Saturday, October 8, 2011

It’s a gas, man!

Paul D. Spudis, The Once and Future Moon


We really do need to take a closer look at the Moon.

Update:

I think this will be the last post of the day.  Thanks for coming by, I appreciate your support.  Tomorrow, I may have something to say about Wingo's book.  I have some more thoughts about the E-cat, too.  

Subscribed videos, 10/8/11

Mr T vs Mr Rogers. Epic Rap Battles of History #13



Banana Hobby Racing Teaser in HD!



Update: Had to include this one
Songify This: Reality Hits You Hard Bro

Better graph showing net energy from E-cat test of Oct. 6, 2011

Peswiki

You can see that the area under the curve for the "Potenza OUT"  ( output power) is greater than the area under the "Potenza Resistore" ( power resistor, input power to run the heater)  Or input power vs output power.  Time shift it toward the right and the whole curve will fit under the output curve.

http://imgur.com/a/iwZQ8

Update:
This video shows the apparatus in detail. It is now on YouTube. I saw this on Ny Teknik already, but it is also handy on YouTube now.

Basically, you can see where and how the delta t's were obtained for the graph above. Delta t, or change in temperature, is one of the data points needed to calculate the power. The other is the water flow, also shown as 600 liters per hr.


Rossi's appeal- a design "for the People"

Just saw this on Peswiki

http://www.journal-of-nuclear-physics.com/?p=510#comments

Frontier - Prelude To Darkness: Chapter 1

That name seemed familiar: Lewis Roscoe, who was interviewed by Tbone Pearson.  Tbone's creations include Spellfury.


Frontier - Prelude To Darkness: Chapter 1 from Lewis Roscoe on UnleashVideo

How To Make The World`s Most Delicious Pork Chops

Beer as an ingredient? Hmm.


How To Make The World`s Most Delicious Pork Chops from Jeremy Campbell on UnleashVideo

Limits to Growth-- Why?

This mode of thinking is what influences so much of what is going on today.  There are those who don't believe technology can solve our problems, so they aren't very interested in new technology, such as cold fusion.  Nor in space colonization.  Yet, it is these very things that may solve our problems, if we can break free from the shackles of this limiting mindset.

That's the focus of the book I am reading now.  It is written by Dennis Wingo and it is called "Moonrush".  It corresponds in spirit with Jerry Pournelle wrote about in his book, mentioned here.

All of this that I write about has a purpose.  You cannot do much good if you have no purpose to what you are doing.  The purpose here is to get people to change the way they think.  We can solve our problems.  The solutions are there.  We need only to reach out for them.

Photo on Facebook shows net energy production from E-cat test of 10/6/11

This corresponds well with what I posted yesterday. A glance at this input v output graph shows that the energy produced is greater than the energy consumed.

Power output exceeds power input = net power gain  click on the link to the left in order to see it on Facebook
Note: I use the term energy, the chart uses the term power.  It is only a slight semantic difference.  Words mean things, if you want to get hyper technical about it, but it doesn't change the conclusion.

Update:

I liked the Facebook page.  I suggest that you go there and like it too.  Look, the media won't cover this, so it is up to YOU to pass the word around.  Mention it to your Facebook friends.  Pass the word around.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Moonrush arrives

The latest book that I ordered. I want to read about it because it may have something about resources on the moon. I know all the rage in the E-cat world is the, er, E-cat, but I write about other things too. Thanks to all for your support. Time for me to go read my book. See you tomorrow!

E-cat news isn't hot

I checked Alexa's top twenty hot topics, and Ny Teknik, Cold Fusion, and Free Energy isn't on the list.

Perhaps somebody can come up with some other search words to use. I can't seem to be able to find anything.

This could be the story of the decade ( if not longer) and not a peep to be heard.

You'd think somebody would be just a little curious.

Philip DeFranco show- Steve Jobs

His question of the day is: Do you really want to be doing the thing that you are doing?

My answer is yes, but like everything else, it is only temporary.

