Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.tis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!percival!gary From: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) Newsgroups: sci.misc Subject: Cold fusion and run-away reactions Keywords: cold fusion, reactions, Message-ID: <1498@percival.UUCP> Date: 27 Apr 89 21:38:37 GMT Reply-To: gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) Organization: Percy's UNIX, Portland, OR. Lines: 37 As reported in the Portland Oregon "Oregonian" newspaper, Thursday , April 27, Page E3: John Dash, physics professor, and Patrick Keefe, graduate student, both from Portland State University report an "energy burst in the first second of a cold fusion experiment". Apparently, these researchers had access to a paper by P & F, and attempted to duplicate the experiment. They also added an electrolyte into the heavy water "to increase the waters conductivity". The electrolyte is not specified, due to a "patent possiblity down the road". The article states that "at least" 100 times more energy was produced than was used to perform the experiment. However, all of the reported reaction occurred within the first second, and a SEM picture of the palladium electrode shows a "large" (greater than 5 mirco- meter) crater in the palladium. Keefe is quoted as saying " Even without the microscope you could tell that it had taken a beating in there." A photograph is included of the crater, which appears to be fairly deep (thus supporting the base theory of how cold fusion might be working ?) and energtic (there is no evidence of the displaced material, therefore leading me to believe it was thrown clear). It would appear that questions raised in this and other news groups about the possiblity of a run away reaction in one of these hastily conceived and executed experiments are not just paranoia. It should be noted that the "Oregonian" is _not_ one of the better newspapers in the world, and tends to foul up its reporting of even mundane items. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Still working on _natural_ intelligence. gary@percival (...!tektronix!percival!gary) Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!oliven!prs From: prs@oliven.olivetti.com (Philip Stephens) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Re: Is Deuterium Movement Important? Keywords: dynamic process diffusion mobility Message-ID: <41108@oliveb.olivetti.com> Date: 27 Apr 89 21:17:56 GMT References: <1989Apr20.143800.14572@cs.rochester.edu> <1905@ssc.UUCP> <1907@ssc.UUCP> <1324@ns.network.com> Sender: news@oliveb.olivetti.com Reply-To: prs@oliven.UUCP (Philip Stephens) Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca Lines: 91 In article <1324@ns.network.com> logajan@ns.network.com (John Logajan) writes: >G. Allen Sullivan writes: >> [without solving the differential equations] 48,000 Hertz. > >In a previous speculation, based upon a description by Paul Koloc, I suggested >that the 2 D's might oscillate in and out of the He4 state -- with any >dampening of the oscillation favoring the lower energy state -- He4! Getting back to the subject line, re motion, how might this oscillation be related to the apparant importance of *motion* of D+ (or D- for all I know) through the Pd or Ti lattice? (Assuming the Italian results are relevant, and taking into consideration some other results that support or at least do not conflict). (And assuming that this oscillation in and out of the 4He state is reasonable enough to be worth discussing; as a chip designer I am obviously out of my depth here, but naive questions sometimes spark useful secondary questions so I'll barge ahead...) 1) Concentration of single D's into pairs Not as likely in a single-crystal rod as in polycrystaline, which I assume is what most are using; concentration as a result of motion rather than overall concentration would happen at grain boundaries. I must say I'm not excited about this aspect. But if relevant, it can be tested by comparing results with single-crystal rods to results with normal rods; it is highly testable. 2) Further concentration of pairs as they move from one lattice "box" to another, presumably squeezing through an effectively "tighter" constriction in between. (Not sure what the "proper" terminology is, but if the "boxes" are prefered because they are lower energy, energy must be required to dislodge a resident D atom or two, and if two D somehow try to pass through at the same time they would be squeezed closer together while doing so. Note that this works for "probablistic" fusion theory without the reverseable oscilation, but seems unlikely unless the two D are bound to each other in some way, such as having entered into quasi-4He oscilation, or having opposite charge as proposed in another recent posting). This I find much more exciting as an avenue to persue further. Even though I suspect my mental image of "squeezing" is bit too mechanistic, the effect would explain certain results claimed by the Italians and warned of (don't use powdered *or square* Pd) by P&F. Likewise the "incident" when current suddenly cut in half after a long charging period. 3) Gradual transfer of energy from D,D <--> 4He system to lattice heat via repeated "squeezings" through lattice between boxes. I may be all wet here; if quantum physics "requires" that energy be lost in discrete quanta, ie that the "virtual" 4He step through discrete energy levels, are those levels close enough for this mechanism to make sense? More important, do we use the 4He levels or the 2D levels? Or would the system somehow have a whole new set?! (Does this sound too much like science fiction? Yes, but so does room temperature fusion!) Somebody help me out here *please*!! If this point isn't total bunk, it is just as exciting as point 2. Why? Because the whole thing doesn't make sense without some mechanism for conversion of most of the fusion energy into thermal energy without emitting lots of energetic particles. Any *valid* explanation would be nearly as important to our theoretical understanding as explaining the fusion reaction itself. (Might even effect the ratio of heat production to neutron emission, but I consider that a little far-fetched. Might be worth experimenting with different flow rates though, just to see if the *ratio*, as well as the absolute amount, varies proportionally). ------ Incidental practical note: non-electolytic reactor might use coil of Ti or Pd tubing in sealed chamber, D gas both inside and outside of tubing, and pump creating high pressure difference. Difference can be in either direction, with advantages and disadvantages either way. If prefer thin D tubing and relatively low pressure differential, probably want lower pressure inside tube. Heat transfer via metal (same or other metal) conduction to reaction vessal, or directly to a second set of tubes circulating some working fluid for sterling cycle, such as freon or liquid sodium. D tube single ended, heat conduction tube recirculating (or replace with heat-pipe, which also recirculates but via phase change and wicking etc). Note that sterling cycle works best at high temperature, such as 800 C. - Phil prs@oliven (Phil Stephens) or: (hplabs,ihnp4,sun,allegra,amdahl)oliveb!oliven!prs I'm told that may be prs@oliven.olivetti.com for some folks Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!xanadu!michael From: michael@xanadu.COM (Michael McClary) Newsgroups: alt.fusion,sci.physics Subject: An experiment a friend suggested. Message-ID: Date: 23 Apr 89 19:53:40 GMT Reply-To: michael@xanadu.UUCP (Michael McClary) Organization: Xanadu Operating Company, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 30 Xref: santra alt.fusion:554 sci.physics:6276 The F&P cell, as described by F&P, has a large input of electrical energy, and may be far from electrochemical equilibrium as well. Some people are concerned that the observed heating may be an error measurement or in accounting for the various possible heat sources (or of calibrating the instruments in the presence of temporary electrochemical heat sinks). A friend has suggested a modification that would simplify separation of fusion heat: - Run a F&P cell normally until it begins to produce signs of fusion. - Change the electrolyte (or move the electrode(s) to a new cell). The new electrolyte should be nearly pure D2O. The new electrolyte will have drastically reduced conductivity, allowing you to maintain the electrostatic pressure at the boundary of the Palladium electrode, and pump in small amounts of additional duterium, without adding large amounts of excess energy to be accounted for. It should also leave the electrode near chemical equilibrium, cutting another source of noise. With electrochemical heat sources greatly reduced, fusion heat measurements would be easier and more accurate. While a positive result from such an experiment would be much harder to refute, a negative result wouldn't be definitive. Some other possible explanations for a negative result: - Loss of duterium from the electrode during the changeover. Such loss would take a while to make up with reduced currents. - Sensitivity of the reaction to something other than duterium concentration, such as duterium flux, other effects of the current, or unknown effects of the electrolytes. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!sumax!thebes!happym!rwing!nanook From: nanook@rwing.UUCP (Robert Dinse) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Re: German refutation of cold fusion (from alt.fusion) Summary: Reply to German Refutation of Fusion Conclusion Keywords: chemical oxidataion, forced reduction Message-ID: <687@rwing.UUCP> Date: 27 Apr 89 03:24:35 GMT References: <1648@wasatch.utah.edu* <8013@pyr.gatech.EDU> Organization: Very Little Organization, Seattle WA Lines: 41 If the German claim that the heat generated was due to catalyzed chemical reactions between hydrogen (or deuterium) and oxygen that were given off by the electrolysis process, the most heat they could have obtained is 100% of the energy put into electrolysis, or if that heat was "corrected for" 200%, not the 800+% measured with the .4cm rod in the F&P paper. An experiemental error in neutron dection of 3X, not totally suprising, but what about the Italian experiement, several hundred times background levels? Maybe they conducted it next to a fission reactor. I'd also like to know how they account for the He4, the tritium I can believe might have been in the original heavy water and merely released by electrolysis, but how does that explain the He4 produced? I read a news article somewhere that mentioned an experiement in which the He4 produced closely coincided with what would have been expected for the amount of heat produced assuming a D+D -> He4 reaction. I'm not saying that I'm completely convinced that fusion is taking place, this still could be a Polywater of the 80's, but I don't think the Germans did a real good job of refuting the possibility that it does either. One possibility I've been thinking about, assume that D+D -> He4 is the reaction producing the majority of the heat. Assume the tritium is really the result of some being present in the heavy water sample, perhaps the neutrons that are observed are the result of a D+T -> He4 + n reaction. Aside from the fact that know one knows how D+D can react and produce He4 plus heat instead of tritium, He3, or gamma rays, this would fairly neatly explain the rest of the products. Assuming one could successfully duplicate the F&P experiement, this could be tested by using a heavy water sample devoid of any tritium to begin with. I'd like to hear more about the Italian experiement, Titanium is a lot less expensive. I wonder what it was like when electricity was first discovered. