Theory is necessary for understanding what is happening. I can see you do not understand this simple fact about science.
What a waste of time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as what I know, we (science) does not know how cortisone work. You know, the miracle medicine that seemingly helps many medical needs. We've been using it for decades, helping huge amounts of people.
Pathosceptic - should we stop using it due to that we do not have any theory on how it works?
Display MoreMore positively:
Good grasp of theory is necessary to understand what experimental results mean, and (when there are errors) catch them. You can see in part the believer mentality comes from accepting experimental results uncritically because of not having the theoretical tools to work out what they mean and whether this makes sense.
theory is also necessary in a different way. You can't knock down standard theories without an alternate hypothesis to put in their place. In that case your hypothesis is scutinised,as a new potential theory, for consistency and for making predictions that are experimentally validated.
Much of the LENR argumnet here is negative. "Here is an experiment with an anomaly which i don't understand => LENR".
Now, experiments with real anomalies indeed represent something that motivates new hypotheses, challenges existing theory. But it is not good when you don't have a predictive hypothesis to put in place of existing theories. If all your LENR hypothesis predicts is that sometimes (but not usually) experiments will show excess heat it is not a real theory, and certainly can'r be preferred over some mundane explanation for occasional excess heat like a combination of error and fraud.
Kim, for example, develops a BEC model of L:ENR, and initially he predicted that LENR results of excess heat would happen more readily at lower temperatures. that prediction failed, and he has now changed his ideas to match observation. that is not a good sign. Loose theories can always be over-fitted to evidence. Different evidence, just change some feature of the not understood theory. The theory starts to have traction when it makes definite predictions for new results which are later found correct. Kim's theory was, initially, such a definite predictor. Unfortunately the prediction was not validated.
So, if you think LENR (as possible new physics) is about experiment and no theory you are going to get things very wrong. There are some experimental results so striking they support new theories anyway if validated. LENR unfortunately has a collection of non-striking results at the moment.
Were Rossi's claims to be founded they would be very clear striking results. Unfortunately when independently tested they vanish. (The isotopic evidence - striking - was not independent).
First let me reiterate of states where we agree. I have long posted here indicating that I don't think much of the Lipinski's grand theory. And I agree that the "resonance" at 233 eV is not supported well by the data they present which does not even seem to center on 233. By analogy with Mossbauer, we would expect nuclear resonances to be extremely sharp. Now, this is probably not Mossbauer related, and may not really be resonance per se, but nevertheless it is apparently nuclear or at least nucleonic. Instead their data show strong activity at everything ranging from 100 eV up to perhaps 2000 eV. Not likely even with some sort of broadening, particularly at these relatively low thermal energies, would a sharp resonance become so loose.
Now let me critique your critique on LENR. We need to get it straight. LENR is not a theory, unless you take the meaning "Lattice Enabled Nuclear Reactions". For many it is "[lexicon]Low Energy Nuclear Reactions[/lexicon]". Most I think believe this is the most prevalent meaning of the acronym. And we would have to say that designation is strictly descriptive, not theoretical. The term should be refined a bit, clearly sometimes, or even often, events are reported, or hoped for, that are not "Low Energy" at all. If they were true observations, they are quite high energy per nuclear reaction. The "Low Energy" has to refer to the activation energy. If chemical level process or reactions at up to a few keV can give rise to nuclear products from say one MeV to 30 MeV that would be an example of LENR, and clearly there is the meaning that the reaction was activated by low energy, not that the products are low energy at all. But we cannot keep chasing our own tails. For me, it is all really CF and always has been. When and if it matures, physicists of the old school and new will likely return to that as the most general designation in public popular discourse. But I repeat it is not a theory.... as you point out Kim has a theory and there are many other theories... they can fit as explanations under the category of LENR or CF. That is any of those theories (Kim, Chubb, Arata, Mills, Storms whoever) can fit as hypotheses or explanations of some or all of items in the descriptive category of LENR or CF, or CANR or whatever. You surely noted that the Lipinskis refuse to call their process LENR or CF ... but, I believe that is a legal tactic rather than a categorical fact.
The place of publication for this potentially revolutionary process is something we can debate. There is no room in conventional physics for publishing this work. There would have been room in the very permissive journals and publications that have grown up around LENR / CF. But had they done that, then they would have been constrained against assuring their proprietary rights to patent protection. For what their work apparently is, the route to disclosure is likely just right. Unlike Rossi, they appear to have very sophisticated patent attorneys and/or agents working on their behalf. No surprise considering their venue in Palo Alto, currently the worlds likely leading hotbed of patent litigation (or is that now Shanghai?).
The process and its abundant description here are a gift of the WIPO and US patent law. The UGC / Lipinski very precise descriptions are exactly what was intended way back in 1803 when Jefferson, then as Sec'y. of State, supervised the rationalization of our patent system, based on earlier less specific laws, from then on requiring both novelty and full disclosure of the "arts". Journals were a difficult venue in those days, maybe two or three of them existed, such as Comptes Rendus from 1666 and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society from 1665, or the Proceedings of the Royal Society 1800 (remember Martin Fleischmann was a fellow or the Royal Society, by the way).
