1995.10.24 /  jonesse@plasma /  Serious Flaws in Patterson (SOFE '95) Demo on Cold Fusion
     
Originally-From: jonesse@plasma.byu.edu
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Serious Flaws in Patterson (SOFE '95) Demo on Cold Fusion
Date: 24 Oct 95 13:23:14 -0600
Organization: Brigham Young University

SERIOUS FLAWS IN THE "PATTERSON POWER CELL", A LIGHT-WATER COLD-
FUSION CELL DEMONSTRATED AT SOFE '95

The demonstration of a cold-fusion cell allegedly producing
excess power at the 1995 Symposium on Fusion Engineering has
received a great deal of fanfare, but little direct information
has been made available.  Finally, some information has been
published in "Fusion Facts", edited by Hal Fox.  I will review
this information, and show from it and from our own work on
light-water cells (Jones et al., J. Physical Chem. 99:6973
[1995]) that a significant contribution to the apparent excess
power, hydrogen + oxygen recombination within the cell, has not
been ruled out.  Other serious flaws in the calorimetry will be
noted.  Finally, claims that fusion or some other nuclear
reaction occurs in the cell are unsubstantiated. 


Quoting from "Fusion Facts" in an article by Hal Fox entitled 
"Dramatic Cold Fusion Demonstration Seen by Hot Fusion
Scientists":

"This demonstration of a 'new hydrogen energy' device was _not_ a
10% excess heat device with small temperature differences and
subject to questions of accurate calorimetry.  This was a
demonstration where the output temperature of the flow of
electrolyted was several degrees Centigrade higher thatn the
input temperature.  For example, during the demonstration, where
I checked the data, the flow rates of the electrolyte through the
cold fusion reactor was 19.98 milliliters per minute.  the inlet
temperature was 33.9 C and the outlet temperature was 37.2 C. 
This calculates to be about 4.26 watts of thermal power being
produced.  The input electrical potential was 2.98 volts and the
current was 0.02 amperes giving a wattage input of almost 0.06
watts.  The ratio of output thermal power to input electrical
power was _over_ _70_ , not 70 percent but 70 times!"

"The editor was thrilled with such a cold fusion
accomplishment...  At present the only thing that all scientists
agree upon is that we don't understand, as yet, the theory behind
this anomalous excess heat production. ... If there are only
chemical or nuclear reactions that can possibly explain this
scientific marvel, nearly all of those skilled in the art insist
that it cannot be only chemical processes.  That leaves nuclear
reactions."

We pause here to note the old, tired argument that the excess
power is too large to be chemical, so it must be nuclear.  In
other words, UNCLEAR = NUCLEAR.  Quite an extrapolation given
that there are no controls (even with light water in the device,
some controls are conceivable) -- and no measurements of any
nuclear products at all-- no neutrons, no helium, no tritium, no
gammas, no x-rays.  What could it be?  Fox continues:

"One hypothesis is that the protons (hydrogen ions) combine with
the lithium [in the electrolyte] under some type of nuclear
catalysis.  For example, p + Lithium-7 could produce Beryllium-8
which is highly unstable and splits into two alpha particles
(Helium-4 ions).  This is a highly energetic nuclear reaction and
would produce considerable heat."  

So where are the secondary x-rays which must accompany slowing of
the alpha-particles in the palladium?  Where is the helium-4?  No
measurements substantiate the hypothesis of p-7Li fusion or the
broader claim of 'unknown' nuclear reactions.  And as usual, the
problem of the Coulomb barrier is totally ignored.

Fox:  "In the domonstration, the reactor (the electrochemical
cell) used is about four inches long and less than two inches in
diameter.  In the interior of the cell is a layer of less than
one-half inch of metal-plated spheres."  ... "The spheres were
plated with layers of palladium and nickel.  The pereparation and
use of these spheres are a part of the patented invention of Dr.
James patterson, now known as the Patterson Power Cell (TM).  The
Patterson Power Cell originated from the pioneering cold fusion
invention of Drs. Pons and Fleischmann, the exclusive rights of
which belong to ENECO, Inc., of Salt Lake City."

I asked George Miley (who has a Patterson cell, used for the demo
at SOFE '95 which George organized) what the material was that
the beads were made of, that the Pd/Ni was plated onto.  He said
he could not say as this was proprietary information.  Thus we
run immediately into the old problem that not enough information
is available to allow scientists to independently test the system
for themselves.  If one tries, the objection can always be raised
that she/he did not use the proper substrate -- which substrate
material is of course a secret.  This is a game that salesmen play,
not scientists.          However, we can readily see
likely errors from the description of the experiment.

Fox:  "The preheated electrolyte moves through the bed of metal-
coated spheres.  The spheres touch each other and carry the
electrical potential from the platinum screen through the whole
bed of coated spheres.  Thus the cathode of this electrochemical
cell is the platinum screen and the plated spheres."
"The anode of the cell is also a platinum screen separated from
the bed of beads by a porous Nylon insulator. ...During
operation, the application of an electrical potential ... causes
the electrolyte to be disassociated into hydrogen and oxygen. 
Some of the hydrogen ions (protons) enter into the nickel metal
layer and also, presumably, into the underlying palladium
layer...."

"The nuclear reaction (presumed) on or near the surface of the
plated beads, forms heat and that heat is conducted into the
electrolyte... The oxygen and unused hydrogen is allowed to
escape from the electrolyte  into the atmosphere.  The
electrolyte, which contains lithium sulfate in about a 1 molar
solution, circulates back through the pump, through a flow meter,
and through the pre-heater back to the reactor.  Thermocouples
... can be used to measure the inlet and outlet temperatures to
the reactor.  These are shown in this diagram as Tin and Tout
thermocouples."

As I mentioned in an earlier post to sci.physics.fusion, the
problem with allowing the H2 and O2 to "escape" into the
atmosphere like this is that one then has no way to preclude the
possibility that recombination is occurring in the cell, which
appears as "excess" power.  This problem we have thoroughly
studied and reported on -- see our paper "Faradaic efficiencies
less than 100% during electrolysis of water can account for
reports of excess heat in 'cold fusion' cells," J. Phys. Chem.
99:6973 (1995).  Patterson et al. are repeating the error made by
many others (including Pons and Fleischmann) of using _open_
cells so that hydrogen and oxygen are allowed to escape into the
atmosphere.  

By assuming that little or no recombination of H2 and O2 occurs
in the cell -- despite the fact that Pd, Pt and Ni are excellent
catalysts for this chemical, heat-releasing reaction -- one can
observe apparent excess power which is in fact due to
recombination.  However, we demonstrated in our experiments that
the degree of recombination is indeed significant, even when the
electrodes are fully covered by electrolyte, and that this can
mislead one into thinking that excess power is being produced
when it is not.  (Jones et al., J. Phys. Chem. 99:6973, 1995)

There is a high probability that the Patterson Power Cell (TM) is
nothing more than a battery wherein one stores chemical energy in
the form of dissolved H2 and O2 in the electrolyte, and later
extracts power by recombining the H2 and O2 on the Pt, Ni and Pd
present in the battery.  This actually makes a rather inefficient
battery -- and expensive since Pt and Pd are used.  The use of
Pd/Ni coated beads increases the surface of these metal catalysts
so that recomination is enhanced. Consistent with my
interpretation are these facts about the cell disclosed by Hal
Fox:

1.  "When the reactor is first turned on, it takes from a few
minutes to a few hours before excess heat is produced."
    --Some time is required to dissolve hydrogen and oxygen in
the solution, depending on its temperature -- in order to "charge
the battery."

2.  "If the cell has been operated for some time at high current
levels and the current is decreased, the power amplification
factor (PAF) can go to very large values. ... Obviously, if any
thermal power is being produced with zero current, by definition
the PAF can become increasingly large (dividing by zero)."

  --By operating at high current for "some time", considerable H2
and O2 can be stored in the solution.  Then when the input power
is decreased (to 0.02 amps in the case cited by Fox and Rothwell
at the SOFE demonstration), then of course the ratio
PAF= Output power (due to recombination)/Input power (electrical)
can become very large.  "Overunity" is easy to achieve, but
meaningless.  For the unwary investor, this is a clever trick. 
Fox's Figure 2 shows the PAF becoming "infinity (at 0 current)." 
Of course, this is the nature of a storage battery.

