Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Quote from Dr Richard

probably just an error in translation from the Japanese versions of the spreadsheets?

There are many errors in the transition from a 1980s spreadsheet format made by the HP gadget, to a newer spreadsheet, to the Google spreadsheet, to the American spreadsheet. LOTS of problems. All variables and equations are converted to constants. The text becomes completely unreadable. I have screen shots of the original, which I use by guess and by golly to insert what I think the Japanese should say.

It is big pain in the butt. That is why I have not uploaded any spreadsheets lately. I don't have the time to make every correction and check everything, and no matter what I do, trolls such as THH will accuse Mizuno and I of lying; they will insist the data comes from another instrument, and they will make up endless other bullshit reasons to dismiss the data. Perhaps I am intimidated, and I should ignore them and just upload the spreadsheet. I will have time after the conference.

If they have not intimidated me, they have probably intimidated others, and they have certainly replaced honest discussion with trolling and unfounded accusations of lies and incompetence.

Quote from JedRothwell

There are many errors in the transition from a 1980s spreadsheet format made by the HP gadget, to a newer spreadsheet, to the Google spreadsheet, to the American spreadsheet. LOTS of problems. All variables and equations are converted to constants. The text becomes completely unreadable. I have screen shots of the original, which I use by guess and by golly to insert what I think the Japanese should say.

It is big pain in the butt. That is why I have not uploaded any spreadsheets lately. I don't have the time to make every correction and check everything, and no matter what I do, trolls such as THH will accuse Mizuno and I of lying; they will insist the data comes from another instrument, and they will make up endless other bullshit reasons to dismiss the data.

Jed - I will, for the first time, accuse you of lying now.

I, of all the people on this site, am least inclined to accuse anyone of lying (except Rossi where it is public record). I have never accused you or Mizuno of lying, nor hinted that. Therefore your idea that I would be likely to do this in the future is erroneous and shows you have poor judgement of people. We have had this same conversation before, and you have persisted in this unevidenced and incorrect insult. So I suppose it could be properly viewed as a case of your lying but I prefer to see it as just you having a very fixed view of things in which you don't see the importance of cross-checking evidence, and mistake people saying (1) "this is not proven" with them saying (2) "this is wrong" or even (3) "this is a deliberate lie". We might add (1.5) "this is bad practice", something which if done a lot reduces the credibility of results without disproving them.

Along with many people, I think you are arguing from results to process. Process is important, and should be checked and treasured, independent of its relevance to results - mainly because the world is a strange place and what is relevant changes over time.

can anyone please explain to me why, if the heat is triggering the LENR, than the LENR stop immediately after Mizuno stop the electrical heater? the mesh is still hot... mesh doesn't know from the heat is coming from.

Quote from THHuxleynew

One reason for the difference in speed between calibration and control would be if the sample rate was different - however i believe that the spreadsheets capture real time for each sample, which makes that not something that could cause an incorrect time axis.

The HP A/D gadget samples 20,000 times a second (I think it was) and records the average of the 20,000 values every 5 seconds, for all channels. The 5-second interval is programmable. It used to be different, because one instrument only worked with a fixed time interval that was slightly longer.

Quote from Cipolla

can anyone please explain to me why, if the heat is triggering the LENR, than the LENR stop immediately after Mizuno stop the electrical heater?

I do not think it does, but it does seem to stop rather quickly in some cases. I was planning to look into this in few weeks, with a new set of data showing what happens when a ~100 W reaction is cut off.

Quote from JedRothwell

The HP A/D gadget samples 20,000 times a second (I think it was) and records the average of the 20,000 values every 5 seconds, for all channels. The 5-second interval is programmable. It used to be different, because one instrument only worked with a fixed time interval that was slightly longer.

If the time values are not captured directly from the logger, or are on the spreadsheets inferred from the sampling interval, then an incorrect (different) sampling interval would explain matters.

Quote from Cipolla

can anyone please explain to me why, if the heat is triggering the LENR, than the LENR stop immediately after Mizuno stop the electrical heater? the mesh is still hot... mesh doesn't know from the heat is coming from.

The removal of heater power would reduce power out by half (under this scenario). So it is not so easy to be sure whether heat triggers the reaction or something else. However, with an external heater as here, it is difficult to see what other thing could get from the heater to affect the mesh. All under the hypothesis that these results are correct and the mesh generates 120W excess heat or thereabouts.

they have certainly replaced honest discussion with trolling and unfounded accusations of lies and incompetence.