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!netsys!lamc!well!mitsu From: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion Subject: L.A. Times Extracts: Stanford, 4He findings, Italy Keywords: Also Moscow, Czechoslovakia, and Italy Confirm Cold Fusion Message-ID: <11384@well.UUCP> Date: 24 Apr 89 07:51:36 GMT Reply-To: mitsu@well.UUCP (Mitsuharu Hadeishi) Organization: Whole Earth Lectroinic Link, Sausalito, CA Lines: 147 Xref: santra sci.physics:6300 alt.fusion:590 Summary of extract presented below: In a stunning discovery Monday, April 17, Walling and Simons at U. of Utah lent great credence to D+D -> 4He theory by discovering 4He in palladium electrode in a Pons' experiment. The amounts are consistent with a fusion process and the heat being observed. On Tuesday, Italian scientists confirmed cold fusion in a parallel experiment using deuterium gas and titanium electrodes. They report high neutron count but not significant heat output. However, it is clear evidence of the feasibility of cold fusion. On Wednesday, Stanford reported that they have confirmed the P&F experiment in a setup that includes a control experiment with normal water. They repeated the experiment five times and got significantly greater heat output from the heavy water experiment. The heat measured is similar to that observed by P&F. On the same day Czechoslovakia claimed to have reproduced the experiment, following up claims by Moscow University and Hungary last week that they have also reproduced the experiment. Extract (full article minus details USENET readers already know) from Wednesday's edition of the L.A. Times, Part I page 3: by LEE DYE, Times Science Writer . . . Stanford University revealed experiments that indicate nuclear fusion, and not some kind of chemical reaction, is the most likely explanation for heat generated by a table-top apparatus at the University of Utah. The Stanford discovery came on the heels of discovery of helium-4 in the Utah experiment, a discovery that fits perfectly with a growing number of theories that explain why it might be possible to achieve fusion at room temperature with a simple experiment. . . . . Many physicists have argued that it is essential to conduct a "control" experiment, which would reveal whether the heat detected in the Utah experiment comes from a chemical reaction or nuclear fusion. That could be done by running parallel experiments, one with "heavy water," . . . and one with ordinary water. . . . . A Stanford team of seven researchers, led by Robert A. Huggins, professor of materials science, has conducted a series of control experiments and found that the experiment with regular water produced no heat. But the one with heavy water produced heat "comparable to that reported by Pons and Fleishmann," Huggins said. The experiment was repeated at least five times in side-by-side versions---always with the same result. . . . . "We are seeing quite a difference" between the two experiments, Huggins said. "The thermal effects are real." . . . The experiment apparently produces so few radioactive byproducts that they are almost impossible to measure. Huggins stopped short of saying that the work at Stanford confirms that nuclear fusion is the only explanation for the heat generated by the experiment, but it clearly shows that deuterium plays a key role in whatever is going on. "We think the result is significant," he said. . . . . Huggins said he can understand why many other laboratories are having trouble replicating the experiment. "It sounds simpler than it really is," he said. "It's easy for people to do bad experiments." . . . . Cheves Walling, a widely respected chemist who pioneered the study of nuclear reactions, and fellow chemist John Simons put one of Pons' heat-generating experiments in their mass spectrometer and determined that the experiment was producing helium-4. Helium-4 is the most common form of helium, but it is extremely rare as a byproduct of deuterium fusion, and its presence in the palladium used in the Pons-Fleishmann experiment is extremely significant, Walling said. From the beginning, physicists have been skeptical of the Utah claims because the experiment should have produced far more neutrons than were detected by Pons and Fleishmann . . . . . . . "I think it's the last nail in the coffin," pioneering nuclear physicist Robert Cornog said of the discovery of helium-4 in the electrode. "It's almost as exciting as the original announcement." . . . . Eerkens, who has held a wide range of posts in the nuclear industry, said in an interview that helium-4 is being produced instead of helium-3 because of something he calls the "wall effect." . . . . in the palladium electrode used in the Utah experiment, the deuterons are packed tightly into the crystal lattice of the palladium itself, Eerkens said. When deuterons fuse in the palladium, he said, the helium-4 bangs into "the wall" of palladium. "The wall absorbs the energy," he said, which is then released as heat. The helium-4 remains trapped in the alttice, although it occasionally turns into helium-3 and releases a neutron. . . . . When Walling and Simons set out to see if the Pons- Fleishmann experiment had produced helium-4, they had one advantage over everyone else: They had access to the same experiments used by Pons. They chose an electrode that was already producing heat, and while it was running they checked to see what elements it was producing. They found helium-4, Walling said, and in amounts consistent with the heat that was being generated. That development may not be as exciting as some other parts of this ongoing scientific drama, but for dozens of theorists trying to come up with an explanation for what is going on, it was stunning news. "It's a major advancement," said Cornog, who decades ago took part in some of the earliest experiments in nuclear physics at UC Berkeley. In one of the more peculiar developments Tuesday, Italian scientists announced that they had created nuclear fusion in a small apparatus that is very different from the Utah experiment. . . . . Unlike the Pons-Fleishmann results, the Frascati experiment emitted a substantial number of neutrons, which Scaramuzzi and other Italian scientists said could only have come from a cold fusion reaction. "The results of the Frascati experiment leave us extremely convinced that fusion was obtained," Scaramuzzi said in a Rome press conference. "From the scientific point of view, we are confident." In the Italian experiment, shavings of titanium were placed in a small tube containing deuterium gas. Like palladium, titanium also lends itself to the compaction of deuterium. . . . . The Italians did not reveal exactly how the experiment was conducted, but Scaramuzzi said it was repeated several times and emitted several hundred neutrons per second---still far below what would have been expected prior to Pons and Fleishmann but, if true, high enough to indicate nuclear fusion. Meanwhile, the Czechoslovak news agency CTK said that a group of physicists and mathematicians from Bratislava's Comenius University had also achieved nuclear fusion at room temperature in an experiment conducted Monday, but further details were not available. That brings to five the number of nations with scientists claiming to have duplicated the Pons-Fleischmann experiment. ******* END OF EXTRACT ******* As far as I'm concerned, this is enough evidence for me: we have fusion, it's D+D -> 4He or something related (D+D+D -> 4He + D?). And this is GOOD NEWS INDEED. Had we not found something like this, we would be faced with the running out of liquid petroleum fuels within the next twenty years or so not to mention the increasing problem of CO2 increase. If we switch to this process ASAP and phase out petroleum burning, these problems are now basically controllable. Now, on to the ozone layer . . . we've got to figure out a new way to make things *cold* now, looks like we've got *heat* figured out . . . Mitsu Hadeishi A former Harvard physics major, since graduating employed at Electronic Arts, where they let me create OOP development systems reach me at ucbvax!well!mitsu or more simply mitsu@well.UUCP Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!labrea!brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU From: brooks@sierra.Stanford.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion Subject: Re: Latest fusion news from L.A.Times 18 April 1989 Summary: Mass Spec. stuff Keywords: cold fusion, He, D2, mass spectroscopy Message-ID: <113@sierra.stanford.edu> Date: 26 Apr 89 20:02:10 GMT Expires: 5/10/89 References: <56.UUL1.2#239@valley.UUCP> <1989Apr21.084358.18394@cs.rochester.edu> <767@nsscb.UUCP> Sender: brooks@sierra.STANFORD.EDU (Michael B. Brooks) Reply-To: brooks@sierra.UUCP (Michael B. Brooks) Followup-To: others interested in mass spec (lots of you) Organization: Stanford University Lines: 48 Xref: santra sci.physics:6361 alt.fusion:678 In response to postings in alt.fusion I have dug up a few things about mass spectroscopy and it`s standardization, resolution and reliability. This info is available in many sources, mine is Mass Spectroscopy (book) by Duckworth, Barber, and Venkatasubramanian, Cabmbridge University Press, 1986. There is a lot of stuff in here! I am no expert in mass spec, but I do routinely run a Rutherford Backscatterer (RBS) and there are common aspects. Mass specs produce output that can be represented graphically in a plot like "counts vs. channel number" where channel number can be related to m/e ratios of ions, and ionized molecules. Counts are interpretable as relative intensities and can be standardized to give absolute ratios of constituents of ionized species. In the case of the Walling and Simons analysis of 4He it makes sense that they would have run a standard of 4He gas thru the system to calibrate a 4He signal first off, it`s an important first step, merely as a system check. The gas is readily available and I use as the primary beam source in my RBS (correction, My Boss`s RBS). Next the mass spec would have sample gases released from the working F&P cell and another spectrum would have been acquired, differing from the first substantially, with much structure in the signals` being visible. One would see contributions from 1H, 2H, 3H, 3He, 4He, and assorted molecular species, all ionized. A simple difference (spectral subtraction) spectra would be produced to detect 4He. Possible similarities in the signals of a 2D-2D molecule and 4He (both say +1) could be resolved by the system if the peaks overlap simply by ramping the ionizing electron beam to energies high enough to break the D-D bond and observing peak intensity (counts) levels shift. Substantial 4He contributions will not likely be affected at the D-D disassociation energy, whereas the reverse will be readily apparent. By this method of "Bond energy dissociation", the I (subH+H) dissoc. eng. of 18.0+/-0.2eV was determined in 1941 (see above, pg198)---18eV is needed to break apart the H+H molecule. Such studies are common sources of binding energies for ionized compounds, and many have been studied. In sum, if proper system calibration was done, and reasonable protocals followed, 4He should have been quantitatively detected. This technique is on far firmer ground than is calorimetry, since many heats of standard chemical reactions are still argued over. One can assume that it`s likely that Walling and Simons knew what they were doing, and were careful in performing the checks. As I have indicated running the analysis over a control electrode is not necessary (given the above), though it certainly wouldn`t be a bad idea! Any corrections to what I have posted will be welcome, especially those with numbers about Walling and Simons analysis! Mike Brooks/Stanford Electronics Lab (solid state)/SU MIT astronomer Walter Lewin: "Abscence of evidence should never be mistaken for evidence of abscence." Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!mbkennel From: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Lattice absorption of excited 4He energy... Summary: P or D states Keywords: lattice fusion speculation quantum numbers Message-ID: <7958@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 26 Apr 89 00:43:17 GMT Reply-To: mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel) Organization: Princeton University, NJ Lines: 37 In the standard theory of D+D -> 4He* the excited He4 nucleus almost immediately decays to a lower energy state, emitting a neutron or proton. In F+P's experiment, however, many fewer neutrons were found than are necessary to explain the reported heat production. People have proposed that the He4* might somehow dump its excess energy to the crystal lattice, thus explaining the aneutronic reaction. However, it seems to me that in the nuclear time scales and distances involved in the standard He4 decay, the lattice electrons are much too far away to have any effect because the normal decay proceeds so fast. A question: in the calculations, is it assumed that the D+D collide in an S state, i.e. with orbital angular momentum L=0? This may be appropriate in thermonuclear plasma fusion, but perhaps in a solid lattice, the deuterium nuclei generally interact in a state with L=1 or L=2? (In some kind of intuitive sense, this "feels" reasonable to me: D nuclei stuck shaking in a small box vs. flying around in free space.) In this case, perhaps the standard decay reaction is forbidden because of quantum numbers and the alternate decay channel has a long enough lifetime to enable it to deexcite via some magic lattice interactions. So here's the question for more knowledgable people: How exactly does the He4* decay work? Can this scheme work? Or does the L>0 decays go faster? For something like this to be an explanation, the L=0 fusion would have to be surpressed by some unknown mechanism (read smoke and mirrors) to very large margin, (10^9), which seems improbable. However, it has been noted in a recent paper ("A parametric study of cold fusion", by Jones et al. I believe) that small changes in fusion parameters can have enormous effects on the rate of fusion, in fact 10s of orders of magnitude, in some cases, so maybe there is some odd explanation. Matt Kennel mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!arisia!tow From: tow@arisia.Xerox.COM (Rob Tow) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion Subject: Re: D2O is toxic Summary: Why Keywords: Re:Heavy Water Message-ID: <716@arisia.Xerox.COM> Date: 26 Apr 89 20:08:29 