3.  "One would expect that if the input electrical power is
increased that the output thermal power should increase."
    --Yes, if this were a cold-fusion reaction.  But Fox
continues:  
"There seems to be a limit in that the reactor bed of plated
sphere can only use so many hydrogen ions.  If more current is
used, the hydrogen bubbles up and escapes, therefore, as shown in
Fig. 2, the PAF gradually decreases with an increase in cell
current."
   --Oops:  the behavior does *not* follow what one expects from
a nuclear reaction.  Rather, this fits precisely the expectation
from a recombination-type-battery in that as soon as the
electrolyte is saturated with H2 and O2, the power output from
recombination has reached a maximum.  Then increasing the input
current just decreases the PAF ratio of output power(due to
recombination)/input power (electrical).

These data stare these gentlemen in the face, yet they choose to
ignore it.  Why? 

4.  "It has been determined (but not fully explored) that the PAF
also increases with an increase in the temperature of the
electrolyte."  "A pre-heater is used to control the input
temperature of the electrolyte, especially during startup of the
cell."

  --  Surprise, surprise.  The recombination rate increases with
temperature.  Actually, most storage batteries have the same
temperature dependence as the Patterson battery, because the rate
of chemical reactions (such as recombination catalyzed by an
active metal) increases with temperature.  Increasing the
pressure in the cell will also increase the level of dissolved H2
and O2, hence the recombination rate (putative 'cold fusion
power') and PAF can be increased.  Once you understand it, it's
easy to make the Patterson cell look like a real winner.  But I
think it's just a poor battery.


I have stronly urged George Miley of the University of Illinois,
who has a Patterson cell from the SOFE demonstration (George
organized the meeting and permitted the demonstration) to test
for recombination in the cell.  This is readily done:  he needs
simply to get the cell operating with "overunity" output, then
bubble nitrogen or argon through a frit placed at the bottom of
the cell, to remove dissolved hydrogen and oxygen from the
electrolyte.  I predict that this will eliminate the apparent
excess heat.  He should then publicize the result, just as he did
the SOFE demonstration.  The fact is, we used just this method to
"turn off" the apparent excess heat in the light-water
electrolytic cells reported in our J. Phys. Chem. paper cited
above. 

It is surprising how often errors like this are repeated -- and
hyped with concomitant secrecy about details of the experiment. 
Any investors out there?  

I should mention one additional source of error:  the use of
thermocouples placed in the electrolyte to measure temperature. 
Thermocouples are very sensitive to stray voltages, with less
than a millivolt interpreted as several degrees centigrade.  It
is therefore asking for trouble to place even insulated
thermocouples in the electrolyte to measure temperature, as done
in the Patterson cell.  This shows lack of good calorimetric
practice in the design of the cells.  But I think recombination
is the main culprit here, based on the evidence.

Let me emphasize that the possibility that recombination causes
the apparent excess power in the Patterson cell is likely, so
that it is nothing more than an expensive and inefficient
battery.  George Miley is in a position to test this explanation
easily, by bubbling N2 or Ar through a working cell, and by using
better temperature probes.  We should encourage him to do so and
to report his results publicly.  He can be reached by e-mail: 
miley@uiucvmd.bitnet  or by FAX: 217 333-2906.  Until then, there
is no reason to get excited about the SOFE demonstration, and no
reason for anyone to invest money in the Patterson Power Cell
(TM) or equivalent "cold-fusion" cells.

--Steven E. Jones
BYU, Department of Physics and Astronomy
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / MARSHALL DUDLEY /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: mdudley@brbbs.brbbs.com (MARSHALL DUDLEY)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:36 -0500 (EST)

jnw@lys.vnet.net (John N. White) writes:
 
-> You seem to understand it fairly well, although I prefer the word
-> 'sol' to 'slush' as the proposed "crystals" are tiny compared to
-> a wavelength of light. Thus the sol will appear clear, and look just
-> like the electrolyte normally does. Also, the salts are hydrates
-> (Glauber's salt is a decahydrate).
 
All this as well as other arguments that the source of the excess is coming
from the pump could be put to rest very easily.  With such a low flow rate, one
could feed the electrolyte from a saline bag like they use in hospitals.  The
flow rate could be crudely calibrated through the drop count glass, and the
final accurate rate could be computed from the final (accumulated fluid)/(run
time).
 
This would have no pump, and the energy input from the fluid drop would be
insignificant but still computable.
 
                                                                Marshall
 
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / I Johnston /  Re: CF demo at SOFE
     
Originally-From: ianj@castle.ed.ac.uk (I Johnston)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: CF demo at SOFE
Date: 25 Oct 1995 11:17:19 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

Robin van Spaandonk (rvanspaa@netspace.net.au) wrote:
: In article <466i04$gl5@fnnews.fnal.gov>, Tom Droege wrote :

: >I have two cats and a radiation counter.  The red cat is clean, the
: >grey cat won't let me get close enough to make a measurement.  What 
: >is she hiding?  

: Kittens?

They may be small energetic objects, but they interact with everything -
particularly expensive objects and furniture...

Ian
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1995.10.25 / Mitchell Jones /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 09:52:43 -0500
Organization: 21st Century Logic

In article <46kd49$l0o@lys.vnet.net>, jnw@lys.vnet.net (John N. White) wrote:

> 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) writes:
> [A rephrasing of my proposed explanation of CETI effect]
> 
> You seem to understand it fairly well, although I prefer the word
> 'sol' to 'slush' as the proposed "crystals" are tiny compared to
> a wavelength of light. Thus the sol will appear clear, and look just
> like the electrolyte normally does. Also, the salts are hydrates
> (Glauber's salt is a decahydrate).
> 
> > (1) Since the measured heat output of this setup is 80 times the measured
> > input, it seems clear that the heat picked up at the pump is far in excess
> > of what can be supplied by the pump itself.
> 
> No, the measured input only refers to the electrolytic input to the cell;
> it does not include the input to the pump. The electric power input to the
> pump is much larger than the amount of excess heat that shows up in the
> cell. Nearly all of the energy that the pump uses is converted to waste
> heat, and I suspect that most of that waste heat ends up in the electrolyte.
> Thus all that is needed to explain the reported excess heat is to
> transfer part of that waste heat from the pump to the cell.

***{John, I don't know where you got this information, but it doesn't make
any sense. There is *no way* such a pump is going to consume the 5 watts
it would need to account for this experimental result, even if all of the
power it consumed were to somehow wind up in the fluid stream as heat. We
have already determined (see earlier posts in Jed's original thread) that
the energy conversion rate in the SOFE demo was 5 watts at a flow rate of
.238 ml/sec, which required 207 atmospheres of pressure across the pump if
pressure storage was assumed. According to Jed, however, the measured
pressure increase across the pump was negligible--a tiny fraction of 1
psi. By virtue of that fact, the notion of pressure storage was refuted.
And, believe it or not, such a fact is also very destructive to your
notion of dissolution storage. 

To see why, let's make some ridiculous assumptions that are designed to be
hugely favorable to your theory. Let's falsely assume, therefore, that the
pressure increase across the pump is 1 psi, that the efficiency of the
pump is 1%, and that all of the heat produced by the pump goes into the
fluid stream. Since a Newton is about .2245 lbs, 1 pound equates to
1/.2245 or 4.45 Newtons. Since a square inch is 6.45 cm2, a pressure of 1
psi is the same as 4.45/6.45 or .691 Newtons/cm2, which is .691
Newton-cm/cm3, or .00691 Newton-meters/ml. Since the flow rate in the SOFE
demo was .238 ml/sec, that gives .00165 joules/.238 ml, yielding a power
consumption for the pump of .00165 watts at 100% efficiency, or .165 watts
at 1% efficiency. This is *nowhere near* the 5 watts the pump needs to
consume in order to yield the observed result. (The true power consumption
of the actual pump, of course, is even less, because this calculation is
based on assumptions that are both false and ridiculously favorable to
your position.) Bottom line: there is *no way* such a pump is going to
consume enough power to account for the excess heat produced by this cell.
You couldn't buy a pump like that if you tried. Nobody who manufactured
such a ridiculously inefficient pump could stay in business for a
nanosecond. --Mitchell Jones}***  

> 
> > However, if memory serves, I believe I read in one of Jed's postings that
> > the measured change was negligible.
> 
> That was his interpretation of some evidence that he saw. But I'm not going
> to blindly accept his interpretation; I want to see the data so that I
> can make up my own mind. What type of pump was this measurement made with,
> and was the same type of pump used in the demo? 

