Reserva de pastos Trabajo 1: Superficie de pastos

When beginning any consideration of the problems facing alchemists who opted for the conversion of mercury into gold (lead to gold represents an even less likely transmutation) it is natural to consider the release of neutrons due to naturally occurring processes. 1.7% of water, H2O, is heavy water, D2O, in which the mono-hydrogen isotope, 11H, is replaced by deuterium, 2

1H, also denoted D, with a nucleus comprising one proton and one neutron. Two of these nuclei, called deuterons, individual symbol d, d-d representing a pair, can fuse naturally to produce a helium nucleus and a neutron, a rare event, represented symbolically as: - 1) d + d → 3

2He + n

Bombardment with a slow-moving neutron can be a sufficiently destabilising condition to cause a mercury 200 nucleus to split, or undergo fission, producing a gold 198 nucleus and a tritium nucleus. Gold 198 is atomically unstable (radioactive) and decays to give stable gold 197, losing a neutron in the process: -

2) 200

80Hg + n → 19879Au* + 31H 3) 198

79Au* → 19779Au + n

This last condition is important for the development of a chain fission reaction as the neutrons produced replace those lost in creating the initiating reactions, continuing the process until all the mercury 200 has been converted to gold 197. Ambient electrons are always available to convert nuclei into atoms.

It is always important to consider the quantities involved, in particular, the maximum possible rate at which the neutrons would be produced. 5 Litres of water could be boiled down, carefully and slowly, to leave 100ml of heavy water, the process being the result of the lower boiling point of water, H2O, with respect to heavy water, D2O. 100 ml D2O contains

3.0115 ×1024 _{pairs of deuterium atoms. The subject of cold fusion produced much speculation} concerning the maximum deuteron fusion rate possible, with or without the intervention of some exotic mechanism. One of the two teams that reported finding evidence for it, in the form of unexpectedly high temperature rises and neutron fluxes in electrolytic cells, was that led by S.E. Jones and E.P. Palmer. They calculated the normal deuteron pair (d-d) fusion rate to be ~ 10-74 _{fusions per heavy water molecule per second, much too low to account for the reaction} rate of R = ~ 10-23 _{fusions per second reported by their team. Critics A.J. Leggett and G. Baym} produced a letter in which they calculated R = ~ 3 × 10-47 _{fusions per second to be an exact} upper limit. Whether it is true that, as they asserted, ‘the necessary enhancement cannot be achieved without a totally incredible value’ for the deuteron pair random interaction rate is another matter. However, even with the unexpected enhancement, Jones, Palmer et als’ fusion/neutron production rate is only 0.27 × 10-20 _{n s}-1 _d-d-1_.

43 It is interesting to consider the implications of the foregoing for alchemy.

The 3.0115 × 1024 _{pairs of deuterium atoms (D}

2O) would generate neutrons at a maximum rate of about: -

3.0115 × 1024 _{× 0.27 × 10} -20 _{= 0.8131 × 10}4_{n s}-1

1 mole of mercury has a mass of ~200gm. Therefore 1gm of mercury represents: - NA / 200 = 6.023 × 1023 / 200 = 3.0125 × 1021 mercury atoms

Assuming bombardment with one thermal neutron apiece, slowed down by the heavy water to ~2.5 MeV is sufficient to destabilise all the atoms, causing them to undergo the fission reaction 2), the time taken to transmute 1 gm of mercury into 1 gm of gold is : -

T = 3.0125 × 1021 _{/ 0.8131 X 10}4 _{seconds = 3.705 × 10}17_{s = 1.029 × 10}15_hours T = 1.178 × 1011 _years.

Clearly, this is not a practical method for the transmutation of anything, whether by alchemists or anyone else. A more realistic approach would be to consider the interaction between a by- product of the decomposition of the cosmic ray muon (μ-), the electron’s anti-neutrino (¯νe ) and a proton (p) in the mercury nucleus: -

3) μ- → e- _{+ ¯ν}

e + νm, where νm represents the muon’s neutrino. 4) ¯νe + p → n + e+, where e+ represents a positron.

