case, VT applies only to establishing MHD equilibrium. This >is a good regime for theorists to operate in, since the equations take >on their simplest form. I agree as long as care is taken with respect to the boundary values. For our case it should be useful in evaluating the equilibria achieved during strong adiabatic compressions we intend to use in fusion related applications. > .. . . But what about non-equilibrium configurations? In >particular, has anyone ever considered ``dynamic equilibrium configurations'', >in which the forces on a plasma element don't sum to zero, but do >oscillate in such a way that they time average to zero? I'm not too sure what you are hinting at. Usually, it is the time averaged sums that determine equilibrium. Forms of Inertial Confinement, pondermotive, and Magdellan(sp?), magnetic instabilities, etc., forces can all drive non-linear (dynamic equilibrium) effects. Energy density and pressure are closely coupled. So one might imagine a huge and dynamic PLASMAK(tm) magnetoplasmoid (perhaps buried under the surface of the sun or Jupiter). At formation it is compression heated to ignition, and then it expands and cools, quenching the fusion burn. But if it over shoots on the fusion driven expansion phase, it could re-ignite during the equilibrium recompression, thus producing the energy for a second expansion. For a while these fluctuations might grow in intensity. The big problem with doing this work in the sun, is that these monster PLASMAK(tm) magnetoplasma bubbles rise, adiabatically cool, and then near the surface where the differential vertical pressure is de-stabilizing, they will tear open and spill out the strongly cooled and magnetized disintegrating Kernel plasma, producing BIG UGLY sun spots. Our periodic research there is being blamed for the occasional droughts, floods, etc. :-) Micro PLASMAK(tm) magnetoplasmoids are formed by a fusion approach called MICF (Magnetic Inertial Confinement Fusion). Perhaps PLASMAK(tm) plasmoids of the right size and fuel choice could be made to flash burn and re-burn on each return of the fusion driven compression wave reflected from the chamber wall. That may or may not make for a promising engineering application. PLASMAK(tm) fusion can produce all the power you need, But you wouldn't use it to directly drive your razor. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy24 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.25 / Elf Sternberg / (Mantra) I'm not a target... Originally-From: elf%halcyon.uucp@seattleu.edu (Elf Sternberg) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: (Mantra) I'm not a target... Date: 25 Nov 90 12:07:13 GMT Organization: The 23:00 News I'm probably ditching myself into a horrbile maelstrom by even raising my head in this newsgroup, being more of an english student than a science student, but, while I'm here, can anybody give me any information on the research of Johnathan Riggs? Bibliographies would be nice. Personal opinions would be be better. _________________________________________________sig 32________________ Elf Sternberg | Didja ever realize that if it wasn't for Newton elf@halcyon.wa.com | we wouldn't haveta eat bruised apples? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenuucp cudfnElf cudlnSternberg cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.25 / Paul Houle / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 25 Nov 90 20:25:07 GMT Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology I read one of your papers on ball lightning and it seemed pretty interesting in it's description of how it is self-confining. However, it seems to me that the PLAMAK configuration would pose some engineering problems. It seems to me that if you're burning D+T, you'd have very high neutron loading on the walls; in addition, you'd have very high temperatures and pressures on the walls of the reactor, making things kind of tough. Now, if you could get high enough kernel temperatures and pressures to use an aneutronic reaction like Li7+p, you might be able to solve of those problems. Would the fluid surrounding the mantle have to be a gas? If you could somehow make it a liquid, it could carry away the heat pretty well. Practically, how would you assemble a PLASMAK configuration? How far have you come in experimentation work on PLASMAK? What would the specifications of a commercial PLASMAK reactor look like? What power output? Size? Weight? -- cudkeys: cuddy25 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.25 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 373 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 373 papers on cnf) Date: Sun, 25 Nov 90 23:23:02 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I send you this mini-packet, having just finished translating the two Russians and the Brazilian efforts. One of the Russians was a frustrating job, since it quickly became clear that it was no more than an early wrap-up (the Zakharova et al), as was the Davis, which I got from Todd Greene some time ago and have not been able to obtain (cheaply); since this, too, is just a wrap-up, I won't pursue it further. The Nordemann item goes into a little detail on one possible artifact - i.e. radon contamination of the Pd electrodes - that could be fooling 'em. Don't heat-treat your electrodes, or you might drive out the accumulated radon, and you'll get no neutrons! Then again, you might; what is the mobility of radon in Pd? Has anyone looked at Rn? The Karpov was at least interesting, and may raise a few eyebrows, one way or the other. They threw away their palladium (or maybe they couldn't afford any) and used a simple chemical reaction, having first established the possible necessary conditions for cold fusion. Just mix these two solutions, and stand back and catch the neutrons. Amazing, and very easy to try out. Critics of neutron detection will not be happy with the single detector used, and will ask whether there was any temperature rise upon mixing... more exciting than an epic from Koloc. The Matsunami job needs no comment. There are two issues of Fusion Technology waiting for me to write about, and one (August 1990) is entirely dedicated to cnf; so sometime soon, there will be a maxi-packet from me. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 23-Nov. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Davis L; Aust. Phys. (Australia) 26 (1989) 219. Cited in Phys. Abstr. 93:38727 (1990). "Cold fusion: a learning curve?" ** "Discusses the recent research around the world on the cold fusion of deuterium nuclei in palladium metal (no refs)". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nordemann DJR; Mineracao Metalurgia 53 (1989) 51 (in Portuguese). "Cold fusion and geophysics: the current situation". ** A wrap-up of the cold fusion story at the time of writing, around the middle of 1989, commenting on the FPH paper and that of Cribier+ only. The usual interest and doubt is expressed, as well as an explanation of the suspect fusion reactions. Nordemann goes further, however, and takes up a suggestion of Cribier et al, that the neutrons may arise from collisions between alpha particles and deuterium; the alphas could come from natural heavy isotopes (U, Th, Rn) present in the palladium as impurities. Nordemann looks at Rn, one of whose decay products is (214)Po, which decays to give off an alpha particle with an energy of 7.68 MeV, sufficient to cause the reaction D + (4)He --> H + n + (4)He; i.e. the alpha or (4)He is not itself changed. Nordemann suggests that Pd may accumulate radon gas in sufficient quantity to let this happen. Radon is ubiquitous, being a product of uranium decay, and U is everywhere. The process could explain the erratic results obtained by various researchers, and Nordemann ironically suggests that some workers, who state that heat pretreatment of the palladium is to be avoided, do so in order not to drive out the radon... He concludes, however, with the thought that the subject is still important, and if a fusion reaction is indeed behind the positive resutls, this could have implications not only for our energy future but also for geophysical phenomena such as vulcanism, seismic activity and continental origin. SE Jones would agree. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Karpov SYu, Koval'chuk YuV, Myachin VE, Pogorel'skii YuV; Pis'ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 16(5) (1990) 91 (in Russian). "On the possibility of a mechanism of cold nuclear fusion". ** This paper examines a novel hypothesis. First, some theory, using simple charge relationships and the Thomas-Fermi model, concludes with the possibility that deuterium fusion tunnelling might be aided if deuterons are able to penetrate the electron shells of heavy, preferably negatively charged, atoms. Presumably palladium centres in the palladium deuteride spring to the authors' minds. However, this hypothesis led to a suggestion of a very simple experiment, involving no electrolysis or solid metal. Of a total of five chemical reactions tried out, the following one was succesful: A 40% solution of HBr (10-15 ml) in H2O was mixed with 20 ml of a saturated solution of KI in D2O. Some KBr is precipitated out, and there is some exchange of H and D from the species HBr, H2O and D2O. This commentator assumes that I- ions act as the heavy anions, into whose electron shells the deuterons (D+ ions) are supposed to penetrate and fuse. The authors monitored neutrons with a single scintillation detector of fast and intermediate neutrons, couple with a photomultiplier and shielded by a an ethylene moderator and a Cd jacket. 16 experiments were averaged, and the Fig. shows a marked increase in neutron activity from the time of mixing the chemicals, lasting about 2000 s, at a level of 9E-3 impulses/s, compared with a background of 5E-03. The authors cite similar work (Soviet, in preprint) by other workers. Feb-90/Mar-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsunami N; Radiat. Effects Def. Solids 112 (1990) 181. "Solid state effects on tunnelling probability for d+d nuclear fusion at room temperature". ** Theoretical examination of the possible role of screening and effective electron mass on tunnelling fusion in PdD. The paper builds on the works of Siclen et al and Jackson. Neither screening nor effective electron mass are likely to do the trick. However, if there is a mechanism to accelerate deuterons to a few 100 eV, fusion might occur. The steep potential drop near the electrode surface during electrolysis might impart such energies and thus cold fusion is plausible. 29-May-89/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zakharova VP, Kotel'nikov GA; Atom. Tekh. za Rubez. 9 (1989) 28 (in Russian). "To the question of cold nuclear fusion". ** A lengthy report of the cold fusion affair, evidently written at about the end of April (this commentator cannot find a publication date), judging from the reference list. The FPH work is described, along with the problems it raises such as branching ratios. The authors note the rush to reproduce cold fusion, all over the world but that unambiguous confirmation has not been obtained. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fox B; New Scientist 128(1742) (1990) 12 (10-Nov). "Patents blow the lid on cold fusion". ** Having applied for a string (7) of patents on cold fusion in the USA, Fleischmann and Pons have now also applied for an International patent (application WO 90/10935), which reveals all. Interestingly, the Utah chemists Walling and Simons (the "innocent chemists") have their names on the patent, for their "theory" of what might be happening (i.e. the process, for some unknown reason, leads to (4)He and gamma emission). Hawkins, the coauthor of the seminal paper, who was inadvertently left out of the author list in that paper, does not appear in the patent. Barry Fox states that the patent's wording is vague throughout. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joyce C; New Scientist 128(1741) (1990) 17 (3-Nov). "Cold fusion pioneer shuns the limelight". ** A report of the current situation, being that both Pons and Fleischmann are in Europe (in Pons' case, it was not known exactly where), at the time of a couple of meetings between the Cold Fusion Institute and the cold fusion advisory committee, which is to assess the case for future funding of the Institute. The absence of the two men from at least the first meeting (Pons did eventually attend a second one) caused rumours to fly. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy25 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 26 Nov 90 00:23:37 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov25.202507.29247@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: > >it seems to me that the PLASMAK configuration would pose some engineering >problems. It seems to me that if you're burning D+T, you'd have very >high neutron loading on the walls; This is no less true in standard Tokamak designs, though. The only saving grace is that the projected size of commercial reactors is so large that the loading/ wall area is small. > Would the fluid surrounding the mantle have to be a gas? If >you could somehow make it a liquid, it could carry away the heat >pretty well. Actually, gases are better than liquids in many cases, because they convert heat to radiation which can be dispersed over a large volume. The most promising designs for handling the plasma wall interface in the next generation of Tokamaks (ITER, etc) are gas pockets into which the exhaust plasma from the core is directed by magnetic fields. It heats the gas, and the heat converts to radiation and is effectively dispersed. Alternatives like liquid metal blankets to convect away exhaust heat are much trickier---for example, the metal vapor may contaminate and cool your plasma, a disruption may coat your machine with liquid metal, and the amount of metal passing through the machine is large (estimated at a ``truck a second'' in some devices). >How far have you come in experimentation work on >PLASMAK? One possible problem I sense with a PLASMAK is that it may be too clever---i.e. there may be too much integration of the confinement, power generation and heat removal facilities, not leaving enough room for tweaking the design. In a tokamak, these are all handled in a modular fashion, mostly independent of one another. More robust, thereby. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Dieter Britz / Flesh Gordon Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Flesh Gordon Date: Mon, 26 Nov 90 15:20:47 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I'd like to start a collection of variants on "Fleischmann", a much abused name. I've seen Fleischman, Fleishmann, Fleishman, Flaishman, Fleichman and now (Chuck Saites) Fleshiman (he isn't really, you know). Anyone seen more? Pons seems to be unabused, although there is plenty of scope there; but Chuck gives us "Pon's", a nice effort; Hawkins (when he is mentioned, which is not often) is left unabused except (again Tshuk) as Hawkings. The many possible variants on Jones are completely untapped! There springs to my mind Shelley Berman's "Franz Kafka on the telephone", where he says to the operator "Jones? Spell it in the usual way, J-O-A-N-'-S". Shelley Berman? you'll say, if you're a lot younger than me: ask your grandparents, and watch their faces light up. I'll get back into my cage now and work on the bibliography. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ============================================================================== -- cudkeys: cuddy26 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 26 Nov 90 09:13:19 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Nov25.202507.29247@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: > >it seems to me that the PLASMAK configuration would pose some engineering >problems. It seems to me that if you're burning D+T, you'd have very >high neutron loading on the walls; For D-T, the pressure would be backed way down; but, operating wide open, you are correct. This is why it is a great disadvantage to use neutron producing fuels in fusion burners without the severe pressure limitations of a tokamak. It should be illegal to burn such fuels in a PLASMAK(tm) generator in the first place, since hot neutrons are environmentally hazardous and they can be energy moderated easily and used to breed Plutonium for use in disrupting human societies. > . . . . .. in addition, you'd have very high >temperatures and pressures on the walls of the reactor, making things >kind of tough. Remember the "first wall of the reactor" is a liquid density fluid. Since a PLASMAK(tm) burner operates in the megawatts per cubic centimeter range the device is very tiny compared to a tokamak, which occupies several acres of ground to handle the "modular" auxiliary buildings needed in support of its operation. Also, the pressure wall in a PLASMAK(tm) unit is very unsophisticated (dumb but strong) as it is insulated from the fusion power output by a liquid density gas compression blanket. The high power density ensures small size, and that coupled with the compression induced high burn rates means the cycle time is very fast. Thus the compression wall will not see the hot central blanket temperatures, and furthermore, each compression shell can be operated with an arbitrary duty cycle. > . . . [with an]. aneutronic reaction like Li7+p, you might be >able to solve of those problems. A fuel like p-B(11) is my choice since it doesn't have side neutronic side chains and both ingredients are very common. Also p-B11 requires a high optimal compression to produce the burn and that means the highest cycle rates and power output/cc (power per unit mass or volume). > Would the fluid surrounding the mantle have to be a gas? If >you could somehow make it a liquid, it could carry away the heat >pretty well. The blanket surrounding the Mantle could be any fluid (liquid, gas or plasma), and if it started out as a liquid or gas it would change state under the injection of huge amounts of fusion energy. In a tasmanian devil design (pB)_, the fast burn rate ensures multiple cycling per second. That means nearly all of the energy of ignition, compression and burn is carried off as the blanket and disrupted spent PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid are dumped out through magnetic apertures into an inductive MHD (IMHD) energy conversion unit. > . . . .. Practically, how would you assemble a PLASMAK >configuration? We can form PLASMAK plasmoids reliably and efficently. However, we can't answer that question AT THIS TIME, because of the paranoid belief it is likely to work well, and it has a potential of being exploited by jerks with bent agendas. When its potential is investigated to compression burn tests, then the IAEA (and greens) can handle and crush or strongly discourage any proliferation problem. > How far have you come in experimentation work on >PLASMAK? Far enough that it looks very very promising, so: The slogan "SEND MONEY" !!! That is our cry for this coming year. From day one with the $$$ in hand we'll need <3-5 years to first commercial burn. After all, we don't have to wait years to build a small city to support this thing, and we can make each PLASMAK(tm) (tokamak chamber and magnet equivalent) in a few microseconds. >What would the specifications of a commercial PLASMAK >reactor look like? What power output? Size? Weight? A fifty meg burn device would be about the size of a desk and the drivers would fit on one side of an office housing five or six grad students. Device modules would scale a tad less than the cube root of the power. That doesn't consider the output energy buss. The IMHD unit would be bigger, and in the case of an atmospheric thruster (rocket engine) it would be smaller again.. but don't stand in the first kilometer of its output stream (at sea level). The power units can range from 50 megawatts to 100 gigawatts. Several of the latter will be a great size for energizing the mag PLASMAK(tm) accelerator thrusters to drive fast space freighters between planets. Sound good??? All we need is one tough, interested and gutsy SoB with 10-20 hard earned megabucks to do it. Cheap for an aneutronic CBEF. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 26 Nov 90 09:24:00 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <793@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Nov25.202507.29247@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: >> Would the fluid surrounding the Mantle have to be a gas? If >>you could somehow make it a liquid, it could carry away the heat >>pretty well. >Actually, gases are better than liquids in many cases, because they >convert heat to radiation which can be dispersed over a large volume. >The most promising designs for handling the plasma wall interface >in the next generation of Tokamaks (ITER, etc) are gas pockets into which >the exhaust plasma from the core is directed by magnetic fields. >It heats the gas, and the heat converts to radiation and is >effectively dispersed. Sounds like a job for high pressure helium rather than a more viscous high Z radiation trapping gas. But I really don't know this scheme and haven't been following the "ITER soaps" (all things for everyone). Secondary radiation effect can not be the main fusion heat transfer mechanism. Thermal conduction through the "vacuum first wall" is. That means it is quite inefficient. This "gas pockets" gimmick suggests that it is there to handle plasma disruption or fast mag shutdown, which would then allow the fuel plasma to crash toward the walls. Considering the short time and energy content of such an event, serious first wall damage would occur if there is not an adequate dumping mechanism. >Alternatives like liquid metal blankets to convect away exhaust >heat are much trickier---for example, the metal vapor may contaminate >and cool your plasma, a disruption may coat your machine >with liquid metal, and the amount of metal passing through the machine is >large (estimated at a ``truck a second'' in some devices). Very true! The contamination comes from the low conductivity of the metal vapor which can then diffuse rapidly across the insulating field into the trapped ignited fuel (plasma). Moving conducting metal "inside" the magnetic confinement region, as in tokamak, is a beast. It wants to "freeze into the field" and stop flowing thereby cutting off its heat transfer purpose. More pump pressure causes EMF driven currents in the metal which then heat the metal and dissipate even more energy. In the PLASMAK(tm) scheme the Mantle/blanket (first wall) is essentially OUTSIDE the magnetic field. Secondly, it doesn't use the blanket for convective/conductive heat transfer, but instead uses convective/ adiabatic expansion which DIRECTLY drives either IMHD electric power or propulsive power. No cascading the energy density to produce steam, as in other energy schemes (including tokamak). PLASMAK conversion efficiencies could be .. perhaps 95% with p-B(11) and co-generation. Consequently, the initial state of a blanket can be a non-metallic liquid. Converted to a hot very dense plasma by the fusion burn, and unencumbered by the lack of tied magnetic confinement fields, it is then conductive enough after its expansion for efficient IMHD electric power conversion. >One possible problem I sense with a PLASMAK is that it may be too >clever---i.e. there may be too much integration of the confinement, >power generation and heat removal facilities, not leaving enough room >for tweaking the design. In a tokamak, these are all handled in a modular >fashion, mostly independent of one another. But with PLASMAK(tm) there will be a much, much smaller component of heat to remove, meaning the plant size will be greatly reduced (or for PLASMAK(tm) converted sites, the power output very greatly increased using the original plant size). PLASMAK(tm) technology has no need for huge vacuum handling modules, or huge magnetic confinement modules, or the homopolar module needed for startup, or the substation sized power unit to keep its systems operating, or RF beam heating modules, or particle beam heating modules, or the monstrous control network, or the twenty foot thick concrete and steel containment building to handle a shorted toroidal field coil, or the long zig-zag corridors designed to dissipate the shock expansion wave, or the monster tritium handling building and apparatus, etc. A PLASMAK(tm) power unit works sort of like an auto engine (diesel), you just fill up the tank, switch it on and put the petal to the metal. > .. . . [tokamak is ] .. . More robust, thereby. A PLASMAK(tm) unit by comparison is very, very LEAN and MEAN. If attacked it could drop its IMHD, convert to thrust output, and chase the invader out of the solar system and eat its lunch.. .. just kidding.. .. . :-) ...but not by much. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / MARTIN.W.KENDIG / Fracto-fusion Originally-From: ames!SYBIL.RISC.COM!MARTIN.W.KENDIG Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fracto-fusion Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 01:12:34 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Regarding the Mike Van Pelt's report of the work by AbuTaha: " AbuTaha seems to have shown that the stress energy in the crystal structure of cast palladium is sufficient to explain the energy output that Pons has reported. This energy is released when the deuterium loading disrupted the structure, like breaking a spring. " ....How is the isotope effect explained? Why would D cause release of the energy, but not H? M. Kendig Rockwell International Science Center -- cudkeys: cuddy27 cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Fraering Philip / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 26 Nov 90 19:52:19 GMT Organization: Univ. of Southwestern LA, Lafayette Maybe it sould be a good idea for you to cross-post all of this stuff to sci.space, as well as the space-tech mailing list. I'm sure they'd love to hear about it. BTW, you said it would cost about $10 to $20 million to build? Phil Fraering dlbres10@pc.usl.edu P.S.: I have completely lost the number of that guy who saw ball lightning after lightning hit his [deleted in case it's close to one of your proprietary mechanisms]. Since you're generating them already, I doubt this matters much... cudkeys: cuddy26 cudendlbres10 cudfnFraering cudlnPhilip cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.26 / Zerxes Bhagalia / Fusion vacuums? Originally-From: v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Zerxes Bhagalia) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Fusion vacuums? Date: 26 Nov 90 22:46:54 GMT Organization: University at Buffalo Would a large fusion reaction create a vacuum? Consider my train of thought : 2 particles, each with a mass of 1 unit The 2 partcles fuse in a fusion reaction Some mass is lost, as it is changed into energy The new particle has a mass of less than 2 units Any comments or answers? cudkeys: cuddy26 cudenv064lnev cudfnZerxes cudlnBhagalia cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Raul Baragiola / Re: Fusion vacuums? Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion vacuums? Date: 27 Nov 90 01:30:32 GMT Organization: University of Virginia In article <47639@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >Would a large fusion reaction create a vacuum? > >Consider my train of thought > : 2 particles, each with a mass of 1 unit > The 2 partcles fuse in a fusion reaction > Some mass is lost, as it is changed into energy > The new particle has a mass of less than 2 units > >Any comments or answers? Well, I've seen this posted before. Since nobody answers, I go ahead. "Vacuum" refers to a lower density of particles per unit volume. In your example, you convert mass into energy but have not specified the particle count. If you fuse d+d to create 4He + gamma, you lower the number of atomic particles, if you create H+3He, you do not. To go from here to pressure (or vacuum) you need to have many particles and some defined volume or temperature. I need more data to proceed. What are yuou going to use the vacuum for? How are you going to measure it? Perhaps you could tell us why this is important to you. we wer - Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Dave Spain / Re: Possible explanation for Pons results Originally-From: spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Possible explanation for Pons results Date: 27 Nov 90 01:37:56 GMT Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp. In article <5921@hsv3.UUCP> mvp@hsv3.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes: >The latest issue of Petr Beckmann's "Access to Energy" contains a >report on two articles by Ali AbuTaha to be published in MIT's >"Journal of Fusion Technology". AbuTaha seems to have shown that the >stress energy in the crystal structure of cast palladium is sufficient >to explain the energy output that Pons has reported. This energy is >released when the deuterium loading disrupted the structure, like >breaking a spring. > [...] Very interesting development here. I was wondering if anyone was still looking into the "physical" aspects of this. Does AbuTaha say whether the disruption occurs during deuterium loading when the current is on or after the current has been turned off? Also, can anyone tell me what issue(s) of JFT these articles will be published in? Dave Spain cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenspain cudfnDave cudlnSpain cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 27 Nov 90 02:25:48 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research Paul M. Koloc writes: >In article barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: > >>One possible problem I sense with a PLASMAK is that it may be too >>clever---i.e. there may be too much integration of the confinement, >>power generation and heat removal facilities, not leaving enough room >>for tweaking the design. In a tokamak, these are all handled in a modular >>fashion, mostly independent of one another. > >But with PLASMAK(tm) there will be a much, much smaller component of heat >to remove, meaning the plant size will be greatly reduced (or for >PLASMAK(tm) converted sites, the power output very greatly increased >using the original plant size). PLASMAK(tm) technology has no need >for huge vacuum handling modules, or huge magnetic confinement modules, >or the homopolar module needed for startup, or the substation sized >power unit to keep its systems operating, or RF beam heating modules, >or particle beam heating modules, or the monstrous control network, >or the twenty foot thick concrete and steel containment building to >handle a shorted toroidal field coil, or the long zig-zag corridors >designed to dissipate the shock expansion wave, or the monster tritium >handling building and apparatus, etc. A PLASMAK(tm) power unit works >sort of like an auto engine (diesel), you just fill up the tank, switch >it on and put the petal to the metal. But the Tokamak people didn't invision the need for all these immediately either---they were tacked on as needed. For example, I gather the PLASMAK is heated resistively---but resistance drops rapidly at high temperatures (which you plan to use, for your P-B11), leading to reduced heating capability. So what if resistive heating can't take you all the way? Can PLASMAK be heated by external beams? This would seem to disrupt its magnetic configuration, which is rather delicate being totally self induced. Or, what about various MHD instabilities---in a tokamak, you can use the applied magnetic field as a knob to eliminate some of these, such as kinks. In the PLASMAK you have no such knob? -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.24 / Patrick Smith / Too Hot to Handle Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Too Hot to Handle Date: 24 Nov 90 00:11:23 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah I've just finished reading a proof copy of Frank Close's soon to be released book `Too Hot to Handle,' subtitled `The Race for Cold Fusion.' Publication date is January 24, 1991 in the UK, by W. H. Allen Publishing Co., and March 15 in the USA, by Princeton University Press. ISBN # 1-85227-206-6. Folks in the USA may wish to order the Allen edition to obtain a copy as soon as possible. The book begins by tracing the separate histories of the Palmer-Jones type fusion and the Fleischmann-Pons-Hawkins type fusion. These independent paths are traced through time until their chance meeting, when Jones et al., and Pons et al., became aware of each other. Close convincingly demonstrates how this accident of fate, and the subsequent meetings and exchanges, drove the actions of the principle characters, and led ultimately to a series of astonishing errors of judgement. Finally, Close clearly illustrates just how different the two groups work really was, and how misperceptions of what each others work consisted of resulted in perhaps the 500 most unusual days in the history of modern science. The book is based on hundreds of interviews of the key figures in the cold fusion story, and cuts through the mass of confusion and misinformation to reveal the story behind the scenes: from the frantic days of March, 1989, through the APS Baltimore meeting, the Santa Fe meeting, the Los Angeles meeting, & etc. It provides an in depth view of the story through the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, the legal action against Salomon et al., the financial scandal involving the funding of the National Cold Fusion Institute, and the resignation of University of Utah President Chase Peterson. Close leaves open the possibility of anomalous heat and its interpretation, but argues, through facts previously known by only a very few people, that the association of heat in Fleischmann et al's experiments with nuclear observables must be dismissed. Among other things, Close describes the influence of the electronic bulletin board, electronic mail, faxes, & etc., on the speed with which information was disseminated, and, at times, how they contributed to the general confusion. To its credit, the electronic bulletin board is described as a good overall barometer of the scientific communities current impression of cold fusion, and even quotes our very own Bill Johnson :), who, it is noted, led much of the cogent discussions on the NET. Although Frank Close is a particle physicist associated with Oak Ridge National Lab, the book is accessible to anyone with a very moderate technical background. The book makes interesting reading, is very well researched (bringing out a great many surprising and little known facts), is humorous at times, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the cold fusion saga. -Patrick J Smith cudkeys: cuddy24 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 27 Nov 90 09:32:28 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article dlbres10@pc.usl.edu (Fraering Philip) writes: >BTW, you said it would cost about $10 to $20 million to build? No! It was cost for one shot at a time COMMERCIAL (engineering) Break Even demonstrator. It is too early to estimate prices. However, prices for a PLASMAK(tm) reactor would be a small fraction of the current estimates projected for an equivalent power output tokamak reactor. >P.S.: I have completely lost the number of that guy who saw ball lightning >after lightning hit.. . Since you're generating them already, I doubt > this matters much... It will be interesting to compare behavior range of the artificially produced PMKs (Plasma Mantle and Kernel plasmoids) with naturally produced Ball Lightning. It would be comforting if it turns out that: Anything Ball Lightning Can do PLASMAK(tm) magnetoplasmoids Can do better +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Paul Koloc / Re: Fusion vacuums? