On 01/20/2011 01:29 AM, Harry Veeder wrote: > Would weighing the entire apparatus before and after reveal a > concealed chemical reaction?
I don't think so. The sort of reaction proposed here replaces the reactants with solid "ash", which remains on the spot, so the weight of the apparatus won't change. Really, what's needed is for the observers to be able to see inside the thing -- that, by itself, certainly would not reveal the nature of the 'secret ingredient'. Absent this sort of deception, there's no obvious reason for Rossi not to allow it. If the reactor has, indeed, been inspected by someone other than Rossi, before and after the run, that would be very good to know! > > Harry > > > *From:* Stephen A. Lawrence <sa...@pobox.com> > *To:* vortex-l@eskimo.com > *Sent:* Wed, January 19, 2011 11:35:12 PM > *Subject:* Re: [Vo]:Krivit relents > > > > On 01/19/2011 05:37 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: >> It is already clear that he [Rossi] had no means of faking the >> experiment. > > Some time in the last couple days, you asked me for a scenario > under which Rossi could have faked it without the cooperation of > anybody else present, and I came up dry.... but later, I observed > to a friend that Rossi couldn't have faked it without help from > the U of B staff, and tje friend's response was, "Sure he could." > > With the dual assumptions that > > * Only Rossi ever got to look inside the reactor > > * There have been no demonstrations lasting significantly > longer than half an hour (unsubstantiated rumors of > extremely long runs aside -- rumors are cheap) > > the friend wrote the following: > >> I don't see any need for an inside job. The main portion of the >> reactor is a horizontal cylinder that looks about 6" in diameter >> by 30" long. That's 10 or more liters of usable volume. Lots of >> chemical reactions give you about 2 kCal/cc of reactants. You'd >> like one without the inconvenience of gasses in or out, so the >> thermite-type come to mind. These react aluminum powder with a >> metal oxide to give aluminum oxide and the free metal. Magnesium >> powder also works if you don't need a neatly fluid product, which >> we certainly don't here. Screw feed the material into a cavity >> in an aluminum block, and pull the heat away with drilled >> channels that boil water to steam. The cavity might need a >> refractory liner, but I doubt it. The conductivity of solid Al >> is so high, and the amount of reactant at any time so small, that >> the products will go solid before they wreck the cylinder. >> Besides, shortly after you start, you're just dumping a little >> more wildly hot stuff on top of the previously solidified >> products. You'd need some kind of sensor looking at the block >> temperature or steam production, and use this to control either >> the reactant or water feed-rate, and you'd want something >> (electric arc?) to start the reaction. The easiest way to >> maintain control might be to keep delivering small, discrete >> quantities of reactant, each of which might need to be ignited >> (some of the 400W?) >> >> So, how far can you go with this? 12 kW net for 1/2 hour is 5.16 >> MCal. Since thermites can give about 2 kCal/cc, this is about 2 >> 1/2 liters of reactants. If you need separate initial volume for >> the reactants and the products-to-be, then you need ~5 liters, >> plus space for the chamber/boiler and controller. So 1/2 hour >> may be getting near the easy-to-reach upper limit of chemical >> chicanery for 12 kW in a device this size. I'm sure there are >> other reactions, though, and cleverer constructions, so perhaps a >> few times longer might be achieved. > > Take it for what it's worth, or leave it alone entirely ... it > seems to provide an existence proof for a means by which Rossi, > acting alone, could have faked the result. > > /Unless the reactor is open to inspection, inside and out, before > and after the run, it's hard to rule out this sort of cheating -- > short of demonstrating a run lasting so long no chemicals could > provide enough energy for it. > > / > >
