Team Google wants your opinion: "What is the highest priority experiment the LENR community wants to see conducted?"

    Quote from Shane D.

    If you read Ruby's whole comment, where she goes on to say:


    "Obivously non-quantitative, but is he out of his mind? or lying? I would not say that at all. Some people I believe, and some I do not. I believe what Mizuno says. and I hope it is true"


    I read it, but I do not see what it is in response to. Who said he is out of his mind? Or lying? No one. Not me, for sure. I just said he held back from publishing for a long time. Academic scientists often do that. Ruby's statement was right below mine, so I assumed she was responding to me.

    Quote from Curbina

    I think I have to insist that LENT is relatively easier to prove beyond any doubt without the eternal circular argument of wrong calorimetry. McKubre calorimetry is impecable and his excess heat undeniable, but as it is “impossible” no one pays attention because it is also of low magnitude.


    The magnitude was quite high at times, up to around 5 W. As I said, Lavoisier measured less than that with confidence back in 1780. There is no chance 5 W is a mistake with this equipment. The signal to noise ratio is probably as high as Mizuno's 300 W. People did not pay attention because the results seen to violate theory and because Nature, Scientific American, the Washington Post, the APS, the DoE and other mainstream institutions repeatedly claimed that the results were fraudulent and the researchers are lunatics and criminals. Also, they claimed the result do not exist; the experiment was never replicated.

    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    You suggest Mizuno may be doing more work.


    He is always doing more work. Every scientist and artist I know works until he unable, or until he falls dead, the way Moses Soyer did.



    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    With a power out of approximately 3kW and a power in of 300W, why in God's name does this need more work?


    That is like saying "now that we have a Model T, why does Mr. Ford still go to work every day?" Every experiment always needs more work.



    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    It would have helped a lot if his reactor had worked when tested by IH or if he had invited reliable people from IH to witness his tests.


    Yes, it would. Next time we will ask you to wave a magic wand and make things work for us. Much obliged!



    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    I am very troubled by the claim he gave/rented/sold 12 reactors to others. Without confirmation by the recipients, it seems weird.


    I suppose those 12 are recipients who will attempt to confirm. I know of only three. One confirmed, one was unable to try, and the other has not tried yet, even though he got the reactor about a year ago. I do not see anything weird about it. I do not understand why you are "troubled." All these years you have been demanding that scientists provide information and do open research. Here we have Mizuno actually giving people reactors and you suddenly feel "troubled." You won't take "yes" for an answer. No matter what he does, you are troubled.



    Quote from seven_of_twenty

    Which others? Are they well known? If not, why not? What have they done with them? It would be just peachy to have one or more discussing their experiences with the reactors here, wouldn't it?


    Why do you care? Who do you think he should send the reactors to, anyway? The DoE is hardly likely to test one. Why is this any of your business?

    • Official Post
    Quote from JedRothwell

    The magnitude was quite high at times, up to around 5 W. As I said, Lavoisier measured less than that with confidence back in 1780. There is no chance 5 W is a mistake with this equipment. The signal to noise ratio is probably as high as Mizuno's 300 W. People did not pay attention because the results seen to violate theory and because Nature, Scientific American, the Washington Post, the APS, the DoE and other mainstream institutions repeatedly claimed that the results were fraudulent and the researchers are lunatics and criminals. Also, they claimed the result do not exist; the experiment was never replicated.

    Well, you are right JedRothwell, The main problem seems to be that the broader portion of the interested in science people won’t look, nor think, outside the sacrosanct QM/SM paradigm, and we LENR interested people are all heretics. In spite that THH claims LENR does not invalidate necessarily QM, as it does not predict LENR, any result of this kind will be treated and received as well as a report of life outside Earth.


    In that perspective, excess heat will never be believed, as it requires an active experiment, but a transmuted sample verified by SEM EDX or ICP MS, can’t be denied. You can debate how it was created but you can send a sample to many different laboratories and if the transmutation is present, no one will be able to deny it happened.

    Quote from Curbina

    In that perspective, excess heat will never be believed, as it requires an active experiment, but a transmuted sample verified by SEM EDX or ICP MS, can’t be denied.


    There have been plenty of transmuted samples. They were not believed either. You could never get the DoE to look at one. Nature would accuse the researchers of fraud, lunacy, etc.


