Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    For example: how high does that oh so important asymptote on voltage go? - it must be known, from the design of the CC source.

    The maximum voltage is 100 V, but you don't find this value in the "Simplicity paper", unless you assume that it coincides with the maximum of the voltage scale on the left of Figs.6A-D.


    Instead, this value was explicitly indicated in the "Heat After Death" paper, presented at ICCF4 the subsequent year (1): "We have then adopted the procedure of allowing the cells to boil to dryness. For these conditions the galvanostats are driven to the rail voltage (100 V) but the cell current is reduced to zero."


    Anyway, it seems to me that you did one more time fall in the trap of the never ending straw man arguments. You are wasting your time. Let me suggest you to first finish the examination of the excess heat claim (a) of the simplicity paper. I fear you probably have not well understood the foam issue and its impact on the energy balance of the "1992 boil-off experiment".


    (1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/PonsSheatafterd.pdf

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    I do rather like the modified ATER explanation (one of four, and quite different from ascoli's concerns)

    You are completely out of track. Please, forget for a while all these absurd explanations, such as ATER, CCS, and the like. You are introducing a lot of unnecessary complications. You go nowhere in this way.


    Please, follow me in the foam argument. Let's proceed bit by bit as you did propose (1).


    1 - Did you read the description of the foaming behavior inside the cells written by Robert Horst (2)?


    2 – Do you agree with this description?


    3 – Are you aware that when the blue arrow appear on top of each cell in the "1992 boil-off" video (3) the fluid in the cell is mostly foam and not liquid?


    (1) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (2) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAIIZU6Oj8

    Thanks Ascoli for the info re 100V rail.


    It looks to me like the video timestamps are time-of-day because they all are for hours 0-23. But the graphs in the paper appear to be time from the start of the experiment (in seconds or Ksec). So to line them up, you need to know what time of day corresponds to 0 Ksec.


    However, I looked at the video a couple dozen times and am inclined to agree that the arrows are foam levels, not liquid levels. The cells seem to transition through three clear phases. In the first phase, you can see that it is mostly liquid with gradually increasing bubbles as the liquid boils. In the second phase is is mostly foam and in the third phase, the foam level rapidly decreases to zero. You can tell the foam phase because sometimes the level decreases and then increases again, which could not happen with liquid. For instance, look at Cell 1 at 21:23 when it is full of foam, 21:40 when the top of the foam is a little lower, then 21:55 when it is full of foam again. Several times the video cuts away for hours between phases 1 and 2. For Cell 1, there is a cut between about 11:30 and 18:36.


    The Enthalpy Balance in the paper is based on only the last 10 minutes and assumes the liquid is boiling then. Even though I have great respect for Fleischmann's work in general, I would have to agree with Ascoli that this paper is likely flawed.


    Thanks for encouraging me to reread the discussion in 2018 - which I followed with some bemusement at the time. I had forgotten all the details: but re-examining the thread now makes it easier to clarify things. However I still have a lot I do not understand about the precise arguments made by Ascoli.


    Having done this (and noting the extra info from ascoli) I will summarise my position:

    • Uncertainty in voltage - straw man in that it could not deliver the claimed enthalpy imbalance (ascoli evidence that 100V rail was quoted). Even so, it is unfortunate. Accurate high-time-resolution voltage readings synchronised with the video for the critical 10 min phase would help to resolve the uncertainties here (if there remain any). It shows a cavalier attitude towards the data that for F&P is understandable (they have "known" the effect is real for 20 years) but for everyone else is lamentable. (and please note, Jed etc, that I am hereby showing that given additional evidence I change my position).
    • Possibility of HAD electrode heating through oxidation of absorbed D in cathode by the air. Not a straw man (yet). It seems a very plausible effect. It could also account excess heat in the boil-off phase whenever there is a significant amount of the previously wet electrode dry. Until this effect is dismissed, it could happen. If it happens, it would lead to apparent excess heat in this type of experiment exactly in the short last boil-off phase that F&P claim they see most obvious excess heat in [3]
    • Ascoli's argument (the claimed 600s time for boil-off from 50% to 0% liquid is just wrong). I will still await resolution of the points below before comment. I do have some comments already - but I'd like to put everything together before coming out with partial comments. However, my overall comment is the probably going to stay the same as that of Robert Horst [4]. That on the basis of the evidence presented the paper is likely flawed.


    I am going to answer ascoli's questions, but first fill in some context. I give my interpretation of his argument, with comments. It may be wrong, but I find it the best way to resolve misunderstandings.


