MIZUNO REPLICATION AND MATERIALS ONLY

Quote from THHuxleynew

Jed: On balance of evidence currently I quite strongly think that LENR as defined above does not exist. However even one clearly replicable result which is strongly positive would change that balance for me.

In particular, Mizuno's reactors R19 or R20 doing what his papers say the do, measured independently by a credible party, would alter this balance for me.

A clear replication of Mizuno would also do that, if either well instrumented and documented, or independently measured (e.g. replicator gives working device to another party who with different calorimetry setup also finds strong excess heat).

My quite strong pessimism is that this has not yet happened: but things take time so we will see.

I'd also point out that what would sway me would get a lot of other people interested (including TG).

THH

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THH, thanks for making your opinion clear. I have attached two graphs I would like you to explain without having to assume a nuclear reaction is taking place. These behaviors were observed using ordinary electrolytic cells without any of the normal conditions thought necessary to cause a nuclear reaction, yet nuclear products were detected, helium with extra energy in one case and tritium with a few neutrons in the other. People have evaluated each of the measurements but I know of no effort to evaluate such a comparison of the various independent variables.

In the case of helium, such a correlation is essentially impossible if the He and heat energy were not related through a common event. This event MUST be the same nuclear reaction. Why do you reject this conclusion?

How is tritium produced without there being a nuclear reaction? The absence of an equal number of neutrons demonstrates the source is NOT the normal hot fusion reaction.

Even if these were isolated behaviors, rather than actually being part of a larger collection of behaviors, this evidence would normally require the conclusion that a very unusual nuclear process was possible in ordinary material. Yet, in this case, the entire huge data set is rejected by conventional science. Why is such a total violation of normal standards of evaluation possible these days?

I suggest, any attempt to explain away these nuclear products as error or contamination must conflict with logic and with well established scientific principles, thereby revealing a serious lack of objectivity and basic knowledge. So, if your opinion is to be taken seriously, you need to apply it to this data and demonstrate why my evaluation of your approach is flawed. After all, if you insist certain criteria be satisfied for LENR to be accepted, you must also accept certain criteria be met to reject the claim. Logic does not make rejection of an idea the automatic default. You must have a reason. So far, your reasons seem to be that all the data can be explained by assuming ordinary error as being the source of the claimed behavior. I would like to see how you apply your "error" explanation to the two attached sets of behavior. In both cases, the effect has been replicated by independent studies and a correlation is found between two independent variables, which is the requirement science demands for behavior to be accepted as real. Can you show why this normal required criteria is not valid in these cases?

Quote from Storms

So, if your opinion is to be taken seriously, you need to apply it to this data and demonstrate why my evaluation of your approach is flawed. After all, if you insist certain criteria be satisfied for LENR to be accepted, you must also accept certain criteria be met to reject the claim. Logic does not make rejection of an idea the automatic default. You must have a reason.

Amen. As I often say, a negative view does not get a free pass. It has to be falsifiable, and it has to meet the same standards of rigor as a positive view. Mike Melich and I summarized this and other aspects of the debate here:

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

QUOTE

Claim 1.5. “As many have said, extraordinary results require extraordinary proof. Such proof is lacking.”

This is not a principle of science. It was coined by Carl Sagan for the 1980 “Cosmos” television series. Conventional scientific standards dictate that extraordinary claims are best supported with ordinary evidence from off-the-shelf instruments and standard techniques. All mainstream cold fusion papers present this kind of evidence.

Conventional standards also dictate that all claims and arguments must be held to the same standards of rigor. This includes skeptical assertions that attempt to disprove cold fusion, which have been notably lacking in rigor.

(See also pp. 33 - 39. An example of an unfalsifiable claim is shown on p. 35.)

Quote from RobertBryant

THH tried for 66 pages of weird and found none... including where he was convinced by Ascoli65

of dubious errors in the Mizuno spreadsheet ... even pasting by Mizuno

If one finds Ascoli65 convincing then THHuxley's idea of credibility is nuanced .. to say the least..

"

THHnew 12th Sept

I'd ask you to examine the forensic evidence which convincingly shows that the active set of figures are generated from V*I, and the control set of figures are not generated from V*I. {=PASTING}

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A sort of "forensic" evidence was finally provided by LENR Calender who detected the difference in the numeric formats used in the two spreadsheets of the control and active tests at 120W performed in May 2016. As I had immediately explained (*), the basic mistake came from JedRothwell, who published the spreadsheets with different formats. A second mistake was that JR did not revealed this numeric incongruence, when he was asked to explain the differences between the "Input power" curves of the control and active tests (**).

But these are not the major errors related to these spreadsheets. If confirmed that both the columns of the "Input power" contain the product V*I, all the hypotheses raised about the spreadsheet of the "active test" apply also to the second spreadsheet, that of the "control test". So, the error doesn't disappear, but it doubles!

