How do you convince a skeptic?

    • Official Post

    If you read his experimental history you will se that Holmlid et al have also investigated the spectrum of RF emissions from his special hydrogen. I guess he used a pocket radio. Bur seriously it does seem to suggest that he has access to in-house expertise about RFI even if we make the big assumption that he doesn't himself.



  • Robert - no you could not assume what I said (high dv/dt di/dt edges) just from that. 2V/us is a pathetic low dv/dt. And no likelihood of significant high di/dt. Of course whether they actually matter depends on many things, but would not be considered necessarily by someone doing ToF measurements.

  • 2V/us is a pathetic low dv/dt. And no likelihood of significant high di/dt

    Most probably, as in Experimentation 101, Holmlid employed controls


    Laser with no D2 .. observed the signal

    Laser with D2 .. observed the signal


    If there was significant NOISE/EMI/etc he may have employed more shielding etc and perhaps even used the inhouse expertise.

    Holmlid is no newbie in this research


    no you could not assume what I said (high dv/dt di/dt edges) just from that


    Thanks for that EE expertise. I disn't know that


    I think Holmlid has a legitimate grievance about Plos One when he writes

    "

    The suggested problem with "amplified electronics placed in the

    vicinity of intense laser irradiation experiments" is easily disproved by the

    results given in the paper. Three different decay time constants are measured,

    which agree with the well-known meson decay time constants. The time constants

    are different at the inner and the outer collector just moving the cable with

    the laser and the oscilloscope unchanged. The decay time constants are also

    different with different collector bias."


  • I've never commented on Plos One and the issue about lasers and electronics. I was making a more general point about experimental data illustrated by the issue, which I'm aware of, of EMC from fast electrical edges. No experimenter is expert in everything, and when unexpected effects cause artifacts in a particular type of experiment they are not guaranteed to be picked up by an experimenter, which is why we have peer review, replication, etc. Plasma physics experiments do not necessarily imply good understanding of EMC although the various MTF strategies (Lerner LLP), using very powerful magnetic pulses, will force any researcher to be head of the pack in that area. That is where I disagree about Jed and "100s of electrochemists". Take a highly unusual electrolysis experiment, run under conditions never normally found, and the normal experimental assumptions of what matters and what does not might break. That of course does not mean they do break - just that great care is needed and replication in different ways. For example, with LENR, one would hope for (but generally this has not happenned) evidence of high energy particles since these are 100s of times more sensitive to LENR than any other way of detecting it. The absence of this (Alan's claimed but not yet published results excepted, and some CR39 film results that are questionable because of known other mechanisms that create tracks) is what is always caused problems for LENR hypotheses and driven theory in highly difficult directions (how do you couple single particle high energies to very large numbers of particles).


    Holmlid's argument here is a good one, logically, and what I'd like more people to make. It could indeed be used as evidence for a particular interpretation of the experimental data (mesons), so Holmlid is right to argue in this way.


    However before agreeing with it here I want more details. A proper measurement of how powerful is this match. Starting with a clean slate (an expectation of something nuclear but no details) there are possibly quite a number of different possible hits, involving different particles. In the past LF has explained experimental data using clusters of charged nuclei, and in some cases exotic unexpected clusters. So we have a potentially very wide range of hypotheses (and therefore the ability to get an apparent hit with one of these by chance). For mesons alone we have some 20 or so particles, all with different decays. Having said that only 3 have decay times longer than 1ns so if he is matching quite long decays and knows mesons are the only candidate the "which particle" free parameters goes away. There are maybe other free parameters. Holmlid says here that decay rate depends on collector potential. I think what he means is that the overall decay, from which individual particle decays rates can be deduced, is so dependent. But now we have an indirect match of the data to the individual decays, with at least two arbitrary parameters, the proportion of each type of meson, available to make a good match. This is a classic case where you need and can get a a careful analysis of how unlikely is it this data can be generated by adjusting arbitrary parameters. It needs to be very unlikely, taking all such parameters into account, to be strong evidence for this hypothesis.


    Do we have the paper linked? Vixra would take it, or LF could publish it personally in a uni repository.

