NEW ENERGY TIMES (tm) News Flash - Sept. 12, 2007
Posted on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 @ 23:21:31 GMT by vlad
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Steven B. Krivit writes: Late breaking news folks...
Lewis Larsen sent out the following
announcement and two attached papers (
Widom, Larsen, Srivastava) and (Wendt and
Irion) yesterday. Apparently they have just submitted this paper, their
fifth in a series, to a journal
for peer review.
The subject of exploding wires first got my attention at
the Marseilles, France ICCF11 conference when I
asked a question to a presenter at the end of one of his talks. He flat out
declined to answer me!
I also reported briefly on more exploding wire
experiments this Monday in issue 24 of New Energy
Times.
I'm not sure what it all means but it certainly seems interesting. They are
claiming to provide answers to an 80-year old physics controversy and are
alleging an error by the esteemed Sir Ernest Rutherford.
What is your
opinion? I'll publish the most interesting responses in our next issue of New
Energy Times. Deadline for comments is Oct. 15.
Steven B.
Krivit
Editor, New Energy Times
Text of Larsen's
announcement:
We have attached a new 3-page preprint, "Energetic
Electrons and Nuclear Transmutations in Exploding Wires," arXiv:0709.1222v1 [nucl-th] 8 Sep
2007 by Widom, Srivastava, and Larsen. In this paper, we extend our theory
of low energy nuclear reactions (LENRs) beyond the domain of relatively low
temperature chemical cells to include closely related nuclear phenomena that
occur in much more energetic, violent environments associated with high-current
exploding wires.
One aim of our paper is to resolve an old controversy.
In 1922, Wendt &Irion, two chemists from the University of Chicago, reported
the results of relatively simple experiments that consisted of exploding
tungsten wires with a very large current pulse under a vacuum inside of sealed
glass "bulbs." A huge controversy erupted because Wendt &Irion claimed to
have observed the presence of anomalous helium inside sealed bulbs after the
tungsten wires were blown, suggesting that transmutation of hydrogen into helium
had somehow occurred during the "disintegration of tungsten. " Widespread
press coverage triggered a response from the scientific establishment in the
form of a negative critique of Wendt &Irion's work by Ernest Rutherford that
was published in Nature. Rutherford won the contemporary debate; he was
believed --- Wendt &Irion were not. After 1923, Wendt and Irion abandoned
their exploding wire experiments and turned to other lines of
research.
Until recently, this controversy had been almost totally
forgotten. However, it now appears to us that Rutherford was incorrect in his
criticisms; Wendt and Irion were right. First, we cite recent
experimental evidence on exploding wires that decisively settles the
experimental issues in favor of Wendt &Irion. Neutrons are produced
in such experiments, making it entirely plausible that nuclear transmutations
can occur. Second, we cite additional recent experiments in which, "fast
neutrons have been seen in exploding wires even though there were no deuterons
initially present. " Since distinctive gamma signatures have not been
observed along with any such neutrons, it appears unlikely to us that D-D fusion
is the mechanism responsible for producing them.
We also aim to resolve
the remaining theoretical issues. Utilizing collective effects with electrons in
wires, well-established physics, and only four equations, we go on to explain a
"theoretical paradox in low energy nuclear reactions that has remained
unresolved for over eight decades."
We conclude that, "It is
presently clear that nuclear transmutations can occur under a much wider range
of physical conditions than was heretofore thought possible."
The
resolution of this 85 year-old controversy is especially poignant when one
considers that: (a.) in 1920 Rutherford himself had predicted the existence of a
neutral nuclear particle with ~ the same mass as a proton, saying that it
could be formed by the capture of an electron onto a proton ;(b.) the
existence of the neutron would not be experimentally verified by James Chadwick
until 1932; and (c.) fission would not be discovered by Otto Hahn and Fritz
Strassman until 1938.
Since they can be difficult to obtain, for your
convenience we have attached a second Adobe Acrobat document that contains
copies of all three original publications as follows: (1.) Wendt and Irion's
initial paper, "Experimental Attempts to Decompose Tungsten at High
Temperatures," from the Amer. Chem. Soc. 44 (1922); (2.) Rutherford's
comments about their work in Nature 109 418 (1922) - also reprinted with
permission in Science (attached); and (3.) Wendt's subsequent response to
Rutherford in Science 55 567 (1922).
Lewis Larsen
President and
CEO
Lattice Energy LLC
--end of Larsen message--
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