5) e- _{+ e}+ _{→ γ + γ, where γ represents a photon.}

The interaction of the electron’s anti-neutrino with a proton in the nucleus of a mercury 198 (natural abundance = 10.00%) follows: -

6) ¯νe + 19880Hg → 19879Au → 19779Au + n

The important aspect of this process is the production of the free neutron, the vital particle in the development of a fission chain reaction, once the neutron has been slowed down by energetic interactions with other mercury nuclei. However, if merely exposing mercury to a cosmic neutron source was a sufficient condition for cold fission then all the mercury obtainable would have disappeared into the process of gold production during the medieval period of reliance on heavenly forces for transmutation and much of that since extracted from Cinnabar. The theft of massive amounts of gold from the New World in the C16 would have reduced the incentive for this process but not for long, surely. Of course, mercuric pyro- antimonate could act as a moderator, slowing the neutrons down to interactive velocities and reflecting them back into the mercury. It would not long remain a compound in the presence of mercury so I suspect its main purpose in this context would be to introduce the antimony atoms into the spaces between the mercury atoms, increasing the effective neutron cross section of the

44 latter in spite of the antimony nucleus’ low cross-section, simply due to the elimination of some of the gaps between nuclei.

Again, it is important to consider the quantities involved in order to make sense of the proposition. Cosmic ray muons are only detectable because they are observed to survive for ~20 times as long as they would were they generated in a laboratory, when travelling to sea level from their origins in the upper atmosphere, due to their velocity with respect to ourselves, which approaches that of the speed of light. Time for the muons is, however, the same

regardless, it is their observed average lifetime that varies with the variations in their motion. Their proper (i.e. own) lifetimes average 2.2 microsecs., their observed lifetime, 44 microsecs. Consequently, the incidence of cosmic muons at sea level, termed the muon flux (i.e. flow) is about 180 muons m -2_s-1_{, passing vertically through everyone and everything unobstructed,} whereas, without the time dilation factor, there would be none. Typically, the area of the mercury exposed, in a crucible, to these muons, would have been about 50 cm2 _{in the}

Renaissance so it would have been penetrated by ~9 muons every second, on average, not all of which would decompose to yield electron’s anti-neutrinos in the process.

The cold fusion reactions reported by Pons and Fleischmann, as well as by Jones, Palmer et al, could not be accounted for by a neutron production rate of 0.27 × 10-20_ns-1_d-d-1 _{as calculated} by Leggett and Baym. The process, which requires the presence of heavy water was interaction 1): -

1) d + d → 3

2He + n

However, the deuteron fusion probability was determined as if the deuterium atoms were isolated from all exterior influences, including cosmic muons. Muons facilitate fusion. A muon has the same charge as an electron but ~200 times the mass. It can replace the electron in a hydrogen atom, producing the exotic muonium atom. If the latter combines with another hydrogen atom it expels that atom’s electron to give the exotic, positively charged, ionic molecule, H2+, in which the protons are closer to each other than in the H2 molecule. Consider the impact of this process on two deuterium atoms, compressed within the ‘mossy’ surface of a negative palladium electrode. It would be the same with regards to the proximity of the nuclei of proton-neutron pairs, greatly increasing the probability of reaction 1) and thus the rate of neutron production, adjusting Leggett and Bayms’ calculations in such a way that cold fusion becomes a practical possibility.

Nuclear fusion is a far more energy intensive process than nuclear fission so, by inference, the muon should suffice to produce the necessary neutron production rate to cause reaction 2) to occur at a detectable rate: -

2) 200

80Hg + n → 19879Au + 31He

There is one remaining possibility for cold fusion that bears some relation to the Standard Model; the ‘many-body’ problem, as yet unsolved. Jones, Palmer et al used palladium negative electrodes and gold positive electrodes in their ‘jam-jar’ electrolytic cells, passing a DC current of 10 to 500mA between them and through the heavy water solution of volcanic type salts.

