Can we talk about Holmlid?

Quote from Eric Walker

I take it you're not going to answer my question about how to assess Holmlid's work, then, and instead simply try to discredit me and make me look bad?

Hey holmlid work and give papers. His paper level maybe not highest one but it is paper from experiment(s). It is lot more valuable than bombard him in public forum.

Take him results, replicate. Find maybe something.
His theory is basically:"We don't know what happen inside, but it must be ultra dense hydrogen" <- is this valuable claim? If not then ignore it.

Quote from eros

Hey holmlid work and give papers. His paper level maybe not highest one but it is paper from experiment(s). It is lot more valuable than bombard him in public forum.

Take him results, replicate. Find maybe something.
His theory is basically:"We don't know what happen inside, but it must be ultra dense hydrogen" <- is this valuable claim? If not then ignore it.

I think you're saying it's not kosher to disagree with Homlid's interpretation about seeing muons on a public forum. If this is what you're saying, I disagree with you and think you're incorrect. As I said, I'm very interested in his experimental observations, and I hope they can be confirmed. But one can take interest in them and still not agree that they're caused by muons. Other people can disagree with me, and think that they are caused by muons, and that's fine. Let them give reasons, and I'll give my reasons. And if those people give more reasons, and I agree with those reasons, that's also fine. And if they give more reasons, and I disagree with those reasons, I'll give my reasons.

The progressive give and take of reasons and application of argumentation to try to better understand a set of claims — it's a virtuous cycle, where the boundaries of any disagreement are gradually delineated, even if people don't come to consensus. If you do not fancy this type of discussion, you can block me so that my posts disappear for you, and I won't mind.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

When Robert Atkins, who was actually a cardiologist who was educating people on what was standard knowledge up until the 1970s, decided to fund research to investigate how his diet worked, he picked a skeptical professor.

That the Atkins diet "works" has been known to people world-wide since ancient times. Australian aborigines correctly warned European explorers that they would starve to death eating extremely lean meat during droughts. The reasons this causes starvation was well understood by the early 20th century. See the book "Good to Eat" for details.

The Atkins diet is dangerous and unhealthy, but it is no mystery and it was known thousands of years before Dr. Atkins put his name on it.

Taubes is also known for claiming that refined carbohydrates cause obesity, especially things like white bread, and white rice, which are refined and easily digested. Anyone who has lived in traditional East Asia knows this is not true. Not only is it not true, it is preposterous. I have lived in rural Yamaguchi. It doesn't get more traditional than that. Traditional people there eat mostly white refined rice, in quantities that make an American think rice is coming out of his ears. It's what's for dinner. Also, breakfast and lunch. Two or three large portions per meal, three times a day. That plus vegetables, pickles, miso, and moderate quantities of fish or meat.

Most of these people are very thin their whole lives. They get a lot of exercise, even in their 80s. Their longevity and general health is among the highest in the world. Eating mainly rice DOES NOT make them fat.

I am sure most people in Yamaguchi eat refined rice and not brown rice, because I have lived there and eaten that diet; because that's mainly what the store sell; and because many people grow rice and refine it themselves, in the milling machine in front of the agricultural co-op store, for 25 cents per 50 lbs. They usually set the dial to "refined." There are some health food fans there who eat brown rice. Of course there are also people who eat mainly western food.

When you can point to a billion people who are not fat and yet who eat mainly rice in large portions, obviously the hypothesis is wrong. People such as Taubes do not look at the data and they lack common sense. Many other absurd claims about obesity can be demolished by similar observations.

Quote from eros

Thank you! do you have any more accurate data?
How much movement energy produced muons got? (~120Mev??)

So reactor have "only" 200x too much energy level..

My copy of Bethe and Morrison, “Elementary Nuclear Physics,” says that you have just enough energy to create a pion from p-p collisions at 290 MeV in the laboratory system, and that meson production becomes important just above 400 MeV. (One of the places that muons are seen is in the decay of pions.)

