July 24th, 2016
On March 23, 1989, the University of Utah announced in a press release that "two scientists have launched a self-sustaining nuclear fusion reaction at room temperature." University President Chase Peterson said that this milestone achievement is comparable only to the mastery of fire, the discovery of electricity and the cultivation of plants. State legislators urgently allocated $5 million to establish the National Cold Fusion Institute, and the university asked the US Congress for another $25 million. Thus began one of the biggest scientific scandals of the 20th century. Print and television instantly spread the news around the world.
The scientists who made the sensational statement seemed to have a solid reputation and were quite trustworthy. Martin Fleishman, a Fellow of the Royal Society and ex-President of the International Society of Electrochemists, who immigrated to the United States from Great Britain, enjoyed international fame earned by his participation in the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering of light. Stanley Pons, co-author of the discovery, headed the Department of Chemistry at the University of Utah.
So what is it all the same, myth or reality?
Source of cheap energy
Fleishman and Pons claimed that they caused deuterium nuclei to fuse with each other at ordinary temperatures and pressures. Their "cold fusion reactor" was a calorimeter with an aqueous solution of salt through which an electric current was passed. True, the water was not simple, but heavy, D2O, the cathode was made of palladium, and lithium and deuterium were part of the dissolved salt. A constant current was passed through the solution for months without stopping, so that oxygen was released at the anode, and heavy hydrogen at the cathode. Fleischman and Pons supposedly found that the temperature of the electrolyte periodically increased by tens of degrees, and sometimes more, although the power supply provided stable power. They explained this by the inflow of intranuclear energy released during the fusion of deuterium nuclei.
Palladium has a unique ability to absorb hydrogen. Fleischman and Pons believed that inside the crystal lattice of this metal, the deuterium atoms approach so strongly that their nuclei merge into the nuclei of the main helium isotope. This process goes with the release of energy, which, according to their hypothesis, heated the electrolyte. The explanation was captivating in its simplicity and completely convinced politicians, journalists, and even chemists.
Physicists bring clarity
However, nuclear physicists and plasma physicists were in no hurry to beat the timpani. They knew perfectly well that two deuterons could, in principle, give rise to a helium-4 nucleus and a high-energy gamma-ray quantum, but the chances of such an outcome are extremely small. Even if deuterons enter into a nuclear reaction, it almost certainly ends with the birth of a tritium nucleus and a proton, or the appearance of a neutron and a helium-3 nucleus, and the probabilities of these transformations are approximately the same. If nuclear fusion really takes place inside palladium, then it should generate a large number of neutrons of quite a certain energy (about 2.45 MeV). They are easy to detect either directly (with the help of neutron detectors) or indirectly (because the collision of such a neutron with a heavy hydrogen nucleus should produce a gamma-quantum with an energy of 2.22 MeV, which again can be detected). In general, the Fleischman and Pons hypothesis could be confirmed using standard radiometric equipment.
However, nothing came of it. Fleischman used connections at home and persuaded the staff of the British nuclear center in Harwell to check his "reactor" for neutron generation. Harwell had ultra-sensitive detectors for these particles, but they showed nothing! The search for gamma rays of the corresponding energy also turned out to be a failure. Physicists from the University of Utah came to the same conclusion. Employees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to reproduce the experiments of Fleishman and Pons, but again to no avail. Therefore, it is not surprising that the claim for a great discovery was crushed at the conference of the American Physical Society (APS), which was held in Baltimore on May 1 of that year.
Sic transit gloria mundi
From this blow, Pons and Fleishman never recovered. A devastating article appeared in the New York Times, and by the end of May, the scientific community had concluded that the claims of the Utah chemists were either a display of extreme incompetence or an elementary scam.
But there were also dissidents, even among the scientific elite. The eccentric Nobel laureate Julian Schwinger, one of the founders of quantum electrodynamics, became so convinced of the discovery of the chemists from Salt Lake City that he canceled his membership in the AFO in protest.
Nevertheless, the academic careers of Fleishman and Pons ended quickly and ingloriously. In 1992, they left the University of Utah and continued their work in France with Japanese money, until they lost this funding as well. Fleishman returned to England, where he lives in retirement. Pons renounced his American citizenship and settled in France.
Pyroelectric cold fusion
Cold nuclear fusion on desktop devices is not only possible, but also implemented, and in several versions. So, in 2005, researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles managed to start a similar reaction in a container with deuterium, inside which an electrostatic field was created. Its source was a tungsten needle connected to a pyroelectric lithium tantalate crystal, upon cooling and subsequent heating of which a potential difference of 100–120 kV was created. A field with a strength of about 25 GV/m completely ionized deuterium atoms and accelerated its nuclei so that when they collided with a target of erbium deuteride, they gave rise to helium-3 nuclei and neutrons. The peak neutron flux was about 900 neutrons per second (several hundred times higher than the typical background value). Although such a system has prospects as a neutron generator, it is impossible to speak of it as an energy source. Such devices consume much more energy than they generate: in the experiments of Californian scientists, approximately 10-8 J were released in one cooling-heating cycle lasting several minutes (11 orders of magnitude less than what is needed to heat a glass of water by 1°C).
The story doesn't end there.
At the beginning of 2011, interest in cold thermonuclear fusion, or, as domestic physicists call it, cold fusion, flared up again in the world of science. The reason for this excitement was the demonstration by Italian scientists Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi from the University of Bologna of an unusual installation in which, according to its developers, this synthesis is carried out quite easily.
In general terms, this device works like this. Nickel nanopowder and a conventional hydrogen isotope are placed in a metal tube with an electric heater. Next, a pressure of about 80 atmospheres is injected. When initially heated to a high temperature (hundreds of degrees), as scientists say, part of the H2 molecules is divided into atomic hydrogen, then it enters into a nuclear reaction with nickel.
As a result of this reaction, an isotope of copper is generated, as well as a large amount of thermal energy. Andrea Rossi explained that during the first tests of the device, they received from it about 10-12 kilowatts at the output, while at the input the system required an average of 600-700 watts (meaning the electricity supplied to the device when it is plugged into a socket) . Everything turned out that the production of energy in this case was many times higher than the costs, and in fact it was this effect that was once expected from a cold fusion.
Nevertheless, according to the developers, in this device, far from all hydrogen and nickel enter into the reaction, but a very small fraction of them. However, scientists are sure that what is happening inside is precisely a nuclear reaction. They consider the proof of this: the appearance of copper in a larger amount than could be an impurity in the original "fuel" (that is, nickel); the absence of a large (that is, measurable) consumption of hydrogen (since it could act as a fuel in a chemical reaction); emitted thermal radiation; and, of course, the energy balance itself.
So, did the Italian physicists really manage to achieve thermonuclear fusion at low temperatures (hundreds of degrees Celsius is nothing for such reactions, which usually take place at millions of degrees Kelvin!)? It's hard to say, since so far all peer-reviewed scientific journals have even rejected the articles of its authors. The skepticism of many scientists is quite understandable - for many years the words "cold fusion" have caused physicists to smile and associate with a perpetual motion machine. In addition, the authors of the device honestly admit that the subtle details of its work are still beyond their understanding.
What is this elusive cold fusion, which many scientists have been trying to prove for decades? In order to understand the essence of this reaction, as well as the prospects for such studies, let's first talk about what thermonuclear fusion is in general. This term is understood as a process in which heavier atomic nuclei are synthesized from lighter ones. In this case, a huge amount of energy is released, much more than in the nuclear reactions of the decay of radioactive elements.
