Rick,
The thing that I believe that needs to be done is testing many
different solid state materials and combinations. There is not much of
guidance from theory, so we will have to scan through large parts of
parameter space. I think the whole question is similar to the search
for semiconductor material: nobody new it would/could exist until
somebody stumbled upon it.
To do this scan I would like to build an array of many (100's)
reactors that follow automated recipes of heating and pressurizing
cycles and accurately measure the heat generated. Such an automated
recipe can easily take a day or a couple of days, hence the need for
automation. (automation also improves the repeatability, btw). When we
find something that has a little bit heat generated that seems to be
in excess of expectations than that is not immediately a proof of cold
fusion. There are many details and potential sources of error to take
into account. But it is a sign that would definitely trigger more
investigations in exactly the circumstances that produced the first
anomaly. That's what I meant with "not intended to convince the
skeptics". Hopefully we can, by fine tuning the parameters around the
first point that shows somewhat of a -possible- anomaly, improve the
excess heat up to the point of a definite proof. Such as Rossi claims
to have.
If you were living in pre-semiconductor times, heard of un-confirmed
reports from weird-ass labs across the border in Russia, and were set
to investigate, you would follow exactly the same procedure. The whole
discussion on whether or not to be skeptical is useless. If you're
easily hurt by experiments that don't work when you flip the switch,
than science is not the thing for you.
I plan to do this, when I have the funding, until that point I want to
start with one. And I think there are more people like me, who like to
get started with doing some experiments. It would enhance our efforts
if we made them in a (somewhat) standardized and comparable way. It
would further enhance if we made the data available to compare. Maybe
clue's are hidden in the data, not immediately apparent to the
experimenter. I have been positively surprised of what a larger
community is able to do, through the efficiency of Internet and with
the excitement of true purpose, amazing things have been realized.
BeagleBone is a good fit because it offers easy connectivity to the
Internet is cheap and simple and has a good community that can help
with the I/O and software. I know there are other boards available,
but I think the availability of standardized web software combined
with good I/O possibilities and price is the best for BeagleBone.
First thing to do is build a prototype and show the (cold fusion
believers-) community that it is useful. I have been working on the
plumbing and heating parts for the last couple of weeks, this is
almost done now. Now I am working on the I/O design, and I think I'm
close to done with that one too. Thereafter we're talking about
improvements, this can go on indefinite, I'm sure. The software will
also be a project that's never finished.
After showing the prototype I hope a significant number of people gets
interested and want to join the effort. Today the world is discussing
whether to believe or not, tomorrow we will want to try. Let's say
there was some sort of uber-authority that could declare cold fusion
to be true, as of today. Would you believe it? Wouldn't you want to
see it for yourself?
A channel I am thinking of for sales is kickstarter.com.
Are you looking for people to do the development work as part of a community effort?
Yes. More specifically:
The prototype will likely work with a BeagleBone and a breadboard-cape
with some separate IC's to be connected with pieces of wire. Would be
nice if we can make that into a real cape, carefully thought through
for reliability and available in a ready made plug-and-play form.
For the software, on a low level we need to interface with all
connected I/O. On a mid level we need to enable the experimenter to
make recipes, in a physical way. Thus the software needs to deal with
hardware specifics, such as how many milliseconds should we open the
inlet valve in order to pressurize to 200PSI? The experimenter just
wants to have a command available like: "Pressurize(200)". At the
highest level we need to access tha data stored on the BeagleBone. The
experimenter will access it through the inter/intra net though TCP/IP,
and gets to a webpage serving the current state, the previous data and
controls for the next recipe to be run. Also on this webpage are links
that enable the sharing of the data in a central place on Internet
(either a DB on FusionCatalyst.org or maybe on a commercial service
like Google Big Data).
Hope this inspires you, as much as it does me!
Regards,
Bastiaan.
