Experimental Evidence on Rossi Devices

1st Official Post
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    the technology of E-cat is proven working more or less, by the pair of report of Ferrara AND Lugano, which independently exclude any of your hypothesis, fraud, scam, delusion, complicity...


    I’m starting this thread to refute Alain’s above view as expressed here recently on the “Rossi – positive or negative” thread. There is absolutely no positive experimental evidence for Rossi’s devices, and much negative evidence. You can rationally accept that they work only if you also argue that Rossi is deliberately making it look as though they do not work. The absurdity of this hypothesis is obvious to most.


    Rossi has conducted a large number of demonstrations claiming high COP. Every single demonstration which is documented has a known error mechanism that can be deduced from the public evidence and explains the results. Rossi has been informed of these errors, and has consistently refused to redo the identical test with the error closed. Instead he comes up with a new test which is very different and has a new error mechanism.


    What about independent tests of Rossi’s device? There are three known tests with independent aspects.

    • A Swedish would-be distributor (Hydrofusion) had the sense to do their own (completely independent) tests. They obtained negative results. The Rossi device operated as an electric heater. This is in the public record. Rossi claimed, after, that the tested device was broken. The question then remains why Rossi did not ship the distributor a working device for testing? This test is the only 100% independent test, conducted by someone who strongly wanted a positive result but had no connection with Rossi, and who did not allow Rossi to contaminate the test. Its negative result is therefore strong negative evidence.
    • The Ferrara test (first Swedish Profs “independent” test). This test was more independent than Rossi’s demos, but still using Rossi’s setup on his premises with unknown interference by Rossi. More important, the recorded data from the experiment make it impossible to validate the power input which we know could easily have been spoofed. It was heavily criticised at the time and led the Swedish Profs to do another test that would close all the loopholes observed in this one.
    • This final test was held at Lugano away from the Rossi lab. The Swedish profs did proper independent measurement of input power. The test was not on Rossi’s premises. Rossi had less involvement in the test – limited to putting powder in, taking powder out. The Lugano test had large intrinsic uncertainties (see the criticism on lenr canr for a summary of these). It also had a major error in testing caused by a change that Rossi introduced – using an alumina unpainted reactor for the first time. Those following the story will note a common theme – whenever a test is redone with old holes blocked, some new change is made to the protocol that introduces an entirely new error mechanism. In this case the error was subtle and resulted in a X3 overestimate of COP, also in a nonlinear apparent increase in COP with temperature. These two artifacts were a direct result of Rossi’s change in test conditions (moving from black painted to unpainted alumina reactor). They worked only because of unusually bad experimental practice, with no at temperature control and no independent temperature measurement. Together they were noted by the Swedes as being conclusive evidence of anomalous heat. Several independent restudies have identified this same error. Only mine has attempted to estimate its effect accurately, but all the restudies bring the COP to what is expected from an electric heater within the large uncertainties of the measurement method without any control.

    Also notable is the unprofessional behaviour of the Lugano team. Instead of engaging with criticism – retracting results or refuting it – they have responded to a polite and serious critique with silence both publicly and privately.


    The other notable aspect of the Lugano test is the isotopic results. The powder which Rossi handled showed difficult to understand isotopic changes. These were from natural abundance to that found in readily purchasable isotopes. Rossi has previously claimed (ad hoc) contamination for unusual apparent transformations. Perhaps he will do this again. What is indisputable is that this aspect of the test is not independent.


    Leave aside all the "meta-data". The real data on Rossi's devices paints a very clear and consistent picture.

    • Official Post

    The problem is that you claims are incompatible with a fraud.


    you ignore one demo in the early time that was working, but where some skeptics claimed witjout evidence that there was a misplaced thermocouple. The curve of the heat was analysed by skeptic LENR expert (like you they were not confident in Rossi), and beside many questions it was clear some anomalous heat was produced.


    Accusation on dry steam are just suspicion again, and raise more question than are evidence.


    This is the typical Mary Yugo argument, concluding from lack of data, or from one's own unproven claims.




    The way the test were conducted show more loose work, and some paranoia, than stage magic.
    Mats Lewan explain well that many of his test were failures, which is not typical of fraudsters.
    Some of his demo are only wrong in the mind of skeptics, because of missing or simply ignored data.


    My position on those test is that it was hard to conclude because badly done ,and because of incomplete data.


    At that period, the loose job, and your good work of disinformation make me very suspicious on rossiR, which I was judging between the deluded inventor and the loose engineer.
    Unlike some people I can change my opinion based on new evidence.


    About Ferrara, the only theory is FRAUD, because calorimetry was well calibrated.
    Moreover the inventor cannot ignore his reactor does not work, at this level.


    This EXCLUDE the delusion, or the ERROR. This REQUIREs that Rossi is PLANNING stage magic to fool testers and control everything the testers may check. This is the theory to check.


    The reactor was accessible by the testers, who could remove plugs check them, and replug, which exclude all fraud theories like coaxial wires.


    There is some precision on the test that complete the report and exclude stage magic as you imagine, because there was too much freedom to test where the fraud should be
    http://ecatnews.com/?p=2620
    http://ecatnews.com/?p=2528
    The critic of Ericsson and Pomp is pure conspiracy theory, and there is nothing better than that.


    One could end the story there, and meanwhile Cherokee invested 10millions , because of that test, and because of others tests done by their experts.
    At the same period Woodford fund did some "due diligence".


