HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion

In sci.physics.fusion, Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com> writes:

> To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG

What a long note!

>If that happens, it will be back to the drawing board for you. You will have to
>reinvent the whole works. The number of previous experiments; the number of
>failed experiments; the central importance of the theory that gets overthrown;
>the previous experiments in different domains that supported the theory... all
>these factors are completely irrelevant. You must forget them; you must not
>even consider them for one moment as you examine experimental data. Put the

Surely you don't mean that the results of good experiments in the past are to
be thrown out because of new results?  I hope you mean to discard old theories,
not experiments.  Any new theory should explain both the old and new results.

It might be neccessary to have a theory which claims special nuclear physics
for metal lattices (a very strange idea), but it will not be nearly as well
accepted as one that can be supported by previous results.


BDR


BTW, how much hydrogen is in the iron-nickel core of the earth?  Would we
expect the earth to explode due to CF in the nickel (electrical currents due to
the core rotating) soon after it formed?  Of course, it isn't very clean. :-)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: The Experiment
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 19:21:10 GMT

I have not said much about the experiment lately, but it runs continuously.
I am trying to understand the systematic errors.  Because I will try the
next run over a wide temperature range, and because it will mostly run at 
60 C, I cannot operate the shell servo.  This means that I can be affected
more by the ambient temperature.  Almost any test gives me a 0.5% rms
calorimeter.  Mostly I measure a 0.1% calorimeter.  But because I sometimes 
get a larger error than I expect, it will be hard to claim the smaller 
number.  Too bad I can't run the shell servo.  Really good measurements will
have to await the Mark III.  

So I now announce that 1 sigma for the upcoming experiment is 35 mw.  This 
means that 100 mw or so is needed to attract attention, and several hundred
milliwatts is needed for publication as a possible positive result.  3.5 watts
would be 100 sigma, and would really make me excited as it would be beyond 
any possible error.  

If a few weeks from now I start saying a few tens of milliwatts is significant,
remind me of this post.

Fortunately this is the prime heating season in Chicago.  No chance now for a
warm spell where the furnace would turn off until February.  So the basement
temperature is quite constant. 

Tom Droege
From: barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Subject: Re: electrostatic fusion
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 00:10:10 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.112835.62319@cc.usu.edu> system@cc.usu.edu writes:
> 1.4  Claims.  I claim the right to all thermonuclear fusion devices
> which employ charging a metal with deuterium and which apply an
> electrostatic charge (e.g. positive voltage) to the metal, and
> which use a pointed tip to focus the electrostatic fields. 

Sorry, but there appears to be prior publication. Dadaelus, in
his old column in "New Scientist", essentually invented this fusion
device about 10 years ago. Furthermore, he pointed out there is not
even any need for electrification---simply tap the big end of the 
cone with a hammer---the sound waves will travel through the cone, be
focused at the tip, and create sufficient energy density to fuse
the few D-T atoms at the tip. See the collected columns of Dadaelus,
which were published as a book several years ago, or look in old
issues of New Scientist (prior to 1987) for his columns.

Also, a physics professor here two years ago conceived of a metallic 
D-T "porcupine", which would do D-T fusions at the needle tips,
under the action of an applied voltage, so again your idea is not
so original. 


The real problem with such "tip-focused" fusion schemes is that the
fusioning region contain only a few atoms, and so cannot produce
much energy.
 
--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)


Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: edwlt12@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Mike Jamison (ADF))
Subject: Re:  Electrostatic Fusion
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Date: 31 Dec 1992 09:59 EDT  

First, to the Sysadmin for sci.physics.fusion:  I've had trouble with 
multiple duplications of messages I send from this account.  Please advise
me as to whether you get duplicates from all machines this message passes
through!

Now that that's out of the way, I have a few concerns about the electrostatic
fusion idea:

1)  Deflection of D by Pd.  The author states that when high energy (well,
sort of low-medium energy, at 10-20 keV) pass through a *thin* metal plate,
very little deflection occurs.  OK, I'll buy that.  However, if I understand
the idea presented, it appears that as the D ions travel towards the tip
of the cone, they "bounce" back and forth, following a zigzag pattern up
and out of the cone.  Each "bounce" passes through a thinner and thinner
section of cone.  However, multiple passes through a thin slice add up to
one pass through a thick slice.  Hence, deflection cannot be ignored.

2)  "Matter is made of mostly empty space":  True.  However, the electric
fields of the Pd nuclei extend over quite a bit of that empty space.  Maybe
you can play around with averaging here, since there are so many Pd atoms,
to allow you to neglect their E-fields.

