Self-Interest and LENR (Edmund Storms)

Based on my understanding, now, of LENR evidence I'm going to disagree with Storms's assessment here.

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I watched how the attitude toward LENR changed at LANL. I watched as tolerance changed to hostility. The change was not based on lack of reproducibility. I and many other people were able to cause the effect. Besides, many phenomenon are initially difficult to control and are not rejected for this reason.

MFMP have not found reproducible LENR experiments that show definite anomalies, so I don't agree with this. The justification here is vague. Cause the effect is an interpretation, not an observation. The issue is that few mainstream scientists agree with Storms' interpretation.

While "many other phenomena" are difficult to control and not rejected, they are accepted as "phenomena" rather than "experimental lacunae" only if they meet the bar for experimental or theoretical consistency.

Thus: a bulletproof observation at odds with accepted theory - say GR adjustments to orbital motion - is accepted as a phenomena when it is repeatable and clearly well beyond experimental error, even if no theory exists to predict it. In this case Gr did exist and predicted the precise form of the errors in new abservations - pretty impressive!

Or: a set of fragmentary observations, each not strong enough on its own, may be tied together coherently by a new theory that predicts all of them. The fact that diverse data is predicted by a single theory is a strong merit for that theory.

Finally: a whole load of coherent experimental data about a system not yet understood (no established predictions) can lead to many alternate hypotheses and will be studied with interest as these develop and one (or perhaps some) predominate. For example pulsars.

LENR does not follow any of these models for "phenomena that are not rejected". It has no theory. It has no reproducible strong observations. The (weak) data that comprise it thus far do not cohere and do not follow predictions. There are no predictions. This fits "experimental error+" better than any other hypothesis, and indeed the LENR community have yet to come up with any single hypothesis that explains most of the data exactly because the data is incoherent.

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The rejectors only used this claim as a fig leaf to hide another reason.

This statement is opinion, and as I've pointed out above there is a strong argument for attaching a low probability to LENR, given current evidence, based on methodology that is consistently applied to all new discoveries.

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I believe the rejection had a more sinter reason. The real reason was simply protection of self interest, initially by people funded by the hot fusion program.In 1989, hot fusion was in trouble because Congress was getting increasingly impatient with the slow progress. I believe certain very powerful people realized that LENR would siphon funds away from hot fusion and eventually kill it. They could not make this fear public so they set about convincing the public that LENR was bad science, which was easy to do.

Scientists are not easy to convince, not not generally subject to mind control. That is, some may so be, but there are lots of them and it needs only a few to find a new extraordinarily useful discovery like LENR for this to become accepted.

The whole point about LENR is that whatever conspiracy theory you like, it is strongly in the interests of individual scientists who have actually discovered it to publicise this. They would get Nobel prizes and immense acclaim. And if it worked, so stopping the hot fusion programme, those scientists who discovered it would get funding - together with a lot of the nuclear physicists doing hot fusion who would happily look at new and more viable problems.

It is not credible that science that is openly described could be suppressed for so long, if it worked. This conspiracy theory is Storms making excuses for the fact that LENR evidence is weak and therefore not taken seriously by scientists.

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This was power politics at its worst. This worked because Fleischmann and the rest of us were playing the honest game of understanding nature for everyone’s benefit. In contrast, a few powerful people were only protecting themselves using any dishonest tool they could find. We and they were not playing by the same rules and we still aren’t.We see this process unfolding every day in Congress and being applied to a range of issues. Facts and what is real do not count in government these days. Self-interest rules.

The problem is that self-interest also rules for those people stuck on LENR who have staked their life and credibility on it. Very difficult for them to backtrack and say - "hey folks, you know what, it does not work". Whereas for the vast majority of normal scientists an extraordinary new discovery with massive commercial potential would be strongly in their self interest to promote - if it existed. Scientists are used to stuff not being easily commercialisable - so just the existence of LENR would be a very big deal and make its promoter famous. So this self-interest argument is completely teh wrong way round.