  • its here already, the parts list, the reactor build and the science for each step. If you have participated in this forum ..years of reading, you know it's all here. no big money in this for the players.. just science~ If your really looking just spend the $300 and let it rip. The papers are here~

  • If you read his experimental history you will se that Holmlid et al have also investigated the spectrum of RF emissions from his special hydrogen. I guess he used a pocket radio. Bur seriously it does seem to suggest that he has access to in-house expertise about RFI even if we make the big assumption that he doesn't himself.



    This is not very relevant to anything, but as a general point:


    • Investigating RF spectra says nothing about awareness of pulse-generated EMI issues on sensitive DC sensors
    • laser-generated EMI issues are something else again, and quite separate from pulse-generated EMI issues.


    It would be possible for somone to be aware of either laser or pulse EMI issues while not thinking the other one was an issue. Also possible (likely) for somone to measure RF spectra of plasma with no idea about either laser-induced or pulse-induced EMI.


    Normally, when publication is refused due to an issue (in this case PLOS ONE I guess the possibility of laser-induced EMI is not ruled out) the response is to rewrite the paper dealing with the problem. That might need more experimental work - enough to show such effects in this case were not significant. Or well-founded quantitative bounding of the problem based on known parameters and other work. Whether or not EMI is an issue in the experiment, I'd not see rejection until such a hole is plugged as more than normal vigilance. It is helpful to the author because they end up with a stronger paper.


    I'd expect anyone proposing highly unusual phenomena (like mesons emitted from a low energy system without any radioactive nuclei) to expect and welcome critique asking for holes in the argument to be plugged.

  • Normally, when publication is refused due to an issue (in this case PLOS ONE I guess the possibility of laser-induced EMI is not ruled out) the response is to rewrite the paper dealing with the problem.


    The very same (as the rejected) publication part has been accepted and published many times before.


    But CERN needs new money for new fantasy and if somebody gets the same as them without money, they are out of the game. Or explained very simply: The physicists mafia has decide to hold Holmlid down...


    (The same they did to Mills about 20 years ago...)

  • Generally experimental data can be wrong

    Why don't we just leave it a that ... generally


    Because, as nearly all experimenters know, when your experiments deliver unpredicted and highly surprising results you spend much longer checking for artifacts than when they don't. This is not bias, or unfair treatment, but sensible understanding of the odds.


    Only when those surprising results come under the broad and not very well defined umbrella of LENR is this normal cautionary rule sometimes abandoned.

  • Only when those surprising results come under the broad and not very well defined umbrella of LENR

    So does under HIS broad and not very well defined LENR umbrella does EE generalist and not very well defined THHHuxleynew include


    the Fleischmann and Pons calorimetry

    the MIT replication of the same

    the Staker replication of the same

    the Holmlid reported laboratory results?

    the brollie I'm using today?

    • Official Post

    Because, as nearly all experimenters know, when your experiments deliver unpredicted and highly surprising results you spend much longer checking for artifacts than when they don't. This is not bias, or unfair treatment, but sensible understanding of the odds.


    We certainly do that very checking, double checking and more, system and method changes, continual equipment upgrades, data reviews and analysis, artifact hunts and creation attempts, sensor changes/duplication/triplication to look for discrepancies, and of course controls controls controls. Just so you know.

  • We certainly do that very checking, double checking and more, system and method changes, continual equipment upgrades, data reviews and analysis, artifact hunts and creation attempts, sensor changes/duplication/triplication to look for discrepancies, and of course controls controls controls. Just so you know.


    Thanks for that Alan. I've never thought otherwise. Which is why when you have something concrete enough to publish it should be a great event. :)

  • . Which is why when you have something concrete enough to publish it should be a great event.

    When Kirkshanahan publishes the experimental evidence for his 2002 CCS theory


    then I might believe THHuxleynew when he states


    "

    CCSH is a better fit to the known calorimetric facts in these experiments (excess proportional to heat in when effect is present). "


    Its strange that Kirkshanahan has gone quiet since I asked him if he has any experimental evidence


    How many year has it been ...17 since 2002?


    Kirkshanahan the electrochemist from the Southern Seminary.


  • Robert: what precisely about my posts is it that annoys you?


    I'll report on the ones I've looked at in detail.