Any of us can legally replicate the Lipinski work and even publish our results... we just cannot sell our replication to others without dealing with the Lipinskis' proprietary rights. While we can replicate their device, and we might even generate power for ourselves. I'm sure we would find that we cannot sell that power to others without risk of infringing the UGC / Lipinski patent(s).
Replication of the Lipinski work appears to be fairly simple. I've mentioned before, one needs a vacuum chamber of modest size, a vacuum roughing pump and a turbomolecular pump. Of course one needs to buy or build the instruments to monitor the vacuum system. A high voltage (up to 2000 volts) amplifier capable of running the square wave outputs of a standard signal generator ($100) up to the potentials needed for biasing the target. If one gets obsessed with very sharp risetimes, then one might also directly make such high voltage signals using vacuum tube circuitry for electrostatic speakers, once popular in the Hi-Fi stereo scene. One needs to make a proton source. The Review of Scientific Instruments (a great journal!) has published several descriptions of those, apparently often based often on standard microwave oven parts. One probably needs to have a means of absorbing the heat from wherever the 4 MeV alpha flux is terminating. Depending on the fluence, that should give some warm water at least, and thereby a direct read setting some preliminary levels to the energy output. If you reach a Q of several thousand, you should have some real serious heat from even half a watt of protons in.
Seventy pages of quite detailed material in the Lipinski WIPO application. One has to read it to critique it. You can scan the tables for the headers and the energies and look at the particular conditions general to each of the many particular tables. But one really has to go down the whole bunch of them. Look at the ones whose conditions don't produce much energy. Look at the effects of changing target bias voltages. Look at how miserably poor the results of blasting away with very high energy protons--- which, by the way, with huge excess energies providing one with a sort of "super negative" control, that is, this is exactly where one would expect the most stray ions causing artifacts. But, if that is not convincing perhaps the fact that they did their work (you might say claimed to) in three different US government accelerator labs. Is there not on site expertise in protecting the facility and its instruments from improperly conducted experiments? I don't know, I am sure there is safety monitoring that would not allow a lot of stray radiation around.... Of course the experiments themselves and the monitoring instruments are housed in standard vacuum chambers so perhaps that moots out... that is no alphas are likely to escape anyway. And these are aneutronic reactions, or at least the Li 7, at ~92.5% of natural Li is.
When you get to the tables closer to the end of the 70 pages, you will see the Q of well over 7000. It is something to warm the heart of any CF / LENR dreamer. You can bet Dennis Bushnell is aware of their work-- if not, he soon will be.
I'll return later, gotta do my running, keep the ticker working.
Longview
Tick tack toe.
I have been waiting for so long. Where is it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as what I know, we (science) does not know how cortisone work. ...
Correct conclusion, wrong premise. Of course, we don't need to know how cold fusion/LENR works to demonstrate it if it exists in a robust form. But as it happens, the biological actions of cortisone and why and how it works has been extensively studied for decades. Try looking it up in Wikipedia or better yet, Google Scholar. You may be surprised.
[quote='Longview','http://www.lenr-forum.com/forum/index.php/Thread/1754-Lugano-performance-recalculated-the-baseline-for-replications/?postID=5342#post5342'Depending on the fluence, that should give some warm water at least, and thereby a direct read setting some preliminary levels to the energy output. If you reach a Q of several thousand, you should have some real serious heat from even half a watt of protons in...
When you get to the tables closer to the end of the 70 pages, you will see the Q of well over 7000. It is something to warm the heart of any CF / LENR dreamer. You can bet Dennis Bushnell is aware of their work-- if not, he soon will be.
Longview[/quote]
I would love to see that experiment where someone has a half watt of protons in (whatever exactly that means and how it can be measured and calibrated) and 3500 watts out as your "Q" value predicts. That would be "WOW! experiment" so where is it? Similarly, Rossi fans always claim that stability is an issue in his "reactors". So I would like to see him set up at White Sands or in some other desert and create a nice fat explosion whose energy could be accurately measured. I'm not holding my breath for that.
PS: Dennis Bushnell is an unreliable woowoo IIRC. Again, if IIRC, he and Jim Dunn (another NASA woowoo) thought Defkalion's claims were real although the company's principals were obvious consistent liars and blowhards and the claims were clearly rubbish.
ETA: well... I can't find if/where Bushnell endorsed Defkalion or Rossi so to be fair, I have to withdraw that. So many pages have been removed... including several on NASA's site. Jim Dunn's gullibility is well documented. I was involved in helping to prevent Dick Smith from investing a million dollars in Defkalion at Dunn's recommendation!
