Mizuno's bucket of water

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    False. They never did an 'experiment' like Mizuno tried and then ran it across campus to other places and put it in buckets of water, etc., etc.

    Well, okay, if you want to define it that way, they did not. They used much better techniques and instruments. They put cells in heat after death, boiled off the water, and then observed that the cathodes remained hot for hours or days. The duration was not as long as Mizuno's cathode, presumably because the cathodes were ~1 g whereas his was ~100 g.


    If you say that a replication must include moving the cell from one location to another, and the water must be boiled in a bucket rather than a half-silvered Dewar, then yes, this was not a replication. Those seem like peculiar stipulations for a replication. I cannot imagine why moving the cell from one location to another would affect the physics of the reaction. The enthalpy of vaporization for water is the same whether the water is in a bucket or a Dewar, as far as I know. So I cannot understand why you think these things matter. But you are, after all, someone who is convinced that professional chemists cannot tell that an object wrapped in towels is hot or cold. It is no more strange that you think enthalpy varies by the type of container.

    So Mark, you see the last post from Jed right? Did you notice he still hasn't got it? How many times can you remember me saying just today that 'air flow' or 'ventillation' is the primary missing variable? And then Jed says:


    Quote from JedRothwell

    I cannot imagine why moving the cell from one location to another would affect the physics of the reaction.


    The density is amazing, truly amazing.


    Furthermore, he brings this up again-


    Quote from JedRothwell

    They put cells in heat after death

    - when we've been over and over that time and again.


    FYI - I've seen no F&P claims to HAD events that are sustainable, and I've discussed that many times here and back on spf as well.


    Talking to Jed is like talking to a TV commercial.

    You postulate an airflow that is irrelevant to the experiment. There was no massive fan moving air over the bucket.

    Wiser minds than mine have spoken... Neither Kirk nor Jed will move a whit from their position. I don't have the math (or time or inclination) to refute Kirk's CCS/ATER theory. I'm not as gung-ho as Jed on proving Kirk wrong. But I don't believe in ninja rats outside of TMNT and if a reputable scientist says the bucket evaporated I think you should have had good cause before calling him a liar.

    • Official Post

    By the way when you see this exchange, you understand it is not rational to bet on a fact.

    There is no fact if there is no agreement on facts.

    http://sargonauta.blogspot.fr/…ilosopher-of-science.html

    Quote


    There are no such things as “facts.” By definition, all “facts” are theory-laden, and depend on what people believe or want to believe.”


    I'm sad.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    So Mark, you see the last post from Jed right? Did you notice he still hasn't got it? How many times can you remember me saying just today that 'air flow' or 'ventillation' is the primary missing variable?

    Those are not missing. I told you about the air flow and ventilation. I told you just now, and many times before. Mizuno's lab was in a post-war Japanese national university building with no heating or air flow. Very cold.


    (Akimoto's lab is 10 or 20 m underground, with tons of water just under the floor. The temperature is very stable. It is cold and clammy.)


    You can vary the airflow and ventilation all you like. If the room is cool enough for people to survive, and there is no fan, the bucket of water will not evaporate overnight. In a room not much warmer than 5 deg C and no fan there will be no significant evaporation. If you doubt that, I suggest you leave a bucket in a room overnight and see what happens. Oh, but you will never do that!

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    What you and others guess they might be is no different from my guesses, so my sensitivity analysis covered your suggestions. The difference is, you refuse to accept the possibility you might be wrong.

    I am 100% sure I am right, because I have left a bucket of water in a room to see if it evaporates. If you will do that test, you too will see that I am right. Experimental science is based on doing actual experiments, hands-on, with physical objects. Not by doing sensitivity analyses and reaching impossible conclusions. Putting a bucket of water into a room is an experiment. It is the best, most direct way to test your hypothesis.


    We know what the conditions in the room were like. It was cold, not much above 5 deg C, and there were no air flows. No fan and no central heating. The bucket was on the floor behind a steel equipment cabinet shown in the photo I uploaded here.


    You can replicate these conditions closely. Or, if you like, you can use an ordinary American room that is warmer, with more evaporation -- more, not less. Any test you do will prove that I am right and you are wrong.