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion vacuums? Date: 27 Nov 90 09:40:14 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <47639@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >Would a large fusion reaction create a vacuum? > >Consider my train of thought > : 2 particles, each with a mass of 1 unit > The 2 partcles fuse in a fusion reaction > Some mass is lost, as it is changed into energy > The new particle has a mass of less than 2 units > >Any comments or answers? I've seen this posting before..... . . . ... . . . ... . . . A + B ---> C + (energetic)photons using "perfect mirrors" C + photons ---> C* (excited nucleon) ---> A + B or Mass ---> mass + energy ---> Mass Just showing that a man with a mustache isn't always bad. If a vacuum can be considered to be a very, very, very low pressure gas.. then the closer one gets to reducing the number of particles and energy from a region the closer the vacuum state. However, fusion doesn't work well after a few series of: A + B --> C and C + C --> D, etc. (ignoring side chains) because iron seems to be the absolute limit for the energy yielding fusion process. Iron's vapor pressure is quite low however. Ahhhh .. but.. If the chunk of iron gets big enough then it could be converted to a really big element called a neutron star. These things can convert gravitational energy into electromagnetic radiation (pulsars) and those things can keep the local nebula quite warm and glowing for some time. Warmth ---> sublimation ---> less local vacuuum. Anyway, we are way past where things are of interest to human CTR or CF devices so ... perhaps sci.astro will help or wait a couple of 100 billion years and measure it. Pi Bi +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Beckman / Re: Possible explanation for Pons results Originally-From: beckmann@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Beckman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Possible explanation for Pons results Date: 27 Nov 90 15:29:38 GMT Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder In article <4348@alliant.Alliant.COM> spain@Alliant.COM (Dave Spain) writes: >Also, can anyone tell me what issue(s) of JFT >these articles will be published in? >Dave Spain A. AbuTaha, "Cold Fusion -- the heat mechanism," J. Fusion Technol. vol.9, no.3 (Fall 1990), pp.345-349, has already been published (just). A. AbuTaha, "Cold Fusion -- engineering perspectives," JFT (as above), vol. 9, no.4, pp.391 -396 (Winter 1990) is now in press. Petr Beckmann cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenbeckmann cudlnBeckman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / BYU Dept / Jones latest Originally-From: "Doug Hansen (BYU Physics Dept)" Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Jones latest Date: Tue, 27 Nov 90 21:05:32 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway *>Looks to me like Jones will eventually get a Nobel Prize... *Let's get real, folks! If you think the account of one experiment as *publish in the Provo newspaper is grounds for awarding the grand prize, *you haven't learned much from the brief history of cold fusion. Let us *at least wait until we have seen a full-blown publication in a journal *that publishes real scientific papers, not press releases. Why, you *may ask, is that so important? In order to evaluate S. Jones' results *you need to know some details about what he did and how he did it. If *you want to know about his first experiment you go read the paper published *in Nature. Wrong! That little note in Nature contains no information *about the detector Jones used, and for this type of measurement the detector *is critical. Now we have a new result from Jones on a different type of *measurement, but we should wait until we see some real details about the *experiment because we cannot simply take Jones' word (or anyone elses for *that matter) that his detector detects neutrons only and that backgrounds *are properly measured and taken into account. Doing the experiment in *a mine may lower the cosmic ray background, but what about gamma rays *from natural radioisotopes? As an aside I wonder why Jones has not ever *repeated his first experiment. Could it be that he too cannot reproduce *that result so he simply moves on to another experiment and will never *have to answer the hard questions about why he fudged the background *subtraction or why only one run showed a positive result? *Dick Blue *NSCL/MSU As it was so aptly put, let us get real!! The first thing to do when one gets real is to take a good look at the literature, and lo and behold, we discover that Jones has published papers concerning his detectors, they just aren't under his name. He works with many individuals, one of whom is named Bart Czirr. Look under his name and you should find at least a couple papers describing the detectors. They are published under his name because he designed them. I am not listing the actual articles because I don't have that information ready to hand. Now to the real information. The latest experiments that are the real topic of discussion here were first reported in a BYU Physics Dept. colloquim. I should know because I was there. It might interest Mr. Blue, and others, to know that the detector in use for these experiments was specifically designed to answer many of the criticisms of Jone's earlier work. Jones did background measurements on his detectors, and also spurious signal rejection checks. He found that he was able to detect every spurious signal he could produce, and show that it was not consistent with a neutron signal. After Jones introduced the various samples into the detector, then, and only then did he see the neutron bursts, just as his original experiments did. He was also able to show that the bursts followed the sample, by moving the sample among several detectors and showing that the bursts were only detected by the instrument currently containing the sample. He also presented evidence that indicated the neutrons had an energy of 2.45 MeV. In other words, d-d fusion neutrons. Now that sounds pretty intriguing to me. How do you make a gamma ray error move from detector to detector with the sample, and how do you give it a 2.45 MeV signature? Now it is true that what I have just stated isn't proof that Jones really saw what he claimed. When he publishes the full report in a reputable journal, it will be easier to judge. However, Jones is acknowledged as competent in his field. He was working with muon catalyzed fusion before he started his current work, and he has had a lot of experience detecting low level neutron fluxes. Before you start spreading a lot of inuendo about the results, maybe you should make sure you know what you are talking about. Douglas Hansen Brigham Young University Physics Department -- cudkeys: cuddy27 cudfnBYU cudlnDept cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.27 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 27 Nov 90 16:19:06 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <810@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Paul M. Koloc writes: >>But with PLASMAK(tm) there will be a much, much smaller component of heat >>to remove, meaning the plant size will be greatly reduced (or for >>PLASMAK(tm) converted sites, the power output very greatly increased >>using the original plant size). PLASMAK(tm) technology has no need >>for huge vacuum handling modules, or huge magnetic confinement modules, >>or the homopolar module needed for startup, or the substation sized >>power unit to keep its systems operating, or RF beam heating modules, >>or particle beam heating modules, or the monstrous control network, >>or the twenty foot thick concrete and steel containment building to >>handle a shorted toroidal field coil, or the long zig-zag corridors >>designed to dissipate the shock expansion wave, or the monster tritium >>handling building and apparatus, etc. A PLASMAK(tm) power unit works >>sort of like an auto engine (diesel), you just fill up the tank, switch >>it on and put the petal to the metal. > >But the Tokamak people didn't envision the need for all these >immediately either---they were tacked on as needed. I'm not sure I buy that. >For example, I gather the PLASMAK is heated resistively---but resistance >drops rapidly at high temperatures (which you plan to use, >for your P-B11), leading to reduced heating capability. So >what if resistive heating can't take you all the way? The PRINCIPAL method of heating comes from STRONG ADIABATIC COMPRESSION. You are absolutely, right that the effectiveness of ohmic heating at high temperatures is USUALLY inadequate. For p-B11 an INITIAL TEMPERATURE (pre-compression) of one to two keV is required from resistive effects and this should not be a problem considering the Z and density of the fuel. In addition, aside from the straight forward temperature rise from compression, it turns out that both the total current increases and the current cross section drops during compression. Add to this the fact that for energetic currents, the resistivity (heating) goes up in proportion to plasma density. The density goes up with the cube of the compression ratio. So these things seem to work backwards from the classical thermal electron driven ones! :-) > Can PLASMAK be heated by external beams? EXTERNAL beams? Probably not. But, its own energetic currents are extremely dense, corresponding to its much higher magnetic pressure. In fact, these currents can be treated as beam currents, so in a sense a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid is heated by INTERNAL beams. >This ...[external beams]... would seem to disrupt its magnetic >configuration, which is rather delicate being totally self induced. More likely it would be the intrusion of the beam gun head through the vacuum-field/Mantle interface, that would destroy the PMK (plasma Mantle and Kernel plasmoid). This would be sort of like doing X-ray cancer therapy on the brain by punching the output tube through the skull. As far as the notion of "delicacy". Consider that Ball Lightnings bounce and survive rain and ripping wind turbulence for thousands of times the equivalent magnetic resistive decay times of tokamaks. Note that this is without compression. With compression, the magnetic confinement for a very, very hot p-B11 in a PMK will produce 10^18 + densities where a tokamak with D-T is lucky to get to 10^14 in a relatively very cold (5-10keV) plasma. Punching the tip of your finger into a p-B11 burning PMK for just a millisecond, would change its topology drastically. In a tokamak the THERMAL effects would hardly be noticeable. One of the things we were considering is impulse accelerating a compressed PMK to ultra-kinetic velocities just to see how much steel we can punch through. During drift it takes on a topology like the earth in the solar wind. It is ram and bow shock compressed. Fired from orbit (with PLASMAK(tm) driven power) in certain sandy locations, it would produce ingots of molten steel from intrusive heavy tracked vehicles. >Or, what about various MHD instabilities---in a tokamak, you can use >the applied magnetic field as a knob to eliminate some of these, >such as kinks. In the PLASMAK you have no such knob? Most active plasma feed back systems aren't fast enough. Consider the forces and mass of the plasma compared to the inductance of the currents being "twiddled". It was tried on Syllac at LLNL. Assuming no strong de-stabilizing externally applied magnetic field and given its anomalously high conductivity, a well formed PMK topology is IDEALLY MHD stable*. Consider its natural forms of BL and the solar PMKs that drift for YEARS to the surface of the sun where they hatch out an unsupported expansion cooled Kernel plasmas. Even our very meager work so far have produced PMKs that have stable lifetimes a nearly thousand times that of the DoE lab produced Spheromaks. * M. Bussac, H. Furth, et al, "Low Aspect Ratio Limit of the Toroidal Reactor: The Spheromak", IAEA CN-37, Innsbruck, 1978. * M. Rosenbluth and M. Bussac, "MHD Stability of Spheromak, Nuc Fus 19, 489, 1979. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy27 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.28 / Paul Houle / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 28 Nov 90 02:41:12 GMT Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology I was interested in the PLASMAK (tm) rocket engines you were talking about. What kind of thrust/weight and specific impulse would you expect from them? Seems to me that you might still have problems with radioactive contamination if you fire one at sea level -- seems to me that the temperature/pressures that you'd need to push the boron reaction through would also start the proton-proton chain. That produces D, and the reaction p+D->T+gamma can then go through... And even a small amount of tritium contamination would be considered intolerable by the general public. (Of course, the reaction is multistep and neither have a high cross-section, but still, it might be a problem.) Also, how big of a PLASMAK (tm) can you generate today? How long does it last? What does it look like? I looked at some of the theory in one of your papers and the only thing that doesn't look totally OK to me is the integrity of the outer mantle - what keeps it from mixing with the outside fluid? I can understand how the kernel is confined perfectly -- all my doubt rests in the mantle being confined by the surrounding atmosphere. I've noticed that there are at least four companies (including yours) that are pursuing work on commercial fusion.) All are keeping a pretty low profile -- is the threat of proliferation the major influence? How big is Prometheus II now, and how many people do you have working for you? What do you think about Maglich and his migma cell? -- cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.28 / Arnie Frisch / Re: Fusion vacuums? Originally-From: arnief@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Arnie Frisch) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Fusion vacuums? Date: 28 Nov 90 16:25:05 GMT Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. In article <1990Nov27.013032.11945@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) writes: >In article <47639@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu writes: >>Would a large fusion reaction create a vacuum? >Well, I've seen this posted before. Since nobody answers, I go ahead. >"Vacuum" refers to a lower density of particles per unit volume. In >your example, you convert mass into energy but have not specified the >particle count. If you fuse d+d to create 4He + gamma, you lower the >number of atomic particles, if you create H+3He, you do not. Assuming that the entire volume in question contains atomic particles, your analysis may be correct. However, I would guess that in a real situation, a considerable amount of D2 would be present (outside of the confines of the pplasma, for example). Any 4He formed could be balanced against the loss of an equivalent D2 molecule. Arnold Frisch Tektronix Laboratories cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenarnief cudfnArnie cudlnFrisch cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.28 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 28 Nov 90 02:05:04 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research I suppose elsewhere include the mainstream fusion community. Briefly, I'd say (and this is just my opinion, mind you) that: * The major US Tokamak, TFTR, will be shutting down in 3--5 years, after doing some D-T runs that leave it mildly activated. * CIT (Compact Ignition Tokamak, intended to be built at Princeton as a succesor to TFTR) won't be completed before 2000, and may never get built. (Though it may be reincarnated in some other form.) I base this on extrapolation from past delays (originally it was supposed to exist right now), and the prevailing mood. * ITER (International Tokamak Experimental Reactor, a joint project between Europe, US, USSR and Japan) will never get built. ITER is more of a concept than a machine, and seems to be becoming all things to all people---hence nothing. * The US may go for building a steady-state tokamak, because the engineers need this to refine the technology prior to building big steady state machines. * The japanese will take the ball and run with it. They have the money, the desire, the hi-tech skills, the foresight, and lack of competing priorities (e.g. defense spending). It doesn't really take anything more than desire + several billion $ to move the Tokamak program along rapidly. There is very little to prevent japan from doing so, other than their tenuous committment to ITER. I suspect they'll soon get fed up, and decide to do it themselves. Even if they can patent the result, they will be paid off by the infrastructure they build up to serve the fusion effort. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.28 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 28 Nov 90 02:09:37 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov27.161906.22864@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >Assuming no strong de-stabilizing externally applied magnetic field and >given its anomalously high conductivity, a well formed PMK topology >is IDEALLY MHD stable*. Consider its natural forms of BL and the solar >PMKs that drift for YEARS to the surface of the sun where they hatch >out an unsupported expansion cooled Kernel plasmas. Even our very >meager work so far have produced PMKs that have stable lifetimes a >nearly thousand times that of the DoE lab produced Spheromaks. If it is such a preferred configuration, why haven't the MICF folks met with great success---after all, it appears they are trying to generate something very similar to the PLASMAK configuration. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy28 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.29 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@saticoy.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 29 Nov 90 02:26:26 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov28.024112.8062@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: > >Seems to me that you might still have problems >with radioactive contamination if you fire one at sea level -- seems to >me that the temperature/pressures that you'd need to push the boron >reaction through would also start the proton-proton chain. This seems highly unlikely---this reaction has an extremely small cross section---if it didn't, the sun would have burnt up long ago! Given that the sun lasts around 10 billion years, we get it takes about that long to convert a substantial fraction of its p's to D. So a PLASMAK would take similarly long, I'd guess. >That produces >D, and the reaction p+D->T+gamma can then go through... And even a small >amount of tritium contamination would be considered intolerable by the >general public. I disagree again. As was mentioned some time ago, T is not _that_ awful. It emits a weak beta when it decays, and so doesn't even require shielding. Its only harmful to humans if ingested, and even then it can be flushed from the body by drinking water, since it is slow to react with tissues. Finally, it poses little long term hazard, since it has a half-life of 12 years. Of all the conceivable radioactive byproducts, T is the one I'd worry least about. Anyway---there will definitely be a lot of hard X rays and gammas released by a P-B11 reaction, so this will be a more significant radiaiton hazard. > > I've noticed that there are at least four companies (including >yours) that are pursuing work on commercial fusion.) All are keeping a >pretty low profile -- is the threat of proliferation the major influence? Just guessing: I doubt it! I think the projected capital outlay, and the probability of failure (the best scientist in the world have tried for 40 years!) are greater considerations. >What do you think about Maglich and his migma cell? I won't judge the physics, but note he's been pushing it for going on 15 years now, with no earth-shaking results. What conclusion do you draw? -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.29 / John Logajan / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 29 Nov 90 16:41:18 GMT Organization: Network Systems Corporation barry@saticoy.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>What do you think about Maglich and his migma cell? > >I won't judge the physics, but note he's been pushing it >for going on 15 years now, with no earth-shaking results. What >conclusion do you draw? The only conclusion possible from the information given by you is that it has been 15 years. No other conclusion is possible. Maglich has advanced his concept almost exclusively by means of private contributions. I'm sure Mr. Koloc, Bussard(sp?) et all can relate the level of funding granted non-main-line approaches. As far as I know, Maglich has maintained his migma at far higher energies (temperatures) and confinement times than any other main-line device. The third parameter, density, was the last remaining area to develop. Throughout migma development, critics had claimed that at X density, the migma would become unstable. Each time migma increased its density the instabilities did *not* appear, so the critics kept (keep) moving X out further. Now, of course, the critics are *sure* that the new X value will prove the end of migma. At low levels of funding, fusion ideas might never get developed, or take long periods. This has *nothing* whatever to do with their scientific viability. -- - John Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - logajan@ns.network.com, 612-424-4888, Fax 612-424-2853 cudkeys: cuddy29 cudenlogajan cudfnJohn cudlnLogajan cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / / inuendo and such about Jones Originally-From: Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: inuendo and such about Jones Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 01:01:36 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway In reply to Douglas Hansen, thanks for the details concerning S. Jones' most recent results. However, there are a few points I must flame on about: >The first thing to do when one gets real is to take a good look at the >literature . . . In the case of the first Jones CF experiment I have done so. I read the paper describing the Czirr neutron detector, I posted a note here about that paper, and I have drawn my information about the inadequate gamma rejection capabilities of that detector from that paper. Have you read the paper in question? >He presented evidence that indicated the neutron had an energy of >2.45 MeV . . . Those who know will tell you that measuring the energy of neutrons at low count rates isn't as easy as you might suppose. The kind of detector described in the above-mentioned paper has a very complex response, and the extraction of information about neutron energy is not a strong feature of that design. The best one could hope for is a very broad bump positioned in the pulse-height spectrum in a way that might be consistant with the stated energy, provided of course that the proper calibrations with monoenergetic neutrons of known energies had been made. >How do you make the gamma ray error move from detector to detector >and how do you give it a 2.45 MeV signature. As for the 2.45 MeV signature I will quote from "Fast Neutron Physics" by Marion and Fowler: "Gamma-rays of energy E can produce pulses considerably larger than those from protons of the same energy even though the Compton electrons have a maximum energy less than E." In a word the gamma rays don't have to have 2.45 MeV energy to contribute to the background in that part of the spectrum where the response to 2.45 MeV neutrons lies. Next we have to know something about the statistics of measurements involving small numbers of counts and large background rates. If indeed the background moves from detector to detector, my first guess is that what ever is being moved contributes to the background. That shouldn't be too surprising. >Before you start spreading a lot of inuendo about the results, >you should be sure you know what you are talking about. Right On! Now where is that inuendo. I have stated my clear objections to the first Jones' CF experiment, and no one (including S. Jones who did reply to me directly) has disputed the facts as I stated them regarding the need for gamma rejection and the inadequacy of the Czirr detector for achieving such rejection. As for the more recent experiment, my flaming on was directed at the reliance on a story in the Provo paper to lay claim for a Nobel Prize. I will withhold comment on the experiment until there is a published result. Dick Blue "I saw it with my eyes, I heard it with NSCL/MSU my ears, and a piece of it fell on my tail." Chicken Little -- cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenBITNET cudln cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.29 / Shane Deichman / WARM fusion in soup? Originally-From: deichman@cod.NOSC.MIL (Shane D. Deichman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,talk.bizarre Subject: WARM fusion in soup? Date: 29 Nov 90 22:57:04 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego Saw this a while back in a "scientific journal": OBSERVATION OF WARM NUCLEAR FUSION IN CONDENSED SOUP by Joseph D. Lykken Santa Cruz Inst. for Particle Physics Univ. of Calif., Santa Cruz, CA 95064 (Work supported by DOE, contract DE-AA03-76SF00010) ABSTRACT We report the observation of warm nuclear fusion of deuteron pairs catalyzed by a concentrated colloidal suspension of avian lipids. We present a simple theoretical model relating this process to superstring theory, quantum wormholes, fractal geometry, and high temperature superconductors. A straightforward scaling argument shows that the total annual energy requirements of the United States can be produced from approximately 137.03602 g of catalyst. 1. INTRODUCTION Recent observations of cold nuclear fusion of deuteron pairs, through electrolysis in solutions of metallic salts, has generated considerable excitement in the physics community and elsewhere. The fusion catalysis process described by Fleischmann and Pons does, however, have several drawbacks when considered as a putative means of mass power generation. The process is slow, requiring a continuous electrical power input of sev- eral hours before the onset of fusion. In addition, this process requires costly palladium or titanium cathodes, as well as highly toxic combinations of dissolved metallic salts. The modified *warm* fusion process which we have discovered (independently) and which is described in this paper suffers none of these disadvantages. In our process, the salt solution is augmented by a concentrated colloidal suspension of certain avian lipid compounds, available in an inexpensive commercial preparation (i.e., Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup) in arbitrarily large quantities. This preparation is not only nontoxic, but actually healthful. Instead of requiring several hours of applied external current, our process induces fusion after gentle heating to 90 degrees Celsius, main- tained for five minutes. The palladium cathode is replaced by an inexpensive chromium-plated utensil, which is given an approximately circular motion induced by elementary mechanical means. Since our fusion catalysis technique is so simple, we will not belabor the description of the process itself, but instead focus on the analysis of the data and present an obvious theoretical model for the underlying physics. 2. NEUTRON CALORIMETRY AND DATA ANALYSIS Although, as we shall demonstrate, our warm fusion technique can readily produce a net power output in the terawatt range, our initial experimental setup operated at a more modest scale. Rather than resorting to direct detection of fusion product neutrons, we employed a highly accurate neutron calorimetry procedure. We first measured the total external power supplied to our system. This involved reading the electric meter on the circuit containing our (electrically powered) heating apparatus, and correcting for other power drains on the circuit, such as lightbulbs, radios, and video cassette recorders. We then corrected this power reading for the electric- ity/heat conversion efficiency of our apparatus, taken from an authoritative source (c.f. _The_World_Book_Encyclopedia_). Further corrections were made for cosmic ray background radiation incident on our apparatus, energy depos- ition from proton decay within the apparatus, and additional heat from minor amounts of paprika contamination. To determine the total energy output from 300 seconds of catalyzed fusion events, 400 cc of the solution was ingested by a 75 kg male homo sapien volunteer subject. After a short digestion period, the subject was led through a series of mechanical tasks ("The Jane Fonda Ultimate Challenge Workout") and the resulting power output -- estimated by sophisticated nonlinear biodynamic integro-differential hyperelliptic functional analy- sis, simulated numerically on a Cray XMP supercomputer. Details of this analysis will be presented in a future publication. The results of our analysis for a 400 cc catalytic solution were as follows: Total average external power input: 1193.762 watts Total average power output: 1196.885 watts Net average power output due to fusion: 3.123 watts 3. THEORETICAL MODEL Although our experimental results may seem somewhat surprising to the uninitiated, there is a simple theoretical explanation of the underlying physics responsible for efficient warm fusion catalysis in lipid sus- pensions. As is well known, the principal obstacle to deuteron fusion is the Coulombic potential barrier induced by the electrostatic repulsion of the positively charged particles. A straightforward application of ten-dimensional heterotic superstring dynamics shows that deuterons can percolate through the Coulomb barrier through the spontaneous generation of quantum wormholes. One can easily see why this process is enhanced in the presence of suspended avian lipids by applying the Anthropic Principle. Obviously, if the laws of physics did not produce such an enhancement, we could not have observed it in our universe, and a contradiction of our material existence would result. The perforation of the Coulomb barrier by quantum wormholes is elegantly described in terms of fractal geometry; an analytic continuation to planar surfaces produces analogous electromagnetic anomalies in resonant spin liquids, thus explaining the behavior of high temperature superconductors. Details of this model will appear in a future publication. 4. FUTURE OUTLOOK We have considered the problem of scaling up our warm fusion technique to provide the commercial and strategic defense power requirements of the United States. The appropriate scaling law was obtained by repeating our initial experiment, but adding only half as much water to our commercial preparation as called for in the instructions. With this additional concen- tration of the catalytic solution, we obtained a net power output increase of 0.00016%. Clearly, by continuing to halve the amount of added water, we can obtain an arbitrarily high power of this enhancement factor, and thus any level of power output desired. We estimate that, by limiting the amount of added water to 3 micrograms (easily accomplished through national tech- nical means), more than 10 terawatts of warm fusion power could be produced. We strongly urge, and fervently hope, that the power of chicken soup will only be used for peaceful purposes. ---- Hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did! -shane "the Ayatollah of Rock-and-Rollah" |\/\/\/\/| | | "Nuke it, dude!" | | | (o o) / c _) / | ,____/ | / /______\ cudkeys: cuddy29 cudendeichman cudfnShane cudlnDeichman cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / Karen Gestel / For Sale - '73 CORVETTE (CA) Originally-From: kvg@blue-velvet.esd.sgi.com (Karen Van Gestel) Newsgroups: ba.forsale,ba.market,na.forsale Subject: For Sale - '73 CORVETTE (CA) Date: 30 Nov 90 01:45:13 GMT Organization: sgi '73 Corvette for sale, 350 eng, numbers matching, 62k original miles, excellent condition, factory installed re-enforced brakes, factory heavy duty rearend, original '73 mag that were intro in '74, eng ported and polished at 30k, new battery and tires. Asking $16k. If interested, send email or call at number below during the day and after hours at (408) 249-5310. -- *****--------------------------------------------------------------***** Karen Van Gestel Silicon Graphics Email: kvg@sgi.com 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Phone: (415) 335-1152 M/S 2L-910 FAX: (415) 965-1395 Mt. View, CA 94039 *****--------------------------------------------------------------***** cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenkvg cudfnKaren cudlnGestel cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / Jim Bowery / Tokamak Prophecy Originally-From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Tokamak Prophecy Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 17:20:34 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway 20 years ago, when I was still in junior high school, I was a member of Zero Population Growth and quite concerned about the "Limits To Growth". Clean energy production seemed to be the best way, at that time, to deal with the inevitable clash between human population and the environment. Naturally, I started reading everything I could about nuclear fusion and thought it would be a great career path, since it would be of immense economic value due to the fact that it was addressing a fundamental planetary need. Before I spent too long, I ran across an article in AAAS Science which predicted that those promoting nuclear fusion via Tokamak were pursuing a technology which would take decades, not years, to achieve any energy production and that this energy would be very dirty, requiring the replacement of many tons of activated steel every few years. It also spoke of the immense cost of the Tokamak-style reaction resulting from the size of its reactors. Since all other approaches I had read about were portrayed (perhaps rightfully so) as far less promising than the Tokamak, I concluded that the emphasis on Tokamak was premature and that the fusion field wouldn't amount to anything until other approaches were given a chance. Since I didn't see any indication of that happening from the articles and papers I was reading, I abandoned my interest in the field. That was circa 1970. I am deeply grateful to the author of that AAAS Science article for injecting a little reality into a stream of articles that may have led me into a nightmare career. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Bowery 619/295-8868 Income != Wealth PO Box 1981 Tax Wealth La Jolla, CA 92038 Not Income ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenjim cudfnJim cudlnBowery cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 370 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 370 papers on cnf) Date: Fri, 30 Nov 90 23:16:48 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway I've been too busy this week to make good my promise of a maxipackage, but post this mini-one. You may like the Dunlap+; the Soviet item was, once again not worth translating, being almost exactly the same as their other paper, nothing new. The Elbek comment I find a little arrogant at the end. Now I, too am a skeptic but if I had thought I'd discovered cold fusion, I don't know that I'd let it go through the usual publication channels, i.e. at least some months waiting time. This sort of censorious attitude uses the hindsight we now (think we) have, i.e. that cold fusion has been disproved. How about high temperature superconductivity? Did this get published purely in the standard way? Hah? With the Beuhler item, I break yet another resolve, not to post more on cluster impact fusion. I felt bad about it at the time. So there. You can just ignore these if you're not interested. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 30-Nov. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dunlap BI, Brenner DW, Mowrey RC, Mintmire JW, White CT; Phys. Rev. B41 (1990) 9683. "Linear combination of Gaussian-type orbitals - local-density-functional cluster studies of D-D interactions in titanium and palladium". ** Theoretical look at the possibility that two or more deuterons might occupy the same site in the metal deuteride lattice, and thus be squeezed enough to fuse. A combination of the title models is used. The result is that if two d's were to try this, one would be strongly repelled, i.e ejected from the site. Therefore, d-d distances in these deuterides is that of nearest sites from each other, or > 5 bohr, which is much more than in D2 gas. Bad news for cold fusion. Dec-89/May-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kosyachkov AA, Triletskii SS, Cherepin VT, Chichkan SM; Dokl. Akad. Nauk. [Tekh. Fiz.) 312(1) (1990) 96 (in Russian). "Mass-spectrometric study of the products of nuclear reactions occurring by ion-plasma saturation of titanium with deuterium". ** Very similar to - i.e. almost identical with - the earlier paper by the same authors. They used a magnetodischarge pump to aim high-intensity beams (up to 1A) of deuterons at titanium, and MS to analyse sputtered products. As in their other paper, small traces of tritium and helium-3 were found, though at large magnifications (*100). The authors interpret this as evidence for fusion of deuterium, which it probably is. Ion-beam induced fusion has been known since the 1950's. 28-Apr-89/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Elbek B; Kvant 1(1) (1990) 3 (in Danish). "What has happeded with cold fusion?" ** Bent Elbek, one of the first to comment on The Affair (albeit only in a local journal, like this one), does another roundup, after 18 months. He waxes a little philosophic on the topic of burden of proof (it's on those who make cold fusion claim, not on the skeptics) and mentions muon catalysis. At the end, he censures cold fusioneers for their unscientific publication habits, like press conferences, and sees the possibility of "cold fusion in the future, but hardly in the form one briefly believed in in 1989". Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beuhler RJ, Chu YY, Friedlander G, Friedman L, Kunnmann W; J. Phys. Chem. 94 (1990) 7665. "Deuteron-deuteron fusion by impact of heavy-water clusters on deuterated surfaces". ** Description of apparatus for bombarding deuterated polyethylene, TiD and ZrD(1.65) with beams of singly charged clusters of D2O(n), n up to some 100's. The authors seriously address the question of low-mass fragments contaminating the beam, and dismiss it after a thorough examination. Thus, the observed emissions appear to come from fusion due to impact of large-mass clusters. The unexpected dependence of emissions on cluster size may be due to collective effects, say the authors. Apr-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy30 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 30 Nov 90 12:05:18 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Nov28.024112.8062@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: > I was interested in the PLASMAK (tm) rocket engines you were >talking about. What kind of thrust/weight and specific impulse would >you expect from them? There are two types, direct and electric driven. The first utilizes and heats the planetary gas as the mass propellant, and it is useful to lift (lower) one out of deep gravitational wells, such as large solar and planetary satellites. Specific thrust is large, but variable, and would depend on the variable radial position (atmospheric density) with some modification from an onboard mass bank. The second type produces the energy as electric power which then drives a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid (PMK) accelerator for thrust. It can have a very high specific thrust so just using the helium as the reacting mass can yield very acceptable interplanetary trip times. For inter-planetary trips, the payload to fuel ratio is still huge, so doubling or tripling the helium mass by drawing from an onboard mass bank can significantly shorten the trip time. I. e., with helium alone Mars might be two or three weeks, but with enhanced reacting mass that could be cut to a week. There is no need to lean out the reacting mass flow rate, below fusion ash production levels, and consequently, there is no need to bring the specific impulse up to the maximum where the reacting mass would be expelled at fractional light speeds (.1 to .3c). In this scenario the ship is accelerated and decelerated under power (~50 gigawatts). For longer trips it's not bad because the solar gravity climb is lessening and the acceleration could easily get the ship up to several million+ mph. Consequently, one would NOT want to lose his power until AFTER decelerating. In fact the destination "PLANET" wouldn't want that to happen. I think with the accelerated phase but no UNDECELERATED one, a nearby Mars return could easily wipe out Delaware. That's a fair size lake. >Seems to me that you might still have problems >with radioactive contamination if you fire one at sea level -- seems to >me that the temperature/pressures that you'd need to push the boron >reaction through would also start the proton-proton chain. Not even close.. although my rather thorough CTR fusion references do not even list p-p so I can't give you a numerical value. Perhaps Ethan can or one of the sci.astro buffs can help here. Figure a protium density a few times 10^18 and a temperature of 350keV. What's the p-p (protium-protium) yield from a duty burn of 120 milliseconds/second from a 100 cc of burn volume? > That produces >D, and the reaction p+D->T+gamma can then go through.. And even a small >amount of tritium contamination would be considered intolerable by the >general public. (Of course, the reaction is multistep and neither have >a high cross-section, but still, it might be a problem.) The real problem for boost phase rocketry, is the millions of pounds of chemical pollutants that are injected into the atmosphere with each flight. Consider the number of flights to fuel a manned interplanetary rocket with enough fuel for the Mars mission. Florida already has a copious sea teratogenicity in the area of the Cape. Most of the weight of a shuttle launch is fuel.. perhaps a one percent of that mass is payload. If we could reduce the amount of fuel by a factor of four million, then the mass of the payload could be increased to two million pounds, and the payload to fuel ratio would go from 1% to somewhere in the Oort. There are always ugly tradeoffs that pop up, but this one isn't so bad. Consider a few ounces of helium and a fraction of femto-mole of tritium spread over a hundred miles of atmosphere by comparison with the amounts spewed out by the aforementioned chemical technology. Safety is important, and right now NASA shuttles fly close to the safety margins. With this technology of fusion, the safety factor will not be pushed until we start interstellar missions. > Also, how big of a PLASMAK (tm) can you generate today? How >long does it last? What does it look like? Producing the entire size and lifetime range of observed Ball Lightning (formed from lightning -- not volcanism) should not be a problem. Assuming air composition, they look the same. . . probably. so far at least. Composed in other gases a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid (PMK) will have an altered external appearance, especially in its brightness and hue. > . . .. . I looked at some of the >theory in one of your papers and the only thing that doesn't look totally >OK to me is the integrity of the outer Mantle - what keeps it from mixing >with the outside fluid? I can understand how the Kernel is confined >perfectly -- all my doubt rests in the Mantle being confined by the >surrounding atmosphere. If one puts a white hot poker in to cold water, there is a film of steam that forms over the rod, and surrounding that a layer of steam heated boiling water. There is a thermal transition surrounding this dynamic region, which can be convective. Now why is the boiling layer confined? Actually, it is a renewing boundary encompassing an energy source. Here the energy source is driven by the dense magnetic energy of the Kernel and flows from hotter Kernel plasma it powers. The Mantle is in an isobaric fluid pressure state. Further it is in a fluid PRESSURE equilibrium with its surrounding fluid blanket. And there is nothing to hold it together as in the example above. So it exists as an exotic energy cascade. Well, almost, .. . it does have a kind of spit or glue and baling wire. The Mantle has an embedded stray magnetic field that is weak but effective, and it tangles and sticks to the Mantle's plasma. Since the field is parallel to the Mantle's surface over 90% of the total area, it also does an excellent job at inhibiting thermal and electron diffusion. Nevertheless, that field is just a fraction of the Mantle neutralized Kernel field. Incidentally, in flames and high pressure open arcs, gravitationally drivent convection is the largest cooling (heat loss) mechanism. The presence of this stray field is strong enough to inhibit radial convection within the Mantle (except at the poles). Strong convective blanket eddies can, however, erode the outer covering of photochemicals such as ozone nitrous oxides and their off spring, such as massive nitrogen pentoxide. That's one of th reasons some Ball Lightnings are yellow to red orange while others are bluish to white. (air case) > I've noticed that there are at least four companies (including >yours) that are pursuing work on commercial fusion.) All are keeping a >pretty low profile -- is the threat of proliferation the major influence? >How big is Prometheus II now, and how many people do you have working >for you? What do you think about Maglich and his migma cell? Please Name the others. I'm only aware of Maglich's and Bussard's inspirations. A chap named Golka also was once promoting a fusion concept. This list excludes others who are doing DoE more classical stuff. Threat: It's in the noise level of doing business. I might possibly tilt a decision related to dealings with off shore interest. Size: We are the smallest that I know about right now, but things change and fluctuate, sometimes drastically just overnight. Of course, we are just gearing up to do the serious financial wheeling that produces the capital to reach our preliminary CBEF target. Maglich: Several tough density orders of magnitude to struggle through (but inspite of critics .. . so far so good). The real problem is the low POWER DENSITY from a very restricted VOLUME of reacting fuel (about tokamak densities. Each unit would be a sort of fusion "candle". Incidentally, Maglich's and Bussard's past funding levels seem about right for us to demonstrate CBEF with a compressed PMK fueled with D-He(3) +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.11.30 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 30 Nov 90 13:08:35 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <823@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@saticoy.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: [Speaking of PLASMAK(tm) fusion ] .. >Anyway---there will definitely be a lot of hard X rays and gammas >released by a P-B11 reaction, so this will be a more significant >radiaiton hazard. This radiation will be thermalized in the liquid density blanket. >In article <1990Nov28.024112.8062@nmt.edu> pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) writes: >> I've noticed that there are at least four companies (including >>yours) that are pursuing work on commercial fusion.) All are keeping a >>pretty low profile -- is the threat of proliferation the major influence? >Just guessing: I doubt it! I think the projected capital outlay, >and the probability of failure (the best scientist in the world >have tried for 40 years!) are greater considerations. Not a good comparison. If that previous effort was spent on a restricted primative set of concepts, and more recently one, and if that concept can't ever work, an infinite time and capital outlay is not enough. The collective intelligence of such organized efforts isn't additive. In government collective programs one divides the average IQ of the scientists working on the programs by the sum of the number of scientists (or pi * number of bureaucrats). The problem is that all of the fusion work down under the funding of the internationally organized governmental efforts is not capable of reacting to intellectual progress produced within. For example: The dictum "Magnetic fields confine plasma" has a corollary: "Plasmas can confine Magnetic fields". Yet the latter is totally unknown to plasma orthodoxy, so how could they invent the PLASMAK(tm) configuration? They couldn't even grasp that the concept, that putting a coil current in the plasma to produce a Tokamak from the stellarator, could be generalized and used to invent the Spheromak. So, except for the early just getting started phase: "we'll back anything that looks reasonable", the program has become stuck on the a single dinosaur of a an idea that matches well its own collective personality. Consequently most fusion money could have been spent blindly drilling into a granite mountain. Even that wouldn't be so bad except that it is incapable of backing out of its hole. It looks too big to drag out by the tail, but there are procedures for handling animals in that predicament. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy30 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo11 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.01 / A Boulanger / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: aboulang@bbn.com (Albert Boulanger) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 1 Dec 90 16:59:11 GMT Organization: BBN, Cambridge MA In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: Producing the entire size and lifetime range of observed Ball Lightning (formed from lightning -- not volcanism) should not be a problem. Assuming air composition, they look the same. . . probably. so far at least. Composed in other gases a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid (PMK) will have an altered external appearance, especially in its brightness and hue. I have a reverse question to ask: Can one use your ball lightning knowledge (possibly a theory of ball lightning?) to PREDICT the circumstances in nature when they occur? (Such as positive return strokes on the order of 300KA, say ;-)). Paul, you have been in this business for a while! I just opened my copy of "Ball Lightning and Bead Lightning" by James Barry, Plenum Press, 1980 in the back and saw: "A New Model for Ball Lightning", P.M. Koloc, Neophysics Research, LTD, College Park, MD, Unpublished *1977*. ================ Unrelated query: Has anybody studied in the lab the the particle acceleration mechanism proposed in: "Minimal Chaos and Stochastic Webs" A.A. Chenikov, R.Z. Sagdeev, D.A. Usikov, M. Yi Zakharov, & G. M. Zaslavsky Nature, Vol 326, 9 April 1987, 559-563 Abstract: "Particles within a stochastic -- or chaotic -- web in phase space can be accelerated to high energies even by weak magnetic fields, and the properties of the web show similarities to the quasicrystal state. ..." Yours in inquiry, Albert Boulanger aboulanger@bbn.com cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenaboulang cudfnAlbert cudlnBoulanger cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.09.30 / MORRISON%VXPRI / Review of Cold Fusion. Originally-From: vac@sam.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Originally-From: MORRISON%VXPRIX.decnet.cern.ch@VMA.CC.CMU.EDU Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Review of Cold Fusion - Douglas Morrison Subject: Review of Cold Fusion. Date: 1 Dec 90 21:18:08 GMT Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 11:38 GMT +1 Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Douglas Morrison is about to come out with another review. It turns out that in addition to putting all of his notes into an ftp directory I should have posted the review he sent me at that time. Anyway, I am posting it now. Watch this space for another review in the near future. Also, his notes can still be ftped from: sam.cs.cmu.edu:/afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison -- Vince Date: Sun, 30 Sep 90 11:38 GMT +1 Originally-From: MORRISON%VXPRIX.decnet.cern.ch@VMA.CC.CMU.EDU Subject: Review of Cold Fusion. To: vincent.cate%sam.cs.cmu.edu@VMA.CC.CMU.EDU X-Envelope-To: vincent.cate@sam.cs.cmu.edu X-Vms-To: MINT::"vincent.cate@sam.cs.cmu.edu" SEPTEMBER 1990. REVIEW OF COLD FUSION. Douglas R. O. Morrison CERN, Geneva, Switzerland. Presented at a Plenary Session of the World Hydrogen Energy Conference, Honolulu, 24 July 1990. ABSTRACT Experimental results on Cold Fusion are reviewed. Most experiments find no effect and the upper limits are appreciably lower than the positive effects claimed in some experiments. It is concluded that (1) there is no excess heat production, (2) the balance of evidence is strongly against fusion products. A curious Regionalisation of Results is observed where only negative results are found in some parts of the world and only positive results in other parts. Further the ratio of positive to negative results varies with time. Previous studies of Palladium indicate that fusion should not occur inside it. Cold Fusion is best explained as an example of Pathological Science. SUBJECTS 1. Introduction 2. Milestones 3. Compilations of Experimental Results 3.1 First Compilation - including Non-Refereed work Neutrons, Gammas, X-Rays, Tritium, Charged Particles, Calorimetry, Muon-induced Fusion, High Pressure, Is There a Secret? 3.2 Results from Published Papers 3.3 Experimental Conclusions 4. Three Experiments Critical for Believers 4.1 David Williams et al. at Harwell 4.2 General Electric Co. 4.3 Independent Experiment in Pons's Lab 5. Previous Knowledge of Deuterium 6. Pathological Science 7. Conclusions. 1. INTRODUCTION We are all ecologists now. So when Profs. Fleischmann and Pons announced on 23rd March 1989, that at Utah, they had caused deuterium ions to fuse giving out heat using electolysis in a simple cell at room temperature - Cold Fusion - we all wanted to believe it. At first we were a bit sceptical, but then came more information - they had measured excess heat and observed neutrons, gammas, and tritium! And next day there were reports of independent confirmation from Steve Jones[1] of nearby Brigham Young University. Other confirmations followed quickly. The early days of April were the high point when perhaps 500 million people had heard of Cold Fusion, of Fleischmann and Pons, and had dreams of sea water yielding limitless amounts of heavy water that could provide energy without pollution! But scientists quickly realised a terrible discrepancy - for each Watt of power there should be a million million neutrons per second but only a few were observed - less than one per second for Jones. Thus the dream of power from fusion divided into two experimental sets of results, firstly reports of excess heat and secondly reports of the observation of fusion products such as neutrons - but the two results were absolutely not compatible. The Dream had gone. Hopes were briefly revived again on 18 April when Prof. Scaramuzzi of Frascati showed results of apparently high statistical significance and suggested fusion was a dynamical effect. Since then hundreds of experiments have been reported and most of them found no effect while some found positive results. The world became divided between "Sceptics" and "Believers" with the latter concentrated in some parts of the world such as Utah and Texas. After a while one felt that Cold Fusion could not be understood by normal Science alone and Pathological Science was invoked. This review presents the status of experimental results and attempts to understand the phenomenon of Cold Fusion. It has been well known for a century that Palladium and certain other metals can absorb large quantities of hydrogen. The idea came independently to Fleischmann and Pons and to Jones that if deuterium could be forced into Palladium, two deuterium nuclei would come so close together as to fuse giving out more power than was being put in. To do this they used a simple electrolytic cell with heavy water as the electrolyte and with Palladium or Titanium as the cathode at which the deuterium would be released. The d-d fusion processes are well-studied and are; d + d ---> 3He (0.8 MeV) + n (2.45 MeV) (1) d + d ---> t (1.0 MeV) + p (3.0 MeV) (2) d + d ---> 4He + gamma (23.8 MeV) (3). This paper is an up-date of an article "The Rise and Decline of Cold Fusion" which appeared in the Feb. 1990 edition of Physics World. The other and preceding speaker at the 24 July Plenary Session was Dr. John O'M Bockris of Texas A&M University. 2. MILESTONES 13 March Fleischmann informs David Williams at Harwell who starts experiments. 23 March Fleischmann and Pons press conference claim heat, neutrons, gammas and tritium 24 March News that Jones of BYU claimed observation of neutrons 31 March Fleischmann lecture at CERN - very successful but admits they had not tested with normal water. 7 April Meeting of American Electrochemical Society, Texas - great triumph. 9-12 April First copies of Fleischmann and Pons paper[2] received -found to be unsatisfactory. Growing doubts, especially because of discrepancy between amount of excess heat and very low numbers of neutrons claimed David Williams says Harwell have not observed neutrons at the levels claimed. The number of characteristics of Pathological Science keeps rising. 15 April Most people believe in Cold Fusion except those receiving electronic mail news who know of null experiments and of major discrepancies. 18 April Scaramuzzi (Frascati)[3] apparently finds strong evidence for a dynamic origin for Cold Fusion using Titanium, D2 gas pressure and temperature variations 24 April Report that Fleischmann and Pons claim helium has been detected. Doubts about Scaramuzzi results on Email Network[4] 2,3 May American Physical Society meeting. Strong negative results from Nathan Lewis (Cal Tech)[5] and Moshe Gai(Yale - BNL)[6]. Regionalisation of Results reported - negative results in Northern Europe and in Region 1 of the USA (major labs plus North-east). Positive results from Southern and Eastern Europe, Region 2 of the USA, and the rest of the world. High score[7] on Pathological Science characteristics - 7 out of 12. 8 May American Electrochemical Society meeting - media triumph for Cold Fusion - but Sceptics are excluded except token ones after protests. 23-25 May Santa Fe meeting on Cold Fusion organised by Los Alamos for DOE. Most Americans (though not Fleischmannn nor Pons) plus some others attended. Attention given to neutron bursts reported by Menlove of Los Alamos and Jones[8]. Gai and Jones agree to do joint experiment at Yale Although there were more negative results than positive, the organisers tried to be "fair" and have equal numbers of positive and negative results presented so that for most watching on satellite TV the conclusions were unclear. 15 June Harwell press conference[9] - major series of experiments costing $ 1/2 million and using $6 million worth of equipment, found no effect and hence were stopped. And this despite initial help from Martin Fleischmann. However other positive and negative results continue to be reported. Utah particularly encouraged by reports of large amounts of tritium found at Texas A&M 12 July DOE panel interim report[10] concludes"the experiments reported to date do not present convincing evidence that useful sources of energy will result from the phenomenon attributed to cold fusion". "No special programmes to establish cold fusion research centres.... are justified" August National Cold Fusion Research Institute established in Utah with money from the State of Utah. it is hoped to get funding from the EPRI (Electrical Power Research Institute) which has been subsidising other groups. August Japanese Fusion Research Institute gives $0.1 million for Cold Fusion studies. 15, 16 Sept. Conference in Varenna. Italian groups either cannot repeat positive results or find alternative explanations of effects. SeptemberReports of experiment[11] in Pons's lab with counters under a table which had Pons's cells on top. They did not find neutrons or gammas. Lecture in Utah summarising for the first time both positive and negative results and concluding is Pathological Science. Director of the National Cold Fusion Research Institute, Hugo Rossi says they have found nothing so far and if still unsuccessful by February will consider stopping. Interviews of people or administrators working on Cold Fusion not allowed - censorship? 28 Oct. Gai and Jones report no neutrons nor neutron bursts October NSF and EPRI sponsor conference - restricted attendence with token sceptics - media success for Cold Fusion. 12 Nov. DOE Panel final report confirms earlier opinion November Rossi resigns as Director of National Cold Fusion Research Institute December Japanese press (and Wall Street Journal) gives prominence to reports of large number of neutrons from two Japanese groups.( Later examination causes these results to be doubted - see below). Reports of some 200 scientists working on Cold Fusion. Book of papers[12] from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Bombay describing some 6 experiments where neutrons or tritium were observed. Over 50 scientists and engineers besides a large number of technicians from more than ten divisions worked on these experiments. 1990 January Pons starts series of 32 experiments to be followed by a second series of 32 experiments at the National Cold Fusion Research Institute 29-31 March First Annual Conference on Cold Fusion, Salt Lake City. Most of 200 participants and all talks are positive, but world media and even local media is critical April Lawyer of Pons and Fleischmann threatens possible legal action against University colleagues May Discovery of misuse of funds, University of Utah president asked to resign June Report in Science magazine of possible tritium contamination in experiments at Texas A&M. 3. COMPILATION OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS It is not easy to compile results since many are released to the press, some are conference reports, many are private reports and only some of all these are finally published much later in journals where they are first refereed. Hence here two compilations will be used; Firstly the experimental situation up to December based on experiments that are at least moderately well described (most are unpublished and are received by my electronic mail network or privately, so that the collection cannot be complete but is large and any bias small); Secondly published papers only up to June 1990. There are relatively few papers in the second compilation that were not in the first, but many reports in the first have not been published. 3.1 FIRST COMPILATION - INCLUDING NON-REFEREED WORK A. Neutrons A.1 Steady Production. Ten positive results of which two have been withdrawn (Fleischmann and Pons and Georgia Tech). Of the six of these for which the actual measurement rate (before correction) and the background rate are known, all had a neutron level 3 to 5 times the background. Thus although the claimed rate varied between 0.04 and 40000 neutrons per second, no one had observed a rate that was many times background and all were far from the rate of 1 E12 n/s which one Watt of power should give. Nineteen experiments have reported no significant production of neutrons. If we take the level of Jones et al.[1] as unity, then in general terms, eight of the experiments report upper limits that are about a factor of ten lower and four give upper limits that are about a factor of hundred lower than Jones et al. A.2 Dynamic Effects - temperature and pressure changes, Frascati-type. Prof. Scaramuzzi[3] showed provisional results suggesting that by varying the pressure and temperature, the resulting non-equilibrium conditions could produce neutrons. He has had difficulty in reproducing these results since April. Three other groups were able to observe this effect initially but then were not able to reproduce it and indeed found reasons to explain that their positive observations were mistaken(acoustical effects, humidity, etc.). Four other groups have reported finding no effect and two have given upper limits that are a factor of a thousand less than that of Frascati. A.3 Bursts of Neutrons. At Los Alamos, Howard Menlove, Steve Jones et al.[8] found bursts of neutrons at a very low level. Four other groups have found no bursts. Steve accepted Moshe Gai's invitation to do a joint experiment at Moshe's lab at Yale. They reported to the Dept. of Energy Panel[13] that they had found no bursts that could not be accounted for by cosmic rays. In the proceding talk at this Plenary sesion, Dr. Bockris stated that there was an important new result reported in the previous day's Wall Street Journal that was convincing proof of Cold Fusion. This is not a new result - it was known in December, submitted in January and published in April - Wada et al.[14] of Nagoya wrote that after a powerful high voltage discharge through D2 gas, from lightly loaded Pd cathodes (D/Pd < 0.3), three decreasing bursts of neutrons were detected. They were not able to repeat these results later. They claimed a peak rate 10 000 times background but only used one BF3 counter and these are notoriously unreliable, could not check if the counts were caused by neutrons (since the cathode was damaged) and did not try a control with normal hydrogen gas. The most likely explanation is that the physical shock of the discharge created apparent bursts of neutrons. B. Gammas. The only positive result was that by Fleischmann and Pons and that has been withdrawn. Nine groups have reported finding no gammas, with levels as low as one gamma per second. C. X-Rays. When palladium is excited it emits 21 keV X-rays. The creation by fusion of protons, tritons, 3He or gammas in the palladium should cause the palladium to be excited. Four labs have reported that no 21 keV X-rays have been observed giving strong evidence for the absence of fusion products and hence of fusion. D. Tritium. The situation is confused. The original claims of Fleischmann and Pons have been withdrawn. Texas A&M[15] report copious production with published rates corresponding to E-3 to E-8 Watts. In Los Alamos[16] some cells are said to give tritium but most do not. Two groups have unpublished reports of finding tritium. Workers at BARC[12] report finding tritium in large quantities. Five groups find no tritium production and give low upper limits. If the Texas A&M findings were correct, enormous rates of neutrons should have been produced (since the rates of reactions (1) and (2) are known to be equal) and these are not observed. It is concluded by many believers that the tritium to neutron ratio must be 100 million to one - however this is in disagreement with the many experiments of fusion which all give the ratio of one as expected from charge symmetry. It should be further noticed that cold fusion catalysed by neutrons (which is at almost zero energy) also gives a ratio of unity. E. Charged Particles. In a recent headline-making report in Japanese newspapers, Taniguchi et al.[17] of Osaka report measurement of charged particles using a silicon surface barrier detector placed next to one wall of the detector which is actually a 10 micron thick palladium and steel cathode. The counting rates are very low and no attempt was made to exclude cosmic rays which must have given occasional higher counts(as was found for instance by Gai and Jones). F. Calorimetry. Although one might think calorimetry to be easy, it is not, unless careful experiments are done. The original Fleischmann and Pons electrolytic cells had a simple design and are "open" which means the D2 and O2 gases produced are allowed to escape. Many later workers used similar cells. The estimates of excess heat depend on the calibration where the cell is heated and its rate of cooling observed. It has been shown that the results depend critically on the calibration and there are important assumptions frequently employed. A safer technique is to use a constant temperature bath, CT, where the cells and their surroundings are heated to a temperature slightly higher than ambiant - any excess heat is measured by the reduction of heating required to restore the constant temperature. The best design is a "closed" cell where the D2 and O2 gases are recombined with a catalyst (usually Pd) inside the cell and the whole kept at a constant temperature. Of the 8 labs that reported excess heat, all were "open" and not kept at constant temperature. While most of the reports were of 8 to 50% excess heat (or more accurately power), Fleischmann and Pons have claimed 10 to 50 Watts. Of the 14 labs reporting no excess heat, 7 were of this "open" type and gave upper limits of 0.2 to 2% excess heat or < 0.3 Watts. Of the 5 labs using constant temperature cells, all found no excess heat giving upper limits between 0.3 and 9% or 0.1 Watt. Two labs (British Columbia[18] and Karlsruhe[19]) used "closed" cells. They gave upper limits of 0.3% of the 4 to 18 Watt range and 1 to 3% of the 10 to 30 Watt range resp. The balance of the evidence is that excess heat cannot be produced in a useful manner. The positive results are generally said to give excess heat erratically and in bursts which are claimed to last for many hours. It is hard to prove or to disprove such claims and many neutral people feel that some interesting physics might come out of further careful peer-reviewed studies. On the other hand when Dr Salamon and his colleagues[11] had his neutron and gamma detectors installed under the table in Dr Pons's lab and Dr Pons's group had four cells running on that table for a total period of 5 weeks in May and June, it is surprising that they were not able to produce any excess heat for their colleagues and indeed no neutrons and gammas were observed. Similarly when the DOE panel visited Utah, Texas A&M etc. they were never able to see a cell that was working although their visit was notified well in advance. G. Muon - induced Fusion Since it is known that muons can replace electrons in a D2 molecule pulling the nuclei together and causing fusion (Steve Jones is an expert on this), it was hoped that muons would do the same in palladium. Muon beams have been fired into Palladium at MIT and KEK but no effect has been found. KEK deduce that cosmic ray muons should produce less than 1 E-6 neutrons per second. Tests with cosmic rays confirm this. H. High Pressure High D2 gas pressures of 105 kbar and a megabar have been tried but no appreciable number of neutrons have been observed. I. Is there a Secret? In Pathological Science when an effect cannot be repeated, it is often said that there is a secret and the reason that someone does not find it is not because the effect does not exist, but because he does not have the special technique or secret. Hence in early April asked both Martin Fleischmann and Steve Jones if there were a secret - both replied laughingly that there was no secret - a simple table-top experiment! 3.2 COMPILATION OF RESULTS FROM PUBLISHED PAPERS Most experiments are not published. From contacts in many countries, would estimate that about 80% of experiments are not published, and most of these are negative. Of 97 experimental papers, 33 are positive, 63 are negative and one is undecided. Of theoretical papers, 53 are positive, 24 are negative and 14 make no decision. Most of the "positive" papers are of the kind where one assumes the positive experimental result is true and then derives conclusions Only a very few start from a basic standpoint and derive that cold fusion should exist - have shown these papers to theoretical colleagues and found they do not support them. The nature of the experimental papers are; Positive Negative Excess heat 6 21 Neutrons 27 47 Tritium 5 8 Gammas 6 12 Charged particles 1 3 Helium 2(both 3He) 5 Other (X-Rays..) 1 5 Fracto-fusion Neutrons 2 positive and 3 negative Scaramuzzi -type neutrons 2 positive and 11 negative. 3.3 EXPERIMENTAL CONCLUSION 1. The balance of experimental evidence is strongly against excess heat. 2. The evidence against the observations of the various fusion products is very strong except possibly the tritium observations, however this would require a tritium to neutron ratio of 100 million which is in contradiction with a wealth of good experiments which shows the ratio is unity. 4. THREE EXPERIMENTS CRITICAL FOR BELIEVERS For scientists who are unbiassed, there is more than enough experimental evidence to indicate that the balance of evidence is strongly against Cold Fusion, but as we have just heard, Believers only believe positive results and discount negative results. But there are three critical experiments which should worry Believers as they were very carefully carried out and were performed by people having close relations with Fleischmann, Pons or their co-workers; 4.1 David Williams et al. at Harwell This is probably the biggest and most complete experiment performed in the world. It was carried out by scientists of different disiplines, electrochemists, nuclear chemists, physicists. David was and is a good friend of Fleischmann and Pons. He was the first outsider to be told - on 13 March. They have what I consider to be the world's best calorimeter and experts to whom I have described it, do not disagree with this potentially controversial statement. They found no excess heat, no neutrons, no helium, and no gammas. 4.2 General Electric Co. They had a special arrangement with Pons and Fleischmann and had help from them in trying to repeat their experiments. This work was secret and the GE people have never told me or anyone else, their results (though if they had been able to find excess heat or other effects as claimed by Fleischmann and Pons, it would have been surprising if the world had not been informed!). However just before this WHEC meeting, I was invited to give a lecture to GE on Pathological Science (Irving Langmuir's lecture was given there in 1953) and was told that they had carried out a very large series of experiments on Cold Fusion which were completely independent of the confidential arrangement with Fleischmann and Pons. They found no excess heat, no neutrons, no tritium, and no gammas. 4.3 Independent Experiment in Pons's lab At the request of the University of Utah and in agreement with Dr. Pons, a group of 10 scientists led by Michael Salamon, set up counters below a table in Pons's lab on which four of his cells were operating. Despite efforts to make the cells work, in five weeks in May and June 1989, no evidence for any neutrons or gammas were found giving upper limits of one million millionth of a Watt. And this even though at one time a cell was observed to boil, but Dr. Pons said it should not be considered. The experiment was off for 50 hours with a power failure. Recently Dr. Pons announced that for 2 hours during just these 50 hours, there was an "excess thermal release". At first Salamon et al. did not think they could respond, but it was pointed out that they had a sodium iodide counter there would occur the reaction 23 Na + n ---> 24 Na. The 24 Na isotope decays emmiting an electron with a half-life of 15 hours which would be good for the detection of fusion products from this "excess thermal release". They re-analysed their data and found no effect giving upper limits of less than one-hundreth of a Watt for tritium production and less than one millionth of a Watt for neutron production. This confirms again that whatever is causing "excess thermal releases", is not fusion. It was after this that most of the authors were threatened with lawsuits by the North Carolina lawyer of Dr. Pons. In conclusion, they found [11] no evidence of fusion products from dd or dp fusion giving neutrons or tritium. 5. PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF DEUTERIUM IN PALLADIUM It is important to ask if it is reasonable to expect deuterium to undergo fusion when forced into Palladium? A major criticism of the original proposers who expected deuterium fusion in metals such as palladium, is that the literature shows that the deuterium ions are actually much further apart in the Palladium than they are in simple gaseous deuterium so that no useful fusion is to be expected. In gaseous or liquid deuterium the two deuterium nuclei have a separation of 0.74 A. The palladium nuclei in the crystal are 3.89 A apart but as the deuterium is loaded in they are moved apart to 4.03 A. When the deuterium is first loaded, up to D/Pd = 0.8, the deuterium nuclei go into the octahedral spaces and are 2.85 A apart. If it is possible to increase the loading (e.g. by ion implantation), then the O-D separation is 1.74 A. To increase the probability of fusion it is necessary to bring the deuterium ions much closer together, e.g. when a muon replaces an electron, the nuclei are pulled together and the separation is only 0.0035A and the fusion rate is reasonable. Thus the expectation of fusion in a continuous fashion is unreasonable. For it to occur in a dynamic fashion is also unlikely as there is lots of space for the deuterium ion to wander between the ions in the lattice. Furthermore there is a theory of hydrogen ions in Palladium which is very well tested (by neutron and muon scattering, etc.) and which describes the distribution of the electrons very completely. Similarly one does not expect muons to cause measurable fusion in loaded palladium. 6. PATHOLOGICAL SCIENCE The overwhelming evidence, both experimentally and theoretically, is that Cold Fusion in metals does not exist. But there are positive results and and there are scientists who believe very strongly in Cold Fusion. How to understand the contradictory results? In 1953 Irving Langmuir gave a delightful lecture on Pathological Science (reprinted in the Oct. 1989 issue of Physics Today) where he discussed some cases such as N-Rays, where a number of good scientists reported wrong results. He gave six characteristics of such cases. One, which I have slightly modified, is to say that there are three phases; in Phase One the original report is quickly confirmed; in Phase Two there are about equal numbers of positive and negative results; and in Phase Three there is an avalanche of negative results. In preparing a review of Cold Fusion for the May APS meeting, was surprised to find that in Northern Europe and the USA area 1 (the major labs and the North-West) the results were almost all negative whereas in Eastern and Southern Europe, Asia, Latin America and USA area 2 (the rest of the USA) the results were almost entirely positive. The numbers were statistically significant being one positive and 18 negative in the first regions and 25 positive and 2 negative in the second case. Thus the first area was already in Phase Three while the other was in Phase One. During the month of May this Regionalisation of Results continued with the first area giving 2 positive and 16 negative while the remaining regions of the world switched to six positive and 11 negative, i.e. it entered Phase Two. This regionalisation has continued with most of the world finding negative results (in Phase Three) and only Utah, Texas, India and now Japan being in Phase Two where both positve and negative results are reported. In 1976 I increased the number of characteristics of Pathological Science to 12 and in 1989 to 15, this then allowed a significant separation between false results and true results (which may have scores of 0, 1 2 or 3 characteristics. Cold Fusion has close to the maximum score and is significantly far from the score for true results. The final conclusion may be that a desire to achieve the result expected in one's local community, does influence a certain number of scientists for a long or a short time. Most face up to the totality of evidence fairly quickly, but a few never do. Thus after Blondlot's N-Rays were exposed as illusionary, he none the less published a book on N-Rays a year later, omitting the negative evidence. 7. CONCLUSIONS Everyone makes mistakes - everyone. It is how you handle your mistakes that makes the difference; it is essential to be self-critical. Pathological Science will continue, it will happen again and again as it has happened in the past, that a group of Believers will continue to believe despite evidence to the contrary. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT It is a pleasure to acknowledge that the compilation of published results was largely based on the bibliographic work of Dieter Britz of Aarhus which was distributed by Email, and to thank him. REFERENCES [1] S. E. Jones et al., Nature 338 (1989). [2] M. Fleischmann, S. Pons, and M. Hawkins, J. Electroanal. Chem. 261 (1989) and erratum 263 (1989) 187. [3] A. de Ninno et al. Europhys. Lett 9 (1989) 221 [4] D. R. O. Morrison, Cold Fusion News No. 10, Email, 1989. [5] N. Lewis et al., Nature 340 (1989) 525. [6[ M. Gai et al., Nature 340 (1989) 29. [7] D. R. O. Morrison, review talk at APS meeting, Baltimore 2 May 1989 and Cold Fusion News No.13, Email. [8] H. E. Menlove et al. Workshop on Cold Fusion, and submitted to Nature [9] D. E. Williams et al., Nature 342 (1989) 375 [10] Interim Report of the Cold Fusion Panel to the Energy Advisory Board (US-DOE), Co-Chairmen John Huizenga and Norman Ramsey. [11] M. H. Salamon et al. Nature 344 (1989) 401. [12] "BARC Studies in Cold Fusion", eds P. K. Iyengar and M. Srinivasen, Bhabha Atomic Energy Research centre, India, BARC-1500, (Dec. 1989). [13] Cold Fusion Research, a Report of the Energy Advisory Board (US-DOE) Co-Chairmen John Huizenga and Norman Ramsey. [14] N. Wada and K. Nizhizana, Japanese J. of Appl. Phys. 28 (1989) 2017 [15] N. J. C. Packham et al., J. Electochem. 