What is the current state of LENR?

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    And my view, as not very resident interested skeptic.


    you will not find any null hypothesis in a form that can be proved. LENR rests at its heart on the problematic idea that somehow nuclear reactions can proceed without unstable products or high energy particles (both of which can be very easily detected). Attempts to detect either of these have proven difficult and always in the margin of possible error or non-replicable.


    For me though, the bottom line is that after 40 years of effort and a lot of experiments of many different kinds, nothing sticks experimentally.

    As you state the heart of the problem is that LENR proceeds without the high energy products produced by radioactive decay or a nuclear reaction stimulated by a high energy collision.


    Since heart of the problem is true, the detection methods you mention will always show far less unstable products and high energy particles than predicted given that only a high energy collisions can cause nuclear reaction. But, nuclear reactions can occur without a high energy collision. That leaves one to prove or disprove reaction based on transmutation. Basically, one must prove or disprove the reaction like one should any reactions: by mass balance and stoichiometry.


    You can prove cold fusion to yourself with a little math, just check the null hypothesis using the reference I provided above. If there is no reaction there is no transmutation and no stoichiometry. The data provided by Santilli is mass spectroscopy in gas which is accurate to 3 ppm. The result of the math is 29876 ppm of Deuterium and 4805 ppm of Oxygen is disappear while 9061 ppm of Nitrogen and 9793 ppm of hydrogen appear. There are no unaccounted changes. You can check the precision of the reaction by dividing each coefficient by 9061, the amount of nitrogen. The coefficients are slightly off because there is a secondary reaction. Once the secondary reaction is solved, the accountability is very close to the 3 ppm expected by the accuracy of mass spectrometry.


    The reaction is not a single elementary reaction or based on collision of two atoms. Rather, there is a nuclear active cluster where a cascade of elementary reactions occurs. The sum of reactions produces the overall reaction equation above. The fact that "the heart of the problem" is true does not prove the reaction did not happen. Rather the Gibbs equation indicates the energy produced by reaction comes in two forms heat and entropy as a function of temperature. The simple explanation here is that the more fragmented the quanta of energy produced by reaction becomes the more entropy is present rather than heat. Further entropy is not disorder but rather energy to mass conversion, hence the connection between relative mass(velocity) and temperature.


    There are many examples of this type of cold fusion which have been reproduced many times. Gas produced by cold fusion is commercially available.


    I have tried to show how wrong your views are and to show you where we need you to focus to realize cold fusion as an energy source. If the next step were easy, I would have done it already.

    current state of LENR

    Currently the most cold fusion reactor is still based on FPE, NOT on COLD Fusion mechanism.

    I explained everywhere the mechanism of Cold fusion that is the compress of hydride bond, and this understanding is the most important.

    So we must focused on the development of new reactor based on cold fusion mechanism.

    FPE is only D absorption

    Cold Fusion is D absorption(or D stored metal)=>Cold Fusion.


    paper on the Cold Fusion mechanism .

    Novel Cold Fusion Reactor with Deuterium Supply From Backside and Metal Surface Potential Control

    https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.30250.95688


    the difficulty in understanding the cold fusion mechanism is by the incorrect nuclear physics theory of nucleus.

    Cold Fusion is caused by the bond compression and small hydrogen(neutron) is created by hydride bond compression and this mechanism of the creation of small hydrogen(neutron)

    this is explained in the following paper.

    Neutron to be Tightly Bound Proton-Electron Pair and Nucleus to be Constituted by Protons and Internal Electrons

    https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.27304.49926

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    LENR is a great anti-Popperian enterprize. I wish it were not, and we could for sure have experiments that would disprove it. that would mean "LENR" was a real scientiific thing.

    That is not a bit true. It would be very easy to disprove cold fusion by experiment. All you have to do is demonstrate that the first and/or second law of thermodynamics are wrong. All of calorimetry and all cold fusion excess heat experiments are predicated on these two laws -- and on nothing else. There are no modifications to conventional thermodynamics. No extra steps or additional explanations. If the laws are right, calorimetry and cold fusion are right. If you can show that heat can of itself pass from a colder body to hotter body, you have proved that cold fusion does not produce energy. That's all there is to it.


    There are many unanswered questions about cold fusion, and much complexity, but the Popperian aspect of it -- calorimetry -- is dead simple. It was established by Kelvin in the 1860s. It is as falsifiable as any other theory.


