Debate: Does LENR needs a good theory, or good lab-rat

Good theory wouldn't help too much for (patho)skeptics - after all, we have over seventy theories of cold fusion already and the LENR subject is very broad - a single model may not be enough.

What could fusion needs for its acceptation is some well documented demonstration system, which everyone could replicate in his kitchen and which would generate apparent heat or radiation on demand in controllable manner.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

What could fusion needs for its acceptation is some well documented demonstration system, which everyone could replicate in his kitchen and which would generate apparent heat or radiation on demand in controllable manner.

That will never happen. Making a cold fusion device is roughly as difficult as making a NiCad battery, which it resembles in some ways. There is no way any ordinary person could make such a thing in a kitchen. Also there will never be significant radiation on demand. If that were possible it would have been seen already.

Quote from maryyugo

Typical misrepresentation. Shanahan is quite good at speaking for himself so hopefully he'll respond to you directly --but I never read him making such a claim. Can you provide the cite?

I just did! He has repeated this nonsense many times before. Here is what he claims:

Mizuno puts a palpably hot cell into a bucket of water.

The next morning, the water is gone and the cell is still hot.

Any normal person who understands everyday physics would say the heat from the cell evaporated the water. But not Shanahan! As you see here, he says that is "wishful thinking." He claims that just because the cell is hot, that does not mean it is producing heat. And just because the water is gone, that does not mean the heat evaporated it. As you see here, he claims that a DoE database relating to swimming pools shows that a bucket of water left at room temperature overnight might all evaporate. It just happens. It doesn't mean anything.

That is what he claims. You, of course, instantly believe him, and you go along with that. Because you are both crackpots, and you are looking for any "reason" -- no matter contrived or outlandish -- to deny that cold fusion is real. Neither of you would dare to leave a bucket of water in a room overnight to see if it all evaporates. That would be a test of the claims. You and Shananhan know as well as I do that no measurable amount of water will evaporate in this test, which is why you will not do it.

Shahahan can speak for himself, as you say. He has done that countless times. In every case, he reveals himself as class-A crackpot. If he were talking about anything other than cold fusion, and he were to claim that a bucket of water at room temperature might evaporate overnight, you would instantly dismiss him and his claims with some sarcastic remarks. You would call him something much worse than a crackpot. You only respect him because he says what you desperately want to believe. That is also why you say absurd things such as a COP of infinity is not "high enough."

Quote

Making a cold fusion device is roughly as difficult as making a NiCad battery, which it resembles in some ways

Your objection implies, that the people should be able to practice the LENR in its commercial form (NiCd are commercial type of accumulator).

But for example Al-C battery works reliably and it can be made in the kitchen. In similar way, the first detection diodes were made by amateurs from pyrite and they also worked well, despite they were replaced with silicone later.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Your objection implies, that the people should be able to practice the LENR in its commercial form (NiCd are commercial type of accumulator).

Yes. It would not have to be a practical device, but it would have to be manufactured with equipment and with techniques no one could achieve in a kitchen. For example, to make the device Mizuno recently described, you need a vacuum chamber, high voltage power supplies, high purity deuterium gas, and many other things you don't find in an ordinary kitchen.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

But for example Al-C battery works reliably and it can be made in the kitchen. In similar way, the first detection diodes were made by amateurs from pyrite and they also worked well, despite they were replaced with silicone later.

Some crude devices work, while others do not. People could never have made transistors at home. That called for 99.9999% pure germanium and later silicon. Just touching the material would destroy it. People could not have made a single device macroscopic transistor, and they sure couldn't make an integrated circuit with a billion devices on it.

JedRothwell wrote" Any normal person who understands everyday physics would say the heat from the cell evaporated the water. But not Shanahan!"

KirkShanahan wrote"But the key point is that Jed writes: "A bucket left by itself for 10 days in a university laboratory will not lose any measurable level of water to evaporation. " That is nothing but an assumption based on wishful thinking.

Rather than rhetoric let us indulge in physics and also consider that Mizuno is a physicist and a very intelligent one at that

Use wp /A =(pw - pa) (0.089 +0.0782 V) .(swimming pool formula)

Sapporo has cool temperate oceanic climate . Use 16*C, 70% humidity

The abandoned lab has holes which expose it to ambient air but little wind.

