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You're confusing the strong and weak nuclear forces from particle physics with the fission and fusion nuclear reactions. The (residual) strong force underpins

by nucpal 6y ago

You're confusing the strong and weak nuclear forces from particle physics with the fission and fusion nuclear reactions. The (residual) strong force underpins the energy release in both fission and fusion reactions. You've also linked to the debunked pseudoscience of 'cold fusion', (dressed up as low energy nuclear reactions...) from Pons and Fleischman. Plenty of work is being done in the field of handling radioactive waste from nuclear fission. My field (decommissioning and waste management) is entirely dedicated to it.

irthomasthomas 6y ago
From the first link: " It was only in 2006, with the publication of a landmark paper in the European Journal of Physics C, that neutron-induced transmutations, as something distinct from cold fusion, began to emerge as a viable theory. The paper predicts that electrons on a metal surface coated with hydrogen, deuterium, or tritium atoms can behave collectively (as Einstein had predicted) when driven by an oscillating electromagnetic field at a particular frequency. This collective behavior can give them enough energy to combine with the hydrogen, deuterium, or tritium to make neutrons. The paper goes on to say that the resulting neutrons travel very slowly, slow enough, in fact, to get gobbled up by a nearby atom before they can even leave the microscopic vicinity of their birthplace. The atom then becomes unstable and might burp out radioactive decay byproducts like a gamma ray or energetic electron. A separate paper by the same authors calculates that microscopic surfaces of electrodes, like those that tend to produce low-energy neutrons, are efficient absorbers of radioactive gamma rays. So radioactive decay can be transformed into a bath of innocuous heat. And of course heat energy can readily be converted into electricity."
- nucpal 6y ago
  Landmark paper is a strong term for something that has been repeatedly debunked and then ignored by the nuclear physics community (all its citations are cold fusion journals...) The theory Widom and Larsen propose violates the laws of physics and has no experimental evidence. Put simply, the weak reaction needs an enormous amount of energy to happen. The difference between a neutron and a proton is 1MeV, more than the mass of the electron. The electric field at the surface of the metal is of the order of eV and does not account for this. So where are these massive electrons magically getting their energy from? Or if you're comfortable with theoretical physics, a better critique can be found here: https://coldfusionblog.net/category/widom-larsen/ https://coldfusionblog.net/category/widom-larsen/

by nucpal 6y ago

irthomasthomas 6y ago

From the first link: " It was only in 2006, with the publication of a landmark paper in the European Journal of Physics C, that neutron-induced transmutations, as something distinct from cold fusion, began to emerge as a viable theory. The paper predicts that electrons on a metal surface coated with hydrogen, deuterium, or tritium atoms can behave collectively (as Einstein had predicted) when driven by an oscillating electromagnetic field at a particular frequency. This collective behavior can give them enough energy to combine with the hydrogen, deuterium, or tritium to make neutrons. The paper goes on to say that the resulting neutrons travel very slowly, slow enough, in fact, to get gobbled up by a nearby atom before they can even leave the microscopic vicinity of their birthplace. The atom then becomes unstable and might burp out radioactive decay byproducts like a gamma ray or energetic electron. A separate paper by the same authors calculates that microscopic surfaces of electrodes, like those that tend to produce low-energy neutrons, are efficient absorbers of radioactive gamma rays. So radioactive decay can be transformed into a bath of innocuous heat. And of course heat energy can readily be converted into electricity."

nucpal 6y ago
Landmark paper is a strong term for something that has been repeatedly debunked and then ignored by the nuclear physics community (all its citations are cold fusion journals...) The theory Widom and Larsen propose violates the laws of physics and has no experimental evidence. Put simply, the weak reaction needs an enormous amount of energy to happen. The difference between a neutron and a proton is 1MeV, more than the mass of the electron. The electric field at the surface of the metal is of the order of eV and does not account for this. So where are these massive electrons magically getting their energy from? Or if you're comfortable with theoretical physics, a better critique can be found here: https://coldfusionblog.net/category/widom-larsen/ https://coldfusionblog.net/category/widom-larsen/