Similar processes constantly occur in the Sun and other stars, because of which they can emit both light and heat. So, for example, every second our Sun radiates energy equivalent to four million tons of mass into outer space. This energy is born during the fusion of four hydrogen nuclei (in other words, protons) into a helium nucleus. At the same time, as a result of the conversion of one gram of protons, 20 million times more energy is released at the output than when a gram of coal is burned. Agree, this is very impressive.
But can't people create a reactor like the Sun in order to produce a large amount of energy for their needs? Theoretically, of course, they can, since a direct ban on such a device does not establish any of the laws of physics. However, this is quite difficult to do, and here's why: this synthesis requires a very high temperature and the same unrealistically high pressure. Therefore, the creation of a classic thermonuclear reactor turns out to be economically unprofitable - in order to start it, it will be necessary to spend much more energy than it can generate over the next few years of operation.
Returning to the Italian discoverers, we have to admit that the "scientists" themselves do not inspire much confidence, neither by their past achievements, nor by their current position. Few people knew the name of Sergio Focardi until now, but thanks to his academic title of professor, one can at least not doubt his involvement in science. But with respect to a colleague in the discovery, Andrea Rossi, this can no longer be said. At the moment, Andrea is an employee of a certain American corporation Leonardo Corp, and at one time distinguished himself only by being brought to court for tax evasion and silver smuggling from Switzerland. But the "bad" news for supporters of cold thermonuclear fusion did not end there either. It turned out that the scientific journal Journal of Nuclear Physics, in which the Italians published articles about their discovery, is actually more of a blog, and an inferior journal. And, in addition, none other than the already familiar Italians Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi turned out to be its owners. But the publication in serious scientific publications serves as confirmation of the "plausibility" of the discovery.
Without stopping there, and digging even deeper, the journalists also found out that the idea of the presented project belongs to a completely different person - the Italian scientist Francesco Piantelli. It seems that it was on this, ingloriously, that another sensation ended, and the world once again lost its “perpetual motion machine”. But how, not without irony, the Italians console themselves, if this is just a fiction, then at least it is not devoid of wit, because it is one thing to play on acquaintances and quite another to try to circle the whole world around your finger.
Currently, all rights to this device belong to the American company Industrial Heat, where Rossi leads all research and development activities in relation to the reactor.
There are low temperature (E-Cat) and high temperature (Hot Cat) versions of the reactor. The first for temperatures around 100-200 °C, the second for temperatures around 800-1400 °C. The company has now sold a 1 MW low-temperature reactor to an unnamed customer for commercial use and, in particular, Industrial Heat is testing and debugging this reactor in order to begin full-scale industrial production of such power units. According to Andrea Rossi, the reactor operates mainly by the reaction between nickel and hydrogen, during which the nickel isotopes are transmuted with the release of a large amount of heat. Those. some isotopes of nickel pass into other isotopes. Nevertheless, a number of independent tests were carried out, the most informative of which was a test of a high-temperature version of the reactor in the Swiss city of Lugano. This test has already been covered. .
Back in 2012, it was reported that the first cold fusion unit was sold to Rossi.
On December 27, an article was published on the E-Cat World website about independent reproduction of the Rossi reactor in Russia . The same article contains a link to the report"Research of an analogue of the high-temperature heat generator Rossi" physicist Parkhomov Alexander Georgievich . The report was prepared for the All-Russian Physics Seminar "Cold Nuclear Fusion and Ball Lightning", which was held on September 25, 2014 at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia.
In the report, the author presented his version of the Rossi reactor, data on its internal structure and tests. The main conclusion: the reactor really releases more energy than it consumes. The ratio of released heat to consumed energy was 2.58. Moreover, for about 8 minutes the reactor operated without any input power at all, after the supply wire burned out, while producing about a kilowatt of thermal power at the output.
In 2015 A.G. Parkhomov managed to make a long-term operating reactor with pressure measurement. From 23:30 on March 16, the temperature is still holding. Photo of the reactor.
Finally, it was possible to make a long-running reactor. The temperature of 1200°C was reached at 11:30 p.m. on March 16 after 12 hours of gradual heating and has been holding up to this day. Heater power 300 W, COP=3.
For the first time, it was possible to successfully mount a pressure gauge in the installation. With slow heating, the maximum pressure of 5 bar was reached at 200°C, then the pressure decreased and at a temperature of about 1000°C it became negative. The strongest vacuum of about 0.5 bar was at a temperature of 1150°C.
With long continuous operation, it is not possible to add water around the clock. Therefore, we had to abandon the calorimetry used in previous experiments, based on measuring the mass of evaporated water. The determination of the thermal coefficient in this experiment is carried out by comparing the power consumed by the electric heater in the presence and absence of the fuel mixture. Without fuel, a temperature of 1200 ° C is reached at a power of about 1070 watts. In the presence of fuel (630 mg of nickel + 60 mg of lithium aluminum hydride), this temperature is reached at a power of about 330 watts. Thus, the reactor generates about 700 W of excess power (COP ~ 3.2). (Explanation by A.G. Parkhomov, a more accurate COP value requires a more detailed calculation)
sources
In short, cold fusion usually refers to the (assumed) nuclear reaction between the nuclei of hydrogen isotopes at low temperatures. Low temperature is about room temperature. The word "suggested" is very important here, because today there is not a single theory and not a single experiment that would indicate the possibility of such a reaction.
But if there are no theories or convincing experiments, then why is this topic so popular? To answer this question, one must understand the problems of nuclear fusion in general. Nuclear fusion (often referred to as "thermonuclear fusion") is a reaction in which light nuclei collide to form one heavy nucleus. For example, heavy hydrogen nuclei (deuterium and tritium) are converted into a helium nucleus and one neutron. This releases a huge amount of energy (in the form of heat). So much energy is released that 100 tons of heavy hydrogen would be enough to provide all of humanity with energy for a whole year (not only electricity, but also heat). It is these reactions that occur inside the stars, thanks to which the stars live.
A lot of energy is good, but there is a problem. To start such a reaction, you need to strongly collide the nuclei. To do this, you will have to heat the substance to about 100 million degrees Celsius. People know how to do it, and quite successfully. This is exactly what happens in a hydrogen bomb, where heating occurs due to a traditional nuclear explosion. The result is a thermonuclear explosion of great power. But constructively using the energy of a thermonuclear explosion is not very convenient. Therefore, scientists in many countries have been trying for more than 60 years to curb this reaction and make it manageable. To date, they have already learned how to control the reaction (for example, in ITER, holding hot plasma with electromagnetic fields), but about the same amount of energy is spent on control as is released during synthesis.
Now imagine that there is a way to run the same reaction, but at room temperature. This would be a real revolution in the energy sector. The life of mankind would change beyond recognition. In 1989, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann of the University of Utah published a paper claiming to observe nuclear fusion at room temperature. Anomalous heat was released during the electrolysis of heavy water with a palladium catalyst. It was assumed that the hydrogen atoms were captured by the catalyst, and somehow the conditions for nuclear fusion were created. This effect is called cold nuclear fusion.
