Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head

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It does indeed go against conventional QM. It's never been observed that you can coax an electron any closer to a hydrogen atom. The idea of set orbits is very well founded. This is where peer review comes into play. If his theory is sound, then QM has to be changed. If it gets shot down, then he needs look at why it failed.

But if what he says is true, why haven't we seen this before? A lower orbit is ideal for any atomic structure. Hydrogen atoms are always at a ground state unless they are excited. Hmm...

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And more bunk. Not even wrong.

Mills has been around a while and his claims to have discovered a "below ground state" form of hydrogen have been debunked many times. The physics world is "up in arms" about this only in his imagination. He's an MD who got into this after the cold "fusion" fiasco of 1989. His "Black Light Power Company" did manage to get a patent for this, but frankly, that doesn't impress me (or other scientists). What does impress me is that he managed to bilk a couple of power companies to invest in this hair-brained scheme.

For a few takes on this, here's some links to Bob Park's (the author of Voodo Science) What's New page.

October 2000
This one contains the following quote. Mills, it appears, is not above a little plagerism.
June 2002
February 2000
And there are several more entries from that time period (go to What's New and do a search on "hydrino"

Parks devotes several pages to Mills in Voodoo Science (132-135). At this point, Mills is either badly mistaken, or a long way down the road from foolishness to fraud. What he isn't is correct.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

I recall when I looked into this a few years back, the BlackLight website listed some claims of energy being released in some reactions. One problem was they never explained how much was predicted by the hydrino model, and how their experiments matched up. All was consistent with exothermic chemical reactions involving normal hydrogen.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

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Here is a link to the Blacklight's website on their process. Supposedly, they take hydrogen gas and use "a filament to dissociate it into hydrogen atoms". They then add some sort of catalyst to convert the hydrogen atoms into hydrinos. They also talk about hydrogen plasmas at various points, so I'm more than a little confused as to whether they are talking about neutral hydrogen or a plasma.

If that was true, that there was a lower energy state than the ground state, wouldn't hydrogen atoms sometimes just fall to the ground state on their own, without a catalyst - I don't recall that this has ever been observed.

Looking at the energies they are pumping into this, to dissociate hydrogen, I suspect that the hydrogen is really not in a ground state, and that they are just watching the electron fall to a lower energy state from a much higher state. I suspect if you really did an energy balance, that more energy is going into dissociating the hydrogen than you are producing for the whole thing.

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And if Not ....

Then, they're Probably, Just Inducing OXIDATION!!!

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Mmmm... This looks bullogus to me.

Let's see if this invention can actually produce any power...

All,
Where could we expect to see hydrogen atoms falling spontaneously into a hydrino state? Not in a star, certainly not in the observable outer layers where there is so much energy about. How about in deep space? There, hydrogen can be detected at a typical radiation wavelength (21cms?). Excuse my ignorance, but isn't this radiation from electrons passing from a higher to a lower energy state?

Surely a hydrogen-hydrino conversion will radiate at a different wavelength? Is this predictable and can we detect any such radiation from hydrogen clouds in space?

Just trying to think 'science' and 'testable hypothesis', rather than authoritarian senior scientist.
John

I'll believe this if and only if he can generate power with it (or rather, an independent party could use his process to generate power - not that I suspect that Mills may cheat, of course...) I'd also like a decent explanation of why his process has never occured naturally, and some investigation of his waste products. Creating a never-before-seen type of hydrogen and releasing it into the environment sounds rather dangerous to me. Not to mention non-renewable. Does the hydrino ever return to being normal hydrogen?

Put me down as a sceptic.

Well, that's the point. There is no evidence for a "lower than ground" state of hydrogen. All of the observed hydrogen spectra from any source you care to mention (including interstellar space) are consistent with the predictions of standard QM. The hypothesis was tested long before Mills came along and it was beyond wrong right from the start. Thus the authoritative dismissal. Mills is proposing a solution for which there is no problem.

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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin

"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli

... Meet the doofusino!

(Sorry, couldn't help it.)

Don't you mean "this isn't even wrong".

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

This smells extremely bad.

It should not require millions or billions in gullible investments into a secret process if more energy can be squeezed out of an atom. This is the type of research that must be conducted out-in-the-open to have any merit: Don't worry Dr. quack, no one who ever makes such a breakthrough will ever be denied anything and everything this world has to offer.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

Hydrogen gas, plasmas, molecular beams, etc. have been studied for decades in physics and chemistry labs. I have not read every paper ever written about hydrogen spectroscopy, but I feel comfortable stating that such a transition (to a
hydrino) has never been observed.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Another thought - and more fundamental:

The mathematics of quantum mechanics are empirically or phenomenologically derived - meaning the rules are derived from the observations, and not the other way around.

This means, almost by definition, it is impossible to mathematically challenge quantum mechanics without observational data that either contradict, or are poorly explained by existing theory.

So the proof must be demonstrated by observed behavior that is clearly at odds with, or transcend quantum predictions.

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jwj

It's a big universe out there...is it really unwinding, really burning out?

For anyone interested in the published research:

Classical Quantum Mechanics (Mills, 2003)

A critical analysis of the hydrino model (Rathke, 2005)

(spoiler alert!)

"Most importantly, we found that CQM does not predict the existence of hydrino states!"

oops.

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Nice work akirabakabaka. I also liked...

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Seems like it's time for another 'Woo-Woo Credo" link. Anyone?

Circa 1970-71, there was a big stir over "polywater", and if it got loose in the oceans, it would polymerize them all...(ruining water sports, fishing, and of course the ecosytem..). Maybe the hydrinos could be incorporated into the polywater, and we could have the incredible shrinking blob movie, with people in cruise liners, submarines, trapped divers, whales, sharks,all together...we just need some smaller "oxygenos" to make it all work. Hollywood here we come. Ciao. Pete.

It's called "Ice-9" in Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle, and it literally turns the earth's oceans solid instantaneously. Entertaining story

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There was another story where a plymer leaked and formed a film over the ocean surface stopping evapouration, don't remember who that was by though.

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Actually no. Polywater was a real example of pathalogical science (irreproducible results, phenomena only at the limits of observability, etc), whereas Vonnegut's ice 9 was purely fictional.

Although there are clear similarities

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Actually, although Vonnegut's Ice 9 is fictional, there is an actual Ice IX. (Ice, so far, goes up to Ice XII)

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Some try to tell me, thoughts they cannot defend,... - Moody Blues.

Neptune- The original Dark Matter.

The author feels that this technique of deliberately lying will actually make it easier for you to learn the ideas. - Donald Knuth

Nice phase diagram. Ah that takes me back...

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Captain Edmund Blackadder