FACES OF LENR

Part 5D: Design and Operation Principles of LENR Reactors

George Egely

Introduction to Part 5D
Part 5D concludes Part 5 on the “design and operation” of established power balances, eyewitness reports, photographs
LENR reactors. (Part 6 will be forthcoming in a few months and technical parameters on materials, scales, pressures, etc.
and will be the last part of this series.) The only reason to deal with them is they sometimes con-
Very little attention has been paid to cold Pd/D2 and tain a grain of insight useful for further considerations.
warm Ni/H2 systems due to their marginal practical signifi- For this part of the paper, I referenced a collection of
cance in this series, contrary to the usual treatment. water-related patents.5 The book presents a simple search,
Dust fusion has also been treated briefly, but more atten- restricted only to U.S. patents. Thus only English language
tion has been paid to catalytic fusion based on plasmon patents were used, omitting the rest, the bulk of patents.
polaritons (short-lived) and condensed plasmoids (long- Based on my crude estimation, because there are three
lived). Both of them are barely recognized quasi-particles by Hungarian water/fusion related inventions (Joseph Papp,
mainstream physics. Steven Horvath and Janos Jekkel in Part 5C) for 10 million
Part 5D includes: people, I expect the same ratio prevails at least in Europe, or
through the industrialized world.
1) A brief section on “second rate” inventions, where even This subject has a powerful multiplication, cross fertiliza-
less is known about the design and operation parameters. tion or “pinball effect.” This is the reason we deal with it so
Though hundreds of such inventions were patented during extensively. Tesla’s invention of the poly-phase current, as a
the last 150 or so years, all of them are buried on the shelves requisite of cheap and reliable electric power production and
of patent offices. distribution, had a truly beneficial, transformative effect
2) Condensed plasmoid-based mechanical inventions upon society. It made possible the utilization of hydraulic
“fueled” by the ambient vapor in the air. As usual, these and coal power far from urban centers (Niagara Falls), thus
spark-based rotary devices all resemble Wimhurst devices— helped urbanization to a significant degree. His motors, for
electrostatic influence machines. example, made possible the electric elevator among other
3) The similarity laws between discharges are briefly dis- things, which made high-rise buildings feasible, even sky-
cussed, because they are needed to have a firm ground for scrapers. It also made subways/metros possible. As remote
LENR reactor design in transient gas discharge. The attitude coal mines as power sources became feasible, cooling and
and beliefs of inventors and academic researchers are in refrigeration became possible, too. Thus the food supply
strong contrast to each other. There is no communication, chain became longer, making food cheaper.
no “bridge” between them. The forgotten inventions should Aluminum manufacturing requires a large amount of
be fertile soil for academic research. There is no communica- inexpensive electric energy. Tesla’s poly-phase system,
tion even among academic researchers, e.g. condensed plas- among others, made aluminum manufacturing economic,
moids were discovered (and forgotten) at least eight times. thus building large airplanes became possible.
4) Pulsed power supplies are not discussed in this paper; only Sparking in water/hydrogen is of similar practical impor-
some features and references are given.1-4 However, they are tance. It is quite unclear why Tesla (or any other inventor)
a must for plasmoid generation since the work of Nikola was unable to make the last step—the mass production of his
Tesla. Though this omission is not fair, these references pro- prototype.
vide a stepping stone for readers to start their own inquiry. Anyway, it is certain that dozens of other similar inven-
tions are hidden, buried in Romanian, Czech, Serbian,
Hopefully these four papers (Parts 5A-5D) on design and Russian, etc. patent offices.
operation give readers enough information to start their By now readers are familiar with the most important cri-
own experiments, to be able to check the validity of the teria of catalytic fusion by pseudo-particles. Therefore they
claims laid down in this series of papers. are able to comb through the layers of patent histories. For
now we will discuss only three patents.5
Second Rate Inventions
Even the “first rate” inventions discussed in Part 5C were not L.H. Wattles, Patent 583,104 (1897)
detailed enough to reach the threshold of reproducibility, In this invention a zinc cathode is used, immersed into an
but this group is much worse. In that sense that there are no acid. Even without electricity, zinc develops nascent hydro-

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 S. Ruben, Patent 1,431,047 (1922)
Ruben, the co-founder of Duracell, patented a pulsed electric
water splitter. This patent (method) most probably has the
technical potential to generate excess amounts of oxigas.
There are some unique and potentially useful features of
this invention. As seen in Figure 3, there are two electrodes,
E and E’, immersed into an electrolyte. However, the hydro-
gen generated this way is led back into the porous cavity of
the E’ cathode. This cathode is also driven by electric pulses,
emphasized in all seven claims.
The D power supply (B) is modulated with an AC part,
regulated by a high frequency, rotating spark gap (20).
The high voltage, intermittent switching generates pulses
on the sharp edges of the holes bored into the walls of cath-
ode E’. The cup (11) is porous, thus electrolysis is possible.
Though no parameters are provided, the electric circuit and
the electrolytic splitting vessel seem to be reproducible.
Finding the right parameters certainly requires patience.
This is a good project for garage experimenters.

Mechanical LENR Devices

Figure 1. The Wattles device. Though an internal combustion device Thestatika, Hyde, Godin, Roschin
was used to generate electricity from hydrogen, the pulsed electric The common feature of these mechanical devices is that all
circuit is apparent. The system might have fed itself at some parame- of them used transient filament discharges. Mechanical
ter range at the price of zinc consumption. devices use rotating parts of highly charged disks as a source of
spin field.
This is bizarre indeed. They seem to be so far from the
gen, useful in fusion. Wattles invented a closed, self-running electrolytic LENR cells that no relationship was ever
system with pulsed generation of electric energy, as seen in
Figure 1.
The device is based on electrochemical and pulsed electri-
cal hydrogen generation. The inductive circuit is shown in
Figure 1. Other figures (Figure 2 of the patent, not repro-
duced here) disclose sharp edges of the zinc electrodes, thus
the pulsed electric circuit may generate profuse sparking in
the acid. This in turn can lead to excess hydrogen generation.

H. Eldridge/J. Clark/B. Blum, Patent 603,058 (1898)

This invention has the same layout as the Parkhomov et al.
patent described in Part 5C. The carbon rod cathode is above
a liquid surface, and periodic pulses are applied. Even with-
out it, the frothing liquid definitely interrupts the arc cur-
rent with high frequency. (See Figure 2.)

Figure 3. The Ruben device. The unusual, although useful, feature of

Figure 2. The Eldridge et al. device. Note the carbon rod above a liq- this patent is that the DC generated hydrogen is led back into the
uid surface. cathode.