    This has nothing to do with the nature of the scientific proof, or the quality, magnitude or the number of replications. None of those criteria apply. This is academic politics. It is driven by funding. The plasma fusion people have been fighting cold fusion from the day it was announced. They called the newspapers in Boston and told the reporters that Fleischmann and Pons were frauds. They have never discussed any aspect of the experiments. They have never admitted the results were replicated. The editors at Nature and Scientific American staked their reputations on the same claims: that this is criminal fraud that was never replicated. They cannot back down now. They cannot admit they were wrong.


    This is about money. Money is the source of the problem, and money is the solution. If there is any solution. If enough people replicate Mizuno, thousands of people will realize this is a gold mine. It is an unprecedented opportunity to take trillions of dollars away from the energy industry. That industry will be defenseless, and unable to compete, so this is like taking candy from a baby. An oil company can no more develop a cold fusion motor than General Electric or Toyota can operate an ocean oil well drilling platform. Oil companies have no relevant skills. I expect entrepreneurs and industrial corporations will set about developing cold fusion as quickly as they can, to grab the easy patents. They will not listen to the DoE or Nature magazine. Scientists will fall in line because they believe whatever you pay them to believe.


    It is idiotic that people are persuaded by Mizuno's results even though they were not persuaded by McKubre or Miles. I guess they do not understand the concept of signal to noise ratio, or the fact that even a small effect that is widely replicated must be real. I do not understand why anyone held back and did not try to replicate after 1990, or why anyone paid attention to the editors of Nature. But that's a question of human nature, which is unfathomable. There was never any rational, science-based reason to doubt these results. It was always obvious that if the reaction could be controlled, it could be scaled up into a practical source of energy, and it was clear that methods of control were likely to exist.

    • Official Post

    I just add more generic proposal :

    Measure the excess heat of a blackbox given by someone who is claiming LENR. I see few proposals :

    1. Take one of the Mizuno reactor, and do independent measurement
    2. Take the Edmund Storms cell tested in his Seebeck reactor, and do independent measurement.
    3. Takes a Brillouin cell and do independent measurement.

    Maybe it is where the LENR community could help Google team, by screening prototypes before they engage their credibility, and ours.


    I remind also that to improve chances of success best is to ask for material that worked (type A palladium, meshes from Mizuno...).


    Finally, I remember that many such test have been done and nothing did convince. As I said first, relaying the position of JF Geneste, there is no way to convince a physicist, but you can convince engineers with a machine that works for weeks. This however requires a very high and reliable COP, and a good heat engine (like Airbus thermoacoustic prototype). The latest (is it R20) version of Mizuno San, maybe be the good one...


    There will be only one chance. No room for theories, luck and bargain with reality.

    SOT wrote:



    Quote

    A small effect that is replicated could be a replicated error. A large effect which is replicated is much less likely to be an error. I don't understand why you don't acknowledge that. It seems so obvious.


    You are mistaken. 5 W is not a small effect. It is gigantic by the standards of 19th or 20th century science. Far larger than the first detection of radioactivity, or the first sustained fission reaction. There is not the slightest chance it is a mistake. Your categorizing it at "small" is a meaningless standard. It is as if I said that Tesla automobile at $45,000 is "cheap."


    Furthermore, McKubre's results were replicated in hundreds of other labs, at power levels sometimes higher than 5 W.


    I do not acknowledge that because it is not a bit true. It not obvious; it is wrong.


    Perhaps my words "much less convincing" was not the best at conveying my thoughts and I agree that prejudging an experiments validity is not logical until all the facts are known!


    However, a person could run an experiment that is absolutely valid, high S/N, large COP, etc. etc. and be almost "bullet proof", yet it might not be accepted due to the "pedigree" from which it came. While I am not necessarily agreeing that this is right, as good data should be good data, the reality of this world is that some unknown researcher, conducting experiments by himself, in a home made lab is not going to have the impact nor carry the weight of an organized unit, made of multiple scientists, with a managed project, using exceptional equipment.


    My point I guess is.... it does not matter what I think..... it matters what the scientific world thinks or what a group of investors thinks that will bring the technology to life. A working reactor that stays in a garage is of no use to mankind. I agree with Jed that it will take mega dollars to bring LENR to a point it is greatly beneficial to mankind. An individual is not going to do this. So why start out with one?


