The Playground

    By the way, here is the most famous example of shooting a skeptical fish in a barrel. This is the debate between Morrison (who was roughly as stupid as a flounder) and Fleischmann. It would be hilarious if it were not so consequential. These are the best arguments the skeptics were ever able to muster. It is hard to believe but this was eventually peer reviewed and published verbatim. This demonstrates that idiotic ideas will fly through peer-review as long as they are opposed to cold fusion. There have been no other peer-reviewed critiques of cold fusion except Shanahan's, which are even worse.


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf

    Quote from Eric Walker

    MrSelfSustain: please substantiate this claim with concrete details, or do not pursue it further here.


    My, my, such high standards! You are out of touch with the modern era. Do you think this is 1890? The President Elect says 3 million people voted illegally. What's more, they voted for no reason in a state which could not affect the Electoral College. His adviser's son says the top members of the opposing party are selling children in the basement of building which has no basement. You need to get with the program. Go with the flow. Grok the zeitgeist. Truth doesn't matter anymore. We have entered the post-truth era.

    I don't think they're the same cases. In one case we have a forum member making broad-brush claims that do not always seem to be factual, about things and events out on the Internet, and sometimes using words like "sheeple" about other forum members. After a few years, one starts to appreciate the humor and spectacle of it. In the other case we have a forum member making a specific allegation about another forum member being a paid shill. I've grown weary of all of the Sifferkol-like rants here about forum participants and would be happy to help raise the level of conversation in whatever way I can. I'm trying to figure out what the lines are and where they should be drawn. Possible remedies: banning of low-value/high-noise participants; green text; bowdlerization with a signature; deletion of posts. I invite suggestions and discussion.

    Jed wrote: “These are the best arguments the skeptics were ever able to muster.”


    Hardly…


    And:“There have been no other peer-reviewed critiques of cold fusion except Shanahan's, which are even worse.”


    …which illustrates Jed's abysmal level of technical knowledge.


    I clearly and unequivocally demonstrate that a trivial change in calibration constant values wipes out a 780mW ‘excess heat’ signal, note that the trivial change shows systematic behavior (a dead giveaway that chemistry is working there!), then explain how that might happen, up to and including some reasonable chemistry supported by other data collected by cold fusioneers, and how does the CF community respond? Do they say “Gosh darn, we missed that, but it really seems to give us some new avenues to explore here.”? No, instead they misrepresent it (‘strawman argument’, see * below), prove their misrepresentation wrong (surprise, surprise…), and then ignore the issue. That is not the action of ‘good’ scientists.


    * I Googled this and the words ‘straw man argument fallacy’ came up, and the first hit under that said this (in part) – “The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person [or persons] simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.”


    P.S. regarding the paper Jed linked to and especially the reply by F&P:


    F&P castigate Morrison for not looking at ‘stages 1 and 2’ and the associated Pt ‘control’ experiment. Of course, the Storms data I reanalyzed to show the CCS problem was collected on a Pt cathode. So much for it being a ‘control’. F&P just didn’t know how to make it active apparently.


    They go on to talk about ‘precise calibration’, and for the record their method is as susceptible to a CCS as any other. So they may be precise at time ‘A’ but totally inaccurate at time ‘B’ (but still very precise by their measure). I went over other problems with their methodology in my 2012 whitepaper. You may be able to get it via:http://www.e-catworld.com/2012…s-article-of-cold-fusion/


    In their Stage 3 section they explicitly mention at 1.4% RSD (Relative Standard Deviation), which is entirely consistent with the estimated 1% RSD in the Storms data that I showed was in fact not random but systematic.


    F&P also talk about electrolyte loss (as measured by Li content found outside the cell), and later about recombination not being properly accounted for. In a 2004 publication with Szpak, Mosier-Boss and Miles (Thermochimica Acta 410 (2004) 101–107), Fleischmann reports (after previously denigrating my CCS proposition) that they recombined exiting gases to measure this and found


    “In this experiment, the total consumption of D2O was 7.7 cm3 instead of 7.2 cm3, assuming 100%Faradaic efficiency, which is within experimental error.”


    Now, the difference between theoretical and found is 0.5 cc, which is 6.94% of theoretical. This is again consistent with the magnitude of the effect noted in Storms’ work, yet is simply dismissed as ‘experimental error’. In fact the excess is likely due to entrainment of electrolyte microdroplets, which would produce the Li signal outside the cell they discuss in the supposed rebuttal. (Otherwise their ‘cold fusion’ created mass as well as energy…)


    F&P continue on with their ‘rebuttal’, but most of their salient points are in turn rebutted by a simple consideration of the CCS mechanism. I’ve been through that ad nauseum here so I won’t repeat it.