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 (a) (b) (c)

Figure 4. Sparky contacts with rolling metal contacts. (a) Wheels on rails; there are only two contact areas along lines. (b) A single ball bear-
ing with several contact points. The mercury contact is not necessary at the bottom! (c) Two rotating ball bearings. This setup requires more
than 10A, 20V DC power supply. It must be kick started, then it rotates at very high angular velocity.

assumed to them. world is the invention of Paul Baumann, a religious leader in

The Godin-Roschin Russian antigravity device is also the Mathernita community in Linden, Switzerland. See
based on transient spark discharge. (We will discuss those Figures 6a-e.
devices in Part 6.) A host of German engineers witnessed several demonstra-
tions, however they were never able to replicate it despite
Ball Bearing as a Micro-discharge-based LENR Reactor strenuous efforts.
The title of this section may seem absurd at first sight, but The device itself looks like a Wimhurst machine, with
not impossible. Swiss engineer Jakob Huber and Adolf Egloff counter-rotating plexi wheels. It is an electrostatic influence
of Bern found a strange effect in 1959. A ball bearing started machine, creating static electricity not with friction, but by
to rotate when DC current passed through it, or even a pair electric polarization of metal plates—and with sparks.
of metal cylinders rolled along a metal rail. (See Figures 4a, Several influence machines were invented to generate high
4b and 4c.) The rolling effect had very little torque, but it voltage static energy by polarizing metal objects, then
worked for AC as well, for any frequency and for DC regard- grounding half of the charges. This made possible the gen-
less of polarity. This seemed to be at odds with Maxwell’s eration and accumulation of high potential positive and
electrodynamics. negative charges. The Holtz (1856), Töpler (1866) and
A high level theoretical paper was published by Canadian Wimhurst (1883) machines are usually high school physics
H. Gruenberg in the American Journal of Physics in 1978.6 demo machines. Sometimes even the belt driven Van de
This sophisticated theory explained the small torque and the Graaf generators are demonstrated.
apparent insensitivity to the nature of current type. This Their common and important part is the group of sharp
effect puzzled several Russian researchers because it seemed needles, shown as S1 and S2 in Figure 5.
at odds with textbook physics.
We also tested this effect in Hungary, melting several pairs
of spherical and cylindrical types of ball bearings. We noted
the extensive sparking around the balls. After awhile the steel
balls became bluish due to overheating, and perhaps trans-
mutations, and finally welded into one of the inner rings.
However, Russian researcher N.N. Sinelnikov hit the nail
on the head. He tested the rotating wheels in a pressure
chamber. It turned out the effect was sensitive to pressure,
that is sparking. Angular velocity correlated only with the
intensity of sparking at the contact surface of balls or wheels,
and hot air caused the rotation, in his opinion.
Steady sparking due to poor contact and consequent heat-
ing of the surface rolled the balls at high speeds. However,
when sparking appears in a mechanical device (or any
device), plasmon waves and condensed plasmoids may
appear as well. When it happens in damp air (that is, hydro-
gen is present), a low efficiency LENR process takes place.
Thus electrons ejected by the condensed plasmoids also con-
tribute to the driving of ball bearings. In fact, this mecha-
nism may appear in all electrostatic influence motors and
generators, provided there is some humidity around.
Figure 5. The scheme of an electrostatic influence machine. The input
The Thestatika (Swiss M-L Converter) is mechanical energy by rotating the wheel. The output is high-voltage
One of the most mysterious devices of the “free energy” low-current electricity.

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 They do not touch the “influenced” (electrostatically
(a-c) polarized) metal. They have a spark gap, and high voltage
spark discharge—micro-discharges appear on their tips, cre-
ating condensed plasmoids. They carry the electrons, during
polarization. The other contacts (E1, E2) are soft metal
brushes, touching the metal lamellas, thus having a galvan-
ic contact. In Figure 5, the difference is not apparent, but in
fact they have quite different physical features, by now clear
to the readers.
Are all the Wimhurst or Van de Graaf machines over-unity
LENR reactors? Not at all, just like an ordinary electrolysis
has no LENR at all.
In order to initiate LENR in the mechanical devices, fur-
ther technical steps are required.
A curious fact was observed with the Thestatika machine
by witnesses. It stopped rotating after one or two days in a
closed room; in hindsight it seems they were using up all the
vapor in the room—the fuel. (This casual remark of one
observer hit my alarm bell, arousing my curiosity.)
(d) The Thestatika device is described by Keith Tutt in his
2001 book The Search for Free Energy. German Engineer Sven
Bonisch made most of the careful “reverse engineering”
work—partly on Thestatika, partly on short gap electrostatic
discharges. Unfortunately, he missed the condensed plas-
moid work of Shoulders, and the catalytic fusion effects asso-
ciated with them. Though he was an accomplished, careful
researcher, he kept on thinking “inside the box.” With co-
workers he published some spark discharge models and test
results, about short gap electrostatic discharges (ESD).7
Skilled engineers (over 100) missed the salient points of
this machine (and the Hyde and Godin/Roschin devices to
be discussed in Parts 6A and 6B).
The following tentative sequence of processes take place
in all these mechanical LENR reactors:

1. Create condensed plasmoids with short bursts of corona

(e)
discharges at metal tips, in a short (0.1 - 5 mm) spark gap.
2. Have an electrostatically highly charged rotating wheel, to
generate spin field. (See Parts 1, 2 and 3.) The spin field will
tear apart the chain of condensed plasmoid “pearls,” thus
making them capable of catalyzing.
3. Make sure to have damp air containing hydrogen. (These
machines can make wonder in a box of atmospheric deu-
terium gas!) When sparks ionize vapor, hydrogen partici-
pates in several fusion reactions, releasing high energy elec-
trons. (Remember the Tom Claytor experiments yielding tri-
tium as a consequence of sparking in deuterium gas.)
4. Collect the high energy electrons, separate them from the
plastic/metal interface. The influence machines are the right
devices, they are made for charge separation and charge col-
lection. This is one of the reasons LENR electric energy gen-
eration was found with these machines.

It must be noted: The Thestatika is not the usual Wimhurst

machine! There are similarities, but also marked differences,
in the construction. The most striking difference is the shape
of the metal lamellas on the counter-rotating surfaces.
Figure 6. (a-c) The Linden demonstration device. (a) The setup with There are only some small-area radial metal foils on a
the movable perforated metal plates. (b) The induced electric vortex- Wimhurst machine without holes on the foils. On the
es around the perforations. (c) The enlarged cross section of the hole.
Note the sharp metal edges at the perimeter of the holes. (d)
Thestatika the mesh lamellas cover more than half of the
Baumann with a Thestatika machine, 1984. (e) The likely wiring of the areas. Thus more charge can be stored on the rotating sur-
Thestatika device from the book by Keith Tutt. faces, consequently the spin field is stronger, influencing the

16 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 159 • NOVEMBER 2021 - FEBRUARY 2022

movement of condensed plasmoids. forated with coaxial bore holes. These electrodes were sol-
dered to wires, and connected to a sensitive galvanometer
The Thestatika Demo Device with high input resistance.
The Thestatika device, a mechanical “perpetual motion” The perforated plate sandwich was pushed in and out
machine and a hacked Wimhurst electrostatic device, was between the legs of the magnet during the demonstration,
demonstrated several times for engineers. and the galvanometer registered up to 700 V during these
Several times they witnessed two large counter-rotating swings.
perforated wheels yielding about 1 kW of electric energy. The witnesses, skilled German engineers, were shocked by
The device had feedback, thus the 1 kW output was the net the effect. This shouldn’t have happened at all according to
gain. The efficiency is meaningless in this case. However, textbook physics. The metal plates, made of aluminum and
various devices were built, but they were so complicated that copper, should generate only eddy current losses, but it
the witnesses were unable to make sense of it. No wonder. shouldn’t appear on the galvanometer. There is not even a
The inventor himself had no scientific concept of what closed circuit, therefore no voltage can be induced. Electric
made its action possible. (There are a number of related current was not measured at all, but even static potential dif-
videos, photos and reports on the internet.) (See Figure 7.) ference, which is very hard to measure in absence of current,
Baumann invented the fundamentals when he served a is clearly anomalous. (See Figure 6b.)
jail sentence in a Swiss prison. When released, with a small
team he built the invention based on the large counter-rotat-
ing disk. He gave several lectures about the principle of this
device to curious engineers in the city of Linden. So the fol-
lowing description is an attempt to explain its principles,
noting the important, although hidden, features of the
demo device.
Knowing this, one can build a large influence machine
device with direct electricity generation. Not only the
Thestatika, but also the Hyde machine (U.S. Patent
4,897,592 - 1990) is based on similar principles: sparks are
generated in humid air between highly charged rotating
plates. (See Figure 8.) These machines are so efficient that the
small amount of hydrogen found in humid air is enough to
run them.

