First of all, this is computer and Open Source related Blog, and I wasn’t and still am not sure, if this is a really good idea to mention this stuff about BlackLight Power here, since I’m trying really hard to keep this Blog above a certain level.
But a few days ago I’ve read an article at Telepolis about a “Breakthrough in Extracting Energy from Hydrogen? “. Well – knowing that Telepolis sometimes tends to report about weired stuff, I was very much astonished about what I’ve read there.
I’ve started to Google around, and read various stuff on the Internet, including the Wikipedia entries on that. I’ve ignored the BlackLight Power site itself, since I didn’t intent being brainwashed. But I’ve found also on YouTube this presentation:
I felt more and more pissed about this whole matter. My impression was that this presentation had a, let’s say, odd quality and really didn’t reflect professionalism nor a extreme technical skill.
Such free energy stories are buzzing around the whole Internet and I do pay the same attention to it, like to penis extension or porn for free or stuff.
I don’t really get it, why this is more or less seriously discussed at all. We are talking about 137 states below the ground state of an electron! Come again?!
How is it possible to go more south if you are standing at the South Pole?
came across my eyes while I was investigating this story.
There’s a standard model in physics, which work so well, that nobody would seriously doubt it’s correctness, but Mr. Mills.
See the standard model: http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~dfehling/particle.gif
I’ve finally found a simple three point statement, that let me sleep again. Here it is:
3. Zach on October 24, 2008 8:48 AM writes…
You’re being far too kind. As an atomic physicist, I can tell you that
1) An electron bound to a hydrogen atom is exactly and analytically solvable. We know every bound state, and there is no state below the ground state.
2) Blacklight’s equations are nonsense and have nothing to do with the Schroedinger or Dirac equations describing an electron in a potential. It’s been a while since I looked, but their equations were really weird and bore no relation to anything in atomic physics.
3) The energy levels of an electron around a nucleus of charge Z go as E=(-1/2 Hartree)*(Z^2/n^2). The spectroscopic experiment where they purport to see a n=1/2 energy level (ie, an energy level lower than n=1, the ground state) is done in a discharge which included both hydrogen (Z=1) and helium (Z=2). The line they saw is the n=1 level of He+.
4) If there were an energy level of hydrogen which was 40.8 eV below the ground state, every hydrogen atom that we see should be in that state! Room temperature is about 1/40 eV, so the ratio of normal ground state atoms to hydrino atoms should be e^(40.8 eV/(1/40 eV))=e^(-1632), or ~10^-500.
It’s the best so far, I’ve read about it.
Case closed for me.
I don’t know. I have a hard time buying the idea that Mills’ financial backers would plow $60M into his venture without a fairly plausible story, i.e. one that can stand up to such a trivial argument as proposed here. I’ve met a lot of venture investors and I never met one stupid or gullible enough to drop $60M without some pretty solid proof.
And I also have problems with the idea that the professors at Rowan, who were armed with state the art lab equipment, could be so easily fooled into backing a hoax. Something is going on in those cells that can’t be explained by currently understood physics.
Have a look at what Nickolas Moller writes in the abstrat from his book “Irving Langmuir and Atomic Hydrogen”. Then compare the experiments he performed with those that are performed with the BlackLight power. Langmuir uses tungsten as catalyst which is different from what is used by BlackLight Power Inc. He get the same results as blackLight power.
Why don’t you try to reproduce the two experiments and see if you get similar or differenrt results.
@lebirchan
I’ve been reading a lot about this stuff (hydrinos) last time. Today it was this here: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2008/NET29-8dd54geg.shtml
The impression I get is, that all is related to the stuff Fleischmann was working on in the late 80ies. And to give the ‘stuff’ a name: cold fusion.
It seams to me, Mills and all other working on plasma discharges with hydrogen, plus some other ingredients, are very keen on not being mentioned together with these two very ugly words: cold fusion.
Btw: thanks for your comment.
Looking to contact Lebirchan.
Below is alternate interpertation for sub ground state..
Relativistic interpretation of Casimir effect Expanded
http://froarty.scienceblog.com/32155/relativistic-interpertation-of-casimir-effect-expanded/
Tungsten and Atomic hydrogen http://froarty.scienceblog.com/32162/tungsten-and-atomic-hydrogen/
Dear Francis,
“I think you should have a look at the work that Per Moller and his group has done at DTU Denmark. They work with developmen¬¬t of electrodes to be used in manufactur¬¬ing of Hydrogen. What they have managed to do is develop an electrode that is covered with Raney Nickel which is the catalyst for the reaction, something that until now was thought impossible¬¬, because of raney nickels stability.¬¬. They have since august had a small plant running in Denmark producing M3 hydrogen pr hour using water . Now if you compare their process and the one that Blacklight Power claim to have developed then we are getting very close to something that is very similar even though the experimental setup is very different. I do not know if their process is developing a similar amount of heat as is claimed by BlackLight Power, I have a suspicion it does. Should it be the case then it will not be very difficult to repeat the BlackLight Power process with their novel catalyst.But not only that it would also mean that much of the discussion around the BlackLight Process would be very simple to prove or disprove.
Best wishes,
Leno