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

Quote from Ascoli65

Basic science requires that findings be adequately documented, especially when they are used to support extraordinary claims, such as the HAD. F&P failed to meet this fundamental requirement.

In the whole 1992 paper (1), the only explicit reference to the alleged phenomenon, that F&P will successively call "Heat After Death" (2), is contained in a couple of lines on the concluding page: "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".

All they have provided for demonstrating this extraordinary behavior are two vertical lines drawn on Fig 8 and placed in the wrong position (3).

To support an extraordinary claim like the HAD, any normal scientist would have provided at least the detailed curves of the electric parameters (current and voltage) recorded during the last boil-off hours of Cell 2. On the contrary, F&P deliberately omitted to report these basic data, either in their 1992 paper (1) and in all the several subsequent documents, including the 1993 paper specifically devoted to the presentation of this alleged phenomenon (2).

In conclusion, there is no reason to believe that any HAD event occurred during the 1992 boil-off experiment.

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

(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/PonsSheatafterd.pdf

(3) FP's experiments discussion

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Basic science happens when Scientists discover some strange anomalous phenomenon and writes papers on what they discovered, like the F&P papers.

Basic science is when Scientists describes what they did, their findings and their conclusions in papers, like F&P did.

Basic science is when critics study these papers and make a reply paper, which several did.

And Basic science is when critics search and read all there is to read on the matter to avoid misunderstandings and jump to the wrong conclusions, like the Ascoli conclusions on HAD 🤓😉

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/PonsSheatafterd.pdf

Quote from kirkshanahan

), although CCS/ATER can still apply if warranted.)

CCS/CCF is pseudo science

Were there no competent statisticians at DOE Savannah.???

Kirkshanahan states that CCS is possible, therefore it happens..

a bit like buckets of water evaporating in Sapporo

Kirkshanahan was found to be in error

with buckets of water on this forum but

The CCS/CCF paper is just sloppy bogus.

There are no errors in it

It isn't even wrong

It is every scientist's nightmare that their work would later be found to be in error.( or bogus)

Hi Rich,[Richard Murray} 12/26/2001 02:38 PM

Good to see you're still out there. If you recall, a long time ago you asked for someone to take a look at the calorimetry of the CFers. ...

But the impact of that minor difference was major in that it leads the CFers to believe they are observing CF excess power signals!

The problem I located can evidence anytime a calibration curve is used,

which includes practically _every known analytical chemistry method_,

not just mass flow calorimetry.

In other words, restricting myself to the CF arena,

today I am safe in saying that there are NO studies available in the literature that prove the problem I outline isn't there.

Thus to be conservative, we have to assume it is present, and that negates ALL the claims to excess power as detected by a calibrated method.

I think that is a pretty important claim in the CF arena, and all the principals who know about it are trying like mad to ignore me.

They have concocted a lot of reasons why my analysis must be wrong, but they never prove it is, so their reasons are just wishful thinking, or in many cases, outrightly wrong.

Further, Ed Storms wrote another CF review and posted it on his Web page recently.

It reminded me about McKubre's ICCF3 paper on CF calorimetry, and guess what?

It shows clear signs of the error I uncovered. That was back in the '91-'92 time frame!

I am really serious when I say I doubt any calorimetry claim for 'excess power'.

The caliber of the CF researchers will be shown in the next few months.

It is every scientist's nightmare that their work would later be found to be in error.

However, it happens all the time. Steve Jones and his neutron (or was it gammas?) counting are a prime example.

Now, all the CF calorimetrists are going to have to face the music, and realize they haven't proven their cases.

Maybe they have stored data they can trot out to prove they are right, but I would bet in most cases they don't.

We'll all just have to wait and see if we get any retractions or clarifications, or if they follow Storms' lead and try to ignore the problem, hoping it will go away.

That action is what clearly demonstrates their pathological behavior.

With regards to the Iwamura paper and SIMS 'evidence' of transmutations:

I was basically just responding to Jed Rothwell's statement that Ohmori and Iwamura were the 'best' evidence he had seen for transmutation.

Like you, I distrust SIMS for quantitative analysis, and I also was attempting to show that simple 'complex ion' considerations

could explain the 'anomalous' results that supposedly prove transmutation.