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We in LENR have not created a self-interest for anyone of importance outside of a few groups having special needs, such as NASA. Even these groups have to hide their work to avoid being tarred by the bad science claim. In short, no one of importance needs LENR. Once the need is demonstrated, the attitude will change instantly. Perhaps Rossi will show that need or perhaps another country will create the need for the US to take an interest. We have to wait and see where the need is revealed before we can expect acceptance.

That is absurd. The need for LENR is well understood by everyone. That is the reason it is so popular - it meets our wish fullfillment. The science establishment cannot suppress definite extraordinary results, and as above, if there are no definite extraordinary results there is no likelihood of LENR existing. But if it did exist - any scientist would jump at the chance to champion it - and the first thing they would do is what MFMP tried - get bulletproof evidence.

The only difference is that when after long efforts such evidence could not be found, most normal scientists would say: "well, it is a shame, but the evidence for LENR is very weak, I'll do something else".

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There is many phenomena that were initially harder to replicate, and the measurement was clearly replicated when the Fatwa against LENR was cast.There are phenomenons that are accepted despite no theory can explain them.

OK, so give me your one best shot at such a phenomenon - and lets see how it measured up according to my post above relative to LENR.

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I think you are over complicating this. Getting so caught up in the science minutiae of scientific discovery, you miss the forest for the trees. Does it really matter that: "cause the effect" is an interpretation, not an observation as you dwell on?

It does not matter, except that it means there is no reason to follow it. The believer mantra here is that hide-bound scientists don't pay attention to empirical data. It is the reverse - they pay more attention and don't jump onto the first wish-fullfillment interpretation they find.

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Or that there is no theory by which to construct an experiment around (although Storms/NASA/SPAWAR/Brillouin did, or are doing that now)? If LENR doesn't progress as the textbook says it should, does that invalidate the results being found in labs around the world?

The results are perfectly valid. Why do you drag LENR into it?

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While you pontificate yourself into believing LENR is simply a pseudoscience perpetuated by mass denial and misreading of observed facts...each and every one of which is within margin of error as you conclude, and self-deluding lower tier scientists, yours and Joshua Cudes colleague's...those in the labs doing all the work, seem convinced enough to carry on.

There are always people - many respectable - who follow any pseudo-science. Look at creationism - homeopathy - etc. There is nothing wrong with them doing that, it is a free world, but it would be unwise to take such minority backing as validation - which is what you do.

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In just the past few years, we have seen the opening of SKINR, LENR research departments at Texas Tech University here in the states, and Tohoku University in Japan. The Ni Energy Research Park in China, and governmental funding commitments to LENR study/research in Japan, Russia, and maybe in India. There is much more I could add to that list by the way. So one question Thomas; would you like for all to cease their research right now, shut down their institutes, discontinue funding, simply because you and Popeye think they are all wrong? That what they are seeing is scientifically in error, deluding themselves, seeing what they want to see because they have "invested" in believing, so therefore a waste of time and money?

I think you are reading something I've never said. I've got nothing against scientists working on LENR experiments. I wish they would do it better, and more rigorously, because I think sloppy practice, if disseminated, is a big waste of other people's time. Unusually, I like anomalies and enjoy working them out so when there are real anomalies from experiments I'm very happy to spend time thinking about them (and similarly, though I would never tell others what to do, enjoy it when others do the same).

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If you ask me, I think we should all be encouraging, not discouraging this renewed focus on the science...if it is indeed a science (you guys could be right). Get to the bottom of it once and for all.

Shane, I think you have maybe not been following this stuff for more than a few years. "Get to the bottom of it all"? I wish.

Were LENR what you say, that would be possible, with exciting positive results.

Given that it is almost certainly what I say, can you imagine any evidence that would make all the people following it reach a definitive negative conclusion? Or even can you imagine evidence that would make one of them do do?

LENR is inherently undisprovable so can go on forever. It could be proved by just one good experiment. Don't hold your breath.

