Some Points Regarding a Recent Presentation at ICCF20 on the ‘Lugano Report’ (Rainer Rander)

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    As long as there is no weird reflective effects, prismatic action, or parallel ridges, Lambert's cosine law should hold. The view factor is reduced by the same amount as as the cosine of the emission angle.


    There were ridges, which the Lugano authors attempt to incorporate into their calculations, leading to an overwrought mathematical model.


    @Eric Walker,
    My assumption is that a molten salt is going to be very active, but only in normal, non-nuclear ways. It will, I think, run real hot, and look just like excess temperature, compared to the typical null.
    Excess temperature looks like excess heat when only temperature at a specific power input is used as the metric for power production.


    The Lugano device has ridges perpendicular to the curvature axis, so the Lambert cosine law should apply. (Ridges parallel to the curvature could cause problems, which is what I meant). The ridges will change the radiance from a smooth(ish) cylinder, but this is averaged over the visible area. (The ridges increase emissivity slightly). As long as the point where the ridges are sticking out of the reactor in plane view are not sampled by the Optris, (so that background temperatures are seen between ridges), the average should be valid to a first approximation. The ridges can be modeled as a slight increase in diameter for calculating total radiant power, as well. The only place where emissivity was tested was the Rods, which have no appreciable ridges (there is a casting seam).

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    My assumption is that a molten salt is going to be very active, but only in normal, non-nuclear ways.


    This was the assumption I was querying — that the molten salt "blank" is not showing the anomalous heat effect. Odds are you would be correct, but you might be incorrect. It seems to me that an effective blank, or an effective method, will be more immune to this possibility. Using a simple resistance heater as a blank seems safer, and water calorimetry seems safer.

    @Eric Walker,
    The point is that molten fuel may actually be the epitome of the excess temperature effect seen in many cases.
    An empty tube or solid rod is not quite equivalent to what is happening with LAH-Li-Ni fuels.
    And if molten salt looks like excess heat more than a solid null rod, or air null, then a continuum might be possible, and the source of the temperature variance noted in many experiments can be worked out.


    Edit: Water or similar calorimetry would or could show that the excess temperature is not excess heat, if my hypothesis is right.

    @Wyttenbach,
    Lambert's cosine law also holds for the view of the ridges. IR radiation is also emitted, absorbed and re-emitted from fin to fin at some angles. The net effect is a slight increase in emissivity. Ridges such as these are well-characterized in the literature. Which is why the Professors were able to find a model so easily.
    If convection is increased (relative to a smooth tube) the temperature will drop, radiant power will decrease and an IR camera will see a lower temperature.

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    The total emissivity then is unimportant to the Optris, and wrong to use for its emissivity function.



    WOW ! you are saying that ALL (not only Optris) IR camera manufactures are wrong and you are the only one right ! Come on In the table that YOU cited the vast majority of emissivities reported is Total. Even for Brick ( a non metal ) that is in the same table of Aluminium Oxide.
    The fact that the sensitivity of a detector is limited in a window is considered in his calibration data. Band emissivity data wold be extremely difficult to use because one should consider also the exact band sensitivity and response of the detector, that is different for each pixel in a camera, for each optic mounted on the detector.
    This would make extremely difficult, if not impossible, to compare measures from different devices.
    Emissivity tables should also be different for each detector.
    Using integrated functions instead, after a proper factory calibration ( that contain all the data regarding each part of the detector ), the measure is much more simpler and possible.

    • Official Post

    I think that rather than continually chewing over this very old dogbone and getting nowhere new, our resident calorimetry experts might take a look at the latest presentation by Brillouin which certainly contains some interesting data. For certain values of 'interesting'. The documents were presented at ICCF-20 by Michael Halem of LENR Invest, and brought to my attention by a post from Shane D.


    https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=bGVuci1pbnZlc3QuY298bGVuci1pbnZlc3QtZG93bmxvYWRzfGd4OjI5NTljNTc1ZTAzOWQz


    Perhaps in the appropriate thread?