Now let me critique your critique on LENR. We need to get it straight. LENR is not a theory, unless you take the meaning "Lattice Enabled Nuclear Reactions". For many it is "[lexicon]Low Energy Nuclear Reactions[/lexicon]". Most I think believe this is the most prevalent meaning of the acronym. And we would have to say that designation is strictly descriptive, not theoretical. The term should be refined a bit, clearly sometimes, or even often, events are reported, or hoped for, that are not "Low Energy" at all. If they were true observations, they are quite high energy per nuclear reaction. The "Low Energy" has to refer to the activation energy. If chemical level process or reactions at up to a few keV can give rise to nuclear products from say one MeV to 30 MeV that would be an example of LENR, and clearly there is the meaning that the reaction was activated by low energy, not that the products are low energy at all. But we cannot keep chasing our own tails. For me, it is all really CF and always has been. When and if it matures, physicists of the old school and new will likely return to that as the most general designation in public popular discourse. But I repeat it is not a theory.... as you point out Kim has a theory and there are many other theories... they can fit as explanations under the category of LENR or CF. That is any of those theories (Kim, Chubb, Arata, Mills, Storms whoever) can fit as hypotheses or explanations of some or all of items in the descriptive category of LENR or CF, or CANR or whatever. You surely noted that the Lipinskis refuse to call their process LENR or CF ... but, I believe that is a legal tactic rather than a categorical fact.
I agree LENR is used as a descriptive term. But not that it describes nuclear reactions. It actually describes a great variety of anomalous evidence: anomalous particle counts, anomalous power measurements, (hardly ever: anomalous isotopic analyses).
None of these anomalies are coherent, in the sense that they can predict each other. The meta-hypothesis of "experiment error or misinterpretation" fits 99%. It would not be unreasonable to reckon that the meta-hypothesis of fraud/delusion could fit the other 1%.
Against these meta-hypotheses, which are ordinary, we have no proper scientific hypothesis. We have a meta-hypothesis of extraordinary nuclear reactions. This must then be bent quite a lot to fit the (lack) of evidence for nuclear reactions. of course, since it is not a theory just a meta-hypothesis anything required of it can be assumed.
Now, for me, that makes the LENR meta-hypothesis very weak, as well as being extraordinary. The "error/delusion/fraud" hypothesis wins by a very large amount because it is ordinary - for example of the publicised experimets with details I've found obvious errors in at least half. Given the lack of details that is impressive. It also wins because it fits the random and erratic data seen like a glove. It also fits the fact that none of these effects, when replicated, turn out to stau large. It also fits the fact that all of the replicable effects are within experimental error, and when experiments are tightened up the effects reduce.
Quote
The place of publication for this potentially revolutionary process is something we can debate. There is no room in conventional physics for publishing this work. There would have been room in the very permissive journals and publications that have grown up around LENR / CF. But had they done that, then they would have been constrained against assuring their proprietary rights to patent protection. For what their work apparently is, the route to disclosure is likely just right. Unlike Rossi, they appear to have very sophisticated patent attorneys and/or agents working on their behalf. No surprise considering their venue in Palo Alto, currently the worlds likely leading hotbed of patent litigation (or is that now Shanghai?).
There is room in physics for publishing LENR - it just has to be of decent quality:
Holmlid
Hagelstein
Larssen
would be clear examples. The experimental work does not often get published (Holmlid's is) because it does not make the quality test of having good methodology and results that are significant. I'd argue that is because there are no significant results. It is also true that many of the people doing LENR research are sloppy in their experimental method.
I'd say such sloppiness is almost requied for LENR experimentalists because if accurate you end up with a whole load of null experiments and get bored after a while. There are some good people doing LENR experiments in this state - you don't hear much about them because null experiments well done are not of much interest on the internet. (Earthtech, some other guy MFMP have been talking to whose name i forget, to mention two examples).
Larsen has published pure nonsense, nothing else. Others.. childish papers based on bad measurements and wishful thinking.
Dear Thomas Clarke,
I am analysing in detail your article and your code (I just run the script through Anaconda Python and I checked the input data). I am not finished yet, but I have some comments.
You say: “In [5] the dependence of R on T is assumed to be R∝T4”.
I do not understand what you mean.
In [5], in order to obtain the surface temperature during the test, the following system is solved iteratively:
The two unknowns are:
Planck is the black body spectral radiance, emiss is the known emissivity of the alumina (assumed independent of T), sens is the known sensitivity of the IR camera (assumed independent of T). The integral is performed only on the camera range (7.5 to 13 [μm]).
The function CameraSoftware, is not exactly known, but can be investigated by testing it.
What Higgins does is to find (iteratively) first a curve of eq_emiss(T) defined by equation (1):
eq_emiss(T) = integral(Planck(λ,T)*emiss(λ)*sens(λ)) / integral(Planck(λ,T))
This curve is then combined with the second equation, by iterating experimentally on the camera software:
T = CameraSoftware(Measured_Power,eq_emiss),
finding the combination (T, eq_emiss) that satisfies both equations and solves the system. At the solution temperature alumina would emit (in the camera range) a radiation that, attenuated by the sensitivity of the camera, would cause the same temperature reading (by the camera software) when using the eq_emiss.