    However, what Jed is doing with his posted comment is exactly what people are complaining Mary Yugo does, endlessly repeating flawed logic and fallacious calculation in order to advance a point, primarily by swamping out cogent objections with page after page of drivel. The irony is so thick one can ‘cut it with a spoon’. Jed needs to get with the program and drop the drivel.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    See:


    lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MarwanJanewlookat.pdf


    lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcommentonp.pdf


    See: Alll the posts here in lenr-forum about how Marwan, et al used a Straw Man Argument Fallacy to "disprove" my suggested cause of apparent excess heat signals. (Note for the technically slow: A Straw Man argument proves nothing.)


    See: Thermochimica Acta 441 (2006) 210–214; 'Reply to “Comment on papers by K. Shanahan that propose to explain anomalous heat generated by cold fusion”,E. Storms, Thermochim. Acta, 2006', Kirk L. Shanahan


    QED re Jed's technical savvy...

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    QED re Jed's technical savvy...


    I did not write those papers. So, instead of saying this proves I have no technical savvy, I suggest you come right out and say the authors of those papers have no technical savvy. That puts your assertion in a different light. You are saying that 10 professional scientists, some with distinguished careers and international awards, have no technical savvy. You are saying that you know better than those people.


    I disagree based on the technical merits of their arguments. I also think you need to reign in your own inflated ego. You have not addressed the issues they raise. You say you have, but you have not. Your hypotheses are physically impossible and without merit.

    Zing! Welcome to the playground! Excellent brevity chaps.


    KShanahan. What's that story about the time you were trying to dispute some 'cold fusion' findings by showing a non-correlation between two factors, but ballsed up the analysis, and ended up unknowingly proving it? Or something. Abd used to write about it. Never heard your side of it. Maybe something about a horizontal line on a graph?

    Here is one example from one paper showing why Shanahan is wrong. This is from a paper by Miles. The configuration described here precludes the possibility of an error caused by heat moving from one location to another in the cell. All of the heat is measured outside the cell, and outside of a copper jacket that surrounds the cell. Copper conducts heat well, so it reaches the same temperature regardless of where the heat comes from. The jacket acts as an "integrator" as Miles puts it. See:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf


    p. 13


    Quote

    IMPROVED CHINA LAKE CALORIMETRY


    Based on our previous experience with integrating open, isoperibolic calorimeters, improvements were recently made to eliminate most of the error sources. This new calorimetry and improvements are illustrated in Figure 4. The major new improvements include a copper (Cu) inner jacket that acts as the integrator and replaces the H2O jacket. . . . A copper outer jacket contacts the bath and minimizes bath level effects by virtue of its high-thermal conductivity . . .


    p. 55 shows Fig. 4, the schematic.

    Jed wrote: "I did not write those papers."


    I know that. But when you continually spout them as 'proof', you imply you understand the situation
    well enough to cite them as 'the' relevant works to support your thesis. You do not have an adequate
    understanding of the facts. QED your technical savvy.


    "So, instead of saying this proves I have no technical savvy, I suggest you come right out and say the
    authors of those papers have no technical savvy. That puts your assertion in a different light. You are
    saying that 10 professional scientists, some with distinguished careers and international awards, have
    no technical savvy. You are saying that you know better than those people."


    Of course I have done this before, but you choose to ignore that. And to be specific, I am saying I
    detected an error in their methodology that results in the appearance of apparent excess heat signals.
    That's a 'systematic error', and the frightening thing about systematic errors is that exactly this
    can happen. They are missed and then passed on to all subsequent work, misdirecting results and
    conclusions until they are detected and corrected.


    Considering that they all signed off on the paper as co-authors and further considering that they
    repeatedly use the phrase "Shanahan's random CCSH", they *don't* know. I have written four papers that
    have appeared in scientific journals in this field, and in all four I use either the phrase "systematic"
    or "non-random". This is the exact opposite of "random". The use of "random" by the 10 authors proves
    at a minimum that they never read my papers, yet they claim my work is wrong. How do they know, by ESP?
    This is the core of the "straw man fallacy" that negates their conclusions. QED your technical savvy,
    since even after I quote the definition of 'straw man' and point out this problem in several prior posts
    which you theoretically have read you still don't get it. In fact I could be easily convinced you've never
    read anything I've written because you demonstrate no knowledge of the situation. You are a 'cold fusion
    groupie' who only hears what the 'heroes' of the field say. That is NOT being technically savvy.