The Irreducible Demo Device

The demonstration device seems to be simple, devilishly
simple. However, no one succeeded in replicating even this
simple demonstration.
The device is shown in Figure 6a. It consisted of the fol-
lowing parts: a horseshoe magnet with some wire around it
and a wire loop as an oscillating circuit with distributed
parameters.
The other innocent-looking part was a plastic sheet with
aluminum and copper plates on the opposite sites, both per-
Figure 7. The scheme of a simple electrostatic motor based on sparks.

Figure 8. The patent drawing of the Hyde generator. Note the highly charged rotating lamellas.

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 What is the significance of the wire loop on the magnet? This is the S spin field generated by two effects: the electric
Why are there two different metals? Why are they separated vortex field around the perforation holes and the changing
by a plastic plate? Why are they perforated? There is no sen- magnetic field due to the oscillating circuit coupled to the
sible answer to these questions, based on textbook physics. horseshoe magnet. That is, the time dependent spin field
There were several unsuccessful attempts to replicate this after rearrangement is:
demo device. Therefore skeptics assumed some tricks, and
“believers” thought some hidden know-how. Obviously, all ∂S(r,t)/∂t ~ rot E(r,t) - ∂B(r,t)/∂t
attempts to replicate the more complicated device of double
spinning wheels failed, too. What is the hidden know-how in the demo device? A
The Mathernita device demonstrations ceased after number of invisible parameters, like:
awhile, and this enigmatic device just faded away from
actively pursued backyard research. a) The conductivity of the plastic. Maybe it was warmed and
We shall try to give a tentative answer for the riddles based mixed with fine carbon dust to make it semiconductive.
on the previous papers, especially Parts 1, 2, 5A and 5B. Thus it could generate/collect more charge, as a source for
micro sparks.
The Hidden Know-how Behind the Demo Device b) The radius and density of perforations, holes.
The Thestatika device was not built by the author, but the c) The sharpness of the metal edges inside the holes.
hands-on experience on sparking seems to be enough to indi- d) The distance between the sharp metal edges.
cate: it is possible that the device was run on micro-discharges. e) The field data of the permanent magnet, inhomogeneity.
The hidden know-how is laid in the perforations: how the
edges of the metal plates (electrodes) were formed, what was These data were never observed, let alone recorded.
the condition of their surface and edges at the perforations. It is important to note that the perforation/sharp metal
These hidden features are essential to understand the prin- edge combination is not always necessary. It is possible to
ciples behind the Hyde generator, and the Godin/Roshin anti- catalyze LENR with sparks alone. However, these perfora-
gravity invention (to be discussed in Parts 6A and 6B). tions are useful as auxiliary effects. The electric vortexes
The following effects must be considered in order to around sharp-edged holes in an inhomogeneous transient
explain the demo device: field help catalysis.
This engineering “booster” or power enhancement is
1) The field of the horseshoe magnet is obviously inhomo- invisible to the untrained eye, and they just look meaning-
geneous. Therefore, eddy currents are induced around the less within textbook physics.
perforations when the “sandwich” plates are pushed It is not known how Baumann came to grasp these steps
through the legs of the magnet. This induces periodic in prison. Certainly the usual combination of luck, insight
changes in the magnetic flux. That, in turn, induces an oscil- and perseverance was necessary, as well as the tolerance of
lation in the wire loop wrapped around the magnet. Note the prison guards. Most bosses in academic and industrial
that there is a resistance in the loop, thus the loop has an research labs are far less tolerant to lab “underdogs.”
oscillation, because there is a small distributed capacitance The counter-rotating perforated wheels in the Thestatika
between the wires. If the loop is of a proper size, even a res- device have all the elements discussed above. Such a detailed
onant oscillation can be observed. (See Figure 6b.) blown up drawing is shown in Figure 6e. The exploded dia-
2) When there are two different metal plates, and there is a gram of the complicated wiring is shown on page 117 of
poor conductor (semiconductor) between them, a signifi- Tutt’s book. It is too complex for reverse engineering, but the
cant, observable amount of charge accumulates on their sur- above-mentioned demo device and the previous discussions
faces at about 0.3 Volts. (See Parts 3 and 4.) of spark structure in Parts 5A, 5B and 5C help the reader to
3) When the edges of the metal plates at the perforations are grasp the essential physics.
sharp (see Figure 6c), a significant electric field is induced, The periodically charged, counter-rotating wheels are
enough to initiate a spark even for a static field. A micro dis- shown in this figure, but the horseshoe magnets and the per-
charge, a small spark, produces a condensed plasmoid at its forations with sharp edges are missing. There are several
head. This is not enough in itself; there is a need for an exter- photographs on the internet of this device, of varying qual-
nal transient field in order to catalyze fusion: electric, mag- ity. (See Figure 6d.) There were a number of attempts to repli-
netic or spin field. cate the device. All of them failed due to the lack of com-
prehension.
The formation of condensed plasmoids is necessary but The mere fact that highly charged rotating wheels gener-
not adequate, as discussed before in Parts 5A and 5B. A tran- ate a new symmetry, and therefore a new field, is unknown
sient external field is required for the “white,” active con- in textbook physics. This is not enough for catalytic fusion
densed plasmoid, for the catalytic condition. in itself, but an important side effect to activate the con-
The small demo device produces transient spin field, and densed plasmoids generated by the high voltage influence
transient magnetic field, via the electric vortexes around the machines.
perforation holes in the sandwich-type plates. On the technical side, electrostatic motors are less known,
The induction equation is the following in vector formal- because their energy density is far less than that of motors
ism (though S field is a tensor) from the extended electrody- based on magnetic field.
namics, which include charge rotation (Parts 1 and 2): The electric field intensity is severely limited by insulation
capability, while this limit is less restrictive for magnetic
rot E(r,t) ~ ∂B(r,t)/∂t + ∂S(r,t)/∂t motors, let it be any type.

18 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 159 • NOVEMBER 2021 - FEBRUARY 2022