The big problem, though, is that the D ions are *also* "mostly empty space".
Hence, an extremely large number of passes between D ions will occur before
a D hits another D hard enough to fuse.  The probability of a hit vs a miss
would have to be worked out, with respect to D's in a Pd lattice.  This will
give you something like a "mean free path" for the D's, and from that you'll
find out how many "zigzags" the D will go through before fusing with another
D.  You also have to weigh the probability of the D hitting another D vs.
a Pd.  You'll lose a lot of that acceleration to useless Pd collisions...

3)  How about that acceleration, anyway?  As Terry Bollinger has pointed out,
You ain't gonna get out more than what you put in (which is why I don't see
any reason for Fractofusion to work, BTW).  Unless you've got inductance
working for you (Note to John Logajan and Terr Bollinger:  Remember those
                                          ^^^^ I meant Terry (Sorry, Terry)
funny little books, like "shocking stories".  You open the thing up and get
zapped by a 1.5 volt battery, with the aid of an inductor, of course.)

Remember that V = L dI/dt in an inductor, so when you suddenly interupt
a current path (possibly what happens at the surface of the Pd rod) you get
not only a huge (change in voltage with respect to distance, or acceleration)
but also a huge change in voltage.  It's pretty easy to get 100V using an
inductor and a source of 10 V or less.  Conservation of energy just makes
sure that the current goes down as the voltage goes up.

Anyway, the theory is at least as plausible as any other cold fusion theory,
and more nuts and bolts than the others I've seen.  But, then, it won't be
"Cold Fusion" because 20 kV ain't "cold" :-)

Mike Jamison
From: webb+@CS.CMU.EDU (Jon Webb)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Some old data be wrong
Date: 28 Dec 92 21:06:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BzzMn8.Esw.1
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: webb@DUCK.WARP.CS.CMU.EDU

In article <921224233714_72240.1256_EHL53-1@CompuServe.COM> 72240.1256@compuserve.com (Jed Rothwell) writes:

   Also, of course, I take the traditional, rational, Western view that if any
   theory does get in the way, it must be wrong, because nothing can stand in
   the way of replicated data at 90 sigma. Jones, Huizenga, Morrison, and Close
   believe in a new form of religion -- not science -- because they believe
   that Man Knows Everything, and if Nature disagrees, however vehemently, She
   is Wrong. They apparently believe that Theory overrules Facts...

No, Jed, they don't believe that theory overrules facts; they just
don't accept the "Facts" you claim as being real.  As I understand it,
you think that cold fusion exists, and can sometimes be done using
heavy water, and other times with light water; that it can be done in
a wide variety of experimental situations, ranging from electrolysis
of palladium or nickel to titanium soaked in deuterium gas to
outgassing from palladium plates; that it sometimes produces tritium
or He3 or He4 or neutrons or gamma rays, and sometimes not; etc.
Basically, you seem to believe every paper published that claims a
positive result for cold fusion, and disbelieve every paper that
claims a negative result.  With that perspective, I imagine you must
think that cold fusion is one of the most easily reproduced phenomena
in existence.

The scientists you cite as skeptics look at the history of cold fusion
experiments and see this pattern over and over: someone claims a
positive result, then withdraws it later (or it just somehow
disappears, being reported at a conference and then never heard from
again); or someone claims to have gotten cold fusion to work, then
can't get it to work anymore; or someone tries a cold fusion
experiment with apparently careful technique, and it doesn't work.
They just don't see any reason to throw out all this carefully
developed theory in light of a collection of mutually contradictory
experiments with inconsistent approaches and often demonstratably
sloppy technique.

You claim that anyone can get 90 sigma.  Well, it seems to me that Tom
Droege has been trying to do that for quite a while now, and has not
succeeded.  You yourself tried, and didn't succeed.  What is wrong?
Is Tom part of the anti-cold fusion conspiracy?  Are you?

-- J
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich)
Subject: Re: Status #4 Cell 4A3 (Sorry if this is a duplicate send)
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 05:25:10 GMT
Organization: Brad Lanam,  Walnut Creek, CA

In article <921230135548.20c05e3b@FNALD.FNAL.GOV> ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE writes:
>I have already been told by someone 
>(sorry I have forgotten the name - please claim credit - I really appreciate 
>the information) that thermoelectric devices age when they are temperature 
>cycled, so I should have done more up-down cycles than I did during 
>calibration to watch for this.

I assume that you mean me. Here is what I know about Peltier devices:

When broadly cycled from limit to limit, the crystals comprising
the structure of the device will fracture. As these devices are built
of multitudes of these crystals each loss is very small and shows up
as a decrease in efficiency. Eventually enough of the device is destroyed
so that it simply no longer operates.

The temperatures at which I observed this was temperature cycling between
about 0 degrees C and 100 degrees C.

