Cold Fusion is back

She says this a lot in this video: "there's just one problem". There's always a problem until there isn't one. Whatever THAT is supposed to mean. Here's an attempt: "things will work out eventually". There's just one problem with that: what if it doesn't? Then don't worry about it.

Cold fusion - Fire from water - Documentary - Full length

Work still continues on this phenomenon.   Maybe one of these days...

What is considered "backward" may be the way forward

Ironic, isn't it?

Look, if nobody knows how to take care of themselves, what happens when the state fails in that responsibility?  It has failed before, like on 9-11.  The state can't take care of you and won't take care of you.  They are more concerned about themselves than about the sheep that they are supposedly taking care of.

So, a community of people, like the Amish, are going to have to learn the very basics of survival off the grid.  Only, the Amish are not the type of people that can fend for themselves either, as they don't seem to believe in self defense.

However, the Amish have it right in one respect:  they don't rely upon the big brotherish state to provide for them.  They can take care of themselves, just don't expect them to start a revolution or anything.

Anti-Gravity / Cold Fusion Explained In Detail ( follow up )

What got my attention and piqued my curiosity was the anti-gravity, not the cold fusion.  Not that I've dismissed cold fusion any.  No, at the time, I had other fish to fry.

That page has over 20 videos that do indeed explain the theory in detail.  But there's little mention of anti-gravity.  It is mostly a basic physics tutorial, if you wish to characterize that way ( and I do ).

For me, some of the information is new.  My background wasn't physics.  Mind you, it is introductory stuff and it is elementary enough that a reasonably motivated and intelligent person can understand it.  It is not too esoteric, but for someone like me, I ran into information overload.  It is an entirely new language.  You have to go over it a few times before you can grasp the lingo.  At least, that is true for me.

Anyway, that's what I've been doing for the last part of yesterday and early this morning.  Taking in these videos.

I wonder how many people are willing to stick with it long enough to finish?  At this writing, I have just one more left.

Frank Znidarsic: Quantum Transition, Cold Fusion, and Antigravity

link courtesy of ecat now

comment:

Anti-gravity?  How interesting.  Also, there seems to be something here about BEC.

Interesting discussion at 21:30.  BEC's are mentioned.  You can get a summary of the video here.

Dr. Michael McKubre: Experimental Cold Fusion, Nonsense Skepticism, and Progressing LENR

link through E-cat now  Cold Fusion Now

Update and Comments:

"A surface phenomenon."  50:50 into the video.  I should also point out that he says it happens at "nano cracks".  Question:  What does the phenomenon have to do with cracks?  A possible answer is that it produces more surface area!

Evidence that LENR (aka cold fusion) is real [Updated-2013-08-04]

LENR News

comment:

Got this link from a comment.  Interesting read.

Is Cold Fusion Entering the Final Stages?

Free Republic

comment:

I linked to the Free Republic site because I got the link from there and there's a guy on that site that keeps pumping this.

As far as cold fusion is concerned, it's time to poop or get off the pot.  The arguments for and against are silly.

Next Big Future: Rossi LENR convinces some but many are not convinc...

Next Big Future: Rossi LENR convinces some but many are not convinc...: Jed Rothwell gives a positive review of the Hot Cat third party test paper These people think and write like engineers rather than scient...

comment:

Geez.  I don't know if I want to step into that controversy again.  If Rossi really wanted to convince everybody, he'd make a test that nobody could criticize, but there are those who are criticizing it.

Rossi may want some controversy.  It gets people talking about him.  But it doesn't answer the questions, now does it?

Listening to Space Show broadcast replays

Currently listening to John Hunter, who was on the show on Feb 18 this year.

Brings everybody up to date on what he's doing.  Hunter was working on the gas gun concept, but he's doing so other stuff for now.

Other broadcasts I downloaded included John S. Lewis of Mining the Sky, John Powell of JP Aerospace and some others.


Update:

Finished Hunter's rebroadcast, now listening to John S. Lewis.

Gave me an idea of using Hunter's gas gun as a propulsion device on a asteroid using the asteroid's own materials. The solids that are least usable can be used as propellant, keeping the hydrogen.

Update:

Now I am listening to Edmund Storms, who is well-known to those who follow cold fusion.  My thoughts on that is that our problem is systemic with respect to developing new ideas like this.  Our prognosis is not good because of this.  That's what's been driving my pessimism lately.

We have a system that follows self-interest to an extreme.  Governments and other large organizations pretend to serve the public interest, but they don't really.

Update:

Part 1 of a series, Part 2 is here.

Mitsubishi Reports Toyota Replication [of Iwamura's LENR transmutation of elements]

New Energy Times via Free Republic

The physicist, Yasuhiro Iwamura, told the ANS audience that the Toyota researchers confirmed that nuclear changes from one element to another took place without the use of high-energy nuclear physics. Most scientists who have not followed this field closely consider such profound claims inconceivable. Toyota used a LENR deuterium-permeation transmutation method that Iwamura invented.