Once the operating temperature is known, in [5] the total radiated power is calculated as the black body radiation scaled down by the emissivity of alumina.
Higgins actually does something more, he calculates an equivalent broad-band emissivity for each surface temperature, so that it becomes possible to calculate the total radiated power just multiplying the total Planck radiation (Stefan–Boltzmann law=σT4) by a single number: the equivalent broad-band emissivity,eq_emiss_tot.
The broad-band (single value) emissivity is calculated “averaging” the alumina emissivity curve (completed “manually” by Higgins between 1 and 4 [μm] because of lack of data and considering the progressively increasing transparency of alumna at higher temperature), using Planck’s spectral radiance as weight, similarly to what was done for the first equation of the system above:
eq_emiss_tot(T)=integral_broad( Planck(λ,T)*emiss(λ)*sens(λ) ) / integral_broad(Planck(λ,T))
This time the integral (broad-band) extends from 1 to 25 [μm], covering the vast majority of the emitted power. Therefore the integral_broad(Planck(λ,T)) is now practically equivalent to σT4. So at any temperature the broad-band single value emissivity allows to scale down the Stefan–Boltzmann power obtaining the real total radiated power, and so the COP.
I do not see the mistake you point out: “The mistake in the Report comes from using textbook values for total emissivity when what is needed is the corresponding value of the band emissivity”.
The only missing bit in Higgins’ procedure is your calculation of the apparent higher emissivity due to the ridges on the surface. Apparent emissivities of corrugated surfaces are higher than the “flat” (real) emissivities, especially at intermediate values (around 0.4-0.5). This, as you say, influences the estimation of the temperature reached by the reactor surface. Apparent higher emissivities due to the ridges mean that the Optris camera will receive in its measuring range more energy than that of a flat surface. So the real surface temperature and the radiation power are lower than as estimated without the correction.
However the total power radiated will be more than that calculated without the correction because of the higher apparent emissivity (higher surface, limited by the reciprocal view factors of the faces inside each ridge). Since the second effect is larger than the first, as you point out in your table, the final radiated energy is higher than that estimated by Higgins.
The dummy run in series, as you say, is an essential operation that unfortunately was not carried out in the Lugano test.
About isotopic shifts. They are real, have been measured not only by the testers of Rossi, but by tens of researchers in LENR experiments. IMHO suggesting that Rossi could have tampered with the powders, is in between ridiculous and offensive for all the people involved.
The client of Rossi will comment and this will settle all debates. We shall be patient.
Well, you children go on with your meaningless dreaming.
I guess my time is better spent elsewhere.
Cheers to Alain.
The client of Rossi will comment and this will settle all debates. We shall be patient...
The dummy run in series, as you say, is an essential operation that unfortunately was not carried out in the Lugano test.
How do you know Rossi has or ever had a client? Rossi claimed to have a "customer" in November 2011 and he had his test of the megawatt "plant" tested by a "NATO colonel" (whatever THAT is). Any sign of these people now? No. And there is no sign of the 12 orders Rossi said he had for megawatt plants from the US military! Nor have the people who supposedly tested Rossi's thermoelectric devices at the University of New Hampshire ever come forward.
In all probability, Rossi never had a customer other than himself and perhaps some paid-off friends. All the information about clients and customers is "Rossi says" -- completely unreliable. We've been patient since 2011.
The saga started in 2007 when, says Rossi, he heated an entire factory with an ecat. In all this time, there has not been ONE properly done and properly independent test. No dummy run has ever been properly done in all that time on ANY test. Not one person EVER has come forward and said they bought anything from Rossi and tested it properly and independently. Since 2007! Doesn't that tell you something????????! Exactly how long do you want to "be patient"?
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I agree LENR is used as a descriptive term. But not that it describes nuclear reactions. It actually describes a great variety of anomalous evidence: anomalous particle counts, anomalous power measurements, (hardly ever: anomalous isotopic analyses).
None of these anomalies are coherent, in the sense that they can predict each other. The meta-hypothesis of "experiment error or misinterpretation" fits 99%. It would not be reasonable to reckon that the meta-hypothesis of fraud/delusion could fit the other 1%.
Against these meta-hypotheses, which are ordinary, we have no proper scientific hypothesis. We have a meta-hypothesis of extraordinary nuclear reactions. This must then be bent quite a lot to fit the (lack) of evidence for nuclear reactions. of course, since it is not a theory just a meta-hypothesis anything required of it can be assumed.
Now, for me, that makes the LENR meta-hypothesis very weak, as well as being extraordinary. The "error/delusion/fraud" hypothesis wins by a very large amount because it is ordinary - for example of the publicised experimets with details I've found obvious errors in at least half. Given the lack of details that is impressive. It also wins because it fits the random and erratic data seen like a glove. It also fits the fact that none of these effects, when replicated, turn out to stau large. It also fits the fact that all of the replicable effects are within experimental error, and when experiments are tightened up the effects reduce.