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They reported that ‘Hydrogen bubbles (formed) on the palladium foils only after several minutes of electrolysis, suggesting the rapid absorption of deuterons into the foil; oxygen bubbles formed at the (gold) anode immediately.’ Both electrodes were usually of metal foil but sometimes the 0.025 mm thick palladium foils were each replaced by 5 gm of ‘mossy’ palladium, maximising the electrodes' surface area with respect to their volume. Noticing surges in heat and neutron production at this electrode the team concluded that helium (He) was being emitted there as well as hydrogen: - ‘a significant (neutron) signal appears above the background (neutron radiation) with the correct energy for d-d fusion neutrons (with energy ~2.5 MeV) (providing) strong evidence that room-temperature nuclear fusion is occurring at a low rate in the electrolytic catalysis cells.’ That rate had an estimated maximum of

0.27 ×10-20 _{fusions s}-1_{, still far too low for the practical conversion of mercury into gold by} neutron bombardment. The team’s explanation for their unexpectedly large numbers of observations of relatively high neutron counts was, basically, that trapping heavy water

molecules between palladium atoms caused additional compression of those molecules relative to normal conditions at a gas liberating electrode, so bringing the paired deuterium atoms unusually close together and inducing fusion between their nuclei (i.e. the deuterons). Indeed, the team’s conclusion begins with the remark that a correspondence of ideas ‘regarding cold piezonuclear fusion with observations of excess 3_{He in metals and in geothermal areas of the} Earth led to our experimental studies of fusion in electrochemical cells’. A situation in which an assembly of atoms can be arranged in such a way that they produce conditions radically different from straightforward conventional ones represents one aspect of the ‘many-body’ problem. The model of the electrolytic liberation of neutral atoms from ionic compounds in solution or, as considered here, the liberation of the gases contained in solution at the charged electrodes, may need to be replaced by a more complex one. Nuclear interactions may appear where only chemical ones are expected, the essential pre-condition for the existence of medieval cold fission.

However, it is worth noting that Professors Leggett and Baym took account of this in a second analytical letter concerning Jones, Palmer et als’ reported observations, ‘Can solid-state effects enhance the cold-fusion rate?’ In particular, they commented that their upper bound value (i.e. maximum value) for neutron production (R = ~ 3 × 10-47 _s-1_{) ‘makes no assumption} whatever about the nature of any many-body mechanism involved’ because ‘the necessary enhancement cannot be achieved without ‘a quite incredible value’ for the sum of the helium- atom affinity and the zero-point energy of the alpha particle, namely, ~100 eV, and this would have other ‘easily observable consequences’.

Regardless of these foregoing considerations, there is one that outweighs any ‘cold fission derived from cold fusion’ hypothesis. Alchemists had no conception of heavy water and no reports of transmutations emerging from their community included any mention of the use of water residues in the final ritual, although these frequently feature in ‘recipes’ for the

production of the Philosopher's Stone. Maybe they utilised radioactive mercury, 203

80Hg, natural abundance = 10.437% (or maybe not).

46 Like the muon, this undergoes β- _{decay: -}

7) 203

80Hg → 20481Tl + e- + ¯νe , followed by reaction 6), above 6) ¯νe + 19880Hg → 19879Au (unstable) → 19779Au + n

The problem with this approach to the question is that it would lead, at best, to equal quantities of gold and thallium atoms being produced or, much more likely, given the natural abundance of 198

80Hg, 10.0%, to detectably large quantities of thallium as compared with negligible quantities of gold. As there is no record of an unidentified metal suddenly appearing during an attempted transmutation in chemistry’s prehistory it seems we can discount this possibility. More to the point, 203

80Hg has a half-life of only 47 days, so even a natural

abundance of 10.437% doesn’t indicate that a random sample of the element would contain a sufficient quantity of the isotope to produce reaction 7). The alchemists certainly could not acquire any radioactive isotopes that did not originate from natural sources so the procedure should be discounted as a realistic example of a transmutation.

Realistically, the remaining candidates for a process that produces the apparent

transmutation of mercury to gold using a compound containing mercury and antimony come down to one. This would be the extraction of gold from an imperfectly analysed gold amalgam, one that contains so much mercury that the gold content is unsuspected until extraction occurs. It is important to remember the role of mercury in the industrial process prior to the

introduction of cyanidation in the C19 and the propensity for antimony to form gold antimonide, Au3Sb. Pliny (23 - 79 AD) recorded the use of mercury amalgamation in the extraction of gold from ore bearing rocks by the ancient Romans. Their mercury source then was, principally, the cinnabar found around Almaden in Spain, which has continued to be a source of mercury ever since. Consequently, unrefined mercury reused for various purposes over the centuries contains currently detectable quantities of gold.