Pons and Fleischmann's article made a lot of noise. Still - the problem of energy is solved! Naturally, many other scientists have tried to reproduce their results. However, none of them succeeded. Next, physicists began to identify one error after another in the original experiment, and the scientific community came to an unambiguous conclusion about the failure of the experiment. Since then, there has been no progress in this area. But some liked the idea of cold fusion so much that they are still doing it. At the same time, such scientists are not taken seriously in the scientific community, and it is most likely impossible to publish an article on the topic of cold fusion in a prestigious scientific journal. So far, cold fusion remains just a beautiful idea.
The Ininsky rock garden is located in the Barguzinskaya valley. Huge stones as if someone deliberately scattered or placed on purpose. And in places where megaliths are placed, something mysterious always happens.
One of the attractions of Buryatia is the Ininsky rock garden in the Barguzin valley. It makes an amazing impression - huge stones scattered in disorder on a completely flat surface. As if someone deliberately either scattered them, or placed them on purpose. And in places where megaliths are placed, something mysterious always happens.
Power of nature
In general, the “rock garden” is the Japanese name for an artificial landscape in which stones, arranged according to strict rules, play a key role. "Karesansui" (dry landscape) has been cultivated in Japan since the 14th century, and it appeared for a reason. It was believed that gods lived in places with a large accumulation of stones, as a result of which the stones themselves began to be given divine significance. Of course, now the Japanese use rock gardens as a place for meditation, where it is convenient to indulge in philosophical reflections.
And philosophy is here. Chaotic, at first glance, the arrangement of stones, in fact, is strictly subject to certain laws. First, the asymmetry and size difference of the stones must be respected. There are certain points of observation in the garden - depending on the time when you are going to contemplate the structure of your microcosm. And the main trick is that from any point of observation there should always be one stone that ... is not visible.
The most famous rock garden in Japan is located in Kyoto, the ancient capital of the samurai country, in the Ryoanji temple. This is the home of Buddhist monks. And here in Buryatia, a "rock garden" appeared without the efforts of man - its author is Nature itself.
In the southwestern part of the Barguzinskaya Valley, 15 kilometers from the village of Suvo, where the Ina River leaves the Ikat Range, this place is located with an area of more than 10 square kilometers. Significantly more than any Japanese rock garden - in the same proportion as the Japanese bonsai is smaller than the Buryat cedar. Here, large blocks of stone, reaching 4-5 meters in diameter, protrude from the flat ground, and these boulders go up to 10 meters deep!
The removal of these megaliths from the mountain range reaches 5 kilometers or more. What kind of force could scatter these huge stones at such distances? The fact that this was not done by a person became clear from recent history: a 3-kilometer canal was dug here for irrigation purposes. And in the channel channel here and there lie huge boulders, going to a depth of up to 10 meters. They fought, of course, but to no avail. As a result, all work on the channel was stopped.
Scientists put forward different versions of the origin of the Ininsky rock garden. Many consider these blocks to be moraine boulders, that is, glacial deposits. Scientists call the age different (E. I. Muravsky believes that they are 40-50 thousand years old, and V. V. Lamakin - more than 100 thousand years!), Depending on which glaciation to count.
According to geologists, in ancient times the Barguzin basin was a shallow freshwater lake, which was separated from Baikal by a narrow and low mountain bridge connecting the Barguzin and Ikat ridges. As the water level rose, a runoff formed, which turned into a river bed, which cut deeper and deeper into solid crystalline rocks. It is known how torrential streams of water in spring or after heavy rain wash away steep slopes, leaving deep furrows of gullies and ravines. Over time, the water level dropped, and the area of the lake, due to the abundance of suspended material brought into it by rivers, decreased. As a result, the lake disappeared, and in its place there was a wide valley with boulders, which were later attributed to natural monuments.
But recently, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences G.F. Ufimtsev proposed a very original idea that had nothing to do with glaciations. In his opinion, the Ininsky rock garden was formed as a result of a relatively recent, catastrophic gigantic ejection of large-block material.
According to his observations, glacial activity on the Ikat Range manifested itself only in a small area in the upper reaches of the Turokcha and Bogunda rivers, while in the middle part of these rivers there are no traces of glaciation. Thus, according to the scientist, there was a breakthrough of the dam of the dammed lake in the course of the Ina River and its tributaries. As a result of a breakthrough from the upper reaches of the Ina, a mudflow or ground avalanche threw a large amount of blocky material into the Barguzin valley. This version is supported by the fact of severe destruction of the bedrock sides of the Ina River valley at the confluence with the Turokcha, which may indicate the demolition of a large volume of rocks by mudflows.
In the same section of the Ina River, Ufimtsev noted two large “amphitheatres” (resembling a huge funnel) measuring 2.0 by 1.3 kilometers and 1.2 by 0.8 kilometers, which could probably be the bed of large dammed lakes. The breakthrough of the dam and the release of water, according to Ufimtsev, could have occurred as a result of manifestations of seismic processes, since both slope "amphitheaters" are confined to the zone of a young fault with thermal water outlets.
Here the gods were naughty
An amazing place has long been interested in local residents. And for the "rock garden" people came up with a legend rooted in hoary antiquity. The start is simple. Somehow, two rivers, Ina and Barguzin, argued, which of them would be the first (first) to reach Baikal. Barguzin cheated and set off on the road that same evening, and in the morning the angry Ina rushed after her, in anger throwing huge boulders out of her way. So they still lie on both banks of the river. Isn't it just a poetic description of a powerful mudflow proposed for explanation by Dr. Ufimtsev?
The stones still keep the secret of their formation. They are not only different sizes and colors, they are generally from different breeds. That is, they were not broken out from one place. And the depth of occurrence speaks of many thousands of years, during which meters of soil have grown around the boulders.
For those who have seen the Avatar movie, on a foggy morning, Ina's stones will remind you of hanging mountains around which winged dragons fly. The peaks of the mountains jut out of the clouds of mist like individual fortresses or the heads of giants in helmets. The impressions from contemplating the garden of stones are amazing, and it was not by chance that people endowed the stones with magical powers: it is believed that if you touch the boulders with your hands, they will take away negative energy, instead bestowing positive energy.
In these amazing places there is another place where the gods were naughty. This place was nicknamed "Suva Saxon Castle". This natural formation is located near the group of salty Alga lakes near the village of Suvo, on the steppe slopes of a hill at the foot of the Ikat Range. The picturesque rocks are very reminiscent of the ruins of an ancient castle. These places served as a particularly revered and sacred place for Evenki shamans. In the Evenki language, "suvoya" or "suvo" means "whirlwind".
It was believed that it was here that spirits lived - the owners of local winds. The main and most famous of which was the legendary wind of Baikal "Barguzin". According to legend, an evil ruler lived in these places. He was distinguished by a ferocious disposition, he took pleasure in bringing misfortune to the poor and indigent people.
He had an only and beloved son, who was bewitched by spirits as punishment for a cruel father. After realizing his cruel and unfair attitude towards people, the ruler fell to his knees, began to beg and tearfully ask to restore his son's health and make him happy. And he distributed all his wealth to people.
And the spirits freed the son of the ruler from the power of the disease! It is believed that for this reason the rocks are divided into several parts. There is a belief among the Buryats that the owners of Suvo, Tumurzhi-Noyon and his wife, Tutuzhig-Khatan, live in the rocks. Burkhans were erected in honor of the Suva rulers. On special days, whole rituals are performed in these places.
10:00 — REGNUM
Editorial Preface
Any fundamental discovery can be used both for good and for harm. Sooner or later, the scientist is faced with the need to answer the question: to open or not to open the "Pandora's box", to publish or not to publish a potentially destructive discovery. But this is far from the only moral problem that their authors have to face.
