AOH :: FUSION.TXT
More on the duplication of P&F fusion
|
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!percival!gary
From: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Cold fusion and run-away reactions
Keywords: cold fusion, reactions,
Message-ID: <1498@percival.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 89 21:38:37 GMT
Reply-To: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells)
Organization: Percy's UNIX, Portland, OR.
Lines: 37
As reported in the Portland Oregon "Oregonian" newspaper, Thursday , April 27,
Page E3:
John Dash, physics professor, and Patrick Keefe, graduate student, both from
Portland State University report an "energy burst in the first second of a
cold fusion experiment".
Apparently, these researchers had access to a paper by P & F, and attempted to
duplicate the experiment. They also added an electrolyte into the heavy water
"to increase the waters conductivity". The electrolyte is not specified, due to
a "patent possiblity down the road".
The article states that "at least" 100 times more energy was produced than was
used to perform the experiment.
However, all of the reported reaction occurred within the first second, and a
SEM picture of the palladium electrode shows a "large" (greater than 5 mirco-
meter) crater in the palladium. Keefe is quoted as saying " Even without the
microscope you could tell that it had taken a beating in there." A photograph
is included of the crater, which appears to be fairly deep (thus supporting the
base theory of how cold fusion might be working ?) and energtic (there is no
evidence of the displaced material, therefore leading me to believe it was
thrown clear).
It would appear that questions raised in this and other news groups about the
possiblity of a run away reaction in one of these hastily conceived and
executed experiments are not just paranoia.
It should be noted that the "Oregonian" is _not_ one of the better newspapers
in the world, and tends to foul up its reporting of even mundane items.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Still working on _natural_ intelligence.
gary@percival (...!tektronix!percival!gary)
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!oliven!prs
From: prs@oliven.olivetti.com (Philip Stephens)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Is Deuterium Movement Important?
Keywords: dynamic process diffusion mobility
Message-ID: <41108@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 27 Apr 89 21:17:56 GMT
References: <1989Apr20.143800.14572@cs.rochester.edu> <1905@ssc.UUCP> <1907@ssc.UUCP> <1324@ns.network.com>
Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com
Reply-To: prs@oliven.UUCP (Philip Stephens)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 91
In article <1324@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes:
>G. Allen Sullivan writes:
>> [without solving the differential equations] 48,000 Hertz.
>
>In a previous speculation, based upon a description by Paul Koloc, I suggested
>that the 2 D's might oscillate in and out of the He4 state -- with any
>dampening of the oscillation favoring the lower energy state -- He4!
Getting back to the subject line, re motion, how might this oscillation be
related to the apparant importance of *motion* of D+ (or D- for all I know)
through the Pd or Ti lattice? (Assuming the Italian results are relevant,
and taking into consideration some other results that support or at least
do not conflict).
(And assuming that this oscillation in and out of the 4He state is reasonable
enough to be worth discussing; as a chip designer I am obviously out of my
depth here, but naive questions sometimes spark useful secondary questions
so I'll barge ahead...)
1) Concentration of single D's into pairs
Not as likely in a single-crystal rod as in polycrystaline, which I assume
is what most are using; concentration as a result of motion rather than
overall concentration would happen at grain boundaries.
I must say I'm not excited about this aspect. But if relevant, it can be
tested by comparing results with single-crystal rods to results with
normal rods; it is highly testable.
2) Further concentration of pairs as they move from one lattice "box" to
another, presumably squeezing through an effectively "tighter" constriction
in between.
(Not sure what the "proper" terminology is, but if the "boxes" are prefered
because they are lower energy, energy must be required to dislodge a resident
D atom or two, and if two D somehow try to pass through at the same time
they would be squeezed closer together while doing so. Note that this works
for "probablistic" fusion theory without the reverseable oscilation, but
seems unlikely unless the two D are bound to each other in some way, such as
having entered into quasi-4He oscilation, or having opposite charge as
proposed in another recent posting).
This I find much more exciting as an avenue to persue further. Even though
I suspect my mental image of "squeezing" is bit too mechanistic, the effect
would explain certain results claimed by the Italians and warned of (don't
use powdered *or square* Pd) by P&F. Likewise the "incident" when current
suddenly cut in half after a long charging period.
3) Gradual transfer of energy from D,D <--> 4He system to lattice heat via
repeated "squeezings" through lattice between boxes.
I may be all wet here; if quantum physics "requires" that energy be lost
in discrete quanta, ie that the "virtual" 4He step through discrete energy
levels, are those levels close enough for this mechanism to make sense?
More important, do we use the 4He levels or the 2D levels? Or would the
system somehow have a whole new set?! (Does this sound too much like
science fiction? Yes, but so does room temperature fusion!) Somebody help
me out here *please*!!
If this point isn't total bunk, it is just as exciting as point 2. Why?
Because the whole thing doesn't make sense without some mechanism for
conversion of most of the fusion energy into thermal energy without
emitting lots of energetic particles. Any *valid* explanation would be
nearly as important to our theoretical understanding as explaining the
fusion reaction itself.
(Might even effect the ratio of heat production to neutron emission, but
I consider that a little far-fetched. Might be worth experimenting with
different flow rates though, just to see if the *ratio*, as well as the
absolute amount, varies proportionally).
------
Incidental practical note: non-electolytic reactor might use coil of Ti or
Pd tubing in sealed chamber, D gas both inside and outside of tubing, and
pump creating high pressure difference. Difference can be in either
direction, with advantages and disadvantages either way. If prefer thin
D tubing and relatively low pressure differential, probably want lower
pressure inside tube.
Heat transfer via metal (same or other metal) conduction to reaction vessal,
or directly to a second set of tubes circulating some working fluid for
sterling cycle, such as freon or liquid sodium. D tube single ended, heat
conduction tube recirculating (or replace with heat-pipe, which also
recirculates but via phase change and wicking etc). Note that sterling
cycle works best at high temperature, such as 800 C.
- Phil prs@oliven (Phil Stephens)
or: (hplabs,ihnp4,sun,allegra,amdahl)oliveb!oliven!prs
I'm told that may be prs@oliven.olivetti.com for some folks
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!xanadu!michael
From: michael@xanadu.COM (Michael McClary)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: An experiment a friend suggested.
Message-ID: <fEpWS#=michael@xanadu.COM>
Date: 23 Apr 89 19:53:40 GMT
Reply-To: michael@xanadu.UUCP (Michael McClary)
Organization: Xanadu Operating Company, Palo Alto, CA
Lines: 30
Xref: santra alt.fusion:554 sci.physics:6276
The F&P cell, as described by F&P, has a large input of electrical energy, and
may be far from electrochemical equilibrium as well. Some people are concerned
that the observed heating may be an error measurement or in accounting for the
various possible heat sources (or of calibrating the instruments in the presence
of temporary electrochemical heat sinks).
A friend has suggested a modification that would simplify separation of fusion
heat:
- Run a F&P cell normally until it begins to produce signs of fusion.
- Change the electrolyte (or move the electrode(s) to a new cell). The new
electrolyte should be nearly pure D2O.
The new electrolyte will have drastically reduced conductivity, allowing you
to maintain the electrostatic pressure at the boundary of the Palladium electrode,
and pump in small amounts of additional duterium, without adding large amounts
of excess energy to be accounted for. It should also leave the electrode near
chemical equilibrium, cutting another source of noise.
With electrochemical heat sources greatly reduced, fusion heat measurements
would be easier and more accurate.
While a positive result from such an experiment would be much harder to refute,
a negative result wouldn't be definitive. Some other possible explanations
for a negative result:
- Loss of duterium from the electrode during the changeover. Such loss would
take a while to make up with reduced currents.
- Sensitivity of the reaction to something other than duterium concentration,
such as duterium flux, other effects of the current, or unknown effects of
the electrolytes.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!sumax!thebes!happym!rwing!nanook
From: nanook@rwing.UUCP (Robert Dinse)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: German refutation of cold fusion (from alt.fusion)
Summary: Reply to German Refutation of Fusion Conclusion
Keywords: chemical oxidataion, forced reduction
Message-ID: <687@rwing.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 89 03:24:35 GMT
References: <1648@wasatch.utah.edu* <8013@pyr.gatech.EDU>
Organization: Very Little Organization, Seattle WA
Lines: 41
If the German claim that the heat generated was due to catalyzed
chemical reactions between hydrogen (or deuterium) and oxygen that were
given off by the electrolysis process, the most heat they could have
obtained is 100% of the energy put into electrolysis, or if that heat
was "corrected for" 200%, not the 800+% measured with the .4cm rod in
the F&P paper.
An experiemental error in neutron dection of 3X, not totally
suprising, but what about the Italian experiement, several hundred
times background levels? Maybe they conducted it next to a fission
reactor.
I'd also like to know how they account for the He4, the tritium
I can believe might have been in the original heavy water and merely
released by electrolysis, but how does that explain the He4 produced?
I read a news article somewhere that mentioned an experiement
in which the He4 produced closely coincided with what would have been
expected for the amount of heat produced assuming a D+D -> He4 reaction.
I'm not saying that I'm completely convinced that fusion is taking
place, this still could be a Polywater of the 80's, but I don't think
the Germans did a real good job of refuting the possibility that it
does either.
One possibility I've been thinking about, assume that D+D -> He4
is the reaction producing the majority of the heat. Assume the tritium
is really the result of some being present in the heavy water sample,
perhaps the neutrons that are observed are the result of a D+T -> He4 + n
reaction.
Aside from the fact that know one knows how D+D can react and
produce He4 plus heat instead of tritium, He3, or gamma rays, this
would fairly neatly explain the rest of the products. Assuming one could
successfully duplicate the F&P experiement, this could be tested
by using a heavy water sample devoid of any tritium to begin with.
I'd like to hear more about the Italian experiement, Titanium is a
lot less expensive. I wonder what it was like when electricity was first
discovered.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!netsys!lamc!well!mitsu
From: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion
Subject: L.A. Times Extracts: Stanford, 4He findings, Italy
Keywords: Also Moscow, Czechoslovakia, and Italy Confirm Cold Fusion
Message-ID: <11384@well.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 89 07:51:36 GMT
Reply-To: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi)
Organization: Whole Earth Lectroinic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 147
Xref: santra sci.physics:6300 alt.fusion:590
Summary of extract presented below:
In a stunning discovery Monday, April 17, Walling and Simons at U. of Utah
lent great credence to D+D -> 4He theory by discovering 4He in palladium
electrode in a Pons' experiment. The amounts are consistent with
a fusion process and the heat being observed.
On Tuesday, Italian scientists confirmed cold fusion in a parallel
experiment using deuterium gas and titanium electrodes. They report high
neutron count but not significant heat output. However, it is clear evidence
of the feasibility of cold fusion.
