Uploaded Letters from Martin Fleischmann to Melvin Miles

Most excellent - thank you Jed!!!

Jed has posted the previously announced correspondence from Fleischmann to Miles, in which was supposedly the darts to assassinate my CCS/ATER theory of apparent excess heat signals. But as I predicted, no such luck. I used keyword searches to see where I was discussed, and I have clipped them out and responded below in this lengthy post.

As an Executive Summary, for those who wish to read no further, I can say that:

• Jed prefaces the material, and include his Mizuno bucket anecdote ‘misrepresentation’ of my comments on it once again
• Fleischmann’s comments on my work seem to be limited to the time period when it was published, i.e. 2002
• Fleischmann seems to have never grasped my points
• Fleischmann seems to have had a bad case of ‘Conspiracy Theory-ism’, which convinced him with no evidence that communicating with me would have a bad outcome, so he never did

I have to give kudos to Jed for posting this collection. It sheds a lot of light on why the CF community acts the way it does. Worth reading the whole thing I guess…

******* long post follows *******

Quotes from Rothwell’s introductory material (pps 1-25)

“In these letters, Fleischmann often mentions four opponents: Douglas Morrison, John Huizenga, Peter Zimmerman and Kirk Shanahan.” [p. 6]

“so let me point out that many of technical arguments made by Morrison, Huizinga, Shanahan and other leading skeptics are as weak as this.” [p. 8]

As usual, no definition of the problem, just negative JR hot air.

“Kirk Shanahan wrote a number of papers finding fault in the work of Fleischmann, Storms and

others. 16,17,18 Fleischmann considered responding, but in the end he did not. Marwan et al. and

Storms did respond. 19,20 Shanahan says he does not agree with their conclusions.” [p. 9, underline in original]

Point to note: F wrote several draft letters, see the document for details, but he never sent anything to me.

“In his interactions with me, Shanahan has sometimes said mind-boggling things. I cannot tell

whether he is stupid or he is putting me on.” [p. 10]

Jed follows this by again repeating his misrepresentation of my sensitivity analysis of the Mizuno bucket anecdote. The response to his last sentence above is: No, I am not putting you on, but try as I might (and I have tried mightily) I can’t get you to understand what I was doing. I can’t tell if this is because you are stupid or are putting me on. But one thing is certain, you don’t understand science.

I will skip Jed’s remaining comments from the Mizuno bucket incident misrepresentation and move on to Fleishmann’s correspondence. Note I will use “F” to indicate “Fleischmann” in the following responses.

From:

“Bury Lodge heading

30 August 2002

Dr. Melvin H. Miles,

Department of Chemistry,

Bates College,

Lewiston, ME 04240-6028

U. S. A:” [p. 327]

“This brings me to the paper by Kirk Shanahan. Has this been published, will it be published?

Incidentally, he did send me a copy of this paper earlier this year but I threw it away in a fit of

irritation.” [p. 328]

Say what? It irritated him so he threw it away? ‘Good’ science there, isn’t it.

Apparently he was using the manuscript submitted for publication.

“I think it would be a serious mistake to regard Shanahan’s paper as an attempt to further the

understanding of calorimetry: it is really in the nature of a “spoiler”. He takes a week [sic, Jed check your OCR] paper, sets up a scenario of errors in the calibration (which may or may not be true) and then extends his negative comments to the whole field by innuendo.” [p. 328]

No, I reanalyzed Ed Storms data assuming no excess power, found that the reanalysis induced no unreasonableness, and then found a buried systematic trend that led to a proposed mechanism for an effect that would produce artificial excess heat signals. This is where one begins to see F’s paranoia about ‘DOE and the rest’.

“I find it next to impossible to make any connection between Shanahan’s paper and the work we have done…” [p. 329]

That’s why he should have written me.

“The reason that I regard Shanahan’s paper as a “spoiler” is because it falls pretty well into the

scenario of activities which have been used before notably by the Tobacco and Sugar industries.

Britain’s first Professor of Nutrition Science was so effectively rubbished that he never got

another research grant! The same methodology is now being used by the Mobile Phone

Industries. Perhaps, then, we could also use a preliminary letter to try to establish what resources

the D.O.E. may have used to further the study of “Cold Fusion” and what resources may have

been devoted to produce the kind of comments contained in Shanahan’s paper. Is this

information available under the freedom of information act? Do you think Gene Mallove or Jed

Rothwell may have surveyed this subject?” [p. 329]

Conspiracy Theory-ism at its finest!

