Could the reason that the Rossi effect is not understood relate to an "inadvertent" catalyst?
By inadvertent catalyst, the implication is that a "hidden" element is found in nickel, going back to the natural ore - at a low percentage which would not be mentioned. This addition is often called a "dopant" when it is added knowingly. The person who buys this alloy as a catalyst, may not appreciate why it is active, but may know that it comes only from one supplier - or from one mining location - so he always purchases from that source. This can be known as a "Puritan alloy" if it comes from one mine only. It should be noted that a few famous commercial alloys were first found in nature in only one place on earth. Monel alloy 400 today is an alloy of the same proportions of nickel and copper as is found naturally in the nickel ore from the Sudbury Ontario mine and was once only available from there. It is mentioned only as an example of how a low percentage element could find its way into an application, even without the purchaser's knowledge. Fran Roarty often brings up relativistic effects of hydrogen (as in the Naudts paper) being responsible for a particular fractional hydrogen state f/H which is non-Millsean, but often quoted by Mills supporters as if it was part of his theory. In fact, this form of f/H preceded Mills by decades and should not be labeled with the trademarked "H-word". In addition to this highly energetic state of hydrogen, which essentially consists of a proton orbited by a relativistic electron, which can be much more massive due to its velocity, there is the possibility of a catalyst which will induce this state and even participate in the ongoing reaction, which can be non-nuclear but highly energetic (well above chemical). There are only a few choices for dopant elements of this type (relativistic catalysts) - and one which has come up wrt Rossi should be mentioned, especially as alloying agent or dopant for nickel. Mercury (Hg) is the main one. It has been avoided by many in LENR because of its toxicity. It is a dangerous element and should not be handled carelessly unless you want to become a mad-hatter, so to speak. It should be noted that Mercury is never used in commercial alloys for two simple reasons- it is costly, valuable and worth 100 times more than nickel alone - so it would be removed and resold ... and importantly, Hg promotes stress-cracking in Ni ! However, there is the possibility that Hg could turn up in a dedicated catalyst, inadvertently or in processing. The promotion of cracking would be reason enough to try Hg as a dopant with nickel, to the extent that one believed cracking was an important parameter - and it could be of even greater importance in a Casimir cavity as well. Mercury is one of a few metals or eutectics which remain a liquid down to fairly low temperature, and notable for Hg alone is the gas-phase. Mercury is a singularity in the periodic table in that it can exist as a monatomic gas, usually denoted as Hg(g). This lack of bonding is due to electron contraction by relativistic effects - which explains why the bonding for Hg-Hg is weak enough to allow for Hg to be a liquid at room temperature. HgH - mercury hydride is an unstable gas because of the electronegativity of mercury is lower than that of hydrogen. The Hg-H bond is very weak and therefore the compound has only been matrix isolated but it should exist in a porous Casimir cavity where the weak bond dynamics can be exploited. The Hg-H bond should promote spin coupling. All things considered, Hg looks on paper like an interesting catalyst/reactant for LENR. Could Hg turn up as a dopant in some alloys of nickel naturally? Or could it have been added by intentionally and silently by AR's supplier ? We have noted before that Rossi mentions "Gerli Metalli" as the company from Milan which is his supplier, but that could be deceptive... ... or not. Here is the web site, if you are interested. http://www.gerlimetalli.it/inglese/ihome.htm Ask for the "Rossi special" with a side of Mercury... (say, Alice, doesn't AR remind one of the Mad Hatter?) Jones
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