Jed, by continuing to engage these two skeptics, you are enabling. I suggest leaving this thread to those two and avoid having to repeat yourself over and over. Their views aren't worth your time or mine. End this nonsense!!!
Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
- JedRothwell
- Closed
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Jed, by continuing to engage these two skeptics, you are enabling. I suggest leaving this thread to those two and avoid having to repeat yourself over and over. Their views aren't worth your time or mine. End this nonsense!!!
It’s a tail chasing, never ending circular argument, I agree.
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Most of the others I have read nothing (those 180 labs) about concluded that rather than try for a Nobel by getting sure proof of LENR they would stop - because the quality of the evidence was not enough to justify even a very high risk high reward gamble.
No, they stopped because they retired and died. Most of the ones I knew, such as Oriani, worked at the lab until they were so old and feeble they were physically incapable of working. They were all 100% certain the effect was real and the evidence was good. You do not think so, but you should not pretend they agreed with your views.
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Jed, by continuing to engage these two skeptics, you are enabling. I suggest leaving this thread to those two and avoid having to repeat yourself over and over. Their views aren't worth your time or mine.
I agree. I should stop. There is some value to responding because otherwise people new to the forum and new to cold fusion might get the impression these people are right. Or that their views have not been challenged. Okay, there is some value to that, but as you say, I have taken it too far.
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I agree. I should stop. There is some value to responding because otherwise people new to the forum and new to cold fusion might get the impression these people are right. Or that their views have not been challenged. Okay, there is some value to that, but as you say, I have taken it too far.
I made the exercise of going to the first page of this thread and skipping some pages in between, and see for myself the main arguments on both sides. As I suspected, they are the very same than the ones of the last pages.
At least THHuxleynew is honest enough to admit his skepticism make him be “uncertain”. His uncertainty is completely based in his unwillingness to accept that any anomaly that can explain the observations, other than what he accepts from orthodox and “settled” science, exists. So be it, let him remain “uncertain”.
Ascoli65 on the other hand has insisted in denying that any effect was observed at all, which is preposterous. He is also ignoring the fact that when one does experimental work is a process of several months and several iterations, not one single experiment, and at the moment of publishing one condenses a lot of work and observations in a few pages. -
Jed here has not got a leg to stand on in trying to justify the discrepancy between the video evidence and what is claimed.
I look forward to his looking carefully at the evidence (it is admittedly a tedious process) and then either agreeing with you and me, or coming up with some better defence of his position than "they were experts who therefore know more than you do".
Ok, we got his answer (1).
Now let's go back to us.
We were talking (2) about the 2 conclusions contained at page 19 of the Simplicity Paper (3):
(a) – an excess rate of about four times, and
(b) – the ability of the cells to remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time.
For now, I've only illustrated to you the discrepancy relating to the second conclusion (b). Do you have any other objection or curiosity about it, or can we continue examining the first conclusion (a)?
(1) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
(2) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
(3) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
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For now, I've only illustrated to you the discrepancy relating to the second conclusion (b). Do you have any other objection or curiosity about it, or can we continue examining the first conclusion (a)?
I am happy we have finished (b). It does not much alter my view - since I never viewed that evidence as clear. But it is good to have this more definite evidence of how it is not consistent.
Excess rate of 4 times??? I did not think they were claiming COP=4, but I actually cannot remember without reading the paper again.
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I am happy we have finished (b). It does not much alter my view - since I never viewed that evidence as clear. But it is good to have this more definite evidence of how it is not consistent.
Excess rate of 4 times??? I did not think they were claiming COP=4, but I actually cannot remember without reading the paper again.
At page 19 of the F&P's simplicity paper (1) you can read: "We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even for this highly inefficient system; the specific excess rates are broadly speaking in line with those achieved in fast breeder reactors." [underline added]
This figures emerges from the calculation at page 16. F&P calculated a total enthalpy output of 182 W (=11+171) obtained with an enthalpy input of just 37.5 W, so they claimed an excess heat of 144.5 W (=182-37.5), which is 3.85 times (=144.5/37.5) greater than the energy input, that is "about four times" as they wrote in the conclusion. Actually, COP would even be greater than 4, because it is calculated by dividing the output by the input, so it would have been, according to F&P's calculation, equal to 4.85.