    Let me state this categorically. If you wish to know whether a bucket of water will evaporate in a room --


    Put a bucket of water in a room and see what happens. Vary the conditions if you like, but not to absurd extremes; i.e. do not put a Mack Truck engine cooling fan over the bucket in a room that is 50 deg C.


    This method overrules any and all theory. It overrules a sensitivity analysis performed by an elite team of the world's top physicists using a dozen supercomputers at National Laboratories. Experiments are better than simulations or theory. Always, without exception.


    Science is based on EXPERIMENTS and OBSERVATIONS of physical events. Not computation. Not speculation. Not analyses. Experiments. Frankly, anyone who disagrees and who thinks his analysis is a better way to discover such as simple, directly observable fact is no scientist.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    This is exactly the problem I was pointing out. JR can't handle the challenge to his hero's work, so he goes bonkers and claims I said this. He can't prove it without taking what I write ['that a bucket of water left in a room will evaporate overnight' out of context and pasting it together in a totally inappropriate way to 'prove' his point


    what those authors and Jed are doing is called 'using a strawman argument'. If you look it up, you'll find it is fallacious logic, and is usually invoked by people who don't understand what is going on, or just want to try to discredit someone or something by being loud.


    To be fair Kirk, that was exactly what you suggested had happened...


    Quote from JedRothwell

    First you say something, then you deny you said it. This is either a symptom of mental illness


    It;s true... saying things then denying you said them is pure crackers.


    Quote from kirkshanahan

    I then systematically varied those parameters (VOIs) and computed evaporation rates. I concluded that the reported rates of water evaporation fell within the potential rates obtainable, depending on what air speeds were present and what the actual temperature behavior of the cell was. Since that specific information was not available, I stopped, since there was nothing else to do. This means the 'experiment' was unresolvable. In other words an anecdote, exciting and stimulating to those who 'believe', and curious to those who don't. Nothing more. Certainly not proof of anything. Especially since it was never specifically replicated.


    But you based your conclusions on the erroneous assumption that the water temperature started at 60 C. It couldn't have ever been that hot. At more reasonable temperatures you aren't anyway close - by a factor of 10 almost.


    And then you ignore this fact to claim the problem is "unresolvable".

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Experimental science is based on doing actual experiments, hands-on, with physical objects. Not by doing sensitivity analyses and reaching impossible conclusions.

    No Jed, data analysis and 'what-if' scenarios are part and parcel of the scientific process. Nobody just walks into a lab and starts randomly doing experiments. There is always a plan. The only question is how detailed is the plan.

    Zeus ‘quoted’ me thusly:


    kirkshanahan wrote:

    This is exactly the problem I was pointing out. JR can't handle the challenge to his hero's work, so he goes bonkers and claims I said this. He can't prove it without taking what I write ['that a bucket of water left in a room will evaporate overnight' out of context and pasting it together in a totally inappropriate way to 'prove' his point


    what those authors and Jed are doing is called 'using a strawman argument'. If you look it up, you'll find it is fallacious logic, and is usually invoked by people who don't understand what is going on, or just want to try to discredit someone or something by being loud.


    Then Zeus wrote:

    “To be fair Kirk, that was exactly what you suggested had happened...”


    What I actually wrote was:

    “This is exactly the problem I was pointing out. JR can't handle the challenge to his hero's work, so he goes bonkers and claims I said this. He can't prove it without taking what I write out of context and pasting it together in a totally inappropriate way to 'prove' his point, which is not significantly different in intent from what the named authors did when they claimed I originated the so-called 'random Shanahan CCSH'. I had 4 papers on this, and all used the terms 'systematic' or 'non-random'. 'Non-random', I case you (or they) didn't know, is the diametric opposite of 'random'.


    BTW - what those authors and Jed are doing is called 'using a strawman argument'. If you look it up, you'll find it is fallacious logic, and is usually invoked by people who don't understand what is going on, or just want to try to discredit someone or something by being loud.”