270 (1989) 451. [16] E. Storms, priv. comm. [17] R. Taniguchi et al. Japanese J. of Appl. Phys. 28 (1989) 659. [18] M. E. Hayden et al. Univ. of Brit. Columbia preprint, Santa Fe workshop. [19] G. Kreysa, G. Marx and W. Plieth, J Electroanal. Chem. 268 (1989) 437. cudkeys: cuddy30 cudench cudmo9 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.02 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: MICF/PLASMAK(tm) Plasmoids (was .. . Elsewhere?) Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 2 Dec 90 00:36:08 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <820@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Nov27.161906.22864@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>Assuming no strong de-stabilizing externally applied magnetic field and >>given its anomalously high conductivity, a well formed PMK topology >>is IDEALLY MHD stable*. Consider its natural forms of BL and the solar >>PMKs that drift for YEARS to the surface of the sun where they hatch >>out an unsupported expansion cooled Kernel plasmas. Even our very >>meager work so far have produced PMKs that have stable lifetimes a >>nearly thousand times that of the DoE lab produced Spheromaks. >If it is such a preferred configuration, why haven't the >MICF folks met with great success---after all, it appears >they are trying to generate something very similar to the >PLASMAK configuration. NOTE: .. .. well formed .. .. . In MICF, the PMK is inertially confined by the mass of a metal shell. Its compression comes about from the volume displacement produced by the explosive displacement of the fuel by a vacuum magnetic field that is produced by hyper thermalized electrons (currents). These currents are not relativistic so they decay about a thousand times faster. Further the pellet size is very small (compared to a typical gas formed PMK), so its inductance is proportionally very much smaller. Other differences such as the Z of the shell also lower conductivity expectations. The product of conductivity and inductance results in a reduction of viable lifetimes of orders of magnitude, or typically about one hundred nanoseconds. Still that is three+ times the compression time of the standard method, and since the densities are about the same and time figures in the triple product, this results in an interesting approach. The lack of a uniform equilibrium pressure boundary is also a serious disadvantage. One of the big problems is reliability of production. Most shots do not form a PMK and those that do, will have a significant dispersion of grade. Unfortunately, considering the avalanche and distortion statistics of high short pulse power laser technology and the uniformity and smaller size of the target hole compared to the pellet size of the standard approach, it is amazing that this strategy works as well as it does. ================= Start Epic Descriptive Background ============== :-) On a far, far away island State across a vast and seething sea, long ago, the beginning MICF was an alternate inertial confinement scheme to cajole the shell and inner fuel pellet to absorb more laser energy. The standard approach was to bathe the OUTSIDE of the target in energy by directing the laser light over the external surface of the compression driver shell. That would heat the shell's surface to the blow off point and the reaction pressure of its explosive expansion would then drive the compression of the inner portion of the shell and the fuel contents. At first ejected COLUMNS of the more mobile hot thermal electrons would lead the way from the surface. This is followed by a plasma blow off so very dense, it would absorb any additional incoming laser light or reflect it away. Consequently, the ablation exposed instantaneous fresh outer surfaces of the shell would suddenly see a dramatic drop off in laser heating power from the initial impulse. The electron columns are initially reminiscent of the shape of the central column that rises from a milk drop splashing onto a surface of milk, viewed caught in a freeze frame playback of high speed tape. These electron shafts cover the outer surface, pointing outward like the spikes on a medieval mace. By making a multiplicity of beams coming in from all sides precisely simultaneously, the non-uniform ablation could be reduced and the total effective compression increased. Nevertheless the little electron jets would occur and even drive small "solitons", a kind of micro smoke or Spheromak ring like plasmoid. This is THE EFFECT that is used to make an MICF PMK. In the MICF scheme an optical hole was made through the metalized (gold) compressor shell, and the laser energy is dumped into the INTERIOR. The idea was that the Metal shell would be reflective and would trap the light flux making it more likely that the darker target plasma would pick up a greater amount of energy. What actually happened was massive internal turbulence was caused by the non-uniform illumination technique. The hot thermal electrons would very often form a few, but very powerful current jets. The corresponding current driven magnetic field would catastrophically cavitate in the plasmatized fuel medium at a pressure massive enough to blast the plasma aside, in spite of the fuel's liquid density. This process is not unlike the first steam bubble suddenly forming at the bottom of a water pot just starting to boil. Here also the lighter steam (magnetic field) displaces the liquid water (plasma fuel), producing a short high pressure wave that results in a bumping sound in the sides of the metal pot. Back To MICF Frequently, a Spheromak like object results. Here the magnetic flux is trapped within the conducting shell; the current jets close to form a highly magnetized plasma ring. The suddenly produced magnetic field excite trapping currents in the shell, so these rings are magnetically suspended and insulated within the surrounding strong magnetic field and displacement produced vacuum region (Kernel). Because massive amounts of energy are injected into miniscule fuel mass, temperatures rip upwards to extremely high values. The resulting radiation plus the residual laser energy ablate the compression shell producing even more force to compression heat the nascent plasma ring. This also explodes plasmatizes the metal shell and accelerates it inertially outward. NOTE: the physical embodiment jumps in configuration space from a Spheromak (rigid shell) to a PLASMAK(tm) with a Mantle plasma fluid shell. Unfortunately, without surrounding fluid pressure as in the Sun and standard PLASMAK(tm) technology, the expanding MICF PMK is unstable. Compression energy scaling goes as a product of the applied pressure and the volume of displacement. The problem here is that after the initial formation with its magnetic field displacement compression, there isn't any other source for continued compression (heating to thermonuclear ignition and confinement). In conclusion, by comparison to the MICF approach, a very wide range of PMK's made the direct way are much more efficiently produced - cost and energy wise, are formed containing relativistic currents, are contained with a stabilizing isobaric external pressure boundary, and can be compression heated strongly because of both their low initial boundary pressure and their large initial volume. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ ============================== Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Summary: Expires: References: <1990Nov25.202507.29247@nmt.edu> <793@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> <1990Nov26.092400.749@prometheus.UUCP> <810@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> <1990Nov27.161906.22864@pr <820@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> Sender: Reply-To: pmk@promethe.UUCP (0000-Admin(0000)) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. Keywords: In article <820@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Nov27.161906.22864@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>Assuming no strong de-stabilizing externally applied magnetic field and >>given its anomalously high conductivity, a well formed PMK topology >>is IDEALLY MHD stable*. Consider its natural forms of BL and the solar >>PMKs that drift for YEARS to the surface of the sun where they hatch >>out an unsupported expansion cooled Kernel plasmas. Even our very >>meager work so far have produced PMKs that have stable lifetimes a >>nearly thousand times that of the DoE lab produced Spheromaks. > >If it is such a preferred configuration, why haven't the >MICF folks met with great success---after all, it appears >they are trying to generate something very similar to the >PLASMAK configuration. > > > >-- >Barry Merriman >UCLA Dept. of Math >UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research >barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy2 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.01 / John Moore / Re: WARM fusion in soup? Originally-From: john@qip.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,talk.bizarre Subject: Re: WARM fusion in soup? Date: 1 Dec 90 17:18:30 GMT Organization: Anasazi, Inc. Phoenix, Az In article <2510@cod.NOSC.MIL> deichman@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Shane D. Deichman) writes: Naughty, naughty! I loved it. -- John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john USnail: 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale,AZ 85253 anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu Voice: (602) 951-9326 Wishful Thinking: Long palladium, Short Petroleum Opinion: Support ALL of the bill of rights, INCLUDING the 2nd amendment! Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are all my fault, and no one elses. cudkeys: cuddy1 cudenjohn cudfnJohn cudlnMoore cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.03 / Barry Merriman / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 3 Dec 90 06:27:54 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: [On commercial fusion ventures] > >Threat [of proliferation]: It's in the noise level of doing business. >I might possibly tilt >a decision related to dealings with off shore interest. > >Size: We are the smallest that I know about right now, but things change >and fluctuate, sometimes drastically just overnight. Of course, we are >just gearing up to do the serious financial wheeling that produces the >capital to reach our preliminary CBEF target. > > >Incidentally, Maglich's and Bussard's past funding levels seem about >right for us to demonstrate CBEF with a compressed PMK fueled with D-He(3) > Hmmm...you know better than I, but I sorta doubt it. Bussard got a total of what today would be about 10 million. Thats barely enough to keep a staff of 50 people going for two years, much less acquire the needed laboratory set up. You approach may indeed not cost ``too much'', but I suspect there are some ``startup costs'' prior to directly proceeding towards a demo. These are one-time costs, but may be on the order of 10-20 million themselves. Why don't you take a lesson from Bussard's experience: sell your idea to the Japanese. Bussard gave the U.S. a shot, and they didn't back him. Don't expect things to be any different, especially with the fusion budget and outlook worse than ever. The japanese have the money (and lack of politics) to perhaps consider your approach. I would make them your primary target for funds. (I've always thought the Arab countries would also be a good target, since they must realize their oil resources will not last long, and should be looking to invest their current windfall in a replacement cash cow. But maybe now is not a good time to ask...) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy3 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.04 / I Dimitrovsky / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: dimitrov@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Isaac Dimitrovsky) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 4 Dec 90 16:44:13 GMT Organization: New York University Ultracomputer Research Lab [] Barry Merriman writes: >The japanese have the money (and lack of politics) to perhaps consider >your approach. I would make them your primary target for funds. > >(I've always thought the Arab countries would also be a good target, I think both the Japanese and Arab countries are experiencing a financial crunch right now. How about Edward Bass? If he can afford $100 million for Biosphere 2, who knows? Isaac Dimitrovsky cudkeys: cuddy4 cudendimitrov cudfnIsaac cudlnDimitrovsky cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.04 / William Johnson / More on "Too Hot To Handle" Originally-From: mwj@lanl.gov (William Johnson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: More on "Too Hot To Handle" Date: 4 Dec 90 22:30:20 GMT Organization: Los Alamos Natl Lab, Los Alamos, N.M. Apropos Frank Close's book "Too Hot To Handle," mini-reviewed for the net by Patrick Smith a couple of weeks ago: Frank confirms the information regarding release date in the U.S. (3/15/91, Princeton U Press) and also notes that an article will be coming out in the magazine _New Scientist_ (a British publication) in the 1/24/91 issue "to coincide with publication." I'm looking forward to both book and article (and not just because my name is mentioned ... :-). Frank also asked me to point out a few things about the book. Not having seen it yet, I can't "review" it, but I will point out a couple of things: Frank did a *lot* of legwork tracking down little bits of information, as I know well from some lengthy conversations with him. He dropped an interesting little remark to the effect that the "knowledgable" reader will want to look at what's in the footnotes rather carefully ... He also notes that Douglas Morrison has had a look at the book already; Douglas, is there anything about it you can say for s.p.f? -- Bill Johnson | "A man should never be ashamed to own he Los Alamos National Laboratory | has been in the wrong, which is but saying, Los Alamos, New Mexico USA | in other words, that he is wiser to-day !cmcl2!lanl!mwj (mwj@lanl.gov) | than he was yesterday." (A. Pope) cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenmwj cudfnWilliam cudlnJohnson cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.04 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 4 Dec 90 22:07:48 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article aboulanger@bbn.com writes: >In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP >(Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>Producing the entire size and lifetime range of observed Ball Lightning >>(formed from lightning -- not volcanism) should not be a problem. Assuming >>air composition, they look the same. . . probably. so far at least. >>Composed in other gases a PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid (PMK) will have an altered >>external appearance, especially in its brightness and hue. >I have a reverse question to ask: Can one use your ball lightning >knowledge (possibly a theory of ball lightning?) to PREDICT the >circumstances in nature when they occur? (Such as positive return >strokes on the order of 300KA, say ;-)). For sightings frequency of lightning induced Ball Lightning formed near the ground, the likelihood is highest in regions of largest lightning and wind turbulence activity, located closer to the magnetic poles, and with a substantially large outdoorsy populations. A study of BL observations by "electric linespersons" doing storm repair work should be done. That would resolve both storm density and intensity as well as population density (power usage). Spurious factors other than peak current are important, so I would give that one "3 or 4" of 10. > ........ .. . . Paul, you have been in this >business for a while! I just opened my copy of "Ball Lightning and Bead >Lightning" by James Barry, Plenum Press, 1980 in the back and saw: >"A New Model for Ball Lightning", P.M. Koloc, Neophysics Research, LTD, >College Park, MD, Unpublished *1977*. That was supposed to have been a privately circulated primitive version or "hypothesis". Oh well, just can't keep a lid on anything. J. Barry digs DEEP for reference material. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.04 / Paul Koloc / Costs.. . was Coming elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Costs.. . was Coming elsewhere? Date: 4 Dec 90 23:04:43 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <842@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >>Incidentally, Maglich's and Bussard's past funding levels seem about >>right for us to demonstrate CBEF with a compressed PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid >>or PMK fueled with D-He(3) >Hmmm...you know better than I, but I sorta doubt it. Bussard got a total >of what today would be about 10 million. Thats barely enough to keep >a staff of 50 people going for two years, much less acquire the needed >laboratory set up. Ah! The pound of flesh... are you a banker??? The meaning had to do with the difficulty of raising the funds, so VALUE is the key.. value of the bucks raised at that time and ITS equivalent amount today. And even then, the number is UNACCELERATED for overhead. >You approach may indeed not cost ``too much'', but I suspect there >are some ``startup costs'' prior to directly proceeding towards >a demo. These are one-time costs, but may be on the order of 10-20 million >themselves. I'm sure you aren't speaking of Maglich's "art collection" or Bussard and partner's very expensive super luxury car rental company. Otherwise, it depends on the operation and the goals. The frolicking and splurging would come much later. >Why don't you take a lesson from Bussard's experience: sell your idea to the >Japanese. Bussard gave the U.S. a shot, and they didn't back him. Don't >expect things to be any different, especially with the fusion budget >and outlook worse than ever. If it gets very much worse, then tokamak would fail and things would really look up for getting something done with private AND government funds. >The Japanese have the money (and lack of politics) to perhaps consider >your approach. I would make them your primary target for funds. Had money.. :-) Big banks, sky high real estate, -- down, down... how far is down?? ? Those people are very conservative and aren't really big on radical new concepts from the wings of the distribution function. They have their own encumbrances. Remember Bussard's idea wasn't nearly as radical as this one is. Amdahl and a number of others have had some very difficult times with the Japanese. >(I've always thought the Arab countries would also be a good target, >since they must realize their oil resources will not last long, and should >be looking to invest their current windfall in a replacement cash cow. >But maybe now is not a good time to ask...) Ahh! Investment! The banker's concern showing through? Israel and Japan. They need oil.. NOW!!! However, I could have it backwards, as this is not my area at all. Perhaps you have some more definite ideas you could e-mail to me. The biggest application of all this power and energy is space. The second is to drive the overpopulation of the earth"s" (all the grid electric power you want), and that one pushes the third, which is to drive war. Fortunately, the first will take a few centuries to "reach boredom" before # 2 and 3 really come on line. Then think of all those PLASMAK(tm) energized family owned asteroid micro-earths and other moonlets. They would be hanging around stargazing, preserving the fauna, and flora and staying ready to replenish things on the "big" planets every once in a while. After that things will probably splash back and forth until, we start populating other star systems. Do we really want to do this? Big responsibility Bigger fun +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy4 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.05 / Barry Merriman / PLASMAK commercialization Originally-From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: PLASMAK commercialization Date: 5 Dec 90 20:45:13 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research Here's a honorable way to generate some funding for PLASMAK research: You say you can already produce mini-plasmoids that are stable for several seconds. Presumably, these glow, float and are rather pretty. Why don't you make a little device that puffs these into a glass sphere, and sell it as an art work, much like the ``plasma spheres'' which are currently on sale. Yours should be different enough to have its own niche in the market (imagine different colored plasmoids drifting around in a sphere-, colliding, merging, tc, sort of like a ``plasmoid fish tank-''--that'd be neat!). If you make a $10 profit on each one sold, you could probably take in several million $, total. EOr,instead of mass market, you could go for the Elite market. Make large rdevices, and take in a profit of $1000 per item. Either way, its enough to get Prometheus off the ground, and bootstrap yourself up to higher funding levels. Not to mention that you would at least have a well developed demo that you could show to potential investors. -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy5 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.07 / Paul Dietz / Re: PLASMAK commercialization Originally-From: dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK commercialization Date: 7 Dec 90 00:01:32 GMT Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Dept In article <854@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Here's a honorable way to generate some funding for PLASMAK >research: > >You say you can already produce mini-plasmoids that are stable >for several seconds. Presumably, these glow, float and are rather pretty. >Why don't you make a little device that puffs these into a glass >sphere, and sell it as an art work, much like the ``plasma spheres'' >which are currently on sale. An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. Naw, too radical. Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu cudkeys: cuddy7 cudendietz cudfnPaul cudlnDietz cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.06 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK commercialization Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK commercialization Date: 6 Dec 90 16:18:12 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <854@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >Here's a honorable way to generate some funding for PLASMAK >research: > >You say you can already produce mini-plasmoids that are stable >for several seconds. Presumably, these glow, float and are rather pretty. Fantastic. True hitodama (face of an angel). >Why don't you make a little device that puffs these into a glass >sphere, and sell it as an art work, much like the ``plasma spheres'' >which are currently on sale. Yours should be different enough to >have its own niche in the market (imagine different colored >plasmoids drifting around in a sphere-, colliding, merging, tc, >sort of like a ``plasmoid fish tank-''--that'd be neat!). As pointed out, these objects contain dense relativistic energetic currents and are produced with a very fast pulse, so rather than "puff" its more like a small lightning blast. Some terminate with a bang, and there is an EMP associated with the rapid magnetic energy release. Perhaps we could sell video tapes. Then again it might be better be used by physicians to cure patients desperate to cure a well centered itch, for which their current preparation doesn't (h)elp. ;-) Incidentally, even these innocent appearing "plasma spheres" devices are not safe, because of the strong RFI emissions from their power supplies. Some of the cheapest small models are especially dangerous for anyone handling (holding) its "base", while the device is operation. That's not good since these things are spectacularly interactive to the (capacitive) human touch. >If you make a $10 profit on each one sold, you could probably >take in several million $, total. EOr,instead of mass market, >you could go for the Elite market. Make large devices, and >take in a profit of $1000 per item. Even in the latter case, we would have to limit their use for power production. :-) >Either way, its enough to get Prometheus off the >ground, and bootstrap yourself up to higher funding levels. Not >to mention that you would at least have a well developed >demo that you could show to potential investors. In spite of the wise cracks, we appreciate your sentiments. I believe Edison supported some of his research this way. There are applications short of fusion. We feel obligated to present "particular applications" first to those with a special interest, and then if those should prove inconsequential, we are free to "dump" its many technology applications into a milieu of markets. I wish there was to way to safely implement your precise suggestions. It is a sticky problem for us. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy6 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.07 / C Neufeld / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 7 Dec 90 16:22:11 GMT Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >In this scenario the ship is accelerated and decelerated under power >(~50 gigawatts). For longer trips it's not bad because the solar gravity >climb is lessening and the acceleration could easily get the ship up to >several million+ mph. Consequently, one would NOT want to lose his power >until AFTER decelerating. In fact the destination "PLANET" wouldn't want >that to happen. I think with the accelerated phase but no UNDECELERATED >one, a nearby Mars return could easily wipe out Delaware. That's a fair >size lake. > Space is big. It's very big. If your spacecraft lost its powerplant before starting deceleration, it would miss the target planet by millions of kilometres. For a one week trip from Mars to Earth, if the power failed before starting deceleration you'd miss the Earth by about nine million kilometres. If you didn't miss the planet it means your power plant failed only at the very last minute, and the energy you'd have would be no more than that of a meteor of the same mass. Even that would be difficult to plan. It's hard to hit things unless you try. With such a large payload to fuel/reaction mass ratio as you're describing, if a power plant failure seemed likely they'd probably include a backup, or two running in parallel. A failure in one of the two would just mean a month or two extra travel time to match up with the target again. Such a large available delta-v would also make possible the old science fiction plot element, the space rescue. -- Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca Ad astra! | S = k log W cneufeld@{pnet91,pro-micol}.cts.com | Boltzmann's epitaph "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | cudkeys: cuddy7 cudenneufeld cudfnChristopher cudlnNeufeld cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.08 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK commercialization Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK commercialization Date: 8 Dec 90 14:07:13 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Dec7.000132.9986@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) writes: >In article <854@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >>Why don't you make a little device that puffs these into a glass >>sphere, and sell it as an art work, much like the ``plasma spheres'' >>which are currently on sale. >An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the >theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER >REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. >Naw, too radical. Correct. It's catch 22. To do credible work, a whole range of energies and diagnostics are necessary. "Building one" just doesn't cut it. We have done that. Acceptable work requires about two million dollars. The investors putting up the initial amount to complete this first "science" phase (although necessary to provide a basis for future engineering development) will not be too crazy about putting the technology into the public domain. Except for this very first diagnostics phase (the science part), the public shouldn't fund a program that has commercial application. If the public does pay for it, the problem evaporates. But what are the odds of that happening? Craig Fields (formerly DARPA) is the ONLY one I know of that funded this sort of thing. Still, your scenario may not work. T. Maiman (Hughes Research, Malibu) produced the first laser repeatedly, did diagnostics and his paper was rejected by each end every single American journal to which it was submitted (six in toto). Apparently, the laser hadn't been noted in any text books RPark had read.. . :-) . Radical?.. In an aggressive, hard driving, "in for the long haul" country, perhaps not. But then in such a place this problem wouldn't arise in the first place. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.08 / Paul Koloc / Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: What's coming, elsewhere? Date: 8 Dec 90 14:09:06 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Dec7.112211.4568@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) writes: >In article <1990Nov30.120518.4599@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >> >>In this scenario the ship is accelerated and decelerated under power >>(~50 gigawatts). For longer trips it's not bad because the solar gravity >>climb is lessening and the acceleration could easily get the ship up to >>several million+ mph. Consequently, one would NOT want to lose his power >>until AFTER decelerating. In fact the destination "PLANET" wouldn't want >>that to happen. I think with the accelerated phase but no UNDECELERATED >>one, a nearby Mars return could easily wipe out Delaware. That's a fair >>size lake. > Space is big. It's very big. If your spacecraft lost its powerplant >before starting deceleration, it would miss the target planet by >millions of kilometres. This is true even at much smaller "miss-distances" that may occur. Seeing probes surviving encounters with planetary rings and a comet, I'm inclined to agree the likelihood of such an event is very small. This posting was made on inspiration of a rerun of "[the crash of] The Silver Streak". The numbers were given to emphasize the maximum kinetic energy involved in making such power-on trips. As suggested this number was estimated for a "short trip" distance between earth and Mars when the planetary separation is minimal as it is now. Longer distances would of course produce even higher kinetic energies. The energy of a large hydrogen bomb is tiny by comparison. Still the problem is more significant with regard to the outer planets and their moons. It also depends on the kind of approach that is made to the target gravitational well (planet). A power trajectory that was slightly outside the orbital plane of the planets would reduce such a small possibility considerably. > . It's hard to hit things unless you try. My guess is that if PLASMAK(tm) power plants work as well as expected, the human population will jump and the number of interplanetary flights a couple of centuries from now would dwarf the number of commercial aviation flights today. With the independence this technology might bring, the current level of control by the world's FAA type agencies may not be matched. But, it is far more likely that the most serious risk by far (as you suggest here) will be from disgruntled space jockeys (family, country, company, confederation, etc.) that have a bursting desire to make the ultimate plunge. Consequently, it may be premature to rule such events out, completely. > .. . . Such a large available delta-v would also make >possible the old science fiction plot element, the space rescue. In the dirty snow ball fields of the Oort. .. . How romantic? +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy8 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.09 / Vincent Cate / PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 9 Dec 90 03:02:42 GMT Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Paul Dietz: >An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the >theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER >REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. >Naw, too radical. Paul Koloc: >To do credible work, a whole range of energies and diagnostics are >necessary. "Building one" just doesn't cut it. We have done that. >Acceptable work requires about two million dollars. >[...] >Radical?.. In an aggressive, hard driving, "in for the long haul" >country, perhaps not. But then in such a place this problem wouldn't >arise in the first place. Look @#%!, the reason you are having trouble getting money is not because there is nobody in the U.S.A. that would invest in a good idea that took more than 5 years to develop, it is simply that you have NOT DEMONSTRATED any ability to do the fusion you claim you can do. If you claim your little ball lightning things are doing ***FUSION*** show some evidence!!!! Find some tritium or neutrons. Do some calorimetry. If you can make your little balls already there is now way at all you can claim you need 2 million to do "acceptable work". If you can demo something that produces lots of neutrons even when an investor brings his own neutron detector you will get lots of money. Until then there is no reason to expect any *intelligent* investor to invest money in your company. If, on the other hand, you are willing to con money off of people by lying then you should look into Peripheral Systems Inc. Here is an example of a company that has raised something like $30,000,000 to do fission by claiming to be able to do things can not be done (like get 75 watts of electricity off of 1 watt of radiation). By the way, these guys have been saying that fission power plants of a size practical for use in a car are only 3 years away for about the last 4 years (still 3 years away). All the phone numbers and names are in the ftp file listed below - get a copy. The 2 main guys (ex-presidents) have left and might be interested in talking with you. These guys are good at what they do - they raised lots of money. You might want to talk with them. There seems to be little danger of the SEC as Peripheral's stock has gone from $6 down to $0.25 and the SEC still can not find an investor who is willing to press charges. ftp furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu:/usr/vac/ftp/peripheral.systems -- Vince Cate PS 128.2.209.111 furmint.nectar.cs.cmu.edu cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.09 / morrison@vxpri / Cold Fusion Update No.2. Originally-From: vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Originally-From: morrison@vxprix.decnet.cern.ch Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion Update No. 2 - Morrison Subject: Cold Fusion Update No.2. Date: 9 Dec 90 18:52:12 GMT Date: Sun, 9 Dec 90 12:55:55 +0100 Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Here is the latest update from Douglas Morrison. His past notes can be ftped from: sam.cs.cmu.edu:/afs/cs/user/vac/ftp/morrison -- Vince Date: Sun, 9 Dec 90 12:55:55 +0100 Originally-From: morrison@vxprix.decnet.cern.ch Subject: Cold Fusion Update No.2. To: "vincent.cate@sam.cs.cmu.edu"@dxmint.cern.ch Dear WA84 and E632 Colleagues, 9 December 1990. COLD FUSION UPDATE No. 2 COLD FUSION CONTINUES - AT A LOW RATE SECRET OF PONS AND FLEISCHMANN'S PATENT REVEALED - THERE IS NO SECRET. SUMMARY Since the previous update early in July, there have several conferences where mainly Believers met and reported their results. Perhaps the most serious one was at BYU led by Steve Jones et al., where the conference title was; "Anomalous Nuclear Effects in Deuterium/Solid Systems" - questions of power or excess heat were intentionally excluded. Steve concluded that there exists a community which is interested and a Second Annual meeting should be held in the fall of 1991 - there is a 90% probability that the Italian Physical Society will organise it - again this would probably be for nuclear effects only. Only a very few people now seem to believe in the possibility of obtaining commercially useful power - almost everyone does not believe in it. The Utah State Fusion Advisory Panel expected Dr. Pons to present a report on the progress obtained with the million dollars of state money he had spent, but he had "vanished". However he did turn up as requested on 7 November to attend a meeting of the National Cold Fusion Institute review panel - these are four well-known and respected scientists, but it is not clear what they are being asked to report on - possibly not on Cold Fusion. Profs. Pons and Fleischmann have generally refused to answer scientific questions, explaining that it is essential to protect the secrets of their patents. However on my way to work, stopped at the World Intellectual Property Organisation and for less than $9 got a copy of their patent. Experimentally there is very little data as previously. But the 50 claims sound exciting and include neutron beams and energy generation - unfortunately it is hard to see reasonable justification for them in the patent application. After reports of possible fraud at Texas A&M University, a panel was set up to review Cold Fusion. Its report is excellent. Even though it is in-house, they have studied the work of the five groups and what is most important, they have also studied the world situation. Their report is mature and shows common sense. Their conclusions cannot be shortly summarised in a fair way - see below. Have been reading early copies of Frank Close's book "Too Hot to Handle", on Cold Fusion - it should be in the shops soon. Very Interesting and worth buying. It is now agreed that Steve Jones et al. will put cells inside the Japanese 4500 ton Kamiokande solar neutrino detector - this should settle questions of neutron production. SUBJECTS - These are arranged roughly in historical order. For those short of time, suggest reading only Sections that may interest them. 1. General Electric Co. 2. World Hydrogen Energy Conference 3. Italian Physical Society 4. BYU Conference on Anomalous Nuclear Effects 5. National Cold Fusion Institute and its Funding 6. Patents of Pons et al. 7. Texas A&M Review Panel 8. Book "Too Hot to Handle" of Frank Close 9. Conclusions and Future. 1. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. The General Electric Company has two special links with Cold Fusion. They signed a special agreement with Pons and Fleischmann whereby they would have special access, but would have to keep strict secrecy. Secondly Irving Langmuir was a General Electric employee and it was there in 1953 that he gave his famous lecture on Pathological Science. So it was not inappropriate to give a talk there entitled " N-Rays, Cold Fusion and Pathological Science". The people at GE kept very strictly to their promise of secrecy about their joint work with Fleischmann and Pons - though if they had found any positive result it would have been surprising from past experience if the media world had not heard about it. However I was surprised to find out that completely indepentently, they had performed a large series of experiments on Cold Fusion. Was told that they had found no excess heat, no neutrons, no tritium and no gammas. Hear that they may make these results available soon. Fritz Will had worked at GE before becoming Director of the National Cold Fusion Institute, NCFI, and was struck by the way people at GE volunteered opinions saying how good he was and talked of his integrity. Was taken round the GE Research Labs and was most impressed by the quality of the people and of the work they were doing - was particularly interested in their NMR research and development work. 2. WORLD HYDROGEN ENERGY CONFERENCE. This meeting held in Hawaii from 23 to 27 July, is the 8th of a biannual series of Conferences held by those who believe that hydrogen is the fuel of the future as it pollutes so little. It is a wealthy and well-organised business with many sponsors such as the DOE. Industry was well-represented - BMW flew out their demonstration car which is fueled by hydrogen which is stored in metal (tubes of a vanadium alloy). Had wondered if the car's rear would be too heavy with these tubes and would spoil its famous handling qualities, but the driver gave a most convincing display of cornering at high speed). As Dr. Bockris is one of the gurus of the subject of hydrogen as a fuel, almost a quarter of the time of the conference was devoted to Cold Fusion. There were four plenary sessions of one hour. On the first three days the guest speakers scheduled were Governor John Waihee, Senator Daniel Inoyue and Senator Daniel Akaka. The other speaker in the Cold Fusion session with Senator Inoyue was Dr. Bockris. However the schedule was changed with Senator Inoyue moving to the fourth day and myself being the second speaker after Dr. Bockris. This resulted in my being given an unusual introduction - Dr Bockris finishing by saying "I feel I should introduce the next speaker who may not be known to you - he is Dr. Morrison who is Scottish and who has all the advantages and disadvantages of the Scots", he then proceeded to list all the disadvantages of the Scots! John Bockris faced up squarely to the issues of contamination and the possibility of "spiking" his group's tritium samples (by spiking is meant adding water containing tritium to the sample). At breakfast he defended very well and was convincing. In his plenary session talk he addressed the question and this can be read partly in the proceedings, and convincingly except when he said that their security was nil whereas Kevin Wolf's lab was completely secure and you needed to pass a security guard, then he added, "our security was nil but we had two people staying with the experiment 24 hours a day, sleeping beside it". These statements surprised his colleagues. His written paper gives a table of 79 groups which at one time or another have reported (by publication, internal reports, letters or private communication) positive effects(think this table was compiled by Fritz Will of NCFI). During the parallel sessions 23 talks were presented, of which 22 were favourable to Cold Fusion (the other was by Prof. Gerhard Kreysa of Dechema, Frankfurt whose work has been described in an earlier note). Most of the papers added little to what was given at the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, though it could be remarked that the Huggins group that used to speak of excess heat effects of 11% at Santa Fe, now talked of 3% average and 11% peak (am told that Prof. Huggins is on sabbatical in Europe and there is little work now being done at Stanford). The most exciting new result was from Hawaii in a group led by B.Y. Liaw of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and Bruce Liebert of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. They used a completely new technique - a eutectic LiCl-KCl molten salt saturated with LiD as electrolyte in a Pd/Al or Ti/Al electrochemical cell. The operated at a temperature of 370 C which gives faster kinematics and potentially more efficient high-grade heat. They gave what they called "preliminary results" claiming an enormous "excess power gain of 1512 percent" which is also given as 7.16 Mj/mol D2. At the end of Mr Liaw's talk I asked if they had checked by running with hydrogen instead of deuterium - he said they had not had time. It seems surprising after all that has happened, that any group would present preliminary results before they had made these checks. These dramatic results were reported in the Boston Herald under the front page heading "New Cold Fusion Advance Claimed". When Mr. Liaw presented these results at a Physics Department seminar, his work was criticised strongly and it was suggested it was essentially a battery. Prof. Vic Stenger (the leader of the Sceptics Society) and Prof. John Learned wrote a note detailling the problems and the effects of spreading this preliminary report. Bruce gave a reply. In the 10 September Honolulu Advertiser, Mr Liaw claimed to have observed not only excess power (for a brief period as a battery does) but also excess heat, claiming "We got at least 10 times what we put in". Later at the BYU meeting, Bruce told me that they had repeated the experiment with hydrogen and had found no effect. But although the result is so exciting he decided not to present a paper on the subject though he did mention it very briefly at the end, saying he had just received new results showing excess heat and excess power and also helium had been found in the Pd rod. Nate Hoffman commented that as the amount of helium was small, they would want to check first the amount of helium in the lab. Among other ideas was (1) a cold fusion water-heater for just over $100 (2) explanations in terms of di-neutrons and (3) another invoking neutrinos with a magnetic charge as strong as that of an electric charge! The proceedings of the Cold Fusion Symposium have a glossy production and can be had for only $15. The first paper is that of Dr. Bockris and at the very end can just be found my Review of Cold Fusion - also available from CERN or from Vincent Cate on the net. 3. ITALIAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY The Italian Physical Society annual meeting was held this year in the historic town of Trento from 8 to 13 October. It is probably the biggest of the European Physical Society meetings. This year's meeting had a joint session of the Nuclear Physics and Material Science divisions on Cold Fusion. To ensure balance, the Chairman, Prof. Renzo Leonardi, invited Prof. Scaramuzzi and myself to give review talks followed by a discussion. This was rather interesting. A member of the audience gave a short talk saying essentially that clearly there were many things not completely explained and that not everyone agreed on and hence it was reasonable to continue research on Cold Fusion at a low level. Asked Prof. Scaramuzzi, who was sitting beside me, who he was and was told he was Prof. Ricci, President of the Italian Physical Society and President of the European Physical Society. The following talk was by Dr. T. Bressani who was a co-author with Prof. Preparata of a theoretical paper which explains all positive results including the ratio claimed of tritium to neutrons of a hundred million to one. As Dr. Bressani and I had already had three talks together totalling 5 hours, without agreeing, I did not comment. 4. BYU WORKSHOP ON ANOMALOUS NUCLEAR EFFECTS IN DEUTERIUM/SOLID SYSTEMS. This conference was organised by Steve Jones and Nate Hoffman, et al. and sponsored by DOE, EPRI etc. The invitation explained that Brigham Young University had an Honor Code which did not allow tobacco, coffee, tea or alcohol. Nonetheless some 150 people attended and the conference did not seem any different except for the comments. Unexpectedly and contrary to indications, the Conference dinner at Sundance, the Robert Redford resort, had the same restrictions and most people seemed to accept it though I did try asking for wine - unsuccessfully. There were many interesting talks, all favouring Cold Fusion except one by Bob Anderson, Bill Johnson(well known and respected on the net) and others from Los Alamos (one of the four Los Alamos groups working on Cold Fusion). They ran several cells surrounded by 20 3He counters which were surrounded by a Cd liner and polyethylene outside that. They found they could produce all Cold Fusion positive effects, but all were due to background such as variation of barometric pressure, cosmic ray spallation, sun falling on the building heating up a pre-amplifier, inadequate statistical analysis. Among the effects observed were peaks of neutrons at 2.5 MeV and effects of more than three standard deviations(if you take a enough data, and there are fluctuations due to cosmics and barometric pressure etc., it is normal to observe peaks of many standard deviations) - but all had other explanations. It was strong evidence in favour of making all the checks before holding a press conference. Many of the talks were updates or repetitions of those presented at the First Annual Cold Fusion Conference, but there were two additional tendancies; one was to improve the instrumentation and do more checks, and the other was to try and study things in a more basic way. One example of the latter was Dr. Storms of Los Alamos who said they had had so many negative results in their search for tritium that they had decided to change and study loading and micro-pores in the metal. They tried cycles of electolysis and found hysteresis effects in the volume increase of the Pd electrode, which were different for the alpha and beta phase. Thus after each cycle of increasing and decreasing the current (expect temperature cycling would be similar), the volume finished larger. They were able to explain this volume increase by taking photomicrographs which showed that elliptical micro-pores had been progressively produced. A consequence of this was that on later cycles the incoming hydrogen could move more quickly, and also could escape as a gas more quickly so that the maximum loading that could be obtained was reduced as time went by. This also was studied as a function of current density - as the current was increased the effects proceeded faster but higher loadings were not obtained once the micro-pores had been formed. It was concluded from their measurements that loadings, D/Pd above 0.65 cannot be obtained. (comment - this value of 0.65 is rather lower than many experiments which claim up to 0.8, but there has never been any serious evidence for values of 1.0 by electolysis - excluding ion implantation and gas pressures of about a magabar. Further this invalidates a frequent excuse of Believers for the negative results of others that the experimenters did not work hard enough or long enough to get a loading of more than one). Another very interesting result given by Dr. Storms was that if there is tritium in the depths of the Palladium rod (either by contamination or separation of hydrogen isotopes or by fusion), then the tritium escapes into the gaseous phase and does not change the amount of tritium in the electrolyte. This is important as some of the claims of very large amounts of tritium, come from samples taken from the electrolyte and not from the gas. Dr Storms also commented if the tritium were to be produced on the surface of the palladium then the tritium would go into the electrolyte(this seemed to be a theoretical statement as my notes do not contain any evidence to support such a happening). This question needs some further careful checking as it could restart the debate about "spiking" the electrolyte with tritiated water. Dr. Randell of Savannah River said they had observed the gas to come off at certain points which could be interpreted as where the micro-pores met the surface. Howard Menlove described his new counter arrangement which is much more extensive with two rings of 3He counters - when they have enough counters in each ring they will be able to say, by timing, whether the neutron came from the cells inside or from external cosmics (as was done at Harwell with 3 rings), but at present they are relying on a remote counter to veto cosmics - this seems to me a dangerous procedure and it is to be hoped they will change soon by having their entire apparatus surrounded by veto counters. He reported further evidence for neutron bursts as found previously. Tom Clayton reported on his work with Howard et al. at Los Alamos in underground counting rooms. Bursts of neutrons continue to be observed. Steve Jones reported on their work with Howard and others in a lead mine in the village called appropriately, Leadville. Being deep underground, the background is greatly reduced, from 23400 to 75 counts/hour for the singles and the correlation rate from 300 to 1/20 per hour - great improvements and this despite problems with humidity in the mine. To understand this experiment it is important to know that they did not count singles when on the surface as the rate was too high. So what they do is every time a count is observed they open a gate (typically for 128 microseconds) and if a second pulse is recorded then they score a correlation. Then this second pulse has a gate opened for it and again if another single occurs within the gate a correlation is recorded - and also if this third single occurs within the gate of the first single, then a correlation is recorded for it too. Thus this is not a simple clean experiment. For example if there are 2 or 3 or 4 or 10 counts in a gate, then the corresponding numbers of correlations would be 1, 3, 6 and 45 resp. Again let us suppose there is a burst of neutrons from the palladium at times 1, 6, and 16 microseconds, this would be counted, if I have understood correctly as a 3-correlation. If there were a background pulse in addition at 110, this would be counted as a 3-correlation and a 2-correlation or should it be counted as a 3-correlation and two 2-correlations? Now am not sure which though did talk to people. But the main point is that this is not a simple conventional statistical problem. Also it should be noted that the figures are labelled "counts" but it should really be "correlations'. But the solution is clear - having gone down a mine to reduce background drastically, one should make use of it and drop entirely this complicated correlation system and use normal electronics to count singles. Then any bursts can be obtained from straightforward analysis that all can understand. Dr. Cecil of the Colarado School of Mines used a 100 micron silicon detector and observed charged particle emission when charging cells to 400 and 600 mA. He reported that the peak energy jumps around. This experiment seems in the early stages. It would be more convincing if in the future, other detectors were used in coincidence. Dr. Takahashi of the Dept. of Nuclear Energy in Osaka, looked for neutrons using 3He counters and NE213. His results were curious as he found peaks near 2.45, 4 and 6 MeV. He explained his results in terms of a three-body reaction, d + d + d ==> d + 4He + 23.8 MeV, but did not give any cross section estimates - would expect them to be extremely small. Dr. Totsuka from the Kamiokande experiment in Japan described their very large 4500 ton water Cerenkov system that is being used to observe neutrinos (especially solar neutrinos. They also had a great success counting neutrinos from Supernova 1987A). This is a group with a very high reputation. He offered to allow people to install cold fusion cells in the centre of their apparatus and they could measure any neutron production by observing electrons produced from the gammas coming from neutron capture in the water. They would have great sensitivity and almost no cosmic background. Aferwards Steve Jones and his co-workers took up this offer and results should be obtained early next year. (Was worried that this might interfere with their important programme of work in which they count a few solar neutrinos per week, but in fact the Cold Fusion cells would be very small compared with the size of the detector). Dr. M. Srinivasan of BARC (please note this is Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and not Bombay Area Reactor Centre as someone wrote - the name difference is important) described recent work done in July and August 1990. Much of the work was with a plasma focus device and large numbers (E +9) of neutrons were observed, however this is essentially a hot fusion device. Titanium chips with D2 gas was tested for K X-rays of 4.9 keV and some were found but at a low rate (10 chips out of 10 000). With four chips tritium was observed (about E +15 atoms). Some control tests with hydrogen were done but it seems there were too few in number relative to the rate of observing tritium. Visited BARC in August - it is a very large and extensive lab something like Harwell (though Harwell does not have monkeys around everywhere and Harwell's security is not as strict) and much of the equipment is of good quality. There are a few people who believe deeply in cold fusion. There was not much activity at that moment, mainly due to funding problems. Kevin Wolf gave a lively talk about tritium and other work at Texas A&M. This report is based on my notes, his paper and private conversations. They had found tritium in some rods from the manufacturer and this probably accounts for their "observation" of tritium. However further measurements by themselves and elsewhere (e.g. NCFI) showed that the tritium contamination in the original Pd rod only occurred with one batch from one manufacturer and hence this most probably was not an explanation of other reports of tritium. Other reports of tritium tend to be at reactor centres where there is tritium, or in labs where there are major possibilities of tritium contamination. It should be noted that the difference in detection sensitivity between tritium and neutrons is about E +8 and it is claimed by some that the ratio of tritium production to neutron production is also E +8 as would be expected if both were effects a few times background. When his group observed tritium, there were no corresponding counts of neutrons of 2.5 or 14 MeV nor of gamma rays between 80 and 3500 keV. Altogether they looked at some 200 cells and their conclusion on the question of tritium is "There is no evidence from our study for a cold fusion mechanism." He said they had also done experiments with a 16 micron Silicon detector while cycling samples down to 85 K, but no effects were observed. During his talk Kevin showed a graph of D/Pd loading - over a period of 50 days, the loading quickly rose to a maximum of 0.63 and then decreased to about 0.5 - the rod had deep cracks and a network of closely-spaced cracks on the surface. This is in agreement with Dr. Storms' report. Prof. Bertin's group had previously reported production of neutrons in their experiment deep in the Gran Sasso tunnel, in agreement with the results of Jones et al., but had been criticised at the Santa Fe Conference in May 1989 as their background seemed too high to be neutrons. Now he reported that they have added considerable shielding and have good pulse shape discrimination, so that their signal to noise has risen from 0.2 to 80, indicating that they were probably counting gammas previously. The background rate is now 3 neutrons in 140 hours which is comparable with that of the French group in the Frejus tunnel. One awaits their new results. Tried to emphasise that this Frejus group had the best results on neutron production to date, giving a deduced fusion rate of less than 2 E -26 fusions per second per dd pair - this is about a factor of hundred less than that of Jones et al. The reference is Aberdam et al. Physical Review Letters 65 (1990) 1196. Francesco Celani of Frascati reported that his group has also been working in the Gran Sasso tunnel. In their experiments in April - June 1989, they observed two emission events. They have now greatly increased their shielding which has reduced the gamma background from 1/10 of sea level to 1/500 th. They are now studying loading D2 gas into high temperature superconductors which they temperature cycle down to 77 K and also try to stimulate by irradiation with a neutron source - they are motivated by the work of M. Rabinowitz, Mod. Phys. Lett. B3, (1990). Dr. Rabinowitz gave a talk, but on the BNL cluster experiment which is "lukewarm" fusion - he explained the results in terms of deuterons back-scattering off Titanium and then back-scattering off Oxygen. Prof. Tsarev of the Lebedev Institute in Moscow, presented a model based on acceleration in cracks in the metal and found some agreement with the experimental observation of neutron bursts and acoustic effects, however they are checking their observations. The question of whether cold fusion could occur in the earth giving unusual isotope ratios, e.g 3He to 4He and possibly excess tritium, was discussed by Prof. Palmer of BYU and Fraser Goff while Gary McMurty of Hawaii gave a couple of fascinating talks about geology and in particular studying volcanoes. While intriguing, the scientific evidence seems inadequate and is weak theoretically and as will be shown on pages 354 -356 of Frank Close's book, it does not contribute significantly to the earth's heat. Prof. Rafelski gave a good summary talk of the various theories, and appeared to conclude that to explain the Cold Fusion positive results, the best hope was New Physics (however he did not try to explain the more numerous negative results). Prof. Preparata, who is spending a short sabbatical at NCFI, did not have a happy conference, his theory being called semi-classical and criticised in detail (boundary calculations) and appearing to be bested in his controversial interventions for example when he finally goaded Prof. Belyaev of Dubna into saying "You make strong declaratory statements. Now I will make a strong declaratory statement", and he did. Prof. Preparata replied "Ridiculous, I am a quantum field theorist" The Summary talk was given by David Worledge of the Electrical Power Research Industry, EPRI, which is a major funding agency for Cold Fusion Research. He briefly reviewed the various experimental results and appeared to find none completely satisfactory(especially the tritium results) though the total appeared interesting and worth further study (he like almost everyone else at the meeting, did not refer to all the negative results even where they gave upper limits much lower than the positive findings). He concluded that this was not normal dd fusion; there was little guidance from theory; many of the experiments reported were greatly improving their apparatus and technique in particular in making controls. He felt there was a message to funding agencies that this was a legitmate field of research that needs some support. As there had been rather little time for discussion since there were so many speakers, Steve Jones invited people to give 5-minute presentations AFTER the Summary speaker! Prof Scaramuzzi said that these meetings were useful, that it took about a year to obtain a good careful result and hence he proposed holding a further meeting in a year's time. He had spoken to the President of the Italian Physical Society and with 90% confidence it should be possible to have the next meeting at Varenna in October or September of next year. I showed one transparency saying this conference was a big improvement; more checks were needed; people should try to prove themselves wrong even looking for effects due to solar flares, atmospheric pressure changes, etc.; >90% of the world's scientists judge there is no Cold Fusion; the probability of excess heat was about zero; the probability of nuclear effects was small; it is too late for poor experiments; if one really wishes to continue, only good careful experiments should be tried. Steve Jones said that there now appeared to be a community of scientists working on nuclear effects so he was in favour of Prof Scaramuzzi's offer. He noted that it was difficult to publish Cold Fusion results in major journals but George Milley, editor of Fusion Technology, takes the opinion that it is up to the referees to decide whether to accept for publication. There were many more talks, these are one person's selection - the complete proceedings will be out in the spring. A general comment - this was intended to be a Workshop where people with positive results on nuclear effects met and compared results and tried to find what they had in common to plan future experiments. In the first aim they were successful - people did meet and discuss. But in the second aim there was no one who summarised to show that there was any apparent consistency in the results. The conclusion (unstated) was rather that there were many diverse results and therefore one should explore further with better experiments. Maybe this is a fine conclusion. But in normal Science, one considers ALL the results, positive and negative. At a Workshop it is conventional to organise summary talks on neighbouring fields that are of crucial importance - but this did not happen. There was no detailed summary talks giving tables of scientific results e.g. flux of neutrons claimed, including the positive and negative ones. A possible conclusion that the negative experiments with very small upper limits, were correct and that the positive finding were background fluctuations or artifacts, was not considered. Will it be different at a future conference? After the end of the conference, was several times asked if I heard results that would make make me believe in Cold Fusion. Replied that while some results looked interesting, if one made the balance between the positive and the negative results, the balance was still very heavily weighed in favour of there being no Cold Fusion. One was still waiting for a single convincing experiment which would have positive, reproducible results of several nuclear or heat effects simultaneously. 5. NATIONAL COLD FUSION INSTITUTE and its FUNDING. The day after the BYU Workshop, the Utah State Fusion Advisory panel which supervises the National Cold Fusion Institute, met in the Governor's Conference Room in the State Capitol. The national press and TV were well represented. They were perhaps encouraged by stories in the media that Prof. Fleischmann was undergoing medical treatment in Britain while Prof. Pons had "vanished" and was rumoured to be in France and he had applied for a sabbatical. Martin Fleischmann strongly said he had not been notified of the meeting while Fritz Will said that all efforts to contact them had been made. Thus there was a certain air of excitement. Fritz Will started, giving a very upbeat presentation including a list of 100 groups in > 10 countries who had observed Cold Fusion effects, concluding "Cold Fusion is more than a passing fancy". He then gave the main new result which was that at the NCFI tritium enhancements of 25 to 50% had been observed and this was reproducibile in 8 cells with D2O while no increase was observed in cells with H2O. The statement from Texas A&M that there was tritium contamination in the Palladium rods and this contamination could explain tritium findings, was incorrect as they had tested 130 Pd samples and found no excess tritium. Excess heat had been observed up to 28%, in an accurate flow calorimeter and the electrode had shown slight tritium enhancement. He also quoted other outstanding outside results - Takahashi, Menlove et al., Clayton et al., Cecil, Liaw and said they were fortunate to have with them at NCFI, Prof. Preparata who had a quantum field theory which had been upheld in many other cases and which also gave the experimentally found tritium to neutron ratio of a hundred million to one. Haven Bergeson, the leader of the Physics group, said that for science it is essential to have reproducible results and fortunately they now have. They are using pairs of cells in series, one part with D2O and the other part with H2O, monitored separately. The cathode is nickel and the anode is a deuterated plate. They run for only a few hours. They have 16 different cells. Eight of the ten cells gave results. With D2O all gave 25 to 50% enhancements which is 4 to 8 standard deviations whereas they never found anything with the H2O cells which only gave 1 to 2 standard deviation enhancements. Have not looked for neutrons yet. The graph shown of the tritium enhancements looked impressive and the Panel looked impressed. But was surprised that no one said that when one does electro- lysis there is always an enrichment of the tritium content of up to a factor of 100%. Hence the results shown were not at all unusual and were certainly not evidence for fusion. Had a copy of the DOE panel report with me which in an Appendix describes all this in detail. Further one should be very doubtful of any measurement of less than 1000 counts per min per ml (which excludes many positive reports of tritium - though not Bockris et al. and BARC who have counts of more than a million dpm/ml. However as a visitor I did not feel it appropriate to say anything though at various times other members of the audience made comments, some long. What is the correct morality - the conflict between open Science and politeness? Next the leader of the engineering group spoke - had heard previously that as they had found nothing they were giving up. He said they had tried to follow the the six recommendations of the DOE Panel. They had used closed cells with recombination of the gases as well as many other kinds of cells. In one set of 7 cells, one had given a burst of excess heat for a few days - this in experiments that lasted 20 to 130 days. He was asked what was the total energy in the burst of heat. Andy Reilly replied 30 joules. Prof. Preparata cried out "that's a lot". Hm, Well, people claiming excess heat usualy talk of megajoules. Combining what was said with the written report which was longer, the following results were found; 1. With commercial Seeback cells, accurate to better than 5 milliWatt, no excess heat was found to +/-3%. No tritium production was observed in any of 9 experiments. 2. With small cells of conventional design but external recombination, no tritium was observed in any of the 30 experiments. 3. As it had been claimed that D/Pd loadings of greater than one were necessary to achieve effects, loadings were measured to 5% using a volumetric technique after back-filling the gas space with deuterium as suggested by Prof. Walling. For 33 experiments the equilibrium loading ratio varied from 0.65 to 0.85, essentially independent of the current density (note this last phrase is contrary to a frequent excuse). Rods of 1, 2 and 4 mm all rose to equilibrium in less than 500 minutes (the smaller ones faster). When the pH of the solution was 1.3 and 1.7, the loading had been observed to increase from a stable value of 0.6 to as high as one unexpectedly. The cause of this is presently unknown. 4. Atmospheric pressure cells were run - no excess heat was observed. 5. High pressure(100 atm) cells have been developed with controlled cell temperature and ability infer heat flows, cathode loading, and other diagnostic information. A reference cell calorimeter was also made. No detailed results are given but it is stated "This work shows the importance of the effects of small variations of the heat transfer coefficient on the overall accuracy of Newton's Law type devices and the relative importance of the temperature measurement on the accuracy of the flow calorimeters". Now this is highly coded - the essential point is that a major criticism of the basic calorimetric work of Pons and Fleischmann is that they calibrate by heating their cell and watching it cool, then using Newton's Law of cooling obtain their calibration; but the objection is that they are calibrating at a different temperature from where they are doing their measurements. It would be good to see what the results actually are! However the points 1 to 5 were rather not made at the meeting though they were in the report which it seems the Panel had read. Returning to the Panel, Prof. Guruswamy of the Metallurgy Group reported that early on they had observed excess heat, but with later experiments,these effects were no longer observed because of changes (improvements?). They had tried other systems including shaped explosive charges, but the results were not yet clear. The structure of the Pd electrodes had been studied and had seen loadings varying between 0.6 and 0.9. Some neutrons had been observed but with poor reproducibility. Fritz Will summarized these results again and added that Prof. Preparata had predicted that if the D/Pd loading was less than one, then no Cold Fusion results would be found and that was the reason why so many groups have failed to find Cold Fusion was because they had not loaded to above one. The Panel asked how much of this work was by Pons and Fleischmann, and was told none. After questioning, Fritz calculated that of the $2.1 million spent, the share of Pons was $1 million. The Assistant Attorney-General, Joe Tesch, said that he had been in contact with Pons' lawyer, Mr. Triggs who said that they were busy working on a new patent which should be finished in about a month, but they would be fully co-operative during this time. He also said that Dr. Pons was asking for a sabbatical which would allow him to devote more time to Cold Fusion. Various members of the Panel pointed out that Pons and Fleischmann have an obligation to the State and must be accountable for the money they spend. Karen Morris, the Provost of Utah State College, who is a scientist and who seemed to have the clearest idea what was going on, said "We have coddled them and have been very reasonable". It was said that finally it had been possible to find a four-man panel to review the working of the NCFI as had been requested by various University groups. For some reason which was not given, great care was made not to reveal the four names, though heard that the physicist was Bob Adair - a well-known and respected person (am told the other three are also respected in their fields). After some discussion, the review committee was arranged for 7 November and the Fusion Advisory panel for the 8th (no connection with the 6 November elections) The charge to be given to the review panel was not expressed clearly but it seemed to be only to look at the present work of NCFI and see whether it were being carried out competently and according to normal scientific procedures. It appears that the charge was not to study to see whether there was anything in Cold Fusion. Their one-day spell at the NCFI seemed so crammed that they would not have time to answer such a question. After a 10-minute break, people were surprised when Mr. Tesch announced that he had phoned Mr. Triggs and a three-way phone meeting had then taken place between him, Triggs and Pons. Dr. Pons agreed to be back in Utah on 7 November. It was not said where Pons was phoning from. There was some discussion of going into secret session so that they could discuss patents (however see below about the secret of the patent). It was not said at the meeting, but in the report it is written that Dr. Pons had set up a series of 32 cells in January where he varied the following parameters; (1)size of cathode, (2)Temperature, (3) electrolyte composition, (4) pH, (5) current density, plus time as a sixth parameter. A second matrix of again 32 cells was set up later to study in particular (7) form of electrode, (8) methods of poisoning electrode, (9) solvent/electrode couples, (10) electrode composition, (11) solvent purity. It may be noted that none of these seems to be a special secret. Neutron, gamma-ray and X-rays would be measured from some of the cells. Was glad to see in the lab that there was some extra shielding against cosmics. 