You continue to ignore that the paper describing these tests contains the following paragraph:

If the "Input power" columns in both the spreadsheets show the V*I product, it means that the data of the electric power to the test reactor that is processed by the power-meter, ie the data measured by the power input analyzer (Yokogawa, PZ 4000), don't appear in the published spreadsheets.

Where are the values measured by the Yokogawa wattmeter?

I can imagine only two possibilities, either:

A) contrary to what has been reported in the paper, it is untrue that they were collected by a data logger and recorded to a PC every 5 s, or

B) they were deliberately not included in the spreadsheets or they were removed from them.

Make your choice (or propose a third possibility).

(*) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(**) The NEDO Initiative - Japan's Cold Fusion Programme

Quote from RobertBryant

Ascoli has neither the nouse nor the subtlety nor the inclination to identify

a truncation error

which Jed talked about in 2017 in that spreadsheet

I was not the only one who failed to notice the truncation error:

It happens.

Btw, any reference to JR talking about the truncation error in his spreadsheets?

Quote

it alleges vexatiously that it is due to pasting..

Where are the values measured by the Yokogawa wattmeter?!

Quote from Ascoli65

Where are the values measured by the Yokogawa wattmeter?!

Not recorded, as I said. It was just read to confirm the other meters. (It was recorded in previous experiments, but not in this series.) There were two other smaller watt meters, one brought by me, the other brought by another visitor. All three agreed with the HP data collection gadget that is recorded in the data.

I have pointed this out many times. I point it out again for the benefit of other readers. No doubt you will ignore what I say, and you will once again demand to see the data from it.

Quote from Alan Smith

I think it is time Ascoli65had a little holiday. We can catch up again in the new year.

If this means you are banning him, I think that is a bad idea.

Quote from RobertBryant

[Quoting THH] June 29, 2019 at 7:15 am "

Re Mizuno results.

I don’t see much point in discussing these now, for the following reasons:

(1) Having looked at them a bit there are no obvious smoking gun errors. Sure, a few issues but on investigation none of them seem to be overly problematic

(2) There is however a lack of rigor in how the results are reported. Each set of results references work done earlier, it is not precisely stated under what conditions results are taken, when were corresponding calibrations made, etc. this, together with the “slight issues” gives room for real errors to slip through.

(3) These results are so large (R19 or R20) that if real they could be trivially proven real by for example IH having a look.

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I would like to point out a few things about this list. These things apply to the other comments made by THH and by other pathological skeptics.

Most of these assertions are either false, or they have no truth value (they are neither true nor false). A few others are cannot be confirmed, or they are not open to debate, such as whether people from IH have had a look. Mizuno and I will not disclose anything about visitors, other than anonymous report I included in the PowerPoint slides. (Included with permission of course.) (https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTincreasedea.pdf) Some of THH's assertions about other experiments have crossed the line from mistaken to outright nonsense, such as his repeated assertion that apparent heat in boil-off experiments might be caused by macroscopic yet invisible drops of water that violate gravity magically moving up, which for an unexplained reason adds apparent heat to the cell, even though it would not actually do this.

All of the technical assertions are wrong. Many people have pointed out these mistakes. THH does not acknowledge or discuss these corrections. He repeats the assertions as if no one has responded. Most recently, just above, Ed Storms pointed out some errors and omissions, such as the fact that heat and helium are correlated. I predict that THH will not respond.

Not only are these technical assertions wrong; all skeptical assertions about all major cold fusion papers are wrong. THH has never found a significant problem in any major cold fusion study. No skeptic has, because there are no significant problems. You would not expect any. There are no significant errors in most peer-reviewed professional physics papers. (There may be in other areas such as biology, medicine or psychology.) There are, of course, weaknesses and unanswered questions. Research is never perfected, and never finished. People are still learning new knowledge about fire (combustion engineering) even though it is our oldest technology.

THH lists many problems with this experiment. Perhaps unconsciously, he is employing two tactics. The first is make the reader think, "given all these problems, surely one or two must be valid." The second is to flood the discussion with empty assertions, making it impossible to respond to all of them. This is known as the "Gish gallop," named for a well-known creationist. (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop)

