Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions

    Quote from Dewey Weaver

    Shane - I believe that the good news is coming. I've seen a snapshot of a related reaction - its encouraging and is being conducted by accountable grown-ups. The small reactor works well enough for next steps.

    Expecting broader progress in the coming months.

    Heh. There have been plenty of "leaks" and innuendo concerning CF/LENR over the past ~30 years. None of it amounted to anything. Keep in mind that making a reactor work functionally so it generates a reaction of some sort is one thing. Making it work so that it generates excess heat and violates the laws of physics is another thing. Also, many of these research groups will never admit failure. They will say things like: we are making progress, work is ongoing, the issues are being addressed, etc... Even after failing repeatedly at everything they have tried ,they have to give the impression that success with LENR/CF is possible until the last moment. This is so the maximum funding and donations flow in. There is an obvious example of this besides the Ecat going on now which I won't mention by name.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    I have not heard this rumor. But let me point out that I know of several cathodes going back to the early 1990s that were both Pd and Ni. Usually Pd plated onto Ni, or a multi-layer sandwich. So it might be both. Pd has been plated onto various substrates or alloyed with Ag and other metals. So if you hear a confused rumor that seems to imply both Pd and Ni, it might be both.


    Pure Pd does not works well as far as I know.

    The CETI beads were Ni - Pd - Ni layers in their original form.

    see image at https://ecatsite.wordpress.com…the-patterson-power-cell/

    And yes, "impurities" and additives are beneficial.


    The rumor is that NASA is working on replicating work from another government lab.

    Perhaps next year may be interesting.

    The other "rumor" is that the next ICCF will not be in Rayleigh but in DC.


    I hope that Tex. Tech comes online by then but they may be having problems.

    Quote from lenrisnotreal

    There have been plenty of "leaks" and innuendo concerning CF/LENR over the past ~30 years. None of it amounted to anything.

    I don't know about "leaks." All the projects I heard about over the last 30 years were real. Only a few were secret. For the rest, there was nothing to leak. You can find out all about them easily. Just read the papers they published in journals or proceedings. Most of them are at LENR-CANR.org.


    Many of these projects failed. On the other hand, many of them amounted to a lot. They proved the effect is real; they proved the tritium is real and the helium is commensurate with the heat; and they showed methods of improving materials and controlling the reaction.


    I do not know where you are getting your information. Wikipedia, perhaps? Or you are making stuff up and posting it here. I suspect you have not actually read anything about cold fusion.


    Quote from lenrisnotreal

    Making it work so that it generates excess heat and violates the laws of physics is another thing.

    Nothing violates the laws of physics. No scientist has ever claimed that cold fusion does. If it did, it would not exist, obviously.

    Well. sir, I have read and reviewed virtually every document and analysis about CF/LENR, including many you have not. I'll start posting references from now on as that might help. All positive LENR results I have seen have been tiny and near the range of equipment error, if equipment error were calculated properly. If they were clearly outside the range of equipment error, they would have been commercialized. That's the CF/LENR catch 22: all positive results are within or near the measurement error range so they can't be reliably replicated or commercialized.

    In most cases, one researcher just has to pick up the phone and call another to find out what is happening.- often in real time. There never seemed to be any "classified research" going on. Most of the "closed mouths" about research were not from classification but from researchers not wanting to be ostracized by peers or to have preliminary results blown out of proportion. Those things happened a lot.


    Early on, when I heard Rossi claiming a "secret additive" while applying for a patent and throwing people with instruments out of public demos, my red flags immediately went up. The whole rational of a patent is to exchange a limited monopoly on a new invention in exchange for future full disclosure for others in the future to make the invention to foster technical progress for mankind overall.

    When Rossi stated he was using some secret element instead of stating his best embodiment, he threw away any chances of upholding his patents and showed himself to be working against mankind.

    Quote from lenrisnotreal

    Well. sir, I have read and reviewed virtually every document and analysis about CF/LENR, including many you have not. I'll start posting references from now on as that might help.

    One reference will do. Show a reference that claims that all results have been tiny. Would that be Wikipedia? Or the Scientific American? I have those.

    Quote from lenrisnotreal

    All positive LENR results I have seen have been tiny and near the range of equipment error, if equipment error were calculated properly.

    That is incorrect.

    Quote from lenrisnotreal

    If they were clearly outside the range of equipment error, they would have been commercialized.

