1995.07.31 / Mitchell Jones /  Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
     
Originally-From: 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 11:54:25 -0500
Organization: 21st Century Logic

In article <browe-2807952117220001@192.0.2.1>, browe@netcom.com (Bill
Rowe) wrote:

> In article <21cenlogic-2707951341040001@austin-1-5.i-link.net>,
> 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) wrote:
> 
> [ skipped ]
> 
> >Here is my message for you, Bob: since you claim that discussions of
> >gravitation are irrelevant, I take it that you know what the proper
> >explanation of "cold fusion" is, and that it lies outside the framework of
> >gravitaitonal theory. Therefore, please enlighten the rest of us. Tell us
> >what is going on here, in this so called "cold fusion" area, and explain
> >it with crystal clarity and total lack of ambiguity, so that we can be
> >absolutely sure that gravitational theory has nothing to do with it. Once
> >you have done that, then we will all in unison shout "Get a rope!" and we
> >will go out and hang the "off charter" offenders from the nearest tree!
> >And, of course, if you fail to produce such an explanation, then we will
> >have to hang you instead!
> 
> Let me see if I understand your logic. 

***{You don't. We discussed all this at length via e-mail, and agreed to
disagree. Remember? --Mitchell Jones}***

Since I don't have a model for CF,
> I can't show any subject I care to discuss isn't related to CF. Therefore
> I should feel free to discuss that subject here on the possiblity it might
> be related to CF. Should I now begin a thread on my vacation plans? 

***{Bill, there is a large continuum of knowledge which lies outside the
area which is subject to formal proof. Not very long ago, for example,
there was a ZPF thread in this newsgroup. It was started by Scott Little,
if memory serves. Now, given the absence of a clear-cut rationale
explaining CF, the relevance of that thread was unclear. In the future,
when this field is well understood, it will be known whether ZPF was
relevant. Today, however, the connection is made intuitively, not
logically. To Scott and the various other participants in the ZPF thread,
it seemed intuitively plausible that there was a connection between ZPF
and "cold fusion." Nobody, so far as I recall, complained that they were
off topic. Even those who intuitively felt that ZPF was irrelevant let the
matter pass. Why? Precisely because it was clear that Scott and the others
were making a good faith attempt to be on topic. If those of us who
thought ZPF to be irrelevant had posted gripes that accused them of being
"off charter," we would have been, in essence, demanding that they submit
to our intuitive feelings rather than their own. Such a demand would have
been both irrational and an instance of bad manners. And that is precisely
why I object to Bob Heeter's griping about the gravitational thread: it
isn't clear that it is off topic. The explanation of CF, when it emerges,
may very well relate to gravitational theory. Thus it is fully as
appropriate to discuss it here as to discuss ZPF. If Bob Heeter's
intuition tells him that the true explanation of CF does not lie in that
area, then he should simply skip that thread. To gripe about the fact that
other's have a different intuition than he, and to demand that they limit
their discussions to areas which his intuition says are appropriate, is
authoritarian in the extreme, and also an instance of mind-bogglingly bad
manners. As for your proposal to begin a thread about your vacation plans,
the answer is obvious: nobody's judgment/intuition is so pathetic that
they would think your vacation plans may contain the ultimate explanation
of CF. Thus if you were to start such a thread, it would be crystal clear
to everyone that you were not making a good faith attempt to post on
topic, and it would be appropriate for others to complain to your access
provider. You would be warned and, if you persisted in your misbehavior,
it is likely that your access would be terminated. 

The point, then, is this: so long as a good faith attempt is being made by
an individual to post on topic, he should not be harassed. To gripe about
the fact that another person has a different intuition than you in what is
obviously a complex matter of opinion, is an instance of appallingly bad
manners. All it does is touch off a flame war between would-be censors
(face it: only would be censors demand that their intuitions should
control the speech of others) and those who believe in freedom of speech.
We have already had such a flame war about the Wallace postings. Both
sides have had their say, ad nauseam, and no purpose is served by stirring
the whole thing up again vis-a-vis the gravitational thread. Bottom line:
if your intuition tells you that the true explanation of CF does not lie
in the area of gravitational theory, then simply don't read that thread.
Show some tolerance, however, of others whose intuitive reactions are
different from yours. Live and let live. --Mitchell Jones}***
   
> you say it needs to have something to do with physics. Ok, how about a
> discussion of semiconductor surface states.

***{The key point, to repeat, is this: as long as the person posting the
material is making a good faith attempt to post on topic, even if you do
not agree with his judgment, you should restrain yourself from griping
about it, and leave him the hell alone. Complaints of the sort made by
Heeter are justified only in cases where it is crystal clear that no such
good faith attempt is being made. Your vacation plans, as already noted,
are a perfect example: if you posted them, you would be consciously,
deliberately, posting off topic, and complaints would be justified. But
those who post about gravitation, or ZPF, or about the Griggs device,
etc., are not deliberately posting off topic: their intuitions say that
these subjects may be connected to CF. Leave them be. Read the threads
that your intuition says are relevant, and let others do likewise. Accept
the fact that, if others are to be free to read material which their
intuition says is relevant, even when their intuition differs from yours,
then threads must exist which contain material which you consider to be
irrelevant. Accept the existence of such threads, stop griping, and move
on. --Mitchell Jones}*** 
> 
> Just perhaps, as a matter of courtesy, I should at least mention the word
> fusion or even better state why I think semiconductor surface states or my
> vacation plans have something to do with CF.
> 
> Note I also restricted the follow up line to sci.physics.fusion in keeping
> with the spirit of reducing cross-posting.
> -- 
> William Rowe                                                  
browe@netcom.com
> MD5OfPublicKey: F29A99C805B41838D9240AEE28EBF383

***{Bill, you consider yourself to be a wonderful, sterling example of a
human being. However, you have at least one flaw: you demand that the
posting behavior of others conform to your intuitive judgment of what is
and is not relevant. As such, you are authoritarian to the bone: a
would-be censor who simply cannot begin to comprehend why anyone's speech
should take a form not approved by him, save through a deliberate,
malevolent intent to disrupt. And that is amazing: you really do not
comprehend that people differ in terms of their intuitive judgments, do
you? You really think that, because your intuition says gravitational
theory is irrelevant to CF, then everybody else's intuition says that
also! Therefore, you conclude, those who post to the gravitational thread
are being deliberately disruptive and "off charter," just as surely as if
they were posting their vacation plans! Wow! Well, buddy, I don't know
what else to say to you. I've tried to explain this to you a hundred
different ways, via postings and via e-mail, but somehow you never seem to
get it. Could be be, perhaps, that you don't *want* to get it? Could it be
that when you are on the verge of understanding what I am saying, some
sort of fear rises up out of your subconscious--fear of recognizing,
perhaps, that you are in fact a censorious, controlling, intolerant type
of person--and causes you to recoil from that understanding? Think about
it. --Mitchell Jones}***

===========================================================
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Mahipal Virdy /  Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
     
Originally-From: virdy@pogo.den.mmc.com (Mahipal Singh Virdy)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,alt.sci.physics.new-theories,sci.astro,
ci.energy,sci.misc,sci.physics,sci.physics.electromag,sci.physics.fusion
sci.physics.particle,sci.research,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 16:00:33 GMT
Organization: Martin Marietta Astronautics

In article <3vah0a$9ol@ixnews7.ix.netcom.com>,
Tom Potter  <tdp@ix.netcom.com> wrote:

[snip..]
>
>>Nobody cares what you BELIEVE or how much,
>
>You are wrong again, oh blind one.
>My children, my grandchildren 
>and most of my family and friends
>care about what I believe.
>

Do you usually hace access to your friends, family, children, ...
through sci.*? What, they won't listen to you directly either? ;-)

We all have BELIEFS, Uncle Tom. Beliefs hardly qualify as science.
That's what I MEANT when referring to nobody caring for yours
personally. BTW, I don't speak for anybody but me.

[snip..]

>
>Are you trying to draw aid to your support?
>

I don't need a Clique.

>>|meforce>
>
>Mahipal, as usual, you are grasping at straws.
>
>I try to give people what they are asking for.
>If they ask for a pleasant exchange, I try to please.
>If they ask for an intellectual exchange, I try to please.
>If they ask for an exchange of flame by posting subtle or
>not so subtle insults, I try to please.
>
>You are the one, in these forums, who has proved his
>ignorant of physics with your continued insistence that
>"the Earth orbits the Sun".
>This is not physics,
>This is a niavee subjective perception of physics.
>
>May the "|meforce" be with you,
>and the bird of paradise fly up your nose.
>
  That's |meforce>... Dirac, P.A.M.

  If I were you, I'd very much HIDE the kind of interaction you've had
  with sci.* from my friends and great great grandchildren as well.

  Your true colors are quite clear to me now. You don't have a CLUE.

I guess you can have the last word with your followup insult. How FUN!
:-(

Mahipal,
<me> alwa(y)s changeZ


cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Jim Carr /  Re: extrapolation
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: extrapolation
Date: 31 Jul 1995 13:53:25 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

|jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
|
|>It also does not make them wrong.  The more important of these variations
|>takes note of the fact that those extrapolations proved reasonably correct 
|>when they were used to predict muon-catalyzed fusion rates.  This variation 
|>was then used to predict piezo-nuclear fusion in a refereed publication 
|>by van Siclen and Jones, a result that led to the CF experiments by Jones. 

In article <3v9n8i$6ko@huxley.anu.edu.au> 
drd851@huxley.anu.edu.au (David R Davies) writes:
>
>I am scattering my argument among different streams here but to consolidate
>a little, the main distinction that comes to my mind between the examples 
>you list above and a Pd-CF situation is that your examples bring two quantum
>systems together that are not coherent and force them to merge over a relatively
>short time frame (small fractions of a second) whereas there is a possibility
>that in the xtal matrix the reacting nuclei are able to be part of an extended
>and coherent ensemble of particles for periods of seconds or much longer.

The work I refer to above takes confinement time into account. 

There were speculations about coherent nuclear effects, but the problem 
in doing that is the extreme difficulty in bridgeing the 10^4 scale 
difference between atomic and nuclear dimensions and energies as well 
as the very short range of the forces in nuclei.  Coherent effects 
in materials are easy to come by because the forces that are strong 
enough to affect structure are of long range. 

>The Moesbauer effect has been used as an example to demonstrate the sort of
>ensemble behaviour that is possible in a crystal lattice.  

