Noble Plasma Engine

[Aero]

I spent yesterday on Google reading up on high pressure cold RF plasma, as that is the category this falls into. Did not take notes but we all know Google. I found some things of interest.

First thing - The PAPP engine of explosion fame did not explode, it threw a rod which struck and killed a person. Remember, this was not a production engine with a cast iron engine block, rather it was a machine shop produced apparatus with emphasis on the cylinders and cylinder heads. It went into over speed for lack of control, threw a rod and killed a bystander. The fundemental meaning of this is that the accident did not involve explosive energy and was easily understood by the police investigators at the time. If someone in the Stanford area wants to go to the public library and check the microfich newspaper files around that date, this can be verified or refuted.

Second - Noble gasses ionize at low energy compared to other gasses. It was noted by one of the Rohner brothers that the gas mixture is not as critical as PAPP had let on. Various mixtures of noble gasses will work, just some better than others.

Third - The detailed behavior of high pressure cold RF plasma under these conditions is not well understood but it is understood well enough to know that the high temperature spark that starts the electron cascade is not nuclear fusion (IMO). Consider Lightning and Plasma Lamps, both start with an electorn cascade but it isn't attributed to fusion.

Forth - A fifteen step description of the controls operation is given at this reference about two screens down from the top. See step 8 for the reference to fusion starting the electron cascade.

http://pesn.com/2009/07/18/9501554_Plas ... or_system/

All of the above simply means to me that the door is wide open for someone with the proper background and equipment to become very wealthy by documenting the mathematics of how this process works. Wealth would be derived by contracting his/her skills to manufacturers. Of course that is true for many of the LENR experiments, but there does exist some mathematical descriptions of aspects of high pressure cold RF plasmas which would give the researcher a leg up.

[GIThruster]

I concur with what both Tom and Aero are writing here and would only add that given this is not a thermodynamic process, the obvious choice for a test bed is a scaled aluminum engine with external, removable cylinders and no cooling system, such as an RC radial engine. Many of these cost less than $1,000 and with grad student slave labor, this is a cheap project. This is the kind of experiment a university could run for couple years and we'd have real answers as to what is going on.

I'm particularly curious about why Papp included radioactive isotopes in the electrode buckets. Is that smoke and mirrors? Only future investigation will tell.

[easyBob]

It looks like it's easier to explain this as fraud than actual science.

There could be vacuum in the chamber, helping the piston come back down...that doesn't mean much though. The coil is used to shoot the piston up, vacuum pulls the piston back down. The spark, gasses, and other elements inside the device are just there for distraction/obfuscation.

The increase in temp he saw after sparking it can be explained by triggering the coil.

I'd be willing to bet that these people saw the money Papp 'made' with his claim, and are just trying to run the same old scam.

[GIThruster]

You're saying all the people sitting at the table behind the presentation, there to lend support of the project are all scammers or they're just too stupid to understand what you and I easily pick out from a video?

There are lots of stupid people in the world. With graduate honors and post doctoral work, one wouldn't expect McKubre to be on that list, so you're saying he's risking his career over a cheezy scam we can identify from the vid?

I'm sorry but explanations like this don't wash. People running the kind of scam you're describing would never make a public presentation where a critic could debunk what they're doing. Likewise, you're ignoring guys like the one in the audience who claimed to be a student of Feynman at CalTech. Do you think the's part of the scam too?

These people may be wrong, and they may be so invested they'll fudge some facts from time to time--Bob said Papp's engine ran at 400% OU which is hard to believe--but these are not professional scammers. They believe what they're saying.

[ScottL]

You're saying all the people sitting at the table behind the presentation, there to lend support of the project are all scammers or they're just too stupid to understand what you and I easily pick out from a video?

There are lots of stupid people in the world. With graduate honors and post doctoral work, one wouldn't expect McKubre to be on that list, so you're saying he's risking his career over a cheezy scam we can identify from the vid?

I'm sorry but explanations like this don't wash. People running the kind of scam you're describing would never make a public presentation where a critic could debunk what they're doing. Likewise, you're ignoring guys like the one in the audience who claimed to be a student of Feynman at CalTech. Do you think the's part of the scam too?

These people may be wrong, and they may be so invested they'll fudge some facts from time to time--Bob said Papp's engine ran at 400% OU which is hard to believe--but these are not professional scammers. They believe what they're saying.

Either these people aren't thinking critically (they don't appear to be the questioning type) or out of some social stability have chosen not to pipe up and call someone out. You don't want to look like a monster after all and people don't tend to take well (including audiences) to being "attacked" or witnessing the attack. I think its completely reasonable that noone spoke up and just left shrugging, happens all the time.

[paperburn1]

I concur with what both Tom and Aero are writing here and would only add that given this is not a thermodynamic process, the obvious choice for a test bed is a scaled aluminum engine with external, removable cylinders and no cooling system, such as an RC radial engine. Many of these cost less than $1,000 and with grad student slave labor, this is a cheap project. This is the kind of experiment a university could run for couple years and we'd have real answers as to what is going on.