The whole concept is bogus, and it's another example of scientists using a fancy piece of equipment as a 'black box', and getting burned by that. …

 
I don't know if you are into the evolution/creation debate, but there's a very well written little book C1 00 pages)

by Philip Johnson called "Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds". P. Johnson is a Berkeley law professor

who looks at the evolution arguments as a lawyer trying a case, and he finds it wanting

. What impressed me so much was the clear parallels between the thought processes used by the evolutionists

and the cold fusioneers (not a topic of the book).

It seems that sloppy thinking is endemic to all human activities.

Please don't circulate this note. We will just have to wait and see what happens. Happy Holidays,

Kirk Shanahan P.S.. attached the manuscript of my soon-to-be-published Thermochimica Acta paper.

https://sti.srs.gov/fulltext/ms2000788/ms2000788.html

Quote from Ascoli65

I drew my conclusion about the unsoundness of the HAD event claimed in (1) on the basis of some specific facts........

You have linked the F&P paper which specifically describes the HAD phenomenon.

Did you find anything in it that contradicts my conclusion?

yes, so your "facts" must be...."alternative facts" 🤓😉

Quote from Alan Smith

all of which you have ignored or rejected.

Ascoli's alternative facts have suddenly become alternative explanations

Quote from RobertBryant

Ascoli's alternative facts have suddenly become alternative explanations

Not that suddenly. If you paid attention to the posts here (and, to be fair, I believe you have done that) you would note the alternatives, and be able to summarise the key differences between your views and Ascoli's and hence why your conclusions differ from his.

That would be interesting.

Whereas repeating "I am right, you are wrong" is less interesting.

At least for the P/(P*-P) term debate - the only bit of this I've taken much interest in, because it seemed definite:

(1) Ascoli & KS are correct it is an issue

(2) I have not done the work to bound it (need to work out for myself what KS is saying about the "gamma" term). It might bound in such a way as to justify KS's statements, or not. Again this is what it would be interesting to see laid out here.

Quote from THHuxleynew

have not done the work to bound it (need to work out for myself

Any date on that.... I heard some promises like that before..

Bon chance to the Ascoli65 TERM 5 gamma non-issue

Quote from THHuxleynew

That would be interesting.

It appears that Kirkshanahan's pseudoscience 2001 CCS/CCF

often..( ~50 times) touted and speculated

about by THHuxley/new

is SUDDENLY no longer interesting or an issue.

https://sti.srs.gov/fulltext/ms2000788/ms2000788.html

Quote from THHuxleynew

I have not done the work to bound it (need to work out for myself

While you are at it, I suggest you "work out" the details of your theory that the steam from Fleischmann's cells might push up drops of condensed water, enough to make it look like the cell is producing three times more heat than it is.

You may be more polite, but your claims and your theories are as crackpot as Shanahan's, Ascoli's or Morrison's. They are utterly impossible. And when I and others ask you for details, you point to Ascoli, or you claim falsely that you already provided the details, or you evade the issue. You may be polite but you insult the readers here just as much as you would with harsh language.

Quote from Ascoli65

1 – Fig.6B shows that the voltage of Cell 2 doesn't zeroed after the apparent peak (1);

You still don't understand ??? It can never go to 0. It must increase to max supplied, if correctly measured. Something THH could explain you too...

Quote from THHuxleynew

Ascoli & KS are correct it is an issue

The Ascoli&KS team,2019.

Give thanks

The world now is saved from F&P boiling.

Quote from JedRothwell

While you are at it, I suggest you "work out" the details of your theory that the steam from Fleischmann's cells might push up drops of condensed water, enough to make it look like the cell is producing three times more heat than it is.

You may be more polite, but your claims and your theories are as crackpot as Shanahan's, Ascoli's or Morrison's. They are utterly impossible. And when I and others ask you for details, you point to Ascoli, or you claim falsely that you already provided the details, or you evade the issue. You may be polite but you insult the readers here just as much as you would with harsh language.

Jed, you are very certain in all that you say. As such, except on certain very obvious issues (like Rossi) you and I are like to disagree. I am not so certain. You and others here take my lack of certainty as some bold certainty. It is not.

I truly do not know whether F's cells end up with recondensed water in their exhaust. I do not know enough to rule it out. My comment (that you say was a false claim) was that exhaust water could be either entrained directly or recondensed and therefore salt levels do not necessarily determine water vaporisation enthalpy from cell, as F&P state. That is a valid point, and one not considered here before I made it. It has not been answered. Their open cells are inherently difficult to make sure statements about: McKubre's closed cells inherently a better bet, as would be expected from a well-funded and careful replication.

