Subject: Re: CETI Demo at American Nuclear Soc. Mtg.
From: Jim Batka
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 11:39:08 -0500
Karim Alim wrote:
>
> Well what would be the point in making any new observations if all the
> "facts" are in? That -- making new observations and not assuming they must
> be right or wrong -- might be something resembling SCIENCE. You know,
> "SCIENCE," like in the first three letters of this newsgroup?
In "SCIENCE" experimental error must be considered and verification by a
neutral party is generally encourage prior to a claim of something new
is seriously considered. So far many of the people reading this group
feel that these two criteria have not been satisfied.
> > For them to reduce their calorimetric claims from 1.3kW excess to around
> > 1W, then say "we're tired of that game" does not exactly inspire
> > confidence.
>
> There is the little matter of input power, but... *sigh* never mind. I
> suspect you've already made up your mind on this point and introducing
> ANNOYING little things called FACTS might upset the static equilibrium of
> your little universe.
It's *not* an issue of input or output "power". There are no physical
laws governing the conservation of "power". It is input energy vs.
output energy that we'd like to see (conservation of energy). Otherwise
you're just talking about an expensive and messy battery.
Philosophically there is no such thing as "FACTS". What I and many in
the
group want to see is plausible theory and evidence supporting it. Other
acceptable information would be well designed experiments conducted by
neutral observers which verify the CF claims.
One man's fact is a questionable experimental result to another man.
> > I think he was suggesting that you are making rather a fool of yourself
> > here. Remember, "once-and-for-all-finally-this-is-it" cold fusion
> > devices come along at a nice steady two a year or so, and for you
> > suddenly to turn up, seemingly starry eyed and tell us that no, this
> > time it is real about a device thoroughly discussed months ago is apt to
> > rouse the cynic in the onlooker.
>
> 1) What made you think he was suggesting that? Don't you think you're
> projecting?
>
> 2) I don't give a shit if YOU or ANYONE ELSE thinks I'm "making a fool of
> myself." I have to answer to MY conscience, NOT YOURS.
Agreed, we cannot convince you. You must convince yourself.
> 3) Pat summary but you've misrepresented me, at any rate. I have never
> told anyone "THIS IS REAL!!!" But it seems that it's enough for SOME
> PEOPLE to condemn someone if they are open-minded enough to think that
> certain observations MIGHT be.
The reason that some react so strongly to your statement is that the
electrolysis induced cold fusion advocates have given a bad image to
fusion and especially the cold fusion community. Cold fusion does exist
and has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt using muons. They feel
that
resources are being wasted on something that may end up being a mistake
or
worse a hoax.
There are numerous other reasons that many (I have no idea of the
percentages)
of the people reading this group are skeptical about electrolysis
induced cold
fusion. Some of the reasons include:
- P & F are still alive, the amount of fusion they claimed would have
been enough to kill them.
- The amount of excess heat produced was inversely related to the
quality of calorimetry conducted. I believe (I'm trying to verify
for myself) that Tom Droege's results were that the high frequency
current variations made by bubble formation on the electrodes
caused significant under estimation of the amount of power input
into the system (the P & F cell would be a good way to get cheap
hot water because the power company would think you used less
than you actually consumed).
- The current generation of cold fusion advocates don't seem to
seriously consider or explore the null / experimental error
hypothesis.
- Given the track record of these claims, many in the group feel that
the null / experimental error hypothesis is much more probable than
electrolysis induced cold fusion, especially since no viable
theoretical mechanisms have been presented to explain any such
reactions.
- Our current scientific community paradigm is very conservative.
Every new claim must present evidence which identifies the
new claim as the most probable explanation for the observations.
So far a majority of the scientists in the physics and electro-
chemistry fields feel that cold fusion is not the most probable
explanation for the observations touted by the electrolysis induce
cold fusion advocates.
> Look, lots of other people have made up their minds that ALL of the cf
> observations are "factually incorrect." There is no such thing as rational
> debate for people whose minds are closed.
> For people whose minds are NOT closed, there are plenty of interesting new
> observations that can be rationally criticized and/or supported.
It's good to keep an open mind, just as long as it's not so open that
your
brains fall out (a former .sig of mine).