For the authors of major discoveries, there are more mundane, but no less formidable obstacles to universal recognition associated with the corporate ethics of the scientific community - unwritten rules of conduct, the violation of which is severely punished, up to exile. Moreover, these rules are often used as an excuse to put pressure on scientists who have advanced "too far" in their research and encroached on the postulates of the modern scientific picture of the world. First, their work is refused to be published, then they are accused of violating the rules, then they are labeled as pseudoscientific.
Learned the scientist's answer.
What is not for you - that is not.
What did not fall into your hands -
Against the truths of science.
What the scientist could not count -
That is a delusion and a forgery.
Of those who endure and win, they later say: "They were too ahead of their time."
This is precisely the situation in which Martin Fleischman and Stanley Pons found themselves, who discovered the occurrence of nuclear reactions in the "ordinary" electrolysis of a solution of deuterated lithium hydroxide in heavy water with a palladium cathode. Their discovery, called "cold nuclear fusion", has been disturbing the scientific community for 30 years now, which has been divided into supporters and opponents of cold fusion. In the memorable 1989, after the press conference of M. Fleishman and S. Pons, the reaction was quick and tough: they violated scientific ethics by publishing unreliable results that were not even peer-reviewed in a scientific journal .
Behind the hype raised by the newspapers, no one paid attention to the fact that by the time of the press conference, the scientific article by M. Fleishman and S. Pons had been reviewed and accepted for publication in the American scientific journal The Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. Sergei Tsvetkov draws attention to this circumstance, strangely out of sight of the world scientific community, in the article published below.
But no less mysterious is the fact that Fleishman and Pons themselves, as far as we know, never protested about their "slander" in violating scientific ethics. Why? The specific details are unknown, but the conclusion is that cold fusion research has been clumsily kept secret.
Fleishman and Pons are not the only scientists who have been covered up as pseudoscience. For example, a similar biography “corrupted” by cold fusion was also invented for one of the world's highest-rated physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Peter Hagelstein (see), the creator of the American X-ray laser as part of the SDI program.
It is in this area that the real scientific and technological race of the century is unfolding. We are convinced that it is in the field of research of cold nuclear fusion (CNF) and low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR) that new technologies will be created, which are destined to either transform the world or open a "Pandora's box".
What is known is of no use,
One unknown is needed.
I. Goethe. "Faust".
Introduction
The history of the beginning and development of research on cold nuclear fusion is tragic and instructive in its own way, and, like any story, it is unlike anything else and rather refers to the experience of future generations. I would formulate my attitude to cold nuclear fusion as follows: if there was no cold fusion, it would be worth inventing.
As a direct participant in many of the events described below, I must state a fact: the more time passes since the birth of cold nuclear fusion, the more fantasies, myths, distortions of facts, deliberate forgeries and mockery of the authors of an outstanding discovery are found in the media and on the Internet. Sometimes it comes down to outright lies. We must do something about it! I stand for the restoration of historical justice and the establishment of truth, because is not the search and preservation of truth the main task of science? History usually preserves several descriptions of an important event made by its direct participants and external observers. Each of the descriptions has its shortcomings: some do not see the forest for the trees, others are too superficial and tendentious, some are made winners, others losers. My description is an inside look at a story that is far from over.
Fresh examples of “misconceptions” about CNS are nothing new!
Let's look at a few examples of claims about cold fusion made in recent years in the Russian media. Red italic they are false, and bold red italics — lie is obvious.
"The staff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tried to reproduce experiments M. Fleishman and S. Pons, but again to no avail . Therefore, one should not be surprised that the great discovery claim was crushed at the American Physical Society (APS) conference held in Baltimore on May 1 of that year. » .
2. Evgeny Tsygankov in the article "", published on December 08, 2016 on the website of the Russian branch of the American social movement The Brights, uniting "people with a naturalistic worldview", who are fighting against religious and supernatural ideas, gives the following version of events:
"Cold Fusion? Let's look at history a bit.
The date of birth of cold fusion can be considered 1989. Then information was published in the English-language press about a report by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in which announced the implementation of nuclear fusion in the following setup: on palladium electrodes , lowered into heavy water (with two deuterium atoms instead of hydrogen, D 2 O), a current passes, causing one of the electrodes to melt . Fleishman and Pons give an interpretation of what is happening: the electrode melts as a result of too much energy being released , the source of which is the fusion reaction of deuterium nuclei . Nuclear fusion is thus supposedly occurs at room temperature . Journalists called the phenomenon cold fusion, in the Russian version cold fusion became for some reason "cold fusion" , although the phrase contains a clear internal contradiction. And if in some media newborn cold fusion could be warmly welcomed , then in the scientific community to the statement of Fleishman and Pons reacted quite cool . At the less than a month of international meeting , to which Martin Fleishman was also invited, the statement was critically reviewed. The simplest considerations pointed to the impossibility of nuclear fusion occurring in such an installation. . For example, in the case of the reaction d + d → 3 He + n for powers , which were discussed in the installation of Pons and Fleishman, there would be a neutron flux that would provide the experimenter with a lethal dose of radiation for an hour. The presence of Martin Fleishman himself at the meeting directly indicated the falsification of the results.. However in a number of laboratories set up similar experiments, as a result of which no products of nuclear fusion reactions were found . This, however, did not stop one sensation from spawning a whole community of cold fusion adherents, which functions by its own rules to this day ».
3. On the TV channel "Russia K" in the program "Meanwhile" with Alexander Arkhangelsky at the end of October 2016, in the issue of "" it was said:
“The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences approved the new composition of the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research. Now it consists of 59 scientists, including physicists, biologists, astronomers, mathematicians, chemists, representatives of the humanities and agricultural specialists. When academician Vitaly Ginzburg initiated the creation of the commission in 1998, physicists and engineers were especially annoyed by pseudoscientific concepts. Then fantasies about new sources of energy and overcoming the basic physical laws were popular. The commission consistently defeated the teachings on torsion fields, cold nuclear fusion and antigravity . The most high-profile case was the exposure in 2010 of Viktor Petrik's invention of nanofilters for the purification of radioactive water.”
4. Doctor of Chemical Sciences, Professor Alexey Kapustin in the television program of the NTV channel " We and Science, Science and Us: Controlled thermonuclear reaction On September 26, 2016, he stated:
« Thermonuclear fusion is being harmed by the ever-evolving reports of so-called cold fusion. , i.e., synthesis that takes place not at millions of degrees, but, say, at room temperature on the laboratory table. Message from 1989 about what was produced during electrolysis on palladium catalysts new elements what happened fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium atoms — it was like a kind of information explosion. Yes, opening in quotation marks "opening" these scientists nothing has been confirmed . This damages the reputation of fusion also because the business easily responds to these strange scandalous requests, hoping for a quick easy profit, he subsidizes startups, dedicated to cold fusion. None of them have been confirmed. This is absolute pseudoscience, but, unfortunately, this is very harmful to the development of real thermonuclear fusion. ».