    • Ascoli's point is that the simplicity paper boil-off energy balance assumes incorrectly a time between cell-half-full and cell-empty of 600s (10 min). In the paper it says that the two endpoints for this time are determined by carefully looking at the video, which was published. Ascoli thinks the published video evidence is contrary to this.
    • The paper, and the video, described 4 cells, run concurrently in the experiment, each with roughly similar behaviour, with different endpoint times. This adds complexity of analysis because we need to know which cell we are talking about (and is it the same) when relating any two bits of data.
    • From my POV, it is in checking all of the data against itself that we can know the experimental data is consistent and valid. Experiments without this detail are much less believable. They rely on the opinion of the authors (e.g eyeballing when a cell is half-dry).


    Ascoli's conclusion rests on three independent bits of evidence (a) The blue arrows on a "condensed for presentation" copy of the video. (b) the clips selected in the condensed video (c) His own analysis [1] eyeballing the longer video linked in the F&P paper [3].

    • The blue arrow argument. The blue arrows (for each cell) were put on the condensed video by F&P and were intended by them to indicate (what?). However, what they actually indicate is the very end of the experiment where the foam level drops (after there is no more boiling).
    • The video clip argument. The clips selected in the video by F&P were meant to correspond to the boil-off 600s segments of each cell
    • Ascoli analysis eyeballing the video himself


    It is helpful to consider also the contrary arguments made by various members of LF, who considered Ascoli's argument and suggested it was incorrect

    • Ascoli's correlation of video timestamps and times on F&P graphs was wrong. Ascoli answered this comprehensively with [2] and after that no-one pursued this criticism.
    • The blue arrows were put on the video by Krivit, not F&P. I see no direct answer to this: we cannot directly tell. However indirectly (a) ascoli claims evidence that the blue arrows correspond to points identified by F&P. (b) ascoli claims independently from his video eyeballing [1] that this boil-off phase was much longer than 600s for cell 1. It would be worth examining ascoli's points in more detail I think.

    Now, ascoli claims that the 6B voltage/temp/time graph [3] endpoint time for a cell (which one?) is misaligned with the video endpoint - so that the period claimed for HAD was in fact HDE (heat during electrolysis).


    In fact there are two separate arguments here: (1) the argument pursued in this thread that the HAD was not HAD because there was liquid in the cell. (2) the old argument That the 600s boil-off phase used to estimate enthalpy balance actually corresponded to different liquid levels that the 50% and 0% that F&P claim. To some extent these two arguments overlap - but they are not the same.


    Now, answering ascoli's step-by-step questions:


    • Do I agree with Robert Horst about the arrows represent foam levels? Yes
    • Am I aware that the 1st blue arrow is at a time when the tube is mostly full of foam. Yes


    I'd agree with both those points.




    1. Diagram showing the vertical level of each phase (liquid/boiling/foam/empty) in cell 1, and the arrows (ascoli - a lot of work)

    (note to ascoli - we have been discussing 6B. does that correspond to cell 1? or cell 2? And if we have been discussing cell 2 then it would be helpful to have a similar diagram for cell 2.


    2. Diagram and tables showing the times of the video clips (ascoli - a lot of work)


    3. F&P Simplicity paper


    4. Robert Horst post summarising views on F&P experiment

    Re identifying cells. F&P refer to the "first" and "last" cell. Let us follow this - cell 1 is the first to boil, cell 4 is the last to boil, as given by video times and also times in Fig 6.


    That means that 6A, 6B,6C,6D is first (1), second (2), third (3), last (4). No ambiguity.


    I'd also point out that Fig 10A,B,C,D in the simplicity paper (ref above) are totally unhelpful to me. I cannot determine anything from them. Maybe they have lost something in scanning or copying and the originals were more helpful? The videos do have a lot more evidence because the way that bubbles move in them helps you to distinguish what is what.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Am I aware that the 1st blue arrow is at a time when the tube is mostly full of foam. Yes

    OK, this is enough to explain in a ordinary way any claimed excess heat in the "1992 boil off" experiment.


    The explanation is straight. This is a line extracted from page 16 of the simplicity paper:


    In Vapour, 102,500J/600s ≈ 171W


    This is the greatest term in the heat balance which gives an excess heat of about 4 times the input power.