    ------------------------------------------------------------------

    You all will note that Zeus inserted a phrase (that Jed wrote with intent to denigrate my ideas) into what I wrote, implying that that phrase fairly summarizes my position. Of course, that phrase is exactly why I keep responding to these stupid posts from the Jeddite clan. That phrase is directly opposed to what I wrote. So Zeus, following Jed’s lead, is clearly trying to ‘trick’ L-F readers into thinking I claim that a bucket of water will evaporate in all cases overnight. This is of course not what I ever said. What I specifically did was calculate evaporation rates for a variety of conditions from a given equation that may not actually be fully applicable, one set which was for a bucket of unheated water in a zero or near-zero air flow condition, and guess what I concluded! It wouldn’t evaporate fast enough to match the proposed (by Mizuno’s claims) evaporation!!! Wow! I am so crazy and wild aren’t I? But for higher air flow rates, it could. That’s why we need real (not imagined) air flow information. (P.S. Any building that has people in it will have some active ventilation. A nuclear facility will normally have more. So Jed’s ‘no significant air flow’ claims are not reasonable.)

    ------------------------------


    So, next Zeus quotes Jed and responds:


    JedRothwell wrote:

    First you say something, then you deny you said it. This is either a symptom of mental illness


    “It;s true... saying things then denying you said them is pure crackers.”




    This is nothing but an ad hominem attack, and is pointless in a scientific discussion.

    --------------------------

    More:


    kirkshanahan wrote:

    I then systematically varied those parameters (VOIs) and computed evaporation rates. I concluded that the reported rates of water evaporation fell within the potential rates obtainable, depending on what air speeds were present and what the actual temperature behavior of the cell was. Since that specific information was not available, I stopped, since there was nothing else to do. This means the 'experiment' was unresolvable. In other words an anecdote, exciting and stimulating to those who 'believe', and curious to those who don't. Nothing more. Certainly not proof of anything. Especially since it was never specifically replicated.


    So then Zeus says:

    “But you based your conclusions on the erroneous assumption that the water temperature started at 60 C. It couldn't have ever been that hot. At more reasonable temperatures you aren't anyway close - by a factor of 10 almost.”


    Your use of the word ‘erroneous’ is your assumption based in the lack of understanding of what I was doing. In fact, if ‘LENR’ was heating the cell and therefore the water, 60C is too low. Again, in sensitivity analysis one examines a range of values for critical variables, not just the one you like best for a single set of favorite assumptions.

    -------------------------------------------------------

    More from Zeus:

    “And then you ignore this fact to claim the problem is "unresolvable".”


    No Zeus, the problem is unresolvable because critical data needed to evaluate the claims (like actual temperatures, air flow rates, and room humidity) are not available, AND because the possibility of malfunctioning equipment is never addressed AND PRIMARILY because the ‘experiment’ was never replicated.


    I'm done with this. Have at it with your ad homs and slanders Jeddites!


    added note: apparently an image file was attached to this message. That was not my intent.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    You all will note that Zeus inserted a phrase (that Jed wrote with intent to denigrate my ideas) into what I wrote, implying that that phrase fairly summarizes my position.


    This is of course not what I ever said. What I specifically did was calculate evaporation rates for a variety of conditions from a given equation that may not actually be fully applicable, one set which was for a bucket of unheated water in a zero or near-zero air flow condition, and guess what I concluded! It wouldn’t evaporate fast enough to match the proposed (by Mizuno’s claims) evaporation!!! Wow! I am so crazy and wild aren’t I? But for higher air flow rates, it could.


    ONLY if given MUCH higher water temperatures - You're ignoring the first law of thermodynamics again. Although that's hardly surprising at this point.



    So again... Lets cut through all the waffle... To elucidate Kirk's current standpoint:



    1. Mizuno's lab notes say 10L of water evaporated in 24 hours.


    2. Kirkshanahan says *given impossible circumstances* (Clausius 1850), that the evaporation from Mizuno's bucket can be explained by normal evaporation - just like a swimming pool looses water by evaporation - ie. without being boiled off by Mizuno's reactor.


    3. Therefore.... Kirkshanahan says that 10L of water can *possibly* evaporate from a bucket, in 24 hours, by normal evaporation.



