Where is the LENR goal line, and how best do we get there?

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Amazing to me SPAWAR ever got out of the research. From what Dewey said, it was because of a Thorium spill, then others had different explanations. Those central to that earlier work, are now working with NASA/Global Energy Corp/JWK to further develop the technology. I wish the author had mentioned that.

Oh come on! The admirals and their scientific advisors controlling the choice of projects looked at the claims and the results and decided the methods didn't really work or at best, had not been proven to work. A thorium spill (whatever that does) would have top leaders decide not pursue the greatest potential for humanity and for the military in decades? Sure it would. Tell me another whopper.

Shane D.

Above, you suggest skeptics (like me and others) are useless. Tell that to the several wealthy people who consulted me (and others I recommended) and withheld investing in Rossi and several other failed so-called fusion power companies based on our recommendations. I dare say Tom Darden wishes he'd paid more attention to Rossi skeptics and those online skeptical "pundits" who advised him how and how much to test the ecat and by whom. And IMHO, that is nothing compared to how he will feel in five or so more years when most of his other projects if not all, also fail. I do not hope for such failure. On the contrary, success would be much more interesting. It just isn't likely and as even the believers are starting to think, that includes Brillouin and BLP.

ETA: I never told anyone who contacted me personally, specifically not to invest. What I told them was what testing to demand and a list of places and organization by whom testing should be performed. Strangely, Rossi and the others were not willing to consider or even negotiate such testing. Why do you think that was? And I never recommended against reasonable, well designed, basic research, as long as it was sold as such.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

The admirals and their scientific advisors controlling the choice of projects looked at the claims and the results and decided the methods didn't really work or at best, had not been proven to work. A thorium spill (whatever that does) would have top leaders decide not pursue the greatest potential for humanity and for the military in decades? Sure it would. Tell me another whopper.

It is not a whopper. That is more or less what happened. I don't recall the details, but it was that plus what the admiral considered bad PR for the Navy. Admirals are not all geniuses.

The Admiral had no idea whether it was working or not, and no interest in that question. Neither did the administrators at the DoE or the universities the quashed cold fusion, or the managers at Toyota who torpedoed Fleischmann. The decisions were purely political. None of these people knows the first thing about cold fusion, any more than the editors at Sci. Am. or Nature do. I have met them and asked them questions. They have no clue what instruments are used, what has been found, or what the findings indicate. They have no earthly idea what potential this might have for humanity. They do not realize the experiments were replicated. They have never heard of McKubre or any other leading researcher. You can see examples of their ignorance in Morrison's paper and here:

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?p=294

This is actually better informed than most articles, and better than Wikipedia, but as you see it is wrong in every important particular.

Read history and you will see countless examples of admirals and other important people making horrendous mistakes, for example in the battle of Pearl Harbor and the Gallipoli Campaign. Admirals are supposed to know how to do things like fight wars, yet clearly these admirals did not. It should not surprise you that another admiral has never heard of calorimetry, or he does not understand the first thing about it.

If you were an admiral or a DoE administrator, with your attitude, I suppose you would dismiss cold fusion too. You would imply -- as you have here -- that it could not possibly have "great potential for humanity and for the military" because if it did, other people would know that, and they would be pursing it. In other words, instead of looking at the facts and judging on a rational, scientific basis, you would look at what other people do, and you would make the same mistakes they make. This is what the Sci. Am., the Boston Globe and other mainstream media did from 1906 to 1908 when they dismissed the Wright brother's claims. "If it were true, everyone would know about it" is what they said. Sci. Am.:

"If such sensational and tremendously important experiments are being conducted in a not very remote part of the country, on a subject in which almost everybody feels the most profound interest, is it possible to believe that the enterprising American reporter, who, it is well known, comes down the chimney when the door is locked in his face … would not have ascertained all about them and published … long ago?"