    It contains two data. Let's leave aside the boiling time at the denominator, it doesn't matter. The numerator was calculated in this other line:


    In Vapour ≈ (2.5 Moles × 41KJ/Mole) = 102,500J


    F&P multiplied two numbers. The second is correct (apart the K symbol which should have been in lowercase), and represents the latent heat of vaporization of heavy water (1). The second is the estimate made by F&P of the moles of water evaporated in the final boil off phase, that is the period marked with blue arrows in the video published by Krivit. But 2.5 Moles correspond to half the entire content of a cell at the beginning of the experiment, when it is full liquid!


    However, in the final boil off phase, when F&P calculated the Output Enthalpy due to vaporization, the water mass in each cell was much lower, maybe 20, 10, 5% of the figure considered by F&P, who knows? In any case they made an enormous mistake. In short: in calculating the excess heat of their "1992 boil-off" experiment, F&P confused liquid for foam!


    This is the main and definitive error!


    (1) https://www.engineeringtoolbox…ic-properties-d_2003.html

    Yes, that is my understanding of your point. It seems very likely (as Robert Horst also thought). To prove it to close-minded skeptics here (Jed etc) you need only to show that there is no 600s segment on the videos that corresponds to a 50% to 0% liquid level change.


    Equally, to contradict you, Jed has to convince independent observers that the video shows that change (50% to 0% liquid level) over a 600s period.


    It is quite simple.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Yes, that is my understanding of your point. It seems very likely (as Robert Horst also thought). To prove it to close-minded skeptics here (Jed etc) you need only to show that there is no 600s segment on the videos that corresponds to a 50% to 0% liquid level change.

    F&P said they considered the last half of the boiled water, therefore this 600s segment has to be necessarily at the end of the boil-off, it can't be elsewhere. The available videos, both the one published by Krivit and the one published by Rothwell, include these final boil-off periods, one for each cell, but none of them show a drop in liquid level from 50% to 0% in 600s.


    Let me show this other jpeg which refers to Cell1: https://imgur.com/a/q7QpRF5


    Frames 1 to 4 are taken from the video published by Rothwell and frames A and B from the video published by Krivit.


    The transparent part indicates the cell portion in which the cell content is almost full liquid. Some more liquid could be present in the volume above the dotted red lines, but the dynamic on the video shows that it is mostly foam.


    Frames 1 and 2 are the first and last in the first clip referring to Cell 1 boiling. They lie about 3 hours before the dry-out time and show that the water mass is already well below 50%, which means that the cell has been losing heat by evaporation for a long time.


    After this first clip, there is a long period of missing frames which lasts more than 2 hours. The second clip starts with frame 3, which shows that the residual water mass has halved once again. We can also note that the upper level of the foamy part has dropped by approximately one diameter (1 in).


    In the first part of this second clip, up to frame 4, the liquid water is reduced to about 1 cm, but on the same time the foam level rise again at a level even higher than in the first clip. What does it happened?


    Well, the lowering of the liquid around the cathode, decreased the wetted surface of the cathode so that the resistance increased and consequently, due to the constant current, the voltage and the dissipated power jumped to maximum. This enhanced the generation of bubbles in the residual liquid volume, which inflated and pushed up the fine and more persistent foam presents along the cell.


    Finally the last frames A and B show that when the liquid around the cathode is almost completely vaporized, the production of bubbles ceases and the column of foam above deflates and rapidly lower its level up to the volume of the fine and persistent foam.


    This is what the videos show.


    The same videos were watched by F&P in 1992. In their estimation of the Enthalpy Output they considered the reduction in the foam volume as it was a loss of full liquid water by evaporation.


    (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9K1Hvw434

    (2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAIIZU6Oj8

    Quote from Ascoli65

    F&P said they considered the last half of the boiled water, therefore this 600s segment has to be necessarily at the end of the boil-off, it can't be elsewhere. The available videos, both the one published by Krivit and the one published by Rothwell, include these final boil-off periods, one for each cell, but none of them show a drop in liquid level from 50% to 0% in 600s.

    I agree. However there is a possibility that foam is created during the boil-off and gradually goes down after all boiling has stopped. So determining the exact end of the boil-off period is not straightforward. I agree that subject to possible foam generation and subsidence the 600s must be at the end.


    Jed, or others here, may dispute your determination of the liquid level in the cells. It would be interesting to see which video frames he considers correspond to 50% and 0% liquid level.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    I agree. However there is a possibility that foam is created during the boil-off and gradually goes down after all boiling has stopped. So determining the exact end of the boil-off period is not straightforward.