    Lugano is more a problem as there is possibility of an error on emissivity, which is assumed from tables and not calibrated at high temperature.


    One solution is to ignore it, as we don't need it. Ferrara prove it is not a fraud, and thus it works.


    About Lugano fraud theories note that initial theory of inverted clamp is incompatible with the theory of emissivity error, as COP would be below 50%.


    The conspiracy theory of fraudulent reactor is impossible because except at few moment the testers controlled the setup, the environment. In that context stage magic is impossible.
    Any of the testers could use a RF spectrometer, an ammeter, a thermocouple to check the reality of the measurements done by the others.


    You introduce false information on the Isotopic measurement which is based on misreading the report with an interpretation that support your theory, but which is denied by witness.
    http://www.e-catworld.com/2014…want-lenr-fusione-fredda/


    Rossi did not empty the reactor but assisted to the operation.
    Something strange happened, even strange to Rossi, who have no theory for the observation, unlike usual fraudster who have a scenario for their show.


    The calorimetry is more a problem, but unlike yours, I posted here computation who account for the calibration done at low temperature.


    We agreed on the interpretation of the IR cam result as proportional to the IR energy in the 7.5-13um windows which is well approximated
    the ratio of apparent temperature, if emissivity was wrong, led to a COP which is much above 1, 1.85 assuming emissivity does not decrease as the table says.


    I've discussed that problem which makes your theory impossible.
    Lugano performance recalculated - the baseline for replications

    Quote


    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


    just these ratio shows, that even with the total messup with emissivity, COP=1 is impossible (it is 1.85 at least, assuming emissivity does not grow).


    I consider possible , but not sure at all, that emissivity was wrong and that COP was weak, about 1.5-2.
    Anyway since it is a failure of the physicists that rossi could not predict, and that even if you could say he tried to push them to that bad assumption, it was too risky, too uncertaine, and far from the work of a fraudster.


    Just add the commercial evidences and Ferrara, and the previous demos that probably were not total failures like the legend say, but just loosely done, and loosely criticized work...


    Instead of using bayesian logic from initially wrong assumptions, and bending model to only fit your assumptions, reanalyse all the data today like a newborn. What you do is Track and lock error, well known in aeronautic (and justice).


    I forgot to say that Rossi's claims have nothing "extraordinary", as it is simply LENR, which is proven. It is an industrial claim or a scaling up of LENr in another hydride system.


    There have been demo with many pêople.
    Initially it was loosely organised, sometime failed, but some of the test let witness happy.


    The probability of fraud was at that time not possible, but not so credible because of loose organization, incompatible with stage magic.


    Ferrara was a good test, just too short to be sure, and with incredible conspiracy theory to ruleout.


    Lugano test is good in that rossi could not plan to fraud it in anyway, and that he was preparing to have a reactor sincerely tested.
    Isotopic shift is genuine because Rossi agains could not fiddle with it securely given the protocol. Even a magician requires that the procedure be predictable.


    You start with credible assumption, basically that F&P were wrong in may 1989, and then once locked you bend evidence interpretation to match your beliefs.


    You work on Lugano is just a little biasedin ignoring the consequence of the initial calibration, but this have no importance you are wrong. the only question is FRAUD or NOT FRAUD.


    and FRAUD IS INCREDIBLE.


    any honest skeptic should see you theory smell like 9/11 conspiracy theory.

    @Alain


    You can not know that a thermocouple was NOT misplaced because neither Levi nor Rossi **ever** permitted a calibration of their output power measurement system even **after** it was politely requested by such enthusiasts as Rothwell. No Rossi experiment has EVER had a proper control blank and calibration and that tells you nothing?


    Isotopic shift is genuine? So you believe that every bit of fuel (nickel with the usual isotope distribution) went to ash (all 62-Ni) and the reactor kept running? Or wait, the nickel was the catalyst. Except that earlier Rossi said the nickel was fuel and was converted to copper. Was he lying then or is he lying now or does he simply lie all the time?


    @Thomas Clarke


    If you can figure out everything Alain is saying, you deserve a Nobel. I can usually parse about 1/10th and as I said before, even that gives me a headache. But he's our host and this place is not censored so we should be grateful to him for that!

    The only person performing magic tricks is Thomas Clarke.


    Whilst everyone was distracted by the python script he swapped the PI-160 IR cam data sheets, in his seminal LENR/CANR rebuttal of Lugano...


    On page 4 of the Lugano Report, the experimenters used a high temperature (1500C) version of this camera, referenced as an factory option in Optris model catalogue.


    But Thomas's model is based on the datasheet for the standard version (his reference [10]).


    I wonder what the difference between these two cameras is? I imagine more than just a firmware update, else why not offer the increased flexibility over the whole range of cameras?


    I wonder if the emissivity parameters in the Lugano Report only look strange to those that haven't seen the calibration settings on the high temp version's harder-to-find data sheet?

    @Alain,


    You argue:
    (1) the reduction in COP is to some lower, but still definitely anomalous value. You do not give your equations. If you do so, I can show you where you are wrong. Or, you can look at the detailed equations in my refutation. You do not need a more accurate numerical solution (the python!) - there is a decent analytical approximation assuming Rayleigh-Jeans Law for the low frequency tail of the Planck distribution. I allude to this. So: if you challenge my (and others) values of COP ~ 1 you must either show is where our equations are wrong, or provide a complete description mathematically for us to review. I have given a complete description of my work, so you can check the details. To resolve disagreements we do need numerical or algebraic details, not summary statements.