Given the proportion of mercury employed to gold produced as recorded by James Price in his 1782 proof of concept demonstration to an audience of dignitaries that included 4 members of the Royal Society, 30:1, the use of gold amalgam must be suspected. In a subsequent

experiment the ratio was 4:1, indicating he must have known he was introducing as much gold into the process as he could without suspiciously colouring the amalgam. Analysis, using nitric acid to dissolve away the mercury followed by the application of tin chloride solution to the residue to find out if the Purple of Cassius (first recorded by Andreas Cassius in 1684)

precipitated from the solution, would have caught Price out, but it appears that no such test was employed. The other ‘acid test’ is his inclusion of the supposed transmutation of mercury (atomic number 79) to silver (atomic number 47). No known fission process could account for this and the description of the changing condition of the mercury, from ‘bright and fluid’ to a thickened liquid that ‘poured grouty’, after ‘standing for about 45 minutes’, after heating, indicates that some type of extraction of silver from an amalgam was taking place. The Philosopher's Stone in this case was a white powder. Mercuric meta-antimonate is white.

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How would a gold or silver amalgam be made to yield the precious metals in a matter of minutes? Principally by the action of a metal/metalloid that forms alloys/compounds readily with another metal if it is already in an ionised condition and the reactants are heated. Heating also tends to decompose an amalgam, a dangerous procedure as the rate of loss of mercury as vapour, which occurs slowly at room temperature anyway, rapidly increases with the increase in temperature. The crucial point concerning any experiment in which both the decomposition of the amalgam providing the metal for the compound followed by the formation of the compound occur together is that the sequence can only proceed in that given order; it is irreversible. Mercury atoms display a much greater affinity for other mercury atoms than they do for those of other metals and mercury cannot be induced to form ionic compounds with them unless it is first ionised to give acidic salts by the application of strong acid. Both mercuric meta-antimonate and mercuric pyro-antimonate are really intimate combinations of mercury and antimony oxides, existing as separate layers within the same crystalline structure. There are no electron bonds linking the antimony and mercury ions so the oxide layers are free to separate once they enter liquid mercury. Antimony forms compounds with both gold and silver and these are found as minerals. Aurostibnite, Au3Sb, is gold antimonide and Dyscrasite, Ag3Sb is silver antimonide, found in Canada and Australia, but rarely. Gold amalgam is also found in nature but is extremely rare. Typically, both antimony and mercury are found as their sulphides, Stibnite and Cinnabar, their naturally occurring oxides, such as the mineral

Montroydite (mercuric oxide), being alteration products of the sulphides. Antimony, like mercury, is a volatile element at room temperature but much less so, and if you heat a combination of mercury and antimony salts in solution it is the mercury which is seen to be released first, as a precipitate. Antimony compounds forming in an amalgam would be unstable under the application of heat and the antimony ions released would react with more metal atoms/ions (but not the mercury) releasing them from the amalgam in a one way process that would only take a matter of minutes for the quantities quoted, 10 grains of gold for Dr. Price’s demonstration given before members of the Royal Society.

As a reasonable hypothesis, I propose that mercuric meta- and pyro-antimonates could be added to silver and gold amalgams to replicate his demonstration. The mercury and antimony oxides separate in a gold amalgam. The oxides dissociate, the mercury ions associating with those in the mercurous gold, HgAu, found in such amalgams, causing decomposition of the latter, whilst the antimony ions form gold antimonide with the released gold ions. This is reduced to neutral gold and antimony atoms but the antimony forms more gold antimonide as more gold ions are released from the amalgam, until all the gold has been precipitated out of the mercury, the oxide ions combining to form, and be released, as oxygen gas, O2.

I therefore propose that Dr. Price used a combination of mercuric meta- and pyro-

antimonates as his ‘transmuting agents’, precious metals concealed in amalgams by means of excessive quantities of mercury and fraud. His subsequent suicide, due to stress occasioned by the Royal Society’s insistence that he repeat his experiments as demonstrations, using larger quantities and his friends insisting he conform to expectations, in spite of his excuse that his ‘supply of (transmuting) powders (was) used up’, was carried out in front of those he considered to have driven him to it.

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10. Observations of transmutations in ancient China; the ‘Out of China’ Theory of alchemy’s