5. Denis Strigun in the article, the title of which is in itself disinformation - "Thermonuclear fusion: a miracle that happens", in the chapter "Cold fusion" writes:
“No matter how tiny it may be, but the chance to hit the jackpot in « thermonuclear» lottery excited everyone, not just physicists. In March 1989, two fairly well-known chemist, American Stanley Pons and Briton Martin Fleishman, collected journalists to show the world "cold" nuclear fusion. He worked like this. In solution with deuterium and lithium fit palladium electrode, and a direct current was passed through it. Deuterium and lithium was absorbed palladium and, colliding, sometimes "clutched" to tritium and helium-4, all of a sudden sharp heating the solution. And this is at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure..
First, the details of the experiment appeared in The Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. and Interfacial Electrochemistry only in April a month later after the press conference. It was against scientific etiquette.
Secondly, experts in nuclear physics to Fleishman and Pons there were many questions . For example, why in their reactor the collision of two deuterons gives tritium and helium-4 , when should give tritium and a proton or a neutron and helium-3? Moreover, it was easy to check this: provided that nuclear fusion occurred in the palladium electrode, from isotopes "flew off" would be neutrons with a known kinetic energy. But neither neutron sensors, nor reproduction experiments by other scientists did not lead to such results. And due to lack of data, already in May, the sensation of chemists was recognized as a “duck” .
Lying classification
Let's try to systematize the claims on which the refusal of the scientific community to recognize the discovery of the phenomenon of cold nuclear fusion by Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons is based. The above are just a few examples of typical cold fusion judgments repeated in hundreds of publications around the world. And, mind you, we are talking about claims, and not scientific arguments and evidence that refute this phenomenon. Such claims are replicated by so-called experts who have never themselves been involved in repeating and verifying the phenomenon of cold nuclear fusion.
Sample claim #1. The press conference took place before the publication of the article in a scientific journal. How indecent - this is a violation of scientific ethics!
Sample Claim #2. What are you? This cannot be! We have been fighting with thermonuclear fusion for decades and cannot get any excess heat at hundreds of millions of degrees in the plasma, and you are talking to us about room temperature and Megajoules of heat in excess of the invested energy? Nonsense!
Sample Claim #3. If this were possible, then all of you (cold fusion researchers) would have been in the graveyard long ago!
Sample claim #4. Look at CalTech (California Institute of Technology) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) does not work. You're lying!
Sample Claim #5. Do they also want to ask for money to continue these works? Who will take this money from?
Model Claim #6. This will not happen while we are alive! Drive the "swindler" Stanley Pons from the university and the USA!
I must say that they tried to repeat the same scenario in the early 2000s with Purdue University professor Ruzi Taleiarkhan for his bubble "thermonuclear", but the case went to court, and the professor was reinstated in his rights and positions.
Here it is impossible not to mention the activities of the unique Commission for Combating Pseudoscience and Falsification of Scientific Research under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The commission on pseudoscience has already managed to “reward itself” "for the consistent defeat of torsion fields, cold nuclear fusion and anti-gravity", apparently considering that the repeatedly repeated demands not to give budget money to ignoramuses and adventurers from cold fusion (see, for example, the section Conferences and symposiums of the journal "Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk" vol. 169 No. 6 for 1999) is the defeat of cold nuclear fusion? Agree, this is a strange way of conducting a scientific discussion, especially in combination with the distribution of instructions to the editors of Russian scientific journals prohibiting the publication of scientific articles where the words “cold nuclear fusion” are mentioned at least once.
The author has a sad experience of trying to publish his research results in at least two Russian academic journals. Let's hope that the new leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences will finally collect the last remnants of the brains flowing to the West and reconsider their attitude to science as the basis for the development, and not the degradation of society, and finally eliminate the Commission on Pseudoscience, which is a disgrace to Russian science and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
A note on the issue price
Before dealing with these claims, let's try to evaluate the advantages of nuclear fusion over other methods of energy production known at the moment. Take the amount of energy released per gram of the reactant. It is the reacting substance, not the material in which these reactions occur.
To begin with, let's look at the table of the amount of energy released per gram of the reacting substance for various methods of obtaining energy and perform simple arithmetic operations comparing these amounts of energy.
This data can be obtained from and presented in the form of a table:
Way to get energy | kWh/kg | kJ/g | How many times more than the previous |
With the complete combustion of oil (coal) | |||
In the fission of uranium-235 | |||
In the synthesis of hydrogen nuclei | |||
With the complete release of energy of the substance according to the formula E = m s 2 |
It turns out that when burning oil or high-quality coal, 42 kJ / g of thermal energy can be obtained. During the fission of uranium-235, already 82.4 GJ / g of heat is released, during the synthesis of hydrogen nuclei, 423 GJ / g will be released, and according to the theory, 1 gram of any substance can give up to 104.4 TJ / g with the complete release of energy (k is a kilo \u003d 10 3, G - Giga \u003d 10 9, T - Tera \u003d 10 12).
And immediately the question of whether it is necessary to engage in the extraction of energy from water, any sane person disappears by itself. There is a strong suspicion that, having mastered the method of obtaining energy during the synthesis of hydrogen nuclei, we will only have one step left to completely release the energy of matter according to the famous formula E \u003d m·c 2!
Italian Andrea Rossi showed that simple hydrogen, which is available in inexhaustible quantities on the planet Earth, and in space, can be used for cold nuclear fusion. This opens up even more opportunities for energy, and the words become prophetic Jules Verne in his "Mysterious Island", published back in 1874:
“... I think that water will someday be used as fuel, and that the hydrogen and oxygen that make up it will be used together or separately and will be an inexhaustible source of light and heat, much more intense than coal. … I think that when the deposits of coal are depleted, humanity will be heated and warmed by water. Water is the coal of the future.”
I put three exclamation points to the great science fiction writer!!!
It is worth noting that, by extracting hydrogen for cold nuclear fusion from water, humanity will receive the oxygen necessary for life as a bonus.
CNSSorLENR? ColdFusion or LENR?
In the late 90s, the defeated remnants of scientists who, out of their own curiosity, quietly continued to repeat the experiments of M. Fleishman and S. Pons, decided to hide from the furious attacks of the “tokamafia” and the Commission for Combating Pseudoscience created in Russia at the Russian Academy of Sciences and took up low-energy nuclear reactions.
Renaming cold fusion to low-energy nuclear reactions is, of course, a weakness. This is an attempt to hide in order to “not be killed”, this is a manifestation of the instinct of self-preservation. All this shows the seriousness of the degree of threat not only to the profession, but also to life itself.
Andrea Rossi realizes that his activities to promote his energy catalyst (E-cat) are a threat to his life. Therefore, his actions seem illogical to many. But this is how he defends himself. For the first time and, perhaps, the only time I saw in Zurich in 2012, how a person who is developing and implementing a new energy technology entered a meeting of scientists and engineers, accompanied by a bodyguard wearing a bulletproof vest.
The pressure from academic groups in science is so strong and aggressive that only completely independent people, for example, pensioners, can now engage in cold fusion. The rest of the interested people are simply squeezed out of laboratories and universities. This trend is clearly visible in world science to this day.
Opening details
Anyway. Let's return to our electrochemists. I would like to briefly recall the content of the scientific article by M. Fleishman and S. Pons in a peer-reviewed journal with concrete results. This information is taken from the abstract journal of the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information (RJ VINITI) of the USSR Academy of Sciences, published since 1952, a periodical scientific and information publication that publishes abstracts, annotations and bibliographic descriptions of domestic and foreign publications in the field of natural, accurate and technical sciences, economics and medicine. Specifically - RZh 18V Nuclear Physics. - 1989.-6.-ref.6B1.