    (2) You say

    Quote

    The problem is that you claims are incompatible with a fraud.

    .
    I'm not making any claims. You are. Rossi is. I'm saying that the experimental testing of Rossi's devices has been wholly negative. I'm not speculating about fraud, motives, etc. YOU spend your time doing this, I guess because the hard evidence is not in line with what you hope?


    Rossi here is the one making extraordinary and exciting claims, and further claiming that experimental evidence backs them up. I'm saying that is wrong. It is no sin to be wrong. Whether Rossi is a sinner or not is something I leave aside because I cannot have good evidence to deduce the motives of some person I've never met. Even had I met him, my study of history shows me that people can do very surprising things. Arguments based on psychological analysis, even with strong evidence, are not reliable. When based on speculation and hearsay even more so!


    (3) You say the isotopic results could not have been contaminated. You have no solid evidence for that. The standard approach when dealing with extraordinary results is to reckon they are not safe unless generated independently. The fuel and ash was not independent. We cannot even be sure that the reactor was identical between the dummy and active tests. The independent parties are on record as saying that they were not expecting Rossi to do anything unusual (like switching fuel, switching ash, or switching reactors). They did not check this, and assume that it could not happen. Just as you make assumptions.


    I'm not here dealing with the issue of motive, just that of evidence. We have no independent evidence that the apparent isotopic change was not "contamination". We have the history of Rossi isotopic analysis in which the only previous tests were shows later admitted to suffer contamination but at the time was thought to be transformation by many - probably you as well? Even without this prior evidence of unreliable data the benchmark for such extraordinary (and highly unusually complete) transformation is not met. Any one of these three things would lead an independent person to view this evidence as unsound.


    Slad. Your suggestion is that the camera used for the active test measurements had an IR sensor with different characteristics from the one used by me and others. I refer you to page 4 paragraph 2 of the Lugano report:

    Quote

    The cameras used were two Optris PI 160 Thermal Imagers, one provided with a 30° × 23° lens and 160 × 120 pixel UFPA sensors, capable of reading temperatures up to 900°C, the other with a 48° ×37° lens, capable of measuring temperatures up to 1500°C. The spectral range for both cameras is from 7.5 to 13 μm.


    The camera spectral range is the relevant issue here, and it is identical. Further, small changes in this parameter do not much change the results.


    Further, there is additional evidence:


    (1) Had there been such a simple explanation in favour of the report's conclusions the authors could have given it, so refuting the damning evidence against their results. They said, on publication of the report, that they would answer criticism.,


    (2) The calculations show internal consistency in that the COP of the two active tests comes out identical. This was not fudged - in fact it surprised me. I did not sit around playing with parameters till I got this. I tried ranges of all the important and variable parameters to see how robust were the results. They altered the headline COP (as I say) by +/- 20% or so - for exact numbers, and details, check the python which shows COPs both less and more than 1 for different parameter settings. They did not alter the ratio between the two active test COP values which stayed stubbornly at 1.00 (+/- 0.5%). Again, this is actually shown by the python code which you can easily run.


    The COP "acceleration" (ratio of 1.2 or so) was a feature of the original report noted by the authors and rightly considered to be evidence of something weird, because most errors would make similar chamges to the two tests COP values. It just turns out that the weirdness was their misunderstanding of the difference between total emissivity (applicable in thermography only when emissivity is uniform with wavelength) and effective emissivity. They used total values from a table not realising that they actually needed effective values for the IR sensor of their camera.


    @all. I welcome criticism of my refutation, as here by slad. In fact I welcome engagement from anyone in the hard data surrounding the Rossi affair. There must be quite a few people whose previous judgements of this matter led them to doubt my statements who are capable of looking in detail at the facts. I'd only caution that to reach the truth you need patience and a process of continued polite exchange of arguments with details. Headline summaries without referencing properly laid out deatils don't cut it.


    It is easy on the internet to make accusations of fraud, or accuse others of unjustly making those accusations. Such arguments do not advance matters much, because whatever the truth (no doubt there is a truth on this matter) it is easy for both sides to be argued in a way that sounds persuasive.


    With the Rossi tests we have some hard independent evidence.


    I was assuming BTW that readers here have access to my critique. You need it for the details to back up my statements here. For those who did not it is on lenr canr with the Lugano report itself:
    http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?p=1589


    My contribution linked there:
    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ClarkeTcommentont.pdf

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    @Thomas Clarke
    If you can figure out everything Alain is saying, you deserve a Nobel. I can usually parse about 1/10th and as I said before, even that gives me a headache. But he's our host and this place is not censored so we should be grateful to him for that!


    Alain, in my internet exchanges with him here, reminds me a bit of me when young and very obnoxious. (OK, I'm obnoxious now, but I have a little less self-confidence and a little more humility). He is clever enough to absorb and respond to a wide variety of data. He likes discussing things at length. I am awaiting a serious critique of the science from him - since he has given summary critiques several times that I believe to be wrong - unfortunately you need a lot of detail to resolve such matters and I've never got such detail from Alain. My guess is that he feels it is obvious he is right and so tends not to bother with detail.


    My own position is that detail and patience are both valuable qualities.


    As you say Alain deserves credit here for running this place without censorship - contrast that with the appalling behaviour of Frank Acland on ECW where the criterion for moderation is neither politeness, nor cogence, but having views similar to Frank's own. I'd find it very boring myself...