    So which bit of the above has Clan Rothwell got wrong Shanahan?


    And try to be concise please. Your general obfuscating approach is somewhat unbecoming.

    Last parting shot...


    Quote from Zeus46

    So which bit of the above has Clan Rothwell got wrong Shanahan?

    Most of "2". maybe all of it. Start with:

    Quote from Zeus46

    *given impossible circumstances*

    We don't know they are impossible because nothing is specified. Humidity, room temp, and air flow are not specified by the principals (I agree we have oodles of hearsay on these numbers). The temperature that is specified would be the presumed temperature of the cell, but I contest that as it is reasonably possible that we are viewing a TC malfunction (I know, we have oodles of hearsay evidence that is 'just wrong'). So, I made assumptions, just like you did Zeus.


    So, I did NOT say:

    Quote from Zeus46

    Kirkshanahan says *given impossible circumstances* (Clausius 1850), that the evaporation from Mizuno's bucket can be explained by normal evaporation - just like a swimming pool looses water by evaporation, ie. without being boiled off by Mizuno's reactor.

    That is YOUR falsified interpretation of what I wrote.


    As I have said REPEATEDLY, I examined ranges of parameters and calculated evaporation rates. My ranges aren't to your liking. Tough. They satisfied my objectives.


    I tried to communicate this, and the Jeddites didn't like it. Tough.


    But then they got into ad homs and slanderous/libelous statements. I object to that, but it seems to have done me no good. Therefore, I am done. Better things to do.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    We don't know they are impossible because nothing is specified.


    We know that it is impossible for the bucket water to be anywhere near 60C* - The 1st LoT tells us this.


    *as you had assumed it was, presumably due to you taking the midpoint between approx. 100C and 20C.



    Quote from kirkshanahan

    JedRothwell wrote:

    First you say something, then you deny you said it. This is either a symptom of mental illness

    I wrote:
    “It's true... saying things then denying you said them is pure crackers.”


    This is nothing but an ad hominem attack


    Well yes, but a perfectly reasonable one, as what kind of person publishes something, then denies having said it? ...Someone with sound judgment?



    Quote from kirkshanahan should've

    No Yes Zeus, the problem is unresolvable because ALTHOUGH critical data needed to evaluate the claims (like temperatures, air flow, and humidity) are not available can be reasonably assumed, and the possibility of malfunctioning low possibility of temporarily malfunctioning equipment is never has been addressed, AND BUT PRIMARILY because the ‘experiment’ uncontrolled, potentially nuclear, reaction was never replicated to that degree.


    That's better.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    We don't know they are impossible because nothing is specified. Humidity, room temp, and air flow are not specified by the principals (I agree we have oodles of hearsay on these numbers). The temperature that is specified would be the presumed temperature of the cell, but I contest that as it is reasonably possible that we are viewing a TC malfunction (I know, we have oodles of hearsay evidence that is 'just wrong'). So, I made assumptions, just like you did Zeus.


    Yes, but my assumptions took normal things into account, such as the temperature of tap water, and the 1st L of T. Your assumptions involved imagining turbo-charged fume hoods, thirsty animals, a temporary imbalance in Mizuno's peripheral nervous system, and your own version of Physics.

    You then state that maybe all this went unnoticed thanks to a broken thermocouple - which also then fixed itself before post-experimental calibrations.


    ...So basically, I think i'm on pretty safe ground compared to you.

    Also, it seems obvious it's you who is the creator of much of the "hearsay" in this thread; Mizuno's notes being a first-hand source and all.


    Quote from kirkshanahan

    As I have said REPEATEDLY, I examined ranges of parameters and calculated evaporation rates. My ranges aren't to your liking. Tough. They satisfied my objectives


    It's just that you forgot to include 168 years of science. Which is a very strange way of going about fulfilling your presumably scientific? ‘objectives’.



    ...Come to think of it... if one of your objectives was 'denying science', then it would seem you have already achieved this ahead of schedule.

    Quote from Mark H

    I've heard of them. Do you have numbers on how much airflow is needed from a fan that isn't over the bucket to evaporate that much water?