GMT References: <3182@cosmo.UUCP> Reply-To: tow@arisia.UUCP (Rob Tow) Organization: Xerox PARC Lines: 90 Xref: santra sci.physics:6377 alt.fusion:706 In article <3182@cosmo.UUCP> doom@cosmo.UUCP (DOOM) writes: >> -Rich-@cup.prtal.com writes on 17.04.89: >> Does anyone know why D2O is toxic? > >Hope I can. >The solubiltity of D2O is not so good as H2O. So the elektrolytic >concentration in the cells will be disturb and much more. >But why is the solubility from H2O better? >I think from the mass difference. So the D2O molekel are not so easy >to build and rebuild the hydratcover. > >I'am right? >Hope to here from someone >DOOM > >student(FHN) in chemical analytic > >unido.cosmo.doom >mcvax.unido.cosmo.doom > From "The biology of Heavy Water", Joseph J. Katz, Scientific American (I think sometime in 1961 - my photocopy doesn't say): "[..] As its name implies, heavy water has a 10 percent higher density than water does and a 25 percent greater viscosity. Its freezing point (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) and boiling point (214.5 degrees Fahrenheit) are both distincly higher. Many salts and some gases, including carbon dioxide and oxygen, are less soluable in heavy water, and acid solutions of D2O are distinctly more acid than corresponding solutions of H2O. In biological systems all of these factores might be expected to produce noticeable effects. Of such effects perhaps the most significant is the "kinetic isotope effect", that is, the change in the rate of a chemical reaction that results from the substitution of a heavy isotope for a light one. Chemical bonds between deuterium and other atoms are slightly but measureably more stable than the corresponding bonds involving ordinary hydrogen. Calculation indicates that a carbon-deuterium bond may undergo reaction at only a seventh the speed of a carbon-hydrogen bond. Experiments have borne this out, and have shown in general that carbon-deuterium bonds react at a rate one half to one seventh that of bonds involving the common isotope. [...] [30% deuterated mice] are normal except in one important respect - they produce no young. Even a low level of deuterium impairs the ability of the male to produce normal spermatozoa, and in females deuteration during pregnancy interferes with gestation and induces fetal abnormalities. When the concentration of D2O in the body fluid of a mouse approaches 30 percent, the picture changes drastically for the worse. the mouse shows symptoms of weakness, it is easily irritated, its coat roughens, it loses weight rapidly, and it is prone to convulsions. When the deuterium level is raised still further, its body temperture drops rapidly, all its physiological functions are greatly depressed, and within a short time it dies. Rats react in a similar fashion. At low deuterium levels they fail to gain weight. When the deuterium content of the blood plasma rises to 20 percent, they cease to groom themselves and develop skin lesions and necrosis of the tail, as if suffering froma vitamin deficiency. At still higher concentrations, they become more excitable and aggressive, as do mice. With 30 percent D2O in their blood plasma, some rats actually go into convulsions when handled, resembling in this respect animals poisoned with strychnine. At about 35 percent the rats become A lethargic, lapse into a coma and soon die. [Blue green algae may be 100% deuterated; they exhibit giantism and other abnormalities.] --- Rob Tow Member Research Staff Electronic Document Lab Xerox PARC 3333 Coyote Hill Drive Palo Alto, CA 94304 (415)-494-4807 Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!Athena.MIT.EDU!elwin From: elwin@Athena.MIT.EDU (Lee W Campbell) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: MIT Ballinger talk Keywords: fusion,MIT Message-ID: <10924@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> Date: 28 Apr 89 19:34:56 GMT Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU Organization: Department of Redundancy Department Lines: 67 Here are some highlights of an article that appeared in @i(The Tech), the MIT student newspaper. The following is reprinted without permission. ----- MIT prof voices doubt about cold fusion claims By Niraj S. Desai Before starting his talk yesterday on developments in cold fusion, Associate Professor Ronald G. Ballinger SM '82 warned the audience that there would be a quiz on the subject afterwards. But he told them not to worry because "no one can tell if you're wrong." [some introductory stuff cut] ... but since then, Pons and Fleischmann have failed to provide the scientific community with adaquate information about their experiment, Ballinger said. He charged that the University of Utah and others are stampeding the the scientific review process in in the rush to obtain support for the Pons/Fleischmann method. Ballinger's comments came the day after he testified before the House committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Earlier in the day, witnesses had called on Congress to appropriate $25 million to commercialize the purported discovery. [some stuff about testimony about "if we fall behind now..." cut] ... Research teams worldwide began trying to repeat the Pons/Fleischmann result within days of their announcement. MIT in particular has had many people working on the problem, Ballinger said. "Our experiments here at MIT are at least as sophisticated as those at Utah," Ballinger who holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science, said. But the MIT teams have seen no evidence of either neutron or head production. @i(The Boston Globe) reportd that an observation of heat production by Stanford's Robert A. Huggins SM '52 is considered the strongest confirmation at this time of the Utah results. But Huggins told the House committee Wednesday that he was "not in a position to discuss" what the mechanism producing the heat is. Pons and Fleischmann have claimed that other groups have confirmed their results, but have refused to give names, according to Ballinger. More disturbingly, Pons and Fleischmann have avoided answering questions about their discovery, Ballinger said. He noted that they withdrew a paper on their experiment that they had submitted to the British journal @i(nature) because they were unwilling to respond to criticism by the journal's reviewers. Part of the Utah researchers' reticence may be due to the fact that they have applied for several patents for their work. "Pick up the phone to Utah, what you get is the Office of Technology Transfer," Ballinger said. [some stuff cut about Ballingers comments about ignoring peer review, cooperation shouldn't jeopardize patent claims] ... Pons and Fleischmann have agreed to let scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have a duplicate of their experiment for confirmation purposes. If this does actually take place, it will be very important, Ballinger said. But in the cold fusion debate, nothing should be taken for granted, he added. ----- [end of article] I hope The Tech isn't too upset about me typing in their article. -LWC Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!ames!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!linus!munck From: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion Subject: Niobium as a replacement for palladium Keywords: niobium palladium temperature pressure Message-ID: <51891@linus.UUCP> Date: 28 Apr 89 11:58:43 GMT Reply-To: munck@linus.UUCP (Robert Munck) Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA Lines: 84 Xref: santra sci.physics:6426 alt.fusion:793 (Just passing it on. --rgm) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: Niobium as a replacement for palladium; temperature & pressure issues (Addendum #2 to "Polarized D-/D+ storage in Pd...", dated 20 Apr 1989) NIOBIUM AS A REPLACEMENT FOR PALLADIUM IN FAP REACTIONS Hypothesis -- Niobium can be used as a replacement for palladium in the FAP reaction, provided that air pressure within the reaction system can be reduced to low (preferably less than 0.01 mm Hg) levels. Like palladium, niobium supports supports the flow of H+ ions as current carriers. Perhaps more importantly, niobium also supports two coexistent hydrogen solution phases, although the phases are more temperature and pressure sensitive than those of palladium. The critical point for coexistence of the dual niobium phases is defined by three variables: temperature, pressure, and degree of hydrogen saturation. The critical point for the coexistence of the dual phases is at 140 degrees C, 0.01 mm Hg, and 0.3 H/Nb saturation ratio. The hypothesis that niobium could replace palladium in FAP reactions is based on the assumption that the two coexistent hydrogen phases in niobium are actually H+ and H- phases similar to those proposed in my last two letters. If the D+/D- polarization model is valid, the existence of two such phases is the single most important criteria for building a FAP-style reaction system. >From an design viewpoint, the most difficult part of building such a system with niobium instead of palladium would be the need to use aqueous solutions in or near low pressures. Assuming that the FAP reaction is in fact a form of fusion, reaction systems based on niobium would be far cheaper than those based on palladium. In the earth's crust, niobium is about one third as common as copper, as common as either cobalt or lithium, and about 2000 times as common as palladium. South America has the most niobium (about 70% of the world's supply), but North America has a substantial 14% of the world supply, most of which is in Canada. TEMPERATURE AND PRESSURE ISSUES Both palladium and niobium have dual hydrogen solution phases which merge into a single phase at sufficiently high temperatures. Pressure dependence is conspicuous in the case of niobium because of the near-vacuum conditions needed for the dual phases to exist, but it is quite possible that the palladium dual phases would similarly disappear if subjected to sufficiently high pressures. These pressure and temperature dependencies fit rather nicely with the idea that H+ and H- phases are chemically reactive with each other, and can exist within the same physical structure only under mild conditions. Experimentally, the implication is that both temperature and pressure should be viewed as significant variables when trying to construct a FAP reaction system. In particular, a rapid rise in temperature could cause thermal runaway in such a system by causing overly rapid decay of the two phases. It is worth noting that this kind of thermally induced runaway decay of D+/D- phases could explain some of the FAP results in which a large palladium objects were melted or vaporized. LOOKING FOR OTHER CANDIDATE ELEMENTS AND ALLOYS If the H+/H- polarization hypothesis is correct, the approach to finding new elements or alloys that support the FAP reaction would be as follows: 1) First, determine whether the material supports the flow of H+ ions under the influence of an electrical current. 2) Second, look for the existence of dual hydrogen phases. If these phases do not exist at room temperatures and pressures, it might still be worthwhile to look for them at lower temperatures and/or pressures. Cheers, Terry Bollinger Contel Technology Center 12015 Lee Jackson Highway Fairfax, Virginia 22033-3346 Phone: 703 359-7751 Fax: 703 359-7766 Internet: terry@ctc.contel.com Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!inco!alembic!csu From: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack) Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.fusion Subject: Cold Fusion - Perspective Message-ID: <3471@alembic.UUCP> Date: 4 May 89 03:54:20 GMT Reply-To: csu@alembic.UUCP (Dave Mack) Organization: Alembic Systems Lines: 55 Xref: santra sci.physics:6501 alt.fusion:905 The debate over cold fusion, both on the net and off, is getting excessively emotional. Let's try to get a little perspective. F&P have claimed to have seen energy production beyond anything that can be accounted for by electrochemical reactions. They also claim to have seen neutron and tritium production. The Jones group at BYU saw neutron production five standard deviations above background. Since then, several groups claim to have seen excess heat generation in F&P-type cells or other metal-deuterium systems, while several other groups claim to have seen excess neutron emission and/or tritium production. Still other groups have performed similar experiments and seen none of these. A number of theorists have dismissed cold fusion as impossible based on various grounds. These dismissals are irrelevant. Theory is based on observation, not the other way around. Michaelson and Morley may well have been the Fleischmann and Pons of the nineteenth century; physicists spent years trying to explain away their results. Theory must yield to experimental observation. Many have pointed out ways that F&P could have made errors in their calorimetry setup or calculations. This is irrelevant unless F&P actually did make these mistakes. People point out that neutrons can be produced by radon and gammas by bismuth-214. Irrelevant: they form part of