Storing Cookies (See : http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/basics/legal/cookies/index_en.htm ) help us to bring you our services at overunity.com . If you use this website and our services you declare yourself okay with using cookies .More Infos here:
https://overunity.com/5553/privacy-policy/
If you do not agree with storing cookies, please LEAVE this website now. From the 25th of May 2018, every existing user has to accept the GDPR agreement at first login. If a user is unwilling to accept the GDPR, he should email us and request to erase his account. Many thanks for your understanding

User Menu

Custom Search

Author Topic: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions  (Read 432885 times)

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #870 on: September 10, 2008, 12:00:03 PM »
Naudin mentions that the thoriated tungsten rod he used had been previously used in his plasma cold fusion experiments. What I had not covered was the possibility that the thoriated tunsten rod had become more radioactive or activated in some other manner and this was why I could not repeat his results. To try this possibility I put the tungsten rod in a simple cold fusion plasma arrangement such as the one  on his site and fired it up several times. Each time the immersed part of the rod glowed white hot. I then put the rod back again in the carbon-tungsten set up and pulsed it again. No significant difference was found in the waveforms compared to my previous results.
So at present I am at a loss as to why I cannot repeat Naudin's experiment.

Mike

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #871 on: September 16, 2008, 12:53:34 PM »
I am now pretty well certain that the cause of various kinks or humps in the waveform of the discharge current through a carbon-tungsten or carbon-carbon junction, which I have reported on this thread, occur when the capacitor discharge current has fallen sufficiently for instability in the arc at the junction to occur. The rapid change  in impedance at this point in time causes the energy in the circuit stray inductance and any inductance reflected from the current transformer to briefly increase the circuit current causing the hump.
It is interesting that the weak magnetic field from a coil wrapped around one of the carbons has a strong effect on the point at which the impedance of the arc increases and hence where the hump occurs on the wavefrom.

This appears to be the same effect as causes apparent close to overunity in motor commutators especially with carbon brushes, but arcing contacts in general.  Stefan Hartmann described this years ago on experiments with the Newman motor. In that case the source energy was the huge field inductance which discharges through the mechanical commutator contacts.
 
I suspect if there is extra energy, it comes from burning of the carbon in the air (oxidation) which coupled with the negative resistance of the carbon arc injects energy into the circuit.

Mike

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #872 on: September 18, 2008, 10:26:32 AM »
Most people seem to have given up on this one. Nevertheless as many possibilities as possible should be covered.
I have gone back to a check out the plain carbon rod without a spark gap but using a stronger radioactive source. The usual capacitor discharge and toroidal current transformer were used with an energised  coil around the carbon to give a magnetic field.

I surrounded the carbon rod with a few turns of pure thorium metal  wire. This thorium coil was not energised by an electric current. There is plenty of alpha emission from the thorium. No difference in the current transformer waveform was found when the carbon was pulsed from a 0.008 F capacitor at 180 volts with or without a concentric magnetic field on the carbon in either direction. The current in the carbon rod was about 3000 amps.

Mike



forest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4076
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #873 on: September 18, 2008, 01:30:14 PM »
That's how I see it : a couple of free high energy electrons generate cascade of much higher energy electrons in carbon. The problem  with all proposed solutions is : there were no single point having free high energy electrons. Electric current is not a flow of FREE electrons afaik.

Look here : http://xray.uu.se/hypertext/VacNews2.html  for possible hint. I suppose that replacing anode with a pure carbon block will release beat rays instead of x-rays.

forest

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4076
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #874 on: September 18, 2008, 01:38:04 PM »
Doesn't it sound interesting ? :

Quote
Even operating in a cold cathode mode, the current through these tubes at 40 to 60 kV is enough to cause heating. Furthermore, as the tube elements warm up, the cathode begins to emit electrons thermionically. This leads to increasing dissipation, lowered potential, and a shift of the x-ray emission toward the soft, less penetrating, region of the spectrum.

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #875 on: September 19, 2008, 02:01:24 PM »
To determine whether the kinks/humps on the discharge waveform across a thoriated tungsten/carbon arcing junction I observed are due to combustion of the carbon, I surrounded the thoriated tungsten/carbon arcing point with a shroud containing argon gas. There is no difference in the wavefrom with the argon gas or in air. The kink/ hump shows extra energy is dumped from the junction into the circuit, it is only present if an arc occurs. Carbon-Carbon arc also gives this kink.

