alchemy's back

[geni]

I haven't read the whole site so it could be legit but I rather doubt it. They are doing a clasic claim that their dicovry is being overlooked by the whole of modern science and their abstact seems to defy reality. The full paper is 52Mb so I'm not going to try and download it till I get to uni latter to day.
Anyway here's the linkhttp://www.lowenergytransmutations.org/index.html

What do you think?

[Goshawk]

it could be legit
Thank you for a much-needed laugh. :D

The abstract.
Neutrons, Polyneutrons, Composition of Polyneutrons: Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LET), Alchemy, Chemistry.
Abstract.

We show how, in our opinion, Low Energy Transmutations (LET), Alchemy, Chemistry, can be understood in terms of : Neutrons, Polyneutrons, Composition of Polyneutrons.

We show then the Experimental Method and the results of:

1) Transmutation of Mercury into Gold by means of Acetic Acid.
2) Transmutation of Lead into Silver through ignition of Metallic Salts.
3) Transmutation of Thorium and Uranium into Stable Elements through ignition of Metallic Salts.

These experiments, in our opinion, show that:

1) The Principle of Lavoisier is experimentally groundless.
2) Alchemy is an Experimental Science.
3) It is possible to dispose of the Nuclear Waste. [heavy sarcasm mode enabled]

Oh, yeah, that's definitely possibly legit. Why, how dare Mainstream Science pass them by, with their quick 'n' easy method of changing mercury into gold by pouring vinegar on it?

:D




I'm downloading their paper, too, but with dialup it's going to take a while.

[Goshawk]

Okay.

I went to bed last night leaving my computer Saving the "Read More" WordPad document from the bottom to My Documents.

http://www.lowenergytransmutations.org/neutroni.htm

It said it was going to take it 4 + hours, for a 50 MB doc.

So when I got downstairs this morning, I couldn't find the document anywhere on my computer. And all that was on my computer under the filename ICCF-10_neutrons.doc was an Internet shortcut from the Desktop.

And no, I don't have any firewalls or virus protection installed that would cause this sort of thing, and I'm not on a network that would block this.

So, see if you can get it to download.

[geni]

I'm having a go but even on my uni link it is going to take some time. I've had a look at soem of the other stuff and it doesn't read like any other papers that I've come across (it is in two different languages and they seem to be questioning the speed of light).
Should be finished in about an hour so I will have a look then.

[Paladin]

Read

http://www.lowenergytransmutations.org/history.htm

Rejection is tough, but they seem to have weathered it well. :rolleyes:

[geni]

I managed to get the paper to down loagd and will try and give you the ehighlights as I go through it.

From the introduction
In 1940 Borghi advanced the hypothesis that a Neutron is a peculiar bound state of the Hydrogen Atom.
From 1950 to 1955 Borghi planned and made an experiment to synthesize Neutrons, starting from a Cold Hydrogen Plasma (2).
The Cold Synthesis of the Neutron show that the Neutron is the sum of a Proton and an Electron.
Borghi’s paper was handed to R. A. Monti by Camillo Giori, collaborator of Borghi, in 1989.
R. A. Monti was already on his way to Cold Fusion since 1987 (3).
In this period can be traced the first attempts to make some Cold Fusion Experiments (4).
In 1989 R. A. Monti requested CNR to repeat Borghi’s experiment. No answer.
Again we ask, today to repeat this experiment.


I think this is where things start to get a little odd

[geni]

Elementary Polyneutrons.

In our Periodic Table of the Elements (1), (5) we introduced 3 Polyneutrons:


I'm not sure what it is saying here.

I have attached the image that goes with the text below (I think it is this image that makes the file so big as even after I put it into JPEG and reduced to number of colours I still had to reduce it to the size below in order to post it)

[geni]

Ok I have no right to make fun of people's language but still

Alchemists were well acquainted with almost three Acids

[geni]

Here we get to their experiments

We tried an experimental test, which we called first Filalete’s exercise, following Geber’s and Filalete’s hints.
We washed, following Geber’s instructions, 500g of Mercury in very good Vinegar, obtained mixing 1/2 liter of Vinegar with 1/2 liter of Acetic Acid for 2 - 3 months.
Then we took 100g of the washed Mercury from the 500g.
Once dissolved in Nitric Acid 1 to 5, the 100g showed 55mg of Gold crystals.
After 2 more months 100g of the same lot of 500g, dissolved in Nitric, gave 88mg of Gold crystals.
Analyzed by SEM and ICP the Gold crystals showed to be from 100% to 90% Gold.
The most beautiful we have ever seen (see photographs) (18).


If you want to repilcate this experiment you must do it in the months of april, october or november.

[geni]

SUPER HEAVY STABLE ELEMENTS.