 It is very easy to make a simple electrostatic motor based touched the feet, said it was a soft column.
on sparks generated on the tips of sharp needles. Each of them were correct, partially. This is the same with
There are dozens of simple constructions shown on the observations about the features of condensed plasmoids.
YouTube. Their rotor is usually a plastic cup suspended in Heinz Raether found that they were the agglomerate of an
vertical position on the center by a needle. The high voltage embarrassing number of uncompensated charges up to the
(5 - 20 kV) is supplied usually with high-voltage, low-cur- order of several billions! His findings were published in
rent, high-frequency resonant power supplies at a modest Zeitschrift Physics, as early as 1935 (Vol. 94, p. 567). Several
price. (See Figure 7.) papers followed in Zeitschrift Physics, a leading theoretical
When such a device is put in a box and experimental journal of that time.
where the atmosphere is water-vapor/air Yet no one raised, or answered, the
mixture, we have a modest LENR question: why were these charges “glued”
machine with little practical use. together? They are not nucleons so strong
Considerable R&D is necessary to interaction is ruled out between them. He
increase its efficiency, as was done by even plotted the distribution density of
Hyde, or with the Thestatika machine. the charge clusters. (See Figure 9a.)
The fundamentals are the same every- It turned out that most of these elec-
where: generate condensed plasmoids by tron clusters have “only” 0.5x108
sparks efficiently, then make them cat- charges/plasmoids—depending on the
alyze fusion of hydrogen to higher mass gas pressure and material, electrode
nuclei, thus releasing high-energy elec- shape and electrode material. (See
trons during this process. These high- detailed review in Raether’s book Electron
energy, thus high-potential, electrons Avalanches and Breakdown in Gases.)
drive mechanical, electric and heat gen- Raether clearly missed other essential
erating systems, or split water molecules features of the “elephant,” like the tem-
to generate HHO oxigas. poral stability, and of course the notion
of quasi-particle as a theoretical concept.
On Being Unusual Figure 9a. Electrical charge distribution of Concepts of quasi-particles—like the
LENR is an oddity for mainstream charge clusters—condensed plasmoids in exciton, phonon, magnon, etc.—escaped
researchers; most of them dismiss it out- Raether’s test. He used coplanar electrodes him and his contemporary theoreticians.
of-hand. Only a small group accepts to study the discharges. Usually a cluster He measured the charge content of a
LENR de facto, but a mechani- contained 106 - 108 charge electrons. plasmoid by measuring the
cal fusion device exceeds even current as a function of time.
their tolerance level. (See Figure 9b.)
Though the sparks are No one recognized that this
essential, the means of high strange object could be as use-
voltage generation is a second- ful as fission of nuclei.
ary issue. (There are some Raether missed again a sec-
patents on influence ond time, as in the second
machines, like U.S. Patent period of his life he studied
3,436,630 by B. Bollee.) surface plasmons—which are
There are a few academic Figure 9b. The current as a function of time in a spark discharge. At also quasi-particles.
papers on high-voltage influ- first the condensed plasmoid arrives with a lump of negative He was a young physicist,
ence machines. I recommend charges. Then the positive ion trail arrives slowly, gradually. age 25 in the 1930s, when he
only one of them: M. Zahn et discovered the huge charge
al.: “Self Excited, Alternating, High Voltage Generation clusters. However, he became a seasoned experimenter by
Using a Modified Electrostatic Influence Machine,” American the time he made remarkable observations about the cou-
Journal of Physics, Vol. 42, April 1974, pp 289-294. pled charge waves in conductors, and even the plasma oscil-
Electrostatic motors in general are inferior to magnetic lations above them. See, for example, his 1988 book Surface
motors. Their only advantage is simplicity. However, they Plasmons on Smooth and Rough Surfaces and on Gratings.
can generate a fairly strong spin field due to the rotating, Raether never tried this wave excitation on closed (dust)
uncompensated charges. surfaces, where resonant amplification is especially strong,
For this and only this reason alone they can be a useful but realized it on a rough silver or gold surface. Also, he
research tool in the future. never tried hydrogen plasma, because fusion seemed impos-
sible at the 1 - 10 eV range (glow discharge).
The Missed Opportunities by Four Blind Men Gennady Mesyats, a prolific writer, also discovered the
There is a well-known parable about an elephant and four existence of condensed plasmoids during spark discharges.
blind men. Each of them approached the elephant, and He termed it as ECTON=explosive electron emission, which
touched it for awhile at a certain location. The first, who is correct in a restrictive sense. He published many papers,
touched the trunk, described it as a flexible duct. The sec- and two detailed monographs on pulsed vacuum discharge,
ond, who touched the belly, described it as a hairy, soft, worth reading even for the LENR community, as they con-
warm sphere. The third, who touched the tusk, described it tain many useful sub-effects, and description of pulsed
as a smooth, hard, cold, curved sword. The fourth, who power supplies.4,5

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 Despite his immense hands-on experience with charge enigma in arc discharge as well: the retrograde motion of cath-
clusters, Mesyats considered it a “short living electron ava- ode spots. It is well known that arc discharge is maintained by
lanche” (XVII. Int. Symp. on Discharges, 1966, p. 720). the electron emission of hot cathode spots. However, con-
Do we talk about the same phenomena? Yes, as based on trary to expectations, the arc jumps off this nice hot cathode
the formation criteria, pulsed power at high voltages, there spot starting at a new cold spot, and so on.
is no doubt. Yet his notions of the “elephant” or condensed There is a long debate on this surprising, counterintuitive
plasmoid is quite different from ours, especially concerning jump series. Several models were proposed, but none of
the duration of the charge clusters. Clearly, Mesyats and them withstood experimental tests.
other experienced academic researchers did not expect In my opinion, electrons (near to the cathode spot) are to
“Ectons” to be so rich in useful features. be blamed for the rotation of the charges. The visible rotation
Even the small LENR community is unaware and appar- of the arc (hence the name) leads to the spin field formation.
ently unconvinced about the catalytic nature of condensed This in turn with the electric field yields a Lorentz force
plasmoids. type action, tearing off the arc plasma from the hot cathode
Ken Shoulders described the useful nature of these plas- spot.
moids in his patents and books (Parts 5A and 5B), that is, Symmetries, like rotation of charges, in this case play a
their mobility and long life in narrow channels, which major but ignored role in gas discharge as well. The nature
Raether and Mesyats missed. of retrograde motion and the stability of condensed plas-
Matsumoto clearly outlined the causal correlation between moids ostensibly has the same physical roots. Both of them
these plasmoid traces (found on exposed X-ray films) and are unexplained for the same reasons.
transmutations in his publications (Parts 5A and 5B). Yet he
missed the conditions of the formation, because he always Similarity Laws: Design & Operation
used electrolysis with high current, sparking in the electrolyte. of Gas Discharge LENR Reactors
Inventors like Moray, Tesla, etc. used the condensed plas- An airplane, a gas turbine, an internal combustion engine
moids, formed during spark discharge, without digging deep and an industrial boiler are all designed with the help of sim-
into the physical nature of the these catalytic quasi-particles. ilarity laws. Turbulent flow has no firm physical foundations
This is a deep rooted problem in science and engineering, yet, though hopefully it obeys the major conservation laws.
the fragmented “mosaic” knowledge. Each observer notes Yet all engineering devices involving flames (plasma) and
only one side of the “elephant.” Yet there is deep mistrust especially turbulent plasma, and machine designs are based
built up between inventors and scientists, with a mutual dis- on similarity laws. Some selected groups of variables change
regard of the others’ results. together, and influence the characteristic of the flow. The
Physicists seldom read old papers, especially old patents. Reynolds number, Froude Grashof number, etc. are such
Garage inventors never read academic research papers or variables. They are derived from the dimensionless solutions
monographs, because they are not specific about the practi- of the Navier-Stokes equations.
cally useful, unused features of discharges in gas or vacuum. They are very important, as they make it possible to test
The ignorance of patent examiners and research grant the design, e.g. a large ship, with the help of a small model.
agencies on this area is of a tragic degree, leading to envi- However, maybe another liquid like oil is used instead of
ronmental degradation. water to make modeling possible on a much smaller scale.
Lacking a seamless knowledge of all useful features of the After testing the design in a small model, a huge cargo ship
self sustaining, catalytic cluster charges, inventions were can be built; it will not fail. All flow problems can be mod-
based on luck only—a luxury we can no longer afford. We eled on a 1 m long hull model at the fraction of the cost of
can’t afford to be blind any longer. Hopefully this series of the cargo ship. This makes aerodynamic (and flame) design
papers will connect the dots, as was promised in Part 1. a science based on similarity laws.
There is still need for more detailed know-how, and exten- Can we design LENR reactors based on the same principle:
sive material research for proper surfaces and materials, just small scale models? Is LENR reactor design an art based on
like for battery research and development, which was dor- intuition, or is it a hard engineering science, where nomo-
mant for nearly 100 years. grams or computing software are usable?
Raether, Mesyats and even Shoulders were three essential Three (or maybe four) types of LENR reactors were dis-
steps away from practical applications: cussed so far in this series of papers. Let’s judge the feasibili-
ty of the design by similarity principles:
1) Economic formation of a large amount of condensed plas-
moids. 1) Lattice vibration-based devices, cold and hot
2) Storage of condensed plasmoid groups around the cathode. In my (subjective) opinion, as lattice cracking/deformation
3) Enforce the nuclear catalytic actions of condensed plas- rules this area, it is possible to use diffusion equations
moids by external pulsed fields. (Poisson type equations) and related LENR effects. It is pos-
sible that this area will be (or can be) hard science, where
The ultimate difference between spark and glow discharge coupled equations of diffusion and non-linear deformation
is the formation of clusters of charges, versus smooth distri- (crack formation) can simulate exactly the outcome of LENR
bution of charges in steady or transient glow. The dusty tran- effects. So this area has all the criteria to become hard sci-
sient plasma has several similar features in charge cluster dis- ence with proper funding.
tribution to spark discharges, usually ignored or downplayed
in large monographs on gas discharges. 2) Dust fusion
It is worth noting here that there is a nearly 100 year long Dust acoustic waves, even resonant ones, can be treated ana-