From:

“Bury Lodge heading

8th September 2002.

Dr. Melvin Miles,

Department of Chemistry,

Bales College,

Lewiston, M.E. 04240-6028

FAX 0011-207-786-8336.” [p. 333]

“This brings me again to Kirk Shanahan’s paper. As I said in my FAX of 30/8/02 it would be

a mistake to regard this as an attempt to further the understanding of calorimetry.” [p. 334]

“You certainly cannot tell from the paper alone as to what his real intent may have been although the list of acknowledgments is highly suggestive.” [p. 334]

My intent was to show how to get apparent excess heat signals. But F prefers his conspiracy theory instead.

“The paper is all bog-standard and I believe that this type of analysis can be found in all the standard textbooks - it may even be in the brilliant book “Numerical Recipes”.” [p. 334]

I never said I did anything brilliant, just that I found something interesting and worth publishing, that if true, would give a non-CF explanation of ‘CF’ results.

“So let me wish unto you some further action. Do you have any colleagues at Bates College who are interested in statistical analysis of data and/or who may have some useful textbooks? If so, could you try to check-up what the errors of the statistical estimates might be? Failing this, could you ask for Mike Melich’s advice? You could tell him that I believe that Kirk Shanahan has simply applied a routine analysis to Ed Storms’ data.” [p. 334]

F is correct. Nothing new in my analysis, except to apply it on a run-by-run basis.

“Of course, if you introduce arbitrary shifts into the experiments (the errors referred to by Kirk

Shanahan) then all is pretty well lost - you cannot devise calibration procedures which will detect

such arbitrary shifts.” [p. 334]

Good point! Note that the onset of ATER can produce an arbitrary shift. But you can evaluate your data to see if a CCS could explain the signal. If it could, then you have a problem claiming it was a CF event.

“Incidentally, you may note that the fitting procedures we used in 1989 always included a

calibration - we simply did not use a predetermined heat transfer coefficient as seems to be

alleged by Kirk Shanahan. We have continued to use this approach since then although one

cannot always stick to this procedure.” [p. 334]

They may have used a calibration prior to each run, but they then applied that to the whole run, which may have lasted hundreds of hours, during which ATER may have turned on and off hundreds of time (OK, so I exaggerate, probably just one or two times). During those changed states, the ‘global’ calibration was inaccurate.

“I think that the supporting documents you have sent me make Kirk Shanahan’s true intent

more clear.” [p. 334]

Wonder what he was talking about…

“The real conclusion he should have drawn from his reanalysis of Ed Storms’ data is

that flow calorimetry is an unreliable methodology as we ourselves discovered (see the draft of

my letter to Kirk Shanahan). What he has done is simply to drop a “tank-trap” into the

investigation, a trap which one simply cannot circumvent.” [p. 334]

Flow calorimetry can be very accurate, as long as the system remains stable and unchanging w.r.t heat flows.

“One needs to ask: why should there be such large shifts in the calibration constants? What would be the mechanism(s) of such shifts? “ [p. 334]

ATER with CCS… BTW, these are the obvious questions, which is why I attempted to answer them.

“It seems to me therefore, that Kirk Shanahan’s paper is just the first step in a procedure

which is likely to develop into a useless slanging match designed to justify the inaction of the

agencies such as the D.O.E.” [p. 334-5]

No, it would have led to a clarification of methodology that might have redirected efforts towards appropriate chemistry that would lead to reproducible results. That’s the point of criticisms, to advance the science.

From: A DRAFT letter to me that was never sent.

“Bury Lodge heading

First Draft

Dr. Kirk L. Shanahan,

Westinghouse Savannah River Company,

Savannah River Technology centre,

Aiken, SC 29808,

U.S.A.” [p. 337]

“The argument you developed seemed to me to be fairly standard but I simply could not make any connection between your paper and the work which we have carried out,…” [p. 337]

Presumably correspondence would have clarified that.

