This is a *long* exploration of W-L theory and Krivit's promotion of
it and complaints about the other theorists.
At 03:28 PM 5/28/2010, Roarty, Francis X wrote:
In the below description are they saying one of the protons in the
oscillating patch on the outside surface of a metal hydride is
decelerated by the collective and forced to spit out an electron to
become a ULM neutron? Could a reduced or further dispersed form of
this force be responsible for
Fractional orbits or disassociating a diatomic bond?
Fran
No, they are not saying that. The paper you cite below doesn't
explain how the neutrons form except by claiming that it's a
"reaction" between protons, part of this "patch," and heavy
electrons. Given that hydrogen is rare in the palladium deuteride
environment, the reaction of most interest to use would be e + d ->
2n. Since these two neutrons would start out as a single body,
probably, it would be a dineutron, which might be quite an
interesting beast, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dineutron&oldid=361469575
and
https://carnot.physics.buffalo.edu/archives/2000/10_2000/msg00669.html
(to see this last archived mailing list post, I had to bypass Firefox
security.) Formation of a dineutron from deuterium by electron
capture would, I'd suspect, give an unbound dineutron, one might even
think of it as simply two neutrons with close physical location, and
very low relative velocity, so they might be absorbed by a target
nucleus simultaneously. Not exactly sequentially as, for some odd
reason, Larsen seems to suggest, as what seems to be a major defect
in the theory.
So, to me, the leap of faith here is that electrons are captured at all.
Description from
<http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php>http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Widom-Larsen.php
Such neutrons are created within collectively oscillating patches of
protons or deuterons (found on surfaces of hydrogen-loaded metallic
hydrides) that can react directly with heavy-mass electrons created
by the huge local nanoscale electric fields that also occur on the
hydrogen-coated metallic surfaces. In such nanoscale surface
environments, neutrons are created collectively in a weak
interaction process directly from electrons (e-) and the nuclei of
hydrogen, i.e., protons (p+) and/or deuterium, deuterons (d+), as follows [2]:
e- + p+ -> neutron +
neutrino (1)
e- + d+ -> 2 neutrons +
neutrino (2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Proton&oldid=364979323#Stability
Note that the example given has a high-energy proton colliding with
an atom. Perhaps something similar can happen with a high-energy
electron colliding with a deuterium nucleus. Larson must propose,
then, "huge local nanoscale electric fields" to explain these "heavy
electrons."
The Larsen article is appalling if one assumes it should reflect any
scientific objectivity. Over and over again, it assumes as if fact
what are apparently speculations. Start with the headline!
Widom-Larsen Theory Explains Low Energy Nuclear Reactions & Why They
Are Safe and Green
Well, he's proposing some kind of an explanation, though not very
much of the reactions that are actually observed, just of a class of
reactions that might occur and that might, somehow, be involved in
what is observed. I'll get to that below. But how does he know that
these reactions are "safe and green"? Loose slow neutrons are
dangerous, ordinarily, and ULM neutrons could be expected to be even
more dangerous. Is it some gift of the gods that almost all possible
reactions with these neutrons would be radiation or radioisotope
free? We know that LENR does produce radioistopes in certain
quantities. If LENR is scaled up to commercial power generation
levels, why would we assume that these reactions would likewise scale
up, even if they don't dominate? If we can detect tritium from the
low reaction rates of a P-F experiment, as we can, apparently, why
would this reaction be suppressed at the higher reaction rates needed
for reliable power generation? Larsen is clearly writing political
polemic, intended to impress people who don't understand the topic.
He's simply assuming what he thinks they will want to hear. And for a
further example:
Li-6 + n -> Li-7 + n -> Li-8 -> Be-8 + e + n {neutron absorption,
then betadecay}(4)
Be-8 -> He-4 + He-4{perfectly symmetric, 'green' fission of a
beryllium-8 nucleus}(5)
He-4 + n -> He-5 + n -> He-6 {neutron absorption, making
neutron-rich helium}(6)
He-6 -> Li-6 + e + n {final beta decay of helium- 6 that
regenerates lithium-6}(7)
The above series of nuclear reactions comprise a 'reaction cycle' in
that lithium-6 is regenerated as the final reaction product [2].