During the ignition process Super Heavy Stable Elements are produced.
These SHSE are endowed with peculiar catalytic properties, which cause the proliferation of Noble Metals in the compound resulting from the ignition.
This SHSE where known by the Alchemists as Philosopher’s Stones .
Their admirable catalytic properties are widely shown by Geber (15), Flamel (27), Aurach d’Argentine (28), Filalete (29).
Recently Adamenko has rediscovered these SHSE as a product of artificial nucleosynthesis (30).


It seems to be getting worse

[geni]

Conclusion.

1)We have shown how, in our opinion, Low Energy Transmutation (LET), Alchemy, Chemistry can be understood in terms of Neutrons, Polyneutrons, Composition of Polyneutrons .
According to the Periodic Table of the Elements which follows from the Alpha Extended Model of the Atom, any element is made up of Polyneutrons and can be made by composing properly a certain group of Polyneutrons.
Low Energy Transmutations from one elements to another are possible.
2) The new Periodic Table is based on the existence of the Alpha - Zero group (á0): the Tetraneutron.
The discovery of the Tetraneutron, in our opinion, is experimental evidence for the Alpha Extended Model of the Atom.


As far as I can tell their whole thoery revolves around these polyneutrons. Their list of referances includes a lot of cold fustion papers.

[geni]

By taking out all the pictures I have got it down to 71Kb so if anyone is interested I could email it to them.

[wayrad]

Hmm, it sounds like they don't know anything about chemistry, judging by the mistakes they made, but ICP-ES and X-ray analysis (done using a SEM) would be reasonable ways to check for the presence of gold. I know that gold and mercury are very miscible with each other - what's the chance that their original mercury was contaminated? Would nitric acid cause gold to precipitate out?

[geni]

I don't know if it is any help but they included some pictures of the gold they produced (sorry I have deleted them so I can't post them). The first showed hexzagonal crystals in what was persumerbly mecury. The second showed thin leaves of gold looking a bit like shreaded plastic.

[Goshawk]

Well, all I know about chemistry is what I learned in one chemistry class in high school, but even I can see problems with their experiment to change mercury into gold.

We washed, following Geber’s instructions, 500g of Mercury in very good Vinegar, obtained mixing 1/2 liter of Vinegar with 1/2 liter of Acetic Acid for 2 - 3 months.As any cook will tell you, vinegars can vary widely in the amount of acetic acid they contain. "Very good vinegar" means--what--exactly? Answer--nothing. And that's the point--if you do their experiment, attempting to reproduce their results, and you don't get gold, they can say, "Well, what kind of vinegar did you use? You must have used the wrong kind."

I read the book on cold fusion that someone wrote, and IIRC this was a big part of the failure of other folks to reproduce their results--they would be told, "Well, you had the wrong kind of *whatever it was*," but the cold fusion guys wouldn't tell anybody exactly what kind of *whatever it was* they had used. (sorry, it's all kind of vague).

Anyway, I think it's telling that there's mention of cold fusion on this website. Looks like much the same approach.

Another problem with this that even I, who barely remembers what a "mole" was supposed to be, can see--people have used mercury nitrate for centuries to prepare felt for hats. People have also used vinegar for centuries to prepare felt for hats (as well as things like urine).

So if all you had to do to get gold was to add vinegar to mercury nitrate, wouldn't someone have noticed, over the years? Say, someone who one day added some "very good vinegar" to his mercuric nitrate in his vat full of felt, hoping to get better results than the hatter down the street?

[geni]

Originally posted by Goshawk

I read the book on cold fusion that someone wrote, and IIRC this was a big part of the failure of other folks to reproduce their results--they would be told, "Well, you had the wrong kind of *whatever it was*," but the cold fusion guys wouldn't tell anybody exactly what kind of *whatever it was* they had used. (sorry, it's all kind of vague).

If its any help your probably refuring to Palladium


So if all you had to do to get gold was to add vinegar to mercury nitrate, wouldn't someone have noticed, over the years? Say, someone who one day added some "very good vinegar" to his mercuric nitrate in his vat full of felt, hoping to get better results than the hatter down the street?

A good point but their get out is going to be that they only got a tiny yield even after leaving the "Very good vinegar" for 2-3 months (hold it they did the experiment once and they left it for 2-3 months). With the way they have conducted their experiments trying to repeat them would be like nailing jelly to a wall.

[Goshawk]

Does mercury even react with acetic acid?

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/mercury_Compounds.asp
Mercury is not attacked by dilute hydrochloric or sulfuric acid. It reacts with hot nitric acid to form mercuric nitrate, Hg(No 3 ) 2 . An excess of mercury reacts with nitric acid to form mercurous nitrate, HgNO 3 . Mercury reacts with hot concentrated sulfuric acid to form mercuric sulfate, HgSO 4 ; with excess mercury, mercurous sulfate, Hg 2 SO 4 , is formed.