“To start the ball rolling, let me make some initial comments. You could have concluded from

your paper that mass flow calorimetry is inherently inaccurate which is a conclusion which we

reached on three separate occasions in our early work.” [p. 337]

No, I concluded there was a special circumstance operating that changed the math. I don’t see that flow calorimetry itself is inaccurate.

“[ after some technical discussion on mass flow calorimetry] Random shifts in their behavior were therefore to be expected.” [p. 338]

Interesting, as this may explain why the 2010 reply in JEM assumed I was discussing random shifts, i.e. it reveals a possible bias on F’s part, which is likely reflective of the bulk of the CF community.

“The radial and axial mixing times for the calorimeters in use at that time (as determined by tracer experiments) were 3 and 20 s respectively whereas the thermal relaxation time was of order 3,000 s. There simply was no mechanism for generating thermal inhomogeneities as was confirmed with a system of 8 thermistors racked through the cell.” [p. 338]

I have said many times that radial mixing was fast based on a published version of the above comment. It would have been of interest to know if any of the 8 thermistors were located in the cell’s gas space.

“As I have said: you could have concluded that mass flow calorimetry is unreliable (we

decided that it should be reserved for large-scale experiments).” [p. 338]

Why is F talking about what I could have done instead of what I did? Red herring tactic.

“You have not done this but instead have tried to extend your arguments to other forms of calorimetry. It is here that you appear to have misinterpreted the literature. In our early work we always included a calibration in any evaluation of the heat generated in the calorimeter i.e. we did not rely on a global calibration as you appear to believe.” [p. 338]

My critique of Storms’ calorimetry is directly relevant to any calibrated method, since a change in the steady state any time during which it is assumed a previously determined calibration equation applies will result in a change in the calibration constants needed for maximum accuracy. Fleischmann missed this point completely apparently.

“(incidentally, I do not understand the point you have made about S/N: could you please explain this more fully?)” [p. 339]

The CCS produces a shift 10-100 times (perhaps more) the usual standard deviation assumed for these methods (usually derived from baseline noise). That means a S/N of 10 based on the usual approach is 10-100 times (or more) too large.

“It is therefore essential for you to spell out why such global calibrations might change with time or from experiment to experiment.” [p. 339]

CCS/ATER. Is everyone noticing how F keeps missing the point?

“I would also like you to spell out the mechanism(s) by which oxygen might reach the cathodes and hydrogen might reach the anodes so as to generate combustion at these services.” [p. 339]

In answer, quoting F again: “The radial and axial mixing times for the calorimeters in use at that

time (as determined by tracer experiments) were 3 and 20 s” [p. 338]

“You also appear to have some difficulties in accepting the results of measurements in the rates of gas evolution.” [p. 339]

Not really. That doesn’t make much difference to me in so far as the error is using a global, lumped parameter approach to modeling the calorimeter/cell.

From:

“Bury Lodge heading

9 September 2002

Dr. Melvin Miles,

Department of Chemistry,

Bates College,

Lewiston, ME 04240-6028,

U.S.A.” [p. 342]

“Dear Mel,

…

I see that you have now rather changed your mind about the wisdom of writing to Kirk

Shanahan (your hand written footnote on the letter in the letter package).” [p. 342]

So, Mel Miles judged me unworthy to communicate with, even though as per our 2017 communications he never read my papers. I wonder how he reached his conclusion?

“I must say that I have considerable reservations about entering into a correspondence with him but I will nevertheless be very interested to have your comments on my draft letter. Instead, if his paper gets published (as no doubt it will do) we could use it as a platform for carrying out a hatchet job at ICCF10 – I have much more material for such a hatchet job!” [p.342]

So, Fleischmann’s response to a critical review of someone else’s calorimetry is to do a hatchet job on me. Interesting.

From: [a Second Draft letter supposedly addressing a critical omission in the First Draft, the latter part of the draft was unchanged per JR’s comment.]

“Dr. Kirk L. Shanahan,

Westinghouse Savannah River Company,

Savannah River Technology centre,

Aiken, SC 29808,

U.S.A.

DRAFT to Dr. Mel Miles” [p. 342-343]

“Certainly, as far as isoperibolic calorimetry is concerned, you appear to have

missed a most important point. Statistics alone does not tell you whether you have adopted a

sensible data processing strategy - it simply gives you an answer based on whatever the data and

assumptions you plug into the relevant procedure.”