Vapor pressure of water (16*C): 1.8 kPa
Air humidity: 70%, vapor pressure in the air: 0.7 x 1.8 kPa = 1.26 kPa
Lets assume that the air is almost stationary (v = 0.1m/s)
Y for water is 2272 kJ/kg
(1.8 - 1.26)x(0.089 + 0.0782V)/2272
Evaporation rate is: 2.3 10^-5 kg/s/m^2

Area: 0.049 m^2 Height 20 cm Volume10000mL
Rate: 0.00112 g/s

96.7 gms per day.

Bucket will evaporate in 103 days, 1.9mm/day. (NATURALLY)

This is not noticeable on a day by day basis.

Mizuno would have seen something like several cm per day..

and would have been able to notice that it was UNNATURAL

without thinking of referring to the DOE formulas to check it out.

Being a physicist he would measure the depth change per day..

The obvious cause of the UNNATURAL evaporation would be anomalous heat.

Quote from JedRothwell

As you see here, he claims that a DoE database relating to swimming pools shows that a bucket of water left at room temperature overnight might all evaporate. It just happens. It doesn't mean anything.

I think he also claims a flock of birds/herd of cats might have drank some of the water. No joke.

Edit: Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions.

Edit2: Nice one RobertBryant, you beat me to it... I have a half written post which says much the same thing, but still needs a bit of editing - I might (have to) post it in The Playground if/when I finish it.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Good theory wouldn't help too much for (patho)skeptics - after all, we have over seventy theories of cold fusion already and the LENR subject is very broad - a single model may not be enough.

What could fusion needs for its acceptation is some well documented demonstration system, which everyone could replicate in his kitchen and which would generate apparent heat or radiation on demand in controllable manner.

That is, over seventy incompatible theories, none of which (to my best knowledge) explain all the anomalies.

A lot of different theories is a sign of theoretical weakness, not strength...

Quote from bocijn

JedRothwell wrote" Any normal person who understands everyday physics would say the heat from the cell evaporated the water. But not Shanahan!"

KirkShanahan wrote"But the key point is that Jed writes: "A bucket left by itself for 10 days in a university laboratory will not lose any measurable level of water to evaporation. " That is nothing but an assumption based on wishful thinking.

Rather than rhetoric let us indulge in physics and also consider that Mizuno is a physicist and a very intelligent one at that

Use wp /A =(pw - pa) (0.089 +0.0782 V) .(swimming pool formula)

Sapporo has cool temperate oceanic climate . Use 16*C, 70% humidity

The abandoned lab has holes which expose it to ambient air but little wind.

Vapor pressure of water (16*C): 1.8 kPa
Air humidity: 70%, vapor pressure in the air: 0.7 x 1.8 kPa = 1.26 kPa
Lets assume that the air is almost stationary (v = 0.1m/s)
Y for water is 2272 kJ/kg
(1.8 - 1.26)x(0.089 + 0.0782V)/2272
Evaporation rate is: 2.3 10^-5 kg/s/m^2

Area: 0.049 m^2 Height 20 cm Volume10000mL
Rate: 0.00112 g/s

96.7 gms per day.

Bucket will evaporate in 103 days, 1.9mm/day. (NATURALLY)

This is not noticeable on a day by day basis.

Mizuno would have seen something like several cm per day..

and would have been able to notice that it was UNNATURAL

without thinking of referring to the DOE formulas to check it out.

Being a physicist he would measure the depth change per day..

The obvious cause of the UNNATURAL evaporation would be anomalous heat.

Display More

I applaud this attempt - but - it has assumptions...

Do we have a link to the raw data for this "bucket of water" evidence, so I can know as much as possible about the conditions? Then I'll see if I can throw out a few (plausible) additions that break this analysis thoroughly.

Quote from bocijn

Sapporo has cool temperate oceanic climate. Use 16*C, 70% humidity

The abandoned lab has holes which expose it to ambient air but little wind.