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Honestly, I think LENR needs people like you to ensure it's researchers maintain a high quality of performance. Even those in the thick of the field such as McKubre, have complained of the few doing shoddy work. That seems to be changing rapidly however, as I referenced in my post the emergence of numerous quality research initiatives, staffed with the finest of equipment, and higher tier scientists.

Shane, I await the good quality work with positive results. Perhaps you know some? I can't think of any.

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Don't move the debate.In 1993 it was clear LENr was real to one of the best skeptic but competent electrochemist , Heinz Gerisher, two other best Fleischmann and Bockris being "believers" after numerous experiments.

If there was clear evidence for LENR in 1993 then doubtless there is clear evidence now. I don't believe what you say, because no-one here has put forward evidence now that is clear.

Further, were there clear evidence, it could necessarily be replicated and with every replication (if real) it would get clearer. Whatever your conspiracy theory about all normal scientists being self-interested idiots unmoved by Nobel prizes such increasing clarity would win.

Why, in 12 years, has that not happened?

PS - I realise there may be evidence you think is clear, that I don't. Please address the "if there were clear evidence, it could be replicated, it would get clearer" by showing me where your "clear evidence" gets better through being replicated with better instrumentation, or better results, etc. Given the billions at stake here that would be bound to happen.

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what is convincing is the pile of LENR papers , peer reviewed, by various institution.especially compared to the no credible paper that find any explanation to those numerous results.

When even I look at this vast mound of papers they fit "no LENR" for the reasons given above. They don't fit "LENR". And, if I had missed something you can be sure the many people hoping for LENR would latch onto it and pull out all the stops replicating.

I think you have fundamentally misunderstood how experimental data is interpreted. There is (obviously) no single theory that explains diverse experimental peculiarities, nor any need for such. However any particular experiment, given effort, time and continued study, can be understood. The Lugano results give a classic example - highly unusual in that the experimenters provided enough detailed data to let that process happen over the internet! All I'd need, to be interested, would be a single LENR experiment that was studied and restudied, and continued to show ever more convincing anomalies. Everyone else would jump on it, so there would be no shortage of restudies.

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Defkalion make claims, were good looking ,a dn were stupid enough to lie. they were caught.Rossi said he heated some place... let us assume he exaggerate the importance of that place and that it is just one of his COP=3 device looking like a tube.anyway who cares, Darden and Woodford have invested after their due diligence.unlike you and me they can check what happen.

Defkalion were, as you say, liars and their convincing (to you and many) results turned out to be fake. I'm not saying that therefore every LENR company is similarly overtly dishonest, but it shows the dangers in accepting that type of interest as validation.

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anyway who cares, Darden and Woodford have invested after their due diligence.unlike you and me they can check what happen.

So, for you, the fact that Darden and Woodford have put money into Rossi is certain validation? That is an unwise argument, especially because Woodford relied on the Lugano results (as Rossi continues to do in patent apps) and they, we know, are wrong.

Your problem here is that you assume further unspecified DD has been conducted. I think you have little understanding oif how VCs work and the scientific resources they have (none). VCs will rely on statements from scientists. If unwise they will choose scientists like the Swedes who though independent are besotted by Rossi and think they have indisputable evidence of LENR from Lugano when that does not exist. Rather like you, till I and others on the other thread pointed out that both the Lugano COP=3 and the Lugano "acceleration" and the Lugano mismatch between dummy and active measurements were explained from published data by a COP=1 electric heater.

Thomas,

I have to make some comments to your original criticism here:

"MFMP have not found reproducible LENR experiments" - you really think MFMP have done enough investigations to conclude? I think not. And If Rossi has got "it", he Obviously have some stimulus mechanism that he has not fully revealed.

"The issue is that few mainstream scientists agree with Storms' interpretation" you probably mean "no mainestream scientists", since LENR was considered pure pathological science from day one. There is nothing to analyse,discuss or agree/disagree upon.