    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    I suspect that the specific heat capacity changes with the change from solid powder to a gas, liquid and solid fuel combination is enough that the core temperature increases with the same power input,



    Paradigmoia. Solid fusion or liquid vaporization are endothermic process. You need extra heat to make the phase transition. Condensation and solidification are exothermic process. Heat energy recovered ( but not generated ) by those process.
    Heat pipes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe work exploiting this phase transitions.
    If you provide the same amount of energy to two pipes, one empty and one containing e.g. some water, the filled one should be cooler because of specific heats.

    Quote from Randombit0

    WOW ! you are saying that ALL (not only Optris) IR camera manufactures are wrong and you are the only one right ! Come on In the table that YOU cited the vast majority of emissivities reported is Total. Even for Brick ( a non metal ) that is in the same table of Aluminium Oxide.


    Randombit0 - if you follow paradigmnoia and study the matter in more detail you will notice that (modulo narrow-band absorption lines that get averaged out by any broadband sensor) most material, and especially the non-metals you quote, have IR spectral emissivities pretty close to grey body. Most bodies, boringly are broad-band close to grey.


    This fact has confused you, because you attribute the use of total emissivity in such tables to some (wrongly conceptualised) theory, rather than the pragmatic fact that it usually works. And the camera manufacturers ALWAYS accompany their tables with the caveat that you must calibrate emissivity AT TEMPERATURE to be accurate - something the Lugano authors unfortunately failed to do.


    Or, if you study more advanced theoretical material on thermography you will find copious references to spectral emissivity and the fact that it is indeed different from total emissivity, and that different sensors therefore require different emissivities for some materials.


    One thing - it was very unlucky that the Lugano reactor just happened to be made of one of the very few materials that would have grossly different total and band emissivities at temperature, while having near the same at lower temperatures. Those special conditions are needed for a dummy low temperature calibration to look roughly correct from book figures (though we do not know how much the book emissivity at low temperatures was adjusted to get that) and yet for the at-temperature values to be badly wrong. It is a complex error, and one that I'd guess might have confused Rossi as well as the testers.

    @randombit0,
    Emissivity charts are an assembly of information. Sometimes specific information is not available, so more general information is included, so that there is something which is often better than nothing for some particular material.
    The Optris can no more see the entire IR band than your eyes can see the whole IR band.


    if you cannot differentiate between total and partial (spectral) then you might find difficulties in all sorts of things. Like totally full pipes and partially filled pipes, or totally dry steam and partially dry steam, or totally fulfilling contracts and partially fulfilling contracts.

    First, some notes about Randombit0. Rb0 is almost certainly Andrea Rossi. At one point it appeared that he acknowledged this, but then that was "clarified" that he was -- at least -- a member of Rossi's "team." In favor of Rb0 not being Rossi, the writing style of Rb0 is generally more clear in expression than Rossi himself, as shown on JONP, but that could be due to greater care being exercised and even possibly by some editing by his team. I will treat Rb0 as Rossi, because even if he is not Rossi, he clearly is close to Rossi. If it ever mattered, it would be possible for investigators to confirm or disconfirm this, but I do not expect that to happen.


    Meanwhile, I repeat my welcome for Andrea. I would prefer that he come completely in out of the cold, and start communicating openly with the full human community, but that's his choice. He is the one who will suffer the most from a failure in this.


    Now, to the occasions here, and my overall focus and priority is on how people communicate, because various artifacts of communication can stand in the way of what would otherwise be the obvious purpose of communication: shared experience and understanding. These artifacts generally proceed from individual survival imperatives, which involve, at the first level, attempting to look good, avoiding looking bad, and avoiding domination and which secondarily, then, attempting to make others look bad and to dominate.


    A habit of "make-wrong" arises out of this, and this can almost totally prevent genuine communication.


    All communication is ambiguous, because words do not capture reality. If we become trapped in make-wrong, we will parse the communication of others in such a way as to make them wrong, and then we can assert a contrary "truth," exposing their idiocy. Trolls will deliberately parse the communications of their targets to make them wrong. I am not treating you as a troll, here. I am assuming that you are attempting to present and defend your position against what you think is unfair attack. However, the manner in which you do this is practically guaranteed to fail. It doesn't work, Andrea. It only impresses people who are already attached heavily to "supporting" you.


