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

    George Hody, Axil, Wyttenbach:


    I'm going to apologise for my posts here. I've annoyed Jed, which was not my intention. He is in this story one of the good guys and while that certainly does not mean he is always right, it means that I would much rather not cause him grief.


    If you want to discuss the F paper, or Wyttenbach's preferred paper, on another thread, then I'm up for that. But only if you are actually interested in technical content.


    Axil: I know you are interested in technical stuff but I'm afraid we can have no meaningful discussion. Basically, I can on average understand only about 1% of what you post. That could be because I am unable to understand your ideas, or you are unable to communicate your ideas in terms that make sense to me. Whichever, it is true.


    Wyttenbach: I see no intrinsic barrier to such discussion with you, except I'm not sure your motives are for greater understanding? But, if you tell me they are, then another thread might be worthwhile as suggested earlier?


    George Hody: I don't see in your posts here anything other than a wish to score points. It is always fun scoring points, but a bit more is needed in addition for technical discussion to be worthwhile. Perhaps you would like in response to this to say what are your interests. You have a number of times talked of me in terms of "your modus operandi is... (something polemic)". If that is your clear view it is understandable you reply to me with polemic. It must get a bit tedious for you and certainly will be tedious or me. I find it difficult to withdraw from such exchanges unless I feel I'm wrong (and will then just admit this) or the other person desists. That could be a big waste of pixels on this site. It is my failing that I don't like to back down and therefore for much longer than most get involved in futile arguments.


    In fact that is one of the fascinating issues here. LENR is on that cusp between science and pseudo-science. It can be either. Where it is adopted as pseudo-science, my view would be it is very impolite and hurtful to engage in robust debate with believers, just as trashing religious views is wrong, hurtful and totally counter-productive. Huxley was a true agnostic and understood well that respect for deeply-held views is needed in any frank discussion.

    Quote from THHuxley

    I guess what I need to look at, to prove my point, is whether the specific conditions of LENR experiments (the things that make them work) depart from what is usually the case wrt recombination issues


    There are no "recombination issues." The excess heat often exceeds the heat you would get with full recombination, that is I*V input power. With closed cells, all recombination occurs in the headspace, so the heat is accounted for. With open cells, the water lost from the cell is accounted for, and it is shown that no significant recombination occurs.


    People have been yelling about recombination since 1989. The researchers are professional electrochemists. They know about recombination. Telling them they need to think about it is like telling a programmer there are integers and floating point numbers, or informing a farmer that milk comes from cows. They know.

    Quote from THHuxley

    Wyttenbach: I see no intrinsic barrier to such discussion with you, except I'm not sure your motives are for greater understanding? But, if you tell me they are, then another thread might be worthwhile as suggested earlier?


    My motives are very clear. I want to stop a silly and useless discussion between believers and deniers.


    Sono-fusion is a nice testbed for LENR because it leaves no room for split arguments. The calorimetry is kitchen proved and as simple as preparing a cup of Japanese green tea. You can also see radiation of all kind and a true He/heat equivalence. The COP is moderate, but increasing. 2011 it was somewhat below 4.


    But, as I already posted three times: That might be the reason You wont like it.

    Jed: I take from your comment above a wish to continue this conversation but if my points below seem tedious to you please feel free to stop it.


    Quote

    There are no "recombination issues."


    I think more accurately you mean "there are recombination issues but they are correctly considered in these experiments".

    Quote

    The excess heat often exceeds the heat you would get with full recombination, that is I*V input power.


    Obviously if the calibration assumptions are correct that would be definitive. But if recombination can occur differently in cal and real runs, the effects can be amplified by cal errors and that is not longer clear. It is the curse of experimentation that whenever you introduce a new free variable that affects results, you have either to calibrate explicitly for the variable, or show that it has the same value under calibration and run conditions. The latter is difficult to do in the case of recombination. The former requires assumptions that may not hold.



    Quote

    With closed cells, all recombination occurs in the headspace, so the heat is accounted for.


    I agree the problem is much less bad for the reason you say - you would expect closed cell errors to be smaller than open cell errors. I wonder if the reported results follow that pattern? But - there is still an issue because recombination and gas build-up can provide different errors in both active and calibration runs. You need to be very careful to bound such an effect, and include that in your error estimates.