A little closer look at those numbers

Pardon the lack of neatness here. I plugged in some numbers from that calculator I mentioned yesterday. It confirms my opinion that the E-cat was developing at least as much energy as it consumed just prior to going self sustaining. The period between 11:00 and 12:00 is not significant in terms of energy consumption. The period from 12:00 to 14:00 uses at most 5.4 kwh.    The period between 14:00 and 16:00 was producing energy at a rate that was roughly equal to consumption.  A slight excess can make up for the warm up period between 11 and 12.  That should leave us with a 5.4 kwh to make up in order to get to break even.

Given that it ran for 3.5 hours at a conservative estimate of 2 kwh, that means it has a slight surplus of about 1.6 kwh of energy production.  This doesn't count the cool down and is fairly conservative estimate.

It could have been ran longer in order to make it much more conclusive.  Unless there is a big error, I'd say it  doesn't look all bad.  

From 14:00 to 16:00

From 14:00 to 16:00 continued

E-cat and Gold, revisited

Well, the point of the first post was different from this one.  The first one assumed success, this one doesn't because that outcome isn't assured as of this writing.  There are those who are discouraged, but that reminds me of the movie I wrote about recently- The Treasure of Sierra Madre.  Here's the trailer for that movie, and I took a screen shot of the scene of interest to me.  In it, the old man had just found gold, but his partners were ready to give up.  The old man laughs at them because they think he is crazy.  But the old man was right, they were standing on top of a gold mine and didn't know it.

The old prospector laughs at his companions who are about to quit when they are standing on a gold mine.
Well, here's the trailer, if you're interested



The point? Don't give up!

NyTeknik: New test of the E-cat enhances proof of heat

video and story by Mats Lewan

plus a pdf of the raw data

excerpts:

  • At a new test in Bologna on Thursday, the ‘E-cat’ invented by Andrea Rossi ran in a completely stable self sustained mode for over three hours. Ny Teknik attended the test.
  • As in previous tests, the start-up was effected by heating the E-cat with an electrical resistor at about 2.7 kilowatts, this time for about four hours, in order to achieve, according to Rossi, sufficient stability.
  • By a conservative estimate, Ny Teknik calculated power output during self sustaining operation at two to three kilowatts.
  • The scientistis from the Unversity of Bologna who will do research on the E-cat on commission by Rossi attended the Thursday test; but it was not an official participation on the University's part, as the research project has not been launched yet
The numbers are little different from what was reported yesterday.  The length of self sustainment was 3.5 hours, as opposed to 4, for example.  It is not clear if the 2 to 3 kilowatt number is net energy, or if it is only the energy measured at the heat exchanger.

My impression is that it is a successful test.

Update:

There appears to be mixed reviews.   I took a closer look at the data.  It does in fact, appear to be self sustaining.   One observation:  without doing any calculations, my hunch is that it doesn't produce net energy until it goes into self sustain mode and a "frequency" device is activated.  That device puts energy into the system, but is multiplied, therefore it is definitely net energy from that point on.  Another thing:  I would have liked to have had the E-cat run awhile longer.  This is to dispel any doubts as to its net energy production.

Other questions may arise as to what the nature of the frequency device actually is.  Keep in mind though, that Rossi's device is said to produce copper from nickel.  Godes' device is said to produce helium.  That's a significant difference.

It would be interesting to go over all the data, if it becomes available.

Occupy Wall Street Could be Disaster for Democrats

Commentary.com Magazine: You know real change is upon us because the celebrity left has come together. Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons, Michael Moore, Roseanne Barr, Mark Ruffalo, Yoko Ono, and Alec Baldwin are speaking out. And when this many famous millionaires get preachy at the same time it can only mean one thing: they’ve had it up to [...]


comment: I don't know, but if Michael Moore is in on it, it must be bunk.

Psychotic Liberal Lawrence O’Donnell vs. Herman Cain – 10/6/11

Mofo Politics

comment:

I am noticing a strong tendency for liberals to ask a lot of hypothetical questions.  O'Donnell asked if he would fire anyone who said what Hank Williams Jr. said.  That's a hypothetical situation.  The fact is that Hank Williams Jr. isn't a politician, isn't advising nor serving on any political staff that I know of, and so the question has no relevance to anything political.  It has nothing to do with Herman Cain.  It is relevant as an issue between Williams and ESPN, but that is all- as far as firing is concerned.

