MFMP Provides Update About Me356

ME356: "Emmissions (RF, electrons and UV) during the test were so strong that my control circuit was absolutely crazy even that it was 3 meters away - it is unusable."

DGT reported the same intractable EMF interference where this interference was so strong that it disabled all the phones in the building that they were using for experimentation. DGT was never able to overcome this difficult problem.

It is becoming clear that when LENR researchers get the power density of their reactors beyond a given power production threshold, as ME356 reports, their experimental procedures, setups, control, and observations suffer greatly.

This stubborn obstruction to successful LENR development must be causing Rossi much concern and many experimental problems. Why should Rossi be any different from everybody else. Could this EMF interference be at the root of all the problems Rossi has reported in the control of his reactors down through the years? As a straight laced adherent to the physics of the standard model Rossi must be in a denial mode that keeps him from addressing what this electrical interference is springing from.

Unless this intractable EMF interference problem is solved, LENR will not become as ubiquitous and as democratic as most people had hoped with a privately owned LENR reactor producing heat and electrical power is every basement.

Quote from Forty-Two

Does MFMP publish the 'null-results' from replication attempts somewhere?

All our experiments and data are published, no matter what the result. The blog for the most recent one is at:
http://www.quantumheat.org/ind…mp-blog/522-glowstick-5-3
Data for the entire GS5 series (3 experiments) is at:
http://goo.gl/YgS5NA

Data for previous experiments
GS4 http://goo.gl/o4z9bE
GS3 http://goo.gl/MyX0Jh
GS2 http://goo.gl/db2Ogl

Additional image captures from the GS5 experiments should also be available on a different server (links on request).

Other MFMP researchers have also published data from their experiments, and those links will be added to a master TOC at some point, for inclusion on the QuantumHeat.org web site.

The blogs at Quantumheat.org for the earlier experiments still exist but I don't have links to them readily available. I'm compiling an index for all the Glowstick material, and will post it when complete.

My Evernote notes from my earlier work on the Dogbone replica, reactor tube sealing, and Ni foam research are available on request (too many links to post here).

AlanG

Quote from BobHiggins

As I recall, SKINR did not even deploy radiation detection.

According to this anouncement on MFMP facebook, SKINR had superior radiation detection systems available for that experiment:
https://www.facebook.com/Marti…ct/posts/1133691973328167

Quote

Perhaps some of that work will be presented at ICCF-20

Let's hope so.
However, I am wondering why there is from MFMP no follow-up report of this replication attempt by SKINR, whether SKINR was able to detect the same 'Signal' or not.Bob G. was so enthusiatic about the implicatons of the GS experiment - don't you wanna know now if other, professional experimenter have seen the same 'signal'?

BTW: Did MFMP ever report about the non successfull Celani wire replication attempts by SKINR (for which MFMP/Mathieau provided some wires)?
http://www.iccf19.com/_system/…/poster/PS19_El-Boher.pdf

Quote

Six of the eight Constantan wires used in the SKINR tests were provided by Dr. Celani and the remaining two were obtained from Mathieu Valat.
[...]
No excess heat was observed in running either the initial or later test protocols during ~ 200 days of testing with a calorimetric sensitivity of < 10 mW.

On the theoretical presumption that the signal is caused by either the establishment or collapse of Hole superconductivity in metalized hydrogen, then when the LENR reaction is established as marked by the presence of excess heat, a strong magnetic field would destroy the superconductive state and remove the meissner effect thus producing a collapse of the charge separation in the metalized hydride. The electrons would all return to the positively charged holes and a Bremsstrahlung would reappear. The intense magnetic field might be produced by a discharge of a large spark.

Quote from Bob

Neither Alan or I have seen any other instance of this commercial instrument failing to operate as designed. If we find any evidence we will report it. In the mean time, the most rational conclusion is that this instrument worked as it was designed and recorded properly the photon spectrum that was present.

We have examined scenarios that could cause that photon spectrum and have been unable to find a spurious contaminant that could be responsible. Temperature shift could not be responsible as this has been measured and compensated in the photometric analysis.
At minimum, the report may cause other researchers to expand the instrumentation on their experiments. As I said, we are already seeing this happen.