Ref. 1 says that a “Nd:YAG laser with pulse energy of <0.4 J could be used to initiate the spontaneous signal, with 7 ns long pulses at 1064 nm and 10 Hz repetition rate.” Photons at a wavelength of 1064 nm have an energy of ([1.2398 eV um] / 1.064 um = 1.16 eV). That means that the photons in the laser have (1.16 eV / 400 MeV ~ 1/3,000,000,000) times the energy normally needed in proton-proton collisions to see mesons.

[1] Spontaneous ejection of high-energy particles from ultra-dense deuterium D(0), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.06.116

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I have also seen discussions with a pseudoskeptic who was nevertheless willing to seriously engage lead to real questions that, when asked of the actual researchers -- I can do that -- generate more information and education.

Judgments vary. We see that with Jed and Abd disagreeing over the merits of the Atkins diet. Nutrition is one of the most difficult matters to be precise about because epidemiology is difficult an the individual effects of any medicine (or food - there is not necessarily much difference) depend on genetics and epigenetic affects as well as environment.

In principle, LENR should be much easier to prove/disprove but we see that the actual reproducible data has always so far been near to possible artifact, which makes proving a matter of interpretation where different people will take different views. And the theory supporting LENR is not yet sufficiently ramified for it to be disprovable from experiment.

In that case no-one can identify a pseudoskeptic based on their views on LENR, nor their resistance to specific arguments, since those killer single arguments that if resisted would show irrational fixity don't exist.

Rather than looking for flexibility of judgement it is necessary to look for engagement with scientific detail. Here trolls like Keieue posting here, (I use the word precisely, as I understand it) are identified by an avoidance of such detail. Eric is equally noticeable as a non-troll from his willingness to engage with detail.

That quality has nothing to do with views held, nor with how strongly views are held. It is entirely proper for a scientist to have a very strong view which is in fact false. such is inevitably often the case. There is no moral imperative, except that to question ones views (and those of others). The language of pseudoskepticism is dangerous because it can potentially suppress engagement, and the judgement of whether somone is a pseudoskeptic is not simple. Of course there are skeptics whose sole interest is in knocking down LENR hypotheses. That should not in itself alarm anyone. Somone advocating LENR should welcome such a person providing that their knocking down was conducted with an engagement with the scientific details. In the end, if that exists, the truth will out. While things remain contentious keeping both sides engaged is the most fruitful position.

My most trenchant criticism of a few people who claim to be involved in LENR, and many of the internet fan club, is a lack of engagement with detailed criticism.

Huxley - whose name I take as pseudonym here, understood very well both the moral imperative to make judgments and communicate them, and the equal moral imperative to accept that one's judgments often are wrong, and that we must always struggle to try and combat the biasses that we all will have. It is the deep acceptance of human fallibility, together with the personal struggle against it, that I admire. And trolls here show neither.

Timeout.

Quote from Eric Walker

Yes, it has no effect on the conclusions. But it’s an interesting implication, wouldn’t you agree?

It is a given that these effects if real could be weaponized.
What implications does this have for your participation in this thread? Why point this out?

Quote

Shall I refrain from making any tangential statements, drawing out interesting possible implications?

Go ahead, I am interested.

Quote from Eric Walker

My copy of Bethe and Morrison, “Elementary
Nuclear Physics,” says that you have just enough energy to create a
pion from p-p collisions at 290 MeV in the laboratory system, and that
meson production becomes important just above 400 MeV. (One of the
places that muons are seen is in the decay of pions.)

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So (in hypotically, because no scientific acceptable measurements/methods) if process which send muons outside in some unknow energy spectrum, which spectrum include region 120Mev,
then it is quite big probopality that such process have energy level much more than 400Mev? Maybe region somewhere near 500Mev?

And if muons then mesons they have maybe some speed? They decay fast, but if have speed how far they can fly in air etc? How they react with matter?
So I try ask what happens if accelerator push ~500Mev protons against protons and there is very little shields, man standig ~1m from collision point?

Then added some shields say 2mm Pb D10cm pipe and AC motor case inner radius ~20cm maybe near ~60mm thick Fe - some Cu coils.
(and definitely it feels diffrent in brains if you stand end claps directions or thicker Fe directions.)
How such shields affect 1m distance standed man?

What is energy amount/exposure time until severe radiation sympthoms occur?