Lattice has also uncovered other LENR reaction cycles that release
varying amounts of energy.
"Lattice has uncovered," apparently, means only that Larsen was able
to construct some postulated reaction sequence, completely
disregarding rate problems, that comes up with some explanation of a
reaction that is known, in this case the production of helium from
deuterium fuel (with L-6 as a proposed catalyst). If Li-6 was not a
catalyst, Li-6 would presumably be depleted, but I don't think it is,
so he needs to get rid of it. However, sice helium is produced in
very tiny quantities (just enough to generally explain the produced
energy), he wants to get rid of the helium and make his Li-6 back.
That would, I'd presume, only happen with a tiny amount of He-4, it
would be negligible. What I'll note here is that both reactions
involve the addition of two neutrons, which only makes sense to me if
those two neutrons are "dineutrons," that is, neutrons born from
electron capture by deuterium and thus co-located so that they are
simultaneously absorbed. Call it the Lomax-Widom-Larsen theory if
nobody else has proposed this! I have no idea why W-L haven't just
claimed simultanous absorption of an effective dineutron. It's much
more plausible than successive reactions.
(Dineutrons, as you can see by the above sources and by further
search, are expected to have basically no binding energy. But that
same fact could mean that they stick close to each other for a
relatively long time, and if they are born as ULM neutrons, I'd
expect them to *normally* be absorbed together by some other nucleus.)
(Thus the first reaction makes sense. It would result in the
formation of Be-8, which then has the same problems as Takahashi's
TSC theory, but would would certainly generate helium with roughly
the right amount of energy (minus whatever was absorbed by the
creation of the neutrons). And possibly the poor availability of Li-6
would be what keeps the reaction rate down. But there are a host of
problems to be addressed, and I don't see W-L as doing that, so far.
The reaction to regenerate the Li-6 is pretty silly! And not really
needed. But I doubt that dependence of reaction rate on the presence
of Li-6 has been demonstrated. This would be an obvious test. And if
it fails, why, then, we can expect, it will simply be said that it's
another reaction that predominates.)
Future commercial versions of Lattice's purely weak interaction,
LENR-based systems would not require expensive, bulky shielding or
radiation confinement structures.
Really? Lattice has "systems"? I rather doubt that they have any that
are more successful than the experiments of others. What they have is
a *concept*, a theory, and almost certainly without experimental
proof, i.e., working models. But he's implying otherwise. Based on
past behavior, if he's questioned about this, he'd say that it was
proprietary information, as he did with the gamma-shielding claims
when queried by Garwin, who asked a very reasonable question, the
same question that most of us would ask. Hey, any experimental
evidence for these remarkable claims?
There is no patent blockage for a system that would absorb gamma
radiation. It would be patentable. If the military would allow it,
that is. There is also no blockade, probably, for LENR claims, if
separated from claims of "cold fusion." Even cold fusion claims have,
in fact, been allowed, properly framed. (The claim was for a better
cathode design for electrolysis experiments, and energy generation
was allowed as a possible application, not as the central claim.)
Here is the original W-L paper (2005):
http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2006/2006Widom-UltraLowMomentumNeutronCatalyzed.pdf
I'm told that the explanation of how the electron gains the mass to
allow it to approach the nucleus sufficiently to be absorbed is a
kind of word salad, and that the increase in mass of electrons is a
computational device, not some actual mass increase. But I'll leave
that judgment to experts. I notice they they have not rushed to
confirm this expectation, and the "high electromagnetic fields"
sufficient to explain this heaviness have also, I believe, not been
confirmed. So this theory is major hand-waving, and the likelihood
that this dance actually matches reality seems, to me, to be quite
low. So far, I don't see that it has predictive power, it is just an
imaginative "explanation." What they do is to postulate a whole
family of reactions, without prediction of actual rates, so the
theory will be, as it was then, at least, impervious to experimental
disconfirmation until someone does the necessary analysis to come up
with predictions. I see no predictions in the original paper.
