The World's Still Turning?

Guardian Unlimited | Science | Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1627424,00.html

What has much of the physics world up in arms is Dr Mills's claim that he has produced a new form of hydrogen, the simplest of all the atoms, with just a single proton circled by one electron. In his "hydrino", the electron sits a little closer to the proton than normal, and the formation of the new atoms from traditional hydrogen releases huge amounts of energy.

This is scientific heresy. According to quantum mechanics, electrons can only exist in an atom in strictly defined orbits, and the shortest distance allowed between the proton and electron in hydrogen is fixed. The two particles are simply not allowed to
get any closer.

According to Dr Mills, there can be only one explanation: quantum mechanics must be wrong. "We've done a lot of testing. We've got 50 independent validation reports, we've got 65 peer-reviewed journal articles," he said. "We ran into this theoretical resistance and there are some vested interests here. People are very strong and fervent protectors of this [quantum] theory that they use."

I was discussing this with my physics profs, who seemed to get a hearty chuckle out of the idea. One of them said, "It sounds like he's reinvented a great source of energy - combustion!"
The other was skeptical, as this guy, Randell Mills, isn't even a physicist, and none of the people who have reviewed his papers are physicists either. Kinda sketchy. I have to admit, though, that even browsing through some of the technical information, I couldn't make heads or tails of anything. Naturally I'm extremely skeptical of anything that makes such grandiose claims as to disprove all of quantum theory. If this lower energy state for electrons exists, then why aren't the electrons in it naturally? It just doesn't make sense to me. Additionally, it sounds like this guy is positing the existence of multiple energy levels between the "hydrino" state and the accepted ground-state determined by quantum theory... that is to say, any proper fraction is an energy level. Doesn't this leave open the possibly for an infinite series of energy levels? It irks me.

Anyways, time will likely soon tell whether he's "onto something," though I doubt very much that he is. I wouldn't jump on the investment bandwagon anytime soon.

posted by Steph @ 9:44 PM