As Ed pointed out above, THH searches for errors in this one experiment, ignoring all others. He will then turn to another experiment, and claim there is a different set of errors, again ignoring the rest of the literature. Sometimes, he or Ascoli will divide an experiment in two, ignoring one part because it proves the other part is correct. For example, they ignore a calibration when looking at excess heat, and they ignore the excess heat when looking at the calibration. Or, they ignore the excess heat that occurs before a boil-off event, and the heat measured after the event, while they say the heat during the event was caused by [foam / invisible magic macroscopic drops / fill in the blank]. This can only mean the heat lasted a week, vanished for 20 minutes during the boil off, and then reappeared in heat after death. It also means the heat before and after simply does not count, for some reason they will not discuss. They invent a bogus reason to discount the heat during the boil off, and then imply (but will not say) that this reason also applies to the other two phases, even though the method of calorimetry is different for the three phases. This resembles the military tactic known as "divide and conquer" or "defeat in detail" which is "a military tactic of bringing a large portion of one's own force to bear on small enemy units in sequence, rather than engaging the bulk of the enemy force all at once" (Wikipedia -- sorry). This an excellent way to win a battle, but it has no place in a scientific discussion. You cannot ignore the totality of evidence. You cannot take one fact at at time from one experiment at a time, as if all the other facts and experiments do not exist. Above all, you cannot ignore correlation. As Ed said, it is one the most important forms of proof: "The effect has been replicated by independent studies and a correlation is found between two independent variables, which is the requirement science demands for behavior to be accepted as real."

Quote from Curbina

if he was banned for something was not for being skeptic but for not being capable of providing serious back up for his skepticism

That seems forgivable. There is no way to provide serious backup for skepticism of the major cold fusion experiments. They are all, indisputably, correct, as I pointed out above. When a major physics experiment is carefully peer-reviewed and widely replicated, it is correct by definition. There is no other standard. If there were any significant errors, people would have found them 30 years ago. As I said, that is less true of things like biology, because it is so complicated. It is less true of the hot air sciences such as social science and psychology. ("Hot air sciences" is what my late mother called them, and she was a leading social scientist, so she was allowed to say anything she liked.)

Quote from Curbina

. . . also for making statements that imply a thinly veiled accusation of either incompetence or deliberate manipulation of data

Well okay. If he did that, I suppose I should agree he needs a vacation. I don't read his posts, so I wouldn't know.

Quote from Rends

Any criticism will be silenced as soon as there is a commercial LENR device somewhere, that produces energy in self sustain mode.

That is true, but not helpful. It may take hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve that state of grace, and we can't afford to buy SEM or mass spectrometers. Your statement resembles the suggestion we put a bell on the cat. I think for now we have to apply the conventional standards of science, such as the signal to noise ratio. We should demand multiple, independent, peer-reviewed replications. Demanding a commercial LENR device is unreasonable. It is like demanding a commercial electric motor a few years after Oersted discovered electromagnetism in 1820. Practical, large scale electric motors and generators were not developed until Edison invented them in 1878.

Footnote to history: Edison really pissed off the physicists by doing that! They denied him membership in the National Academy of Sciences. The feeling that he was ". . . a mercenary, publicity-seeking technologist was strong in the organization, as it had been ever since he invented a theoretically 'impossible' dynamo in 1880." (Edmund Morris, "Edison" p. 57.) Millikan moved to nominate him, but Michelson opposed it, and that was that. Academic politics never change. Most people who make important discoveries, such as Edison or Townes (the laser) or Marshall (ulcers) get their ass kicked. They may eventually be recognized, but first, they get "the frozen boot," as the Russians call it. The trend has gone to extremes with cold fusion, but it has been there all throughout history. It is human nature. It is mainly caused jealousy and money, I think.

They finally did nominate Edison, toward the end of his life.

Quote from Rends

Until then the criticism must be dealt with professionally.

Ed Storms did that, above. Melich and I did that in the document I linked to, in response to the DoE panel. I think the skeptics have failed to meet professional standards.

Quote from RobertBryant

suggestions for credible..? Takahashi's group? shanahan at seminary of Doe?

I think anyone:

(1) with reputation to uphold

(2) not associated with LENR field

(3) with strong and broad expertise, and multiple people willing to sign off on tests

An obvious example would be NASA, who have previously shown themselves interested in such testing.

Any major university physics department would be OK. Notice I say department, not lone academic in the department. Quite different in terms of quality and reputational stakes.

If done commercially the issue would be who pays and what are the terms of the contract. You can pay for almost anything now.

Regarding Edison, anyone who thinks he did not know science in detail should read his original notebooks and papers, now online. Start with this paper of his in the AAAS journal, which describes the tasimeter. This was a temperature sensor capable of measuring the heat from a star, or 1/1,000,000 deg F. He used it to try to measure the heat of the sun's corona during the eclipse of 1878, but it failed because it was too sensitive.

“On the Use of the Tasimeter for Measuring the Heat of the Stars and of the Sun’s Corona”

http://edison.rutgers.edu/Name…leDoc.php?DocId=MBSB1074A

Does this paper sound like an ignorant tinkerer? That's how he talked. Somewhere I saw a video of him a few years before he died, talking about chemistry. He knew more than a hundred ordinary scientists tied together.