On Wednesday, Stanford reported that they have confirmed the P&F
experiment in a setup that includes a control experiment with normal
water. They repeated the experiment five times and got significantly
greater heat output from the heavy water experiment. The heat measured
is similar to that observed by P&F.
On the same day Czechoslovakia claimed to have reproduced the experiment,
following up claims by Moscow University and Hungary last week that they have
also reproduced the experiment.
Extract (full article minus details USENET readers already know)
from Wednesday's edition of the L.A. Times, Part I page 3:
by LEE DYE, Times Science Writer
. . . Stanford University revealed experiments that indicate
nuclear fusion, and not some kind of chemical reaction, is the most likely
explanation for heat generated by a table-top apparatus at the
University of Utah.
The Stanford discovery came on the heels of discovery of helium-4
in the Utah experiment, a discovery that fits perfectly with a growing
number of theories that explain why it might be possible to achieve
fusion at room temperature with a simple experiment.
. . . . Many physicists have argued that it is essential to
conduct a "control" experiment, which would reveal whether the heat
detected in the Utah experiment comes from a chemical reaction or nuclear
fusion. That could be done by running parallel experiments,
one with "heavy water," . . . and one with ordinary water.
. . . . A Stanford team of seven researchers, led by Robert A.
Huggins, professor of materials science, has conducted a series of control
experiments and found that the experiment with regular water produced
no heat. But the one with heavy water produced heat "comparable to
that reported by Pons and Fleishmann," Huggins said.
The experiment was repeated at least five times in side-by-side
versions---always with the same result.
. . . . "We are seeing quite a difference" between the two
experiments, Huggins said. "The thermal effects are real."
. . . The experiment apparently produces so few radioactive
byproducts that they are almost impossible to measure.
Huggins stopped short of saying that the work at Stanford
confirms that nuclear fusion is the only explanation for the heat
generated by the experiment, but it clearly shows that deuterium plays a
key role in whatever is going on.
"We think the result is significant," he said.
. . . . Huggins said he can understand why many other laboratories
are having trouble replicating the experiment.
"It sounds simpler than it really is," he said. "It's easy
for people to do bad experiments."
. . . . Cheves Walling, a widely respected chemist who pioneered
the study of nuclear reactions, and fellow chemist John Simons put one
of Pons' heat-generating experiments in their mass spectrometer and
determined that the experiment was producing helium-4.
Helium-4 is the most common form of helium, but it is extremely
rare as a byproduct of deuterium fusion, and its presence in the
palladium used in the Pons-Fleishmann experiment is extremely significant,
Walling said.
From the beginning, physicists have been skeptical of the Utah
claims because the experiment should have produced far more neutrons than were
detected by Pons and Fleishmann . . .
. . . . "I think it's the last nail in the coffin," pioneering
nuclear physicist Robert Cornog said of the discovery of helium-4
in the electrode. "It's almost as exciting as the original announcement."
. . . . Eerkens, who has held a wide range of posts in the
nuclear industry, said in an interview that helium-4 is being produced
instead of helium-3 because of something he calls the "wall effect."
. . . . in the palladium electrode used in the Utah experiment,
the deuterons are packed tightly into the crystal lattice of the
palladium itself, Eerkens said. When deuterons fuse in the palladium,
he said, the helium-4 bangs into "the wall" of palladium.
"The wall absorbs the energy," he said, which is then released
as heat. The helium-4 remains trapped in the alttice, although
it occasionally turns into helium-3 and releases a neutron.
. . . . When Walling and Simons set out to see if the Pons-
Fleishmann experiment had produced helium-4, they had one advantage
over everyone else: They had access to the same experiments used by
Pons.
They chose an electrode that was already producing heat, and while
it was running they checked to see what elements it was producing.
They found helium-4, Walling said, and in amounts consistent with the
heat that was being generated.
That development may not be as exciting as some other parts of this
ongoing scientific drama, but for dozens of theorists trying to come
up with an explanation for what is going on, it was stunning news.
"It's a major advancement," said Cornog, who decades ago took
part in some of the earliest experiments in nuclear physics at UC Berkeley.
In one of the more peculiar developments Tuesday, Italian
scientists announced that they had created nuclear fusion in a small
apparatus that is very different from the Utah experiment.
. . . . Unlike the Pons-Fleishmann results, the Frascati
experiment emitted a substantial number of neutrons, which
Scaramuzzi and other Italian scientists said could only have come from
a cold fusion reaction.
"The results of the Frascati experiment leave us extremely
convinced that fusion was obtained," Scaramuzzi said in a Rome
press conference. "From the scientific point of view, we are confident."
In the Italian experiment, shavings of titanium were placed in
a small tube containing deuterium gas. Like palladium, titanium also
lends itself to the compaction of deuterium.
. . . . The Italians did not reveal exactly how the experiment
was conducted, but Scaramuzzi said it was repeated several times and
emitted several hundred neutrons per second---still far below what
would have been expected prior to Pons and Fleishmann but, if true,
high enough to indicate nuclear fusion.
Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak news agency CTK said that
a group of physicists and mathematicians from Bratislava's
Comenius University had also achieved nuclear fusion at room
temperature in an experiment conducted Monday, but further
details were not available. That brings to five the number
of nations with scientists claiming to have duplicated the
Pons-Fleischmann experiment.
******* END OF EXTRACT *******
As far as I'm concerned, this is enough evidence for me: we have
fusion, it's D+D -> 4He or something related (D+D+D -> 4He + D?).
And this is GOOD NEWS INDEED. Had we not found something like this,
we would be faced with the running out of liquid petroleum fuels
within the next twenty years or so not to mention the increasing
problem of CO2 increase. If we switch to this process ASAP and
phase out petroleum burning, these problems are now basically
controllable. Now, on to the ozone layer . . . we've got to
figure out a new way to make things *cold* now, looks like we've
got *heat* figured out . . .
Mitsu Hadeishi
A former Harvard physics major, since graduating employed
at Electronic Arts, where they let me create OOP development systems
reach me at ucbvax!well!mitsu or more simply mitsu@well.UUCP
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!labrea!brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU
From: brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion
Subject: Re: Latest fusion news from L.A.Times 18 April 1989
Summary: Mass Spec. stuff
Keywords: cold fusion, He, D2, mass spectroscopy
Message-ID: <113@sierra.stanford.edu>
Date: 26 Apr 89 20:02:10 GMT
Expires: 5/10/89
References: <56.UUL1.2#239@valley.UUCP> <1989Apr21.084358.18394@cs.rochester.edu> <767@nsscb.UUCP>
Sender: brooks@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Michael B. Brooks)
Reply-To: brooks@sierra.UUCP (Michael B. Brooks)
Followup-To: others interested in mass spec (lots of you)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 48
Xref: santra sci.physics:6361 alt.fusion:678
In response to postings in alt.fusion I have dug up a few things about mass
spectroscopy and it`s standardization, resolution and reliability. This
info is available in many sources, mine is Mass Spectroscopy (book) by
Duckworth, Barber, and Venkatasubramanian, Cabmbridge University Press,
1986. There is a lot of stuff in here! I am no expert in mass spec, but
I do routinely run a Rutherford Backscatterer (RBS) and there are common
aspects.
Mass specs produce output that can be represented graphically in a plot like
"counts vs. channel number" where channel number can be related to m/e
ratios of ions, and ionized molecules. Counts are interpretable as
relative intensities and can be standardized to give absolute ratios of
constituents of ionized species. In the case of the Walling and Simons
analysis of 4He it makes sense that they would have run a standard of 4He
gas thru the system to calibrate a 4He signal first off, it`s an important
first step, merely as a system check. The gas is readily available and I use
as the primary beam source in my RBS (correction, My Boss`s RBS).
Next the mass spec would have sample gases released from the working F&P
cell and another spectrum would have been acquired, differing from the
first substantially, with much structure in the signals` being visible.
One would see contributions from 1H, 2H, 3H, 3He, 4He, and assorted
molecular species, all ionized. A simple difference (spectral subtraction)
spectra would be produced to detect 4He. Possible similarities in the
signals of a 2D-2D molecule and 4He (both say +1) could be resolved by the
system if the peaks overlap simply by ramping the ionizing electron beam to
energies high enough to break the D-D bond and observing peak intensity
(counts) levels shift. Substantial 4He contributions will not likely be
affected at the D-D disassociation energy, whereas the reverse will be
readily apparent. By this method of "Bond energy dissociation", the
I (subH+H) dissoc. eng. of 18.0+/-0.2eV was determined in 1941 (see above,
pg198)---18eV is needed to break apart the H+H molecule. Such studies are
common sources of binding energies for ionized compounds, and many have
been studied. In sum, if proper system calibration was done, and reasonable
protocals followed, 4He should have been quantitatively detected. This
technique is on far firmer ground than is calorimetry, since many heats of
standard chemical reactions are still argued over. One can assume that
it`s likely that Walling and Simons knew what they were doing, and were
careful in performing the checks. As I have indicated running the analysis
over a control electrode is not necessary (given the above), though it
certainly wouldn`t be a bad idea! Any corrections to what I have posted
will be welcome, especially those with numbers about Walling and Simons
analysis!
Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Lab (solid state)/SU
MIT astronomer Walter Lewin: "Abscence of evidence should never be mistaken
for evidence of abscence."
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!mbkennel
From: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Lattice absorption of excited 4He energy...
Summary: P or D states
Keywords: lattice fusion speculation quantum numbers
Message-ID: <7958@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 26 Apr 89 00:43:17 GMT
Reply-To: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel)
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 37
In the standard theory of D+D -> 4He* the excited
He4 nucleus almost immediately decays to a lower energy state, emitting
a neutron or proton. In F+P's experiment, however, many fewer neutrons
were found than are necessary to explain the reported heat production.
People have proposed that the He4* might somehow dump its excess energy
to the crystal lattice, thus explaining the aneutronic reaction.
However, it seems to me that in the nuclear time scales and distances
involved in the standard He4 decay, the lattice electrons are much too
far away to have any effect because the normal decay proceeds so fast.
A question: in the calculations, is it assumed that the D+D collide in an
S state, i.e. with orbital angular momentum L=0? This may be appropriate
in thermonuclear plasma fusion, but perhaps in a solid lattice, the deuterium
nuclei generally interact in a state with L=1 or L=2? (In some kind of
intuitive sense, this "feels" reasonable to me: D nuclei stuck shaking
in a small box vs. flying around in free space.)
In this case, perhaps the standard decay reaction is forbidden because of
quantum numbers and the alternate decay channel has a long enough lifetime
to enable it to deexcite via some magic lattice interactions.
So here's the question for more knowledgable people: How exactly does
the He4* decay work? Can this scheme work? Or does the L>0 decays
go faster?
For something like this to be an explanation, the L=0 fusion would have to
be surpressed by some unknown mechanism (read smoke and mirrors)
to very large margin, (10^9), which seems improbable. However, it has been
noted in a recent paper ("A parametric study of cold fusion", by Jones et
al. I believe) that small changes in fusion parameters can have enormous
effects on the rate of fusion, in fact 10s of orders of magnitude, in some
cases, so maybe there is some odd explanation.
