Methematician and Blogger David H. Bailey takes a critical but not unkind look at LENR,
http://mathscholar.org/2019/03…science-or-pseudoscience/
Sample Quote below.
A selection of LENR literature
In an attempt to cast some light on this paradox, the present author has collected a set of 39 recent representative published papers in the field — see the Appendix at the end of this article. These papers: (a) have appeared in some credible, peer-reviewed source within the past five years (except [Levi2014]); (b) present or summarize experimental results, as opposed to purely theoretical studies; and (c) are available online in PDF form. Each entry includes a citation, a PDF link and a brief synopsis. Here are some overall observations:
- Almost every paper mentions “excess heat” — measured output heat energy exceeding the total energy input. In most cases the excess energy is a few watts, but [Mizuno2017], for instance, reports 1 KWatt and [Parkhomov2016] reports 40 KWatt.
- Other recorded effects include neutrons, energized particle tracks, ultraviolet emanations and nuclear transmutations, which are characteristics of nuclear rather than chemical processes — see [Mills2018], [Rajeev2017], [Roussetski2017], [Violante2016], [Valay2016], [Mills2015], [Levi2014] and others.
- Some papers mention specific techniques, such as stimulation by lasers of a certain frequency, that enhance the measured effects — see [Letts2015] for instance.
- Most experiments use relatively sophisticated equipment, such as mass-flow calorimetry, CR-39 energetic particle detectors and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometers — see [Mosier-Boss2017], [Roussetski2017], [Kitamura2015], [Swartz2015b], [Aizawa2014], [Rajeev2017] and others.
- Reproducibility appears to be significantly improved compared to earlier years. For example, [Letts2015] reports excess power in 161 of 170 experimental runs.
- Most of these researchers appear to be well-qualified. For instance, the SRI International team, led by Francis Tanzella (see [Tanzella2018], [Mosier-Boss2015], [Godes2014], [McKubre2014]) claims 75 person-years of experience in calorimetry experimentation of the type required for these experiments — they are literally the world’s experts.
- Most papers have multiple authors. [Celani2018] and [Kitamura2017b] each have 15 authors; [Kitamura2018], [Iwamura2017b] and [Kitamura2017a] each have 17.
- The collection features 119 distinct authors, representing seven different nations (USA, Japan, Italy, Sweden, China, Russia and Ukraine) and 39 different institutions, ranging from universities such as MIT and Kobe University to NASA, the U.S. Navy, China’s Institute of Atomic Energy, Italy’s National Institute for Nuclear Physics and Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology, as well as several private entities such as SRI International, Nissan Motors, Brillouin Energy and JET Energy.
From a first look at these papers there does not appear to be any easy way to dismiss them. For the most part, these experiments are meticulously documented and performed with up-to-date equipment; results are carefully recorded and analyzed; and proper attention is paid to reproducibility, all as far as the present author can determine, although he does not pretend to be an expert in this particular discipline.
On the downside, whereas most of the publications and conference proceedings listed below are peer-reviewed, articles in top-tier journals (e.g., the Journal of the American Chemical Society and the Physical Review journals) are conspicuously missing. Many of these LENR publications are in the Journal of Condensed Matter Nuclear Science, a publication that was formed and is edited by persons in the LENR field. Researchers in the field acknowledge that their work remains stuck in what Cambridge philosopher Huw Price calls a reputation trap, because of its association with the “cold fusion” fiasco. As LENR researcher Michael KcKubre explains [McKubre2016],
