Hi,
On 13-9-2011 20:44, Horace Heffner wrote:
<snip calculation of lead shielding>
Hmmm, is there a way to start and stop a gamma radiation source, as it
may be used only to trigger the process?
Why I'm asking, well I remembered an older message earlier this year
from Jed.
Sorry, for the long text which I dug up from my personal mail-archive,
unfortunately it seems not to available in the vortex-mail-archive.
Kind regards,
MoB
On 16-2-2011 20:48, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Here is a revised version of the message I sent the other day.
Villa reported no gamma emissions or other radiation significantly
above background from the Rossi device. Celani, however, said that he
did detect something. Here are the details he related to me at ICCF16,
from my notes, with corrections and additions by Celani.
Celani attended the demonstration on Jan. 14. The device did not work
at first. He and others were waiting impatiently in a room next to the
room with the device. He estimates that he was around 6 m from the
device. He had two battery-powered detectors:
1. A sodium iodide gamma detector (NaI), set for 1 s acquisition time.
2. A Geiger counter (model GEM Radalert II, Perspective Scientific),
which was set to 10 s acquisition time.
Both were turned on as he waited. The sodium iodide detector was in
count mode rather than spectrum mode; that is, it just tells the
number of counts per second.
Both showed what Celani considers normal background for Italy at that
elevation.
As he was waiting, suddenly, during a 1-second interval both detectors
were saturated. That is to say, they both registered counts off the
scale. The following seconds the NaI detector returned to nomal. The
Geiger counter had to be switched off to "delete overrange," which was
>7.5 microsievert/hour, and later switched on again.
About 1 to 2 minutes after this event, Rossi emerged from the other
room and said the machine just turned on and the demonstration was
underway.
Celani commented that the only conventional source of gamma rays far
from a nuclear reactor would be a rare event: a cosmic ray impact on
the atmosphere producing proton storm shower of particles. He and I
agreed it is extremely unlikely this happened coincidentally the same
moment the reactor started . . . Although, come to think of it,
perhaps the causality is reversed, and the cosmic ray triggered the
Rossi device.
Another scientist said perhaps both detectors malfunctioned because of
an electromagnetic source in the building or some other prosaic
source. Celani considers this unrealistic because he also had in
operation battery-operated radio frequency detectors: an ELF
(Extremely Low Frequency) and RF (COM environmental microwave
monitor), both made by Perspective Scientific. No radio frequency
anomalies were detected. I remarked that it is also unrealistic
because the two gamma detectors are battery powered and they work on
different principles. The scientist pointed to neutron detectors in an
early cold fusion experiment that malfunctioned at a certain time of
day every day because some equipment in the laboratory building was
turned on every day. That sort of thing can happen with neutron
detectors, which are finicky, but this Geiger counter is used for
safety monitoring. Such devices have to be rugged and reliable or they
will not keep you safe, so I doubt it is easy to fool one of them.
Celani expresses some reservations about the reality of the Rossi
device. Given his detector results I think it would be more
appropriate for him to question the safety of it.
When Celani went in to see the experiment in action, he brought out
the sodium iodide detector and prepared to change it to spectrum mode,
which would give him more information about the ongoing reaction.
Rossi objected vociferously, saying the spectrum would give Celani (or
anyone else who see it), all they need to know to replicate the
machine and steal Ross's intellectual property.
Celani later groused that there is no point to inviting scientists to
a demo if you have no intentions of letter them use their own
instruments. (Note, however, that Levi et al. did use their own
instruments.)
Jacques Dufour also attended the demonstration. He does not speak much
Italian, so he could not follow the discussion. He made some
observations, including one that I consider important, namely that the
outlet pipe was far too hot to touch. That means the temperature of it
was over 70°C. That, in turn, proves there was considerable excess
heat. McKubre and others have said the outlet temperature sensor was
too close to the body of the device. Others have questioned whether
the steam was really dry or not. If the question is whether the
machine really produced heat or not, these factors can be ignored. All
you need to know is the temperature of the tap water going in (15°C),
the flow rate and the power input (400 W). At that power level the
outlet pipe would be ~30°C. Celani points out that the input power was
quite unstable, fluctuating between 400 and 800 W, but it was still
not large enough to explain the excess heat.
Celani did not see the steam emerge from the end of the pipe, but he
reported the whistling sound of steam passing through the pipe.
(Dufour did not notice that but he says he is hard of hearing,
especially high frequency sounds.) I think there is no question the
water boiled, and much of it was vaporized, so there was massive
excess heat. Celani complained that phase-change calorimetry is too
complicated, but I think he exaggerates the difficulty. I agree that
the actual calorimetric method could be improved, especially with a
5-minute test of steam sparged into a container of cold water.
- Jed
