At 08:54 PM 1/16/2012, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint wrote:
For those not following LENR for more than about
the last year, the name Bockris might be
new. He did a considerable amount of excellent
LENR research in the 90s, and eventually faced
several official inquiries at the insistence
of colleagues
none of which found any
wrong-doing or bad science. He really hasnt
been that active as far as Im aware, at least
not in academic circles. Perhaps Jed could fill
us in on Bockris activities for the last 5 years, as regards to LENR.
Brockris is obviously one of the giants in the
field. It would be great to have an interview
with Brockris that wasn't filtered through
Krivit's obsession. There are severe problems
with Widom-Larsen theory, and I'd love to know
how Brockris understands those. Krivit has, to my
knowledge, never explored the reason why so many
in the field reject W-L theory, practically out-of-hand.
I'll add that until we do know what is happening
in these reactions, nothing can be completely ruled out.
However, one fact is clear. Helium is being
produced, in a cell where the likely source of
the requisite nucleons is deuterium. W-L theory
proposes a process where a deuteron becomes a
dineutron through electron capture (one could
indeed call that the "fusion" of a deuteron with
an electron), and then the neutrons cause further
reactions, some of which release helium. Was that helium formed by "fusion"?
The only problem with the statement is if one
restricts the term "fusion" to a particular
reaction, i.e., D + D -> He-4, with no intermediaries.
What prompted this posting is the following blog from NET/SKrivit:
Bockris Paper Advances Thanks to Widom-Larsen Theory
Posted on January 13, 2012 by Steven B. Krivit
John OMara Bockris, regarded as one of the
worlds pre-eminent electrochemists, recently
advised me that he overcame objections by
referees to a paper he submitted for publication
by citing the Widom-Larsen Theory.
Bockris sent me a letter on Jan. 2 and discussed his progress.
I have been absolutely intrigued by [Lewis]
Larsen and have changed my mind about his
stuff, Bockris wrote. I used one of his
equations in a paper which was held up by
referees and was able to defeat them by Larsens equation!
Bockris has also been following my distinction
between low-energy nuclear reactions and cold fusion.
If I understand clearly what you say, you agree
that some of the work that has been going on may
involve nuclear reactions, Bockris wrote, but
that its not fusion. Is that what you said? If
it is, then I agree with it. Most of the
condensed matter nuclear reactions do not involve fusion.
Which begs the question. What is "fusion"? There
is a standard definition, and the standard
definition is applied both to simple reactions
such as D+D, which is very well-known and
studied, under hot conditions, and, as well,
low-temperature catalyzed conditions, as with
muon-catalyzed fusion, and as well to complex
reactions, as in stellar interiors. Most high-Z
elements are formed through nucleosynthesis, from
lighter elements, and that is, by definition, fusion.
In rejecting "cold fusion," the physics
establishment fell into a very easy trap. Had
they been rigorous in their descriptions and in
the explanations of why they were rejecting it,
they'd probably have noticed the error. They
assumed that if it was fusion, it must be D+D
fusion, straight, no complications. They were
essentially claiming that complications were
impossible, which is *always* an error. As an
example, if I say that fusion is impossible at
temperatures lower than X, I'd obviously be in
error, unless I very carefully qualify the statement, because:
1. For any particular reaction, under particular
conditions, there will be a fusion cross-section,
essentially a measure of the rate of fusion.
Because of tunneling, the fusion cross-section is
never zero, if the reaction itself is possible at
any temperature. What is really being said is not
that fusion is impossible, but that the rate at
low temperatures will be very low, well below the
rates necessary to explain the Pons and
Fleischmann results, and other work in the field.
2. However, to calculate that rate, one must
define a specific reaction. Call that reaction Z.
Z may be a known reaction, in which case rates
and products may be known. From the experimental
data, one may be able to rule out Z as happening,
but even this can be shaky. Is it possible that Z
could happen due to an unexpected form of
catalysis? Physicists may have a knee-jerk idea
that this is unlikely, but no physticist worth
his salt would say that it's impossible. The
"unlikely" comes from ideas that if this reaction
took place under low-temperature conditions, it
would have been observed, but this argument
breaks down if examined closely. After all,
observations are being reported. When we look
back, we find evidence that anomalous heat (and
perhaps radiation) from highly loaded PdD was
observed before, and dismissed as an unknown
artifact, just "one of those things" that are never explained.