The Republicans need to sharpen up a bit.

Peter Wehner

Obama’s Empty Threats: In the president’s press conference today, there were several things that stood out. Obama continued his compulsive need to blame others for his problems. He continued to make transparently untrue claims (such as implying that “every independent economist” agrees with his second stimulus package and insisting that the Solyndra decision was “made on the merits”). He [...]

Morning Summary, 10/7

Good morning.

An early scan of the E-cat news sources reveals nothing new yet.  Evidently, the excitement wore everybody out, eh?  Well, somebody is awake early.   I was expecting a flood of pictures, interviews, and the like. Maybe I am looking in the wrong place?  I will check back later, other things to do.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

How Predator Should Have Ended

This is another video ( actually another which about this one ) from my subscriptions.

I'll put the other one, which is new, below this one:




How It Should Have Ended: How Predator Should Have Ended Extra

Special Offer

Special Offer


If you try their service (for free) and like it, and become a paying customer, I can get a free membership. Look, I'm not selling anything. If you want to try this service ( investment advice for gold ), ask me. I'll get you access to their website.

A way to make a buck, or just amuse yourself, if that's your thing.

The Plan to Bring an Asteroid to Earth

Wired Science

Why Live In Small Habitat On Mars?

FuturePundit


Why go to Mars first? You can make your own world in an O'Neill type colony. Use the resources of the moon and build it. From these colonies, you can then spread out to wherever you want, including Mars.

Just clicked on E-cat news site

It looks like you can't get on.  Maybe their traffic is too high.  Just guessing.  I don't know what may be causing the trouble.  But I have no news myself.  No, I am just being patient here.  You can't make anything happen any faster than it going to happen.

That reminds me of something that happened once.  I was waiting for a machine to finish and somebody joked, "can you make it go any faster by watching it?"  No, of course not.  But sometimes you may feel like kicking the darn thing and make it speed up.  Just let it take its own course.  It'll get there.

Update:

Just got on.  I found a twitter link to raymond zreick.  It was in Italian, so I went to google translate and got an English version of that tweet:

We are in Bologna: Rossi, however, I was "recalled" the commitment we made ​​with him for being here. That is not to publish anything until tomorrow.

Sounds like a news blackout until the tests are completed.


Update:

According to Daniele Passerini, the E-cat ran 4 hours in self sustained mode, then was shut down as planned.  Looks good.

Update:

Nobody quote me on this.  I got a tweet that indicated the rate of temperature change and water flow, so I loaded up this calculator with the numbers and got this:
assuming no mistake, the E-cat produced 3.48 kw power--- this is given 5 deg C heat for .6 cubic meter water flow
 Again, don't quote me on this.  I don't do this for a living.

Update:
It looks like this number was obtained in self sustain mode.

Update:

My understanding is that it was at .6 cubic meter per hour, with a delta T (temperature) of 5 degrees Celsius.  That would mean about 14 kilowatt hours of energy production.  The reason I'm posting this is that some are saying different things based upon a total of .6 cubic meters in total, which is not my understanding.  The total number for 4 hours of self sustain is 2.4 cubic meters.  That makes a difference, yes?

"Why Conservative White Males Are More Likely to Be Climate Skeptics."

Althouse.: Headline on a NYT article about a study by sociology professor Aaron McCright, titled "Cool dudes: The denial of climate change among conse...

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  Here we have a story that falls in the latter category.  I'm a climate skeptic because I"ve looked at the data and it doesn't impress me.  Duh!!!

I didn't wake up one day and say, gee I'm a white guy, I need to protect the white male establishment.  Gotta be a climate skeptic now.  How absurd.

I don't judge things by skin color, especially science, but some people are obsessed with that notion.  It explains everything, except their own inability to explain anything, include "climate change".

Sarah Palin not running

Sarah Palin not running


I've said before that she shouldn't run.  Now she isn't.  Not that I dislike Palin, but because she hasn't found a way to overcome the opposition.  Besides, she said it is for her family, which is her business.  Some things are more important than fame, fortune, or power.