Comment:

I've almost forgotten about cold fusion.  Despite all of the skepticism about cold fusion, there simply isn't explanation for why stories like this pop up from time to time.  There must be something there that is getting suppressed.  The powers that be just don't want to have their rice bowls overturned.

Big Idea: Bring Back the "Cold Fusion" Dream

discover magazine via Instapundit

So far, Larsen still has only a theory and some circumstantial evidence. But if LENRs could be proved and tamed—a very big if—the effect could be transformative. Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA Langley, wrote in an online article that LENRs could potentially satisfy the world’s energy needs at a quarter the cost of coal.

Comment:

Who cares what it is called?  Or how it works?  Imagine forcing the lights to be turned off because no one had a theory for electricity, nor knew how light bulbs worked.

Gary Taubes

Is Taubes one of the snakes that Rossi was referring to?

Taubes has a new book out about dieting and weight loss.  The idea was interesting, but I didn't connect the name to the cold fusion debate that occurred in the eighties.  Looks like he's the same guy who insinuated that John Bockris of Texas A&M  spiked the results with tritium.

Sidebar:

I'm having a lot of trouble with my computers this morning.  I'm trying to source material out there on the web and the computer just won't cooperate.  Therefore, my posts are not as thorough as I'd like them to be.

The above post will have to be shortened because of this.  I regret that very much.

Engineers Unveil First Casimir Chip That Exploits The Vacuum Energy

Technology Review via Instapundit

Excerpts:

• One of the strangest effects to arise from the quantum nature of the universe is the Casimir force.
• This pushes two parallel conducting plates together when they are just a few dozen nanometres apart. 
• many engineers hope to exploit the Casimir force
• But there is a problem: Casimir force experiments are extremely hard to do.
• Today, Jie Zou at the University of Florida and a few buddies take a big step towards changing this.

Comment:

The first time I heard of Casmir force was when I read one of  John G. Cramer's  Alternate View columns.  Re-reading that column on Casimir force was bizarre.  He was talking about making a faster than light spacecraft using such a device.  Wild idea.

There may be all kinds of explanations for unusual phenomena that occurs due to quantum effects.  One of these may well unlock the mystery behind the phenomena known as cold fusion.

LENR and the Paradigm of Abundance

coldfusionnow h/t pesn

quote:

In particular, there is a new clean, very very cheap, and super abundant energy technology emerging called “Low Energy Nuclear Reaction” (LENR for short). It uses hydrogen and nickel to produce heat. No nuclear materials are used for fuel, and none are produced.

Comment:

There's a lot here for me to agree with.  However, I'm an "all of the above" type on energy.  That means I also favor LFTRs, which may not be in tune with certain folks who don't like fission of any sort.  The trouble is, these cold fusion technologies are not moving with the speed necessary, and LFTRs are already been proven in the lab.  LFTR tech only requires commercialization.  LFTRs are a 300 fold improvement on waste and can be as economical as coal.

I'm all for LENR.  I just think its time may not have come yet.  I'd be very happy to be wrong about that.

Kardashevian Aspirations: MIT suggests new physical model for condensed matt...

Kardashevian Aspirations: MIT suggests new physical model for condensed matt...: Free Republic There's a link to a pdf , if you're interested. From the comments, there's this excerpt: Abstract. Motivated by many ob...

Pesn: E-Cat Weekly January 12 : Edmund Storms

TheSpaceShow (mp3 link): January 8, 2011


Comment:


As is usually the case, whenever there is a bit of controversy, there'll be some challenging calls.  Such was the case for this show as well.

The one that stuck out for me was when Charles called and mentioned the gamma ray issue.  There is one thing that's very clear now.  There aren't any gamma rays being produced by Rossi's device.  The reason that you know this is because of the demonstrations shown on video.  If there were any gamma rays, there'd be a lot more caution about being in the room with this device.  The amount of gamma rays expected should be enough to make everyone sick, or worse.

 Dr. Storms mentioned that there would be a Nobel Prize waiting for anyone who could figure out how the energy gets out of the system.  How then energy gets out indeed!

The question encourages me to think about E-cat again, which I haven't been doing recently.

The idea that sticks with me is that the phenomenon could be about waves.  A gamma ray is just a wave.  All matter and energy in the universe is particles and waves.  And there is this phenomenon known as as  wave  particle duality:

Wave–particle duality postulates that all particles exhibit both wave and particle properties.

Particles can act as waves, waves can act as particles.

So, as a bit of speculation, I wonder if the explanation could be related to that.  Both of the explanations necessary- one for overcoming the coulomb barrier and the other for the lack of gamma rays- could be explained by wave particle duality.  For the former, I favor the BECNF Theory of Y. Kim of Purdue.  But Kim doesn't provide any theory for the lack of gamma rays, only for overcoming the coulomb barrier. Bose-Einstein condensates overcome the coulomb barrier by the quantum effects of waves.  Could the wave particle duality explain the lack of gamma rays?

Gamma rays are a problem because of the need for shielding.  Neutrons and alpha particles can be shielded more easily.  Gamma rays- not so easy.  In the case of Rossi's device, the main problem is the lack of gamma rays.  There should be some if fusion is taking place.  This is the crux of the problem, or controversy.