You can find a better explanation of the above F&P's calculation in a more recent paper of JR titled "Review of the calorimetry of Fleischmann and Pons" (2), starting on page 15.
Have a good reading.
(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf
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At page 19 of the F&P's simplicity paper (1) you can read: "We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even for this highly inefficient system; the specific excess rates are broadly speaking in line with those achieved in fast breeder reactors." [underline added]
This figures emerges from the calculation at page 16. F&P calculated a total enthalpy output of 182 W (=11+171) obtained with an enthalpy input of just 37.5 W, so they claimed an excess heat of 144.5 W (=182-37.5), which is 3.85 times (=144.5/37.5) greater than the energy input, that is "about four times" as they wrote in the conclusion. Actually, COP would even be greater than 4, because it is calculated by dividing the output by the input, so it would have been, according to F&P's calculation, equal to 4.85.
You can find a better explanation of the above F&P's calculation in a more recent paper of JR titled "Review of the calorimetry of Fleischmann and Pons" (2), starting on page 15.
Have a good reading.
(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf
I am happy to take Jed's calculation here. We can refer to the original should there be questions.
CALCULATION
Enthalpy Input
By electrolysis = (Ecell − 1.54) × Cell Current = ~22,500 J.
Ecell is the electrochemical term for cell voltage; 1.54 is the thermoneutral potential for heavy water.
Enthalpy Output To Ambient ≈ k′R [(374.5°)4 − (293.15°)4] × 600 s = 6,700 J.
Radiation, based on the StefanBoltzmann law that surface radiation is to the fourth power of temperature in Kelvin. In this case, a heat transfer coefficient derived from the surface area and confirmed by calibration, multiplied 16 by the fourth power of the cell temperature, minus the fourth power of the bath temperature. That is power (W), so it is multiplied here by 600 seconds (10 minutes) to give energy (J).
In Vapour ≈ (2.5 Moles × 41 KJ/Mole) = 102,500 J.
That is, 2.5 moles of heavy water (45 g) multiplied by heat of vaporization of heavy water Enthalpy Balance Excess Enthalpy ≈ 86,700 J. Excess heat Rate of Enthalpy Input By Electrolysis, 22,500 J/600 s = 37.5 W. Electrolysis input power during the boil-off event. This is over-estimated, because the power cuts off when the water level falls below the anode and cathode.
Rate of Enthalpy Output To Ambient, 6,600 J/600 s = 11 W
11 W power from radiation from the cell to the bath during the event In Vapour, 102,500 J/600 s ≈ 171 W.
171 W carried off as steam
Balance of Enthalpy Rates Excess Rate ≈ 144.5 W Excess Specific Rate ≈ 144.5 W / 0.0392 cm3 ≈ 3,700 W/cm-3. Power normalized to the volume of palladium
COMMENT
The big deal here is that, like Rossi's early claim, most of the enthalpy comes from phase change. in this case we can reasonably sure that indeed there was the stated phase change - the cell was run till it boiled off. Unlike Rossi's (or Parkhomov's) pathetic work, Let us trust that F&P understand the issues about droplets, wet steam, etc. It seems reasonable.
However, the enthalpy balance here assumes a super-fast boil-off. They compare input enthalpy over a 10 minute period with output enthalpy over (they say) the same period.
The big assumption here is that 50% of the liquid boils off in 10 minutes. The issues about "when the cell was dry" affect that similarly. So, if the cell dry endpoint is in fact later - even by 30 minutes let alone 3 hours - this energy balance fails.
My 1st problem is that the data justifying this assumption is not available in the paper. Had they recorded cell current as well as voltage it would have been easier. They cell dry (or at least - water below electrode) point would be exactly known. That is "cell nearly all dry". It could be compared with the point at which the cell is half full - though I am not quite sure how.
They have, in making this calculation, deliberately chosen two points that are not well defined by the available data: cell-half-full and cell-empty. One of those two points would appear from the video to be wrong by a large amount - more than enough to account for the apparent excess energy.