I have not tried to find this failure at smaller temperature swings as
we had other fish to fry. I wouldn't be suprised, however, to find that 
both milder temperature swings and/or mechanical stress would cause the same
failures though at a much reduced rate.

I am suspicious that the temperature swings cause mechanical stress via
the end plates and that the crysals (some sort of boron mixture?) are
by their very nature quite brittle.

If I understand Peltier devices, there is no special reason to use crystals
other than silicon. Maybe someone can enlighten us both on that subject.

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: Dieter Britz <BRITZ@kemi.aau.dk>
Subject: RE: Stainless Steel
Reply-To: Dieter Britz <BRITZ@kemi.aau.dk>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 18:01:39 GMT


Originally-From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE

>Dieter, in my defense, I did look up Stainless Steel in the Cole-Parmet catalog
>chemical resistance table.  They gave it an "A" for Sodium Hydroxide, the
>closest thing I could find (periodic table wise) to Lithium Hydroxide.  "A"
>means "No effect - Excellent".  But I guess there is Excellent and Excellent.
>In any case, that is why I used it.  But the next design will be Teflon, Pd,
>and Pt.

At the risk of repeating myself, the above is quite correct but it depends on
your point of view. Clearly, the stainless steel kitchenware we use does its
job. We have a set we bought when we got married in 1965, still perfectly good
(Norwegian). But it has undoubtedly been feeding us chromium all that time
(and Fe, Ni, Mo etc etc). From the point of view of the pots and pans, they
don't corrode, and would stand NaOH OK, too. In an electrochemical cell,
though, a few picomoles of these metals dissolving, that wouldn't even take
the shine off the metal, would settle on the cathode and gum up the works,
maybe. Or - like the unintended chromium supplement we've been getting - have
a beneficial effect, maybe, and quite unreproducible.
 Anyway, Tom, good luck with the new run. I'll remember that 35 mW error bar.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dieter Britz alias britz@kemi.aau.dk
Kemisk Institut, Aarhus Universitet, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: Hilarious Misspelling
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 19:21:37 GMT

To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG

I accidentally uploaded the funniest misspellings I have ever perpetrated in
my life:

"Let's ask the American Tabasco Association what they think of lung cancer
research."

I meant the American TOBACCO Association. Actually, honestly, I do not even
know if there is such an organization or not, but there has to be some kind of
Lobbying & Influence Peddling Association to keep Congress on it's toes. I am
sure they have a tough, thankless job too: imagine having to convince
lawmakers that your industry should be allowed to kill 300,000 people per year
with impunity. It must cost a pretty penny in payola and PR, but it is nothing
compared to the lawsuits they would face if they were held to ordinary legal
standards. Imagine how far the Bungee Jumping & Ultralight Association would
get if they tried try to ramp themselves up to killing, say, 10,000 people per
year.

Ah, me, when I re-read "Tabasco" I laughed until tears came into my eyes. What
would we do without automatic spell-check programs? Perhaps the American
Tabasco Association is campaigning against research into heartburn and Taste
Bud Devastation Syndrome.

- Jed


Distribution:
  >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: an1060@anon.penet.fi
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: SuperStrings
Date: 26 Dec 92 16:53:25 GMT
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: sci.physics.fusion

X-Anon-To: sci.physics.fusion

 
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From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: signal to noise (helium) reconsidered
Date: 20 Dec 92 17:14:07 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <BzFArB.JFu@world.std.com> mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>
 concerning the detection of helium-4 from CNF

>                 ....                        it becomes obvious that
> this is the same order of magnitude as there are helium-4 atoms in
> each cc of an open system.  This obviously offers serious
> difficulties in using that putative "ash" as a detector in an open
> system.

Which means it is obvious that you should not look for helium production 
from an open system ... which is not surprising since I know of no 
sensible scientist who would suggest such an experiment.  What you 
should be worrying about is the background in a well-designed experiment, 
not the kind of calculation everyone in the world did several years ago. 

I think Frank was pulling your leg with "easy" in his post.  I suspect 
he was talking in comparison to the measurement of neutrino elastic 
scattering or such commonplace experiments as the measurement of the 
polarization and energy of a neutron produced by a (p,n) reaction 
that has a relatively small cross section. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: aduncan@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (Allan Duncan)
Subject: Re: Cell Power Measurement 101
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 04:44:59 GMT

I have been watching this discussion on cell power measurement with
detached amusement, but finally feel moved to put in my oar:


From article <921216140317.20203489@FNALD.FNAL.GOV>, by ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE:
> I keep looking a photographs of supposed "cold fusion" cells and all I see
> is two clip leads. 
> 
> Folks, you have to have four leads to make a decent measurement.  (McKuber
> seems to do this right but have not seen any one else.)  Two leads carry 
> the current, two connected to the cell on the other side of the clip leads
> measure the potential across the cell.  These leads carry very small current.
> 
> There is lots more to worry about, but the above will likely get you a 1%
> measurement.  For more accuracy you have to take Cell Power Measurement 201,
> 301, 401, ... .  Sorry that is McKubre.

