This is not new. For what it's worth, this has been published in numerous reviews in peer-reviewed journals, and then one paper by me, and is unchallenged in the journals. I call the situation "strong preponderance." Hey, I'm easy. I will strike the word "strong." Satisfied?
By “new”, I was referring to anything new in your argument, which might have changed since last time you recited it.
There is practically no other major option on the table. There is very little contrary evidence. Those are rebuttable statements, but nobody has so far managed to get them into a peer-reviewed journal.
Your focus is on the PdD FPHE effect. There’s obviously a lot beyond that in LENR research. Are the other areas well established? That’s a matter of debate. As for the PdD FPHE effect, it depends upon what you mean by "on the table." If by this you mean what LENR researchers take seriously, you might be right. If by this you refer to what the experimental evidence constrains us to consider, then induced decay/fission are also on the table.
If I had "full confidence," I would not be stating "preponderance of the evidence," which is a qualified statement, not an assertion of proven fact. Really all I care about is that the evidence is strong enough to warrant serious funding, and that question has been answered.
The phrase I used was “far too much confidence,” not “full confidence.” You speak with the confidence of the polemicist rather than the with the boring caveats of the scientist. Perhaps this is a description you’ll agree with?
Alpha decay is great, as an idea. Produces helium, yes. But not at the experimentally know ratio, and would show other effects not observed.
What conclusions can be drawn from the helium experiments are few: we have good evidence that there is a correlation of helium with excess heat in the PdD electrolytic system, and that something is producing more heat that can be accounted for by a chemical process. In addition, there are some researchers who report ratios that are on the order of 10's of MeV/4He. Some of the researchers believe this ratio can be quantified and that it is in the neighborhood of ~ 23 MeV/4He. But those conclusions are as of yet tentative. This situation leaves the parameters underdetermined, and as such the existing experimental evidence cannot be used to rule out alpha decay on the basis of a ratio that is not what we expect. This is straightforward to see when we allow the possibility that there might be a helium generating process and a heat generating process proceeding in parallel. Now we can expect helium to vary in relation to excess heat.
That the experimental evidence currently admits of other interpretations is apparent from the need for more experiments to firm up the conclusions you describe.
It is not too late, perhaps, to suggest to those doing the work that this or that should be tested. If it is not too expensive or difficult, they might do it.
Yes, Eric, you have discussed this at length. Where is the result of all that? Can it be reviewed to determine if there is some clear conclusion?
LENR researchers rightfully look for and plan experiments around what is of interest to them. I do not have the energy or motivation to try to influence them to look at the possibility of induced decay/fission, although I note that some experimentalists already report findings along these lines. I will be happy if a handful of hobbyists eventually take interest in it. (If it was unclear, I do not consider it something I have come up with; this possibility has been contemplated on several occasions in the past, even before 1989.)
Unfortunately the extended discussions we’ve had are unavailable to the public. I’m on the fence as to whether to rehash the contents. I do not find it edifying to go over the same points several times.
Get the number right, okay? 23.8 MeV is the theoretical value for energy from the production of helium from deuterium. And calling experiments by a dozen research groups, I think there were fifty or so total measurements, "several" is a bit, ah, distorted.
Is “~ 23 MeV” or “23.8 MeV” more correct for describing the theoretical expectation in question? If you take a second look, you’ll surely see the tilde. You have corrected me, but your correction is incorrect.
To get to the ~ 23 MeV/4He value, we must squint our eyes. First we might note and then look past the fact that the reported values are significantly less than ~ 23 MeV/4He, as is evident in Ed Storms’s histogram. Perhaps we’ll console ourselves with a thought about anodic stripping freeing up some 4He that is otherwise embedded too far into the cathode to be released into the offgass. We will not worry about the kinetic energy that will have been needed to accomplish such embedding. And we’ll also be happy with the assumption that there is a fixed ratio, and not a ratio that differs from experiment to experiment, as is actually seen in the wild. And on this basis perhaps we’ll conclude that we have a preponderance of evidence indicating the combining of deuterium, not necessarily via regular fusion.