Matt Kennel
mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!arisia!tow
From: tow@arisia.Xerox.COM (Rob Tow)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion
Subject: Re: D2O is toxic
Summary: Why
Keywords: Re:Heavy Water
Message-ID: <716@arisia.Xerox.COM>
Date: 26 Apr 89 20:08:29 GMT
References: <3182@cosmo.UUCP>
Reply-To: tow@arisia.UUCP (Rob Tow)
Organization: Xerox PARC
Lines: 90
Xref: santra sci.physics:6377 alt.fusion:706
In article <3182@cosmo.UUCP> doom@cosmo.UUCP (DOOM) writes:
>> -Rich-@cup.prtal.com writes on 17.04.89:
>> Does anyone know why D2O is toxic?
>
>Hope I can.
>The solubiltity of D2O is not so good as H2O. So the elektrolytic
>concentration in the cells will be disturb and much more.
>But why is the solubility from H2O better?
>I think from the mass difference. So the D2O molekel are not so easy
>to build and rebuild the hydratcover.
>
>I'am right?
>Hope to here from someone
>DOOM
>
>student(FHN) in chemical analytic
>
>unido.cosmo.doom
>mcvax.unido.cosmo.doom
>
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.]
---
Rob Tow
Member Research Staff
Electronic Document Lab
Xerox PARC
3333 Coyote Hill Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94304
(415)-494-4807
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!Athena.MIT.EDU!elwin
From: elwin@Athena.MIT.EDU (Lee W Campbell)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: MIT Ballinger talk
Keywords: fusion,MIT
Message-ID: <10924@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 28 Apr 89 19:34:56 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: Department of Redundancy Department
Lines: 67
Here are some highlights of an article that appeared in @i(The Tech),
the MIT student newspaper. The following is reprinted without permission.
-----
MIT prof voices doubt about cold fusion claims
By Niraj S. Desai
Before starting his talk yesterday on developments in cold fusion,
Associate Professor Ronald G. Ballinger SM '82 warned the audience
that there would be a quiz on the subject afterwards. But he told them
not to worry because "no one can tell if you're wrong."
[some introductory stuff cut] ... but since then, Pons and Fleischmann
have failed to provide the scientific community with adaquate information
about their experiment, Ballinger said. He charged that the University
of Utah and others are stampeding the the scientific review process in
in the rush to obtain support for the Pons/Fleischmann method.
Ballinger's comments came the day after he testified before the House
committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Earlier in the day,
witnesses had called on Congress to appropriate $25 million to
commercialize the purported discovery.
[some stuff about testimony about "if we fall behind now..." cut]
... Research teams worldwide began trying to repeat the Pons/Fleischmann
result within days of their announcement. MIT in particular has had
many people working on the problem, Ballinger said.
"Our experiments here at MIT are at least as sophisticated as those
at Utah," Ballinger who holds a joint appointment in the Departments
of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science, said. But the MIT teams
have seen no evidence of either neutron or head production.
@i(The Boston Globe) reportd that an observation of heat production
by Stanford's Robert A. Huggins SM '52 is considered the strongest
confirmation at this time of the Utah results. But Huggins told the
House committee Wednesday that he was "not in a position to discuss"
what the mechanism producing the heat is.
Pons and Fleischmann have claimed that other groups have confirmed
their results, but have refused to give names, according to Ballinger.
More disturbingly, Pons and Fleischmann have avoided answering
questions about their discovery, Ballinger said. He noted that they
withdrew a paper on their experiment that they had submitted to the
British journal @i(nature) because they were unwilling to respond to
criticism by the journal's reviewers.
Part of the Utah researchers' reticence may be due to the fact that
they have applied for several patents for their work. "Pick up the
phone to Utah, what you get is the Office of Technology Transfer,"
Ballinger said.
[some stuff cut about Ballingers comments about ignoring peer
review, cooperation shouldn't jeopardize patent claims]
... Pons and Fleischmann have agreed to let scientists at Los
Alamos National Laboratory have a duplicate of their experiment for
confirmation purposes. If this does actually take place, it will be
very important, Ballinger said. But in the cold fusion debate,
nothing should be taken for granted, he added.
-----
[end of article]
I hope The Tech isn't too upset about me typing in their article.
-LWC
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!munck
From: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion
Subject: Niobium as a replacement for palladium
Keywords: niobium palladium temperature pressure
Message-ID: <51891@linus.UUCP>
Date: 28 Apr 89 11:58:43 GMT
Reply-To: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA
Lines: 84
Xref: santra sci.physics:6426 alt.fusion:793
(Just passing it on. --rgm)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Niobium as a replacement for palladium; temperature & pressure issues
(Addendum #2 to "Polarized D-/D+ storage in Pd...", dated 20 Apr 1989)
NIOBIUM AS A REPLACEMENT FOR PALLADIUM IN FAP REACTIONS
Hypothesis -- Niobium can be used as a replacement for palladium in the FAP
reaction, provided that air pressure within the reaction system
can be reduced to low (preferably less than 0.01 mm Hg) levels.
Like palladium, niobium supports supports the flow of H+ ions as current
carriers. Perhaps more importantly, niobium also supports two coexistent
hydrogen solution phases, although the phases are more temperature and pressure
sensitive than those of palladium. The critical point for coexistence of the
dual niobium phases is defined by three variables: temperature, pressure, and
degree of hydrogen saturation. The critical point for the coexistence of the
dual phases is at 140 degrees C, 0.01 mm Hg, and 0.3 H/Nb saturation ratio.
The hypothesis that niobium could replace palladium in FAP reactions is based
on the assumption that the two coexistent hydrogen phases in niobium are
actually H+ and H- phases similar to those proposed in my last two letters.
If the D+/D- polarization model is valid, the existence of two such phases is
the single most important criteria for building a FAP-style reaction system.
>From an design viewpoint, the most difficult part of building such a system
with niobium instead of palladium would be the need to use aqueous solutions
in or near low pressures.
Assuming that the FAP reaction is in fact a form of fusion, reaction systems
based on niobium would be far cheaper than those based on palladium. In the
earth's crust, niobium is about one third as common as copper, as common as
either cobalt or lithium, and about 2000 times as common as palladium. South
America has the most niobium (about 70% of the world's supply), but North
America has a substantial 14% of the world supply, most of which is in Canada.
TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE ISSUES
Both palladium and niobium have dual hydrogen solution phases which merge into
a single phase at sufficiently high temperatures. Pressure dependence is
conspicuous in the case of niobium because of the near-vacuum conditions needed
for the dual phases to exist, but it is quite possible that the palladium dual
phases would similarly disappear if subjected to sufficiently high pressures.
These pressure and temperature dependencies fit rather nicely with the idea
that H+ and H- phases are chemically reactive with each other, and can exist
within the same physical structure only under mild conditions.
Experimentally, the implication is that both temperature and pressure should
be viewed as significant variables when trying to construct a FAP reaction
system. In particular, a rapid rise in temperature could cause thermal
runaway in such a system by causing overly rapid decay of the two phases.
It is worth noting that this kind of thermally induced runaway decay of D+/D-
phases could explain some of the FAP results in which a large palladium
objects were melted or vaporized.
LOOKING FOR OTHER CANDIDATE ELEMENTS AND ALLOYS
If the H+/H- polarization hypothesis is correct, the approach to finding new
elements or alloys that support the FAP reaction would be as follows:
1) First, determine whether the material supports the flow of H+ ions under
the influence of an electrical current.
2) Second, look for the existence of dual hydrogen phases. If these
phases do not exist at room temperatures and pressures, it might still
be worthwhile to look for them at lower temperatures and/or pressures.
Cheers,
Terry Bollinger
Contel Technology Center
12015 Lee Jackson Highway
Fairfax, Virginia 22033-3346
Phone: 703 359-7751
Fax: 703 359-7766
Internet: terry@ctc.contel.com
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!inco!alembic!csu
From: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion
Subject: Cold Fusion - Perspective
Message-ID: <3471@alembic.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 89 03:54:20 GMT
Reply-To: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Organization: Alembic Systems
Lines: 55
Xref: santra sci.physics:6501 alt.fusion:905
The debate over cold fusion, both on the net and off, is getting
excessively emotional. Let's try to get a little perspective.
F&P have claimed to have seen energy production beyond anything
that can be accounted for by electrochemical reactions. They also
claim to have seen neutron and tritium production. The Jones group
at BYU saw neutron production five standard deviations above background.
Since then, several groups claim to have seen excess heat generation in
F&P-type cells or other metal-deuterium systems, while several other
groups claim to have seen excess neutron emission and/or tritium
production. Still other groups have performed similar experiments
and seen none of these.
A number of theorists have dismissed cold fusion as impossible based
on various grounds. These dismissals are irrelevant. Theory is based
on observation, not the other way around. Michaelson and Morley may
well have been the Fleischmann and Pons of the nineteenth century;
physicists spent years trying to explain away their results. Theory
must yield to experimental observation.
Many have pointed out ways that F&P could have made errors in their
calorimetry setup or calculations. This is irrelevant unless F&P
actually did make these mistakes. People point out that neutrons
can be produced by radon and gammas by bismuth-214. Irrelevant:
they form part of the background. It is the production of neutrons
and gammas *above* the background level that is significant, as Jones
et al knew quite well.
The presence of excess heat, neutrons, gammas, and fusion byproducts
would constitute proof of a fusion process. The absence of neutrons
and gamma does not constitute disproof; there are imaginable fusion
pathways which produce neither. The absence of excess heat and fusion
byproducts *does* constitute disproof, *provided* the attempt to duplicate
the F&P experiment actually is a duplication, and not a mere approximation.
The single damning piece of evidence against the F&P experiment so far
is the CalTech result which failed to find any fusion byproducts in one
of the Texas A&M palladium rods, and even this result cannot be taken
as gospel. How was the rod treated after removal from Texas A&M? How
was it prepared for extraction of tritium, He-3 and He-4? How sensitive
were the instruments used at CalTech? What fusion byproducts were they
looking for? How long was that particular rod in use? How much excess
heat was generated by the cell containing that particular rod?
In fact, the most that can be determined from the CalTech result is an
upper limit on the fusion rate.
Fleischmann and Pons were negligent in the way they released information.
The scientific community as a whole has been negligent in the way that
it has used the information they released.
--
Dave Mack
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!sb1
From: sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Sean M. Bossinger)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: More information on Fusion at the Uni. of Fla.
Message-ID: <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 21 Apr 89 19:23:19 GMT
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu ()
Organization: UF CIS Department
Lines: 56
This reported from the Gainesville Sun, Friday 21 April 1989
Two University of Florida researchers say they have produced a radioactive
isotope in an experiment that may partially confirm the claims of scientists
who say they have achieved fusion at room temperature.