BTW, I am a skeptic of all this. However, I have no direct interest in
debunking CF. I have a huge indirect interest in seeing CF proved
(cheap
power would save me alot of money and improve my standard of living). I
think many in this group are in the same boat. I also think if someone
like you sticks with CF, proves that it works, and makes a fortune; none
of us would begrudge you your riches. We'd just be happy to be
consumers
of your cheap energy!
The reason we are *so* skeptical is summed up in the story of "the boy
who
cried *wolf*". We are hearing "wolf" so much now it sounds like it is
echoing in here!
--
Jim Batka Email: jim.batka@sdrc.com
The Universe *does* revolve around Engineers, since we get
to pick the coordinate system.
Subject: Re: Rare Metric Prefixes ?
From: Robert Cid
Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 11:15:21 -0800
On 1 Dec 1996, I Johnston wrote:
> Lars Jorgensen (techau@algonet.se) wrote:
>
> : I'm not a physiesist. I'm just a High School student who likes physics.
> : But arent there more prefixes then that becurse we have them all in ower
> : "Book of formulars" or what you would call it. Dont you need any
> : smaller/larger or do u just change unit then like m/lightyears?
>
> Apart from micro, milli, kilo, mega and giga, all the other prefixes are
> useless. OK, occasionally a centi ot tera turns up, but noone in their
> right minds ever writes "2.6 Yottometres" rather than 2.6*10^24m.
>
> Ian
>
nano, femto and peta are often referred to in laser physics. A
femtosecond pulse or a petawatt laser are examples of thier uses in this
area.
*peace*
Robert
Subject: Re: Proposed test- Reduction of radioactivity in CETI cell
From: jonesse@plasma
Date: 5 Dec 96 09:55:57 -0700
In article <32A58B6E.41C6@sdrc.com>, Jim Batka writes:
>> --Steven Jones
>
> This is definitely off topic for this thread, but I figured I'm most
> likely
> to get a response from Steve this way.
>
> I've recently resumed reading this group from about a 2 year hiatus.
> Previously Steve Jones had been conducting cold fusion experiments of
> his
> own (I believe they were of the muon catalyzed kind). He was also
> looking
> into the sonoluminescence phenonmenon.
>
> If Steve doesn't respond to this, does anyone know where the results of
> these investigations might be found? I'm very curious about his
> findings
> in these areas.
Hello, Jim. Yes, we are conducting experiments regarding sonoluminescence
(SL). Mostly, we are looking at SL phenomena in mercury, although we did
do an expt. using D2O with dissolved D2 gas -- a single-bubble SL expt.
We have looked for neutron production, for D2 in D20 and D2 in Hg both,
but have found no indications of d-d fusion. We are sensitive at about
1 neutron per _hour_.
>
> I seem to recall that the moun catalyzed fusion was proven but was much
> further away from breakeven than current hot fusion experiments. The
> sonoluminescence seemed to be caused by symmetrical implosion of vapor
> bubbles caused by sonic disturbances and possessed spectrums consistent
> with very high instantaneous temperatures (1000s of F).
MU-c-f is the only bona fide form of cold fusion. At LAMPF in 1982, we
already achieved several times more energy out from catalyzed d-t fusion
than the total energy of the muon driver. Thus, we exceeded "scientific
breakeven" in the conventional sense. But this ignores the substantial
energy which must be invested in order to produce muons. The most optimistic
estimates place mu-cat-fusion a factor of about 20 away from commercial
breakeven -- and I don't see a way to bridge this gap. :-(
>
> Oh one other thing, there had been talk of spherical hot fusion device
> using electro potentials for nuclei containment (spheromak or somesuch).
> Are any of its results available online?
>
> Thanks to Rob Heeter for the Hot Fusion FAQ and his web site both of
> which I've recently browsed recently for a refresher of the current
> status.
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Jim Batka Email: jim.batka@sdrc.com
>
> The Universe *does* revolve around Engineers, since we get
> to pick the coordinate system.
You might ask Bob Heeter directly about the "spherical hot fusion" devices.
Best Wishes,
Steven Jones
Subject: Need Some Imput
From: Darren Sell
Date: Thu, 05 Dec 1996 19:40:42 -0500
I'm a college student at Indiana University, and I'm trying to get some
information for a paper I have to write about fusion and it's possible
uses, advantages/disadvantages as compared to present energy sources,
and feasability. It's not a ground breaking paper, only 6 pages are
needed. I guess mostly I just have to cover the basics, although this
is a subject which I am very interested. If anyone knows of any good
places look for information, or any bit of information that would be
useful/interesting, please, let me know, and help me get an A on my
paper!!!