    You are in danger of losing everything. These "supporters" are not actually your friends, they are, at least some of them, your worst enemies, and they will encourage and egg you on as you ride into the fray, a fray that is likely to ruin you. They are not at risk, you are. And in your agreement with them, you reinforce your own paranoid world-view; if I take you as sincere on JONP, you believe that I'm paid to "attack" you. I will simply declare that I'm not paid to attack anyone, nor to promote any interest other than my own vision of pubic welfare. (And even with respect to that, "paid" would be misleading. Some of my expenses have been covered. Not all. Some of my expenses still come from my own very limited personal income.)


    To the comments:


    Quote from randombit0

    Paradigmnoia wrote:


    What a confusion ! Temperature is quite a different concept ( definable e.g via statistical mechanics ) then heat. Temperature is not "transported", while heat, that is a for of energy, is. Refer e.g. to Zemansky "Heat and thermodynamics : an intermediate textbook" or other textbooks.


    Andrea, you agreed with him, while at the same time calling what he wrote "confusion." What this betrays is a view that others are confused which overrides the present evidence. The expression comes from the held view, not from the immediate conversation. That is very normal for humans, by the way, and it takes work to overcome this.


    Quote from randombit0

    Paradigmnoia wrote:


    Paradigmoia. Solid fusion or liquid vaporization are endothermic process. You need extra heat to make the phase transition. Condensation and solidification are exothermic process. Heat energy recovered ( but not generated ) by those process.
    Heat pipes en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe work exploiting this phase transitions.
    If you provide the same amount of energy to two pipes, one empty and one containing e.g. some water, the filled one should be cooler because of specific heats.


    You were correct to point out a possible misinterpretation of what Paradigmnoia wrote. However, the core point that P was making was that an empty control is different from a full one, and that temperature behavior can vary because of internal cell process, which could be phase change in either direction, where energy stored in phase change might be released at another time. The effect of this on an experiment will vary with conditions. Because the quantity of fuel is limited, the energy change is limited; however, there can be another effect: the heat conductivity of the cell can vary, and this could create possible temperature artifacts with an original Parkhomov-style cell, for example, where the heat was applied to windings at either end of the cell, and measured centrally. If the internal heat conductivity of the cell is increased, we could expect that the temperature of that central thermocouple would increase with fuel vs no fuel, and without actual excess heat.


    Parkhomov did, however, what appeared to be a "first principles" calorimetry, phase change of water in his "boiler." The thermometry, examined carefully, indicated no major excess heat, but that was ignored by Parkhomov. The Parkhomov experiment was never nailed down, it was replaced, repeatedly, with "improved" designs. So it was a moving target. What appears very possible is that there was water loss from the boiler, i.e., water splashed out by bumping as the boiling rate increased. This could have been identified or excluded with more careful work.


    Lugano also suffered from this lack of thoroughness. There was no "first principles" calorimetry. The method used could have worked if calibrated, but no calibration was done at the necessary temperature range. Andrea, your arguments over this often boil down to "they were experts and the rest of you are idiots." Can you recognize that this is a way of communication that is guaranteed to fail? The only people whom it will convince are your dedicated fans.


    Something that has been missing from everything I have seen from you: a recognition that people of good will and knowledge might disagree with you, that your claims are "extraordinary," and that skepticism is normal, to be expected. Not hostile in itself. Yes, there are pseudoskeptics, people attached to their beliefs on the other side. People ready to accuse of fraud without proof. However, you treated as hostile, not just these, but anyone who wanted to independently confirm your claims. Psychologically, that created an environment around you where many people would avoid challenging you. Those who avoided that challenge were then allowed continued access. The result is like clockwork, it's predictable.


    When you attempt to interact with the human community (and this includes, especially, "the market,") your habits largely guarantee rejection, even if you have a real Effect. You could overcome this, but not by tilting at windmills. Sure, the market would decide, if you put products on the market, which, if your claims are not misleading, you could have done from 2011 on.

    Regarding the specific heat thing, I am not thinking of the power over a given time period required to affect a state change, but the amount of heat at steady state and a possible temperature dependence on the different states of materials while a material is contained in the foci of a radiant heat system such as the interior of a hot tube type device.


