Maybe someone should do a proper analysis of Thomas's mathematics in his argument about the Lugano report, based on the fact he has just made such a glaring error.
In fact electrons can accelerate to very high velocities in a range of suitable plasmas.
Best regards
Frank
i actually did my own validation of Thomas's calculations in the beginning of this thread and I found them to be ok. I can recommend it to anyone who is interested - when you do it you can get an understanding for what was done wrong in the Lugano report. For me it was a minor shock to find out that the team of professors had made a mistake in an area that is so central to the report. I guess it is fair to say that it is likely that the Lugano test showed no excess heat based on this analysis. On the other hand I learnt a little later in this thread that there are two competing theories nullifying the Lugano test, which in my opinion is one too many. One thing is for sure and that is that the last word has not yet been said in this matter, and I enjoy following this "story".
Urban
Although the Wye to Delta hypothesis is quite coherent, there is something to be said for a version where it was Delta all the way, and 2/3 of the input power was lost, (practically stolen right out of the wires!), due to transmutation effects....
I thought this comment by Mats Lewan's on his blog yesterday was interesting:
Ok Thomas, so I have now been in contact with Levi regarding Lugano. Here’s the situation:
– He disputes your analysis and he says that he has shown the report to several colleagues with different expertise and they have endorsed it. This is supported by the fact that the report is still online at Bologna U.
– He also says that the simplest way to dispute your analysis is putting the emissivity to one (1), which according to Levi still gives COP clearly above 1. I have not controlled that calculation, but the logic seems reasonable to me. Emissivity cannot be higher than one, and putting it to one should give the lowest possible temperature calculation, and lowest possible COP. Or?
– I don’t consider my competence to be enough to assess possible errors in your analysis so I couldn’t make a claim on who is right. I don’t have the time either (I don’t know where you get the time from). But either you accuse Levi for being incompetent, or for making errors on purpose. The second is serious of course, and would need more evidence. But even so, it seems unlikely, as you often say, that several people with different expertise at Bologna U would make the same mistake as Levi in that case.
While this was quickly disputed by those who had already made up their minds, it may be that we just don't have ALL the information the testers have, and that maybe these colleagues were better able to judge?
Granted, Levi has been totally silent since his promise to answer questions 1 1/2 years ago...where the hell have you been Levi!, but taking Levi's late response at face value, there does seem to be some legitimate scientific differences of opinions regarding Lugano. It isn't settled in other words, and it may never be.
I am not taking anything away from Tim Clerk, or was that Thomas Clark 
, and the fine job he did and all, but he admittedly learned emissivity, and the Optris camera as he went. Took him 6 months to figure it out and he is an "expert". In contrast, how much experience and OJT did Levi's colleagues have? Of course, since these friends never came forward as their scientific duty calls, we will probably never know their qualifications and how they would have disagreed with Tom's analysis. In all fairness, that means Tom's conclusions stand, and will be the last word, by default....
Keep in mind though that he (Dr. Clark) did actually conclude a small COP of 1.07, with a big (20-40%) upside margin of era, and almost none on the down. Just saying.
Levi did not do himself a favor by making this statement.
What Levi fails to deal with is that the Optris is a form of spectro-radiometer, not a total radiometer. Therefore the Optris cannot judge anything outside of its spectral view window. It can accurately determine the surface temperature when suitable adjustments to the emissivity setting are made.
But Power is calculated using total exitence, which include transmission and emittance.
Emittance for purposes of calculating Power uses total hemispherical emissivity, which has been measured and documented for various alumina types for decades, and is reasonably well characterized.
Transmittance is particular to each material and the source of heat, and cannot be measured by an Optris, or calculated by using total hemisperical emissivity values from a book.
Only a Total Radiometer can measure total radiant power output.
I like doing this stuff only because I'm not an expert! It means I have to learn things to do it.
Maybe I am quite good at learning things?
I think Levi's: "several colleagues with different expertise" trump someone that is: "good at learning things".
Nobody markets a perfect greybody or blackbody tube to stick glowing hot selective emitters in?
What is this world coming to....?
I happen to have an old IR toaster oven recently donated to me. It has 4 long quartz glass IR bulbs in it. Quartz has a similar IR transmissivity-emissivity profile to alumina, and there is a dimmer or rheostat to turn the heat down a bit. It might make for a neat test to compare with what we think we see in the alumina heater system. But since the bulbs are transparent to visible light, it will kind of strange at the same time. I should be able to easily isolate one bulb.
Better check and see if my shades and the IR display work together, or I will end up having spots in my vision for a week...
Shane wrote:
QuoteI thought this comment by Mats Lewan's on his blog yesterday was interesting: [...]
While this was quickly disputed by those who had already made up their minds, it may be that we just don't have ALL the information the testers have, and that maybe these colleagues were better able to judge?
Granted, Levi has been totally silent since his promise to answer questions 1 1/2 years ago...where the hell have you been Levi!, but taking Levi's late response at face value, there does seem to be some legitimate scientific differences of opinions regarding Lugano. It isn't settled in other words, and it may never be.
Is it force of habit that you can't stop defending Rossi, even after you say you've decided the ecat likely does not work?
The difference between Clarke and Levi here is that Clarke's reasoning and calculations are spelled out in detail, and have been corroborated by several others also with explicit reasoning, as well as experimentally.
Levi has done little more than say he disagrees, and that some unnamed colleagues agree with him. This from someone who can't tell wet steam from dry, and has a conflict of interest. And the little actual technical content in his statement according to Lewan (about using an emissivity of 1 throughout) just shows he's not even up to speed on what the objections are.