It has also been used to point out the special conditions that have to 
be met to couple to that lattice.  One of those is a low energy decay. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | is also the British Olympic training  
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | site.  Why?  Dewpoint of 73-81 F. 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | Normal Hi/Lo: 92/71 
Record: 102/67               
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenjac cudfnJim cudlnCarr cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Mitchell Jones /  Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
     
Originally-From: 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 12:44:19 -0500
Organization: 21st Century Logic

In article <3vdg9q$irk@cnn.Princeton.EDU>, Robert F. Heeter
<rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu> wrote:

> In article <3v5a9i$7cn@ixnews4.ix.netcom.com> Tom Potter,
> tdp@ix.netcom.com writes:
> >In <3un2bs$h0c@cnn.Princeton.EDU> Robert F. Heeter
><rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu> writes: 
> >
> >>All this is very interesting, but it does not belong in
> >>sci.physics.fusion.  We all know where to find this info
> >>and there's no need to waste bandwidth with superfluous
> >>crossposting.  Please show a little more respect for
> >>the rest of us on the internet.
> 
> >All this is very interesting, but it does not belong in ANY forum.
> 
> On the contrary, I think discussions *about* newsgroup charters,
> and which topics are within a given charter, is a valid subject
> for discussion.

***{Bob, you miss the point. Discussions about a newsgroup charter are
certainly appropriate to the forum to which the charter applies, but
demands that others conform to your intuitive view of what is relevant to
the charter are *never* appropriate. And that is precisely what you did:
you posted a gripe that was based on your intuitive judgment that
gravitational theory is irrelevant to CF. You simply assume that everybody
else agrees with your intuitive judgment, and that, therefore, those who
post to the gravitational thread are malevolent, deliberately disruptive,
and deserving of condemnation. But that is wrong. They think their
material is relevant based on their intuition/judgment. There is no reason
for you to conclude that they are malevolent in their intent, which is
what you imply when you declare, ipse dixit, that they are "off charter."
It is this implication which threatens to provoke a "flame war," not the
formal tone of your post. We have already had a lengthy flame war about
the Wallace posts. Both sides had their say and, mercifully, it is over.
And now you are trying to stir it all up again. But why? Do you really
think that you are smarter than all the other guys who tried to argue this
case before, and that you can win the argument which they lost? Do you
really want to paint a target on yourself and step in front of this
particular firing line? Think about it. --Mitchell Jones}***    
> 
> >If you have an objection with ANY post by ANY individual in ANY forum,
> >you will save bandwidth and superfluous crossposting by emailing the
> >individual rather than cluttering up forums with this nonesense.
> 
> This is true for small numbers of postings by single individuals;
> however, the abuse of netiquette was so vast in this case that I
> felt a counter-post would be worthwhile.

***{YOU are the abuser of "netiquette," Bob. By griping about Tom's post
and characterizing it as "off charter," you implicitly demand that he
conform to your intuitive judgment of what is relevant, rather than to his
own. That is authoritarian, censorious, and an instance of extremely bad
manners. You have not a shred of a basis for concluding that he is not
posting in good faith, and you should simply skip his posts and move on.
Instead, you have started another flame war. --Mitchell Jones}*** 
> 
> >At least the original posters on this subject were discussing science.
> >You are simply expressing a childish opinion.
> 
> Yes, and now you know how the rest of us feel when you continue
> to allow your completely irrelevant threads to be crossposted
> to sci.physics.fusion.  

***{To repeat: it is your intuitive judgment, Bob, that Tom's thread is
irrelevant. Perhaps you think that the discussion of the Griggs device is
also irrelevant. Or that ZPF is irrelevant? Are you going to gripe about
those threads too? When is this nonsense going to end? Why can't you guys
let this go, and simply practice tolerance? Why do you demand that
everybody else post in conformity to your intuitive judgment of what is
relevant? Why can't you just loosen up, accept *potential relevance* as
your criterion, and include a more diverse spectrum of opinion in this
group? The answer, in my view, if obvious: you guys are, fundamentally,
censorious, intolerant, controlling, and authoritarian. It simply sticks
in your craws that somebody, somewhere, might proceed through his life
unconcerned by whether you approve of him or not. That's why you are
stinking up this forum, and it is why people just like you are stinking up
every other forum on the net. The very idea of free speech, of tolerance
for others, is anathema to you. --Mitchell Jones}***

Your opinion of my post mirrors the
> opinions that many of us have here about your own postings.
> Does this give you a better sense of why we're upset?

***{To repeat: you are upset because you are intolerant. Period.
--Mitchell Jones}***
> 
> >Do not clutter up Internet by starting childish flame wars.
> 
> I was politely pointing out that your postings were off-topic.
> I didn't personally attack you or anyone else.  
> This is not a flame war.

***{Bull. The form of your post was not impolite, but the content was: you
treated as an established, unarguable fact, that Tom's posts were "off
charter." The implication is that he, and the others who post to the
gravitational thread, are being deliberately disruptive--that they agree
that they are off charter, but are continuing to post here anyway. That is
fully as insulting as it would have been if posted as a complaint about
the ZPF thread, or about the Griggs thread, or about a dozen other threads
which have appeared in this group which also made no attempt to connect
directly to "cold fusion." The participants, in each case, were motivated
by an intuitive perception of potential relevance--by hope, if you will,
that in the course of the discussion a connecting insight would be
discovered. If you had started bitching about their posts being "off
charter," you would have deserved to be flamed, and you deserve it no less
here. You need to grow up and get a life. Stop trying to control other
people's speech. Live and let live. --Mitchell Jones}*** 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------
> Bob Heeter
> Graduate Student in Plasma Physics, Princeton University
> rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu / rfheeter@pppl.gov
> http://www.princeton.edu/~rfheeter
> Of course I do not speak for anyone else in any of the above.

===========================================================
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Jim Carr /  Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
Date: 31 Jul 1995 14:08:53 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

In article <DCFqu1.MCK@world.std.com> 
mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>
>blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue) writes
>
> =db  "I seemed to have generated some confusion with my posting of the value
> =db  10^-40 sec as a time scale for a nuclear process.  Let me try to clear
> =db  that up just a little bit.    .....
> =db  Now where did I get a number like 10^-40 second? "
> 
>  Most of us think you made it up.

Including me.  

However, 

>  The TB skeptics continue to "make up" numbers to "prove"
>their point.

and you chose to ignore my post where the numbers were not made up. 
As a result, you repeat ignorant statements such as 

>Are deexcitation times limited to the range from 10-21 to 10-41 seconds 
> as the vocal skeptics of the field? 
> 
> No.  
>The time scales of deexcitation is closer to nanoseconds.

The material you quote concerned the time it takes for the process to 
occur once it "starts", not the half-life.  (That is, how long does 
it take the electron and neutrino to get far enough away from the 
quark and for the nucleus to adjust to its new wavefunction for you 
to say that a decay has occurred rather than some weak "loop" 
contribution to the self energy.  That is short no matter what the 
lifetime of the state is.)  

In any case, your generalization is far worse than any made up number 
because there are measured electromagnetic lifetimes in the pico and
femto second range.  There are plenty of strong decays with lifetimes 
that are in the 10^{-20} territory as well.  Those are trivial counter 
examples to your assertion that no deexcitation goes faster than a 
nano second. 

The time scales of nuclear transitions depend on the mode of decay 
(electromagnetic, weak, or strong), the energy of the decay (the 
available phase space), and the angular momentum change involved. 
You did not look very hard if you only found ns lifetimes since 
there are hindered electromagnetic decays (high J, low E) with 
lifetimes from milli-seconds to hours.  (That is what IT means.) 

I outlined the different ranges in some detail when I gave the usual 
estimate for the time scale of nuclear processes and strong decays 
based on the scales involved.  

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | is also the British Olympic training  
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | site.  Why?  Dewpoint of 73-81 F. 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | Normal Hi/Lo: 92/71 
Record: 102/67               
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenjac cudfnJim cudlnCarr cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Matthew Kennel /  Re: Cold Fusion
     
Originally-From: mbk@caffeine.engr.utk.edu (Matthew Kennel)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Cold Fusion
Date: 31 Jul 1995 18:10:48 GMT
Organization: I need to put my ORGANIZATION here.

Mitchell Jones (21cenlogic@i-link.net) wrote:

: ***{Here you guys have agreed to treat this problem classically, and you
: are simply visualizing an alpha particle forming next to a palladium atom,
: and pushing off to the tune of 20 MeV or so. Most of the energy goes to
: the alpha, and it kicks off some x-rays or gammas when it bounces around
: elsewhere. Well, fine. But there are other ways to play this game. For
: example, why not imagine the alpha forming *between* two palladium atoms,
: and simultaneously kicking off from both of them?

That's because the wave function of the nuclear particles is quite
concentrated in the nucleus. (this is a linguistic tautology; the physical
content is that nuclei have been measured to be femtometers in size)
Evolution of the ensemble of realistic intitial conditions via the
Schroedinger equation does not admit any solutions where nuclear particles
just "beam" themselves to atomic distances away.  Indeed if you consider
that the strong force only is active well under atomic distances then
there's no way that the alpha could possibly appear there.  There just
aint no matrix element to get from here to there!!

It's true that QM will give somewhat different answers than classical
mechanics, but not immensely different ones like that.

It's just like saying well maybe if I shoot a gun perhaps the gun won't
take up the recoil but the two buddies next to me will be knocked on their
butt sideways and a hot piece of lead will slide out from the gun barrel
and fall on the ground in front of me.

Even though maybe you could imagine that momentum and energy are "conserved"
in a global sense that scenario is just not a physical solution of the
dynamics.  from F = dp/dt.  

Two palladium nuclei bristling with 50 or so positive charges rampaging at
with 10MeV will only cause heat?  Sure it will but certainly heavy ions with
MeV's of energy is a great way to get *loads* of obervable radiation and
transmutation.  It's like a gang of nasty hell's angel's barreling down on The
Magic Kingdom.

: Don't tell me this is improbable. I *know* it is
: improbable (read: not previously observed), but the scenario you two have
: been discussing isn't probable, either. The whole point of all this is
: that nobody really knows what in the hell is going on in that palladium
: lattice. It's mighty crowded in there, and it is hard to be sure exactly
: what specific circumstance leads to the formation of the alpha particles.
: Maybe they *really do* form between colliding palladium atoms. I, for one,
: certainly can't prove they don't. --Mitchell Jones}***  

Well that's why people use calculations based on standard quantum mechanics
and observed facts about nuclear physics which has seemed to work
very very well in the past.  And it's very hard to produce watts of energy
from nuclear reactions and NOT have any radiation observable with standard
technology.

