Re: [Phys-l] Navy Cold Fusion

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskil@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Nov 19, 2006, at 1:29 PM, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> On Nov 18, 2006, at 11:58 PM, Jack Uretsky wrote:
>
> > Back when cold fusion was hot we had a speaker from Texas A&M who had
> > been
> > investigating some local experiments.  As I recall the talk, one of 
> > the
> > main points was thet there is practically no Palladium available that
> > has
> > not been used in the vicinity of a nuclear reactor.  Investigation of
> > the
> > local Palladium supplies confirmed that all  of itw was hot, we were
> > told.
> >  					Regards,
> >  						Jack
>
> Jack, assuming you would not object, I quoted the above on the
> restricted list for CMNS researchers, and asked for comments. The
> acronym stands for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science; it is a new name
> for "cold fusion." What follows is a reply that came, from France, this
> morning. The author of the message is usually very critical about CMNS
> claims. By the way, traces of beta radioactivity, accompanied by gamma
> rays, if Pd was recycled from fission products, would be from 107Pd.
> That isotope is not alpha radioactive. The CR-39 chips are totally
> insensitive to beta and gamma rays.
>
> Ludwik Kowalski
> Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good.
>
> > Hmmmm.
> >
> > Well, now I have survived in this field long enough to see the old
> > lies (or caltrops) recycled.  Maybe this is a good sign.
> >
> > The mischievous misinformation reposted by "Jack" below was offered
> > originally to defuse any excitement caused by various autoradiographic
> > and low level charged particle evidence of cf.  Having scrutinized A
> > LOT of Pd (before, after and during electrolysis) in a very high
> > sensitivity gamma detector I can assure this group that Pd as received
> > from a variety of sources is not normally (in our case ever)
> > radioactive.  This is as expected.  The mischievous part of the post
> > is that Pd IS NOT normally found or used near reactors*.  The bold,
> > bald and false assertions by the unnamed TAMU speaker were simply
> > intended to disconcert.
> > Mike

I want to make a correction. In my reply to Jack I confused a French 
researcher, Michel, with an American electrochemist Mike. I know that 
nobody cares about who the author of the message was. But mistakes 
should be corrected. Jack wrote: "I have accurately reported my 
recollection of a talk by Kevin Wolff (or wolfe?) given, as it turns 
out, on 28 Sept. 1990." I know who Kevin was; unfortunately, he died 
prematurely. Was he speaking to BNL scientists on that day? K.L.Wolf 
was a real pro; he was initially reporting positive CF results. But he 
also reported negative results. I believe he rejected the CF claims 
before dying. I was not aware that he was already sharing his doubts 
with others as early as September 1990. That was less than one year 
after the discovery of CF was announced. i know that he would love to 
perform San Diego experiments -- either to confirm or refute them.

Jack does not want to waste time on reading what I think about Pd. So I 
will not bother to write about this. But Jack seems to be open-minded 
on many topics; I count on him being interested again IF the 
Frpastanila effect is confirmed. In unit #314 I will refer to the 
SPAWAR discovery as Frapastanila in honor of Frank, Pamela, Stanislaw 
and Larry. Be patient; it might take a while before the unit #314 is 
posted. I will let you know.

Ludwik Kowalski
Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good.