Stefan Hartmann suggested on another thread that the apparent production of extra energy during arcing on the commutator of the Newman motor was due to burning of the carbon brushes. My result mentioned above calls that hypothesis into question. Also other devices such as the Brandt Switch (also called the Tesla switch, although nothing to do with Tesla) where two series connected accumulators are discharged through a load into two parallel connected accumulators. Brandt used mechanical switches and most likely arcing contacts were in operation there also.

It seem to me that low level exchange transmutations such as those described by C.L. Kervran are involved not involving beta particles. The implication is that low atomic weight  transmutations are fundamentally different from high energy transmutations familiar in nuclear physics.

See:-

http://www.rexresearch.com/kervran/kervran.htm

for an interesting review.
 
Mike


mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #876 on: October 03, 2008, 06:06:57 PM »
Although this thread has nearly died, I thought it might interest some to report on some of the history of this subject I have unearthed.
I found that the carbon arc nuclear reaction stems from the work of a Dr Ronald Richter. Richter worked for the Nazi's during WW2 on this subject and the US government had a file on him  in Operation Paperclip, the project after the war to find out about Nazi weapons and sciencific research. Richter was attempting to produce a nuclear reaction in a carbon arc using a mixture of hydrogen and lithium.After the war he went to Argentina and under the auspecies of President Peron continued his research on Huemul island. A report in 1952 on Richter's research was publised by Dr Jose Balsiero:

http://www.ib.edu.ar/informes-huemul/reports-huemul-principal.html

Richter's reasoning can be found in the above report, and the report was fairly negative. Richter claims he overcmes the problems mentioned in the report by using Larmor effect resonance. This crops up in the Tesla_2006 intoduction at the start of this thread.. coincidence?

It is a fact that Rutherford produced lithium fission releasing alpha particle having an energy of 8.76 Mev with only 150 Kv using protons while using deutrons he achieved fission starting at around 20- 40 KV
( Story of Atomic Energy, F. Soddy FRS, Nova Atlantis 1949 page97). If there were sufficient lithium fissions in the reactions in the carbon arc the temperature would rise very rapidly. Under proton bombardment lithium goes to an unstable Beryllium isotope that splits into two alpha particles carrying away 8.76 Mev each. Also some of the beryllium emits  17 Mev photon.

The fact that the original Richter work was in a Spanish speaking area and the unique claim about Larmor resonance makes me suspect that this research or an offshoot of it was behind the Tesla_2006 stuff which started this thread.

It would seem to me that carbon is too heavy, lithium being the best bet as used by Richter also odd number elements are best, such as lithium, Boron.

I would say these nuclear reactions are fairly hazardous but are well within the capabilities of people on these groups

On these grounds this has nothing to do with Prof. Vallee at all.

Mike

Koen1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1172
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #877 on: October 06, 2008, 07:48:35 PM »
Your assesment sounds logical, although I do not see a direct reason to conclude that
dr. Vallée was not working on the same thing.
I agree that it seems to make sense that similar arc-fusion research done in the
latter part of WW2 was taken to South America and continued, and that the
info we received from there may very well be an offshoot of this.
On the other hand, dr. Vallée's Protelf theory is not so terribly complicated
that a very bright German scientist could not have figured this out as well...
It may be that dr. Vallée was merely the first to publicly propose the theory
since the Germans had worked on it in secret during the war... Does that really
matter? The main thing is whether it is a viable process. The Germans also
developed jet engines during the war, yet they became famous as "jet engines"
through worldwide broadcasted American film footage while the public had to
dig deep to discover it was actually a German invention... Yet nobody cared
as long as they worked. ;)

