If the success rate were 50%, the skeptics here and elsewhere would dismiss the results. They would say that failure rate is unacceptably high
Complete straw man and nonsense. Nobody with any ability in science would ever say that.
No, it is not a straw man. I have heard that argument from many people, including scientists who should know better. I usually ask them what they think the success rate is for cloning or generating Higgs bosons. They don't get it.
The total cost for the null result so far of the Higgs boson
is btw 1 and 16 billion $ . Perhaps it will be found today??
Maybe this is why IH has not given up despite two null results.
On the other hand Mizuno seems to have proven excess heat for a cost of much less than 1million $.
Complete straw man and nonsense. Nobody with any ability in science would ever say that. You are confusing the issue of frequency of positive results (no issue) with the issue of replicability by independent third parties (very much the issue).
CASE IN POINT. Here are Miles' results, on p. 6:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf
60 tests, 26 positive results, 43% success rate. That's reasonably close to 50%. A very clear correlation to the choice of material. The second group of cathodes were tested by many independent labs all with very high success rates. That's "very much the issue," you say.
And yet, you don't believe a word of this study. You, Shahanan and other pathological skeptics reject these results and similar results from 180 major labs. Why? You make up endless nonsensical reasons -- one song and dance after another. I suppose you think you have some ability in science. If you do, then you personify the irrationality that you just claimed does not exist.
The total cost for the null result so far of the Higgs boson
is btw 1 and 16 billion $ . Perhaps it will be found today??
I believe they found it. See:
It might take more billions to confirm that it is the GreatIam
On second thoughts
Sapporo may not be a great place for the next LENR meeting
You, Shahanan and other pathological skeptics reject these results and similar results from 180 major labs.
Jed, you refuse to understand. I don't reject these results, I explain then without LENRs.
The total cost for the null result so far of the Higgs boson
is btw 1 and 16 billion $ . Perhaps it will be found today??
RobertBryant : To mention it again: Most particles are simply resonances of p,e,neutrino,photon. But for people living and dreaming in SU(3,1) everything is a new particle because they do not understand the relation between the different bindings of magnetic energies...It also looks like quarks are simply an aspect of p,n (p+e+..) and their movement in 4D space.
May be the end of this dream will happen sooner than some people expect!
QuoteCASE IN POINT. Here are Miles' results, on p. 6:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf
60 tests, 26 positive results, 43% success rate. That's reasonably close to 50%. A very clear correlation to the choice of material. The second group of cathodes were tested by many independent labs all with very high success rates. That's "very much the issue," you say.
Page 6 of the your report is indeed a case in point. The table compares the incidence of supposedly successful tests against the source of the material and finds JM to be the best. But while this may be interesting, it really doesn't lead to any conclusion. It might if the tests had ALL been done under identical circumstances by the same investigator and then replicated by another independent investigator and verified with a different methodology. That would be very complicated and costly but not doing it means you have not isolated the variables in the experiment. Sure, JM could be the best source or maybe those choosing JM do the best (or the worst misleading) job. You don't seem to acknowledge that this is only suggestive evidence and sketchy at that for the superiority of JM. And then there is the whole issue of identifying why and what about JM materials it is that makes them the best.
Back to the original issue from which this is a digression: LENR claims are not rejected because the effect is not found in all experiments done in the same, supposedly effective way. They are rejected because the results do not irrefutably, to use your word, exclude error and artifact. And I claim again that they could if either they were done with high enough power out without power input or with minimal input for long periods using credible methods. LENR is rejected because it can not produce a single but lasting and functioning Dolly the Sheep that eats and poops and metabolizes for a decade, a working transistor which can amplify and oscillate on demand, or an airplane which flies a closed loop in view of dozens of people. LENR needs some conclusive demo of that sort,.
And then there is the whole issue of identifying why and what about JM materials it is that makes them the best.
That work has been done. Though obviously not in ways that would satisfy you. I won't link the papers, because you wouldnt read them anyway.
Suppose we have an electrolysis system that gives reliable 50%ish positive results following an objective written protocol. That can be replicated, and positive results from this experiment would be seen as important.
But, it would need enough replictaions to see the trend - maybe 10 runs would suffice. Then, multiple setups could run the same protocol, all obtain consistent results, and it is easy to exclude calorimetry errors. Also, if the effect in fcat does not exist independent of some systematic error (maybe as KS has proposed) an experiment excluding that error would show zero excess heat and that negative result would be significant.
That is however not what has happened thus far. There are single positive replications highlighted, and different setups. Nowhere is there a clear prescription known to give positives, even at some 50% rate, with the success rate taken as an output.
LENR cannot be sensibly distinguished from errors until such a methodology exists and is shown to deliver consistent positives by multiple independent groups.
Mizuno's efforts here seem to be an attempt to get this. The IH negative replications would nor exclude 50% positives. I guess that Mizuno found in his tests 100% positives so that the IH failure pointed to a calorimetry or other error from Mizuno.
If, as Jed says, positives are common then the search for sporadic large results is much less useful here than a careful test of some known 20% positive experiment with clearly stated protocol and results. Groups can get better than 20% accurate calorimetry many ways.
McKubre is the nearest I know to documented multiple results. Yet I do not have written up a statistical summary of positives with a 50% or so success rate and enough repeats to make one-off error unlikely. That would not rule out systematic errors, but it would provide a starting point from which they could be tested.
QuoteThat work has been done. Though obviously not in ways that would satisfy you. I won't link the papers, because you wouldnt read them anyway.
You're not writing exclusively for me, I assume. Others might be interested. But it apparently was not enough to yield a system which has high output, low input and long duration. In the usual terms of reference.