Betsy's Page: Cruising the Web

Betsy's Page: Cruising the Web: Michelle Malkins notes the juxtaposition of the sad passing of Steve Jobs and all that he did to enrich our lives with his products with th...

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

This was highly recommended, so I am posting it up here



Wozniak remembers his friend, Steve Jobs.

News:Real-Time Updates on the October 6, 2011 E-Cat Test

Present Status:

Hot link to Updates.

Stephen Hawking: The final frontier

COSMOS magazine September 2008

The human race has existed as a separate species for about two million years. Civilisation began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing. But, if the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Or, you can build your own new world at the Earth Moon Lagrangian points - L4 and L5. This reminds me of my series of posts on O'Neil Colonies.  The weakness in that idea was that it depended upon the Shuttle living up to its billing, which it didn't.  Let us hope that the Skylon can do what the Shuttle couldn't, as well as SpaceX's reusable rocket technologies.  If there was a way to get people and cargo into space at a reasonable rate and a reasonable price, O'Neill's ideas could become feasible.

Why look for worlds far away when you could build them close to home?  This does not preclude travel to other worlds, but could enable them by creating an economic beach head in space.  If the economics can't be made to work, it will never happen.  On the other hand, if the economics can be made to work, what could stop it?  Then Hawking's vision could be made into reality.

Green Airplanes fly 200 miles at over 100 mph and use half of one gallon of fuel per passenger

Next Big Future


Shoot, I didn't know about the competition. The Deltoid Pumpkinseed may have done that and more. It was built 40 years ago.

Morning Summary, 10/6

Good morning.

Today is the big day for the E-cat, Rossi's and Focardi's invention.  It may be long remembered, or it may not be.  We still have to wait and see.

The recent series about Pons and Fleischmann is the lead up to this day.  How did we get here, and where do we go from here?  The series got bogged down a little though, in the details of how cold fusion might actually work.  I hardly got into the details of how the thing might be exploited economically, should the test today be successful.  There was something awhile back, though.  Come to think of it, there are several posts in the Best of Rossi Focardi E-cat category.  Click on that label to find out what is hot.

A bit about my blog:  I notice that some blogs use tricks in order to get more pageviews.  They'll do automatic updates, which go way too fast.  I think that is to get more pageviews. That and other tricks to make you watch stuff that you don't want to see.  I won't do that.  I'll give you a heads up with an ad by using italics for a link.  If you don't want to see the ad, then don't click on that link.  In order to get more pageviews, I'll link inside this blog.  That serves the additional purpose of being a resource.  You can research things on this blog.  ( I do need to pay more attention to this though.  Sometimes I can't find stuff on my own blog.  How embarrassing.)

Anyway, while we wait today, I'll be posting other stuff, as usual.  Stay tuned.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Rice physicists move one step closer to quantum computer

Next Big Future


These kind of computers can be scary fast.

Time travel

Reminds me of Back to the Future. Maybe you see your parents when they were young. Hopefully your Mom doesn't get the hots for you and you zero yourself out because you cause yourself not to be born. Hey, time travel may not be all that it was cracked up to be.

U.S. stocks' massive "melt-up" fans investor fears

That's why I don't trust the markets anymore.  The moves don't make sense.

Fleischmann Pons IV

This is nothing like what I thought it may be, so I think I was on the wrong track.  I was thinking of an isotope of palladium, but the discussion that I mentioned in the morning summary was so different from that, it isn't even close.

Godes' ideas are somewhat like Kim's BECNF, but with important differences.  Kim's depends upon paramagnetism, which exists in nickel at a temperature known as the Curie temperature. This entails the formation of magnons, which are bosons that will allow the coulomb barrier to be negated via the Bose Einstein condensate.  On the other hand, Godes' depends upon phonons, which are introduced to help the reaction along- the Q energy, as he calls it.  The coulomb barrier does not come into play because these phonons enable the production of neutrons, which combine with deuterons to form an unstable form of hydrogen, which subsequently beta decays into helium.

Pardon the mistakes here, since I may have made a few, or more than a few.  The key point is that Godes' theory is LENR, whereas Kim's is cold fusion.  I cannot say which one is better, it is enough of a challenge for me to begin to understand this stuff.