“Electro-chemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium. Electrochemically induced nuclear fusion of deuterium / FleischmannMartin, Pons Stanley // J. of Elecroanal. Chem. - 1989. - Vol.261. — No.2a. - pp.301−308. - English.
An experiment was carried out at the University of Utah (USA) aimed at
detection of nuclear reactions
under conditions when deuterium is embedded in the palladium metal lattice, which means “an effective increase in the pressure bringing deuterons together due to chemical forces”, which increases the probability of quantum mechanical tunneling of deuterons through the Coulomb barrier of the DD pair in the interstices of the palladium lattice. The electrolyte is a solution of 0.1 mol LiOD in water of composition 99.5% D 2 O + 0.5% H 2 O. Palladium (Pd) rods 1¸8 mm in diameter and 10 cm long, wrapped in platinum wire ( Pt anode). The current density was varied within 0.001÷1 A/cm 2 at an electrode voltage of 12 V. Neutrons were recorded in the experiment in two ways. First, a scintillation detector including a dosimeter with boron BF 3 counters (efficiency 2×10 -4 for 2.5 MeV neutrons). Secondly, by the method of registering gamma quanta, which are formed during the capture of a neutron by a hydrogen nucleus of ordinary water surrounding an electrolytic cell, according to the reaction:
The detector was a NaI (Tl) crystal, and the recorder was an ND-6 multichannel amplitude analyzer. The background was corrected by subtracting the spectrum obtained at a distance of 10 m from the water bath. Tritons (T) were extracted from the electrolyte using a special type of absorber (Parafilm film), and then their b-decay was recorded on a Beckman scintillation counter (efficiency 45%). The best results were achieved on a Pd cathode 4 mm in diameter and 10 cm long at a current density through the electrolyzer of 0.064 A/cm 2 . Registered neutron radiation intensity 4×10 4 neutron/s, 3 times higher than the background. The presence of a maximum in the energy range of 2.2 MeV in the gamma spectrum was established, while the counting rate of gamma quanta was 2.1×10 4 s -1 . The presence of tritium with a formation rate of 2×10 4 atom/s was detected. In the process of electrolysis, a fourfold excess of the released energy over the total expended (electrical and chemical) energy was recorded. It reached 4 MJ/cm 3 of the cathode in 120 h of the experiment. In the case of a bulk Pd cathode 1*1*1 cm, its partial melting was observed (T pl =1554°C). On the basis of experimental data on tritium nuclei and gamma quanta, the probability of a fusion reaction was found by the authors to be 10 -19 s -1 per DD pair. At the same time, the authors note that if nuclear reactions involving deuterons are considered the main reason for the increased energy yield, then the neutron yield would be significantly higher (by 11–14 orders of magnitude). According to the authors, in the case of electrolysis of a solution of D 2 O + DTO + T 2 O, heat release can increase up to 10 kW / cm 3 of the cathode.
A few words about scientific ethics, the violation of which is blamed on Fleishman and Pons. As it appears from the original article, it was received by the editors of the journal on March 13, 1989, accepted for publication on March 22, 1989, and published on April 10, 1989. That is, the conference on March 23, 1989 was held after the acceptance of this article for publication. And where is the violation of ethics, and most importantly by whom?
From this description it is clear and unambiguous that an incredibly huge amount of excess heat has been obtained, several times greater than the energy spent on electrolysis, and the possible chemical energy that can be released during the simple chemical decomposition of water into individual atoms. The tritium and neutrons registered at the same time clearly indicate the process of nuclear fusion. Moreover, neutrons were registered by two independent methods and by different instruments.
In 1990, the following article by Fleischmann, M., et al., Calorimetry of the palladium-deuterium-heavy water system, was published in the same journal. J. Electroanal. Chem., 1990, 287, p. 293, specifically related to heat release during these studies, from which Figure 8A shows that intense heat release, and hence the effect itself, begins only on the 66th day (~5.65´10 6 sec) continuous operation of the electrolytic cell and lasts for five days. That is, to get the result and fix it, you need to spend seventy one days for measurements, not counting the time for preparing and manufacturing the experimental setup. For example, it took us the whole of April to manufacture the first installation, launch it and carry out various calibrations, and only in mid-May 1989 did we receive the first results.
The start of the process of heat release during electrolysis with a large delay was subsequently confirmed by D. Gozzi, F. Cellucci, P.L. Cignini, G. Gigli, M. Tomellini, E. Cisbani, S. Frullani, G.M. Urciuoli, J. Electroanalyt. Chem. 452, p. 254, (1998). The beginning of a noticeable release of excess heat here was registered after 210 hours, which corresponds to 8.75 days.
As well as Michael C. H. McKubre as Director of the Energy Research Center SRI International, Menlo Park, California, USA, who presented his results at the 10th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-10) on August 25, 2003 of the year. The beginning of the release of excess heat from him is 520 hours, which corresponds to 21.67 days.
In their 1996 paper presented at the 6th International Conference on Cold Fusion (ICCF-6) T. Roulette, J. Roulette, and S. Pons. Results of ICARUS 9 Experiments Runat IMRA Europe. IMRA Europe, S.A., Center Scientifique Sophia Antipolis, 06560 Valbonne, FRANCE, Stanley Pons demonstrated two things. The first and perhaps most important thing is that, having moved from the United States in 1992 to the south of France, in a new place after a considerable period of time, in another country, he managed not only to reproduce the experiment in Salt Lake City, held in 1989, but also get an increase in heat results! What kind of irreproducibility can we talk about here? See:
Second, according to these data, a noticeable heat release begins on the 71st day of electrolysis! The change in heat release continues for more than 40 days and then constantly at the level of 310 MJ up to 160 days!
Therefore, how can one speak in a little over a month about the irreproducibility of the experiments of M. Fleishman and S. Pons in a single laboratory, which carried out a test not even on the basis of a scientific article and without the involvement and consultation of the authors? Selfish motives and fear for the possibility of responsibility for fruitless experiments with thermonuclear fusion are clearly visible. With this announcement in May 1989, the American Physical Society (APS), it turns out, placed itself in an unflattering position, replacing science with ordinary business, and closed official research in the field of cold nuclear fusion for many years. The members of this society, firstly, behaved contrary to any scientific ethics in the sense of refuting the results of scientific work with publication in a scientific journal, and entrusted this to the New York Times, where in May 1989 a devastating article appeared regarding M. Fleishman and S. Ponce. Although they presented a violation of this ethics to M. Fleishman and S. Pons in terms of voicing the results of their scientific research at a press conference before the publication of a scientific article in a scientific journal.
There is not a single scientific article in peer-reviewed journals that scientifically substantiates the impossibility of cold nuclear fusion.
There is no such. There are only interviews and statements in the media by scientists who have never dealt with cold nuclear fusion, but have been engaged in such fundamental and capital-intensive areas of physics as thermonuclear fusion, stellar physics, the Big Bang theory, the emergence of the Universe, and the Large Hadron Collider.
Even at the institute, in the course of lectures “Measuring physical parameters”, we were taught that the verification of instruments for measuring physical quantities must be carried out with a device that has an accuracy class higher than the device being verified. The same rule has exactly the same relation to the verification of phenomena! Therefore, the heat tests at MIT and Caltech, which they like to refer to on the issue of the validity of cold fusion, are not really any tests. Compare the accuracies and errors in temperature and power measurements with the experimental data of Fleischmann and Pons, which are presented in the report by Melvin H. Miles. The Fleischmann-Pons Calorimetric Methods And Equations. Satellite Symposium of the 20th International Conference on Condensed Matter Nuclear Science SS ICCF 20 Xiamen, China September 28-30, 2016).
