Distinguishing non-belief and disbelief... on skepticism...

Quote from H-G Branzell

As soon as the temperature corresponding to a pixel has a temperature exceeding 49 C°, is there any reason at all to assume that is is 1000 C° rather than 50 C° or thereabout?

I don't insist anything. I said "perhaps," which is not insisting. It's suggesting. Please read those links I provided, including Figure 5, which shows what the transients look like in more detail. Perhaps the transients cap off at 50 C, but I think an unbiased observer would conclude that it is more likely that the transients go quite a bit higher. At what point did I propose that they get to 1000 C?

Quote from H-G Branzell

I admit that they look temptingly like sparkles. This is for two reasons they are white and they are short lived. We can agree that the whiteness is due to false color. Their on-off behavior is just noise, which you can easily see

We can agree that the false color is not a point at issue.

Let's assume for the sake of argument the unlikely possibility the transients terminate at 49 C. What causes a small but significant portion of a material to suddenly go from 20 C to 49 C? Perhaps it's just noise. Well-structured, non-chaotic, systematic noise, following a clear chronological progression and focused in a clear region of the image.

Here we have noise seen in a device that in other experiments produces exposures in x-ray film, outside of the little apparatus, pits in CR-39 solid state nuclear detectors, and blisters seen in SEM images. Several lines of inquiry giving evidence of something weird going on. Perhaps every line of inquiry is subject to its own instrumental artifact. Shall we propose lasers hidden in the ceiling, beaming energy into the device?

As I said, perhaps those are micro-explosions. Seems like a measured and reasonable statement.

Quote from H-G Branzell

It does not. The "coldest" color is violet which according to the scale corresponds to 29 degrees. The warmest is red at 49 and the white pixels are always surrounded by red indicating that their white neighbors are 49+, not something much higher that can be expected for explosions.

I am happy to acknowledge my error with respect to the temperature delta go with your correction. So let's say the range is ~ 47 - 49+ C. For the sake of argument, let's go with a delta of 1-2 C, in a fraction of a second, corresponding to the area of a pixel in the output of the camera. While the pixel is small to us, we should acknowledge that it is a very large region on the actual surface of the cathode.

Quote from H-G Branzell

I do not comprehend what you mean with temperature transients unless you refer to the temperature increase from B-B to A-A in 5B which to me seems rather unexciting.

Yes -- that's a spike in temperature, i.e., a transient. It lasts for a brief period of time. The peak is almost assuredly far higher than 49 C, as any unbiased observer would conclude. (A cap-off at ~ 50 C is not even an absurd assumption; it is a redonkulous assumption.) But even if we go with a 2 C transient in a fraction of a second and a cap off at 49 C, we need an explanation for that. Perhaps you don't find it interesting. I'm ok with that. I do not engage in this discussion to persuade you of anything; I do it for others who might be reading.

Eric, I think you're going down a blind alley... I'm with HGB on this: You have an analogue signal being converted to digital. A slight amount of noise would get digitised to flickering, if the real signal was near the cusp of two digital values. I think the same effect is happening at all the boundaries, it's just less visible due to the lower colour contrast between bands.

But no worries, IMO there's far more to the SPAWAR research than that video, and better evidence of micro-expolsions in those three links you posted above.

SPAWAR Papers:

Quote from Eric Walker

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBosscharacteri.pdf (Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 2009)
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBossreplytocom.pdf (Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 2008)
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MosierBossuseofcrinp.pdf (Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys., 2007)
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSfurtherevi.pdf (Naturwissenschaften, 2007)
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSspawarsyst.pdf (Summary of research published in peer-reviewed journals over the period 1991—2008, counting 21 articles in all. This list does not include the JCMNS articles and ICCF reports this team have also written.)

Quote from colwyn

Eric, I think you're going down a blind alley... I'm with HGB on this:

Thankfully I do not hope to persuade HGB. If that was my goal, any alley would be a blind one.