    I'll have a go at commenting on the meta-data from Alain - on the understanding that for me it is much less significant than the hard data as above.


    Quote

    you ignore one demo in the early time that was working, but where some skeptics claimed witjout evidence that there was a misplaced thermocouple. The curve of the heat was analysed by skeptic LENR expert (like you they were not confident in Rossi), and beside many questions it was clear some anomalous heat was produced.


    Perhaps we should discuss this on another thread. Your summary seems inconsistent - how can it be clear that anomalous heat was produced when there are many questions? Perhaps you mean that clearly heat was produced. Not surprising for a system with continuous energy input. If I remember those early tests most had water paths through a heater that allowed all sorts of uneven flow and local heating effects. In such a system almost anything is possible (those who have had anything to do with badly plumbed domestic water systems have some idea what I mean). With such a context there is a good explanation for almost any short-term anomaly in apparent heat. Add problems due to flow-meters (as is known in the Defkalion demo) and the sjy is the mimit for eroneous results.



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    Accusation on dry steam are just suspicion again, and raise more question than are evidence.This is the typical Mary Yugo argument, concluding from lack of data, or from one's own unproven claims.


    This is an absurd argument. Rossi claims his device does something extraordinary, based on evidence from a test. You admit that there is an error mechanism that would produce false positives of the type shown. You think we should take Rossi's evidence as real because the exact test conditions remain uncertain, and therefore the error cannot be proven to be the cause of the results.


    So by this argument anyone could do a test with poor experimental practice. No-one could prove that specific errors were large enough to account for apparent results, although equally no-one could disprove this. In that situation you would count the test results as positive?



    Quote

    The way the test were conducted show more loose work, and some paranoia, than stage magic.Mats Lewan explain well that many of his test were failures, which is not typical of fraudsters.Some of his demo are only wrong in the mind of skeptics, because of missing or simply ignored data.My position on those test is that it was hard to conclude because badly done ,and because of incomplete data.At that period, the loose job, and your good work of disinformation make me very suspicious on rossiR, which I was judging between the deluded inventor and the loose engineer.Unlike some people I can change my opinion based on new evidence.


    I can see why you are confused from this analysis. You seem to have a very certain view of human nature in which you can exactly predict what a person would or would not do. You also implicitly have a binary fraud / not fraud distinction that I think misleads you as to likelihood.


    I can easily imagine a situation in which a self-deluded inventor believes he has something real on the basis of a few tests with apparently positive results, when many fail. that is exactly what you'd expect. The difference is a sensible inventor would carefully retest the positives with better instrumentation to check whether they were real. Rossi, as has been pointed out, has consistently refused to do this even though it is very easy.


    People tend to defend their delusions. Whether this is deliberate, and some fraudulent practice, or human nature combined with a selective lack of rational judgement is a big psychological question I'm not able to answer. If you claim you are capable of answering this I'd just say that in my experience you are over-confident. Mary Yugo claims she (the etiquette here for which pronoun to use eludes me) can answer this and Rossi is almost certainly fraudulent. She quotes a whole load of extra evidence.


    I'm not interested in the argument you and she have about this. My point is that even if you assume Rossi is not fraudulent his actions over these tests are exactly what you would expect from an inventor with a pet idea that is wholly wrong but who remains convinced.


    [Before Mary jumps in here I'd agree that the Lugano isotopic test results - a different issue - are clearer. It is unlikely that this contamination could be other than a deliberate attempt to deceive, though I suppose you could not rule out some innocent explanation in principle. Even then, you could argue that the deception is likely from an inventor desperate that others should believe what he thinks the truth who is prepared to deceive when he thinks it is needed for a greater good. Such behaviour does not necessitate, as you seem to think, wholesale lying about results. In all these situations you can argue very many things, which is why building judgements on top of this stuff is unwise].

    I agree that Lugano report may be inprecise, but I am sure there was clear evidence of excess heat.


    I also don't understand, why we should look only for Lugano test? There were many other tests that were open for invited people including engineers and physicists and excess heat was measured several times by independent measurement devices.
    Reactor was measured without fuel and with fuel and also it was disassembled.


    Rossi really do not need to convince anybody at the moment. He can just laugh on these debates. Delaying development of similar reactors by competition is his only wish. Invokind that it may not work and added uncertainty is exactly for this purpose. So you are doing exactly this job Thomas.

    @me356


    If you are sure there was excess heat from the Lugano test I guess nothing will change your view. All I can point out is that a single (bad) error from the Profs, which multiple people agree they made, accounts for both the excess heat claims and the "acceleration" in excess heat. There is no way the Profs would have taken their results as indicating excess had they worked temperature out properly.


    As for the other tests, they all had artifacts (documented at length elsewhere) that meant there would be an apparent excess heat. In reality the demonstrated results could come from misplaced thermocouples, steam wet not dry, etc, etc (each test had its own error mechannism, though a few shared this - if I remember right misplaced thermocouples was a very popular one).


    You will remember that when Krivit - who was initially an enthusiatic supporter of Rossi since he believes Ni/H LENR is possible - observed a test Rossi quite quickly decided he was a snake and refused to let him continue to do so.


    That was because Krivit politely asked that test conditions be tightened up and did not just accept Rossi's claims at face value.


    There will be other people, including some engineers etc, who are not thinking much about whether the test is accurate and who accept Rossi's claims on the basis of his own experimental setup without careful analysis. Those people are allowed to watch test after test.


