F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

    • Official Post

    Even if 99% of what Ascoli says was true, it would not be a definitive proof there is nothing behind LENR numerous experiments, and his enthusiasm would be there only to push more research with more attention to more details.


    I understand scientist who believe in their experiments, and skeptics who warn them to check details. that is sincerity, science, humanity, and prudence.

    I understand also, but with more sadness when uncertainty in evidences is exploited to support certainty of absence.

    https://scholar.princeton.edu/…u/files/redp_255_0665.pdf

    It is a human kind of sincerity to believe in your own lies, as some con-artists do.


    Anyway, all have been said since month, on both side.

    Many experiments cannot be done again to check claimed pitfalls, or have already been done the way to cancel the warnings, and have not convinced...


    I share the feeling of many here that the future is in dry powders, in nickel hydrogen, but scientifically I feel that wet PdD (or Fralick-like permeation) is the best lab-rat... that is an incompetent feeling, so to take with a grain of salt.


    I would propose someone repeats an F&P/Miles/Storms/McKubre/Violante/Letts experiment, but it seems they have done it recently, and nobody cared, still criticizing F&P89-92.


    Maybe is it like what Mickel McKubre explained at ICCF21, that his initial position what very negative on F&P experiments, despite Fleishmann was one of his professors, UNTIL HE MADE IT HIMSELF.

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    Edmund Storms say about the same, and it seems to be the standard pathway for the best LENR experimenters, to have started convinced it was a mistake, but anyway trying to find experimentally what was the mistake.


    It is hopeless... Cold Fusion is just one of the oldest delusion of our time. I mean that it is not proven.

    Quote from RobertBryant

    It is your view Ascoli65 and only your view.


    Take off the foam covered glasses and check out the real world.

    Check out how much support you have on this thread for your view

    your one and only Ascolian view


    Are you really equating the LENR-Forum with the real world? You should agree that, at least from a statistical point of view, the real world outside this forum has a totally different perception of the reality of Cold Fusion.


    Anyway, the fundamental importance given by the LENR community to the 1992 boil-off experiment and to the related documents is well documented in literature and in internet debates. It is not my view.


    The reactions to my comments were also easily predictable. I chose to share my criticisms about the major paper of the CF founders on a forum aiming to promote the research in this field. What should I have expected: praises, congratulations, likes? I'm only thankful to admins for their hospitality and to mods for their fairness, which allowed me to get what I was looking for and that I couldn't have found elsewhere: a strong criticism of my remarks. Exactly what was needed to test and verify their validity. In addition, I also received some rare but highly useful and appreciated direct support. What more should I have asked for?

    Quote from Ascoli65

    Anyway, the fundamental importance given by the LENR community to the 1992

    Anyway,? No way ,,, not anyway..

    only Ascoli65 in his fundamental obsession makes his foamy interpretation of one 1992 paper

    out of hundreds of LENR evidences over three decades

    the central bubble of his foamy hyposcience.


    Ascoli65 reminds everyone on this forum of the importance

    of observation, measurement and calculation

    all of which Ascoli65 shows extreme deficiency in.


    Where is that fictitious Term 5 that Ascoli65 was persistent about for many posts..?

    Ascoli65 alleged that it was missing from Fleischmann's calculations 30 years ago.

    Ascoli65 couldn't do the math to recognise it was in Term 3 and Term4 already.

    Has Term5 disappeared from the thread like foam? ... Not quite. Not anyway.

    Not until after March 24

    MIT will have real science on March 23/24..

    Ascoli65 will not be at the MIT colloquium http://iscmns.org/2018/12/2019-colloquium-at-mit/

    ICMNS is not a forum for foam or fiction .



    Quote from AlainCo

    Even if 99% of what Ascoli says was true, it would not be a definitive proof there is nothing behind LENR numerous experiments,


    I agree. In the sense that what I said in recent months refers to the 1992 boil-off experiment, therefore, logically speaking, only that single experiment is disproved by my criticisms, assuming they are true. But in practice, this has an impact also on the scientific reliability of F&P and of the other CF researchers who have endorsed those specific wrong results. This impact doesn't automatically disprove the other tests performed by them, it only increases the factual confirmations required to believe in the validity of these tests. This limited consequence requires, however, that the LENR community recognizes the error of the 1992 boil-off experiment, because if, on the contrary, it denies the evidence of a clearly wrong experiment, it loses any credibility necessary to successfully defend the validity of the remaining tests.