I hope that the distant pair of leads pass off through an ammeter (or
better still, a precision resistor and precision voltmeter) and that
people are not _inferring_ what the value of the resistance is while it
is not attached to an (inevitably non-precision) ohmmeter.  And while we
are considering potential sources of error, you _did_ use a CRO to check
that is _is_ DC that you are measuring, didn't you?

Power = Volts x Amps, folks.  And if it is varying quickly, keep that phase
info, you'll need it when you get precise enough.
Allan Duncan		ACSnet	 a.duncan@trl.oz
(+613) 253 6708		Internet a.duncan@trl.oz.au
Fax    253 6664		UUCP	 {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan
    Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
From: rauchfuss@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Brian Rauchfuss)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 16:41:51 GMT
Subject: Re: Cell Power Measurement 101
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion

In sci.physics.fusion, aduncan@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (Allan Duncan) writes:

> I hope that the distant pair of leads pass off through an ammeter (or
> better still, a precision resistor and precision voltmeter) and that
> people are not _inferring_ what the value of the resistance is while it
> is not attached to an (inevitably non-precision) ohmmeter.  And while we
> are considering potential sources of error, you _did_ use a CRO to check
> that is _is_ DC that you are measuring, didn't you?

Especially since the resistance is time-varying and (I think) non-linear, you
have to keep continuous current measurements.

> Allan Duncan		ACSnet	 a.duncan@trl.oz

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Rauchfuss (Smokefoot)  "... the world could change in the blink
brian@hpfcbdr.fc.hp.com           of an eye."
From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: The experimental basis of relativity
Date: 21 Dec 92 15:36:45 GMT
Reply-To: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <921218195256_72240.1256_EHL29-2@CompuServe.COM> Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com> writes:
>
>Thomas H. Kunich asks, "perhaps Rothwell would tell us what experiments
>Einstein performed to derive the special theory?"
>
>He did not perform them, Michelson and Morely did. He derived his theory from
>their experimental observations, and then verified aspects of the general
>theory for the first time with the observations of the solar eclipse in 1919

Both of you are wrong in assuming there was some inductive, experiment-based 
process for obtaining the special theory of relativity.  It is still a matter 
of dispute as to whether Einstein knew of the Michelson+Morley experiment 
(his auto-bio suggests not, but some letters suggest maybe), but it is clear 
he did not base his theory on this observation.  He based his theory on the 
question "what would light look like if I was traveling along side a light 
beam at the speed of light?" and the different answers he looked at. 

Einstein, like many theorists, did not trust experiments because they 
contain uncertainties and errors and their results change from time to 
time.  We do not have to look any further than the "Oops-Leon" particle 
that anticipated (to be polite) the discovery of the Upsilon, or the 
history of Polywater to find cases where data proved to be the results 
of experiments, and nothing more. 

>Now that CF experiments have shown that aneutronic nuclear reactions can occur
>in metal lattices, theories must be devised to explain this. Any theory that
>predicts that these reactions cannot occur must be discarded.

Umm, the experiments must show that they _do_ occur in metal lattices in such 
a way that no protons or gamma rays are released either.  I do not think any 
experiment has been done with sufficient controls to establish such a fact. 
There are claims of helium accompanying heat, but the amount of helium is not 
equal to that required to explain the heat, and the same experimenter sees 
heat without helium under other conditions.  Not very convincing.  

Numbers matter.  If I need a nuclear reaction releasing 20 TeV to the lattice 
for every helium, the solution is in the laboratory, not some theory.  If I 
need to find a source for 20 eV per helium, it could be atomic in origin 
and helium is being undercounted. 

--
J. A. Carr                                    |  "The New Frontier of which I  
jac@gw.scri.fsu.edu                           |  speak is not a set of promises
Florida State University  B-186               |  -- it is a set of challenges."
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute |   John F. Kennedy (15 July 60)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
From: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Subject: Measurement 101
Reply-To: ames!FNALD.FNAL.GOV!DROEGE
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 17:57:12 GMT

Yes, Brian Rauchfuss, the cell resistance is time varing, and temperature 
varying, and current varying, and ... .  And all not linear as Santa's 
reindeer's horns.  Yes, Allan Duncan, there is a scope on.  We try to think

correctly about power, as ExH.  But it is very hard to do it right, and 
whenever we are not humble we get bit!

Tom Droege
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion