The Playground

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

Axil, you now have an opportunity to do that glorious thing that so many anonymous trolls never do: apologize. As pointed out, that's not the Lugano reactor. Another identified it as an MFMP glowstick at 950°C (1.2 kW power in). The Lugano report claimed an external temperature of 1400 C. It was probably the Chanti or something, or they'd have noticed, ah, something is off here!

What's your excuse?

I provided the wrong picture, but the heater coils stands out dark in a bright background contradicting your statement as follows: "a bright line could be seen that was probably a heating element". In all the photos that I have seen of the hot DogBone, the coils are always darker than the background.

If you dispute that observation, show me the picture that has shown you a bright embedded coil on a dark background.

Quote from joshua cude

It was only in very sub-standard conference proceedings that he claims a correlation, and these claims have been associated with alleged falsification of data, documented in some detail by Krivit.

I've taken a look at Krivit's expose of the alleged falsification of data by McKubre relating to the M4 run. I thought the story told by Krivit's exhibits was very interesting. The conclusion that McKubre was doing something inappropriate or shady was absurd. It seemed like a harmless combination of reinterpreting the data over the years along with a repackaging of it. Do you disagree?

@axil and @Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

Somewhere in this forum is a long discussion of glowing coils and coil shadows, with several photos from Lugano, the MFMP and even some of my experiments.
Besides direct coil differences, there are also possible "rhythmic" glows caused by coils spiraling inwards and outwards along their length alternately touching and hovering over or under ceramic parts, and "beat frequencies" caused the combination of windings, ribs, and camera optical effects.

I think that a COP >1 with the dummy would have been a nice red flag, had they run it up to 900+°C.
I am fairly certain that would have been the result, using their protocol.

I hypothesized once that Rossi was trying to tell them something was up when he told them it could take more power during the active run... even though it was supposedly really hot already. (Maybe the thing would have worked properly if it actually was at 1400°C?)

There were issues of NDA and "independence" to consider also, as far as what went into the (public) report and telling them what to do during the test, respectively.

But there is no point in me making excuses for them.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

However, real objects have different emissivities at different wavelengths. "Total emissivity" cannot express this.

OMG ! We have discussed that already ! Again and again. Total emissivity is the ratio of two INTEGRALS over all wavelengths !Seem that for some people IR cameras can't be used with real objects ! And they keep repeating the same false misleading and wrong statements again and again.Interestingly the same people is so proud that pretend to judge a temperature from the color (i.e. emission of radiation) of a photograph! Oh yes a group of scientist (two years ago) have done "complex" (not really complex my dear!) calculations and now somebody says in a generic and vague way that there could be an error. This just means the he has not understood anything of the paper!And the same gui also ask why the data of a TC that was used by Rossi where not released ...... Mr. Lomax are you sane ?Figures from that TC would vary depending on the exact position (unknown to the Authors) and how the TC was read (also unknown)......

and then the daily dose of insults:

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

The "independent professors" signed off on that bit of patent nonsense, as if it was their idea.

You are writing about a group of Professors of three different Universities.
Normally who use insults have no arguments.

Is nice the way how you conclude your post Mr. Lomax:

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

it doesn't matter what the reality is.

For me reality matters.

Keie - as I previously stated, Abd grinds numbnuts to dust.

Keie - truly fascinating. We have to come up with a new term for the citizens of Planet Rossi. In order to qualify for citizenship, one must be able to effectively project what they are onto others or something like that.

Or is it more like what worked for Dorothy in the WIZ - put the toes of your shoes together and click your heals three times:
Repeat the lie and pray it comes true
Repeat the lie and pray it comes true
Repeat the lie and pray it comes true.

Good one Keie - Very nice and consistent confirmation of my previous message to you. Your voice is fading out. I can barely hear you anymore.

Also, Abd wrote:
* Arata-type excess power claims. I'm not sure what that refers to. What I was writing about is the extreme skeptical position, not the existence of critique of some particular experiment or conclusion or theory. If there is a peer-reviewed critique of Arata's work, I'd love to see it.
* SPAWAR neutron claims. Kowalski questioned a particular interpretation of the CR-39 results, but not the neutron claims. They stand as neither confirmed nor dismissed, AFAIK. Kowalski knows that cold fusion is real.