    F&P - published results (as posted here by e.g. Jed) are poorly documented and arguable (and have n=been argued here ad infinitum). From my POV it is not the arguability, but the fact that teh paper describing the results is unfortunately vague, conflating sets of experiments, talking in general terms about what usually happens, etc. That would be appropriate when describing a known and accepted anomaly under long-term investigation (the way F&P thought about it perhaps) but not in knocking on the head all possible artifacts and providing clear evidence for a new extraordinary effect. I've never understood why we do not have the (earlier) key result papers posted here as definitive results: and assume therefore that nothing like that exists which has withstood valid criticism.


    MIT replication of the same: if you post a paper here we can discuss that - it is sort of relevant to "how do you convince a skeptic".


    Staker replication of the same: again, because my memory is not great, post a link. I think that was the guy who accepted everything F&P said and replicated both their results and the assumptions underlying them, with rather less checking. It is thus vulnerable to the same arguments that apply to F&P, but as always details matter (ironically my generalisation above which perhaps you did not like was about the invalidity of over-generalisation).

    Holmlid results. I read his initial ToF results, and UDD interpretation of them. Fascinating. I hoped for coherent development of that idea. The later experiments did not do that, instead the reported phenomena, and the suggested explanations, morphed in a way that greatly reduces the power of the whole set, because there is no significant prediction of specific unexpected results found true, and the suggested explanations get more complex, with more free parameters, as time goes on. I'd like Holmlid's stuff to cohere because he has definite experimental facts and ingenious explanations for them. It does not seem to do that, also it is notable that there is little coherence between his ideas and the anomalies claimed in your first three experiments.


    Your brollie: perhaps relevant to say that the LH results bear as much relevance to that as they do to the other results you quote, so this is not a coherent corpus.


    Incoherent anomalous results can end up being tied together by some completely new unexpected theory. Until that happens they do not add strength to each other. If your hypothesis is "Thar be anomalies!" it will match a wide variety of experiments and although it will naively seem predictive, it is not. For example from F&P we could get a prediction that certain electrolysis experiments using D2 deliver unexpected excess heat results. The underlying idea (D2 fusion) would naively have many other correlates . The history of LENR research has been looking for these and not finding them. Casting a wide net for any anomaly that could be explained by nuclear transformation we have a variety of results, none of which cohere well with the P&F results. Whereas what would correlate (Helium) has been tested and there are at the moment no strong results: Abd was talking about a funded attempt to replicate such results looking specifically for correlations: that was a few years ago and I've heard nothing.


    Alan claims (I think) unexpected gamma radiation from certain Ni/H lattice systems. There is some coherence between H/Ni lattice and D/Pd lattice. There is also some coherence with possible lattice shielding of protons/deuterons. Obviously more would be needed for the coherence to work, because of the high energy product coupling to very many particles. And something quite strange for a nuclear reaction in this environment to have such completely different branching ratios. You can imagine some coupling that would thermalise high energy products in some cases, more is needed - it must thermalise products in 99.9% of cases. (Not sure exact percentage, but it is high).


    On the other side, the wide variety of Ni-H calorimetry results seem cooherent with a variety of calorimetry errors since the observed excess heat happens only as a small percentage of the externally added heat. Few people comment on the unexpected nature of that. If there is some new nuclear reaction pathway it would be a strange coincidence for it to be highly temperature dependent in the range 270C - 700C when the nuclear activation energies are so much high then thermal. Yet no-one sees anything in any system without added power. Unexpected for any nuclear reaction, expected for a whole variety of calorimetry artifacts.


    Overall I see the Ni-H systems as being highly vulnerable to complete explanation as artifacts. There is very little high quality evidence from these of excess heat, none of it to my knowledge replicable. Take the current Rossi-style solid reactor experiments - of which there have been a vast number. Results that tempt me would be where the size of the excess COP increases when the reactor is redesigned having a lower (and adjustable) thermal conductivity to ambient. This would make reactor temperature more sensitive to genuine excess heat and allow all other parameters to be controlled. I believe that has been tried (I remember designs) but have not seen results - which makes me believe they were negative, or the experiment never happened. If it never happened then I'd say this should be done urgently, it would give more certainty positive or negative to the whole collection of such excess heat results. Also related to this is the Brian Aherne "oven" style of experiments which I believe were negative.


