Lugano performance recalculated - the baseline for replications

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

Does not compute... Breed more 7Li, deplete 6Li. Four Li channels produce 6He-->6Li, i.e. more 6Li. You have to make up your mind!

Yes, indeed. The ratio in the Lugano test (2014) was the natural ratio at the start and significantly elevated 6Li at the end, as measured by two teams. If Rossi was simply mistaken about his device, or perhaps fraudulent, and investigators were duped, then there will be a mundane explanation for this change. One explanation for example is that enriched 6Li was planted. Another is that there was measurement error on the part of both teams doing the assays. A third possibility is that there was some kind of natural separating out of the lithium isotopes. I do not offer an opinion about the plausibility of these suggestions. What do people suggest is the mundane explanation for the shift in 7Li/6Li in the 2014 Lugano test?

Quote

As far as I remember 7Li was depleted in the Lugano test, not enriched. The main reaction was supposedly p+7Li-->2 alpha.

This reaction would presumably explain the imbalance by depleting 7Li and leaving behind only the remaining 6Li. Another possibility is spallation: 4He + 7Li → 6Li + 4He + n.

Quote from Eric Walker

Yes, indeed. The ratio in the Lugano test (2014) was the natural ratio at the start and significantly elevated 6Li at the end, as measured by two teams. If Rossi was simply mistaken about his device, or perhaps fraudulent, and investigators were duped, then there will be a mundane explanation for this change. One explanation for example is that enriched 6Li was planted. Another is that there was measurement error on the part of both teams doing the assays. A third possibility is that there was some kind of natural separating out of the lithium isotopes. I do not offer an opinion about the plausibility of these suggestions. What do people suggest is the mundane explanation for the shift in 7Li/6Li in the 2014 Lugano test?

Judging from other fuel sampling experiences the likely explanation is planting. I do not believe in measurement error - the people performing the analysis are independent, competent and reliable.

Here is my theory on how Li came into the E-Cat saga (from a conversation/e-mail exchanges with Sven K in May 2011).

To start with Rossi said that the reaction was p+Nu-->Cu (J Nucl Phys report with Focardi). This was very hard to believe since the reactions should give lots of gammas. There are, however, a few reactions with light nuclei that do not produce gammas directly. p+7Li-->2 alpha is one. The reaction has a large positive Q-value (18 MeV) because of the tightly bound alphas in the exit channel.

This was then thought to explain the absence of external radiation, since the alphas would have a very short range. The problem is that when you do the sums there is an enormous flux of 9 MeV alphas that will react with Li and Ni. You would get neutrons from the reaction with Li and gammas from inelastic scattering in the Ni isotopes. The radiation level would simply be lethal!

This is the reason why almost all nuclear physicists reject LENR. You need some kind of radiation to take away energy from the reaction. The energy difference in nuclei is, however, usually at least a few hundred keV, and these will easily escape from the reactor.

This is also the reason that the minute it is shown that E-Cat produces nuclear reactions (which will not happen) it will be unusable and illegal.

In my opinion there are only 2 alternatives with regard to the purportedly transmuted sample. They both involve Rossi salting the sample and relate only to motive.

1) Rossi salted the sample in case the Lugano testers were able to figure out the calibration trick. That way he could still show "something" happened. It could also have served the purpose of squelching curiosity on the part of the testers about their heat measurements if it had come back showing no difference. They might have gone back to the drawing board to figure out where they went wrong. Since something "clearly" happened with transmutation, it provided some sort of oddity to which to attribute the results.
2) As others have asserted, Rossi salted the sample in order to keep people from knowing what his real formula was.

#2 seems incredibly unlikely if one assumes his patent discloses everything needed for a working device. IH claims to have been unable to substantiate any of Rossi's claims. Nobody else has credibly or repeatedly substantiated any of his claims either. If one is to follow the data objectively, the best conclusion at present is that any apparently positive results are likely due to error given the large number of negative results.

Basically, it comes down to where is the lie, not if there is one. People attribute Rossi's lack of disclosure to IH and his patent as clever social acumen (placing the lie here), but my opinion is that he has nothing else to share. The only play left is to try to get $267M from IH.

Quote from Jack Cole

In my opinion there are only 2 alternatives with regard to the purportedly transmuted sample. They both involve Rossi salting the sample and relate only to motive.

1) Rossi salted the sample in case the Lugano testers were able to figure out the calibration trick. That way he could still show "something" happened. It could also have served the purpose of squelching curiosity on the part of the testers about their heat measurements if it had come back showing no difference. They might have gone back to the drawing board to figure out where they went wrong. Since something "clearly" happened with transmutation, it provided some sort of oddity to which to attribute the results.
2) As others have asserted, Rossi salted the sample in order to keep people from knowing what his real formula was.

