I wrote: > > So if Brian Ahern's anecdotal data are allowed, titanium can yield both > power and localized cooling (perhaps energy is being fed into the system > from the power outlet to accomplish this). >
I'm all mixed up. There are the ice packs, which absorb heat during a phase transition from solid to liquid. So (thinking out loud) there need not be a violation of CoE or the second law of thermodynamics for the titanium system to cool down, and there is more than one pathway that could account for this phenomenon. Importantly, there are temperature and heat, and in the case of ice packs, latent heat, and they need to be distinguished. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_pack The temperature of ice packs decreases because they have a high "enthalpy of fusion" (not to be confused with nuclear fusion). But there is still energy (heat) going into the system, causing the overall energy to increase. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_fusion According to the second article, most substances have a positive enthalpy of fusion, while 3He and 4He have negative enthalpies of fusion at low temperatures. This means they freeze rather than melt with the addition of heat. Eric