    Quote

    … and his enthusiasm would be there only to push more research with more attention to more details


    I understand scientist who believe in their experiments, and skeptics who warn them to check details. that is sincerity, science, humanity, and prudence.


    This is also understandable. But IMO, before engaging in more research, the field should carefully analyze the results collected in the past experiments. The first step should be to verify the internal congruity of these results and only after having excluded any obvious error, it would make sense to perform other experiments with more attention to more details.


    Quote

    I understand also, but with more sadness when uncertainty in evidences is exploited to support certainty of absence.


    I understand it is sad for those who enthusiastically believe in the soundness of their results, but it is, and must be, the norm. In claiming the discovery of a new extraordinary phenomena all uncertainties play in favor of the old ordinary status. It's the duty of the discoverers to reduce as much as possible the area of uncertainty, by putting at disposition of the scientific community all the information useful to remove as many doubts as possible.


    Quote

    I would propose someone repeats an F&P/Miles/Storms/McKubre/Violante/Letts experiment, but it seems they have done it recently, and nobody cared, still criticizing F&P89-92.


    IMO, speaking about the 1992 boil-off experiment of F&P, its many replication attempts have been carried out pursuing the wrong goal, ie obtaining TRUE positives.


    It would have been more meaningful pursuing a FALSE positive replication. It wouldn't be much expensive, because it would be achieved quite easily. The aim should be to reproduce a rapid decrease of the cell volumetric content as shown in the 1992 video, but providing the calorimeter with a continuous monitoring of the cell mass. The probable observation of a progressive decreasing of the cell mass in line with the electric energy dissipated inside the cell would eliminate any doubt about the misinterpretation of the results of the 1992 experiment.

    Quote from Ascoli65

    discuss about the two founders of CF and their experiments.. 26th February

    In 3 weeks in this thread Ascoli65

    has   discussed promulgated two new fictions.

    Two fictions to add to the

    old "foam in a testtube fiction


    1. Fleischmann said in 1994

    It is only a matter of 3 months to a prototype .

    2. Fleischmann left out a

    fifth term from his equations

    Ascoli65 shows instead that


    1 He blatanty misquotes.


    No one said Ït is only a matter except Ascoli65.


    2. He can't do math.


    There is no missing fifth term.


    No, the absence of Term5 is still important of course, but it's not the main issue of the 1992 paper (1). Let me better explain. This major paper of F&P is full of errors of many kinds: substantial, conceptual and formal.


    In Equation [1], the lack of a term, that you call Term5, accounting for the enthalpy carried away by the steam bubbles is a conceptual error. It wouldn't have been an error if F&P had limited the application of Equation [1], and of the other derived equations, to cell conditions far from the boiling point. But, F&P have used Equation [4], derived from Equation [1], to draw the curves shown on Figure 7 and to deduce some considerations relative to the boiling timing. This is a nonsense.


    Moreover, paper (1) contains several formal errors. The most incredible one is shown on Page 16, the most important of the paper because it contains the energy balance of the boil-off phase, where the first equivalence is dimensional wrong, because of the missing of the time value:


    JUGEMKw.jpg


    Of course, a typo like this could happen, especially in a paper written in hurry for a congress, in this case the ICCF3 held in October 1992. What is really striking is that the same identical error appeared 7 months later, in May 1993, on the equivalent article published in a peer reviewed scientific journal (2):


    N4BazKi.jpg


    But the most serious ones are the substantial errors, those which invalidates the 2 conclusions of the 1992 paper (1). These are the 2 conclusions:

    From Page 19 of http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf : [bold and color added]


    We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even for this highly inefficient system; the specific excess rates are broadly speaking in line with those achieved in fast breeder reactors. We also draw attention to some further important features: provided satisfactory electrode materials are used, the reproducibility of the experiments is high; following the boiling to dryness and the open-circuiting of the cells, the cells nevertheless remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, Fig 8; furthermore the Kel-F supports of the electrodes at the base of the cells melt so that the local temperature must exceed 300ºC.