***{See above. What matters here, John, is the tiny, tiny amount of power
required to pump this amount of fluid. There is simply *no way* the pump
they were using was inefficient enough to consume even a tiny fraction of
5 watts! You are trying to ride a dead horse, my friend. --Mitchell
Jones}***

Was the pump allowed to
> warm up fully before the measurement? Where exactly were the temperature
> sensors?

***{None of this matters one whit, given the absurdity of the assumptions
you would have to make about the efficiency of the pump. --Mitchell
Jones}***
> 
> To be convincing, a temperature sensor would need to measure the temperature
> right at the outlet of the pump during production of excess heat (at the
> many times I*V input level). Measurements done in some other setup at
> some other time just don't show anything.

***{You need to give this one up, John. To repeat: you couldn't buy a pump
inefficient enough to account for these results if you life depended on
it.  --Mitchell Jones}***
> -- 
> jnw@vnet.net

===========================================================
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / Nick Rouse /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: nrouse@surface.fisons.co.uk (Nick Rouse)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:17:54 UNDEFINED
Organization: Fisons

In article <21cenlogic-2510950952430001@austin-2-15.i-link.net>
21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) writes:

> There is simply *no way* the pump
>they were using was inefficient enough to consume even a tiny fraction of
>5 watts! You are trying to ride a dead horse, my friend. --Mitchell
>Jones}***

No pump operating at near its full load is likely to commercially viable at 
such low efficiencies but a more powerful pump turned down to a fraction
of its rated load to supply the tiny dribble that was used in this experiment 
could be that inefficient as some loss factors stay fairly constant over the 
load range. I don't know of anybody that makes a lab pump with a full rating 
anywhere near as low as that. However rather than argue in the dark can we 
find outwhat sort of pump was used. Do you Know Jed? I  know you have put up 
some pretty good arguments why the pump can't be the source of  of the
output heat and I think I accept them but if we could tie down the pump 
input power to substantially less than 5W we could cut short any augument
over the existance of a lithium salt that could isothermally absorb 16J /ml
by de-hydration. 
Nick Rouse  


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1995.10.25 / Karl Hahn /  Re: 14th Experiments proving HYASYS; Correlations of nuclear  sizes  with MEVs
     
Originally-From: hahn@newshost  (Karl Hahn)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.electromag
sci.physics.particle,sci.chem,sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: 14th Experiments proving HYASYS; Correlations of nuclear  sizes  with MEVs
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:25:59 GMT
Organization: Loral Data Systems

In article <46bq2v$l2b@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Archimedes.Plutonium@dartm
uth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:

>   In article <466gvs$jg0@dartvax.dartmouth.edu>
>   Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
>   
>   > In article <951017152438@are107.lds.loral.com>
>   > hahn@newshost  (Karl Hahn) writes:
>   > 
>   > > In article <45n35g$ssb@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> Archimedes.Plutoni
m@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) writes:
>   > > 
>   > > [deletia]
>   > > 
>   > > [Feynman quote:]

[Feynman quote, some AP stuff and some of my stuff deleted]

>   > > A neutron size is on the order of 1e-15 meters.  Substitute that into
>   > > the right hand side of equation 38.12.  Since both h and e are
>   > > constants, m must change.  In fact it must grow by a factor of
>   > > 0.528e-10 meters / 1e-15 meters, or in other words, by a factor of
>   > > 52800.  That would place its mass higher by an order of magnitude
>   > > than a tau and higher by two orders of magnitude than a muon.  So
>   > > tell me, AP, is your conjecture predicting the existence of a new
>   > > lepton of rest energy in the order of 26000 MeV (nearly 30 proton
>   > > masses)?  And if so, why does a neutron weigh far less than 30 proton
>   > > masses, since according to material that you posted above (and I
>   > > agree with) the electron (or whatever you claim is the proton's
>   > > partner in your model of a neutron would have to have that amount
>   > > of mass?
>   > 
>   > 
>   >   The 14th experiments is very much math oriented. Correlate all the
>   > isotopes as to size and shape of the nucleus. We do have modern
>   > techniques to give sizes of nucleuses.
>   >   The above shows that isotopes containing 30 hadrons should have a
>   > radius of 0.528e-10 meters assuming all neutrons are of the same size
>   > of 1e-15 meters.

Where do you arrive at this?  Experiments of nuclear scattering of electrons
and protons have yielded the following formula for the size of a nucleus:

    r = k * A^(1/3)

or equvalently:

    A = (r/k)^3

where r is the radius, A is the atomic mass number (i.e. the sum of the
number of neutrons and protons), and k is on the order of 1e-15 meters.
You can find this in _Elementary Modern Physics_ by Weidner & Sells.
So a nucleus of 30 nucleons would have a size of about 3e-15 meters.
To get a nuclear radius of 0.528e-10 meters you would need 1.5e14 nucleons.
I have yet to see evidence of nucleus over 300 nucleons.

[deletia]

--
|         (V)              |  "Tiger gotta hunt.  Bird gotta fly.
|   (^    (`>              |   Man gotta sit and wonder why, why, why.
|  ((\\__/ )               |   Tiger gotta sleep.  Bird gotta land.
|  (\\<   )   der Nethahn  |   Man gotta tell himself he understand."
|    \<  )                 |  
|     ( /                  |                Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
|      |                   |  
|      ^           hahn@lds.loral.com          my opinions need not be Loral's



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1995.10.25 / Nathaniel Tagg /  Re: Neutrinos do not have mass, Dr. Hill is the wiser, Dr. White
     
Originally-From: ntagg@uoguelph.ca (Nathaniel Tagg)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.electromag
sci.physics.particle,sci.physics.fusion,sci.astro
Subject: Re: Neutrinos do not have mass, Dr. Hill is the wiser, Dr. White
Date: 25 Oct 1995 18:18:56 GMT
Organization: University of Guelph

Archimedes Plutonium (Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu) wrote:
[Neutrino mass experiments]
:   We are seeing a burst of social physics reporting where "instant
: fame" is sought and not good physics is carried on. Social physics is
: bandwagon physics and it is bad because its driving force is that
: preconceptions and expectations put things there where they really do
: not exist. The Neutrino has no rest mass. But the pressure by so many
: fields of science to pin the neutrino with a rest mass, makes this
: report in my estimation a sham.

	You're one to talk.  Let's see here: you offer no 
mathematical models.  You do no experiments.  You offer now substantive 
numerical predictions.  You have not done any recognisable or recognised 
science. You are the one wanting instant fame.
	Social physics is nessesary; you crackpots don't seem to 
understand this.  Intellectual intertia is not a drawback, it is a 
nessesity.  Experiments and theories that diverge from what is well known 
must be verified thoroughly.  Without this, there is nothing but chaos 
and self-appointed experts like yourself with alchemist notions about 
turning gold into hydrogen by wishing it so.
	What experiements have you done to determine neutrino mass?  What 
_quantititative_ analysis have you done of their results?  Then how can 
you claim that 'this report is a sham'?  You idiot.
	You also seem to think that non-zero rest mass is somehow 
something well excepted; this is quite clearly not the case, and this 
experimental result comes as a mild surprise.  Being tangentially 
involved with the remenants of the 17 keV neutino debates, I think I can 
state this with some certainty.

	You don't like it because it doesn't fit with your perception of 
the world.  Tough.  Your perception, buddy, is wrong, massive neutrino 
aside.  

:   Good work Dr. Hill, and given time I am sure you will be found to be
: correct.