[geni]

I suspect then that the only thing the acetic acid could do is remove any impurites in the mecury. If they were using "Very good vinegar" there would be other stuff in there but I can't see it reacting with mecury. If I get the chance I will see what my inorganic lecture thinks of intial impurity theory.
For the record if that paper was handed in a lab report at my uni I would get an F if it was lucky.
The bit of the paper that is causing me the most trouble is the bit about tetraneutrons. Do we have any physicists here?

[wayrad]

Well, they only used the vinegar after mixing it 50:50 with acetic acid (concentration unspecified). If it was concentrated acetic acid, I should think that would pretty much overwhelm the amount of acetic acid already present in the vinegar, whatever grade it was. I don't have a copy of Standard Methods at home to check the molarity of conc. acetic acid, though.

And they seem to be suggesting that it was the nitric acid that precipitated the gold, not the acetic. I am wondering if they could have made mercuric nitrate and precipitated a small amount of gold that was contaminating the mercury. I'm not a chemist though.

I have to say, between the mercury and the acids this doesn't sound like a very safe line of endeavor. Perhaps the mercury is already having an effect...

[geni]

Good vinegar would be made from something with a high concetraion of ethanol? So you would expect the same concentration of ethanocic acid in vinegar. so even very high concentrations of ethanoic acid would not entirly overwelm the ethanoic acid in the vinegar (not that it makes any difference it is all the same stuff). The only thing that I can think of that the ethanocic acid could do would be to form ligand complexes with the metal if they became charged. since nitric acid alone cannot turn gold into ions the only effect I can think of would involve the Mercury.

[JamesM]

Originally posted by wayrad
I don't have a copy of Standard Methods at home to check the molarity of conc. acetic acid, though.
According to here (http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/equipment/molarity.html), concentrated acetic acid is 17.4M. A brief bit of googling tells me that yer average vinegar is 5% acetic acid, and the MW and density of acetic acid is 60.05g/mol and 1.05 g/ml, respectively. Which by my calculations makes vinegar ~0.9M when it comes to acetic acid.

Just in case you're wondering.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by JamesM

According to here (http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/equipment/molarity.html), concentrated acetic acid is 17.4M. A brief bit of googling tells me that yer average vinegar is 5% acetic acid, and the MW and density of acetic acid is 60.05g/mol and 1.05 g/ml, respectively. Which by my calculations makes vinegar ~0.9M when it comes to acetic acid.

Just in case you're wondering. Ah, thanks. So if they did use concentrated ac. ac. , diluting it 50% with vinegar would not be a whole lot different from diluting it with water. (And Ed only knows why they let it sit for months!). I can't see that the acetic acid/vinegar mix serves any function at all.

[wayrad]

Here's a description of how to use nitric acid to separate out gold that is dissolved in mercury. Apparently it is well known to prospectors:

http://www.tomashworth.com/mercury_proceedure.shtml

Obviously our alchemists were working with contaminated Hg (perhaps recycled from a dental lab?)

[Rolfe]

And if any more proof were needed, the homoeopaths think this is really great science (http://www.homeopathyhome.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000339) - as opposed to us "bogus scientists", who are of course just closed-minded shills for Randi and "Quackbuster" Stephen Barrett.

Warning - do not read this thread while imbibing hot beverages.
:dl:
Rolfe.

[geni]

Originally posted by Rolfe
And if any more proof were needed, the homoeopaths think this is really great science (http://www.homeopathyhome.com/cgi-bin/bb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000339) - as opposed to us "bogus scientists", who are of course just closed-minded shills for Randi and "Quackbuster" Stephen Barret.


Where do you think I got the link from in the first place?

[Rolfe]

Originally posted by geni
Where do you think I got the link from in the first place? Precisely there, mon ami! But it was too good to keep to yourself.

Rolfe.

[wayrad]

And here's the cream of the jest. According to the first couple of entries at http://www.recycle.net/Metal-E/hg/xv065000.html

scrap mercury goes for about US$150-200 per kilo. Now our alchemists aren't very clear on whether their 88 mg gold includes the first 55 mg or not, or whether they got both batches from the same 100 g mercury. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they got 143 mg gold from 100 g Hg (neglecting the other 400 g mercury that they found it necessary to buy for some reason, as well as the cost of the acids).

I make this to be US$7-10 worth of mercury minimum, making the most favorable assumptions. Again making the most favorable assumptions, they got 143 mg gold. Spot proce of gold closed today at US$395/oz (troy oz I presume). Which means that our intrepid alchemists recovered a quantity of gold worth...

US$1.82


:dl:

[Yahweh]

Given about 20 moles of K-40, you can turn it into 10 moles of Ar-39... just let it bake for 1.3 billion years...

[c4ts]

So let's see, if I mix butter of arsenic with salt of lead, add a cup of aqua fortis... look everybody! Drink up!