39) Other strong cases


Ludwik Kowalski (January, 24, 2003)
Montclair State University
Upper Montclair, NJ 07043


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You may recall my translation of a Russian paper (item #13) describing nuclear reactions occurring in a gas discharge chamber. The most convincing argument of nuclear processes, as far as I am concerned, was the discovery of iron whose isotopic isotopic composition was highly abnormal. I am now reading a summary of a Japanese paper reporting similar observations. The title of the paper is “Changes in Isotopic Distribution of the Elements on Palladium Cathode after Electrolysis in D2O Solution;” the first (one out of nine) authors is T. Mizuno.

The isotopic composition of Cr, collected from the surface of a palladium electrode, after it was used to produce excess heat, was unnatural, as shown below:

A --> 50 52 53 54

from Pd --> 14% 51% 2.4% 11%
natural --> 4.3% 84% 9.5% 2.4%

According to the summary “essentially the same phenomenon was confirmed eight times, with high reproducibility, at the cathodic current density of about 0.2 A/cm2.” How can the isotopic composition be changed without a nuclear process? These finding were presented in 1997, as paper #71198, at IECEC. I do not know what the IECEC stands for, probably for a conference.

In the paper #97373, entitled: “Nuclear Transmutations Induced by Light water Electrolysis with Gold Electrodes,” presented at the same conference, the authors reported finding iron of highly unnatural isotopic composition. Their 50 % abundance of 57Fe (instead of natural 2.2%) was essentially the same as that reported by Karabut (see item #13). Note that Karabut analyzed products accumulated on the palladium cathode in the deuterium discharge chamber while the Japanese were studying the electrolysis of ordinary water. According to the summary “the amount of Fe reached some 10 micrograms after the electrolysis for 20-30 days.”
The authors’ affiliations are:

a) Dept. of Nuclear Engr., Hokkaido University, Saporo, Japan.
b) Catalysis Res. Center, Hokkaido University, Saporo, Japan.
b) Hakadate Natl. Coll. Technol, Hakadate, Japan.

How would a pathological skeptic react to such data? Here are my guesses:

a) The data might have been invented to deceive (a case of fraud).
b) The authors do not know how to measure isotopic compositions.
c) Somebody “spiked” their cathode, just for the fun of it.
d) The data are wrong because they conflict with accepted theories.
f) The data should be ignored because they are pseudo scientific.

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