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NASA partners with Global Energy Corporation to develop 10kW Hybrid Reactor Generator
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I was quoted above:
"Before the second test, Levi was more careful. He opened up the control box and confirmed there was no hidden source of fuel, he looked around the outside of the machine, and he also looked inside it. He looked everywhere but inside the cell itself, which is about 1 L in volume. …"
My confidence in Levi's abilities fell after the Lugano test. The mistakes he and others made there were disappointing, and inexplicable. Inexplicable, because they did a reasonably good job on the earlier tests. Some people have suggested Levi and the others were in cahoots with Rossi. I have no idea whether that might be the case, but I guess it would not shock me if it turned out to be true.
We have discussed Lugano here many times. I would only like to reiterate that I found a problem with it early on. I noted that if the incandescent color of the cell was orange, as shown in the photos. That put the temperature at ~800°C, which was much lower than the IR camera, and which indicated no excess heat. Some people suggested the digital camera may not show the correct color. I wouldn't know about that. When the authors asked for questions from the scientific community, I asked them what color the cell was. They never responded. That was when I began to doubt whether Levi and the others were competent. McKubre and many others raised other questions. Levi et al. did not answer a single one of these questions, as far as I know.
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You're deflecting. He [Lewis], his reviewers, the editors of the journal, and most of his audience disagree with your judgement, but either way, it marks a turning point.
I wrote earlier that Lewis, the editors and audience probably made a mistake. They did not realize that you should not set the calibration constant after heat begins, because that makes the earlier results look like an endothermic reaction swallowing up heat, which is impossible.
Let me clarify something.
Lewis and the editors did make this mistake. Fleischmann and several others pointed it out to them. Lewis and the editors responded by making more mistakes. Their response is here:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJhownaturer.pdf
However, the audience probably did not make this mistake. They were probably unaware of the situation. So, they concluded that this experiment cast doubt on cold fusion. Obviously, if the experiment was in error, and it actually produced excess heat, that conclusion is topsy-turvy. You can't blame the audience. Nature refused to print any of the objections and most people did not read the paper carefully enough to see it was in error.
Perhaps Louis Reed did not know about this error? If he did not know about it, it is reasonable that he too would mistakenly suppose that Lewis's work cast doubt on F&P's result. The question for this forum is: Now that he knows this was a mistake, what does he have to say?
1. Does he say this was not a mistake, and it is the proper technique to set the calibration constant after excess heat begins?
OR
2. Does he say even though this was a mistake, and even though Lewis actually observed excess heat, his results still cast doubt on the work of Fleischmann, Pons, Bockris, Storms and the 92 institutions the replicated by mid-1990? That would be a strange thing to say!
Reed has not responded, which makes me suspect he is "deflecting" (as he puts it). I don't blame him.
Along the same lines, most people did not read the MIT paper closely enough to see that it was fraudulent. You cannot blame the audience for that. J. Fusion Energy refused to publish letters pointing out how and why it was fraud. However, as I showed on p. 23 of the Miles paper (Ref. below), a reader who looked closely at the graph in the paper would have seen that it was fake. You did not need to see the original data from the pen recorder. There were at least 7 extra data points crammed into the graph, and this could only have been done by a person, not a program. (The MIT authors said a program added these points, which is ridiculous and obviously a lie, and even if it were true, they should have taken out the spurious data points or shown the original pen recording.)
The original pen recording data showed why they did this. It was to hide the excess heat. That heat may not have been significant. Miles thought it was; Storms said it probably was not. However, hiding it by adding data points by hand is crude academic fraud.
See p. 23:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesMisoperibol.pdf
Here is a screen shot from the MIT paper, Albagli, D., et al., Measurement and analysis of neutron and gamma-ray emission rates, other fusion products, and power in electrochemical cells having Pd cathodes. J. Fusion Energy, 1990. 9: p. 133. You can see the extra data points crammed into Fig. 5b:
It is ironic that the "big three" negative experiments in 1989 that supposedly disproved cold fusion were actually some of the best proof that it is real. They were: MIT, CalTech (Lewis) and Harwell. MIT was out-and-out fraud, and it might have shown excess heat. Lewis made a stupid mistake and accidentally hid real excess heat. Harwell was analyzed in a hurry by people who were not experts. Fortunately, the people at Harwell were good scientists, and they later handed over their data to experts. The experts showed that there was significant excess heat after all. Unfortunately, the journal, Scientific American and others never published this fact.