Glen J. Scoessow and John A. Wethington Jr. of UF's nuclear engineering
sciences department say their work with an electrochemical-nuclear cell
resulted in the production of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen.
While the UF researchers do not claim to have achieved fusion, fusion of
deuterium is the only known process that could produce tritium in such a cell.
"Our conclusion from this experiment is that it has independently confirmed
that an electrochemical-nuclear reaction is taking place, with tritium as a
major product," Schoessow said.
The UF cell uses the same materials as those employed by researchers at the
University of Utah (palladium, platinum, heavy water, and lithium) who claim to
have achieved fusion at room temperatures.
And, while they did not set out to duplicate the Utah experiment, the UF team
said their findings "partially confirm" the claims of Stanley Pons of the
University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton.
"The point is that radioactivity was created with an electrochemical-nuclear
reaction," Wethington said. "Supposedly, it is impossible for this to occur
without fusion or some other nuclear reaction taking place."
The UF team detected a tritium buildup of approximately one trillion atoms
after 48 hours of electrolysis. After 100 hours, the buildup was almost 20
times greater.
The researchers ran control experiments using heavy water without electrolysis,
and the difference in tritium content between the treated cells was
statistically so high that the margin of error is negligible, they said.
Heavy water contains a type of hydrogen called deuterium, which is heavier than
the more common hydrogen atoms. Heavy Water would provide an unlimited supply
of fuel if the elusive goal of controlled fusion is ever achieved.
Schoessow said they used the presence of tritium to test the results of the
reaction because the substance can be measured with great accuracy.
The UF researchers also subjected the palladium metal to a special treatment
before the experiment, but they said that they were uncertain which of their
adaptations may have contributed to their findings.
---John Gibbs, The Gainesville Sun (Friday, April 21, 1989)
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sean M. Bossinger | USnail: 16220 s.w. 282 st | Dave, I think I
Internet:sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu | Homestead, Fl 33033 | am okay now.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!van-bc!rthurlow
From: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: CBC's The Journal report, Apr. 20 (was Re: Inside story.)
Keywords: fusion
Message-ID: <2381@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 22 Apr 89 19:09:14 GMT
References: <4985@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow)
Organization: Wimsey Associates, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 54
In article <4985@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Larry Hutchinson) writes:
>
>An informant tells me that Pons and Jones colaborated early on. At some
>point they decided they were not talking the same language (physics vs
>electro-chem) and they decided to sever communications. Pons submitted
>a paper to Nature and they chose Jones as a referee. At this point Pons
>went to the head of the department who went to the head of the university.
>They brought in Edward Teller who stated that their results could not
>be explained with classical physics. They then decided to go public. And
>the rest is chaos.
A couple of problems, according to what aired on Canada's CBC-TV program
"The Journal", Thursday, April 20, 1989. What they said was:
- Pons described his work in a research grant application. The granting
agency chose Jones as a referee; information of this sort is *not* known
to the applicant. Nature was not involved.
- Jones was very interested in the application, and made the extremely
unconventional step of approaching Pons and suggesting collaboration on
research. What Jones was in a posution to contribute at that point was
quite frankly not apparent to me from the report.
- After a few discussions, Pons seems to have 'hung up', and maintains that
nothing came of the 'collaboration', while Jones maintains that there was
an agreement struck that they would publish together.
- The same paper was submitted to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry
and to Nature. The JEC went with it after a few clarifications, but
Nature produced a long list of questions it wanted addressed before it
was acceptable. Pons simply didn't have the time to address the concerns
of the editors of Nature in the time before the publication deadline, and
withdrew the paper.
- Pons was uncomfortable with going public, but agreed when many wild rumors
about the research started to circulate. Pons had wanted to wait until
late 1990 to have the time to thoroughly research the phenomenon, but was
under great pressure from the department and the University to publish.
In the interview, Pons came across as very much the hero, with Jones as just
another person wanting to get a bit of the glory. The report was very good,
with a lot of research put into it, as is typical of The Journal's team when
they do their best work. They did the report mainly from Pons' viewpoint,
but their handling of Jones viewpoint seemed fair.
If this research holds up, the Nobel committee is going to have a bloody
job on it's hands. I just hope all the principals live until awards are
presented, unlike Rosalind Franklin and the DNA prizes.
--
"There was something fishy about the butler. I think he was a
Pisces, probably working for scale." - Nick Danger
Robert Thurlow {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!rthurlow
Vancouver, BC, Canada or rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP
In the heart of Kitsilano or rthurlow@wimsey.bc.ca
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!boulder!heuring
From: heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Vince Heuring)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Deuterium Resources (was: Re: More info. on Fusion at Uni. Fla.)
Message-ID: <8307@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 23 Apr 89 17:17:45 GMT
References: <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <29421@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Reply-To: heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Vince Heuring)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Lines: 30
In article <29421@apple.Apple.COM> thrash@Apple.COM (Nathaniel Truher) writes:
>In article <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes:
>
>(much stuff omitted)
>
>I've seen this assertion a lot lately. Exactly how much is "unlimited,"
>really? (By the way, it seems to me that energy never gets "too cheap to
>meter"; the cheaper it gets, the more of it people are gonna use, and if fusion
>...
>Anyway, at current
>consumption levels, how long (like how many million years or whatever) would
>the world's deuterium supply be likely to last (and how fast would it be
Quoting from "The Energy Handbook," Rob't. D. Loftness, Van Rostrand, 1978,
"Deuterium is abundant, about one atom of Deuterium to each 6700
atoms of hydrogen in water. In a cubic meter of water there about
10**25 atoms of D which would privide, in a [hot] fusion reaction,
about 7.5E9 Btu (7.94E12 joules). The same energy would be available
from 300 metric tons [!] of coal, or 1500 barrels of oil. The
energy available from 1% of the D in the oceans (total volume of
the oceans is about 1.5E9 km**3) would be about 110 million Quad
[1Q = 10E15btu] (which is 1.2E29 joules), or about 500,000 times
the energy available from the world's fossil fuels."
Cazart!
----
Vincent Heuring Dep't of Electrical & Computer Engineering
University of Colorado - Boulder heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!tank!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!wind!perry
From: perry@wind.bellcore.com (Perry E Metzger)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: German refutiation of cold fusion?
Message-ID: <15574@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 24 Apr 89 20:11:28 GMT
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: perry@bellcore.com (Perry E Metzger)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Bellcore, Morristown, NJ
Lines: 40
Let me start by saying that I am not yet convinced that F&P have
actually produced fusion. However, the logic in the reposted German
article is weak at best, and can hardly be considered a "disproof" of
piezofusion. For those that didn't read, it can be likened to...
1. The excess neutrons are the result of differences between the
background count at the location where the background was taken and
background at the location where the experiment was conducted.
2. The excess heat is all due to catalysed recombination of the D and
O at the surface of the palladium.
Lets start with 2, because it is easier. The energy released by the D
and O recombination can't be higher than the quantity of electric
energy added to the system. F&P counted the total quantity of
electrical energy added as "input" in their calculations. Ergo, this
is meaningless; they have already accounted for the possibility. It is
silly for anyone to mention it since it is clearly handled in the
paper.
As for 1, this is potentially more damning, but for the area around
the experiment to be three times hotter than a region only a few feet
away, and with (presumably) the same quantity of shielding from the
outside, seems quite unusual. I am sufficiently unimpressed by the
neutron detection work that F&P did that I would like to see a lot
more done on this before I believe that they actually detected
neutrons. HOWEVER, the presense of a possible explanation for the
behavior hardly constitutes a disproof as the poster has suggested,
and since F&P have repeated the experiment several times
simultaneously, I find it hard to believe that all the sections of the
lab would have an elevated neutron count about the experimental
apparatus by coincidence. I am suprised that the German paper had to
go to these lengths to explain the problem; why not just chalk it up
to bad use of the detector equipment, as with the Georgia Tech people?
To summarise, the excess heat hasn't been explained away, and there is
hardly any damning evidence against the elevated neutron count IN THIS
PAPER.
Perry
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!chinet!covici
From: covici@chinet.chi.il.us (John Covici)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Coloumb Barrier Bites The Dust
Message-ID: <8290@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 25 Apr 89 10:59:34 GMT
Reply-To: covici@chinet.chi.il.us (John Covici)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 41
April 12 (EIRNS)--WEST GERMAN SCIENTIST REPORTS COULOMB BARRIER
KUPUT. The director of the West German Fusion Energy Foundation,
Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, reached today for comment on the Coulomb
catastrophe replied: "These experiments may be categorically
demonstrating that the entire concept of pairwise interaction and
forces between particles, the entire concept of particle
scattering which dominates high energy physics, and the entire
axiomatic basis for the Newtonian system which displaced Kepler
has been proven wrong." Instead of forces, Dr. Tennenbaum
suggests that the precondition to nuclear fusion consists of
creating the proper coherence conditions, like that of a lasing
process.
April 12 (EIRNS)--UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PROFESSOR REVEALS HISTORY
OF "FORCE-FREE" FUSION CONCEPT. Dr. Robert J. Moon reported that
his teacher, also previously on the faculty of the University of
Chicago, the late Professor William Draper Harkins, had first
raised a problem with the Coulomb barrier in scientific papers
published in 1917. Harkins was then working on developing
geometric models of the nucleus, which included the concept of an
electrically neutral particle--today's neutron. Harkins,
according to Dr. Moon, saw major problems in the conclusions
drawn by Lord Rutherford in his "Coulomb" scattering experiments.
Rutherford had directed a beam of high energy helium nuclei,
which were obtained from radioactive materials, through a metal
foil. The nuclei of the foil deflect some of the beam nuclei.
This deflection can be seen on a phorescent screen with the eye.
From the deflection, Rutherford, using the standard Maxwellian
form of electrodynamics, calculated the effective radius of the
metal foil nuclei. Harkins and Moon thought that Rutherford was
wrong to use this approach. Dr. Moon has calculated results from
the same data, but utilizing the Ampere-Gauss-Riemann approach to
electrodynamcis. The derived results are dramatically different
than those of Rutherford. For example, instead of the nucleus
getting bigger in size as the number of protons and neutrons in
it increase, Moon found that the nuclei were actually getting
smaller. Dr. Moon reports this convinced him that the Coulomb
barrier concept was flawed. This led him to believe that it would
be possible to construct "force-free" trajectories with
electrical currents to generate "force-free" fusion, like that
which Fleischmann and Pons have apparently demonstrated.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!labrea!rutgers!apple!oliveb!pyramid!lll-winken!arisia!cdp!caulkins
From: caulkins@cdp.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: D2O Requirements for energy prod.