As I recall doing the calculations about 15 years ago now, I used a much lower humidity because it was winter and as I recall there was supposedly snow on the ground. Likewise, one point I made back there was the lack of knowledge of ventilation. What Jed fails to mention is that the bucket was put in a hood in an abandoned lab. Even without the holes in the windows, what do you think the air flow over the bucket would be in a hood, even with no blower fan to suck air in? Your assumptions above are made to minimize the effect so you can claim "Aha! It must have been cold fusion!" I did the opposite, I investigated what it might take to conclude "It was just evaporation." To further complicate the issue, we really have no idea what temp the bucket was at. The reason Mizuno trotted across campus was that he thought the cell was going into thermal runaway. I always suspected thermocouple problems. I'm not even sure Mizuno was in Sapporo at the time? This is the problem with anecdotal stories, you never have any _confirmed_ information to base interpretations upon.

BTW, Jed likes to claim that I ignored the issues he brings up. I did not. Jed just likes to make stuff up so that he can paint his 'crackpot' label on me.

The LENR community is an interesting bunch of folks. Anybody who doesn't accept their world view is a "pathoskeptic". The only exception among LENR proponents is Jed Rothwell, who seems to shun that empty epithet and instead proclaims that anybody who doesn't agree with him is a crackpot.

Yeah, this is the place where intellectual debate happens in the world of LENR.

Quote from Zeus46

No joke

It was a joke, as I already explained. I has lots of fun watching Jed do backflips to prove me wrong...

Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions

Added: Post 1165. For some reason the link jumps down 4 or 5 posts

Quote from bocijn

(1.8 - 1.26)x(0.089 + 0.0782V)/2272
Evaporation rate is: 2.3 10^-5 kg/s/m^2

Area: 0.049 m^2 Height 20 cmVolume10000mL
Rate: 0.00112 g/s

96.7 gms per day.

Bucket will evaporate in 103 days, 1.9mm/day.(NATURALLY)

Just for grins...

Assume 10%RH, 16C, 1 m/s => evap rate = 1.18 x 10e-4, i.e. ~5X faster. 2mm/day * 5 = 1 cm/day - noticeable

For comparison with common sense for us English units people, 1 m/s ~ 2.25 mph. - probably noticeable, but not very fast.

And don't forget the lab rats....

(See why anecdotes aren't worth anything?)

Quote from kirkshanahan

It was a joke, as I already explained. I has lots of fun watching Jed do backflips to prove me wrong...

And the previous umpteen back-flips you readily performed are ably documented here...

The Playground

Quote from kirkshanahan

Assume 10%RH,

O RLY? see here...

"I used a much lower humidity because it was winter" There was snow on the ground."

Lets use 2 degrees for the water...otherwise it would become ice.

Sapporo is colder .-4C, 3hours of sunshine average .but the average humidity is 72% in January.

Water outside tends to freeze in Sapporo rather than evaporate.

It would be unusual to see it evaporate unless it was warmed.

Lower temperatures do not necessarily mean lower humidities.

Lower temperatures do necessarily mean much lower vapour pressures.

Use a velocity of 1m/s

Vapor pressure of water (2*C): 0.39 .kPa
Air humidity: 72%, vapor pressure in the air: 0.72 x 0.39 kPa = 0.28 kPa

Y for water is 2272 kJ/kg

(0.4 - .288)x(0.089 + 0.0782V)/2272

Evaporation rate is: 8.2 10^-6 kg/s/m^2

Area: 0.049 m^2 Height 20 cm Volume10000mL

Rate: 0.0004g/s

77 gms per day.

Bucket will evaporate in 129 days, 1.55 mm/day. (NATURALLY)

That’s CRAP. The bucket would FREEZE within days...rather than evaporate.

unless it was warmed and Mizuno as a native Hokkaidan would clearly

know that that there was anomalous heat present.

Licking cat?

Quote from bocijn

The obvious cause of the UNNATURAL evaporation would be anomalous heat.

Yes. That was also clear from the fact that the cell was too hot to touch for several days. 10 L evaporated from the bucket the first day. More might have evaporated sometime overnight the bucket emptied out, so after that the cell was only heating the air. See:

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

There was no chemical fuel in the cell, and no chemical changes were observed.

In addition to his claim that 10 or 15 L of water can vanish overnight for no reason, Shanahan has claimed that even though the cell was too hot to touch, that does not mean it was producing heat. That is more of what he calls "wishful thinking." No doubt Mary Yugo enthusiastically agrees.