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My confidence in Levi's abilities fell after the Lugano test. The mistakes he and others made there were disappointing, and inexplicable. Inexplicable, because they did a reasonably good job on the earlier tests.
A good job in what? In setting up some *convincing* tests?
To convince ordinary people, the Lugano and Ferrara tests were much more effective than the earlier ones. At least, in order to be debunked by those who were unaware of previous tests, they required some special skills in emissivity, thermography, and so on. But, come on, water flow "calorimetry is so simple", that it is impossible that smart guys who have worked for years, or even decades, in the LENR field, as well as professors who teach physics at University may have been fooled in this way.
Nobody has been fooled by Rossi regarding the Ecat performances.
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you all have done an amazing job analyzing this device, I wish it had the ability to sustain the reaction longer. but the red fuel is obliterated under these condition in a short time. If you ever get to stop a test at first distinct levels, you may get a better idea why you cant see the effects after a full run time.- how long is that again?
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A good job in what? In setting up some *convincing* tests?
Yes, these tests:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LeviGindication.pdf
Fairly convincing.
We have been over this before, but briefly . . .
You mentioned "they required some special skills in emissivity, thermography, and so on." Yes, but in the first tests, they did an end-run around this requirement by putting a TC on the cell to confirm the IR camera reading. That's not perfect, but it is better than nothing. So why didn't they do that at Lugano?!? I will never understand why not. There were many other problems that could have been easily avoided, such as the lack of calibration.
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Yes, these tests:
http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LeviGindication.pdf
Fairly convincing.
We have been over this before, but briefly . . .You keep continue to refer to the report issued on 2013 describing the Ferrara tests on the HotCat.
Yes, we have already been many times over this report (see for instance: Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions ), always briefly, because I've nothing to say about it, apart from reminding that 2 years earlier, on January 2011, its lead author had also signed the very first report on the Ecat performances: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LeviGreportonhe.pdf .
QuoteSo why didn't they do that at Lugano?!?
In light of what happened in 2011, this question has a trivial answer:
the Ecat tests had to be "fairly convincing", as they actually and successfully have been.
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Quote
I will never understand why not. [place thermocouple(s) directly on the "reactor"]
"Perhaps I can be of assistance?"
© "The Rising Sun" - Michael Crichton - full quote below
Because if Rossi had allowed that, the jig would have been up and the scam would have been revealed. And of course, there was a lack of calibration (from start to end of the Rossi tests) for exactly the same reason. A properly calibrated Rossi machine would return a COP of (1 less losses). Objections at the time those farces happened were almost entirely from the much maligned skeptics. Most of those who thought Rossi was for real didn't raise an eyebrow.
Full quote from "Rising Sun": "John Connor: When you start to get into trouble, I will say, 'Perhaps I can be of assistance?' From then on, I do the talking. You stand behind me. And don't appear distracted. We may come from a fragmented, MTV rap-video culture, but they do not. Every aspect of your appearance and behavior will reflect on you, the Department, and me as your sempai. Web Smith: My sempai? John Connor: Mm. Web Smith: That wouldn't be massa', would it? John Connor: No. The sempai is the senior man who guides the junior man, the kohai. In Japan, the sempai-kohai relationship is presumed to exist when the younger man and the older man work together. Hopefully, they will presume that of us."
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Because if Rossi had allowed that [a TC on the reactor], the jig would have been up and the scam would have been revealed.
You are missing the point. Rossi did allow that, in the first set of tests. The TC confirmed the temperature readings of the IR camera.
As far as I know, Rossi did not disallow it in the second set of tests at Lugano. The researchers themselves neglected to do it. I have no idea why.
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You keep continue to refer to the report issued on 2013 describing the Ferrara tests on the HotCat.
Yes, we have already been many times over this report (see for instance: Rossi vs. Darden aftermath discussions ), always briefly, because I've nothing to say about it, apart from reminding that 2 years earlier, on January 2011, its lead author had also signed the very first report on the Ecat performances: http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LeviGreportonhe.pdf .
