Huw Price: Icebergs In The Room? Cold Fusion At Thirty

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Phase transform of lithium, of course - i.e. melting. Cold fusion requires to have atoms arranged in metal lattice.

in a metal lattice, can it be suspended in a electrolyte steam pocket if the heat creates one from water in the nearby casing "gypsum soak"?forge foundry

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Phase transform of lithium, of course - i.e. melting

Latent heat of fusion of lithium =3 kJ/mol.

If Lithium solidifies it emits a huge 3kJ/mol = 0.031 eV .

http://www.colby.edu/chemistry/PChem/Hartree.html

A phase change is not going to generate 200 keV.

What kind of change generates 200 kEV for ten minutes after the reactor cools from 700C to 385C?

Quote from Alan Smith

He is 'Bertrand Russell Profressor of Logic'., and he has plenty of mathematical cojones as well as logical ones.

ETA- his list of publications. http://prce.hu/w/publications.html

Thanks Alan. that gives a very good overview of his interests.

nothing on induction

nothing on Bayes

stuff on probability, but only on the context of QM/EPR paradox co-authored with others. Far far from probability as the inductive equivalent of deduction.

He is specifically interested in time, causality, etc, which makes sense of the QM/may worlds link. Going right back to Eddington's wonderful arrow of time arguments (which I recommend to anyone - they are fun).

He is just not interested in science as a (potentially systematic process) of evaluating hypotheses according to Bayesian rules: moving questions from philosophy to maths.

He is a philosopher: not a mathematician. (Note the co-authors where he ventures into maths).

So I have a lot of respect for him as a philosopher trying to understand time, but not as somone judging the likelihood of disruptive scientific hypotheses.

I’m completely sure that the following Huw Price (single-author) papers have absolutely nothing to do with Bayes Theorem:

Against causal decision theory. Synthese 67(1986) 195—212. [PDF]

Conditional credence. Mind 95(1986) 18—36. [JSTOR]

Agency and probabilistic causality. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 42(1991) 157—176. [PDF][JSTOR]

(NB. Yanks, that’s sarcasm).

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What kind of change generates 200 kEV for ten minutes after the reactor cools from 700C to 385C?

It doesn't generate anything, it switches cold fusion reaction on and off. For example, when we cool reactor by 200° C, then the probability that we find five atoms arranged along a single line during one nanosecond rises dramatically. At 700C we can find only three collinear atoms during average nanosecond inside reactor, because atoms already vibrate wildly.

Cold fusion requires to have atoms arranged in metal lattice. The probability of spontaneous fusion within random system of particles is extraordinarily low, but the proponents of thermodynamic arguments often forget, that the probability that these particles will spontaneously arrange into regular lattice is extremely low as well. Two extreme improbabilities will here beat each other.

IMO it could be estimated by calculus - the atoms vibrate along their average positions and only during brief moment of time their nuclei overlap. Atom nuclei are small relatively to atom - about 30.000x smaller, so that the probability of their overlapping is still low. And just in this moment these atoms should crash hydrogen atoms mutually against each other - so that this probability gets even lower.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

IMO it could be estimated by calculus

I guess calculus is one of those esoteric branches of mathematics that generated probabilities somehow

Have you tried doing this?

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Have you tried doing this?

Nope, I don't see any meaning in this for now. Do you? Lipinski's fusion runs with nearly 100% reliability at the melting point of lithium and 5000 eV energy of protons. Just at the temperature twenty degrees higher it stops. There is not too many alternative explanations for this behavior than lattice arrangement of lithium atoms.

But 5000 eV is still high energy for chemical processes, so that for explanation of spontaneous fusion within palladium we would need another mechanisms involved. But - why exactly? The palladium fusion has no practical advantage over Lipinski fusion and 5 keV wasted is very affordable price for 8 MeV energy yield. For me the solid state fusion systems aren't very interesting from this perspective - Lipinski fusion is reliable and relatively simple for industrial purposes, end of story. Amateurs could still try to replicate for example the Notoya/Niedra/Patterson's experiments with nickel electrolysis and various catalysts and co-deposition - maybe some surprise is still hidden there. But for me the mystery of cold fusion is already solved from practical perspective.

Note that 5 kV is within the reach of common microwave oven. You'll need some lithium and hydrogen source and lithium resistant vessel (alumina pipe from street sodium lamp, maybe?). IMO the microwaving of LiAlH4 inside closed vessel could work, vacuum could be replaced by inert gas (argon?). Or you can try Quark-X/ECat-SK arrangement of Me356, which is essentially hydrogen-lithium discharge lamp.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

Nope, I don't see any meaning in this for now. Do you? Lipinski's fusion runs with nearly 100% reliability at the melting point of lithium and 5000 eV energy of protons.