Hagelstein and Choudary (2008),
http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2008/2008Hagelstein-ElectronMassShift-PUB.pdfhowever,
responded, focusing solely on the claim of heavy electrons. They
predict, using a different form of analysis, that there could be an
"observable" mass shift, but far lower -- they didn't state this, but
it's obvious -- than the mass shift involved in increasing capture
rates significantly.
Widom and Larsen fired back with
http://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/sr/WL/2008Widom-ErrorsInTheQuantum.pdf,
but that's a preprint. Preprint from what? It seems it wasn't
accepted for publication, and this may be the source of some of
Krivit's claims of some cover-up. From their abstract:
Hagelstein and Chaudhary have recently criticized our low energy
nuclear reaction rates in chemical cells based on our computed electron
mass renormalization for surface electrons of metal hydride electrodes.
In fact, H&C don't address "low energy nuclear reaction rates." This
is what they are doing:
Our interest in this problem generally was stimulated by
a recent paper by Widom and Larsen [13]. In this paper, the
authors propose that a very large mass shift can be obtained
near the surface of a metal hydride under nonequilibrium
conditions. According to Widom and Larsen, the electron
mass shift can be in the MeV range.
Of course, a mass shift this large is unexpected and
unprecedented. To develop such a large mass shift, intuition
suggests that the electron must interact with the local
environment with at least a comparable interaction strength.
Under the relatively benign environment of a metal hydride,
it is difficult to understand why such large interactions should
occur. If there existed such strong dynamical fluctuations,
one should expect multiphoton ionization as occurs in intense
laser field, but generally no such effects are usually observed.
Consequently, we are motivated to examine the model in order
to better understand the problem.
They are solely examining the postulation or calculation of mass
shift that W&L used to build their theory. They didn't address the
LENR theory at all. They didn't address the "reaction rates," though
they may have pulled the rug out from under them.
I don't see that Larsen predicted reaction rates in the original
article, nor that H&C addressed them directly in their critique.
And theory articles without experimental confirmation of predictions
are so much pie in the sky; they are of interest only if they suggest
predictions and confirmation, or possibly for pedagogical use as
organizing information for easy memory. Neither one of these articles
is based solidly on experiment. In order to distinguish reliably
between W-L's approach and that of H&C, we'd have to have some actual
measurements!
We can do this in hindsight to some degree, but run the risk of then
appearing to confirm a theory that was just the right amount of
hand-waving to explain existing results -- in this case, just the
right amount of each "possible reaction," -- without actually passing
the test of predictive confirmation. If W-L theory leads to
engineering improvements, and if this can be documented, then we'd
have something. Hagelstein and Chaudhary do suggest some path to
experimental verification (of "low" mass increase, they expect)
through exploding wires, but it's always possible that W-L would
simply claim that the "special conditions" required for the effect to
arise weren't present. Frankly, I wouldn't invest the energy to do
the experiments suggested by H and C, because it wouldn't lead to
improvements in knowledge, quite likely, if they are right. It would
merely be ruling out W-L theory, and, as I've pointed out, that
result could easily be avoided. Therefore, I'd suggest, the burden
should be upon W and L and those who support this theory to come up
with the engineering or scientific results that confirm it, through
predictions and verification of them.
I've seen nothing in this line. Krivit blames this on the blanket
rejection of the theory by scientists allegedly attached to "d-d
fusion." That's like blaming the difficulties in replicating P and
F's work on the skeptics. Sure, after the initial phase, the skeptics
did inhibit the exploration of the P-F effect, but that didn't stop
work in the field, and conclusive evidence was really known by the
mid-1990s, with Preparata's prediction that helium would be found as
the nuclear ash being confirmed. One point for Preparata, eh? But not
proof of his theory, per se. Just a nice step in that direction.
CMNS, at this time, must be primarily an experimental science. Theory
is indeed important, but no theory at this time has the right for its
sponsors to act as if everything else is preposterous and they have
simply won the race, such that the predictions of their theory should
be presented as facts, as Larsen pretends in his publications, while
remaining quite vague about specific predictions.