6. PATENTS OF PONS ET AL. The New Scientist of 10 November told that while Pons and Fleischmann remain coy about their work because of patents pending, patent offices have details which constitute a do-it-yourself guide. So on my way to work went into the World Intellectual Property Office beside the Place des Nations, and they very efficiently made me a copy just as the New Scientist said, for 11.50 S Fr. It was International Publication number WO 90/10935 with the publication date of 20 September 1990, though what is more important is the International Application number of PCT/US90/01328 of 12 March 1990. This is a "continuation-in-part" of 7 US patents with Priority Dates of 13 March to 16 May 1989. The Applicant is the University of Utah. The Inventors and Inventors/Applicants are Pons, Fleischann, Walling and Cheeves whose home addresses are given (according to press stories one of these addresses may be out of date). Marvin Hawkins is not (yet) listed. The patent is designated for all the 42 PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty) states - so it includes Burkino Faso, but does not include Mexico, Brazil, China, India, Israel, South Africa, etc. The Abstract says "The present invention involves an apparatus and method for generating energy, neutrons, tritium, or heat as a specific form of energy. The apparatus comprises a material such as a metal having a lattice struture capable of accumulating isotopic hydrogen atoms and means for accumulating isotopic hydrogen atoms in the metal to a chemical potential sufficient to induce the generation of the specific items. The sufficient chemical potential is, for example, enough to induce the generation of an amount of heat greater than a joule-heat equivalent used in accumulating the isotopic hydrogen atoms in the lattice structure to the desired chemical potential". Now what is very striking about this Abstract is what it does NOT say - the word "fusion" is never used whereas in all the publicity in March 1989 the whole idea was to use deuterium from sea-water to give fusion inside palladium! Unlimited Power from Fusion Without Pollution! This was the first time I had ever looked at a patent and as a scientist was horrified. I had this image that one describes the new invention, gives the experimental or theoretical information to justify it, and then stakes a claim on the basis of these. The reality is very different. Everything is terribly vague and general. Instead of talking of deuterium, which is the main material as it is abundant in the sea, one talks of "isotopic hydrogen atoms". The drawings are all "schematic" and greatly simplified, thus Fig. 1-8 is a plan for steam generation and the drawing consists of three concentric rings and a tube coming from a box labeled "steam generator" going into them and out back to the box( a friend described the drawings looking as if they came from a hundred year old school textbook). The only experimental graph of nuclear products, is Fig. 1-7, "spectrum, in counts per minute of beta-ray disintegrations from a heavy water sample" and consists of a smooth curve with a sharp peak at 5 keV. It does not look at all like a Kurie plot. There are no experimental points and no errors. For the question of excess heat there are a series of curves(again with no experimental points or errors). There are three tables of results of cells giving excess enthalpy. There is no experimental evidence for neutron production. The phrases are very general and the word "preferred" is used to qualify as in "A preferred metal is one of the group VIII or group IVA, palladium being the most preferred". Many suggestions are made for which no experimental or theoretical justification (just a hope) are given, e.g. "The invention also contemplates loading of lithium atoms into the lattice, either alone or preferably in combination with isotopic hydrogen atoms, to achieve nuclear fusion reactions". The 50 claims are very repetitive with only minor variations between one and the next. An example is No. 37 "The method as claimed in any of claims 32 to 36, further comprising the step of converting heat generated in said lattice to work". Finally there is the International Search Report - this was done in Holland and incredibly only found three references - it was dated 19 June 1990. After I read it through a second time, I could see that there was a careful form of logic, bringing back memories of closely reasoned mathematics. Learnt some more about patents from a friend who is an international patent lawyer (no connection with WIPO - he has not even been to Switzerland - yet). The main object is to build a fence round the region that contains your goodies And the more farflung the fence the better, to establish a monopoly, if possible The invention should be described sufficiently fully that so that after reading, it should be possible to construct it, but at the same time should not be so explicit that you are giving away your secrets. It is not necessary to give detailed scientific evidence as proof - the criteria are different. Now I understand better - my hopes were for a document with scientific value. But on the other hand am worried that for the case of the claims about neutron production, there are descriptions of the work, but there is no evidence, though there is some theory which shows that if you have tritium, you should also have neutrons. So if the Examiners do not read the literature (but only accept the International Search Report), they could easily accept the patent. However am told that the US (and Russian) Search Departments are more thorough. Cannot help remembering that Einstein worked in the Zurich patent office, though only for a short time - are the US Patent Examiners also good? This patent may have a problem. The first filing date of the first US patent application was 13 March 1989. Including the International Search, the filing of the US patents with WIPO in Geneva has to be done within 19 months - that is by 13 October 1990 and this has not been done. Now the US Patent Office is often slow, but if the U. of U's patent lawyers, Auchterlonie et al. of Houston, wish to be safe, they should check. For the minority who are interested, here are some more details of the patent - otherwise you are advised to skip to the next Section. It should be noted that this information is in the public domain. (0). Essentially Introduction Gives titles of 7 US patents (1, 3 and 4 are heat- generating, 5, 6, and 7 are for power-generation and No. 2 is for neutron-beam). Essentially apparatus produces heat by compressing low atomic weight nuclei, possibly involving nuclear fusion. "the charged lattice emits occasional bursts of neutrons, and/or undergoes short-duration periods of exceptional heat output" This suggests heat-generating nuclear chain reactions which may be stimulated by high energy particles or rays - at various stages all possible high and low energy particles are proposed to bombard the lattice. The basic aim seems to be to raise the chemical potential high enough to produce heat, neutrons, tritium - various means are suggested to accomplish this, particularly electrolysis (but gas pressure is not mentioned). The current is "preferably 2-2000 mA/cm2, although higher current levels up to about 10.000 mA/cm2 and even higher can be used in certain applications" (note if I understand rightly, this does not mean than Fleischmann and Pons have used 10.000 mA/cm2 ). They also write of heating the metal "to produce the chemical potential of at least about 0.5 eV in less than one microsecond". There follows a description of many drawings, generally very simple (though the first figure of a face-centred cube has a mistake in it). SECTION 1. HEAT GENERATING CONDITIONS WITHIN A METAL LATTICE A Metal Lattice Many odd things such as "the metal lattice should be capable without swelling". "Fusion.... may be favoured by fermionic metals" such as 46Pd105, 22Ti47, 22Ti49. Catalytic poisons are favoured. Casting or annealing are not favoured, though machining the surface may remove impurities. B. Electrolytic Compression Non-aqueous solvents are suggeted, e.g. deuterated alcohols. One mA/cm2 is described as the "minimum current level". A formula is derived for the time to charge a rod; time = 5 x (radius squared) / (diffusion coefficient) This gives 20 days to charge a 2 mm diameter rod! This is in complete contradiction with measurements of charging as described earlier by Drs. Storms and Wolf. A stacked cell with many elctrodes in one electrolyte bath is strongly preferred, but it is not clear if such a stacked cell has ever been used. C. Charging with Metal Hydrides Two alternatives are given - using mixtures of metal and metal hydrides, or high energy lasers to heat in less than one microsecond. D. Thin-Film Lattice It is suggested that the active part (Pd) could be a thin film, then many "embodiments" are suggested - again no evidence that this has been tried ( if my new understanding is correct, it is not necessary to try it experimentally). E High Energy Exciting of the Metal Lattice Bombardment with many particles of various (all) possible energies are suggested - even using accelerators. F. Heat and Neutron Generating Events "This section considers fusion- related heat generating events" based on experiments with "current densities between about 0.7 up to 70 mA/cm2" (note fig.III_8 which is Fig 8 of Pons's paper at the First Annual Conference, shows that there is a threshold of about 64 mA/cm2). Later is written "At higher current densities of 1.2 mA/cm2 and 1.6 mA/cm2 excess enthalpy generation of >9% and >25%......was observed". These values are claimed "to be reproducible in three sets of long term measurements". The very low current densities used here appear to give positive results though elsewhere it is claimed that these are too low and are the reason for "failures", i.e. negative findings. This is perhaps the only place where reproducibility is claimed. Table 1-A gives the excess specific heat results - basically the same as the tables in the original Fleischmann and Pons paper. It is claimed that tritium accumulates in the electrolyte, but the value of 100 dpm/ml is given - this is what might be expected by normal electrolytic separation of tritium since tritium always occurs in the heavy water as explained in the DOE Panel report and such low counting rates should not be taken as evidence of tritium production. G. Application; Electrical Generator Standard description but finishes by talking of pollution; "The apparatus uses deuterium, a virtually inexhaustable source of energy, to produce heat, and the products of the reaction -- tritium and presumably isotopes of helium-- are either short-lived (tritium) or relatively benign (helium)." Curious - neutrons are never mentioned though with fusion giving the energy, one Watt should produce a billion billion neutrons per second - and these neutrons often convert the material of the walls etc to other isotopes which can be radioactive with many different half-lifes. H. Reactor products Recovery Essentially discusses a standard set-up to recover tritium - a subject of some interest to constructors of hydrogen bombs! SECTION II Neutron Generation and Applications. The introduction talks of "compression and mobility in the lattice which is sufficient to produce neutron-generating events" - but does not mention fusion! It then says this has been "discovered" but no reference is given. Then it says that one explanation is that it is plausible that the high compression could give close collisions which would give dd rections producing t + p or 3He + n. It notes the neutrons from a 1 mm diameter rod, were measured using an Harwell Neutron Dose Equivalent Monitor. Despite the low efficiency, 2.4 E -4, "these experiments monitored neutron generation levels severalfold above background". This episode, with the Harwell counter etc., is described in detail in Frank Close's book. It is interesting that later in the patent application, it is written "possibly....neutrons were detected" and a reference is given to their first paper. Thus it seems they are aware that the neutron measurements are very suspect. It is said the current densities are between 0.7 and 70 mA/cm2 which again is inconsistent with the proposition that only high current densities give high loadings. Applications; A. Neutron Beam Generator, B. Neutron Radiography, C. Neutron Difraction, D. Radiative Neutron Capture. All standard descriptions of what to do if you do have a neutron beam. Also mentions higher energy neutrons of 17.58 MeV from the dt reaction. Adds a modern application - detection of explosive devices for airport security. Also will treat solid tumours. SECTION III. Detailed Analysis of Enthalpic Heat Production. This is the most scientific section in that it "relates to additional findings that deuterium highly compressed by cathodic polarization in a palladium host lattice generate enthalpy in excess of....input", "typically 1-20 Watts/cm3". "the most surprising feature of these results.... is that the enthalpy release apparently is not due to either of the well-established fusion reactions d + d ---> t + p, d + d ---> 3He + n. "Although levels of tritium and, possibly neutrons were detected, the enthalpy release was primarily one which is aneutronic and atritonic". The experiments and results on calorimetry are described - these are close to the paper of Dr. Pons at the First Annual Cold Fusion meeting, March 1990. The analysis was carried out using their "black box" calculations with a non-linear regression analysis using four parameters - this has been commented on previously. There is one curious statement "the most significant blanks" are "The experiments carried out on the 0.8 cm diameter Pd electrodes in D2O" "which give zero excess enthalpy". Most people would say the opposite. There is a new claim of 100 Watts/cm3. They still support the view that "steady-state" enthalpy generation occurs in the bulk of the electrode, though less sure now. From Fig III-9 (which was fig 8 in Pons's paper), a threshold in the current density is seen - however they do not say that the figure suggests a threshold of 64 mA/cm2 which would be in contradiction with earlier claims! It is interesting that they give as their last reference, the Harwell experiment of David Williams et al. which was devastatingly negative despite help from Martin Fleischmann. However could not see any comment or reference to it in the text, so that an Examiner could easily miss the great importance of this experiment (and many others). CLAIMS The 50 claims are very extensive but often vary little from one to another, but guess these are the rules of the game. Number 12 is "the Apparatus as claimed in any of claims 1 to 11, wherein said latice structure is fermionic metal". Number 17 suggests adding boron, beryllium or carbon-14. It is not until Claim 23 that electrolysis is mentioned. It is interesting that helium production is not claimed. CONCLUSION To sum up, the patent application was interesting to help understand how patent law works, but one learns little scientifically, though there are ideas for new applications. The big question is if the Patent Examiners will be able to evaluate ALL the evidence, positive and negative - if they can find it! 7. TEXAS A&M REVIEW PANEL In Science of June 15 there were stories reporting contamination of helium in Palladium reported by Kevin Wolf and a report by Gary Taubes of worries inside Texas A&M about the surprising results obtained by Prof. Bockris's group of tritium production and the possibility of "spiking" of the tritium samples. The Texas A&M authorities wisely and quickly set up a panel to report on these happenings. The panel had three members, Profs Fry, Natowitz and Poston, all of Texas A&M. It is always a worry that an internal report will tend to be a whitewash job, but this report is well done and written in a very practical and common-sense way. The report first gives the charge to the panel and this was not a restrictive charge as sometimes happens. It lists 8 charges to be included but the review was not to be limited to these. Number 5 was "are the findings of tritium consistent in principle with results from other laboratories?" - this is excellent in that they are asked to look at ALL the results; just hope the 4-man Panel of NCFI have a similar charge to look outside the Institute and look at ALL the results. There is first an overview which says "the general scientific community remains sceptical of the claimed interpretation that a cold nuclear fusion process is occurring." They conclude "the picture remains cloudy." They found there were 5 groups doing Cold Fusion experiments, the leaders being Drs Bockris, Appleby, Wolf, Martin and (Marsh and Gammon). Initially "funding was accomplished by diverting existing research contracts.... with the knowledge and agreement of the funding agencies" which include ONR, EPRI, SERI, DOE, etc. The groups of Drs Bockris and Wolf are continuing. Dr Appleby' group found no evidence for tritium or radiations and have concentrated on excess heat. Dr Martin has left the University and Drs Marsh and Gammon have stopped. "The first local claim of verification, based on calorimetric measurements, was made by Martin, Marsh and Gammon in a press conference on April 10 1989. Subsequently, it was concluded that this work contained experimental errors and was not conclusive." Marsh and Gammon carried out some 40 more experiments before stopping. The Appleby group observed an "excess energy" of 10% in a very precise experiment, but later experiments obtained lower excesses of >3%. No evidence for nuclear products was found. The Bockris group observed very high levels of tritium in April and May and again in November but "Since that time, no additional cells have been reported to have unusual levels of tritium and such measurements are not a group priority". Some cells have apparently given excess heat and one of these also gave tritium "but the time correlation was not established." "In recent months the Bockris group has concentrated on the physical electrochemistry of deuterium in Pd and has not focussed on either tritium measurements or calorimetry." All this sounds different from the tone of claims made. The Martin group constructed 78 cells - no evidence for cold fusion and no tritium above normal enrichment. The Wolf group initially checked the cells of the Bockris and Martin groups and reported low level neutrons in some cells. Later they studied 50 D2O and 50 H2O cells and found two of the D2O cells gave tritium, but found that this could be due to spot contamination of the Pd. The group is continuing with gas phase experiments underground. The panel concluded that while there were early indications of Cold Fusion, "the large majority of recent experiments have not produced such evidence. These results seem to represent a microcosm of the world-wide efforts in this area" though there are still "significant positive results" at times from elsewhere. The Conclusions and Recommendations were well-written and with understanding. A. Research Procedures; early "quick and dirty" searches are often justified. Now a well-developed plan has been made with EPRI, "known for its careful monitoring of sponsored research". They make the point that science is a human activity and there had been a breakdown of scientific objectivity in evaluating some data and in also language which described experiments as "successes" or as "failures". B. personal relationships; initial frictions caused by announcement of results via non-standard channels, etc. Later frictions caused by non-reproducibility of data and intemperate language. C. Ethics; "a very serious breech of academic procedure may have been the handling of Nigel Packham's disseration defense." "there must be no artificial time restraints" on oral questions, and not 10 minutes. D. Publication; problems came from publication by leaking preliminary results to the news media". When a research publication is found to be in error, "They should at the minimum, be retracted via the same venue by which they were originally made known. In particular, if an announcement is made by press conference and a retraction is necessary, it should be by a press conference". However the Panel is realistic as it added "The human reaction is to avoid a retraction". E. Financial Support; "No justification for large investments". In the future, "cold fusion research should be judged on an equal basis with other peer-reviewed research". Glad to see the phrase "peer-reviewed" that was missing from the DOE Panel's final report. TRITIUM FINDINGS; The very high tritium levels found by the Bockris group have been also reported elsewhere (BARC), but most results are of very low level consistent with known separation factors. Some tritium contamination has been observed but not enough to account for the very high levels. For the question of "tritium spiking" by someone, "we have found no evidence which would lead to the conclusion that some of the cells were spiked with tritium. Circumstantial evidence...relatively high tritium levels observed, the surprisingly large amounts of light water present in some of the Bockris cells, and the lack of tight security in the laboratories....None of these provides a convincing argument". This seems clear, but it is only in this area where the Panel's work was weak. They mention Dr. Storms' work but not that he finds that if tritium is produced in the palladium, the tritium goes into the gas and not into the electrolyte where it was claimed to have been found. Also to convert circumstantial evidence into numerical evidence, it would have been good if the panel had made a table of all the cells and listed the tritium found and the amount of light water in each to see if there was a correlation. However maybe it is better and kinder just to conclude within the Panel "While it is not possible for us to exclude categorically spiking as a possibility, it is our opinion, that possibility is much less probable than that of inadvertant contamination or other unexplained factors in the measurement". Overall an excellent report. 8. BOOK "TOO HOT TO HANDLE" OF FRANK CLOSE. The first major book on Cold Fusion will be published shortly. It is by Frank Close who is a well-known particle physicist who has written several popular science books. It is called "Too Hot to Handle" and will be issued in Europe about the 24 January by W. H. Allen at a price of 14.99 pounds sterling. When Frank was in CERN last week he told that it should be issued in the States in March. (There was a very early book by an author who had written other good books of a popular science nature (e.g. his "Superstrings and T.O.E." is excellent) but this book was far too early and had bad reviews - he told me that he was intending to write a second version, but have not heard from him since or seen him at any of the numerous Cold Fusion conferences). Frank has written a serious review of the subject (376 pages) and it took me a while to read it (also because was sent two earlier versions that were full of typos, but now have the hardback copy). It contains quite a lot of things that I did not know. Although it is a general review it particularly concentrates on two subjects - on the early history and the curious Fleischmann and Pons neutron result. For both of these he obtained some interesting recordings and which he puts together to make a very complete history. It can be seen that at the time of the 23 March 1989 press conference, Fleischmann and Pons had very little real data - one can understand Martin saying that he would have prefered to do more experiments before announcing Cold Fusion. It must be admitted that they do not come out of it too well, but feel that Frank has been rather kind, for while he presents the facts, he is gentle with his conclusions. Read the book with an eye to see if he could be sued for libel, but feel that he has been careful and the facts are so well documented, that he probably will not be, and if he were, he would win easily. Overall it is a good read and not too technical. The particle physics is particularly well explained. The next book will probably be that by Gary Taubes (who wrote the Science article about Texas A&M). It should again be an interesting book and would expect it to be fairly different from Frank's book - in fact they probably will be complementary. It will tend to rather "hot", but it should be remembered that he was not sued over his previous book. The subject of Cold Fusion is vast and there are many more aspects of it to be considered such as the electrochemical and material science aspects. John Huizenga who was co-Chairman of the DOE Panel, is starting to write a book and gather it will be different from the other two. There are rumours that Profs. Fleischmann and/or Pons are also writing a book and it is guaranteed to be different from the other three books! It begins to seem like the Bloomsbury set, with everyone writing books about everyone else even 70 years afterwards ( there was one just the other day by someone in his nineties who still remembers Virginia Wolff clearly). And the books sell! 9. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE The subject and literature of Cold Fusion continues and grows with time. The vast majority of the World's scientists do not believe that one will ever get useful energy production from an electrolytic or other cell. About the question of whether there are any nuclear products, find the opinions more dispersed. Many believe there is nothing in it at all but many others wish there was just a little bit of nuclear products for it would be sad if there was really nothing and also there have been so many reports they cannot all be wrong - can they? For people working with nuclear products who have studied the reports (this is a very small part of the population), the conclusion from combining the positive results and the negative results (which often have upper limits which are often much less than the positive values claimed), is that there is nothing there. The dubious logic and internal inconsistencies of the positive results reported, reinforce this conclusion. Pathological Science gives the most consistent explanation of all the results. None the less, the numerous positive results if examined not too critically, sound convincing to many who feel that there are unexplained mysteries which merit futher investigation. Thus expect some funding agencies such as EPRI and US government agencies, to continue supporting some nuclear products experiments. There is a sufficiently large number of people around the world that they form a community, as Steve Jones said, and will probably continue experiments and meetings for some time yet. Whether Utah will continue to fund their National Cold Fusion Institute depends a bit on the report of the four man Panel - feel the political masters would be quite happy to be able to say that the work justifies further funding and that they were right to fund it initially. Thus media reports on Cold Fusion will probably be with us for some time yet. Douglas R. O. Morrison. PS The ski season looks like being good in Europe this year starting with half a metre at the end of October and much more at the end of November giving 1.80 metres, but some of it was blown away, but this helped to fill the crevasses on the Mont Fort glacier so that this year little straw was needed (though one of my favourite off-piste runs has a large green hole in it). PPS. Now it is snowing heavily over much of Western Europe and the snow-ploughs were out in CERN this morning - too much snow now. cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenmorrison cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszXL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / Mark North / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: north@manta.NOSC.MIL (Mark H. North) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 10 Dec 90 00:09:17 GMT Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego In article <1990Dec9.030242.25817@cs.cmu.edu> vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: > >Paul Dietz: >>An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the >>theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER >>REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. >>Naw, too radical. > >Paul Koloc: >>To do credible work, a whole range of energies and diagnostics are >>necessary. "Building one" just doesn't cut it. We have done that. >>Acceptable work requires about two million dollars. >>[...] >>Radical?.. In an aggressive, hard driving, "in for the long haul" >>country, perhaps not. But then in such a place this problem wouldn't >>arise in the first place. > >Look @#%!, the reason you are having trouble getting money is not because >there is nobody in the U.S.A. that would invest in a good idea that took >more than 5 years to develop, it is simply that you have NOT DEMONSTRATED >any ability to do the fusion you claim you can do. > >If you claim your little ball lightning things are doing ***FUSION*** >show some evidence!!!! Find some tritium or neutrons. Do some calorimetry. >If you can make your little balls already there is now way at all you >can claim you need 2 million to do "acceptable work". If you can demo >something that produces lots of neutrons even when an investor brings Mr Koloc does not believe that neutrons are necessarily a signature of fusion. I, on the other hand, believe neutrons are a sufficient signature of fusion (if they have the proper energy spectra etc). If you show me neutrons I will consider opening my wallet. Mark cudkeys: cuddy10 cudennorth cudfnMark cudlnNorth cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.09 / Paul Houle / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: pahsnsr@nmt.edu (Paul A. Houle) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 9 Dec 90 23:23:30 GMT Organization: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology I think that Paul Koloc is probably sincere. He might be totally wrong, but he's been on this PLASMAK (tm) kick for more than a decade; there are scams that are much more efficent than that! He never has claimed to have produced significant rates of fusion in a PLASMAK. Essentially, he's claiming that, if his magnetoplasmoids behave the way he thinks they do, he could squeeze them until they begin to fuse. This could fail -- the plasmoids might pop well before that pressure is reached. Back of the notepad calculations that I've made estimate that if he forms his plasmoids at 1 atm, he'll have to expose them to pressures on the order of 100 to 1000 atm. This is not something you can do easily in your garage, although it's alot simpler to generate those kind of pressures than it is to build an engineering breakeven reactor. Paul Koloc has one of the better theories of Ball Lightning around. Like all Ball Lightning researchers, he writes off the cases that don't fit his theory. My only real complaint with one of his papers is that he describes one case as "a large ball coming down from the sky", while most other sources seem to agree that witness said it was "about the size of an orange." A PMK the size of an orange wouldn't be able to do all the damage that this Ball lighting did (boiling a tub of water) His theory doesn't require any radical new physics, unlike the 'Boson Vortex' model that Convectron is working on in the Netherlands (it makes cold fusion look respectable) -- These guys actually claim they get neutrons when they shoot deuteurium gas at high speed through an arc. If I was doing an experiment like that, I'd be more afraid that it would work than that i would fail! If you look at the chaotic field of Ball Lightning, I'd be willing to say that Paul Koloc is better than average. In all, I don't think he's a crook. He might be crazy, but he's not a crook. -- cudkeys: cuddy9 cudenpahsnsr cudfnPaul cudlnHoule cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 10 Dec 90 01:15:51 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Dec9.030242.25817@cs.cmu.edu> vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent A. Cate) writes: >Paul Dietz: >>An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the >>theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER >>REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. >>Naw, too radical. >Paul Koloc: >>To do credible work, a whole range of energies and diagnostics are >>necessary. "Building one" just doesn't cut it. We have done that. >>Acceptable work requires about two million dollars. >>[...] >>Radical?.. In an aggressive, hard driving, "in for the long haul" >>country, perhaps not. But then in such a place this problem wouldn't >>arise in the first place. >Look @#%!, the reason you are having trouble getting money is not because >there is nobody in the U.S.A. that would invest in a good idea that took >more than 5 years to develop, it is simply that you have NOT DEMONSTRATED >any ability to do the fusion you claim you can do. >If you claim your little ball lightning things are doing ***FUSION*** >show some evidence!!!! ^^^^^ ^^^^^^ What??? I have NOT claimed to have produced fusion with PLASMAK(tm) plasmoids. I claim to have produced and to be able to produce the PHYSICAL EMBODIMENT of the configuration, that WHEN generated using fusionable (aneutronic) fuel and sufficiently mechanically compressed within a fluid blanket, WILL PRODUCE (do) COMMERCIAL THERMONUCLEAR fusion (aneutronic energy, if you prefer). The same sort of claim made by DoE for the tokamak, EXCEPT they only require another 20 or 30 billion to make one BIG enough with enough auxiliary heating, etc. . and even then they may not get past SCIENTIFIC breakeven using neutronic fuel. So should this DoE COMMERCIAL VENTURE stop receiving the substantial fraction of a BILLION dollars they are funded each year, and instead should they dig it out of their own pockets or outside investors?? Certainly! YES, by all means. Plasma science can be funded from NSF. There may be other agencies that require a similar application of funding policy. THEN, we (USA) could compete in the world, and make fusion and at last be able to reach for the stars. >Find some tritium or neutrons. SOME??? (Helium in this case). The claim is that on the first try (after reaching full compression), we will produce a COMMERCIAL Breakeven Fusion Burn. >If, on the other hand, you are willing to con money off of people by >lying .. . . We don't have any interest in running a confidence game or lying or swindling anyone. I have been at this for a very long time, and IF the first generation of the idea was a ruse then I doubt seriously that the DoE or the national laboratories would have researched it (the Spheromak). One might expect that if a rugged, stable plasma configuration is at all possible, then it would probably exist in nature. The PLASMAK(tm) concept may well be an artificial form of natural Ball Lightning and have the topology of the magnetic entities that decay into sun spots. There is no need to "con" anyone. >There seems to be little danger of the SEC as **Peripheral's** stock has >gone from $6 down to $0.25 and the SEC still can not find an investor who >is willing to press charges. What's the point? -- You didn't buy Peripheral's stock so you can't press charges with the SEC ?? :-( +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / Vincent Cate / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 10 Dec 90 08:44:09 GMT Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon >Paul Dietz: >>An even more novel idea: build one of these devices to prove the >>theory, write a paper about it, and GET IT PUBLISHED IN A PEER >>REVIEWED JOURNAL! *Then* solicit funds for development. > >Paul Koloc: >>To do credible work, a whole range of energies and diagnostics are >>necessary. "Building one" just doesn't cut it. We have done that. ***************************************************** Paul Koloc >What??? >I have NOT claimed to have produced fusion with PLASMAK(tm) plasmoids. >[...] So you have NOT done the "Build one" that you implied. You have built something but not something to prove your theory. You do not need a whole range of energies and diagnostics, just significant fusion products. If you can demo of fusion, the world will beat a pathway to your door. Really. >>There seems to be little danger of the SEC as **Peripheral's** stock has >>gone from $6 down to $0.25 and the SEC still can not find an investor who >>is willing to press charges. > >What's the point? -- You didn't buy Peripheral's stock so you can't >press charges with the SEC ?? :-( The point was you can raise lots of money even without having any ability to make a real product and not have to worry much about the SEC. No, I did not buy any. I wanted to sell it short but it was already below $5 and the SEC will not let people sell stocks short that are selling for less than $5. This explains why almost all of the fraudulent companies have stock prices under $5 - anything over this gets sold short and then exposed for a tidy profit. -- Vince cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / sheely@groucho / BYU conference Originally-From: sheely@groucho Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: BYU conference Date: 10 Dec 90 20:22:37 GMT Organization: University of Idaho, Moscow I would like to thank Douglas Morrison for his notes which he has so kindly made available to us. For the most part I agree with the things he has written. There are a few areas which I would dissigree with, however. I have commented on some of these below. > Steve Jones reported on their work with Howard and others in a lead mine in > the village called appropriately, Leadville. Being deep underground, the > background is greatly reduced, from 23400 to 75 counts/hour for the singles and > the correlation rate from 300 to 1/20 per hour - great improvements and this > despite problems with humidity in the mine. To understand this experiment > it is important to know that they did not count singles when on the surface > as the rate was too high. Not true, Steve Jones did count singles while on the surface. (by surface I refer to the BYU under-ground lab where BYU's original experiments were run. The lab is close to the surface.) > So what they do is every time a count is observed they > open a gate (typically for 128 microseconds) and if a second pulse is recorded > then they score a correlation. Then this second pulse has a gate opened for it > and again if another single occurs within the gate a correlation is recorded - > and also if this third single occurs within the gate of the first single, then > a correlation is recorded for it too. Steve Jones does have such a detector, disigned to detect bursts of neutrons, however, this is not the detector which was used to collect his original data. > But the main point is that > this is not a simple conventional statistical problem. Also it should be noted > that the figures are labelled "counts" but it should really be "correlations'. > But the solution is clear - having gone down a mine to reduce background > drastically, one should make use of it and drop entirely this complicated > correlation system and use normal electronics to count singles. Then any > bursts can be obtained from straightforward analysis that all can understand. This detector was built after it was (discovered?) that neutrons were being produced in bursts. The design of this detector was to enable the detection of large bursts of neutrons without detecting interferences while bursts are not occuring. The overall result is to greatly reduce the background, but also it cuts out any fusion events which may occure which do not occure in bursts. This design of this detector was a wise atempt to answer some of the questions concerning cold fusion and neutrons. I agree it should not be the only detector used, but it does add to our knowledge of what is, or isn't happening, and should therefore continue to be used in conjunction with other detectors. > A general comment - this was intended to be a Workshop where people with > positive results on nuclear effects met and compared results and tried to find > what they had in common to plan future experiments. I saw no effort to incourage only possitive results at the conference. On the contrary those with negative results were incourage to attend. Although I do agree there were a noticable lack of them at the conference. The only attempt I saw to discourage participation in the conference was that the conference was designed to concentrate on the measurement of fusion products Those who claimed fusion or the lack thereof without an attempt at measuring fusion products were not invited to participate. Steve Jones, as with most of the rest of us would love to be able to determine in all cases why some experiments yield positive results and others negative. This can only be done by comparing the experiments. Such comparision was incouraged by the conferance organizers. I came away from the conference at BYU with a much different view than Dr. Morrison. Although I concure completely with him that none of the experimental evidence presented at the conferece could conclusivily prove the existanece of fusion with-in metals as has been claimed, I believing a surprising amount of evidence has been presented in its favor. The results of many well performed experiments, and some not so well performed, were presented at the conference. Neutrons were detected at the Jones level by many different groups using vastly different methods of detection. Many of the experiments showed good consistant repeatability. Methods of quinching the reactions which if true explain away many of the negative results presented by other groups were presented. As Dr. Morrison made clear, there have been experiments capable of measuring neutrons at the Jones level which have been negative, alothough not many. Most of the experimenters reporting negative results have not had suitable equipment for measuring neutrons at the rate claimed by Jones et al. If results presented at the conference are correct, most of the negative results which did have adequit equipment could easily be explained. It is sad that more people who have had negative results with neutron detection were not at the conference to discuss their work. Such could have been very informative. I must agree with Morrison that the work presented on tritium detection was not very convencing. Hopefully planned experiments involving the direct measurement of tritons will be more believable, whether possitive or negative. That is not to say that good atempts to measure tritium have not been made. Measurements at the concentrations in question are difficult to make. Eugene Sheely sheely@neon.chem.uidaho.edu Department of Chemistry, University of Idaho, Moscow Id. 83843 cudkeys: cuddy10 cudensheely cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 10 Dec 90 17:56:59 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <1990Dec10.084409.21853@cs.cmu.edu> vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) writes: >So you have NOT done the "Build one" that you implied. You have built >something but not something to prove your theory. You are taking my statement out of context. The major contentions were: 1. Can such an all plasma confinement system exist, according to our topological description? 