3. The decision of the U.S. DoE in 1989 was
reasonable, in its final form, but not in how it
was interpreted. That decision was, as a result
of certain influences, cautiously written. It did
not rule out the possibility of a low energy
nuclear reaction. It merely considered the
evidence, to that point, weak, and it actually
encouraged further research. That encouragement
was nullified by political pressure from the
particle physicists, who were not about to allow
funding to be diverted from their own work. The
U.S. DoE has never followed the recommendations
of its own ERAB Panel. It repeated the review in
2004, with even stronger conclusions that there
was some kind of anomaly here, and a unanimous
recommendation for further research to answer
certain questions. In fact, while much research
remains to be done, the 2004 review was flawed in
that some aspects of the field, certain quite
solid research results, were misinterpreted and
thus ignored, it's easy to show that. They did
not realize that the major ash from the PdD
reaction was known, and had been found to be very
strongly correlated with the anomalous heat; that
helium is being produced is a red flag that
nuclear reactions are taking place, and the
facile explanation that it could be leakage is
utterly inconsistent with the experimental data.
Leakage would not produce correlated excess heat.
Magically at the right value for deuterium fusion
to helium. (Very conservative statements say
"within an order of magnitude of the value
expected from deuterium fusion to helium, but
Storms estimates 25 +/- 5 MeV/He-4, allowing for
the difficulties of capturing and measuring all
the helium, with the theoretical value being 23.8
MeV/He-4. Krivit vociferously contests this,
finding this or that alleged error or unclarity,
but Miles reported his early data as exponential
levels of helium, numbers of atoms produced, as
simple powers of ten. Later work has been more
precise, but Huizenga, the highly skeptical
co-chair of the ERAB Panel in 1989, noted and
commented on Miles' early reports as being
amazing, and as, if confirmed, explaining a
"major mystery of cold fusion," i.e., the ash. He
still considered it impossible.
4. Why Huizenga considered it impossible is
diagnostic of most of the rejection: it was
considered impossible because neutrons were not
being found in anything other than very low
numbers, possibly significant, possibly
background or cosmic-ray bursts or the like, and
D + D would be expected to produce rough a
neutron for every two reactions. Huizenga was
caught in the assumption that if there was a reaction, it must be D + D.
5. Yes, physicists think of D+D if we talk about
"fusion" where the apparent fuel is deuterium.
They don't, for example, think of D2 + D2,
because such a reaction is non-existent under the
conditions they know: plasma. In a plasma, the
electrons have been stripped from the nuclei, so
there is no D2 molecule. The very concept of
molecular fusion is utterly outside their
experience, they know of no example. However,
certain things are possible with molecules that
are not possible with raw nuclei. In the solid
state, to start, molecules can have *positions*
that could enhance the possibility of fusion. If
deuterium molecules have very low relative
velocity, they may be able to collapse into a
Bose-Einstein Condensate, where the internuclear distances become very small.
6. Multibody fusion, I've seen, is immediately
rejected by particle physicists because they
think that if there is reaction rate between 2
nuclei of 1/X, then the rate for 3 nuclei would
be roughly 1/X^2, as if there are two independent
reactions involved, and, again, this is because
of their experience. However, Takahashi, in his
early work with LENR, studied the fusion reaction
rates for D+ bombardment of deuteride targets and
found an enhancement of fusion rate of many
orders of magnitude over the expectation from
this crude probability estimate. He began, then,
studying the physics of confined deuterium, and
discovered that, starting from what he calls the
Tetrahedral Symmetric condition, four deuterons,
with electrons, arranged in a tetrahedron, the
molecules can be predicted to collaspe and fuse
within a femtosecond. That collapse is the motion
into a Bose-Einstein Condensate; as I understand
his theory, there is a "bounce," i.e., the
collapse continues beyond the steady-state
condition, it is in this bounce that fusion takes
place, he calculates 100% cross-section. So the
reaction rate depends on the frequency of
formation of the TS condition *or of some other condition.*
7. The dirty little secret of the physicists:
they don't know how to calculate fusion cross
section in condensed matter, they were *assuming*
that the "mostly empty space" assumption allowing
most quantum mechanical calculations was valid.