the background. It is the production of neutrons and gammas *above* the background level that is significant, as Jones et al knew quite well. The presence of excess heat, neutrons, gammas, and fusion byproducts would constitute proof of a fusion process. The absence of neutrons and gamma does not constitute disproof; there are imaginable fusion pathways which produce neither. The absence of excess heat and fusion byproducts *does* constitute disproof, *provided* the attempt to duplicate the F&P experiment actually is a duplication, and not a mere approximation. The single damning piece of evidence against the F&P experiment so far is the CalTech result which failed to find any fusion byproducts in one of the Texas A&M palladium rods, and even this result cannot be taken as gospel. How was the rod treated after removal from Texas A&M? How was it prepared for extraction of tritium, He-3 and He-4? How sensitive were the instruments used at CalTech? What fusion byproducts were they looking for? How long was that particular rod in use? How much excess heat was generated by the cell containing that particular rod? In fact, the most that can be determined from the CalTech result is an upper limit on the fusion rate. Fleischmann and Pons were negligent in the way they released information. The scientific community as a whole has been negligent in the way that it has used the information they released. -- Dave Mack Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!uflorida!beach.cis.ufl.edu!sb1 From: sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Sean M. Bossinger) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: More information on Fusion at the Uni. of Fla. Message-ID: <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> Date: 21 Apr 89 19:23:19 GMT Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU Reply-To: sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu () Organization: UF CIS Department Lines: 56 This reported from the Gainesville Sun, Friday 21 April 1989 Two University of Florida researchers say they have produced a radioactive isotope in an experiment that may partially confirm the claims of scientists who say they have achieved fusion at room temperature. Glen J. Scoessow and John A. Wethington Jr. of UF's nuclear engineering sciences department say their work with an electrochemical-nuclear cell resulted in the production of tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. While the UF researchers do not claim to have achieved fusion, fusion of deuterium is the only known process that could produce tritium in such a cell. "Our conclusion from this experiment is that it has independently confirmed that an electrochemical-nuclear reaction is taking place, with tritium as a major product," Schoessow said. The UF cell uses the same materials as those employed by researchers at the University of Utah (palladium, platinum, heavy water, and lithium) who claim to have achieved fusion at room temperatures. And, while they did not set out to duplicate the Utah experiment, the UF team said their findings "partially confirm" the claims of Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Southampton. "The point is that radioactivity was created with an electrochemical-nuclear reaction," Wethington said. "Supposedly, it is impossible for this to occur without fusion or some other nuclear reaction taking place." The UF team detected a tritium buildup of approximately one trillion atoms after 48 hours of electrolysis. After 100 hours, the buildup was almost 20 times greater. The researchers ran control experiments using heavy water without electrolysis, and the difference in tritium content between the treated cells was statistically so high that the margin of error is negligible, they said. Heavy water contains a type of hydrogen called deuterium, which is heavier than the more common hydrogen atoms. Heavy Water would provide an unlimited supply of fuel if the elusive goal of controlled fusion is ever achieved. Schoessow said they used the presence of tritium to test the results of the reaction because the substance can be measured with great accuracy. The UF researchers also subjected the palladium metal to a special treatment before the experiment, but they said that they were uncertain which of their adaptations may have contributed to their findings. ---John Gibbs, The Gainesville Sun (Friday, April 21, 1989) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sean M. Bossinger | USnail: 16220 s.w. 282 st | Dave, I think I Internet:sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu | Homestead, Fl 33033 | am okay now. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!van-bc!rthurlow From: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: CBC's The Journal report, Apr. 20 (was Re: Inside story.) Keywords: fusion Message-ID: <2381@van-bc.UUCP> Date: 22 Apr 89 19:09:14 GMT References: <4985@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> Reply-To: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow) Organization: Wimsey Associates, Vancouver, BC. Lines: 54 In article <4985@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> larryh@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Larry Hutchinson) writes: > >An informant tells me that Pons and Jones colaborated early on. At some >point they decided they were not talking the same language (physics vs >electro-chem) and they decided to sever communications. Pons submitted >a paper to Nature and they chose Jones as a referee. At this point Pons >went to the head of the department who went to the head of the university. >They brought in Edward Teller who stated that their results could not >be explained with classical physics. They then decided to go public. And >the rest is chaos. A couple of problems, according to what aired on Canada's CBC-TV program "The Journal", Thursday, April 20, 1989. What they said was: - Pons described his work in a research grant application. The granting agency chose Jones as a referee; information of this sort is *not* known to the applicant. Nature was not involved. - Jones was very interested in the application, and made the extremely unconventional step of approaching Pons and suggesting collaboration on research. What Jones was in a posution to contribute at that point was quite frankly not apparent to me from the report. - After a few discussions, Pons seems to have 'hung up', and maintains that nothing came of the 'collaboration', while Jones maintains that there was an agreement struck that they would publish together. - The same paper was submitted to the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry and to Nature. The JEC went with it after a few clarifications, but Nature produced a long list of questions it wanted addressed before it was acceptable. Pons simply didn't have the time to address the concerns of the editors of Nature in the time before the publication deadline, and withdrew the paper. - Pons was uncomfortable with going public, but agreed when many wild rumors about the research started to circulate. Pons had wanted to wait until late 1990 to have the time to thoroughly research the phenomenon, but was under great pressure from the department and the University to publish. In the interview, Pons came across as very much the hero, with Jones as just another person wanting to get a bit of the glory. The report was very good, with a lot of research put into it, as is typical of The Journal's team when they do their best work. They did the report mainly from Pons' viewpoint, but their handling of Jones viewpoint seemed fair. If this research holds up, the Nobel committee is going to have a bloody job on it's hands. I just hope all the principals live until awards are presented, unlike Rosalind Franklin and the DNA prizes. -- "There was something fishy about the butler. I think he was a Pisces, probably working for scale." - Nick Danger Robert Thurlow {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!rthurlow Vancouver, BC, Canada or rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP In the heart of Kitsilano or rthurlow@wimsey.bc.ca Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!bingvaxu!sunybcs!boulder!heuring From: heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Vince Heuring) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Deuterium Resources (was: Re: More info. on Fusion at Uni. Fla.) Message-ID: <8307@boulder.Colorado.EDU> Date: 23 Apr 89 17:17:45 GMT References: <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <29421@apple.Apple.COM> Sender: news@boulder.Colorado.EDU Reply-To: heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Vince Heuring) Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder Lines: 30 In article <29421@apple.Apple.COM> thrash@Apple.COM (Nathaniel Truher) writes: >In article <20150@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> sb1@beach.cis.ufl.edu () writes: > >(much stuff omitted) > >I've seen this assertion a lot lately. Exactly how much is "unlimited," >really? (By the way, it seems to me that energy never gets "too cheap to >meter"; the cheaper it gets, the more of it people are gonna use, and if fusion >... >Anyway, at current >consumption levels, how long (like how many million years or whatever) would >the world's deuterium supply be likely to last (and how fast would it be Quoting from "The Energy Handbook," Rob't. D. Loftness, Van Rostrand, 1978, "Deuterium is abundant, about one atom of Deuterium to each 6700 atoms of hydrogen in water. In a cubic meter of water there about 10**25 atoms of D which would privide, in a [hot] fusion reaction, about 7.5E9 Btu (7.94E12 joules). The same energy would be available from 300 metric tons [!] of coal, or 1500 barrels of oil. The energy available from 1% of the D in the oceans (total volume of the oceans is about 1.5E9 km**3) would be about 110 million Quad [1Q = 10E15btu] (which is 1.2E29 joules), or about 500,000 times the energy available from the world's fossil fuels." Cazart! ---- Vincent Heuring Dep't of Electrical & Computer Engineering University of Colorado - Boulder heuring@boulder.Colorado.EDU Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!tank!uwvax!rutgers!bellcore!wind!perry From: perry@wind.bellcore.com (Perry E Metzger) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: German refutiation of cold fusion? Message-ID: <15574@bellcore.bellcore.com> Date: 24 Apr 89 20:11:28 GMT Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com Reply-To: perry@bellcore.com (Perry E Metzger) Distribution: alt Organization: Bellcore, Morristown, NJ Lines: 40 Let me start by saying that I am not yet convinced that F&P have actually produced fusion. However, the logic in the reposted German article is weak at best, and can hardly be considered a "disproof" of piezofusion. For those that didn't read, it can be likened to... 1. The excess neutrons are the result of differences between the background count at the location where the background was taken and background at the location where the experiment was conducted. 2. The excess heat is all due to catalysed recombination of the D and O at the surface of the palladium. Lets start with 2, because it is easier. The energy released by the D and O recombination can't be higher than the quantity of electric energy added to the system. F&P counted the total quantity of electrical energy added as "input" in their calculations. Ergo, this is meaningless; they have already accounted for the possibility. It is silly for anyone to mention it since it is clearly handled in the paper. As for 1, this is potentially more damning, but for the area around the experiment to be three times hotter than a region only a few feet away, and with (presumably) the same quantity of shielding from the outside, seems quite unusual. I am sufficiently unimpressed by the neutron detection work that F&P did that I would like to see a lot more done on this before I believe that they actually detected neutrons. HOWEVER, the presense of a possible explanation for the behavior hardly constitutes a disproof as the poster has suggested, and since F&P have repeated the experiment several times simultaneously, I find it hard to believe that all the sections of the lab would have an elevated neutron count about the experimental apparatus by coincidence. I am suprised that the German paper had to go to these lengths to explain the problem; why not just chalk it up to bad use of the detector equipment, as with the Georgia Tech people? To summarise, the excess heat hasn't been explained away, and there is hardly any damning evidence against the elevated neutron count IN THIS PAPER. Perry Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!chinet!covici From: covici@chinet.chi.il.us (John Covici) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Coloumb Barrier Bites The Dust Message-ID: <8290@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 25 Apr 89 10:59:34 GMT Reply-To: covici@chinet.chi.il.us (John Covici) Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix Lines: 41 April 12 (EIRNS)--WEST GERMAN SCIENTIST REPORTS COULOMB BARRIER KUPUT. The director of the West