When Fermi's first natural uranium reactor hit ONE WATT of power it pegged
the needles on his then primitive nuclear counters. 

: > 
: > >Just stuff to think about.
: > 
: > Believe me, I've thought about it.  I just don't buy it yet.
: > Like I said in the footnote; someone ought to do a definitive
: > experiment.
: > 
: > --Bob Heeter
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > 
: > ------------------------------------------------------
: > Bob Heeter
: > Graduate Student in Plasma Physics, Princeton University
: > rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu / rfheeter@pppl.gov
: > http://www.princeton.edu/~rfheeter
: > Of course I do not speak for anyone else in any of the above.

: ===========================================================
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Jim Carr /  Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
Date: 31 Jul 1995 14:20:49 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

|mrichar353@aol.com (MRichar353) writes:
| 
|-> The strong
|-> decay will occur at a rate several orders of magnitude faster than the
|-> electromagnetic unless the strong decay is very near threshold (or of
|-> course below threshold), which is *not* the case here.

In article <USE2PCB187110415@brbbs.brbbs.com> 
mdudley@brbbs.brbbs.com writes:
> 
>This point has been made by several people.  How does one compute the
>threshold?  What is the threshold for He4?  I think the answer to this could
>be fairly important when discussing alternate decay modes.

You do arithmetic with the masses, or look up the measured numbers. 

Folks, these are not the first experiments ever done with He-4.  There 
is so much stuff on mass 4 that it rates its very own compilation!  And 
the compilation takes up most or all of a volume of the journal. 

Since it is clear from this discussion that Marshall and others are 
ignorant of the data and where to find it, let me point out 

 Nucl. Phys. A 541, 1 (1992)   -- mass 4
 Nucl. Phys. A 474, 1 (1987)   -- mass 3

It makes no sense to speak of "the threshold" for He-4, since each 
reaction has a different one.  This is true in spades when you mention 
some unspecified "alternate decay mode". 

Similarly, it makes no sense to speak of He4* without specifying 
which particular excited state (there being no bound states but a 
number of narrow resonances with well-defined spin and parity) you 
are talking about.  Make a copy of the figure on page 17 of A541 
and the table on the next page for future reference. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | is also the British Olympic training  
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | site.  Why?  Dewpoint of 73-81 F. 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | Normal Hi/Lo: 92/71 
Record: 102/67               
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenjac cudfnJim cudlnCarr cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Matthew Kennel /  Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
     
Originally-From: mbk@caffeine.engr.utk.edu (Matthew Kennel)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
Date: 31 Jul 1995 18:17:52 GMT
Organization: I need to put my ORGANIZATION here.

Paul Budnik (paul@mtnmath.com) wrote:

: Nuclear is obscenely expensive when you
: take into account the cost of storing and monitoring the radioactive
: by products for 50,000 years or more.

Same for fossil fuels but nobody is making them pay.  The present existing
health damage from fossil fuel burning is quantifiable and real and present
TODAY but exxon isn't required to pay for this.  Can you imagine if they
had to pay their amortized medical bills?  

And what if the climate does bifurcate into something nasty?  Who pays then?

I mean i think it's Absolutely Fabulous if all the waste by products from
national scale energy production can be brought together and sunk into
a mine 20 miles from anywhere and be monitored around the clock and be
trivially detected at levels much below harmful ones. 

: Solar is the only practical
: alternative. A recent issue of Business Week mentioned that it is expected
: to be competitive with grid power in many major urban areas by the
: year 2,000. With wide spread use prices will fall much more rapidly
: and efficiencies will increase significantly. It is only a matter of
: time and thinking with a little common sense.

Nothing's wrong with solar at all, except for the fact it's cloudy alot of
places.

And what about environmental problems from very large scale silicon
processing?  (all those nasty solvents to make chips are already a problem
making 8 inch high value wafers).

: Paul Budnik
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenmbk cudfnMatthew cudlnKennel cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / mitchell swartz /  Nuclear reaction time scales
     
Originally-From: mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Nuclear reaction time scales
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 18:51:40 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

  In Message-ID: <3vj67l$7k1@ds8.scri.fsu.edu>
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
 jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:

 -   The material you quote concerned the time it takes for the process to 
 -   occur once it "starts", not the half-life.  (That is, how long does 
 -   it take the electron and neutrino to get far enough away from the 
 -   quark and for the nucleus to adjust to its new wavefunction for you 
 -   to say that a decay has occurred rather than some weak "loop" 
 -   contribution to the self energy.  That is short no matter what the 
 -   lifetime of the state is.)  

  Good point, but the case was of He4* which also would be in an
excited state after putative fusion "starts" (ignoring for now how or why the
coulomb barrier is softened).

  ====================================================

 -   In any case, your generalization is far worse than any made up number 
 -   because there are measured electromagnetic lifetimes in the pico and
 -   femto second range.  There are plenty of strong decays with lifetimes 
 -   that are in the 10^{-20} territory as well.  Those are trivial counter 
 -   examples to your assertion that no deexcitation goes faster than a 
 -   nano second. 

  Did not mean to generalize.  The thread was about Mossbauer
materials, and that limited range was presented.  Obviously not all
excitations are not in that narrow range.
 Must have inadvertantly missed your previous post.

  ====================================================

 -   The time scales of nuclear transitions depend on the mode of decay 
 -   (electromagnetic, weak, or strong), the energy of the decay (the 
 -   available phase space), and the angular momentum change involved. 
 -   You did not look very hard if you only found ns lifetimes since 
 -   there are hindered electromagnetic decays (high J, low E) with 
 -   lifetimes from milli-seconds to hours.  (That is what IT means.) 
 -   I outlined the different ranges in some detail when I gave the usual 
 -   estimate for the time scale of nuclear processes and strong decays 
 -   based on the scales involved.  

  Jim, this may be the best description of the range of possible deexcitation
times made so far.  Thanks.   Does temperature have NO role whatsoever?
 
 Best wishes.
    Mitchell Swartz  (mica@world.std.com)



cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenmica cudfnmitchell cudlnswartz cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / C Jacobs /  Re: Solar-panelled highways
     
Originally-From: cjacobs@swahili.engin.umich.edu (C S Jacobs)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Solar-panelled highways
Date: 31 Jul 1995 18:55:50 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor


> NREL has developed a solar technology for NASA which is more resistant
>  to the damaging affects of unshielded solar radiation (which degrades 
>  silicon and gallium arsenide).
 
> Together, they have an efficiency of OVER THIRY PERCENT  30% !
> 
> Of course, they are probably EXTREMELY expensive, but at least they've
>  proven its possible.


You still didn't tell me where I could buy them....
I have a strange feeling that these cells that are over 30% efficient are only 
so in a laboratory and that you couldn't get nearly that much in a production
solar cell.   The highest I've heard about in production are only 22% and that
is why I questione the great leap to 25%  I'm well aware that 30% is possible
in labs....but not in the real world where I live.
-Craig
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudencjacobs cudfnC cudlnJacobs cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Jim Carr /  Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
Date: 31 Jul 1995 15:09:14 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

In article <DCLGE4.368@world.std.com> 
mica@world.std.com (mitchell swartz) writes:
>
>  Good point, but the case was of He4* which also would be in an
>excited state after putative fusion "starts" (ignoring for now how or why the
>coulomb barrier is softened).

But which excited state?  Most are more than an MeV wide because the 
strong particle-unbound channel is open. 

>  Did not mean to generalize.  The thread was about Mossbauer
>materials, and that limited range was presented.  Obviously not all
>excitations are not in that narrow range.

But then you should be worried about the difference between a state 
that decays by E1 with a few 10s of keV energy and a state that is 
particle unbound at 25 MeV excititaion. 

>  Jim, this may be the best description of the range of possible deexcitation
>times made so far.  Thanks.   Does temperature have NO role whatsoever?

Of course it does -- but the scale is dictated by k = 8.6x10^{-5} eV/K so 
that 1 MeV = 1.16 x 10^{10} K.  There is a standard first-chapter nuclear 
physics problem to compute the occupancy of an excited state at room 
temperature based on stat mech.  It is quite small. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | is also the British Olympic training  
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | site.  Why?  Dewpoint of 73-81 F. 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | Normal Hi/Lo: 92/71 
Record: 102/67               
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenjac cudfnJim cudlnCarr cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 95 15:41:20 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

(I can't resist . . .)
 
This discussion is off-topic. Sci.physics.fusion was formed to discuss cold
fusion, not this Tokamak stuff. Your experiments have never been replicated by
anyone. You do one experiment, nobody else in the world replicates it, and you
expect us to believe it. This stuff about plasma is all theoretical anyway and
besides, CF is a solid state effect, not plasma. We should take a vote about
this and if you lose we should all hassle you and send messages to your system
administrator demanding they take away your e-mail account. Nag, nag! Natter,
natter, natter. Bla, bla, bla.
 
Ha, Ha.
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 /   /  Canberra Home Page
     
Originally-From: jmiller929@aol.com (JMiller929)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Canberra Home Page
Date: 31 Jul 1995 13:18:14 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)

I am pleased to announce that Canberra Industries, the leading commerical
manufacturer of radiation detection and analysis instrumentation, has
established a Home Page.  The URL is http://www.canberra.com.
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Erik Francis /  Re: NP28JUL95, SEVEN SAMURAI-ettes, Bullock,Sugawara, ... Tanaka,
     
Originally-From: max@alcyone.darkside.com (Erik Max Francis)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.fusion,sci
physics.electromag
Subject: Re: NP28JUL95, SEVEN SAMURAI-ettes, Bullock,Sugawara, ... Tanaka,
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 95 10:50:25 PDT
Organization: &tSftDotIotE

Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:

>  NEANDERTHAL PARK 28July1995  The Seven Samurai-ettes MOVIE

Man, you've really gone off the deep end, Ludwig.


Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE ...!uuwest!alcyone!max max@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, CA   37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W   GIGO, Omega, Psi  oo  the fourth R  _
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`-   ftmfbs   kmmfa / \
_Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt._   Founder SBWF   http://www.spies.com/max/ \_/
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenmax cudfnErik cudlnFrancis cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszS cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Richard Blue /  Reply to David Davies
     
Originally-From: blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Reply to David Davies
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 21:00:35 GMT
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway

I don't ignore the possibility that cold fusion occurs in a many body
system.  I would be perfectly willing to consider any hypothesis that
you would care to put forward concerning many-body effects -- provided
of course that you do this honestly.