    People sometimes think that extremely well established theories cannot be falsified. For example, Newton's theory that white light contains all other wavelengths (colors). That's not a bit true. All you have to do is make a prism or some other device that produces a color that white light in a prism does not produce. People claim that evolution cannot be falsified. Of course it can be. As Haldane famously said, you just have to find "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian."


    The obverse of this is that if you cannot prove the laws of thermodynamics are wrong, you must accept that cold fusion is real. There are no alternative explanations. THHuxley does not accept this, and in so doing, he abandons science, logic, and common sense. With regard to this subject in any case. He has absolutely no basis for the above statement or for any of his doubts about the reality of cold fusion. As Prof. Heinz Gerischer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Physical Chemistry, said in 1991: "there [are] now undoubtedly overwhelming indications that nuclear processes take place in metal alloys."


    Quote from JedRothwell

    All of calorimetry

    The interesting thing about science is not the science itself which in truth is rather boring

    but the human nonsense that goes on around it which is far more interesting and story-worthy

    indeed

    cyoung has mentioned the words 'fiasco' and 'feud' (Widom Larsen) ...


    I have seen some anonymous hacks on this forum try to discredit calorimetry results

    with frivolous suggestions.....


    "pasted data"

    "electrical interference"

    'airconditioning'

    'water in calcined material'


    the refutation of these spurious claims adds some drama to boring calorimetry..

    but sometimes these repetitive claims have lasted for weeks at a time in threads...

    and had become rather boring..

    thankfully now most of the hacks have gone silent .. but a few linger on..

    perhaps we should treasure them...the lingerers..

    for their literary worth.. :)

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Quote from Ascoli65

    Cold Fusion is a good subject for a novel. It is SF in itself and contains an intriguing mystery. IMO, the key to solving this mystery is provided by the video above.

    No. Even if the experiment were in error, that wouldn't prove anything about LENR, as a phenomenon, per se. It would only prove that the experiment were in error. It means nothing in the context of measurements of heat, tritium, charged particles, x-rays etc in other experiments.


    Does a (hypothetically) erroneous boil off experiment refute the observations of x-rays in co-dep cells by the SPAWAR team? Because you have to account for that too.


    The answer is no, it doesn't. Just like it doesn't refute all manner of compelling anomalous results that fall beyond the purview of the boil off experiment.


    Your argument here is so problematic that even if you were right, you'd still be wrong, because you use your argument to assert a wider proposition that simply does not proceed logically.

    Quote from orsova

    The answer is no, it doesn't. Just like it doesn't refute all manner of compelling anomalous results that fall beyond the purview of the boil off experiment.

    Also it does not refute those same experiments before and after the boil-off events. I wrote a paper about F&P's calorimetry last year. I was helped by from Miles and Pons, so I am confident I got it right. I did not address Ascoli's comments but anyway, if you want to know more about about that work, see:


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


    The tritium, x-rays, and helium are also compelling proof of a nuclear reaction. Excess heat is easier to measure and it has been confirmed more often, but these other observations are important. They bolster the claim. I wrote above: "There are no modifications to conventional thermodynamics. No extra steps or additional explanations. If the laws are right, calorimetry and cold fusion are right." I did not mean there is no other evidence. I meant the calorimetry used in these experiments is similar to calorimetry in other experiments going back to J. P. Joule's work in 1841, which I discussed in the above paper. Actually, that was adiabatic calorimetry, not isoperibolic (which is what F&P mainly used) but both are based on thermodynamics, and Joule's 1841 instrument could have detected most cold fusion reactions with confidence. Isoperibolic calorimetry has also been used countless times since the 1840s, with instruments that could have detected many cold fusion reactions. It was not called "isoperibolic" until 1962, according to Hemminger and Hohne (p. 83), but the method was used before that.

    I did not mean my reply to rehash the "is LENR real" question.


    The problem is this. You can set up a specific experiment designed to test LENR. Measure results. Then say, if those results do not meet some criterion which you have calculated implies LENR, that is a proof of a null hypothesis.


    But it is not. It is a proof that one experiment has failed. There are many variants of LENR with different associated experiments. Doubtless, if LENR is real, there will be one underlying theory. Since there is no agreement about what that is at a level that would make definite predictions we do not have a null hypothesis for it. For example, if LENR is a phenomena associated with vacancies in the surface of certain metals - then small changes could make these work or not work. A negative experimental result proves nothing.


    All I was saying in my post above is that you cannot disprove LENR...


    And therefore Popper (and me) would not view it as satisfactory science at its current state.


