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There are some colleagues of the Department of Physics
taking care of the calibration of the instruments
which will be used during the measurements
We forecast to complete the calibration within ten minutes
thereafter the experiment will be started
So... we are about on time
In this moment we are making some preliminary operations
Let's say what kind of measurements we are going to perform today
two kind of measurements
First of all we are going to verify the energy produced by this device
and, how are we going to do this?
We are going to heat up some water and to vaporize some water
knowing of course the water's latent heat of evaporation
and how much water we are vaporizing per second
we can calculate what is the power produced by the device
This is clearly a rough estimation, the power produced is actually greater
because the device is not completely isolated
however, we will have an idea that the device produces at least
the power we will calculate
Secondly, we should try to understand the source of this energy
and the first thing we have to do, I think this has already been done,
is to try to exclude the presence of a chemical energy source
Well, the device is connected... is the image on the screen clear?
The device is connected to a hydrogen bottle located here
and, the most obvious explanation,
when someone sees something connected to a hydrogen bottle,
is to say: well, I am burning hydrogen
So, what is preliminary done, is to weigh the hydrogen bottle,
so to measure the mass of hydrogen inside the bottle
and, at the end of the experiment, to weigh it again,
to verify the quantity of hydrogen consumed
The difference that we expect to find,
to be sincere and scientifically correct,
the process occurring inside the reactor is totally unknown to me
and so is for everyone not working directly with Rossi
because it is covered by an industrial secret
Anyway, speaking in terms of orders of magnitude,
the difference between a chemical source of energy
and a nuclear source of energy - fusion for example -
is in the order of ten to the sixth, that is six orders of magnitude
a factor of one million
This means that during the test, we do not expect a measurable hydrogen consumption
except the one due to the hydrogen absorption by the metals within the cell
but we are going to measure also this absorption
At the end of the test... we will turn on the device, we will measure the energy
and other parameters, at a certain moment we will shut the hydrogen bottle down
without turning the reactor off,
we will shut the hydrogen bottle down and weigh it
the expected difference of weigh? A few grams
A few grams that could be interpreted as the hydrogen adsorbed by the metals
I made a rough calculation, assuming a value of about 10kW for the output power
for about 10kW, the device should keep on producing power
for about 30 seconds for each gram
if the device keeps on producing power for a longer period
that hydrogen inside the reactor does not justify the production of power through a chemical source
I can tell you that I witnessed a preliminary test performed in this same laboratory
on December, 15th
when we made exactly this test with the same reactor, that is we shut the hydrogen off
and the device kept on working for more than 20 minutes at full power
until it was late, and we turned on the water to shut the reactor off
and lower the temperature
But we don't do this only, we have brought from the Dept. of Physics two sodium iodide counters
sodium iodide, for those who know it, is a very good scintillator
it is an inorganic scintillator that acts as a small calorimeter
Using sodium iodide we could...
Department of Physics INFN, sorry...
We have here the two directors that are supporting us in this research
Professor Zoccoli and
Professor Capiluppi, director of the Department of Physics and
Professor Zoccoli, director of the INFN section of Bologna
So, we brought two sodium iodide scintillators and we placed them in two holes
located in the lead shielding of the reactor
so to measure the radiations produced
Why two? Because, as we say technically, using an English word, they are placed
"back-to-back", that is, along two opposite directions because
when nuclear reactions occur, isotopes are often produced that decay
through a beta plus decay, that is emitting a positron
and also of a neutrino that we clearly have no means of measuring here.
After the positron is produced, it is immediately annihilated in the normal matter,
positron is an example of the so-called of anti-matter
it is immediately annihilated with an electron of normal matter and produces two photons,
travelling in opposite directions.
Therefore, the simultaneous observation of photons in opposite directions would be a clear signature
of a beta plus decay.
This morning we have also measured the background radiation
countings due to the cosmic rays
as you know, we are continuously bombed by cosmic rays
nature provide us with about 200 particles per square meter per second
of cosmic origin, of natural origin
therefore, with the reactor turned off, this morning we measured
the cosmic background radiation, obtaining a few units over 10 seconds
due to the solid angle, due to the direction along which the sensors where located
Therefore this background value will obviously be subtracted from the measurements
The correlation of all these measurements should give us the signature
or at least some hints of the non-chemical, but very likely nuclear energy production
by this reactor
What you can see here is the reactor itself, that I guess in this moment is being weighed
because one of the operation we requested is to weigh the whole reactor before and
after the test
You see, one has to think of every tiny details...
If an unknown chemical element where to be inside the reactor, I cannot imagine it,
and this hidden element is gradually consumed during the reaction,
and this element is responsible for the production of energy,
at the end of the evening that object should weigh less,
the scale that we use is sensitive to the tenth of the gram
therefore we should be sure, that if something is consumed...
it is a further check... one tries to cover...
well, I am going back to the lab now, I see they are putting the reactor
back to its position, the reactor will be soon turned on
what you can see here is the pump introducing water at a constant flow
into the reactor, this flow has been measured, this one, the yellow one
is a peristaltic pump... I think it was 12 liters/hour,
I will give you the exact figure later...
and behind you can see all our measuring apparatuses
the set-up we have chosen for the nuclear measures
has been purposedly chosen in order to be extremely simple
when you´ll be allowed to see it, who knowns this type of electronics
will say: "Well, this electronics has been in use since at least 20 years
I assure you that this... we also have some detectors, if you want to bring them with you
bring it in the lab
Dr Bianchini that takes care of the radio-protection who put a neutrons detectors near me
I hope it will measure zero, because if it measures more than zero then...
We said that when we will see the radio-protection expert running away...
maybe it is better that we also start to run!
This kind of electronics... we have tried to perform measurements leaving no doubts behind
If we were to use a hyper-technologic and sophisticated set-up
there could have been a bug: now, with two scintillators, a couple of amplifiers,
a few discriminators, an AND gate and a few counters, we can do everything
by the way, I have to say that, for those who know them, we also check accidental coincidences
back-to-back...
They only gave us two holes... that would be a spectrometer...
They only gave us two holes, back-to-back in the reactor´s shielding
and we have to be content with that
It´s already something...
I can tell you we will make some single counts for each counter
to see these famous photons linked to the beta decay
but also, as a check, delaying one of the two counters
thus putting the sensor "off-time", we will measure the accidental concidences
for the statistics: this is important, because this value will be subtracted
from the total value seen by the counters in coincidence
in December I made the calorimetric measures, but I had no gamma probes
the detector was totally shielded, thank heaven, the radio-protection expert did not showed us anything
I have no clue about the inner shielding... I don´t know
I cannot answer, because I don´t know, to any question concerning reactor´s operation
I can only answer to questions concerning...
how much it weigh, we will know soon, and we will also know the weight difference
anyway, any question relating to the reactor may be addressed to Engineer Rossi
I am sure he´s prepared but there are issues... I gave up asking
I only make my measurements, that´s it