20 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 159 • NOVEMBER 2021 - FEBRUARY 2022

lytically, though some consecutive equations are more or ware instead of redesigning its diesel engine, to spare costs.
less heuristic. This is standard engineering practice. We use, Spark discharge reactor design (Tesla, Moray, Gray, Jekkel,
for example, tensile strength taken from reference books, for Horvath, etc.) is not science, it is art, where only intuition
standardized industrial materials. leads us. It is practically done by trial and error.
Oscillating dust in plasma requires much more heuristic
data, like the distribution of dust diameter density function. The Fundamental Troubles
It is strictly related to the electron accumulation capability Sparks may create a number of condensed plasmoids, which
of dust particles, which in turn can give a good estimation of in turn can’t be described by textbook electrodynamics.
LENR processes with the ion density of the plasma. Only an electrodynamics extended to involve rotation may
These coupled phenomena will be as complex as a climate handle them. (See Parts 1 and 2.)
model with a number of internal feedbacks because plasma In spark discharge all areas of “classical” physics and
temperature depends on the LENR reactions, the heat quantum mechanics meet, and that is the problem. The fol-
released by them. lowing short list sums up the far away fields of science
Though hot fusion reactions can’t be modeled in toka- required to describe it:
maks due to the 23 types of known turbulences, and also the
unknown ones, oscillating acoustically resonant processes 1. Polarization waves inside the cathode material.
do have a ray of hope to find useful similarity groups. (See 2. Plasma waves above the cathode, thus acoustic waves also.
the works of Tsytovich, Fortov, Morfill, Shukla, Ivlev, etc. 3. Field emission of electrons from the cathode, through a
under the subject of complex plasmas.) surface. The surface parameters (roughness) are as important
as all other material properties, like conductivity, magnetic
3) Underwater cavitation, transmutation properties, etc.
Two-phase or three-phase flow (liquid, vapor + plasma)— 4. Extended electrodynamics, which in turn describe the
that is, cavitating, turbulent flow—offers little hope for sim- constrictive forces that keep the condensed plasmoid stable.
ilarity laws, especially if the flow goes through divergent 5. LENR – catalytic fusion.
channels (widening channels).
This is turbulence at its worst. Frankly, this area is sin- Practically most of “classical” physics, quantum mechan-
cerely hopeless for any similarity laws. Each device must be ics and extended electrodynamics is required here.
tested, to be built fully at operation size. Mathematical models as a set of transient partial differen-
Underwater sparking devices also belong to this area. This tial equations break down here.
area is of little practical importance. There is a nasty habit amid plasma physicists, as a sort of
pride: they often write nice equations, which are unsolvable,
4) Spark based and plasmon/polariton based devices thus don’t give any help to the reader. This is pseudoscience.
Of all the above devices, this group has the longest history It looks like science to the outsider, but has no predictive
and most potential applications (see the devices discussed in power.
Part 5C). Only test results count here, with little hope of finding
those parameter groups that characterize the filamentary
So the question is again reformulated: if small scale LENR sparky discharge.
reactors are studied/tested can we build bigger ones based on Even detailed monographs on plasma science, like
the experience gained on smaller ones? Friedmann and Kennedy’s 1000-page Plasma Physics &
My guess is no, based on hands-on experience with build- Engineering, does not make the fundamental difference
ing small and larger devices. There are so many feedback between the avalanche-like Townsend discharge and pseu-
loops in these systems that we can’t spare the cost of build- do-particle loaded spark discharge.
ing and testing the devices at all scales. Experience gained Moreover, as expected, they don’t understand the funda-
with one device can’t be applied to a bigger device, due to mental physical difference between a stable quasi-particle
the bewildering number of material properties (surface con- and plasma waves, which are short-lived textbook physics
ditions especially hard to quantify) and geometric parame- objects.
ters, field transients. Readers must be aware that the “head” of sparks (see Part
When a sheet of paper is dropped from the same height, 5B), condensed plasmoids, are spinning, highly charged
say 5 m, it never falls into the same position twice, out of objects capable of catalyzing LENR under favorable condi-
millions of cases. Dropping a flexible paper sheet is an exam- tions. This happens when they are made of mainly hydrogen
ple of internal feedback loops. The distortion of the paper isotopes, and they are in hydrogen gas. They behave as mag-
sheet will influence the air current around it, then the shape netic monopoles, noted by Tesla first.
of the paper sheet at the next moment. Hopelessly chaotic
phenomena. Spark discharge is similar, but a million times Contradictions Concerning the Similarity Laws
worse. In biology, there are 1 mm long ants. There are even 2 cm
The cost of designing a new diesel engine (transient two- long ants, but there are no 10 cm long ones. Fleas jump 1000
phase plasma) is about $1 billion USD, when all adjustment times compared to their own size, but they can’t be magni-
is done. This means the construction of the machine, plus fied to elephant size.
the design of the operation—the combustion. Even this is Intuitively we know that there are severe limits to increase
possible only if there is experience gained previously on at sizes for non-linear devices, because their operation parame-
least half a dozen engines. ters will change or cease altogether, especially when plasma
Volkswagen, for example, chose to cheat with the soft- transients are involved.