Message-ID: <705400010@cdp>
Date: 26 Apr 89 05:22:00 GMT
Lines: 47
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:705400010:000:1573
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!caulkins Apr 25 21:22:00 1989
Energy consumption/production statistics, from "Statistical
Abstract of the United States" 1988, 108th edition
Total 1985 energy production:
World 8.836e13KWH 3.682e9 MW-days
US 1.892e13KWH 7.883e8 MW-days
Total 1985 US installed electrical generating capacity:
2.548e8 MW-days
Here are some back-of-the-envelope calculations for cold
fusion as a power source (I got these from a conversation with
a nuclear power engineer):
1 MW-day requires 1.052 gm of U235 fission @ 200 MeV. The
ratio of fission to fusion energy yield is 200 MeV/20 MeV, and
the mass ratio of D2O to U235 is 20/235. Therefore to produce
1 MW-day of energy requires fusion of 0.8953 gm of D2O @ 20
MeV.
Assuming 30% efficiency, roughly that of fission power plants,
then 0.8953/.3 = 2.98 gm D2O per MW-day.
To replace the 1985 US installed electrical generating capacity
with fusion would require 2.548e8/2.98 = 8.55e7 gm, or 85.5
tons of D2O. Similarly, to replace the entire US energy
production would require 264.5 tons, and the world's energy
production could be handled with 1,235 tons.
The bottom line here is that D2O will NOT be the limiting item
for cold fusion energy production. Two D2O plants of the Bruce
B Ontario Hydro type could easily supply the energy
requirements of the entire world in 1985.
It is probable that there is enough D2O stored in tanks right
now to support US energy needs for a year.
Caveat - this was all done in some haste, and there may be
assumption, arithmetic, or conversion errors. I welcome
comments or corrections.
Dave C
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!thrash
From: thrash@Apple.COM (Nathaniel Truher)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Re: D2O Requirements for energy prod.
Message-ID: <29606@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 26 Apr 89 23:24:44 GMT
References: <705400010@cdp>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 18
I think I have enough information to figure this out. If the total volume of
the oceans is 1.5 billion cubic kilometers, meaning about 1.5E24 (that's "1.5
septillion," I think) grams of water (maybe? at one metric ton per cubic
meter?), with one 6700th of that being "heavy," more or less, that means about
2.2E20 (220 quintillion) grams of heavy water, at (according to speculation)
2.98 grams heavy water per megawatt day, so the total energy available in the
world's oceans would be 7.5E19 (75 quintillion) megawatt days, or twenty
billion times the world's energy production in 1985 (3.6 billion megawatt
days). Sounds good to me.
So if I haven't made a mistake somewhere, at contemporary demand levels the
deuterium in the oceans would be likely to last twenty billion years, which is
approximately the present age of the universe (as estimated by contemporary
cosmologists).
1E15 g H20 1 D 1 MW day 1 year
1.5E9 km3 H20 x ---------- x ------ x ---------- x --------------- = 2.0E10 yr
km3 H20 6700 H 2.98 g D20 3.682E9 MW days
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!qmc-cs!rabin
From: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Rabin Ezra)
Newsgroups: sci.research,alt.fusion
Subject: Explanation of cold fusion?
Message-ID: <948@sequent.cs.qmc.ac.uk>
Date: 26 Apr 89 14:43:31 GMT
Reply-To: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Rabin Ezra)
Organization: CS Dept, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK.
Lines: 33
Xref: santra sci.research:770 alt.fusion:739
Expires:
References:
Sender:
Followup-To:
Keywords:
Forwarded on behalf of a friend at Imperial College, University
of London. Replies by e-mail to DLC@spva.ph.ic.ac.uk who will
forward communications as appropriate. I will only forward
e-mail bounced by this address.
My supervisor, one Prof. Streater, has just written a paper
purporting to explain cold fusion.
I don't understand much of it, as it uses a wierd method.
Anyway, basically the theory goes like this:
Deuterium, He4 and photons are all bosons, and
so they are subject to stimulated emission.There is a reaction:
D+D-->He4+gamma
Reaction rate is very, very small compared with D+D-->p+T etc.
However, once this action occurs once, it produces 23.5MeV
photons, which trigger the reaction by stimulated emission.
Small numbers of photons lose much energy by collisions,
and since 30keV is enough to allow D+D-->p+T and
D+D-->n+He3, these reactions also occur at a lower rate.
Result is that a fusion reaction will go once
started, producing apparently too few photons.Unfortunately,
no known mechanism will start the reaction, and the 23.5 MeV
(and as a by product, up to 200MeV ) neutrons have not been
detected.
--
Rabin Ezra UUCP: rabin@qmc-cs.UUCP
PhD Student, JANET: rabin@uk.ac.qmc.cs
Dept of Computer Science, ARPA: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk
Queen Mary College, <If the gateway bounces try :
Mile End Road, rabin%cs.qmc.ac.uk@cunyvm.cuny.edu >
London E1 4NS.
U.K.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!yale!yalevm!HOWGREJ
From: HOWGREJ@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: New Results! Bad News!
Message-ID: <437@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Date: 28 Apr 89 00:01:42 GMT
Reply-To: HOWGREJ@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Organization: Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA
Lines: 58
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article
Well, guys, I have what could be some bad news here. Today the Yale
Scientific Magazine held its annual Undergraduate Research Colloquium,
three student speakers and a keynote speaker, Dr. Moshe Gai, Associate
Professor of Physics, who is heading the Yale cold fusion experiment.
(In Science Times last week). Dr. Gai started by intending to describe
the idea of cold fusion, and explain the Yale experiment, without giving
out the results; but, in the end, he did. The results the experimenters
found showed "no deviation from the background" neutron levels, "wherever
we looked." He complained about the lack of any detailed published
details of the P&F experiment (no suprise there). The Yale physicists
were working with a few chemists from Brookhaven National Labs, and Gai
claimed that they had "covered all the possibilities", although they did
*not* measure for heat given off. A brief summary of the experiment, as
Dr. Gai explained it:
The setup consisted of four cells, surrounded by six neutron detectors in
a hex pattern. (I believe, though I'm not sure, that each neutron given
off went through first the no.1 detector, then one of the other five, to
make sure they counted it right - but I could be wrong here.) They also
used a cosmic ray detector - he was not more specific - so that they coul
"veto" external sources. Two sodium iodide gamma ray detectors measured
gamma output. They tried all the different possibilities they could come
up with, using both "coldworked" and electrodes "annealed" (I hope he
understands this better than I do! :-) in both vaccuum and argon. The
solutions were of 99.8% D2O and 97.5% D2O, the latter diluted with "salts
or just lithium. To make sure that the data was not time-dependant, they
ran the cells for about three weeks (I suspect that they're still going).
"Our data is very clean" Dr. Gai said. "We have not seen anything which
is significantly different in a statistical way from the background."
He did tell a little story about a result they got from the neutron
detector one 3am, which he said bothered them for days. They finally
realized that it was due to residual radiation from calibrating that
detector (the only one that noticed the neutrons, from 2.6 to 5 MeV) the
night before.
Thus, it looks as though the results are very negative from the
Yale/Brookhaven team. They are currently writing a paper to be
published pretty soon - no date given. Also, Dr. Gai will give a talk
on their results at the American Physical Society meeting next week in
Baltimore. Also, tommorrow afternoon (4/27) the team will give their
report to the Physics Department here at Yale (today's talk was far
from official). If I go (unless something else comes up) I'll try to
post a more accurate report tommorrow night. If anyone has any special
technical questions, I'm not the person to ask, but try emailing me
anyway. To sum up: "As far as we are concerned, we have not seen the
effect." Ah, well. Maybe they're wrong :^).
The Space People will contact us when they | Greg Howard (203)436-1135
can make money by doing so. - DAVID BYRNE | HOWGREJ at YALEVM
The above was *not* in anyway provided by Yale University, Dr. Moshe Gai,
or anyone else. Any misquotes or bad data are *my* fault, and neither
Yale, Dr. Gai, or the Yale Scientific Magazine take any responsibility
for anything contained herein.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!husc6!m2c!wpi!cyganski
From: cyganski@wpi.wpi.edu (David Cyganski)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Cold fusion in today's news
Keywords: fusion Pons MIT
Message-ID: <2149@wpi.wpi.edu>
Date: 1 May 89 23:35:23 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass.
Lines: 28
A few items from the media today (5/1/89)
1) ABC news showed a clip from a press conference at MIT. I'm sorry
but I didn't catch the name of the representative. They announced that
they have not been able to reproduce the neutron generating aspect of
the F&P experiment and hence do not believe that F&P achieved fusion.
No mention was made of calorimetry.
2) ABC news also noted that CAL TECH also announced their inability
to duplicate the experiment.
3) The latest issue of PEOPLE MAGAZINE features an interview with Pons.
Most interesting is the description of the length of effort involved
in taking the fusion idea from conception to fruition: five years
(of 18 hour days his wife said).
My two cents: On the question of whether F&P are making a calorimetry
error, apparently they saw a little less than five years of no fusion,
so I would say they must have been doing something right at that point.
I would find it much harder to believe them if that had got it to work
the first time. Obviously, as others on the net have pointed out, there
is a trick to getting this to work and they are enjoying it (to the
loss of MIT and others) and we'll just have to wait.
David Cyganski
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mit-eddie!ames!ig!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!husc6!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!ccb104
From: CCB104@PSUVM.BITNET (Carey Briggs)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Re: 1926 Pd-catalyzed fusion
Message-ID: <84512CCB104@PSUVM>
Date: 3 May 89 21:37:54 GMT
References: <84208CCB104@PSUVM>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 34
Many thanks for all replies! By request, the list of bibliographical references
follows; it is hoped that they are, in fact, of some use:
(1) "Ueber die Verwandlung von Wasserstoff in Helium," by Fritz Paneth
and Kurt Peters, in "Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft,"
15 September 1926, vol. 59, no.8, pp. 1239-1248.
(2) An independently written abstract by Behrle of Fritz Paneth and Kurt
Peters, "Ueber die Verwandlung von Wasserstoff in Helium," in
"Chemisches Zentralblatt," 29 September 1926, vol. II, no. 13, pp.
1728-1729.
(3) Under "News and Views," in "Nature," 25 September 1926, vol. 118,
no. 2969, pp. 455-456.
(4) "The Reported Conversion of Hydrogen into Helium," in "Nature," 9
October 1926, vol. 118, no. 2971, pp. 526-527.
(5) (no title), correction to (4) above, in "Nature," 11 December 1926,
vol. 118, no. 2980, pp. 852-853.
(6) "The Transmutation of Hydrogen into Helium," by Fritz Paneth, in
"Nature," 14 May 1927, vol. 119, no. 3002, pp. 706-707.
THE LAST TWO PAPERS SEEM TO BE ONLY INDIRECTLY RELATED TO THE FORGOING:
(7) "The Occurrence of Helium and Neon in Vacuum Tubes," by E. C. C. Baly
and R.W. Riding, in "Nature," 30 October 1926, vol. 118, no. 2974,
pp. 625-626.