@All: I recently had an idea that might be an interesting concept, would like
to hear your input. Please bear with me if you want to hear this one, as it
has unfortunately turned into a long story which may at points be very vague.
Do state your questions if you wish me to carify.
It started out with an old idea of mine which was basically a form of magneto-
hydrodynamic generator using air as gaseous medium. (MHD-gen basically
uses highly ionised gas or plasma even, which is moved through a conduit,
and passes through a strong magnetic field which is perpendicular to the
flow. Two electrodes placed on the sides of the conduit so that a line can be drawn
between them that will be perpendicular to both the flow and the magnetic field.
As the flow continues, the Hall effect will induce a current between the two electrodes.)
Obviously, it requires a large amount of energy to turn the gaseous medium into
plasma, and it needs input to cause the plasma to flow along the conduit,
and the electrodes need to stand up to the high temperatures and energies of the
plasma stream, and if we're really using plasma and not just highly ionised gas,
we may even need a Tokamak-like containment "bottle".
Does not seem like a very efficient way to make electricity, I agree.
But I was playing with the idea of incorporating the Protelf process to get energy gain
in the system.
Then, of course, there was Tesla's old idea of an arc generator which was nothing more
than a sort of chimney with two strong magnets attached to the sides and a spark gap
at the bottom of the chimney. (Fyi: An arc would be fired over the spark gap, this would
create a large cloud of ionised air, this ionised air would be warmer than the unaffected
air and would rise to the top of the chimney, and as it passe dthrough the strong magnetic
field, the moving cloud of ions would be magnetically affected by the same Hall effect again,
and two elecrode plates fixed inside the cimney and perpendicular to both the flow of
rising air and the magnetic field would also absorb the high voltage contained in the ionised
air cloud. Another version drawn up by Tesla is almost exactly the same thing, but instead
of a spark gap that would use an amount of radioactive material to produce the ionisation effect.
It's all along the same lines, just slightly different ways of using the Hall effect to tap the ion flow.
Ok, thanks for bearing with me so far. ;)
I had these ideas simmering in the back of my head for a while, but watching the Ironman movie
the other week seems to have jolted them again. :)
Obviously I did not see any breakthrough ideas in the movie, but explaining to a friend why the
"arc reactor" in the movie was not a reality did shake some things loose, it seems.
In the movie, two versions of such "reactor" are shown: a small version the size of a coke can,
and a large version the size of a bus, roughly. Now the small version remains obscure and
the parts of it shown in the movie don't make much sense, but the large version clearly looks like
a sort of glass Tokamak with way too few coils.
Well, this is sort of where the movie connection stops ;)
It got me thinking: what if we replace the electrodes in a MHD-like setup with a direct inductive coupling?
Could it be done? Well, just using the exact same Hall effect coupling without direct electrode connections
does not seem very viable... But!...
... Imagine we have a circular flow of plasma or highly ionised air. Let's just assume we have a proper
containment chamber and conduit for the time being. So in a way, we simply have a circular current.
Let's also assume we have managed to induce this circular flow (/current) by energising a large coil
inside it. Idk, if it's easier to imagine, you can imagine a large toroidal glass containment chamber
in which the charged gases circle the central "donut hole", and the main coil inside this "hole".
Now imagine that, by some magical means X, the energy contained in the circular flow is increased.
I imagine the circular flow becoming somewhat "thicker", or possibly the formation of multiple such
circular flows, one above the other. Obviously, this would mean the entire circular flow increases in
energy content either way, and this increased circular energy flow should result in an increase in the
magnetic field strength.
Which we should be able to 'tap', just like we 'tap' the fluctuations (and alternations) of the magnetic
field in a transformer.
Ok, still following me here? Good. ;D
Now here comes the kicker:
Imagine that magical means X is in fact a periodic Protelf arc discharge through the gaseous medium itself!
If dr. Vallée's tables are indeed correct (and I'm just referring to his output tables), this would mean that
certain gases like Oxygen and Nitrogen would yield significantly more output during this process than
any of the carbon rod experiments. The high energies listed in his tables should easily be able to
ionise significant amounts of gas, thereby adding quite a lot to the circular flow.
Besides that, the rotating medium contained inside a strong magnetic field and with sufficient room in the
reactor toroid could well provide sufficient space for any beta emissions to be both unharmful to anyone
outside the reactor as well as keeping the energy contained within the bulk of the gaseous medium
(so that it is not completely lost, still around inside the medium, just not directly contributing to output
at that moment).
So, brief review: we use a large containment chamber filled with say air, we put a flippin big coil in the
center of this toroidal chamber, we induce a circular charge flow inside the air-filled torus and use
the central coil(s) to do so, we fix the magnetic field configuration in such a way that we can periodically
cause Protelf/ArcReaction in the gas, this increases the energy flow inside the torus, we use the central
coil(s) to collect the additional energy by induction, and when the energy level has dropped down to
the basic level we repeat this Protelf/ArcReaction pulse. A continuous process, with periodic Protelf,
but without the need for direct connections between the medium and the circuitry.
No problems with the electrodes getting covered in carbon dust from the hV impact arcs, no problem
with the electrodes or any other dricetly connected circuitry overheating, no beta escaping the process,
none of that. A "brushless" Protelf reactor. ;)