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 In weakly ionized plasma, we have the same problem. ping of parameters will be troublesome. Two, three or four
There are similarities in steady glow and arc discharges. It is different types of oscillations appear from very low to very
possible to make 1 cm long, 10, 100 even 1000 cm long glow high electric and acoustic plasma oscillations!
(neon tube) discharge devices. I quote just three review papers on the similarity rules in
In arcs, a 1 cm long welding arc or 10 km long lightning gas discharges:
in a storm are possible with the plausible laws of similarity.
That is, we can design and operate glow and arc discharge a) Y. Fu and J.P. Verboncoeur: “On the Similarities of Low-
devices within a fairly wide range of length parameters, as Temperature Plasma Discharges,” IEEE Trans. on Plasma
long as they are in steady state. (Micro discharges are differ- Science, Vol. 47, No. 5, 1994-2003, May 2019.
ent for other reasons.) The authors mention 11 features that can be similar under
This similarity can be extended to low frequency har- favorable circumstances, like: gap dimensions, gas pressure,
monic (sinusoid) type discharges, up to about 1 MHz range, electric potential, discharge current, electric field, ion densi-
when something unusual creeps in. ty, electron density, current density, ionization coefficient,
It was noted quite early that intermittent arc discharges species velocity and time interval (between sparks).
behaved in an unexpected, weird way. The arc always jumps They note correctly that Paschen’s law is valid only for the
off the hot cathode emission region, where emission is hard uniform electric field. Also, they emphasize that similarity
to maintain on a new, cold spot. Further, the direction of arc laws are not valid when many-body collisions and field
movement is annoying—the arc even moves against the emission become important.
direction of Lorentz force. They are aware of Mesyat’s work on explosive electron
This is called the retrograde cathode movement of the arc. emission (condensed plasmoids), but there is no mention of
Dozens of new models were conceived to explain it, but all quasi-particles as such.
failed because all of them were within the framework of text- This is a good review of the latest consensus on the field.
book physics. Unfortunately, it is not deep enough for us.
The shape of an arc (hence the name) is “arc like,” not lin-
ear. In the arc shape, charges are rotating at a considerable b) O.V. Bolotov et al.: “Similarity Laws for Cathode-Directed
angular velocity, thus spin and electric fields yield a new Streamers in Gaps with an Inhomogeneous Field at Elevated
type of Lorentz force. (See Parts 1 and 2.) Air Pressures,” Plasma Phys. Reports, Vol. 36, No. 11, 1000-
In intermittent, disrupted gas discharge, the inductive 1011, 2010.
terms yield considerable spin field intensity (see Parts 1 and This paper is the closest to our area of interest. The
2) that disrupts the familiar discharge pattern and yields new authors are aware that the “nature of streamers are not yet
forces. clear” and there is no theory for streamer generation and
When the sharp transients interact with the charged plas- propagation. However, they don’t raise the need to extend
ma, quasi-stable particles (like condensed plasmoids) arise. textbook electrodynamics as a solution for the problem.
Their interaction with the neighboring plasma may yield They assume that streamer discharge can be described by
LENR—like fusion, resulting in a fundamentally new type of similarity relations, and emphasize the role of photo-ioniza-
discharge. tion (ultraviolet radiation).
Spark-based, hydrogen plasma-driven inventions, or They skip over the problem of how streamer heads are
LENR reactors, give the bulk of the practically feasible green formed, just neglecting all terms in their equations, describ-
tech future (Parts 5B and 5C). This is the reason we deal with ing only the intermittent streamers.
these discharge regimes at some length. A usable monograph Simply, this kind of neglect is not permissible for us,
would be at least 2000-pages long on this subject, perhaps a because it skips the essence of quasi-particle formation.
project for the future.
The discharges involving cathodes and anodes are inher- c) G.A. Mesyats: “Similarity Laws for Pulsed Gas Discharges,”
ently nonlinear due to the finite value of breakdown voltage, Physics Uspekhi, Vol. 49, No. 10, 1045-1065, 2006.
and the field emission itself depends on the cathode surface Gennady Mesyats also independently discovered con-
quality. densed plasmoids, after Tesla, Moray, Török, Raether,
This yields simultaneous processes, with vastly different Shoulders, Matsumoto, Lewis, etc.
time scales in oscillations. There are time delays in all emis- To disappoint readers: Mesyats is clearly unaware of the
sion phenomena as well. Their combination is called a long lifetime, very high charge and catalytic properties of
“chimera” type process. See, for example, the 2020 book by the explosive discharges. The emphasis on this long review
A. Zakharova, Chimera Patterns in Networks. paper is on the unifying concepts of discharges.
Though they are still within the framework of textbook Mesyats, vice president of the Russian Academy of
physics, this mix of different time (frequency) scales makes Sciences and leading researcher in gas discharges in Russia
everything messy, unpredictable. and the world, shows that even a skilled experimentalist
So experimenters must be prepared for very exotic behav- misses the practical significance of pulsed plasma.
ior of their reactors, even without LENR, during control Though streamer and uniform glow discharge are clearly
experiments. distinguished in his papers, the most important feature, the
Oscillations will change dramatically by changing size catalytic quasi-particle formation of pulsed discharge, is not
and operation parameters (like pressure, temperature). mentioned.
There will always be the fear of unexpected appearance of Mesyats also notes the unknown glow to streamer dis-
weird new oscillations. This statement hopefully does not charge transition mechanism, but there is no clear answer to
scare away future researchers; it is just a warning: the map- it. The whole field of academic researchers are completely

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unaware/ignorant about the past achievements of inventors Backyard inventors, however, are free to roam around,
discussed in Parts 5A, 5B and 5C. being quite ignorant about published reports, and “expecta-
His review paper doesn’t mention at all the relevant tions.” They read only patents, if they read anything at all.
inventions of LENR. So when academic research stalls, as now, they are the only
Mesyats mentions the importance of overvoltage in the source of hope.
streamer formations, even the essential difference between a Janos Jekkel, for example, was literally employed in a “top
rough and smooth cathode surface, but that’s it. job” at the National Technical Research Council of Hungary
So Mesyats and the whole field are not even close to the (OMFB). He was a stoker on the top floor of the building,
fundamentals of LENR. Even the similarity rules are not clear though previously he was employed at the Electric Research
for experiments, and this makes for very annoying academ- Institute. He worked part-time in his hut, a run down garage.
ic plasma research. Academic researchers don’t read patents, so they don’t
However, the conclusions of all the above review papers have inspirations from “outside.” Industrial researchers are
are the same: there are no similarity rules for spark or fila- not allowed to think outside the “management box.” They
mentary discharge, therefore the design and operation of may dream of making electric cars at GM, but if they do,
spark-based LENR reactors must be based on intuition at their work is usually crushed.
first, then extensive testing later. Now here comes the tragedy of academic research: they
are not allowed, or are not trained, to see the unusual, the
Is There a Smoking Gun Somewhere? “black swan”—only the white, usual swan.
This whole issue of getting unlimited energy from water at Many physicists saw the trout in a fast creek, standing at
modest technical parameters is met with utter rejection, and the same place, defying the following conservation laws:
ridicule. Even raising this possibility is out of the tolerance energy, momentum and angular momentum. However, only
range. a forester, Viktor Schauberger, went after this phenomena.
The first argument is that generations of gas discharge (My list of similar cases is long.)
research never yielded anything suspicious of excess energy, The same series of tragedies has happened with catalytic
thus any speculation about it is just sheer pseudoscience. fusion related to pseudo-particles.
Well, there is (was) a smoking gun, coming out from aca- Condensed plasmoids have been discovered and forgot-
demic research, as we shall see soon. ten, neglected immediately after their discovery. On the
The other general consensus among scientific journal edi- other hand, billions of dollars and countless lives were
tors, patent examiners, green tech advocates etc. is that gas devoted to much shorter-lived “real” particles, like the
discharge is well mapped, covered in every aspect, with no “Higgs boson,” and sold to the public as “real” science.
fundamentally new and useful effect expected. Inventors I have found a trail of discoveries of “black swans” which
just can’t find anything new, because academic research pre- never made it to the mainstream. Here is my certainly
ceded them in all areas. incomplete list:
Readers are hopefully aware by now that this is not true. J.J. Török at Westinghouse, Pittsburgh in the 1930s noticed
Academic research covered only a small area of all possible that the streak or filamentary discharges, in air, were quite
spark discharges, even that mainly in inert gases. The pulsed, different between spherical electrodes with pulsed discharge,
sharp cathode geometry remained unexplored. It seems to as compared to the DC and flat plane electrodes. (In the lat-
be a useless area from an academic viewpoint, yielding no ter there are no plasmon-polaritons, only in the spherical
further insight to the nature of spark or filamentary dis- ones.) His papers are clear about this qualitative difference.
charge. He made no reference to Tesla’s experiments, despite
Reading dozens of carefully written monographs, and working for Westinghouse Electric. High voltage filamen-
hundreds of papers, the consensus among academic tary-streak discharge was one of Tesla’s research areas, with
researchers is: though there are some tiny unknown areas in published qualitative results!
filamentary research, this area is already covered. There were Then nearly at the same time, Raether again discovered
about 200 researchers who spent most of their careers with condensed plasmoids, noting that the “head” carried some-
gas discharge research, experiments and theoretical model- times more than 106 electrons. He made a simple electric cir-
ing. There were even more industrial R&D engineers in this cuit to measure the transient electric current with a cathode
area, but only in two areas: glow discharge for lighting (until ray tube. He observed the sharp negative peak, a sign of a
LEDs made this area obsolete) and plasma etching for “lump” of electrons, shown in Figure 10a. (Source: An
microchip manufacturing. These are steady-state processes. Introduction to Plasma Physics, S.C. Haydon, ed., 1964, lecture
The same with welding/arc discharge. by G.A. Schroeder. Figure 5.2 on page 75.) See also Figures 9a
On the other hand, there are thousands of backyard or and 9b.
garage experimenters. They are not as good as Tesla, Moray Raether and his colleagues never asked the most exciting
or Papp were, but their cumulated common experience is question: how is this huge lump of charge held together?
significant. What sort of extreme force keeps them together? Only 92
The (re)search pattern of academic and industrial protons are held together in the nucleus of uranium at a
researchers and garage inventors are different. Academic price of 146 neutrons as “binding agents.” Why are hun-
researchers do have a degree of freedom, in theory. In fact, a dreds of millions of charges kept in a lump? How long are
hard mentality, unwritten “dress code” is very strong. Dare they stable? If and when is this lump stable? In what sort of
to question a myth, like the impossibility of cold fusion, and interactions do they participate? Do they penetrate into met-
you are out of the club. The same applies to industrial als, insulators? No questions; no answers.
researchers. These kind of relevant questions and answers were pub-