This, in fact, was the very assumption that Pons
and Fleischmann were testing in their research,
*and they expected to confirm it,* Fleischmann
later claimed. They were surprised when their
experiment melted down. They did understand the
implications. The assumptions of routine
application of 2-body quantum mechanics to condensed matter were inaccurate.
8. Takahashi does not assert, I assume, the TS
condition as the actual condition that sets up
cold fusion. He studies the TS condition because
the symmetry makes the calculation feasible, if
difficult. It is possible that there is a range
of states which can collapse and fuse.
9. We do not know the actual reaction taking
place. It is, in my opinion, some kind of cluster
fusion, and most in the field seem to favor that
idea. It remains possible that the reaction is D
+ D, because there might be some condition that
(1) confines the product to helium, and (2) dumps
the energy to the lattice or cell environment
instead of producing the expected gamma ray to
conserve momentum. For the same reason as this
was considered unlikely by most physicists at the
time, I also consider it unlikely. It's a huge
amount of energy to dump. But I can't say it's
impossible. We should never use "impossible" for
something unknown! However, we routine consider
things impossible, the legitimate reason is that
these things are unexpected. But when the chimera
comes up and licks us in the face? And that's
what happened to a subset of those who tried to
replicate Pons and Fleischmann, and they became
the famous "believers." They believed because
they had see the light, so to speak. The heat.
And when helium was found to be correlated with
that heat, fusion *should have become the default
hypothesis, by Occam's Razor.*
10. All this got confused by issues of practical
application. It is possible, as many in the field
have stated, that no practical application might
be possible. Until we either have a practical
application, or we know what's actually
happening, we really can't make predictions about
practical applications. Rossi may have found an
approach, or Rossi may be a huge mistake or
worse. Again, we don't know, we can only
speculate and infer, which is always limited by
prior experience, and prior experience can lead
us astray, if we imagine Reality to be limited by it.
11. In any case, it cannot be said that "fusion"
at low temperatures is impossible. It's obviously
possible, from muon-catalyzed fusion. Takahashi's
TSC theory provides an example that is
"possible," if the conditions are set up, and
those conditions are not energetically far from
what we could predict. It is obvious that the TS
condition must be very rare, probably depending
on some uncommon defect in the lattice, and very
particular conditions. While the TS condition is
very close to absolute zero, as to temperature,
it clear requires energy to form it. It's
"compressed" beyond what positions the molecules
would naturally assume, if I'm correct. If you
try to push two deuterium molecules together,
cross-wise, say by a collision between the two
molecules, cross-wise, and if you give them
enough energy -- just -- that they would, from
the repulsion between their electrons, slow to
zero velocity, the force on each molecule would
dissociate it. There must be a confining force,
presumably, here, the lattice. I imagine one
molecule, sitting in a cavity, held by the cavity
in a certain orientation, with a second molecule
entering with a vector that takes the combination
to TS. Given that this is 4D in one cell, the
forces on the palladium matrix would, if
sustained, disrupt it. Takahashi's calculations
have been done assuming a single cell, but I
consider it likely that the effective "cells" are defects that are larger.
12. I've just outline one of the many theories
that are considered by Storms to be "plausible."
I don't personally categorize W-L theory that
way, or at least I have not seen any explanation
of it that addresses the major problems. Krivit
has not done his work as an investigative
reporter; he simply became an advocate for what
he doesn't understand. Not the first time. He was
an advocate for cold fusion without a deep
understanding. Krivit has not sought out and
hosted *criticism* of W-L theory from those
competent to understand it. He became attached,
probably because of this misunderstanding about "fusion."
13. This is where Krivit is right: the physicists
rejection "fusion" because they though of it as
meaning a particular reaction. Remember, Krivit
thinks that most cold fusion researchers are
biasing their work because of their alleged
belief in "fusion." I've never seen him really
look at this neutrally. Cold fusion researchers
don't believe what he thinks. Yes, most of them
think that some kind of fusion is taking place, a
few think that it might still be D-D fusion, but
they know that "fusion" covers a large range of
possible reactions, not just D+D. Cluster fusion is not D+D.
