Robert E Godes: why Cold Fusion is so opposed by physicists

    Quote from Hermes

    but I suspect that any attempt to do so without contamination by ambient helium would be exceedingly difficult.


    You are wrong. It is not difficult with modern instruments at places like the NRL or the ENEA. Nor is it difficult to capture the helium after dissolving the cathode in acid, which has also been done. Since melting or dissolving shows no significant helium in some samples before the experiment, and significant helium in samples from after tests that produce excess heat, I do not see how you can claim it is "difficult" or unreliable.


    Quote from Hermes

    The point I am trying to make is that the measured ratios tell us nothing except that helium appears to be a product. Bloggers may see an astonishing coincidence, but maybe scientists would not.


    No, the measured ratios show that the helium is close to the expected ratio for D+D => He4, as shown on p. 8 here:


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


    It is even closer when you account for helium left in the metal, which you do by melting or dissolving the metal, as I said.


    Bloggers do not "see an astonishing coincidence." The scientists who performed the experiments, Mile, McKubre, Gozzi and others, all claim that the ratio is 23.8 MeV per D+D reaction.

    OK, so I looked over the 3 papers Jed has linked to the pictures of exploded apparati on his website. They all have some things in common. All the apparati are glass, all are open cell (meaning electrolysis gases leave the cell). all assume without proof that the vent lines remained open at all times, and all the researchers assume that heat is the critical parameter to calculate. There are lots of problems with this. I could go into details but there's no point. People are either going to listen or not, so go ahead and make your choice now...


    Glass is easy to break. Try dropping a Dewar. A rapid pressure increase will break the glass. (It's kinda like dropping a Dewar in reverse, instead of the glass moving, the 'hard' surface of the pressure wave hits the glass). The key is whether a pressure wave of sufficient strength can be generated in the cell under the abnormal conditions (which are not well characterized) that were present in the cell at the time of the incident. I would not assume the vent lines remain open, I would do a bit of 'sensitivity analysis' to see what increasing the pressure would do, but you also have to take into account what pressure would cause the glass to break. (None of the exploded apparati shown were powdered like my sublimation apparatus was. I conclude the explosion was substantially weaker than that in all cases.) I do not know what that pressure is. Where I work we normally don't use glass, we use metal, which can take a lot more pressure than glass. Further, we the safety engineers do calcs to estimate what we might get if our H2 got mixed with O2 and exploded, they finish by taking a pressure that is 1/4th of what they calculated from their steady state conclusions. This is because explosions can create pulses 4x stronger than calculated by 'normal' means. Note I haven't mentioned the electrolytes yet. That's because it is not important. Again it is the gas pressure wave intensity that's important. So if these guys had a gas phase explosion. the temp of the electrolyte or the bath surrounding the cell is irrelevant, yet this is the only calc they do. In other words, my expectations have been met. The CFers always figure a way to make it nuclear, whether needed or not. But normal chemistry/physics does just fine.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The scientists who performed the experiments, Mile, McKubre, Gozzi and others, all claim that the ratio is 23.8 MeV per D+D reaction.


    None of these scientists measured any ratio close to 23.8 MeV (e.g. with an accuracy of 100 keV). Claiming compatibility with 23.8 MeV is another story ... of wishful thinking.


    The plot on page 8 of your reference illustrates a ratio of 32 MeV / 4He which would fit almost any conceivable helium producing reaction as I previously implied. To pretend that such inaccurate measurements correspond to 23.8 MeV is pure fantasy at this stage.


    As you have brought up this old review I feel like repeating Shanahan's observations that the helium results are suspect. In particular Fig. 12 of the same paper shows the helium declining with time. This suggests that the system was not sealed. Unreliable measurements will lead to unreliable conclusions I'm afraid.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    No, the measured ratios show that the helium is close to the expected ratio for D+D => He4,



    That would be the 1.83 x10^11 +/- 1.25 x10^11 (1 sigma) He atoms/Watt-sec. The 2 sigma band on that average then goes from -0.67 to +4.33 x10^11, i.e. it is essentially indistinguishable from 0. Of course the upper limit is well above the theoretical value too (2.6x10^11). Hint: This proves nothing. The data are too noisy to be useful.