This Week in Webseries - Episode 6 - Lewis Roscoe

Uploaded by tbonepearson

Racism!

Justice Thomas is black. They want to take away his vote retroactively. Isn't that racist? I mean, sauce for the goose. His rulings can't be as important as was painted on a rock.

Ohio the next boom state?

American Thinker


But a renaissance of prosperity and revival of manufacturing may be at hand, thanks to a happy combination of technology and natural resources.

The left doesn't want prosperity. They want to "spread the wealth". They will oppose anything like this with all their might.

Lawmaker calls on Democrats to condemn Rick Perry over offensive word

What are they so afraid of?


A word? It seems so ridiculous that I can't believe my own eyes and ears that these people are treating this with such importance.

Morning Summary, 10/5

Good morning.

It looks like another day of looking more deeply into the Cold Fusion Enigma.  This time, I'll look at Brillouin Energy's pdf on that work and see what I can learn there.  I've read some of it, and it appears to be interesting. By the way, I had a write up about this before.  However, I can't link to it now, as I can't find it!

I'll check back later today.

Update:
Here it is.
Update:
I've studied the pdf mentioned above. Godes' theory makes an allusion to BEC theory ( Bose Einstein Condensate) here:
page 7
and here:
Page 4
But I can't see how that fits in exactly with his theory, but the phonons are important.  It does appear to lend support to Kim's BECNF theory with respect to the Rossi Focardi E-cat.

That's all for now.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Is Herman Cain a Contender?

Barone
 "Unlike the incumbent," Henninger wrote, "Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead."

Still Front End of Recession

Larry Kudlow, RCP

excerpts:
  • new orders and order backlogs either flat-lined or declined and remain below 50 
  • falling weekly leading index that signals recession is inevitable
  • a huge confidence drop of 26 percent, from 88.3 last January to 65.6 through August
  • only 29 percent rate their finances as good or excellent
  • permanently higher tax rates on income to pay for temporarily lower tax rates on payrolls is not stimulus by anybody's definition
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.  Uh, recession.

Subscribed videos

A couple videos from Green Power Science on YouTube.

Zeer Pot-in-pot refrigerator higher humidity results


Flexible Solar Panel 230 watts to a Grid Tie Inverter Wiring

Cold Fusion Enigma, Secrets Remain--- Fleischmann Pons III

As I wrote earlier today, I wanted to study paramagnetism.  I thought that I may connect this up with BECNF, but instead of nickel, using palladium instead.  It occurred to me that an experiment might be set up, which tests the idea that transmutations could occur through beta decays, as indicated in a previous post.

As you can see, there are multiple links to other web pages.  I'd like to keep a record of where I've been today, so I'll be able to backtrack if I want to.

Naturally, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I began looking at what has already been done.  I consulted the video, Fire From Water, which is on the paranormaltvchannel YouTube channel.  I made several notes, and by the way, I've posted about this video before.  Reinventing the wheel happens sometimes anyway.

I have learned a few things from that video, so it is well worth watching over and over.  Here is what I was looking for:  Les Case's activated carbon catalyst for his palladium cold fusion device.  Unfortunately, Case died in 2010.  His device was checked by McKubre, who should be a familiar name for cold fusioneers.



There is also a mention in the video of CETI Patterson Power Cell.   It has nickel as well as palladium in it.

Now, Case's idea is more heat than electrolysis, as with Pons and Fleischmann's device.  It is rather like Rossi's device, which uses a catalyst with heat.

The trouble with Yeoung Kim's Bose Einstein condensate, is that it requires the property of paramagnetism, which is the case with palladium, but an electric current may negate that.  A way around that seems to have been to saturate the palladium with deuterium, then turn that off and use a catalyst plus heat to induce a cold fusion reaction.  Heat combined with a catalyst can bring about the conditions for a BECNF type reaction. Or so I am postulating here.  

Rossi's device doesn't use deuterium though.   Pons and Fleischman's did.  P&F claimed fusion of deuterium, but that is not the case with Rossi's device.  There are differences, but there are similarities.

 

Ig Nobel Prize

This one tickled my funny bone.  John Bockris, formerly of Texas A&M, was awarded one of these for his work on cold fusion.

