Cold Fusion?

[Hindmost]

I don't understand. How can it get closer at the same temperature without reducing the charge repulsion (the repulsion energy)?

The radius of the deuterium atom with muon in orbit is much smaller because the mass of the muon is about 200 times that of an electron--but has the same charge. The muon orbits about 200 times closer to the nucleus--therefore the atoms can get closer together because they are smaller.

To get two nuclei closer together, you either have give them more energy (heat them up) or lower the energy cost of getting them near each other. As you describe it here, the muon is serving to reduce the energy cost of the charge repulsion, allowing for the protons to get closer to each other.

I don't know what "lower the cost" of the energy means, but muon shields the EM force of the nucleus--as I have stated. With EM repulsion shielded, less then the typical 10 or 20 KeV of energy is needed for the atoms to fuse. To get two atoms close together, the energy must overcome coulomb repulsion.

IOW, the negative charge reduces the barrier for fusion to occur, because it lowers the repulsive interaction. That's exactly what I am saying..

I completely agree. But it takes a bunch of energy to make muons...unless there is a nice cosmic ray source nearby.

That is irrelevent to the question at hand, which involves the energy it takes to get there, not the distance they need to get to.

10^-15 meters is the distance for the strong nuclear force to overcome the EM repulsion…assuming no tunneling.

But that's why Pons and Fleischmann's claim was controversial. They were claiming that the solid state chemistry of the Pd did in fact provide the energy stabilization needed to affect the nuclear reaction. This was indeed a bold claim, but you can't just dismiss it with "it can't happen." They were claiming the exception to the common belief that "it can't happen." Had their experimental data held up to scrutiny, it would have required a revision of the currently accepted view of what can and can't happen.

I don’t know what you mean by “energy stabilization.” Until someone can adequately demonstrate how Pd or anything can alter the coulomb barrier and lower the ignition temperature of a D-D reaction (or any fusion reaction), it can’t happen. Pons and Fleishman didn’t have any real data for peer review (they didn’t even monitor for neutrons and their calorimetry was poor)—they actually circumvented peer review. The currently accepted view is backed by about 50 years of physics data.

glenn<O</O