I'm particularly curious about why Papp included radioactive isotopes in the electrode buckets. Is that smoke and mirrors? Only future investigation will tell.

I would be more curious why he is running VCC to pin 2 of an 74LS221 and other discrepancies in his schematic. IMHO this circuit will not work... ever.

[GIThruster]

Are you referring to the patent? Rohner did say that Papp was the paranoid sort, so it's possible he intentionally mislead people with the patent.

What is it you're looking at and what would it disable?

[GIThruster]

Either these people aren't thinking critically (they don't appear to be the questioning type) or out of some social stability have chosen not to pipe up and call someone out.

Okay, but recognize what you're saying. You think then, that someone like McKubre has been hoodwinked and you're smart enough to see in a vid what this graduate honors PhD did not with careful investigation.

That doesn't make sense to me.

I'm going with Tom's call, that there is something real and not yet understood here but that it is not over-unity nor a form of fusion.

Would be pretty easy to tell with some neutron detectors and spectral analysis of the reactants, wouldn't it?

[ScottL]

Are you referring to the patent? Rohner did say that Papp was the paranoid sort, so it's possible he intentionally mislead people with the patent.

What is it you're looking at and what would it disable?

Well now.... we've got our incredible claim, we've got our uncredentialled (within appropriate fields) implementors, and now we have our conspiracy.

All we need now is our "critical thinkers" per my definition in the other thread and we'll have Rossi 2.0......errr...3.0....errr....well a new version of the same old story.

[ScottL]

Either these people aren't thinking critically (they don't appear to be the questioning type) or out of some social stability have chosen not to pipe up and call someone out.

Okay, but recognize what you're saying. You think then, that someone like McKubre has been hoodwinked and you're smart enough to see in a vid what this graduate honors PhD did not with careful investigation.

That doesn't make sense to me.

I'm going with Tom's call, that there is something real and not yet understood here but that it is not over-unity nor a form of fusion.

Would be pretty easy to tell with some neutron detectors and spectral analysis of the reactants, wouldn't it?

T think McKubre as a source should be called into question given previous evidence on his scientific morals. Ignore that evidence, however; I think he made an off the cuff response on what it could be which was blown out of proportion by proponents. Rossi did this several times with NASA officials.

[GIThruster]

I agree. That's why I'd like to see a hasty debunking of the fusion question with a neutron detector.

[D Tibbets]

I watched the video. The plunger and weight look a lot like a impact hammer. When one weight hits another weight the KE is transferred. The target weight bounces up . the appliled hammer slows or stops, then falls when the solenoid releases it.. That the two weights are not moving in sinck not surprising. Think of the simple weights on a string toy that is on desk tops. Based on the video, it doesn't look strange to me at all.

Secondly what is that copper wound appearing column. It looks a lot like a solenoid to me. A pulse of current pushes the rod upward(?), when the current stops the magnetic field reverses briefly. Depending on how it is arranged, the solenoud could be both a pusher and a puller.

The plasma, if it is doing anything may just be a switch. The high voltage DC current ionizes the gas- this provides mobile conductors, so the circuit conducts, powering the solenoid.
What you have is a plasma switched powered hammer. The initiating switch could be a temporary switch, or the plasma could be quenching itself in a manner similar to how Geiger tubes quench themselves

This seems straight forward. Any other conclusion would require much more detailed evaluation.

Dan Tibbets

[GIThruster]

Well again, that would put all the magic in the controller. If inside the little black box there's a switch that automatically switches the polarity of the inductor after a brief burst, you could explain what we're seeing and a power hammer is a good name for it. You do then though have to say that this is a deliberate deception, for no one could make that sort of "mistake" when reporting what they've got to others.

[tomclarke]

I agree the physics here is complex and interesting, but not extraordinary. Plasma's ARE complex and interesting. And I agree that Noble gasses make sense if plama is required, as BTW do radiation sources.

So we have a plasma, a high DC current which releases high instantaneous power and creates the plasma. Think of it as like Lerner's MTF device but not anything like as powerful nor necessarily creating a pinch. My point is that this sort of system can exhibit complex behaviour, and generate EMPs which couple via Faraday force to the coil.

Now, is this valuable? It is possibly a rather complex way of making an electric motor. It seems unlikley to be competitive with the many good rotatational designs for motors, so I'd say not.

As science, I doubt it adds to what we already know about plasmas, though working out the details of precisely how this plasma is behaoing would not be simple.

Best wishes, Tom

[ScottL]

Well again, that would put all the magic in the controller. If inside the little black box there's a switch that automatically switches the polarity of the inductor after a brief burst, you could explain what we're seeing and a power hammer is a good name for it. You do then though have to say that this is a deliberate deception, for no one could make that sort of "mistake" when reporting what they've got to others.

You think they'll let us look in their black box? Too Rossi-esque haha.