	Dr. Hill would do better without your endorsement.  He may very 
well be right, but not because you say so, Ludwig von Archemides von 
Fruitcake.

--
Nathaniel Tagg		Physics grad student		University of Guelph
	"The chances of a neutrino actually hitting something as it 
travels through all this howling emptiness are roughly comparable to that 
of dropping a ball bearing at random from a cruising 747 and hitting, 
say, an egg sandwich."		-- Douglas Adams, _Mostly_Harmless_
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1995.10.25 / Martin Sevior /  Re: Proposed explanation of CETI effect
     
Originally-From: msevior@axnd02.cern.ch (Martin Sevior)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Proposed explanation of CETI effect
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 01:01:56 GMT
Organization: CERN European Lab for Particle Physics

jnw@katie.vnet.net (John N. White) writes:

>Martin Sevior <msevior@physics.unimelb.edu.au> writes:
>> jnw@vnet.net (John N. White) wrote:
>> >[proposed explanation of CETI effect]
>>
>> This is a heat pump hypothesis.

>No it isn't. I am proposing that the pump chamber is warmer than the
>cell, and that ordinary chemistry can explain heat flow from the
>warmer pump chamber to the cooler cell even though the thermometer
>at the cell inlet reads a lower temperature than either. Heat
>naturally flows from a hot body to a cold body so there is no need
>to "pump" it.

>With a heat pump, high grade energy is used to pump heat from a cold body
>to a hot body. That is a completely different thing.
>-- 
>jnw@vnet.net

So your theory could be completely disproven if the total power input
to the pump is less than 5 watts. This would certainly be an upper
limit since not all of the waste energy would go into "heating" the fluid.

In any case not enough information about the
SOFE demonstration has been made available to make a definitive statement.

As has been pointed out there are many small changes that could be
made to the setup to rule out this and other explanations. I would
venture to say that the Patterson Cell is an extremely interesting device
and I'm glad it has been brought to the attention of of a wider circle of
of Scientists at SOFE. With luck, progress on determining what's going on
in it should accelerate now.

Martin Sevior

cudkeys:
cuddy25 cudenmsevior cudfnMartin cudlnSevior cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.10.25 / A Plutonium /  Neutrinos do not have mass, Dr. Hill is the wiser, Dr. White 
     
Originally-From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.electromag
sci.physics.particle,sci.physics.fusion,sci.astro
Subject: Neutrinos do not have mass, Dr. Hill is the wiser, Dr. White 
Date: 25 Oct 1995 02:08:52 GMT
Organization: Plutonium College

NYT tues 24 Oct 1995 page C9 says the Los Alamos Nat. Lab is reported
in  the Oct 2 issue of Physical Review Letters.

  Dr White who headed the team reports a neutrino mass of about 1
millionth to 1 hundred thousandth of the mass of an electron.

  Dr Hill is a maverick and says the neutrino has no mass and that the
experiment cannot say one way or the other due to contamination. In
short, the set-up is sloppy.

 I believe Dr. Hill is correct and will be found to be correct.

  Trouble with  so much of modern day physics is that it falls into the
'social' physics trap. We saw a case of it with Smoot where the
majority of the community wanted, prayed for, expected and demanded
that the measurements have a fluctuation. The social community put
pressure on Smoot to find fluctuations. Yet few if any said, "Hey,
there were no fluctuations, you guys just reached the precision of your
measuring devices and that in 100 years from now with more precise
instruments, we will see that the cosmic microwave radiation is uniform
down beyond and past where Smoot seemed to have erroneously found
fluctuations.

  We are seeing a burst of social physics reporting where "instant
fame" is sought and not good physics is carried on. Social physics is
bandwagon physics and it is bad because its driving force is that
preconceptions and expectations put things there where they really do
not exist. The Neutrino has no rest mass. But the pressure by so many
fields of science to pin the neutrino with a rest mass, makes this
report in my estimation a sham.

  Social physics is pressure physics and a disregard of logic, of
reason of clean wholesome experiments. Social physics is sloppy physics
because it is the end result that is wanted and give a dam about the
sloppy work or loopholes of logic. Just get the end result and get it
printed. I notice the social physics and social astronomy have a bad
time with their likes of black holes recently as reported in Nature.
Nature can sometimes do the right thing, and of course if they read
enough of my posts they can not help but be pulled up by their
bootstraps. Nature reported recently that quasars have alot of dust and
material spewed out from them. That means to me what I have been saying
all along that quasars are not black holes or singularities and that
pulsars are not neutron stars and both these objects do not intake
matter but that they expel matter from them. Quasars are really not
well known. It was just unfortunate that physics has been saddled with
the con trick the sham the fakery that is black holes. No black holes
exist. Quasars will be found to be something which is yet unknown to us
now.

  Good work Dr. Hill, and given time I am sure you will be found to be
correct.
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / A Plutonium /  Re: 15th Experiments proving HYASYS; Stability of helium3
     
Originally-From: Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.electromag
sci.physics.particle,sci.chem,sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: 15th Experiments proving HYASYS; Stability of helium3
Date: 25 Oct 1995 02:31:39 GMT
Organization: Plutonium College

In article <46ie36$v1t@alpha.ftech.net>
Mark@monark.ftech.co.uk (Mark Burbidge) writes:

> This statement "If HYASYS is correct . . ." is true - but NOT a bonus
> point for HYASYS, as  helium -3 should absorb a neuton anyway to
> become helium 4 - HYASYS doesn't predict new things. Anyway - is
> Helium 3 stable?  
> 
> HYASYS has been criticised by many people - e.g. beta +, probs of
> infinite regress etc, and you have chosen to post many, many "proving"
> threads, rather than just reply to criticisms within the thread - is
> this because you cannot reply, and must post like this so that people
> get tired of reading and thus you have the dubious satisfaction of
> "winning" by default?

  You are a physics air head  and you know it. How many posts have you
made to physics and yet not a one of them contains any quantitive data,
no math? How many? I really don't care to know, for you come flying in
like a bat out of hell criticizing and it appears that is your only
intent. And I am not going to waste any of my time with you beyond this
post. So, go to hell, Acheron that is. And if you get obnoxous like
trailing me with your inane and insipid follow-ups. I will just attach
the following below to your posts to indicate to your superiors and
others that you are nothing more than a 'deer fly' in physics 

On 21Oct I posted these questions to Mark, after he pestered me. This
is the 2nd time I am posting the questions and will post (cut and
paste, 5 seconds of my time) to every one of Mark's followups of me
because it is obvious that Mark knows little to no physics.
--- 2nd posting ----
In article <46a7ba$sk2@alpha.ftech.net>
Mark@monark.ftech.co.uk (Mark Burbidge) writes:

> Wow - impressive seeing as a few days ago you never new of the
> existance of even the tau!  ;-)
> 
> MB
> M. Burbidge. Mark@Monark.ftech.co.uk

  What does the value of the fine-structure constant have to be for the
electron orbital to be the exact same size as the proton, then the
neutron?
  What is the value of the fine-structure constant for the muon to be
the exact same size as the proton? Someone said it was already the same
size as the proton, but maybe the  loud mouth fool M. Burbidge has
something to say, here. We wait to see what you can add to the
conversation.
  Finally, what is the fine-structure constant value for a tau have to
be for its space to match exactly that of the proton? 
   If you have nothing to contribute to these conversations other than
your hatred, then scram, or I will tell you to go to hell.
--- end of 2nd posting ---

  Do the smart thing Mark and study physics and don't show yourself
back in sci.physics unless you can do some actual quantitative physics
instead of your pansy philosophical throw-up out of your mouth.
Question? Do you wear a dress?
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.10.24 / John White /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: jnw@lys.vnet.net (John N. White)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: 24 Oct 1995 23:06:33 -0500
Organization: Vnet Internet Access, Inc. - Charlotte, NC. (704) 374-0779

21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) writes:
[A rephrasing of my proposed explanation of CETI effect]

You seem to understand it fairly well, although I prefer the word
'sol' to 'slush' as the proposed "crystals" are tiny compared to
a wavelength of light. Thus the sol will appear clear, and look just
like the electrolyte normally does. Also, the salts are hydrates
(Glauber's salt is a decahydrate).

