LENR Theorist Lewis Larsen Dies
Lewis G. Larsen (Photo: Lloyd Degrane)
Lewis G. Larsen, 72, died on October 25, 2019.
Larsen developed the Widom-Larsen Ultra-Low-Momentum Neutron-Catalyzed Theory of Low-Energy Nuclear Reactions, with Allan Widom. He had been intrigued by low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) research.
Before his career in science, Larsen worked as a quantitative investment analyst, professional commodities trader and technology investment banker. In his first job in the investment world, as a physical commodities trader for Louis Dreyfus Corp., he ran the international export and trading program in sorghum, oats and soybean oil. He was featured three times in Barron’s magazine for his ability to predict patterns in stock indexes, commodity prices and interest rates.
Larsen had studied biophysics and astrophysics and began applying his scientific knowledge to LENRs in the late 1990s. At the time, he was running a technology consulting company specializing in energy and information management and control systems.
One of his clients asked him, “Are there any wild cards in energy?” Larsen remembered the fusion controversy from 1989. Larsen examined the results of transmuted elements in LENR experiments and methodically figured out the necessary steps to explain the process.
By early 2004, Larsen had most of the general concepts put together, but he needed an academic collaborator who was well-published and who had the physics and calculation skills to help him complete the development of the theory. Larsen hadn’t done these kinds of calculations for many years. After an extensive search, Larsen said, he found Allan Widom, a professor of condensed-matter physics at Northeastern University.
Together, in 2006, the pair published what is still the only plausible theory to explain LENRs. Their peer-reviewed papers provide a detailed, mathematically supported explanation of the experimental phenomena, not as fusion but as neutron and weak interactions.
The theory has been evaluated by experts from the U.S. Navy, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, NASA, Johns Hopkins University, Boeing, Booz-Allen, Science Applications International Corporation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and other scientists in the U.S. intelligence and defense communities.
Larsen was an invited speaker to the Department of Energy/Electric Power Research Institute High Efficiency Thermoelectrics workshop in February 2004. In October, 2006, Larsen and Widom were the only LENR theorists invited to speak at a DTRA meeting hosted at the Naval Research Laboratory.
The theory validates three decades of experimental research that reveals a new nuclear process. For the last 100 years, most scientists thought that nuclear reactions could occur only in high-energy physics experiments and in massive nuclear reactors. But LENR research shows otherwise: Nuclear reactions can also occur in small, benchtop experiments.
The research shows that, unlike fusion or fission, LENRs can release their energy without emitting harmful radiation or greenhouse gases or causing nuclear chain reactions. LENRs show promise of off-grid local-power generation that does not produce greenhouse gases.