It seems F missed the point about computing error bands on numbers computed from other experimentally determined numbers, i.e. Propagation of Errors. He seems to be fixated on curve fitting.

“Thus in isoperibolic calorimetry one can choose to use the differential or the integral heat transfer coefficients and, as far as the latter are concerned, one can use forward or backward integration and apply the methodology to different parts of the measurement cycle. We had spent a considerable amount of time and effort to demonstrate that one should use the interval heat transfer coefficients based on backward integration applied to the time region of the calibration pulse to achieve precise and accurate evaluations.” [p. 343]

IOW, if you use the wrong math, you get the wrong answer. Hmmm, where have I heard that before…

“As I have said, you appear to of missed this particular point so I put your paper aside (and I

regret to say that I have now lost this copy).” [p.343]

Actually he threw it out because it irritated him.

“I could see no point in entering into a discussion with you as I felt sure that this would degenerate into some kind of slanging match.” [p.343]

That must have been because [/sarcasm] I am one of those DOE flunkies whose job is to destroy him I guess…[/sarcasm]

“However, recently, Dr. Melvin Miles … sent me a further copy of this paper together with copies of some ensuing correspondence and Mel asked whether I might wish to write to you? It is this ensuing correspondence which illustrates that you have developed some rather strange views and, indeed that you have misinterpreted the literature.” [p. 343]

Except I didn’t.

“I have therefore decided to try to open up a correspondence with you but as a first step I need to ask you whether my documentation is complete …” [p. 343]

Except he didn’t.

From:

“Bury Lodge heading

Your FAX has just arrived. I am drafting a letter to Elton Cairns.

23/09/02

Dr. Melvin Miles,

Department of Chemistry,

Bates College,

Lewiston, ME 04240-6028,

U.S.A.” [p.345]

“As far as the first topic is concerned, Mike McKubre has given me some very interesting

information. This includes the fact that Shanahan has some responsibility for examining the

loading of D and T into metals. Did I ever tell you that Stan Pons and I tried to get information

about this work but found that it was classified.” [p.347]

There was lots of info out there in the open literature and public government reports on this subject in 2002. I don’t know specifically what F’s talking about here. Does make it sound mysterious though doesn’t it? Actually, he could have asked those questions of me and I might have been able to answer them or find the answers.

“On going through this old correspondence, I have also again run across the letter to Kirk

Shanahan which, as you will gather, I have also not sent off. I eventually decided that I do not

want to enter into any correspondence with him partly prompted by Mike McKubre and partly by

Stan Szpak. Mike, Stan and Pam variously decided to terminate their correspondence with him

and the material which Stan sent to me convinced me yet again that Kirk Shanahan’s

contribution was in the nature of a “spoiler” (I believe that this is the way I originally described

his efforts to you). I believe that he must have been asked by the D.O.E. to find a reason for

discrediting the work on C.F. He is undoubtedly a clever fellow and he has come up with a

simple device: he attributes all positive measurements to changes in the heat transfer coefficient

which are supposed to take place by some unspecified mechanism. As far as our own work is

concerned, such changes are virtually impossible as the thermal impedance is due to a heat transfer across the vacuum I.e. the rate of heat transfer is just about the minimum one can

achieve.” [p.368-9]

I recall no correspondence with Pam Mosier-Boss. I sent a courtesy copy of my 2005 comment on their 2004 paper to Szpak, but I recall no further correspondence. I have described my dealings with McKubre elsewhere. He refused to help me and then got mad when I tried to see if anyone else could.

The rest of this quote is F’s conspiracy theory in full bloom. It’s all biased speculation and demonstrates he didn’t ever grasp the essence of what I did for the CF field.

“One has to rely on a global calibration but Shanahan asserts that

such global calibrations are not justified. Of course, what he has really done is to abandon the

rational basis of science (this abandonment is hidden under a great deal of verbiage) and he then

asserts that having come up with this impossible scenario, the onus is on C.F. researchers to

prove that changes in the calibration do not take place. Oh no! The onus is on Kirk Shanahan to prove that such outlandish changes in the calibration do take place.” [p.369]

Abandoned the rational basis of science? Hardly! Impossible scenario? I derived it directly from their data, so again, hardly! I think F got confused by my “great deal of verbiage” and didn’t realize it. Perhaps we could have clarified things if he had sent the letter, but the risk to his closely held beliefs was too strong. BTW, it is universally recognized that the person making a claim that gets criticized has the responsibility to respond to the criticism.