What is lacking in any of the CF theories concerning many-body systems
leading to cold fusion is a honest look at the implications of saying
that there are n-bodies involved.  To do this you have to say what the
"bodies" are.  You have a theory.  Please state what the coordinates
of the nucleons are!  Please indicate the assumptions you make concerning
the form of the wave function.

Until you do this, you don't have a theory.  You are just blowing smoke!
There is a basic problem.  If you assert that more than two deuterons
are involved in the fusion, or that the the nuclear wavefunctions are
perturbed with respect to the wave functions of free particles you
can't legitimately make any of the standard approximations used for
atomic or solid state theories.

You, and many others, are trying to have your cake and eat it, too.
You want the deuterons to act like deuterons inspite of some unspecified
changes in their internal wave functions.  If you change those wavefunctions
those little lumps aren't deuterons anymore.  What are they?

Dick Blue

cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenblue cudfnRichard cudlnBlue cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Jim Carr /  Re: Marshall Dudley hyhpothesis
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Marshall Dudley hyhpothesis
Date: 31 Jul 1995 13:44:39 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

In article <USE2PCB942672655@brbbs.brbbs.com> 
mdudley@brbbs.brbbs.com writes:
> 
>You bring up a very good point here.  If you have a He4 nucleus which is highly
>excited (> 20Mev) then it could theoretically capture an electron.  

It could, but this is a weak process and it would have to compete with 
the strong decay of those states. 

>                      ...                              Then since H4
>(Quatium?) is unstable, it would emit a beta particle, returning it back to
>He4, but losing the energy of the beta in the process.

Again, this nucleus is not stable against particle emission, so the weak 
decay loses to the strong decay by a huge factor. 

>You state that a nucleus can only decay by specific energy (quantum) amounts.
>However when I check beta and alpha emitters, I find that emitters will emit a
>broad range of energies from virtually 0 energy up to a certain maximum.  How

Beta decay is a 3-body process so there is a continuous spectrum emitted. 

Alpha decay of stable nuclei produces characteristic energies. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     | Tallahassee: the Flowering Inferno
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       | is also the British Olympic training  
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  | site.  Why?  Dewpoint of 73-81 F. 
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    | Normal Hi/Lo: 92/71 
Record: 102/67               
cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenjac cudfnJim cudlnCarr cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Richard Blue /  Re: Winning the Swartz challange
     
Originally-From: blue@pilot.msu.edu (Richard A Blue)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Winning the Swartz challange
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 21:05:30 GMT
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway

Mitchell Swartz should no better than to assert that he knows something
about nuclear physics that I don't.  I gladly accept his challange, and
if he knew enough to ackowledge his ignorance he will let this one rest.

His data concerning the Moessbauer transistion in 57Fe is probably correct.
It is likely that the lifetime for that 14 keV state is indeed a "few
score nanoseconds."  What Mitchell does not seem to understand is that
cold fusion does not involve that particular state in 57Fe - at least
not as far as I have heard yet.

Let us move somewhat closer to the states in 4He that are supposedly involved
in cold fusion.  If you look into the basic phyics of electromagnetic
transistions, Mitchell, you might discover that there is a strong energy
dependence, even before any consideration is given to the details of nuclear
structure.  For a dipole transition at 10 MeV as opposed to one at 10 keV
one can expect to see a decrease in the lifetime by something like NINE
ORDERS of MAGNITUDE.

_______________________
Reference:  "Introduction to Nuclear Physics," by Harald Enge.  page 260.
A graph of the Weisskopf-Moszkowski single particle transistion estimates.
Enge is an MIT man so this must be a good reference, right?
___________________________

Now there is much more involved than just the expected energy dependence.
Nuclear structure rears its ugly head, too.  So the lifetimes using the
above referenced graphs are only estimates.  In CF circles there is a
fondness for experimental facts so let's look at experimental values for
the widths of excited states in helium.  Again I do have a reference, and
I challange Mitchell to find any fault with me on this point.

__________________________
Reference: "Energy levels of light nuclei A=4", by Meyerhof and Tombrello.
Nuclear Physics A109, (1968) pages 1-58.

__________________________________

>From this, or similar references on 4He you can learn that the widths of
all the known states in 4He are several MeV - certainly nothing like
the state Mitchell refers to in 57Fe.  Most significantly the excited
states of 4He are unbound with respect to neutron emission, i.e. these
are states in the energy continuum - not bound states like the Moessbauer
state Mitchell keeps harping on.

Since the widths are several MeV, the lifetime estimate is correctly given
by Barry Merryman.  He did not commit a faux pas, Michell.  You did!
The lifetime of an excited state in helium is certainly not in the range of
nanoseconds.  That is the sort of absurd notion that CF advocates kling
to inspite of evidence to the contrary.

I respond to the Swartz challange by suggesting that he find one example
of a state that is unbound with respect to neutron emission that has a lifetime
as long as a nanosecond.  To make this interesting I may even hint that
such things do exist.  They don't, however, exist in the nucleus in question -
4He.

Dick Blue

cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenblue cudfnRichard cudlnBlue cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Matthew Condell /  Re: Solar-panelled highways
     
Originally-From: Matthew Condell <mcondell>
Originally-From: cjacobs@swahili.engin.umich.edu (C S Jacobs)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Solar-panelled highways
Subject: Re: Solar-panelled highways
Date: 31 Jul 1995 20:49:07 GMT
Date: 31 Jul 1995 18:55:50 GMT
Organization: MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

 --------------------------------152743200116707
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

cjacobs@swahili.engin.umich.edu (C S Jacobs) wrote:
>
>> NREL has developed a solar technology for NASA which is more resistant
>>  to the damaging affects of unshielded solar radiation (which degrades 
>>  silicon and gallium arsenide).
> 
>> Together, they have an efficiency of OVER THIRY PERCENT  30% !
>> 
>> Of course, they are probably EXTREMELY expensive, but at least they've
>>  proven its possible.
>
>
>You still didn't tell me where I could buy them....
>I have a strange feeling that these cells that are over 30% efficient are only 
>so in a laboratory and that you couldn't get nearly that much in a production
>solar cell.   The highest I've heard about in production are only 22% and that
>is why I questione the great leap to 25%  I'm well aware that 30% is possible
>in labs....but not in the real world where I live.
>-Craig

There is a company in Australia (I think) that produces 25% effecient cells.
They are offering them for sale to teams for the World Solar Challenge in 
1996, so there probably won't be many available in the near future.

The 29.5% cells that NREL can produce have only been produced in the 
laboratory, though they claim they have a process that can produce that
efficiency fairly consistently.

Other research that is underway includes a 70% cell that is being developed
by Argonne National Labs.  They have developed a molecule based on 
clorophyl that converts >70% of the sunlight that hits it into electricity.
From what I've heard, the last obstacle that they are working on is to 
develop a method for making sheets of this stuff.  I've only seen a little 
information on it, so that's all I know, though the current results seem very 
promising.  

Matthew Condell
MIT Solar Car Team

 --------------------------------152743200116707
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain

Originally-From: cjacobs@swahili.engin.umich.edu (C S Jacobs)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Solar-panelled highways
Date: 31 Jul 1995 18:55:50 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan Engineering, Ann Arbor
Message-ID: <3vj8vm$h3k@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>
References: <3ubdg1$k9m@cnn.Princeton.EDU> <3umtnl$ec4@cnn.Princeton.EDU
 <DC2qp4.94t@bcstec.ca.boeing.com> <3v1tut$su@otis.netspace=
net.au> <3v3g09$a9m@agate.berkeley.edu> <3v7aph$fmc@otis.netspace.net.au
 <3vdb3i$iso@srvr1.engin.umich.edu> <3vfj9n$3vl@erinews.er=
icsson.se>


> NREL has developed a solar technology for NASA which is more resistant
>  to the damaging affects of unshielded solar radiation (which degrades 
>  silicon and gallium arsenide).
 
> Together, they have an efficiency of OVER THIRY PERCENT  30% !
> 
> Of course, they are probably EXTREMELY expensive, but at least they've
>  proven its possible.


You still didn't tell me where I could buy them....
I have a strange feeling that these cells that are over 30% efficient are only 
so in a laboratory and that you couldn't get nearly that much in a production
solar cell.   The highest I've heard about in production are only 22% and that
is why I questione the great leap to 25%  I'm well aware that 30% is possible
in labs....but not in the real world where I live.
-Craig

 --------------------------------152743200116707--
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Mitchell Jones /  Re: Refs. on CF, refs. on Wright Bros.
     
Originally-From: 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Refs. on CF, refs. on Wright Bros.
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 10:38:03 -0500
Organization: 21st Century Logic

In article <3ve980$5mt@soenews.ucsd.edu>, barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry
Merriman) wrote:
[snip]
> 
> I appreciate fully your original thesis that initial accepting
> media articles don;t rule out the possibility of the media later
> rejecting/negating some occurence. That is certainly true.
> 
> I was simply pointing out that this _did not_ happen with
> could fusion:
> 
> The mainstream media has never rejected CF...it has just slowly 
> lost interest, due to a lack of accepted results. I was just
> looking at a clipping from WSJ* reporting on the Maui CF
> conference (1993) last night, and there was no tone of rejection
> in the article. It was fairly balanced, pro and con.

***{Frankly, Barry, the above paragraph left me open mouthed with
amazement--particularly the statement: "The mainstream media have never
rejected CF." It never entered my mind that any literate person, living in
the United States for the past 6 years and, presumably, conscious, would
dare to make such a statement. I have a folder in my file cabinet labeled
"CF Articles." That folder is about three inches thick, and contains maybe
1% of the articles on this subject that have appeared since March, 1989. I
made no attempt to select in favor of sarcastic or sneeringly hostile
articles, and yet, with the exception of articles appearing in the first
month after the original Pons-Fleischmann announcement and a sprinkling
thereafter, that is vastly disproportionately what the folder contains.
While I long ago stopped adding articles to that folder, I have not ceased
reading the mainstream press, and I have not perceived anything going on
there which could be characterized as even handed treatment of CF. The
vastly predominant attitude remains as before: doubt, derision, contempt,
and sarcastic rejection, when and if the subject is mentioned at all,
which for the most part it is not. That you, or anyone, could fail to be
aware of such an overwhelmingly obvious fact, I find to be quite mind
boggling. --Mitchell Jones}***      
> 
> As for the scientific media, it has polarized: most journals
> ignore, and a few reject, CF, but at least one prominent and appropriate
> venue---Fusion Tech---gives it ample attention.
> 
> SO: where is the uniform media rejection of CF? In your prior
> post you mentioned the media rejection of CF as if it were 
> an obvious, accepted fact. If it is, Why does Britz maintain
> an ever growing bibliography?

