COLD FUSION DISCUSSION FORUM
Cold fusion is the subject of heated debates with qualified Physicists found on both sides. The apparatus contains a Palladium or Nickel electrode immersed or in contact with water or heavy water or hydrogen or deuterium and under the influence of electricity, plasma, light, laser, temperature or sound waves. This combination supposedly generates excess heat, neutrons, x-rays, gamma rays, protons, helium 3, helium 4 or anomalous isotopic ratios.
Now, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The name "cold fusion" has been abused and I use it here because it is generally accepted. There are many types of methods that come up under the "cold fusion" umbrella and I will try to cover them all. In this article, I will use color codes,magenta for proper "cold fusion" approach , green for Farnsworth fusor-Bussard polywell approach ,
red for the Tokamak approach and yellow as a catch all for the "Hutchison effect" and other ideas and methods which are not proven but seem to have some merit.
Amalgamated Time Line:
Palladium and Hydrogen. Palladium can absorb up to 900 times it's own volume of molecular hydrogen. This property
of palladium was discovered by Thomas Graham FRS in 1866.
In 1889, Friedrich Paschen
states Paschen's law, basically how arcing inside a tube is dependent on gap distance, filling gas, gas pressure and voltage.
On Jan 28-th, 1924 M.C. Gutton reads a paper (On high frequency electrical discharges) in front of the French Academy. He presents arcing data at different pressures (.5-.005 mm Hg) and frequencies (6-23 Mhz) using a triode oscillator to generate arcs inside a glass tube.
First cold fusion experiment and paper. In 1927, Friedrich Paneth, considered the greatest authority of his time on volatile hydrides, published his results on the transformation of hydrogen to helium. After claiming He production, he later published another article where he concluded that he cannot measure He with enough accuracy and thus cannot draw any conclusion. Overall, the Physics community agrees that no He was produced.
Also in 1927, John Gudbrand Tandberg, a Norwegian physicists employed by Electrolux in Sweden, filed a patent application : "A method to produce helium and useful reaction energy" that involved electrolysis of water with a palladium electrode. After deuterium's discovery in 1931 by Harold Urey, Tandberg experimented with Deuterium. His patent was denied because of Paneth's retraction.
On March 30, 1930 Philo Farnsworth files a patent application for an electron multiplier and receives patent 1,969,399 on August 7, 1934. He continues to improve on it with the following US patents:
2071515, 2071517, 2135615, 2140285, 2140832, 2140832, 2141838, 2143262, 2161620, 2172152, 2172152, 2174487, 2179996, 2203048,
2204479, 2217860, 2260613, 2274194, 2286076, 2311981 through February 23, 1943.
All these patents covered the "multipactor", a vacuum tube that used controlled resonance of secondary emission electrons to achieve high amplification. What Philo understood, way ahead of the curve, was the possibility of an electrostatic confinement system and the next step was obvious, fusion.
First fusion reaction. In 1932, Ernest Rutherford, Marcus Oliphant and Paul Harteck discovered the hydrogen fusion reaction.
"THE REAL COLD FUSION": In or around 1945, while working under
Igor Tamm, Andrei Sakharov comes up with Muon-catalyzed fusion. F.C. Frank comes up with the concept independently a bit later. In 1954
Yakov Zeldovich publishes an article on muon catalyzed fusion. In 1956,
Luis Alvarez confirms the theory in a series of experiments at Berkeley and in 1957 John D. Jackson publishes:
"Catalysis of Nuclear Reactions between Hydrogen Isotopes by µ- Mesons" .
TOKAMAK. In the early 50' Igor Tamm and Andrei Sakharov come up with the concept of controlling fusion inside a toroidal magnetic field. All the TOKAMAK articles mention that it was based on an original idea by
Oleg Lavrentyev but no one gives any details. This is a link to a copy of an article published in English in Russia in 1997 that might help shine light over who is Oleg Lavrentyev.
In 1959, William C. Elmore, James L. Tuck and Kenneth M. Watson from Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, University of California, Los Alamos, New Mexico publish
"On the Inertial-Electrostatic Confinement of a Plasma".
After decades of experiments and research, on June 23, 1966 Philo Farnsworth was awarded US patent 3258402 for "Electric discharge device for producing interactions between nuclei". It was filed initially May 5, 1956, revised October 18, 1960 and filed again January 11 1962. On June 4, 1968 Philo was granted US patent 3386883 for "Method and apparatus for producing nuclear fusion reactions".
On September 22, 1970 Robert Hirsch and Gene Meeks were awarded US patent 3530497 for "Apparatus for generating fusion reactions". Dr. Hirsch had worked with Philo Farnsworth and improved on the "fusor" by switching from a cylindrical to a spherical configuration.
A brief history of "cold fusion"
Cold fusion is the subject of heated debates with qualified Physicists found on both sides. The apparatus contains a Palladium or Nickel electrode immersed or in contact with water or heavy water or hydrogen or deuterium and under the influence of electricity, plasma, light, laser, temperature or sound waves. This combination supposedly generates excess heat, neutrons, x-rays, gamma rays, protons, helium 3, helium 4 or anomalous isotopic ratios.
Now, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The name "cold fusion" has been abused and I use it here because it is generally accepted. There are many types of methods that come up under the "cold fusion" umbrella and I will try to cover them all. In this article, I will use color codes,
Amalgamated Time Line:
On Jan 28-th, 1924 M.C. Gutton reads a paper (On high frequency electrical discharges) in front of the French Academy. He presents arcing data at different pressures (.5-.005 mm Hg) and frequencies (6-23 Mhz) using a triode oscillator to generate arcs inside a glass tube.
First cold fusion experiment and paper. In 1927, Friedrich Paneth, considered the greatest authority of his time on volatile hydrides, published his results on the transformation of hydrogen to helium. After claiming He production, he later published another article where he concluded that he cannot measure He with enough accuracy and thus cannot draw any conclusion. Overall, the Physics community agrees that no He was produced.
Also in 1927, John Gudbrand Tandberg, a Norwegian physicists employed by Electrolux in Sweden, filed a patent application : "A method to produce helium and useful reaction energy" that involved electrolysis of water with a palladium electrode. After deuterium's discovery in 1931 by Harold Urey, Tandberg experimented with Deuterium. His patent was denied because of Paneth's retraction.
All these patents covered the "multipactor", a vacuum tube that used controlled resonance of secondary emission electrons to achieve high amplification. What Philo understood, way ahead of the curve, was the possibility of an electrostatic confinement system and the next step was obvious, fusion.
First fusion reaction. In 1932, Ernest Rutherford, Marcus Oliphant and Paul Harteck discovered the hydrogen fusion reaction.
After decades of experiments and research, on June 23, 1966 Philo Farnsworth was awarded US patent 3258402 for "Electric discharge device for producing interactions between nuclei". It was filed initially May 5, 1956, revised October 18, 1960 and filed again January 11 1962. On June 4, 1968 Philo was granted US patent 3386883 for "Method and apparatus for producing nuclear fusion reactions".
On September 22, 1970 Robert Hirsch and Gene Meeks were awarded US patent 3530497 for "Apparatus for generating fusion reactions". Dr. Hirsch had worked with Philo Farnsworth and improved on the "fusor" by switching from a cylindrical to a spherical configuration.