I argued above that the sentence in bold is one few scientists would agree with, because that spectrum is anomalous, and incoherent. You could try writing up properly this anomaly (I guess you have). It would get published in an LENR conference but not I expect elsewhere. Since your judgement is that this data is important, I guess it deserves proper critique, which I could do formally when it is written up. For now, informally:

• Have you checked the spectrometer when pointing at IR sources? What IR shielding did you have during the experiment.
• Have you checked for earth loops? Was the scintillator mounted on a good insulator, with no ground connections ecept via its coax leads? What about the power supply, was this isolated, etc, etc? Given the "signal" is one-off you cannot use measurement with null result as an indicator. It could be some ground loop condition relying on specific connections being badly connected and high resistance etc, and specific other electrical noise present, which would not normally occur. The connections could be temperature and almost anything else dependent.
• Have you checked for one-off errors relating to bad coax connections
• Given that the "signal" as claimed here by Wyttenbach (you may not agree) is present on many time segments at low levels but with the same form, does this low-level signal occur in control experiments? Have you checked this as lovingly as the data from the "signal" experiment was checked?

A careful check of all these issues would help your case for publication, as would carefully documented measurements on a near identical setup with control.

Quote from gameover

Instead of elevating a one-time event to some sort of mascot ('Signal') and clinging on it MFMP should have immediately focused on confirming and maximizing the repeatable radiation emission effect that they were getting in one of their later experiments which has been mentioned by others in this thread as due to pressure-temperature variations.

Quote from Wyttenbach

I went through hundreds of mfp spectra and the picture was sometimes complex, with different signal overlays/time constants. The most interesting spectra were obtained during the pressure decrease (H sweating phase)

I'm not sure whether this is during the "signal" run or the later experiment results that gameover mentions. It is very difficult to get any overview of what results, positive and negative, are claimed. I'll say more about this below. Since I have not seen these other results if somone could point me to a clear writeup I'd be very interested. If they are significant surely someone must have done that?

Quote from Bob

The MFMP data is available on the web - though you may have to ask to find the links. Like most, MFMP only reports on the data that seems notable - but at least all of the data is available for anyone to examine.

MFMP is not to my knowledge commenting on negative replications of the "signal". Yet, on their analysis here, such negative replications should be absolutely important. If the signal is real, then when it happens - and when it does not happen - are all equally important. and it does not matter who is doing the replication - MFMP should be as interested in otehr people's negatives as their own. A complete summary of all known replications capable of detecting the "signal" and the results is important.

Highlighting the various anomalies from different instruments in different replications that are not coherent with the "signal" (or any other clear new phenomena MFMP have observed) does not help matters. It muddies the waters. Of course, any one of these other anomalies may, in principle, be a genuine signal, replicable in the right circumstances, and deserve the same loving attention that is being given to the original "signal". I'm all for this. What seems to me unhelpful is adding more and more vague artifacts none of which are clear or replicable. In that case we have the same story as the calorimetric results, but on a new canvas with new distractions and a whole load of new experimental issues for everyone to learn.

Of course people will do whatever experiments they wish, and I wish them luck. My comments here relate to what experiments might provide coherent data of interest to a wider scientific community in the case that any one of these artifactual phenomena is not an artifact but a real anomaly.

Here, I googled it for you guys, a report on the SKINR experiment:

http://www.quantumheat.org/ind…ication#!Manifold_and_PID

Quote from THHuxley

Have you checked the spectrometer when pointing at IR sources? What IR shielding did you have during the experiment.

The scintillator is enclosed in a complete aluminum shell ~0.015" thick. IR would only appear to the scintillator crystal as heat. The effect of this was seen over the course of days from the IR coming from the reactor causing temperature rise in the scintillator head. The temp. rise caused an energy shift that was compensated in the photometric reduction of the data. The NaI(Tl) itself is not IR photon sensitive.

Quote from THHuxley

Have you checked for earth loops? Was the scintillator mounted on a good insulator, with no ground connections except via its coax leads? What about the power supply, was this isolated, etc, etc? Given the "signal" is one-off you cannot use measurement with null result as an indicator. It could be some ground loop condition relying on specific connections being badly connected and high resistance etc, and specific other electrical noise present, which would not normally occur. The connections could be temperature and almost anything else dependent.

The scintillator housing is aluminum and is ground potential. It forms a continuous, complete conducting box around the scintillator head connected to the ground of the BNC interface. The scintillator was likely to have contacted the lead in the cave. The scintillator head was connected with the manufacturer supplied cables to the standalone spectrometer. The spectrometer was connected to the computer via USB. All connections were as specified by the manufacturer. I do not have a schematic for the spectrometer, so, I cannot comment on its internal isolation. However, most such instruments have transformer coupled low voltage supplies that are isolated and heavily filtered/regulated. The only real opportunity for ground loop is in the USB connection; however, the interface is digital and it is unlikely to affect the analog front end.

Quote from THHuxley

Have you checked for one-off errors relating to bad coax connections

I cannot comment on this. BNC connections are normally silver-on-silver or gold-on-gold. These normally leave the connection as connected or not-connected, not noisy.

