At 05:14 PM 10/30/2009, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
I have no idea why it would be difficult to put a piece of CR-39
inside a cell inside a calorimeter.
Putting the whole thing inside a large Seebeck calorimeter might
work. You can't watch the reaction in that case. I guess you would
wait until the plating-out period and color changes are finished.
This is what it looks like inside a Seebeck calorimeter:
http://lenr-canr.org/Experiments.htm#SeebeckCalorimeters
I have a Celestron USB microscope that would allow watching a cathode
while inside a closed container, and, in fact, I want to make it
completely dark. Further, you don't "watch" anything with SSNTDs.
They have to be developed later. And they take up very little room,
and, with CR-39, anyway, you can see through them, they are optically
clear (before being damaged, anyway). So.... you *can* "watch the
reaction in that case." I just don't think anyone has tried.
On the other hand, the extended literature is vast, plus I'm sure
people have tried plenty of stuff that they never reported, which is
unfortunate but probably true.
Or to tape LR-115 detectors (or CR-39) on the outside of the cell.
For some reason they find it necessary to put the CR-39 as close to
the cathode as possible.
It's obvious why they wanted to do that, CR-39 was first used to
report charged particle radiation, and that radiation isn't going to
penetrate an ordinary cell wall. However, to answer objections about
chemical damage, SPAWAR cut a hole in the side of the cell and glued
a piece of 6 micron mylar over it; that very thin plastic was enough
to cut down, what, nine-tenths of the tracks?
On the front (cathode side), that is, and I'm not trusting any
analysis of this any more, unless it's carefully reviewed, because of
some serious evidence of chemical damage. The test with 6 micron
mylar was intended to put that to rest, but I'd want to see much
better analysis. I'll reread the recent paper on the windowed cell.
What I love about that cell is the back side of the CR-39, not the front.
The closer you are to the cathode, assuming it is the source of the
radiation, the more you will detect even penetrating radiation,
because of the inverse square law. However, the thickness of the
acrylic cell wall is basically trivial as far as neutrons are
concerned, and one can make the detector SSNTD larger. Looking for
neutrons changes the considerations.