See also:

http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJthewrightb.pdf

Quote from Max Nozin

Now I don't see how can anyone repeat what they did in 3-4 years. It probably would cost few trillions on today's money.

I do not think so. North Korea has made several thermonuclear bombs and I am sure they did not spend trillions of dollars. They don't have that kind of money. India did not spend much either. The methods are well know, so it is easier than it used to be.

Anyone checked the reaction of mercury- chemical reacted aluminum/iron "hairs" with a microwave for a lenr reaction.

DnG I don't know anything about that reaction-- tell us more. But, in my opinion such elements as Hg and Fe themselves would be a long way from producing excess energy due to nuclear fusion. Among those ingredients only aluminum could be responsible for fusion per se. And fusion with what? I suppose hydrogen and oxygen might be in there from ambient moisture (?).

Quote from seven_of_twenty

And IMHO, that is nothing compared to how he will feel in five or so more years when most of his other projects if not all, also fail.

No doubt an opinion based on your 'usual' thorough literature review, and not at all further evidence of your skeptopathic tendencies.

Nice Dick Smith mention though... There will be a new top-scorer on Boor's Bingo pretty soon. Harry & Megan dining sets all round!

Quote from Longview

DnG I don't know anything about that reaction-- tell us more. But, in my opinion such elements as Hg and Fe themselves would be a long way from producing excess energy due to nuclear fusion. Among those ingredients only aluminum could be responsible for fusion per se. And fusion with what? I suppose hydrogen and oxygen might be in there from ambient moisture (?).

Start with youtube l-view

If I remember correctly, he may refer to this:

1. It's ALIVE!

2. More wired stuff!

Axil?

What's going on here?

- Just another Ed Wood movie?!

- "How to" make a new World Trade Center?!

- Bart Simpson: " Raise my shorts?!"

- "What goes up, must come down" - ELO

- Everything you wanted to know about Mercury, but never asked?

Axil Add heavy water stoke hematite in the alumina/clay composite and cover with mercury... , If you would like to theorize the outcome~after igniting this "hair"

Quote from seven_of_twenty

It may be just as long before we get evidence good enough about the very existence of LENR that it will be accepted and examined by "main line" science.

The evidence for cold fusion was definitive by late 1990. Mainline science rejected it for purely political reasons. Similar evidence for any other claim would be instantly accepted by every scientist on earth. High sigma data replicated thousands of time in hundreds of labs is definitive by definition. There is no other standard of proof in experimental science. If you don't accept such data, you are not doing science.

Quote from JedRothwell

Similar evidence for any other claim would be instantly accepted by every scientist on earth. High sigma data replicated thousands of time in hundreds of labs is definitive by definition. There is no other standard of proof in experimental science. If you don't accept such data, you are not doing science.

I'm afraid I can't agree here. Scientists accept experimental anomalies when they seem compellingly problematic (under existing theory) or when they cohere with some hypothesised alt theory.

In the case of LENR there is no alt theory that coheres. If there were, the historical indications would be of more interest.

Equally, if the historical indications were more compelling they would remain high priority for explanation without any coherent theory. In that case, as with the FTL neutrinos, a lot of people would jump in trying to make coherent theories.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I'm afraid I can't agree here.

You are wrong, and Schwinger, Fleischmann and all the others are right.

Schwinger quoted someone else: “It should not be necessary, however, to understand the mechanism before embracing the concept. If a proven track record can be established . . . you have to believe it.”

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

Quote from THHuxleynew

Scientists accept experimental anomalies when they seem compellingly problematic (under existing theory) or when they cohere with some hypothesised alt theory.

That turns the scientific method upside-down. If that were the standard, no unexplained evidence, and no evidence contradicting theory would be accepted. Consequently, no theory would be challenged, changed or overthrown, and no progress would occur. In science, when theory and replicated experiments conflict, the experiments always win. Theory always loses. No exceptions granted, ever. That is the bedrock basis of the scientific method. It is the one unalterable rule.