In light of what happened in 2011, this question has a trivial answer:
the Ecat tests had to be "fairly convincing", as they actually and successfully have been.
Ascoli65,
I prefer to refer to the fact that in 7 years Rossi has never ever once produced anything that anyone anywhere has ever properly tested.
Ever, ever, never once!
Doesn’t that set off warning alarm bells in your head?
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You are missing the point. Rossi did allow that, in the first set of tests. The TC confirmed the temperature readings of the IR camera.
As far as I know, Rossi did not disallow it in the second set of tests at Lugano. The researchers themselves neglected to do it. I have no idea why.
The fins (ridges) on the main body of the Lugano reactor create a problem due to the valleys being hotter than the tips of the fins. This could lead to a 50 to 100 C variation from the (approximately calibrated) IR camera temperature which will average the rib and valley temperatures. (This is, of course, would be better than a 600 C error...)
The Caps might calibrate the IR better when using a thermocouple, but they remain several hundred degrees C cooler than the main reactor tube, and so do not reach the full temperature range. A tightly affixed thermocouple on the Caps would have been sufficient to arrive at a very close approximation of the true IR emissivity value of the reactor required for the camera, however. Even a slightly high thermocouple reading from a main reactor tube valley would have been sufficient to demonstrate that the IR camera was reporting something close to the actual temperature. (A lower IR temperature would be "conservative" and the Professors like to do that it seems.)
And of course the thermocouple that was used (Type K, based on the extension wire) to control the temperature (goes to the grey control box, note the 3 PIDs on the cover, note three thermocouples going to the control box in the Vessey photo) one might think would report a temperature somewhere. (How else does one set the temperature at all? How does one not set the temperature above the thermocouple rating or heater coil rating by accident?)
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Anyhoo, NASA is supposed to make a space reactor announcement on May 2. Not sure if that is related to the thread topic, or if it is different.
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As far as I know, Rossi did not disallow it in the second set of tests at Lugano. The researchers themselves neglected to do it. I have no idea why.
That is Rossi's skill. Restricting information to those who are under his spell. For the lugano testers so thoroughly in the grip of the Rossi effect, I'd doubt that outright prohibition would be necessary, in fact it would be counterproductive. Rossi need merely feed them some line about why it would be a bad idea, technically, and they would believe.
Parallel here is master of the "There are things we don't know, true, but let's ignore the things we do know (when they flagrantly contradict rossisays) and be positive" approach.
He is logically correct that skeptics here cannot prove Rossi does not have a working device. A logical impossibility. Equally, we cannot prove there is no mystic dragon at the centre of the earth swaying politics through a secret band of followers.
The issue in these cases is always balance of evidence. As soon as you deal in absolutes, and refuse to consider evidence, you are on risky ground.
However, the skeptics here have hardly done this. Every dreg of evidence has been considered and analysed. Whereas to continue believing the Rossi story it is necessary to ignore most of that analysis.
I'm for looking at the evidence, but not letting the fact that charitably this is done morph into positive PR for those who do not deserve it.
Getting back OT that applies to this speculative NASA/GEC project as much as anything else. Given the evidence presented so far, I see it a wild flight of fancy. I wish them luck, and it is always possible that they have stumbled onto some real and exciting new phenomenon. I would wish that the details of what they say about it so far were more convincing.
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You do not know much about the history of science. Most major discoveries have faced political opposition. This seems to be human nature.
It seems like there is only room in your brain for a few arguments, so whatever comes up, you distort it in such a way to allow cutting and pasting replies form the hundreds of times you've had those same arguments.
[Full disclosure: I am also inclined to repeat arguments, and to use cut and paste. I don't object to repetition when it is a response to something that is itself repeated. My objection is using oft-repeated rejoinders (and challenges) to *distract* from the point being made.]
Of course I'm familiar with all the examples of mistaken skepticism. No one can express skepticism about anything without being bombarded by reminders of Galileo, Semmelweis, and tectonic plates, to name a few. Remember how Lewan tried to support the validity of the ecat by pointing out that the Wright brothers also faced skepticism. Just because skepticism was expressed about something that ended up working doesn't mean that something will end up working if skepticism is expressed about it. Or as Asimov put it more concisely: "To be a persecuted genius, it is not enough to be persecuted."