"....they are accepted ......only if they meet the bar for experimental or theoretical consistency."
What do you mean ? Like Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes? TGF's That pose a challenge to current theories of lightning, especially with the discovery of the clear signatures of antimatter produced in lightning. TGF was discovered in 1994, and 20 years later physicists are still struggling with theories to embrace all the observations.....

And you think 26 years after Fleischmann and Pons, Cold Fusion should have been setled science If it was real? Let me remind you of the story back in 1989:

In 1989 Dr. Steven E. Koonin of CALTECH (where he was then an employee) called the F&P claim a result of "incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann". And the physcists at the APS meeting 3.May 1989 bursted into applause.

So one of the greatest scientists of calorimetry in the 20th century, Martin Fleischmann, was incompetent when it came to measure.....excess heat by calorimetry. What an irony.

The debunking of cold fusion by the physics community was a Shame of science, and the biggest mistake in science of the 20th century. CF was actually a new discovery, that could have solved much of the global warming problem. But physicists turned their back on Fleischmann and Pons way too early. F&P where right in their excess heat measurements, energies far beyond possible chemical artifacts. But physicists are just like people in general: don't like changes, especially from "outsiders".

The problem in 1989 and which possibly still exists, is that physicists thinks there are no possibilities of "mysterious" nuclear reactions that would not produce expected gamma rays. The complete herecy of 1989 was that two chemists dared to claim some new unthinkable discovery within the area of physics. Like some outsiders trying to learn the dear physicists something completely new. Well, It took only 40 days for the physicists to shoot them down. Would not help If they had a new theory to explain it. Actually, It would make it only worse, since it would be inconcievable that some non physicists where to both discover a new phenomenon and have the theory to explain it. All physicists knew and still know that with nuclear reactions and fusion follows gamma radiation, and none where measured. So it had to be a pure chemical effect or measurement errors. But nature is full of surprises , and we have not reached the end of science..yet..

After this event Cold Fusion was put in same category as Ufology, so only the boldest scientists would touch the subject, on the risk of their career.

Anyhow: there are dusins of LENR theories, but lack of funding and interest in the Scientific community holds back the progress of the field. And no theory will initially be able to explain all phenomena, enough with one testable that can predict some outcome as a start.

Thomas

More criticism of your criticism:

"Thus: a bulletproof observation at odds with accepted theory...... is accepted as a phenomena when it is repeatable and clearly well beyond experimental error, even if no theory exists to predict it. "

Well, again you are wrong. F&P had "bursts of heat" in some one of eight electrolytic cells back in 1989. Bursts with power and energy densities far beyond possible chemical artifacts. But the Scientific community had no patience to wait for papers or more info from F&P. Within 40 days (and 40 nights) it was all over, and F&P was left om Their own.

One of eight probability to observe a mystery is far far better than the frequency of Terrestrial gamma ray flashes in lightning, which still is considered bulletproof with no theory, while F&P was not.

And F&P did even better later in France, but by then they where forgotten. And no mainstream scientists one would go near this kind of "Ufology"

And when the deciding institutes concluded "nothing here, move on" in 1989, the remaining Scientific community followed like obedient dogs. No more debate, even when some labs showed excess heat results.Or as Dr. Peter Hagelstein at MIT said of excess heat if F&P type experiments:"we have experiments confirming the basic effect, we have experiments showing that energy is produced, that the energetic reaction products aren’t there, and the question is what to do about it. Actually, we should be very interested in these experiments. We should be interested, because we have experimental results which by now have been confirmed a great number of times. We learned about nature from doing experiments. So, here are experimental results. Can we, should we pay attention to them? Follow them up, see, where they lead? Today, sadly, the experiments in the cold fusion business are not considered to be part of science. And that’s the resolution that we have come to as the scientific community. From my perspective, having been in labs, having seen the results, having talked to experimentalists, having looked at the data, having spent great time on it, it looks like pretty much these experiments are real. They need to be taken seriously."