As I recall the Arata work was done with a hollowed out Pd rod filled with Pd powder and used as a cathode in an F&P-type cell - that places it under the CCS umbrella and since they also gave no calibration details, that means their work is indeterminate.

The SPAWAR neutron claims were based on CR-39 plates right? I criticized that in the JEM article 'replied to' by the 10 CF authors who used the strawman argument against my calorimetric ones. The only point in their rebuttal NOT using that was their attempt to rebut my CR-39 arguments. Since I wasn't allowed to reply, that issue remains open and I assert here that their rebuttal was inadequate. Upshot: don't trust CR-39 results.

Lomax wrote:

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Excluding academic books and encyclopedia articles, as Cude wants to do, on he bogus argument that are not reviewed, there are nine bolded reviews. I.e., this excludes some reviews from the peer-reviewed LENR Sourcebook, published by the American Chemical Society with Oxford University Press, both volumes,, a book by Hideo Kozima published by Elsevier, and a book by Edmund Storms published by World Scientific, and two articles by Steve Krivit in an Elsevier encyclopedia. Britz included all those, or I would not have listed them.

Thank you. So, that is an admission that you were wrong when you said

"Reviews are being published, 20 since 2005 in mainstream peer-reviewed journals, and not counting the reviews in the February 2015 issue of Current Science..."

and elsewhere when you said

"Peer-reviewed reviews are bolded. I count 20 of them through 2010."

So it wasn't me that specified peer-reviewed journals, which books and encyclopedia articles and the Sourcebook definitely are not.

And Britz lists only 9 of the references in your bolded list, and only 6 are classified as reviews. One is very clearly a theory paper by Hagelstein, one is a "comment", and one (in the Sourcebook) is confined to one group's early work in the 90s.

You might claim you made a simple mistake, but I'd be skeptical. It's your own list, and I've corrected you on this several times already in previous exchanges, so that suggests dishonesty.

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And then a cursory glance at 2013, two more journal reviews and another that is a chapter in a book. 2014, one possible review. 2015, excluding self-reviews, I count 16 reviews.

So even if we only look at peer-reviewed publications, there are about 27 reviews.

Right. So, when you said your response was straightforward, you meant devious. If you had said there were 27 reviews in refereed literature between 2005 and 2015, I would not have called it dishonest. But you didn't. You said there were 20 reviews *excluding Current Science* and elsewhere "through 2010", but now you're *including* Current Science, and going through 2015. This new claim represents a review rate considerably smaller, and includes a special issue in Current Science consisting of invited papers -- mostly review or status reports or polemics. So, while they are peer reviewed, the question of rejection was never really on the table. No journal would invite a paper and then turn around and reject it. Therefore, it is the result of probably one or two sympathetic editors of a 3rd rate journal with an impact factor less than 1. So, I would have responded to that effect. But what you did say was manifestly wrong, and just above, you admit it.

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Dishonest? Who is dishonest here? An anonymous troll, with no reputation at stake, who has just lied in the presence of clear contradictory evidence, which he could already see and has presumably looked at, or a published author in the field, with a reputation that matters, that affects his funding, etc?

You seem to be unclear on the concept of dishonesty. Anonymity and publication record are irrelevant. What matters is that someone says something that he knows is wrong. You have not even identified anything I've said that is wrong.

When I wrote: "As for those reviews, I have addressed them elsewhere, but it is simply dishonest to claim 20 reviews in peer-reviewed literature.", "those reviews" is a reference to your statement in which you say explicitly "not counting the reviews in the February 2015 issue of Current Science...", which I quoted directly above my statement. Here you *include* those reviews to try to claim dishonesty. That's dishonest in itself.

I, on the other hand, did identify a statement of yours that you have here admitted was wrong, and that you could not plausibly have been mistaken about.

So who is dishonest? Do the math.

Abd wrote: “That's for the link, Kirk; however, you have missed the point. "Shown to be rooted in artifact" does not arise because someone posits an artifact and even if it matches the data as well as the original claim. It is shown by controlled experiment that tests the hypothesis.”

Ummm…if an error in the math model used is identified, that means the results from that model will be incorrect to some extent. Ergo, since the F&P calorimetric model described in their famous paper on it (a) doesn’t have the capability of simulating an at-the-electrode recombination reaction adequately, and (b) contains a term in the energy balance equation that blows up (i.e. becomes infinite) as you approach the electrolyte’s boiling point, the model’s calculations for power out (and thereby excess power) will not be accurate whenever either of those two situations is present. That’s a mathematical fact.

