Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”

  • What? Do you think comments in internet forums prevented P&F from developing something with generous Toyota funding. Or prevented Rossi (or anyone else) from coming out with a product? Or is preventing the MFMP from identifying an experiment anyone (qualified) can perform with expected positive results.


    Mary Yugo frequently poses a similar question. And the answer is no. But it doesn't stop you, Mary, Gary Wright, and others from trying, despite considerable evidence of LENR, and growing evidence of LENR+. It might fly in the face of what you have been taught, but as the well-known tenet expressed on this forum goes, nature doesn't lie. And we are at least in agreement on one thing: the truth always outs eventually.

  • Joshua:


    You seem to have litle knowledge of what happened in 1989 and the years following. Science evaluate LENR within the thought processes of hot fusion. But LENR is not hot fusion. So what? If nature tells us that LENR may occur with the right conditions, are we not to investigating further? When experiemental result disagree with theory we have an interesting mystery to be solved. Most scientists will leave the problem concluding flawed experiement. That's what they did with Professors Martin Fleischmann and Pons in 1989.
    But when many later independently confirmed similar results, then what?


    I agree with Dr. Peter Hagelstein at MIT, who states;
    "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 nor 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."

  • Joshua,


    One of the i Initial problems was reproducibility. This haunted the early days of Cold Fusion, and why many scientists discarded it as measurement errors.


    So; if an effect only occur in say one out of ten experiments, it is not science? And not worth investigating, and let's move on for the easier stuff? Good reproducability depends either on a good theory, or you stumble upon an experimental reproducible setup where all the right conditions are met.


    You claim that science will show "great interest within the broader academic community rather quickly" if reproducible experiments are presented. History shows that it's not that easy. The progress of science is much harder, Especially if new discoveries goes against paradigms of its time.


    But Those scientists who possess an exceptional ability to recognize a theory's potential will be the first whose preference is likely to shift in favour of the challenging paradigm. There typically follows a period in which there are adherents of both paradigms. In time, if the challenging paradigm is solidified and unified, it will replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm shift will have occurred.


    Back to LENR's. What conditions needs to be made for heat bursts to occur in say deuterium loaded Palladium? which was the setup used by Fleischmann and Pons.


    F&P managed to get bursts of heat in may be one of eight electrolytic cells back in 1989. They increased the reproducability in the nineties, but the field was then no longer part of maintsream science. And the power and energy densities during the heat bursts was far out on the Ragone chart similar to this swedish report.


    Anyhow; one condition to be met was found in the early nineties; you need at least 92% loading of deuterium in Palladium to have any hope of seeing heat bursts. The trials at Caltech,MIT and other laboratories in 1989 where nowhere close to 90%. So There where no hope for them to see anything similar to Fleischman and Pons.


    More money and Scientists Are needed to Solve the mystery.


  • Here an other citation of Iwamura's paper.


    Step 2: The surface of the test piece is analyzed by XPS to confirm that no other
    elements on the surface of the Pd test piece are detected
    except the given element (Cs or Sr), Pd and C.


    Look at C which could be a remainder of a carbonate...
    Further on you did look in a very old paper. There is a much more recent one in ICCF15



    4. Iwamura's results were published more than 15 years ago, and he himself has scarcely followed up on these revolutionary results with simple checks. Some of the claims have such obvious checks, that failure to perform them saps any benefit of the doubt one might be otherwise inclined to give them.


    Here a citation of a follow up paper contained in ICCF15


    Title


    Search for Nuclear Reaction Products in Gas Phase Experiments
    – Deuterium Permeation and Absorption –


    A. Kitamura1, Y. Sasaki1, Y. Miyoshi1, Y. Yamaguchi1, A. Taniike1, Y, Furuyama1,
    A. Takahashi2, R. Seto2 and Y. Fujita2


    4. Concluding Remarks


    Employing both in situ and ex situ accelerator analyses, we have attempted to replicate the Iwamura-type
    nuclear transmutation of Sr to Mo under deuterium permeation through a variety of multilayered
    CaO/Sr/Pd samples. Apparently positive results have been obtained in 8 of 14 runs, although the
    identification of Mo peaks in the PIXE analysis is not definite. It is implied that sputtering loss of the
    atoms could be responsible for the observed tendency that the areal density of Sr decreases in most cases,
    while there are modest increases in Mo. Gamma ray measurement for samples implanted with W atoms
    has also been performed in expectation of transmutation from 183W to radioactive 191Pt, but we have not
    yet obtained positive results.