I see that Krivit wrote extensively about his experience in NET 26.
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET26.shtml#sec1, which is
quite a valuable piece of work, Krivit worked hard to collect this.
I can see where he was led astray. Many researchers in the field may
have been reluctant to strongly criticize W-L theory because of an
awareness of some of the factors I've noted: until we know what is
really going on, because we have a theory with high predictive value,
predicting results quantitatively as well as explaining what is
already known, it will remain possible that almost anything, no
matter how preposterous it might seem at first, could end up being
the key. After all, it was preposterous that stuffing palladium with
deuterium would cause some kind of nuclear reaction to take place,
or, at least, it easily appeared so! Pons and Fleischmann realized,
correctly, that this was really an assumption, not an experimental
fact, so they decided to test it, and the rest is history, present and future.
Krivit did get plenty of clues that there were many problems with the
theory, but he chalked this up to theorist egos. He was aware that
"theorist ego" was a normal phenomenon, but somehow didn't apply this
equally to W-L as well as the other theorists.
Krivit seems to have undervalued some of the responses to his
questioning. In particular, he included comment from Pam Boss that
was telling. After providing some reasons to give credence to the
theory (and, taking the theory in very general terms, there is some
basis for that), she goes on:
When I described our results to Larsen regarding our CR-39 work, my
recollection is that he said the Widom-Larsen theory predicts that,
in light water, we should see half the number of tracks observed in
heavy water. We saw three orders of magnitude fewer tracks in light
water than we saw in heavy water.
The Widom-Larsen theory says that you do not need a
deuterium-absorbing metal to get nuclear events to occur. So I guess
their theory says that everything occurs on the surface. The
implication is that our experiment where we replaced PdCl2 with
CuCl2 should have resulted in particle tracks if the Widom-Larsen
theory is fully valid. We saw no evidence of tracks.
The Widom-Larsen theory probably cannot account for the
three-pronged stars we see in the CR-39. These three-pronged stars
are indicative of shattering of a carbon atom into three alphas.
Neutron energy needed for this is on the order of 14 MeV.
I'm sure other people can also show how experimental results don't
match up with their theory. That doesn't mean that the Widom-Larsen
theory is completely wrong. It just means that they need to modify
the theory to account for the other experimental results. This is,
or should be, a common practice.
Yes, the "half the number of tracks" would be a consequence of
substitution of light water for heavy water in the SPAWAR
experiments, unless some other effect is operating. Her criticisms
are not necessarily completely valid, because *unspecified factors*
may be creating this "heavy electron" soup. Maybe it works with
deuterium but not with hydrogen. But where are the experimental
results validating W-L theory? Krivit seems to have mistaken general
results of isotopic abundances from, say, the work of Miley, for the
very general predictions of W-L theory, when it hasn't been reduced
to specific predictions.
I can see in this issue of NET a special concern for "ethical
violations" or for claims of ethical violations. It's dangerous
territory, where inadvertent error or ambiguous language can become
an appearance of deliberate deception, but, as well, where priority
and precedence might have major future implications. And as to the
science, it's a complete red herring, and only even becomes relevant
if we gain grounds to suspect the positive claims of experimental
results. (I.e., I would discount, to some degree, the experimental
results of a theorist attempting to confirm his or her own theory. I
certainly would not toss them out unless there were very strong
reasons to think they were deceptive, or, about as bad, so biased
that they might as well be deceptive. And this is rare among
professional scientists, I believe. Good ones actually seek to refute
their theories, that's what good verification is about.)
I can also see in his presentation of evidence that he's not
understood the field and the physics and the real nature of the
experimental data. Here, in 2008, I can see how he lost it. I presume
he's sincere, but has mistaken his own confusion for deception and
misleading presentation of the evidence on the part of the scientists.
Before I get to reporting my exchange with Garwin, in which he, one
of the most critical of the "cold fusion" critics, failed to tell me
of any error in the Widom-Larsen theory ...