    Nope. Equipment error has nothing to do with it. The effect cannot be commercialized because it cannot be controlled sufficiently. Because the reaction cannot be controlled well, if you were to build a large Pd-D reactor, it might produce 1 kW, or it might momentarily produce ~100 kW and explode. Several reactors have exploded. See:


    http://lenr-canr.org/?page_id=187#PhotosAccidents

    Quote from oldguy

    NASA

    The RUMOR I heard is that their work is Pd electrolysis based and NOT nickel based


    That usually means F&P-type cells. Unless it's a Patterson Power Cell setup, which was related but different enough that I think the problem with it was significantly different.


    So, do you think they will make the effort to eliminate a CCS as the problem?


    (FYI-When Bushnell started touting the NASA stuff, I contacted him. He answered, but he ended up ignoring what I said. (No, he never explained why other than to point to what the 'experts' said. There's that groupthink thing again...)

    Quote from oldguy

    In most cases, one researcher just has to pick up the phone and call another to find out what is happening.- often in real time.

    I am not even a researcher and they usually tell me whatever I want to know.

    Quote from oldguy

    There never seemed to be any "classified research" going on. Most of the "closed mouths" about research were not from classification but from researchers not wanting to be ostracized by peers or to have preliminary results blown out of proportion. Those things happened a lot.

    I doubt there are any classified projects. If there were, I would not hear about them when they are underway, but I think eventually news would get out. That hasn't happened.


    In some cases people have kept projects quiet for the reasons you list. Eventually, they publish a proceedings paper or something like that, and we hear about it.


    I think what happens most often is that researcher plug away for months or years without telling anyone. Because that's what scientists do. That's how they work. If you call or e-mail one, she may be happy to tell you all about her work, but she doesn't advertise or talk about it on the Internet. Eventually, the scientist gets around to writing a paper and we hear about it. Since I copy-edit JCMNS papers I am aware of several studies that have not been published. Since I am copy-editing the papers these studies will be published, eventually, after they grind through review and revision after revision. Unless the researchers die of old age first. (Seriously, that happens.)


    There is a quote from the book "The Soul of a New Machine." An engineer fed up with the work and fed up with trying to fix a machine that operates at billions of operations per second. He goes home, leaving this note on his terminal:


    I'm going to a community in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.


    That was a joke. He was back on Monday. But academic scientists really do work on that timescale. They resemble farmers who plant orchards that will bear no fruit for 5 years, and will not reach maturity for 20 years.



    Why would anyone classify cold fusion? Every important fact about it is available at LENR-CANR.org. I often say to skeptics who demand better proof than, say, McKubre:


    "There isn't anything better. I am not holding back good papers. If you do not find this convincing, then you must remain unconvinced, so I suggest you ignore the subject. If you will only be convinced by commercial reactors, you will have to wait. They may never be developed, so you will never be convinced."


    The thing is, I don't care whether skeptics are convinced or not. Some of them seem to think it is my job to convince them. As I see it, I should present the facts and let everyone judge for themselves.

    Oh come now, Kirk. Must I make an exception for you every time?? Surely you know that I have often carved out a place for you in the Pantheon. I have often said that apart from Morrison and Shanahan, there are no peer-reviewed papers showing errors in the papers. All other skeptical papers say the effect is not real because it violates theory.


    You need not repeat yourself about this. Everyone knows that you think there are mistakes, and everyone knows that I have acknowledged your work. I have uploaded your papers. I would upload more if you would send me copies and grant permission. So you cannot accuse me of hiding your work.

    Jed: your argument here is unrealistic for many skeptics:


    "There isn't anything better. I am not holding back good papers. If you do not find this convincing, then you must remain unconvinced, so I suggest you ignore the subject.


    Why would a scientist (or a lay-person skeptic) ignore a subject just because they are not convinced? It is possible to think, on basis of current evidence, something possible but unlikely. That does not make it uninteresting.



    If you will only be convinced by commercial reactors, and you will have to wait. They may never be developed, so you will never be convinced."


    There is a world of difference between convincing (to a skeptic) experimental evidence, and commercial reactors. Though, given the high industrial relevance, it is quite likely that commercial products would follow convincing to skeptic experiments fairly quickly.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Oh come now, Kirk. Must I make an exception for you every time?? Surely you know that I have often carved out a place for you in the Pantheon. I have often said that apart from Morrison and Shanahan, there are no peer-reviewed papers showing errors in the papers.


    Yes. Until such time as my work on this subject has been shown to be wrong or irrelevant to the extant question of the moment. That is good scientific procedure. Oh, also until it has become textbook material. Once that happens you don't have to reference my work explicitly anymore. Of course, that's the problem with the CFers, they don't follow standard scientific practice w.r.t. critics. (a la Storms, McKubre, Miles, Hagelstein, Swartz, Mosier-Boss, Fleischmann, Szpak, and a few others)


    Quote from JedRothwell

    All other skeptical papers say the effect is not real because it violates theory.


