Axil,
Much appreciate your focusing on purely technical material. it's a welcome
diversion to engage in the discussions.
A mistake that many scientists make is assuming that a theory applies for
all possible magnitudes and/or combinations of physical variables which
affect the material under test. I have commented numerous times in the past
years about the fact that empirical data is obtained with test systems that
have specific operating regimes for various physical parameters, be they
temperature, pressure, electrical potential or current, magnetic field
strength, etc. Nearly all theories developed to explain empirical data have
implicit assumptions that the theoretical 'laws' *only apply* for
experiments where the physical variables are within the same operating
regimes as the data used in establishing the theory. I hope that's not
confusing.
It is quite common for an experiment with 'far-from-equilibrium' conditions
to 'surprise' the researcher. Here are the first two sentences from a
recent paper:
"Antiferromagnetic phase transition in a nonequilibrium lattice of Rydberg
atoms"
http://pra.aps.org/abstract/PRA/v84/i3/e031402
"The behavior of matter far from equilibrium is a fascinating area of study.
The presence of driving and dissipation can lead
to remarkable phenomena that are not possible in equilibrium. This has
motivated much research on nonequilibrium physics."
Note the statement, ".can lead to remarkable phenomena that are not possible
in equilibrium."
D or H loaded metal lattices would certainly qualify as
far-from-equilibrium. In the case of LENR, the remarkable phenomenon is
excess heat and likely nuclear reactions at low energy and without the
'normal' expected reaction products. These kinds of systems lead to
'remarkable phenomena' because they are driven to extremes where *nonlinear*
processes *dominate*.
One way to drive a system into far-from-equilibrium condition is using
resonance.
All this reminds me of the book by Nobel laureate, Ilya Prigogine, Order out
of Chaos, which I read perhaps 30 years ago!
-Mark