    Yes, exactly. Not only is it possible but also likely that, for each cell, the lowest blue arrow doesn't indicate the end of the boil off period, but only the frame at which the foam level has ceased to drop. But I can't see how could compromise the conclusion that the heat balance at page 16 of the Simplicity Paper is totally wrong, as F&P ignored the fact that in the final boil-off period the cell contents was mostly foam.


    Quote

    I agree that subject to possible foam generation and subsidence the 600s must be at the end.

    Do you also agree that the lab videos undoubtedly prove that F&P made a huge mistake in calculating the rate of enthalpy output?


    Or do you still have any objections that might contradict this conclusion?


    Quote

    Jed, or others here, may dispute your determination of the liquid level in the cells. It would be interesting to see which video frames he considers correspond to 50% and 0% liquid level.

    You are too optimistic. You already know what kind of answers was given to the observation about the wrong position of the vertical arrow in Fig.8.

    So here we have two people who know next to nothing about electrolysis disputing the findings of a world-class electrochemist and his very able colleague. I have performed probably several hundred electrolysis experiments, 44 this month alone. In a previous life I was responsible for formulating electrolyte mixtures containing suspended particles as well as plating tanks up to 15,000 litres, including some very high current high voltage systems . I don't consider myself an expert but I am pretty knowledgeable, which is enough to tell me that your topic is a waste of pixels and your arguments based on nothing more than guesswork.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    So here we have two people who know next to nothing about electrolysis disputing the findings of a world-class electrochemist and his very able colleague. I have performed probably several hundred electrolysis experiments, 44 this month alone. In a previous life I was responsible for formulating electrolyte mixtures containing suspended particles as well as plating tanks up to 15,000 litres, including some very high current high voltage systems . I don't consider myself an expert but I am pretty knowledgeable, which is enough to tell me that your topic is a waste of pixels and your arguments based on nothing more than guesswork.

    I think this is the best challenge to the F&P results I have seen, (ultimately correct or not) and it is better to get to the bottom of it rather than sweep dissent under the carpet. Obviously some boiling dewars are in the future.

    Thanks Wyttenbach for posting these papers, the isotopic analysis in the one in which Mizuno is listed as co author should send any skeptic down the rabbit hole, the notion that these very infrequent isotopes of Chrome arrived there ad contamination is only explainable by cognitive dissonance.


    There’s also a very good paper in Fusion Technology by Matsumoto on changes in the Pd cathode, with one particularly intriguing SEM image that shows an entire grain of the alloy completely gone without signs of melting of mechanical damage.


    These papers are heresy for anyone that think that LENR is a figment of the imagination of a few pseudoscientific fools.

    I certainly Hope to see LENR helping humans to blossom, and I'm here to help it happen.

    Thanks 1
    Quote from Paradigmnoia

    I think this is the best challenge to the F&P results I have seen, (ultimately correct or not) and it is better to get to the bottom of it rather than sweep dissent under the carpet.

    And just to get to the bottom, what is your ultimate opinion on the following 2 specific errors contained in the F&P's Simplicity Paper?


    (a) foam-by-liquid confusion in evaluating the heat balance at page 16, as explained in (a1-4);

    (b) misplacement of the "Cell dry" vertical arrow in Fig.8, as explained in (b1-3).


    (a1) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (a2) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (a3) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (a4) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?


    (b1) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (b2) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    (b3) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?

    Quote from Alan Smith

    So here we have two people who know next to nothing about electrolysis disputing the findings of a world-class electrochemist and his very able colleague. I have performed probably several hundred electrolysis experiments, 44 this month alone. In a previous life I was responsible for formulating electrolyte mixtures containing suspended particles as well as plating tanks up to 15,000 litres, including some very high current high voltage systems . I don't consider myself an expert but I am pretty knowledgeable, which is enough to tell me that your topic is a waste of pixels and your arguments based on nothing more than guesswork.

    Alan - that is a logically bankrupt argument you've just made.


    (1) You quote the qualifications of two able electrochemists - and yet ascoli's argument is watching foam and cross-checling a video against a graph in a paper. Hardly electrochemistry. Nor do F&P answer ascoli's argument. They give no reasons for their statements about 600s (a peculiarly round number of minutes) between 50% full and empty.

    (2) You say that you are knowledgable (which I agree) and then trash a simple argument - surely simple to contradict - without reasons. Is everyone here too simple-minded to follow your reasons? The argument from ascoli can be followed by anyone, and is clear. you could at least say which link in its chain your "expertise" contradicts.


