there is broad agreement among people who have read the literature and who understand the experiments
"broad" is a weasel-word but aside from that
SOT is not included in "read the literature" and "understand the experiments"
these concepts are far too limiting for its broad vision
I have known Russ for 2 years, worked alongside him every day for 13 months. He's a pussycat, but with a serious allergy to things he considers bullshit. Which makes two of us. You would be surprised at how many LENR people I meet who say 'give my best wishes to Russ' and really mean it. He has enemies for sure (another thing we share) but he has many friends too, and never hesitates to heap praise on many people in the field whose work, brains and skills he admires.
You would be surprised at how many LENR people I meet who say 'give my best wishes to Russ' and really mean it.
I have said that, and I really mean it. I have given him money and support, and recommended him to others. I do not regret it. He is self-destructive and his ventures often end in a shambles, but that was also true of William Shockley, and others.
His insults directed at me are water off a duck's back. He is just being silly. It has nothing to do with me. As I said, he eventually gets around to insulting everyone he has worked with, and everyone who has done him a good turn. You, Alan Smith, are next in line. A person at war with everyone is actually fighting his own internal demons.
He has enemies for sure (another thing we share) but he has many friends too, and never hesitates to heap praise on many people in the field whose work, brains and skills he admires.
So I have heard, but he has seldom published anything, so I cannot judge.
No one admires his work, brains or skills more than he himself. That's the problem. It makes it awkward to work with him. He often takes credit for his co-worker's accomplishments, which upsets them. Since I have no technical accomplishments, it wouldn't upset me.
I don't see why it matters to you whether he is a nice fellow or a jerk. You are working with him to accomplish a technical task. You are not married to him. So what difference does would it make if he rubs you the wrong way? Or if he takes credit for your work. Why would you care, as long as your name is also on the patent application? You would collaborate with William Shockley, I am sure. There is nothing wrong with collaborating with people you dislike, or making use of them. You should only be careful of people you do not trust.
He's a pussycat
I might enlist in the atomecology alt crew.. a light flogging every now and again keeps the ego in check.
I don't see why it matters to you whether he is a nice fellow or a jerk.
It matters;
There is broad agreement that their results are sound. You are one of a select band of F&P deniers, and on the wrong side of a very poor argument.
As insistently asked by Rothwell (1), I looked at the F&P documents and found serious errors which invalidate both the conclusions of their major paper. I illustrated these errors to the LENR community without receiving any response on the merits. The discussion was then closed, maybe for the first time in the L-F history, probably because nobody was able to rebut my factual and specific criticisms.
Therefore, after the closure of the F&P thread, you, Rothwell or any other LENR supporter can no longer complain that people deny the validity of the F&P results just because they refuse to read the literature. On the contrary, it is now possible to affirm that the residual agreement on the F&P claims depends on the fact that the select band of their supporters didn't look at their documents with the attention necessary to fully understand how their results were obtained.
As insistently asked by Rothwell (1), I looked at the F&P documents and found serious errors which invalidate both the conclusions of their major paper.
No, you did not. You are mistaken. I am sure you honestly believe you did, but so did Morrison and Shanahan. As you see from their papers, they were mistaken. Or perhaps you don't see it. Anyway, Morrison does not understand the difference between power and energy, and he got the arithmetic wrong by 5 orders of magnitude. Those are the worst mistakes I have ever seen in a journal paper.
No, you did not. You are mistaken. I am sure you honestly believe you did, but so did Morrison and Shanahan. As you see from their papers, they were mistaken. ...
I didn't mention Morrison nor Shanahan. I was talking about the errors that I noticed on the F&P documents available on the web.
And no, I'm not mistaken. Oystla, the only LENR supporter who tried to rebut my remarks on a factual basis, finally admitted that the 1992 F&P paper contained some errors. We were discussing the extent of these errors, their cause and the possible impact on the F&P scientific reliability, when suddenly (1) I was invited to abandon the topic and the readers were informed that "the thread will (perhaps) be closed shortly as 'no longer of interest'." It had never happened before, not even for the most marginal and neglected subject and, considering the number of posts and posters, the thread on F&P was not ignored at all. Probably it the opposite was true, it had become very interesting for someone. In any case, in less than 2 hours the thread was closed (2). It was a blitz.
Evidently a discussion in which no one was able to justify the errors made by the CF founders was disturbing. I understand. After all we are guest of the LENR-Forum. But, after what happened, you can no longer invite the CF deniers to read carefully the literature, defying them to find even a single major error in a F&P experiment or papers and emphasizing that it is the only way science is done.
Interrupting an ongoing discussion in that way is by no means the way science is done. Anyway, it has been the best possible confirmation that my criticisms on the F&P results were sound.
I didn't mention Morrison nor Shanahan. I was talking about the errors that I noticed on the F&P documents available on the web.