    The first conclusion is based on the results of the calculation on Page 16. The about four times energy gain is given by: [(171+11)-37.5]/37.5 = 144.5/37.5 = 3.85. All these values were derived from the assumption that half of the water content of each cell has vaporized during the last 600 s of the boil-off phase. But, as shown by the lab video (3,4), during the last boil-off period the cells were mostly filled by foam and steam bubbles. Moreover the 600 s period has no experimental basis (5).


    The second conclusion states that one cell (namely Cell 2) has remained at high temperature for more than 3 hours (as indicated in Fig.8) after the complete dryness of the cell. This conclusion is also wrong, because, as shown by the video (6), Cell 2 dried out more than 2 hours after the time indicated on Fig.8.


    Having determined the successive course of the research on Cold Fusion, these two substantial errors are much more important than the other conceptual and formal errors, even if all of them are serious, and would require a clarification from the LENR experts who are going to meet tomorrow at MIT, Boston.


    (1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

    (2) http://coldfusioncommunity.net…n-Pons-PLA-Simplicity.pdf

    (3) FP's experiments discussion

    (4) FP's experiments discussion

    (5) FP's experiments discussion

    (6) FP's experiments discussion

    Quote from zorud

    To me and probably many others here it would be way less distracting

    Finally. ! Thanks so much Zorud.:)

    Why have not more people responded in like fashion


    The endless tirades are perpetuated by an anonymous Ascoli65

    He believes that his little pixel and anecdote SHOW will influence

    all the LENR researchers in the world to give up LENR research.


    In his myopic view he sees the whole world listening.

    In reality 99.9% of the viewers on Lenr Forum AVOID this

    little Ascoli65 thread like the plague.


    Ascoli65 started it and he can finish it.. ALONE

    It might take him 10 UNANSWERED posts to realise

    his lack of significance to the world.... or more.

    But who's counting. Who cares?

    Quote from Ascoli65

    No, the absence of Term5 is still important of course


    There IS NO "term5" missing, but I'm giving up giving you chemistry lessons.


    I'll give you one hint though. Think of the graph below, and think of your misconception of term 4 describing water vapor "only in the O2 and D2 bubbles"


    P= Vapor pressure

    P'= Atmospheric pressure (Here assumed P'=100 KPa to illustrate my point)



    And by the way the graph above is going to infinity, it does not stop.


    And at the same time think of the balance of vapor (Mv) and O2 (Mo) and D2 (Md) that always must be fulfilled by below expression, and therefore Mv must be expressed both by vapor pressure and the amount of O2 and D2 generated.


    Mv / (Mv+Md+Mo) = P / P*



    And as most of your other claims also this one is wrong ;)

    Oystla, your calc is way off... misses the important facts...


    From Fleischmancalorimetr.pdf


    "The term [Eq. A3.2 ] is the enthalpy content of the gas stream relative to the enthalpy content at the temperature of the thermostat. The heat capacitances have been taken to be independent of the temperature and the gas stream has been assumed to be saturated with D2O vapor at the partial pressure P which applies to the cell temperature; P* is the atmospheric pressure and L is the enthalpy of evaporation of D2O which has been assumed to be independent of temperature."


    P* = 1 atm, P is the variable, P/(P*-P) will be called the Pfactor.


    For water, vapor pressure can be found here: http://www.wiredchemist.com/chemistry/data/vapor-pressure


    vp(20C) = 17.5 Torr = 0.0230 atm Pfactor = .0230/(1-.0230) = .0235

    vp(50C) = 92.5 Torr = .122 atm Pfactor = .122/(1-.122) = .139


    Pfactor ratio = 5.91


    Therefore, whatever the watts are from the electrolysis gas loss, it is counted as excess heat since F&P

    dropped the gamma term, and going from an operating temp of 20C to 50C increases that term by

    ~6X, and that gets progressively worse the higher the temp. We should be able to speak

    in percentages however, so the 'acceptable' (By F&P and Bockris) 2% error becomes a 12% error

    at 50C.


    All of the reported excess heats in the non-HAD region can be accounted for by this.


    Also note the Cp terms have a significant temperature dependence in this range. Dropping that out of the term is another error generating mechanism.

