On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Alan J Fletcher <a...@well.com> wrote:
> > Akito Takahashi, a retired professor of nuclear engineering from Osaka > University, and now affiliated with Technova Inc., is shifting his thinking > about low-energy nuclear reactions. > > For two decades, Takahashi, a LENR experimentalist and theorist, has been > exclusively proposing strong force reactions in which deuterons > theoretically overcome the Coulomb barrier at room temperature. > > In the abstracts for the forthcoming Japan CF Research Society conference, > Takahashi discusses the weak interaction p +e –> n + v and the neutron > capture process 3p + n –> 3He + p. > Right, but as I pointed out elsewhere, he appears to have the threshold energy for p+e->n wrong. The difference between a neutron and a proton mass is 1.293 MeV/c^2. Take away one electron mass (511 keV) and you're left with the q-value of 782 keV. He seems to have taken the electron mass away twice to get 272 keV. Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but as I see it, he's mistaken or WL (and Zawodny) are. Anyone can make mistakes of course, but this is kind of critical, and he claims the electrons can get 600 keV energy in his magical TSC state, which falls between 272 keV and 782 keV. My guess is that if he is in error, his theory will get tweaked to give the electrons another 200 keV. What's a few hundred keV for electrons that ordinarily have only a few eV in condensed matter? So, instead of imagining conditions in which deuterons theoretically overcome the Coulomb barrier at room temperature, now he's imagining conditions in which electrons theoretically overcome a much larger energy barrier.