The experiment is not the gold standard of truth. It is the only standard. There is no other way to determine what is true and what is false.

People who put theory ahead of experiment, and reject results because they cannot be explained, are practicing a perverse form of religion, not science.

JedRothwell

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Mainline science rejected it for purely political reasons.

I'm not even sure what that means. Can you expand on it? Do you mean preserving old methods, like the cases of the horse and buggy, or steam locomotives when they became obsolete? Do you mean universities, big companies, entrepreneurs, and the military would not explore a promising energy technology because they hate change so much? Of course, all of that is complete nonsense.

I am pretty sure that what is compelling evidence to you and a very tiny group of physicists and chemist is simply not all that compelling to the people who make decisions on where money goes. Nobody and no company turns down promising billion dollar propositions.

And if you claim hot fusion is the guilty party, how do they influence private capital? The Musks, Gates, Bezos, Zuckerbergs, Kochs and the like? They don't give a rat's ass for hot fusion. They are not investing in it. They do not consider cold fusion competition. And very few of the very rich have invested anything substantial in cold fusion. It's not for lack of trying. Obviously Kimmel is interested and disappointed. And Dick Smith was interested in Rossi et al way back when and so was Elforsk and National Instruments and not to forget NASA and several small companies like Quantum (Australia) but we know how that all ended. But the way it ended was that the claims were not credible. It was never for a lack of interest or politics, whatever that means.

So what do you mean "political?"

Quote from JedRothwell

That turns the scientific method upside-down. If that were the standard, no unexplained evidence, and no evidence contradicting theory would be accepted.

Based on my post above there are two cases in either one of which change happens:

(1) in spite of no alt hypothesis, there is some anomaly that becomes compelling as it is replicated. Typically indications that are marginal initially are found in some replicable experiment to be strong. It can take some time for that to happen, but when it does more people jump onto the experiments and theoreticians try to find alt theories.

(2) Even though the experimental evidence is weak an alt theory has been proposed and those mavericks advocating this (which science encourages) propose new and more definitive experiments. This lives or dies by the subsequent results.

That seems about right to me.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

When the experiment is solid, impressive and reproducible by many people in its exact original form. You think that criterion is met for cold fusion.

I know for a fact it has been met. Both the exact form, with the same instruments, and variations of that form with flow, Seebeck and other instruments. That strengthens the claim.

As I said, thousands of distinguished experts agree with me. Not a single one agrees with you. There are no critical papers in the literature showing errors in the experiments, or conforming your claim that the results were not replicated exactly. You made that up.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Mainline science rejected it for purely political reasons.

I'm not even sure what that means. Can you expand on it? Do you mean preserving old methods . . .

If you do not know that means, you do not know much about the history of science. I suggest you read about the opposition to the laser, the MRI, continental drift, and hundreds of other examples. Read the autobiography of Townes, describing the hysterical opposition he met when he constructed the maser and laser. He described two Nobel laureates and many other distinguished scientists who tried to "strangle the baby in the crib." He said that if he had not had tenure, it never would have seen the light of day. Ah, I found some of the quotes from his book:

. . . One day after we had been at it for about two years, Rabi and Kusch, the former and current chairmen of the department—both of them Nobel laureates for work with atomic and molecular beams, and both with a lot of weight behind their opinions—came into my office and sat down. They were worried. Their research depended on support from the same source as did mine. "Look," they said, "you should stop the work you are doing. It isn't going to work. You know it's not going to work. We know it's not going to work. You're wasting money. Just stop!"

The problem was that I was still an outsider to the field of molecular beams, as they saw it. . . . I simply told them that I thought it had a reasonable chance and that I would continue. I was then indeed thankful that I had come to Columbia with tenure. (p. 65)

Before—and even after—the maser worked, our description of its performance met with disbelief from highly respected physicists, even though no new physical principles were really involved. Their objections went much deeper than those that had led Rabi and Kusch to try to kill the project in its cradle . . .

