Well, I had a good early night's sleep but I see the conversation
train has moved well on down the tracks! 8^)
I would like to say that I think W&L's approach is very different
from mine. Perhaps I should re-read their articles, but I haven't
seen anything in their approach that resembles mine. As for
attribution to my work, I am an amateur, and I write with amateurs in
mind as an audience, though not for a popular literature audience. I
use mostly advanced high school level math, so expect anything I
write to be accessible to advanced high school or early college
students. Being an amateur, I don't expect there will be any
recognition or citations in journals, though that would be great if
it happened. It has to be enough to stimulate the thinking of
others. If that contributes to solving the energy problem then that
is good enough. My product is ideas, with some synthesis and
analysis. Ideas alone have a limited value.
If you think about it there is really very little that can go on in
hydrogen fusion. You have a limited number of isotopes which can
interact in a very limited number of ways to produce a limited number
of products, atomically speaking. You have a literature which has
dealt with a very limited number of experimental approaches. For a
field of this importance, there has been a very limited set of people
dedicated to solving the problems.
What distinguishes one theory from another is a fine line to a casual
observer, especially if it happens to be one that dismisses the
entire field.
The principle problem in CF is how the Coulomb barrier is overcome,
how two hydrogen nuclei can merge to become helium or tritium using
chemical level energies. I think there are basically four camps on
this: (1) the barrier is breached by actual neutrons only, singly or
in clusters, (2) the barrier is breached by electrons and hydrogen
nuclei bound strongly enough, well below ground state, that the
Coulomb force can't tear them apart before they get close enough to
fuse by tunneling, (3) the barrier is breached by a group action,
principally by formation of a quantum condensate in which the wave
functions are "spread out enough to fuse", and (4) the barrier is
breached by separate electrons and nuclei which remain bound only at
chemical energy levels or less, but by a means in which one or more
electrons catalyze the reaction through Coulomb screening. Another
categorization is theories which describe CF as (A) as a surface
effect only, or (B) a 3D effect within a lattice, or (C) both.
W&L fall into group 1A, though their pre-fusion neutron formation
process might fall into group 3A. Deflation fusion is in group 4C.
We are about as far apart in the spectrum of approaches as
possible. Another categorization might be (a) theories that explain
with hydrogen fusion only and theories which (b) also explain heavy
element transmutation. I expect this would be a sensitive and
possibly not useful categorization because there are about as many
theories as theorists, and each theorist seems to think his theory,
and only his theory, explains everything. I put W&L in overall
category 1Aa, and deflation fusion in 4Cb because the W&L theory
ignores neutron activation, and neutron absorption can not explain
the lack of signatures for heavy element transmutations, the energy
deficit that must be created in the newly fused nuclei.
What sets my theory apart from most others is the recognition that an
electron and hydrogen nucleus can overcome the Coulomb barrier by
*jointly* tunneling through it. The electron doesn't have to be
bound to the hydrogen nucleus at above chemical energy to overcome
the Coulomb barrier. Another important principle is that a small
wavelength electron is also necessary, even though its potential plus
kinetic energy remains at near ground state. This necessarily
involves the high kinetic energies of an electron when near a
hydrogen nucleus. The small wavelength electron is key to creating
the energy deficit that exists in the fused products and which
changes branching ratios and eliminates almost all high energy
signatures.
Ultimately it may be revealed there is a host of things happening in
CF experiments. However, it is likely that only one theory will open
the flood gates of practical progress. It is only necessary to
understand and control one robust mechanism for producing excess
heat. I expect and hope the deflation fusion concept might help
accomplish that. It yields two major design principles: (1) increase
tunneling diffusion in the lattice, hopping rates, *as opposed to
ordinary atomic diffusion*, and (2) increase the probability of the
deflated state by orbital stressing. Achieving (1) involves using
smaller lattice constant material, imposing diffusion barriers in the
lattice that force tunneling, using lattice dopants which create
interstitial tunneling rings or groups, using high current density
and resistive lattices to impose E fields, use of strong magnetic
field gradients, and various forms of EM or acoustic stimulation to
maximize tunneling rates. Achieving (2) involves loading lattices hot
and letting them cool to stress orbitals, custom design of lattices
to accommodate high stresses, thermal cycling, and annealing, use of
high electron fugacity, use of energy focusing, and high energy
stimulation. Most all of this has been applied in one way or
another. The difficulty is combining the concepts in a useful way,
and this requires sophisticated materials science. It is a hopefully
useful concept to maximize (lattice tunneling rates)*(deflated state
probability) when using computer simulation to design and evaluate
prospective lattice materials and environments. In addition, the
Cold Fusion Nuclear Reactions article, through exploring the
possibility of some unexpected nuclear reactions, may open up some
new thinking and new experimental lines which can improve diagnostics
of what is happening in hydrogen loaded lattices and ultimately help
solve the energy problem.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