    "I disagree based on the technical merits of their arguments."


    There are no arguments made by them that apply to my criticisms of calorimetric results.


    "I also think you need to reign in your own inflated ego. You have not addressed the
    issues they raise."


    They have not raised any issues relevant to the CCS problem I suggested.


    "You say you have, but you have not."


    Specifically regarding the supposed "Shanahan random CCSH", the only comment I need to make is:
    "I didn't say anything like that."


    "Your hypotheses are physically impossible and without merit."


    No. they are not impossible, as many people who've taken the time to read what I write have noted.
    Again though, your 'heroes' haven't admitted they failed open, so you don't hear the others who
    appreciate the implications of at-the-electrode recombination and a calibration constant shift.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    See:


    lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf


    This paper was written in 1996. Are you really implying a paper I wrote in 2000 on cold fusion calorimetry did NOT cover what was presented in that 1996 paper? You of course do realize the insult here, since you routinely make it explicitly.


    To respond directly, this Miles paper does not negate any aspect of the at-the-electrode recombination/CCS problem. In fact Miles uses the same approach as F&P described in their 1993 paper you quoted in your other post (the supposed Morrison 'rebuttal'). As I noted in my response to that, I pointed out several errors with this approach beyond the simple 'lumped parameter' error.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Yes, it does. It is impossible to tell where in the cell the heat comes from with the copper sheath.


    The addition of the sheath was to try to make the isoperibolic calorimeter more 'integrating'. The Storms' calorimeter was an integrating one. It showed a CCS. The changes Miles made did not prevent a CCS.


    Quote from JedRothwell


    In any case, Miles confirmed there is no measurable recombination in this cell, as I am sure you know.


    Miles was a coauthor of the 2004 paper that denigrated my CCS proposal. That's the one with the 7% error in measuring recombination that was 'just experimental error' (while a 1-2% effect gives the apparent excess heat signal). Can we really trust Miles to have measured the recombination *accurately* enough to prove a CCS was not occurring 4 or more years *before* the CCS problem was pointed out? No. That's the problem with systematic errors.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    That's the one with the 7% error in measuring recombination that was 'just experimental error'


    There is no 7% error measuring recombination in this paper. You are making stuff up, as usual. Here is the error estimate for the co-dep experiments, from p. 21. The others are similarly small.


    Quote

    The extent of this recombination was determined by measuring the current efficiency (γ) for the D2O electrolysis. This was determined by measuring the rate of evolution of the D2 + O2 electrolysis gases. . . .


    . . . the overall ratio of power out/power in was X = 1.0005 ±0.022, i.e., no significant excess power was observed after applying the correction for the current efficiency. The results in Figure 6 show that recombination can be readily detected and easily corrected in our experiments.


    Several other measurements and observations provided secondary checks for any recombination of D2 and O2 in our experiments. The volume of D2O added to replenish the cell was always recorded to provide another test for any significant recombination effects. Furthermore, the rate of the electrolysis gases passing through the oil bubbler could always be directly observed. Recombination of D2 and O2 within the electrolysis cell would slow or even stop the evolution of gases through the bubbler. Occasionally, recombination would even create a partial vacuum within our system, and oil would be drawn up into the upper section of the bubbler tube. Except for these co-deposition experiments involving dendritic palladium deposits, there was never any evidence for recombination in our experiments.


    Furthermore, when recombination did occur, using another technique, it was readily observable, and correctly accounted for.


    Quote

    Between January and June of 1992, 34 composition experiments were conducted at our laboratory. Apparent excess power was often observed as shown in Figure 6, but measurements of the current efficiency generally showed that the excess power was due to recombination or related effects. Only two of the 34 experiments gave excess power that could not be explained by a lower current efficiency.

    "There is no 7% error measuring recombination in this paper. You are making stuff up, as usual.
    Here is the error estimate for the co-dep experiments, from p. 21. The others are similarly
    small."


    You see the words, but you understand nothing. The 2004 paper is not the 1996 paper. There are
    no quantified measurements reported in the 1996 paper for recombination volumes. As far as I remember
    the 2004 report is the *only* time this has actually been done. That case gave a 7% error. I would
    not be surprised to see larger errors if more data was reported. I remind you the CCS problem
    produced a 780mW signal in a 98% efficient calorimeter. Proportionately, that is well below the
    reported error of the recombination volume.


    Not reporting quantitative results but saying it was measured implicitly requests us (the readers)
    to trust that the authors did it right. When anomalous results are obtained, it is foolish to
    blindly accept that kind of a statement. I need to see the measurements for *all* cases, not just
    the ones the authors choose to present, because my whole point is that I believe there is some
    other chemistry going on the authors are missing due to pre-existing bias. In other words, no free
    passes here. Show all the data. (Or give a completely reproducible protocol.)


    "Furthermore, when recombination did occur, using another technique, it was readily observable,
    and correctly accounted for."


    Case in point. "We did it and we did it right! Trust us! (Oh and by the way we thereby proved there
    are these low energy nuclear reactions that will require rewriting physics and chemistry textbooks.
    But Hey, trust us! We did it right!)"


    What technique? What are the details of the measurement process? How many times per run was this done?
    Is the data collection correlated to lack or presence of AEH or both? What is the accuracy and precision
    of the measurements? And so on and so forth...

    Zeus,


    You should have written "How does your CCS account for the CR39 triple tracks?"


    I would have answered by saying "it doesn't". That's because 'CCS' is an abbreviation for
    'calibration constant shift', and at best only refers to the mathematical fact that if you
    are calculating a result from a measurement via a calibration equation and you use the
    wrong (shifted) constant, you will get the wrong result. Nothing but math there, no
    issues either, no one has ever challenged that, and they would be fools if they did.


    As a separate add-on concept, I explained that one could get a CCS if the calorimeter/cell
    had at least two zones with differing heat capture efficiencies. Again just math, and
    never challenged. But it negates the 'lumped parameter' approach to interpreting data.


    As a separate add-on to that I speculated that the cell designs used in F&P-type experiments
    concentrated heat losses through the cell top, which establishes the two zone requirement to
    produce a CCS *IF* the heat distribution in the cell changes. This has never been challenged.


    As a separate add-on to that I further speculated, based on experimental data reported in the
    CF literature, primarily that of Szpak, et al, that recombination was sometimes occurring at
    the electrode(s). This required special conditions that usually took a long time to develop.
    The co-deposition process seems to shorten that time. The shift of heat from the recombiner
    (in closed cells) or from the exit gas stream (in open cells) provided the shifted heat
    distribution. This does require that the H2 and O2 bubbles get together somehow before
    reaching the electrolyte surface. That was challenged by Storms in his 2006 paper, to which
    I replied that if there wasn't good mixing then the calorimetry was bogus (which is understood
    to be true by all involved) *and* that F&P had qualitatively measured just that by dropping
    dye into an operating cell. They claimed a 7X faster radial mixing rate vs. the vertical rate.


    I agreed with Szpak, et al, that their hot spots indicated explosions. What are the products
    of generic explosions? Heat, light, and ...wait for it.... shock waves. What do shock waves
    do when they hit matter? They interact and deposit energy, sometimes enough to create
    damage. What does it take to get an etch pit to develop in CR39? Damage, very little damage
    actually. Dragging a sharp point over the plate gives pits. Carrying one in your shirt
    pocket gives pits.


    When you consider CR39 use in CF experiments, you must recall there are two very different
    ways they are used. The way that produced thousands (and probably millions) of pits was when
    the CR39 plate was used as the base plate of the codep electrode, i.e. the electrode was made
    directly *on* the CR39. Any H2+O2 explosion would require an iniatitor to set it off. In ATER
    (at the electrode recomb), the metal is the initiator. So you have admittedly small explosions
    occurring right on the very fragile CR39. Net result...1 or more pits per explosion.


    Yes this is speculative in that I am putting separate facts and observations together to draw
    a specific picture. But nothing wild or crazy is involved here. However until this is tested
    experimentally it will remain just a speculation, just like any other theory of how "LENR"
    could occur. (Note that "this" is *only* the chemical mechanism.) What do you think? Given
    that the CF community has just jumped right in to test all this out, we should know in a month
    or two if my Y2K proposal makes any experimental sense, right?

    Mr. K Shanahan.
    I am interested in how the IMS or other element testing devices can be contaminated be high temps around the seals. I think you mentioned it. I would like to know possible ways to explain the transmutation results. Do you have any references that I can track down and read? I asked earlier. I want to know of known proven ways the sample can show results. Other than being salted.

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