Darren Sell
Subject: Re: "Fundamental Limitations on Plasma Fusion Systems ..."
From: jamesl@netcom.com (James Logajan)
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 01:11:47 GMT
Arthur Carlson TOK (carlson@ipp-garching.mpg.de) wrote:
[Regarding the Ph.D. thesis of Todd Rider]
[...]
: His goal was to find general limitations on the feasibility of fusion
: systems, that is, fundamental physical constraints which can be used
: to rule out entire classes of containment configurations or fuels, not
: just specific embodiments.
[...]
: The first table in the thesis lists the ratio of bremsstrahlung to
: fusion power for various fuels under the assumption that the only chain
: of energy transfer is fusion products to fuel ions to electrons to
: bremsstrahlung (sometimes referred to as the "hot ion mode") and under
: the assumption of nearly Maxwellian velocity distributions.
[...]
: fuel P_brem/P_fus
: ------- ------------
: D-T 0.007
: D-He3 0.19
: D-D 0.35
: He3-He3 1.39
: p-B11 1.74
: p-Li6 4.81
[...]
: Rider goes on to estimate the (recirculating) power required
: to maintain a non-Maxwellian distribution, e.g., a depletion of the low
: energy electrons which mediate the energy transfer. The recirculating
: power "fraction" required to halve the bremsstrahlung losses for the
: deuterium based fuels fuels was found to be:
: fuel P_recirc/P_fus
: ------- --------------
: D-He3 4.7
: D-D 2.3
: The minimum recirculating power "fraction" required to reduce the
: bremsstrahlung losses for the nearly aneutronic fuels to 50% of the
: fusion power is found to be:
: fuel P_recirc/P_fus
: ------- --------------
: He3-He3 5.0
: p-B11 42
: p-Li6 210
[...]
: Rider's summary of the "outlook for advanced aneutronic fuels"
: (He3-He3, p-B11, and p-Li6) was: "Thus there is very little hope of
: ever being able to produce net power with any of these fuels."
Some brief questions and comments:
If someone more knowledgable about nuclear weapons would care to comment,
I'd appreciate it, but aren't nuclear fusion bombs made of lithium-hydride
or something like that? In other words, aren't there already existing
net nuclear power output devices based on "advanced fuels?" Or are they
D-T devices? Or am I very likely missing some important qualifier in
the assumptions or arguments?
Also, would the p-p reaction, or even the carbon cycle, be amenable to Riders
analysis? Obviously, if the same set of assumptions should lead to the
conclusion that stars are net energy drains, one should suspect a
possible flaw in the reasoning. But not having the thesis, I could not say
more. I should point out that there isn't enough posted (for me at least)
to follow the logic that leads to the long list of invalid devices.
I look forward to seeing any comments from those working on advanced-fuel
machines may have on Todd Rider thesis. I suspect it will get a more
chilly reception in that environment than he got from his examining committee.
Subject: Re: CETI Demo at American Nuclear Soc. Mtg.
From: "Karim Alim"
Date: 6 Dec 1996 02:46:34 GMT
Alan M. Dunsmuir wrote in article
...
> Good to see the TBs remain up to their previous level of argument
> quality. And that Gene Mallove seems to have bought himself another nom-
> de-plume for trolling here.
Do I fucking LOOK like Gene Mallove to you, asswipe?
All ANYONE has to do is look at my original posts to consider whether THOSE
remarks would be considered "trolling." When I got pounced on by various
skeptics who, instead of rebutting me from a logical/factual point of view,
decided to assume I was new to the group, didn't know what I was talking
about, and had no right to post, I only gave them the shit they were intent
on dishing out. I suppose if I had meekly whimpered and decided not to
reply to their bullshit then YOU wouldn't think it was trolling. Hmmm, but
that presupposes there's a parallel universe where *I* actually give a shit
about what YOU think.... Hmmm....
> Just what do you think you proving, "Karim"?
Um, that only COMPLETE and UTTER ASSHOLES go around asking other people
questions like, "Just what do you think you're proving?"
Q.E.D.
-k.
Subject: Re: CETI Demo at American Nuclear Soc. Mtg.
