How do you convince a skeptic?

Quote from interested observer

Shane, out of curiosity, exactly what headway is Jed not making with me?

None whatever! Nor do I expect to make any progress with the likes of you. You are a rhetorical punching bag. The straight man in a comedy act. The foil, as in:

I'll be your foil, Laertes: in mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i' the darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.

Quote from Shane D.

Going from memory, but you asked for some proof LENR had progressed the past 30 years in terms of understanding, reliability, and scaling up. Jed said yes, provided examples. You said that was not good enough, and asked for better proof, whereupon he directed you to LENR-CANR. You did not want to go there and "do your homework". He then tried to get the both of you on the same playing field, so as to continue on with the debate. At that point, you declared yourself a victim of his, and all LENR believers, bullying tactics.

No matter, because you agree the science is worth pursuing, and are "curious that it might turn out to be important some day". Well, we all are...so in a way, you are one of us. No reason to argue among the like minded.

The discussion of progress basically took place in posts #165 and #166 on this thread. Jed said yes or no for the various attributes. He directed me to McKubre and his video. I commented that he did not point out anything more recent than 10 years ago and he responded that every is old and dead but that there has nonetheless been progress.

That was pretty much the end of the discussion of progress in the field. Since then, Jed has mostly been telling me to stop disparaging LENR researchers, criticizing their papers without reading them, and denying their results. I have repeately asked for examples where I have done this and, naturally, have not been shown any. The rest of this has been other topics such as the competence of non-experts in evaluating scientific papers.

Anyway, i don’t care about the “bullying”. It is standard internet practice for treating people outside of the tribe. But as you say, I am actually rooting for the home team even if I haven’t been convinced that it will win so no worries.

Quote from JedRothwell

Over 180 major laboratories have replicated cold fusion, and published their results in mainstream, peer-reviewed journals. Many of these replications are at very high signal to noise ratios. The people doing these experiments were the creme de la creme of 20th century electrochemistry. People such as Fleischmann, FRS, Bockris, who literally wrote the book on modern electrochemistry, Yeager the guy they named the chemistry building after. And Arata, the other guy with a building and international prize named after him; the Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; a commissioner on the French Atomic Energy Commission; the Indian scientists who headed up their atomic bomb development program; and so on, and so forth. Hundreds of the best, most qualified, most famous people in the field replicated. If you don't believe them, and if you do not consider them trusted sources, there are absolutely no scientists anywhere on earth that you would trust. They don't come any more trustworthy than this.

The thing is, you don't know shit from shinola about cold fusion. You have no idea who replicated, or what they claimed, and you are just talking all out your head. Making stuff up. Claiming that people you have never heard of are not trusted.

All experiments prove that. If you don't think so, you know nothing about calorimetry or the laws of thermodynamics. Proving there is excess energy does not mean the effect can or will become a commercial reality. Plasma fusion tokamaks always produce more energy out than in, but they are not close to commercial reality, and I doubt they ever will be.

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ALL?

Really JED, ALL?

When 1 single experiment is replicated,

When everyone skilled in the art, does the same experiment and gets the same results?

I am sure there are multiple experiments that get some generic amount of excess heat, (you could even include Rossi in that example).

This is like your previous comment on

“Good proof”.

Lets just say there is some compelling experimental evidence that begs further investigation, analysis and peer review.

Until then, I disagree.

Indeed Rossi's early ecats made lots of heat. They had very large mains-powered heaters!

I have read once there was a huge mobile power generator behind the building or lab...bot sure if that was true, but IIRC there was a picture as well....?

Quote from zorud

I have read once there was a huge mobile power generator behind the building or lab...bot sure if that was true, but IIRC there was a picture as well....?

I doubt that generator needed to get anywhere near its output capability on Oct 28 once the water was warm.

The probably 75% flooded heat exchangers (lacking pumps, gravity fed uphill to the reservoirs) precluded much steam production.

Yes - that piece could have generated a nice portion of power for the ordinary heater coils...

Quote from THHuxleynew

- High could-not-be-calorimetry-error COP

- Long period of running makes chemical affects impossible (more for Lugano than Ferrara)

- Testing independent of device inventor

Those claims are unparalleled in the history of LENR research, if taken as real.

That is not a bit true. The inventors of cold fusion were Fleischmann and Pons. Hundreds of other researchers have tested their invention independently of them. Many of these others observed heat at levels that could not be calorimeter errors, with COPs as high as infinity. In nearly all cases chemical effects are impossible because there is never any significant amount of chemical fuel to start with, and no chemical changes are observed.

Why did you say that? Were you unaware of these facts? Or do you deny them?

Quote from Forty-Two

It’s much easier for the remaining Rossi supporters to remain in a self-delusion than to admit that they - although so smart - have been fooled all time long.