    • Official Post

    Oh, and Kidwell's claims are very credible.



    Kirk,


    Kidwell is a believer in LENR though, as his being awarded a recent patent for excess heat proves. So if you felt he was "credible" when he took after Iwamura back then, is he still credible now?



    "New Energy Times has learned that, on Nov. 10, (2015) the USPTO issued patent US 9,182,365 B2 for a LENR method that produces excess heat to David Allan Kidwell, a chemist with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Kidwell’s second LENR patent, US 9,192,918, will issue on Nov. 24."

    http://news.newenergytimes.net…estment-and-new-conflict/

  • IH Fanboy wrote:


    Quote

    me:


    Mary Yugo frequently poses a similar question. And the answer is no. But it doesn't stop you, Mary, Gary Wright, and others from trying, despite considerable evidence of LENR, and growing evidence of LENR+.


    It means that the intention could not possibly to stop discovery or evidence of a real effect, because everyone knows that is not possible. Other reasons are not so implausible. Opposition to pseudoscience is a perfectly honorable exercise, and has a well-respected legacy from the likes of Feynman, Bob Park, James Randi, and Ben Goldacre (author of Bad Science).

  • I agree with Dr. Peter Hagelstein at MIT, who states;
    "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.


    Hagelstein is still in the business and very interested. With their newest Nanor9 process, they report peak COP's of up to 1000..(near ssm mode) The older process did sustain a COP 14. (see ICMNS 19)


    This high COP of NANOR devices may also explain the sudden disinterest of IH in AR ... But don't forgett until now they still burn Pd! But they are on the way to replace Pd by Ni! ..

  • Wyttenbach wrote:


    Quote

    me:


    Here a citation of a follow up paper contained in ICCF15 [...]


    Well, first, it's not Iwamura's work, and second the authors admit the results are not definite.


    Anyway, by "followup", I did not mean simple repetition. If I remember correctly, Iwamura has reported some results after the 2002 paper, but they are essentially the same experiment trying to increase the rates. By "followup" I meant some sort of orthogonal experiment to improve the evidence. For example, he could try to transmute some radioactive isotopes. This would a million times more sensitive and specific than trying to identify stable isotopes by mass spec. Or, since he claimed energetic alphas were involved in producing the reactions, he could try to bombard the same foil with alphas in a wide range of energies to see if that induced similar effects.


    His first report of these experiments goes back to 1998, reported I think in the most detail in 2002. Since then he has reported the same results repeatedly, with essentially no progress, and (as I recall) only one subsequent experimental effort with more or less the same claims. This is highly uncharacteristic of discoveries of real phenomena, but fits very well to incorrectly interpreted artifacts, which is almost certainly what this is.

  • Opposition to pseudoscience is a perfectly honorable exercise


    Perhaps you could do the world a favor and oppose the sloppy replication attempts (with attendant public announcements) and flippant dismissals out of hand of LENR evidence, and help rid science of pathological skeptics. No need to fear the scientific method. Stop trying to bolster the reputation trap.

  • @Ascoli65


    Quote

    It would be wrong only if you can cite the name of a forum which presently is more important than this on the LENR subject.


    If so, you are saying that less than a hundred people in the world are interested in cold fusion. Among them very few physicists and chemists. DoD or whichever should ask DoE or BNL, which is the acknowledged US archive of nuclear science. Science is not a matter of democracy or public mood. Cold fusion must only be settled among scientists as any other scientific question. Putting it in the parliamentary "question time" is preposterous and largely ridiculous: I am referring to Italy as you know. We should fight together against this Italian trend towards blending science and politics. Science is able to choose its targets without any external help or lobbying, isn't it.
    Jed Rothwell is asking for more support to cold fusion; I would respectfully say, let the scientists as a whole decide where to put time and public money.

  • IH Fanboy

    Quote

    help rid science of pathological skeptics


    I agree, science mustn't be a matter of personal opinion. That's why I only refer to acknowledged data banks and largely diffused textbooks. IAEA and BNL can't cheat me... at least I hope so!

  • We should fight together against this . . . trend towards blending science and politics.