    Quote from oystla

    There IS NO "term5" missing,


    Equation [1] in the F&P paper (1) lacks a term accounting for the enthalpy carried away by the steam produced by boiling, which has been replaced by a question mark on my original jpeg (2) and then renamed Term5 by RobertBryant (3). Anyway, yes, I confirm that Term5 is missing.


    Quote from oystla

    I'll give you one hint though. Think of the graph below, and think of your misconception of term 4 describing water vapor "only in the O2 and D2 bubbles"

    P= Vapor pressure

    P'= Atmospheric pressure (Here assumed P'=100 KPa to illustrate my point)

    7974-pasted-from-clipboard-png
    And by the way the graph above is going to infinity, it does not stop.


    What I think? At first glance, your last lesson reminds me of sloppiness: the formula in the graph title is wrong and the "k" prefix for "kilo" is written as "K". Even if these are minor errors, they are not a good presentation card and explain why you value F&P papers so much.


    Your graph also makes me think that you don't read my replies with the necessary attention. I already told you (4) that, in your previous equation, the "denominator (P'/P-1) goes to zero". I well know that its inverse P/(P'-P) goes to infinite. This is exactly one of the reason, not the only one, which demonstrates that Equation [1] in the F&P paper (1) is not suitable to represent the loss of enthalpy due to the vapor produced at boiling!


    Quote

    And at the same time think of the balance of vapor (Mv) and O2 (Mo) and D2 (Md) that always must be fulfilled by below expression, and therefore Mv must be expressed both by vapor pressure and the amount of O2 and D2 generated.


    Mv / (Mv+Md+Mo) = P / P*


    I have already explained (2) why the F&P calorimeter model is not applicable to boiling conditions. But perhaps you are more inclined to trust a CF-ist like Lonchampt, who wrote in 1996:

    From http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LonchamptGreproducti.pdf [bold and note added]


    c) Boiling θ > 99°C


    The boiling temperature is only progressively reached as the bubbles, here initiated by electrolysis incorporate more and more water vapor. In this region, the full calculation using equation (1) gives wrong positive excess heat measurements, and therefore cannot be applied. This is probably due to an erroneous estimation of “B” which is very sensitive to pressure and temperature measurements. Up until now we have not been able to get a good blank experiment with platinum in this region using the full equation. Therefore, instead, we use the measurement of the enthalpy produced to evaporate the total amount of water contained in the cell, as described in section 3.2.


    [Added note: the cited term "B" is given by Equation (3) in the Lonchampt paper, which in turn corresponds to your formula]


    Leaving aside the sloppiness and the inaccuracies also present in his paper, Lonchampt chose to switch from his Equation [1] to his equation [6] when the cell temperature became greater than 99°C. If you look at Fig.8 in the F&P paper (1), you will see that this level is exceeded many hours before the dry-out of the cell (Cell 2 in this case). Also consider that the dry-out time in Fig.8 is misrepresented (5).


    Quote

    And as most of your other claims also this one is wrong ;)


    … and your last objection to my claims is right as ALL of your previous ones! ;)


    (1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

    (2) F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

    (3) F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

    (4) F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

    (5) FP's experiments discussion


    Haha, what you did not get is that the saturated vapor rate term (.....because of P/(P'-P) ) increases way way more than what you are able to fit into your saturated O2 and D2 bubble part of the expression.


    And you still not get that the expression

    Mv / (Mv+Md+Mo) = P / P*


    Is correct. Sigh.


    Lonchampt refer to the practical measurments. F&P developped the theoretical expressions, which you are challenging.


    And they would have noticed that the heat transfer coefficient kr where wrong If the vapor term was incorrect.


    Kirk, I used values for H2O saturated vapor pressure to illustrate a point.

    , i.e, how P/(P'P) develop as vapor pressure approach atmospheric pressure.


    And the main point is the the F&P expressions for gas escaping the cell cover both all O2 all D2 and all saturated D2O vapor.


    There is no D2O vapor term missing in the F&P expression. Ascoli thinks F&P only included vapor inside O2 and D2 bubles escaping the cell, but he is dead wrong.