German Fusion Energy Foundation, Dr. Jonathan Tennenbaum, reached today for comment on the Coulomb catastrophe replied: "These experiments may be categorically demonstrating that the entire concept of pairwise interaction and forces between particles, the entire concept of particle scattering which dominates high energy physics, and the entire axiomatic basis for the Newtonian system which displaced Kepler has been proven wrong." Instead of forces, Dr. Tennenbaum suggests that the precondition to nuclear fusion consists of creating the proper coherence conditions, like that of a lasing process. April 12 (EIRNS)--UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PROFESSOR REVEALS HISTORY OF "FORCE-FREE" FUSION CONCEPT. Dr. Robert J. Moon reported that his teacher, also previously on the faculty of the University of Chicago, the late Professor William Draper Harkins, had first raised a problem with the Coulomb barrier in scientific papers published in 1917. Harkins was then working on developing geometric models of the nucleus, which included the concept of an electrically neutral particle--today's neutron. Harkins, according to Dr. Moon, saw major problems in the conclusions drawn by Lord Rutherford in his "Coulomb" scattering experiments. Rutherford had directed a beam of high energy helium nuclei, which were obtained from radioactive materials, through a metal foil. The nuclei of the foil deflect some of the beam nuclei. This deflection can be seen on a phorescent screen with the eye. From the deflection, Rutherford, using the standard Maxwellian form of electrodynamics, calculated the effective radius of the metal foil nuclei. Harkins and Moon thought that Rutherford was wrong to use this approach. Dr. Moon has calculated results from the same data, but utilizing the Ampere-Gauss-Riemann approach to electrodynamcis. The derived results are dramatically different than those of Rutherford. For example, instead of the nucleus getting bigger in size as the number of protons and neutrons in it increase, Moon found that the nuclei were actually getting smaller. Dr. Moon reports this convinced him that the Coulomb barrier concept was flawed. This led him to believe that it would be possible to construct "force-free" trajectories with electrical currents to generate "force-free" fusion, like that which Fleischmann and Pons have apparently demonstrated. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!labrea!rutgers!apple!oliveb!pyramid!lll-winken!arisia!cdp!caulkins From: caulkins@cdp.UUCP Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: D2O Requirements for energy prod. Message-ID: <705400010@cdp> Date: 26 Apr 89 05:22:00 GMT Lines: 47 Nf-ID: #N:cdp:705400010:000:1573 Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!caulkins Apr 25 21:22:00 1989 Energy consumption/production statistics, from "Statistical Abstract of the United States" 1988, 108th edition Total 1985 energy production: World 8.836e13KWH 3.682e9 MW-days US 1.892e13KWH 7.883e8 MW-days Total 1985 US installed electrical generating capacity: 2.548e8 MW-days Here are some back-of-the-envelope calculations for cold fusion as a power source (I got these from a conversation with a nuclear power engineer): 1 MW-day requires 1.052 gm of U235 fission @ 200 MeV. The ratio of fission to fusion energy yield is 200 MeV/20 MeV, and the mass ratio of D2O to U235 is 20/235. Therefore to produce 1 MW-day of energy requires fusion of 0.8953 gm of D2O @ 20 MeV. Assuming 30% efficiency, roughly that of fission power plants, then 0.8953/.3 = 2.98 gm D2O per MW-day. To replace the 1985 US installed electrical generating capacity with fusion would require 2.548e8/2.98 = 8.55e7 gm, or 85.5 tons of D2O. Similarly, to replace the entire US energy production would require 264.5 tons, and the world's energy production could be handled with 1,235 tons. The bottom line here is that D2O will NOT be the limiting item for cold fusion energy production. Two D2O plants of the Bruce B Ontario Hydro type could easily supply the energy requirements of the entire world in 1985. It is probable that there is enough D2O stored in tanks right now to support US energy needs for a year. Caveat - this was all done in some haste, and there may be assumption, arithmetic, or conversion errors. I welcome comments or corrections. Dave C Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!thrash From: thrash@Apple.COM (Nathaniel Truher) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Re: D2O Requirements for energy prod. Message-ID: <29606@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 26 Apr 89 23:24:44 GMT References: <705400010@cdp> Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA Lines: 18 I think I have enough information to figure this out. If the total volume of the oceans is 1.5 billion cubic kilometers, meaning about 1.5E24 (that's "1.5 septillion," I think) grams of water (maybe? at one metric ton per cubic meter?), with one 6700th of that being "heavy," more or less, that means about 2.2E20 (220 quintillion) grams of heavy water, at (according to speculation) 2.98 grams heavy water per megawatt day, so the total energy available in the world's oceans would be 7.5E19 (75 quintillion) megawatt days, or twenty billion times the world's energy production in 1985 (3.6 billion megawatt days). Sounds good to me. So if I haven't made a mistake somewhere, at contemporary demand levels the deuterium in the oceans would be likely to last twenty billion years, which is approximately the present age of the universe (as estimated by contemporary cosmologists). 1E15 g H20 1 D 1 MW day 1 year 1.5E9 km3 H20 x ---------- x ------ x ---------- x --------------- = 2.0E10 yr km3 H20 6700 H 2.98 g D20 3.682E9 MW days Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!qmc-cs!rabin From: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Rabin Ezra) Newsgroups: sci.research,alt.fusion Subject: Explanation of cold fusion? Message-ID: <948@sequent.cs.qmc.ac.uk> Date: 26 Apr 89 14:43:31 GMT Reply-To: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk (Rabin Ezra) Organization: CS Dept, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK. Lines: 33 Xref: santra sci.research:770 alt.fusion:739 Expires: References: Sender: Followup-To: Keywords: Forwarded on behalf of a friend at Imperial College, University of London. Replies by e-mail to DLC@spva.ph.ic.ac.uk who will forward communications as appropriate. I will only forward e-mail bounced by this address. My supervisor, one Prof. Streater, has just written a paper purporting to explain cold fusion. I don't understand much of it, as it uses a wierd method. Anyway, basically the theory goes like this: Deuterium, He4 and photons are all bosons, and so they are subject to stimulated emission.There is a reaction: D+D-->He4+gamma Reaction rate is very, very small compared with D+D-->p+T etc. However, once this action occurs once, it produces 23.5MeV photons, which trigger the reaction by stimulated emission. Small numbers of photons lose much energy by collisions, and since 30keV is enough to allow D+D-->p+T and D+D-->n+He3, these reactions also occur at a lower rate. Result is that a fusion reaction will go once started, producing apparently too few photons.Unfortunately, no known mechanism will start the reaction, and the 23.5 MeV (and as a by product, up to 200MeV ) neutrons have not been detected. -- Rabin Ezra UUCP: rabin@qmc-cs.UUCP PhD Student, JANET: rabin@uk.ac.qmc.cs Dept of Computer Science, ARPA: rabin@cs.qmc.ac.uk Queen Mary College, London E1 4NS. U.K. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!yale!yalevm!HOWGREJ From: HOWGREJ@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: New Results! Bad News! Message-ID: <437@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu> Date: 28 Apr 89 00:01:42 GMT Reply-To: HOWGREJ@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Organization: Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA Lines: 58 Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article Well, guys, I have what could be some bad news here. Today the Yale Scientific Magazine held its annual Undergraduate Research Colloquium, three student speakers and a keynote speaker, Dr. Moshe Gai, Associate Professor of Physics, who is heading the Yale cold fusion experiment. (In Science Times last week). Dr. Gai started by intending to describe the idea of cold fusion, and explain the Yale experiment, without giving out the results; but, in the end, he did. The results the experimenters found showed "no deviation from the background" neutron levels, "wherever we looked." He complained about the lack of any detailed published details of the P&F experiment (no suprise there). The Yale physicists were working with a few chemists from Brookhaven National Labs, and Gai claimed that they had "covered all the possibilities", although they did *not* measure for heat given off. A brief summary of the experiment, as Dr. Gai explained it: The setup consisted of four cells, surrounded by six neutron detectors in a hex pattern. (I believe, though I'm not sure, that each neutron given off went through first the no.1 detector, then one of the other five, to make sure they counted it right - but I could be wrong here.) They also used a cosmic ray detector - he was not more specific - so that they coul "veto" external sources. Two sodium iodide gamma ray detectors measured gamma output. They tried all the different possibilities they could come up with, using both "coldworked" and electrodes "annealed" (I hope he understands this better than I do! :-) in both vaccuum and argon. The solutions were of 99.8% D2O and 97.5% D2O, the latter diluted with "salts or just lithium. To make sure that the data was not time-dependant, they ran the cells for about three weeks (I suspect that they're still going). "Our data is very clean" Dr. Gai said. "We have not seen anything which is significantly different in a statistical way from the background." He did tell a little story about a result they got from the neutron detector one 3am, which he said bothered them for days. They finally realized that it was due to residual radiation from calibrating that detector (the only one that noticed the neutrons, from 2.6 to 5 MeV) the night before. Thus, it looks as though the results are very negative from the Yale/Brookhaven team. They are currently writing a paper to be published pretty soon - no date given. Also, Dr. Gai will give a talk on their results at the American Physical Society meeting next week in Baltimore. Also, tommorrow afternoon (4/27) the team will give their report to the Physics Department here at Yale (today's talk was far from official). If I go (unless something else comes up) I'll try to post a more accurate report tommorrow night. If anyone has any special technical questions, I'm not the person to ask, but try emailing me anyway. To sum up: "As far as we are concerned, we have not seen the effect." Ah, well. Maybe they're wrong :^). The Space People will contact us when they | Greg Howard (203)436-1135 can make money by doing so. - DAVID BYRNE | HOWGREJ at YALEVM The above was *not* in anyway provided by Yale University, Dr. Moshe Gai, or anyone else. Any misquotes or bad data are *my* fault, and neither Yale, Dr. Gai, or the Yale Scientific Magazine take any responsibility for anything contained herein. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!agate!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!husc6!m2c!wpi!cyganski From: cyganski@wpi.wpi.edu (David Cyganski) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Cold fusion in today's news Keywords: fusion Pons MIT Message-ID: <2149@wpi.wpi.edu> Date: 1 May 89 23:35:23 GMT Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Mass. Lines: 28 A few items from the media today (5/1/89) 1) ABC news showed a clip from a press conference at MIT. I'm sorry but I didn't catch the name of the representative. They announced that they have not been able to reproduce the neutron generating aspect of the F&P experiment and hence do not believe that F&P achieved fusion. No mention was made of calorimetry. 2) ABC news also noted that CAL TECH also announced their inability to duplicate the experiment. 3) The latest issue of PEOPLE MAGAZINE features an interview with Pons. Most interesting is the description of the length of effort involved in taking the fusion idea from conception to fruition: five years (of 18 hour days his wife said). My two cents: On the question of whether F&P are making a calorimetry error, apparently they saw a little less than five years of no fusion, so I would say they must have been doing something right at that point. I would find it much harder to believe them if that had got it to work the first time. Obviously, as others on the net have pointed out, there is a trick to getting this to work and they are enjoying it (to the loss of MIT and others) and we'll just have to wait. David Cyganski Worcester Polytechnic Institute Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mit-eddie!ames!ig!bionet!