I spotted Garwin heading for the exit, and the paparazzi in me took
over. I rushed over to him as he was on the way to the escalator and
introduced myself. He told me that he didn't have time to stop and
talk, but I rode with him down the escalator and walked with him to
the door, to his apparent irritation.
I asked whether he had seen the Widom-Larsen theory. After a moment,
he said he had. This immediately piqued my curiosity, and I asked my
normal question, "So, what errors have you found in it?"
I had only 60 seconds with Garwin before he left the building.
During this brief time, he said something about a problem with gamma
shielding which I didn't completely follow.
Bingo. If Krivit had been really familiar with the theory, he'd
certainly have known, at least, what Garwin was getting at. It is one
of the huge elephants in the W-L living room. Krivit wrote to Garwin
about the conversation and cc'd W and L.
[...] Garwin replied to Widom and Larsen on Feb. 19, 2007, and copied me.
"I didn't say it was wrong. I said that I had not received a reply
[from you] to my question/suggestion about using such a material as
a shield against high-energy gamma or x-rays.
"I had told [Krivit] that I had written you and not received a reply
and that, if the theory were correct, there should be this shielding
capability.
"I had told [Krivit] that I had written you and not received a reply
and that, if the theory were correct, there should be this shielding
capability.
"Did you ever reply to my letter of Oct. 10, 2005?"
Garwin provided the text of his Oct. 10, 2005, e-mail to me:
"I suppose you have calculated the effectiveness of these materials
in shielding against external x-rays and gamma rays.
"Could you send me those calculations and the results of any
experimental measurements?"
Widom and Larsen responded on Feb. 19, 2007, to Garwin:
"You are correct - we have not responded to your prior questions
about the LENR gamma shielding application.
"We did not answer those particular questions because of underlying
intellectual property issues.
"Nonetheless, we thank you again for your interest in our work."
After providing the above messages to me, Garwin replied to me on
Feb. 19, 2007.
"Dear Steve Krivit,
Now you have a story.
R.L. Garwin"
My respect for Garwin has gone way, way up as a result of learning
about this interchange. Garwin respected the field enough to ask the
obvious question, and to actually seek an answer, in 2005. W and L
(which one? a email generally comes from *one* person, is W, for
exampele, responsible for everything L writes?) blew him off in 2005,
not responding at all, and, now, under some apparent pressure from
Krivit, to respond, they reveal the true nature of the problem here.
The critical evidence for W-L theory, if it exists and L isn't being
deceptive, is not being revealed. While there certainly may be
reasons of possible validity for not revealing that evidence, we
cannot form a community consensus on a theory based on unavailable
evidence, and absent that evidence, the theory must be considered
unconfirmed, and one of the most cogent criticisms of it, that the
lack of gammas is based on serious hand-waving, must be considered to stand.
I must suspect, in fact, that there is no such evidence, that this
reply is evasive. But certainly I can't prove that, it is simply a
normal and obvoious conclusion from the interchange above.
Krivit appears to have missed the significance entirely. He may have
interpreted this as a simple spat, since he quite possibly doesn't
understand just how unexpected and seriously anomalous -- and
important -- the nearly 100% absorption of gammas by this heavy
electron soup would be.
I advised Krivit quite some time back to have and use and rely upon a
scientific review board that could advise him on what he doesn't
understand. I don't blame a reporter with little or no physics
background for not understanding. But he's backed himself into a
corner, and is backing a theory that is, indeed, broadly and roundly
rejected at this point, and that will remain that way unless some
quite surprising results show up. Krivit seems to think that
explanatory power is the standard for judging a theory, but
apparently does not understand that this explanatory power can't
merely be some general and complicated postulation of this and that
to put together some story that seems to make sense. Epicycles
explained the movements of the planets, quite well, actually, and all
that was needed was to set the values for them to the values that
explained observations. But there wasn't any way to predict
epicycles, they were purely a product of observation and an
assumption of an earth-centric solar system.
