April 20, 2009
APS in the news! The office has been all up in arms about this today. Let me say, APS did not actually tell 60 minutes to find Duncan and we do not support LENRs. Of all the things to report on....
Why are they making the jump from excess heat to cold fusion? It seems like calorimetry is their only evidence for anything. Wouldn't the second thing that someone did would be to assay the thing, and look for some helium or something? I understand that it would probably be a miniscule amount, but there are a lot of other ways to produce heat that don't involve cold fusion.
Also, why not try another fluid to run the palladium electrolysis?
Valatan, This comment from the video comments section should be able to clear up all those silly questions.
"A couple of the preceeding comments suggest that the lack of a theory which would support the observed effects is part of the problem of acceptance. Well, there is a theory which is based on a volumetric fractal that progressively fills space, creating electrons, protons, neutrons and the elemental isotopes. Mass and volume are 1:1. The electron mass is 1/1822.5, and the proton mass is (sqrt 0.75) * pi / 2.7= 1.007666313... All atoms are described as spinning arrays of electrons. The constituent protons and neutrons are also spinning arrays of electrons. This neatly supports E=m*c*c, unifying mass and energy through the electron. In the assembly of this fractal, a single geometric spatial arrangement, and a single volumetric compression, repeated several times creates everything. The elements that result are a volumetric binary code of attractive and inert volumes. If you count the attractive volumes as ones (1)s and the inert volumes as twos, (2)s they add to the atomic number of the element. The elemental models exhibit correct bonding potentials (number and angles), you can SEE the different covalent and ionic bonds. All elemental bonding is the continuation of the single geometric arrangement present in fusion. Perhaps I have been claiming too much, because no one will look at my work, perhaps I am just too old, or perhaps I am the Susan Boyle of theoretical physics? So, there is a theory that explains Pd absorbing vast ammounts of H,D, T, etc. It flattens these simple atoms into a spinning 2-D array. I will meet with any open minded physics or chemistry department, stateside, and travel to your university on my own dime."
Scoring that comment against the Crackpot Index:
1. A -5 point starting credit. (-5)
2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false. ( 2)
3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous. ( 3)
6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment. ( 5)
7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards). ( 5)
9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence). (10)
18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence). ( 5, half credit: Susan Boyle)
24. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories. (20)
34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike. (20)
37. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions. (50)
Total: 115. I tried to err on the side of generosity (lower crackpot index).
I haven't scored the video, someone else want to get on that?
Did you miss 20 points? I'm unsure where the typo occurred (40 != 20):
34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike. (20)
Valatan: So I'm trying to think of how someone would assay this bad boy... how much are we talking here? I watched the videos but it wasn't clear what percentage of material was undergoing a nuclear change. Also, is helium the only byproduct, or is something else being produced? Lighter elements can be trickier to detect, depending on the method used.
But, I kind of already think this sort of path has been explored or eliminated... anyone with access to UT's library system actually read any of the papers?
NC:
You do have a point there. And we'd probably need an actual mechanism for the fusion or something specific at all in order to determine what the end product would be. My knowledge on the subject says that helium is a pretty generic end point for fusion reactions that are allowed to run free, but I guess that this is supposedly a very slow process that might not end with helium. But yeah, the video was extremely vague on how much heat is being produced, which makes it hard to figure out how much deuterium is being used.
But, if nothing else, couldn't you just run the reaction in a vacuum of some sort?
Still, if this is really a fusion reaction, there should be more going on than just 'excess heat.' You can get that from a lot of different processes. For example, why can't it be a result of the electrolysis and the deuterium being a catalyst for changing the lattice structure of the palladium in an exothermic manner? (this, of course, would have it's own consequences beyond the heat, too, but that's the point).
Every time I poke myself in the eyes, I can SEE the different covalent and ionic bonds. It's pretty rad; you should try it.
Valatan:
Why would you want to run the reaction in a vacuum? If the reaction is being carried out in heavy water, it might be tricky to pull enough of a vacuum without vaporizing the water.
Yeah, I was more thinking that you'd have less trouble identifying trace amounts of a gas.
@jonthegeek -- I gave half-credit on the conspiracy question, for his tepid indictment of the Scientific Establishment (TM) on the crime of Ageism.
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LENR = low energy nuclear reaction aka Cold Fusion.
posted by mrflip at 08:17AM CST on April 21