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!husc6!psuvax1!psuvm.bitnet!ccb104 From: CCB104@PSUVM.BITNET (Carey Briggs) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Re: 1926 Pd-catalyzed fusion Message-ID: <84512CCB104@PSUVM> Date: 3 May 89 21:37:54 GMT References: <84208CCB104@PSUVM> Organization: Penn State University Lines: 34 Many thanks for all replies! By request, the list of bibliographical references follows; it is hoped that they are, in fact, of some use: (1) "Ueber die Verwandlung von Wasserstoff in Helium," by Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters, in "Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft," 15 September 1926, vol. 59, no.8, pp. 1239-1248. (2) An independently written abstract by Behrle of Fritz Paneth and Kurt Peters, "Ueber die Verwandlung von Wasserstoff in Helium," in "Chemisches Zentralblatt," 29 September 1926, vol. II, no. 13, pp. 1728-1729. (3) Under "News and Views," in "Nature," 25 September 1926, vol. 118, no. 2969, pp. 455-456. (4) "The Reported Conversion of Hydrogen into Helium," in "Nature," 9 October 1926, vol. 118, no. 2971, pp. 526-527. (5) (no title), correction to (4) above, in "Nature," 11 December 1926, vol. 118, no. 2980, pp. 852-853. (6) "The Transmutation of Hydrogen into Helium," by Fritz Paneth, in "Nature," 14 May 1927, vol. 119, no. 3002, pp. 706-707. THE LAST TWO PAPERS SEEM TO BE ONLY INDIRECTLY RELATED TO THE FORGOING: (7) "The Occurrence of Helium and Neon in Vacuum Tubes," by E. C. C. Baly and R.W. Riding, in "Nature," 30 October 1926, vol. 118, no. 2974, pp. 625-626. (8) "The Occurrence of Helium and Neon in Vacuum Tubes," by Robert W. Lawson, in "Nature," 11 December 1926, vol. 118, no. 2980, pp. 838- 839. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john From: john@anasaz.UUCP (John Moore) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Fusion: Palladium - notes on behavior Keywords: palladium absorbtion hydrogen Message-ID: <1823@anasaz.UUCP> Date: 2 May 89 05:21:50 GMT Organization: Anasazi Inc., Phoenix AZ Lines: 56 In order to account for some of the problems replicating the P&F effect (if it is real), I am posting a few notes about the Palladium-Hydrogen (or Deuterium) System from "Hydrogen in Metals" by Smith (1948). These show how sensitive the Pd absorption of Hydrogen is to many factors. Note: Most of these relate to absorption of H into Pd from H2 gas at relatively low pressures and temperaturs (<300C): (1) Absorption into fresh metal (pre-heated in vacuo): (a) the rate of absorbtion accelerates for a while (opening phase) then drops off as the metal becomes more saturated. The initial acceleration is interpreted as "opening" the metal - the hydrogen increasing the size of rifts through which the initial diffusion takes place (before finally diffusing into the crystal lattice). (b) Repeated absorption, desorption cycles cause the acceleration to decrease, and also result in significantly reduced rates of absorption and total amount of absorption. (2) If the metal is preheated and then cooled in hydrogen, the acceleration effect is not seen. This is interpreted as the metal being already "opened" as a result of the hydrogen presence. (3) Preheating decreases both the rate and total amount of absorption in relation to the temperature of the pre-heat: preheating at higher temperature results in metal that will absorb less hydrogen at a lower rate than preheating at a lower temperature. (4) The rate of absorption is greater at higher temperatures. (5) Plastic deformation and recovery by annealing effect the rate of absorption. Strained metal has a higher rate of absorption that does annealed metal. However, cold-working may, in certain cases, reduce the rate of absorption. The effect of annealing after foregoing strain, in diminishing both absorption rate and capacity, is greater, the higher the temperature of the anneal. (6) The phases referred to in the P&F paper: Alpha phase is a hydrogen concentration of less than about 30 relative volumes - during this phase the lattice gradually expands from 3.883 AU at 0 concentration to 3.894 AU at 30 vols (at 20 degrees C). Beta phase occurs as the lattice suddenly expands to 4.018 AU shortly after 30 vols. (7) The alpha and beta phases of the metal merge around 300C, when the alpha lattice has grown to the beta size. Above this temperature there is only one phase. As you can see, this is pretty complex stuff (and I'm only scratching the surface :-) ). It should be no surprise that the reproduction of the P&F results is hard - they have been working for many years, possibly with the same palladium. The state of that palladium is not known - but it may have to be closely duplicated in order to get the PF effect. -- John Moore (NJ7E) mcdphx!anasaz!john asuvax!anasaz!john (602) 861-7607 (day or eve) long palladium, short petroleum The opinions expressed here are obviously not mine, so they must be someone else's. :-) Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!iconsys!mmm From: mmm@iconsys.UUCP (Mark Muhlestein) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Some local news and a rhetorical question Keywords: Are they sincere? Message-ID: <356@iconsys.UUCP> Date: 4 May 89 03:00:37 GMT Organization: ICON International, Inc., Orem, UT Lines: 66 One of this evening's local papers reported that another group of electrochemists working independently at Texas A&M have reproduced the excess heat seen in the F&P experiment. Also, the head of the new solid state fusion research project at the University of Utah said that at a meeting of chemists on May 8th there would be "five or six" papers which corroborate the U of U work. The university's FM station reported that Fleishman and Pons were taking the criticism from the physicists "in stride." Last Saturday (April 29) I was having lunch at a restaurant near the University of Utah campus and was pleasantly surprised to see Fleishman and Pons come in, accompanied by two or three other people, one of whom appeared to be from India. Unfortunately I wasn't close enough to catch much of their conversation :-( but they seemed to be in good spirits and appeared to be discussing something related to a fax Pons had received from the man from India. While I am reserving judgement on the validity of F&P's work, I have been a little surprised at the charge of fraud I have heard from some quarters. Assume for a moment that this whole thing is a case of fraud. What do the perpetrators have to gain from it? If they know that their work is not what they are saying it is, what is the possible benefit to them of proclaiming it to everyone and asking them to attempt to confirm it, expecting confirmation will not occur? A month or two of notoriety? At what cost to them and their families? Research money? Not likely. Fraud just doesn't make sense, even apart from the issue that now researchers from other institutions must be considered. Let's say they are both insane. Simultaneously? Other possibilities assume they are sincerely reporting the truth as they see it, especially concerning the heat generation, which is in their area of expertise and is the most interesting result. At this point, possible scenarios seem to be: 1. They are essentially correct. 2. The experiment is flawed in some subtle way but they (and the other people claiming to reproduce it) have not discovered the mistake. 3. They (and the other people claiming to reproduce the experiment) are incompetent and are missing something obvious to someone who is actually competent to do the experiment. I think number 3 is fairly unlikely due to the fact that many of the people who claim to have seen the excess heat are in fact among the leading scientists in their field. This includes not only Fleishman and Pons themselves, but also John Appleby (the new confirmation from Texas A&M), who is reputed to be a "world renowned" chemist in this evening's paper. Number 2 is more likely, but at the very least it seems something strange is going on. As the Stanford group said, "The effect is not subtle." In any case, I think it is still fair at this point to give F&P the benefit of the doubt in the area of sincerity. I expect we will hear something from Los Alamos within a week or two that should help clear things up considerably. -- Mark Muhlestein @ Icon International Inc. uunet!iconsys!mmm Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!ukma!rutgers!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!calmasd!wlp From: wlp@calmasd.Prime.COM (Walter L. Peterson, Jr.) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: History (of science) repeats itself. Keywords: P&F history of science Message-ID: <308@calmasd.Prime.COM> Date: 4 May 89 06:35:38 GMT Organization: Prime-Calma, San Diego R&D, Object and Data Management Group Lines: 84 Picture, if you will, the following hypothetical succession of newspaper headlines: "Professor claims radical new discovery - Scientific community skeptical" "Nation's top experts disagree on 'discovery'" "Chief of nation's leading lab can't reproduce experiments" "Leading European scientists debunk Prof's. claims" "Prof. repeats claim of new discovery - will disclose more details of experiments" "Scientists still not convinced - say discovery is only 'speculation'" "Prof. offers to help reproduce experiments" These made-up 'headlines' are not talking about the P&F "cold fusion" experiment, rather they are based on the events following the publication in the "Philosophical Transactions" for February 19, 1671 of "A Letter of Mr. Isacc Newton containing his new Theory of Light and Colours". I have obviously cast these headlines in the jargon of today's news media; however, they fit the events of 300 some odd years ago. The 'Chief of nation's top lab' was none other than Robert Hooke, who was Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society. The experiment that is questioned in the 'headlines' is the now famous separation of sunlight into the colors of the spectrum by a simple prism; an experiment that is easily understood by modern school children. Not only was Hooke unable to reproduce Newton's simple experiments, he and other members of the Royal Society, including Sir Robert Moray and Ignance Gaston Pardies, began to doubt that Newton had even done the experiments! They claimed, in letters to Newton at Cambridge, that his 'discovery' was only an hypothesis; a guess. The European opposition came from virtuosi as famous as Christiaan Huygens and as obscure as a monk named Linus, but all agreed: Newton's experiment did not work and his new theory of colors was just an hypothesis. Newton sent numerous letters with further details of the experiment to the Royal Society and his critics through the Society's secretary, Henry Oldenburg, The controversy raged for years, and at one point in March of 1673, Newton was so fed-up that he even sent Oldenburg a letter of resignation from the Royal Society. There were still doubts when Newton came to London in February, 1675 on other business and attempted to perform the experiment for the Society, but was unable to due to bad weather, which only prolonged the debate. Newton was so disgusted at this point that he put off the publication of his "Opticks" until 1706. This story could go on for several more pages, even in this abbreviated narrative, but I hope that this gets the point across. The reproduction of an experiment that we consider child's play today eluded some of the best minds of the seventeenth century for years. I don't know if "cold fusion" is real or not, but I do know that some of the contradictions of the P&F experiment have contradicted each other, that others have omitted one or more critical measurement, and others have had various other problems. The book is still open on "cold fusion" and will probably remain open until Pons and Fleischmann can agree to assist some "name" lab, like Los Alamos to reproduce their "experimentum crucis". This kind of controversy is not new to science. It existed at the beginings of modern science in Newton's day, it exist now and probably always will. This current debate over "cold fusion" has a very large component of deja vu. ------------------------------------------------------------ P.S. for more information on Newton's discoveries and the controversy that surrounded almost every one of them see: "In the Presence of the Creator: Isaac Newton & His Times", by Gale E. Christianson, Free Press, NY, 1984 -- Walt Peterson. Prime - Calma San Diego R&D (Object and Data Management Group) "The opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those Prime, Calma nor anyone else. ...