    Quote from Hermes

    JedRothwell wrote:


    This is known: helium is not mobile in palladium, beyond moving within a grain. When the helium reaches a grain boundary, it is trapped there. This behavior was thoroughly characterized by loading palladium with tritium, which decays to 3He, which will be spread all through the lattice. It stays there, for years. In the Morrey collaboration, samples were ion-implanted with helium, to a depth of about a micron, and the helium stayed put even under loading and deloading of deuterium.


    I recommend, heh!, my paper. http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/108/04/0574.pdf


    Quote

    I think that's wishful thinking.


    Nope. While one might find some flaw, it is always possible, "wishful thinking" would drastically understand the basis for what Jed wrote.


    Quote

    Let's suppose, as many have done, that half the helium remains trapped.


    This has never been more than a round estimate. It is based partly on early Miles work and partly in a rough theoretical consideration that assumes a surface reaction. If helium is born at the surface and with some energy, then about half the velocity vectors will take it out of the palladium and about half will take it inside to be trapped. But that was very rough. In fact, some of the helium would, for example, be trapped in the local grain, and if that is a surface grain, roughly half of that would escape and half would move in to be trapped. As well, some grain boundaries may allow helium to move to the surface. So more than half should escape.


    In what may be the most accurate series of experiments done to date, Apicella et al, Violante found three results for the "released helium." They were roughly 60% for two and ... 100% for one. That one had used anodic erosion, which will dissolve the surface layer, releasing the helium. The problem with Apicella et al is that the energy measurement for that 100% result was low -- that is why they used anodic erosion, it is a technique for stimulating the surface. So the precision of that measurement could be on the order of 20%. SRI did a more precise measurement of possible full release and actually found 104% of the expected helium ... but the stated precision was plus or minus 10%.


    Quote

    In that case we expect a Q/He4 ratio of 48 MeV if d+d fusion were the overall and only reaction.


    And if the trapping is 50%. However, there is strong evidence that the trapping ratio can vary with specific conditions. For example, in Miles' full series of 33 measurements, we have these results:
    12 samples, no excess heat, no helium above background
    18 samples with excess heat, and elevated helium. The more heat, the more helium.
    1 sample with apparent excess heat, no helium. Calorimetry failure suspected, there was a power failure during this period.
    2 samples with heat and no helium. This was the only Palladium-Cerium alloy cathode in all the tests. Miles wanted to test Pd-Ce further, but was never funded. It's an obvious idea. The suspicion here is that something about Pd-Ce creates a helium trap, none of it can escape. It would only take a thin layer above the nuclear active environment to do that. Or something else is happening. Cold fusion is full of mysteries.


    Quote

    And if other reactions were also occurring then the ratio would be even higher.


    Yes. However, I had better confront this. The assumption is made that "if the reaction were d-d fusion." That is probably not the reaction. What the helium evidence shows, if the ratio tightens up to 23.8 MeV/4He, is that the fuel is likely deuterium and the ash is helium, with no "leakages" (like neutrinos flying off). "d-d fusion" is not the only conceivable way to get from deuterium to helium. And if it were d-d fusion, we would expect to see other effects that are not seen.


    My position is that cold fusion is a mystery, so using a known reaction as a guide can be hazardous. We simply do not know enough yet. But ... it does appear that helium is the only major product and that the ratio is in the ballpark. 23.8 MeV as the total energy release for conversion of deuterium to helium is a requirement of the laws of thermodynamics, it is mechanism independent.


    Quote

    The real question is, did any of the Q/He4 measurements involve melting? After initial failures I have managed to melt palladium (in an induction furnace) but I suspect that any attempt to do so without contamination by ambient helium would be exceedingly difficult.


    This was done with the Morrey collaboration. Yes. Difficult as hell. But done. However, big problem.