Quote from colwyn

A slight amount of noise would get digitised to flickering, if the real signal was near the cusp of two digital values. I think the same effect is happening at all the boundaries, it's just less visible due to the lower colour contrast between bands.

Hopefully it will have been clear that my position was never that this video by itself is solid evidence of micro-explosions. From the start my position has been that perhaps those sparkles in the video are micro-explosions. Clearly, this video would not stand on its own. And, clearly, all the evidence taken together suggests that those might be micro-explosions. I mention this to avoid straw-man arguments in future replies.

While we are on this topic I would like to draw attention to a notable difference between the white sparkles and the other areas.

Note the smooth transition going from orange to red. The red area is pretty homogenous in color, apart from the sprinkling of white pixels, and the transition to the cooler region along the edge. There is little if anything in the way of sparkles of orange pixels in the red region once you get beyond the transition area. The white area is clearly patchy.

Even once the white starts to show in large amounts, it is still patchy, and even in later shots. Eventually it starts to get pretty solid; presumably the temperature of the surrounding area is pretty high at that point. Even then the white area remains somewhat patchy. That suggests that something different is going on.

I do not mention this for HGB's sake. I mention it for anyone who finds this video interesting. I wish the camera had a larger range.

The (A?) paper that video comes from ( http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/SzpakSpolarizedd.pdf ) measures what they call mini-explosions with a piezo. That video is there to demonstrate non-uniform heating, or what they call hot spots. I don't think they try to correlate the two. Other than cheekily, in the title...

I thought there was another set of measurements recording something like that. I suppose it would have been hard to correlate the two data streams. Perhaps the piezoelectric transients were noise. Does this suggestion increase my credibility?

LOL (your cred's fine...)

More micro-explosions: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ToriyabeYelementala.pdf

EDIT: @Mary, that e-mail reads like it was written by a vengeful ex lover of Rossi! I wonder what the CEO ( 's personal assistant) thought. Also, I see you managed to mention Defkalion and Nanospire as usual, as if that's some kind of argument... I'm suprised you left out Steorn and Papp.

Quote from H-G Branzell

No time axis -> No transient

Yes -- I see what you're talking about, now. You are correct.

Quote from H-G Branzell

This is exactly what it is about. If you for a few seconds can stop to stare at the white sparkles and instead look at the other color fields you will recognize that they are just as alive as the white pixels.

I disagree. As I mentioned above, I see a difference in the behavior of the white pixels in relation to the reds ones versus the red ones in relation to the orange ones. Nevertheless, whether we have solid evidence or not is not central to my argument. My position for some time has been that perhaps this video shows micro-explosions. My position, which I have clarified, has never been that this is surely evidence of micro-explosions. Other, corroborating evidence backs up the "perhaps." This continues to be my position, and I believe it to be on solid ground.

Quote

but I understand you could be invited to submit a criticism to Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys.

That Journal has an impact factor of 0.79.

Now IF has been criticised, specifically it can be artificially inflated (some famous examples), and of course it only vaguely correlates with Journal quality. Nevertheless 0.79 is low, and represents a very low average citation level of papers.

Now I have nothing against that Journal, and no doubt it has some interesting papers, but because of this you cannot say that being published in it is a high benchmark of quality. Also you cannot say that good scientists are likely to want to publish in such a Journal, or reply to uninteresting papers published there with an entirely negative (and uninteresting to anyone else) refutation.

I'm not dismissing papers because they are published in an obscure Journal. You however are claiming that the fact of them being published there, without formal refutation in that Journal or elsewhere, means they must be sound. That argument is not true.

To take your argument to its logical extreme consider the rubbish published in Rossi's JONP (which is apparently peer reviewed). I'd hope you do not consider a paper their to be good evidence just because no-one has bothered to refute it. BTW that would be tough - no likelihood that Rossi would publish such a refutation, or that any other Journal would be interested in a paper whose only claim to fame was that it refuted something that no one had heard of and that was transparently of no interest.