    Notably, the inside of a hot tube, containing air, is hotter than the outside, and interestingly, seemingly hotter than the heater wires outside the tube that are heating it. Insertion of a material inside the centre can raise the interior temperature, at steady state. There will be of course a time period where the interior material must absorb enough heat to raise its temperature. But this delta period is ignored in steady state measurements. The stored heat in the centre material is insignificant in most experiments, but some materials may be able to increase the interior temperature significantly higher than others at the same steady state heat input. I suggested that this may be due to the specific heat (Cv) but it may be another property of the interior material.

    • Official Post

    You know Abd, in the post above you go way too close to doxxing, in that if Randombito is AR, then you are definitely doxxing, and if he/she is not then you are being somewhat ridiculous. I think it enough to make it clear that you suspect is might be AR (or a team member) as you have done several times already, without re-christening the poster to suit your opinions. If the forum feels, and the T&C's suggest, that there is to be no doxxing, then it matters not whose identity is (allegedly) uncovered, the rule applies regardles

    Quote from Alan Smith

    You know Abd, in the post above you go way too close to doxxing, in that if Randombito is AR, then you are definitely doxxing, and if he/she is not then you are being somewhat ridiculous. I think it enough to make it clear that you suspect is might be AR (or a team member) as you have done several times already, without re-christening the poster to suit your opinions. If the forum feels, and the T&C's suggest, that there is to be no doxxing, then it matters not whose identity is (allegedly) uncovered, the rule applies regardles


    Perhaps this should be discussed in a separate thread. Suggestion?


    Doxxing is generally prohibited because of harm done when real people behind an on-line identity are exposed and injured by the exposure, and the community is harmed because participation can be suppressed. My comments above were obviously not aimed at suppressing participation and explicitly welcomed it. The goal was to communicate with Rossi, first, briefly, in general, and then with reference to the specific issues. "There is to be no doxxing" depends on a naive and shallow definition of the offense. In fact, the equivalent of doxxing is not uncommon here. When a user claims that others are "actually" "paid FUDders," that is a form of doxxing. The more general offense is gratuitous incivility, of a kind that will often suppress participation. There are few women who participate in fora like this, and the reasons are obvious. Randombit0 here, and in many posts, insults the intelligence of those to whom he is responding.


    Real people using real names have been harmed, whereas the forum may protect anonymous trolls. As a result, these fora are far less effective than they could be. Consider: would this forum desire the participation of real scientists? As it stands, they will stay away. What is left is what?


    By the way, my comment included the possibility that Rb0 was not Rossi himself, but, then, that treating him as if he were could be useful. (A message to him will likely get to Rossi.) And I don't give a **** about "ridiculous." I do not merely "suspect" what was said, but consider it a matter of confirmed knowledge, with no contrary evidence, and relatively well-known.


    I do respect consensus, by the way, over my own opinions.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

    And I don't give a **** about "ridiculous." I do not merely "suspect" what was said, but consider it a matter of confirmed knowledge, with no contrary evidence, and relatively well-known.


    All the more reason why you should avoid the obvious, since if it well known it need not be mentioned. Doxxing is doxxing, specifically here the revealing or attempted revealing of the identity of a poster who wishes to be anonymous, generalised insults about FUD etc are not doxxing, they are insults, and if serious enough will be (and often are) treated as such. There really is no excuse, and there should be no exceptions.

    Re doxxing


    Even when there is no loss to the individual doxxed, it actually makes communication muddy.


    By being asked to pay attention to a possible (not acknowledged) identity people start to make assumptions about agendas, abilities or lack of them, motives. None of this meta-information is at all certain and it seldom serves any use except to make people respond in intemperate stereotyped ways (more than usual). The discussion centres on the individuals rather than the points being made.


    Best to take posts on their own value, and to take a posters contributions as a whole to define that poster's worth on a given subject.


    Thus I've stated that on Lugano randombit0 behaves like a troll. Repeating a given point which everyone else has acknowledged but does not agree, and not acknowledging the alternate views. Further, she argues this inconsistent point in an apparently informed and confident way, ridiculing others. It is not helpful behaviour for communication, and what trolls do.


    Speculating as to her identity does not add anything (for me) to this. And is against forum rules as I understand them.

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