    So: if sustained Ni-H solid lattice excess heat exists then a class of experiments varying thermal conductivity from reactor to ambient would give strong evidence of this essentially orthogonal to other types of control (all of which have potential artifacts). Given the vast amount of effort put into such experiments, and lack of stand-out excess heat results, I'm negative on that. Positive "vary thermal conductivity" results validating excess heat >> chemical expected would make me positive. What I look for is some orthogonal way to check what the anomalous results (a temperature in this case) actually comes from.


    Alan's results thus at the moment for me are an interesting anomaly which does not cohere with other stuff: not a problem if they stand on their own. I wish him well but cannot be positive in absence of information.


    All of this is just straws in the wind - and leaves me uncertain. I'm trying to explain why at the moment my uncertainty has a strong skeptical slant. I look for things that cohere, and find mostly things that don't cohere, or, worse, cohere with a class of artifactual explanations.



  • Robert: I think you misunderstand this. If CCSH is a better fit to known calorimetric facts then those facts (specifically the way that broadly above chemical excess heat seems to go up with heat input, and is zero with no input) are the experimental evidence.


    You can quarrel with that, of course. And you can read Marwan et al and point out that there are a class of results that CCSH cannot explain, which I'd agree.


    Would you prefer it if I did not reply on this thread? Because while your points here have been interesting, your recent posts seem more personal.

  • Alan claims (I think) unexpected gamma radiation from certain Ni/H lattice systems.

    We do not use Ni/H. Deuterium is much more safe as it mostly fuses to 4-He with no neutrons.


    Regarding unexpected radiation: If your knowledge is based on world war II state of the art, then we easily see that you are not up to date. We can exactly predict which radiation we expect to see.

    Of course radiation caused by chemical heat e.g. 300C is not allowed in your WWII physics world, but as said it's only for you and other veteran thinkers a surprise.

  • I think you misunderstand this.If CCSH is a better fit to known calorimetric facts


    I do not misunderstand it. You forgot what you wrote.


    You did not write if. You wrote is


    This statement was not conditional.

    "CCSH is a better fit to the known calorimetric facts in these experiments (excess proportional to heat in when effect is present)."


    As for CCS , the socalled skeptic neutral THHuxley blindly quotes it without evening knowing what it is.

    There is zero experimental evidence for CCS after 17 years.

    Zero.

    "

    Kirk Shanahan coined the acronym (conditional calibration shift or something - I forget). But the idea, as I understand it, is simple. deltaT in calorimetry is related to power by a calibration curve experimentally derived from the tested system, or rather from a similar control, under conditions where power in is known."

  • On the one hand THHuxley denigrates the ample evidence of experimentalists like Dr Staker

    and Fleischmann



    but on the other hand takes the unproved theory of Kirkshanahan as fact.


    unproved, undemonstrated for 17 years

    Hypocritical to the max.


    Show me Kirkshanahan's electrochemical experimental work 1,2,10 papers? or ZERO!!!!


    Does it look like this?


    "

    The chemisorption behavior of a range of organic and inorganic molecules on the basal plane of ruthenium, Ru(001), was examined. The organic molecules included arenes, heteroaromatics, nitriles, and simple oxygen derivatives of hydrocarbons, such as acids"

    • Official Post

    It would be possible for somone to be aware of either laser or pulse EMI issues while not thinking the other one was an issue. Also possible (likely) for somone to measure RF spectra of plasma with no idea about either laser-induced or pulse-induced EMI.


    The particular experiment I was thinking of was performed not by Holmlid solely, but by a team of (from memory) five people. Are we to assume that not one of them working on the spot understood the issues as well as somebody 1000 miles away?

  • Overall I see the Ni-H systems as being highly vulnerable to complete explanation as artifacts.


    This statement seems a little disingenuous, (or perhaps just a bit forgetful) seeing as how you are still pointedly refusing (or are completely unable) to explain why your favoured ‘electrical input measurement’ artifacts only affect Brillouin’s fuelled Ni-H reactors, and not their control ones.

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