***{At this point, the explanation for your seemingly mind-boggling
statements emerges: you are playing word games, rather than engaging in
serious discourse. Rather than respond to the position actually taken by
your opponents--to wit: that the mainstream media have *overwhelmingly*
rejected CF--you choose to ignore their actual statements and pretend that
they have claimed that the rejection has been *uniform*--i.e., that every
single solitary article on this subject in the mainstream press has been
negative. Given your behavior, I suppose it would be appropriate, at this
point, for me to deliver forth a string of expletives, but I will resist
the temptation. Instead, I will simply ask you a direct question: do you
deny that the overwhelming majority of the mainstream and scientific media
have rejected CF? If you do, then I would suggest that your problems are
psychiatric, not intellectual, and that they should be addressed by a
therapist, not be me. If you do not deny it, then what in the hell is the
point of your post, as quoted above? Do you merely intend to irritate
people? Or do you really think that there are people out there ("hot
fusion" proponents excepted, of course) who are dumb enough to actually be
fooled by this kind of nonsense? --Mitchell Jones}***  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *(By the way, in that article, Pons says they were getting reliably
> 4 x out what they put in, at absolute excess heat levels of 100--200
> watts. Given that that was about 2 yeasr ago, one wonders...)
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Barry Merriman
> UCSD Fusion Energy Research Center
> UCLA Dept. of Math
> bmerriman@fusion.ucsd.edu (Internet; NeXTMail is welcome)

===========================================================
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / John Chandler /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: jpc@a.cs.okstate.edu (John Chandler)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: 31 Jul 1995 16:03:35 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State University, Computer Science

In article <ciP39c6w200w@alcyone.darkside.com>,
Erik Max Francis <max@alcyone.darkside.com> wrote:
>tim@handel.Princeton.EDU (Tim Hollebeek) writes:
>
>After the years that Ludwig has been around -- and apparently of the 
>campus spectacle that he makes of himself, as others have described in 
>the past -- I think it's pretty clear that Dartmouth officials are 
>aware of him.

"spectacle"?  Can anyone describe this?

In particular, does "Archimedes Plutonium" ever attend Math Dept.
colloquia and offer his opinion of the speaker's work?
 
-- 
John Chandler
jpc@a.cs.okstate.edu
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Chris Costello /  True cost of fission fuel
     
Originally-From: cjc@esi.roc.servtech.com (Chris Costello)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: True cost of fission fuel
Date: 31 Jul 1995 16:20:18 GMT
Organization: Energy Science, Inc.

I have heard that the true cost of fission fuel (4% U235) is actually so
high as to make fission plants extreemly difficult to justify economically.
This line of reasoning states that the fission fuel is available only  
because it is a byproduct of weapons manufacture.

Can someone respond to this with substantiating data?  The true cost of
fission fuel would indeed be interesting to know.

Thanks in advance for any information!
Chris Costello

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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Mike Taylor /  Re: Solar-panelled highways
     
Originally-From: Mike Taylor <mzt10@juts.ccc.amdahl.com>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy
Subject: Re: Solar-panelled highways
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 16:08:10 GMT
Organization: Amdahl Corporation

mbk@caffeine.engr.utk.edu (Matthew Kennel) wrote:

>It's quite a trick to make transparent backings that somehow manage to
>suck up all of the light and turn it into electricity.
>

That's the over-unity part.


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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Walter R /  IN COLD FUSION SPIN'S ORIENTATION IS DETERMINANT
     
Originally-From: "Walter E.R. Cassani" <cassani@Linux.InfoSquare.it>
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: IN COLD FUSION SPIN'S ORIENTATION IS DETERMINANT
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 23:37:00 +0200
Organization: Comm 2000 - Milan, Italy


The new models show the determinant role of the particles' structure
and our orientation.

Albert was right, a new, more complete, causal, theory is born.

This is: The Wave Theory of the Field.

It is available in  <<  http://www.inet.it/cassani/index.html  >> 

The INDEX of  "The Wave Theory of the Field" is:

LETTER
The Letter contains the provocatory announce that : " a new, unitary 
Wave Theory, for justification of masses and fields, is born ".
The original idea coming from : "Il Campo Unificato" -Robota srl-.
(The Unified Field) published 10/09/84 in Milan -Italy-

ABSTRACT
It contains arguments of the book translation, published 
in Italy in 1989, entitled " La Teoria Ondulatoria del Campo ",
more widely treated in the next book in 1994:
"Albert Aveva Ragione - DIO NON GIOCA A DADI"
"Albert Was Right - GOD DON'T PLAY DICE".


INTRODUCTION
It shows the concept of space-time, that qualify the actual model
of space-time continuum, to clarify the idea that everybody
form about it, in order to define new ideas to create a " discrete " 
model of space-time.

PERTURBATION OF SCHILD'S DISCRETE SPACE-TIME
It shows the nature and properties of a Schild's discrete space-time, 
that can be interpreted like waves of perturbations of its own metrical 
structure, and can be read like perturbations of a new, plausible, 
discrete, metrical " Ether ".

WAVE HYPOTHESIS OF THE MASS FIELDS
Starting from equality of two energies: Einstein's energy  E = m c^2  
and  Planck's energy  E = h v, we make the hypothesis that all 
subatomic particles are elementary sources of spherical waves that, 
in complex, constitute all spherical fields ascribing to particles.

WAVE MOMENTUM
With this elementary waves we discover a new law for elementary
interaction light - particle that involve a simple symmetry principle.

ENERGY AND ITS VARIATIONS
Where we discover the real variation's nature of Photon, and the 
relation between elementary waves and De Broglie waves. 

THE RELATIVE SYMMETRY PRINCIPLE
This simple and elementary symmetry principle constitutes the
unique law that regulates the four interactions, that unify, under a 
omnicomprensive vision, Quantum Mechanics and all other 
physical dynamics.

THE INERTIA'S WAVE NATURE
We discover that, the wave nature of masses, and the variation's
nature of Relative Symmetry Principle, conduces to consider
the Inertia like natural and " local " consequence bodies' wave structure.

THE WAVE NATURE OF QUANTUM GRAVITY
It appens that, the same model of the variation's nature of the 
Relative Symmetry Principle, applied to Inertia, results an extraordinary
consequent model to describe a Wave Quantum Gravity interaction.

TERMINAL VELOCITIES FOR MASSES
The exclusive wave nature of bodies, and the space-time
quantization, displays the impossibility for masses to surpass 
the velocity of own waves, that move at light velocity, and to reduce 
its wavelength, for Doppler effect, under the "discrete" length. 

THE FIFTH INTERACTION
Because impossibility to return at continuum space-time concept,
we can comprehend impossibility to reduce a wavelength, that 
describes bodies' mass, to infinitesimal. And consequently,  
we can understand existence of a Fifth Repulsive Interaction 
that acts with more evidence in cosmological field, between 
the maxi-bodies, and prevent any indiscriminate increase of masses.  

WAVE INTERPRETATION OF GENERAL RELATIVITY
An unexpected, simple completion of General Relativity discovers
the inevitable, causal connection with Quantum Mechanics, realizing
the dream so long time pursued from Albert.

WAVE DESCRIPTION OF THE COMPTON EFFECT
With the wave interpretation of experimental data, derived from Compton
effect, we immediately show possibilities, verifying the Relative Symmetry
Principle's capacities, applying the new unification between QM and GR.

WAVE MODEL OF ELECTRON AND PROTON
A new extrapolation of Compton effect, conduces to discover an 
extraordinary resonance's wave mechanism, that allows to verify the 
possible existence of a creative wave's system, so far called : " particle ".

WAVE CREATION OF PAIRS
The generalization of the same extraordinary resonance's wave mechanism
allows to justify the phenomenon of creation of pairs.

WAVE INTERPRETATION OF THE LORENTZ FORCE
The application of a dynamical orientation, for the same wave mechanism
that we identify with particle, shows that happens wen it is submitted 
to magnetic field, showing that the Lorentz force is a consequence of 
Doppler relativistic effect of particle's oriented wave system.

THE WAVE NATURE OF ELECTRIC CHARGE
The geometrical analysis, of the "discrete", shows that particle's wave 
structure presents the characteristics, that we have so far justified and
quantified with the electrical charge concept.   

THE VECTORIAL DESCRIPTION OF PARTICLES
The specularity of the pairs' creation allows to consider the opposition
particle - antiparticle, that conduces to justify the electromagnetic
interactions like violations of characteristic  " chirality's properties " 
of the wave mechanism - particles.

THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVE ISOTROPY
From the VECTORIAL description of the wave mechanism - particles
we can justify existence of one principle of relative isotropy
that comprehends in a generalization the Relative Symmetry Principle.

STATISTICAL POSSIBILITIES FOR CREATION 
OF SINGLES PARTICLES
We deduce from quantification of statistical possibilities, inherent 
in geometrical wave structures, to overlap particle-antiparticle, 
in annihilation phenomena, from which we can concept 
a causal wave chain to create matter in elementary particles. 

MASS DEFECT AND WAVE NUCLEAR FORCE
The comparation, to nuclear distances, of two Protons-wave model
show that at distance 1 Fermi the electromagnetic interactions are 
absent, because are absent the waves that characterize electrical 
interactions. This implies a different point of view for the forces in act.
From this different view we can support an original explication
of Cold Fusion.  

THE NEUTRON WAVE MODEL
The different wave structures and interactions between the nucleons
conduces to consider a new possibility for a Neutron wave model.

BETA DECAY IN WAVE MODEL
The new wave model shows a causal chain that justify, better that 
actual way, the entire process of Beta Decay and, consequently,
allows the wave nature of Neutrinos.

THE MUON AND PION WAVE MODEL
From wave model of Beta Decay process we can deduce all masses,
charges, energies, spins, and decays of all particles' family.

THE WAVE ATOM
The atom's quantum energy's levels can now be interpreted, like wave
resonance's organizations, of the wave source-electron in resonance's
orbits, that contain and describe integer numbers of Doppler 
wavelength on the specific orbit. 

THE WAVE CONSTANT OF FINE STRUCTURE
The complete, causal comprehension to wave nature, of Constant
of Fine Structure, conclude from presence of  two relativistic Doppler 
wavelength of two waves that move in opposite directions
on the same resonance orbit, that obey to more parameters
that condition their wave resonance states. 