#2 seems incredibly unlikely if one assumes his patent discloses everything needed for a working device. IH claims to have been unable to substantiate any of Rossi's claims. Nobody else has credibly or repeatedly substantiated any of his claims either. If one is to follow the data objectively, the best conclusion at present is that any apparently positive results are likely due to error given the large number of negative results.

Basically, it comes down to where is the lie, not if there is one. People attribute Rossi's lack of disclosure to IH and his patent as clever social acumen (placing the lie here), but my opinion is that he has nothing else to share. The only play left is to try to get $267M from IH.

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The details of how the Ni62 particle was removed from the Lugano reactor speaks against the salting theory. The large totally melted nickel particle was welded to the side of the reactor wall in the center of the reactor and had to be dislodged with a pick. This particle was 600 microns wide and an estimated 1000 microns long.

The nickel particle feed stock was 5 micron particles that were sintered in a fuel preparation process to produce a particle size distribution of from 1 to 100 microns covered with lithium 7.

The large ash ni62 particle came out of the reactor covered with lithium 6. A removal process that was witnessed by the Lugano testers makes it impossible for salting to occur involving such an unusual particle, how it was covered with lithium 6, its isotopic purity, and the way it was removed from the reactor.

I am really reaching here on the Lugano test results. And I must say, I followed the controversy. Maybe Mr. Rossi used a saws-all or a cut off tool that had previous contamination on the blade from other experiments.Maybe old stock using existing reactor pipes, maybe whatever. Surely he had to cut into a lot of reactors. Also if someone can show me where Toms analysis or MFMPs is incorrect I will revisit. I remember that the camera results had a margin of error. But the ash should not be considered. It is borked.

I have a question for a separate thread (maybe) but if someone posts with a rebuttal that is backed up with facts, I do not see the need to vilify them. Only when it becomes a rant or it is in violation of the rules.

Do we all agree that we need to follow scientific method regardless where it leads? Thought so.

Quote from Rigel

I am really reaching here on the Lugano test results. And I must say, I followed the controversy. Maybe Mr. Rossi used a saws-all or a cut off tool that had previous contamination on the blade from other experiments.Maybe old stock using existing reactor pipes, maybe whatever. Surely he had to cut into a lot of reactors. Also if someone can show me where Toms analysis or MFMPs is incorrect I will revisit. I remember that the camera results had a margin of error. But the ash should not be considered. It is borked.

I have a question for a separate thread (maybe) but if someone posts with a rebuttal that is backed up with facts, I do not see the need to vilify them. Only when it becomes a rant or it is in violation of the rules.

Do we all agree that we need to follow scientific method regardless where it leads? Thought so.

The core of the Lugano reactor reached a temperature that was higher than the melting point of nickel. This is not subject to error, because the nickel was melted in large volume. QED.

Peter Ekstrom wrote: "And Widom-Larsen theory is not an accepted theory."

While the WL theory of the LENR phenomenon has not been accepted, it is, nonetheless, consistent with accepted theories of QM and the nuclear reaction channels in question here. Incidentally, the reaction channels involving "ultra-low momentum neutrons" (ULMNs) of the WL theory would not necessarily generate the "lethal" radiation levels that you cited. The ULMNs are confined to the LENR reactors and any stray gammas (γ) could be easily shielded by Lead.

@axil The core of the Lugano reactor reached a temperature that was higher than the melting point of nickel. This is not subject to error, because the nickel was melted in large volume. QED.

Not sure what you mean here. I mean the ash. But on the temperature to melt , it could be a result of power or confinement. You are trusting the results? From other entries I think I understand that you think that the transmutation has occurred [in the ratio in the test results].
I just can not see it.

Lithium in some form has been in the Rossi reactors since the beginning.
Ni 62 has been both bred and installed in various Rossi designs since the beginning.
According to both evidence and the lore.

Quote from Rigel

@axil The core of the Lugano reactor reached a temperature that was higher than the melting point of nickel. This is not subject to error, because the nickel was melted in large volume. QED.

Not sure what you mean here. I mean the ash. But on the temperature to melt , it could be a result of power or confinement. You are trusting the results? From other entries I think I understand that you think that the transmutation has occurred [in the ratio in the test results].
I just can not see it.

The melted nickel particle is pictured in the Lugano report. The temperature that melted that latge particle was due to a temperature above the melting point of nickel(1455C). If Clarke is correct that the outside temperature was less than or low or whatever, the core was producing excess heat because that core was simply hotter than the outside of the reactor. The lower the temperature that Clarke says that that outside of the reactor was, the more excess heat that the Lugano reactor produced.

The core is almost always hotter. It is hard to get a colder or isothermal core in a cylinder.
Sintering Ni can begin at around 500 C. Lower melting point metals assist sintering of higher melting point metals in most cases.
What goes in, or starts in, eventually must come out, as far as heat is concerned.
A huge amount of Ni62 and Li6 would be required in order to overwhelm the inserted 1 gram of fuel in order to get the final amounts compared to the natural abundance in the fuel. Incredibly risky, extremely expensive, and obvious as hell to IH, the fuel and reactor maker.