14. TSC fusion, for example, is 4D -> Be-8 -> 2
He-4, perhaps. That reaction still has a problem,
what happens to the energy? Neutrons would not be
directly produced, nor gammas, but one might
haively expect the helium produced to be born
with kinetic energy of 23.8 MeV, which is
experimentally not so. Until the mystery is
explained, we can't assert TSC theory or cluster
fusion to be solidly established. I'll just point
to what I think is so: we do not know what
happens when fusion takes place within a
Bose-Einstein Condensate. It is conceivable to me
that the energy is distributed among all the
elements of the condensate, including the
electrons. With 4D, the Be-8 nucleus is capable
of radiating energy to the lattice through a
series of photon emissions, each with relatively
low energy, until Be-8 reaches the ground state.
Normally, it wouldn't have time for that, Be-8 is
highly unstable. But, effectively, the energy
would be radiated by the entire condensate,
that's how I'd expect a condensate to behave. If
the Be-8 ground state decays, I think there is 90
KeV left, to be distributed among two nuclei and
four electrons. (Or is it twice 90 KeV? I
forget). In any case, we are getting close to the
"Hagelstein limit" of 20 KeV for whatever
reaction is taking place. If products above 20
KeV are routine, effects would have been seen that are not seen.
15. It seems to me that if Be-8 is stable within
a BEC, it might remain as Be-8 until the BEC is
disturbed and breaks up. Thus the energy
distributed among the elements of the BEC would
be from the ground state, usually. (If the BEC is
larger than 4D, it might be meaningless to define
a component as "Be-8." By the way, I'm way over
my head here, like a fish dimly perceiving or
imagining what might be above the water....
16. Bottom line: the long-standing definition of
"fusion" is not specific to a particular kind of
reaction. It refers to any process that takes
low-Z nuclei and converts them to high-Z nuclei.
Such reactions, when Z is low enough, generally
produce products with a bit less mass than the
reactants, so they produce energy. Krivit's
technically right, about what many physicists
think, but that thinking is logically defective,
as explained above. D-D fusion is an example, and
it is a logical error to identify and restrict a class to a particular example.
To give an analogy, suppose one is a police
officer and every "crack dealer" one has
encountered has been black. The officer is
informed about a possible crack dealer, walking
across the street. "Impossible," the officer
thinks, that man is white. Besides, he doesn't
dress like a crack dealer, you know, with the
gold jewelery, and the car he's getting into
isn't flashy and expensive. Must be some mistake.
(My apologies for all the stereotypes mentioned.
I'm making a point that stereotypes can be useful
under some circumstances, they may even have
served this officer well in the past, but can
lead to major blunders.) We know, in fact, that
there are many kinds of fusion reactions, both
known and possible through theory even if not
actually observed. It was a major blunder to
confine consideration to known reactions. Pons
and Fleischmann ultimate claimed, not "fusion,"
but "unknown nuclear reaction." I now assert that
"fusion" is probably correct, at least for most
of the reactions taking place, but only because
of what Pons and Fleischmann apparently did not
know: helium as a product correlated with the
heat. The product and the correlation ratio tell
us that, as the simplest explanation, something
is converting deuterium to helium, and a process
that does that is a "fusion process," no matter what the mechanism is.
In W-L theory, deuterium is convered to neutrons
though what amounts to electron catalysis, with
the neutrons then causing other reactions that
are claimed to result, sometimes at least, in
helium. That's a "conversion of deuterium to
helium." Fusion. But "cold fusion" got such a bad
name that some are relieved to be able to say,
"No, I don't believe in cold fusion, I'm not
crazy. But 'low energy nuclear reactions' are
possible through neutron formation." I think it's
a big mistake. The alleged formation of those
neutrons creates a host of theoretical problems,
it does not simplify the situation, far from it.
But this is not the time to detail the problems
with W-L theory, just to note that the "escape
hatch" it provides leads to a trap, very likely,
once there is accumulated cogent criticism of W-L
theory published. Mostly, unfortunately, it's been ignored.