The issue here is whether I am that when I note infelicities in the experiment, or methodological issues.

My view is that that process is necessary and worthwhile, regardless of whether at the end all those issues are judged to make the results unsafe or not.

FWIW, my view of R19 (much discussed here) is that there is nothing in the calorimetry that is obviously wrong. However there is in a number of places evidence of poor methodology, reporting, etc. That makes the results less credible than they would be had the methodology been tighter and more precisely described. It does not prove the results wrong. It certainly does not means that Mizuno or you are deliberately falsifying anything.

Ascoli is concerned that there seems no good explanation for the difference in power data instrumentation on the spreadsheets for the 2017 paper results. Let me be quite clear:

(1) This is a real thing - if you claim otherwise you have not reflected on the data. The difference must be deliberate.

(2) It does not itself affect the integrity of the results, since both V*I and a power meter would be expected to give the same results (nearly).

(3) It is however strange, and it would be good to understand why this was done.

I don't myself see this as evidence of malfeasance. I do see it as evidence of poor record keeping and methodology. High standards here are needed if these results are without replication of independent testing to be taken as correct, since they will revolutionise science and industry if real. That is a pretty high stakes thing.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I think XXX is the wrong word: however the active data is undoubtedly different, using V*I to calculate power rather than (presumably) the Yogakawa analyser.

Maybe "suppression" has only harsher meanings in English, rather than in the Italian friend word. I will use "removal" instead.

Anyway, removal of data is what happened at some point. Consider the facts:

(a) JR finally admitted (1) that "The excess heat run was heated inside, mainly with glow discharge.";

(b) JR revealed (2) that "The analyzer was purchased for the plasma discharge experiments, which have rapidly changing input power."

So, given these (plausible) facts, what do you expect to find in the spreadsheets? Don't you expect to see the values measured by the analyzer in the "Input power" column of the ""excess heat run"? Instead you find the data from the analyzer in the "Input power" column of the "calibration run" and in the same column the "excess heat run" spreadsheet shows the V*I products!

It follows, that the analyzer data of the "excess heat run" have been removed at a given time. It could have happened very early, when the original "excess heat" spreadsheet was created, by avoiding dumping the analyzer data into the PC. Otherwise, it happened later by removing these data from a first version of the "excess heat run" spreadsheet. The original spreadsheets have been generated in Japan, and have been released from the USA. Somewhere, the data of the analyzer have been removed. In any case, the final result is that, for the glow discharge run we don't have the data measured by the instrument which was purchased for the plasma discharge experiments.

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That difference should have been noted explicitly, and should be explained, just as all instrument differences between control and active runs should be explained. On the face of it, it is strange.

Well, someone was aware of the problem. In fact, both spreadsheets report the note "V/DC*I/DC but probably measured directly with a wattmeter". Who added it into the spreadsheets and why?

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I doubt Jed is in any position to explain this himself: but he could note the issue (which he has been reluctant to do) and either get an explanation from Mizuno or note as an unresolved issue here that there that he cannot do that.

JR has presented this work at ICCF21 in June 2018 (3). Maybe, he also helped TM to write the JCMNS article, published on November 2017 (4). In any case, he claims to know every details of the May 2016 tests.

He could ask Mizuno, a good idea, but I have trouble in believing everything he says, I'm sorry. Consider, for example, the recent episode of the correlation between the blower power with the air speed measured by the anemometer (5). Now, he is repeating that "only the V*I data is in report" (6), but everyone can see that the "Input power" column in "calibration" spreadsheet doesn't report the V*I data.

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Why do these methodological issues matter? Because if unresolved they show bad practice that could easily result in significant mistakes leading to false positives. We cannot know, from these issues, that there will be any mistakes. It is a red flag, along with a number of other issues (for example the very different and unexplained initial rising edge gradient for output temperature in the control and active tests).

The issue of the "Input power" values on the two spreadsheets is a special one, because it can prove that someone is trying to take us by the nose!

(1) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(2) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

(3) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

(4) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTpreprintob.pdf

(5) Mizuno reports increased excess heat

(6) Mizuno Airflow Calorimetry

Ascoli,

That information - that the active run was perhaps heated by plasma discharge, raises issues about whether V*I is accurate.

A plasma discharge can often run with oscillating current. Depending on the PSU, maybe the voltage will be oscillating as well. In that case V*I would under-read the actual input power. This is similar to the average rms vs true rms problem. A power analyser would be less likely to under-read, but might give erratic readings if the oscillation frequency was higher than the sampling frequency of the power analyser. This would motivate measuring power on the mains input of a PSU and compensating for efficiency (unsafe though that is) plasma discharge waveforms are not always nice.