    The Morrey collaboration involved five samples, all provided by Pons and Fleischmann and blinded, initially. There was one to be "as-received" palladium stock. There was one to be an experimental rod with excess heat having been generated. And three were ion-implanted by Johnson-Matthey with helium. In analysing the rods, they were sectioned and divided up among a number of labs. This was actually a huge effort, showing how seriously some were taking cold fusion.


    None of the rods showed helium in the bulk. Something happened with the as-received rod: it had almost as much surface helium as the experimental rod. The experimental rod had far less helium than expected from a helium-producing reaction at the normal Q. Like 18 times less. But the excess heat for that rod had been expected to be much more. Further, Pons and Fleischmann initially refused to turn over the rod identifications as agreed, and walked off with the helium analysis, and didn't provide the information for maybe a month. It is obvious to me that by this time, Pons and Fleischmann were running scared. They threatened to sue Morrey. Etc.


    (By the way, palladium does not pick up helium from the air. Helium cannot enter the palladium lattice at all, there is a high energy barrier. The contaminated as-received rod had to have been accidentally exposed to the ion bombardment for the three other rods. Complete fiasco, wasting the time of many labs.)


    I think that this hit them at the time when they were not able to get their experiment to work, because they had run out of the original batch. All they got was this punk rod with only a little heat, so that measurement could have been way off. And they didn't want to admit the real situation and wait. Political pressure, etc....


    However, melting the palladium would not be the way to routinely make this measurement, and that has been my contribution: I noticed the "coincidence," that the two measurements that came up with approximately 100% of the helium expected from 24 MeV both involved anodic erosion, and I made a point out of it (including checking with McKubre and Violante). I had previously thought of chemically dissolving the cathode in situ, in the cell, to release all the helium.


    It is apparently not necessary, it looks like the trapping layer is very thin, a little reverse electrolysis *appears* to release it all. And this is trivial to do experimentally, and I'm told it will be done, and that this work, at Texas Tech and ENEA, is fully funded, though they are not talking much about it. Yet. I was told that my idea would be used and that I would be credited.


    So I call that fun. Are we having fun yet? Yes.


    Now, jam tomorrow. What do we have today?


    (continued)

    (continued)


    Quote

    The point I am trying to make is that the measured ratios tell us nothing except that helium appears to be a product.

    That is a drastic overstatement. Storms has published a histogram of the measurements. It's obvious that there is a central value. Further, there is no other candidate for the reaction product that has been correlated with heat.


    None. (Sometimes an isolated experiment here and there is reported. The field is full of unconfirmed work. Ideally, it would all receive follow-up. Conditions are not yet ideal.)


    The helium correlation has been confirmed by about a dozen groups. That helium is the product is so solidly established in the LENR community -- with only a couple of odd outliers, with Krivit as cheerleader and attack dog -- that when I proposed measuring the heat/helium ratio again, more than a few complained that it would be a waste of precious research funding. However, my overall analysis is that heat/helium is the only direct evidence that the PF Heat Effect is not only real, but is nuclear in nature. There is a *ton* of circumstantial evidence. Tritium, for example. Even a few neutrons above background in some experiments. Various transmutations. But all of this is circumstantial as to the reaction, and only heat and helium are major observed effects. Tritium is probably the most common report, and it's a million times down from helium.


    Quote

    Bloggers may see an astonishing coincidence, but maybe scientists would not.

    Well, Huizenga, in the second edition of his book, Cold fusion:Scientific fiasco of the century, wrote about the initial Miles report, which was only order-of-magnitude.


    Huizenga claims it could be leakage (which was already unlikely for that experiment but which became preposterous as a claim when more work was done. It was not "substantiated" for some time. This was difficult work. It's not clear what he meant by "conflicts with other well-established experimental findings," but he was likely talking about known deuterium fusion, which just plain does not act this way. Classic cold fusion error: assume that the reaction is d-d fusion, then notice that it doesn't behave like d-d fusion, then reject it. But the assumption was just that. Pons and Fleischmann knew that this wasn't d-d fusion, so they asked the question, "Fusion" and, famous story, the editors at the journal left out the question mark. But the text was clear: unknown nuclear reaction. but again and again it is repeated that they claimed deuterium fusion.