From: "Karim Alim"
Date: 6 Dec 1996 02:00:55 GMT
Jim Batka wrote in article <32A6FAAC.3F54@sdrc.com>...
> In "SCIENCE" experimental error must be considered and verification by a
> neutral party is generally encourage prior to a claim of something new
> is seriously considered. So far many of the people reading this group
> feel that these two criteria have not been satisfied.
I agree with you completely.
The post to which I was replying seemed to imply that all of the previous
observations were negative, so what was the point of making new
observations? Not only is that not true, it's a dumb argument.
> It's *not* an issue of input or output "power". There are no physical
> laws governing the conservation of "power". It is input energy vs.
> output energy that we'd like to see (conservation of energy). Otherwise
> you're just talking about an expensive and messy battery.
Well, you say it's not an issue of power; I would tend to agree, but Carr
seemed to be interested in *power* not energy (from one of his 4-DEC-96
posts):
> the question if I was not interested in both the input and output power
> (not energy, since the units are watts) and the uncertainties in how
The syntax is a little screwy there but he is saying he wouldn't have asked
the question about output if he was not interested in both input and output
(power, not energy).
You said:
> Philosophically there is no such thing as "FACTS". What I and many in
> the
> group want to see is plausible theory and evidence supporting it. Other
> acceptable information would be well designed experiments conducted by
> neutral observers which verify the CF claims.
Philosophically? I'm not sure I agree with you about the existence of
"facts" but the point was (if you read the post from which that word comes)
was that person to whom I was replying wanted to make a snide summary of
one set of observations while ignoring the conditions in which the
observations were made.
I think EVERYONE wants to see plausible theory and evidence supporting it.
> One man's fact is a questionable experimental result to another man.
True enough, but let's not devolve into epistemology. The true
skeptics say you can question everything. (Even the idea that you can
question everything.)
> > 2) I don't give a shit if YOU or ANYONE ELSE thinks I'm "making a fool
of
> > myself." I have to answer to MY conscience, NOT YOURS.
>
> Agreed, we cannot convince you. You must convince yourself.
Care to present a reason why I should, compelling or otherwise?
> The reason that some react so strongly to your statement is that the
> electrolysis induced cold fusion advocates have given a bad image to
> fusion and especially the cold fusion community. Cold fusion does exist
> and has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt using muons. They feel
> that
> resources are being wasted on something that may end up being a mistake
> or
> worse a hoax.
*sigh* WHAT STATEMENT? The mere SUGGESTION that Miley might be right is
justification for jumping down someone's throat?
IMO Science should NOT be concerned with a "bad image." Science is not
politics (okay, call that naive) or show business. If you have a problem
with observations made or experiments performed by "electrolysis induced
cold fusion advocates," FINE. If you think certain people are lousy
scientists and you have good reason to think so, FINE. But I can't agree
with you that "image," bad, good or neutral, should play any part in
evaluating a field of research.
As for your contention -- or your contention that some people feel -- that
resources are going towards electrolysis-induced cf that should have
*rightfully* gone to muon-catalyzed cf, well, I'd like to see facts to back
this up.
I think the key phrase is "MAY end up being a mistake."
> There are numerous other reasons that many (I have no idea of the
> percentages)
> of the people reading this group are skeptical about electrolysis
> induced cold
> fusion. Some of the reasons include:
[snip]
All points worth debating. You could start a new thread on each.
> So far a majority of the scientists in the physics and electro-
> chemistry fields feel that cold fusion is not the most probable
> explanation for the observations touted by the electrolysis induce
> cold fusion advocates.
Well this is implying some sort of common definition for "cold fusion,"
isn't it? Otherwise what you're saying is that "a majority of scientists
do not believe that cold fusion is the explanation, WHATEVER THEY HAPPEN TO
THINK COLD FUSION *IS*."
I'm not so sure that explanations are AS important at this point as
convincing people that these observations ARE valid and repeatable. Once
that's done, we can theorize till the cows come home.
It is to be hoped that the CETI "RIFEX" cells will go a long way towards
moving the common opinion in one direction or the other (either there's
something definitely going on here, or there isn't.)
> It's good to keep an open mind, just as long as it's not so open that
> your
> brains fall out (a former .sig of mine).
Agreed 100%.