    I agree with this. Unfortunately, the DOE made it political by essentially blocking any funding for LENR, even after its own two reports recommended it. Now you have scientists who ultimately derive their paycheck from the DOE on this very forum attempting to justify the actions of their employer (or at least the ultimate source of their own funding). And furthermore, unfortunately, energy is political--there is no escaping that fact.


    And so, we must deal with a highly politicized and scientific unsavory brew, where both scientist and politician are placed on the hot seat, so to speak (or at least should be). Now, banding together to solve the mystery as to why the seat is hot would be a noble and most worthy cause. But, again unfortunately, it is difficult to align the interests of people when it comes to a potentially highly disruptive development such as a new limitless and clean source of energy.

  • You do like to split hairs.


    Yes, I admit it, but you do like to do it further. So, just not to reach the atomic size, I recap my replies to the first part of your comment by addressing this only quote of you:


    Quote

    Basically, you're relying on Rothwell's impression from his exposure to the literature. But his impression from the same exposure is that LENR is undoubtedly real. You reject the second. I'm surprised you accept the first without question.


    Here is my rationale. There are two type of JR says, those inherent the LENR history, organization, protagonists, funding, and so on, and those inherent the physical performances of CF devices and tests. It's easily understandable that, as CF/LENR librarian, he may have many reasons to be, let's say, hyper-optimistic in the second, but he has no specific reason to be as much biased for the first type of declaration. Moreover, his stressing that the major financial contribution to its development came from the public, and in particular from the military, does not enhance the confidence that LENR is a solid and viable technology. So, I have no reason to doubt of his declarations on this respect, and I rely on them.


    Quote

    me: You are a US citizen,
    you: You seem a little like the believers making assumptions not in evidence...


    Sorry, I was convinced you were. Probably due to your vehemence in negating the predominant role of DoD in funding the CF. I apologize. Anyway, IF you are a US citizen, you can ask one of your Representatives, otherwise let's hope that someone of them, or their staff, follows this forum and will pose the same questions to the Secretary of Defense.


    Quote

    The two quotes you provided indicated previous associations not connected to cold fusion. The self-funding I referred to was for their cold fusion research. This is a matter of record.


    The two quotes I provided ARE connected to CF, and the fact that they refer to periods before the 1989 press conference make them still more interesting.


    The first quote continued with this declaration: "We knew his abilities," says Pamela Mosier-Boss, an electrochemist at the San Diego centre. "I had to believe that he had something real going on there." She was talking about CF, and, if I understand correctly the wording and the tenses, she said that she should be aware that Fleischmann was working at something special, evidently related to CF.


    The same for the second quote in Italian. In this case, I'm sure of the sense of wording. Del Giudice was clearly alluding that Fleischmann could have started to work on CF well before the 1989, in the labs of British Navy.


    I don't know how true these quotes are, but their meaning is clear. The quote from JR is also clear: "[...] Fleischmann, Pons, [...] were funded by the British and U.S. governments, mainly from DARPA and other military sources." He said also "since 1989", but maybe he was confusing the periods. JR is here and, if he wants, he can clarify.


    Quote

    Well, the final report to EPRI was published in 1998.


    OK. There are still 15 years, at least, of McKubre activity at SRI to be explained. And, anyway, in the Hubler's slide presented at ICCF18 the sponsoring of DoD units to SRI started immediately, in 1989.


    Quote

    And not knowing who funded him is hardly a basis to assume it was the DOD.


    Here is a confirmation by JR (1):
    "Nearly every researcher was a government employee, including Fleischmann, Pons, Mizuno, Storms, Srinivasan, Miles etc. More recently, the development was paid by DARPA grants to SRI and places like that."


    Quote

    My objection was to your apparently certain assertion that the "DoD has been [cold fusion's] major funder throughout a quarter of century"


    My assertion is based on the clear statements of JR, and on the Hubler's graph. I think they deserve to be believed. The last was an insider, the first, by his words, was in deep contact with insiders (2):
    "The people in the U.S. and British military realize this. They assisted me when I wrote chapter 11 in my book, about weapons. I only scratched the surface. Any military expert could write hundreds of pages more."


    (1) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg105843.html"
    (2) "http://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-[email protected]/msg83637.html"

  • If so, you are saying that less than a hundred people in the world are interested in cold fusion. Among them very few physicists and chemists.