It isn't just a matter of shielding in the case of the E-cat.  It is the most probable situation that there are no gamma rays being produced at all.  But how can there be any fusion if there are no gamma rays?

Let me repeat here that BECNF explains the coulomb barrier and some other type of wave explains the lack of gamma rays.  The latter speculation may be preposterous, but who knows?  I haven't gotten any further ideas on the matter.  Perhaps someone else could.

Note:

Cross posted on Kardashevian Aspirations.  Update:  If I add any new material to this post, it will be on the other blog.  Any new and separate posts will originate here, as usual.

Smalley Institutes' Grand Challenges

I wanted to write about War, well I found this link in the Wikipedia.  If I didn't know any better, this could have been written by me:

Top Ten Problems Facing Humanity Over the Next 50 Years

1. Energy
2. Water
3. Food
4. Environment
5. Poverty
6. Terrorism & War
7. Disease
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Population

If the E-cat were to be effective, wouldn't it make sense to get it into mass production as soon as possible?  If it had a patent, wouldn't it be easier to determine if it is indeed effective?  This problem doesn't need a lot of money to solve, just somebody willing to take it on.

Next Big Future posts on cold fusion

Brian Ahern talk on Energy Localization and Nanomagnetism as explanation for LENR/Cold Fusion

quote:

Cold Fusion in bulk, macroscopic systems is controlled by the overlap of the vibrational modes of the dissolved deuterium nuclei.

Comment:
Once again, something that may be analogous to a "wave" gets connected to cold fusion. It may have little connection to this presentation, just an observation of mine.   Here's another observation just now:  "an overlap" of vibrational modes.  Question:  could these act like BEC's?

Magnetization textures in NiPd nanostructures

quote:

The NIST work further confirms the Brian Ahern theory that nanomagnetism plays an important part in low energy assisted nuclear reactions. The nickel and palladium electrodes used in many cold fusion experiments would have this nanomagnetic behavior.

Comment:
But magnetism is not a part of the BECNF theory.  Palladium is paramagnetic, while nickel is paragmagnetic above the Curie point.  This appears to be something of a contradiction.  But this isn't BECNF theory, it is another theory altogether.  BECNF is my speculation in this instance.

Cold fusion confusion

My latest study was of the muon catalyzed fusion and it appears to me to be somewhat doubtful proposition for commercialization.  The reason being that producing the muons is a bit of a challenge.  In fact, that is indeed the problem in a nutshell.  If muons could be produced in quantity and at low cost, this type of fusion would be feasible.  This has known that for decades, however.  It doesn't make sense to withhold that invention, should economical muon production had been achieved.  It is not like cold fusion, in that the science is pretty much mainstream.   You can't get a patent for cold fusion devices in the US, but you could get one for muon production, provided that you can prove it.

The thought that cold fusion is impossible is a bit of a semantic argument.  If muon catalyzed fusion is possible, it is already "cold" because it can take place at room temperature.  Maybe even below room temperature.  Therefore, the problem is in the semantics, not the facts.  Cold fusion is possible in this instance.  The question should be this: is there some other way around the coulomb barrier?  Somebody has thought of a way- or should I say many people have thought of ways in which this might be accomplished.  Yet, for some reason, mainstream science doesn't even want to consider the possibility of cold fusion.   How do you resolve this contradiction?  Perhaps you can start by agreeing upon a definition of what cold fusion actually is.

Being somewhat more careful than average about word meanings, if I am not sure about what the word means, I'll go look it up.  Okay, so let's do that for cold fusion and see what's out there:

Wikipedia isn't too sure about it, so there's a disambiguation page to clarify it.  Cold fusion seems to have more meanings than the ones I usually think of.  My understanding of cold fusion relates to the science.  But there are other meanings, which are not anything like the science.  Let's not go there and just stick with the scientific meaning. 

Even there, the wiki has four different meanings

1. The low temperature low energy type usually associated with Fleischmann and Pons
2. Muon catalyzed fusion
3. Pyroelectric fusion , which is something I've never heard of before
4.  Nuclear fusion at high energies  [ comment: that doesn't exactly qualify, does it?  It does break down this further into something called "generally cold but locally hot fusion"]

 The most controversial one is no doubt the first one.  The others seem to be well within the bounds of mainstream science.

A lot of the confusion seems to have started with a misunderstanding between Fleischmann and Jones at the time that they had agreed upon a joint submission for publication of their respective work.   Jones was working on muon catalyzed fusion:

"Cold nuclear fusion" that had been published in Scientific American in July 1987

Perhaps the confusion and controversy could have been avoided if the agreement had been kept.   It would seem that the whole thing deteriorated from that point on until "cold fusion" became known as a pathological science.  Any scientist caught working on this could be punished.

The curious thing about it all was that there were anomalies which should have been a good enough reason for continued study.  The unfortunate thing about it was that this continued "pathological scientific research" had to continue under a cloud of controversy.  The controversy continues to this very day.  Shouldn't the cold fusion confusion be laid to rest?