At 05:37 PM 10/30/2009, OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson wrote:
Abd sez:
> The idea that excess heat is easier to detect reliably than
> radiation is downright weird.
It might seem weird to you.
But it's a probably whole lot safer looking for anomalous heat as
compared to anomalous neutrons and other sub-atomic particles.
That's a bit strange in itself. The risk of something does not
increase because you look for it. Indeed, if one is looking for
radiation and stumbles upon a way that this thing causes classic
fusion at significant levels, it would probably be helpful if there
were dosimeters around. And any piece of CR-39, especially if not
immersed in some caustic soup, is a dosimeter, should someone need to
do a post-morten, either on the incident or on you as the
unfortuntate substitute for the proversial grad student.
I have a story to recount.
Many years ago Dr. Zimmerman once lectured to me privately via email
that the amount of heat allegedly generated from certain CF
experiments should have been sufficiently lethal to have killed anyone
stupid enough to be watching the proceedings close by.
Grrr.... "incomplete" as you said, indeed. That was, of course, true,
and the lack of the DGSE was reasonable evidence, from the get-go,
that this wasn't what everyone thought of, immediately, in a
palladium deuteride experiment when someone whispered, or announced
by press conference, "fusion."
[...]
> One particle can be detected, and, under the
> right conditions, even characterized, and with its energy being
> estimated, but the amount of heat involved would not be measurable
> with calorimetry.
IOW, one presume there is no way in hell that your proposed kit would
ever be capable of generated anywhere near the amount of hard
radiation to cause harmful effects to anyone who might be standing
nearby for significant periods of time. And obviously, very little
heat as well.
Let's say that it would be surprising. I do expect to see radiation
effects. I might see heat, but I'm not going to be disappointed if I
don't. To soothe Rothwell's ruffled feathers (or whatever they are),
I am not going to conclude, if there is no radiation, that I've
proven much of anything. On the other hand, if the Geiger counter
goes nuts, and there isn't any heat, that would be, indeed, nuts.
Personally, I think your kit would sell better if it could actually
heat a pot of tea.
Of course. But the techniques which have a chance at brewing a cup of
tea take weeks to get going, take enough power input to brew quite a
bit of tea, and don't produce enough excess energy more than a
fraction of the time, that fraction being significantly improved
since 1989, but ... tell that to my unhappy customer. It *could*
work, but I'd need much more motivated customers.
"COLD FUSION EXPERIMENT KIT SOLD AT WALL MART HEATS POT OF TEA"
"PHYSICISTS HYSTERICAL"
Nah, WalMart would want too much of a cut. On the other hand, if we
knew how to do that with a fast turn-on method, it would be cool to
put together such a tea-brewer, even if only as a prototype. You
know, with the kit I do plan on selling, someone just might put
together a mock newspaper story and send it to Garwin. So, it doesn't
actually brew tea, in fact, it doesn't even get more than a little
warm. But, see, lots of neutrons. No, not enough to kill anyone, not
even to hurt anyone, but .... at least three orders of magnitude
above neutron background. If that doesn't get the attention of a
physicist, I don't know what would. A mushroom cloud? ("Must have
been a chemical explosion. The guy must have had high explosives
stored in his basement. At least they think the building had a
basement, a neighbor says he remembers the bulkhead.")