Or diffrent words how much radiation it needs if man get white manure period for some days and over 2 week reduced oxygen takeoff?
(and assume that legs was behaind more massive shields during exposure, so atleast some bones got less)

(Edit: and weaponary question, during exposure normal geiger meter show nothing dangerous)

Quote

Ref. 1 says that a “Nd:YAG laser with pulse energy of <0.4 J could be
used to initiate the spontaneous signal, with 7 ns long pulses at 1064
nm and 10 Hz repetition rate.” Photons at a wavelength of 1064 nm have
an energy of ([1.2398 eV um] / 1.064 um = 1.16 eV). That means that the
photons in the laser have (1.16 eV / 400 MeV ~ 1/3,000,000,000) times
the energy normally needed in proton-proton collisions to see mesons.

[1] Spontaneous ejection of high-energy particles from ultra-dense deuterium D(0), dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2015.06.116

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0.4J with lens directed give local (rapid) particle heat (/cool cycle). Or am I wrong?

Quote from gameover

It is a given that these effects if real could be weaponized. What implications does this have for your participation in this thread? Why point this out?

I point it out because at least to me it adds to the general implausibility of the finding of muons, as will hopefully become apparent below.

I was thinking of this question in terms of a mouse trap or a dam. Suppose Holmlid and Olafsson are seeing muons, released somehow through the action of laser light comprised of ~ 1 eV photons, mechanism unknown. Each one of those muons has a rest mass of ~ 105 MeV, and I recall reading offhand at one point, here or somewhere else, of a presumed velocity in the neighborhood of 20 MeV. Either (1) the muons must be created at the time of the laser impulse by the unknown mechanism by the energy input into the system, which is channeled into muon pair production, or pion production, or (2) the energy needed to create or release the muons will have been there already, primed and ready to go, and the laser light was somehow the small amount of weight that was needed to set off the mousetrap by providing the activation energy.

Humans are bad at concentrating energy, as can be seen in the efforts of hot fusion programs and the National Ignition Facility to get to breakeven, and what energy concentration they are able to accomplish is very inefficient and generates a lot of waste heat. In our efforts at creating muons, we need to do things like accelerate protons up to and above 400 MeV in an accelerator. So even if I were persuaded of muons my bets would be very much against the creation of the muons by the energy fed into the system by the laser light. That leaves the second option, that the muons were created or released by the crossing of some activation barrier, and the energy in the laser light was simply there to give the system the little nudge needed to set off the mousetrap. The implication would be that what normally requires an expenditure of 400+ MeV is in fact there waiting behind a dam which a 1 eV perturbation is able to break open, and the main remaining question is what power densities can be attained. If high power densities prove attainable, we have the possibility of a bomb or of a source of propulsion.

These are considerations that are on my mind in the context of LENR, where the energies involved are on their face closer to 15 MeV. I don’t think the LENR researchers will be very good at concentrating the energy they’re feeding into their apparatuses, and that leads me instead to look for potential energy in the general ballpark that is already primed and is held back by a relatively low activation barrier, whether that activation barrier is low already or is somehow lowered. The reason I find LENR more plausible than muon production is that we see that the potential energy is indeed already available in the processes of alpha and beta decay and spontaneous fission. We do not that I am aware of see a similar spontaneous process involving significant muon creation.

Quote from Eric Walker

I was thinking of this question in terms of a mouse trap or a dam. Suppose Holmlid and Olafsson are seeing muons, released somehow through the action of laser light comprised of ~ 1 eV photons, mechanism unknown. Each one of those muons has a rest mass of ~ 105 MeV, and I recall reading offhand at one point, here or somewhere else, of a presumed velocity in the neighborhood of 20 MeV. Either (1) the muons must be created at the time of the laser impulse by the unknown mechanism by the energy input into the system, which is channeled into muon pair production, or pion production, or (2) the energy needed to create or release the muons will have been there already, primed and ready to go, and the laser light was somehow the small amount of weight that was needed to set off the mousetrap by providing the activation energy.