    Quote

    The second point is that just because you can find one assumption based on known behaviour of helium in metals, doesn't mean other assumptions are not ad hoc.

    This is all vague.


    It is true that the research that has been done was not 100% conclusive on various points. There are defects that can be pointed out, some purely formal: for example, the Apicella et al work was never formally published. The SRI work was internally reviewed by SRI, not by a journal. But all this cries for more work, and is certainly not a reason to reject it. Right now, I stated a preponderance of the evidence conclusion: it is worth funding additional work because it is likely to generate resolution on the issue of the reaction product, as well as increased confidence in the reality of the effect. It is not "blue-sky." It is following up and cleaning up.


    Nothing is ever a complete slam-dunk. There can be surprises. But, routinely, we make decisions on preponderance, not "proof" as so many seem to demand.

    Abd wrote: Two massive notes about He again. but he has still failed to address the issue I raised over in the thread "Document: Isotopic Composition of Rossi Fuel Sample (Unverified)". Specifically I point out that Miles uses a hidden value that must be a time to compute his He atoms/Watt-sec values, and that if you back calculate these numbers and plot He atoms measured vs this time, you get a curve that tells you that the longer this time number is, the less He you see.


    Why is this important? Because it implies every single He reported to date could be dependent on this undefined 'time', whatever it is. In other words, you might not be able to get the whole picture without that number. In other words, the He data is inconclusive because of insufficient information once again.


    (note also that if the He atoms measured vs time plot is accurate a single He appearance event followed by dilution is implied, at least in Miles data.)

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    Abd wrote: Two massive notes about He again. but he has still failed to address the issue I raised over in the thread "Document: Isotopic Composition of Rossi Fuel Sample (Unverified)".


    It is not a failure to address something not brought to my attention. I do not read every obscure thread here, nor every post within each thread.


    Quote

    Specifically I point out that Miles uses a hidden value that must be a time to compute his He atoms/Watt-sec values, and that if you back calculate these numbers and plot He atoms measured vs this time, you get a curve that tells you that the longer this time number is, the less He you see.


    I'll look.


    Quote

    Why is this important? Because it implies every single He reported to date could be dependent on this undefined 'time', whatever it is. In other words, you might not be able to get the whole picture without that number. In other words, the He data is inconclusive because of insufficient information once again.


    (note also that if the He atoms measured vs time plot is accurate a single He appearance event followed by dilution is implied, at least in Miles data.)


    There is work under way and I have many times requested comments that might help this work be more definitive. I am not familiar with the issue Kirk raises here, and he doesn't link to his post. However, I should be able to find it. On the face, though, it looks like Kirk is asserting that Miles made a bonehead error, one overlooked in twenty years of review.


    Maybe. More likely, not.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    Why is this important? Because it implies every single He reported to date could be dependent on this undefined 'time', whatever it is. In other words, you might not be able to get the whole picture without that number. In other words, the He data is inconclusive because of insufficient information once again.



    Because You missed the last ten years I link it again (third time...).


    Here one of the Stringham papers: iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol15.pdf#page=62


    Bdw.: The He/LENR heat rate compliance has been proven already in 1992 at NRL... Recently Stringham counted the bubble-holes with a very high coincidence!


    The only point one could make of it: Sono-fusion is hard core fusion. And indeed it is leading the other hard-core DD(T...) Fusion ITER by a ratio of 1000000:1 with it's overall positive COP near 4...


    Nevertheless it's LENR, because D-D fusion happens with less than 20W/s

    kirkshanahan: OK, so you don't believe in helium formation and you have no evidence for it - why we should care? What would that imply?
    Over 60% of USA citizens still don't believe in evolution - has it some meaning to convince them about the opposite?