I just watched this interesting show on Netflix today about the Flat Earthers. What was interesting was that some of these people obviously have scientific minds, and were designing scientific experiments. For example they obtained a $30000 gyroscope to prove the earth was not rotating, but their results showed it was, so they blamed themselves for screwing up the experiment somehow. Then these other people shined a laser down a canal for miles and measured the height, but once again rejected their own results. The psychology is such that sometimes people want to believe something so much, they can't possibly be convinced they are wrong. Not that this has anything to do with Rossi or A.A. or Bevmo or anything. It is a good show, check it out.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is not a bit true. The inventors of cold fusion were Fleischmann and Pons. Hundreds of other researchers have tested their invention independently of them. Many of these others observed heat at levels that could not be calorimeter errors, with COPs as high as infinity. In nearly all cases chemical effects are impossible because there is never any significant amount of chemical fuel to start with, and no chemical changes are observed.

Why did you say that? Were you unaware of these facts? Or do you deny them?

Sigh.

Jed - it was not my intention to trigger your "CF is proven beyond doubt" reply, nor was I arguing against that view.

None of the historic results have that triumvirate:

• Very high COP (> 2).
• Very long period over which that is sustained (1 month for Lugano)
• Independent testing and validation

To be precise I should have added a 4th item (which would not apply to the Schwartz nano stuff)

• High power out

Perhaps you could highlight the experiments that show all of these? Independent testing and validation is not incidentally the same as another person doing a related experiment

Rossi's results as reported by the Swedes were quite extraordinary and if believed fully warranted a very large amount of industrial interest. The fact that it took a small VC with strong appetite for risk to pick it up shows that for most the entire package, when examined, did not ring true. I think quite a lot of that would have been the weird and bad terms of Rossi's "give me all the money up front" contract.

Quote from THHuxleynew

None of the historic results have that triumvirate:

Very high COP (> 2).
Very long period over which that is sustained (1 month for Lugano)
Independent testing and validation

That is completely wrong. Dozens of the replications and hundreds of individual tests have met these standards. See the tables in Storms' books. The COP has often ranged from 3 to 10, and in many cases it is infinite. Many tests have produced heat continuously for weeks or months. All of them are independent.

Either you have not read the literature, or you disagree with it and you think the authors are mistaken. Which is it?

Quote from THHuxleynew

High power out

How do you define "high power"? 1 W? 5 W? 20 W? All have been reported many times. Perhaps you will do a Mary Yugo on us and say that whatever power level is reported, it is not high enough.

I would define high power as power that the calorimeter is designed to measure with great confidence. For a microcalorimeter, 50 mW is high, and 1 W is too high to measure. For the calorimeters used by Fleischmann, Miles, Storms or McKubre, 5 W is very high. They all detected this level of power, and more.

Quote from Alan Smith

Don't overlook these guys who actually (it has been said) buckled under pressure to retract

I don't know if there was pressure. Fleischmann talked about them but did not mention political pressure. He acknowledged they were first.

Mizuno also detected the reaction before F&P announced. This is described in his book. He did not publish, so it does not count, as he himself said.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is completely wrong. Dozens of the replications and hundreds of individual tests have met these standards. See the tables in Storms' books. The COP has often ranged from 3 to 10, and in many cases it is infinite. Many tests have produced heat continuously for weeks or months. All of them are independent.

Either you have not read the literature, or you disagree with it and you think the authors are mistaken. Which is it?

How do you define "high power"? 1 W? 5 W? 20 W? All have been reported many times. Perhaps you will do a Mary Yugo on us and say that whatever power level is reported, it is not high enough.

I would define high power as power that the calorimeter is designed to measure with great confidence. For a microcalorimeter, 50 mW is high, and 1 W is too high to measure. For the calorimeters used by Fleischmann, Miles, Storms or McKubre, 5 W is very high. They all detected this level of power, and more.

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Sigh (again).

I define high power as say 500W+ something that might be useful industrially without further dev. But in any case you continue to misunderstand me. Any one of those things have been claimed from different experiments. I know none that have all together. if you do, please indicate which - and who was doing the independent testing?

Even without independent testing I am not aware of anything that meets all of the criteria. The fact that different tests are all independent is not the point (as again i made clear in my original remark).

You are I think misinterpreting what I'm saying here.

THH

JedRothwell : 100 Watts or greater, output/input power > 5, duration of test for a desktop (weight < 100kg) device: 4 weeks. <-- typical confidence inspiring numbers. Also: clean, transparent measurements with blanks and calibrations, replicated by at least one, better two, major test organization with no interest in the outcome. SRI does not qualify.

Exact amounts negotiable. By way of reference, a Tesla Powerwall 2 home storage system weight is about 110kg and stores 10 -15 kWh. Some chemical systems can possibly do better. Weight limit and duration requirement should only be able to be met by something nuclear.

That is more or less what skeptics in various forums have asked for since Rossi first announced in 2011! You really have someone who can do that, Jed? All requirements in one device? Where have you been hiding it?

Quote

See the tables in Storms' books. The COP has often ranged from 3 to 10, and in many cases it is infinite. Many tests have produced heat continuously for weeks or months. All of them are independent.

Looked at it in the past. From memory, no single system with adequate output as per above had the high COP and also the long duration, not to mention replication by credible labs. Feel free to contradict by example if you can. It doesn't do to claim well, this guy had the high output, this other person had the high COP and a third had the long duration. That seems to be what you do and have done for a long time in discussion with skeptics.