At 04:31 AM 5/29/2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 10:09 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
<<mailto:a...@lomaxdesign.com>a...@lomaxdesign.com> wrote:
Lomax>The world is so complex that math can be useless, unless
simplifying assumptions are made. It is certain simplifying
assumptions that led to the conclusion that QM predicts that LENR is
impossible. This was already a problematic assumption, because we
already knew of a three-body example where fusion is known to take
place, muon-catalyzed fusion, so the question then naturally arises
if there might be other "exceptions."
What? Muons are exceptional in nature, and muonic atoms are exotic,
but muon-catalyzed fusion in no way represents an exception to standard QM.
Nor did I claim so. It's an exception to the oft-stated claim that
fusion at room temperature is impossible.
In fact, the phenomenon was predicted theoretically before it was
observed. The reaction rates fit the calculations perfectly.
Right. That's because it's a very simple reaction, comparatively.
The fusion reactions follow expected branches. The production of
muons for the purpose is understood. Everything makes sense. This
was all understood in the 1950s. The only way this can be
bootstrapped to explain CF is if you claim electrolysis, or
deuterium absorption in Pd, or hydrogen absorption in Ni produces
exotic nuclear particles, a process just as unlikely as any other
proposed mechanism for nuclear reactions producing useful heat.
I do not cite MCF to "explain CF," only to point out the foolishness
of blanket impossibility statements. There are exceptions. How many?
We knew one in 1989. We also knew other exceptions to the claim that
nuclear effects were not possible at room temperature.
MCF was proposed as possibly related. That wasn't a tenable idea. The
only connection here is that if one form of catalysis is possible,
with one catalyst, there might be others, unknown to us.
In fact, even if we didn't know about MCF, the principle that there
might be something unknown is solid, and is the basis for new
research, which, properly, is always looking for anomalies.
> Physics only uses math in the interpretation of results, in the
development of theories, and some of these theories, applied in
simplified situations -- such as plasma conditions -- are
extraordinarily successful, amazingly accurate. As long as you stay
away from messy situations, like the stuff that we live with all the time.
Physics is also extraordinarily successful at describing
mathematically the properties of materials, crystals, and lattices,
just the sort of environment cold fusion is supposed to take place in.
Actually, not quite, apparently. But the world moves on and my ideas
might become obsolete. Takahashi has proposed that deuterons
occasionally would form a tetrahedral symmetric configuration, where
four deuterons, with electrons, so this could be considered two D2
molecules, are arranged tetrahedrally. He *calculates* -- math --
that if this configuration arises (and this probably requires that
the relative temperature of the four deuterons is close to absolute
zero, my guess), it will collapse within a femtosecond and fuse
within a femtosecond, to form Be-8. Be-8 normally decays within, as I
recall, a femtosecond to form two helium nuclei. However, what
happens after collapse and fusion has not been well-described by
Takahashi. So there are two big problems with this theory, in spite
of the math.
1. How does the TSC condition form? The approach is closer than two
molecules will ordinarily manage, because if they approach at the
cross-wise configuration that would, if the vectors continued, lead
them to TSC, the repulsive forces from the electrons would break
apart the molecules. Thus, for TSC to form, there must be some force
resisting dissociation. The lattice, I presume. And has anyone
calculated all the forces and times involved? Not to my knowledge.
The math is very difficult, apparently.
2. What happens inside a Bose Einstein Condensate, if fusion takes
place that results in a single excited nucleus? The electrons are
part of the BEC, I think? What will that Be-8 nucleus do? Takahashi,
at one point, predicted that it would radiate energy in a series of
transitions down to the ground state, up until it fissions? Does
being inside a BEC change the half-life? Does it change how the
energy is distributed?
And this is just one theory. Kim has published a different approach,
also using BECs.
I don't think the math has been done to examine the range of possible
behaviors in Pd-D. For one thing, the environment is quite complex.
Some think that oxides are involved, and it's a surface effect. It
may happen only in lattice defects, not in the lattice itself. I'm
not at all convinced that most research in the field is being
published; consider that Rossi apparently worked for years. Consider
Pons and Fleischmann themselves, who clearly were not ready to
publish after five years of work.
But I'm convinced that, under the right conditions, PdD generates
helium and energy, at roughly the right value for deuterium ->
helium. That is not, yet, a precise measurement, because precise
measurements of helium, under these conditions, are very difficult.
But the correlation is so strong that it's a million to one that this
is coincidence. Where am I placing my bets?
> Fleischmann and Pons were quite aware of this, and they agreed,
but they also knew that it was possible, even probable, that there
was *some deviation* from expected fusion cross-section in
condensed matter. Fleischmann has written that he expected this to
be below measurement accuracy, that he and Pons expected failure to
find anything.
That's revisionist balderdash. They were clueless about nuclear
physics, and expected to find fusion, and said as much in interviews
after the fact.
I'd love it if Cude would point to that. They were looking for
fusion, yes, but they understood very well that "nuclear physics,"
i.e., existing assumptions, based on certain approximations,
predicted that it would be unobservable. Ever hear of testing hypotheses, Cude?
No, I thought not. You learn them in school and you believe them, and
so do thousands like you. You are technologists, not scientists.
> So what now? I'm willing to bet a significant chunk of my net
worth on Rossi being real,
That's what he's counting on.
No. I haven't figured out how to make that bet. As it is, I lose if
Rossi is real.
(Perhaps Cude meant "that's what Rossi is counting on." Sure, if it's
a fraud. Except that I'm not going to write the check, I'm sure,
unless -1- it's hedged, i.e., if Rossi disappears, which he could
whether this is real or not, I'm still okay, or -2- there is an
independently verified working product. Right now, Rossi is starting
to announce pricing, apparently, and an E-Cat is too expensive, but
the refueling cost is low enough that it might be worth it. That all
depends on the stability of Rossi and, in the U.S., Ampenergo, very
speculative.)
This is part of Cude's religion. Anyone who thinks differently must
be deluded, self-interested, confused.
