A must read paper - Tritium decay constant reduction

[Richard Hull]

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Reifenschwsomeexperi.pdf

The above URL is a paper that was written by Otto Reifenschweiler a research physicist at the well known Phillips Research Laboratory, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

It came from the CANR/LENR library site.

I just got my Inifinite Energy in the mail and his work is featured this month.

It seems he did research in the late 1950's and got some amazing results that he could make no sense over until the 1989 Cold fusion flap. It seems that this researcher obtained a 40% reduction in the Lamda (decay constant) of tritium by heating it while embedded in titanium vapor deposition particles!!! (titanium tritide)

It appears the embedment ratio, the chemical composition and the temperature are all critical!!! He found that as he raised the temperature, the decay constant changed up to 40% and then as he raised the temperature even more, the constant returned towards normal!!! This is over the top as regards all physics dogma and doctrine. These were careful experiments and show that chemical, temperature and lattice situations can indeed alter what was once thought unalterable.

Good old Otto brought his old work forward for a first publish in the prestigious Physics Letters A in 1994. He thinks that pairing of tritium nuclei are responsible and that this can be carried over to the D-D process in some CF work.

This is very important stuff and all who would consider themselves nuclear physics adepts should at least give this a read. More can be found in the current issue of Infinite Energy.
Vol 9, issue 54. This is found on some of the better and more full line magazine racks. Barnes and Noble usually has it here in Richmond.

Check this out!

Richard Hull

[3l]

Hi Richard:

Tritium absorbtion not too kooky now.
Chemsortion of tritium is rife at nuke power plants in fuel elements.
That's why I think tritium plates on the fusor walls.
I wonder what new excuse our mainline buddies will cook up now?
Edwin Teller predicted this aproach to cold fusion would work.
Too bad he died before he could see it.
Puts LENR into a new kettle of fish indeed.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
Fusor Tech

[Richard Hull]

Teller was far more insightful than his contemporaries, but a hard man to deal with. I always liked him, though he was nearly universally hated within his own community. (namby-pamby intellectuals). He was instantly symaphtetic to CF, CANR, LENR. He was not vigorously boosting the issue, but wisely kept an open mind as he knew that nature would constantly amaze him. I think he knew there was something fickle about fusion outside of the well understood hot fusion probabilities that eluded us all.

As regards the experiment, it seems rather well done with most of the bases for error well covered. It is as if the nucleus of tritium was being shared or in someway stabilized in the lattice.

The author has opted for a go-no-go hypothesis in which some 40% of the tritium is actually stopped dead and made proof against decay, while 60% goes about its normal decay action. Interesting concept.

Richard Hull

[Roberto Ferrari]

I appreciate dare researchers. This is a sensitive subject for nuclear scientists. 25 years ago, working in radiochemistry, I read a large review paper about all the differents approaches -unsuccesful- to modify disintegration rates. After a first reading to the paper so kindly offered by Richard, I would say that this researcher seems to jump very fast to nuclear conclusions, without too much comments about his experimental setup and the possible counterhypoteses. Measuring low energy electrons can be tricky.
Regards,
Roberto

[Richard Hull]

I was a bit leary of his GM measurment technique. The ideal would be a form of imbedded proportional counter within the chamber. Still, the GM technique is adequate for the most part as his prepartaions are thin and little self absrobtion will occur if the tritium migrated within the sample.

It is a pity that such work as this crosses so many disciplines that no single researcher can often bring to the table un-assailable thecnique and skills in all of them.

Richard Hull

[Roberto Ferrari]

You always go right to the point! That is the main issue; the need of many expertises, hardly found in an individual.
Let's follow the whereabouts of that paper.

Roberto

[David Rosignoli]

Whoops. For some reason this ended up posted elsewhere.

Roberto,

Do you remember the name/date of that paper that you mentioned that reviewed different unsuccessful ways to alter the decay rates? I'd be interested in tracking down that paper.

Thanks.