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lished decades later, in this magazine by Ken Shoulders, He found and termed this pseudo-particle phenomena
quoted in Part 5B. “explosive discharges.” He found them even in vacuum dis-
Raether definitely saw the “black swan” and described it in charges.8
clear terms, but did not move on to use this pseudo-particle. He took photographs showing the evolution of the con-
This is a big problem of the discharge herd mentality: think- densed plasmoids (explosive discharges), but no further
ing in terms of pseudo-particles is out of their mentality. interactions were examined (Shoulders and later Matsumoto
The same happened with Mesyats a generation later in looked closer). (See Part 5B.)
Tomsk and later in Novosibirsk at the Academy of the USSR. Mesyats clearly never read Raether’s work, and never
referred to either Tesla or Török.
Just as with the inventors, all of them started from
scratch, never standing on “giant’s shoulders.”

The Black Swan

The odd, unusual “black swan” experiment on LENR was
reported by J.D. Craggs, one of the best researchers in the gas
discharge field.9 He made these tests, but never dared to pub-
lish them. He was able to measure the temperature of sparks
by calibrated spectroscopy, at very short resolution, on the
order of picoseconds. (This is a very sophisticated test!) The
essence is: Craggs realized that hydrogen sparks did not cool
off immediately, like inert gases, but have a relatively long
plateau, where the gas temperature does not cool off. This is
unexpected, as hydrogen has a very high thermal conduc-
tivity, thus it ought to cool down more rapidly than other
gases. (See Figure 10a.)
The thermal conductivity is related to the mean free path
and the Maxwell energy distribution. Hydrogen has an
unusually high speed, being just a proton mass.
Most probably the long plateau surprised Craggs, so he
made a totally unexpected step: he tried the same tempera-
ture measurement in deuterium. That was even stranger. The
temperature was even higher than that for hydrogen. See
Figure 10b. Such a flat plateau does not exist with argon. (See
Figure 10c.)
Figure 10a. The cooling of a hydrogen spark channel. The tempera-
ture has a flat platoon for about 6 microseconds; the heat losses are
balanced by internal energy production. Pressure is at 200 Torr, tem-
perature peak is about 11,000 Kelvin.

Figure 10b. The same experiment with deuterium. Note that the tem- Figure 10c. Gas temperature in an argon spark channel as a function
perature is even higher, about 14,000 Kelvin. Pressure is 200 Torr, of time, at higher pressure. Note that it monotonously decreases after
just like with hydrogen. reaching the maximum value, lacking internal energy source.

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 This was definitely a “black swan” event. There is a choice effect for the small community of physicists. Even a half cen-
of “fight or flight” at this point. tury later, the possibility of using and releasing the hidden
Craggs, having the highest reputation in the gas discharge energy of nuclei totally enraged Rutherford (when Leo
research area, faced a dilemma. He didn’t want to risk his Szilard came up with the idea of chain reactions).
reputation with publishing this controversial finding under The temperature plateau of sparks in hydrogen could have
his name, but left it to a younger colleague, Parkinson. Thus been a similar watershed event, especially if someone digs up
he didn’t risk a loss of face. the transmutation results in hydrogen sparks by Norman
Craggs noted (as in a self defense): “The calculation, from Collie in 1914. The hydrogen-helium transmutation could
considerations of energy transfer, of this relaxation time is in clearly show the nuclear origin of the excess energy, that is,
practice not easy because of the simultaneous production of pulsed, sparky discharge in hydrogen is unique. Both discov-
self shock wave from the spark and the complicated physical eries were British, though two generations, two wars apart.
process occurring in the channel.”9,p818 British physicists were among the most active in crushing
There is only a single sentence about this “black swan” the cold fusion revolution (at Harwell), and ridiculing a
phenomena of quasi-steady spark channel temperature: member of the Royal Society, Martin Fleischmann. (So much
“The plateau (T gas constant) is of interest because here the about the twists and turns of history.)
energy content of the plasma is approximately constant so Craggs was familiar with Mesyats’ results. Thus he was
the energy input must balance the energy losses, such as able to make the connection that pseudo-particles/excess
thermal conduction.”9,p820 heat/transmutation was within his grasp.
Regarding possible experimental error, Craggs wrote the Leonard Loeb (Part A) of Berkeley was familiar with
following: “Indeed, not surprisingly, the only notable excep- Raether’s work, but missed interpreting it as a pseudo-parti-
tion is hydrogen which, because of its relative simplicity, cle, and was clearly unaware of Collie’s transmutation work
particularly in the dissociated state, has received some atten- in sparky media. Due to this regretful ignorance, he clearly
tion. Even here direct measurement of Te and ne as functions missed the opportunity to move toward tests of transmuta-
of time and radial position in the channels provide virtually tion, excess heat, calorimetry. The most painful is, however,
the only data of any accuracy.”9,p822 that none of the above authors were familiar with the pio-
These telltale data were taken well before 1978, so two neering intuitive work of Tesla and T.H. Moray. Both of them
decades before the Pons-Fleischmann re-discovery. stressed the importance of brush or filamentary, streak dis-
By the 1970s everybody in gas discharge research forgot charge, the very subject of Loeb’s investigation.
the hydrogen sparking and transmutation results of Norman The whole subject was shunned from the twenty-second
Collie, J.J. Thompson et al. at London College prior to 1914. edition of Encyclopedia of Physics, from gas discharge results.
Craggs never thought of calorimetry tests, as Jacques All in all, this is the reason inventors were left to them-
Dufour made in the 1990s (see Part 5A). So these anomalous selves, and academic gas discharge research was (is) not any
spark channel temperature measurements never made head- help to them.
lines as unexpected discoveries, and there was no follow-up
to a broader range of investigation. It was duly forgotten, Faces of LENR — A Conclusion
just like the transmutation tests of Collie et al. Following the questions of David Nagel,10 we finish the brief
There is a huge distance between a discovery and an incomplete tour of LENR devices, as a state of art in the
invention. The notion that the excess heat effect was not 2020s. (The LENR antigravity connection will be discussed in
found in gas discharge academic research is invalid. Parts 6A and 6B.)
However, the necessary distinction was not made between By now, we have found three distinct technical, physical
spark and glow discharge calorimetric tests, the role of methods to induce LENR:
hydrogen, deuterium vs. other gases, etc.
All in all, this “black swan” discovery never touched the 1) a - Palladium cathode (light and heavy water) pulsed elec-
nerve of either the gas discharge research community, aca- trolytic cells. This turns out to be dominated by diffusion
demic and industrial, and never signaled the inventors and mechanical cracking of the metal lattice, thus inducing
about a valuable or “new” area. Of course, the idea of pseu- fission of the metal. Most LENR work was concentrated on
do-particle related catalytic low-energy fusion didn’t spring this small area.
up from Craggs’ discovery. b - Hot cells based on hydrogen, like Piantelli, Focardi,
Academic gas discharge researchers have a quite different Celani, Rossi (the Italians) and Parkhomov, with Ni lattice.
mentality from that of the inventors. Several qualitative,
huge steps are necessary to move to practical applications, as Of the two approaches the diffusion based hot cell seems
inventors did, shown previously. to be better, offering hope for commercial applications. The
There is no exchange of ideas between researchers and catalysis is done by neutrons released by high-frequency
inventors, which is a very harmful situation. This is the rea- mechanical fractures. There are a number of separate obser-
son all inventions were done independently, and received vations stating that during mechanical cracking or ultra-
with hostility, incredulity. sound excitation (Suhas Ralka) there is a mixture of neutron
Craggs’ sophisticated temperature measurement of the emission, fission, even fusion of hydrogen isotopes. So this
flat temperature plateaus means the excess energy genera- face is a mechanical vibration-induced LENR.
tion in sparky hydrogen is a reality. This is a similar discov- This area is still under-explored. There is a promising area
ery to that of Becquerel and the Curies about radioactivity. of high mass brittle compounds, like tungsten carbides and
The parallel is that the darkening of photographic plates nitrides, if they are able to absorb hydrogen. Semiconductors,
under some uranium salts was not considered a significant like SiC, are able to absorb hydrogen to a degree.