    Quote from oystla

    And the main point is the the F&P expressions for gas escaping the cell


    ...miss the most important fact of all, that the magnification effect of the Pfactor term covers all the reported excess heat values in the non-HAD region. Given the HAD region claims are silly too, F&P were totally working in the noise and didn't know it because they didn't quantitatively evaluate their error.

    Quote from kirkshanahan

    ...miss the most important fact of all, that the magnification effect of the Pfactor term covers all the reported excess heat values in the non-HAD region. Given the HAD region claims are silly too, F&P were totally working in the noise and didn't know it because they didn't quantitatively evaluate their error.

    haha, you have discovered something that neither Wilson, Hansen or any of the other critics found, or F&P themselves in all the discussions they had on the issue 😉


    Congratulations🤓

    Quote from oystla

    Haha, what you did not get is that the saturated vapor rate term (.....because of P/(P'-P) ) increases way way more than what you are able to fit into your saturated O2 and D2 bubble part of the expression.


    It's obvious to everyone that P/(P'-P) goes to infinity as P approaches P', therefore this factor allows the calculated vapor to exceed any value, including the amount necessary to saturate the D2 and O2 bubbles. But this is precisely one of the reasons why Equation [1] in the F&P paper (1), in which the vapor mass depends on this term, is not suitable to represent the vapor produced at boiling conditions!


    Quote

    And you still not get that the expression

    Mv / (Mv+Md+Mo) = P / P*


    Is correct. Sigh.


    I have already told you (2) that it is correct as long as the quantity Mv "refers only to the vapor which saturates the streams of D2 and O2 bubbles produced by electrolysis". Sigh.


    Quote

    Lonchampt refer to the practical measurments. F&P developped the theoretical expressions, which you are challenging.


    At boiling temperature, Lonchampt (3) switched from his Equation [1], equivalent to the Equation [1] of the F&P paper (1), to his Equation [6], which no longer contains the nor-treatable term P/(P'-P). Lonchampt has changed equation because, at boiling conditions, the F&P calorimeter model doesn't allow any practical evaluation of the heat balance.


    Quote

    And they would have noticed that the heat transfer coefficient kr where wrong If the vapor term was incorrect.


    Who? F&P? I doubt it. It seems that they only noticed what was convenient for their FPE hypothesis. The curves on Figure 7(C) of their 1992 paper (1) show the kR trend during the boiling period and should have warned them - as well as any other reader of their paper - that there their calorimeter model was not suitable for those boiling conditions.


    (1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf

    (2) F&P's experiments – 30 years after CF announcement

    (3) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/LonchamptGreproducti.pdf

    Quote from Ascoli65

    It's obvious to everyone that P/(P'-P) goes to infinity as P approaches P', therefore this factor allows the calculated vapor to exceed any value, including the amount necessary to saturate the D2 and O2 bubbles. But this is precisely one of the reasons why Equation [1] in the F&P paper (1), in which the vapor mass depends on this term, is not suitable to represent the vapor produced at boiling conditions!


    Ascoli: May be you missed some (or all) basic physics & chemistry lessons. P is a partial pressure and thus very small the value in P'-P will (P' ambient pressure) will never even be close to 0. It's your understanding of Chemistry that is close to 0!

    Quote from Wyttenbach

    Ascoli65 wrote:

    It's obvious to everyone that P/(P'-P) goes to infinity as P approaches P', ...


    Ascoli: May be you missed some (or all) basic physics & chemistry lessons. P is a partial pressure and thus very small the value in P'-P will (P' ambient pressure) will never even be close to 0. It's your understanding of Chemistry that is close to 0!

    • JedRothwell likes this.


    Well, I think it is your understanding in mathematics that is very scarce, but fortunately you are going to revolutionize only nuclear physics, not mathematics. :)


    In any case, I let oystla the pleasure of explaining you why his curve goes to infinity:

    Quote from oystla

    I'll give you one hint though. Think of the graph below, and think of your misconception of term 4 describing water vapor "only in the O2 and D2 bubbles"


    P= Vapor pressure

    P'= Atmospheric pressure (Here assumed P'=100 KPa to illustrate my point)

    7974-pasted-from-clipboard-png


    And by the way the graph above is going to infinity, it does not stop.

    • JedRothwell, Alan Smith and zorud like this.


    From my own, I would be curious to know the criteria used by JedRothwell to give his likes.

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