LIGHT LIKE WAVE'S VARIATION 
The final consequence, of existence of resonant orbits and
non resonant orbits for the wave source-electron, that jump between
two different states of resonance, concludes itself with a directional 
wave emission, of a modulation of frequency, that we call : " Photon ".

Good reading, and...... please to destroy it, if you be able.

                         Walter E. R. Cassani
**************************************************
                   cassani@linux.infosquare.it

     For FTP of  " The Wave Theory of the Field "
    <<  ftp.infosquare.it  >>  in  pub/theory/ 
     Files: wtf-1.doc , wtf-2.doc  =  1.7 Mb 
     in Microsoft Word 6.
               
 For the Theory in W W Web, with formulae and figures:
      <<   http://www.inet.it/cassani/index.html  >>

**************************************************
 








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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / A Plutonium /  Re: CRACKPOTS FAQ - REVISED VERSION
     
Originally-From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.fusion,sci.math
Subject: Re: CRACKPOTS FAQ - REVISED VERSION
Date: 31 Jul 1995 22:56:12 GMT
Organization: Plutonium College

In article <1995Jul31.122826.6779@leeds.ac.uk>
pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk (J R Partington) writes:

> 
> I don't think bigotry, prejudices and plain dumb stupidity ever
> hindered one's chances of high political office, alas. In fact
> some would say that they were prerequisites.


  Good to see you back Jonathan. I tried to take a vacation last month
to last until Sep-Oct. Then this flamewar happened in sci.physics. So
much for a vacation. And to think sci.physics was peaceful with SI
Chase and E. Bunn. But a new kid came into town that needs his ears
clipped.
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Robin Spaandonk /  Re: Combustion - New Energy Source
     
Originally-From: rvanspaa@netspace.net.au (Robin van Spaandonk)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Combustion - New Energy Source
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 22:41:22 GMT
Organization: Improving

On 30 Jul 1995 10:33:16 GMT, rogersda@direct.ca (david rogers) wrote:

>Non Combustion Energy Source is the next Revolution of mankind.

>Breaking chemical bonds has been and still is our primary source of
>energy. Chicago's heat wave and the mid-west's halving it's normal
>wheat production are a direct cause and effect of out species use
>of combustible energy and it's associated CO2 + other emmissions.

>Wars and revolutions have made major changes with our history but NON
>compare with that technology has.

>In my opinion our time is very limited to produce the goods for a 
>non combutible energy source and you people conducting research
>in physics hold a major key.

>New Gas Turbines will be introduced next year in N. America which
will be 10-15% more efficient and Dams will no
>longer compete on price. I did the calculation and switching from
>Dams to Natural Gas Turbines to generate electricity wil DOUBLE CO2
>emissions in BC alone.

>It became so obvious to me NOn-Combustible energy production is
>perhaps the key to our very survival. The new energy source needs be
>economic, safe, non-polluting and immediate ( i.e. like striking
>a match ).

And we've been looking for it since the dawn of Man.

>Is there someone out there who can solve this?

>David. 

Regards,

Robin van Spaandonk <rvanspaa@netspace.net.au>
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Man is the creature that comes into this world knowing everything,
Learns all his life,
And leaves knowing nothing.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*

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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Thomas Zemanian /  Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
     
Originally-From: ts_zemanian@pnl.gov (Thomas S. Zemanian)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
Date: 31 Jul 1995 20:05:10 GMT
Organization: Battelle PNL

In article <1995Jul31.151346.17907@nosc.mil>, north@nosc.mil (Mark H.
North) wrote:

> In any case, off topic posts will be cancelled (I just
> cancelled three myself, it's easy).
> 

Yo, Mark.

I hope those three articles you cancelled were ones you authored
yourself.  I'd hate to think you were deciding for me what I am allowed to
read and in which forum.

--Tom

--
The opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone.  Keep your filthy hands off 'em! 
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------------------------------
1995.08.01 / Thomas Kunich /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 00:05:32 GMT
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)

In article <3vgjuv$crm@cnn.princeton.edu>,
Tim Hollebeek <tim@handel.Princeton.EDU> wrote:

>Dartmouth is footing the bill for his net access, and most likely the
>computers his posts originate at.  They have a right to know what they
>are paying for, and terminate his access if they disapprove of what he
>uses it for.  I don't see where free speech figures into tho.

Dartmouth accepted _everyone's rights to free speech when they installed
a system that could carry e-mail. With the good you also get the obsene.
For months now I have typically ignored any posting with Plutonium's
name on it. I don't think he adds anything to the conference and I don't
want to read his obsenities.

So he posts from Dartmouth. All those who hold Dartmouth responsible
may raise their hands. Any obsenity posted from any location -- and
there are thousands of private nodes -- can find it's way onto the
Dartmouth conputer system and into any of these unmediated conferences.

So it is your position that Dartmouth shouldn't be held responsible for
disturbing posts from outside it's boundaries (that anyone with an account
at Dartmouth could read and respond to) but the IDENTICAL post from
within it's sacred trust territories is different?

Excuse me, but this is just crap. When you stick your nose into a
conversation and hear something you don't like, either say so or
go away. You don't try to have the government remove a person's
larynx.

What a bunch of cowards! Try facing the reality of the world for a change.


>Tim Hollebeek        |"What is love? 'tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath
>PChem Grad Student   |present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In
>Princeton University |delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and
>---------------------|twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure." -Twelfth Night


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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / J Partington /  Re: CRACKPOTS FAQ - REVISED VERSION
     
Originally-From: pmt6jrp@gps.leeds.ac.uk (J R Partington)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.fusion,sci.math
Subject: Re: CRACKPOTS FAQ - REVISED VERSION
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 13:28:26 +0100 (BST)
Organization: University of Leeds, England

In article <3vbaha$ed@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmo
th.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
>
>   Get used to the Internet, what you post can be eternally held
>against you. And as I remarked before, that perhaps 50% of the regulars
>to Usenet have now eliminated their chances of ever being high
>political figure, because their posts evince their bigotry and
>prejudices and plain dumb stupidity.
>

I don't think bigotry, prejudices and plain dumb stupidity ever
hindered one's chances of high political office, alas. In fact
some would say that they were prerequisites.



-- 
Dr Jonathan R. Partington,      Tel: UK: (0113) 2335123. Int: +44 113 2335123
School of Mathematics,          Fax: UK: (0113) 2335145. Int: +44 113 2335145
University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K.    Email: J.R.Partington@leeds.ac.uk
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Bruce Scott /  Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
     
Originally-From: bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce D. Scott)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
Date: 31 Jul 1995 13:16:05 GMT
Organization: Rechenzentrum der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Garching

Johan Wevers (johanw@vulcan.xs4all.nl) wrote:
: Bruce D. Scott <bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de> wrote:

: >What do they think will happen when (not if) it doesn't perform as expected?

: Why do you think ITER won't function as expected? It is not that much
: larger than JET to expect the scaling laws derived from the smaller
: models to be completely useless (although without a solid theoretical
: understanding such laws should always be suspected).

Your last sentence hits it on the money, actually.  ITER enters a
different regime in two respects due to its larger size (factor of 3 or
so) compared to JET or TFTR.  The first of these is behind the flagship
activity of this institute:  edge physics, around which the
ASDEX-Upgrade experiment was originally planned.  The power densities to
material walls expected in ITER are much greater than those in the other
two largest machines, and due to the divertor design some of the details
of the way things scale with size is different from all the other
experiments, except (serendipitously, I might add) ASDEX-Upgrade.  One
of the big problems is that the edge boundary layer is thin enough that
if ITER is to operate in a reactor regime, this "target plate power
density" is sufficiently large that the materials engineering is not
straightforward. 

The other one is confinement.  Recent experiments on the D-III-D tokamak
suggest that TFTR and JET are operating in the "happy minimum" of
transport, just at the place where the ions take over from the electrons
as the dominant carrier of heat transport.  That is, although global
scaling for the total looked good for ITER performance when
extrapolated, the ions taken as a separate fluid look rather more
dangerous when the extrapolations are done separately for the two.
People are looking for ways to defeat this through some special H-mode
properties one might get by sensitively adjusting the profiles, but the
result is unclear.  As I said earlier, building ITER in this environment
may be a dangerous gamble, but building it without physics support (this
means large-scale computation together with experiments on more flexible
machines like the current ones, especially D-III-D and ASDEX-Upgrade) is
simply foolish.  People need to understand that this is a physics
problem, not an engineering one.  The problem is solvable, but not by
blindly shooting in the dark like we would if designing and building a
flagship device were undertaken, or even started, before direct
simulation of the turbulence on a global scale has at least been
attempted.  We are a few years short of that, but in my mind a few years
(say 5 or so) is not too long to wait.

--
Mach's gut!
Bruce Scott                                The deadliest bullshit is
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Plasmaphysik       odorless and transparent
bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de                               -- W Gibson
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Louis Gascoigne /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: eapu294@rigel.oac.uci.edu (Louis Gascoigne)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: 31 Jul 95 13:52:03 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine

dak@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (David Kastrup) writes:

>tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:

>>You know, Plutonium and I don't, ahem, see eye-to-eye on _anything_.
>>But Freedom of SPeech includes those freedoms to hold beliefs and
>>philosophies that are repugnant to the majority.

>It does not, however, include the right of means from public funding
>for spreading these views. This as a first note I want to offer because
>of some trends to provide room and announcements for speakers on the
>extreme right, claiming that they'd anyhow discredit themselves in
>following discussions. Now this approach to nationalistic crap is plain
>dangerous. It has once won a majority in Germany, and look to where that
>has led. And it keeps popping up all over the world, so it does not seem
>to disqualify itself as easily as all those optimists mean.

>But we are skirting the issue here. What really concerned here is not
>the freedom to post or not post dangerous crap. I do not think that
>the "scientific" contents in question here pose any danger. What is,
>however, of concern, is when personal abuse and racial slander is
>involved. This is not covered by freedom of speech, because in that
>case damage is done.

I think racial slander is fully covered under US free speech laws, although
I am not a lawyer.  It probably depends under the circumstances.  I think
that the speech which is banned is speech which is detrimental to the
safety of the public, such as shouting "fire" in a crowded building.
Calling someone a racial slur is not a danger to the general public,
unless in so doing you happen to incite a riot or some other badness 
(the person(s) who do that will almost for certain to go prison if they
live through the aftermath).
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Arnie Frisch /  Re: What's up with P&F ?
     