    I agree. Your suggestion that Rossi is deliberately engendering disbelief for his own commercial reasons is the only logical way for you to continue with your current views. Obviously it can never be refuted. If X has a miracle new technology but does all he can to ensure that no serious scientist or engineer believes this, by having apparently rubbish tests, no-one can ever tell the difference on external evidence between the real clever X and a flake who has an internet following as per Orbo or BLP.

    • Official Post

    The only solution to aswer this question is a working replication device, similar to Rossi's, which undoubtably produces excess heat.
    At best measured by @Thomas Clarke and others who know the measurement errors made in the past, if one of the replicators would invite him or send him a device or something else.
    And I say this in the positive manner.


    I think if MFMP or @me356 will achieve a working device (and i'm sure @me356 is very near to finde the final receipt), I'm sure they will openly share all details and will not make restrictions to someone who wants to measure it himself.


    If then is clear that this replication device is working, there is no reason why Rossi shouldn't have a very optimized version of it.

    Even if Rossi is fraud, then you have to find a good reason, why there are successfull replicators. Because these replications are based on his reactors.
    Whats more, we have observed phenomenons that should not occur normally by our eyes and strongly support LENR.
    For some people in this forum, you really can't say that it can't work, they know very well what they saw.
    It is similar as when you are trying to convince some people that cellphones really can't work, because there is no wire.


    Without touching the device we can only speculate and even that we have everything perfectly calculated, results may be totally wrong.

    @'me356
    I'm not saying Rossi is a fraud. I know others do here. But it is an emotive and unnecessary addition when considering the excess heat tests.


    There has been discussion elsewhere here as to whether replicators have been successful. Certainly I've seen no write-up of a replication that deals with all of the potential errors and still has excess heat. Also I note that replicators with apparently strong results (Parkhomov) don't seem able to replicate their own replications. If they could, they would be winning Nobels and that is a powerful motivation.


    There are people who believe that a reactor with flowing hydrogen and heat input that gets unusually hot is evidence of LENR. I guess nothing will chnage their mind. I would point out that to an external observer it is a big jump to make when there are many other ways in which such a device could get unusually hot. (Also not entirely clear how hot it is expected to get!).


    The other way round - if it were possible to replicate the Lugano claims that would be easily demonstrable, because COP=3 at 800W input is really very easy to detect beyond shadow of doubt.

    • Official Post

    Thomas,


    Being a scientist and believer while trying to defend Rossi is a bad combo as Alain would probably confess about now. Thank goodness I am merely a believer, not a scientist, having only to judge based on the preponderance of evidence (metadata)...as compared to the experimental (hard) data. Even then, it is a stretch of faith at times, but...


    As you said, there really is no real seminal Ecat /Hotcat test or demo made public that has yet to prove it real. Yes, for all the speculation about thermocouple placements, steam, cheese video, reversed clamps, missing mass (Oct 6 2011), emissivity values (TPR2), no one has yet proven fraud on Rossi's part, but...


    Nonetheless, from a scientific/peer review standpoint, as you know and argue, that means nothing. Simply put, Rossi's Ecat tests wouldn't pass even the mildest of normal peer review. Rightfully so. Any scientist at this point that looks at the available hard data from the various reports, and concludes definitively in Rossi's favor, really is not being honest with themselves.


    Based on the publicly available info; Alain, Mats, Rothwell, McCubre, Storm, I even think Gluck hedges a bit, and many others have made it abundantly clear that they do NOT know for sure, based on the science alone, that Rossi is legit. None say that the tests are iron proof. Just the opposite actually, as they have pointed out, albeit reluctantly, the weaknesses -like you.


    So they, like me, look elsewhere, at the surrounding metadata ("soft science" as you hold your nose to say on ECNs) to form their opinion that Rossi MAY have something. And when you do look at that stuff, I think that is a logical conclusion.


    You mention 1 of Rossi's known demo failures. Another I recall offhand was at Uppsala in front of invited professors. Then there was NASA, whom Rossi approached first, rejected their negotiated conditions, and later on decided to allow them to witness a personal (failed) demo. By the way, that failure you mention in your post was commissioned by one of Rossi's licensees...Hydrofusion, and they (Hydrofusion) stayed with Rossi after that. Still there too, so maybe we don't know the whole story?


    I know that there are some, but most scammers don't keep offering up their fake product, failure after failure, to scrutiny like Rossi has. Why would he keep doing that? You would think the guy would learn after the first embarrassment, but he keeps on doing the same thing...why? And if no one ever saw anything positive -if every private and public test were false, then how does it go on so long as this. Progressing like any R/D program, positives/negatives, set-backs/advances, of a real product?


    And of course you will always hear about those failures, but the successes don't make the headlines, nor your or any other skeps posts. And there have been many successes....


    "Due diligence" of the Ecat goes back to Stremmenos, who arranged for some "experts" to test the Ecat so as to attract Defkalion. Along the way was an unnamed Italian energy company which afterwards offered to buy the tech (Rossi refused), [lexicon]IH[/lexicon], and lately Woodford investments. Those are the ones we know of. One just has to wonder how many we are unaware of?


    You are doing your duty as a scientist Thomas in challenging this story. Doing it very well I may add. I hope you keep at it too. You have, in a short period of time, become a part of this saga. Go easy though on your colleagues though. They know, as do you, they don't have much science to argue in favor of Rossi. But that metadata...now that is another story!