To take an example:
Large excess heat production in Ni-H systems S. FOCARDI(1 ), V. GABBANI(2 ), V. MONTALBANO(2 ), F. PIANTELLI(2 ) and S. VERONESI(2 )

Quoted here on this thread by Oystla with a long eulogy and published in: IL NUOVO CIMENTO VOL. 111 A, N. 11 Novembre 1998
Oystla says no peer reviewed refutation.

There are 57 citations on google scholar. Nearly all by LENR enthusiasts, and as far as I know (would take a long time to read them) contain no coherent criticism. One that stands out is:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10450-012-9445-8

Quote

Abnormally high heats, exceeding 2000 kJ/mol (20 eV) per molecule of O2, are generated by interaction of the oxygen with the hydrogen absorbed on palladium, gold and nickel particles at 25 °C to 220 °C. The highest heats were observed when the metals were treated with micromole quantities of argon, prior to absorption of hydrogen, as well as its interactions with metal particles reaching nanometer size. In the latter case the heat evolutions due to the interactions with hydrogen were approaching 5000 kJ/mol. The interactions with oxygen in inert gas environments, such as that of argon, yielded higher heat evolutions than those given by pure O2 pulses injected into nitrogen carrier gas.

The results revealed an important role of argon in increasing the intensity of atomic hydrogen-oxygen reactions to a level several times higher than the heat of water formation from molecular hydrogen and oxygen.

This was noting an measuring an anomaly - without speculating as to reason. Note that such anomalous chemical energies could easily be seen by LENR advocates as nuclear excess heat, because they are several times higher than the expected chemical enthalpy available.

There was an experimental paper citing this one and replicating its work, with null results.
Calorimetric investigation of anomalous heat production in Ni-H systems K.P. Budko1 and A.I. Korshunov2
Not exactly a refutation - they were too polite, and themselves looking for LENR, but of some interest is what they observed:

Quote

The experimental runs lasted from 4 to 50 hours. Initial hydrogen pressure varied from 0.5 to 1.5 atm. With fuel mixtures containing only nickel and Al2O3 maximum pressure usually didn’t exceed 2.5 atm., but when mixtures with LiAlH4 were used maximum pressure often exceeded 3 atm. and we had to open gas valve at the beginning of the first cycle to relieve the pressure to an acceptable value. During heating cycles temperature of reactor reached 800 oC. An example of typical run with DC-mode and 10 g of nanoNi + 1g of LiAlH4 as a fuel is presented in figure 3. As it can be seen pressure follows the temperature with some delay. The whole system is rather inert. Calculation of the COP performed using equilibrium values of input and output power taken from the end of each pulse. Thus using calorimetric data we couldn’t notice any fast single events of extra heat generation. It was possible to notice them only from temperature data, but accurate analyzing of all experimental data didn’t reveal any extra heat events.

Hmm... no extra heat jumps - but temperature jumps? The above paper has some nice graphs (part of the calorimetric data) correlating temperature with pressure. Let us go back to Focardi et al:

How do they know there was excess power generation? They don't. They have an isoperibolic calorimeter. Specifically they have a sample in an inner cylindrical vessel, with a vacuum gap to an outer cylindrical vessel. They measure temperature of the sample when it is heated under control and active conditions. They calibrate the system so that sample temperature can be equated with power dissipated in the sample.

Systems like this are good ways to do calorimetry. But as always they need care. The accuracy of the results depends critically on the thermal resistance from inner vessel (with sample and heater) to outer vessel (kept at low temperature by water cooling) remaining constant between calibration runs and sample runs.

Unfortunately this may not be the case. Specifically when the cavity that makes the thermal break is filled with gas this will change, and vary with the pressure of the gas. There are other possible variations based on a change in the emissivity of the inner cylinder wall which will alter radiation.

