FP's experiments discussion

    Eric


    The third comment you quote came from a response to oystia, wherein I tried to point out that in
    'normal' electrolysis, the gases are typically separated. In an F&P-type cell they are not usually
    (see Oriani example I noted before). The fact that the H2 and O2 are mixed in the headspace or
    gas-phase region of the cell allows the chemistry of the CCS mechanism in F&P cells to occur. The
    CCS mechanism creates the CCS error in F&P cells. Distinguishing the so-called 'CCS error' from
    the 'CCS mechanism (in an F&P cell)' is required. A CCS error can potentially occur whenever you
    use a calibration equation. All that is needed is a change in the steady state that in turn changes
    the calibration.

    Quote from joshua cude

    Right. That's the point. It seems to coincidental that whenever helium is investigated, the power levels are low. There are plenty of claims of higher excess heat. So look for helium in the electrodes from those experiments.


    It is true that many in the field assume that (1) there is only a single first-order heat producing process in the FPHE and that (2) that process produces helium. But I don't see the need to assume (1) -- there could be more than one heat producing process. So observing significant heat in the absence of helium is also interesting, provided the report of heat is convincing. (Recall the Pd-Ce/D runs reported by Miles in 1996 and the Pd:Ce:Sm HH-series runs reported by McKubre in the 1998 SRI report, which in both cases saw significant heat but no helium.)

    Quote

    LENR is rejected by conventional science for political reasons. It conflicts with the self-interest of the energy industry, with the hot fusion program, and with conventional teaching in physics. The rejection is no different from that experienced by all new discoveries of mankind. The ignorant always reject as their first reaction. Only when the claim becomes obvious to an idiot do they change their minds. Many books and essays have been written describing this characteristic of the average mind, so I will not waste your time describing the examples. LENR is now the most recent example history will use to show that nothing has changed, even in the 21th century.


    Alas I must be blinkered in that I accept neither proof by untested authority, nor proof by assertion. Either of these would mean I found your comments satisfactory.


    There are two options: either there is an experiment or series of experiments on the same equipment that proves your assertion. In that case you, as an expert, can say which it is. I have not yet discovered such.


    Or, you are convinced by "preponderance of evidence". That however fails because of the easily misunderstood hydra problem.


    (1) undiscovered systematic error is possible
    (2) Therefore selection bias is also possible (as well as more obvious reporting bias)
    (3) each experiment must independently checked for possible systematic and other errors, under the assumption that such errors if they exist may be selected and therefore likely.


    A hard task, but then if any experiment leads to clear evidence scaling it to get Nobel Prize evidence would be possible and obviously worthwhile.

    Storms wrote:


    Quote

    Too often, the discussion about LENR does not use facts. We are regaled by a never-ending collection of opinions based on ignorance and then the ignorant complain when they are called ignorant.


    Well, and this opinion seems to fit right in with the pattern you are claiming. To my reading, it is more the advocates who regale us with opinions, justified by having been in the same room with a great man. I do my best to base my arguments on facts and logical reasoning. When I invoke authoritative opinions, they are those of credentialed experts.


    Quote

    I know the difference between ignorance and fact because I have read all the papers about LENR. My library contains over 5000 papers. I have assembled this information into two books in which the important information is evaluated and the sources are cited.


    And yet, about half of the references you cite in support of Miles' claims in your 2010 review do not in fact support his claims. And the remainder are at best marginal.


    Quote

    I have made thousands of measurements using the tools available to modern science. I know how a calorimeter works and its errors because I have build and used the method for 25 years. I know how a mass spectrometer works and how it is used to measure helium because I built and used a mass spectrometer for 20 years. In addition, I have published over 200 papers on a variety of subjects in peer-reviewed journals and reviewed many more. I know how science works and I know how LENR works because I have produced the LENR effect numerous times and have seen it behave as it is described.


    Here you are using your credentials instead of facts to support your opinion. It's not convincing to those who have seen the evidence (the facts) and understand that it is far more plausibly consistent with artifact than with a revolutionary nuclear reaction that (like the ether of the 19th century) contrives to prevent discovery of its nature.