This is a bad citation. Lipinskis 7Li-p fusion starts at 50eV with highest (estimated) COP at 100eV proton kinetic energy.

Lipinskis switched from Lithium disk to gas phase because they were no able to remove the heat from the disk (game over after 30-60s) . But from a reactor point of view the disk is much better suited and they should talk with people like IBM that know how to remove 100Watts from a small dye.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

IMO it could be estimated by calculus - the atoms vibrate along their average positions and only during brief moment of time their nuclei overlap.

Nuclei never overlap. The use of QM for nuclei is nonsense because no gauge is known... The fact is that LENR is driven my magnetic moments that cause attraction.

If you don't understand the logic behind fusion you never will understand why not the input energy is relevant it's the removal off energy that is key. This is obvious as LENR/Fusion always should deliver energy. They key first step is the proton orbit (magnetic!) that can release junks of about 2keV per quantum step.

Quote from Alan Smith

That's why Professor Price is co-founder along with Martin Rees and Jaan Tallin of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk. I know he has a strong interest in and considerable knowledge of disruptive science of all flavours, and daily access to many of the world's best brains and greatest experts. Taking that into account, I back his judgement against that of most others.

That is one way of looking at it. The other is that with those interests he is inherently inclined to over-rate the chances of unusual things actually happening,

Quote from THHuxleynew

over-rate the chances of unusual things

Can THHuxleynew be specific about what kind of unusual things are happening with respect to LENR.

a- reaction heat far in excess of chemical heat

b- transmutation

c- other?

and what he considers the chance of them happening on a probability scale of 0-100% via his neutral rating stance?

Quote from Wyttenbach

The key first step is the proton orbit (magnetic!) that can release chunks of about 2keV per quantum step

Chunks of 2keV energy are 1000 times lot smaller than the 2,200 KeV of a DD fusion event

Perhaps the energy removal involves not one but 1000 proton witnesses to the event

Iron has 56 protons ...so if all participate.. that would only need 20 neighbouring atoms to participate.

Without further data...that's where my thinking is now.

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While their comment is critical it is not at all intelligent. The Bertrand Russell Professor at Trinity College Cambridge is not a "not a very critical thinker"???

Having an impressive title and position doesn't guarantee the absence of gullibility. Dr. Price may be very skilled in philosophy and logic but he doesn't seem to know much about real world deception and the use of sleight of hand methods and other fraud to game experiments. It is classical that those involved in science and technology trust scientific papers, reports and experiments too uncritically. They are alert for errors but not for fraud, hence @JedRothwell's insistence that one can not know a claim is fraudulent without finding a technical fault in the experiment report.

As to what is intelligent and what is not with respect to Rossi, I leave you to consider the more than ample records in Rossi's idiotic on line blog, in Krivit's meticulously documented readings from Italian newspapers, and of course now we have the voluminous and highly incriminating pre-trial testimony in the case of Rossi vs IH. Those show that when the Bertrand Russell Professor at Trinity College Cambridge reported Rossi's specious claims as fact and even now as a 50% probability, that indeed, that professor is not a very critical thinker and has been roundly duped by a very low skill ordinary con man. It's a pity but if a majority of people were not to some extent gullible, con men couldn't make a living and it's a fact that many do. Some even get elected to high political offices or head major companies and institutions.

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This sounds like a continuation of the campaign to undermine authoritative opinion. I would ask why but suspect I know.

I don't know what either of those sentences has to do with the topic at hand and I doubt that mmckubre will explain.

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Alan you need to issue an irony warning. Americans are not as familiar with this genre as you Brits. SoT probably believes that he/she/it has been complimented.

I didn't think I had been complimented but I did not understand the purpose of the remark other than general and unsupported disdain.

Conversations like this one, Dr. Huw's attitude towards Rossi and his "work" and Dr. McCubre's post go a long way to explaining why LENR has no respect in the general scientific community. And that is also a pity.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Dr. McCubre's post go a long way to explaining why LENR has no respect in the general scientific community

Dr McKubre may have been in error about American

SOT has indeterminant nationality and gender... but his critical skills are unquestionable

as shown by

"Those show that when the Bertrand Russell Professor at Trinity College Cambridge reported Rossi's specious claims as fact"

When did Huw Price report Rossi's claims as fact? Source please.

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Lipinskis switched from Lithium disk to gas phase because they were no able to remove the heat from the disk

Nope, because lithium hydride clogs the surface of lithium.

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Lipinskis 7Li-p fusion starts at 50eV with highest (estimated) COP at 100eV proton kinetic energy.

It can get much lower, we already discussed this.