They differ by tens and a thousand times!
Now regarding the statement that "if the main reason for the increased energy yield is considered to be nuclear reactions involving deuterons, then the neutron yield would be significantly higher (by 11−14 orders of magnitude)". Here the calculation is simple: when 4 MJ of excess heat is released per cm 3 of the cathode, at least 4.29 10 18 neutrons should be formed. If at least one neutron leaves the reaction zone and does not give up its energy inside the cell from 2.45 MeV to room temperature, then there is no way to register so much excess heat. And if at the same time the emitted neutrons are registered, then the number of fusion reactions occurring in this case should be much greater than the minimum of neutrons, and more tritium will be formed. Plus, knowing that the cross section for the interaction of neutrons and helium-3 incommensurably exceeds the cross sections for other possible reactions of the products of d + d fusion reactions (by about two orders of magnitude)
then it becomes clear that no one will be irradiated with neutrons, and the appearance of such a ratio of the amount of registered tritium to the number of registered neutrons is understandable, and where helium-4 subsequently comes from. It appears as a result of a cascade of synthesis reactions of products of d + d reactions, but this has already become clear from the experiments of other researchers about helium-4. Fleischman and Pons have nothing to say about this.
"Experts" are cunning and with neutron irradiation. With such amounts of excess heat released, they should all turn into thermal heat, transfer their energy to the materials and electrolyte water in the cell, and not carry away 75% of the energy from the reaction zone outside the reactor and irradiate the experimenters. Therefore, M. Fleishman and S. Pons registered only a small part of neutrons - heavy water, as is known, is a good neutron moderator.
From a scientific point of view, there is only one mistake in this article - this is the conversion of the amount of excess energy released to the volume of the palladium electrode used. In this case, the consumable component and energy source is deuterium, and it would be logical to attribute the excess amount of energy released to the amount of deuterium absorbed by palladium and compare it with the expected heat during nuclear fusion as a result of the d + d reaction, but, as mentioned above, the energy balance of this process should not be limited to the products of these reactions.
Magical terms sound fascinating from the lips of thermonuclear physicists: the Coulomb barrier, thermonuclear fusion, plasma. But I would like to ask them: what is the relationship between temperatures above 1000 °C and the fourth state of aggregation of matter - plasma - to the electrolysis process of Martin Fleishman and Stanley Pons? Plasma is an ionized gas. Hydrogen ionization starts at 3,000 degrees Kelvin, and by 10,000 degrees Kelvin, hydrogen is fully ionized, that is, it is approximately 2727 ° C - the beginning of ionization, and by 9727 ° C - fully ionized hydrogen - plasma. Question: how can the description of the fourth aggregate state of matter be applied to an ordinary gas? It's like comparing warm and transparent. You can, of course, try to measure the distance to the moon by determining the amount of dew in the Sahara desert, but what will be the result? Similarly, the results of cold nuclear fusion cannot be described in terms of thermonuclear fusion. In this way, one can only achieve a denial of the possibility of the coldest nuclear fusion and strengthen doubts about the possibility of realizing nuclear fusion reactions at such thermodynamic parameters. But nuclear physics does not say a word about the zero probability of such reactions occurring at temperatures close to room temperature. And this only means that these probabilities begin to grow as the temperature rises to 1000 °C.
A logical question arises: cui prodest - who benefits from this? Of course, the one who first starts shouting: “Stop the thief!” I don’t want to point fingers at anyone, but the first to shout: “This can’t be!” - physicists involved in thermonuclear fusion, who immediately composed fairy tales and horror stories about plasma, neutrons and how it is all incomprehensible to a simple mind. It is they who, having spent the next couple of decades and several tens of billions of dollars, once again, like Achilles catching up with the tortoise, will again be one step away from fulfilling the age-old dream of mankind to receive endless, "free" and "clean" energy.
The biggest mistake of cold nuclear fusion, which thermonuclear scientists “slipped off” on us, is the impossibility of overcoming the Coulomb barrier with identically charged hydrogen nuclei at low temperatures. However, they should also be disappointed by the "theoreticians" who have come running into cold nuclear fusion with their "astrolabes" and are trying to come up with something exotic such as hydrino, dineutrino-dineutronium, etc. to overcome this barrier. To explain the registered products of cold nuclear fusion, the physical laws and phenomena from the institute physics course are quite enough.
It must be understood that cold nuclear fusion is a natural process that created, synthesized the entire world around us, and this process takes place both in the bowels of the Sun and inside the Earth. It cannot be otherwise. And we will all be absolute idiots if we fail to take advantage of this discovery of two electrochemists!
Cold fusion is not pseudoscience. The label of pseudoscience was invented to protect the “thermonuclear scientists” and “big colliders” who have reached a dead end and are afraid of responsibility, who have turned modern physics into a profitable business for a narrow circle of people, and who only call themselves scientists.
The discovery of M. Fleishman and S. Pons gave a “big pig” to physicists who are comfortably located at the forefront of science. It is not the first time that the physical "avant-garde of mankind" famously slipped past a small area of research, not noticing the opening opportunities for implementing nuclear fusion reactions at low energies and low financial costs, and is now at a great loss.
How much more time is needed to recognize the obvious fact that thermonuclear fusion is a dead end, and the Sun is not a thermonuclear reactor? Billions of dollars will not plug the hole of the sinking thermonuclear Titanic, while large-scale research on cold nuclear fusion and the creation of working power plants that can solve the main global problems of mankind will require only a small fraction of the thermonuclear budget! So, long live cold fusion!
I noticed that really important and interesting news is very poorly covered in the press. For some reason, journalists chew on the flight to Alpha Centauri, the search for aliens and other nonsense with more pleasure than a real discovery that will turn our lives upside down very soon in the truest sense of the word. Perhaps they simply do not understand what it means for all of humanity and consider it not very important, but I, as always, will explain popularly if anyone has read and did not understand.
We are talking about an article that accidentally caught my eye: “Russia is the leader of the scientific revolution.” Why whisper? There are many descriptions, scientific terms and conclusions that do not exist, so let's try to understand at least the main thing.
I will give the main quotes, believe me - this is very important, and then the comments:
“On June 6, 2016, a meeting of the permanent scientific seminar was held at the Institute of General Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after A.M. Prokhorov.
At the seminar, the director of the scientific and technological department for the management of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste of the High-Tech Research Institute of Inorganic Materials named after academician A.A. Bochvar, Vladimir Kashcheev for the first time publicly spoke about the successful results of the state examination of a new unique technology for the decontamination of liquid nuclear waste, completed back in April. The essence of the technology: specially prepared microbial cultures are added to a container with an aqueous solution of the radioactive isotope cesium-137 (the main "actor" in Chernobyl and Fukushima, whose half-life is 30.17 years), as a result, after 14 days (!) the concentration of cesium decreases by more than 50%, but at the same time the concentration of non-radioactive barium increases in the solution. That is, microbes are able to absorb radioactive cesium and somehow convert it into non-radioactive barium.”
