Replication of LENR experiments

Quote from [email protected]

By its definition, if something shows excess heat, it is in excess of what can be generated by chemical means.

Good point. Yes, that is the definition in a cold fusion paper. In the context of this field, it means "heat beyond the limits of chemistry" or "heat produced in the absence of chemical fuel, without any chemical changes."

Some cold fusion experiments produce some heat from chemical reactions. Or they produce endothermic reactions. See Fig. 7 here, for example:

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

The authors are supposed to point out when this happens, provide graphs of it, and show the maximum amount of heat these reactions can produce (or the maximum endothermic deficit). If an author ignores this, that's a sloppy paper. It is important to show this for several reasons. One reason is that this demonstrates the sensitivity and accuracy of the calorimetry. The heat from chemical reactions is well understood. When you show the calorimeter has detected the expected amount, that is a way of testing and calibrating the instrument.

Quote from [email protected]

What do you mean by "limitations of this medium"? Do you mean this particular forum?

I mean internet discussions in general. The messages scroll off and people do not take the trouble to go back and read them. They often cannot find the messages. I explain such-and-such about how boil-off experiments work, and a week later someone coming into the discussion has no way to see what I said, so we have to start over from scratch. Whereas a paper in Acrobat format stays where you put it, with a permanent link. Google indexes it. So I can always say --

"See: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf"

. . . for example. It is right there, from the horse's mouth.

Diffuse and easily lost messages are problem on any internet discussion group, but I think the problem is worse on this forum, because of the software in use here. It is difficult to find old messages, and difficult to establish the thread, and see what message is responding to what.

To give another example, Shanahan today asked for proof that there has been political opposition to cold fusion. I gave him a link to an editorial by Maddox, the editor of Nature:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MaddoxJfarewellno.pdf

Now, instead of giving that link, I might have quoted the comments, or summarized them. But Shanahan might legitimately ask: Where did Maddox say this? Are you sure you quoted him right? Was it an off the cuff comment at a party? Something he said in frustration without much thought? No, it was an editorial in Nature. Shanahan does not need to trust my memory. He can go to the original source and judge for himself whether this is a political attack on cold fusion. It is more convenient for both of us. It gives him everything he needs to know with a single link.

(By the way, I suggest you make your messages here conform to the rules for quoting and commenting. You seem to be making the entire message a response, with your comments in square boxes. I don't how you do that, but it makes it difficult to quote you, or respond.)

Quote from interested observer

guess you just don't get it. You have no obligation to be an instructor here, but if you are to play that role, just telling people what papers to read is doing a crappy job of it.

Let me point out also that I explained this to Yugo. Twice. You can find the messages upthread. She either did not read what I wrote, or she did not understand it. I cannot think of a way to explain it any more clearly than I did already. It seems to me this is a simple experiment that is easily understood. She claims to have experience doing calorimetry, so I cannot imagine why she cannot understand it. Yet, she says she does not understand it, and she keeps demanding that I explain it. And now you are demanding I explain what I already explained. Did you not see that I already explained it? You people will not take "yes" for an answer.

Quote from interested observer

I think what makes me dubious about the strongly-held opinions of so many LENR supporters is that those people also seem to think Papp, Blacklight, Keshe and god-knows-how-many other free energy claimants are for real.

I've put in bold what I believe to be the exception in this list. Was Papp for real? I'm not at all sure or persuaded that he was at this point. But is there a case that he might have been? It turns out there is:

1. There is McKubre's testimony providing some level of validation of Bob Rohner's device, which is purportedly derivative of the Papp engine. (Rohner, I understand, worked with Papp at one point.) Bob Rohner may or may not be of dubious reputation, but McKubre has a pretty good reputation and is clearly knowledgeable about his particular area of expertise, electrochemistry and calorimetry.
2. There is an Infinite Energy article by Eugene Mallove documenting a range of eye-witness testimony to the original Papp demonstrations.
3. There is the fact that the original effort by Feynman to debunk Papp's demonstration was abortive and therefore inconclusive, despite depictions otherwise. The death that occurred along with the Caltech lawsuit would have given Feynman a disincentive to pursue the matter to its conclusion.

Was Papp unbalanced and as dishonest as people say? Quite possibly. Did he have nothing at all and was simply a charlatan, and should he be lumped in with Blacklight and others? Maybe. But there is just enough evidence pointing the other way to give one pause about succumbing to facile conclusions. And given that Papp's confused patents suggest that he was doing something with radioactive elements on the electrodes, which squares well with my own hunch about LENR, I continue to take interest.

A more persuasive approach to debunking in this case would be to demonstrate some nuance in differentiating the claims of various free energy claimants and to deal with each case on its merits. Without that kind of nuance and attention to detail, we are left with catchphrases and appeals to emotion.

kirkshanahan wrote:

Can you point out the 'political opposition' please?