    As soon as you have a specific and predictive theory you can test its predictions and disprove it. Any LENR theory that allows that interests me. most do not.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    There are many variants of LENR with different associated experiments.

    There is only one major variant. It is an observation that bulk Pd-D systems produce heat and helium in the same ratio as D+D plasma fusion. All other claims might be wrong, but that claim has been so widely replicated, with such good instruments, at such high s/n ratios, that to doubt it is to reject the basis of the scientific method.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Doubtless, if LENR is real, there will be one underlying theory.

    Eventually there may be an underlying theory But LENR is an experimental observation, not a theory. The fact that it cannot be explained has no bearing on whether it is real or not. Replicated, high-sigma observations are real by definition. There is no other standard of truth in science.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Since there is no agreement about what that is at a level that would make definite predictions we do not have a null hypothesis for it.

    Predictions can only be made with a theory. There is no theory to explain cold fusion, but there is no doubt whatever that it is a real, nuclear effect. The heat, helium and tritium prove that. No theory -- or lack of theory, or lack of predictability -- can override that. If there is a conflict between theory and experimental observations, the experiments always win; theory always loses. That is the rock bottom basis of the scientific method. Any other view is not science. It is a debased form of religion.


    The only null hypothesis that can apply would be that the laws of thermodynamics are wrong, as I said above. The claim is predicated on those laws. It can only be proven wrong by showing they are wrong; i.e., heat is not work, or the heat can of itself pass from a colder body to a hotter body. If those laws are right, cold fusion is producing energy. That is simply indisputable. It is producing energy; there is no chemical fuel and no chemical changes in the cell; and there are nuclear changes (tritium and helium). That makes it nuclear fusion, by definition. Not by theory; by definition.


    You must prove those two laws are wrong to show an error in cold fusion. There are no other possible weaknesses. The fact that you cannot do that does not mean that cold fusion is unfalsifiable: it means you are not capable of falsifying it. You cannot falsify the theory of evolution either, because you are incapable of finding fossil rabbits in the Precambrian -- or some other evidence that overthrows the theory. Presumably, you cannot find those rabbits because the theory is correct, and there are no rabbits. That seems likely. Being "falsifiable" does not mean the same thing as "has been falsified" or "I personally can falsify it." It just means "this is what hypothetically could be observed that would falsify the claim." If you cannot come up with any hypothetical observation -- no rabbits, or anything else, no matter how implausible -- that would make the theory unfalsifiable.


    Of course that is not to say that all experiments are correct, or that experimentalists never make mistakes. We can only be sure of widely replicated experiments. Individual researchers make mistakes, but as a group there is no likelihood that that hundreds of researchers working for many years and seeing heat hundreds of times might all be wrong. That is as unlikely as a day in which every cold fusion researcher has an automobile accident driving to the lab. It would not happen in the lifetime of the universe. If such things could happen, science would not work, and we would still be living in caves.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    I did not mean my reply to rehash the "is LENR real" question.


    Doubtless, if LENR is real, there will be one underlying theory. Since there is no agreement about what that is at a level that would make definite predictions we do not have a null hypothesis for it.


    As soon as you have a specific and predictive theory you can test its predictions and disprove it. Any LENR theory that allows that interests me. most do not.

    There isn't agreement about an underlying theory on this forum in order maximize the number of comments. Most contributors have a pet theory or are invested in one approach to LENR. For those who want to find an underlying theory, this format lets us benefit from my eyes sharing information. This forum won't get agreement until some theory become a commercial success.


    Skipping the question "is LENR real" , perhaps we agree there will be a least one underlying theory. There are multiple reactions claimed, so there are likely variations of theory to explain the variety of reactions.


    You had stated "the heart of problem". I was just pointing to evidence for an underlying theory which explains the lack of nuclear level heat and high energy products yet still shows nuclear transformation by mass balance and stoichiometry and could still make use equation which predicts the value of coulomb barrier for a specific reaction.


    I agree a specific and predictive underlying theory has predictions some of which can be tested which might disprove it (or some of which have been tested which support outcomes are as predicted).


    I have a problem of point of view, I can see the parts that fit but I have a much harder time seeing significance of most of what gets reported. Please continue explain the faults of what is reported here. It really does help.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    The problem is this. You can set up a specific experiment designed to test LENR. Measure results. Then say, if those results do not meet some criterion which you have calculated implies LENR, that is a proof of a null hypothesis.


    But it is not. It is a proof that one experiment has failed.