“The original interpretation of the generation of excess enthalpy remains valid until

such time as Kirk Shanahan (or A.N. Others) are able to prove that there are such peculiar

changes in the heat transfer coefficient demanded by Shanahan’s model.” [p.369]

No, a reasonable criticism requires a response from the criticized. This is rational, as how would I be expected to examine the details of the system without building a running one for a considerable time, and who would fund me to do that, when F had trouble getting funding? No, he has the equipment and he makes the claim. It was on him. That’s ‘business as usual’.

“I believe that Shanahan’s paper will give the C.F. brigade a great deal of trouble: it will

simply be cited by the D.O.E. and its henchmen as evidence that all the C.F. observations are

ambiguous.” [p.369]

Except that it didn’t to my knowledge. It was mentioned by one reviewer in the 2004 DOE re-review, to no effect. More conspiracy theory at work though…

“I believe therefore that we have to hold on to the central point: there are no changes

in the true heat transfer coefficient until such time as Shanahan (or A.N. Others) can show that

such changes do take place. Incidentally, Shanahan completely ignores the fact that we have

always systematically recalibrated all the measurement cycles.” [p.369]

See above comments. And no, I didn’t ignore anything.

“As a matter of fact, I could see Shanahan’s argument coming “a mile off”.” [p.369]

Actually he didn’t, which is shown by the fact he never seemed to understand it.

“This is why I initiated a programme in 1992-93 designed to answer the specific question: “are there changes in the heat transfer coefficient ?” and, furthermore, “what are the characteristics of positive and negative feedback?” This programme relied on driving the calibration heater with pseudorandom binary noise and constructing the cross-correlation function of this “noise” with the “noise” in the cell temperature (and also with the cell voltage). This was therefore an attempt to carry out calorimetry in the frequency domain. It is easy to show that the real and imaginary components of the Fourier Transform of the cross-correlation function should give a diagram such as…” [p.369]

Blah, blah, blah. Did he use two resistive heaters to check my theory. No.

“Do you believe that Shanahan’s antipathy towards the work on “hot spots” is to be explained

in part by the observations made in Frascati ?” [p.377]

“I know that you must be very busy but I need your help urgently. First of all referring to my

previous FAX, I need a good reference for “hot spots”. Would “S. Szpak and P.A. Mosier-Boss,

Il Nuevo Cimento 112A (1999) 577” do or is there a better reference?” [p. 325]

Hot spots? Antipathy?

I use the IR video showing the development of large area ‘hot spots’ to support ATER, calling it chemical explosions, instead of the nuclear explosion explanation offered by Szpak, et al. Antipathy? Not at all. Again, F (And Others) sees any criticism as an unwarranted emotional attack (UEA), which is a ‘bad scientist’ characteristic (both UEAs and seeing criticisms as such).

“As you will see, I did not send my letter to Elton Cairns and I also continue to prevaricate

about Kirk Shanahan. The reason is that I believe that he must know full well that “Cold Fusion”

is possible - indeed that this is a reality. I base this on the list of his other activities. If that is so,

then it would put the activities of the D.O.E. under a great black cloud.” [p.392]

I have no real idea what F is referring to here. He apparently thinks we see all sorts of anomalies we are hiding. The exact opposite is true, we never see anything that would support CF or LENR. Outfall of conspiracy theory fascination.

*****

I didn’t catch any other specific comments. If I missed some, sorry…

Quote from kirkshanahan

Jed prefaces the material, and include his Mizuno bucket anecdote ‘misrepresentation’ of my comments on it once again

Lets cut through all the waffle... It's really quite simple:

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

2. Kirkshanahan says that the evaporation from Mizuno's bucket can be explained by normal evaporation* - just like a swimming pool looses water by evaporation.

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

There's no misrepresentation here - it really is that easy to understand.