JedRothwell replied:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MaddoxJfarewellno.pdf

{no title, some links and a couple of quotes from Maddox}

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

{ Classic Nasty, Incompetent, and Stupid Statements About Cold Fusion, c. 1989-1991}

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

{ MIT and Cold Fusion: A Special Report Infinite Energy • ISSUE 24, 1999 }

And separately JedRothwell wrote:

To give another example, Shanahan today asked for proof that there has been political opposition to cold fusion. I gave him a link to an editorial by Maddox, the editor of Nature: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MaddoxJfarewellno.pdf

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In reply:

You Maddox link illustrates your point about the ephemerality of the Internet. The links to the Nature editorial lead to a paywall, and the Krivit link seems to be dead. I tried searching for the pdf name and for “Maddox” on his Web site and couldn’t locate it.

In any case, Maddox is not a politician and the opinion he expresses was made in 1990, meaning this link does not address my concern (see below for more comments).

The Mallove links are likewise referring to the same approximate period, and the MIT report is not about politicians either.

The only quote in his 'list' from a politician is:

" "I think it is very premature at this time to say that we are losing a race in cold fusion when we have very clearly validated that we are not sure that it’s fusion.”
James Watkins, U.S. Secretary of Energy, January 1990"

Aside from the fact that CFers still say this to this day, that comment does not denigrate or ridicule the field, it just says 'we are pretty sure it's not fusion'.

(As an aside, the Mallove “MIT Special Report” attempts to describe the events that led Gene Mallove to resign from MIT. What is so sad about this is that his understanding of the issues around the supposed fraudulent data presentation by the MIT profs is terrible. If he really knew how it works, he would have been screaming at McKubre instead for the way he did his data presentation for the M series of runs in his 1998 EPRI report. The MIT guys clipped the data to a constant baseline region from a preliminary figure that had a baseline shift up and then later back down. McK used ‘transfer functions’ to completely hide the baseline shifts in his data. Note that if this is allowable, then what the MIT guys did was fine too.)

So try again Jed, I want to see comments, directives, etc., from a *politician* telling people not to believe in, fund, listen to, etc. LENR advocates.

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JedRothwell wrote:

[snip]

Unexplained explosions and other potential danger

kirkshanahan wrote:

Anytime you mix hydrogen and oxygen, you have a good chance of an explosion. Basic flammability considerations...

Jed Rothwell replied:

Gas loaded cells do not have oxygen. Open cells have only a tiny amount of oxygen. Some of the explosions have exceeded the limits of chemistry by a large margin.

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In reply, AFAIK no explosions have occurred in gas loaded cells. Please correct me if I am wrong, since this would be another safety aspect I need to be aware of.

Open cells have a stoichiometric mix of hydrogen and oxygen in them that is saturated with water vapor. This is an explosive mix.

I seriously doubt you can defend the ‘limits of chemistry’ argument. Please feel free to try though.

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf ...?

Quote from Zeus46

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

How many times has the Pons-Fleischmann Anomalous Heating Event been replicated in peer reviewed journals?

Quote from kirkshanahan

You Maddox link illustrates your point about the ephemerality of the Internet. The links to the Nature editorial lead to a paywall, and the Krivit link seems to be dead. I tried searching for the pdf name and for “Maddox” on his Web site and couldn’t locate it.

That is regrettable. You can sometime find an article by Googling some of the sentences in it, but I don't find it in this case.

The problem here is copyrights and permission, rather than ephemerality. For most papers, the author and/or publisher gives me permission and I upload the entire paper. That makes the paper less ephemeral, and easier for you and other readers to access.

As you will appreciate, Maddox and Nature were not on friendly terms with me. As I recall, I did not even ask for permission, because I did not wish to draw attention to myself. I just quoted the article, which was considered "fair use" at the time I uploaded it.

Quote from maryyugo

Ya know, I keep looking at the Roulette paper and I don't see 100W out without input power for days? Which text or figure from the paper has those results exactly?

That paper describes results with input power, not heat after death. I already gave you the link to one of the heat after death papers:

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

That paper seems clear to me, but you said you don't understand it. So I explained it to you, twice. I cannot think of a way to explain it any more clearly. I am afraid you must go through life without understanding this experiment.

There are other papers about heat after death, but if you don't understand this one there is no point to reading the others.

Quote from kirkshanahan

How many times has the Pons-Fleischmann Anomalous Heating Event been replicated in peer reviewed journals?

We already covered that, several times, in this discussion. Please read previous messages. To reiterate, Britz tallied 153 papers in the 1990s. See:

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

I think he under-counted, because several papers that the authors considered positive, and I considered positive, he counted as a negative. Also he left out several papers, mainly positive ones. I consider him biased, for the reasons I described in the paper above.

Anyway, in normal science, four or five of the top quality, multi-year replications would have convinced every scientist on earth the effect is real. It is ridiculous to demand more than that. No one would demand more if the normal rules of science applied. I mean, for example, the research at SRI, Los Alamos, the NCFI, BARC, China Lake, the ENEA and several of the Japanese labs.