Quote from THHuxley

Given that the "signal" as claimed here by Wyttenbach (you may not agree) is present on many time segments at low levels but with the same form, does this low-level signal occur in control experiments? Have you checked this as lovingly as the data from the "signal" experiment was checked?

There were small signals in the integrations following -07, at rapidly declining levels. This makes it seem like the source of the the signal peaked in integration-07 and was declining rapidly in subsequent integrations (which extended over hours). The low-level signal occurred in ~4 of the 24 spectral integrations and did not show in the replication. Photometric reduction of the data is time consuming and has only been done for the highest priority integrations - ones that show some sign of containing a quantifiable signal. This is primarily a limitation of the available time I have to work on that experiment. I spent about a full week in analysis of the GS5.2 data. The data is public and anyone is welcome to contribute their time in analysis.

Quote

The scintillator housing is aluminum and is ground potential. It forms a continuous, complete conducting box around the scintillator head connected to the ground of the BNC interface. The scintillator was likely to have contacted the lead in the cave. The scintillator head was connected with the manufacturer supplied cables to the standalone spectrometer. The spectrometer was connected to the computer via USB. All connections were as specified by the manufacturer. I do not have a schematic for the spectrometer, so, I cannot comment on its internal isolation. However, most such instruments have transformer coupled low voltage supplies that are isolated and heavily filtered/regulated. The only real opportunity for ground loop is in the USB connection; however, the interface is digital and it is unlikely to affect the analog front end.

The issue here is ground loop noise injected into the cave lead or the scintillator case. Unless all this metal is insulated from other grounded objects that will exist. Of course it may well be so isolated: but what you say here does not answer the matter.

Quote from THHuxley

The issue here is ground loop noise injected into the cave lead or the scintillator case. Unless all this metal is insulated from other grounded objects that will exist. Of course it may well be so isolated: but what you say here does not answer the matter.

Please explain how random electrical noise can be translated through the power supply into a classic Bremsstrahlung spectrum? I don't understand how this can be done.

Quote from THHuxley

The issue here is ground loop noise injected into the cave lead or the scintillator case. Unless all this metal is insulated from other grounded objects that will exist. Of course it may well be so isolated: but what you say here does not answer the matter.

The spectrometer box is well grounded to the line ground, and its internal supply would not be affected by ground loop currents. There are several opportunities for ground loop currents - one is a large current flowing to ground from the scintillator housing through the BNC shell, through the coaxial cable to the spectrometer housing to ground. This has the opportunity to affect the readings, but would require many amps of ground current flowing to cause an effect. Either the scintillator or the lead would have to be driven with a source supplying amps of current to ground. This could also be caused by having noise on the line ground wire while having the scintillator housing connected to a separate earth ground. These are possibilities I can check out with Alan.

The other case is ground current flowing through the USB ground between the computer and spectrometer. If a ground loop formed there, either the USB would become non-functional or permanently damaged. In almost all ground loop cases I have seen that involved a USB port, the USB port was permanently damaged on one side or the other. This didn't happen in this experiment - USB remained functional at all times.

Ground loops are pernicious. You get larger voltage drop on high resistance connections, and at higher frequencies. Many conditions that are normally not noticeable can alter ground loop noise. The only safe solution is single point grounding, and no loops.

So my list of things that remain obvious candidates till ruled out is:

• electrical noise
• IR exposure altering temperature/characteristics of some internal part of scintillator

BUT - there are all sorts of weird things you would not think of for signals at this very very low level. So I'd want to test the spectrometer/scintillator thoroughly under experimental conditions looking for anything that changes the ground noise level. There will be many such I'd bet.

I'me with gameover that any anomalous signal that is repeatable is a much better candidate for new physics: and ha sthe advantage it can be definitively proved or disproved. I'll follow his link and look at that.

Quote

The other case is ground current flowing through the USB ground between the computer and spectrometer. If a ground loop formed there, either the USB would become non-functional or permanently damaged.

Not if the voltage drop is less than 0.5V. What voltage do you need to generate spurious spikes from the photodiodes? I'd guess a few 10s of mV.

This is not really the issue, and does not alter the matter. Spectrometer/PC noise would in any case more likely give digital failures rather than random noise (I think the USB packets are all CRC checked). My point is that when you have an anomaly it ends up being something you never thought of, and often something you have never seen before. Obviously, because otherwise it would not be an anomaly. And these things can be very surprising. So no amount of "I can't see anything it could be", in a system like this where there are many different potential effects that could give this low level of artifact, can be convincing.

Oh, I've got a new one:

• Some software bug that means under certain error circumstances only the spike counting becomes more sensitive.

