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There are some colleagues of the department of physics which are providing the calibration of different instruments that are used for measurement.
It is expected that within 10 minutes the calibration will be completed after which the experiment will begin and then we're almost there.
We are currently doing some preliminary steps, I immediately say what kind of measures would we do today.
Two types of measures. First of all, would we see the energy produced from this equipment and how we are going to do?
We would go to warm and vaporize the water. If we know which is the latent heat of evaporation
and how much water we are vaporizing for second, we could know which is the power that is produced from the apparatus.
Clearly this is a basic value, the real value is beigger than the power actually produced because the apparatus is not completely isolated now. Already this will give us an idea that the apparatus produces at least the power that we'll calculate.
Secondly we must be able to understand the source of this energy. And the first thing we must do, I think it's already been done, is to try to exclude that there is a chemical source.
Now the device is connected to a cylinder of hydrogen which is located here. And the more mundane explanation when someone sees something connected to a tank of hydrogen is to say, "Well it is burning hydrogen!"
Well, preeliminarly is we weigh the cylinder of hydrogen in order to see how much mass of hydrogen is in the tank and at the end of the test and we weigh again to see the hydrogen consumed.
The difference you would expect as an order of magnitude. Look now to be honest and scientifically correct the process that occurs within the reactor is unknown to me as it is unknown to anyone not working directly with Rossi.
It is covered by trade secret.
However talking in orders of magnitude as the difference in energy between chemical energy source and nuclear energy source as nuclear fusion for example, is the order of 10^6, then six orders of magnitude by a factor of one million.
It means that during the test we do not expect to measure hydrogen consumption except for the gas absorbed into the metals present in the cell. But we'll measure this, too.
How will we do this measurement? At the end of the test, we first start the unit, measure the energy...now I tell you that also measure other things, but measure produced energy.
At some point we will close the cylinder of hydrogen without shutting down the reactor and weigh the difference, we wait is a few grams. Few gram that could be interpreted as the hydrogen absorbed by metal.
At this point I have made some calculations, if I have a power of ten Kw then the apparatus should continue to work for 30 seconds per gram.
If the unit continues to operate for longer, the hydrogen in the apparatus does not justify the production by chemical energy source.
I can tell you that I have done a pre-test in the same laboratory, in 15 December, with the same reactor where we did exactly the same maneuver,
that is to close the hydrogen and the equipment continued to function for more than twenty minutes at full power, until it was late and we opened the water to turn it off and lower the temperature.
But we are not satisfied so we have brought by the department of physics two sodium iodide counters, for those who know it is a good scintillator.
is an inorganic scintillator, that have the function of little calorimeter.
Department of Physics, INFN(?), sorry. No, we got the two directors who are supporting us in this research, there is proffessor Zoccoli and proffessor Capiruppi, proffessor Capiruppi director of the department of physics and proffessor Zoccoli director of the INFN(?) in Bologna.
Then we took two sodium iodide scintillator and have them placed close to two holes in the shielding of lead and therefore also will measure the radiation output.
Why two revelators? And why these are in the back-to-back configuration ie in opposite directions?
Because when nuclear reactions occur, often are produced isotopes that decay by the so-called "Beta+ decay" with production of a positron and a neutrino is also clear that we do not have equipment to detect neutrino.
When this positron is producted immediately annihilates when touch the normal matter. The positron is an example of antimatter.
It annihilates immediately with an electron and produces two photons traveling in opposite directions, then the observation of production of photons in coincidence in opposite directions is a clear signature, it would be, well, we hope to test it, it would be a clear signature of "Beta+ decay".
Here this morning we have also measured the fund, the counts due to cosmic rays, you know that we are bombarded, nature gives us 200 particles per square meter per second by cosmic and natural origin.
So this morning whit the reactor shutted down, we did the fund counts obtained in ten seconds, some billing unit, for the solid angle, given for the direction in which the detectors are been oriented, clearly this fund will be deducted from the measure.
These measures, this set of interrelated measures we hope will give us the signature of the production of nuclear or at least non-chemical and probably nuclear energy by this reactor.
What you see here is the reactor itself, which I think is weighed in this moment, because the operations that we asked to do was also to weigh the entire reactor before and after the measurement. For the sake.
If inside the reactor there was an unknown chemical element, because I assure you I can't imagine what kind, that is slowly consumed, which is hidden to us and he is slowly consumed to produce energy, well at the end of the evening this item should weigh less.
The weigh, which is placed in the scale is sensitive to the tenth of a gram, so we should be sure that if something is not consumed ... It is a more check.
Okay now I go in to follow the final steps. I think that the reactor will be on soon, I see they are repositioning it in the measure position and that the reactor will be on soon.
What you see here, is the pump that brings water into the reactor at constant flow. This flow was measured. This yellow, this yellow here, is a peristaltic pump...
What? Right now I think 12 l/h but after I give you the exact number. In here there are all our equipment setup. We have chosen...
There's one thing to say, the setup we have chosen for nuclear measurements, was specifically chosen very simple.
When you can come to see it, people who know this type of electronic, can say, "Well that's electronic that is used here have at least twenty years." It's NIM(?) standard electronic.
I assure you that this ... we also have detectors ... What? If you want to bring in it, bring in it as well, we have also, Dr. Bianchini dealing with radiation protection
and that put near me a neutron detector, I hope that signs zero, because if something other than zero...it's bad for me...
We said that when we see the radiation protection expert who runs away, maybe we should run away too. No, but I say that whit this kind of electronic we tried to make a measurement that leaves no doubts.
If we put a setup, hyper-sophisticated, there could always be some bugs. We with two scintillators, a pair of amplifiers, the discriminatory ,an AND gate and some counters, we do everything.
Among other things I have to say, for those who know these things, we check also the accidental coincidences. Back to back that is ... Ok ... proffessor Stalnenos ...
...Now they gave us, gave us two holes in the shielding...That would be a spectrometer, they had provided us two holes back to back in the shielding of the reactor and that must be enough for us. However this is enought because we can measure something...
I can tell you that we would be in single counts for each counter. We'll measure the coincidences to see these famous "Beta+ decay" photons, but also to check,
delaying one of two counters ie putting it off time, completely uncorrelated to the other, to check the accidental coincidences,
those due to statistics. This is important because the value seen by the counters in coincidence, will be subtract from the total.
So...In December I made calorimetric measurements but I did not have the equipment to make gamma measurements and the unit was shielded completely.
At that time the radiation protection expert said, "Thank goodness we did not see anything." I did not know the thickness of the internal shielding. What? I do not know this because this is one of the parameters.
I can not respond because I don't know about any queries regarding the operation of reactor. I will answer questions about...What?
Yes, we will khow how the unite weight, especially we would know the difference in weight. However you have to ask questions about the unit at the engineer Rossi, who I'm sure he is prepared.
However he will answer if is the case, because there are issues. I also don't ask anything him, I just do my measurements. Okay I get back inside.