I know you did not mention them. I pointed to them to illustrate the fact that self-proclaimed experts with a great deal of scientific knowledge have made terrible mistakes analyzing Fleischmann and Pons. They thought they found errors, but their discoveries were nonsensical mistakes, confusing energy and power with arithmetic errors 10,000 times off. The "errors" that you think you have found are similar to this. They are nonsense. I and others have pointed out many reasons why they are nonsense. But you do not listen, you are blind to the facts, and you remain certain that you are right. Many people pointed out the mistakes made by Morrison and Shanahan as well, but they went ahead and published in journals.
Your behavior is typical of person with an unwarranted high opinion of his own expertise. You imagine you understand calorimetry better than Fleischmann, Miles or McKubre. You imagine you have easily found problems that they overlooked for 30 years. You are wrong, but your ego prevents you from seeing that you are wrong.
Yes, I did. I pointed out several mistakes, such as the fact that calibrations did not show spurious excess heat, and metal which is hot enough to melt plastic a 200 deg C cannot have liquid foam on it.
These items of yours are not related to my remarks on the 1992 F&P's paper. They are the usual straw man arguments you use to shift attention away from sensitive targets. But this rhetorical trick doesn't work with me.
My real remarks are clear for everyone who goes to the closed thread and reads the last few posts. Moreover, after the thread closure, their validity is no more disputable.
QuoteOther people also gave you reasons. You ignored them.
False. I answered every single reply to my comments, including the most absurd ones like those which claimed that the available F&P videos of their boil-off experiment were either meaningless or Krivitized, and even the silliest one which proposed typos as the cause of the time discrepancies shown on Figure 8 of the 1992 paper.
QuoteThis is not a scientific debate.
On this point, I agree, but not my fault.
QuoteThis is you, fantasizing that you know more than Fleischmann.
Your fantasies. I've never pretended to know more than Fleischmann. I only affirm that both the conclusions of his major paper are blatantly wrong.
I've never pretended to know more than Fleischmann. I only affirm that both the conclusions of his major paper are blatantly wrong.
That would only be true if you knew more than he did. Which you do not.
That would only true if you knew more than he did. Which you do not.
Nonsense. Their 1992 paper is wrong, because both of its conclusions are in contrast to what can be seen in the boil-off videos and these videos were produced by F&P themselves. So their paper is wrong, notwithstanding they knew more than me.
For the last time, your theory is nonsense. Among many other things, you have not explained why the foam only happens with palladium and heavy water electrolysis, and not ordinary water, or platinum, or resistance heating.
Assuming that this was the case, why should I have to explain it? I'm talking about the 1992 boil-off experiment, in which the 4 cells were filled with heavy water and the cathodes were made of palladium. The lab videos clearly show that this configuration developed a lot of foam. That's all you need to know in order to correctly interpret what happened inside those cell.
QuoteYou have not addressed any of the issues raised by me or anyone else.
Hey, I just told you I did it. Go to the closed thread and find only one issue which has not been addressed by me in a reply, reporting here the exact address of the post that contains it.
QuoteYou are fantasizing that you somehow know better than Fleischmann.
Again. I told you this is not true. I never pretended to know the 1992 boil-off experiment better than MF. Although he had remained in England during the entire period when the experiment was carried out in France, the information he had were incomparably more numerous than what I have been able to collect on the internet. But the latter are sufficient to affirm that the conclusions in his 1992 paper are wrong.
QuoteThis is nothing more than an ego trip.
What a ridiculous thing to say! I'm just doing what YOU asked the skeptics to do:
| From How many times has the Pons-Fleischmann Anomalous Heating Event been replicated in peer reviewed journals? What a ridiculous thing to say! Of course my position is assailable. Assail it! Go ahead. Feel free. Show us a mistake in one of the major experiments, or point to a paper describing errors. That's how science works. I am not saying it is unassailable. I am saying that NO SKEPTIC HAS TRIED TO ASSAIL IT. Do you see the difference? |
Do you see any difference?
Assuming that this was the case, why should I have to explain it? I'm talking about the 1992 boil-off experiment, in which the 4 cells were filled with heavy water and the cathodes were made of palladium.
You have to explain it because control tests were done with platinum and light water, and palladium and light water, and no excess heat was detected.
You have to explain it because control tests were done with platinum and light water, and palladium and light water, and no excess heat was detected.