-David Rosignoli

[Roberto Ferrari]

Hello David,
By sure I have a photocopy of that article, but give me a couple of days to track it.
It is like to find a leave into a library...
Roberto

[Roberto Ferrari]

Hi David,

Here it is:
Perturbation of Nuclear Decay Rates
G.T. Emery
Annual Review of Nuclear Science, Dec. 1972, Vol. 22: 165-202.

All the collection is very useful, reporting large review articles about specific themes.
You will learn they burned, twisted, hammered, juggled, prayed to the unstable nucleus, to no avail. Of course, it was long time ago and now things may be different.
I think that going against a so stablished dogma, you must to protect yourself and your experiment against alternative explanations and experimental errors.
Regards,
Roberto

[David Rosignoli]

Thanks for the lookup. I'll make sure to track it down next time I'm in the library.

[Richard Hull]

I don't thing things are different now. Hopefully, the laws of physics don't change.

Most of the prior work was involving simple heating of the element or a natural compound of it in the raw. That data is probably all correct, as it was in 1972, but new ideas about protium element and its related isotopic embedments in metal lattices might just bring about some interesting discoveries.

Richard Hull

[Roberto Ferrari]

Sorry for my English! I was trying to express that the labs and researchers may have some news, not the laws of nucleus !
Of course all new ideas must to be tested and that one about a possible interaction inside the metal lattices is exciting.
I am prone to be open minded, even a slightly off-road; but the years teached me to be careful.
All my comments to this thread are pointing to the statements. To avoid to make a revolutionary statement when your experimental set up can have flaws.
Everyone in this list is familiar with the old experiment with a magnet or electric plates charged, deflecting alpha and beta particles. Just to imagine a potential error: a wrong set up can place a stray DC current with its undetected magnetic field that could wipe out part of your beta particles. Or static charges, depending of the materials involved.
Roberto

[Roberto Ferrari]

David,
I have to apologyze myself. Is easier to post than to check...When you grew older, mind tricks you and you are not willing to accept that!
Emery's paper is about SUCCESS in modifying decay rates (but by a little) and specifically in cases of electron capture decays.
Also you can see Anderson & Spangler, "Serial Statistics: Is Radioactive Decay Random?", The Journal of Physisical Chemistry, vol 77, n° 26, 1973.
Modern researchers still quote Emery as the best review available.
See Falkenberg, "Radioactive Decay Caused by Neutrinos?", Apeiron, Vol 8, n° 2, April 2001(available by the web).
Falkenberg works with tritium, as Reifenschweiler, but F. believes to have found a correlation with solar neutrino flux.
By the way, F. quotes another paper by R. : "Reduced Radioactivity of Tritium in Small Titanium Particles" Phys. Lett. A, 184, (1994).
What all this mean? That the last word is never told. That a so stablished dogma as the constancy of nuclear decay rate is still an exciting field of research. That this research is hard, meticulous and close to the border of experimental errors.
What has to do with fusor researches? As Tritium is involved, is good to keep an eye on this line of experiments, as Richard blew the whistle.
Roberto

[ChrisSmolinski]

Very interesting post, Richard. I know it's accepted that certain types of
decay can be slightly modified by physical arrangements of atoms, such as
with electron capture, where the availability of a nearby electron to grab
depends on the molecular bonds.

40% is an amazing change in the decay rate. I'm sure nature still has quite a
few tricks up her sleeves.

One of the best explainations I've seen regarding how man discovers the
laws of nature was from Feynman. He used the allegory of watching a chess
game to discover the rules. First you see how the pawns move, then the
knights and bishops and other pieces. Then once you think you have it all
figured out, wham, one of the players castles. Where did that come from?

Sometimes I wonder if we're looking at fusion for power generation the wrong
way. We're looking for processes that produce big amounts of energy from
each reaction, with lots of reactions occuring. Maybe we need to look for
some sort of reaction that is slow and rare to occur, but can be coaxed with
the right conditions, and the slow rate made up for by a large volume of
reactants. The question is whether we can fit that volume of reactants on the
Earth