{ucbvax|decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!wlp Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!cutter!ricks From: ricks@cutter.UUCP (Rick Strickert) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Calculations regarding P&F results Message-ID: <625@cutter.UUCP> Date: 12 May 89 21:34:17 GMT Lines: 76 ****************************************************************************** P&F EXCESS HEAT DATA STRONGLY CORRELATED TO POWER-DISSIPATIVE FUNCTION Summary The "excess energy" reported by P&F in their original preprint are strongly correlated to the square of the total applied current, suggesting that the "excess" heat is uncompensated resistance heating. Discussion Early in April, we did some statistical "experimenting" with the P&F data then available from the preprint of their paper. The data are tabulated below, with "R" in the electrode description indicating a rod. Note that datum for the lowest current density test of the plate electrode is omitted because there was an obvious typographical error in this entry. Applied Total "Net" "Net" Current Area Input Output Output Electrode mA/cm2 cm2 (mA) (watts) W/cm3 ------------------------------------------------------- 0.1x10 R 8 3.2 25 7.5E-03 9.5E-02 0.2x10 R 8 6.3 51 3.6E-02 1.1E-01 0.4x10 R 8 12.8 103 1.5E-01 1.2E-01 plate 1.2 134.4 161 2.7E-02 2.1E-03 0.1x10 R 64 3.2 202 7.9E-02 1.0E+00 0.1x1.25 R 512 0.4 209 8.2E-02 8.3E+00 plate 1.6 134.4 215 7.9E-02 6.2E-03 0.2x10 R 64 6.3 406 4.9E-01 1.6E+00 0.2x1.25 R 512 0.8 434 3.8E-01 9.6E+00 0.4x10 R 64 12.8 820 1.8E+00 1.4E+00 0.4x1.25 R 512 1.8 933 3.4E+00 2.1E+01 Regression analysis showed a (r^2 = 0.85) exponential correlation between the total input current and the reported net power output, supposedly after correction for resistance heating. This exponential power output as a function of input current was one of the unresolved questions. Pons and Fleishman did present an equation for the abundance of tritium as a function of the D2O hydrolysis rate (which should be proportional to total current), and the relationship was exponential. However, the power curve correlation was almost as good (r^2 = O.83), with a slope of 1.5, suggesting a power dissipative (I^2*R; I = current, R = resistance) relationship. Subsequently, we regressed the reported net power output (total Watts) as a function of the square of the total current input (I^2) (with I in units of amps), with the following results: Reported Net Output (Watts) = R(I^2) + intercept Computed Floating Zero Intercept Intercept ----------- ----------- Intercept -0.0583 watts 0 watts r Squared 0.953 0.951 No. of Observations 11 11 Degrees of Freedom 9 10 Slope (R) 3.42 ohms 3.33 ohms Std Err of Coef. 0.253 ohms 0.206 ohms The power input (I^2) and net power output (Watts) data are very well correlated (r^2 = 0.95+), with a slope of 3.3-3.4 ohms. My simple understanding of statistics suggests that the random occurrence of this level of correlation with this number of data is very low (P less than 0.01). This clearly raises the possibility that the reported "excess" power results from some form of uncompensated resistance heating with a net resistance of about 3 ohms. We discounted this possibility at the beginning, but as more and more information emerges on just how tricky the calorimetry is, the more plausible this explanation appears. However, the same effect would also be observed if both parameters are strongly correlated to some third (and unknown) factor. Peter F. Ellis II Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!iclbra!siesoft!jlk From: jlk@siesoft (jlk) Newsgroups: alt.fusion,sci.physics Subject: Harwell scientists pour cold water on cold fusion Keywords: cold fusion papers Message-ID: <1269@argon.siesoft> Date: 9 May 89 07:37:24 GMT References: <4812@pt.cs.cmu.edu> Reply-To: jlk@siesoft.uucp () Organization: Siemens SDG, woodley, England Lines: 57 Xref: santra alt.fusion:1069 sci.physics:6686 The Sunday Times (England) lead with the following article on May 7, 1989 "Harwell scientists pour cold water on cold fusion" Sicentists at Harwell, the world;s leading nuclear laboratory, have finally buried hopes that 'cold fusion' is the key to solving mankind's engery problems. Dr. David Williams, head of the Oxfordshire team which has carried out painstaking checks on the method, said yeaterday: 'We have spotted neither head nor radiation.' The verdict is regarded as decisive because the checks were carried out with the help of Prof. martin Fleischmann, who, together with his former student Stanley Pons, make the orginal claims six weeks ago. The two scientists had told a press conference in Utah that using their 'test- tube' method, a gallon of sea water could produce as much energy as 300,000 gallons of petrol withot contributing to the greenhouse effect, acid rain or producing radioactive waste. It now appears that no more energy is given out from the table-top apparatus - based on electrochemical cells - than is put into it. One possibility is that the orginal experiment was distorted by background levels of gases and radioactivity. Another is that the two scientists were misled by faulty instruments. Williams, who expressed reservations from the start, said: 'We believe we have duplicated the experiments of Fleischmann and Pons, but using much more sensitive equipment. Given the numbers we had been told to expect, we should have seen something leap out at us by now. This has not happened.' By his onw admission, the findings could leave Fleischmann a Harwell consultant, with 'egg on my face'. They are likely also to embarrass researchers who claimed to have replicated the results. The Harwell scientists cast doubts last week on experiements carried out by Brigham Young University, Utah, where a second group, led by Prof. Stephen Hones, claimed to have preformed cold fusion albiet with only a fraction of the head output. 'Our machines are well able to pick up emissions at the level soptted by Birgham Young University, but so far we have failed to find anything.' said Williams. Fleischmann, of Southampton University, and Pons stunned the world with the announcement that they ha d found a way to tap nuclear fusion - the process that powers the sun and hydrogen bombs. They claimed that nuclie of deuterium, which is present in sea water, could be fused by passing an electric current through a test-tube of 'heavy water'. The process seemed to give out head equal to four times the amount put in. It seemed too good to be true, but experts at the UK Atomic Energy Authority at Harwell decided the claims merited serious investigation. Three weeks ago, sitll with no positive results, Harwell doubled its team working full-time on the project and increased the number of electro-chemical cells in the test. Doubts grew as it switched from looking for the head output claimed by Fleischmann and Pons, in favour of measurements a billionth of the size which had been reproted by Brigham Young University. The laboratory plans to spen a final month of research looking for evidence of a trace material which could have accounted for the results. Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!lll-winken!xanth!mcnc!ecsvax!jrw From: jrw@ecsvax.UUCP (James R. White) Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: non-fusion speculation for cold fusion Keywords: fusion, neutrino, heat transfer, fith force Message-ID: <6982@ecsvax.UUCP> Date: 11 May 89 15:45:17 GMT Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service Lines: 46 I am now fairly well convinced that the excess heat seen by F&P is real. But I am not convinced that it is fusion, as there is a glaring lack of evidence for a nuclear process. Thus, I will propose here that the thermal energy is being transferred into the cell from somewhere else. There have been experiments suggesting that there might be forces that act on the scale of kilometers. Such forces might allow the transfer of thermal energy under the right conditions. First consider the electron. It is surrounded by a cloud of virtual photons that make up its electric field. The high energy virtual photons allow a strong coupling between electrons, but have a very short range. The low energy virtual photons have a long range, but have a much weaker coupling. Because of the way the virtual photons couple with the conserved quantity, charge, their distribution is smooth and without resonances. A similar statement could be made about gravity. Now I shall assume that there is an essentially massless neutrino-like particle that couples to matter in a different way. For the most part, it doesn't couple to matter at all. But at certain resonances, it can couple quite strongly. Assume that there is a large, hot mass of material inside the earth that has such a resonance. Also, assume that when palladium is loaded with deuterium in a F&P cell, it has the same resonance. The virtual particle field could then form a link and allow the transfer of thermal energy from the large, hot mass to the palladium. (Pd stuffed with deuterium is a somewhat unusual structure, and it seems plausible to me that it might have some similarity to materials that are under high pressure.) The fact that the resonance is for a virtual particle of a particular energy implies that the effect will have a finite range, and will not grow much stronger at shorter range. If this range is on the order of tens of kilometers, then the hot mass that is the source of the heat would have to be under Utah. There may not be similar masses under other areas, so identical experimental conditions could give different results depending upon where they were done. This could explain why some places are unable to reproduce the excess heat. On the other hand, if the range is greater and the mass is the core of the earth, then any location on the surface should give similar results. If the excess heat persists, and the lack of evidence for fusion also persists, then speculations such as this should be taken seriously. Disclaimer: The above may have nothing to do with reality. - John N. White Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!rutgers!iuvax!mailrus!wasatch!donn From: donn@wasatch.utah.edu (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Re: What Happened in L.A.? Summary: LANL cooperation in limbo Message-ID: <1787@wasatch.utah.edu> Date: 11 May 89 00:10:03 GMT References: <0YNrhoy00Uw8A1lEVR@andrew.cmu.edu> <329@eplrx7.UUCP> Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Lines: 41 ... On a recent trip to Los Alamos, Pons was supposed to bring one of his working Pd electrodes for analysis. When he arrived, he told LANL that he had "forgotten" the electrode. (This is cooperation??) This sounds like it might be garbled, based on what I saw in this morning's Salt Lake Tribune: Legal problems have prevented the Uniersity of Utah from wrapping up an agreement with Los Alamos National Laboratory to collaborate on fusion research. U of U and Los Alamos officials confirmed Tuesday that collaborative research ... has been put on hold while a Salt Lake City law firm closely examines the agreement. 'We were ready yesterday,' said Los Alamos spokesman Jeff Schwartz, adding only, 'Talk to Dr Brophy' about the delay. ... 'We're ready, too,' Dr Brophy said. 'But the lawyers say don't go ahead. You'll have to ask them why.' ... [T]he Salt Lake [law] firm retained by the U of U ... did not return Tribune calls Tuesday. Dr Brophy said that, as far as he knows, the attorneys 'are concerned about protecting the university's intellectual property rights while working with a national laboratory. 'They're properly doing their job,' he added. 'But we can't go ahead until they give us the green light.' Dr Brophy said he thought the agreement would be completed by now. 