    Quote

    I know that there are some, but most scammers don't keep offering up their fake product, failure after failure, to scrutiny like Rossi has. Why would he keep doing that?


    Right. Rossi's scam is audacious and reckless and he should have been brought to justice for it long ago. His skill is in choosing marks who won't do proper diligence like [lexicon]IH[/lexicon] and Woodford, poor Kullande and Essen, the blind mice and of course, Mats Lewan. He keeps doing it to keep the most gullible of his believers happy because they think his willingness to fail occasionally is a sign of his honesty! I bet you think that too, Shane.


    @Thomas Clarke
    It's a pity you didn't have a chance to follow the Defkalion scam and participate in their forum (now deleted by them but I have a full copy). They claimed that they had conducted successful demonstrations of their supposed 10+kW tabletop reactor (the Hyperion) to the ten largest companies in the world. They claimed they wanted me to test it. They were an aggressive, unpleasant, arrogant, scheming, conniving, and thoroughly despicable bunch of inveterate liars. Hadjichristos was the most flagrant. The prestigious Stremmenos, was on their board of directors but when a dispute with Rossi arose, he took Rossi's side. And his writing was incredibly flowery, meaningless, and irrelevant. It was comical.

    • Official Post

    @Thomas Clarke
    I don't master you computation, and mine are more simple, with result just as bound on COP and on emissivity.


    Note that the simple apparent increase of COP between two near temperature at 800-900W, which rule out huge emissivity change, is a strong indication of an anomaly (COP!=1).
    None of your theories can explain that.
    The same method with 450-800 travel, assuming an error in emissivity, that it does not go down, still let a COP=1 impossible.
    This observation is much simpler than you method, and since it estimate heat from a T^4 rule, being more precise would simply reduce the impact of the emissivity error.
    If you consider that part of the reactor was colder than the maximum temperature, those parts will simply contribute less than the hottest parts to the COP reduction.
    (note that to avoid errors, I prefer to think in relative value... it resist better to assumption change).
    Since convection cause power leak mostly proportional to T-T0, using T4 law increase the "discount" caused by emissivity error.


    With my bounding, the only possibility to explain Lugano result is assuming that emissivity is much below 0.7 at 450C, and emissivity above 1 at 900W, increasing quickly between 800-900W. This is not coherent with known data, or with MFMP observations (more about emissivity stable around 0.9).
    All that incoherence, make me estimate that my assumption of emissivity around 0.9 is wrong.


    You don't say it is a fraud, but this is the only possible explanation Double language is like Mary your style (her, it is not to admit she denies LENR).


    Claiming Rossi is a fraudster is possible, you just need evidence, or at least lack of countrary evidence.
    There are many countrary evidence for fraud, like tycoon investments, and test where he don't have full control.


    The test in Lugano may even be negative that the procedure itself show that Rossi was not predicting a negative result. This rule out fraud.


    you correctly, like Jed&al, state that most of his tests were very loose, with bad calibration. He is an inventor, and maybe his test were only convincing for the people in the room, and sometime convinced them it failed miserably, but was sincere and deserving further work.


    Note that it is not the case for Ferrara test. This is the only correctly calibrated test. this is why the only theory that Pomp&al found was fraud, which is refuted by testers testimony (I cited it), and by the relative testers freedom of ferrara testers, and full freedom of Lugano testers.
    The melting at ferrara also shows that it is not electricity which caused the melting, since it get much above metal melting temperature.


    Science is a tool, and here the scientific evidence are not so good. Anyway there is not only science, there is intelligence, logic.
    there is also pile of evidences, and pile of knowledge of what is possible or not.


    E-cat is either :
    1- a more or less working device
    2- a non functional device that Rossi & al consider as working
    3- a fraud organized by a Rossi&al who expect to make a real device (seems what happened with DGT)
    4- a fraud organized upfront (this is for me the case of many free energy scam, and mary yugo position on LENR)


    if 3 or 4, the test cannot be sincere, cannot be done with any freedom granted to the testers. It could be considered with the pony show of E-cat before Ferrara, even if the failure you cite did not match that idea (more like 2).
    Point 2 could be possible at the beginning, but with a big team, this cannot continue, and the problem is to be found. Either they correct the problem, move to a fraudulent organisation like 3, or close the story.


    The problem is that the good work of Ferrara was efficiently hidden by Pomp&al conspiracy theory.
    The isotopic shift of Lugano is also a good evidence, as long as you don't use bad skeptic assumption, but testimony of testers.


    Finally, yes Rossi did not do many good test, but the few one which are convincing are ignored because of efficient disinformation.


    Can someone seriously can explain Ferrara result, and Lugano isotopic result, using all available data and testimony, without building a conspiracy theory.


    note again that there is nothing "extraordinary" in E-cat claim, as it is simply yet another LENR phenomenon, just scaled up like nobody yet seems to have done it.
    Note that Brillouin, supported by SRI scientists, claim similar results, even if less fantastic.


    finally the success of sceptic, is based on loose job by Rossi, by Lugano calorimetry, but mostly by disinformation and cherry picked data, making most people ignore that Ferrara and Lugano isotopic results are solid.

    @Mary - I agree Defkalion were unpleasant - and I guess it shows how in this territory no matter how transparent the deception it is difficult to have any proper legal recourse.