Well, it depends on what we are talking about. If we talk about the 1992 boil-off experiment and the ICCF3 paper in which the results are reported, the control tests you mentioned are OT, as anyone can see just by looking at the conclusions of that paper:
| From Page 19 of http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf : [bold and color added] We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even for this highly inefficient system; the specific excess rates are broadly speaking in line with those achieved in fast breeder reactors. We also draw attention to some further important features: provided satisfactory electrode materials are used, the reproducibility of the experiments is high; following the boiling to dryness and the open-circuiting of the cells, the cells nevertheless remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, Fig 8; furthermore the Kel-F supports of the electrodes at the base of the cells melt so that the local temperature must exceed 300ºC. |
You see? There are only two main conclusions (the red and the blue one) and none of them depend on any control test. However, both of these conclusions conflicts with what is shown in the lab videos produced by F&P themselves. This is undisputable. So, these conclusions and the paper itself are wrong regardless of any other consideration related to the behavior of the control tests.
This doesn't mean that what you said is meaningless. The comparison between the behaviors of cells filled with different electrolytes or featuring cathodes made of different material is very important. I have already addressed this issue in some of my posts in the closed thread, but not in the details, because it wasn't the main subject of the discussion. I had promised oystla to discuss with him the 1990 F&P paper, the so called seminal paper, which deals with the different behavior between regular and control tests. I was just waiting to finish the examination of the boil-off experiment reported in the 1992 paper, but the sudden closure of the thread prevented any further discussion on the 1990 paper, including the important issue you mentioned.
It's a matter of method. We have to deal with one issue (experiment or documents or claim) at a time, as you also suggested some time ago:
| From JR post How many times has the Pons-Fleischmann Anomalous Heating Event been replicated in peer reviewed journals? [bold added] Q: OK. How could LENR be disproved? That's obvious! You just show there is a mistake in an experiment, and out it goes. The way I did here, with my own work: […] I think you failed (the reader can judge) but anyway, that is how it is done. Finding errors and showing that the author's conclusions are mistaken is the one and only way to disprove an experimental discovery. You have to do that for every single major study. Even if 49 are wrong and 1 is right, the cold fusion effect is still real. |
Therefore, if you agree that the F&P conclusions for their 1992 boil-off experiment are wrong, I will discuss with you about whichever other experiment you like. Just ask the L-F administrators to reopen the closed thread on F&P's experiments (or open a new suitable thread by yourself) and tell me what other document you'd like to review.
Control experiments are only OT for you, since it suits your argument to pretend they are unimportant. But as any proper scientific fule do knoe, if the test system doesn't behave differently to the ostensibly similar control system the experiment has shown no effect. The F&P experiments used controls in order to demonstrate the reality of the effect - it's as simple as that. Your obsession with trying to spin a biased interpretation onto 30 year old videos (while ignoring the control results) - videos that were probably not 'first generation' originals but copies of copies is like somebody who watches grainy UFO videos claiming he knows who the pilot was.
Control experiments are only OT for you, since it suits your argument to pretend they are unimportant. But as any proper scientific fule do knoe, if the test system doesn't behave differently to the ostensibly similar control system the experiment has shown no effect. The F&P experiments used controls in order to demonstrate the reality of the effect -
Your post has been sent only 12 minutes after mine. You've probably been too rushed to read my comment and write your answer. If you read it again with more calm, you will see that I have affirmed the importance of the control tests, but I said they are OT only with respect to the specific subject which was under discussion, namely the incorrectness of the conclusions of the 1992 F&P paper on their boil-off experiment.
QuoteYour obsession with trying to spin a biased interpretation onto 30 year old videos (while ignoring the control results) - videos that were probably not 'first generation' originals but copies of copies is like somebody who watches grainy UFO videos claiming he knows who the pilot was.
JedRothwell likes this.
Regarding videos, ask Rothwell (who just liked you post). I'm referring to the same videos that he mentioned many times in order to demonstrate the reality of the excess heat claimed by F&P in the conclusions of their 1992 paper. See for instance here:
| From JR post FP's experiments discussion [bold added] […] However, more to the point, you don't need papers. You don't need Fleischmann, Miles or anyone else. You can see for yourself. I mean that literally. Look a good copy of the boil off experiment video and you will see, for example, that: […] You can confirm much of this just by looking at the video, but here is something else you can do -- and you should do, if you are serious. […] |
You and Rothwell should find an agreement on the significance of these videos. It's not possible that they are very clear and self-explanatory when they are evoked to affirm the reality of an extraordinary and mysterious nuclear effect, but they become unreliable as soon as they are mentioned to point out a common phenomenon such as the formation of a lot of foam inside the cells or to demonstrate the inconsistency of the time values reported in the F&P paper.
How can a difference between a control and a test which clearly demonstrates a positive XSH effect in the test be ignored at all? To do so is irrational on your part, but i understand your reluctance to accept the notion that you are wrong. Better try sticking your fingers in your ears and going 'nyah nyah nyah ' cant hear you.' That might work. And BTW this is clearly off topic, and very shortly this post, your post and other related OT posts will be moved to clearance.
19 posts above moved from '3000th member' thread as being totally off topic.