Originally-From: arnief@wu.cse.tek.com (Arnie Frisch)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: What's up with P&F ?
Date: 31 Jul 1995 08:06:16 -0700
Organization: Tektronix Laboratories, Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR

In article <3uva7b$6h2@manuel.anu.edu.au> Dave Davies <dave.davies@anu.edu.au> writes:
>barry@starfire.ucsd.edu (Barry Merriman) wrote:
>>
>>Does anyone know what is going on with Pon's and F.? Last
>>rumor we heard---from an evil skeptical source---was that 
>>they were in essence abandoning their cold fusion work.


>Yes, source-cred. = zilch.


>>Given that their public presentation history consists
>>of a big press conference, an initial provocative but 
>>sketchy paper, and then a long slow series of retractions
>>of nuclear signatures (gamma's, neutrons, He4), its hard

>Well, they did that once. Not much of a statistic really. 
>
>>to see how much longer they can go without issuing some
>>sort of detailed status report.

>As long as their masters damn well like. Can you give me one good
>reason why a commercial organisation should boast about success until
>they had a commercial device ready to roll? I can give you good reasons
>why they do not.


More likely a whole bunch of people trying desperately to avoid a
public loss of face over belief and investment in poorly devised and
poorly executed research that came to absolutely nothing!



Arnold Frisch
Tektronix Laboratories
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Paul Budnik /  Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
     
Originally-From: paul@mtnmath.com (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion,sci.energy,sci.physics
Subject: Re: FYI98 - PCAST Report on DOE Fusion Program
Date: 31 Jul 1995 07:24:06 -0700
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

Bruce D. Scott (bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de) wrote:
: Paul Budnik (paul@mtnmath.mtnmath.com) wrote:

: [...]

: :                                             We have a perfectly
: : good fusion reactor conveniently delivering to us more energy than
: : we could ever safely use and that is far more reliable than anything
: : we will ever be able to build on earth. It is located at a safe
: : distance of 93 million miles so we do not have to worry about the
: : radioactive products it creates.

: Having deleted the first sentence, I heartily agree with this rest.
: Unfortunately, there is a good reason why this won't work for most
: countries:  too many people, and the attendant demands on land use.

That is ridiculous. For most of the worlds population enough power
could be generated for individual use with solar roofs. You need solar
farms only for industrial or high density populations. There are plenty
of desserts in the world that are not usable for much else. 

The *only* long term alternatives are solar
or nuclear (including fusion). There is a finite amount of fossil
fuel and we seem to already be suffering the ill effects of using too
much of this. The origin of the energy in all fossil fuel
is solar. It is not a question of converting to solar power but rather
of using solar in a way that is not environmentally damaging and
is sustainable.

Nuclear is obscenely expensive when you
take into account the cost of storing and monitoring the radioactive
by products for 50,000 years or more. Solar is the only practical
alternative. A recent issue of Business Week mentioned that it is expected
to be competitive with grid power in many major urban areas by the
year 2,000. With wide spread use prices will fall much more rapidly
and efficiencies will increase significantly. It is only a matter of
time and thinking with a little common sense.

Paul Budnik
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Mark North /  Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
     
Originally-From: north@nosc.mil (Mark H. North)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: OFF-CHARTER POSTS Re: General Relativity sucks, "space and time"
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 15:13:46 GMT
Organization: NCCOSC RDT&E Division, San Diego, CA

21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) writes:

>Here is my message for you, Bob: since you claim that discussions of
>gravitation are irrelevant, I take it that you know what the proper
>explanation of "cold fusion" is, and that it lies outside the framework of
>gravitaitonal theory. Therefore, please enlighten the rest of us. 

Since you asked here's a clue for you. If you think gravitation has
anything to do with "cold fusion" other than holding the apparatus on the
table you reveal your abysmal knowledge of physics and just make yourself
look foolish. In any case, off topic posts will be cancelled (I just
cancelled three myself, it's easy).

>Alternatively, you might avoid the risk of being hanged by not starting up
>another time-wasting, interminable thread in which would-be censors flame,
>and are flamed by, those who believe in freedom of speech.

Apparently, you know as little about what constitutes free speech as you
do about physics. In the future you would do better to confine your
posts to topics in which you have at least a modicum of education if
such topics exist.

Mark














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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Paul Koloc /  Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
     
Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 07:34:51 GMT
Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd.

In article <3vghac$bem@cnn.Princeton.EDU> Robert F. Heeter <rfheeter@pho
nix.princeton.edu> writes:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>X-Newsreader: Nuntius 2.0.4_PPC
>X-XXMessage-ID: <AC413F2C9501416F@rfheeter.remote.princeton.edu>
>X-XXDate: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 17:52:44 GMT

>I have been having an email conversation with Chris Costello 
>(cjc@esi.roc.servtech.com); I thought others might be interested
>in reading one of our notes, so I got his permission to post this.
>There have been some new results in the Reversed Shear 
>approach, so I have added some additional comments in [brackets]:
>
>From:  Robert F. Heeter
>To:  Chris Costello
>Hi Chris - 
>To achieve break-even I think all you need to do is put a 50-50
>mix of D-T fuel in a high-performance JET (Joint European Torus - world's
>largest tokamak) plasma discharge.  They expect to get breakeven in
>a couple years when they switch to D-T fuel.

Is this old??  I thought they have run D-T.  Perhaps not 50/50?  But
enough for extrapolations, correct?  

>[ There is an outside chance that TFTR can achieve breakeven at
>approx 20 MW fusion power using the new reversed shear 
>enhanced confinement mode; more news on this soon. ]
 
Gee, Bob, could you please also add in contributions from all sources 
which constitute the total energy associated with a shot?  
I think this is really important when you are discussing fusion with
non-fusion professionals.  It gives them an accurate basis for 
comparison.  Note, I don't mean for you to consider only what get's 
into the plasma, I mean how much does it take to run the machine for
a shot.  To get the total average, take this value of energy and 
divide it by the plasma on time (say the time over which the currents
are running at a level .3 of peak flow or better.  

>Since breakeven is [relatively] trivial, here is the main hurdle to be 
>overcome in getting an ignited plasma:  the plasma quality, defined by the
>"Lawson value" (product of particle density and energy confinement time) 
>is a factor of 5-10 too small for ignition (5 in JET, 10 in TFTR).  

>Some of the obvious ideas - reducing instabilities, using
>strong auxiliary heating, reducing impurity influx into the 
>plasma - have already been implemented successfully (yielding 
>tremendous progress from 1975 to 1995).

But, again, this isn't the whole picture.  Some of these 
"implementations" are at odds with "other implementations". 
For example, if you want to increase alpha particle heating, you 
might improve it by holding on to the alphas a will longer 'till
most of there energy is spent through collisions.  On the other
hand, one may want to decrease Bremsstrahlung so keeping the 
effective "Z" low is a technique that works.  That means getting
rid of the alphas, even if the an optimal amount of kinetic energy
isn't extracted.  

>Still, there are a few possible ways to get the last factor of 10, 
>listed below roughly from "most likely to work immediately", down 
>to "least likely".  [This is just my own perspective, of course.]

>(1) The ITER method:  build a larger reactor to get the extra
>confinement time from sheer size.  [Also using some shaping,
>but not H-mode.]
>        Advantage:  we're confident we can do it.
>        Disadvantage:  costs about $10 billion.

To be clear that is 10 billion dollars "MORE" === "additional".  

So, Robert, that is part of the reality equation that says it will
not happen.  It's not just the capital costs, it's the maintenence
increased danger from higher flux storage, larger re-circulating
power, etc, etc.  

>(2) The Shaping method:  play with the plasma shape to get extra 
>density and confinement time from better plasma performance.
>(It turns out that vertically elongated, kidney-bean-shaped plasmas
>have higher pressure limits and better energy confinement).
>        Advantage:  not very expensive; get a factor of 2 improvement
>        Disadvantage:  not thoroughly tested

I think there has been plenty work enough on this approach at GA in
La Jolla.  The problem is that even though it gives you a higher Beta, 
it unfortunately produces such a mechanical coil stress that the 
applied field has to be dropped by 2.  So actually, you will lose; 
since it has other problems that add both cost and complexity.   

>(3) The Profile Control method:  tweak the plasma to have current, 
>pressure and temperature profiles that either maximize fusion power 
>output, reduce energy transport losses, or allow higher core densities.
>[ I would fit Reversed Shear into this category, since they achieve
>it by controlling the current profile, and thus the magnetic shear. ]
>        Advantage:  might also get another factor-of-2 [or better!] 
>                     improvement
>        Disadvantage:  [may] require a lot of expensive hardware, not
>                        very well understood yet

Again, you will have **BIG** problems with coil stresses, and less room
for plasma.  This will tend to constrict the cross section which will
go against stability.   

>Aside: TPX was designed to take maximum advantage of shaping and
>profile control in a large-scale experiment.

Boy! the truth outs?  PPPL is pulling the stops out to snow congress 
to reverse themselves on TPX funding??  My guess is you all (PPPL) 
aren't truely putting out both sides of the story.  Perhaps this is
a perceptual problem that comes from the environ within which you 
are functioning. If so, I've been too tough as is my usual problem.

>(4) The Low Aspect-Ratio method (NSTX):  a fatter torus (smaller 
>donut hole) should "naturally" give you better profiles and higher 
>densities.
>        Advantage:  smaller machines needed, not as expensive  
>        Disadvantages:  may have worse confinement; hard to engineer
>                          the center core against neutrons.

Not only that, but it, too, has toroidal field coil problems, 
... mostly from heating along the major axis. This design squeezes 
that cross-section down to difficult levels.  Also I believe they
can not operate the coils with cryogenic cooling.  

>(5) The Transport Suppression method:  there have been some reports
>that special externally-launched waves (or other mechanisms) have 
>the effect of suppressing energy transport and boosting the energy 
>confinement time.
>[ Reversed-shear seems to be a transport suppression scheme too. ]
>        Advantage:  another possible factor of 2 or better
>        Disadvantages:  may require a lot of wave power; 
>                        not well understood, though some evidence.

My understanding is that a much better machines existed which has 
"enhanced" sheer is the "Z" device(s) at LANL (last ordered bull 
dozed into the canyon --- do we sense someone fears competition).  
Also consider the shear of Spheromaks.  They are already hugely 
more compact.  But THEN there is our very inexpensive PLASMAK(TM) 
generators, which are super stable and can be cheaply heated to 
colossal temperatures by straight forward mechanical (fluid) 
compression.  

