[SPLIT]Older LENR Experiments were bad, good... in general

    Quote

    @THH You are completely right a 1% calibration error can statistically/mathematically disappear. A such small calibration error is just important if Your COP is within the same low percentage range...Recombination energies are "constants" with a slight dependece on Temperature. Thus the error propagation is linear...May be You can once explain us, in which formula you see an exponential error propagation. May be You consult the good old Wilkinson for an example...


    This would require detail, specifics, and patience to answer. E.g. a thread looking, in detail, at the F paper, all its assumptions, which are known valid.


    At this level of generality I'll address your assumptions:


    (1) You assume some exponential error mechanism is needed to get large errors on total energy. That is untrue, I was not positing such, you assume it.


    (2) You assume that because some of the known errors here behave linearly, that they all do. I can answer this (for one example) by supposing an error where lack of mixing alters recombination and is determined by non-linear changes in flow patterns of liquid within a cell. This error may not exist - but you cannot, atthis level of generality - show it does not. More productive would be to look at specifics where they will still be unknowns but more to work with.

    Just for Wyttenbach.


    I remember looking at a 1.6MHz Strigham paper. The calorimetry was not bomb-proof - but it was not my biggest complaint.


    My biggest issue is that of RFI contaminating the TC readings. Stringham is aware of this isue and he measures it (to some extent) showing thet the level of RFI is very variable over 2 TCs measured. The experimental results could be exactly simulated by RFI from a 3rd TC where it was not possible to calibrate RFI, so this is unknown. Stringham arbitrarily assumes that this is no larger than that poreviously measured on 2 TCs. This is clearly unsafe. The 2 TCs have a X5 difference in RFI level. The unmeasured, but critical, TC could have any level. RFI is tricky, tiny invisible changes can make a large difference in RFI.

    Quote from THHuxley

    My biggest issue is that of RFI contaminating the TC readings.


    @THH: I replied to this before. (may be You don't remember or selectively deny unpleasant facts..). Thus here once more:


    Citation of Stringham: CALORIMETRY

    The calorimetry is simple and conservative. We look at the data generated at steadystate temperature conditions with the Qi pulsed one minute on and one minute off to help clarify the magnitude of the radio frequency, RF, interference during the thermocouple measurements. The contribution of RF to the temperature measurements of T in and Tout was at most + 0.2 of a 2 degree C.


    As You can see, they measured both, with RF interference and without...

    Quote from THHuxley

    Just for Wyttenbach.


    Yeah, but we will kibbitz.


    Quote

    I remember looking at a 1.6MHz Strigham paper. The calorimetry was not bomb-proof - but it was not my biggest complaint.


    My biggest issue is that of RFI contaminating the TC readings. Stringham is aware of this isue and he measures it (to some extent) showing thet the level of RFI is very variable over 2 TCs measured. The experimental results could be exactly simulated by RFI from a 3rd TC where it was not possible to calibrate RFI, so this is unknown. Stringham arbitrarily assumes that this is no larger than that poreviously measured on 2 TCs. This is clearly unsafe. The 2 TCs have a X5 difference in RFI level. The unmeasured, but critical, TC could have any level. RFI is tricky, tiny invisible changes can make a large difference in RFI.


    It is possible with single reports or even a collection of reports from a single investigator to have artifacts like this. Stringham is largely unconfirmed, if I'm correct (someone correct me if I"m wrong!)


    This is why we want to see independent confirmations, or reports like that of Stringham are, to a degree, anecdotal reports from a frontier, not well-explored, not well-known.


    That there are many LENR reports under widely varying conditions is what I called "circumstantial evidence" for LENR. Each one of them might be direct evidence, if confirmed, but unconfirmed, they are anecdotal, which is circumstantial.


    If one wants to approach LENR with rigor, set aside the entire pile of circumstantial evidence and start looking at what is confirmed. SRI, as an independent consulting agency, understood a series of replications, generally supported by EPRI, at first (the Electric Power Research Institute, the research arm of the public utillities), then by governmental agencies, mostly. As an example, SRI confirmed the results of Energetic Technologies, collaborating with ENEA, the Italian alternative energy agency, which also undertook replications.


    Those were specific-protocol replications.


    Then I identified a cross-protocol result from the many groups that investigated anomalous heat and helium production. Set aside anything that is not electrolytic PdD, because helium trapping may be quite different with different materials.