    Quote

    LENR is rejected by conventional science for political reasons. It conflicts with the self-interest of the energy industry, with the hot fusion program, and with conventional teaching in physics.


    These were all true at the time of the announcement, but in spite of that, by your own account, cold fusion was greeted around the world with an uncommonly enthusiastic welcome. As you said (emphasis, mine):



    And in a paper for Infinite Energy, you wrote "many of us were lured into believing that the Pons-Fleischmann effect would solve the world's energy problems and make us all rich."


    Of course this enthusiasm makes sense, because cold fusion would have only benefits for society and for the government, so the only influence politics had on the field was strongly in its favor. Without this influence -- if cold fusion did not have the potential benefits of revolutionizing energy -- the subject would never have made it out of Utah.


    This claim of political suppression is just an excuse for the failure of the field to make any progress.


    What happened between the initial enthusiasm and the subsequent skepticism was not that everyone suddenly remembered that it conflicts with the energy industry, with hot fusion, and with text books, but that the evidence was made available for scrutiny, and it simply did not stand up.


    And anyway, the energy industry did not reject or suppress fission or hot fusion research, and although these have not lived up to their promise, that was not known in the early days.


    The hot fusion program is an *expense*, so it would be in the interest of the DOE, which controls the purse strings, to replace it with cold fusion. And most scientists would benefit as well if less money was sunk into hot fusion, leaving more for everyone else. Many of most effective critics of cold fusion were not working on hot fusion research.


    And conventional teaching in physics was violated by HTSC and dark matter and dark energy, but all these things were not suppressed, but rewarded with Nobel prizes.


    Quote

    The rejection is no different from that experienced by all new discoveries of mankind. The ignorant always reject as their first reaction.


    I think you're not in command of the facts. The first reaction was clearly *not* rejection according to your own very detailed account. It was an enthusiastic welcome, and widespread activity. One of the most effective skeptics of cold fusion (Morrison) wrote a gushingly enthusiastic report on the claims before he had a chance to review the evidence.


    And while rejection happens sometimes with new ideas, it's not always the case. HTSC was accepted immediately, and awarded a Nobel prize the following year. And the most revolutionary new ideas in physics, relativity and quantum mechanics, were accepted (in broad strokes) as fast as the ideas could be developed (even while there were quarrels about the details, and in particular the philosophy). In the amount of time since the P&F announcement, physics went from being entirely classical to having formalisms for special and general relativity and quantum mechanics. In light of that, and of the initial enthusiasm for cold fusion, to blame the current rejection on novelty is to argue the moon is made of cheese.

    Eric Walker wrote:


    Quote

    (me:)


    I disagree. I would be interested in knowing if helium is ever observed in a cell for which no significant heat was seen, and how much helium, if only to be complete.


    Well, there would be nothing stopping such investigation. I was just pointing out that it would not be necessary. And if the first dozen cells that produced no heat showed no helium in the electrode, perhaps that would be enough.


    But the real point of looking in the electrodes is that you can do it no matter what. In the case of the gas, you have to decide ahead of time that you are going to look for helium. So if you have a cell that produces really high heat, but you didn't arrange to collect the gas, you can still look for helium in the Pd.


    So, for example, in the many Energetics experiments that claimed powers well above a watt, those electrodes could have been sent for helium analysis. And so on.

    Quote from Storms


    Please excuse my impatience. If anyone wants to discuss real science, I would be very pleased to add my comments.


    I have been on Ed Storms shunned "word salad" list for years but it can't hurt to try again.


    I believe that the old meme embraced by ABD and Cude of LENR as a hot fusion variant is obsolete and counterproductive to the proper understanding of LENR causation. I would like to put forward an alternative conjecture for consideration. I agree with Ed Storms that the many experiments in LENR show that this strange process is basically produced among other things by imperfections in the lattice structure of transition metals: cracks as Ed terms these imperfections.


    Ed Storms is postulating that a new form of hydrogen is central to the LENR process. I suspect that this is correct.


    The way this newly recognized type of hydrogen is produced is through the application of high pressure. Hydrogen has a complex state diagram that shows how hydrogen can evolve from a dielectric gas into a metal through the application of high temperature and/or pressure. More broadly, I suspect that there is a yet undiscovered mode of chemistry that exists at high pressure which produces LENR active chemical compounds.