As you say, it *is* human nature to be skeptical of extraordinary or unusual claims, and more than that, it is critical to avoiding wasted effort. Feynman said: "There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made."
At the same time, I don't deny that science is very often influenced by corrupt self-interest and academic politics.
But for whatever reason -- and (imo) to the detriment of science -- the world was *not* skeptical enough of cold fusion for those first few weeks. Wild claims were given a free pass before anyone had a chance to examine the evidence. The reasons probably include Fleischmann's reputation, the recent Nobel prize awarded for an extraordinary discovery (HTSC), and the phenomenal benefit that cold fusion, were it real, would provide to the world. As Storms wrote: "many of us were lured into believing that the Pons-Fleischmann effect would solve the world's energy problems and make us all rich". If cold fusion worked out, people knew, there would be great honor and accolades for everyone involved, and so everyone wanted to be involved.
So it is in the context of the "huge bubble of enthusiasm" where "anything less than enthusiasm would have seemed almost unpatriotic", that I suggested the board room scenario in which scientists had to be reminded of their evil tendencies. Academic politics and corrupt self-interest had not prevented this bubble of enthusiasm, and I'm not aware of any reason the influence of self-interest would have suddenly changed by 180º, so the most plausible explanation for the loss of enthusiasm is that the evidence did not stand up to scrutiny.
All the historical examples of embarrassed skeptics don't change that.
Indeed, I can't think of an example where a new phenomenon was first enthusiastically and widely welcomed, subsequently rejected with near unanimity, and finally vindicated, although there are several examples described by the first two of those steps.
Moreover, in the case of the laser, the skepticism you describe was in the proposal stage, when people were probably honestly skeptical that it would work. von Neumann, for example, is no intellectual slouch, and he started out skeptical, but was convinced by Townes over a beer, with mathematics. And of course, when the laser was built, skepticism evaporated. The same thing can be said about many other extraordinary *experimental* claims. Electron diffraction was not doubted after Davisson and Germer did the experiment, even though particle waves were a pretty outrageous concept at the time. Superconductivity and its high temperature version were both outside then current understanding, but no one doubted the phenomena after they were experimentally demonstrated.
In the case of cold fusion, by the time the claim was made public, it had *already* been built. So, people actually suspended their skepticism based only on theory, and became skeptical *after* they saw the alleged evidence. An energy source with an energy density a million times that of dynamite is not some subtle claim, after all. And yet, then and for 30 years since, no one has been able to design an unequivocal demonstration of it that convinces anyone except a small contingency of people, who as it happens, were for the most part sucked in by Rossi too.
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I have talked to him [Fleischmann], and to Stan Pons, and I read the book by the president of the university.
We all know who you are, Jed. No need to keep boasting about your close ties to the field. The problem is that it's hard to give much credibility to your pronouncements after you repeatedly overcount replications, claim Pons never addressed thousands (it was 7000: https://cen.acs.org/articles/9…fusion-died-25-years.html), say there was no doubt about cold fusion, and claim Rossi had the best evidence for cold fusion, evar.
QuoteWhatever your impression may be, I assure you, they were not happy. Who would be? They knew damn well what would happen. Unlike you, they knew the history of science.
If they knew the history of science, then they also knew that the Nobel prize had just been awarded for high temperature superconductivity, which was (and still is to a lesser extent) outside theoretical understanding. His barely contained smirk when he talked about what they had spent, and what they were expecting to be able to spend suggests he was not expecting dismissal, but rather the highest honor in science. Maybe that's why they left the third author (Hawkins) off the initially published manuscript; they might not have wanted to dilute the credit.
QuoteIt was not surprising that opponents accused F&P of fraud, because fraud is common. The MIT results were fraudulent in my opinion,
So, when you accuse MIT of fraud, it's because they are corrupt, and when MIT accuses P&F of fraud it's also because they are corrupt. That may be your view of it. Another view is that when MIT accused P&F of fraud, they actually believed fraud had been committed, but when you accuse MIT of fraud, it's because of your obvious bias. Vindication for cold fusion, after all, would bring honor to all the participants, and your support would be widely recognized.