    @Shane - ok so you agree skeptics that they win the evidence re Rossi. I'll happily take you on for the meta-evidence as well, which I think it is pretty clear skeptics also win.



    Mary is very strong on this one, and I find her arguments pretty good, but I'll argue in my own softer way.
    (1) I'll ignore Rossi's shady past
    (2) I'll ignore the issue of fraud, and consider the narrow issue of whether Rossi's and partner's actions are consistent with somone who has what he claims.


    Quote

    By the way, that failure you mention in your post was commissioned by one of Rossi's licensees...Hydrofusion, and they (Hydrofusion) stayed with Rossi after that. Still there too, so maybe we don't know the whole story?


    Hydrofusion have set up as a middleman.


    I guess they are people who would like LENR to be true and hope Rossi has it, though they do not know this. There are many such. Some probably genuine, some (Defkalion) obviously engaged in deception. Since as a middleman you can make money whether or not Rossi's stuff works it is not easy to separate the two classes.


    It is not in their interests to disown Rossi regardless of their private views.



    There is one guy at NIAC (or whatever its now called) Bushnell who is an ardent LENR fan. Engineers can fall for this stuff - look at Laithwaite and anti-gravity. They are outliers. You do not weigh the hundreds of sensible engineers who rightly dismiss Rossi as a flake. Bushnell is not NASA, but has enough influence he can ask a few guys to look into LENR. He was convinced 5 years ago that by known the WL mechanism they could fairly quickly get proof. Clearly he was wrong, there has been a long silence.


    But like most ardent believers it is difficult for him to back down, and easy to go on believing. Given that is his stance, what do you expect him to do with Rossi? Exactlyt what he has done. From his POV Rossi's lack of evidence is no worse than the rest of the LENR stuff. Rossi no doubt has reasons why all the failures fail, which he will tell people. He offers the hope of great riches (emotional or financial, depending on audience).


    Quote

    most scammers don't keep offering up their fake product, failure after failure, to scrutiny like Rossi has. Why would he keep doing that? You would think the guy would learn after the first embarrassment, but he keeps on doing the same thing...why? And if no one ever saw anything positive -if every private and public test were false, then how does it go on so long as this. Progressing like any R/D program, positives/negatives, set-backs/advances, of a real product?


    Rossi has not offered up product to scrutiny, only to friends who have a track record of not checking carefully. Rossi regards checking carefully as being a "snake". What Krivit effect? krivit was polite, on Rossi's side, until Rossi behaved the way a scammer would - refused to improve his test protocol. Why - if he is for real?


    Whether scammer or deluded, Rossi gets cross with anyone who questions his stuff. He is very good at keeping them away so we don't hear about this much. You can detect the effect from the lack of anyone other than sycophants in Rossi's internet dialogues. This is a classic syndrome, and found in people who are charismatic but base their influence on ideas that fall apart when scrutinised. Such people can be honest, but self-deluded, totally dishonest, or anything between. We can all share the "honest but self-deluded" part at times. But we forget it, and find it incomprehensible when somone has an idee fixe that makes them selectively irrational and deceptive while staying coherent and rational in other ways.


    Quote

    And if no one ever saw anything positive -if every private and public test were false, then how does it go on so long as this. Progressing like any R/D program, positives/negatives, set-backs/advances, of a real product?


    This is naive. It goes on so long because there are always new marks to cough up money, and in these cases there is no-one to stop it. Who would sue? And, if they did, what could they prove? It is notoriously difficult. Anyway the people with deep pockets who could sue would just embarrass themselves.


    There are any number of other examples, going on for decades. Orbo, BLP,... Mary knows more of them than me, I'm not that interested.


    Quote

    And of course you will always hear about those failures, but the successes don't make the headlines, nor your or any other skeps posts. And there have been many successes....


    Claptrap! We hear of the successes, such as they are. Then a long silence, then the lack of expected follow-through is hidden by the latest "success". The failures get just forgotten, or bare-faced denied by Rossi, or as with Lugano the PR is believed over the reality. You realise most people still talk about Lugano test "replications" meaning something that can show excess heat!!! I agree thoiugh that in LENR-land my posts will not be heard. The participants need to live in a bubble where negative comment is censored. They do this socially, and scientifically. The excuse is bias by the scientific establishment. All I've seen is people leaning over to be fair to stuff, but not being interested when there is no substance.


    Quote

    "Due diligence" of the Ecat goes back to Stremmenos, who arranged for some "experts" to test the Ecat so as to attract Defkalion. Along the way was an unnamed Italian energy company which afterwards offered to buy the tech (Rossi refused), [lexicon]IH[/lexicon], and lately Woodford investments. Those are the ones we know of. One just has to wonder how many we are unaware of?


    Ummm... Quite. Stremennos is a much more clearly validated scammer than Rossi. People who want to get rich quick will be attracted to Rossi's stuff, whether Rossi is honest or no. Many of these will be unscrupulous and dishonest. Stremennos has been totally dishonest in his public demonstrations. Making a demo that he knew was spoofed, continuing with it even through told beforehand why, how, and what was needed to make it safe.


    He may, for all I know, be self-deluded and honest. It does not matter, the effect on otehrs is the same as if we is peddling something he knows is rubbish. The fact that no-one can easily prove which it is makes these free energy scams so tricky. An inventor can know his stuff usually tests bad, but be hoping against hope that there is still something real, and leap on any positive fragment of evidence. Not that Stremennos seems as near an angel as that!