Thomas,

Chapter 3 of my criticism of your criticism:

"Scientists are not easy to convince, not not generally subject to mind control. That is, some may so be, but there are lots of them and it needs only a few to find a new extraordinarily useful discovery like LENR for this to become accepted."

Haha, you are way too naive. You think scientists are not like the rest of humanity - prefers to follow the pack, don't like changes etc. Etc.

"The whole point about LENR is that whatever conspiracy theory you like, it is strongly in the interests of individual scientists who have actually discovered it to publicise this."

Well.......If you want to publicise a new discovery, it has to be Peer reviewed and accepted by "real journals". Since cold fusion one Month after the press conference in 1989 was concluded pure "pathological science", there was no Journals that would publicise and no peers to review papers. And That's been the story ever since.

Or to repeat what the Nobel Price winner (in physics) Julian Seymour Schwinger said of his attempt to publish papers on Cold fusion :
"What I had not expected was the venomous criticism, the contempt, the enormous pressure to conform. Has the knowledge that physics is an experimental science been totally lost?

"It is not credible that science that is openly described could be suppressed for so long, if it worked."

Yes it is credible. Yes, LENR is openly described, but not in what is considered "real journals". So physcists lacks the interest and willingness and funding to investigate, since consensus is "nothing there".

The swedish physcist Stephan Pomp said it something like this : I see no Cold Fusion papers being publicised in credible real Journals, therefore I will not investigate the phenomenon.

So there we have Catch 22: the physics community will not investigate since papers are not published in " real journals", and CF researchers can not get their papers published, since all know it is pathological science and thereforee there are no one to peer review

Well, probably not much more for me to say, but for the sake of completeness:

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Thomas,I have to make some comments to your original criticism here:"MFMP have not found reproducible LENR experiments" - you really think MFMP have done enough investigations to conclude? I think not.

If I am looking for a (claimed) $10,000 note in a haystack and have not yet found it then indeed I have not found it. What I said here is true. Your reinterpretation of the question as "Have MFMP concluded that it will never be possible to get reproducible LENR?" is revealing. That is an question that quite properly many people, including me, could never answer in the positive. I'd be very surprised if MFMP ever did!

But that is the point. "LENR" is not a scientific theory because it makes no predictions and therefore can never be disproved. What (negative) evidence would cause you to conclude that LENR did not exist?

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And If Rossi has got "it", he Obviously have some stimulus mechanism that he has not fully revealed.

Obviously, but then if he has got "it" his lack of revelation is so large as to make that fact not discernible by neutral external observers, once the incorrect results from the Swedes are noted.

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"The issue is that few mainstream scientists agree with Storms' interpretation" you probably mean "all mainstream scientists", since LENR was considered pure pathological science from day one.

Really? I remember the headlines and the (cautious in most cases) excitement in the scientific community. Rather like the reaction to the recent FTL neutrino experiment, which caused massive interest and steps to replicate. Of course LENR was even more interesting, because so obviously commercially valuable.

After a long period of attempted reproduction, as well as asking for more details from F&P, people began to lose interest. This was driven by lacl of positive results, not ideology.

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There is nothing to analyse,discuss or agree/disagree upon."....they are accepted ......only if they meet the bar for experimental or theoretical consistency."What do you mean ? Like Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes? TGF's That pose a challenge to current theories of lightning, especially with the discovery of the clear signatures of antimatter produced in lightning. TGF was discovered in 1994, and 20 years later physicists are still struggling with theories to embrace all the observations.....

TGFs are an example of a real and reproducible observation of a phenomena which has a number of possible theories within conventional physics, and a few outlandish ones. That is all good, and I don't notice physicists avoiding TGFs

Here (2005) is an observational paper noting higher than previously realised frequency. The LS in this paper can be summarised as:

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Hard x-rays and/or gamma rays have also been detected in thunderclouds and at ground level from natural and triggered lightning strokes (2–5). Acceleration of electrons to high energies in electric fields above thunderstorms was predicted in 1925 by Wilson (6), and this runaway process was recently shown (7) to be capable of avalanche multiplication, making its variants (8–10) good candidates for the TGF parent process.