'For the last week I've been saying tomorrow... It looks like several days to a week' before the contract is finalized. It's beginning to look like lawyers are a convenient excuse, Donn Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!shelby!agate!ucbvax!janus!bwood From: bwood@janus.uucp (Blake Philip Wood) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: From the LA Times, May 10, 1988 Message-ID: <29130@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 10 May 89 18:33:57 GMT Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 51 The following is from today's LA Times: The pair spent 5.5 years and $100,000 of their own money researching the phenomenon. Earlier this year, they discovered that physicist Steven Jones of BYU in Provo and his colleagues were working on the same technique. Jones was also seeing radioactive debris, but he did not observe significant heat production and did not believe that the process could be used for large-scale energy production. The two groups met early in March and ultimately agreed to publish their findings simultaneously. P&F said it would take them another 18 months before they were ready to publish, but Jones objected that an abstract of his work was already being circulated among scientists and that he planned to present the results soon. It was agreed that the two groups would each submit a paper to the British journal Nature on March 24. But without warning Jones, P&F announced their finding on March 23, simultaneously filing patent applications. ...and we all know the rest... What I find most interesting about this is the statement that they wouldn't be ready to publish for 18 months, and only went public because Jones was already ready to. I think this (rather than patent constraints) explains why they've been so vague--they didn't complete their work before going public. Is there anyone out there who knows more than what's in the papers and can comment on this chronology. BTW, I also think it's interesting that with all the stories from the history of science that I've seen in this newsgroup, the one comparison I haven't seen is with the discovery of the high Tc superconductors (maybe I missed it). Within a week after Paul Chu made his announcement (if not sooner), people on campus here were manufacturing their own superconductors, and about a month later I was able to see a demonstration at the department colloquim. The physics (or is it chemistry) of this does not seem THAT much more complicated that we haven't seen some reasonable confirmation after 7 weeks. Flames (er, comments)? Bear with me, this is my first posting, and I have a .sig file, but just in case: this is not my account, Blake lent it to me for this--I'm Chris Goedde dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu I'm not the owner of this account. These opinions are mine and not Blake's, who is kind enough to let me borrow his account. Chris Goedde dynamics@janus.berkeley.edu cgg@theorygroup.berkeley.edu Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!jon From: jon@Apple.COM (Jon Singer) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: feedback from Lawrence Berkeley Lab on gamma vs xray definition Keywords: gamma x-ray difference definition Message-ID: <30525@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 11 May 89 21:45:34 GMT Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 81 ] I have just received some very good feedback from Howard Hall about ] the difference between X-rays and Gamma rays. He gives me permission ] to forward it, so I think I will. It is very straightforward, and ] clarifies things extremely nicely. Here we go: Date: Thu, 11 May 89 12:05:38 PDT From: gamma@Csa1.LBL.Gov (Howard Hall) In reply to your recent posting re: Paul Dietz's posting, specifically about your point 4: >4) I would think that 511KeV would still be called an X-ray, but I >guess the air gets pretty thin up there, and the difference is sorta >moot. To those of us in the nuclear chemistry field, the difference between a 511 keV gamma ray and an x-ray is quite significant. X-rays arise from electronic transitions in the orbital structure of the atom and are hence limited by the electron binding energies of the orbital states. As an example, the K-shell x-ray energies of plutonium (the last naturally-occurring element) are on the order of 99, 103, 117, and 120 keV. For 511 keV to be an x-ray would require superheavy elements unattainable in our wildest fantasies. On the other hand, gamma rays arise from transitions in the nuclear level structure and are not so strictly contrained in energy, potentially varying from near 0 keV to well in excess of 100 MeV. 511 keV by itself is a weird case, since it usually arises from the annihilation of a positron (anti-electron), and is generally considered to be neither a gamma ray nor an x-ray in the strictest sense of the terms, but rather a type of "annihilation radiation." Howard L. Hall HLHall @ LBL.gov Nuclear Science Division Lawrence Berkeley Lab Berkeley, CA 94720 P.S.: You can forward this to FUSION if you feel like it. ===================================================================== Interestingly, it is clear from your description that the terms 'gamma', 'x', and 'annihilation radiation' refer to the origin of the photon, rather than to any particular energy range. My education was somewhat debased. Thanks for the clarification! I am left with a question: As you mention, there is no particular lower limit to the energy of a gamma. Is there any particular way, then, to distinguish between a low-energy gamma and an X-ray? That is, given a source of radiation at roughly 100KeV, for example, are there typically clues or cues that let you know whether it arises from electronic transitions or nuclear ones? Oh - one more question - as I understand it, the x-rays you mention in your discussion of Plutonium arise when an innermost-shell electron gets knocked out of the atom, and a next-shell electron falls in to replace it. (I would guess that there would be an entire cascade of these things, as an electron from each shell falls in to replace the missing one below it, yes?) What happens if you have a fully ionized Pu, and one electron falls from "outside" the "atom" all the way down to the 1s level? (I do, yes, remember 1s as the lowest? It has been a while.) What is the energy of the resulting photon? I would guess that it would be in excess of 200KeV, but not in excess of 500. On the other hand, that's _not_ an educated guess. Cheers! jon =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= I looked back, and there | I was, following myself. | Wait! Let me catch up! | Jon Singer is jon@Apple.COM, or | (AppleLink) SINGER2 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!tank!uwvax!rutgers!texbell!killer!pollux!smu.edu!leff From: leff@smu.edu (Laurence Leff) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Patent Right Issues Keywords: Convention Application Section 102 effective file date Message-ID: <15273@pollux.UUCP> Date: 10 May 89 22:49:55 GMT Sender: news@pollux.UUCP Reply-To: leff@smu.edu (Laurence Leff) Distribution: alt Organization: Southern Methodist University, CSE Dept. Dallas, TX Lines: 46 Re: Pons and Fleischmann holding back discussions of their invention to secure patent rights. From the U. S. Patent law, Section 102 A person shall be entitled to a patent unless-- (a) the invention was known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreighn country, before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent (b) the invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country, more than one year prior to the date of the application for patent in the United States. Thus, as long as Pons/Fleischmann get their patent application to the Patent Office by March of 1990, there is no difficulty with other people taking advantage of the situation to produce or market power from the system. As far as foreign countries are concerned, if the foreign country is a "convention country," they have one year from the date of the U. S. filing date to get the application to the other countries. See page 238 of Patent Law: A Practitioner's Guide by Hildredth and section 119 of the U. S. Patent Code which gives the reciprocal rights for inventors from other countries. (The former is an excellent introduction to patent law which is targetted, as per its preface, to both lawyers and appropriate laymen. It is published by the Practising Law Institute, Library of Congress Catalog Number: 88-61771) From page 59 of Hildredth, ".. publication ... can be anything that is printed and available to the public in country without any injunction of secrecy. This can include, for example,... material in a public library, a catalog for promoting sales, or papers distributed at a meeting of a technical society." I would suspect that the press releases, papers in Journal of Electrochemical Society, etc. from Pons/Fleischman would constitute publication, except perhaps they were incomplete. The fact that some may have succeeded in reproduction should be sufficient to constitute sufficient publication even if others failed. Laurence Leff A job is like sex, when you do it for money Complete Address: 75275-0122, You take away all the fun. Phone: 214-692-2859 Moderator comp.doc.techreports/TRLIST, Symbolic Math List convex!smu!leff leff%smu.uucp@uunet E1AR0002 at SMUVM1 (BITNET) Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!hp4nl!mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!iclbra!siesoft!jlk From: jlk@siesoft (jlk) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: Eminent chemist (Linus Pauling) dismisses clain over 'cold fusion' Message-ID: <1272@argon.siesoft> Date: 11 May 89 13:46:13 GMT References: <545@gandalf.littlei.UUCP> <20420017@hpcuhb.HP.COM> Reply-To: jlk@siesoft.uucp () Organization: Siemens SDG, woodley, England Lines: 61 From: "The Independent" (London Thrusday 11, May) By Tom Wilkie Science editor A leading chemist has stepped into the furore over "nuclear fusion in a test- tupe". Linus Pauling dismisses the claims and says that chemical reactions can account for the energy produced in experiments. His intervention, in a letter published in today's issue of the scientific journal NATURE, will be a blow to the credibility of claims by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons that they had obtianed a new route to nuclear fusion capable of yielding useful amounts of energy. Aged 88, Professor Pauling has dominated chemistry for nearly 60 years. He virtually re-created the subject in the 1930s, by applying the then obscure thelry of quantum mechanics to calculate the structure and shape of molecules and the strengths of the chemical bonds between atoms within molecules. He has since been at the forefront of every improtant question in chemistry. He holds two Nobel prizes: for chemistry and the peace prize. The intervention by a chemist of Professor Pauling's stature is significant. The debate over cold nuclear fusion had become factionalised between physicists and chemists. When Professor Pons adressed a meeting of the American Chemical Society last month, there was uncritical acclaim that two chemists had provided a cheap and easy route to nuclear fusion which physicists had been struggling to attain for 40 years by buiilding huge machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars. When the Americal Physical Society met at the beginning of this month, there was almost universal condemnation of the experiment, some of which could be attributed to professional pique by physicists at the idea of chemists muscling in on their territory. Martain Fleischmann, professor of chemistry at Southampton University, and Stanley Pons, professor of chemistry at the University of Utah in the United States, claimed in March that they had succeeded in getting nuclear fusion - the power source of the sun - by passing an electric current through two electordes dipping into a jar of heavy water and lithium hydroxide solution. They claim that one of the electrodes, made from palladium metal, soaked up so much deuterium (heavy hydrogen) that the atoms crowed so closely together to fuse. Professor Pauling dismisses the nuclear fusion claims. The key to the problem, he says, lies in a paper he published in the Physical Review in 1938. There he showed that the electrons that circle the nucleus of a palladium atom do not make use of all the outermost orbits that are available to them. These unused orbitals are actually what gives palladium the properties of a metal, and they limit the amount of hydrogen (or deuterium) that the palladium can soak up. Professor Pauling says: "I judge that under the conditions of the electrolysis experiment of M Fleischmann and s Pons, deuterons (sic) beyond this limit are forced into the palladium" ultimately forming a chemical unstable compond, called palladium deuteride. this unstable deuteride may begin to decompose either slowly, producing heat, or explosively. The result, according to Professor Pauling, of all the effort expended on cold nuclear fusion may be no more that "palladium powder and hydrogen gas" Path: santra!tut!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!ai-lab!rlg From: rlg@wheaties.ai.mit.edu (Bob Givan) Newsgroups: alt.fusion Subject: calorimetry correctness Message-ID: <2364@gastrocnemius.ai.mit.edu> Date: 11 May 89 20:21:26 GMT Reply-To: rlg@gastrocnemius.ai.mit.edu.WISC.EDU (Bob Givan) Organization: The MIT AI Lab, Cambridge, MA Lines: 39 accounts of the LA conference, both on the net and in newspapers, seem to indicate that P&F have at least addressed (if not eliminated) the central claims against their calorimetry. however, there is no mention of a claim made 9 days ago in the Boston Globe (a claim I've seen nowhere else). Because of this, I quote this claim here, and ask if anyone is familiar with it, knows if it was indeed claimed by Lewis, knows if it is legitimate, or knows if P&F have answered it. quoting from The Boston Globe, Tuesday May 2, 1989, Page 12, (the article reporting Lewis' claims from the APS conference): "The Utah researchers had said their simple device produced more energy than it used, but Lewis said that P&F, in their testimony before Congress last week, conceded that they had never actually observed such energy production. They said it was a 'hypothetical' extrapolation from their experiments." "Lewis said that extrapolation was based on assumptions that violate known laws of physics." "The assertion that their device put out four times as much energy as they put in was based on experiments that produced less energy than they consumed, Lewis said." "P&F calculated how much energy the device would have produced if they reduced the voltage but kept the current the same, but Lewis said that was impossible because of known characteristics of the palladium electrodes used in the experiment. 'The cell they proposed could not be built', Lewis said." this claim, if it was really made and was accurate, seems damning as long as it is unanswered. will someone restore my optimism? Bob Givan rlg@wheaties.ai.mit.edu