There is room in physics for publishing LENR - it just has to be of decent quality:
Holmlid
Hagelstein
Larssen
would be clear examples. The experimental work does not often get published (Holmlid's is) because it does not make the quality test of having good methodology and results that are significant. I'd argue that is because there are no significant results. It is also true that many of the people doing LENR research are sloppy in their experimental method.
I'd say such sloppiness is almost requied for LENR experimentalists because if accurate you end up with a whole load of null experiments and get bored after a while. There are some good people doing LENR experiments in this state - you don't hear much about them because null experiments well done are not of much interest on the internet. (Earthtech, some other guy MFMP have been talking to whose name i forget, to mention two examples).
OK, thanks Thomas for pointing out that some LENR researchers have been published in established Physics literature. I don't believe that they are regularly received with open arms, so to speak. I'm in the process of rereading Lipinskis UGC WIPO application. I don't see that what you write is necessarily wrong, and for that I thank you for your ethical discourse. I would say the standard is essentially doubled for anyone seeking to publish anything related to what I want to call LENR-- and I don't dispute that, as you have intimated, extra-ordinary claims require extra-ordinary evidence-- I agree. Of course we have to temper that with the completely crazy attempts to suppress LENR or CF or whatever you want to call it-- look at the complete BS that is "frozen" at Wikipedia... this is unethical to the core, those with "blood on their hands" are not the CF / LENR advocates. And you may say what has Longview done to correct that situation? I can respond that honestly I have fairly recently donated my usual $25 and wrote a specific complaint that they need to reform the way they handle controversial issues-- I happened to cite the CF - LENR and out of nowhere I picked Palestine v. Israel as issues that surely do not receive an unbiased treatment. I may not be right about Palestine v. Israel, but I know I'm right that CF / LENR is mis-handled, so to speak.
As I mentioned LENR is a descriptive term, let's not complicate the issues by moving it to yet another category, that is "meta hypothesis", although I'm sure your motives there are well-meaning. Let's just look at evidence, let's just do the confirmatory work, let's lighten up on the nomenclature for the time being. Please read the Lipinski WIPO application. At the very least, it is interesting, and to me borders on amazing.
I appreciate your continued learned attention.
Longview
The challenging of the report on the IR-cam emissivity raise a big question.
What is the IR cam way to estimate temperature.
I've analysed the documentation and my interpretation is that the Optris is just an array of bolometer that measure received energy in the given bandwidth.
from my computation, assuming a flat bandwidth of 7.5-13µm, I computed that the measured signal was mostly linear with temperature (with a zero about 230C).
however, I recently read that pyrometer which initially were working the same way, now use 2 and even more than two bolometer with different bandwidth, so they can not only estimate the uniform emissivity (with two bandwidth), but even also estimate variable emissivity (with more than two).
It does not seems to be the case here, but is it sure that Optris IR cam cannot estimate emissivity (even if it requires a calibration initially - maybe just a hint to start algorithm from a good value).
If you remove the conspiracy theory, which is incompatible with the commitment of tycoon Tom darden, with the fact that [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon] gave the reactor with freedom to measure anything, and that the missing calibration is fully the responsibility of the team, then you can only conclude, that whatever was the COP and temperatures, it was not surprising for [lexicon]IH[/lexicon].
The bad point is that the visual colorimetry agrees better with Thomas than with the report, even if we don't know at which supposed temperature, and with which color correction, were the photos taken.
Dear Thomas Clarke,
I am analysing in detail your article and your code (I just run the script through Anaconda Python and I checked the input data). I am not finished yet, but I have some comments.
You say: “In [5] the dependence of R on T is assumed to be R∝T4”.
I do not understand what you mean.
First thanks for checking my stuff. It is always helpful
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In [5], in order to obtain the surface temperature during the test, the following system is solved iteratively:
- eq_emiss(T)*integral(Planck(λ,T)) = integral(Planck(λ,T)*emiss(λ)*sens(λ))
- T = CameraSoftware( eq_emiss*integral(Planck(λ,T) ) )
The two unknowns are:
- T, the alumina surface temperature,
- eq_emiss, the equivalent emissivity to be input in the camera. It is defined at each temperature by the equation: eq_emiss(T)*integral(Planck(λ,T) ) = Measured_Power(T). Where Measured_Power is the unknown total power measured by the camera at each temperature.
Planck is the black body spectral radiance, emiss is the known emissivity of the alumina (assumed independent of T), sens is the known sensitivity of the IR camera (assumed independent of T). The integral is performed only on the camera range (7.5 to 13 [μm]).
The function CameraSoftware, is not exactly known, but can be investigated by testing it.
What Higgins does is to find (iteratively) first a curve of eq_emiss(T) defined by equation (1):
eq_emiss(T) = integral(Planck(λ,T)*emiss(λ)*sens(λ)) / integral(Planck(λ,T))
This curve is then combined with the second equation, by iterating experimentally on the camera software:
T = CameraSoftware(Measured_Power,eq_emiss),
finding the combination (T, eq_emiss) that satisfies both equations and solves the system. At the solution temperature alumina would emit (in the camera range) a radiation that, attenuated by the sensitivity of the camera, would cause the same temperature reading (by the camera software) when using the eq_emiss.
