LENR & Polywater - the rejection of inconvenient science.

Here is an excellent book about Polywater:

Frank, F. Polywater, MIT Press, 1981

https://www.amazon.com/Polywat…/dp/0262060736/ref=sr_1_1

Quote from maryyugo

[Regarding the book "Polywater"]

Maybe there will be a similar book about Rossi's claims someday. Hopefully not about LENR in general.

You seem to be assuming that Polywater was fraudulent, like Rossi's claims, or that it was something scientists should be ashamed of. On the contrary, the book shows that it was good science. Granted, it was an error. We know that because it was never widely replicated. Only one group claimed to replicate, and they retracted. You cannot have science without errors.

It seems like it was worthwhile research. One scientist told Franks she had a wonderful time working on polywater, and she considers this work the high point of her career, even though her results were all negative. I think it contributed to our knowledge of the structure of liquid water, which is a fascinating and poorly-understood subject. At least, it was back then.

In my review of the book, I wrote:

". . . The biggest difference [between Polywater and cold fusion] is that while cold fusion is sometimes difficult to detect, in many cases it produces a huge signal. It does not require specially designed, expensive, or state of the art instruments.

The most important lesson is that independent replication at a high signal to noise ratio is essential. The experiment does not need to be 'easy' to replicate. Experiments do not have to produce the same results. Some results may be marginal and extremely difficult to detect. But when all results are difficult to detect, you should have serious doubts about the reality of the claim."

My trust in the whole Polywater thing is rather low, but I can see similarity with Mpemba effect, which is also poorly reproducible. The problem is in special conditions, which the experiment must fulfill, or the life-time of effect is low. After all, to prepare undercooler water is not also quite easy and yet nobody doubts it.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

My trust in the whole Polywater thing is rather low, but I can see similarity with Mpemba effect, which is also poorly reproducible.

There is no similarity. The Polywater claim was conclusively shown to be a mistake. The causes of the mistake were discovered. The Mpemba effect is real. It has been known for centuries, possibly thousands of years. (Still, Mpemba deserves credit for demonstrating it.)

Quote

The Polywater claim was conclusively shown to be a mistake

This is also generally, what the cold fusion is claimed by now at Wikipedia, don't you think? I can see no difference from mainstream physics perspective.

But the fact, that some effect cannot be easily replicated even at the wide scale still doesn't mean, there is no bit of truth behind it. After all, all published replications are quite old already - both polywatter both its alleged disproval became an urbal legend with little experimental background.

The water behaves anomalously near surfaces, it remembers its state there - and the glass capillaries have lotta specific surface. Maybe some specific combination of ion impurities, capillary diameter, pH and charge creates a proper condition for creation of water cluster cages and replication of this effect - but it evaded the attention of impatient replicators.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

This is also generally, what the cold fusion is claimed by now at Wikipedia, don't you think? I can see no difference from mainstream physics perspective.

To understand the difference you have read the following:

1. The book "Polywater." (For more depth you would read some of the papers it references.)

2. Several papers in the cold fusion literature.

3. The Wikipedia article on cold fusion.

You would see that #1 is based on original sources and discussions with the researchers themselves. Most of the researchers agreed with the author. The author agrees with most of the papers, and correctly summarizes them. The author is one of the world's leading experts on water.

You would then compare and contrast #2 and #3. You would see that #3 is mainly nonsense and strawman claims with no relationship to #2. The anonymous authors of #3 either did not read original sources or they did not understand them.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

But the fact, that some effect cannot be easily replicated even at the wide scale still doesn't mean, there is no bit of truth behind it.

The fact that polywater could not be easily replicated was not the reason it was rejected. Eventually it was replicated, and prosaic reasons for the behavior were discovered. The signal to noise ratio was never high, and many apparent results may have been noise. But as I recall from the book, in the end the researchers concluded that the other results were real but caused by contamination. "Real" meaning "not instrument noise," but the substance was not what they originally thought it might be.

For this to happen with cold fusion, people would have to find prosaic errors in the calorimetry and tritium detection in hundreds of different replications, some of them at high signal to noise ratios. That might have happened when there were 4 or 5 preliminary replications at low s/n ratios, but it would never happen now. There is no way people could mistakenly measure things like 100 W boil off reactions with no input power. As I often say, if that could happen, experimental science would not work and we would still be living in caves.

Many cold fusion results are at low s/n ratios and may well be errors. That may include a few false negatives.

Look, I'm posting to this site to present my opinion, not to get convinced with various skeptics. I can only insist, that the polywater case was underesearched: the occasional replicators focused to bringing of alternative explanations (silicone grease, sodium accetate) - not to actual replication of the original finding.

This (i.e. lack of thorough replications) is a common problem of contemporary science - not just the LENR research.