(8) "The Occurrence of Helium and Neon in Vacuum Tubes," by Robert W.
Lawson, in "Nature," 11 December 1926, vol. 118, no. 2980, pp. 838-
839.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john
From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Fusion: Palladium - notes on behavior
Keywords: palladium absorbtion hydrogen
Message-ID: <1823@anasaz.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 89 05:21:50 GMT
Organization: Anasazi Inc., Phoenix AZ
Lines: 56
In order to account for some of the problems replicating the
P&F effect (if it is real), I am posting a few notes about
the Palladium-Hydrogen (or Deuterium) System from "Hydrogen
in Metals" by Smith (1948). These show how sensitive
the Pd absorption of Hydrogen is to many factors.
Note: Most of these relate to absorption of H into Pd from H2 gas at
relatively low pressures and temperaturs (<300C):
(1) Absorption into fresh metal (pre-heated in vacuo):
(a) the rate of absorbtion accelerates for a while (opening phase) then
drops off as the metal becomes more saturated. The initial
acceleration is interpreted as "opening" the metal - the hydrogen
increasing the size of rifts through which the initial diffusion
takes place (before finally diffusing into the crystal lattice).
(b) Repeated absorption, desorption cycles cause the acceleration
to decrease, and also result in significantly reduced rates
of absorption and total amount of absorption.
(2) If the metal is preheated and then cooled in hydrogen, the
acceleration effect is not seen. This is interpreted as the
metal being already "opened" as a result of the hydrogen presence.
(3) Preheating decreases both the rate and total amount of absorption
in relation to the temperature of the pre-heat: preheating at
higher temperature results in metal that will absorb less
hydrogen at a lower rate than preheating at a lower temperature.
(4) The rate of absorption is greater at higher temperatures.
(5) Plastic deformation and recovery by annealing effect the
rate of absorption. Strained metal has a higher rate of
absorption that does annealed metal. However, cold-working may, in
certain cases, reduce the rate of absorption. The effect of
annealing after foregoing strain, in diminishing both absorption
rate and capacity, is greater, the higher the temperature of the
anneal.
(6) The phases referred to in the P&F paper:
Alpha phase is a hydrogen concentration of less than about 30
relative volumes - during this phase the lattice gradually
expands from 3.883 AU at 0 concentration to 3.894 AU at
30 vols (at 20 degrees C).
Beta phase occurs as the lattice suddenly expands to 4.018 AU
shortly after 30 vols.
(7) The alpha and beta phases of the metal merge around 300C, when
the alpha lattice has grown to the beta size. Above this temperature
there is only one phase.
As you can see, this is pretty complex stuff (and I'm only scratching
the surface :-) ). It should be no surprise that the reproduction
of the P&F results is hard - they have been working for many years,
possibly with the same palladium. The state of that palladium is
not known - but it may have to be closely duplicated in order to
get the PF effect.
--
John Moore (NJ7E) mcdphx!anasaz!john asuvax!anasaz!john
(602) 861-7607 (day or eve) long palladium, short petroleum
The opinions expressed here are obviously not mine, so they must be
someone else's. :-)
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!iconsys!mmm
From: mmm@iconsys.UUCP (Mark Muhlestein)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Some local news and a rhetorical question
Keywords: Are they sincere?
Message-ID: <356@iconsys.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 89 03:00:37 GMT
Organization: ICON International, Inc., Orem, UT
Lines: 66
One of this evening's local papers reported that another group of
electrochemists working independently at Texas A&M have reproduced the
excess heat seen in the F&P experiment. Also, the head of the new solid
state fusion research project at the University of Utah said that at a
meeting of chemists on May 8th there would be "five or six" papers
which corroborate the U of U work. The university's FM station reported
that Fleishman and Pons were taking the criticism from the physicists
"in stride."
Last Saturday (April 29) I was having lunch at a restaurant near the
University of Utah campus and was pleasantly surprised to see Fleishman
and Pons come in, accompanied by two or three other people, one of whom
appeared to be from India. Unfortunately I wasn't close enough to
catch much of their conversation :-( but they seemed to be in good spirits
and appeared to be discussing something related to a fax Pons had received
from the man from India.
While I am reserving judgement on the validity of F&P's work, I have been
a little surprised at the charge of fraud I have heard from some quarters.
Assume for a moment that this whole thing is a case of fraud. What
do the perpetrators have to gain from it? If they know that
their work is not what they are saying it is, what is the possible
benefit to them of proclaiming it to everyone and asking them to
attempt to confirm it, expecting confirmation will not occur? A month
or two of notoriety? At what cost to them and their families?
Research money? Not likely. Fraud just doesn't make sense, even apart
from the issue that now researchers from other institutions must be
considered.
Let's say they are both insane. Simultaneously?
Other possibilities assume they are sincerely reporting the truth as they
see it, especially concerning the heat generation, which is in their
area of expertise and is the most interesting result. At this point,
possible scenarios seem to be:
1. They are essentially correct.
2. The experiment is flawed in some subtle way but they (and the other
people claiming to reproduce it) have not discovered the mistake.
3. They (and the other people claiming to reproduce the experiment)
are incompetent and are missing something obvious to someone who
is actually competent to do the experiment.
I think number 3 is fairly unlikely due to the fact that many of the
people who claim to have seen the excess heat are in fact among the
leading scientists in their field. This includes not only Fleishman
and Pons themselves, but also John Appleby (the new confirmation
from Texas A&M), who is reputed to be a "world renowned" chemist in
this evening's paper.
Number 2 is more likely, but at the very least it seems something
strange is going on. As the Stanford group said, "The effect is not
subtle."
In any case, I think it is still fair at this point to give F&P the
benefit of the doubt in the area of sincerity. I expect we will
hear something from Los Alamos within a week or two that should
help clear things up considerably.
--
Mark Muhlestein @ Icon International Inc.
uunet!iconsys!mmm
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ukma!rutgers!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!calmasd!wlp
From: wlp@calmasd.Prime.COM (Walter L. Peterson, Jr.)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: History (of science) repeats itself.
Keywords: P&F history of science
Message-ID: <308@calmasd.Prime.COM>
Date: 4 May 89 06:35:38 GMT
Organization: Prime-Calma, San Diego R&D, Object and Data Management Group
Lines: 84
Picture, if you will, the following hypothetical succession of newspaper
headlines:
"Professor claims radical new discovery - Scientific community skeptical"
"Nation's top experts disagree on 'discovery'"
"Chief of nation's leading lab can't reproduce experiments"
"Leading European scientists debunk Prof's. claims"
"Prof. repeats claim of new discovery - will disclose more details of
experiments"
"Scientists still not convinced - say discovery is only 'speculation'"
"Prof. offers to help reproduce experiments"
These made-up 'headlines' are not talking about the P&F "cold fusion"
experiment, rather they are based on the events following the publication
in the "Philosophical Transactions" for February 19, 1671 of "A Letter of
Mr. Isacc Newton containing his new Theory of Light and Colours".
I have obviously cast these headlines in the jargon of today's news media;
however, they fit the events of 300 some odd years ago. The 'Chief of nation's
top lab' was none other than Robert Hooke, who was Curator of Experiments for
the Royal Society.
The experiment that is questioned in the 'headlines' is the now famous
separation of sunlight into the colors of the spectrum by a simple
prism; an experiment that is easily understood by modern school children.
Not only was Hooke unable to reproduce Newton's simple experiments, he and
other members of the Royal Society, including Sir Robert Moray and Ignance
Gaston Pardies, began to doubt that Newton had even done the experiments!
They claimed, in letters to Newton at Cambridge, that his 'discovery' was
only an hypothesis; a guess.
The European opposition came from virtuosi as famous as Christiaan Huygens and
as obscure as a monk named Linus, but all agreed: Newton's experiment did not
work and his new theory of colors was just an hypothesis.
Newton sent numerous letters with further details of the experiment to the
Royal Society and his critics through the Society's secretary, Henry Oldenburg,
The controversy raged for years, and at one point in March of 1673, Newton was
so fed-up that he even sent Oldenburg a letter of resignation from the Royal
Society. There were still doubts when Newton came to London in February, 1675
on other business and attempted to perform the experiment for the Society, but
was unable to due to bad weather, which only prolonged the debate.
Newton was so disgusted at this point that he put off the publication
of his "Opticks" until 1706.
This story could go on for several more pages, even in this abbreviated
narrative, but I hope that this gets the point across. The reproduction of
an experiment that we consider child's play today eluded some of the best
minds of the seventeenth century for years. I don't know if "cold fusion"
is real or not, but I do know that some of the contradictions of the P&F
experiment have contradicted each other, that others have omitted one or
more critical measurement, and others have had various other problems. The
book is still open on "cold fusion" and will probably remain open until Pons
and Fleischmann can agree to assist some "name" lab, like Los Alamos to
reproduce their "experimentum crucis".
This kind of controversy is not new to science. It existed at the beginings of
modern science in Newton's day, it exist now and probably always will.
This current debate over "cold fusion" has a very large component of deja vu.
------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. for more information on Newton's discoveries and the controversy
that surrounded almost every one of them see:
"In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & His Times", by
Gale E. Christianson, Free Press, NY, 1984
--
Walt Peterson. Prime - Calma San Diego R&D (Object and Data Management Group)
"The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those
Prime, Calma nor anyone else.
...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!cutter!ricks
From: ricks@cutter.UUCP (Rick Strickert)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Calculations regarding P&F results
Message-ID: <625@cutter.UUCP>
Date: 12 May 89 21:34:17 GMT
Lines: 76
******************************************************************************
P&F EXCESS HEAT DATA STRONGLY CORRELATED TO POWER-DISSIPATIVE FUNCTION
Summary
The "excess energy" reported by P&F in their original preprint are strongly
correlated to the square of the total applied current, suggesting that the
"excess" heat is uncompensated resistance heating.
Discussion
Early in April, we did some statistical "experimenting" with the P&F data then
available from the preprint of their paper. The data are tabulated below,
with "R" in the electrode description indicating a rod. Note that datum for
the lowest current density test of the plate electrode is omitted because
there was an obvious typographical error in this entry.