"Meanwhile, you've got quite an uphill push to convince someone else to test your theory, given that hardly anyone even understands it” - so you agree the 10 authors don’t understand my criticism? Wow!

Actually, everyone I have explained this to that doesn’t have an emotional commitment to the existence of LENRs understands it quite well.

“You may believe you "refuted" this or that, but you have lost objectivity, you are assessing your own work, having lost the scientific method yourself.” – horse puckey.

“Good luck. As you should know, there is work afoot to measure the heat/helium ratio in the FP experiment with increased precision. Tell me, how would one manage to do that with double artifact, i.e, bogus heat and bogus helium?”

So now you want me to comment on the relevance of a correlation derived from two bogus values? OK…zero squared.

You know, the funny thing is that if you’d take the time to understand my at-the-electrode-CCS proposition, and if you knew anything about hydrogen handling difficulties, you’d realize there might be a non-LENR way to believe the current correlation. *But* - to prove LENR, you will have to get He numbers for the experiment’s environment at the same time as you collect samples from ther experiment. A concentration not attainable by a leak is interesting. Anything below that is not. *And* the He analysis methodology must be vetted to verify there are no systematic errors.

“Miles used blind testing. I suspect that Texas Tech and ENEA will do the same.” Actually, that level of effort is only needed if the results are expected to be challenged, which is probably likely in the CF arena. However, if they were doing this without having to deal with the CF arena’s baggage, showing that their He numbers were above the local environment’s level and that the ‘excess’ heat was real (and not a CCS) would probably be sufficient. Reproducibility s required *and* you have toprove the apparent excess heat is real, probably by ‘closing the loop’ so to speak.

“Given the equipment likely available to them and the techniques I expect they will use, I think they should be able to get results from a substantial series of experiments, with a precision of better than 10%. What do you predict? Will the helium results correlate with heat? If so, at what value and with what variance?”

Ummm…you realize the CCS arises from a 3% or less variation right? 10% isn’t very good, but the bottom line is whether one can show a signal that is above the noise (assuming you have accurately characterized the noise, which is what the CF calorimetrists don’t do if they ignore the CCS problem).

“(they will, I expect, be using reverse electrolysis to release all the helium, so that retention variation, if it happens, won't be an issue.)”

This comment only makes sense if you presuppose that any He being created forms inside the electrode, not at the surface. If it was formed at the surface it immediately escapes and the Storms Pt results basically prove it is a surface effect.

However, if formed in the bulk, most will be trapped there. In my group’s studies of tritium decay effects in metal tritides, we see 3-5% release in the early stages, before nearing the breakout point. Reverse electrolysis however will do nothing to release trapped He.

“Are you happy to see this work being done? “

Not in the sense I believe the time and money is being wasted by people who are trying to force their experiments to give predetermined solutions. But it won’t disturb my sleep at all, since waste like that goes on all the time. Just look at all the calorimetry work in the CF arena that has gone on since 2000 that is indeterminate because they don’t accept the idea that there may be a mundane explanation of their results…

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Lomax:

* Arata-type excess power claims. I'm not sure what that refers to.

It refers to just about the only two excess power claims in refereed literature in the past decade (excluding retrospective references in the 3rd rate journal that published a special issue of invited papers): Arata's 2008 paper (J High Temp Soc 1) on D2 gas loading of Pd/ZrO2, and Kitamura's claimed replication in 2009 (Phys Lett A373, 3109).

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What I was writing about is the extreme skeptical position, not the existence of critique of some particular experiment or conclusion or theory. If there is a peer-reviewed critique of Arata's work, I'd love to see it.

That's a cop out. I could say there are no extreme positive reviews, and then call anything you cite not extreme enough.

Dmitriyeva et al. (Thermochim. Acta 543 (2012) 260, and several other non-journal papers) have reproduced the excess heat observed by Arata and Kitamura, and showed that it can be explained by chemical (not nuclear) effects. Dmitriyeva et al. (the coolescence group) claim to be cold fusion advocates, but have tried a half dozen different experimental configurations and found negative results for each of them. I suspect they are wolves in sheep's clothing. Anyway, a negative result is a negative result.