    The body of work is consistent. The helium evidence shows that the FP Heat Effect is a surface reaction, not bulk (which contradicts Pons and Fleischmann's ideas, by the way). If it is a surface reaction, and if the helium has any birth energy, which is likely, significant helium, up to half,would be trapped, unless special measures are used to release it. (Why not half? Well, helium is trapped in palladium in grain boundaries. Within a grain, the helium is mobile. If energetic helium comes to rest in a surface grain, which must of it will, then if diffusion is random, it will half escape by diffusing to the outside, and half will be trapped when it leaves that grain.


    In two experiments, anodic reversal was used (this was more or less accidental, not designed to release the helium, rather this was a classic move, in one experiment, to attempt to activate a low-performing cathode, and in the other, it was an attempt to speed up deloading -- which it will do. McKubre was, in SRI M$, attempting to "flush" the helium out, which apparently doesn't work. But anodic reversal dissolves an outer layer of palladium, which would release any trapped helium.)


    What exists is a fairly large body of work examining helium in electrolytic outgas, finding a bit more than half of the helium predicted from the standard deuterium fusion value -- required by the laws of thermodynamics, mechanism-independent -- in the outgas. While many of the experiments were not precise, the correlation is unmistakeable, far outside of coincidence, and the many controls (no heat, no helium) showing that leakage is not responsible.


    Then there are the two experiments with anodic reversal. SRI M4 found 22.9 MeV/4He with error stated as 10%. ENEA Laser-3 found about 24 MeV, but the error may have been roughly 20%.


    These are strong indications. This work cries out for more precise confirmation, and that is now under way at Texas Tech, under the supervision of Robert Duncan, and ENEA, with additional groups being possible.


    This is work that does not depend on using unobtainium (massive heat, high reliability). It's already known how to do this. This is confirmation work, designed to nail it all down. "Crush the tests," as Darden commented in his Fortune interview in 2015.

    Quote

    @THH: I replied to this before. (may be You don't remember or selectively deny unpleasant facts..). Thus here once more:Citation of Stringham: CALORIMETRY
    The calorimetry is simple and conservative. We look at the data generated at steadystate temperature conditions with the Qi pulsed one minute on and one minute off to help clarify the magnitude of the radio frequency, RF, interference during the thermocouple measurements. The contribution of RF to the temperature measurements of T in and Tout was at most + 0.2 of a 2 degree C.As You can see, they measured both, with RF interference and without...


    Details matter. Perhaps you have not read the paper - just the summary? There are three thermocouples. He assumes RFI on the third (unmeasured) is no higher than the two he does measure, although these vary by a factor of 5 and have signifcant levels.


    You did quote the same summary before, but it did not change my argument then. Go read the paper?


    Quote from Alan

    FWIW, I have found it surprisingly hard to spook K-Type thermocouples with RF. Ground loops they hate, but provided you use the type with shielded junctions and cables, RFI is a tiny problem.


    That is rather like saying balls of string are quite short. It all depends. For example, RFI susceptibility depends both on the TCs and on the preamp stages they go into, which may be badly filtered or badly earthed. Level of RFI depends on so many things that when you have large high power HF sources (as with sonofusion) you just have to suck it and see making no assumptions.


    Details matter...

    Quote

    Indeed they (details) do matter THH. You have no idea of the stresses I have subjected K-Types to. My ball of string is longer than you can imagine. You may safely assume that (being a radio ham and a TRX builder in a former life) I have some knowledge of RFI, what it can do and how to counteract its effect.


    Indeed Alan, I'm not questioning your competence. I'm also a Radio Amateur (VHF only and not used my license for a very long time). I also did a whole load of HF stuff at school. More to the point I've spent a few happy years as an electronic designer in a company making very sensitive high dynamic range broadband receivers capable of measuring RFI to govt regs.


    We do however not know what Stringham did, other than what he says in his writeup.

    Quote from THHuxley

    My biggest issue is that of RFI contaminating the TC readings. Stringham is aware of this isue and he measures it (to some extent) showing thet the level of RFI is very variable over 2 TCs measured. The experimental results could be exactly simulated by RFI from a 3rd TC where it was not possible to calibrate RFI, so this is unknown. Stringham arbitrarily assumes that this is no larger than that poreviously measured on 2 TCs. This is clearly unsafe. The 2 TCs have a X5 difference in RFI level. The unmeasured, but critical, TC could have any level. RFI is tricky, tiny invisible changes can make a large difference in RFI.