Okay, I see that what I intended as a lucid proposition has once again turned into a lot of text with
less structure than I had intended.  :-\ Oh well, that happens sometimes. ;)
I hope however that it is still clear enough for those interested.
I would really appreciate getting some feedback on this. :D
What do you guys think of this idea? Feynman?

Laters! :D

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #878 on: October 07, 2008, 01:21:33 PM »
Koen, I did not intend to suggest that Vallee knew nothing about Richter, I am sure he must have been aware of these other peoples efforts, I am just talking about the first post of this thread (Tesla_2006) possibly having its origins elsewhere than in Vallee's work.
Anyway, we do need something that works and the Naudin/Vallee experiement seemed a simple way except that after some 40 experiments I have been unable to repeat them. I have concluded that Naudin must have been in error, but I have been also unable to discover how he got the results he did. I am waiting with baited breath for somebody to repeat Naudin and show me the error of my ways. People's enthusiasm seems to died away at the first hurdle. Who said it was easy ? Bill Alek has built a replica of Naudin's experiment but he emailed me to say that he had blown up his Fets and when he got some more he would have another go.....

On your proposal it could possibly be a superior method of getting the energy out of a plasma provided we have a working energy source such as Richter's lithium -> helium +17.28 Mev and a torus might be the best way confining the reaction. Again here is the problem we need a simple reaction such as Vallee's if it can be shown to work. In your system why not use carbon dioxide or monoxide confined in the torus; the carbon could do its Vallee's carbon  -> boron -> carbon trick without a loss of gas?
Another simple method is to use the old Poulsen arc oscillator. Carbon arcs have negative resistance characteristic and 100 years ago Poulsen used this carbon arc negative resistance to inject energy into a tuned circuit for radio transmission. The series tuned circuit was connected across the carbon arc, and the arc was supplied with power from a DC source via RF chokes. The RF output was in the KW range.
Clearly if the if the arc was maintained by the Vallee process or similar you would not need an external DC supply. The frequency could be much lower than RF say a few hundred Hz.
But first we need this simple working nuclear reaction and so far Vallee's proposed reaction seems unproven.

Mike

       

sparks

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2528
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #879 on: October 07, 2008, 04:21:43 PM »
    A plazma seems to be simply ions and electrons that are in different inertial frames but embeded in a common inertial frame giving rise to a magnetic sheath about the plazma matter.  This represents a macroatom with an infinite spectrum of atomic weights.  Be alot of fun figuring out names for all these elements. :D

Koen1

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1172
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #880 on: October 09, 2008, 02:03:43 PM »
Koen, I did not intend to suggest that Vallee knew nothing about Richter, I am sure he must have been aware of these other peoples efforts, I am just talking about the first post of this thread (Tesla_2006) possibly having its origins elsewhere than in Vallee's work.
Yes, I realised this too. Sorry if I was a bit harsh in my reply there. ;) No harm intended.
In any case, I quickly looked over the Richter link you provided, and it seems that there is a clear difference between the work of mr Richter and the Vallée theory.
Just quoting the Richter link, it says
Quote
Li7 + H = 2 He4 + Q  Q = 17.28 Mev 
H2 + H2 = H3 + Q + n  Q = 3.18 Mev 
Which seems to imply that the reactions Richter studied were hydrogen fusion or at least proton fusion reactions, in which one or more
hydrogen nuclei (= protons) fuse with for example a Lithium atom...