Have you looked at my description of the transformation necessary?
Inputs:
Trep: reported temperature (from report)
Erep: emissivity entered by Profs (from their book data) - around 0.4
Eq_emiss: what the emmissivity should have been (around 0.9)
Desired outputs:
Treal: Real temperature
I have no disagreement with Bob's calculation of eq_emiss (which I call Eband). I calculate it again, myself, from his data. But, actually, it is relatively insensitive to T - the alumina spectral emissvity in the camera range if fairly constant at 0.9ish. (There is some change at the low wavelength end which is why Bob and I both calculate it. I use numerical integration. But a "look at it an estimate" approach would do OK for this aspect of the calculation).
The problem is how Bob uses this to determine Treal from Trep.
QuoteOnce the operating temperature is known, in [5] the total radiated power is calculated as the black body radiation scaled down by the emissivity of alumina.
This is where the critical step is needed. HOW is the operating temperature Treal known from Trep and Erep and eq_emiss? Bob does not explicitly address this, and I guess this gets to the heart of your lack of understanding. Obviously, entering the wrong emissivity (Erep not eq_emiss or Eband). So we need to work out what the Optris camera would do if the right emissivity were entered. I give the equations to do this, and the code you have got solves these (iteratively). Bob does not do this. He assumes that the correction factor in temperature is the fourth root of the ratio of the two emissivities. And that - returning to your original point - is because he assumes that the T^4 dependence of the total emissivity is relevant to the temperature recalculation. But that depends on the band emissivity Eband(T) because we are in fact comparing band emissivities when the work out the adjusted temperature. Note that later on in the calculation, when we work out total power from temperature, it is the ratio of total emissivities that matters.
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Higgins actually does something more, he calculates an equivalent broad-band emissivity for each surface temperature, so that it becomes possible to calculate the total radiated power just multiplying the total Planck radiation (Stefan–Boltzmann law=σT4) by a single number: the equivalent broad-band emissivity,eq_emiss_tot.
The broad-band (single value) emissivity is calculated “averaging” the alumina emissivity curve (completed “manually” by Higgins between 1 and 4 [μm] because of lack of data and considering the progressively increasing transparency of alumna at higher temperature), using Planck’s spectral radiance as weight, similarly to what was done for the first equation of the system above:
eq_emiss_tot(T)=integral_broad( Planck(λ,T)*emiss(λ)*sens(λ) ) / integral_broad(Planck(λ,T))
This time the integral (broad-band) extends from 1 to 25 [μm], covering the vast majority of the emitted power. Therefore the integral_broad(Planck(λ,T)) is now practically equivalent to σT4. So at any temperature the broad-band single value emissivity allows to scale down the Stefan–Boltzmann power obtaining the real total radiated power, and so the COP.
Right. so this is the second part of the calculation - where Bob and I agree. Given Treal you can calculate the total emissivity from the alumina spectral emissivity and teh Planck curve. Naturally this is temperature-dependent. The point is that Bob and I both agree with the Profs when it comes to total emissivity. The profs looked up a book value (which I use) Bib recalculates from book values of spectral emissivity. There is no big difference between the two. In reality the precise power is unknown because alumina total emissivity depends on microstructure etc and is not constant. But Bob and I and the Profs are using typical values which are probably OK.
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I do not see the mistake you point out: “The mistake in the Report comes from using textbook values for total emissivity when what is needed is the corresponding value of the band emissivity”.
Do you not? You have just summarised, above, what this problem is and how Bob noted it. Though not how Bob used that knowledge to adjust the report data - which is the bit I do but Bob does not do properly - and I agree it is quite subtle.
eq-emiss is the band emissivity. The profs used the total emissivity (0.4) entered into the camera when they should have used the band emissivity (0.9).
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The only missing bit in Higgins’ procedure is your calculation of the apparent higher emissivity due to the ridges on the surface. Apparent emissivities of corrugated surfaces are higher than the “flat” (real) emissivities, especially at intermediate values (around 0.4-0.5). This, as you say, influences the estimation of the temperature reached by the reactor surface. Apparent higher emissivities due to the ridges mean that the Optris camera will receive in its measuring range more energy than that of a flat surface. So the real surface temperature and the radiation power are lower than as estimated without the correction.
Right. This is standard stuff and can be proved from first principles as I do. It is a small correction (+20% or so on power). It does make the output power higher than it would be if you did not make the correction. I have included it - otherwise the adjusted COP would be about 0.8. Interestingly it must be made twice - once as a variation on eq-emiss, once as a variation on the total power out due to total-emiss.
in fact, thinking about this, I have not quite got this adjustment right. I've done it on the integrated values. It should probably be done on the spectral values before integration. So it would be interesting to see what change that makes. But the adjustment is small (given the large inherent errors) and the error in the adjustment due to this approximation is even smaller.