    So: the whole tenor of this debate is somewhat disingenuous.


    Kirk is between a rock and a hard place here: being asked for number to justify an initial off the cuff "I don't believe this because there are too many variables" comment many years ago.


    Kirk is (perhaps foolishly) defending his position as logically correct (which it is) and then being attacked by many here on the grounds that, for the specifics in this case, which BTW were not all established when he made the original comment, the thing he originally suggested does not look possible.


    We then get an argument over whether, given additional information about temperature, air speed, humidity, it is plausible. And this argument is couched in terms of "obviously unphysical".


    We end up with Kirk being branded a pseudoskeptic, because the numbers here, when worked out with extra evidence, don't support evaporation as the reason for the lost 10 litres. However, Kirk is entirely correct to point out the problematic nature of this anecdote as a way to establish that some only explainable by LENR exothermic reaction happened in that bucket. And his skepticism, where he goes through possible error causes not investigated, is correct. Were the matter important, and the information in the anecdote reliable, I would certainly start by considering evaporation properly and bounding the parameters needed to rule it out.


    Where I agree 100% with Kirk, over the evaporation issue, is that it is the onus of those who consider this anecdote significant to rule out mundane explanations, of which evaporation is the most obvious. And do that properly, not in a dismissive "it obviously can't happen" way.


    So let us do it. We have as variables (some given rough values) at the time when Kirk made his original claim:

    • Water temperature
    • Air temperature
    • Air speed
    • Solar irradiance (is the sun shining directly on the bucket through a window).
    • Water evaporation rate.



    I'm going to leave the exotic mechanisms (which i enjoy - and they are not all exotic) for another post. the issue here is whether Kirk is completely off beam in wanting to investigate evaporation. A priori I do not know the answer to this.


    I'm going to leave the additional claimed evidence (the bucket was too hot to touch) for another post. Like Kirk I don't view that as reliable at all, but will not at this time give my reasons for that statement. It goes into the realm of psychology.


    Evaporation rate. A bucket holds approx 10l. So for say half of the water to evaporate we have 5l. But, the bucket contains a submerged reactor (not sure how big). Also we do not (if I recollect clearly) have a clear statement of how much the water level went down, nor what was the bucket size etc. So I'm going to be conservative here and rate the water loss as 1 litre. The period of time for this loss is again approximate, and I'll be conservative and suppose it is 5 days. (I'm willing to be contradicted that any of these figures are unphysical, impossible, contradicted by reliable written notes). So we have 200ml / day evaporation requiring an energy input of 2.3 kJ/litre/day or 25W average.


    That power could come from thermal energy scavenged from the environment and insolation. The power available from insolation is 1000W/m^2 maximum. For an estimate suppose subtended illuminated cross-sectional area averages 0.1m^2, sun is available for 1/3 of day, so we have available 30W.


    Here is someone else's guess: https://www.quora.com/If-I-kee…e-will-be-lost-in-one-day


    So: bottom line; the evaporation hypothesis looks just about plausible given a lack of information about ambient conditions and exact observations. Jed will perhaps be able to say for sure that the bucket was placed in a window-less lab etc, in which case we would need to consider loss through heat scavenged from ambient. 25W from that mechanism looks plausible only if the bucket is close to some artificial heat source, or if ambient temperature is high. Jed I think said ambient temperature was quite low, and claimed (not sure how reliable) there could not be any artificial heat source.


    I'm fully willing to admit the numbers here are wrong. But I don't think, given the information available when Kirk made his comment or even now, that they are impossible. To rule out evaporation you need a lot more information.


    Do I think evaporation is the likely cause for the anecdotal observation? Too many unknowns for me to answer: it could be knocked on the head fairly easily by a number of additional bits of information.

Subscribe to our newsletter

It's sent once a month, you can unsubscribe at anytime!

View archive of previous newsletters

* indicates required

Your email address will be used to send you email newsletters only. See our Privacy Policy for more information.

Our Partners

Supporting researchers for over 20 years
Want to Advertise or Sponsor LENR Forum?
CLICK HERE to contact us.