    I, as you know, am not very knowledgable - but very good at following arguments - even technical ones in areas I am less familiar with - and detecting BS. I am sensitive to it - I even detect it, and feel embarrassed, when I do it as happens occasionally - I am only human.


    I do so here: in the F&P paper (lack of clarity about key aspects) and your support of it (no reasons given).

    Quote from Ascoli65

    Do you also agree that the lab videos undoubtedly prove that F&P made a huge mistake in calculating the rate of enthalpy output?


    Or do you still have any objections that might contradict this conclusion?

    Actually - I don't go as far as you!


    I never thought those rubbish videos proved anything much. It is difficult to be SURE what is the liquid level. Of course that makes F&P's whole paper groundless - based entirely on their subjective and unexplained "close observation of the video".


    I think it is very unlikely the liquid reduces by 50% of volume in 600s - based on those videos.


    I think F&P have the classic disease got by people who are infinitely more experienced than their audience. They leave out steps, make assumptions based on what they know. If, like Alan and Jed, you accept them as great people who cannot be wrong that is fine. If anyone else you find the gaps and assumptions intensely annoying. "Believe me, I know more than you" has never been an argument in a research paper that I can accept.


    It is a bit like with Rossi. Suppose they had what they say. Then they could so easily have documented that experiment more carefully - chosen enthalpy calculation points that were quantitatively justified - not "estimating levels on a video" where foam and liquid and boiling liquid all look pretty similar. Made an iron-clad case that would convince their many doubters.


    Like Rossi, BLP, many others, they choose to demo a system which it is very difficult to derive exact results from: and it does not even seem right when independent observers check it.


    Even Robert Horst was not convinced...


    The LENR community is very happy it is now being taken seriously. I am happy too. That serious work will lead to more clarity over whether LENR exists or not - surely something we will all welcome?


    You do not need to rest on dodgy demos from the mists of history. At least, I hope not!

    Staker,,, 2018,,

    Probably doesn't have a 46 hr video,,

    Is youtube enough?

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    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Actually - I don't go as far as you!


    I never thought those rubbish videos proved anything much.

    It depend on what you are looking for. If you are looking for something that proves or disproves the existence of the CF phenomenon, those videos, which are not rubbish at all, prove nothing.


    But those videos, compared with Fig.8 and the calculation on page 16 of the Simplicity Paper, do certainly prove that the authors of that very important paper made two huge mistakes, from which they derived the two, and only two, claims of that work. We also know that F&P have confirmed and strenuously defended the reality of these claims for years and decades. Therefore, those videos do prove the scientific unreliability of the authors of the Simplicity Paper.


    In short, the "1992 boil-off" lab video shouldn't be considered as a test on the reality of CF, but as a test on the scientific reliability of its proponents.


    Quote

    I think F&P have the classic disease got by people who are infinitely more experienced than their audience. They leave out steps, make assumptions based on what they know.

    Or, rather, based on what they were hoping! And, for this same reason, they probably avoided to take steps they feared might contradict their desired, but only apparent, findings.


    Quote

    It is a bit like with Rossi. Suppose they had what they say. Then they could so easily have documented that experiment more carefully - chosen enthalpy calculation points that were quantitatively justified - not "estimating levels on a video" where foam and liquid and boiling liquid all look pretty similar. Made an iron-clad case that would convince their many doubters.

    Yes, there are many similarities with Rossi.


    However, the "1992 boil-off experiment" is really a good one. The time lapse video was an excellent way to understand what was going on in the cells. I agree with you, it's not enough to pinpoint exactly the liquid level inside the cells, but it's enough to conclude that the energy balance at page 16 of the Simplicity Paper is totally wrong. The authors completely ignored the fact that, in the final boil-off stage, the cells were full of foam. Not a word about that!


    Now, watch please this very interesting video (1), and please read this old comment of mine (2a-b). The images I talk about in the comment have been shot on June 23, 1992, that is 6-7 weeks after the conclusion of the "1992 boil-off" experiment and 4 months before the presentation of the Simplicity Paper at ICCF3. How could F&P have ignored the presence of foam in their cells?


    Quote

    The LENR community is very happy it is now being taken seriously. I am happy too. That serious work will lead to more clarity over whether LENR exists or not - surely something we will all welcome?

    Unfortunately, the reactions to our comments show how much the LENR community is happy to discuss seriously about these evidences.


    (1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OQu44UIC_s

    (2a) RE: FP's experiments discussion

    (2b) https://imgur.com/9ZIgaNK

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