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However the total power radiated will be more than that calculated without the correction because of the higher apparent emissivity (higher surface, limited by the reciprocal view factors of the faces inside each ridge). Since the second effect is larger than the first, as you point out in your table, the final radiated energy is higher than that estimated by Higgins.
Yes - this second correction is done by neither Higgins nor the Profs. But it is done by me, and my headline figures incorporate it. (You can check that from the code).
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The dummy run in series, as you say, is an essential operation that unfortunately was not carried out in the Lugano test.
About isotopic shifts. They are real, have been measured not only by the testers of Rossi, but by tens of researchers in LENR experiments. IMHO suggesting that Rossi could have tampered with the powders, is in between ridiculous and offensive for all the people involved.
There are quite a number of different issues you raise here. The isotopic shift here (complete conversion to 62Ni) is completely different from anything observed anywhere else. The otehr claims of isotopic shifts are all within the bounds of experimental error - either contamination or misinterpretation. They are at very low levels. Or, (Hg in CFLs) they are real shifts but from fractionation not nuclear transformation.
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The client of Rossi will comment and this will settle all debates. We shall be patient.
I don't understand how what this "client" says could settle anything, unless we knew what was his connection to Rossi and also who was providing the technical advice on which he was making his decisions.
The Lugano test was billed (by Rossi) as the gold standard independent test. Are we now to ignore that?
IMHO suggesting that Rossi could have tampered with the powders, is in between ridiculous and offensive for all the people involved.
There is, as far as I can see, in this hypothetical case only one person involved, Rossi. Others:
[lexicon]IH[/lexicon] - it is quite clear from Darden comments, and events, that his funding for Rossi is hands off
Lugano Profs: one member of there team was present during fuel extraction/insertion. However they did not check for deliberate substitution, nor did they consider that their job. They have made comments like "oh, well, if Rossi was deliberately tampering then anything is possible...". They dismiss this is unlikely.
So: there is only one person required to be involved. Opinions obviously differ sharply on the matter of whether Rossi deliberately substituting ash is ridiculous.
In any case I've pointed out that for fans of Rossi (I'm not one) you could note that the original (years ago) ash sample was, Rossi now long after the event says, "contaminated". Therefore the isotopic results that at the time were very interesting must now be discounted. Who can be sure that Rossi will not, in a few years time, realise that this sample too might have been contaminated?
You may think that argument is ridiculous. I do too, but only because I think it absurd that a sample seriously given at the time for isotopic analysis and taken as real should later be discounted as not real by Rossi himself years after, but was not qualified by Rossi at the time. I thus have an expectation that ash samples from Rossi may turn out unreliable, for whatever reason.
Finally, for those who are Rossi fans there are any number of contamination mechanisms for 62Ni which are quite innocent. We know that at one time Rossi stated that 62Ni was required as fuel for his process to work, and that he said he had developed a process to enrich this. In which case he would have many 62Ni samples lying around, and contamination of the reactor tube, or the bag, must remain possible. It is also worth noting that the isotopic analysis showed a level of purity comparable with typical commercial 62Ni.
In this story there is so much speculation that I prefer to stick to what we know. However what we know makes any use of the isotopic results as evidence for extraordinary physics unwarranted. Whether they are evidence for misdoing from Rossi is a more complex question and not one I feel it is necessary to answer.
however, I recently read that pyrometer which initially were working the same way, now use 2 and even more than two bolometer with different bandwidth, so they can not only estimate the uniform emissivity (with two bandwidth), but even also estimate variable emissivity (with more than two).
It does not seems to be the case here, but is it sure that Optris IR cam cannot estimate emissivity (even if it requires a calibration initially - maybe just a hint to start algorithm from a good value).
Yes, The optris-160 used has single band measurement. You are quite right that two-band measurement is more sophisticated and can, for example, actually work out emissivity under the assumption that the material measured is a perfect gray body. That still would not be good enough here. I reference the Optris manual as a web link in my paper.
Tom
Quote from LongViewI happened to cite the CF - LENR and out of nowhere I picked Palestine v. Israel as issues that surely do not receive an unbiased treatment.
The trouble with contentious issues is that they are that exactly because there is disagreement about what constitutes bias. In the Palestine/Israeli context, for example, the BBC gets vociferous complaints of bias from both sides. I think they reckon when these average out equal they are doing OK. Of course in general that may not be true, and the quality of the complainers is relevant.
Should we give equal space to Creationsim and Darwinism whenever evolution is discussed?
Best wishes, Tom
Dear Thomas,
I got your point! Sure! The people of the Lugano test used the published equivalent TOTAL emissivity (which by the way is not too different from that calculated by Higgins in Fig. 10) instead of using the "camera band equivalent emissivity". They differ very much at high temperature. The correct value is about 0.9, whereas they used 0.4.
I will continue checking your code.