    @THH Your arguments become more than absurd now. May be You should start to think over first, what you intend to write, before your fingers run away...
    Stringham does an on off calibration of the continous measurement. He concludes there after the error margin of the continous readings...As I said the measurements are done in a steady state mode without any RF production! (No RFI interference) Please stop your FUD.

    http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol13.pdf#page=515</a>


    The Tc measurements were made at intervals at the beginning of the off mode as the reactor piezo drive was
    programmed with a duty cycle of 120 s on and 120 s off. Tc measurements were made every second and were back
    calculated to the time of the start of the off mode to determine the 1T and Qo. This eliminated any possible radio
    frequency interference from the megahertz piezo during Tc measurements. The low mass reactor was close to steady
    state temperature after one minute of piezo running time. The total power in, Qi was measured by 0–100 W power
    meter from an Ohio Semiconductor, Qa = 0.3Qi, where Qi was the measured total input power. The data was taken at
    different Qa measuring the SL intensity and the watts out, Qo, where Qx = Qo − Qa (see Fig. 7). The length of each
    series of runs was about 20 min at a measured acoustic power input, Qa.



    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    It is possible with single reports or even a collection of reports from a single investigator to have artifacts like this. Stringham is largely unconfirmed, if I'm correct (someone correct me if I"m wrong!)


    There are about 20 paper's covering all the work done by Stringham during the last 15 years. May be You look once at the 552ppm He content of the outgases they report.
    I know that everybody with a relation to peoples doing hot-fusion research hate his work...

    Wyttenbach titles his post THH's absurd arguments. But these are not absurd arguments, they are what arose in a consideration of the Stringham work. THH is respectful and is simply explaining why he is not convinced. This is normal and in a civil discussion, if there are responses to his objections, they would be made. Calliing this discussion "absurd" is grossly uncivil and hostile, I would take it as attempting to drive THH away.


    THH is skeptical, but also recognizes the possibility of cold fusion. He is seeking to understand it, as I read him, not to out-of-hand reject it, and, as such, he is the kind of skeptic that this field needs, people who will not just fall over in amazement, on the one hand, or debunk and ridicule, on the other. Wyttenbach more resembles the pseudoskeptics as to character. "Absurd!" is a common cry of pseudoskeptics, I run into it all the time.


    Quote from Wyttenbach

    THHuxley wrote:


    @THH Your arguments become more than absurd now. May be You should start to think over first, what you intend to write, before your fingers run away...


    Powerful thinkers are not afraid to be wrong. A demand that everything be right stops many people from exploring the bases of what they think. It suppresses communication, and "being wrong," if one is not attached to being right, is the fastest way to learn, and the learning can be deep.


    I am not necessarily agreeing with THH' objection here. I pointed out that it is not difficult to come up with armchair objections to much cold fusion research. Papers do not describe everything that a researcher did to avoid artifacts. If one really needs to know, communicating with the researcher may be in order. I have done that on occasion.


    Quote

    Stringham does an on off calibration of the continous measurement. He concludes there after the error margin of the continous readings...As I said the measurements are done in a steady state mode without any RF production! (No RFI interference) Please stop your FUD.


    "FUD" is a grossly uncivil Planet Rossi trope invented by Sifferkoll to describe any criticism of Rossi's work. Behind it is a belief that such critique must be motivated by malevolence, a deliberate attempt to confuse. And then he often adds that it is "paid," i.e., there is a conspiracy of big money to suppress cold fusion and Rossi in particular, so they are hiring bloggers. There is no sign of this at all. It's pure fantasy, apparently. Those whom Sifferkoll most attacks are long-term, known supporters of LENR.


    Quote

    http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol13.pdf#page=515


    Stringham has been working for a long time, on this line. This paper is dense with theoretical analysis, using concepts that are not established as explanations. Stringham mostly cites himself, his prior work.


    One of the tragedies of cold fusion is that there is much work that may be valuable to confirm and explore, where that hasn't happened. Stringham is not to be rejected because he has not been confirmed, but it's a problem.


    Quote

    The Tc measurements were made at intervals at the beginning of the off mode as the reactor piezo drive was programmed with a duty cycle of 120 s on and 120 s off. Tc measurements were made every second and were back calculated to the time of the start of the off mode to determine the 1T and Qo. This eliminated any possible radio frequency interference from the megahertz piezo during Tc measurements. The low mass reactor was close to steady state temperature after one minute of piezo running time. The total power in, Qi was measured by 0–100 W power meter from an Ohio Semiconductor, Qa = 0.3Qi, where Qi was the measured total input power. The data was taken at different Qa measuring the SL intensity and the watts out, Qo, where Qx = Qo − Qa (see Fig. 7). The length of each series of runs was about 20 min at a measured acoustic power input, Qa.