> (1) Since the measured heat output of this setup is 80 times the measured
> input, it seems clear that the heat picked up at the pump is far in excess
> of what can be supplied by the pump itself.

No, the measured input only refers to the electrolytic input to the cell;
it does not include the input to the pump. The electric power input to the
pump is much larger than the amount of excess heat that shows up in the
cell. Nearly all of the energy that the pump uses is converted to waste
heat, and I suspect that most of that waste heat ends up in the electrolyte.
Thus all that is needed to explain the reported excess heat is to
transfer part of that waste heat from the pump to the cell. 

> However, if memory serves, I believe I read in one of Jed's postings that
> the measured change was negligible.

That was his interpretation of some evidence that he saw. But I'm not going
to blindly accept his interpretation; I want to see the data so that I
can make up my own mind. What type of pump was this measurement made with,
and was the same type of pump used in the demo? Was the pump allowed to
warm up fully before the measurement? Where exactly were the temperature
sensors?

To be convincing, a temperature sensor would need to measure the temperature
right at the outlet of the pump during production of excess heat (at the
many times I*V input level). Measurements done in some other setup at
some other time just don't show anything.
-- 
jnw@vnet.net
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / Mark Burbidge /  Re: 15th Experiments proving HYASYS; Stability of helium3
     
Originally-From: Mark@monark.ftech.co.uk (Mark Burbidge)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,alt.sci.physics.plutonium,sci.physics.electromag
sci.physics.particle,sci.chem,sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: 15th Experiments proving HYASYS; Stability of helium3
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 08:16:00 GMT
Organization: Frontier Internet Services

Archimedes.Plutonium@dartmouth.edu (Archimedes Plutonium) wrote:
{snip}

>  You are a physics air head  and you know it.
I don't know anything of the sort. I'm just a guy whos out to get
people with "wonderful" new theories top make them hang together. I
don't see YOU responding to a single criticism of your theoryu withj
anything other than babble.
>How many posts have you
>made to physics and yet not a one of them contains any quantitive data,
>no math?
That's cos you can blind with maths - I can use math - but I'd rather
try and explain. We can all pick numbers out of the air, but unless
you EXPLAIN where they're from it's meaningless.

{snip}
> for you come flying in
>like a bat out of hell criticizing and it appears that is your only
>intent
No - I have emailed people to help with phys probs, as well as posting
no and then, however what I have posted quite a lot are crtiticisms of
half baked theories - and 99% of the time as a reply to an existing
thread. If your theory was sound then I'd have no problems. Must your
really sink to this level? Arte you that unsure of yourself?

> And I am not going to waste any of my time with you beyond this
>post.
Maybe you should not waste your time with USENET at all?

>So, go to hell, Acheron that is. And if you get obnoxous like
What? And see you for eternity? No thanks.

>trailing me with your inane and insipid follow-ups. I will just attach
You mean - anything which responds point by point to you and puts a
fly in the ointment of your theory.

>the following below to your posts to indicate to your superiors and
>others that you are nothing more than a 'deer fly' in physics 
Good luck.

>On 21Oct I posted these questions to Mark, after he pestered me. This
I pester you - that's rich!

>is the 2nd time I am posting the questions and will post (cut and
>paste, 5 seconds of my time) to every one of Mark's followups of me
>because it is obvious that Mark knows little to no physics.
Highly obvious, from someone who doesn't know the difference between
prove and verify.

{snippped, because I don't recall ever mentioning the fine structure
constant}

>   If you have nothing to contribute to these conversations other than
>your hatred, then scram, or I will tell you to go to hell.
These are NOT conversations, they are you spouting stuff, people
telling you where it's wrong, you starting a new thread (about 20 new
threads) people adding you to kill file, you carrying on regardless.

>  Do the smart thing Mark and study physics and don't show yourself
>back in sci.physics unless you can do some actual quantitative physics
>instead of your pansy philosophical throw-up out of your mouth.
>Question? Do you wear a dress?
I have studied Physics to a high level, including a very long piece of
work on hadronic resonances in K- p collisions - and I can do the
maths, but don't you think it's better explain in an open forum?. . .
P.S.with these insults you're almost to the intellectual level of a
gerbil.

Here are my objections for the hard of thinking. You say that in every
neutron is a mini Hydrogen atom, hence beta -  decay. What about beta
+ decay, by analogy you'd have a mini anti-hydrogen. Why isn't the
antiproton immediately annihilated? Where does the anti proton go
after the decay? Do you have two types of neutron? What about tyhe HUP
- the electron simply would NOT be confined in the neutron. As the
person with the "new and wonderful" ideas, it's up to YOU to respond
to criticisms of your theory, it's not up to ME or anyone else to
verify what has been verified many times before.

In short, do some physics yourself, and while you're at it, read some
scientific method.

Have fun, stay good. 

MB
M. Burbidge. Mark@Monark.ftech.co.uk
For PGP key, Send Email with subject GET KEY
Reply should come within the day.
Fingerprint: 5F F8 CB D1 A8 A5 66 FE F1 D0 18 07 13 7B CD 6B

cudkeys:
cuddy25 cudenMark cudfnMark cudlnBurbidge cudmo10 cudqt4 cudszM cudyr1995 
------------------------------
1995.10.25 /  jedrothwell@de /  John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 95 15:26:27 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

jnw@katie.vnet.net (John N. White) writes:
 
     "I am proposing that the pump chamber is warmer than the cell, and that
     ordinary chemistry can explain heat flow from the warmer pump chamber to
     the cooler cell even though the thermometer at the cell inlet reads a
     lower temperature than either. Heat naturally flows from a hot body to a
     cold body so there is no need to "pump" it.
 
Look John, why don't you stop waving your arms? You are waving them so hard
they are going to fly off at the shoulders and you will look like Venus de
Milo. This hypothesis of yours is bunk. It is fantasy. You don't have to take
my word for it, and you do not have to keep repeating this nonsense. No, you
can GET A DAMN PUMP AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF. Go ahead! Step into any lab,
any fishtank supply store, any hospital equipment room. Pick up a small pump
designed to move water at 14 ml/minute. If you get a faster pump, pinch the a
clothespin over the output pipe. (Yes, increase the water flow friction to the
max if you like!) Just pump water around in a circle. Put a thermometer or
thermocouple in a fat tube just outside the pump. See if the water comes out
five degrees hotter than it goes in. Try it! Why not? Are you "skeptics"
incapable of trying even the simplest tests of your ideas?
 
Before you start, here are a few things to bear in mind:
 
Only a complete idiot would design a laboratory pump or a fishtank pump to
dump the motor waste heat into the fluid. And if you did that with a hospital
IV pump Uncle Sam and a million hospitals would come down on you like a ton of
bricks for heating up the fluid. Notice those little holes they put in the
housing next to the motor? Y'know what those are for? Yup, ventilation. Turn
on the pump for a while and put your hand over those holes.
 
As I pointed out a dozen times, you can put your finger on the pump housing or
the hose where the water comes out and you will see that it is room
temperature. It is *NOT* elevated 5 deg C (10 degrees F). Try heating water up
5 deg C and tell me if you can feel the difference between that water and
ambient.
 
Your hypothesis assumes a miracle. Lots of miracles, actually, but in
particular it assumes a chemical process that manages to grab each and every
joule generated by this pump, bringing the pump temperature from 5 degrees
over ambient down to within a fraction of a degree of ambient. This miraculous
process just happens to work 100% efficiently at any temperature between 15
and 30 deg C. It snaps up every joule that comes out. According to your
scenario, when they run pure water through the pump, the pump decides to stay
exactly at room temperature. It does not heat up the water at all. Then when
they run the CF cell, after 20 minutes the pump suddenly decides to raise the
water temperature 1 deg C. Your magic crystals see this and they swing into
action! They manage to grab every joule, lowering the water and the pump
housing and the hose right back to ambient. Whew!
 