So, if one is appealing strictly to authority, it seems most reasonable to go with the one whose case is laid bare, and has not met a specific challenge it couldn't answer.
--
But it really shouldn't matter, because if you conclude that the specifics of the heat measurements are not settled and may never be, then the Lugano report (or the excess heat part of it) is rendered meaningless.
You've been conceding in the last few days that Rossi could prove the ecat worked if it did in short order, and the 5 years that he hasn't is damning. Well, that applies to the Lugano report. It was meant to be a *validation*. It's not a validation if it is merely consistent with excess heat. I must also be inconsistent with no excess heat. If you concede, as you have, that it is consistent with no excess heat, then that just shows that the experiment is poorly designed. And that has been clear from the 2013 "validation". If they want to prove excess heat, then let them use calorimetry, and learn something about calibration -- a word that appears to be verboten in the entire field of cold fusion. The use of thermography without suitable calibration is just another way to pull a fast one.
QuoteI am not taking anything away from Tim Clerk, or was that Thomas Clark
Seriously? *You* are complaining about someone else's spelling. You who write Storm for Storms, and Krivits for Krivit, and don't know when to use "than" instead of "then" or "who" instead of "whom"?
Josh,
I just threw that out there because it is interesting, mainly so because this is the first time we have heard from Levi. Yeah, also the part about his colleagues caught my eye, but would you not have me post it just because the Rossi circus side show appears to be coming to an end?
I stated that Tom is the last word on Lugano -to me at least, but just can't help but be curious (aren't you?) as to what would happen if Levi, Essen, or any of the other testers were to speak out, right here, in their defense...if they even have one, which I doubt they do. But you never know. My curiosity doesn't mean I am trying to resurrect, or defend the Ecat.
This is a very complex story. As it unfolds, there will be things that seem to support Rossi's assertions, even though the bulk of the evidence against him will be strong. Nothing wrong with mentioning, and discussing those little particulars that don't quite fit the Rossi is a crook narrative...right?
Doing so may even serve some educational service to prevent others in the future from being suckered by the next scammer that comes along with a Warp drive or something.
Tom,
I was messing with you. Must have gone too far as you want to bet, plus Josh is coming to your defense.
back to the emissivity error, I have a naive question.
from the report I did not understand how Levi&al could "change the emissivity setup" of the IR cam with their iterative algorithm.
I've done a quick job integrating blackbody energy over the IR bandwidth (published in the forum with a curve), and basically the energy received by the bolometers is (high confidence regression) in approximate affine relation with the temperature with a zero about 230C (signalIRcam=const*(T-230C))
I did not see any such computation of the report . How can they iterate over temperature-emissivity, without such law?
I've heard they set the emissivity at 1.0 and corrected later ...
note that if the IR cam was set at emissivity 1.0, then temperature on the camera should be the same as the one I and Thomas have computed?
imagine that they correct nothing else the total emissivity? being... correct by mistake!
problem with my hypothesis is that I don't understand what they did for iterating.
anyway this seems to be student error, and absence of answers to emissivity questions let no chance to understand what happened...
is there manufacturer "bolometerresponse/emissivity vs temperature" tables available?
@AlainCo,
The iteration method used by the Lugano Professors, simply put, iterates back to a pre-determined emissivity answer.
They have a chart they made of literature emissivity vs temperature, then bounce things around with inputted higher and lower emissivity values to end up with exactly what their chart showed.
It is one of the weirdest things I have seen.
To prove this, make up a plot like theirs but with invented values. Then do their method. You see immediately what they did.
@AlainCo,
Let me just start by saying I am in now way an expert in this field, but I also wondered about the same part in the report. My interpretation is as follows: Let's assume that the emissivity is changing with temperature within the measurement band of the Optris. For alumina that is perhaps not so important since the emissivity for the wavelength range of the Optris is rather constant and above 0.9, but in the report they use "Plot 1" on page 9 to relate the emissivity to temperature. Then it becomes a problem when you are about to measure the temperature because the temperature from the camera is dependent on which emissivity you enter, which you don't know before you measured it. So let T=f( emissivity ), but the emissity is also dependent on the temperature, like this: emissivity = g( T ), see the Plot 1. Then if you combine those two equations you get that emissivity = g( f( emissivity ) ). This equation can be solved by iteration if the derivative is smaller than one, and the solution is called a "fixed point". You can for instance try with the equations x = 0.5x + 1 and x = 2x +1 and see that it converges for the case with 0.5x +1 and diverges for the case with 2x + 1.
@Urban Eriksson
If the Professors had referenced an external temperature, like that from a thermocouple, the iteration method would have worked.
Unfortunately, they reference their own graph, get the emissivity that matches the Optris temperature, and feedback the new emissivity value into the Optris or equation, for another iteration.
This can only lead to one fixed point: the emissivity on the plot they already made, at a specific temperature.
Well, took the old toaster apart. One element failed, and they are two in series, top and bottom.
To my surprise, the IR elements are not sealed bulbs, but instead a tight 25 cm long, 6mm diameter, 8 ohm Kanthal heater coil, installed in the quartz tube, open to the air at the ends. The caps are just push on, held in place by the coil. How very handy.
Unfortunately the heat dial adjusts a breaker type thermo switch, so no nice steady heat control to scavenge. Just off-on cycling at different rates.
The good news: The failed element broke right at the connector weld, so I now have 4 x 375W (maybe up to 450 W) Kanthal or 875 alloy heater coils, and four long quartz tubes. And a bit of high temperature rated wire.