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Louis Reed wrote: "This is what Fleischmann said *after* the fact."
Five minutes after the fact. He said it immediately after the press conference ended. Like it says: "After the press conference, Dr. Caldwell came up to us . . ." Are you seriously calling that "after the fact"? Do you understand that term means?
That's a weird assertion.
You misunderstood, but perhaps I was a little opaque. Let me try again.
What is reported here is allegedly Fleischmann's account of a conversation he had after the press conference. The conversation, if it happened, clearly shows that Fleischmann predicted cold fusion would be dismissed, as you said.
But his account of the conversation was given *after* cold fusion had been dismissed, and there is no independent record of that conversation from the time it was had. And Fleischmann is nowhere on record in print making such a prediction. So yes, I'm suggesting either he may have invented or embellished the quotation or Beaudette did it on his behalf to make him appear wise to the evil establishment. Beaudette's disclaimer shows that the facts are a little murky:
"With the excitement of the moment, each of the three participants in this conversation has a different recollection of the conversation. In selecting what to present, the author has taken some license." -- Beaudette
I suppose it is somewhat disrespectful to question the honesty of Fleischmann or Beaudette, but then, you have no qualms doubting the honesty and integrity of MIT scientists.
And the prediction so belies the confidence he and Pons displayed at the press conference and in interviews shortly after.
Moreover, if he thought cold fusion was going to be dismissed, he must have known that the evidence was sufficiently weak for dismissal to be taken seriously. Dismissal of superconductivity or the laser after they were demonstrated would have been ridiculed, and cold fusion should be at least as demonstrable as the other two. And if Pons prediction that a reactor would be available within a year, or yours that cold fusion cars would be running in the 90s, then dismissal could not have happened. So this prediction almost makes Fleischmann look like a skeptic.
Finally, Fleischmann can only wish to have been treated like Dr Caldwell's grandfather, Arrhenius. Arrhenius's controversial ideas were presented in his doctoral thesis. While there were local skeptics, his degree was granted, and when the dissertation was sent to other European scholars, they came to Sweden trying to recruit him. Doesn't really sound much like cold fusion, does it?
The Swedish Academy then awarded him a grant to study with the likes of Boltzmann and van 't Hoff. That doesn't sound like his ideas were dismissed. A few years after his graduation, he was *given* an appointment at the Stockholm university, and was a full professor/chair (rector) about a decade after his PhD. That doesn't sound much like rejection to me.
It did take almost 20 years to recognize his work with a Nobel prize, but that's only because the prize was not initiated until about 17 years after. He got the 3rd one in chemistry. He was on the Nobel committee from the beginning until his death.
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In practice the levels of tritium were significantly over the background with a direct correlation with the presence (but not quantity!) of excess heat.
According to Storms, who did tritium experiments himself, and reviewed the field several times, tritium has no correlation to heat (NW 2010). And in the Will paper Rothwell refers to, I found no reference to the measurement of heat, so I'm curious where you got that information.
But yes, he does claim tritium well above background, but far below levels commensurate with heat.
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It is a logical fallacy to claim that tritium levels should be similar to those expected from D-D fusion in order to prove nuclear origin. Because this assumes a priori the type of nuclear process.
I have a pretty long response to this, so I've broken it up into 4 parts in different posts.
1. Unknown reactions
I think it's a logical fallacy to use "unknown reaction" as some sort of incantation to try to persuade skeptics that some allegedly unexplained heat comes from a nuclear reaction.
If the tritium does not provide a nuclear explanation for the heat, then the tritium does not constitute evidence that the heat comes from a nuclear reaction. It could, and the low level of tritium doesn't prove that the heat does not have a nuclear origin, but it also doesn't prove that it does. If it's unknown, then how do you know it's nuclear. Maybe it's a vacuum energy, maybe it's dark matter, maybe there's a fifth unknown force responsible for it. Maybe it's a new chemical reaction. Most likely, it's an artifact, which is most consistent with the erratically variable results that are characteristic of the field.
