That's the essence of Good Science. It must be repeatable and testable. If it doesn't hold up to these, it's only a unverified theorem.
Of course I understand that, but what I am saying is that it MIGHT be that until we get a good theory, we will not understand the needed conditions to make it consistently repeatable.
We could have put together mounds and mounds of U-238 and piled it as high as Mt. Everest and never got a bomb out of it.
But the theory - and knowing that U-235 was much more fissile than U-238 - allowed the first bomb to be built.
"It is assumed that after an exchange of multiple virtual photons with the electrons of the environment the relatively small excitation energy of compound nucleus 4He* vanishes,"
"In this case, the serial exchange of virtual photons with the electrons of the environment "
This sounds more like a magic act. I had a debate a week or so ago with a poster who assured me that things cannot just 'materialize' or 'vanish'. That matter cannot be created or destroyed. I am sure my lack of experience in nuclear physics has led to misunderstanding of the 'terminology' in use in this article, but it seems that the verbs and adjectives they used are rather 'sketchy'.
Then again, We do not really understand gravity nor magnetism, so...
I have an electroplating company. We often deal with a phenomenon called “hydrogen embrittlement”.
We know which plating processes create hydrogen embrittlement. We know which metals are susceptible. From experience and empirical data, we know how long to bake after plating and at what temperature to prevent hydrogen embrittlement.
However, NOBODY REALLY UNDERSTANDS THE MECHANISM OF HYDROGEN EMBRITTLEMENT. I have read several theories, and the chemists and physicists are trying to explain it.
Man has used a lot of technologies long before we fully understood the how and why. I’m sure the ancients brewed beer thousands of years ago without a microscope to see the yeast.
If Rossi or someone else can boil water and make electricity, then let’s use the technology. The theorists and experimenters will catch up later. When we need to understand the physics the funding will flow and the great minds will make the breakthroughs.
BTW, I think Pons and Fleischman knew about hydrogen embrittlement and the theories that the hydrogen somehow developed tremendous pressure inside the metal between the grains.