The Vallée Protelf reaction is the fusion of an atoms proton with one of the atoms own orbital electrons, temporarily. The resulting fusion
product, in the case of Carbon this would be a Boron atom, is highly unstable and will almost immediately fall apart and become the
original Carbon atom again, but the energy used to make the electron crash into the proton in the first place is released, plus some
additional energy from unknown source (quite possibly from ZPE which powers all atoms). This results in high velocity electrons aka
Beta radiation.

Although both processes appear to yield energy gain, they do seem to be different.
Unless I overlooked something. Which is possible, as I am only human, and with the recent financial crisis I do have a lot on my mind.


Quote
On your proposal it could possibly be a superior method of getting the energy out of a plasma provided we have a working energy source such as Richter's lithium -> helium +17.28 Mev and a torus might be the best way confining the reaction. Again here is the problem we need a simple reaction such as Vallee's if it can be shown to work. In your system why not use carbon dioxide or monoxide confined in the torus; the carbon could do its Vallee's carbon  -> boron -> carbon trick without a loss of gas?
Yes, that is the idea. No gas loss, just energy gain. ;)
But if you have checked out the tables in Vallée's papers, it shows how certain elements produce more or less energy in such reactions.
(as you can see in http://jlnlabs.online.fr/vsg/physics.htm, last 2 pages of the doc, and http://jlnlabs.online.fr/vsg/synergetique.htm, last page, and
http://jlnlabs.online.fr/vsg/theorie/index.htm also shows a little bit)
These tables state that the reformation of Carbon from our unstable Boron isotope yields 2.988 GW per gram,
while according to the same table the reformation of Oxygen from unstable Nitrogen isotopes yields 5.88 GW per gram,
that of Nitrogen from unstable Carbon yields 19 GW per gram, and that of Lithium from unstable Helium can yield
a whopping 47.6 GW per gram. So thats roughly two, six and fifteen times the potential yield of the Carbon->Boron->Carbon
reaction for Oxygen->Nitrogen->Oxygen, Nitrogen->Carbon->Nitrogen, and Lithium->Helium->Lithium, respectively.

Now Lithium gas may not be the easiest material to obtain and work with, so perhaps we should not focus too much
on that 47.6 GigaWatt reaction... but Oxygen and Nitrogen are easy to come by. Since the 19 GW is quite a nice
output, perhaps it would not be a bad idea to simply use a 100% Nitrogen filled reaction chamber. ?
:)


Quote
Another simple method is to use the old Poulsen arc oscillator. Carbon arcs have negative resistance characteristic and 100 years ago Poulsen used this carbon arc negative resistance to inject energy into a tuned circuit for radio transmission. The series tuned circuit was connected across the carbon arc, and the arc was supplied with power from a DC source via RF chokes. The RF output was in the KW range.
Clearly if the if the arc was maintained by the Vallee process or similar you would not need an external DC supply. The frequency could be much lower than RF say a few hundred Hz.

Ah, you meant it like that. ;D Yeah, that's almost exactly what I had in mind, but using a carbon arc...

Quote
But first we need this simple working nuclear reaction and so far Vallee's proposed reaction seems unproven.
Yeah, that's a bit odd... First there were no replications for years, then there were people who managed to get it to work,
and then all of a sudden people couldn't get it to work anymore...
Anyway, even with those that did get it to work, it only worked for a little while untill overheating and dust accumulation
caused the device to stop functioning properly.
I'm inclined to believe documented tests that mr. Naudin has posted on his website, so I still hope this works. ;)

In fact, I am now pondering different configurations to come up with the easiest to build. Now looking at toroidal glass
tubes for use as chamber. Lol flippin design looks like a miniature particle accellerator... hehe ;D

Kind regards,
Koen

sparks

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2528
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #881 on: October 09, 2008, 04:24:05 PM »
   The process you describe sounds almost like what Nasa does when it sling shots a spacecraft.  Changing the electrons orbital momentum into a beta emission.  We get the electrons orbital momentum (what got these little buggers buzzing around to begin with is a good thing) to be expressed outside the inertial frame of the neucleus and we got ourselves some atomic energy without screwing with the weak or strong forces.