> BTW, I am a skeptic of all this. However, I have no direct interest in
> debunking CF. I have a huge indirect interest in seeing CF proved
> (cheap
> power would save me alot of money and improve my standard of living). I
> think many in this group are in the same boat. I also think if someone
> like you sticks with CF, proves that it works, and makes a fortune; none
> of us would begrudge you your riches. We'd just be happy to be
> consumers
> of your cheap energy!
Wow, it's good to run into a skeptic without a chip on his
shoulder. Just so you know, I have no direct interest, financial or
otherwise, in *supporting* CF. I just like to consider myself open-minded
about it. Hopefully not so open-minded that my brains have fallen out.
I don't know if we will ever see cheap power out of all this. What's more
likely (In My Quite Possibly Wrong Opinion) is that we will discover that
there's some very interesting new physics going on here. The Law of Irony
says that the radionuclide reduction stuff will be true so that Patterson's
cf will end up actually providing a boost to the nuclear power industry.
:^( Oh well. If we can't have water heaters maybe we can have personal
fission reactors. ("Your hands never have to touch plutonium!")
Of course two months from now I will read in this newsgroup that P&F; and/or
CETI promised free personal fission reactors.
> The reason we are *so* skeptical is summed up in the story of "the boy
> who
> cried *wolf*". We are hearing "wolf" so much now it sounds like it is
> echoing in here!
Oh, it's much worse than that! All you have to do is whisper "furry
quadruped" and people who don't know you from Adam will call you a liar.
I really understand if people are skeptical. Unfortunately for me, I also
understand if they are optimistic.
-k.
Subject: Re: Are we missing something or are these people misguided.
From: siegman@ee.stanford.edu (AES)
Date: 6 Dec 1996 14:49:12 GMT
In article <57favp$g1k@gbc.gbrownc.on.ca>, jmorriss@gbc.gbrownc.on.ca
(John Morriss) wrote:
> Uh... We -=can't=- measure the velocity of light. It's a defined quantity,
> with an unlimited number of sig figs
>
> Any velocity of light experiment is either calibrating your metre-stick,
> or your clock.
I understand this point, but I perhaps you can clarify for me how it works
in practice, which I don't understand.
Suppose I have available one of the primary spectroscopic time-frequency
standards (what is it these days -- rubidium transition? cesium clock?)
and a stick with two marks on it. Then I can either:
a) Move one mirror of a two mirror interferometer slowly along the stick,
counting interference fringes, and thus measure the distance between the
two marks in wavelengths of the primary standard; or
b) Send a short pulse of light (perhaps from some other totally different
light source) from one mark to the other (and maybe back) and measure time
of flight in cycles of the primary standard.
As I understand it, these two separate, different, independent
measurements *have* to give results that stand in the ratio of the defined
value of c. But what if sometime does them, and they don't?
Defining the velocity of light seems to require some very strong beliefs
or assumptions that the defined value does not, and will never, change
with time, or with the frequency or wavelength of the radiation used for a
measurement. What stands behind this confidence? Or is only one of the
above measurements allowed?
(sci.physics.research added to distribution list)
Subject: Mitchell Jones vrs Bob Sullivan
From: 72240.1256@CompuServe.COM (Jed Rothwell)
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 17:15:22 GMT
To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.sf-bay.org
bsulliva@sky.net (Bob Sullivan) claims that the 1,300 CETI demo did not
actually produce any excess heat. He writes:
If you were to go back to the archives, you would find that I was one of
the original posters who called the 1,344 Watt claim into question.
Mitchell Jones efforts at replicating the Cravens 'cooling tower' were
aimed at refuting my observations. In the end, Mitchell demonstrated
that my observations were correct.
If you look back in the archives, you will find that Mitchell Jones refuted
Sullivan. Here is what Jones wrote:
It seems likely that the low power run was producing about 200 watts, as
claimed by CETI, rather than the 469 watts originally calculated by Jed.
Whatever the true power output, it seems virtually certain to have been
wildly over unity, because *it is absurd to suppose that the flow rate
measurement could have been sufficiently in error to account for all of
the excess*. Certainly the backpressure hypothesis which I have been
investigating is insufficient for this purpose. Thus if you want to
argue that the device wasn't over unity, you are going to have to come
up with a better argument than that. For myself, I am not denying that
the device was over unity. All I deny is that it was as far over unity
as Jed claims that it was."