    Looking at the paper, it appears to me that there are many conclusions not supported by clear evidence, yet not qualified.


    I think I would need to read that paper many more times to get a sense of what was done. This paper appears to be an explanation of earlier work that was perhaps explained in more detail in previous papers.


    Quote

    Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:


    There are about 20 paper's covering all the work done by Stringham during the last 15 years. May be You look once at the 552ppm He content of the outgases they report.
    I know that everybody with a relation to peoples doing hot-fusion research hate his work...


    Stringham is not confirmed by Stringham.
    Wyttenbach did not point to the paper with that report. Yes, there are over 20 papers. So which one?
    I have the LENR Sourcebook Vol. 2. There is a paper by Stringham in it. This was 2009. The paper refers to some helium analyses done in 1995. The level was about one hundred times ambient helium, unless the environment was unusual (and there were ambient samples taken, it was normal at roughly 5 ppm.). While the claim exists there of "23.6 MeV" conversion, there is no clear connection shown between anomalous heat measurement and helium sampling.


    The theory in the paper leaves me scratching my head. How do they know that? Aspects of the theory presented seems implausible to me. A Bose-Einstein condensate of positively charged deuterium nuclei? What? The condensates I know of involve whole atoms, including electrons, not ions which would repel each other strongly. The energy required to compress ions to fusion distance would be enormous.


    The actual experimental work looks like it deserves attention. But that has not happened, apparently. It has been over twenty years since that helium result.


    A vigorous insistence and emphasis on theory considered impossible can suppress replication.


    I would never have come to think cold fusion was real from reports like this.


    1. I am not connected to hot fusion research.
    2. I don't hate his work. He may have something.
    3. It has been poorly presented, in what I read so far.

    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    Wyttenbach titles his post THH's absurd arguments. But these are not absurd arguments, they are what arose in a consideration of the Stringham work. THH is respectful and is simply explaining why he is not convinced.


    @Abd: THH was gossiping about RFI interference albeit the paper I referenced states that the "base" measurements, were done in quiet mode. May be THH should switch off his mobile when writing - to avoid RFI interference himself.
    I repeat it here again:


    The statement of RFI interference THH made is absurd and a planet ITER like FUD argument to distract the public.


    What also holds for You ABD: If you know of work denying facts (of Stringhams claims), please reference these papers together with the authors. Otherwise You express just your private claims...
    I'm just citing Stringhams work ...


    Alan, I'd like you to apologise for your intemperate language here. I made it crystal clear that I believed there were 3 TCs, and the passage relating to TC calibration applied to 2 of them BUT NOT THE ONE actually USED. I also made it clear that 2 of the TCs had been calibrated. You do not address my point.


    Now I may have been mistaken, but your quote does not show this. Am I to accuse you of deceit because you do not catch my point? Certainly not. But for you to do this to me (FUD means that I am dishonestly using polemic) is equally unfair.


    Quote

    Tc measurements were made every second and were backcalculated to the time of the start of the off mode to determine the 1T and Qo


    The problem here is that there is in principle no way to distinguish between a time constant in the sense amplifier used for the TCs, and the thermal time constant of the system. Back-calculating to the start of the off mode will give both the "on-mode" RFI offset and the "on-mode" thermal offset. I'm also not entirely clear what he does here - and with enough effort this matter could be resolved - I guess - but he has not said he has done it.


    And notice that your unfair (whether correct or no - we'll see) comment is taken up by people with troll-like posts here (Wyttenbach) who distract attention by repeating the unfair accusation.


    That is true WHICHEVER OF US IS CORRECT!


    Now I'm going back to the paper to check. I still believe I'm correct - that the TC on which the anomalous waveform was measured was never calibrated for RFI. and since RFI, as I stated, was so variable on the other two it is not safe to make assumptions about it.


    The paper Wyttenbach cites above is the second of two:
    http://www.iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol13.pdf#page=515 paper with a whole load of speculative theory etc, but without the detailed description of the experiment


    I did my analysis on the other (1.6MHz) paper which Wyttenbach originally cited. It had a more detailed description of the experimental methods. Without this detail I would not have bothered, since you really cannot do much given only the experimenters analysis of what they did without the detail. Too easy for them to make some assumption and suppress this in the summary as has happened here it seems. (I'm not suggesting any of this is deliberate - it is just what happens).