Consider this: If there's tritium but not enough to explain the heat, it's allegedly because it's an unknown reaction. But if there's no tritium and no neutrons, that's also because it's an unknown reaction. If there are neutrons or gammas or transmutations, but not enough to explain the heat, that is also because it's an unknown reaction. So, no matter what is observed, it is conveniently explained by an unknown reaction. If the presence or absence of a bit of evidence does not in any way influence the explanation for the heat, then it does not constitute evidence that it one thing or another.
Of course, from a practical point of view, the question is whether or not there *is* accessible energy with a density a million times that of conventional chemical energy, whatever its origin. Demonstrating that chemical reactions produce energy is trivial, and was trivial centuries before it was understood. One might think that demonstrating heat from a source with a million times the energy density should be that much easier. But after 30 years, one of the most visible activities in the field is that of a group of mostly amateurs trying to identify an experiment that any qualified scientist can perform to verify that such an energy density exists. Again, this failure is most consistent with the various indications of excess heat being due to artifacts.
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It is a logical fallacy to claim that tritium levels should be similar to those expected from D-D fusion in order to prove nuclear origin. Because this assumes a priori the type of nuclear process.
I have a pretty long response to this, so I've broken it up into 4 parts in different posts.
2. Energy from nuclear reactions
We do know some things about nuclear reactions. After all, the argument that the claimed heat must be nuclear because the energy density exceeds chemical assumes knowledge abut the energy density of nuclear reactions.
Nuclear reactions represent the rearrangement of nucleons among or between nuclei with the possible emission of electrons (or positrons) and gamma radiation. The nucleon count and the charge is preserved in nuclear reactions, and the energy released is determined by the difference in mass between the reactants and the products times c^2.
So, the maximum energy produced per tritium corresponds to the maximum mass difference per nucleon between tritium and the possible reactants. Or equivalently, the largest positive difference in binding energy per nucleon between tritium and the possible reactants.
The binding energy per nucleon for tritium is just under 3 MeV, and the only nucleons with lower binding energy per nucleon are protons, deuterons, and He-3. Protons have zero binding energy per nucleon, so the maximum energy produced in making tritium is about 9 MeV, which is a little more than twice the energy released in conventional D-D fusion, still orders of magnitude short of explaining the claimed levels of heat. So, no nuclear reaction can explain the levels of heat claimed based on the production of the claimed levels of tritium. Storms essentially concedes this point in his 2010 review where he says of the tritium claims: "Clearly, this small potential contribution to energy production can be safely ignored".
Of course, that doesn't rule out reactions in which tritium is only occasionally produced, and which produce no other detectable reaction products, but at the same time the tritium does not represent evidence for such reactions.
Likewise, even more exotic reactions that are not "nuclear reactions" that violate conservation of nucleon number or use vacuum energy are not ruled out, but again, the tritium does not represent evidence for them, and does not even make them more plausible (see part 3).
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It is a logical fallacy to claim that tritium levels should be similar to those expected from D-D fusion in order to prove nuclear origin. Because this assumes a priori the type of nuclear process.
I have a pretty long response to this, so I've broken it up into 4 parts in different posts.
3. Tritium still proves LENR, and then anything goes...
If tritium is being produced in metal hydrides, then that is clearly evidence for nuclear reactions (LENR), even if they don't explain the claimed levels of heat. And nuclear reactions in that context would by themselves represent an extraordinary result.
For me, the only tritium argument in support of a nuclear origin for the claimed heat that can't be dismissed out of hand is that if some nuclear reactions happen, then perhaps other nuclear reactions might also happen which can produce the claimed levels of heat.
This is of course the thinking used to explain literally dozens of transmutation products in some cold fusion experiments.
On the other hand, some would call it a logical fallacy to say that one nuclear reaction makes another reaction at a millionfold higher rate more likely, particularly one that has undetectable reaction products. Moreover, after a century of characterizing thousands of nuclear reactions in exquisite detail, it is implausible that a new reaction could not be similarly characterized, and that much more implausible that 2 reactions could happen with both contriving to be uncharacterizable. The idea that dozens of nuclear reactions could happen, all essentially radiationless, and without any of them identified is too far out for words.
Of course, if the tritium results themselves are not credible, then all this discussion is pointless. The credibility is addressed in part 4.