    This not a problem at all. You can rule out the possibility that one experiment has failed. You do that by repeating the experiment many times at high signal to noise ratios and getting the same answer, and then have it independently replicated. The problem is that your experiment can only be a null hypothesis if it proves beyond question that calorimetry itself does not work. That is, heat is not work, or that heat can pass from a colder body to a hotter body. It is extremely unlikely you will find an experiment that does this, but it is at least conceivable.


    There is no other way to disprove cold fusion claims, because they are exactly the same as all other calorimetric observations going back to 1841. They are precisely congruent with all other calorimetry, just as all temperature measurements are confirmation that thermometers and thermocouples work; and all observations of planetary motion and bodies in motion on earth are confirmation of Newton's laws. You cannot possibly show that calorimetry works in chemistry, biology, food science, electrochemistry and every other known subject, but for some inexplicable reason it does not work with highly loaded Pd-D electrochemistry. There is no causal connection between high loading of Pd and some failure mode in the calorimetry. Also, many different types of calorimetry have been used to confirm the effect.

    How I would love to see a story featuring someone from the "Middle Ages" who claimed some rocks could oppose gravity, pulling other objects up towards themselves, but who was unable to determine why it only worked with some rocks.


    Perhaps it could also include some rock peddlers, and authors of various anti-gravity proto-physics theories, as well as representatives of the world's religions, ready to chime in on God's opinion of anti-gravity, and why it is most likely to prove a tool of Satan.


    Personally, I think there must be an explanation for rocks pulling objects towards themselves, but I'm not sure any of the anti-gravity theories are as certain as their authors claim. I think it must be a new form of gravity itself, the one fundamental force of the universe. We all think gravity is solely related to mass but, obviously, mass simply correlates with a gravitation factor in most matter, and some matter has, for reasons unknown, a great concentration of gravitation factor. It would be wonderful if we could harness it.

    Quote from orsova

    No. Even if the experiment were in error, that wouldn't prove anything about LENR, as a phenomenon, per se.

    No. The errors made by F&P in evaluating the outcomes of their 1992 boil-off experiment prove a lot. And even more, after McKubre has declared, at the last ICCF23, that the 1992 F&P experiment is the only one which has been exactly replicated in 30+ years of CF/LENR research (1).


    McKubre is the most famous, informed, and representative leading expert in the CF community. He has a very long experience in CF/LENR experiments. He was a great friend and a close collaborator of Fleischmann, and he certainly had the opportunity to carefully watch the 1992 lab video.


    So, if the F&P experiment were in error (but, IMO, anyone who carefully watch the video can see the errors), LENR ceases to be a physics topic and becomes a psychological issue: how is it possible that hundreds of eminent scientists have believed, and still are believing, in the F&P claims, despite the public availability of a video that clearly shows that they were wrong?


    Quote from orsova

    Does a (hypothetically) erroneous boil off experiment refute the observations of x-rays in co-dep cells by the SPAWAR team? Because you have to account for that too.

    Yes, it does. Because the 1992 boil-off experiment is the most important experiment in CF history, because its validity is still undisputed in the LENR community (see the JedRothwell reply to your comment), and, last but not least, because McKubre declared that it is the only CF experiment which has been exactly replicated. It means that all the others CF/LENR experiments, including those made by SPAWAR, have not been replicated. This fact allows a much simpler explanation for all the other possible extraordinary observations made by any other CF researcher, that is that these claims are based on undetected artifacts.


    Btw, why are you using the hypothetical form talking about the errors made by F&P in 1992? What is your actual opinion? You have the possibility to solve any doubt just by looking at their video. What does it prevent you from doing it?


    (1) RE: What should we do next ? - A relevant question from Matt Trevithick

    Quote from Ascoli65

    So, if the F&P experiment were in error (

    The eunuch is back.A warm Welcome for our Russian friend in LENR land...


    Takahashis work has been replicated by many and also Mills work that initially has been done by Santilli. Same for Mizuno's configuration.

    I'm not sure how or why Mc Cubre while sailing on the ocean should be up to date.


    But the time in Russia obviously runs very slow still 1992... What our friend Klimov thinks about this?

Subscribe to our newsletter

It's sent once a month, you can unsubscribe at anytime!

View archive of previous newsletters

* indicates required

Your email address will be used to send you email newsletters only. See our Privacy Policy for more information.

Our Partners

Supporting researchers for over 20 years
Want to Advertise or Sponsor LENR Forum?
CLICK HERE to contact us.