    The pressure exerted by the chemical bonds surrounding the voids in the lattice structure of transition metals could become high enough to produce high pressure formed chemical compounds that demonstrate the LENR effect. Other quantum mechanical based mechanisms add to this probability that high pressure LENR compounds will form. One such added pressure amplification cause is a pressure shock as suggested is required by Piantelli.


    In a completely independent line of evidence, one indication that high pressure chemistry is active as a source of heat is the evidence of the completion of a number of NASA planetary mission probes that has shown unexplained heat sources in the cores of celestial bodies of sufficient mass to produce high pressure chemistry at the centers of these objects. These include the Moon, Mercury, Pluto, Ceres, and various other less massive bodies in both the Kuiper belt and asteroid belts. Such chemistry might even be at work within the Sun as indicated by the new solar probes fielded by NASA.


    In addition, evidence derived from the high pressure conditions produced by collapsing cavitation bubbles indicate that other high pressure chemical compounds besides hydrogen might also produce LENR effects. These compounds include but not limited to water, liquid metals, and molten salts.


    There is also a theory that high pressure chemistry might be the basis of the effects expected by dark matter. Holmlid, Mills, and Shoulders have speculated that the chemical compounds produced by high pressure/EMF are dark matter. The characteristics of these compounds indicated that they absorb EMF energy in a dark mode and gain mass/energy through the absorption of catalyzed nuclear binding energy to form WIMPS (in particle physics and astrophysics, weakly interacting massive particles are among the last hypothetical particle physics candidates for dark matter) These particles convert catalyzed energy derive from nuclear binding energy into thermal energy through quantum mechanical means.


    These particles in their natural state have not yet been detected as dark matter because they are only produced by the high pressure conditions inside large celestial objects and exist in a metastable condition. Because these particles are metastable, these exotic neutral particles (ENP) will decay in time if their stores of energy are not replenished in an ongoing process.


    The final connection is the mechanisms involved in the generation of fusion effects produced by pyroelectric crystals.


    Pyroelectric fusion refers to the technique of using pyroelectric crystals to generate high strength electromagnetic fields to catalyze deuterium ions into a metal hydride target also containing deuterium with sufficient energy to cause these ions to undergo nuclear fusion. It was reported in April 2005 by a team at UCLA. The scientists used a pyroelectric crystal heated from −34 to 7 °C (−29 to 45 °F), combined with a tungsten needle to produce an electromagntic field of about 25 gigavolts per meter to ionize and accelerate deuterium nuclei into an erbium deuteride target. Though the energy of the deuterium ions generated by the crystal has not been directly measured, the authors used 100 keV (a temperature of about 10^^9 K) as an estimate in their modeling. At these energy levels, two deuterium nuclei can fuse together to produce a helium-3 nucleus, a 2.45 MeV neutron and bremsstrahlung.

    Eric Walker wrote:


    Quote

    It is true that many in the field assume that (1) there is only a single first-order heat producing process in the FPHE and that (2) that process produces helium. But I don't see the need to assume (1) -- there could be more than one heat producing process. So observing significant heat in the absence of helium is also interesting, provided the report of heat is convincing. (Recall the Pd-Ce/D runs reported by Miles in 1996 and the Pd:Ce:Sm HH-series runs reported by McKubre in the 1998 SRI report, which in both cases saw significant heat but no helium.)


    Well, the discussion was about *testing* the idea that helium is correlated to heat. I don't make any assumptions about heat or helium production, but if that's what you're testing, it's most effectively tested with appreciable power levels. And the fact that all the helium correlation experiments involve low level heat seems too coincidental, and suggests artifacts may be responsible.


    Of course, experiments that produce heat and no helium are interesting, and would contradict the thesis. It doesn't affect the point I was making that higher heat levels are more informative.

    Tom, I have a few questions I hope you will answer. The answers will provide a better understanding of your approach.


    What is your goal in this discussion?


    Are you mainly interested in teaching or in learning?


    What source of information do you accept? That is to ask, do you accept information from a person who has obtained the information or do you have to obtain the information for yourself from your own observations? In other words, what kind of experience do you use to evaluate reality of any kind? Must you have the personal experience, do you accept the statements of "experts", or do you accept no information no mater what its source?


