Crawdaddy wrote:tomclarke wrote:Crawdaddy wrote:
I don't find excess heat to be a the best evidence for cold fusion. Transmutation is much more compelling. Here is a paper where the transmutation of various metals is observed in situ in an XPS instrument.
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYobservatiob.pdf
I consider it a "well done" experiment.
OK, these people use 5kV ion bombardment to build up a thin film of Pt. They infuse it with D2. After this, they observe various spectral peaks which (they think) indicate isotopic comprosition of Pr & Sm. They also find a |Mossbauer resonance that is indicative of Pr.
The levels observed of these elements are incredibly low, a few atoms.
Their own claim is that Pr is definitely observed (because of the Mossbauer effect observed), and Sm possibly.
The paper states that the Pr is formed because of the D2 loading of the Pt film.
No evidence is provided for this conclusion. No controls are done to see which elements of the experimental setup correlate with the observed results (e.g. substituting D2 for H2, or nothing).
In fact, there are other possible reasons for the stated results which are not even mentioned:
(1) That the Pr was not contamination already present on the Pt
(2) that the Pt deposition did not generate Pr (since 5000V and +50 ions gives ionic energy of 250keV, maybe enough for some nuclear stuff? I don't know about this, so may be completely wrong.
(3) I'm not an expert on this stuff, so I suspect somone who was would know about false positives etc in the spectral methods used to identify incredibly low quantities of these elements. The authors themselves think the Sm result bis ambiguous so I imagine tehre are many different ways in which the observed spectral [peaks could happen.
If this is a "well-written paper" with its unsubstantiated leaps of fantasy, and complete lack of critical analysis, god help the bad ones!
I don't know if it has been published, but any decent reviewer would require the uncritical statements in the paper to be substantiated or deleted.
I suggest you read the paper again.
his is going to be one of those days, I can tell. I probably made a few mistakes reading quickly but not that many, so let's see shal we? Maybe we are reading different papers, because I sure can't tell what WAS in the paper from your list of negatives.
To summarize:
1. There is no Pt involved in this experiment
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OK - Pd not Pt. And your point is?
2. There is no Mossbauer spectroscopy involved
My mistake, that is suggested future work. So neither Pr nor Sm is certain, both are deduced.
3. there is no 5kv bombardmend of Pt (your calculation of 250kev is very strange and incorrect).
Mea culpa. i realised this after my post but was busy all day till now. If is bombardment by Ba or Cs ions (not Pd) hence total energy (Ba) is 56*5000eV ~ 250keV. My previous calculation should have been 80*5kEv ~ 400keV so I apolpogise.
Also, as I indicated, I am not sure that this is relevant, maybe it is energy per nucleon which is relevant because at this voltage these ions can never be split, and this much lower.
The measurements before the exposure to D2 showed no transmutation so this convoluted argument is doubly wrong.
They do say that they perform XRF before and after D2 but unless I have missed something the only XPS spectra they show are after. There is no comparison with before? Nor is there any statement of what is the Pr, Sm contamination before.
I apologise oif I've mised something but this seems to me a critical omission.
4. They observed the effect on 60 samples.
That is not the point, the issue is taht the levels at which Pr,Sm were detected are so low that contamination, or other error, is likley.
5. When they replaced the CaO lattice matching/barrier layer with MgO the effect disappeared.
6. The isotopic ratio of the transmuted element was different from the naturally occurring ratio.
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Only for the Sm where they claim the identification is not clear.
I can only conclude that you either did not read the paper or did not understand it.
Don't be so ready with conclusions, and how about arguing my points, rather than picking holes. It is always better to engage in argument than ignore it.
I agree 5kV deposition of Ba etc is probably no way sufficient to create nuclear reactions of any kind, though others here will perhaps know, and were i as creative as the LENR community I am sure I would find fission from 5keV/proton ot 250keV more easy to justify than what (+8 mass number change???) from D2 no extra energy.
To summarize the discussion:
You link me an experiment you consider "well done" that tried to replicate an effect observed on tungsten cathodes that did't even use a tungsten cathode and looks like it was conducted in about a week by amateurs.
It is better conducted than the original
I link you a paper that represents years of work and a few hundred thousand dollars of research that utilized the most advanced spectroscopic instrumentation available and you don't even read and understand it before dismissing it.
I think the cost of equipment has no relationship to the quality of argument a research paper. I hope you do too. Using the most advanced instrumentation is great, because it allows detection of ever smaller quantities of contaminants. In this case that detection is not clear (even the authors admit not clear for one of the possible results). I'd want somone who knew this stuff well to comment before believing that the other result was clear.
BTW, they said they were verifying the Sm result with Mossbauer. have they?
Summary:
No control
No before/after comparison
No theory for why +8 (and nothing else) should happen
v expensive eqpt