    Quote

    With open cells, the water lost from the cell is accounted for, and it is shown that no significant recombination occurs.


    The system is sufficiently complex that there is much scope for subtly wrong assumptions. So, because argument from authority does not work, that would need to be checked. I realise that checking may be difficult. Such is life. The more you can reduce assumptions and uncertainties the better: those uncertainties are highest for open cells.


    Quote

    People have been yelling about recombination since 1989. The researchers are professional electrochemists. They know about recombination. Telling them they need to think about it is like telling a programmer there are integers and floating point numbers, or informing a farmer that milk comes from cows. They know.


    That is argument from authority - essentially saying the people doing these experiments understand all the possible artifacts and have taken that into account. That is not proper in science. Eminent profs make bad mistakes as well as novices. In any case some of the "people yelling" will also be experts.


    That is why detailed write-ups are good - assumptions can be stated explicitly, referenced to previous literature, checked and challenged. The same can be done for critiques. Even amateurs with the relevant tools (usually math) can check some of that though to check whether a result claimed from the literature applies to a specific different experiment requires a lot of effort (after which the amateur is not really an amateur).


    Here is a meta-argument. The Fleischmann paper was using complex methodology that Fleischmann - trusting his skill as a clever electrochemist - felt was adequate. Others challenged that - and that may be because they were less clever, or because there were indeed issues. I'm confident of my ability, given time, to follow such discussions and tease out the different assumptions. At the end of which you still maybe don't have a definitive answer, but you are no longer relying on authority.


    The meta-argument is that it is far better to redo the experiment removing the contentious elements and improving methodology. That has I believe been done. Many times. So: why is it that Fleischmann's paper is the one LENR advocates (not just you) still quote as offering good evidence? It does not make sense to me, but you are probably in a good position to give the reason.

    Is it hot fusion?


    The pistol shrimp kills it's prey with a cavitating water jet. The implosion momentarily creates temperatures similar to the surface of the sun, there's a flash of light from plasma formation.


    Isn't sono-fusion the same high energy process?

    Quote

    My motives are very clear. I want to stop a silly and useless discussion between believers and deniers.Sono-fusion is a nice testbed for LENR because it leaves no room for split arguments. The calorimetry is kitchen proved and as simple as preparing a cup of Japanese green tea. You can also see radiation of all kind and a true He/heat equivalence. The COP is moderate, but increasing. 2011 it was somewhat below 4.But, as I already posted three times: That might be the reason You wont like it.


    Jed has stated that the calorimetry is questionable. He may be wrong, but his statement makes me less inclined to invest in that paper the effort myself to check it.


    Again a meta-argument: if these results are so clear-cut why do LENR advocates such as Abd and Jed not campaign for replication?


    PS - do you call yourself a believer or a denier? or somone better than both?


    PPS - I did look at a sonofusion paper a few days ago here. The COP claimed relied on a number of assumptions which I detailed. Can't now remember - would have to look at it again - and then we'd need to argue the assumptions.

    Quote from zeus46

    Isn't sono-fusion the same high energy process?


    @Z In the He/heat thread I explained the differences. Bubble collapsing speed goes up to mach 10. But contrary to hot fusion inside the bubble a jet of strongly correlated D2 is formed, which is physically close to a metallic state and mechanically very stable. This jet bangs into the lattice, heavy O2 is stripped off and some D2 penetrates the Pd grid.


    Thus kinetically sono-fusion is close to hot fusion, but the ignition energy, containment, Radiation, no neutrons (some tritium) etc. is LENR.

    Quote from THHuxley

    PS - do you call yourself a believer or a denier? or somone better than both?


    @@THH: Neither!!


    I strictly take the scientific position, which allows to conclude:


    - There exist many different LENR reactions, including "energy neutral" isotop shifts.
    - The physical evidence for the existance of a nuclear (LENR) reaction is above 10 sigmas, as we measure all possible radiation of nuclear processes.
    - Transmutation are confirmed for a broad range of experiments.


    But, one thing is also clear: Nuclear physics has more holes than many believe and LENR is a big chance to complete the picture.