    Woodford's fund is a big embarrassment, for him. But I dou t he will ever notice. They have put money into a hi tech punt that will probably fail but could make them billions. Where is the shame in that? They are money people and neitehr interested in nor care about integrity of scientific tests. That paper from the Swedes will be enough, with a few LENR enthusiasts to assure them that some scientists think the underlying theory is real.


    Wish they had consulted me. I'd take 1% of the money I could have saved them...

    Quote

    Note that the simple apparent increase of COP between two near temperature at 800-900W, which rule out huge emissivity change, is a strong indication of an anomaly (COP!=1). None of your theories can explain that.


    None of my theories did, Alain. But I am a practical guy (though I like theory) and develop theories post hoc after evidence. In this case the evidence from numerical integration explained it, and I only worked out the reason with difficulty afterwards.


    The real difference in temperature between the two tests relates to the difference in Optris in-band radiation (ie what the Optris detector actually sees) as follows:


    (1) there is a change if the ratio of emissivity values entered is different from the ratio of in-band emissivities. This does not apply. The Lugano testers thought the temp was 1250/1400 on a flat part of the total emissivity curve, so would have entered very similar values. The in-band emissivity is similarly identical, even though the total emissivity for the real temperatures changes. You are right on this.


    (2) there is a change because the much lower real values of temperature make the Planck spectrum peak lower in frequency and put it nearer to the in-band frequency.


    Why does this matter? For in-band frequency << Planck peak frequency we have Rayleigh-Jeans Law and R ~ T. For in-band frequency the same as Planck peak frequency we have (roughly) R ~ T^4 - the same power law as the total integrated radiance.


    As in-band frequency and Planck peak get nearer so the relationship changes gradually from T^1 to T^4. Call the power of T alpha.


    The Lugano testers deceived the Optris instrument into thinking that T was high and therefore the Planck curve maximum was high and therefore alpha was closer to 1. The actual temperature had alpha somewhat larger.


    This is significant because when comparing the two tests a larger value of alpha gives a larger ratio of in-band power received by the Optris device and hence larger apparent temperature increase. In fact the ratio between the two test apparent temperatures scales as roughly alpha. So the ratio between alpha(real) for 720-780C and alpha (Profs) for 1250-1400C matters.


    The headline COP difference is 3.6/3.2 = 12.5%. 5% of that comes from the (real, between 720 and 780) total emissivity difference. The lower total e at the higher temperature reduces the actual power out but not that calculated by the Profs, who thought they were on a flat part of the total emissivity curve.


    The remaining 7.5% power difference corresponds (T^4 for total power) to a 1.75% temperature difference. You can see this is very plausible.


    You can also see why I found this result surprising, and subtle. I had not worked it out analytically because the change in alpha is a second order affect. But because it is amplified by 4X, and because some of the 12.5% apparent power difference comes from the total emissivity variation, a second order affect does indeed have this result. There are many other second order effects, like the fact that radiation is only part (though most) of the power budget, that goes in the other direction. I included them all.


    When I did the numerical integration properly it of course took into account this effect and I got COP identical for these two tests. I was surprised, because I had not at that time worked out that this effect could be significant.


    So I have sympathy with Alain's argument - I was with him myself till I did the actual work.


    PS - the fact that any change in in-band power between these two tests is amplified by roughly 4X (a bit less, maybe 3X since alpha is larger than 1) means that when working out the 1250/1400 test correspondence we need to take into account all known other differential effects. These are:
    entered emissivity - the curve is not exactly flat
    in-band emissivity - this changes a little with temperature between 720C and 780C
    Total power combines convection and radiation - convective component is larger at lower temperatures


    The first two two small effects are in the same direction and therefore partly cancel out. The third is in the direction of making the apparent anomaly worse. However the numerical integration does include them as well of course as the alpha effect which it turns out exactly balances them.

    You don't need anything except a good Planck radiation calculator to do some numbers.


    https://www.sensiac.org/extern…d_radiance_calculator.jsf


    Using the above we can get the band radiance (7-13um) for any given temperature.


    Choosing 720C/ 720C + 5% (NB you need to convert to Kelvin to do the +5%!) we get
    993K -> 0.262 (some unit) band radiance
    1042.6K -> 0.289 band radiance


    ratio = 1.103


    Choosing 1300C/ 1300C + 5% (again +5% must be on Kelvin temp) we get:
    1573K -> 0.601
    1651.6K -> 0.650


    ratio = 1.081


    so (approximately)
    for the real temp we have alpha = 0.103/0.05 = 2.06
    for the Optris assumed temp alpha = 0.081/0.05 = 1.62


    This difference accounts for the apparent "acceleration" with the Optris calculated power assuming that IR band radiance scales as T^1.62 (as it would at 1300C) when it really scales as T^2.06 (at 750C). The Optris instrument therefore overestimates the temperature difference between the two tests.


    Thus:
    (1) emissivity error causes the difference between real (750C) and apparent (1300C) temperatures.
    (2) The optris camera, when given the wrong emissivity, underestimates alpha and therefore shows temperature ratios higher than they really are, thus showing the "acceleration".


    You really could not have found an error more likely to give anomalous positive data!


    The beauty of the Lugano test is that there is so much data available you can do the number crunching, test hypotheses, see what is really going on - assuming the Lugano testers were honest. That I think is reasonable. Although they are not behaving as good scientists because they are not replying to cogent criticism that invalidates completely their main conclusion.

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