This is a "boron day" for me . <g> not boring but boronic.
Every day provides new or previously overlooked details, and perhaps an element of Rossi's good fortune will be that someone, probably not from U of B, but from somewhere else is going to provide answers that could help him. The role of boron may be one of them. I am still thinking about the commitment of NASA to this technology. The interest from Langley - from all reports - is much stronger than the interviews indicate, and they seem to be hell-bent on it, with a large staff, and are operating on the premise of it being at least partly related to the W&L theory. When I say 'partly related' - in truth the active particle seems much more likely to be a version of the "virtual neutron" than the ULM since in the Rossi configuration, it must travel in a range of 1-2 cm to activate the boron. The ULM cannot do that. To give credit where it is due, there are many names associated with the idea that hydrogen, and especially spillover hydrogen (monatomic) can "interact as a neutron" - due to electron orbital shrinkage, or deflation, passivation, or whatnot - and the party that came up with the idea first should be credited. Why that person, twenty years ago - did not actually employ boron is a mystery. (that is if it is the active ingredient in E-Cat, which is today's "floater". The names of Vigier, Dufour, Mills and Swartz from the early nineties are associated in my mind with this virtual neutron concept - but I do not know who should be credited as the originator - but for sure it is not Larsen (unless he published something outside of the usual cannels and around 1991. From: Jones Beene * I will add, in deference to W&L theory and the ULM, that the stated presence of boron does provide a more acceptable pathway for the high gain. This would be due to the very high cross-section of boron for neutrons (thermal neutrons). I do not know that boron retains the high cross-section for cold neutrons, but if you look at the tables, which do not address this AFAIK - there is reason to believe that it would be higher - not lower. Thermal neutrons undergo a strong reaction with the boron-10, with the result being an alpha particle and lithium 7. Those two would be the ash, so the hypothesis is easily falsifiable. The downside of the hypothesis is that the boron is not located in the reactor, so how do cold neutrons migrate? This is a very energetic reaction and bremsstrahlung would not have been missed by V&B, so in summary, this route is just as doubtful as any nuclear route - unless the there is a "new physics" version of some kind to hide high energy photons. Jones