W-L theory explains some known phenomena, though not predictively, as
far as I've seen, but at the cost of proposing at least two new
phenomena otherwise unknown. That, to me, is real "new physics," and
it isn't predicted from present physics by merely applying math to
the problem, and I don't see that this is what they did. (It's what
Takahashi did, providing a piece that may end up being part of a
complete theory, it's definitely not there yet, and Hagelstein and
Chaudhary did this in their response to Widom and Larsen.) And I
don't see any evidence that these two new phenomena, applied
theoretically, predict behavior any better than other major theories.
Krivit has made, and has continued to make, an assumption that the
other theories, in general, are for "d-d fusion," mistaking
understandings that the general process takes in deuterium and mostly
spits out helium, which will imply 23.8 MeV, for a "belief" that the
reaction is "d-d fusion," i.e, the simple pushing together of two
deuterons, which it is unlikely to be -- and I only say unlikely
because someone might be able to pull the "energy transfer to the
lattice" rabbit out of the hat with something verifiable. Storms and
others seem to be much more interested in cluster fusion of some
kind, which would range from Takahashi's TSC theory to larger
clusters, possibly covered by Kim's work on BEC fusion or other proposals.
By falling for W-L as being highly explanatory, based on what may be
Krivit's misjudgment of the *people* involved, I find that he's not
reported on or explored the other theories, and increasingly he has
focused on the supposed errors and misrepresentations involved in "23.8 MeV."
In the issue of NET I've been looking at, he has this:
I took a close look at the paper Chubb referred me to,
"<http://newenergytimes.com/v2/government/doe2004/2004-DOE-Summary-Paper.pdf>New
Physical Effects In Metal Deuterides," which he said showed the
evidence for 23.8 MeV energy per helium-4 atom.
I was unable to find a reference for an experimental value that
showed 23.8 MeV. However, I did find an experimental value of 31 MeV
per 4He atom with an error bar of +/- 13 MeV. The way I read the
report, the actual value could be anywhere from 18 to 44 MeV.
Krivit doesn't understand that this range, 18 to 44 MeV, is a
stunning confirmation of "23.8 MeV." To him, it sounds quite variant,
and I can understand that. But that the heat/helium ratio is within a
order of magnitude of that predicted from d-d fusion is amazing.
Huizenga recognized this in the last edition of his book, that the
Miles work -- which found better than an order of magnitude
correlation -- was very, very important "if confirmed." He apparently
expected it would not be confirmed, but it was, and that, right
there, should have been big news.
But Krivit does not appear to understand that even finding exact 23.8
MeV -- which is about impossible, given the error bars for helium
measuremant, the potential for helium to escape measurement --
doesn't confirm "d-d fusion," it merely confirms (and not even
exclusively, but presumptively, together with other evidence) that
the fuel is deuterium and the product is helium, and that any process
-- including W-L theory! -- that starts with this fuel being
"consumed" and with the product being helium, will show that value.
W-L theory predicts (and experiment confirms) some level of nuclear
transmutation, so we know that there are other reactions involved
with different ash and maybe different fuel, but, as far as I've
seen, the levels of these reaction products are low enough that this
can largely be neglected by comparison with helium, thus the shift in
heat/helium will be well below the error in helium measurements. Heat
is often measured with quite sufficient precision to give results
accurate to an MeV or better, I believe, it's the helium that's tough.
Positive error in helium will give higher helium production than was
real, or may be measuring helium leakage in some cases. Some
experiments simply measure helium found as an increase over natural
abundance in air, which is one approach to deal with this. Violante's
work seems to be of that kind. Other approaches took great care to
exclude helium, using stainless steel vessels.
However, most experimental approaches will miss some helium,
measureing too low a value, it's very difficult to get all of it. And
so, generally, we assume that the heat/helium ratio will be higher
than the "actual value." Krivit's comment above, equating 31 +/- 13
MeV to an "actual value" of 18 to 44 MeV, shows his lack of
appreciation of this. Rather, depending on the experimental approach,
and the behavior of controls, etc., the "actual value" would be
centered on some lower point, and Storms gives this as 25 +/- 5 MeV,
from his review of many papers.
Does Storms "believe" in d-d fusion. I don't think so!