    BTW, I agree with you on this point. Such a statement is irrelevant, except to point out that the small bit of ordinary confidence obtained by correlating to prior work must be replaced by a little extra ordinary results.


    Quote from JedRothwell

    You need not repeat yourself about this. Everyone knows that you think there are mistakes, and everyone knows that I have acknowledged your work. I have uploaded your papers. I would upload more if you would send me copies and grant permission. So you cannot accuse me of hiding your work.


    So why did you write "No skeptic has ever found any problem with the calorimetry in any mainstream study." then?


    And of course I can, because you 'forget' it whenever it suits you. That also is unscientific. What suits you is not important, what is is.


    And also, what is in your database is not important. What is in the scientific literature is. (Note that that normally excludes newspaper and magazine articles and blogs and forums, etc.)

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    So why did you write "No skeptic has ever found any problem with the calorimetry in any mainstream study." then?

    Because, as I said, I do not invoke your name EVERY SINGLE TIME I make the assertion. Everyone knows that you and Morrison are exceptions to what I said. So give it a rest.


    Also, as you know, I believe your theories cannot be tested or falsified, and if true they would overthrow thermodynamics, calorimetry and electrochemistry going back to Faraday. So I do not consider these theories "mainstream." They have all the hallmarks of crackpot science. If you were not attacking cold fusion, no editor would have published you. You were given a free pass because editors want a reason to denigrate cold fusion. Papers attacking it sail through peer review. The paper from Morrison was garbage. See:


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf


    Your papers are not as bad, but Marwan et al. blew you out of the water.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    And also, what is in your database is not important. What is in the scientific literature is.

    As far as I know, everything in the scientific literature relating to cold fusion is in my database. I don't have all of the papers uploaded, because some are restricted by copyright, and because some authors -- including you -- refuse permission. But they are all in the index.


    If you know of papers in the scientific literature not in my database, please let me know.


    I should point out that the database was mostly compiled by Storms and Britz, not me. They deserve the credit.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf


    Your papers are not as bad, but Marwan et al. blew you out of the water.


    Jed -


    I'm sorry but assertions like this do not replace detailed checking. I've done this: Marwan et al vs Shanahan's white paper reply. Both parties avoid the points at issue to some extent - Marwan et al more so than Shanahan.


    Given that they are avoiding each other's arguments the matter is not settled. I don't believe you can go through that work and demonstrate Shanahan's critique has been refuted. Equally, it has not been proven and has some inherently unusual issues. But then that also applies to LENR!


    We could go over the matter now on another thread, carefully examining where you and I disagree in what we feel is a proven argument.


    My background for this is not quite expert, but good enough: I have good physics, some chemistry, and very good maths. My university maths course included some physics, and since then I've taught and investigated a wide variety of experiments, which have required me to improve my general knowledge. Also, I've done an LS for a Phd - and supervised others doing this. Which means I am trained to read research papers, follow references, extract information at a deeper level than the headlines.


    When papers disagree you learn to look at what is not said on each side, and question why it is not said.


    The fact that Marwan et al dismiss Shanahan's critique without fully addressing his questions is unfortunate. The case for LENR being something distinct from CCS/ATER or some variation thereof would be stronger if they did this.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    "There isn't anything better. I am not holding back good papers. If you do not find this convincing, then you must remain unconvinced, so I suggest you ignore the subject.


    Why would a scientist (or a lay-person skeptic) ignore a subject just because they are not convinced?

    Well, some do, some don't. It is up to them. There is no harm in reading things you do not believe are true. I am happy to make the information available to all, for any purpose.


    But you are missing my point. I am not recommending that people ignore cold fusion just because they are unconvinced. I was telling The Real Roger Barker that if he wishes to know what F&P did at Toyota, he should read Roulette. I told him that again, and again, and again. Of course he will not do that. It was never his intention to actually find out. He only wants a reason to claim that the project was failure and to complain that I refuse to give him information.


    For trolls like him, who do not want to know anything, and who will never bother to read anything, I suggest they ignore the subject. It is a variation on "RTFM" (Read the F*** Manual). Or: either do your homework or shut up.


    I used to teach. I quickly learned to take no bullshit from lazy students. If Barker showed up I would tell him: if you aren't going to do your homework, and you will not prepare, I will give you a failing grade, so I suggest you withdraw from this course now.

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