    Do you accept consistent patterns of behavior being more important than individual observations? That is to ask, if many people report the same behavior, do you consider this consistency more important than each individual report?

    About heat/helium correlation: when not correlated the explanation can be either shortcomings in He measurements (like insufficient degassing from lattice or leaks to the environment) or that expected energy not accounted for escaped by radiation not properly catched (thermalized in the calorimetry mass flow apparatus or in particle detectors. What else?

    Quote

    Tom, I have a few questions I hope you will answer. The answers will provide a better understanding of your approach.What is your goal in this discussion?Are you mainly interested in teaching or in learning?


    Enjoyment
    Both - for me an exchange of views tends to lead to that. I like decoding mysteries, and, whether psychological or scientific, LENR presents some mysteries - at least to me.



    Quote


    What source of information do you accept? That is to ask, do you accept information from a person who has obtained the information or do you have to obtain the information for yourself from your own observations?

    That is like asking "how long is a bit of string?". And the notion of "accepting information" is too passive. We listen to what others say and it actively informs our own view of the world which we construct in some integrative fashion. To what extent I tend to believe what people say depends on how they say it. Particularly with experimental write-ups there is a often internal evidence apparent to an amateur with good maths and science.


    Quote

    In other words, what kind of experience do you use to evaluate reality of any kind? Must you have the personal experience, do you accept the statements of "experts", or do you accept no information no mater what its source?

    as above, not quite any of those.

    Quote

    Do you accept consistent patterns of behavior being more important than individual observations? That is to ask, if many people report the same behavior, do you consider this consistency more important than each individual report?


    The issue is not the accuracy of the reported behaviour. It is the accuracy of the interpretation. Just as a genuine phenomena will lead to coherence of reported behaviour (and LENR data is much less coherent than would be comfortable) so systematic errors combined with experimental selection and (some) reporting selection will also lead to (some) coherence of results after interpretation. That fits the LENR situation pretty well. (I've popularised it in this thread with the hydra analogy).


    So statistics is tricky. Correlation is not always causation. Consistency of reported behaviour may have a number of root causes. Details matter.


    In a more general realm, I don't accept that mass reports of a phenomena validate it. In some circumstances they do. In others they don't. There are a few interesting examples of this stuff we could go into...

    Thanks for the answers Tom. Attached is a histogram of the helium /energy measurements. The collection of 16 values clusters around a value that is about 40% of the value expected to result from D+D=He fusion. Because the ratio of two independent measurements is plotted, the ratio can fall anywhere between 0 and infinity if error were the main cause of the value. Instead, the value shows a tight cluster that can be fit by a Gaussian error function. In all other field of science, this is called a very tight and meaningful correlation. The slight shift from the expected value is proposed to result because some of the He is retained by the Pd, which is a very plausible assumption. A smaller collection of values at zero result because no helium is detected when no heat is detected.


    In order to understand any phenomenon, we have to start by making plausible assumptions. These are then used to guide future work. No progress is made if every observation is questioned and rejected because it is not perfect. The He/energy result is the best quantitative value we have in the LENR field. The next best is the tritium /neutron measurements. These measurements provide a path to eventual understanding. This path has become clear. The explanation also has to be consistent with a growing collection of other behaviors. Simply rejecting every observation as error is not only wasteful but makes reaching the goal impossible. This is like when painting a picture, no single dab of paint has any meaning until the collection of dabs suddenly can be recognized as the intended object. No painting would be understandable if each dab were viewed individually, which is what you and others try to do with LENR.

    How does the helium conjecture fit in with Rossi's reported production of the extended generation of electric power at a COP amplification of 10? That being 500 watts of electrical power from an input of 50 watts of thermal power.


    Has not the advancement of LENR engineering made the helium conjecture obsolete and irrelivant?

    Tom, please read my book where all the information you need is provided. The graph simply shows the published values in histogram form. The He/energy ratio is plotted as the log in order to show the range of values that could be produced by error or a leak.