-- Mitchell Jones (21cenlogic@I-link.net), "Magnum 350 Run,"
sci.physics.fusion, Mon, 25 Mar 1996 15:55
I disagree with Jones' methodology. I think he is doing the experiment
backwards. Flow calorimetry is a good, simple, direct method of measuring
heat, whereas an analysis of cooling tower performance is fraught with
complexity. However, I do not quarrel with Jones' results. He says my estimate
of the CETI heat is off by a factor of two, but at the same time he says that
Sullivan et al. are off by a factor of 2,000. I can live with that conclusion.
Sullivan also writes:
CETI demos 'assume' 100% Faraday efficiencies when the facts (and the
experience of qualified analysts) indicate otherwise.
This, of course, is flat wrong. It is just the opposite. All CETI demos assume
100% recombination. Sullivan has made this mistake dozens of times. He has
been corrected by Logajan, myself and many others, but he never learns. Steve
Jones also makes this "mistake," but he actually understands it is nonsense.
Jones is deliberately spreading misinformation; Sullivan is merely stupid.
Let me remind all readers of this forum that if you would like to see real
information and a civilized scientific discussion of cold fusion, as opposed
the rampant nonsense here, you should tune into my home page, which has links
to other pages and a civilized discussion group. The address is:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JedRothwell
- Jed
Subject: Re: Can ETAs count marbles?
From: blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue)
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 16:45:19 GMT
So the old, silly notion of a collective nuclear state that was
supposed to account for d + d cold fusion has reared its ugly
head as a means for achieving Easy Nuclear Transmutation.
Now why do I call this a silly notion? If we can shoot down an
idea because it violates basic energy conservation in a big way
I would class that is being pretty silly. To invoke a process
that violates energy conservation in order to account for the
supposed excess heat is selfcontradictory. If you are going
to ignore energy conservation anyway there is no such thing as
excess heat. You to can generate "Infinite Energy." [The
very title of that magizine is a dead give away, isn't it?]
If we start with ordinary matter such as nickle plating in a solution
of lithium sulfate the energy of significance to the ETA problem
is pretty much associated with the binding of nucleons together
into discrete nuclei. Anyone who has addressed the question of
energy balance in this case has used in their initial state
the nuclear binding energies that are implicite in something we
call a table of nuclear masses. So it seems we are all in agreement
as to how one calculates the initial and final energies involved
in ETA reactions. The question I mean to raise is how one estimates
the total energy of any assumed intermediate state?
I would like to ask whether it can be reasonably assumed that there
exists a collective nuclear state that is roughly degenerate in
energy with the initial state involving discrete nuclei in their ground
states? We have seen people do some hand waving about collective states,
but to the best of my knowledge no ETA has ever dared to write a
Hamiltonian for a collective state, and I think I know why. When I
ask Scott Chubb to indicate what coordinates he used to write such
a Hamiltonian he demonstrated that he could not even get that first
step correctly. He had too many coordinates in the problem, and that
was a simple ensemble of deuterons!
The problem, as I see it, is that the energy of a nuclear state is
very strongly dependent on correlations between the assorted nucleons.
In other words, any change in the way in which nucleons are distributed
relative to one another will have a strong influence on the energy of
the state. Nuclear soup simply cannot have the same energy as an ensemble
of discrete nuclei. The radial dependence of the nuclear potential does not
allow for much variation in the nuclear density.
So what the ETAs are asserting is that you can disassemble a bunch of
nuclei without paying the price in energy. You know,at 8 MeV per
nucleon (a typical binding energy) that is a very high price to pay.
Getting every thing disassembled at the same time is out of the question.
Come on, fellows. Put up or shut up on the collective state business.
Where do you get the energy to disassemble the initial nuclei?
Dick Blue
PS for Robin: You said something to the effect that a phonon is a phonon
independent of the lattice composition. I believe you are incorrect on
even that rather trivial point.
Subject: Transmutations through Chemical Reactions ?
From: NONINSKI@MARY.FORDHAM.EDU
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 18:04:31 GMT
Dear Colleagues,
In connection with the discussion concerning transmutation of elements
via chemical reactions, I would like to mention that for almost a couple
of years now I am carrying out experiments regarding that matter. I will
mention briefly some results of experiments I carried out thogether with
colleagues but unfortunately will not be able to provide you with more
detailed information here. The main reason being that formuli, sub- and
superscripts are still not easy to handle over the net. Therefore, those
of you who might be interested in the mentioned results may want to consider
the following publications:
V. C. Noninski, J. L. Ciottone, P. J. White, Experiments on a Possible
gamma-Ray Emission Caused by a Chemical Process, J. Sci. Exploration,
9, 201 (1995).