In a good experiment all these possible artifacts can and will be instrumented and controlled. But not when the difference between active and control runs depends on the gas content in the cavity between the inner and outer cylinders, since this conflates activity with a change in the conditions that will alter thermal resistance. When the system is sealed absorption of hydrogen by the sample will reduce vessel pressure and therefore increase thermal resistance, and therefore measured temperature. Could this be what Focardi et al observe?

Quote

Fig. 5. – A sample excitation (three negative pressure jumps) and a successive deexcitation (vacuum followed by a pressure jump) for cell B (T1(), T2(), T3(2)). The detail of the excitation is shown in the square.

For the life of me I don't know. They measure pressure, comment on it as showing hydrogen loading, but don't view it as calorimetric data and therefore their temperature graphs of results do not contain pressure information, and they quote temperature as a proxy for power independent of pressure. The above note is about the only hint I can find that their "active" state, which they say they can switch on an off, correlates with pressure. Specifically when the vessel pressure is lower the thermal resistance and so temperature is higher for mundane reasons anyway, but they attribute the difference to nuclear activity.

Maybe they don't make this rather obvious mistake. But there is nothing in their paper to show that they don't, and there are hints (as above) that they do.

Now, I'm not saying this paper Oystla likes is a pinnacle of LENR research. It looks particularly badly conducted to me, and I've seen better. But it has been cited 57 times by (mostly) LENR people and not (Oystla says) refuted. Also it is clearly a superficially convincing paper - Oystla sees it (see link above) as very strong evidence because of the large claimed excess powers.

Should we therefore reckon that it is correct?

I don't think so!

What I'd expect from the LENR community is robust refutation of incorrect methodology. It disappoints me that in this rather obvious case this seems not to exist. I say seems because while Oystla says there is no refutation I'm not sure he has looked at all 57 citations - and I certainly have not!

Thomas, if you are not satisfied the EPJ AP impact factor you could try another one you know

Actually most journals have IF Below 1. The more specialized the lower the factor.

A journal like NATURE, has very high impact factor, but caused by being a very general journal.

Take away Message: number of citations is not in itself a sign of quality.

Numerous criticisms have been made of the use of an impact factor.

For one thing, the impact factor might not be consistently reproduced in an independent audit. There is a more general debate on the validity of the impact factor as a measure of journal importance and the effect of policies that editors may adopt to boost their impact factor (perhaps to the detriment of readers and writers). Other criticism focuses on the effect of the impact factor on behavior of scholars, editors and other stakeholders. Another reason that can invalidate this technique is that there is a general tendency on the part of a citing individual to be influenced by the already indicated IF. Others have criticized the impact factor more generally on the institutional background of the neoliberal academia, claiming that what is needed is not just its replacement with more sophisticated metrics but a democratic discussion on the social value of research assessment and the growing precariousness of scientific careers.

It's been stated that impact factors and citation analysis in general are affected by field-dependent factors which may invalidate comparisons not only across disciplines but even within different fields of research of one discipline.The percentage of total citations occurring in the first two years after publication also varies highly among disciplines from 1–3% in the mathematical and physical sciences to 5–8% in the biological sciences.Thus impact factors cannot be used to compare journals across disciplines.

Thomas,

You really think the European Physical Journal is an "obscure Journal" ?

Because it is European and not US based may be ?

Anyhow, all major European physical societies is supporting it, so I think you misjudge.

http://www.epj.org/scientific-advisory-committee

Thomas,

Wrt your "One that stands out is:

link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10450-012-9445-8

Abnormally high heats, exceeding 2000 kJ/mol (20 eV) per molecule of O2, are generated by interaction of the oxygen with the hydrogen absorbed on palladium, gold and nickel particles at 25 °C to 220 .....,,,
This was noting an measuring an anomaly - without speculating as to reason. Note that such anomalous chemical energies could easily be seen by LENR advocates as nuclear excess heat, because they are several times higher than the expected chemical enthalpy available.
"

And my criticism of your comment would be

1. The main point of The Focardi et.al. Paper is that it documents excess heat lasting for a LONG period AFTER hydrogen absorption period, not only during the hydrogen excotermic absorption period.

