

Cold fusion: it's the helium, stupid - lisper
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-helium-stupid.html

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russell
Sorry folks, the blogger doesn't know what he is talking about. Helium
production to fill balloons come from reactions large enough to lay waste to
laboratories maybe even cities. If there is fusion the by product is low
energy neutrons, damned hard to detect, certainly not by Geiger counters.

~~~
jws
I'm way out of my knowledge here, but google tells me:

\- a Deuterium-Tritium fusion event releases 4.03 MeV

\- 1eV = 1.602 x 10^-19 joules.

\- That means each helium produced comes with 6.5 x 10^-13 joules of energy.

\- One liter of gas where humans live has 2.6 x 10^22 molecules.

\- A small balloon contains about a liter of gas. (ok, I made this one up.)

\- I think gaseous helium is just single atoms.

\- One liter of helium produced by fusion came with 6.5x10^-13 * 2.6x10^22
joules of energy, call it 1.6 gigajoules.

\- 1 joule = .24 calories ... 384 megacalories.

\- Figure the thermal mass of the experiment was about like 1kg of water
(desktop scale)... the experimental apparatus would be 384000 degrees celsius
(not recommended for desktop scale).

I'm guessing I can detect the temperature first.

(Bonus calculation, 1 liter of helium production also matches the energy
released by 382 kg of TNT.)

~~~
miked
>> 6.5x10^-13 * 2.6x10^22 joules of energy, call it 1.6 gigajoules.

= 16 x 10^9 = 16 gigajoules, not 1.6 gigajoules. Suddenly, I feel like taking
off my sweater.

~~~
jws
Nuts, now I need a thermometer that goes up to 4 million degrees and another
3500kg of TNT to complete the experiment.

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gry
Let's not call it cold fusion. Let's call it an "an experiment which produces
excess heat".

It removes the helium argument, no? My understanding is cold fusion is the
(improper) name given to this phenomena, which nobody can replicate reliably
nor explain with certainty. If it is indeed fusion, here's to hoping our world
is round.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
Cannot be replicated + signal tiny compared to the noise floor = no evidence
for existence.

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FlorinAndrei
Or it could be a different kind of fusion. Maybe protons fuse in a different
way in a metal lattice.

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geuis
They very clearly said they are calling this a nuclear effect, not cold
fusion.

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ahpeeyem
Oh THAT cold fusion.

I couldn't understand how helium would relate to the Adobe web programming
language.