    Your points on an experiment within itself however, are completely accurate. A good experiment is valid regardless of who runs it! However the world does not seem to work that way though.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Who do you have in mind? Which independent observers? No one at the DoE or any university would touch it. Any major institution that touches it will come under a barrage of attacks by Nature and the mass media. We have the best people we can find working on replications.


    Perhaps a team composed of a science journalist at a local paper and a physics or chemistry professor from a local university, given permission to add any other two willing examiners of their choice. I would imagine that if a pair or quartet like that were given an opportunity to examine the set-up and invited to report their findings, and if they could not explain their own observations, they would have little difficulty in recruiting others to see as well. Whether the results were confirmed or not, it would certainly make an interesting story for a science writer.

    Quote from mjtrac

    Perhaps a team composed of a science journalist at a local paper and a physics or chemistry professor from a local university, given permission to add any other two willing examiners of their choice. I would imagine that if a pair or quartet like that were given an opportunity to examine the set-up and invited to report their findings, and if they could not explain their own observations, they would have little difficulty in recruiting others to see as well. Whether the results were confirmed or not, it would certainly make an interesting story for a science writer.


    I'd just add, if you wanted the results of this to have much weight, that the physics professor should be a good generalist (like Feynman). It is difficult, for example, to find an expert calorimetrist who is also expert at EMC affects on sensors and earthing, and when looking for possible systematic errors in measurement all of these things are needed.


    In fact the safe approach, which any really high quality scientist would provide, would be to assume nothing, and question everything, including one's own expertise. That would mean lots of external advisors called in.


    Some people would reckon you would also want a magician, to check for possible trickery.

    Quote from gerold.s

    My intention is already to work on a next iteration of the design. Make it more compact by using standard components from swagelok or other manufacturer, max. diam. of reactor tube therefore 28mm - SS made inert by Si CVD coating, avoid welding, use of a high performane (ceramic) glow plug as internal heater, catalyst - Ni foam galvanized with paladium in a tubular shape attached to glow plug. For this I would like to come up with a mathematical (simplified) model.


    In that case the equation you need is simpler. The heater is much smaller than the reactor, so the re-radiation (from reactor back to heater) can absolutely be ignored. The emissivity of the reactor inside can also be ignored, becayse everything reflected will get re-absorbed by some other part of the reactor. It is smaller anyway, because the reactor case is at a lower temperature than the heater.


    The radiation power from heater to reactor body is then simply given by the total black body radiation from the heater, which is also what the heater specs say. If you know the heater temperature you can work it out as


    e * A * sigma * T^4


    where sigma = 5.6 * 10^(-8), e is the surface emissivity (between 0 and 1) T is the heater surface temperature in Kelvin, A is the heater surface area in m^2, all units S.I. That assumes that the heater is convex so no part of its surface radiated direct back to any other part - or at least that such radiation is not significant.

    I have the equipment to test the Mizuno claim immediately but I'm occupied by other projects right now. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about the approach I think needs to be used, which I will describe in detail in a paper I'm presently writing. This should be ready for reading in a few weeks. Meanwhile, I would like to get some opinions about the approach I propose.


    I believe Mizuno initiated LENR for three reasons. The amount of power far exceeds the error of his calorimeter, the effect of temperature is consistent with what I and other people have observed when LENR occurs, and the technique is consistent with my model of the NAE. Consequently, I'm not interested in proving that his method really worked. I accept his result as real. In my case, I propose a different approach.


    Given this assumption, success can be expected when using many variations of his technique as long as the critical conditions were created. Consequently, the important question is, "What are the critical conditions?" A successful replication requires an answer to this question. Otherwise, success would be once again determined by dumb luck to which the skeptics have a stock answer. Without a logical; way to relate the important variables though a model, all success can be rejected as error, as has been the typical response. In fact, LENR can not as yet be caused on purpose because a clearly defined and understood successful treatment is not known, as is required of all real natural behavior. This limitation results because people can not agree on and apply an effective model. I suggest Mizuno has found a method that apparently can create the conditions identified by my model. My approach is to use his method to test my model rather than replicating exactly what Mizuno did. In other words, I imntend to search for what he did to the material to make it nuclear active rather than try duplicate his method and materials.


    A person can either try to blindly duplicate exactly what Mizuno did, or make an effort to replicate the conditions known to be caused by burnishing when applied to any material. We need to ask just what happens to the atoms and the surface during the burnishing process and apply this understanding to identify the NAE. If this approach is used, my model could be used to identify the important variables and suggest ways their effect can be increased. In the process, the model can then be used to effectively increase the magnitude of the process. How this can be done will be described in the paper. Meanwhile, perhaps a discussion of the unique condition that is required to form in Pd before LENR can occur and how the burnishing process can cause such a condition would be useful.