V. C. Noninski, J. L. Ciottone, P. J. White, Experiments on Claimed
beta-Particle Emission Decay, J. Sci. Exploration, 9, 317 (1995).
V. C. Noninski, J. L. Ciottone, P. J. White, Ona an Experimental Curiosity
Which If Undetected May Lead to Erroneous Far-Reaching Conclusions,
Fusion Technology, in press.
V. C. Noninski, J. L. Ciottone, P. J. White, Experiments on Claimed
Transmutation of Elements Caused by a Chemical Process, J. Sci. Exploration,
in press.
Some more manuscripts on the subject are in the process of preparation.
I will notify you in due time should any new publications of ours
regarding these matters appear.
Also, in passing, I would note that I have completed the analysis of the
role of recombination for the reality of excess heat. However, due to
stated reasons I will not elaborate on this matter here. I will, however,
try to figure out what the best possible way would be to address this
problem to your attention. Here I would only mention that the paper
by S. Jones et al published in J. Phys. Chem., 99, 6973 (1995) entirely
confirms the experimental findings in my paper published in Fusion Technology
21, 163 (1992). Unfortunately, the analysis of the analysis of the
experimental data presented in j. Phys. Chem., 99, 6973 (1995) is incorrect.
As I mentioned above, I will not elaborate on this finding here but will
go back to the "transmutation" question.
We used a mixture of chemicals similar to the mixture used by Bockris et al.
After preliminary experiments with a Geiger counter which showed positive
results (the counts of a burned portion were substantially higher than
the counts of a portion of the same quantity and configuration before burning)
we undertook studies using NaI detector and a Ge detector. What we found was
that indeed the radioactivity increases but this increased radioactivity was
due to a trivial reason. The concentration of K was increasing due to burning
which also led to the increase of the concentration of the naturally
occurring isotope K40. As mentioned above, more details on that can be found
in the first of the above-mentioned publications. In a separate study we
found that the ostensible decrease of beta counts after burning the sample
was due also to trivial reasons, namely hygroscopicity of the material --
absorbed water acts as a shield and attenuates the beta counts in time.
Another finding of ostensibly new nature was that in some samples after
burning we observed (after neutron activation) a 411 keV peak which was not
present in the neutron-activated samples before burning. If a peak of
411 keV was real and stayed for several days it would have been an indication
that Au had been produced due to burning of a mixture containing only base
metal. The peak at 411 keV, however, turned out to be the second escape peak
of Vanadium whose photopeak is at 1434 keV. Again, more details on these
findings may be found in the above publications. Further, we carried out
analysis of samples sent to us by R. Monti who claims chemical transmutations
as well. The results from our analysis of his samples is also negative
regarding unusual appearances of elements or unusual nuclear processes.
In our latest publication we explain the observed decrease of Th activity
by the well-known mechanism of secular equilibrium.
As is seen from the above, so far we have obtained only negative results
regarding the claimed effects. This, of course, may be very depressing
since we are humans also and have emotions (as researchers, however, by
definition, we must be absolutely impassionate; do you think many such
people exist ? :-) ?). Nevertheless, I think it was important to carry out
these experiments because, first of all, in most of them the initial results
seemed positive. It is incumbent upon a researcher who encounters a
seemingly positive result to verify it, reproduce it and possibly explain it.
Many times the explanation can be trivial but sometimes it may not be,
especially when we are dealing with unexplored territory. Also, along the
way many useful things can be learned which may serve as guiding lights for
a future research. Also, although every researcher likes to think that his
or her results are conclusive, I do not exclude the possibility that we
might have missed some things or that there are some phenomena that we
stil would not be able to detect due to our incomplete knowledge of Nature.
Therefore, I remain as open minded as I was at the beginning of the studies
and am willing to consider further experiments connected with such
boundary claims. I would note here that I will try to carry out experiments
connected with claims for transmutations during electrolysis with Ni
electrode. Although as some of you may have noticed I submit this posting
from a new address (I am teaching in New York City at present) I am still
maintaining my old connections with Massachusetts and the colleagues there
are most than willing to help with these studies.
Truly,
Vesselin Noninski