Llewelyn H. Thomas, a noted Columbia theorist, told me that the maser flatly could not, due to basic physics principles, provide a pure frequency with the performance I predicted. So certain was he that he more or less refused to listen to my explanations. After it did work, he just stopped talking to me. . . .

Here is a partial list of discoveries that met strong opposition:

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38

Quote from JedRothwell

If you do not know that means, you do not know much about the history of science. I suggest you read about the opposition to the laser, the MRI, continental drift, and hundreds of other examples. Read the autobiography of Townes, describing the hysterical opposition he met when he constructed the maser and laser. He described two Nobel laureates and many other distinguished scientists who tried to "strangle the baby in the crib." He said that if he had not had tenure, it never would have seen the light of day.

Here is a partial list of discoveries that met strong opposition:

http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html#j38

Yeah, yeah. But the opposition didn't matter in the long run because the evidence for the effects or devices grew stronger and more compelling with time and better replications. Besides, now, we have the internet where anyone can write their results and solicit funds. And investors and entrepreneurs do not care one crumb about university politics or what "distinguished scientists" say. They examine the evidence and hire their own experts. Why don't you try to convince one or two. Hopefully, they will do better than Kimmel.

F&P and many others had almost 20 years to prove their case to the world of science and investors. They were significantly supported by governments and industry. Apparently, nobody with lots of money was convinced. Since 1989!! Want to argue about that?

ETA: BTW, that list of opposed ideas is pretty desperate. It includes things that are still controversial (nanobacteria for example), things from ancient history, things which would be instantly accepted in the era of internet, and so on. There are certainly some good examples of valid work being opposed (for example the discovery that bacteria cause some "peptic" ulcers in the human GI tract). But even that example is very incomplete-- many people did believe and act on the result of the elegant but dangerous experiments which proved it. And of course, as time went on, the discoverers were more and more vindicated. This has not happened with cold fusion. Not in 28 years.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Many disagree and apparently, those who have or control money are, with rare exceptions, included in that group.

Yes, of course many disagree. That's why cold fusion is not funded, and why researchers were fired for presenting positive results. But you miss the point. Those who disagree have no rational basis for their opinions. They have not examined the experiments or found any errors in them. They have not published any papers showing errors. Morrison tried to do this, but he failed, as you see in his paper. THHuxleynew claims that he found errors in the boil-off experiments, but he is mistaken. All of the errors he listed were addressed by F&P.

Saying "I disagree" is not a valid scientific argument. You have to give valid, technical reasons for disagreeing. Most of the mainstream scientists along with the editors at Sci. Am., the Washington Post and others who strongly oppose cold fusion know nothing about it. They have no idea what instruments have been used, what has been observed, or what those observations mean. They do not even realize the experiments were widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios. So, obviously, they have no basis to oppose the research, or disbelieve the claims. A person who knows nothing about a scientific claim cannot oppose it or support it.

Most of the critics merely parrot other critics or Wikipedia, repeating the kind of nonsense you just wrote, that cold fusion was not replicated in the "exact original form." That is nonsense on two levels: first, it was replicated exactly; second, an exact replication has never been a criterion of experimental science. The second, third and subsequent replications of the transistor, cloned sheep, the computer, the maser and laser and many other discoveries were quite different and much improved over the original. No one ever built a copy of the ENIAC computer. The second computer was far better than ENIAC. No one ever replicated the 1903 Wright Flyer (the first airplane). * The second, third and other airplanes made by the Wrights were far better. By your standard, that means computers and airplanes do not exist.

* Well, okay, in 2003 some people did replicate that airplane closely. Expert pilots were not able to fly it, which did not surprise me or anyone else who knows about early aviation. The Wrights flew it 4 times before it was smashed up and destroyed that day. They saw it had many design problems, which they addressed in the next airplane they made. Along similar lines, the people who made ENIAC immediately set about making better computers.