“Those who were not previously familiar with the works of A.A. Kornilova, were surprised to learn that:
the discovery (and this is certainly a discovery) of the transmutation of chemical elements in natural biological cultures was made back in 1993, the first patent for obtaining the Mösbauer isotope of iron-57 was received in 1995;
the results have been repeatedly published in reputable international and domestic scientific journals;
500 independent checks of the technology were carried out in various scientific centers before the technology was released for state expertise;
the technology was tested in Chernobyl on different isotopes, that is, it can be tuned to any composition of isotopes of specific liquid nuclear waste;
state expertise did not deal with sophisticated laboratory methods, but with ready-made industrial technology, which has no analogues in the world market;
Moreover, the Ukrainian theoretical physicist Vladimir Vysotsky and his Russian colleague Vladimir Manko created a convincing theory to explain the observed phenomena within the framework of nuclear physics.”
“The experiments of A.A. Kornilova is based on the idea expressed by the French scientist Louis Kervran in the 60s of the last century. It lies in the fact that biological systems are able to synthesize trace elements critical for their survival or their biochemical analogues from the available components. These trace elements include potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, etc.
The objects of the first experiments conducted by A.A. Kornilova, there were cultures of bacteria Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Deinococcus radiodurans. They were placed in a nutrient medium depleted in iron but containing a manganese salt and heavy water (D2O). Experiments showed that the rare Mössbauer iron-57 isotope was produced in this system. According to the authors of the study, iron-57 appeared in growing bacterial cells as a result of the reaction 55Mn + d = 57Fe (d is the nucleus of the deuterium atom, consisting of a proton and a neutron). A certain argument in favor of the proposed hypothesis is the fact that when heavy water was replaced with light water (H2O) in the nutrient medium or the manganese salt was excluded from its composition, the iron-57 isotope was not produced. More than 500 experiments were carried out in which the appearance of the iron-57 isotope was reliably established.”
“In the nutrient media used in the experiments of A.A. Kornilova for the biological conversion of cesium to barium, there were no potassium ions, a trace element critical for the survival of microorganisms. Barium is a biochemical analogue of potassium, the ionic radii of which are very close. The experimenters hoped that the syntrophic association, which was on the brink of survival, would synthesize barium nuclei from cesium nuclei by adding to them the protons present in the liquid nutrient medium. It is assumed that the mechanism of nuclear transformations in biological systems is similar to the process occurring in nanobubbles. For protons, nanosized cavities in growing biological cells are potential wells with dynamically changing walls that form coherent correlated states of quantum particles. Being in these states, protons are able to enter into a nuclear reaction with cesium nuclei, as a result of which barium nuclei appear, which are required for the implementation of biochemical processes in microorganisms.
Experiments by A.A. Kornilova on the transformation of cesium into barium passed the state examination at the All-Russian Research Institute of Inorganic Materials. A.A. Bochvar in the laboratory of the candidate of physical and mathematical sciences V.A. Kashcheev.
VNIINM scientists carried out two control experiments that differed in their formulation. In the first experiment, the nutrient medium contained a salt of the non-radioactive caesium-133 isotope. Its amount was sufficient for reliable measurement of the content of the initial cesium and synthesized barium by mass spectrometry. Syntrophic associations were added to the nutrient medium, which were then kept at a constant temperature of 35ºC for 200 hours. Periodically, glucose was added to the nutrient medium and samples were taken for analysis on a mass spectrometer.
During the experiment, a nonmonotonic decrease in the concentration of cesium and, at the same time, the appearance of barium were recorded in the nutrient solution.
The results of the experiment unambiguously indicated the occurrence of a nuclear reaction to convert cesium into barium, since before the experiment, the presence of barium was not detected either in the nutrient solution, or in the syntrophic association, or in the dishes used.
In the second experimental setting, a salt of radioactive cesium-137 with a specific activity of 10,000 Becquerels per liter was used. The syntrophic association developed normally at this level of solution radioactivity. This provided a reliable measurement of the concentration of radioactive cesium nuclei in the nutrient solution by gamma spectrometry. The duration of the experiment was 30 days. During this time, the content of radioactive cesium nuclei in the solution decreased by 23%.
Now let's think about what all this can mean:
1. this discovery is more than 20 years old, and the prerequisites for it were made more than 50 years ago, but it was hushed up, and the author, most likely, was also ridiculed by colleagues, although it deserves several Nobel Prizes at once;
2. examination and more than 500 independent experiments confirmed the existence of a result that has an explanation only for the alternative, and official science shrug.
Here I especially liked the conclusion: “this means ... the legalization of the entire area of research on low-energy nuclear reactions, since a convincing answer was received to the two main counterarguments of the opponents of this area: the irreproducibility of most experimental results and the lack of a theoretical explanation of the observed phenomena. It's all right now.” But earlier, something prevented me from opening my eyes and believing. The same Andrea Rossi with his reactor was not taken seriously at all.
3. cesium to barium, manganese to iron by ordinary microorganisms, without nuclear reactors, accelerators, high temperature plasma, etc. And this is just the beginning.
Once upon a time, I carefully expressed my idea that many observations and experiments show that plants, namely their roots, in spring must produce a huge amount of various substances for their growth without explainable energy sources and element reserves (take at least sugar in birch juice without heat and photosynthesis). At that time, I had only one explanation for what was happening: in the spring, nuclear reactions begin to occur in the roots of plants. The widespread dissemination of this conclusion smacked of a psychiatric hospital, but now it may turn out to be true.
4. Studies have shown that in the course of such reactions, one more proton is added to the nucleus of the element. What is a proton? This is the nucleus of hydrogen. Ordinary hydrogen from water. Those. such a reaction can take place wherever there is hydrogen, water or hydrogen-containing substances.
Here, official science gets once again a rake, because experiments with plants back in the middle of the last century showed that during photosynthesis, it is not carbon dioxide that decomposes into carbon and oxygen, but water into hydrogen and oxygen, and plants use hydrogen for their needs, but excess oxygen is released. However, this reaction was inexplicable until now and the results were simply not accepted.
5. there were even more ancient experiments, which I already wrote about, but now I can’t find the posts. There I expressed the idea that low-energy nuclear reactions can take place in the plasma of an electric arc during ordinary welding. I heard about them back in school, as old enough and not confirmed, and I repeated one myself, although no one believed me then.
It all started with a legend that someone somewhere made a thin electrode for electric arc welding from lead, lit an arc, completely burned it, and gold was found in the resulting slag. I haven’t checked this yet, but here’s the fact that if you evaporate a piece of thin copper wire wrapped in paper, inserting it into a socket, iron is found in the residue, I checked. There were traces of iron for sure. Something similar is written here: “Low-energy nuclear reactions are an unexplained reality”
6. Naturally, all this affects cosmology with its theories of the formation of elements in the universe, as well as the evolution of stars and determining their age. Indeed, it is still believed that stars cannot produce heavy elements during their life, and they appear only after a supernova explosion, that the metallicity of a star can increase only with a change of generations, and not during its life with increasing age, and this will already pull behind a revision of very many conclusions, theories and calculations.
What can we expect in the near future?:
1. of course, the development of cold thermonuclear fusion and reactors based on it, for practical domestic use for home / cottage / car;
2. depreciation of gold, platinum and other expensive and rare elements, as there will be the possibility of their artificial cheap production from common substances (the mythical philosopher's stone is on the way);
3. revision of many cosmological nonsense, at least in relation to the age, composition, evolution and origin of the universe and stars.
And such news often passes by us ...