    Quote from THHuxley

    if these results are so clear-cut why do LENR advocates such as Abd and Jed not campaign for replication?


    I campaigned for it and it's being done. What do you want, instant tea?


    This was the contrary position I needed to argue against: the work is already done and confirmed and repeated sufficiently that because funding is scarce and measuring helium is expensive, it would be a waste of resources when, obviously, what we need is More Heat!!! (and more reliability).


    However, Nature has not yet provided that. Yes, the Rossi work looked like it might, and I called this Plan A: the Home Depot solution to the LENR problem. I also knew that Rossi had not been replicated and independently confirmed, even more reason to have a Plan B, basic research. Peter Gluck argued it was all stupid, PdD would never go anywhere, worthless piece of inadequacy that it was.


    My training was never to tell Nature she was worthless, when she lifts her skirts and shows a little. Always praise her, always be grateful for what she shows, and never demand more. Under those conditions, she reveals more. Sometimes a lot more.


    One of my goals is to bring David Kidwell of NRL some joy. He's worked hard enough for it.

    Quote from Abd

    I campaigned for it and it's being done. What do you want, instant tea?This was the contrary position I needed to argue against: the work is already done and confirmed and repeated sufficiently that because funding is scarce and measuring helium is expensive, it would be a waste of resources when, obviously, what we need is More Heat!!! (and more reliability).


    Abd - you are not reading what I wrote (or its context) and therefore thinking I said something I did not.


    i was referring to replication of the Stringham sonofusion results that Wyttenbach believes to be compelling but Jed says have questionable calorimetry.


    I've only looked at one such paper, and the methodology had a few holes in it. But I've not looked very carefully, because Wyttenbach is the only person claiming this stuff is worth it and my own initial opinion was that the sonofusion setup is inherently unsafe.

    Quote from THHuxley

    i was referring to replication of the Stringham sonofusion results that Wyttenbach believes to be compelling but Jed says have questionable calorimetry.


    @THH. You did not read JED's post carefully. He wrote that (unnamed others) questioned the calorimetry - what could have included You too.


    The calorimetry is as simple as a kitchen teapot. Run the transducer for one minute. Measure delta T.


    Now You can start to argue what can go wrong with the measurement of a teapot.


    There is no RF-inference no recombination no chemical active reactants etc...


    It's Your turn. Put a pot of water on yor stove and explain us all what can go wrong with the T-measurement.

    Quote from THHuxley

    The excess heat often exceeds the heat you would get with full recombination, that is I*V input power.


    Obviously if the calibration assumptions are correct that would be definitive.


    You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with the calibration. If the calibration is wrong, the whole experiment is wrong. What I mean is that total heat from the cell often greatly exceeds the amount of heat you would get even if every atom of D2 and O2 were to recombine in the cell. I mean the heat sometimes exceeds this limit by a factor of 10 or 100. The heat also continues when there is no electrolysis at all. So it cannot be an artifact of unexpected or undetected recombination. You can rule that out.


    Quote from THHuxley

    With open cells, the water lost from the cell is accounted for, and it is shown that no significant recombination occurs.


    The system is sufficiently complex that there is much scope for subtly wrong assumptions.


    It is not a bit subtle or complex. The problem was completely solved in the 19th century. The amount of D2 and O2 produced by electrolysis is known with very high precision. It is understood theoretically in depth. It is easy to confirm that an open cell has lost the expected amount of fluid in electrolysis. You can measure the deficit (lost fluid); you can measure the gas flow; or you can recombine the gas outside the cell. All of these methods have been used in cold fusion, and they have been used in other electrochemical experiments for over a century. If there were recombination in the cell, it would be obvious. There would be extra fluid left in the cell.


    Quote from THHuxley

    So, because argument from authority does not work, that would need to be checked.


    Again, you misunderstand the definition of "argument from authority." When the subject is electrochemistry or recombination, you can argue from the authority of people such as Fleischmann and Bockris. They literally wrote the book on modern electrochemistry. If they say recombination cannot occur in a given system, and they describe ways to ensure this such as measuring the fluid loss (Fleischmann's method), there is no one in the world who can argue they are wrong. Indeed, this is such a elementary issue, and it has been understood for so long, any electrochemist is an indisputable expert on these questions, just as I am an indisputable expert on the meaning of an ordinary Japanese word such as "rikai" (理解). If I say it means "comprehend" you can be sure I am right, even without consulting a dictionary. This is the sort of thing any professional always gets right.