Kirkshanahan suggests that, because he hasn't ever actually explicitly stated point 3, he's never really said it - a real misrepresentation at best, 'intellectual dishonesty**' at worst.

* and, yes, a few rats and/or cats were also drinking from it.

** AKA a big, fat untruth

Quote from Zeus46

Lets cut through all the waffle... It's really quite simple

Yes, let's do. And yes, it is. Zeus46, JedRothwell, and bocijn were challenged to repeat back the gist of my postings on the Mizuno bucket anecdote, with special emphasis on the sensitivity analysis I did, and they failed to do so. Instead Jed prefaces a block of letters between Melvin Miles and Martin Fleischmann, which includes drafts of unsent letters to me, with a block of commentary repeating his standard misrepresentation of what I have written regarding the Mizuno bucket anecdote. Why? I have no idea, other than to assume Jed has an agenda, which Zeus46 (and usually bocijn) support. I'm not going into the details another time. Read the Mizuno bucket thread here on L-F for more info.

I will categorically state that Zeus46 has equally 'misrepresented' what I've written, so if you want the facts you'll have to read the bucket thread.

For the newcomer: Water evaporation is the same process whether it occurs from an ocean, a swimming pool, a bucket, or a thimble. Google 'swimming pool evaporation calculation' to find multiple sites that give equations and calculators to compute how fast it happens. In all cases air movement over the water surface is an important variable. This was never defined for the bucket anecdote. Therefore I had to explore variation in that, and in the thermal profile of the hot cell in a systematic way, since the details are suspect because they are anomalous, which is the 'sensitivity analysis' whose results Jed, Zeus, and bocijn routinely distort to fit their agenda.

I first did this back when Jed posted to sci.physics.fusion in the early 2000's about the anecdote. Jed refused to understand it then as well. So I had some fun with him, and suggested a bunch of mice had drunk the water from the bucket, which had supposedly been placed in a lab in an 'abandoned' building. The point of that of course was to emphasize that the bucket was unattended most of the time in an uncontrolled environment, which always raises questions when anomalous results are obtained.

My net conclusion has always been "Not Enough Information" to draw any firm conclusions. It's a lot like the Rossi 'demos'. What one does with the 'results' is a matter of personal choice, but they compel no particular conclusion. Replication in a controlled environment is required, and those results may or may not be conclusive. The bucket anecdote is just a story at this time, and will remain that way forever.

What I also find interesting, amusing, astounding, etc., is that Jed puts out a 471 page document, I comment on the multiple points in it directed at me, and Jed/Zeus wants to fight over the bucket anecdote again. Why? Trolling maybe?

Which bit did I misrepresent Kirk?

Do you think 10L of water could have evaporated from Mizuno's bucket in 24 hours by 'normal' swimming-pool-style evaporation?

Quote from Zeus46

Which bit did I misrepresent Kirk?

Do you think 10L of water could have evaporated from Mizuno's bucket in 24 hours by 'normal' swimming-pool-style evaporation?

Of course it could...***IF*** there was a hot object or even a heater present in it and a significant airflow rate over it...which is what I said all along.

Quote from kirkshanahan

Zeus46, JedRothwell, and bocijn were challenged to repeat back the gist of my postings

Pffft - I did, if you recall.

Quote from kirkshanahan

I have no idea, other than to assume Jed has an agenda

OK, so tell us how much heat energy would need to be embodied in this 'hot object', in order to make your calculations seem remotely reasonable?

And please try to remember that thermodynamics is a science, and not an art.... It involves using some numbers at some point. My handy spreadsheet could be useful to you here...

And you're arguing that a heater wasn't present, remember?

And please explain what 'significant' airflow means, and where this 'significant' airflow comes from?

Been there, done that, not doing it again. Reread my prior posts on this and stop taking stuff out of context just to 'prove' I was wrong. That's not how it works.

And all the while you still miss the main point - you can't do science with 1 experiment (especially when large chunks of critical info are missing).

More obfuscation... sums please. (Which as of so far, you are still yet to provide)

And i'm not trying to prove you are wrong, i'm trying to get you to understand why you are wrong.

The critical info is 10L evaporated, the challenge is to explain how, using reasonable estimates... Not just by pulling large numbers out of your rear end, and writing 3000 words to try and cover up the fact that you can't.