Page 6 of the your report is indeed a case in point. The table compares the incidence of supposedly successful tests against the source of the material and finds JM to be the best. But while this may be interesting, it really doesn't lead to any conclusion. It might if the tests had ALL been done under identical circumstances by the same investigator and then replicated by another independent investigator and verified with a different methodology.
That is what happened. All of these results are from Miles. Others saw similar results with the same materials: some materials worked well, others poorly, and others not at all. JM was the best by far. Tests were not under under identical circumstances. People use different kinds of calorimeters, for example. If the tests were identical, you would say there must be a common systematic error.
In this paragraph, you call for identical tests and then different methodology. That seems contradictory. Perhaps you mean both should be done. Since these tests take many years and there was never any funding for them, you are demanding what cannot be done, and could not have been done in the 1990s. You are setting unrealistic goals. People used the equipment they had in hand. They could not afford to spend thousands of dollars and years of effort to duplicate the China Lake calorimeters and other equipment.
All researchers are independent from one-another, and from their own institutions. They could not do this research otherwise. They would be ordered to stop. As described in the letters and documents at LENR-CANR.org, Miles was eventually ordered to stop, even though he was a Fellow of the Institute. (A "Fellow" means someone who can do any research he wants.) Miles was ordered out of the lab. His phone was taken away. He was assigned a menial job in a warehouse. He got the message and retired. Anyone who tries to do a cold fusion experiment today will be summarily fired.
Also, if the effect in fcat does not exist independent of some systematic error (maybe as KS has proposed) an experiment excluding that error would show zero excess heat and that negative result would be significant.
That is however not what has happened thus far. There are single positive replications highlighted, and different setups. Nowhere is there a clear prescription known to give positives, even at some 50% rate, with the success rate taken as an output.
That is not even slightly true. Anyone familiar with the literature from McKubre, Miles, Storms, the ENEA and others will see that is complete bullshit.
Jed, you refuse to understand. I don't reject these results, I explain then without LENRs.
No, in this same thread you just told us that your crackpot theory cannot explain Miles' results. Then you told us that a 20 liter bucket full of water placed in a lab will evaporate overnight. Or no, you said it will evaporate in 10 days. And you will not test this by putting a bucket full of water in a lab. If you believe this you are twice a crackpot. If you don't believe it, and you are merely trying to confuse the issue, you are a liar. Either way you have zero credibility. But loads of chutzpah!
Blech. One doesn't test the potential greatest discovery of the century by placing a bucket containing a cell in a shed somewhere and waiting to see if the water evaporates. If one gets such a result serendipitously, the OBVIOUS next step would be to put said unpowered cell into a proper calorimeter to see WTF it's actually putting out in terms of heat. A Seebeck effect type would seem perfect for such a test. I suspect those work a bit better than a bucket full of water which is not observed for days on end.
Shanahan is no crackpot. He has a very legitimate concern because if LENR reactions are real and they occur in his lab setups, it could lead to an extremely bad outcome. He *has* to take it seriously. There's nothing crackpot about his approach.
Shanahan is no crackpot. He has a very legitimate concern because if LENR reactions are real and they occur in his lab setups, it could lead to an extremely bad outcome.
LENR reactions only occur under specific and very narrowly defined sets of circumstances. That is the principal reason they are difficult to replicate. They are very unlikely to occur just because someone is using 'similar materials' in a lab with a 'fusion lab' sign on the door. So Dr. Shanahan need have no fears he will get blown up.
Blech. One doesn't test the potential greatest discovery of the century by placing a bucket containing a cell in a shed somewhere and waiting to see if the water evaporates.
You are confused. This is not about cold fusion per se. It is only about one issue, in one experiment. It is an assertion made by Shanahan, not by Mizuno or I. No one with an ounce of common sense would make this assertion.
Shahanan asserts that Mizuno's heat-after-death event might be a mistake because 20 L of water in a bucket in a laboratory might evaporate overnight, with no source of energy in the bucket (or under it). That is incorrect. It is very easy to confirm that is incorrect. You can verify it, or Shanahan can. If Shanahan is going to make this outlandish claim, he should test it.
When Mizuno makes an assertion, he should test that assertion. No one needs to prove that 20 L of water does not evaporate overnight. That is common knowledge.
Also, it was not a "shed somewhere." It was a laboratory at a National University in Sapporo in January, as described in the document I referenced. People who are familiar with Japanese National Universities will know that in the 1980s they were not heated. It was cold everywhere in those buildings. Water does not evaporate quickly in those circumstances.
If one gets such a result serendipitously, the OBVIOUS next step would be to put said unpowered cell into a proper calorimeter to see WTF it's actually putting out in terms of heat.
It was unpowered. Read the document. The cell was, itself, a calorimeter. It was overheating in heat after death, so it was placed in water to cool it down.
(Of course you will not read it, but here it is again:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTnucleartra.pdf)
Shanahan is no crackpot.
Anyone who says that 20 L of water will evaporate overnight in an ordinary lab room is either a crackpot or a liar.
I'm not sure KS said that (I guess he can clarify what he said -- far as I know, he is alive and writes here) and I am not sure this event even happened. Wasn't it longer than overnight, trying to remember what you posted? Anyway, how about someone repeat it under proper controls, proper calorimetry and observation. I am always amazed that such miracles of LENR are not followed up or when they are, they become very shy.
QuoteThe cell was, itself, a calorimeter. It was overheating in heat after death, so it was placed in water to cool it down
Oh but that it would do the same thing on command and when properly metered and observed! And is that (heat after death) ever a bizarre turn of phrase!
QuoteLENR reactions only occur under specific and very narrowly defined sets of circumstances.
Depends on who you believe. If I were working with Pd, maybe with hydrogen, lithium, and especially with other perhaps exotic materials, under high heat and pressure, I'd also be concerned. A big burst of unexpected energy in a sealed pressure vessel would ruin one's whole day.
