21–30 of 73 posts
So cold fusion was real after all? They've got both transmutation of elements and excess heat.
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If I read the abstract right, they did in fact have a control. They had the exact same palladium/silver mix in it, but didn't cycle D2, H2, or He in and out. It wound up with much fewer of the surprising elements.
Couldn't that be explained by the cycling introducing contamination (ie: along with the D2, H2, He it also brought in a few other atoms from the plumping or whatever)?
Detecting the presence of these transmuted elements should be much easier to replicate than trying to characterize "excess" heat, right? And the next step would be to try and find out what isotope of the transmuted elements was? Anyone know how much deuterium costs? https://thenewfire.files.wordpress.com/2020/10/nasa_transmut...
It depends. The transmuted elements could be viewed as contaminants while it'd be hard to explain away excess heat. There are so many sources of potential contamination. Random heat signatures not so much.
Heat is notoriously difficult to measure accurately, especially when small amounts are being produced or if the experiment runs over a long time.
Heat can also have many sources, some of which aren't expected by even highly experienced experimenters.
For example, hydrogen has spin isomers, and the conversion of orthohydrogen into parahydrogen releases energy.
Metals like palladium can also release surprising amounts of energy due to lattice or adsorption effects.
Graphite absorbs neutrons in reactors and can store sufficient energy in the lattice structure defects that it's a hazard if released too quickly.
Electrical interference can produce currents that are absorbed in the metal. Residual magnetic fields release energy if the metal is demagnetised. Etc...
Meanwhile, measuring the production of new elements is trivial, even in tiny amounts, and cannot possibly occur via only chemical processes. Crystal structure, phase transitions, external fields, etc... have no effect on this measurement. It is a simple, reliable, accurate measurement.
If you see a scientist insisting that you pay attention to the unreliable metric and waves his hands to explain why you should ignore the reliable metric then it's a safe bet that he's either fooling you, or he fooled himself.
Interesting trivia: AuPd alloys are used for coating insulating surfaces with ~10 nm thick layer to make the surface conductive with small metallic grains to do high resolution scanning electron microscopy.
https://ravescientific.com/education/37-proper-target-materi...
This particular % is not typically used (60/40 or 80/20 is), but it is close.
"International Journey of Hydrogen Energy"? Is this a real thing?
Yes, it is an Elsevier journal. Specifically, it is not one of the citation mill fake journals which will publish anything.
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I really think cold fusion is a prank. Like when my dad would send me out to buy "headlight fluid" just to mess with me.
I think it's like trying to prove P = NP. Maybe it's technically possible, but no one in their right mind thinks it's going to happen.
I guess maybe it does seeing as how I got downvoted? Presumably by amazing scientists who have developed cold fusion technology? Or at least have a theory of how it could happen in our universe?
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I think it's like trying to prove P = NP. Maybe it's technically possible, but no one in their right mind thinks it's going to happen.
As far as I can tell, the only reason cold fusion is even a thing is because someone published a paper that has never been reproduced. P=NP is at least possible: it has to be true or untrue. I'm not even sure if our current understand of physics even supports cold fusion. I guess maybe it does seeing as how I got downvoted? Presumably by amazing scientists who have developed cold fusion technology? Or at least have a…
Maybe the universe is trying to balance out the cosmic 2020 scale.