In reply to Eric Walker's message of Sat, 28 Nov 2015 09:34:55 -0600: Hi, [snip] >On Sat, Nov 28, 2015 at 1:47 AM, <mix...@bigpond.com> wrote: > >Yes, I know, but the presence of more negative charge close to the nucleus >> increases the energy of the positively charged alpha particle because, not >> only >> is it leaving the positively charged nucleus behind, but it now also has >> extra >> negatively charged particles ahead of it. In short the "voltage drop" >> increases. >> > >Btw, it occurred to me that you're the one who originally brought that >patent to my attention.
Indeed. However it was Jones (IIRC) who first brought it to my attention years ago . > >I think the negative charge would be somewhat isotropic, so I don't see how >it would set up a voltage that would help to pull the alpha out of the >nucleus, "isotropic" is scale dependent in this case. On the scale of humans it would be. On the atomic scale, it is all external to the nucleus. >but you might be right of course. At any rate, in this case, we >seem to have an example of a single environmental factor that would >increase the rate alpha emission and increase the alpha capture cross >section. ...and exactly how would it do the latter? I would think that it would actually slow down fusion, since it would effectively reduce the energy of the (positively charged) source particle. (It would effectively make the hill that needed to be climbed even higher, by lowering the base from which it had to start.) However an excess external *positive* charge might make fusion easier....which reminds me of the you-tube video on Coulombic explosions that someone recently posted. If all the electrons suddenly desert a surface to bind with something in solution, then the surface is left locally with an excess positive charge, so any hydrogen already in the material might have an easier time fusing??? Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