At this point, it's a rough figure, and what McKubre and others say
is that it's "consistent" with the 23.8 MeV figure from deuterium
fusion to helium. Which is true of the experimental results in this
field. There are outliers, as one would expect for lots of reasons.
Instead, Krivit writes:
I did see the statement in the text: "The Q value of 31 +/-13 and 32
+/-13 MeV per 4He atom measured is also consistent with the reaction
D+D >4He + 23.8 MeV (heat)." I find the usage of the term
"consistent with" to be wishful thinking at best, and perhaps even
disingenuous.
It's a simple statement of fact, not wishful thinking! It is
certainly not "disengenous." Krivit was revealing his
misunderstanding of the scientific issues, and this became more and
more obvious later, and what is mysterious, indeed, is that he seems
to have been unable to correct his error.
"Consistent with" means that if the true reaction value (or average)
is 23.8 MeV, the experimental results do not contradict that.
Depending on how the result was obtained, a result of even 31 +/- 1
MeV would be consistent *if unrecovered helium were not considered*
(yet helium recovery were still quite good). I'm not looking at those
results at this moment to determine that. Krivit mistook a simple
comment as to the significance of results with some kind of claim
that "23.8" has been proven. That's not what "consistent with" means.
He did a similar thing, later, with the Violante paper, mistaking the
use of 24 MeV as an analytical tool with a claim of proof of the
value, and even taking an outlier of very low significance, and
obviously so, as an attempt to prove that the Q value was exactly 24
MeV, when that apparent result was the most noisy of all the results
and the least likely to be at all accurate.
Strangely enough, he got it right *in the same paragraph.*
What they mean, according to McKubre, is that the value 31 is within
the range of what they might possibly see if, in fact, the reaction
is producing helium- 4 atoms at 23.8 MeV, given the error range and
the inability to gather all the helium-4 into the gas phase for
analysis. So on close examination, it would be inaccurate to say
that they obtained 23.8, or even 24 MeV relative to this experiment.
However, they could say the actual experimental value was possibly
within that range.
I.e., what they "meant" was that the result was "consistent with 23.8
MeV," and Krivit acknowledges this, but didn't go back and edit his
claim that this simple fact was "wishful thinking at best, and
perhaps even disingenuous." Krivit, from his prior misunderstanding
of the field, had committed to "d-d fusion" in his book, and he
appears to have wanted to blame the researchers for his error, they'd
misled him, he thinks. But he didn't know how to read the work
carefully and jumped to conclusions.
He could have recovered from this error much more gracefully, taking
full responsibility for his own naive assumptions and conclusions.
I've made plenty of these errors in my own exploration of this topic,
stuff that I thought was conclusive wasn't, etc. Hopefully, though,
my errors are just that. My errors. It's expected I'll make them.
I suppose it is possible that the reaction could in fact be
producing 23.8 MeV helium-4 atoms, but I'm not quite sure how one
gets from that possibility to the assertion that this D+D > 4He
+23.8 MeV (heat) is the underlying process, particularly when there
is so little support for Hagelstein's model. Perhaps this is one of
the reasons that the Department of Energy reviewers had difficulty
with the McKubre, Hagelstein, Nagel, Chubb and Hekman paper.
You don't get from 24 MeV (23.8 is the theoretical figure, and it can
be stated with even more precision than that) to "d-d" fusion, but
you do get from that figure to a high probability of the reaction
being deuterium fusion, and this is something that Krivit, still,
doesn't seem to understand, not realizing that "d-d fusion" is only
one possible kind of "deuterium fusion." Plus, of course, some other
reaction or set of reactions might produce that value. Maybe even
something else triggered by W-L neutrons, though most expected
neutron reactions, if they don't go to Be-8, produce a lower value.
But no such W-L reaction has been proposed, I think, except maybe for
d + (d+e -> 2n) -> H-4 -> He-4 + e, if that could be justified, and
since W-L don't seem to propose this reaction, my guess is "it don't work."
This reaction that I proposed would produce 23.8 MeV, it has to!
Which is why this whole thing of "not fusion" is silly. "d-d"
certainly is not the only possible fusion, and to my mind, neutron
absorption is simply a kind of fusion, of neutronium with another nucleus.
