Following up on Richard's reference, viz. ========================================= Another link on Kowalski http://blake.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/cf/ =========================================
I came across this rather interesting piece on Cluster Impact Fusion (CIF). =========================================== Cluster Impact Fusion (CIF) "was studied at Brookhaven National Laboratory (8). Intrigued by the CF controversy, Friedlander and his co-workers accelerated microscopic droplets of heavy water (containing about 1300 D2O molecules each) to a modest kinetic energy, about 220 eV per molecule, and observed what happens when droplets collide with a solid target. The idea was to test whether or not fusion occurs in a suddenly compressed droplet. The name of the phenomenon, cluster impact fusion (CIF) was given to the process after hot-fusion-like events were identified on the basis of protons and tritons with appropriate energies. Neutrons were also most likely present but the experiment was not set up to detect them. The only unusual thing about the CIF was the number of fusion events. There were 10^10 times more such events than one would expect by using the accepted hot fusion theory. The temperature that a tiny droplet could possibly reach, after being stopped at the target, was certainly below 10^5. This number is 10,000 times smaller than the 10^9 K needed inside a hot fusion reactor setup. In other words, CIF fusion rates are also much too high to be consistent with the existing theory of nuclear fusion." =========================================== Now assuming the experimental work is sound, a factor of 10 billion should not be sneezed at. Also, the fact that the temperature was ten thousand times smaller than that needed inside a hot fusion reactor puts the phenomena firmly in the Cold Fusion [relatively 8-) ] category. This is a truly wonderful piece of experimental evidence. All it lacks is an explanation of what's going on. I feel confident that the explanation lies in the fact that smacking water droplets up against a steel plate not only involves compression strain (obviously) but also tensile strain at right angles to the firing line. It it this tensile strain, the high speed tearing apart of the water, which gives rise to high pF values which are responsible for the astronomical increase in the number of fusion events over what "one would expect by using the accepted hot fusion theory." One is tempted to cannibalize James Carvilles 1992 campaign slogan and say, "it's not the compression, it's the tension, stupid." ;-) It would be interesting to know the result of firing even colder deuteriated water - in the form of the high density ices say - against a steel plate. Another technique worth investigating would be to subject drops of water to extremely high compression, allow them to equilibriate and then suddenly release the pressure. Cheers, Frank Grimer After I wrote the above I thought, how on earth can I get people to see that there are always two ways to skin a cat. Perhaps the easiest way is the simplest, i.e. there are two ways of increasing a vulgar fraction, increase the numerator or reduce the denominator. Citizens (or subjects in my case) try to increase the denominator by hard work. Unfortunately they are always swimming against the current of government who constantly increase the denominator by inflation.