Applied Total "Net" "Net"
Current Area Input Output Output
Electrode mA/cm2 cm2 (mA) (watts) W/cm3
-------------------------------------------------------
0.1x10 R 8 3.2 25 7.5E-03 9.5E-02
0.2x10 R 8 6.3 51 3.6E-02 1.1E-01
0.4x10 R 8 12.8 103 1.5E-01 1.2E-01
plate 1.2 134.4 161 2.7E-02 2.1E-03
0.1x10 R 64 3.2 202 7.9E-02 1.0E+00
0.1x1.25 R 512 0.4 209 8.2E-02 8.3E+00
plate 1.6 134.4 215 7.9E-02 6.2E-03
0.2x10 R 64 6.3 406 4.9E-01 1.6E+00
0.2x1.25 R 512 0.8 434 3.8E-01 9.6E+00
0.4x10 R 64 12.8 820 1.8E+00 1.4E+00
0.4x1.25 R 512 1.8 933 3.4E+00 2.1E+01
Regression analysis showed a (r^2 = 0.85) exponential correlation between the
total input current and the reported net power output, supposedly after
correction for resistance heating. This exponential power output as a
function of input current was one of the unresolved questions. Pons and
Fleishman did present an equation for the abundance of tritium as a function
of the D2O hydrolysis rate (which should be proportional to total current),
and the relationship was exponential.
However, the power curve correlation was almost as good (r^2 = O.83), with a
slope of 1.5, suggesting a power dissipative (I^2*R; I = current, R =
resistance) relationship. Subsequently, we regressed the reported net power
output (total Watts) as a function of the square of the total current input
(I^2) (with I in units of amps), with the following results:
Reported Net Output (Watts) = R(I^2) + intercept
Computed
Floating Zero
Intercept Intercept
----------- -----------
Intercept -0.0583 watts 0 watts
r Squared 0.953 0.951
No. of Observations 11 11
Degrees of Freedom 9 10
Slope (R) 3.42 ohms 3.33 ohms
Std Err of Coef. 0.253 ohms 0.206 ohms
The power input (I^2) and net power output (Watts) data are very well
correlated (r^2 = 0.95+), with a slope of 3.3-3.4 ohms. My simple
understanding of statistics suggests that the random occurrence of this level
of correlation with this number of data is very low (P less than 0.01).
This clearly raises the possibility that the reported "excess" power results
from some form of uncompensated resistance heating with a net resistance of
about 3 ohms. We discounted this possibility at the beginning, but as more
and more information emerges on just how tricky the calorimetry is, the more
plausible this explanation appears. However, the same effect would also be
observed if both parameters are strongly correlated to some third (and
unknown) factor.
Peter F. Ellis II
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!iclbra!siesoft!jlk
From: jlk@siesoft (jlk)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion,sci.physics
Subject: Harwell scientists pour cold water on cold fusion
Keywords: cold fusion papers
Message-ID: <1269@argon.siesoft>
Date: 9 May 89 07:37:24 GMT
References: <4812@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: jlk@siesoft.uucp ()
Organization: Siemens SDG, woodley, England
Lines: 57
Xref: santra alt.fusion:1069 sci.physics:6686
The Sunday Times (England)
lead with the following article on May 7, 1989
"Harwell scientists pour cold water on cold fusion"
Sicentists at Harwell, the world;s leading nuclear laboratory, have finally
buried hopes that 'cold fusion' is the key to solving mankind's engery
problems. Dr. David Williams, head of the Oxfordshire team which has carried
out painstaking checks on the method, said yeaterday: 'We have spotted neither
head nor radiation.' The verdict is regarded as decisive because the checks
were carried out with the help of Prof. martin Fleischmann, who, together with
his former student Stanley Pons, make the orginal claims six weeks ago. The
two scientists had told a press conference in Utah that using their 'test-
tube' method, a gallon of sea water could produce as much energy as 300,000
gallons of petrol withot contributing to the greenhouse effect, acid rain or
producing radioactive waste.
It now appears that no more energy is given out from the table-top apparatus -
based on electrochemical cells - than is put into it. One possibility is that
the orginal experiment was distorted by background levels of gases and
radioactivity. Another is that the two scientists were misled by faulty
instruments.
Williams, who expressed reservations from the start, said: 'We believe we have
duplicated the experiments of Fleischmann and Pons, but using much more
sensitive equipment. Given the numbers we had been told to expect, we
should have seen something leap out at us by now. This has not happened.'
By his onw admission, the findings could leave Fleischmann a Harwell consultant,
with 'egg on my face'. They are likely also to embarrass researchers who
claimed to have replicated the results. The Harwell scientists cast doubts
last week on experiements carried out by Brigham Young University, Utah,
where a second group, led by Prof. Stephen Hones, claimed to have
preformed cold fusion albiet with only a fraction of the head output.
'Our machines are well able to pick up emissions at the level soptted by
Birgham Young University, but so far we have failed to find anything.' said
Williams. Fleischmann, of Southampton University, and Pons stunned the
world with the announcement that they ha d found a way to tap nuclear
fusion - the process that powers the sun and hydrogen bombs.
They claimed that nuclie of deuterium, which is present in sea water, could
be fused by passing an electric current through a test-tube of 'heavy water'.
The process seemed to give out head equal to four times the amount put in. It
seemed too good to be true, but experts at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at
Harwell decided the claims merited serious investigation. Three weeks ago,
sitll with no positive results, Harwell doubled its team working full-time on
the project and increased the number of electro-chemical cells in the test.
Doubts grew as it switched from looking for the head output claimed by
Fleischmann and Pons, in favour of measurements a billionth of the size
which had been reproted by Brigham Young University. The laboratory plans to
spen a final month of research looking for evidence of a trace material
which could have accounted for the results.
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!mcnc!ecsvax!jrw
From: jrw@ecsvax.UUCP (James R. White)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: non-fusion speculation for cold fusion
Keywords: fusion, neutrino, heat transfer, fith force
Message-ID: <6982@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 89 15:45:17 GMT
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 46
I am now fairly well convinced that the excess heat seen by F&P is real.
But I am not convinced that it is fusion, as there is a glaring lack of
evidence for a nuclear process. Thus, I will propose here that the thermal
energy is being transferred into the cell from somewhere else.
There have been experiments suggesting that there might be forces that
act on the scale of kilometers. Such forces might allow the transfer of
thermal energy under the right conditions.
First consider the electron. It is surrounded by a cloud of virtual photons
that make up its electric field. The high energy virtual photons allow
a strong coupling between electrons, but have a very short range.
The low energy virtual photons have a long range, but have a much weaker
coupling. Because of the way the virtual photons couple with the conserved
quantity, charge, their distribution is smooth and without resonances.
A similar statement could be made about gravity.
Now I shall assume that there is an essentially massless neutrino-like
particle that couples to matter in a different way. For the most part,
it doesn't couple to matter at all. But at certain resonances, it can
couple quite strongly. Assume that there is a large, hot mass of material
inside the earth that has such a resonance. Also, assume that when
palladium is loaded with deuterium in a F&P cell, it has the same
resonance. The virtual particle field could then form a link and allow
the transfer of thermal energy from the large, hot mass to the palladium.
(Pd stuffed with deuterium is a somewhat unusual structure, and it
seems plausible to me that it might have some similarity to materials
that are under high pressure.)
The fact that the resonance is for a virtual particle of a particular
energy implies that the effect will have a finite range, and will not
grow much stronger at shorter range. If this range is on the order of
tens of kilometers, then the hot mass that is the source of the heat
would have to be under Utah. There may not be similar masses under
other areas, so identical experimental conditions could give different
results depending upon where they were done. This could explain why some
places are unable to reproduce the excess heat. On the other hand, if the
range is greater and the mass is the core of the earth, then any location
on the surface should give similar results.
If the excess heat persists, and the lack of evidence for fusion also
persists, then speculations such as this should be taken seriously.
Disclaimer: The above may have nothing to do with reality. - John N. White
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!rutgers!iuvax!mailrus!wasatch!donn
From: donn@wasatch.utah.edu (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Re: What Happened in L.A.?
Summary: LANL cooperation in limbo
Message-ID: <1787@wasatch.utah.edu>
Date: 11 May 89 00:10:03 GMT
References: <0YNrhoy00Uw8A1lEVR@andrew.cmu.edu> <329@eplrx7.UUCP>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 41
... On a recent trip to Los Alamos, Pons was supposed to
bring one of his working Pd electrodes for analysis. When he
arrived, he told LANL that he had "forgotten" the electrode.
(This is cooperation??)
This sounds like it might be garbled, based on what I saw in this
morning's Salt Lake Tribune:
Legal problems have prevented the Uniersity of Utah from
wrapping up an agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to
collaborate on fusion research.
U of U and Los Alamos officials confirmed Tuesday that
collaborative research ... has been put on hold while a Salt
Lake City law firm closely examines the agreement.
'We were ready yesterday,' said Los Alamos spokesman Jeff
Schwartz, adding only, 'Talk to Dr Brophy' about the delay.
...
'We're ready, too,' Dr Brophy said. 'But the lawyers say don't
go ahead. You'll have to ask them why.'
... [T]he Salt Lake [law] firm retained
by the U of U ... did not return Tribune calls Tuesday.
Dr Brophy said that, as far as he knows, the attorneys 'are
concerned about protecting the university's intellectual
property rights while working with a national laboratory.
'They're properly doing their job,' he added. 'But we can't go
ahead until they give us the green light.'
Dr Brophy said he thought the agreement would be completed by
now. 'For the last week I've been saying tomorrow... It looks
like several days to a week' before the contract is finalized.
It's beginning to look like lawyers are a convenient excuse,
Donn
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!agate!ucbvax!janus!bwood
From: bwood@janus.uucp (Blake Philip Wood)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: From the LA Times, May 10, 1988
Message-ID: <29130@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 10 May 89 18:33:57 GMT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 51
The following is from today's LA Times:
The pair spent 5.5 years and $100,000 of their own money researching
the phenomenon. Earlier this year, they discovered that physicist Steven
Jones of BYU in Provo and his colleagues were working on the same
technique. Jones was also seeing radioactive debris, but he did not
observe significant heat production and did not believe that the process
could be used for large-scale energy production.
The two groups met early in March and ultimately agreed to publish
their findings simultaneously. P&F said it would take them another 18
months before they were ready to publish, but Jones objected that an
abstract of his work was already being circulated among scientists and
that he planned to present the results soon.
It was agreed that the two groups would each submit a paper to the
British journal Nature on March 24. But without warning Jones, P&F
announced their finding on March 23, simultaneously filing patent
applications.
...and we all know the rest...
What I find most interesting about this is the statement that they
wouldn't be ready to publish for 18 months, and only went public because
Jones was already ready to. I think this (rather than
patent constraints) explains why they've been so vague--they didn't
complete their work before going public.
Is there anyone out there who knows more than what's in the papers and
can comment on this chronology.
BTW, I also think it's interesting that with all the stories from the
history of science that I've seen in this newsgroup, the one comparison
I haven't seen is with the discovery of the high Tc superconductors
(maybe I missed it). Within a week after Paul Chu made his announcement
(if not sooner), people on campus here were manufacturing their own
superconductors, and about a month later I was able to see a demonstration
at the department colloquim. The physics (or is it chemistry) of this
does not seem THAT much more complicated that we haven't seen some
reasonable confirmation after 7 weeks.
Flames (er, comments)?