    I'll leave everyone in suspense till another post, after I have looked back through pages of stuff to find Wyttenbach's original references and the "experimental detail" paper which we can then check. :)


    Regards, THH

    • Official Post
    Quote from THHuxley

    Alan, I'd like you to apologise for your intemperate language here. I made it crystal clear that I believed there were 3 TCs, and the passage relating to TC calibration applied to 2 of them BUT NOT THE ONE actually USED. I also made it clear that 2 of the TCs had been calibrated. You do not address my point.


    @THH - I have no idea what you are talking about. What intemperate language? What mistake?

    Reading the posts here from Abd etc, before coming back to the Stringham paper which I will be very happy to do, please note:


    (1) The paper I reference above does have experimental details (lots) of teh 1.6MHz system and not much else. It is decent work.


    (2) I have no objection to Stringham making theoretical speculations based on his experimental work. That is what anyone would do. But it is important to separate the two. The later "theory + a section on experiment" papers are not relevant to the matter of validating the experimental results. Wyttenbach would do well to make this distinction and instead of quoting 23 papers, quote the number of real initial write-ups of experiments that exist. The theory stuff is a separate matter and not relevant to replication.


    (3) I'm actually on Wyttenbach's side, though alas he seems wrt me to have too fixed views to see it. I like Stringham's experiment because it is, as W says, relatively easy to conduct and if Stringham's results are as claimed it would lead to commercially significant levels of excess heat. Unlike W I'm pretty pessimistic whether this will happen - partly because Stringham himself was going to continue this work and the later results would (given the nature of the earlier ones) have been much more secure and equally significant. That has not happened, which makes me pessimistic. But I'm still interested in looking at the earlier paper. I like puzzles.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    Quote from THHuxley: “Alan, I'd like you to apologise for your intemperate language here. I made it crystal clear that I believed there were 3 TCs, and the passage relating to TC calibration applied to 2 of them BUT NOT THE ONE actually USED. I also…


    I apologise Alan. It was Wyttenbach who posted these, not you. I misread. I'm not asking W to apologise because it is clear to me that he feels his style of language, repeated in many places, is appropriate to this debate, so no point!

    Quote from Fig 3 caption

    Figure 3 shows an abbreviated form of a data sheet where the data was logged every 5 seconds. This is a data sample of eight minutes near the last of run of Series B cavitated with Pd foil # 2 as a target, in D2O, and under 2 atm Ar. This run was typical of the data collected. The first characteristic to note is the shape of the H&T curves and the one minute duty cycle shown by TC #2. The second, note the temperature RF interference shown by TC #0 is no more than 0.3 ºC but the oscillator & transformer shown by TC #5 has an RF interference of close to 2.0 ºC. Note that the temperature in the light box TC #7 is constant and does not show RF interference as does the coolant bath temperature, TC #6. The DT is measured in the off mode and produces a Qo of 42 watts. Qi measured by the wattmeter is partitioned by E to give Qa.


    Fig 3 is on page 11 of
    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StringhamRlowmassmhz.pdf


    The problem is that what is claimed to be RFI (TC #5) is indistinguishable in shape from what is claimed to be the real output signal (TC #2). Therefore, how can he know that the signal on TC #2 comes from heating and not RFI? Well, it probably comes from both...


    Controlling this is difficult. Any physical change to the system (say to run a control for RFI) may also change RFI by altering grounding etc. Of course the matter could be resolved, but it would take great care and while Stringham here notes that he is concerned about RFI he has not developed in the write-up here a way to distinguish pulsed heat signal from pulsed RFI signal. He does use the pulsed system to try to get round the matter of RFI - but (if I read this correctly - I'd welcome some other explanation) he fatally assumes that the sense TC time constant due to RFI is very short, giving no evidence that that is in fact the case. His only evidence from Figure 3 indicates that it is not the case.


    Regards, THH

    Quote

    Now what's going on here? The "Master" with unviewable history, and our "Super Moderator" at odds over something obscure. Please summarize for the rest of us, when it is all worked out.


    Perhaps, as in Doctor Who, I have used my powers?


    It is not obscure: see my apology to Alan above, I mistook a Wyttenbach post from one from Alan.

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