The detailed observations give some support for this explanation (while the details remain obscure and exotic ideas can obviously not be ruled out, there seems no need for them):

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The position of the high-energy cutoff suggests that the energy of the electrons responsible for the bulk of the bremsstrahlung is on the order of 20 to 40 MeV. The spectrum is reminiscent of that seen once at ground level by Dwyer et al. (5) from triggered lightning. The right panel of Fig. 2 also shows the expected signal from isotropic, thin-target bremsstrahlung of 35-MeV monoenergetic electrons. This is not, of course, a realistic model, but it demonstrates that the correct electron spectrum will be extremely hard. The dashed curve is the model spectrum itself, and the solid curve is its convolution with the instrumental response for comparison with the data. An unmodeled excess at several MeV is apparent, which is expected for beamed TGFs viewed along the beam axis, due to the peaking of the bremsstrahlung cross section at high energies and small angles (23).

A 2012 summary of evidence + current "best guess" theory:
http://permalink.lanl.gov/obje…o/lareport/LA-UR-12-26453

Here is your "challenge":

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Lightning and thunderstorm systems in general have been recently recognized as powerful particle accelerators, capable of producing electrons, positrons, gamma-rays and neutrons with energies as high as several tens of MeV. In fact, these natural systems turn out to be the highest energy and most efficient natural particle accelerators on Earth. Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) are millisecond long, very intense bursts of gamma-rays and are one of the most intriguing manifestation of these natural accelerators. Only three currently operative missions are capable of detecting TGFs from space: the RHESSI, Fermi and AGILE satellites. In this paper we review the characteristics of TGFs, including energy spectrum, timing structure, beam geometry and correlation with lightning, and the basic principles of the associated production models. Then we focus on the recent AGILE discoveries concerning the high energy extension of the TGF spectrum up to 100 MeV, which is difficult to reconcile with current theoretical models.

So: this is classic science. We have some new observations, reproducible, without an obvious explanation. It seems electron acceleration does not pan out for this. This will drive (is driving) theory. Somone will come up with a model that predicts new features of the observations, these will be looked for, and if found the model will gain credibility. There is lots of scope and no extraordinary contradiction of well-backed (by other experiments) theory.

In this area, existing theory is pretty tentative anyway. Not surprising, no-one has got good internal instrumentation of what happens in lightning flashes. While there is no obvious way to get 100 Mev from available potential there is every possibility of weird effects here, and no-one would say that categorically.

This counts as:
(1) reproducible and clear observation
(2) no clear theory to explain it
(3) no obvious need to invent new physical laws

Such things are always interesting and occasionally new physics comes out of them. More usually a new explanation from old physics.

Compare with LENR: it fails at the first step because there are no reproducible observations o start the ball rolling.

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And you think 26 years after Fleischmann and Pons, Cold Fusion should have been setled science If it was real? Let me remind you of the story back in 1989:In 1989 Dr. Steven E. Koonin of CALTECH (where he was then an employee) called the F&P claim a result of "incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann". And the physcists at the APS meeting 3.May 1989 bursted into applause.So one of the greatest scientists of calorimetry in the 20th century, Martin Fleischmann, was incompetent when it came to measure.....excess heat by calorimetry. What an irony.

Science does not work on celebrity or personalities. F&Ps ideas were not accepted because neither he nor anyone else could reproduce them in a clearer experiment. When effects are real:
(1) Others can find them
(2) Concerted effort can make the effects better instrumented and as observations better understood. That never happened.

Accepting one scientist's word, no matter how famous, is stupid. We are all human, and all can err. That is one way in which science differs from religion.

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The debunking of cold fusion by the physics community was a Shame of science, and the biggest mistake in science of the 20th century. CF was actually a new discovery, that could have solved much of the global warming problem.

You give no evidence for this assertion.