[NewCandle] foil roll experiments

[Horace Heffner]

Nick,

Awesome work!  This is a stunning set of experiments!  This looks to  
be a genuine chemically induced nuclear reaction. I'm at a loss to  
see an ordinary explanation.  As before, neutron activation might be  
the cause of an initial sudden rise in radioactivity, but it can not  
explain why the radioactivity falls off in a few days, or why lasting  
radioactivity remains on the top inner foil surfaces.  This  
combination of events is very mysterious, and your following  
experiments add to the mystery.


On Nov 29, 2009, at 8:04 AM, Nick Reiter wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> Been off for the long holiday weekend and managed to sneak off to  
> the basement laborium

Laborium!  LOL.  Lose lips sink ships. Basement lips talk of strange  
things.


> to try some tests with foil rolls and the uranyl acetate.
>
> First of all, I did want to mention that I tried Horace's suggested  
> test, of putting some new foil rolls into the presumably partially  
> reacted or spent solution from the original Pixie 23 bucket.
>
> Upon initial insertion, I again looked carefully for the rise in  
> count rate, along the lines of what I saw before.  And indeed,  
> while less in magnitude (an increase of maybe 1.5x instead of 2x+)  
> the effect reproduced.  I immediately pulled a roll back out to see  
> if it had gotten that "hot" in a short time by itself, and oddly,  
> no - very little count rate noted, barely above ambient (30 to 50 cpm)
>
> That was about a week ago.  Over the next few days after that, I  
> pulled the same roll periodically, and have seen it become slowly  
> more radioactive, up to about 2500cpm from the "roll end" and about  
> 1000 cpm from the side.
>
> Overall suggesting that the mechanics were reproducing, albeit with  
> less intensity, presumably because the bucket solution was already  
> partially reacted and "spent".


This is to me an unexpected result.  It is unexpected because in the  
original experiment the counts died off in a few days.  This  
indicates some kind of consumable.  I am surprised new foil can re- 
start the process at a diminished rate.  This sounds like there are  
at least two consumables involved, (1) the foil surface (either the  
actual Al material or impurities or some surface features, and (2)  
something in the uranyl acetate solution.   The fact the foil surface  
was only "used up", i.e. activated, at one end indicates the  
consumable should have been in the solution.  The above result is  
therefore somewhat at odds with the fact the latent radiation in the  
pixie 23 foil was all toward the open end.  If consuming of the foil  
surface was all that was involved, and not consumption of something  
in the solution also, then diffusion of the "active" ingredient from  
the solution should have eventually carried the reaction down deeper  
into the foil over a period of days, even if the resulting counts  
declined due to partial consumption of the solution.  This didn't  
happen.  The exterior counts dropped back to the original values over  
a few days, and the more interior parts of the foil did not become as  
semi-permanently (or permanently - still waiting to hear what half- 
life the high count foil has) radioactive. THis seems to indicate  
that whatever was active in the solution was fully consumed.

This raises the very odd, and I even hesitate to mention it because  
it is so odd, possibility that something accumulated in the solution  
while it rested between experiments.  It would seem there was not  
enough time for significant daughter products to accumulate in that  
short amount of time - though I suppose if a very small amount of  
short half life daughter product *were largely consumed* by contact  
with the foil then only a short period of time would suffice to  
regenerate a large effect by bringing the daughter product back up to  
par.  OTOH, that would be an astoundingly robust effect between the  
foil and what must be a sub-microgram amount of daughter product!!   
Very hard to believe!  The alternative time-accumulation hypothesis  
is even harder to believe.

Wild speculation shield on!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
That hypothesis is that something accumulates in the solution from  
the environment, such as by cosmic ray effect. This is reminiscent of  
the ou effects the Graneaus observed in high current discharge in  
water experiments.  The water had to sit outside to rejuvenate the  
effect.  They hypothesized solar energy was being stored in the  
water. A bit of a far out hypothesis is it is cosmic ray secondary  
products, like hyperons, that are being stored up - a very wild  
hypothesis, but somewhat somewhat supported by my paper:

http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/CFnuclearReactions.pdf

which has continued to evolve.

The foil might serve to chemically accumulate a critical mass on its  
surface.  It makes me wonder what might happen if the foil surface  
had a nano-structure pre-deposited on it, so as to acquire a volume  
effect.  This still doesn't explain why the effect is primarily  
interior to the foil.  That might be explained yet again by critical  
mass.  The outside layer(s) of foil just aren't as much in a critical  
mass.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Wild speculation shield off.


>
> Now yesterday, I set up a more controlled separate experiment in a  
> Nalgene 500ml graduated cylinder.
>
> I attached the counter tube firmly to the side of the cylinder,  
> looking "in", and took first a background count with 250ml of  
> distilled water inside.  Typical 30 to 50 cpm.  I poured out the  
> water, and poured in 250 ml of ~.1M uranyl acetate (fresh) in H2O.   
> Solution-only reading was between 80 and 100cpm.  This was poured  
> out, and a single 75ft foil roll was slipped into the graduated  
> cylinder.  The uranyl acetate solution was then oured back in, down  
> through the center hole and allowed to rise up and wick up through  
> the foil.
>
> Within about 3 or 4 minutes, as the solution was wetting into the  
> roll (as adjudjed by the changing top level of the liquid just  
> above the foil, the cpm on the counter tube climbed up to dance  
> between 150 and 200cpm.

That seems to prove D2O is not involved. Good to have one major  
variable out of the way.


>
> It looks like a legitimate effect, but what mechanism would produce  
> it, I don't kow.  In a modestly controlled geometry, there appears  
> to be an enhancement of emission rate from weak uranyl acetate as  
> it permeates between aluminum foil roll turns.  Again, I ponder -  
> is this a Casimir force related effect?  Or some coherency of  
> emission from geometry of reflection?

My guess is it is a critical mass effect, not solely neutron based,  
but gamma-beta-neutron based. This might be checked out by cutting  
foil samples from multiple layers, going inward from the outside.  If  
the counts increase going inward by layer, then the effect likely has  
to do with critical mass.

A great remaining mystery is what remains on the foil surface that  
has such a high count rate. It would be good to cut some sample  
patches, say 1 cm^2, and label them as to origin and count them  
periodically. It would of course be ideal to get a spectrum and look  
for distinct isotope half lives.

Too bad you don't still have your SEM!  That would have provided some  
important clues.


> Or hey, anyone up for ORANUR?
>
> N


Have you felt nauseous lately?  Smell anything strange? See:

http://members.dslextreme.com/users/rogermw/Reich/oranur.html

Best regards,

Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/