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Table 1. Physical principles of catalytic LENR reactors.

primary step Loading of hydrogen by (1) dust generation (2) transient sparking or (3)
electrochemical and thermal in plasma micro-discharges
method into a lattice

first consequence fracturing and oscillation accumulation of surface polariton and

of lattice due to diffusion charge on dust particles condensed plasmoid appears

second consequence LENR fission of lattice nuclei rotation of charged dust formation of plasmon
due to enhanced particles, spin field appears waves and plasmoids as
vacuum oscillations catalytic pseudo-particles

third consequence release of neutrons from spin field catalyzes induced LENR with
the split nuclei fusion of hydrogen hydrogen isotopes

fourth consequence LENR fusion by neutrons LENR fusion via teleportation emission of electrons
into ambient material for high mass nuclei

2) Rotating charged dust particles The proton pump, as a means of biological transmutation
This is the most ubiquitous energy generating fusion process via hyperspace jump, is a unique process demanding its own
in nature. All stars are driven by it, because interstellar dust separate bracket or “dossier.” Spin and electric fields catalyze
is everywhere, though its distribution is uneven. Perhaps LENR in this group.
this process is the easiest to start with.
The Oshawa arc effect (Quantum Rabbit, Klimov and this 3) Wave and condensed plasmoid catalyzed LENR
author) demonstrated the feasibility of the process, especial- This process doesn’t have any natural counterpart, it is
ly the massive transmutation of large mass nuclei. During “machine made.” Most inventions, and all electricity pro-
arc smeltering, a massive amount of transmutation was ducing devices, fall into this category. The cavitation (plas-
observed in an electric furnace in India. ma collapse) devices are also in this bracket.
Apart from transmutation, heat can be generated also in Generally, the corona discharge effects and inventions
the presence of hydrogen (see solar corona). The ATP-ase populate this group, as shown before.
rotating enzyme, life’s power generator, belongs to this cate- It is clear by now that LENR is a multi-faced, rich group of
gory, too. phenomena. They are definitely outside the framework of

Table 2. Practical merit and main parameters of fusion reactors.

Hot fusion Hot fusion LENR (catalytic) Dust fusion Polariton

confinement confinement lattice oscillations condensed plasmoid

Main process inertial magnetic cracking of lattice rotating dust pseudo-particle

(pellet) field liquid hot

Temperature ºC ~109 ~108 °C 60 - 100 ~1200 ~1700 50<T<1500

Pressure (bar) ~1010 2 1 1 1 0.5<p<2

Design & 10 years 30 years 3 months 6 months 2 years

construction period

Ion energy (eV) ~MeV ~MeV 1 eV 5 eV 10 eV 10 eV

Reactor size (m) 3 5 - 50 0.1 0.1 0.4 0.4

Aux (building) 500 500 0.2 0.2 0.5 0.5

size (m)

Weight (kg) ~104 105 2 1 2 2

Cost of R&D ($) 3x109 ~2x1010 103 103 ~104 ~104 - 105

Economic prospect none none none perhaps yes yes

26 INFINITE ENERGY • ISSUE 159 • NOVEMBER 2021 - FEBRUARY 2022

textbook physics. One by one, the effects are questionable, of Gases, Wiley.
as no concentrated effort was possible due to pride and prej- 10. Nagel, D.A. 2014. “Questions About Lattice Enabled
udice of mainstream scientists. However, when viewed Nuclear Reactions: Mechanisms and Materials,” Infinite
together, the identical patterns are apparent for the inquir- Energy, 24, 118, 15-28.


ing mind.
All in all, the universe—from bacteria to stars—can’t be
understood without LENR, and the necessary “auxiliary”
effects surrounding the four faces of LENR.
Apart from it, no sustainable advanced technical civiliza- The Quickening Universe:
tion can miss LENR and related effects.
The present range of effects in textbook physics is too nar- Cosmic Evolution and Human Destiny
row for our survival.
Tables 1 and 2 sum up the current situation of effect by Dr. Eugene F. Mallove
ranges.
$10 U.S. / $18 Canada
Acknowledgements
$24 Mexico / $28 Other Foreign
The author is grateful to Mr. Jozsef Bacsoka for supporting
(Price includes shipping.)
the cost of graphics and typing. Graphics assistance and

New Energy Foundation • P.O. Box 2816 • Concord, NH 03302-2816

drawings provided by Zsofia Morvay. The author is indebted
to Gregorian Bivolaru and Mahadeva Srinivasan for valuable
discussions on transmutations and resonances. Phone: 603-485-4700 • Website: www.infinite-energy.com

References
1. Rossi, J.D. et al. 2002. “Design of a 150 kV, 300 A, 100 Hz
Blumlein Coaxial Pulser for Long Pulse Operation,” IEEE
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Discharges in Vacuum, Springer. $21 U.S. / $32 Canada
5. Robey, A. 2006. Water Car: How to Turn Water into
Hydrogen Fuel, Kentucky Water Fuel Museum. $36 Mexico / $40 Other
6. Gruenberg, H. 1978. “The Ball Bearing as a Motor,” Prices include shipping.
American Journal of Physics, 46, 12, 1213-1219.
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New Energy Foundation
Consideration of Different Discharge Mechanisms,” IEEE P.O. Box 2816 • Concord, NH 03302-2816
Transactions Plasma Science, 31, 4, 736-744. Phone: 603-485-4700
2005, Paperback, 247 pages
8. Koroljov, J.D. and Mesyats, G.A. 1982. Autoemission and www.infinite-energy.com
Explosive Processes in Gas Discharges, Nauka.
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The Nature of the Atom:

In Search of Nanonovae:
A New Theory of Element Formation
An Introduction to the Structured Atom Model by Edward Esko
J.E. Kaal, J.A. Sorensen, A. Otte, J.G. Emming
A new theory of element formation
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