Bear with me, this is my first posting, and I have a .sig file, but just
in case: this is not my account, Blake lent it to me for this--I'm
Chris Goedde dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu
I'm not the owner of this account. These opinions are mine and not Blake's,
who is kind enough to let me borrow his account.
Chris Goedde
dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu
cgg@theorygroup.berkeley.edu
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!jon
From: jon@Apple.COM (Jon Singer)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: feedback from Lawrence Berkeley Lab on gamma vs xray definition
Keywords: gamma x-ray difference definition
Message-ID: <30525@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 11 May 89 21:45:34 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA
Lines: 81
] I have just received some very good feedback from Howard Hall about
] the difference between X-rays and Gamma rays. He gives me permission
] to forward it, so I think I will. It is very straightforward, and
] clarifies things extremely nicely. Here we go:
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 12:05:38 PDT
From: gamma@Csa1.LBL.Gov (Howard Hall)
In reply to your recent posting re: Paul Dietz's posting, specifically about
your point 4:
>4) I would think that 511KeV would still be called an X-ray, but I
>guess the air gets pretty thin up there, and the difference is sorta
>moot.
To those of us in the nuclear chemistry field, the difference between a 511
keV gamma ray and an x-ray is quite significant. X-rays arise from electronic
transitions in the orbital structure of the atom and are hence limited by
the electron binding energies of the orbital states. As an example, the
K-shell x-ray energies of plutonium (the last naturally-occurring element)
are on the order of 99, 103, 117, and 120 keV. For 511 keV to be an x-ray
would require superheavy elements unattainable in our wildest fantasies.
On the other hand, gamma rays arise from transitions in the nuclear level
structure and are not so strictly contrained in energy, potentially varying
from near 0 keV to well in excess of 100 MeV.
511 keV by itself is a weird case, since it usually arises from the
annihilation of a positron (anti-electron), and is generally considered
to be neither a gamma ray nor an x-ray in the strictest sense of the terms,
but rather a type of "annihilation radiation."
Howard L. Hall
HLHall @ LBL.gov
Nuclear Science Division
Lawrence Berkeley Lab
Berkeley, CA 94720
P.S.: You can forward this to FUSION if you feel like it.
=====================================================================
Interestingly, it is clear from your description that the terms
'gamma', 'x', and 'annihilation radiation' refer to the origin of the
photon, rather than to any particular energy range. My education was
somewhat debased. Thanks for the clarification!
I am left with a question: As you mention, there is no particular lower
limit to the energy of a gamma. Is there any particular way, then, to
distinguish between a low-energy gamma and an X-ray? That is, given a
source of radiation at roughly 100KeV, for example, are there typically
clues or cues that let you know whether it arises from electronic
transitions or nuclear ones?
Oh - one more question - as I understand it, the x-rays you mention in
your discussion of Plutonium arise when an innermost-shell electron
gets knocked out of the atom, and a next-shell electron falls in to
replace it. (I would guess that there would be an entire cascade of
these things, as an electron from each shell falls in to replace the
missing one below it, yes?) What happens if you have a fully ionized
Pu, and one electron falls from "outside" the "atom" all the way down
to the 1s level? (I do, yes, remember 1s as the lowest? It has been a
while.) What is the energy of the resulting photon? I would guess that
it would be in excess of 200KeV, but not in excess of 500. On the
other hand, that's _not_ an educated guess.
Cheers!
jon
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
I looked back, and there |
I was, following myself. |
Wait! Let me catch up! | Jon Singer is jon@Apple.COM, or
| (AppleLink) SINGER2
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!tank!uwvax!rutgers!texbell!killer!pollux!smu.edu!leff
From: leff@smu.edu (Laurence Leff)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Patent Right Issues
Keywords: Convention Application Section 102 effective file date
Message-ID: <15273@pollux.UUCP>
Date: 10 May 89 22:49:55 GMT
Sender: news@pollux.UUCP
Reply-To: leff@smu.edu (Laurence Leff)
Distribution: alt
Organization: Southern Methodist University, CSE Dept. Dallas, TX
Lines: 46
Re: Pons and Fleischmann holding back discussions of their invention to
secure patent rights.
From the U. S. Patent law, Section 102
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless--
(a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented
or described in a printed publication in this or a foreighn country,
before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent
(b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this
or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country,
more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the
United States.
Thus, as long as Pons/Fleischmann get their patent application to
the Patent Office by March of 1990, there is no difficulty with
other people taking advantage of the situation to produce or market power
from the system.
As far as foreign countries are concerned, if the foreign country is
a "convention country," they have one year from the date of the U. S. filing
date to get the application to the other countries. See page 238
of Patent Law: A Practitioner's Guide by Hildredth and section 119
of the U. S. Patent Code which gives the reciprocal rights for inventors
from other countries. (The former is an excellent introduction to patent
law which is targetted, as per its preface, to both lawyers and appropriate
laymen. It is published by the Practising Law Institute, Library of
Congress Catalog Number: 88-61771)
From page 59 of Hildredth,
".. publication ... can be anything that is printed and available to the
public in country without any injunction of secrecy. This can include, for
example,... material in a public library, a catalog for promoting sales,
or papers distributed at a meeting of a technical society."
I would suspect that the press releases, papers in Journal of Electrochemical
Society, etc. from Pons/Fleischman would constitute publication, except
perhaps they were incomplete. The fact that some may have succeeded in
reproduction should be sufficient to constitute sufficient publication
even if others failed.
Laurence Leff A job is like sex, when you do it for money
Complete Address: 75275-0122, You take away all the fun.
Phone: 214-692-2859 Moderator comp.doc.techreports/TRLIST, Symbolic Math List
convex!smu!leff leff%smu.uucp@uunet E1AR0002 at SMUVM1 (BITNET)
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!iclbra!siesoft!jlk
From: jlk@siesoft (jlk)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: Eminent chemist (Linus Pauling) dismisses clain over 'cold fusion'
Message-ID: <1272@argon.siesoft>
Date: 11 May 89 13:46:13 GMT
References: <545@gandalf.littlei.UUCP> <20420017@hpcuhb.HP.COM>
Reply-To: jlk@siesoft.uucp ()
Organization: Siemens SDG, woodley, England
Lines: 61
From: "The Independent" (London Thrusday 11, May)
By Tom Wilkie Science editor
A leading chemist has stepped into the furore over "nuclear fusion in a test-
tupe". Linus Pauling dismisses the claims and says that chemical reactions
can account for the energy produced in experiments.
His intervention, in a letter published in today's issue of the scientific
journal NATURE, will be a blow to the credibility of claims by Martin
Fleischmann and Stanley Pons that they had obtianed a new route to nuclear
fusion capable of yielding useful amounts of energy.
Aged 88, Professor Pauling has dominated chemistry for nearly 60 years. He
virtually re-created the subject in the 1930s, by applying the then obscure
thelry of quantum mechanics to calculate the structure and shape of molecules
and the strengths of the chemical bonds between atoms within molecules. He
has since been at the forefront of every improtant question in chemistry. He
holds two Nobel prizes: for chemistry and the peace prize.
The intervention by a chemist of Professor Pauling's stature is significant.
The debate over cold nuclear fusion had become factionalised between physicists
and chemists.
When Professor Pons adressed a meeting of the American Chemical Society last
month, there was uncritical acclaim that two chemists had provided a cheap and
easy route to nuclear fusion which physicists had been struggling to attain for
40 years by buiilding huge machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
When the Americal Physical Society met at the beginning of this month, there
was almost universal condemnation of the experiment, some of which could be
attributed to professional pique by physicists at the idea of chemists muscling
in on their territory.
Martain Fleischmann, professor of chemistry at Southampton University, and
Stanley Pons, professor of chemistry at the University of Utah in the United
States, claimed in March that they had succeeded in getting nuclear fusion -
the power source of the sun - by passing an electric current through two
electordes dipping into a jar of heavy water and lithium hydroxide solution.
They claim that one of the electrodes, made from palladium metal, soaked up
so much deuterium (heavy hydrogen) that the atoms crowed so closely together
to fuse.
Professor Pauling dismisses the nuclear fusion claims. The key to the problem,
he says, lies in a paper he published in the Physical Review in 1938. There
he showed that the electrons that circle the nucleus of a palladium atom do
not make use of all the outermost orbits that are available to them. These
unused orbitals are actually what gives palladium the properties of a metal, and
they limit the amount of hydrogen (or deuterium) that the palladium can soak
up.
Professor Pauling says: "I judge that under the conditions of the electrolysis
experiment of M Fleischmann and s Pons, deuterons (sic) beyond this limit are
forced into the palladium" ultimately forming a chemical unstable compond,
called palladium deuteride. this unstable deuteride may begin to decompose
either slowly, producing heat, or explosively.
The result, according to Professor Pauling, of all the effort expended on
cold nuclear fusion may be no more that "palladium powder and hydrogen gas"
Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!ai-lab!rlg
From: rlg@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Bob Givan)
Newsgroups: alt.fusion
Subject: calorimetry correctness
Message-ID: <2364@gastrocnemius.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 11 May 89 20:21:26 GMT
Reply-To: rlg@gastrocnemius.ai.mit.edu.WISC.EDU (Bob Givan)
Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 39
accounts of the LA conference, both on the net and in newspapers,
seem to indicate that P&F have at least addressed (if not eliminated)
the central claims against their calorimetry.
however, there is no mention of a claim made 9 days ago in the Boston Globe
(a claim I've seen nowhere else). Because of this, I quote this claim here,
and ask if anyone is familiar with it, knows if it was indeed claimed by
Lewis, knows if it is legitimate, or knows if P&F have answered it.
quoting from The Boston Globe, Tuesday May 2, 1989, Page 12, (the article
reporting Lewis' claims from the APS conference):
"The Utah researchers had said their simple device produced more
energy than it used, but Lewis said that P&F, in their testimony
before Congress last week, conceded that they had never actually
observed such energy production. They said it was a 'hypothetical'
extrapolation from their experiments."
"Lewis said that extrapolation was based on assumptions that violate
known laws of physics."
"The assertion that their device put out four times as much energy as
they put in was based on experiments that produced less energy than
they consumed, Lewis said."
"P&F calculated how much energy the device would have produced if they
reduced the voltage but kept the current the same, but Lewis said that
was impossible because of known characteristics of the palladium
electrodes used in the experiment. 'The cell they proposed could not
be built', Lewis said."
this claim, if it was really made and was accurate, seems damning as long
as it is unanswered. will someone restore my optimism?
Bob Givan
rlg@wheaties.ai.mit.edu
Make REAL money with your website!
The entire AOH site is optimized to look best in Firefox® 2.0 on a widescreen monitor (1440x900 or better).
Site design & layout copyright © 1986-2008 AOH
We do not send spam. If you have received spam bearing an artofhacking.com email address, please forward it with full headers to abuse@artofhacking.com.