They are more a of a joke than anything else, but some people can't take a joke.

Rhett and Link: Caption FAIL 2

Comment question: What was your favorite line?

News tidbits

Pee power: Urine-loving bug churns out space fuel
Scientists on Sunday said they had gained insights into a remarkable bacterium that lives without oxygen and transforms ammonium, the ingredient of urine, into hydrazine, a rocket fuel.

How Europe’s Crisis Can Tip U.S. into Recession

Herman Cain's '999 plan': long overdue tax reform or job killer?    Not everybody likes it, evidently.

Are Republicans anti-science?   Or, is it the Democrats?


 Which countries spend the highest percentage of their annual output on research and development?

 Marshall Eubanks and Michael Laine submit a Lunar Space Elevator proposal.

6 Rules From 6 Of The World's Top Investors   That's what I like, news you can use.

Morning Summary, 10/4

Good morning.

What to write about today?  Well, it may instructive to study magnetism with respect to the Fleischmann Pons cold fusion experiment.  It appears that Bose Einstein condensate theory may be applicable to the F&P apparatus.  Let's say that I'm willing to look at the idea for now.

The stock market was down yesterday.  Let's take a look at that too.

And politics is always with us.

Stay tuned, it could get interesting.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Abracadabra Steve Miller Band 1980's

Uploaded by videomonkey2009

Thanks for coming by, and have a great evening.

Cinemassacre's Monster Madness 2011 Day 3: Son of Frankenstein

I never did see the original.  You can recognize some scenes spoofed from it by Young Frankenstein.  Now that one, I've seen.  The narrator gives a good review of the movie.  Says it may be the best of the lot.

SKYLON RLV Technical - System Requirements Review

Fascinating concept. Something like this was being worked on in the US before switching to rockets in the early sixties. You have to wonder if they gave up too soon.

Yahoo Breakout: Holiday Look Ahead

Which Retailers Are Poised to Profit? - Brian Sozzi

As cold fusion events demonstrate, modern science is ruled by conformity, not the search for scientific truth

Posted by aksell on August 29, 2011

Outline
  • The systematic discrediting of cold fusion
  • A 30 percent success rate means it’s real
  • Modern science seeks to protect its interests, not to reveal truth
  • Ego is the enemy of science innovation

Too many people dropping the ball, so to speak.

Cold Fusion: How it works

Uploaded by BlackBoxTechnology

I'd like to find some detailed instructions.  The video is interesting, but it isn't as complete as I would like.  Not that I am actually going to try this myself.



Update:

Well, here some instructions by none other than Edmund Storms.

How to enrich Uranium - Periodic Table of Videos



I'm putting this up because I want to understand how enrichment works. If that can be used for palladium. Now that I've looked, the answer is probably no. If it is possible, it isn't worth the effort.

Fleischmann Pons, II

It appears that I was on the right track yesterday in one regard.  I put together this chart, which summarizes the reactions in a more succinct manner:

The reaction product is an unstable isotope of silver, it beta decays and transmutes back into palladium at 102, 104.  At 105, silver is stable, at higher masses, it transmutes into cadmium.


It appears that the reactions get more vigorous as you go down the chain.  That is to say, the energy produced per minute is higher because of the increasingly shorter half lives.

The calculation is derived by taking MeV per minute of the half life.   When less than a minute, it was converted to a fraction.  When greater than an hour, it was multiplied by 60 minutes to the hour.

As you can see, once we get to palladium 110, the energy production rapidly diminishes from the peak.  The peak is at 108, just before it.    You could still take out the 105 and 110 isotopes, and just use the rest.

It may well be that I was mistaken about the first isotope.  It it too slow and there isn't enough of it to make a difference.  However, if the best reaction at 108 is underrepresented, it could slow down the overall reaction (maybe).

This discussion leaves off the mechanism of how the fusion takes place, as well as many other details.  It is written as a thought experiment.  Perhaps a real one could be devised to test it.

Morning Summary, 10/3

Good morning. The discussion yesterday about Fleischmann-Pons was missing a few more details. Firstly, palladium is a noble metal, in the platinum group (pgm).  It is expensive.  Separating the many isotopes may be even more expensive.  Perhaps the additional costs and complexity may have discouraged this line of experiment.