Of course, a real chemical process like the one you describe would only be,
say, 10% efficient, so the pump would have to add maybe 50 watts (raising the
temperature 50 degrees). But okay, we will pile on a special miracle here that
allows those crystals to work flawlessly scavenging up heat right to room
temperature, all in the 1 centimeter long pump housing.
 
Let us watch your magic fairy tale unfold. After an hour, the pump gets tired
of heating the water only 1 deg C. It decides to heat it 2, 3 and finally 5
degrees. Those magic crystals see the change! They swing into action and grab
every joule. Yup. Of course, it is hard to imagine what would make a lab pump
suddenly decide to run 5 times hotter than it did an hour ago when nobody has
touched the controls, moved the pump, or blocked the ventilation holes. (Oops!
I forgot! This pump does not have ventilation holes. It is specially
manufactured.) Nobody has ever seen an electric motor temperature fluctuate up
and down all afternoon for no reason, but that's fine, we can invent as many
miracles as we like for your theory. For that matter, we have observed the
fact that the heat is generated even when we turn off the pump, remove it, set
up a calorimeter with no pump whatsoever, and store the pump in the back room.
No doubt those magic healing crystals reach through time and space, pick up
the heat that the pump generated last year, and put it into the flow. Why not?
And if you wear the crystals around your neck they will prevent cancer too.
 
Oh, yeah, I forgot. The extra-thin thin-film beads from U. Ill. send a special
coded signal to the motor, telling it to heat up faster, in 5 minutes instead
of 20. Wow! Do you think maybe the crystals themselves carry secret messages
from the cell to the pump motor? Or do *you* tell the motor to run hot by
e.s.p.?
 
Keep at it! Change the flow rate, the way Cravens methodically did. The magic
crystals see the change and even though they pass through the pump more
quickly, and even though the pump motor now dumps more heat into the flow,
the magic crystals get to work. They snap up exactly the right number of
joules, release them into the cell and then those crystals take the extra
joules from the faster flow rate and ah, they um . . . they send them by UPS
to Norcross, Georgia, C.O.D. Right?
 
- Jed
cudkeys:
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 95 17:19:14 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

Mitchell Jones <21cenlogic@i-link.net> writes:
 
>***{John, I don't know where you got this information, but it doesn't make
>any sense. There is *no way* such a pump is going to consume the 5 watts
>it would need to account for this experimental result, even if all of the
>power it consumed were to somehow wind up in the fluid stream as heat. We
 
Actually, the high quality precision laboratory pumps that I have seen
probably consume a lot more than 5 watts. I have no idea how much they
consume. I have a Neslab catalog over here that might say . . .
(riffle, riffle). No, this does not say. Most of these are built into
constant temperature baths, which hold the fluid temperature to +/- 0.05 C.
That is the temperature at the hose the moment the fluid leaves the unit
(I checked that one time).
 
Okay, but what we are talking about is a gadget a lot like a hospital IV
pump with a digital display and lots o' lights and whatnot on it. The
actual power consumed by the actual pump inside it is miniscule of course.
That is basic physics. The only question is, what do the pump unit designers
decide to do with the waste heat from the electronics? What would you do
if you were designing a pump for use in laboratory experiments? You put the
heat out the back of course. You don't use route the hose with the customer's
experimental fluid through the box, past the electronics, over the
microprocessor cooling fins! Anyone who thinks that is how a standard lab
pump is designed should go to a lab and glance at one. Please. Do that
before posting any more dumb messages. (I don't mean you, Mitch!)
 
I did not see the pump at SOFE but I had a good look at the one in France.
It had a big old motor which some lab in France loaned them I think, because
U.S. precision motors don't like French electricity. The motor drives
a shaft which revolves once every few seconds, like a clock or a chart
recorder motor. The shaft drives the plastic pump. You can see it clearly
in the photographs of the equipment. I think that is peculiar arrangement
they picked in order to deal with overseas electricity. In any case, the
J. White theory holds that the heat from the motor crossed the shaft, went
through the plastic housing and into water. And not only that, the pump
heat increased and decreased with the level of electrolysis, even though
nobody touched the pump motor speed controls. It's magic!
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 /  jedrothwell@de /  Re: John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 95 17:23:02 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

I forgot to mention that the magic crystals also tell the motor to
increase its waste heat whenever a person turns up the electrolysis in the
cell. These are sentient crystals; they sense the level of electrolysis,
they whisper commands to the motor, it increases its waste heat level
without changing speed or consuming any more power, and then the magic
crystals grab that increased heat and bring it into the cell, where they
make more pretend excess heat than they did before.
 
Yes, that is how it works, according to John White. It is really very
simple. I just wish that the rest of physics was this easy.
 
- Jed
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------------------------------
1995.10.25 / Mitchell Jones /  Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
     
Originally-From: 21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Hilarious 'skeptical' handwaving awards
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:04:44 -0500
Organization: 21st Century Logic

In article <nrouse.41.018DAB07@surface.fisons.co.uk>,
nrouse@surface.fisons.co.uk (Nick Rouse) wrote:

> In article <21cenlogic-2510950952430001@austin-2-15.i-link.net>
21cenlogic@i-link.net (Mitchell Jones) writes:
> 
> > There is simply *no way* the pump
> >they were using was inefficient enough to consume even a tiny fraction of
> >5 watts! You are trying to ride a dead horse, my friend. --Mitchell
> >Jones}***
> 
> No pump operating at near its full load is likely to commercially viable at 
> such low efficiencies but a more powerful pump turned down to a fraction
> of its rated load to supply the tiny dribble that was used in this experiment 
> could be that inefficient as some loss factors stay fairly constant over the 
> load range. I don't know of anybody that makes a lab pump with a full rating 
> anywhere near as low as that.

***{A "lab pump" is just a pump used in a lab. Go down to an aquarium
supply store. You will find lots of models that have power ratings in
fractions of watts, and which would would serve perfectly well in this
sort of application. --Mitchell Jones}***

However rather than argue in the dark can we 
> find out what sort of pump was used. Do you Know Jed? I  know you have put up 
> some pretty good arguments why the pump can't be the source of  of the
> output heat and I think I accept them but if we could tie down the pump 
> input power to substantially less than 5W we could cut short any augument
> over the existance of a lithium salt that could isothermally absorb 16J /ml
> by de-hydration.

***{Nick, even if for some bizarre reason they used a pump that was
thousands of times larger than needed, that still wouldn't be sufficient
to invalidate the result. In addition, you would need the secondary
miracle of a pump insulated so heavily that all of its energy was dumped
into the fluid stream as heat, plus the tertiary miracle of lithium
sulphate having the same properties as sodium sulphate, plus the
quaternary miracle of the critical slush temperature happening to be just
above that of the electrolyte, plus the pentanary miracle of the CETI
beads just happening to catalyze the re-formation of the slush crystals.
If this scenario does not seem ridiculously implausible to you, then I am
frankly amazed. I would add that the requirement that the electrolyte
temperature be just below the critical slush temperature would mandate
failure of these experiments if run at any other temperatures. Since they
have been run successfully at many temperatures, the "Magic Salt" idea is
flatly refuted by the facts. --Mitchell Jones}***
 
> Nick Rouse

===========================================================
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------------------------------
1995.10.26 / Carlton Haynie /  Re: Serious Flaws in Patterson (SOFE '95) Demo on Cold Fusion
     
Originally-From: cchaynie@ix.netcom.com (Carlton Haynie)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Serious Flaws in Patterson (SOFE '95) Demo on Cold Fusion
Date: 26 Oct 1995 00:34:20 GMT
Organization: Netcom

Hello All! I want to qualify my message by first saying that I am NOT a
scientist -- but I am curious.

Dr. Steve Jones: Is the same Dr. Steve Jones who did work with
muon-catalysed fusion a few years back? If so, it's quite an honor to
respond to your message.

I have 2 problems with your proposed method of determining whether the
Peterson Power Cell is producing more energy than given:

1) By dispersing Nitrogen or Argon through the cell, to rid the
electrolyte of any excess hydrogen, aren't you defeating the purpose of
the electrolysis, which is to saturate the electrolyte with excess
hydrogen to stimulate the 'cold-fusion' process?