Wilbur Wright was another person who has gone down in history as a lucky tinkerer. A bicycle maker who happened to invent the airplane. If you imagine that was the case, I suggest you read his papers published in 1901 and 1903:

https://invention.psychology.m…library/Aeronautical.html

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mwright.05001169/?sp=1

Edison had an accent like a country bumpkin, and he said things like, "I don't think anything of the Einstein theory, because I don't understand it." He lied. He wrote about general relativity in his notebooks, and he understood it better than most people. Do not judge a book by its cover.

Alas, I cannot recommend the Morris book I quoted from above, because it is so poorly organized, as I explained here:

https://www.amazon.com/review/…37716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Quote from THHuxleynew

I think anyone:

(1) with reputation to uphold

(2) not associated with LENR field

Oh sure you think that. Yeah, right. The problem is, as soon as they confirm the result, you will condemn them as "LENR insiders" and "true believers." Researchers at over 180 labs replicated cold fusion. In March 1989, not a single one of them believed it. They hadn't even heard of it. Over the years, one lab after another published positive results. You, now, reject every one of them as "insiders." If 180 others replicated, you would reject them. The moment anyone confirms, that disqualifies them. That is what you and all the other pathological skeptics say. I have been hearing that bullshit for 30 years. Please try to come up with something more original.

All of the technical assertions are wrong. Many people have pointed out these mistakes. THH does not acknowledge or discuss these corrections. He repeats the assertions as if no one has responded. Most recently, just above, Ed Storms pointed out some errors and omissions, such as the fact that heat and helium are correlated. I predict that THH will not respond.

Jed, we have had to and fros here and repeating them does not get us further.

As I have pointed out in the past, your understanding here of my position is wrong.

In fact your understanding of my position is often wrong, and always for the same reason.

You set up a dialectic: either this is true, or it is false. You point out that true => I am ignoring clear LENR and false is impossible. You then claim I am deliberately arguing falsely, or blind to alternate views.

You repeatedly claim that I am saying thsi is false when in fact I am saying something different, not allowed in your universe of absolute certainty or denial.

In this case I spent much time trying to understand the Mizuno calorimetry, along with others here. In the end (I said this, but you did not hear, or did not understand) I reckoned eventually there was no obvious problem with the calorimetry as described. However there were problems with the presentational methodology. Sets of results, equipment to generate results, calibrations, were mixed up over 3 papers and a 2 years (?) period. Numbers that were in fact calculated from previous calibration were presented as direct measurement. The R20 measurements, so extraordinary, seem not replicable, nor even the R19. Either would be amazing.

This is all a crying shame. It is difficult for me to believe that M had two reactors working in a way so easily meaurable, over a long period, and cannot find independent validation of their performance. It is a shame that the test and calibration methodology was so mixed up - with lack of clarity over which version of the various equipment applied, lack of clarity over when things were calibrated, etc, etc. All things that in any normal lab would be natural, and would naturally be rectified by the same thing repeated again and more carefully documented. I have two hypotheses, experimental error, or weirdly unreplicable behaviour. You allow only one.

My problem with those results is not technical but methodological. I am just not certain when/how/under what exact conditions those spreadsheet numbers were obtained, and what assumptions went into them. They are not all raw figures.

But, that was enough for me strongly to applaud replicators, and reckon that if M has such working devices, well documented, others would find them too, and unleash validated LENR.

That is still my position. the reverse, that if no-one can replicate this, the M results were probably just wrong, is also likely. You do not accept that,perhaps?

THH

PS Ed Storms pointed out some errors and omissions, such as the fact that heat and helium are correlated. That is a long story and I'd be happy to discuss it. The correlation evidence is interesting and I was very interested in the U of Austion (??) rumoured replication attempts. The trouble is that He at such low levels (concentration lower than many lab envts ) is tricky to be sure about. But good careful replication can surely deal with that.

PPS Maybe the key thing is this. Most people, incl me, don't know all the ways things can go wrong. We have in our lives been surprised by unexpected errors and mistakes. we believe these are always possible so need replication. The LENR replications are all different in what they observe - the expected result not found but eventually something else mysterious is found, or the same in the exact methodology they use (and therefore could suffer the same systematic error). I have most sympathy with Ed's view, where he sees a consistent D+D fusion reaction with heat and products correlated, branching ration that makes this appear non-nuclear, ideas about metal surface cavity catalysis that could possibly be coherent. I just don't see the diverse evidence here as proving that, because if it was real, it would by now be much more real. I do hope this will happen.

Quote from THHuxleynew

PS Ed Storms pointed out some errors and omissions, such as the fact that heat and helium are correlated. That is a long story and I'd be happy to discuss it. The correlation evidence is interesting and I was very interested in the U of Austion (??) rumoured replication attempts. The trouble is that He at such low levels (concentration lower than many lab envts ) is tricky to be sure about. But good careful replication can surely deal with that.

Anyone who has read Miles and others who replicated the helium results will know this is bullshit. I will not argue the details, because you won't read them anyway, and even if you do, you will repeat this same bullshit.