Their explanation is that the Nd:YAG laser is only one of a possible range of impulses that can initiate the process, implying that it is not strictly required and that it is not believed to be its source of energy. This muon production seems to start with the ejection of small fragments of what they believe is an "ultra-dense" hydrogen material (that they call H(0)) initially formed by flowing hydrogen through their Fe2O3:K porous catalyst. These fragments apparently decay with the emission of fast neutral particles that further decay into other particles, with the end product of the chain supposedly being muons. The ToF measurements seem to suggest that it may be a meson decay chain, at least to Holmlid.

When this ultra-dense hydrogen material is composed of deuterium, facile D-D fusion using the same impulses (laser here) is also reported, with an emission of radiations not consistent with the process (so, similar to what happens in many LENR experiments). H&O do not believe that fusion is directly caused by the temperature of the plasma formed by the laser impulses.

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[...] That leaves the second option, that the muons were created or released by the crossing of some activation barrier, and the energy in the laser light was simply there to give the system the little nudge needed to set off the mousetrap. The implication would be that what normally requires an expenditure of 400+ MeV is in fact there waiting behind a dam which a 1 eV perturbation is able to break open, and the main remaining question is what power densities can be attained.

This is what Holmlid and Olafsson are implying, from what I understand.

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If high power densities prove attainable, we have the possibility of a bomb or of a source of propulsion.

Holmlid wanted to use it as a replacement material for inertial confinement fusion not requiring further compression. Other uses may of course be possibile.
It seems that now they are also highlighting the potential for generating a significant muon flux, and that this may also be an effect inherently occurring in LENR / cold fusion processes that others may be inadvertently experiencing.

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These are considerations that are on my mind in the context of LENR, where the energies involved are on their face closer to 15 MeV. I don’t think the LENR researchers will be very good at concentrating the energy they’re feeding into their apparatuses, and that leads me instead to look for potential energy in the general ballpark that is already primed and is held back by a relatively low activation barrier, whether that activation barrier is low already or is somehow lowered. The reason I find LENR more plausible than muon production is that we see that the potential energy is indeed already available in the processes of alpha and beta decay and spontaneous fission. We do not that I am aware of see a similar spontaneous process involving significant muon creation.

There are also the effects and implications of the formation of this ultra-dense hydrogen material, which is the basis for the reported muon emission.
However, since the theory is debatable and not exactly straightforward to understand, and that most of the studies have been with time of flight experiments that are hard to follow, I wanted to first estabilish that there is more than just an elaborate artifact by first focusing on the latest measurements with a scintillator - photomultiplier tube.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

Unless Holmlid's basic work is confirmed or disconfirmed, there will be an impasse.

I definitely agree that the real judge here is experiment rather than theory, as you suggest. Now let's let Holmlid and Olafsson convince some muon people of their results.

Quote from Eric Walker

(2) the energy needed to create or release the muons will have been there already, primed and ready to go, and the laser light was somehow the small amount of weight that was needed to set off the mousetrap by providing the activation energy.

And for logical thinking even big damm can ge broken by freezing, fibrations etc. easilly? And when it is broken it floods more easilly (used fuel)? Right?

Quote from gameover

This muon production seems to be start with the ejection of small fragments of what they believe is an "ultra-dense" hydrogen material (that they call H(0)) initially formed by flowing hydrogen through their Fe2O3:K porous catalyst. These fragments apparently decay with the emission of fast neutral particles that further decay into other particles, with the end product of the chain supposedly being muons. The ToF measurements seem to suggest that it may be a meson decay chain, at least to Holmlid.

My difficulty with this explanation of theirs is that it seems to just push the energy concentration problem back one step, to ultra-dense hydrogen/deuterium. But how was that reversal of entropy possible, one wonders.

Quote from gameover

There are also the effects and implications of the formation of this ultra-dense hydrogen material, which is the basis for the reported muon emission.
However, since the theory is debatable and not exactly straightforward to understand, and that most of the studies have been with time of flight experiments that are hard to follow, I wanted to first estabilish that there is more than just an elaborate artifact by first focusing on the latest measurements with a photoscintillator - photomultiplier tube.

I now have more context on your question. It seems like only someone who really knows these devices will be in a position to provide useful comment.