From: Frank Close <FEC@v2.rl.ac.uk>
Subject:  cold not-fusion from alpha to zero
Reply-To: Frank Close <FEC@v2.rl.ac.uk>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 17:51:17 GMT





There has been much recent challenging of ``skeptics" to explain their
position regarding the (lack of) radiation from cold (not)-fusion cells.
These remarks were discussed at length earlier this year but new subscribers
probably are unaware of them and are rediscovering the wheel.

I refer here only to claims, such as recently made by Fleischmann and Pons,
that their cells produce over 100 watts of power for up to ten minutes.
This is equivalent to over 10**4joules.


When I pressed MF on this in August, he claimed that the energy was
due to dd fusion producing helium as the ``ash".
The following remarks refer to his claims and assume only energy conservation.

A proton or neutron's rest energy (mass) is roughly 1 GeV (10**3 MeV).
This is the maximum that could be released in ANY reaction involving a
single nucleon (in a real nuclear reaction the release is only a fraction of
this, which makes the following problems even worse).

10**4joules = 10**14Gev (orders of magnitude).
To release 10**14GeV with less than 1GeV available per neutron or proton
will require AT LEAST 10**14 reactions (more like
10**17 if nuclear binding energies rather than the full proton-neutron
mass energy were involved). The products of these 10**14 reactions
are either emitted from the cell or remain behind as ``ash". If a nuclear
reaction is responsible the products include nuclear particles (in
Fleischmanns case these would be 10**17 helium nuclei).
It is straightforward to look for nuclear products at this level. Indeed
anything above 10**5 should be relatively easy. Contrary to some statements
that have appeared on this net, there has been NO measured helium detected
at such a level.

There have been claims by Jed Rothwell's collaborator that this helium is
undetected because it escapes with an energy of 5GeV. Such a claim violates
energy conservation if the helium is produced by dd fusion since two deuterons
have a rest energy of (less than) 4GeV and so cannot produce 5GeV of anything.

As Dick Blue and others have pointed out it is easy to mistake helium
from the air for ``produced" helium. Indeed, in the front page of my book
I quoted Rutherford from 1932 who referred to this very example when he wrote
``In every case the observation of an element has been mistaken for its
creation". One way (among several) to test for the source of any helium
is by measuring the relative amounts of helium, argon and other elements
whose relative abundance in air is known. If you have an excess of helium
relative to these then you may eliminate air as the sole culprit.


I note too that I challenged Martin Fleischmann on the helium ash in August
and he agreed that measurements had to be done. However, as of last week,
all that was on view was the boiling cell. No helium has revealed itself
to explain the 100 watts for ``660 seconds". (BTW, the four cells shown on
video at the Royal Institution last week appeared to have different parameters
than the single cell reported in August, but the boiling time of 660 seconds
was the same. So either they have discovered a new form of precision time
piece or the 660 seconds is a measurement period within a longer period
of boiling. If the latter, then the phenomenon is even more incredible
and the amounts of unobserved helium, or mini black holes, even larger.)