    Again let me point out that you do not understand the logical fallacy properly known as Fallacious Appeal to Authority or Misuse of Authority. Citing an experiment by Bockis in a discussion of recombination is not a Fallacious Appeal to Authority. See:


    http://www.nizkor.org/features…/appeal-to-authority.html

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    @THH. You did not read JED's post carefully. He wrote that (unnamed others) questioned the calorimetry - what could have included You too.


    I question the calorimetry. I have examined the data closely, and I have examined the actual devices closely. I know people who replicated the devices and also borrowed some devices from Stringham. They saw no excess heat. There may be some difficulties measuring input power. (This is the opposite problem from most cold fusion experiments, by the way. Usually, input is easy to measure but output can be tricky.)


    Other people have questioned the calorimetry. That does not mean we are sure it wrong. I have great respect for Stringham, but this has to be independently replicated before we can be sure it is real.


    Quote from Wyttenbach

    The calorimetry is as simple as a kitchen teapot. Run the transducer for one minute. Measure delta T.


    It is not as simple as you think.

    Quote

    You misunderstand. This has nothing to do with the calibration. If the calibration is wrong, the whole experiment is wrong. What I mean is that total heat from the cell often greatly exceeds the amount of heat you would get even if every atom of D2 and O2 were to recombine in the cell. I mean the heat sometimes exceeds this limit by a factor of 10 or 100.


    I did understand that point. And I agree with you, if calibration is wrong the experiment is wrong. My point is that recombination can make calibration wrong and therefore the total heat exceeds that available" equation does not work.


    Also worth pointing out that even a 1% calibration error can lead to arbitrarily large total heat measured, merely by running experiments for enough time, so that the total apparent excess heat is much larger than that available does not protect you from this sort of error.

    Quote

    It is not a bit subtle or complex. The problem was completely solved in the 19th century. The amount of D2 and O2 produced by electrolysis is known with very high precision. It is understood theoretically in depth. It is easy to confirm that an open cell has lost the expected amount of fluid in electrolysis. You can measure the deficit (lost fluid); you can measure the gas flow; or you can recombine the gas outside the cell. All of these methods have been used in cold fusion, and they have been used in other electrochemical experiments for over a century. If there were recombination in the cell, it would be obvious. There would be extra fluid left in the cell.


    That is indeed the vanilla analysis, not subtle. The subtleties come from relative mismeasurement of temperature between calibration and active tests and/or relative changes in thermal resistance between these two cases. It would need time, patience, and another thread to explore the matter fully. If F considered and documented all this, with appropriate error bounds, - that makes his work safe. But my comment, that there are these subtleties, remains true.

    Quote from THHuxley

    My point is that recombination can make calibration wrong and therefore the total heat exceeds that available" equation does not work.


    No professional gets recombination wrong. It is simple to measure, and they always do measure it. As I said, getting it wrong would be like me mistranslating a commonly used word.


    Quote from THHuxley

    Also worth pointing out that even a 1% calibration error can lead to arbitrarily large total heat measured, merely by running experiments for enough time


    Nobody would claim 1% excess is meaningful. I have seldom seen claims below the level of recombination. Both the absolute power and percent of input have to be above some level, or the result is not statistically significant. 1% would never cut it.


    Calibration error ranges and noise are carefully measured. (Or, if they are not, you should ignore the report.)

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I know people who replicated the devices and also borrowed some devices from Stringham.



    When happened this? The old 40kHz system or the new 1.6MHz? (after 2011)


    The old system was just producing COP's somewhat above 1 (but tons of He). Did they also measure the gamma spectrums? and collect the He4/He3 ?
    Also the new calorimetry is completely different and as I said bullet proof.


    Just mentioning something/somebody unknown, without any sources, is bad style, which we should avoid for future talks.

    Quote from THHuxley

    Also worth pointing out that even a 1% calibration error can lead to arbitrarily large total heat measured



    @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...

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