    Whilst I understand that point of view, which is logical, I'd suggest an alternate way forward, given that analysis.


    Mizuno's devices may not easily be replicable, but the working devices have been robust over time and multiple tests.


    Take R19 or R20, or some other working device. Allow independent testing. The results, as you point out, are easy to distinguish from calorimetric error and many independent entities have the expertise and credibility to test and be believed.


    After such an independent test (which could be redone with different and independent calorimetry by multiple parties) the mainstream interest in LENR would be rekindled and money thrown at the problem of replication.


    To prove something extraordinary (let us call it LENR for lack of another explanation) you do not need the ability to replicate a working device. You need the ability for multiple parties to test (the same) working device.


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    To prove something extraordinary (let us call it LENR for lack of another explanation) you do not need the ability to replicate a working device. You need the ability for multiple parties to test (the same) working device.

    Which is the point of the R20 paper and clarifying sequelae by Rothwell.

    thanks Jed for keeping your eye on the ball..


    Quote from Storms

    success can be expected when using many variations of his technique as long as the critical conditions were created

    Ed

    the variations .. will produce anything btw failure and success.. eg hydrogen... vs deuterium,, burnishing with metastables

    such as Ag107/Ag109/hafnium...varying the mesh.. wall distance


    and will guide improving the reactor.


    Your upcoming NAE paper may have a part in suggesting what modifications to try to to improve the reactor performance/durability


    I look forward to reading it. RB

    First, thanks to Mr. Storms for coming here to meet us .

    I have a lot of respect, I must admit and began my Lenr readings by those of his many documents :).


    To return to our technical subject, of course tamping the surface by a mechanical compression method will modify surface crystalline structure.

    I already noticed similar things when 2 different techniques were used to deposit 2 layers, even if it's the same material.

    I remember a very old exp where we saw a big Lenr event, so a second nickel layer was electrolysis deposited on a first one deposited by sputtering already in nickel too.


    It should be noted that using nickel wires here is not trivial because its fibers will also have a particular crystalline structure.



    Dr, Storms' opinion should be carefully considered due to his long experience and interest. But I agree entirely with THHuxleynew -- Dr. Storms seems to be overlooking that, according to Mizuno, there exist 12+ working reactors which can be loaned out or sold. If Dr. Storms is in a position to test one of these reactors rapidly, and he is certainly a completely credible expert on how to do that, he should be implored to do so ASAP. When he gives three reasons for believing Mizuno, while that's encouraging, it's not as conclusive as he makes it out to be. A claim can seem entirely reasonable from theory and still be entirely wrong. Corresponding to theory and past experience does not rule out new major errors, delusion, or deception.


    What's the point in focusing on theory and experiments first when multiple working devices supposedly exist and Mizuno is loaning them out? If one of those is tested by Dr. Storms and it works, then one can worry about why and how. If it doesn't, everyone should know that as soon as possible so as to minimize waste of time and money on the part of investors and replicators.


    ETA: If reasonable funding is needed to acquire and ship a Mizuno reactor, preferably on loan, for Dr. Storms to test, I will be happy to contribute financially to it. Actually, I've worked indirectly for Dr. Storms before. Though I doubt he knows me, he probably will remember one of my past associates and I bet he's read some of our old papers. If he's curious about this, he can send me a personal message through the forum's "conversation" option and I will provide the details.

    Quote

    Why do you care?

    I am interested in the continuing saga of LENR claims and the people who believe them. I also hate scams and scammers like oh... you know... Rossi for example and many who worked with him. It's easy to check out extravagant claims like Mizuno's and that should be done ASAP. I am not in any way suggesting that Mizuno is a scammer. I would be very surprised if he were.


    Quote

    Who do you think he should send the reactors to, anyway?

    Dr. Storms would be a first rate up front first choice and I am willing to put some money where my mouth is. I am embarrassed I did not think of Dr. Storms on my own.


    Quote

    The DoE is hardly likely to test one.

    Who knows? Who cares?


    Quote

    Why is this any of your business?

    That's a very strange question. I'm not even sure what it means. Are you suggesting people must avoid opining on anything they are not directly involved in doing? Yikes!

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