Cold Fusion
Today my cold fusion research began, and it was a thoroughly interesting day. We built two simple electrolytic cells for an experiment comparing the effectiveness of sulfuric acid, which we are currently using, and nitric acid. In previous experiments mass has been lost, presumably to evaporation through our seals. Mass loss has been improved with the use of a new custom machined design for the cell, but we're trying to reduce it further by testing new electrolytes (I don't fully understand the correlation here yet, but I've got a slew of questions to ask tomorrow).
The electrolytic cells that we're using are extremely simple. We welded a bunch of spare platinum wire (yes, that's platinum) into four electrodes, then encased each wire in heat shinkable tubing. Two electrodes were placed into each cell, being threaded through a plastic basket and top. The plastic basket was filled with some kind of charcoal catalyst about which I haven't had a chance to ask. The cells were then filled with 90 mL of deionized water, and 10 mL of sulfuric acid was deposited in the control cell, and 10 mL of nitric acid in the experimental cell. In order to attempt and improve excess heat we put the electrodes on separate sides of the cell to increase resistance thereby increasing heat. We're going to run our test tomorrow.
The graduate student Abhay did a test today with some cells he built attempting to improve excess heat using lasers, but there seemed to be very little difference. Last year's interns, Dr. Dash, and Abhay reported evidence of palladium transmutation into silver at the ICCF 10 at MIT. There's some weird stuff that can be observed. It's going to be fun.
Did you really learn how to weld? It's more difficult than soldering, and I've seen you struggle with that.
Do you wear film badges that measure radiation?
How did they measure the silver transmutations?
Generally we just do spot welding for making palladium electrodes. A machine charges a capacitor and when a pedal is depressed the electricity is released through a pair of forceps. If you hold the metals you want to weld in the forceps then they generally have enough resistance to create enough heat to make a tiny weld. It's quite a convenient and ingenious device for welds that are around 5-10 mm long and a few mm wide. We haven't been measuring radiation because it's apparently negligible. Transmutation products are measured using a scanning electron microscope. They've theorized that palladium undergoes beta decay (I think) to turn into silver. I was reading about some of the past experiments that they've performed and apparently silver deposits on palladium cathodes can be as high as 10% (This doesn't make sense if readiation is negligible... As for safety's sake, the professor is at least 70 and he's been doing these experiments for about the last 10 years).
For the tests that we're running now, we're just using deionized light water and platinum for both the cathode and anode. Palladium and platinum obviously have very similar characteristics, but I'm not sure of the details of why they vary using platinum and palladium cathodes in different experiments. It's kind of funny because all of this stuff so simple that you could easily imagine doing it in your own basement, but it's incredibly expensive. One platinum electrode with a wire 1 mm thick is more than $50, and our catalyst is $1 per gram.
Interesting, just make sure this dosen't happen to your lab.
http://www.kprf.ru/clipart/misc/nuclear_explosion3.jpg
Although judging from the fact that Cold Fusion is cold, it shouldn't do that. ;)
Rockin, dude! Sorry you have a crappy calculus teacher, though I'm sure you'll do fine on the BC exam. It really pisses me off that the BC exam covers only two more topics than AB (polar coordinates and series). Pretty lame, I think, since the bulk of important material is covered in AB.
Anywho, I'll be completing the last calculus section in the book tomorrow. I'm quite excited, since it's all review from here on out, which'll be far less stressful.
As far as Jon goes, he's at band camp for about two weeks (he left on Sunday). Lunch would be awesome, I'm thinking India House... hehe.