2. The 20 Ev excess heat pr molecule as stated above are in general orders of magnitude lower than What LENR "advocates" have been investigating and documented.

Thomas,

I see you again bring up the Focardi paper, and again show a lack of understanding heat energy transfer.

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/FocardiSlargeexces.pdf

You state above

"Let us go back to Focardi et al:
How do they know there was excess power generation? They don't. They have an isoperibolic calorimeter. Specifically they have a sample in an inner cylindrical vessel, with a vacuum gap to an outer cylindrical vessel. They measure temperature of the sample when it is heated under control and active conditions. They calibrate the system so that sample temperature can be equated with power dissipated in the sample.Systems like this are good ways to do calorimetry. But as always they need care. The accuracy of the results depends critically on the thermal resistance from inner vessel (with sample and heater) to outer vessel (kept at low temperature by water cooling) remaining constant between calibration runs and sample runs."

The "thermal resistance" you discuss above is absolutly irrelevant.

Again I will try to explain for (the third time ?)

If you have a box, pipe or whatever container and measure the outer wall temperature, the heat flow is governed by the temperature difference between outer wall temperature and surroundings by conduction, convection and radiation.

The energy transfer from a box of any shape and to the surroundings does NOT depend on what occurs inside the box or how many chambers and walls there are inside.

It depends on the exterior surface geometry, outside wall parameters and surface temperature only. So your repetetive criticism of possible internal complications are of NO Value.

Again: It does not matter how the internals look like, number of walls, chambers, heaters etc.

An even outer wall temperature will therefore have a certain heat flow to the surroundings by conduction,convection and radiation. Therefore a calibration curve will work.

And therefore it does not matter If the heat arrives to outer wall from the electrical heater or from the inner core as LENR heat.

The evidence of this is the formulas for convection, conduction, radiation. It's the border conditions that matter in the formulas.

I do not understand calorimitry. If I pay $10,000.00 dollars over a set period of time for heating my factory and you demonstrate over an equivalent 12 month period that my fuel bills will drop to $2,000.00 dollars then I will buy your product. Okay there will be variables but my bills will be all the evidence I will need.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

Now I have nothing against that Journal, and no doubt it has some interesting papers, but because of this you cannot say that being published in it is a high benchmark of quality. Also you cannot say that good scientists are likely to want to publish in such a Journal, or reply to uninteresting papers published there with an entirely negative (and uninteresting to anyone else) refutation.

My own feeling is that the impact factor doesn't matter so much in the context of the discussion concerning Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. and the research by Mosier-Boss et al. What matters is that any criticisms would be subject to some degree of review by specialists and that Mosier-Boss and coworkers would have opportunity and incentive to provide a rebuttal. Even if the impact factor is not high, these two things are goods in themselves. Do you agree?

Quote from Thomas Clarke

I'm not dismissing papers because they are published in an obscure Journal. You however are claiming that the fact of them being published there, without formal refutation in that Journal or elsewhere, means they must be sound. That argument is not true.

Perhaps we can all agree that the lack of a refutation of a proposition or set of research does not provide strong evidence in support of that proposition or research. That also applies to assertions under discussion on this forum, by the way.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

There was an experimental paper citing this one and replicating its work, with null results.
Calorimetric investigation of anomalous heat production in Ni-H systems K.P. Budko1 and A.I. Korshunov2
Not exactly a refutation - they were too polite, and themselves looking for LENR, but of some interest is what they observed:

A null result is never a refutation. A refutation must go well beyond that. A null result can call into question the strength of the original finding and motivate additional effort at getting a set of positive results. But that's a different question.

Quote from Thomas Clarke

But it has been cited 57 times by (mostly) LENR people and not (Oystla says) refuted.

Here we can invoke our principle above that a lack of a refutation does not give strong evidence for a proposal or set of research.