2) Couldn't the introduction of an 'alien' gas to the electrolyte
interfere with the 'cold-fusion' process in an unexpected, and possibly
unknown manner? In other words -- if the 'cold-fusion' process did stop
after the introduction of N2 or Ar at this point, then would you really
know that the 'cold-fusion' effect was caused by recombination?
Wouldn't there be a doubt that the 'cold-fusion' effect was killed by
the introduction of the N2 or Ar for other reasons other than the
obvious reason that possible recombination was killed?

Wouldn't a better test of the 'cold-fusion' effect be to simply measure
the total amount of energy released from the experiment over the
*entire* run, and compare this with the total amount of energy input
during the *entire* run?

Hasta,

Craig Haynie

PS: What a concept! Talking to people I've only read about in magazines
-- over the Internet!



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1995.10.25 / Jim Carr /  Re: 7Li(n,2n)6LI driven fusion (was: Farce of Physics)
     
Originally-From: jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: 7Li(n,2n)6LI driven fusion (was: Farce of Physics)
Date: 25 Oct 1995 18:53:32 -0400
Organization: Supercomputer Computations Research Institute

zoltanccc@aol.com (ZoltanCCC) writes:
>
>Somehow I am not buying a word of what you've written. In the fourties the
>Manhattan project developed the two bombs dropped on Japan in a very short
>time, and with immediate success.  This tells me that it was not very hard
>to build the bombs. (And the one used for testing) 

And yet, at the same time, three other countries with similar technical 
expertise and scientific knowledge could not accomplish the same goal. 
Perhaps the fact that it cost a billion 1940 dollars to pull this off 
had something to do with it?  This was the same country that could make 
tens of thousands of bombers, not to mention the Iowa class battleships,
in a few years.  It is widely understood that there is no secret to 
building the fission bomb, particularly the U-235 bomb, and that all 
that is required is the necessary industrial capacity, will, and money. 

>                                                    The fact that the Bravo
>device later generated 15 Megatons tells me that it is not very hard to
>build large nuclear bombs. All you need is a little lithium deuteride. 

And a design.  Ask yourself "how much later" and at what investment of 
time, money, and talent.  One might add that solving this problem seems 
likely to require solving the first one, followed by some study of 
experiments with the results of a fast fission reaction. 

>We also know that low yield nukes have been developed and tested, in
>particular the ones they caled Neutron Bombs. 

Low yield, yes.  There was much talk about a Neutron Bomb but I 
am not aware of any claim to have produced or tested one.  Anyway, 
I think that name was P.R. -- wasn't it really "enhanced radiation" 
including gammas? 

>The case of this reaction:
>
>7Li + n  ---> 6Li + n + n
>
>I buy the fact that it is endothermic, but it is still a good deal, since
>we gain two slow neutrons from a fast one 

Why do you want slow neutrons?  That is like having a slow bullet. 

-- 
 James A. Carr   <jac@scri.fsu.edu>     |  What a long strange trip it's 
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  been.        
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |              Jerry Garcia
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |                1942-1995 
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1995.10.26 / Cliff Frost /  Re: John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
     
Originally-From: cliff@ack.berkeley.edu (Cliff Frost)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: John N. White: GET A PUMP!!!
Date: 26 Oct 1995 01:46:41 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <B1DFIRz.jedrothwell@delphi.com>,  <jedrothwell@delphi.com> wrote:
...
>can GET A DAMN PUMP AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF. Go ahead! Step into any lab,
>any fishtank supply store, any hospital equipment room. Pick up a small pump
>designed to move water at 14 ml/minute. If you get a faster pump, pinch the a

It's been many years since I had a fishtank, but last I did the pumps used
were for pushing air.  The point being that you wanted to make sure
the water in the tank had enough oxygen to keep your fish from suffocating,
so you bubbled air through it.

Is modern fishtank technology using water pumps in some way?

Or has Jed/Mitch bought some stock in Aquarium Supply Inc and is now
trying to drum up business amongst the same folks gullible enough
to invest in CF?

	Thanks,
		Cliff
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1995.10.25 /  jedrothwell@de /  6 = 500! Jones, the Master of Malarkey, strikes again!
     
Originally-From: jedrothwell@delphi.com
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: 6 = 500! Jones, the Master of Malarkey, strikes again!
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 95 21:56:35 -0500
Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice)

In his continuing effort to bamboozle the public, Steve Jones
(jonesse@plasma.byu.edu) posted a long, rambling, message about the "Serious
Flaws" in the SOFE demonstration. There is no point to going over this message
point by point trying to list all of the absurdities, inaccuracies, mistakes
and distortions. Actually, the whole message boils down to two statements,
repeated over and over again:
 
     Recombination magically makes 0.06 watts look like 5.00 watts; and,
 
     You can store 5 liters of water inside of 0.2 liters of water.
 
Well . . .  anyway, let us hold our noses and have a look:
 
     "The demonstration of a cold-fusion cell allegedly producing excess
     power at the 1995 Symposium on Fusion Engineering has received a great
     deal of fanfare, but little direct information has been made available."
 
Sure, right. Just three U.S. patents.
 
 
     "Finally, some information has been published in "Fusion Facts", edited
     by Hal Fox.  I will review this information, and show from it and from
     our own work on light-water cells (Jones et al., J. Physical Chem.
     99:6973 [1995]) that a significant contribution to the apparent excess
     power, hydrogen + oxygen recombination within the cell, has not been
     ruled out."
 
Ah, yes! Recombination can produce 80 times total input! Jones is still hoping
to find brain dead idiots who believe that "recombination" means some magical
hocus pocus process that makes 0.06 watts equal 5 watts.
 
 
     "We pause here to note the old, tired argument that the excess power is
     too large to be chemical, so it must be nuclear. . .
 
And we hasten to add that only Steve Jones and the other "skeptics" say it
must be nuclear. People like Hal Fox and I hypothesize that it might be
nuclear, and we make tentative statements based on that hypothesis, but we
never say "it must be nuclear." Jones does that in order to set up a straw man
like the following: "So where are the secondary x-rays which must accompany
slowing of the alpha-particles in the palladium?" and bla, bla, bla.
 
 
     "Where is the helium-4?"
 
Nobody has attempted to measure it with a CETI cell yet.
 
 
     "I asked George Miley (who has a Patterson cell, used for the demo at
     SOFE '95 which George organized) what the material was that the beads
     were made of, that the Pd/Ni was plated onto.  He said he could not say
     as this was proprietary information.  Thus we run immediately into the
     old problem that not enough information is available to allow scientists
     to independently test the system for themselves."
 
That is only true of academic scientists who refuse to sign secrecy
agreements. Real scientists, who work at corporations, understand that
technology is worth real money and that if you steal money, they put you in
jail. People like Steve Jones think that money is something you get from the
taxpayers and all scientists are entitled to as much as they want.
 
Jones quotes Fox:  "The preheated electrolyte moves through the bed of metal-
coated spheres.  The spheres touch each other and carry the
electrical potential from the platinum screen through the whole
bed of coated spheres. . . .
 
Ha! Ha! Nice touch. Very clever. The 'quote out of context' trick! Jones
"forgest" to say that Fox is describing a *different experiment*. At ICCF5 and
SOFE the electrolyte was not pre-heated.
 
 
     "As I mentioned in an earlier post to sci.physics.fusion, the problem
     with allowing the H2 and O2 to "escape" into the atmosphere like this is
     that one then has no way to preclude the possibility that recombination
     is occurring in the cell, which appears as "excess" power."
 
Right. Yes. Back to the same old bullshit again. 6 = 500. Don't worry, Dick
Blue will believe it. A few true believer skeptics will believe it.
 
 
     "This problem we have thoroughly studied and reported on -- see our
     paper "Faradaic efficiencies less than 100% during electrolysis of water
     can account for reports of excess heat in 'cold fusion' cells," J. Phys.
     Chem. 99:6973 (1995).
 