    I'm perfectly sure, that at least the Li+D fusion produces He in 100% yield - it was measured with current of alpha particles generated. Don't ask me for source, you got it already.


    /* Classic cold fusion error: assume that the reaction is d-d fusion, then notice that it doesn't behave like d-d fusion, then reject it. But the assumption was just that */


    This is typical mindset in dismissal of nearly every phenomena and idea in the latest century.

    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    /* Classic cold fusion error: assume that the reaction is d-d fusion, then notice that it doesn't behave like d-d fusion, then reject it. But the assumption was just that */


    Here I agree with you 100%. :) We should reject d-d fusion, not "cold fusion".


    BTW I am not so sure that that d+Li produces 100% helium isotopes. What about, for example, 7Be + n?

    /* We should reject d-d fusion, not "cold fusion" */


    I don't understand, how do you want to reject d-d fusion with cold fusion experiments, if it's commonly known, that the cold fusion doesn't run via d-d


    /* BTW I am not so sure that that d+Li produces 100% helium isotopes. What about, for example, 7Be + n? */


    I don't understand, how do you want to reject d+Li fusion with 7 Be + n reaction? How do you want to falsify the existence of apples with oranges?


    Well I many have missed something, but not that stuff...


    In particular I looked into 'sonofusion' and cavitation jets back when Russ George was posting stuff on spf about it. At that time I pointed out that the pits he was seeing in the region near to when material had been etched away by cavitaion jets were most likely caused by a process known as steam embrittlement. It works like this:


    Sonicating D2O produces bubbles. They collapse and form a cavitation jet that is ejected at high speed into the foil. The physical action of the jet is to punch a hole or to cut the foil, just like linear shaped charges do in rockets, etc. That's why large portions of the foil 'disappear'. The chemical action is to load the foil with the atomic species found in the jet, i.e. D and O. Inside the solid, D and O recombine to form D2O, which like He, accumulates in bubbles. Eventually the pressure inside the bubbles exceeds the yield strength of the material, and the bubbles pop open. Often the 'cover' or top of the bubble is completely ejected. Has nothing to do with He forming from LENRs.


    Added info: many times the inside of the bubbles show 'anomalous' elements, which CFers claim proves heavy metal transmutation. However what is more likely (but difficult to prove as usual) is that metallic contaminants in the metal have agglomerated (either during manufacture or by the action of the dissolved D or H) to form a weak point in the lattice. This weak point serves as a nucleation site for water bubbles. Also, it can potentially form a spot with a lower yield stress too.


    Of course Jed or someone else will say I am inventing all this and it's all ridiculous. But no, I'm not. See:
    J. D. Fast, "Interaction of Metals and Gases", Academic Press, 1965, pps 54-57. On pps 55 and 56 are pictures of this in Cu and Fe. There is a similar process called methane embrittlement where dissolved C reacts with dissolved H to form CH4. It 'bubbles up' too.


    A less likely alternative is a similar process caused by nucleation and growth of hydrogen containing bubbles. Fukai has several papers out on 'superabundant vacancies' that form in Pd after high pressure hydrogen exposure. The cavitation jet may perform the same loading function as high gas pressure or electrolysis, and if loaded high enough, might form actual, visible (by SEM) bubbles. That is less likely though IMO.


    Re: "The He/LENR heat rate compliance has been proven already in 1992 at NRL..."


    Doubtful what you are thinking of proves LENR in a classic CF experiment. You might be referring to something like the D ion impingement on molten Li, which is not relevant to proving LENR in classic cold fusion experiments (it would only be relevant if one had proof of CF in classic experiences that was consistent with the ion beam experiments, but both need to be firmly established before a connection can be drawn at any level except a speculative one.)

    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    kirkshanahan: OK, so you don't believe in helium formation and you have no evidence for it - why we should care? What would that imply?
    Over 60% of USA citizens still don't believe in evolution - has it some meaning to convince them about the opposite?