2. If it can, then can it be made repeatably and reliably in the laboratory?? 3. Will it be as long lived and stable as predicted. Note: NO ONE before this has produced such plasmoids reliably. Item two showed us that they could be formed at remarkably low thresholds (energy input). The last item gave us a surprise, since the plasmoids lasted much much longer than predicted and required a modification (enhancement) of the theory to explain it. True, we have not compressed a fueled PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid. However, adiabatic toroidal compression is NOT our theory. It is a well accepted and powerful engineering tool used to heat tokamaks, for example. Unfortunately, due to the internal radial barrier of the iside wall (the portion closest and surrounding the toroidal chamber's large central hole), a tokamak can only utilize a very small fraction of this advantageous technique's capability. The superior means of producing an adiabatic toroidal compression on a PMK is our invention. Here, the engineering is not a really big problem, since strong fluid compressions have been made for a century or so. Further the plasma increases in conductivity (stability) and the field increases in strength (energy and confinement) during such a compression. >You do not need a whole range of energies and diagnostics, just significant >fusion products. If you can demo of fusion, the world will beat a pathway >to your door. Really. I think investors are more sophisticated then credit you give them. So Wrong! Tokamaks produce "fusion products", as well as Jone's type of CF experiments. However, NEITHER the Public Utilities have supported the DoE experiment (rather have shunned it), NOR do I see investors flocking to Jone's door step. For the LOW RISK TAKERS, a COMMERCIAL Break Even Burn (CBEF) is now required after the years of "We (DoE) are working toward fusion in 2050 and only need 20-50 billion of your tax money as investment". Incidentally, it takes no less money to produce a few fusion products with this technology, than it does to produce a PLASMAK(tm) CBEF. >The point was you can raise lots of money even without having any >ability to make a real product and not have to worry much about the SEC. Then it doesn't apply to us, does it? Secondly, Prometheus II, Ltd. has never sold ANY stock; we are privately held. One other associated company has not sold stock except to insiders over the last five years. Insiders are those people who are all using their skills to get this project off the ground. Admittedly, it's slow; however, we don't have that much further (technical roughness scale) to go. It just costs . 2*10^7$ (unaccelerated). > I wanted to sell it [.Peripheral.] short but it was >already below $5 and the SEC will not let people sell stocks short >that are selling for less than $5. You didn't move quick enough?? With the accuracy of your speculations, I can see why you missed the opportunity. :-( Remember no risk; little or no gain. Cheer up.. you still have your money, put it in CDs, and maybe you can sell us short someday. If and when we go that route. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / SD558F Peterson / Re: Review of Cold Fusion - Douglas Morrison Originally-From: gdpeters@watserv1.waterloo.edu ( SD558F Course - GD Peterson ) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: Review of Cold Fusion - Douglas Morrison Date: 10 Dec 90 21:54:02 GMT Organization: University of Waterloo I read in the local paper that the Cold Fusion guys, along with their families have 'disapeared'. Their houses are for sale and their kids have been taken out of school. Does anyone know whats up? garry gdpeters@watserv1.waterloo.edu cudkeys: cuddy10 cudengdpeters cudfnSD558F cudlnPeterson cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszS cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.10 / Barry Merriman / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: barry@wilshire.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: 10 Dec 90 22:52:32 GMT Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math, UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research In article <1990Dec10.011551.11439@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >IF the >first generation of the idea was a ruse then I doubt seriously that the >DoE or the national laboratories would have researched it (the Spheromak). Could you clarify why the Spheromak didn't work, but the PLASMAK will? (I gather you want the plasmak to compress itself to the ignition point, whereas the Spheromak maintained a fixed size. But still, wasn't the Spheromak beset by the usual MHD intstabilities, and nonclassical energy transport that plague the Tokamak? My Spheromak history is a little vague, so I'd appreciate a little refresher course. Also, why was the Spheromak abandoned in favor of Tokamaks?) -- Barry Merriman UCLA Dept. of Math UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet) cudkeys: cuddy10 cudenbarry cudfnBarry cudlnMerriman cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.11 / siegman / Re: PLASMAK commercialization Originally-From: siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK commercialization Date: 11 Dec 90 04:58:31 GMT Organization: Stanford University In article <1990Dec8.140713.16455@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: > ................. T. Maiman (Hughes Research, Malibu) >produced the first laser repeatedly, did diagnostics and his paper >was rejected by each end every single American journal to which it >was submitted (six in toto). Apparently, the laser hadn't been noted >in any text books RPark had read.. . :-) . I'd be very interested to hear more details on this, e.g., a reference, or at least the names of the six journals. I was aware that Maiman's first laser paper was rejected by the first journal he sent it to (Phys. Rev.?). According to the story as I've heard it, the editor failed to realize it was a laser paper (i.e., an optical device), thought it was just another ruby microwave maser paper, and decided (not entirely without justification) that there had been enough of those already. The manuscript was then somehow acquired by a very minor British journal and published by them without Maiman's knowledge or permission (again, as I've heard the story). But rejection by _six_ major journals? More details would be much appreciated... --A. E. Siegman, Stanford University cudkeys: cuddy11 cudensiegman cudlnsiegman cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.11 / Jim Bowery / Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Originally-From: jim@pnet01.cts.com (Jim Bowery) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK - Another f*sion scam? Date: Tue, 11 Dec 90 15:24:23 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Vincent Cate's attack on Paul Koloc was unwarranted and boarders on slander. It has been quite clear to me from reading Koloc's messages that he has constructed a device which produces a very interesting stable plasma phenomena which he does not believe to be producing fusion. Further, it is clear from his posts that this device was rather crude. If indeed he has gotten this far on his own resources, he should be viewed as heroic, not sleazy. His claims that he can produce fusion with this stable plasma may or may not be true -- that will be for investors to find out... that is if there are any investors after some wire service picks up on the latest "fusion scandal." In the meantime, although I am quite libertarian in my philosophy about technology development, I certainly don't object, even philosphically, to having my (and your) tax dollars spent on further investigations of Mr. Koloc's theory of ball lightning. The results of such research would be basic scientific knowledge about a law of nature and would not, therefore, be patentable. If his model of ball lightning is validated in a laboratory setting, then the engineering of his device (which he has already designed and therefore holds intellectual property rights to) to a level which will create fusion is quite likely to succeed -- particularly compared to the knuckle-headed stuff currently going on in the name of "engineering physics" on my tax dollar. In that case, private investors will be beating a path to his door to set up his "commercial" version which, I suspect, would have plenty of detectors of all kinds. Bottom line: do the science well on government funds and the engineering risks will be manageable under private funds. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Bowery 619/295-8868 Income != Wealth PO Box 1981 Tax Wealth La Jolla, CA 92038 Not Income ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenjim cudfnJim cudlnBowery cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.11 / Raul Baragiola / Question to Believers Originally-From: rb9a@watt.acc.Virginia.EDU (Raul Baragiola) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Question to Believers Date: 11 Dec 90 21:58:21 GMT Organization: University of Virginia I believe many people have indeed seen signals coming from cold-fusion type experiments, at very low levels. Can these signals be separated from noise? I am imagining that sharp electromagnetic pulses may be produced in the electrochemical cell, due to formation of microscopic defects, for instance when an oxide layer is broken. It is known, for instance, that fracture of metals or melting or other mechanical changes causes the emission of bursts of electrons. This is called exoemission and has been studied for decades. Such a burst of electrons can create an electromagnetic pulse which can conceivably be picked up by the detector, pre-amplified, amplified, and then end up in the counting circuits. They could even be detected by several detectors at once if they are very sensitive to EM noise. This appears possible to me since detectors are usually shielded from _outside_, but not from inside noise. If this can occur, perhaps the neutron detectors and electronics should be enclosed in Faraday cages. Has this been done? Raul A. Baragiola \Internet: raul@virginia.edu Dept. Nuclear Engnr. and Engnr. Physics \Phone: (804)-982-2907 University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22901 \ Fax: (804)-924-6270 cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenrb9a cudfnRaul cudlnBaragiola cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.11 / Vincent Cate / more from Morrison Originally-From: vac@crux.fac.cs.cmu.edu (Vincent Cate) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: more from Morrison Date: 11 Dec 90 23:38:56 GMT Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon Dear Dr. Sheeley, 11 December 1990. Thanks for your comments, glad you like the Update overall. May I comment a little on your comments; 1. "Steve Jones reported on their work with Howard...". This means that one is talking about the Menlove experiment at Los Alamos in which Steve was a collaborator. This recorded bursts of neutrons. As far as I know they did not record singles - please correct me if I am wrong. Is it possible there is some confusion with another experiment, the original BYU experiment in which Howard was not involved? 2. Again I was talking of Steve's talk where he was speaking about the Menlove work in which he collaborated. 3. Prefer clean experiments which are easy to understand and have a clear statistical analysis. 4. Sorry did not see clear positive attempts to encourage presentation of all results by those with upper limits - was anyone asked to review such results? Or to review ALL results? 5. Will send you a review where ALL results are summarised - it may be seen that many upper limits are below the Jones et al. experiment - that is their equipment was often superior as can be seen from noting the background level (this review can also be obtained from Vince Cate and it appeared as article 1435 on the net). 6. It is quite normal that you came away from the BYU conference with a different opinion since almost all talks had positive results. The Update was partly aimed to give a more balanced account by including information not available at the conference. I look forward to seeing the results of the experiment that Steve Jones promised to do in the Kamiokande detector in December or January. If they find neutrons it will be a decisive result. If they do not find neutrons it will be very hard to explain away. Have just received from Dr. Totsuka a copy of "Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Elementary Particle Picture of the Universe", available from KEK, the National Laboratory for High Energy. It contains a number of interesting papers, one of which is "A Proposal of a Cold Fusion Experiment at Kamioka". Best Wishes, Douglas R. O. Morrison. morrison@vxprix.decnet.cern.ch cudkeys: cuddy11 cudenvac cudfnVincent cudlnCate cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.12 / Paul Koloc / Re: PLASMAK or Spheromak vs. Tokamak (was Scam) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: PLASMAK or Spheromak vs. Tokamak (was Scam) Date: 12 Dec 90 02:10:35 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <871@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU> barry@wilshire.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes: >In article <1990Dec10.011551.11439@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) writes: >>IF the >>first generation of the idea was a ruse then I doubt seriously that the >>DoE or the national laboratories would have researched it (the Spheromak). > >Could you clarify why the Spheromak didn't work, but the PLASMAK will? >(I gather you want the plasmak to compress itself to the ignition point, >whereas the Spheromak maintained a fixed size. You mean that WE would compress the PLASMAK(tm) plasmoid (PMK) -- yes! It would be nice if they could be "influenced" to compress themselves (before ignition). Stable compressibility and higher densities, confinement time and temperatures that result from it are very critical. But that is not the only advantage, for what do you do with your high density fusion power if it works. PLASMAK(tm) technology has a fusion impervious first wall (Mantle) and fusion energy reservoir (dense fluid blanket). It also has a means of producing electric power directly by fusion energized blanket and PMK expulsion through an Inductive MHD generator. It's a much lighter mass (weight) confinement topology than the tokamak, by a multitude of orders of magnitude, so it looks like it can be utilized in special futuristic applications that we dream about or are entertained by when we see a "Star Wars" movie. Further, it is potentially as environmentally clean as one can get for such performance. >But still, wasn't the Spheromak beset by the usual MHD instabilities, >and nonclassical energy transport that plague the Tokamak? My Spheromak >history is a little vague, so I'd appreciate a little refresher course. No, the Spheromak configuration is ideally MHD stable with sufficient conductivity and a tightly fitting (highly conducting) shell. However, there is a class of pseudo Spheromaks, that does not use a tightly fitting conducting shell as the external pressure boundary. These came about in an effort to produce more heating by using adiabatic toroidal compression. So these false Spheromaks are pressure confined, not by image currents in a spheroidal shell, but rather by the currents externally driven in a "fixed" (vertical) field coil. By increasing the coil current, the Kernel plasma ring compresses to a smaller size and thus becomes less tightly fitted to the confining coil. It becomes in a sense a magnetic compass needle, that finds itself pointing to the wrong magnetic pole. Consequently, in its compressed size and with newly found independence, the magnetized plasma ring "tilts" or flips over to a lower energy orientation. The problem is that in such a tilted orientation, the ring is pulled apart rather than being magnetically pressure confined! This is not a problem with "true" Spheromaks (or the PMK), since they are compressed by image currents in the shell, and these image currents re-orient if the ring tilts. That means they are always "image current" confined and these image currents are inverse to and oppose (compress) the toroidal current of the Kernel ring. Of course, the Spheromak & tokamak both do NOT have the high conductivity and so that is defeating. Its magnetic energy depletes rapidly and not so uniformly, as in tokamak. Both are subject to resistive instabilities. PLASMAK(tm) plasmoids *do have* the necessary high conductivity to avoid this problem. Transport has much to do with conductivity as well as the smoothness, strength and orthogonality of the confining magnetic field. The integral number of toroidal field coils in a tokamak produces toroidal ups and downs in the magnetic field intensity (or variations in curvature). Such a topology induces plasma turbulence. That's very bad for reduced transport. Spheromaks (esp. PLASMAK(tm) plasmoids) have very smooth flux and current layers. Further, they are more nearly force free, that is the current streams are essentially aligned with the flux lines, so that the cross forces are at a minimum. This is not the case with tokamaks and rather violent convulsive activity is present, such as indicated by the presence of "saw tooth" variation in current intensity. Another major contributor to bad transport is the strong radial thermal gradients that are part of all solid vacuum wall and low conductivity systems. Impurities in solid, liquid or gas states are free to migrate from the solid vacuum wall into the external plasma surface. Because of their high "Z" (atomic number) they have lots of bound electrons or high charge/atom and consequently generate copious amounts of COOLING radiation. With a low temperature plasma skin and a hot axis, large thermal electron gradients drive a huge power losses. Spheromaks are more dense (higher confinement pressure), and so they might "bull their way through" some of these loss barriers. But the real killers are the much higher wall loading (impurity blast off) and the difficulty in heating them. (Not enough room for the needed beam heating ports) > Also, why was the Spheromak abandoned in favor of Tokamaks?) The tokamak is a " *****MAINLINE***** " program, (it main lines money) The Spheromak is an "advanced concept". (It is more advanced than the Tokosaur that is). The funding ratio is *still* a few hundred to one. It will take a bit more time for the axe to cut through the neck of the T-beast. The Spheromak is cheap, neat for plasma studies, and will benefit when the inevitable cut in the BIG TORUS happens. Spheromak research has been cut back, here. That is not unexpected, everything including tokamak has also seen cuts. However, the Spheromak is still plodding along here and in places like the Japan, the UK and perhaps elsewhere. The previous shoot (shut) out was between Mainliners, the Mirror-tokamak and the tokamak won. The current one is Inertial Confinement/tokamak . .. .maybe. It may become the tokamak versus common sense and restricted funds. Funding of projects becomes self generating once a certain critical "mass" is achieved. It takes real effort to snuff out low gain/cost programs that have reached this level. The perception is forming that this country should spend its BORROWED and tax revenues more carefully; very hopefully, this realization will eventually help us all. Since MHD is Barry Merriman's field of study, perhaps he may be interested in adding his comments and details to this area, as well as to the closely related one of high temperture transport in strongly magnetized plasmas. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1990 Paul M. Koloc +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.12 / Paul Koloc / T. H. Maiman LASER publication (was Commercialization) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: T. H. Maiman LASER publication (was Commercialization) Date: 12 Dec 90 03:17:42 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <32@sierra.STANFORD.EDU> siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) writes: >In article <1990Dec8.140713.16455@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP >(Paul M. Koloc) writes: > >> ................. T. Maiman (Hughes Research, Malibu) >>produced the first laser repeatedly, did diagnostics and his paper >>was rejected by each end every single American journal to which it >>was submitted (six in toto). Apparently, the laser hadn't been noted >>in any text books RPark had read.. . :-) . > >I'd be very interested to hear more details on this, e.g., a >reference, or at least the names of the six journals. It's been a very long time for my brain, but I remember that Phys Rev Ltrs, JAP, Phys Rev. as well as the IEEE's microwave journal, and the principal journal put out by the Optical Society of America. There may well as been a journal devoted to special solid state crystals or the chemistry of such, so probably put out by one of the Chemistry Societies. >I was aware that Maiman's first laser paper was rejected by the first >journal he sent it to (Phys. Rev.?). According to the story as I've >heard it, the editor failed to realize it was a laser paper (i.e., an >optical device), thought it was just another ruby microwave maser >paper, and decided (not entirely without justification) that there had >been enough of those already. The manuscript was then somehow >acquired by a very minor British journal and published by them without >Maiman's knowledge or permission (again, as I've heard the story). There was rampant failure to "recognize". I haven't seen Ted for a number of years, 1979, or so. TH Maiman has a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, and he also had quite a bit of expertise in physical chemistry of crystals. He even produced his own rubies and switched from Vernuil Sp?? (sprinkling the doped alumina powder on an RF heated seed rod of sapphire to the sounds something like "Czel-kroh-ski" method of pulling "seeds" from molten pools of the Chromium doped sapphire. The latter made for improved optical quality. When I saw him last he was working with Simon Ramo (TRW) and was finding investment money for new technology startups. Anyone have his current number?? :-) Moonyeen where are you?? The minor British journal was "Nature" (1960 - before Lindley Spell??). My impression is that the paper published was by THM and was with his full permission. It would be interesting if this story of "misgiven permission" was a "sour grapes" rumor from one of the American journals left in the lurch. >But rejection by _six_ major journals? More details would be much >appreciated... Sorry I don't have much time to chase it down; I may check further. I would think that a story like this should be recorded in the better, maybe British :-) histories of the LASER. Those were thrilling, productive, and fun times. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy12 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.14 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 379 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 379 papers on cnf) Date: Fri, 14 Dec 90 17:16:14 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway This is still not the maxi-package I've been promising but I might as well send this. Some good stuff. The Swedish paper (Lewis + Skoeld) reads very neutral and is worth reading. I don't know what to make of Arata and his very high neutron bursts. His "on-off" effect correlates with some of Rock et al's remarks; that paper is very well written and must be read by everyone, whether a TB or a Skeptic. Kitajima et al look at the important question of loading - in fact, Rock et al do, as well, and provide some good references. Lin et al found tritium; you've seen a lot of comment on this team. Their paper looks pretty reasonable and Bockris is not easy to dismiss. Taniguchi et al show that not all Japanese results are wildly positive, while Yamamoto et al have had a look at their loadings using x-ray diffraction. There is some commentary, some of it a bit old (I come across old stuff I've missed until now); plus a few cluster-impact things and other related stuff. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 14-Dec. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arata Y, Zhang Y-C; Proc. Japan Acad. 66(B) (1990) 110. "Corroborating evidence for 'cold' fusion reaction". ** In previous work, the authors had found intense neutron emissions the powerful "on-off" effect is active. This happens when the cell, under electrolysis, reaches temperatures up to 110 degC (the "on" effect), and then goes into the "off" effect. If it goes "off" without reaching this high temperature, the authors speak of a weak on-off effect, and consider it important for cold fusion. Here, they used nickel, spray coated thinly with palladium. A paraffin block changed neutrons into thermal neutrons and they detected these with a BF3 counter. This, they say, is a reliable way to detect fusion neutrons. Comparisons of neutron patterns over long times, with those from the background and from a (252)Cf source, showed that cold fusion did occur, both on palladium and palladium-coated nickel. Jun-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kitajima M, Nakamura K, Fujitsuka M; Solid State Commun. 75 (1990) 159. "Electrical resistivity of high pressure D2-loaded Pd and Ti at low temperatures". ** Studied the temperature dependence of electrical resistivity of Pd and Ti under pressurised D2 gas at low temperatures and pressures from 6 to 90 atm. The metals were cooled to 77K, exposed to gas pressure, and allowed to warm up, while the resistance was monitored. The first time Pd was thus treated, its resistivity followed that of pure Pd up to about 270K, and went up steeply thereafter, indicating that no deuterium was absorbed below this temperature. A second cycle produced higher resistivity, showing that the release of D is slower than its uptake. X-ray diffraction showed that a maximum loading of 0.7 was achieved. For Ti, the resistivity was the same as that for pure Ti up to room temperature, and no surface treatment changed this; i.e. the Ti never absorbed any deuterium. Mar-90/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lewis D, Skoeld K; J. Electroanal. Chem. 294 (1990) 275. "A phenomenological study of the Fleischmann-Pons effect". ** The authors have performed a very thorough and careful cold fusion experiment, using a cell similar to that of FPH but adding a cooling coil for the calorimetry, and using a ring of 30 helium counters to monitor neutron emissions at about 2.5 MeV. They also analysed aliquots of the electrolyte for tritium. Everything is described clearly and in detail. There are tables of input and calculated power, and clear figures of same; a control series is reported, of electrolysis of H2O at Pt and Pd, which show an approximately zero excess power with some fluctuation. Using D2O and Pd, there was some excess power during some time, and it fell back to the input power after that. Neutron emission showed some spikes. Some were associated with, for example, switching on of the galvanostat, or with movement of a thermocouple in the detector well, leading to an electrical contact or, in some cases, with a nearby nuclear reactor being turned on. However, some large neutron events remained unaccounted for and the largest correlated with a thermal excursion of the cell. Another run showed thermal and neutron excursions at different times. Tritium levels are reported without much comment. The authors carefully conclude that there is indeed evidence for an anomaly similar to that of FPH, while admitting that their measurements are close to their experimental errors. They then point out that, since these events seem to correlate with D2O top-up additions, they may be due to an impurity in the D2O, such as light water or T2O. May-90/Nov-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lin GH, Kainthla RC, Packham NJC, Velev O, Bockris JO'M; Int. J. Hydrogen Energy 15 (1990) 537. "On electrochemical tritium production". ** Four and a half months' experiments lead the team to report clear evidence of tritium production, weakly correlating with excess heat. The tritium is not accounted for by electrolytic enrichment (on which Bockris is an expert) but is produced in much larger amounts. Samples of the electrolyte and the electrodes used were analysed by other labs and confirm the team's findings that there was no T in the palladium before the runs, and their results of solution analysis. The possibility of mischief is dismissed. This reviewer does not find any control experiments in the paper. The paper ends by proposing the "dendrite" theory of cold fusion, assuming a high double layer electric field of 1E9 V/cm and dielectric breakdown of water (another field in which at least Bockris is an expert). The paper concludes with suggestions for how to optimise cold fusion. Pd may not be needed; surface dendrites should be encouraged. Apr-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Louis E, Moscardo F, San-Fabian E, Perez-Jorda JM; Phys. Rev. B42 (1990) 4996. "Calculation of hydrogen-hydrogen potential energies and fusion rates in palladium hydride (PdxH2) clusters (x=2,4)". ** The objectives were to estimate the effect of neighbouring Pd atoms on the H-H potential in realistic lattices and such exotic lattices that might favour codl fusion, as well as to calculate fusion rates for favourable configurations. The Hartree-Fock method was used. Results are that (a) H-H distances in lattices are in all cases much greater than in H2 gas, and (b) even in the most favourable lattices, far from equilibrium, very high vibrational energies are required to approach a fusion rate of 1E-20/s. Mar-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rock PA, Fink WH, McQuarrie DA, Volman DH, Hung Y-F; J. Electroanal. Chem. 293 (1990) 261. "Energy balance in the electrolysis of water with a palladium cathode". ** This paper starts with a thorough review of the various phases of palladium deuteride, giving valuable references. It seems that D-loadings (x in PdDx) of up to 0.9 are known. However, it is only below 0.7 that the reaction leading to the deuteride is exothermic; above 0.7, it may well be endothermic and therefore, the decomposition from high loadings may be exothermic. The authors analyse the energy balance of electrolysis, and then suggest factors that could lead to an overestimate of "excess heat" and, as well, offer a possible scenario for the violent melt-down/explosion reported by FPH. The factors are (1) deuteride formation during electrolysis; (2) recombination of evolved gases; (3) change of electrochemical thermodynamical parameters at the higher cell temperatures; (4) Li deposition, especially at high current densities; (5) decomposition of high-loaded deuteride at high temperature, leading to a runaway effect. The last factor is able to account for the melt-down and/or an explosion, and gives an explanation of why it happened only with the most "chunky" electrode. The authors also note that at 110 degC, the beta phase of the deuteride abruptly reverts to the alpha phase, releasing a lot of deuterium and heat (cf Arata 1990, the "on-off" effect). They suggest that, in view of their analysis, any meaningful calorimetry on this system must time integrate all inputs and outputs. Jun-89/Oct-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taniguchi N, Baba S, Kawamura K, Gamo T; Nippon Kagaku Kaishi 1990(9) 992 (in Japanese). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:179421 (1990). "Conditions for cold nuclear fusion". ** Used a pulse shape discriminator to measure neutrons and gammas in electrolysis experiments with palladium, and D2 experiments with titanium. The counting equipment was able to detect fusion at a rate of 1E-22 fusions/atom/s and found nothing in either setup, except when D2 was released from Ti, where a signal at 30-600 times the background was detected, presumed to be due to gamma emission from a p-d reaction. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turner L; Physics Today, September 1989, 142. "Thoughts unbottled by cold fusion". ** Turner muses that a possible effect, that has been missed by such theorists as Van Siclen and Jones, or Koonin and Nauenberg, is the enhanced transmission of deuterons through the Coulomb barrier because of resonances on the atomic scale. With deuterons in the interstitial sites of the Pd lattice, a diffusing deuteron may have a de Broglie wave length that permits resonance in the wells formed between the ascending walls of neighbouring Coulomb barriers. This adds another factor to any theories of cold fusion, which so far have focussed on two-body (d-d) interaction. Turner does not develop the argument here but suggests it to future theorists. Jun-89/Sep-89 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yamamoto T, Oka T, Taniguchi R; Annu. Rep. Osaka Prefect. Radiat. Res. Inst. 30 (1990) 79. Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:199965 (1990). "In-situ observation of deuteride formation in palladium electrochemical cathode by x-ray diffraction method". ** In conjunction with their cold fusion experiment, the team used x-ray diffraction to determine the deuterium loading of the Pd. It was about 0.73. In their other work, this was estimated higher. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Comment, news ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anonymous; Nature 348 (1990) 1 (1-Nov-90). "Utah confusion" ** Comment on the "disappearance" of Pons, at the time of the important meeting of the Fusion Advisory Committee of the State of Utah, to decide whether to continue to support the NCFI. The writer notes that fusion researchers are beginning to separate into factions "professing the same beliefs but unable to stomach each other's company", and expresses surprise that the State of Utah can be completely rebuffed by Pons, yet continues to support him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Braun T; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 145 (1990) 385. "World flash on cold fusion. No. 7" ** Braun's selected, annotated bibliography continues. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byun JH; Hwahak Kwa Kongop Ui Chinbo 30 (1990) 86 (in Korean). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:199182 (1990). "Cold nuclear fusion". ** "Review and reflections on the controversies surrounding cold fusion, including a list of Korean organizations and personnel funded to carry out related studies are given, with 12 refs." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Massaron M, Lamperti F; Tecnol. Chim. 10 (1990) 98 (in Italian). Cited in Chem. Abstr. 113:199183 (1990). "Cold fusion". ** "An introductory with 4 refs. A chronol. summary of the developments is given with particular emphasis on the expts. of Scaramuzzi at ENEA, Italy. In these expts., n were counted in D2 after passing it through a column filled with Ti chips". ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pool R; Science 250 (1990) 754 (9-Nov issue). "Cold fusion: Only the grin remains" ** "Like the Cheshire Cat, cold fusion has slowly faded away" says Pool, and the grin is on the faces of the researchers around the world who continue to find neutrons. Pool has been to the Utah meeting on cold fusion at Brigham Young, and reports. SE Jones wishes not be associated with FPH. One new result made public at the meeting was emission of charged particles, perhaps tritium ions. But Douglas Morrison was not impressed and continues to regard cold fusion as pathology, says Pool. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Published articles peripheral to cold fusion ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alburger DE; J. Phys. Chem. 94 (1990) 8494. "Comment on cluster-impact fusion" ** Alburger suggests an experimental variation to Beuhler et al, to eliminate effects due to contamination of the cluster beam with small clusters: use beam pulsing, and the fact that different-size clusters travel at different velocities. This would make it possible to pick out emissions due to the nominal clusters, separate from contaminating smaller ones. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beuhler RJ, Friedlander G, Friedman L; J. Phys. Chem. 94 (1990) 8494. "Reply to 'Comment on cluster-impact fusion'" ** Beuhler et al reply to Alburger's Comment on the same page of the journal, in which they suggest pulsing of the cluster beam. Beuhler et al say that this is not easy to do, whether by electrical or mechanical means. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fallavier M, Kemmler J, Kirsch R, Poizat JC, Remillieux J, Thomas JP; Phys. Rev. Lett. 65 (1990) 621. "Search for nuclear fusion in deuterated targets under cluster-beam impact". ** Attempt to verify Beuhler et al's results. This team had no (D2O)n+ beam but a Dn+ beam, which was used. No neutron emissions were observed. The authors comment that, since Beuhler et al also gets (some) neutrons from beams of H2O clusters, it may be d-d fusion in the target, due to bombardment by the oxygen atoms. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Harley D, Mueller B, Rafelski J; Z. Phys. A336 (1990) 303. "Time independent description of the t(d,n)alpha fusion reaction in the presence of a muon". Theory. Gives a good list of references on muon catalysed fusion. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shea MJ, Compton RN, Hettich RL; Phys. Rev. A42 (1990) 3579. "Laser ablation studies of palladium electrolytically loaded with hydrogen and deuterium". ** This is not cold fusion but akin to inertial confinement: a laser pulse is shot at PdD or PdH prepared by electrolysis, and the resulting plasma studied by mass spectrometry. The expected species like H+, H2+ etc are found. There is no mention of fusion, cold or otherwise. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- cudkeys: cuddy14 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.14 / H Henson / University of Hawaii experiment Originally-From: hkhenson@cup.portal.com (H Keith Henson) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: University of Hawaii experiment Date: 14 Dec 90 07:34:25 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) It has been sometime since I was reading this group. I assumed that the experiment by Liaw, Tao, Turner, and Leibert would reported in the Proc. of the Special Symposium on Cold Fusion, World Hydrogen Energy Conf. July 22-27 would have been reported here, but looking through recent posting I could not find any report of it. The article I have is a reprint of a report on an experiment done by the authors" Elevated Temperature Excess Heat Production Using Molten-Salt Electrochemical Techniques. I will type in the ABSTRACT An investigation of elevated-temperature excess heat production in the Ti-D and Pd-D systems is presented here. A eutectic LiCl-KCl molten salt saturated with LiD is used as the electrolyte in a Pd/Al or Ti/Al electro- chemical cell. Typical operating temperatures are around 370 deg C, which results in faster kietics compare to room temperature operation. If this system can be developed for utility applications, high-grade heat and high thermodynamic efficiencies can be expected. Since the electrolite provies a very reducing environment, metal surface oxides are readily removed: thus, this unique system offers the possibility of using less expensive materails than Pd. A modified isoperibol calorimeter was buit for the excess power measurements. Preliminary results show high levels of excess power output especially in the Pd_D system, although the effect remains sporadic. ---------- The graph shows about a hundred hours of measured heat output of 10-25 watts over the baseline input from heating tape and electrode power, with power gains of up to 1500 percent (defined as excess heat output/electrode input power). The article takes into account all chemical explainations by calculation. Both Leibert and Laiw are Stanford quaduates who worked under Dr. Higgins in Material Science (but not on his fusion work) The results for Ti are less impressive by a factor of about 10 than the ones for Pd. The experimental description is exceedingly detailed, which is one reason I don't want to type it in. Keith Henson (sorry for the typos, it is a pain to move this to a machine with a spellchecker.) cudkeys: cuddy14 cudenhkhenson cudfnH cudlnHenson cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.15 / Paul Koloc / Re: T. H. Maiman LASER publication (epic laser bits) Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Re: T. H. Maiman LASER publication (epic laser bits) Date: 15 Dec 90 04:05:29 GMT Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd. In article <36@sierra.STANFORD.EDU> siegman@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (siegman) writes: >>It's been a very long time for my brain, but I remember that Phys Rev >>Ltrs, JAP, Phys Rev. as well as the IEEE's microwave journal, and >>the principal journal put out by the Optical Society of America. >>There may well as been a journal devoted to special solid state crystals >>or the chemistry of such, so probably put out by one of the Chemistry >>Societies. >I continue to be very doubtful that Maiman's first paper was rejected by >six journals in a row, if for no other reason that the processing time >for six successive journal submissions (submit, get refereed, rejected, >resubmit to another journal) would take several years. I am still checking, in the MEANWHILE .. . Essentially, these journals have different chartered areas and although the central theme of these papers was "the first repeatable production of LASER", the presentation of this fact was discussed in the context of the journal's charter. It is highly unlikely that a discovery of such cross disciplinary nature would have been submitted to only ONE journal, or even to notable journals in SEQUENCE. You seem to disagree, but as I said, those were very exciting times. All the time that Maiman was at Hughes, he had practically no support. His boss told him repeatedly that he was wasting his time. This is the atmosphere the pervaded the times. There was a strong need for the work's recognition >>There was rampant failure to "recognize". >Given that nearly every other major lab in the U.S. jumped on Maiman's >pioneering work, reproduced and extended it, and flooded the journals >with publications within months, I cannot agree. To the contrary, it was FOR A TIME "a micro P&F". A very large percentage of those trying to reproduce the work, could NOT. It was finally a very MINOR group, Cross & Michalek at Michigan, (or the Bendix supported company they set up Trion Instruments) that was the first (after a hanging pause) to reproduce the experiment. Incidentally, this company may have seeded Kip Siegal's inertial fusion house KMS Fusion. First it "changed" into Conductron and and later Mc DD took over the KMS version after Kip's health took a turn for the worse while testifying before the House. It's a bit more spunky than that. Technological problems abounded: The optical quality of the Venuil (Sp?) ruby rods, the per centum chromium doping of the sapphire, the optical precision polishing of the flat parallel of the ends, the quality of the mirror coatings, the optical coupling efficiency of the optical pump radiation all chained to defeat "reproduction" for most of the early birds. After all, this was an almost purely technological development and had very little new *since Einstein* physics. As a TOOL the LASER became invaluable to physics, chemistry .. . ... and even civil engineering uses it to make sewers. BUT at the time there was NO MARKET. The perception of the masses at the time (scientists and engineers), was that a device emanating a powerful short pulse in an *extremely* narrow beam could only be a "Flash Gordon Ray Gun Spoof". I imagine that a number of the "reviewers" had the same knee jerk reaction. My how they love to "pounce". It's fun and the odds are in their favor. There is ALWAYS a "flood" of parasitic publications after a "big one". This even happened with P&F. It's a judgement call, but I feel that, those publications are (as they usually are) without significant positive experimental results. Although informative, these publications utilize the "clean-up the crumbs of the big kill" as their substance. It takes time (planning) and money allocation before the verifications start and carefully done and full diagnostics can be obtained. The flood of theory papers that pop up from nowhere and "magically" agree with the discovery results should be read with caution. >Just for example I have in hand a paper by Collins et al, which >references Maiman's paper, and which was already in print in the 1 >October 1960 issue of Phys. Rev. Letters. There were many others. At that time Phys Rev Ltrs was mercurial, by comparison to today, lightning fast. >>I haven't seen Ted for a number of years, 1979, or so. TH Maiman has >>a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering, and he also had quite a bit of >His PhD was in Physics, from Stanford. I believe his supervisor was >Willis Lamb. Hmm! You are correct, he has a BS in physics from Colorado, and ONLY a Master of Electrical Engineering from Stanford, and as you point out the PH.D. is in physics (also from Stanford). > .. .. . The Nature article was "Optical maser action in ruby" >appearing in Nature 187, 493 (August 1960), presumably with >permission. .. .. .. .. .. (Note the use of "optical >maser" rather than "laser", as was commonplace in early years.) It was TH Maiman that coined the term "LASER" (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation). It may have been picked up more quickly on a wide spread basis if the "PAUSE of non-reproducible results" had not happened. There was a joke at the time that a Journal of Irreproducible Results should exist. >Maiman also presented his work at the 45th Annual Meeting of the >Optical Society of America in October 1960, which had a published >program; and published a sizable pair of articles on his work (the >second part with several coauthors) in Phys. Rev. 123, ???? and 1151 >(1961). Amazing what happens, once a concept is recognized! I imagine most of the coauthors were from his original group when he was working at Hughes Research in the late 50's. I also suspect the manuscripts were not much changed from their earlier submissions. >Again, I express extreme skepticism that 6 journal rejections could >have happened between Maiman's doing the work and getting it published in >Nature in the same year. Hmmmm! You have repeated your "belief" quite a few times and with urgent vigor. It was not quite the same year. Maiman was working at Hughes Research, Malibu, and I thought it was '59 that he did the "work". After a less then appropriate increase in funding from Hughes, he left with a number of the key people to a new set up "Quantatron Corp" with Ralph Wuerker from STL. Shortly, after a minor disagreement on the conceptual nature of a product, Ralph returned to STL and Maiman, with backing from Union Carbide (company that provided the rubies), founded Korad Corp. Within a very few years several of Maiman's co-workers then put their expertise to work for themselves by founding or joining other laser tech startup companies. For example, Fred Burns Sp? joined Apollo Lasers, Inc. That company is now owned by PatLex, the "royalty collecting company of Gordon Gould, who relatively recently was granted the laser invention PARENT patent. What a small and crazy world. I am not a historian ... . I was just hanging around developing the world's most powerful blitzlampen for all the right people at the right time. I don't change history, I just try to remember it. +---------------------------------------------------------+**********+ | +Commercial* | Paul M. Koloc, President (301) 445-1075 ***FUSION*** | Prometheus II, Ltd.; College Park, MD 20740-0222 ***in the*** | mimsy!prometheus!pmk; pmk@prometheus.UUCP **Nineties** +---------------------------------------------------------************ cudkeys: cuddy15 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.17 / Patrick Smith / Ordering info for `Too Hot to Handle' Originally-From: p-smith@giga.slc.unisys.com (Patrick J. Smith) Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Ordering info for `Too Hot to Handle' Date: 17 Dec 90 23:05:15 GMT Organization: Unisys, Salt Lake City, Utah Frank Close, author of the soon to be released book on cold fusion, `Too Hot to Handle,' has received several requests as to how to obtain copies/place advance orders, and so passes on the following information: The book will be available in Britain and Canada in January; it comes out in the USA in March. USA net-readers should contact Princeton University Press for details - Frank will post more information as it becomes available. The distribution company in Canada is General Publishing, 30 Lesmill Rd, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada. Phone 416-445-3333; fax 415-445-5967. It is possible that they are unable to sell copies in the USA because of Princeton having the rights there. In Europe it is easiest to contact the British publishers, W H Allen, directly. Write to Cash Sales, W H Allen, 338 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5AH with your Visa/Mcard etc number (if you can get them to supply your local bookstore you can then get it from them without having to pay postage!). If you want to make direct contact, fax Marcia Jennings, W H Allen sales, (44)-81-968-0929 or phone (44)-81-968-7554. The price in the UK is 14.99 (approximately 28 US dollars). If you want to reach Frank direct for further information he is FEC at UKACRL.BITNET cudkeys: cuddy17 cudensmith cudfnPatrick cudlnSmith cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1990 ------------------------------ 1990.12.21 / Dieter Britz / Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 406 papers on cnf) Originally-From: Dieter Britz Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion Subject: Cold fusion bibliography additions (total now = 406 papers on cnf) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 1990 18:42:49 GMT Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway Here, at last, the oft-promised maxipackage, all prime cold fusion (section 2) papers. As you see, many of them come from an issue of Fusion Technology (Sep 1990) entirely devoted to the subject, and include the review by Bockris et al, and the 62-page paper-paper from Bhabha (Iyengar et many al). There are some juicy items, bound to at least raise some eyebrows. No less than two papers propose previously unknown fundamental particles (Rafelski et al, the X-; Matsumoto's iton). AbuTaha (got this one from this news group) and Lorenzini propose material strain build-up as the heat source. Arata again reports large neutron fluxes using his on-off effect and gives a recipe for a cold fusion experiment. You can't get away from cluster impact work; at least two of the papers quote it (Bockris+, and Baldo+). Wagner et al point out the dangers of assuming a constant thermoneutral potential of 1.54 V in the calorimetry calculations, in cells that are allowed to reach temperatures where this figure does not apply (the potential goes down with increasing temp), and show that the cooled calorimeter type is better than the isoperibolic. Read, and enjoy. My update number is not quite consistent with previous numbers; I've made a recount and corrected the numbers; we have 406 papers now, in all. Dieter ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLD NUCLEAR FUSION BIBLIOGRAPHY ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Additions 21-Dec. 1990 Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk 2. Published articles, letters ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- AbuTaha AF; J. Fusion Energy 9(3) (1990) 345. "Cold fusion - the heat mechanism". ** The author's thesis is that the palladium, and not the deuterium, is the source of the "excess heat" measured by some workers. The deuterium causes strain build-up in the metal, and at some point this is released by crack formation and propagation, which also generates sufficient heat to explain all. As in simple metal tensile tests, in which crack formation causes a rise in temperature, this effect can account for the heat observed by FPH. The effect cannot be used to generate power. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adler PN, Schulte RL, Margolin H; Metall. Trans. 21A (1990) 2003. "Deuterium surface segregation in titanium alloys". ** Deuterium enrichment in the near-surface region, kinetics of segregation, and factors contributing to it, are discussed. Nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) showed that there is in fact spotwise enrichment (segregation) at the surface of alpha-phase TiD but not in beta-phase ditto. Some of the deuterium may be trapped at surface defects without deuteride formation. Jun-87[sic]/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aiello S, De Filippo E, Lanzano G, Lo Nigro S, Pagano A; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 115. "Nuclear fusion experiment in palladium charged by deuterium gas". ** The team performed an experiment similar to that of the De Ninno team, with palladium instead of titanium under pressurised D2 with various temperature cycling programs. An NE-213 detector measured neutrons with gamma discrimination, a BaF2 detector measured gamma emission and charged particles were measured by a silicon surface barrier detector. Nothing significant was found. The authors state, however, that the expected cold fusion rate of about 1E-23 fusions/s/pair would give signals well below their apparatus' ability to detect them. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Arata Y, Zhang Y-C; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 95. "Achievement of an intense cold fusion reaction". ** This paper proposes the conditions necessary for achieving cold fusion (more or less) controllably. These are: a large Pd electrode must be used, and the current periodically switched on and off. The team has previously described their "on-off" effect. In this, deuterium must be forced quickly into the Pd, and quickly exhausted by switching the current off. Qucik loading and release of deuterium causes internal high temperatures and pressures of up to 5000 atm, and the authors on several occasions have observed large neutron events of up to 1E13 n per event. Several experiments are described. Titanium is not suitable, as it does not absorb deuterium to a sufficient depth. The authors measured the heat exchange and there was no excess heat; all heat released (about 50% of Joule heating) could be accounted for by chemical reactions. The authors do not believe in excess heat, calculating from their neutron emissions that this could only be expected to reach about 0.1 mW. They also assume standard physics (e.g. 1:1 branching ratio) for the fusion reaction. In some cases, the electrode reached a temperature of 110 degC, at which deuterium is released spontaneously and copiously; an automatic on-off effect. Explosions and ignition phenomena were also observed. The authors do not, unfortunately, make clear whether the large neutron events are associated with current switching or spontaneous on-off events. The conclusion is that this effect reconciles the differences between successful and failed cold fusion experiments; that long electrolysis times are besides the point; and that the use of small Pd electrodes is "a fatal mistake". The recipe: use a large electrode, charge it for 2-3 days to oversaturate it, turn off the current for a few hours, polish the cathode, put it back in and resume electrolysis. This produced the large neutron bursts. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Baldo M, Pucci R, Bortignon PF; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 347. "Relaxation toward equilibrium in plasmon-enhanced fusion". ** "There is no doubt that the fusion reaction rate within a metal lattice is dramatically higher than estimated for free deuterium molecules", say the authors. The fact that not everyone measures fusion effects, do not imply that Jones et al were mistaken. The recent cluster impact experiments of Beuhler et al indicate that the target plays an important role (I am quoting). The authors have previously considered plasmon interactions (at a conference) and in this paper, further consider the d-phonon interaction and deuteron screening due to particle-hole excitations. The conclusion is that the formation of quasi-deuterium molecules and phonon damping can lead to cold fusion rates comparable to those claimed by Jones et al, and that this will occur in bursts. Eventually, the system equilibrates and fusion rates drop to those for free D2 gas. Feb-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bittner M, Meister A, Ohms D, Paffrath E, Rahner D, Schwierz R, Seeliger D, Wiesener K, Wuestner P; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 120. "Method for investigation of fusion reactions in condensed matter". ** The authors present a sophisticated statistical analysis of neutron measurements made close to electrolysis cells in which palladium was the cathode in electrolytes with heavy and light water, and with current switched on and off. At one-hour intervals, the cell was taken far away from the detector, and this was repeated over many hours. The small differences between background and measurement were enhanced by integrating the total hourly neutron count differences (background total minus cell total) over time. Some cells showed a deficit, due to shadowing. The cell with electrolysis of D2O, however, did show a very small positive effect of about 3 counts/h. Other measurements rule out cosmic muon effects. No strong conclusions are drawn, the object here being to present the method. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bockris JO'M, Lin GH, Packham NJC; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 11. "A review of the investigations of the Fleischmann-Pons phenomena". ** A review, with 61 references, of cold fusion, a little selective in parts. Many of the references are to conferences and "private communication", and thus not quite so accessible. The major experiments are reported, and a discussion given on each of excess heat, tritium, neutrons, protons, mass spectrometry, cluster impact fusion. The various theories that have been proposed are explained rather well. These include growing cracks (but there is no mention of the Soviet work), muon catalysis, Coulombic screening, tunnelling, chain reactions, quantum electrodynamic, and the formation of dendrites on the cathode surface; this last theory is the authors', and would explain the long electrolysis time required before anything happens, the sporadicity and irreprodubility of the phenomenon, and even the alleged anomalous branching ratio. Tritium, the authors say, should be the easiest of all fusion products to detect; neutrons are difficult; FPH's calorimetry is beyond reproach. Mar-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Foglio Para A, Sangiust V, Cavallotti PL, Ducati U, Bortignon PF; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 131. "Neutron monitoring and related measurements during electrolysis of heavy water with palladium and titanium cathodes: activity report". ** From April to August 1989, more than 100 long-term electrolysis experiments with both Pd and Ti electrodes were carried out with monitoring of neutrons and analysis of the electrolyte and the gases evolved. Four neutron detectors ensured good sensitivity. In two cases, significant neutron emissions were observed, one of them associated with palladium electrode deformation which possibly caused heating. No tritium was found in the electrolyte of these cells, but none was expected above experimental error, on the basis of the neutron emission intensity. In another series, neutron counting was synchronised with pulsed cathodic charging of the electrodes, with 60-90 s periods. Out of 30 runs, two showed some differences, again indicating a weak cold fusion effect. Gas analysis using a mass detector found some atomic masses 5 and 6, but no tritium. The authors point out that the positive results were obtained under conditions far from equilibrium. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Iyengar PK, Srinivasan M, Sikka SK, Shyam A, Chitra V, Kulkarni LV, Rout RK, Krishnan MS, Malhotra SK, Gaonkar DG, Sadhukhan HK, Nagvenkar VB, Nayar MG, Mitra SK, Raghunathan P, Degwekar SB, Radhakrishnan TP, Sundaresan R, Arunachalam J, Raju VS, Kalyanaraman R, Gangadharan S, Venkateswaran G, Moorthy PN, Venkateswarlu KS, Yuvaraju B, Kishore K, Guha SN, Panajkar MS, Rao KA, Raj P, Suryanarayana P, Sathyamoorthy A, Datta T, Bose H, Prabhu LH, Sankaranarayanan S, Shetiya RS, Veeraraghavan N, Murthy TS, Sen BK, Joshi PV, Sharma KGB, Joseph TB, Iyengar TS, Shrikhande VK, Mittal KC, Misra SC, Lal M, Rao PS; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 32. "Bhabha Atomic Research Centre studies on cold fusion". ** This is a collection of reports with parts reported by the various author groups, and introduced by PK Iyengar. In the 62 pages, results are presented for the Bhabha cold fusion effort from April to September 1989, involving over 50 scientists and engineers plus technicians, from ore than ten Divisions. There were experts on metal hydrides, electrochemistry, isotope exchange process in the concentration of heavy water, neutron and tritium measurement. Of the presumably many experiments, there were some which, in the team's opinion, positively confirm the occurrence of d-d fusion reactions in both electrolytic and gas-loaded palladium and titanium at ambient temperatures. Neutron emission was observed even when the electrolytic current was switched off or, in the case of gas-loaded Ti, when no external perturbation such as heating, cooling, evacuation, etc, was applied. The main results are: 1. Tritium is the primary end-product of cold fusion, with a n/T ratio of 1E-08; cold fusion is essentially aneutronic (even so, one group states that neutrons are easier to measure because much more T is needed to detect it than neutrons). T was found in the electrolyte, escaping gas and in the electrode after the run. 2. Neutron emission from electrolysis and gas loading is Poisson in nature; neutrons are emitted one at a time. It is not clear, however, whether these come from the d-d fusion itself or from secondary reactions of energetic protons or tritium with the lattice; 3. About 10-25% of the neutrons were emitted in groups of over 100 each within <20 ms, implying a cascade of >1E10 fusions within those 20 ms. Since this seems very unlikely, lattice cracking, wherein the n/T ratio is close to unity, could be a source of these bunched neutron events; 4. Autoradiography of gas-loaded Ti and Pd demonstrated tritium which cannot be explained by enrichment effects. T was concentrated in "hot spots" on the metal surface, indicating the importance of lattice defects. Excess heat measurements do not seem convincing; one of the groups did observe a "mild explosion" with unknown causes. There was an attempt to detect helium, after removal of the large excess of D2 and O2 by recombination; no helium was found in any experiments, using gas chromatography. Autoradiography seemed to confirm cold fusion. Dec-89/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kocsis M, Nyikos L, Szentpetery I, Horvath D, Kecskemeti J, Lovas A, Pajkossy T, Pocs L; J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem., Lett. 145 (1990) 327. "Search for neutrons from cold nuclear fusion". ** The authors note that of those cold fusion studies in which neutron emission was measured, few have been successful; they, too, wanted to have a go at it. An FPH-type electrochemical cell was used with Pd, as well as a tube filled with Ti chips and D2 gas. A triple (3)He proportional counter was used for neutron detection; its calibrated efficiency was 6.3%. A lengthy background measurement showed some "statistically significant" excursions above the mean of 0.06 c/s, possibly due to barometric variations in the cosmic background, and a well distinguished neutron peak. A subsequent 9-day electrolysis showed nothing above this background. The experiment was then moved into an underground tunnel at a depth of 30 m in limestone. Now the mean background was 0.003 c/s but with occasional "huge burstlike excursions" due to electrical disturbances in the power network. Some filtering etc resulted in a stable background of about 0.002 c/s. During two electrolysis runs - one continuous, the other with periodic current switching -, as well as the Ti/D2 run, no neutron emission above the background was observed. The authors note that upon switching off the electrolysis current, violent bubbling occurred at the Pd cathode, i.e. that the Pd was saturated with deuterium. Jun-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lorenzini E, Tartarini P, Trentin M; Tec. Ital. 55(1) (1990) 1 (in Italian). "Cold fusion: status of the research". ** A summary of the current situation (the beginning of 1990, presumably). The major experiments are reported, as well as some of the more prominent conferences. The authors' contribution is to suggest that the Wigner effect could be another cause of sudden energy release (the melt-down): just as in the Windscale nuclear reactor, neutrons caused a gradual build-up of stress in the graphite blocks and subsequent sudden release, the absorbed hydrogen and deuterium in the palladium stresses the metal lattice; this, too, could be relieved abruptly with large energy release and apparent excess heat production or even more violent events. The paper concludes on a skeptical note. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matsumoto T; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 356. "Observation of new particles emitted during cold fusion". ** The author's Nattoh model theory explains the strange branching ratio by the action of the "iton" particle, which carries away about 20 MeV from the fusion reaction d+d-->(4)He+23.85 MeV. The iton can be observed by using nuclear film, and has perhaps been observed during the electrolysis of light water at Pd. Here, M electrolyses D2O (+3% NaCl) at Pd. The films showed many cosmic ray tracks, but also some due to iton decay, clearly distinguished from the background. Thus a new particle, the iton, is discovered. Mar-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miles MH, Miles RE; J. Electroanal. Chem. 295 (1990) 409. "Theoretical neutron flux levels, dose rates, and metal foil activation in electrochemical cold fusion experiments". ** No experiment is reported here but some calculations are made to help with experiments. First, the authors consider the safety of cold fusion cells: if they emit neutrons, what dosage do the operators receive? Assuming 1E04 n/s, and a certain spectral composition, the dosages at various places in and on a typical FPH-type cell are calculated. Result: the emission level would have to go up to 1E06 n/s to be a danger. This leads to thoughts of where to place a neutron detector, to get the most out of it, and another method of measuring neutron emission: activation of certain metals. Using, e.g. foils of In, Au or even Cu, wrapped closely around the inner cell, foils of all these metals would be fully activated in a typical 30-hour experiment, given the assumed neutron emission level. This activation can then be detected by the gamma radiation given off by the activated foils. Jun-90/Nov-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Miljanic S, Jevtic N, Pesic S, Ninkovic M, Nikolic D, Josipovic M, Petkovska Lj, Bacic S; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 340. "An attempt to replicate cold fusion claims". ** Attempted to measure neutron emission (and other products) from electrolysis of D2O, ala FPH, and D2 gas-loaded samples (Pd and Ti). Two Bonner spheres with scintillation sensors, a BF3 neutron dosimeter, a high-efficiency NE-213 organic scintillator (gamma discriminating) for neutrons, a NaI(Tl) gamma detector, proton track etch detectors, a tritium beta counter and a mass spectrometer were used. Samples from the D2O from the electrolysis cells were analysed for tritium, and the gas from the gas-load runs by MS. Calorimetry was not done. There was a 2.5 times background neutron flux for a short time but nothing definite. From this, the upper limit for cold fusion was estimated at <2.09E-22 fusion/(d-d)/s. Tritium was not found in significant amounts. There was a large before/after change in the ratio of masses 2 to masses 3 in the D2 gas used in the gas-loading experiments but could be explained by conventional processes. Helium analysis, planned for the future, may throw light on these problems. One electrolytic cell briefly heated up. Mar-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Murr LE; Scripta Metallurg. Mater. 24 (1990) 783. "Palladium metallurgy and cold fusion: some remarks". ** A metallurgist's view of cold fusion; the erratic results obtained by the various cold fusion researchers might be due to different crystal and grain structures of the Pd used. Dislocation density and grain size, for example, might affect cold fusion probabilities. There is a variety of techniques that can and should be used, at each experiment, to characterise the metal microstructure, for example transmission electron microscopy, on which Murr has written a book. Feb-90/? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rafelski J, Sawicki M, Gajda M, Harley D; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 136. "How cold fusion can be catalyzed". ** Even before the cold fusion affair, there was speculation about catalysis of fusion by some unknown particle, leading to observed anomalous levels of (3)He in metals. Cosmic muons have been suggested as the cause of cnf, but this has been disproved theoretically and by experiment. They (and quarks, another suggestion) would be captured before doing their stuff. However, if there were a hitherto unknown ultra-heavy negatively charged particle, X-, left over from the universe's origins, these might do the job. This is not altogether pulled out of the air; there is a body of prior speculation by physicists on such particles. Some calculations show that this is feasible, and would explain a few features of cold fusion, such as its sporadicity. Some proposals are made for the search for these particles. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rice RA, Chulik GS, Kim YE, Yoon J-H; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 147. "The role of velocity distribution in cold deuterium-deuterium fusion". ** Some calculations on the dendrite theory of cold fusion. The dendrites of whiskers will often penetrate D2 bubbles formed at the metal surface, and the high voltage field will accelerate some D+ particles. The authors examine, on the basis of two models of velocity distribution, what fusion rates can be expected from this. Although these come to much higher rates than for "conventional" cold fusion, they are still not quite high enough to explain recent claims, but fall into line if electrolysis voltages of 30-40 V were used (which is not the case). Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott CD, Mrochek JE, Scott TC, Michaels GE, Newman E, Petek M; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 103. "Measurement of excess heat and apparent coincident increases in the neutron and gamma-ray count rates during the electrolysis of heavy water". ** Excess power, at a level of 5-10%, was found for periods of many hours. In one case, neutron excursions above background was correlated with excess heat. The team used a cooling jacket calorimeter, with and without recombination of D2 and O2. A single NE-213 neutron detector, with gamma-ray correction, was used and had a background corresponding to a fusion rate of 3E-24 fusions/s/pair. Gamma emission was also detected, by a NaI device, at somewhat lower sensitivity. Tritium analysis was performed on aliquots taken from the electrolyte at intervals. Cell temperatures were usually around 28-38 degC, with some controlled excursions to higher and lower temperatures imposed. In the closed (recombining) system, the calorimetry calculation is simple: applied power versus measured power from the cooling flow. Both the open and closed systems showed bursts of heat excess at 5-10%, well outside the claimed experimental error, with the open cell being more consistent. Changes in the current density did not affect the excess heat (this implies that the deuterium loading did not change markedly with current). In the closed cell run, there were small but significant emissions of neutrons and gammas, the latter at unexpected energies, indicating a possible neutron-proton interaction. Tritium production could not be shown. The authors conclude that they have consistent excess heat, out of proportion with neutron and gamma which were small but definite. Low cell temperatures, meaning higher deuterium loadings, are favourable. Mar-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tabet E, Tenenbaum A; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 143. "A dynamical model for cold fusion in deuterated palladium". ** A thermodynamic instability can, under favourable circumstances, trigger a coherent and concentric collapse in the metal and thus enable fusion. Some preliminary calculations lead to reasonable figures. This could also explain the experimental difficulties with repeatability, because the model predicts a strong dependence on loading. Feb-90/Aug-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tomellini M, Gozzi D; J. Mater. Sci. Lett. 9 (1990) 836. "On the possibility for local oversaturation of deuterium in palladium". ** Some explanations of cold fusion require an overload of deuterium in the Pd. The authors look at the possibility of this happening, by considering the key role of both the electrode internal structure and and the non-equilibrium conditions imposed by electrolysis. Some effects are locally high current density (at, e.g., dendrites), and point- and line-defects; perhaps even their combined action, although improbable, could be put to work. Oct-89/Jul-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Velev OA, Kainthla RC; Fusion Technol. 18 (1990) 351. "Heat flow calorimeter with a personal-computer-based data acquisition system". ** Here, a calorimeter system essentially like that used by FPH, was used, for 24 cells simultaneously. A PC did all the work. Accuracy was about 3% and recombination of gases was possible. Although constant values for the thermoneutral electrolysis potentials were used (which can lead to spurious excess heat observations), no excess heat within the 3% limits, was detected in most cases, for experiments during 7 months and using 27 electrodes. In only four cases, some excess heat, at a level of 15-25%, was seen, as reported by Kainthla et al in 1989. The authors conclude that their system is a good one. Apr-90/Sep-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wagner FT, Moylan TE, Hayden ME, Narger U, Booth JL; J. Electroanal. Chem. 295 (1990) 393. "A comparison of calorimetric methods applied to the electrolysis of heavy water on palladium cathodes". ** Two kinds of calorimeters were compared in a number of electrolysis runs with water and heavy water in open and recombination cells. One was cooled by a cooling tube going through it (the "inverse labyrinth water flow calorimeter" ILWFC, described in another paper) and so keeps a low temperature during the run; the other was the isoperibolic type used by FPH, where the temperature is measured at some points in a cell in which there is a significant temperature gradient, and a heater is used to calibrate the measurement. The ILWFC type worked very well, with an excess heat of about zero, +- 0.4% or so, calculated on the basis of the thermoneutral electrolysis potential. The isoperibolic one gave apparent excess heats, because heating by the calibrator lowered this thermoneutral potential and therefore more power went into heating rather than into the electrolytic reaction, than might be assumed. Clearly, this is a major error source. Temperature fluctuations in a cold fusion cell need to be accounted for, and the electrolysis potential used for the calculation needs to be adjusted as a function of this temperature. Other experiments showed that the isoperibolic method is capable of good results if used properly but the accuracy is never as good as with the ILWFC. Another factor leading to erratic results is the lowering electrolyte level during electrolysis. May-90/Nov-90 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cudkeys: cuddy21 cudendk cudfnDieter cudlnBritz cudmo12 cudqt4 cudszL cudyr1990 ------------------------------ processed with cud.prl ver. 0.4