So Robert, trying to hang more whistles and disguises on the tokamak
to make it sound like it MIght-maybe-perhaps-could work a tad better
for only a few more billion, isn't going to work.  Especially since
any of the stuff that could work a bit better for tokamak, works 
enormously better on more advanced, compact and quite simpler devices.   
 
>(6) The Energy Channeling / Hot Ion Mode method:  use plasma waves 
>to transfer alpha-particle fusion power directly to the fuel ions; 
>reduces fraction of available pressure used by alpha particles and 
>electrons, allowing increased ion density and thus increased fusion 
>reactivity.
>        Advantage:  another possible factor of 2; may be able to
>                        use same wave as in Transport Suppression
>        Disadvantage:  has not been tested experimentally yet, 
>                        may need too much wave power

Sounds like Magliches approach.  Think he could handle this far better
than your kluge.  

>--------------
>The last two listed below are distinct from the 5 above,
>but still worth having on the list: 
>[ In other words, these shouldn't be construed as inherently
>worse than the others just because they're at the end. ]
>
>(7) The Alternative Concepts method:  try looking for a device other
>than the tokamak which may get you to ignition for less cost.
>        Advantage:  could be a lot cheaper/faster/better; a lot
>                        of old ideas weren't fully explored.
>        Disadvantage:  could just be pie-in-the-sky; hard to think
>                        of really new ideas after 40 years.

I suppose it's still better than a cow pie under foot.  

So, I don't really think that "THINKING" is so tough; and even if 
it doesn't happen it's not really absolutely necessary, since 
(contrary to your suggestion) there are a number of approaches 
that are untested in the fusion sense.  ...  So far that is. 
In fact there are three commercial companies in the US pursuing
thermonuclear (the hot kind) fusion as a principal endeavor.  
R. Bussard, (one of the three) has come up with a very interesting
improvement on his approach.  

>(8) The unknown idea method:  Some new inspiration may allow much
>better control of the plasma.
>        Advantage:  Hey, it would be great.    
>        Disadvantage:  You can't count on miracles.

With Bowery's bill we wouldn't need miracles nor nearly as much
money.  EVen you might be driven to formulate a workable fusion 
concept.  

>Say, would you mind if I posted this message (including your question)
>up on the sci.physics.fusion group?

>--Bob
>------------------------------------------------------
>Bob Heeter
>Graduate Student in Plasma Physics, Princeton University
>rfheeter@phoenix.princeton.edu / rfheeter@pppl.gov
>http://www.princeton.edu/~rfheeter
>Of course I do not speak for anyone else in any of the above.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Paul M. Koloc, Bx 1037 Prometheus II Ltd, College Park MD 20741-1037    |
| mimsy!promethe!pmk; pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu   FAX (301) 434-6737   |
| VOICE (301) 445-1075   *****  Commercial FUSION in the Nineties *****   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszL cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Paul Koloc /  Re: Combustion - New Energy Source
     
Originally-From: pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M. Koloc)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Combustion - New Energy Source
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 07:43:10 GMT
Organization: Prometheus II, Ltd.

In article <3vfvsv$6ro_001@ip028.sky.net> bsulliva@sky.net (Bob Sullivan) writes:
>In article <3vfn5c$3kd@stud.Direct.CA>,
>   rogersda@direct.ca (david rogers) wrote:
>>Non Combustion Energy Source is the next Revolution of mankind.

>>It became so obvious to me NOn-Combustible energy production is
>>perhaps the key to our very survival. The new energy source needs be
>>economic, safe, non-polluting and immediate ( i.e. like striking
>>a match ).
>>Is there someone out there who can solve this?
>>David. 
>
>Good news! The problem has already been solved. The French have already 
>drastically reduced their CO2 production using this technology. It's called 
>nuclear fission.

Actually, that goes against the highest authority.  
I believe the quote was something to the effect of:

                  "What God hath joined, let no man put asunder!"  

I thinke that's pretty plain and to the point.  Notice that aneutronic
energy doesn't have this problem, since we (humankind) fuse it first
and then its put asunder.  As for example 

                     p + ^11B --> ^12C --> 3^4He

Yep!  Kosher, indeed.   Even the ash won't build up!
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Paul M. Koloc, Bx 1037 Prometheus II Ltd, College Park MD 20741-1037    |
| mimsy!promethe!pmk; pmk%prometheus@mimsy.umd.edu   FAX (301) 434-6737   |
| VOICE (301) 445-1075   *****  Commercial FUSION in the Nineties *****   |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

cudkeys:
cuddy31 cudenpmk cudfnPaul cudlnKoloc cudmo7 cudqt3 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.07.31 / David Kastrup /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: dak@hathi.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (David Kastrup)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: 31 Jul 1995 08:30:50 GMT
Organization: RWTH -Aachen / Rechnerbetrieb Informatik

tomk@netcom.com (Thomas H. Kunich) writes:

>You know, Plutonium and I don't, ahem, see eye-to-eye on _anything_.
>But Freedom of SPeech includes those freedoms to hold beliefs and
>philosophies that are repugnant to the majority.

It does not, however, include the right of means from public funding
for spreading these views. This as a first note I want to offer because
of some trends to provide room and announcements for speakers on the
extreme right, claiming that they'd anyhow discredit themselves in
following discussions. Now this approach to nationalistic crap is plain
dangerous. It has once won a majority in Germany, and look to where that
has led. And it keeps popping up all over the world, so it does not seem
to disqualify itself as easily as all those optimists mean.

But we are skirting the issue here. What really concerned here is not
the freedom to post or not post dangerous crap. I do not think that
the "scientific" contents in question here pose any danger. What is,
however, of concern, is when personal abuse and racial slander is
involved. This is not covered by freedom of speech, because in that
case damage is done.
--
David Kastrup, Goethestr. 20, D-52064 Aachen        Tel: +49-241-72419
  Email: dak@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de         Fax: +49-241-79502
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Cameron Bass /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: crb7q@watt.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 11:42:39 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <3vgabj$kek@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com>,
Jack Sarfatti <sarfatti@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>The best policy to to be polite while maintaining integrity.  

     Thanks Jack, best laugh I've had in weeks.

                                 dale bass


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------------------------------
1995.07.31 / Benjamin Tilly /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: Benjamin.J.Tilly@dartmouth.edu (Benjamin J. Tilly)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: 31 Jul 1995 02:21:38 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

In article <3vgjuv$crm@cnn.Princeton.EDU>
tim@handel.Princeton.EDU (Tim Hollebeek) writes:

> In article <tomkDCJA30.EL3@netcom.com>,
> Thomas H. Kunich <tomk@netcom.com> wrote:
> >In article <3vfpdc$eog@keknews.kek.jp>, Ben Bullock <ben@theory5.kek.jp> wrote:
> >This string reminds me that some people aren't willing to accept the
> >responsibilities of those freedoms. To argue with Plutonium is one
> >thing, to ignore him has been my choice. But to try and silence him in
> >this manner is a pretty discusting trick.
> 
> Dartmouth is footing the bill for his net access, and most likely the
> computers his posts originate at.  They have a right to know what they
> are paying for, and terminate his access if they disapprove of what he
> uses it for.  I don't see where free speech figures into tho.

Let me give you one way that freedom of speech enters into this.
Dartmouth is a university. Universities have a traditional position
that is for free speech. Dartmouth in particular has a history of
encouraging freedom of access and speech. Since Archimedes is an
employee of the university (albeit indirectly), he gets access. Now
should an institution, with such goals clearly laid out in a number of
places (including the Dartmouth Computing Code), restrict the freedom
of speech of a member of the institution? Last summer the university
decided that Ludwig Plutonium (his name at that time) went too far with
his "Jew York Times" comment and temporarily suspended his ability to
post. They were within their rights to make that decision about the use
of their name and equipment, but the question of whether it was the
right thing to do is open to question. I am not sure what the
provocation is this time since I did not read the offending post, but
the discussion that I heard the last time questioned whether or not it
was the proper thing to do no matter what he actually said. It
certainly was the safe decision from a legal standpoint, but there were
questions raised about the appropriateness of the decision. (The
student newspaper in particular had an editorial that was opposed to
the decision.)

Ben Tilly
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.30 / Erik Francis /  Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
     
Originally-From: max@alcyone.darkside.com (Erik Max Francis)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.math,sci.physics.fusion,sci.physics.electromag
Subject: Re: Please complain about Archimedes Plutonium to Dartmouth
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 95 15:26:11 PDT
Organization: &tSftDotIotE

tim@handel.Princeton.EDU (Tim Hollebeek) writes:

> Dartmouth is footing the bill for his net access, and most likely the
> computers his posts originate at.  They have a right to know what they
> are paying for, and terminate his access if they disapprove of what he
> uses it for.  I don't see where free speech figures into tho.

After the years that Ludwig has been around -- and apparently of the 
campus spectacle that he makes of himself, as others have described in 
the past -- I think it's pretty clear that Dartmouth officials are 
aware of him.


Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE ...!uuwest!alcyone!max max@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, CA   37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W   GIGO, Omega, Psi  oo  the fourth R  _
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`-   ftmfbs   kmmfa / \
_Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt._   Founder SBWF   http://www.spies.com/max/ \_/
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 /   /  Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
     
Originally-From: mrichar353@aol.com (MRichar353)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Nuclear reaction time scales
Date: 31 Jul 1995 01:33:51 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)

Marshall Dudley wrote:

>Mark Richardson wrote:

>-> The strong
>-> decay will occur at a rate several orders of magnitude faster than the
>-> electromagnetic unless the strong decay is very near threshold (or of
>-> course below threshold), which is *not* the case here.
> 
>This point has been made by several people.  How does one compute the
>threshold?  What is the threshold for He4?  I think the answer to this
could
>be fairly important when discussing alternate decay modes.
>

The threshold is vary simple to calculate, it is the difference of the
total of the masses for the initial and final states. For a particular
decay mode, say 
He4*  -> h3 + n the decay threshold is M[He4*] - M[H3] - M[n].

I'm trying to dig up a reference to muon-catalyzed fusion in order to see
an analysis of decay modes and branching ratios. This should be very
similar to CF situations.

Mark Richardson
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.07.31 /   /  Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
     
Originally-From: mrichar353@aol.com (MRichar353)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hot Fusion:  Challenges and Approaches
Date: 31 Jul 1995 01:42:45 -0400
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)

Good God! Two posts about real, existing fusion. And even some exciting
prospects for realistic simulations so as to reduce the cost of the entire
program by a potentially huge factor!

Keep posting, folks. We need a breather from the standard faire on s.p.f.

Mark Richardson
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