Quote from David <br>Brady

Peter
Ekstrom wrote: "And Widom-Larsen theory is not an accepted theory."

While the WL theory of the LENR phenomenon has not been accepted, it is,
nonetheless, consistent with accepted theories of QM and the nuclear
reaction channels in question here. Incidentally, the reaction channels
involving "ultra-low momentum neutrons" (ULMNs) of the WL theory would
not necessarily generate the "lethal" radiation levels that you cited.
The ULMNs are confined to the LENR reactors and any stray gammas (γ)
could be easily shielded by Lead.

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You can dream up as many theories you want (and there are quite a few
that try to explain E-Cat), but they are of no interest if they only
explain excess energy. There are an infinite number of theories that do
that. What is needed is proper nuclear physics data: gamma and neutron
radiation from the reactor and isotope analysis of fuel/ash. I have
looked at W-L theory a long time ago and there are lots of flaws. ULMN
is, for instance, nonsense. The cross section is supposed to be very
large at very low neutron energies (sigma prop to 1/v). But the cross
section is determined by the relative motion. Unless your reactor is at
absolute zero, the relative energy is not that low because of
temperature motion. Properties of low-energy neutrons are well known -
you can for instance store slow neutrons in a jar that is open at the
top using the gravitational field.

But this is not the place to discuss W-L theory, so I'll stop here.

To make it clear for every body: Physics has never had any exact theory of any phenomen happing at distances below 1 fm!

All physics has so far is a loosely coupled best guess approach linking phenomenas by a set of obviously noisy ( as chemist use them) rules.

Just remember: Newton, Maxwell, ART are "exact" theories of the first order which allow to make exact (very very low deviations ) predictions.

All nuclear theories have chemists level. They can make (noisy) predictions for a very narrow and restricted space if there is a gauge, based on many exact measured experiments.

W-L: Theory has just entry level chemist level not more. ( compareable to the many theories for the Kennedy assassination...)

Quote from Paradigmnoia

A huge amount of Ni62 and Li6 would be required in order to overwhelm the inserted 1 gram of fuel in order to get the final amounts compared to the natural abundance in the fuel.

If one assumes heterogeneous intermixture of the 62Ni, and unrepresentative sampling (only one or two small particles were recovered), you could see what was reported in Lugano without requiring too much 62Ni. A small amount of 62Ni could have been added ahead of time and just missed during the sampling of the fuel, perhaps on the assumption on Rossi's part that it serves as a catalyst (similarly to Alan's comment above about Cu). Because lithium is so volatile, any 6Li will need to have been specifically salted, after the run when the fuel charge was extracted, if it is to have appeared in the results in the same manner. While the adding of 62Ni in advance could have simply been something Rossi hoped would have been missed, salting of 6Li after the test could only have been a deliberate attempt to mislead the investigators and sabotage any isotope analysis.

Quote from Peter Ekstrom

The cross section is supposed to be very large at very low neutron energies (sigma prop to 1/v). But the cross section is determined by the relative motion. Unless your reactor is at absolute zero, the relative energy is not that low because of temperature motion.

Moreover, in practical terms the cross-section is always finite, due to the such phenomena as the neutron optical potential. To get power on the order of 1 W, you'll need something like ~ 1e11 neutron captures per second or more. Any inefficiencies in capture will lead to a fraction of those ULM neutrons reflecting off of lattice sites, attaining thermal velocities (which are quite fast in human terms) and escaping the apparatus in large numbers. Multiply 1e11 by an efficiency of 0.9999999, and you get ~ 99 billion neutrons escaping per second.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

One way of looking at this is that LENR proposes nuclear reactions which have NONE of the expected characteristics of nuclear reactions. But those are very well studied, and the signature of nuclear activity is very difficult to hide.

Nuclear reactions have been well characterized in four or so settings that I am aware of: plasmas, ion bombardment of thin foils, ion beam collisions, and the observation of radioactive decay. They have also been studied in other contexts, and we are aware of such trivia as the fact that some electron screening will increase reaction rates in ion bombardment. To my mind, as an observer and hobbyist, we have not sufficiently characterized nuclear reactions in the solid state or in electron-rich environments to draw hard and fast conclusions about what can be expected of them there. This is perhaps due in part to the difficulties of initiating them in such settings.

@Eric Walker
Re: unrepresentative sampling.

If one is attempting to stack the deck, then random chance will not do.
The odds of picking the most extreme versions of an inhomogeneous sample in the order that has significance is very, very low, but probably not impossible.
I wouldn't bet on it.

In the case if unrepresentative sampling of inhomogeneous fuel, we need not assume that Rossi's intention was for the 62Ni to be sampled, and it was just a fluke. Indeed, we might suspect that he would have preferred that the 62Ni not be sampled. Have I missed your point?