AbbaRue

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 587
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #882 on: October 10, 2008, 09:13:10 PM »
@Koen1
This may be what is happening with my argon tubes as well, I haven't checked for radiation yet.
But Argon 40 would become Chlorine 40 which has a half life of 1.35 min. releasing 7.48 MeV.
An awsome site for isotopes is found here:
http://www.matpack.de/Info/Nuclear/Nuclids/nuclids0.html

For my DC. power supply I have a 40W light bulb in series with the input to the tube. (which hardly lights at all) 
And I get a 100 W light bulb to light to full brightness with the AC output from the tube.
So I put DC into the tube and I get AC out which I filter through a AC cap placed in series with the output.
The excess power is coming from somewhere and I seriously believe it may be the same principle as the carbon rods, only in a gaseous state.
I built 3 new tubes but I haven't got them working right yet, they loose there vacuum to quickly.
I believe it is from moisture in the tubes that has to be out gassed first, then hopefully they will be working properly.
It takes time to do this and I haven't had the time lately to do it.  I got distracted on another idea for a while.
But that is part of another thread here:
http://www.overunity.com/index.php?topic=1965.msg127749#msg127749
I will keep you posted there.
It is related to this thread in that is is similar to concept #3 on the first page of this thread.
I haven't placed strong magnets around the tube or checked for radiation yet.
Probably do that next time I get back to them again. 
« Last Edit: October 10, 2008, 09:40:23 PM by AbbaRue »

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #883 on: October 11, 2008, 12:26:38 PM »
Koen,
 I did not think your reply was harsh, I welcome challenges from people, this is the only way we clear up misunderstandings.
It would be nice if someone else would try to repeat Naudin's VSG experiment, exactly as possible . A fairly gutty toroidal transformer is needed to avoid core saturation (around 500 watts) when used as a current transformer but the rest is easy enough, a storage scope would also be useful.

Sparks,

I have tried the transmutation carbon to iron experiment first done by Champion/Bockriss/Kushi etc. I struck an arc between two spectrally pure  carbon rods in distilled water and I found that a number of particles in the brown sludge were attracted by a magnet suggesting the presence of iron or iron alloy as suggested by Champion and Kushi, so it works.
Of course none of this fits in the standard model so experiments like the carbon iron transmutation go down like a lead balloon to conventional physicists, unless the experiment costs a million$ it is worth nothing.  It seems to me that there are other transmutation routes used by nature which do not require a multi-billion dollar collider.  For example Champion in his book shows how elements transform by the addition/subtraction of multiple alpha particle sized groups. It is as though the nucleus were arranged in alpha particle sized building blocks that are fairly loosely cemented together.
 So the standard model is OK for predicting what happens when energetic particles are slammed into each other but nature clearly has a "back door" into the atom that achieves results on whole atoms rather than individual nuclear particles. It is as though the whole atom can be split or constituted from specific alpha particle sized blocks of nuclei making transitions from one element to another relatively easy such as Carbon + Oxygen -> silicon etc. However if you want to break up one of these blocks up you need a collider.
The very first successful nuclear fission experiment done when Rutherford fired alpha particles at lithium.

Mike

mikewatson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 98
Re: Single circuits generate nuclear reactions
« Reply #884 on: October 11, 2008, 01:04:53 PM »
Quote
[This may be what is happening with my argon tubes as well, I haven't checked for radiation yet.
But Argon 40 would become Chlorine 40 which has a half life of 1.35 min. releasing 7.48 MeV.
An awsome site for isotopes is found here:
/quote]

AbbaRue

It is interesting that all gas discharge tube eventually "run dry". The general theory is that the gas is absorbed into the tube walls or is "gettered" through metal vapour evaporated from the electrodes locking the gas up. Heating the tube does not restore the gas so where has it gone? it would seem it has been transmuted. Some of the transmutation product may be the black deposit around the electrodes, which conventionally is just evaporated electrode metal.  There is appears to be a small amount of radiation from a energy saving fluorescent lamp though a thin metal window going from 0.06 microS/hr background to 0.17 microS/hr, a standard fluorescent tube gives about 0.13 microS/hr on the beta+gamma setting (with a Gamma Scout as used by Naudin)much the same as Naudin was getting in the VSG experiment.

Mike