This would not necessarily be an instrument bug, but something done to it that caused this bug and was unusual. I'm vague here because the field is wide open. And I guess high packet loss on a USB interface could potentially trigger such an artifact.

You will say its not fair - I can go on thinking up these scenarios. And that each one is highly unlikely. Both true. But if you have 1000 possible artifact mechanisms, and don't know which is possible, each one will be highly unlikely, even if an error does indeed exist.

Quote from THHuxley

Some software bug that means under certain error circumstances only the spike counting becomes more sensitive.

This is the sort of thing I am thinking of, like perhaps if the power to the detector body gets interrupted for a brief moment, right at the start of a new file.

Quote from axil

Please explain how random electrical noise can be translated through the power supply into a classic Bremsstrahlung spectrum? I don't understand how this can be done.

Come on now Axil, there's no need to get bogged down with such petty details of reality when we are in the process of conjuring up "multi-headed hydras". (<link) You are becoming "unbalanced", as Mr Lewan might say...

Quote

Come on now Axil, there's no need to get bogged down with such petty details of reality when we are in the process of conjuring up "multi-headed hydras"

(1) it is not a classic B spectrum. It is a (possible, because rather ill-defined) inner Bremsstrahlung spectrum. At least that is what I understand. So basically, it goes up as energy goes down, with no obvious cutoff. I'm welcome to correction on this matter however. What I'm sure, is that Bremsstrahlung encompasses a wide variety of different spectra so it is not a precise fingerprint.

(2) When you understand that the energy is got by working out the area underneath each spike, you can see that you would expect more small spikes than large spikes and that this type of smooth spectrum is expected from almost any noise process subjected to the spectrometer counting algorithm.

You might say, it is a classic noise spectrum!

The whole point anyway is that if MFMP are trying to eliminate artifacts on an isolated case they are doomed to failure. You can eliminate artifacts by replicating. Stuff that cannot be replicated (pretty obviously) can never be shown not to be artifact, except in very simple very well documented systems.

Equally, no matter how "difficult" it is to obtain some weird LENR reaction, if that exists, having been done once after only a few experiments, it would be very surprising if it could not be found again. So replication in this case will happen, though may need some patience. In the case of artifact - if the artifactual conditions go away - it may never happen. But, if it does, the cause (artifact or real signal) can be chased down.

THH

Quote from THHuxley

When you understand that the energy is got by working out the area underneath each spike, you can see that you would expect more small spikes than large spikes and that this type of smooth spectrum is expected from almost any noise process subjected to the spectrometer counting algorithm.

Fair point.

from: https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~t…trum/SignalsAndNoise.html

You've left out the spectrometer counting algorithm.

Going from voltage PDF (like you show) to "area under spike" pdf is non-trivial and does give the type of spectrum we see.

Want to try and do it? You have to work out an algorithm that decide when one spike stops, and the next one starts, first...

Quote from THHuxley

The whole point anyway is that if MFMP are trying to eliminate artifacts on an isolated case they are doomed to failure. You can eliminate artifacts by replicating. Stuff that cannot be replicated (pretty obviously) can never be shown not to be artifact, except in very simple very well documented systems.

This is an important point. Even if there was something persuasive in this instance about the purported bremsstrahlung signal having originated in the live cell as a result of heating the fuel, that would not matter much. There are two audiences here, with different prior assessments of the likelihood that an anomaly like this goes back to LENR. There are people who share my sympathies, who are willing to give it a significant possibility if there's sufficient reason to do so. And there are people with a more skeptical view of LENR, who would not give it a high prior. I'm willing to bet most scientists will fall into the latter camp should LENR be pushed into the spotlight. MFMP are doing themselves a disservice by going on a fishing expedition like this and not holding themselves to a more difficult standard.

(In this case, I personally do not find the evidence to be compelling.)

If the signal was a artifact of noise, why did it persist for only a second more or less and why does it not occur all the time? Why does this noise occur just before excess heat begins?

Quote from axil

If the signal was a artifact of noise, why did it persist for only a second more or less and why does it not occur all the time? Why does this noise occur just before excess heat begins?

(1) Coincidence of the "signal" with excess heat could be just that, coincidence. (2) The conclusion about possible excess heat was underwhelming, as Bob H. and Alan G. acknowledge. (3) I'm open to the possibility that there was bremsstrahlung that originated outside of the cell. If so, my guess would be that it occurred through interaction of something with the lead wall, which is consistent with the peaks for lead (or bismuth) in the spectrum. Nickel has a much lower bremsstrahlung cross section than lead.

People who take in interest in Holmlid might read into (3) possible evidence of muons or of a neutral particle that decays into an electron or muon, which I don't at all.