(If we shove a proton into a nucleus, we call that "fusion." So why
does it become not-fusion if we shove an electron and a proton into
the nucleus? That is quite what neutron absorption is.)
What did Hagelstein et al actually claim? This was their conclusion:
The research discussed in this paper provides evidence for effects
in three categories:
(1) The existence of a physical effect that produces heat in metal
deuterides. The heat is measured
in quantities greatly exceeding all known chemical processes and the
results are many times in
excess of determined errors using several kinds of apparatus. In
addition, the observations have
been reproduced, can be reproduced at will when the proper
conditions are obtained, and show
the same patterns of behavior. Furthermore, many of the reasons for
failure to reproduce the
heat effect have been discovered.
(2) The production of 4He as an ash associated with this excess
heat, in amounts commensurate
with a reaction mechanism consistent with D + D . 4He + 23.8 MeV (heat).
(3) A physical effect that results in the emission of: (a) energetic
particles consistent with d(d,n)3He
and d(d,p)t fusion reactions, and (b) energetic alphas and protons
with energies in excess of 10
MeV, and other emissions not consistent with deuteron-deuteron reactions.
Experimental results for tritium production were noted, and
anomalous results from deuteron beam
experiments on TiDx were discussed briefly. In each case, the
effects cannot be accounted for by known
nuclear or solid state physics. The underlying processes that
produce these results are not manifestly
evident from experiment. The scientific questions posed by these
experiments are, in the opinion of the
authors, both worthy and capable of resolution by a dedicated
program of scientific research.
No model is presented, except that the helium result is "commensurate
with" D+D fusion. Which would, of course, be the case with any
reaction using deuterium as a fuel and producing helium. I'd say that
it is unfortunate that Hagelstein did not emphasize that other
reactions might produce this value, because, indeed, "d+d" is
difficult to swallow. Krivit might be correct that this was a
political error, I've said as much myself. But the Hagelstein paper
isn't a theoretical paper, and, as can be seen, it also presents
evidence for other reactions that would not show 23.8 MeV. The key
statement is at the end:
The underlying processes that produce these results aren not
manifestly evident from experiment.
Krivit seems to claim that Hagelstein and others have been
manipulating the presentation of evidence to make it appear that the
"underlying process" is "d+d fusion." But that's quite the opposite
of what they said! They are pointing out the puzzle, not some
particular conclusion.
In Appendix B, Hagelstein et al write:
We conclude, tentatively, that helium is produced in a process that
involves deuterium, but not hydrogen,
which evolves heat commensurate with a nuclear mechanism consistent
with a D+D -> 4He reaction.
It's very accurate, and to anyone who understands the issues, they
are not claiming D+D fusion, but rather "a process that involves
deuterium" (and that mostly produces helium). Was this optimally
written? Perhaps not, for political effect, but, after all,
Hagelstein et all are not publicity agents or political operatives
necessarily skilfull in writing polemic. And they were faced with a
quite diffcult taks. All things consider, the results of the 2004 DoE
review were quite positive compared to 1989, and the cold fusion
community shot itself in the foot by not emphasizing this and instead
complaining about the half-empty glass. Indeed, I've found, there
were major errors in that review that I haven't seen covered by
anyone, probably because of knee-jerk responses to what was seen as
negative because of a misunderstanding of the language, "much the
same as in 1989."
To anyone who knows what happened in 1989, the 2004 review was like
day after night. Or, perhaps more accurately, dawn!
Back to Widom-Larsen theory, it certainly involves deuterium!
(Through the claimed reaction d + e -> 2n, which is how they explain
the production of neutrons, they are entirely made from deuterium as
fuel, plus an electron -- and energy to get that electron in.) We
know that helium is being produced. Therefore there is fusion.
Period. No matter how many neutrons are manipulated in between. W-L
don't get, in deuterium experiments, neutrons from any other source
than deuterium (and an electron, and the electron and its energy and
much more would be recovered through the beta decay of H-4 to He-4,
or another intermediary reaction).