    You're losing me on this.... I explained the implication of no He other than from mundane sources...He is cited by CFers as evidence of LENRs, so if the He is 'mundane' (as well as the other evidences), it means the exploration of LENRs is a waste of time. Go ahead if you like, its your time and money, but don't expect me (or anyone else) to believe you let alone fund you ('you' being generic here) based on the extant 'evidence'. You'll need to do better. For example if you want to use 'excess heat', you will have to explicitly evaluate the possibility of a CCS.


    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    I'm perfectly sure, that at least the Li+D fusion produces He in 100% yield - it was measured with current of alpha particles generated. Don't ask me for source, you got it already.


    This field is only related to classic CF via speculation at this point. It doesn't serve to legitimize what is normally considered LENR claims.


    Quote from Zephir_AWT

    /* Classic cold fusion error: assume that the reaction is d-d fusion, then notice that it doesn't behave like d-d fusion, then reject it. But the assumption was just that */


    This is typical mindset in dismissal of nearly every phenomena and idea in the latest century.


    For the record, I didn't write the stuff between the "/* */" and I don't agree with it. Which is why I got involved on the field to begin with. If I had believed it, I would have ignored the field. So don't associate me with that mindset, thank you.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    I am not familiar with the issue Kirk raises here, and he doesn't link to his post.


    Yes you are, you responded to it in the other thread I mentioned...


    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    On the face, though, it looks like Kirk is asserting that Miles made a bonehead error, one overlooked in twenty years of review.


    Ummm...let's see...it was about 16 years ago that I pointed out that a trivial variation in calibration constants could wipe out a 780 mW 'excess heat' signal. By itself, that means the possibility should have been evaluated in all 'excess heat' results from that point on, including going back to lab notebooks, etc., to check already published data. But has it? [see other threads in this forum discussing CCS for an answer]


    It isn't 'overlooked', it is ignored or denigrated. That survives because the field has 'circled the wagons' and treats any comments from those they deem as anti-cold fusion as 'pathological skepticism', which of course need not be acknowledged, let alone dealt with.

    /* the field has 'circled the wagons' and treats any comments from those they deem as anti-cold fusion as 'pathological skepticism' */


    Not at all, but you got over thirty of original studies, which prove the formation of helium during LENR - so I don't understand the meaning of its further doubting without another, similarly extensive experimental evidence. Even if you would somehow manage to doubt twenty publications from my list (which you didn't), then still at least ten research studies will remain undoubted.



    This is a matter of normal logical thinking.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    Sonicating D2O produces bubbles. They collapse and form a cavitation jet that is ejected at high speed into the foil. The physical action of the jet is to punch a hole or to cut the foil, just like linear shaped charges do in rockets, etc. That's why large portions of the foil 'disappear'. The chemical action is to load the foil with the atomic species found in the jet, i.e. D and O. Inside the solid, D and O recombine to form D2O, which like He, accumulates in bubbles. Eventually the pressure inside the bubbles exceeds the yield strength of the material, and the bubbles pop open. Often the 'cover' or top of the bubble is completely ejected. Has nothing to do with He forming from LENRs.



    It is 2016 now !!!!!!


    Just forget about Your past and the LENR past!


    Read the Stringham papers and tell us that You read them!


    Everybody knows that imploding bubbles cause cavitation holes, but: Alpha-emission holes have a different shape .. than simple cavitation holes...

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    It isn't 'overlooked', it is ignored or denigrated. That survives because the field has 'circled the wagons' and treats any comments from those they deem as anti-cold fusion as 'pathological skepticism', which of course need not be acknowledged, let alone dealt with.

    It is surely one of the greater ironies. Nobody is listening to Shanahan except occasionally some pseudoskeptics on the internet. The cold fusion scientsts are so unfair! They won't listen! They won't test my ideas! and I can't even get published in the journals any more!


    That's right, Kirk, to the scientists in the field, you are not worth the time of day. Your ideas became increasingly Rube Goldberg. But I'm getting bored with this myself. Good luck. What's good to each around the Savannah River? Enjoy it!

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