    Ogfisionist: The background helium in the atmosphere is not an issue because the systems are tight. Great efforts are made to make sure no atmospheric He enters. If air leaks in, its presence is noted by measuring the Ar content of the gas. The skeptics seem to think only they realize the effect of an air leak and only they would make sure the systems were tight. The measurements are being made by professional scientists in modern labs, not by high kids in their garage.

    Quote from Mats002

    About heat/helium correlation: when not correlated the explanation can be either shortcomings in He measurements (like insufficient degassing from lattice or leaks to the environment) or that expected energy not accounted for escaped by radiation not properly catched (thermalized in the calorimetry mass flow apparatus or in particle detectors. What else?


    If we are sold on the proposal that the FPHE is real and arises from a single source of heat which produces helium as a byproduct, then it would be natural to look for the two sources of error you propose when there's a failure to correlate helium with heat.


    But we don't need to go with those assumptions. I think the situation is potentially more complex. A lack of correlation, or a weaker than expected correlation, could be explained by other things as well. For the sake of argument suppose there are three processes at work that produce measurable heat, and that the energy per reaction for each process is constant over the life of the experiment (just to keep things simple):

    • Eα -- energy per reaction for induced alpha decay
    • Eβ -- energy per reaction for induced beta decay
    • Ef -- energy per fragmentation reaction (whatever is causing it)

    Here only the α process gives rise to helium. In order to calculate the total power, there are three parameters that need to be determined:

    • Cα -- number of α-type reactions per second
    • Cβ -- number of β-type reactions per second
    • Cf -- number of f-type reactions per second

    Once these are known you can calculate the power:



    If you set Cβ = 0 and Cf = 0, you get the limiting case where power is only coming from the α process. If you set Cα = 0 and Cf = 0, you get the case where power is only coming from the β process, and so on. But another possibility is that you have a mixture of all three; depending upon what that mixture is, the correlation between heat and helium will be strong, weak, or nonexistent. This is one reason "nailing down" the heat/helium ratio will be very useful. I propose that such a ratio is not stable -- it varies all over the place, depending on the specific setup.


    I mention these specific processes because I find them plausible, but they can be replaced with any other heat-producing processes, and the larger point still holds about the correlation of heat (= integrated power) with helium.


    As a further complication, we are not required to assume that Eα, Eβ and Ef are constant across experiments or even over the life of a single experiment.

    Quote

    Simply rejecting every observation as error is not only wasteful but makes reaching the goal impossible. This is like when painting a picture, no single dab of paint has any meaning until the collection of dabs suddenly can be recognized as the intended object. No painting would be understandable if each dab were viewed individually, which is what you and others try to do with LENR.


    Every observation has a cause, in a few cases this may be psychological with blatantly false data but that is a real outlier for scientists. But, to continue with your analogy, humans are good at seeing incorrect pictures in noise.


    The problem with seeking gestalt patterns is that you cannot know whether what you see is extraordinary physics, or subtle experiment selection of unrecognised systematic errors.


    From the nature of these things, the latter is a priori more likely than the former (because not extraordinary).

    Axil, Rossi is using H, not D in his system. Only D makes helium. What H makes has still not been observed although I propose it makes D, then tritium, and only later He.


    As for the other claims by Rossi, we have absolutely no way of knowing how much is real and how much is BS. Unlike the PdD system that has been studied by hundreds of scientists and has been described in the open literature, nothing about the Rossi claims has been published where it can be evaluated or replicated. Rossi is not doing science. Therefore, a discussion of what Rossi has done is a waste of time.

    Quote

    Tom, please read my book where all the information you need is provided.


    I'm afraid I don't find summaries helpful unless I've also got the original experimental record (published paper etc). Little things not relevant to a summariser may in fact be illuminating. Of course I'm interested in summaries too.


    There is one other issue here which is that while I don't know the rights or wrong's of it Krivit has raised questions over Mckubre's He data and therefore I would not accept that. Once such questions are plausibly raised it is not possible to trust the data. Of course there is much other data.

    Eric, while what you say is true, it is unhelpful.


    The more complex your model, the better fit you need for data to be significant. He/heat correlation is good to look for because it is actually a prediction from an LENR theory (about the only one) with a known slope. Make the theory more speculative and complex and you have no secure prediction.

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