Jed - this you can answer. If in any of these experiments V*I is taken as proxy for power when the load is plasma, not a resistance, this is a problem.

Ascoli's suggestion is that the excess heat results in the 2017 paper were from a reactor heated by a plasma discharge - in which case V*I is not safely equal to power and those results are likely wrong.

Quote from THHuxleynew

That information - that the active run was perhaps heated by plasma discharge, raises issues about whether V*I is accurate.

That information is in the papers. These were plasma discharge experiments. How else could it be heated, given that fact?

We know the V*I is accurate because . . . <drumroll> it was confirmed with a $16,000 Yokogawa power meter. As I said. And said. And said. And said. As you will deny, deny, deny and lie, lie, lie about. Carry on!

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can anyone please explain to me why, if the heat is triggering the LENR, than the LENR stop immediately after Mizuno stop the electrical heater? the mesh is still hot... mesh doesn't know from the heat is coming from.

Indeed. For that matter, why does any LENR device purported to make much more (x2? x5? x10?) than the input heat requirement for it to run, why does such a device stop when the electrical heat is removed? In fact, absent controlled forced cooling, why does it not thermally run away? This has long bothered me about robust (large power out, large out/in ratio) claims of LENR.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Indeed. For that matter, why does any LENR device purported to make much more (x2? x5? x10?) than the input heat requirement for it to run, why does such a device stop when the electrical heat is removed? In fact, absent controlled forced cooling, why does it not thermally run away? This has long bothered me about robust (large power out, large out/in ratio) claims of LENR.

You are not alone: claims of high COP such as R19 and specially R20 raise these issues in urgent form.

Quote from JedRothwell

That information is in the papers. These were plasma discharge experiments. How else could it be heated, given that fact?

We know the V*I is accurate because . . . <drumroll> it was confirmed with a $16,000 Yokogawa power meter. As I said. And said. And said. And said. As you will deny, deny, deny and lie, lie, lie about. Carry on!

You have not documented any lies I have made. please do this, if you wish to impugn me.

The problem with "it was confirmed" is the immediate question - UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS. Plasma discharges are tricky and any change could mean they start oscillating and the V*I measurements are no longer accurate. Different oscillatory behaviour could even be temperature dependent.

It would be UNSAFE to measure any plasma discharge with V*I.

Which is why it is good that the power analyser exists, but less good that in this one case its output was not on the spreadsheet.

I'd leave such disputes until we have further replication evidence from other researchers - do the post-mortem as it were when the body (of evidence) is fully dead, as was the case in the first few AR cases. Sad if it all turns out to be artifact.

Quote from Cipolla

can anyone please explain to me why, if the heat is triggering the LENR, than the LENR stop immediately after Mizuno stop the electrical heater? the mesh is still hot... mesh doesn't know from the heat is coming from.

A good point that has been made before.

However I think someone already proposed that the effect might be triggered by IR radaition of a particular wavelength eg IR that is produced by the heater but not the mesh.

If heat from the mesh could trigger the reaction in the mesh then feedback situation would exist. I'm a bit rusty but this might not be enought to cause thermal runaway but could be responsible for altering the time constant.

For that matter, why does any LENR device purported to make much more (x2? x5? x10?) than the input heat requirement for it to run, why does such a device stop when the electrical heat is removed? In fact, absent controlled forced cooling, why does it not thermally run away? This has long bothered me about robust (large power out, large out/in ratio) claims of LENR.

That's simple enough to account for if IR stimulation from the heater is triggering fusion reactions in the PdNi lattice. My crackpot theory is derived from Holmlid's theories & experiments showing muon release from UDH etc etc and we all know muons catalyse fusion reactions etc etc. Said it all before - it depends on whether Holmlid's work is correct or not, Or we could just say if we turn the electric off the reaction stops. Or are you saying that because its nuclear like the sun or an H-bomb we shouldn't be able to turn it off?

How hard would it be to use the heat to create appropriate IR emissions near the grid, if that was the problem? Just apply the excess heat to the existing heater instead if electricity. Get the same temperature you get now. You don't need electricity to induce IR radiation. You need heat.

It's not like there is not enough power with a compact, three kilowatt output device like Mizuno and Rothwell claim they have. If any device purporting to exhibit LENR is made self running for an appreciable amount, the goal of proving that LENR is not only real but most likely practical will have been achieved.