I will post a little more on this subject today. Currently, I am reading a little about their experiment to see if I can confirm anything I've written so far.

Also, today, I may write a little more about Skylon.

The day is rapidly approaching for the E-cat's big test. I will keep up to speed on that.

As usual, it will be a busy day.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

SKYLON Spaceplane SSTO designer Alan Bond talks to Flight International

It's a little over a year old video, but testing is still underway. It will be interesting to study this for awhile.

Holloman High Speed Track - Then And Now

From John Paul Stapp's rocket sleds to supersonic Maglevs.

Great courage and sacrifice which pushed the envelope of knowledge about what the human body could take in terms of g forces.  

Tbone Pearson's latest video

Adult humor: Anal Probe

An extraterrestrial wants a guinea pig in order to do some scientific tests.


Anal Probe from Jeremy Campbell on UnleashVideo

Fleischmann Pons: What might have gone wrong

This is mostly a wild guess because I am not studying their work.  Instead, I'm speculating upon a few possibilities.  From what little I've read about their work, it looks like they may not have considered the possibility that the deuterons could be fusing with the palladium.  Secondly, the quality of the reactions may depend upon what isotopes were in the sample.  Thirdly, if they weren't looking for this, they may have been overlooking the evidence of this, as there should have been cadmium, if the fusions were taking place.

Let's look at the normal concentrations of palladium:
http://www.ncnr.nist.gov/resources/n-lengths/elements/pd.html
Over 50% of the palladium is the isotopes of 102 and 104 through 106.  Since a deuteron is of atomic mass approximately equal to 2, each fusion will move the atomic weight up by 2.  For example, a fusion of palladium 102 will yield silver 104, which can be seen as beta plus decaying below:
http://www.kcvs.ca/site/projects/physics_files/nucleus/decays.swf
 But this is only 1 percent of the palladium.  What about the rest?  It so happens that the rest of the chain does not proceed as well if you start with an isotope of greater mass.  Palladium 104 fused with deuterium yields the following:
slightly less energy from this beta plus decay
 Now, you are up to palladium 106, which is stable.   What happens if another fusion takes place? You will get mostly cadmium via beta minus decay, as follows:
This is still good, but cadmium doesn't like to cooperate any further, the chain stops here

We get no further benefit, as we can see from the isotopes of cadmium chart, no further beta decays are going to be available.  Cadmium 112, 114, and 116 just aren't going to be useful because they are stable, and the one isotope, 116 that isn't has a very long half life.

If we follow this chain, we get several good reactions, but it will have to stop with the production of cadmium.  However, this chain starts with an isotope that makes up only 1% of the total amount of palladium.  What happens if we start at some other isotope.  If we start at 104 and 106, we get a shorter version of this chain.

If we start with palladium 105, which makes up a significant portion of the sample, the reaction stops with the production of silver.  If palladium 105 is overrepresentative in the sample, the potential is reduced.  Likewise, if palladium 102 is underrepresentative, the potential is also reduced.

Palladium 110 doesn't do much good since it will end there at cadmium, as indicated above.  Very short chain.  That leaves palladium 108, which is shown below:
Back to cadmium, it the chain will end here

In summary, 102, 104, 106, and 108 all work, but you should start with 102, which is the most rare isotope.  I think that is the whole point.  The other chains are too short and most of the palladium isn't all that useful.  If you just start with 102, you will generate the rest of the chain in sequence.  Most of it isn't very good.  You can use it, but not for as much energy production as you may have wished for.

You could remove palladium 105 and 110 altogether since they don't help.  This makes up almost a third of the palladium in a normal sample.   Over 1/2 of the palladium gives short chains.

Low Energy Nuclear Revolution

I found this rich collection of information, including this video about the E-cat:

Morning Summary, 10/2

Good morning.  It seems like a good time to study Pons and Fleischmann a bit to see if there can be an explanation for why it gives inconsistent results.  Posting will be light until or if one can be found.  If there is, I will post it as an update.

Update:

I will have a post on this later, for sure.  Maybe today, or by tomorrow.