    Actually, the members of this forum are around 1700, but this is not the point. The real point is that the CF has attracted enough attention from important sectors in the US to be the subject of a specific query to the Secretary of Defense. This forum, independently from the number and qualification of its users, is presently the MOST important open space hosting a public debate on this subject. So it could be a source of possible inspiration for all the parties involved in the next briefing of September 22.


    Quote

    DoD or whichever should ask DoE or BNL, which is the acknowledged US archive of nuclear science.


    O yeah, great idea! Maybe at DoD, they are not aware of the existence of the nuclear archives. Perhaps, till now, their nuclear equipment and devices have been designed on a "try and see" basis.


    Quote

    Science is not a matter of democracy or public mood. Cold fusion must only be settled among scientists as any other scientific question.


    This is valid for the real science, but not for the popular science, which very often coincides with wishful science. This last is a matter of politic, because the decision makers take into consideration the public sentiment and expectancies, and these last can be heavily influenced by news and slogans proposed by the media, which in turn are controlled by the economic powers, which finally have interests on the decisions taken by the politics, especially if they affect the energetic policy. Loop closed. The two magazine covers already shown (Jed Rothwell on an Unpublished E-Cat Test Report that “Looks Like it Worked”) are just two meaningful examples of this reality.


    Quote

    Science is able to choose its targets without any external help or lobbying, isn't it.


    As I told you many times, it's impossible to judge the CF affair on the basis of the usual scientific criteria.

  • O yeah, great idea! Maybe at DoD, they are not aware of the existence of the nuclear archives. Perhaps, till now, their nuclear equipment and devices have been designed on a "try and see" basis.


    You are obviously not familiar with the US reality. For more than 30 years US nuclear physics where a more than 90% secrete place and any publication needed at least two sign off's. (Fleischman & Pons had non.., it was chemical research...) Todays it seems to be a little bit better.


    So to open the US physics research archives would cause big pains...


    Further on, the best simulation software for condensed matter and nuclear physics is in the hands of Livermore & Spawar. It's main use is military research...


    But, by the way, they confirmed, more than once, that their calculations confirm the LENR findings!

  • @Ascoli65

    Quote

    This is valid for the real science, but not for the popular science, which very often coincides with wishful science.


    Jed Rothwell cares of popular science, IAEA an BNL don't. In the end popular science will disappear, even if it seems to be conditioning strategic political choices.
    Don't forget that the acronym LENR is unknown in the Generally Agreed Nuclear Science; it has been invented by some cold fusionist (who? who knows).
    As you know, I am only interested in Italian side of cold fusion. If Movimento 5* wins next elections we must worry. It's a pity that in Italy politics interferes with the scientific dynamics, which could be heavily conditioned by mere political choices.

    Edited once, last by cam ().

  • @Ascoli65

    Quote

    This is valid for the real science, but not for the popular science, which very often coincides with wishful science.


    Jed Rothwell cares of popular science, IAEA an BNL don't. In the end popular science will disappear, even if it seems to be conditioning strategic political choices.
    Don't forget that the acronym LENR is unknown in the Generally Agreed Nuclear Science; it has been invented by some cold fusionist (who? who knows).


    As you know, I am only interested in Italian side of cold fusion. If Movimento 5* wins next elections we must worry. It's a pity that in Italy politics interferes with the scientific dynamics, which could be heavily conditioned by mere political choices.

  • Further on, the best simulation software for condensed matter and nuclear physics is in the hands of Livermore & Spawar. It's main use is military research...


    This is credible.


    Quote

    But, by the way, they confirmed, more than once, that their calculations confirm the LENR findings!


    This is much less credible.

  • In the end popular science will disappear, even if it seems to be conditioning strategic political choices.


    If the strategic political choices will continue to be based on the illusion to be able to substitute the fossil energy source with some miraculous alternative, the popular science will disappear at the same time of the people who believe in it.


    Quote

    Don't forget that the acronym LENR is unknown in the Generally Agreed Nuclear Science; it has been invented by some cold fusionist (who? who knows).


    The acronym appears many times in the request of the US House to the Secretary of Defense (1). That suffices.


    Quote

    As you know, I am only interested in Italian side of cold fusion.


    So, why do you write here on LENR-forum?


    (1) http://www.e-catworld.com/2016…armed-services-committee/

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