It is ironic, though, that people here who support a minority and unproven hypothesis (LENR) should be dismissive of others who are truly skeptical. I understand the people here who view true neutralily over LENR as being in a 50/50 position, regardless. I'm not that. I am tantalised by hints that there is some real interesting phenomenon here. I see much of the claimed data as being definite interpretive error. I'm not clever enough, nor do I have enough information, to be sure of the rest. I look for coherence - of results that somehow support eachother. I have not found it yet but if I did my view would change. For example Holmlid's set of data is detailed, interesting, and I'm not expert enough in the relevant fields to say what are the possible misinterpretations, although I can make guesses based on Holmlid's response to criticism. If his data cohered with other reasonably convincing LENR data it would move me.

What does cohere mean? Something more specifically correlated than just two sets of results both of which, interpreted in what seems the only way, are inexplicable without some arbitrary hypothesis of nuclear activity. Why is Holmlid's LENR giving him such obvious high energy products, whereas almost all other LENR does not do that - except a few experiments that possibly show alphas (PAB) or gammas (AS)? No coherence. And neither result has yet reached the level of definiteness that would make a strong paper - even though in both cases if some new reaction did generate high energy particles (or unstable isotopes decaying to such particles), it would be very surprising for the reactants to stay always stubbornly in the noise. Similarly with excess heat. If LENR reactors can really generate 10s of Watts of excess heat measuring this indisputably ought not to be difficult. E.g. a dogbone style reactor with good thermal insulation should show much higher COP than the same without.

That is the reason why I am broadly negative over LENR, but unlike those who dismiss skeptical arguments, I don't dismiss the possibility, and remain interested. and at times fascinated.

Everyone is entitled to their own views. I'll say this. If LENR researchers were more tolerant of those, like me, who have a high bar of proof for such an incoherent (at the moment) hypothesis, and understood the logic for the incoherence meaning the bar higher, they would be more likely to communicate well with and win the trust of more mainstream scientists. LENR, as a research field, needs those who are skeptical more than it needs believers.

Alan will perhaps say that he has done all this: which if true I applaud. I cannot say anything on this matter since he has not disclosed the evidence that is so convincing.

Quote from THHuxleynew

If LENR researchers were more tolerant of those, like me, who have a high bar of proof f

THHuxley does not have high bar of proof for CCS ' theory; by Kirkshanahan

and is the main promulgator of it on this forum.

It is an unsupported and vague hypothesis

and Kirkshanahan has not bothered to prove it or even communicate about it

in a transparent and understandable way

Mere publication in a low impact

journal in 2001 followed by decades of forum posturing

doesn't reach my bar of proof

Quote from THHuxleynew

I truly do not know whether F's cells end up with recondensed water in their exhaust. I do not know enough to rule it out. My comment (that you say was a false claim) was that exhaust water could be either entrained directly or recondensed and therefore salt levels do not necessarily determine water vaporisation enthalpy from cell, as F&P state. That is a valid point, and one not considered here before I made it. It has not been answered.

No, it is not a valid point. The control experiments showed that it is not happening. Experiments are the only standard of truth in science. Once a question has been put to the test and decided by experiment, it makes no sense for you to say "it has not been answered." Experiments are the one and only answer to any scientific question.

Furthermore, you speculated that the mechanism that would remove the drops is steam pressure. What other mechanism could there be? Drops of water do not defy gravity, go up the walls of a glass cell, and leave by themselves. However, the pressure is orders of magnitude too low, and if this were happening, anyone could see it happen with the naked eye. There would have to be macroscopic amounts of water droplets going up and out of the cell. That does not happen. Therefore, you are wrong.

You do "know enough to rule it out." I gave you a list of reasons, such as the control experiments and the fact that this only happens with highly loaded palladium and heavy water, which cannot possibly affect condensation or entrainment. You have never answered a single item on my list, except by referring me to Ascoli. I am sure you cannot answer any of these items. You cannot explain away the control experiments; you cannot say why highly loaded Pd-D affects condensation. You are evading these and all of the other technical reasons showing that you are wrong.

By the way, I did not say your comment was "a false claim." I say it is impossible. You can boil water in a test tube and confirm that yourself. Or, if you can show droplets climbing the walls, you can post a video showing that I am wrong.