I will try to comment more in the next days.
@Thomas Clarke
re reading new articles on IR cam, it seems that unlike modern pyrometers which are multicolor, all (usual) IR cam are just dumb wideband bolometer semiconductor array, with IR filtering optic in front. This is what Optris camera says, and there is no hope to have anything better.
yes, I agree with your approach.
As i said earlier a key question is how the IR cam estimate temperature. My estimation integrating bolometer response to the 7.5-13um was that it was nearly linear.
this mean that emissivity have a linear effect on estimated temperature (relative to about 220C)...
quickly computin
with 1450C estimated, if emissivity in the 7.5-13µm is not 0.4 but 0.9 (x2.25 more) then temp is 744C 1017K. e~0.53. T^4 ~ 1.07e12 -> p~.57
with 1250C estimated, if emissivity in the 7.5-13µm is not 0.4 but 0.9 then temp is 675C 948K.e~0.57. T^4 0.81e12 -> p~0.46
the ratio of power is 1.23, while for electricity it is +12% from 800 to 900W
during the calibration at 450C if emissivity was 0.9 instead of 0.7 , temperature would be 400C 673K. e~0.75. T^4 ~ 0.205e12 -> p~.15
compared to 900W the change in eT^4 power is x3.7, while power in x2
compared to 800W the change in eT^4 power is x3.06 while power is x1.72
there is many things to account :
- first change the calibration temperature with the same algorithm. here this decrease calibration temp by 50C
- estimate change in power between the various stable states and compare with electric power.
- intégrate convection (I did not do that her...)
- integrate temperature difference on the body (I did not do)
with that simplified computation there are incoherence that appear :
- the change from 450W to 900W seems to cause x3.7 instead of x2 power increase, from 400 to 745C, implying a COP of 1.85
- the change from 450W to 800W seems to cause x3.06 instead of x1.72 power increase, from 400 to 675C, implying a COP of 1.71
- the change from 800 to 900W seems to cause 23% increase instead of 13% with a 70C change in temperature from 675 to 745C
to correct that discrepancy one should assume emissivity is 0.2 at high temperature, which is not logical since even if alumina is transparent, finally metal below radiates, and moreover fins and grains decrease reflectivity.
anyway the solution si maybe in the detailss :
- the convection
- the local temperatures
the computation should be remade totally, as in the report, but with new emissivity assumption.
There is even a worst (best) hypothesis :
- assume that alumina is black and opaque in the IR range as we do here, not only because alumina is opaque and black at this wavelength, but because the fins and grains increase the emissivity.
- consider that the full reactor is either opaque at some wavelength, but else it is transparent with dark heating element below, with reflectivity reduced (thus emissivity improved) because of fins and grains
-> this could mean simply that total emissivity is much higher, that transparency is null, and that reflectivity is very reduced, leading why not to emissivity about 0.9
This would lead to the similar result a Lugano report, but at lower temperatures.
I don't say it is good by accident, I say that not only it is a dubious report, but that may even fall to the good COP value by accident.
-> a bit pathetic. I agree. 
more positively, I propose from quick computation, that a fair COP of 1.7+ is observed, even taking extreme but realist hypothesis on emissivity.
-> this is to be checked as convection and temperature variation on the surface, may push the result to the COP 1.0 neutral value.
The trouble with contentious issues is that they are that exactly because there is disagreement about what constitutes bias. In the Palestine/Israeli context, for example, the BBC gets vociferous complaints of bias from both sides. I think they reckon when these average out equal they are doing OK. Of course in general that may not be true, and the quality of the complainers is relevant.
Should we give equal space to Creationsim and Darwinism whenever evolution is discussed?
Best wishes, Tom
You picked a great and thought provoking example Thomas Clarke. I could write way too much on that. But suffice it to say my answer is NO.
But how to put a rational spin on that, there is the rub. And whether there are parallels to say a hot v. cold fusion discussion. I hope the HF v. CF discussion is evidence based. I suspect some have been treating LENR / CF much like it is creationism-- now for over two decades. Perhaps that can come to an end soon, if it has not already.
with calibrated calorimetry
In the Lugano report, we see on page 7 that the calibrated calorimetry was made 23 hours during on the dummy reactor, without active charge.
"Therefore, by comparing power input, as measured by the two power analyzers, to power output as measured by us, we were able to ascertain that no overestimation had occurred. In other words, the data relevant to the dummy reactor served the purpose of checking the method used."
"to 1400°C. Subsequent calculation proved that increasing the input by roughly 100 watts had caused an increase of about 700 watts in power emitted."
Then Barty and Frank Acland on ECW "for some reason", for these excellent reasons, do not publish your spam which is pseudo-scientific.
You, Peter Gluck, Thomas Clarke and Mary Yugo, try to destabilize people who are not able to undestand your pseudo-science.
But that is naive. What will you do when LENR reactors will be sold all around the world ? You will buy them for your own house and continue to spam ? I hope for you that you gain some money from your writing.
Best regards.