     (And later) "However, we demonstrated in our experiments that the degree
     of recombination is indeed significant, even when the electrodes are
     fully covered by electrolyte, and that this can mislead one into
     thinking that excess power is being produced when it is not.  (Jones et
     al., J. Phys. Chem. 99:6973, 1995)
 
He can't stop himself! He has to keep repeating it! He has nothing else to
say! 6 = 500. Recombination! Recombination! He can't stop himself. It is a
mantra. Jones is the leader of a cult: The Brotherhood of True Believers in
Recombination Until Death. They all swear to believe that 6 = 500 because
Master Jones orders them to believe it.
 
 
     "Patterson et al. are repeating the error made by many others (including
     Pons and Fleischmann) of using _open_ cells so that hydrogen and oxygen
     are allowed to escape into the atmosphere.
 
     By assuming that little or no recombination of H2 and O2 occurs in the
     cell -- despite the fact that Pd, Pt and Ni are excellent catalysts for
     this chemical, heat-releasing reaction -- one can observe apparent
     excess power which is in fact due to recombination."
 
Sure. They just assumed. And what about those bubbles in the tubes, and that
gas flowmeter? Steve says the numbers on the gas flowmeter digital display
mean nothing. That doesn't prove there is gas coming out. No, of course not.
Not if you are member of the 6 = 500 cult.
 
 
     "There is a high probability that the Patterson Power Cell (TM) is
     nothing more than a battery wherein one stores chemical energy in the
     form of dissolved H2 and O2 in the electrolyte, and later extracts power
     by recombining the H2 and O2 on the Pt, Ni and Pd present in the
     battery."
 
Oh, right! Why didn't we think of that!?! Yes, it is a 40 milligram battery
that charges up in 20 minutes, and then it runs at 20 watts nonstop for 7
weeks. Yeah, sure.
 
 
     "This actually makes a rather inefficient battery -- and expensive since
     Pt and Pd are used."
 
Well . . . Actually that would make it a battery the size of a flea that
produces more energy than 4 tons of ordinary automobile batteries. Jones calls
that inefficient.
 
 
     "The use of Pd/Ni coated beads increases the surface of these metal
     catalysts so that recombination is enhanced. Consistent with my
     interpretation are these facts about the cell disclosed by Hal Fox:
 
And also disclosed by CETI, and by me, and by the U.S. Patent Office. . .
 
Fox: 1.  "When the reactor is first turned on, it takes from a few
minutes to a few hours before excess heat is produced."
 
     " --Some time is required to dissolve hydrogen and oxygen in the
     solution, depending on its temperature -- in order to "charge the
     battery."
 
Oh, yeah, you can charge up a 40 mg battery with 85 MJ in 20 minutes.
 
 
Fox: 2.  "If the cell has been operated for some time at high current levels
and the current is decreased, the power amplification factor (PAF) can go to
very large values. ... Obviously, if any thermal power is being produced with
zero current, by definition the PAF can become increasingly large (dividing by
zero)."
 
     "--By operating at high current for "some time", considerable H2 and O2
     can be stored in the solution."
 
Right. Sure. In 200 ml of water you can store how much H2 and O2? Enough to
produce 5 liters of liters of water?!? (The ash from 85 megajoules of
recombination.) Jones thinks you can hide 5 liters of water in 200 ml of
water.
 
 
     "Then when the input power is decreased (to 0.02 amps in the case cited
     by Fox and Rothwell at the SOFE demonstration). . .
 
Ah, ha! The 'out of context trick again.' Twice in one message! The power was
not decreased at SOFE, it was decreased in laboratory tests reported at ICCF5.
Power was not reduced during the demonstrations, it was left on steady all
day.
 
 
     "For the unwary investor, this is a clever trick."
 
For the unwary reader, quoting out of context is a clever trick too. Fox
describes experiments performed in the lab, and Jones moves them to a physics
conference. Of course, the idea that you can store up thousands or millions of
joules in a little water + 40 mg of metal is preposterous in the first place,
but it sounds vaguely plausible because Jones "forgets" to mention the actual
physical mass of materials; the context. He doesn't want people to know he
means you can store 5 liters of water in 0.2 liters of water.
 
Fox: "There seems to be a limit in that the reactor bed of plated sphere can
only use so many hydrogen ions.  If more current is used, the hydrogen bubbles
up and escapes, therefore, as shown in Fig. 2, the PAF gradually decreases
with an increase in cell current."
 
     "--Oops:  the behavior does *not* follow what one expects from a nuclear
     reaction."
 
And how would Jones know that?!? What can he tell us about the nature of a
nuclear reaction that occurs in a metal lattice without producing neutrons?
First he says that reaction is impossible. Now he lectures to us about how it
must work.
 
 
     "Rather, this fits precisely the expectation from a
     recombination-type-battery in that as soon as the electrolyte is
     saturated with H2 and O2, the power output from recombination has
     reached a maximum."
 
Uh... Hello? Earth to Jones . . . The electrolyte is maybe 200 ml and its 95%
water. You could store enough gas in it to maintain the 5 watt reaction for,
oh, one-fifth of a second.
 
 
     "Then increasing the input current just decreases the PAF ratio of
     output power(due to recombination)/input power (electrical)."
 
Yeah, for a fraction of a second. Then all the fuel is used up.
 
 
     "These data stare these gentlemen in the face, yet they choose to ignore
     it.  Why?"
 
Ha ha ha ha ha!!!! That's classic! "These data" he says! THESE DATA! This from
a guy who thinks that you can magically cram 5 liters of water into a fifth of
another liter. This from a guy who claims that 0.06 watts total input over 20
minute can store up 85 megajoules. Staring you in the face!!! That's rich.
 
Fox: 4.  "It has been determined (but not fully explored) that the PAF also
increases with an increase in the temperature of the electrolyte."  "A
pre-heater is used to control the input temperature of the electrolyte,
especially during startup of the cell."
 
 
     " --  Surprise, surprise.  The recombination rate increases with
     temperature.  Actually, most storage batteries have the same temperature
     dependence as the Patterson battery . . ."
 
He can't help himself!!!
 
 
     "I have strongly urged George Miley of the University of Illinois, who
     has a Patterson cell from the SOFE demonstration (George organized the
     meeting and permitted the demonstration) to test for recombination in
     the cell."
 
George did that already, with the gas flowmeter. Remember?
 
 
     "This is readily done:  he needs simply to get the cell operating with
     "overunity" output, then bubble nitrogen or argon through a frit placed
     at the bottom of the cell, to remove dissolved hydrogen and oxygen from
     the electrolyte.  I predict that this will eliminate the apparent excess
     heat.  He should then publicize the result, just as he did the SOFE
     demonstration.  The fact is, we used just this method to "turn off" the
     apparent excess heat in the light-water electrolytic cells reported in
     our J. Phys. Chem. paper cited above.
 
I can see it now: "Miracle of the century! University Prof Finds 5 Liters of
Water Hiding in 0.2 Liters!" Hey, it will not make it into J. Phys. Chem. but
I am sure Jones could sell that in a minute to Star Magazine and the National
Enquirer."
 
Oh, by the way, Jones is perfectly right about this. If you bubble nitrogen or
argon through a working cell, you probably will wreck it, perhaps permanently.
With any luck the thermal shock alone will cut off the reaction. This is kind
of like testing a radio by dropping out of the second story window onto
concrete. It is kind of like the famous test performed by Jones himself at
Kamiokande, where he proved that if you smear organic skin oil all over a
palladium cathode, you wreck it.
 
 
     "I should mention one additional source of error:  the use of
     thermocouples placed in the electrolyte to measure temperature.
     Thermocouples are very sensitive to stray voltages, with less than a
     millivolt interpreted as several degrees centigrade."
 
I should mention that the thermocouples were encased in plastic, grounded
and calibrated with a null gold bead electrolysis. I should mention that
thermistors were also used, and that they agreed with the thermocouples. I
should also mention that mercury thermometers were also used, and they are not
sensitive to stray voltages. Actually, Steve Jones should mention these facts
but he will not, because they prove he is wrong.
 
 
     "Let me emphasize that the possibility that recombination causes the
     apparent excess power in the Patterson cell is likely, so that it is
     nothing more than an expensive and inefficient battery."
 
My god, there he goes again. How many times has he repeated that? Does he
actually believe it himself?!?
 
- Jed
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