Ascoli - you might ask why I did not myself highlight this. It is because when, a long time ago, I read the F&P paper, I viewed all of the data from "boil-off" as unreliable. We have dynamically changing conditions, both power input and power out. Assumptions that are normally valid can change unexpectedly as conditions change in this way. So I don't trust anything. (You see the same idea in Mills "bomb-style" calorimetry where instead of using a proper bomb calorimeter that would catch all the heat they try to estimate power out and in over a pulse of input and output power and integrate. It is an error-prone thing to do.
Since, however, Jed continues to assert that this evidence is strong I guess examining it in detail, as you want us to, is justified.
My 2nd problem is the calculation of electrical power in. The calculation is wrong. Voltage X Current = Power (not energy). The inputs are not given. What is the supposed Ein? If we are dealing with the 6B cell we have known Iin = 0.5A. I find it astonishing that Jed repeats this error without correcting it.
(ECell - 1.53) X Cell current = 22,500J
Let us assume the RESULT is correct, and try to work out the correct equation and inputs. This is claimed energy over 600s, so we have:
(Ecell(av) - 1,53)V X 0.5A X 600s = 22,500J =>
Ecell(av) - 1.53 = 22500/300 = 75V
=> Ecell(av) = 73.5V
Now, from Fig 6B, we see that the last accurate cell voltage reading given is 4.605V. After that there is an asymptote up to 100V over the next 400,000s (> 10 hours).
Now, the 10 minute period here is defined to be from cell 1/2 full to cell empty (the last half). That BTW would mean the total cell contents was 90g (approx 90ml) which sounds about right.
600s corresponds to a very tiny part of the 6B voltage graph. By definition, at the end, the voltage must be constant and > 100V (we cannot see where the asymptote ends).
Let me repeat that. By definition - if F&P are correct that they are measuring from the "cell half dry" to the "cell dry" point - they must be measuring all the way to the end of that asymptote in voltage. Which makes accurate average voltage measurement very difficult.
I expanded 6B so that 500,000s = 25mm
Then, 600s = 0.03mm
On the graph 0.03mm is still too small to see - but you can see that before the "can't see" bit of the asymptote in voltage there is a small "elbow" at around 60V which is >> 0.03mm width.
Hence we have that for all of the last 600s before boil-off - for this cell - the average Ein is > 60V
75V is not impossible - it seems too low because we know the endpoint is > 100V when the cell is dry. Mainly this is a part of the graph where the errors are very large, an especially we have no upper bound on the voltage (and hence energy in).
THH
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Ecell(av) - 1.53 = 22500/300 = 7.5V
I'm reading your long comment, but before answering I suggest you check this calculation of yours. The result for me is 75 not 7.5.
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I'm reading your long comment, but before answering I suggest you check this calculation of yours. The result for me is 75 not 7.5.
! OK
Fixed it!
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The big deal here is that, like Rossi's early claim, most of the enthalpy comes from phase change. in this case we can reasonably sure that indeed there was the stated phase change - the cell was run till it boiled off. Unlike Rossi's (or Parkhomov's) pathetic work, Let us trust that F&P understand the issues about droplets, wet steam, etc. It seems reasonable.
You can be sure there were no droplets. The lithium salt left in the cell was measured carefully. All the salt added to the cell was still there, so the water was distilled (vaporized), with no droplets. You can verify this by boiling salt water in a similar cell. (But of course you will not do this.)
My 1st problem is that the data justifying this assumption is not available in the paper. Had they recorded cell current as well as voltage it would have been easier.
It was in constant current mode.
They have, in making this calculation, deliberately chosen two points that are not well defined by the available data: cell-half-full and cell-empty. One of those two points would appear from the video to be wrong by a large amount - more than enough to account for the apparent excess energy.
It is easy measure this with the video, or by watching it in person when it happens. The video now available is a poor copy, but the original made it quite clear. Furthermore, you can easily tell when the entire cell is boiled dry. The steam stops coming out. It is ridiculous to claim this took far longer than measured with the video. Anyone can see it did not, even with the degraded video. Furthermore:
All of the boiling comes from the cathode, so it cannot be electrolysis power. This is readily apparent to anyone looking at the cell. It is readily apparent in a better quality video.
When you run an electrolysis power control, boiling stops the moment the waterline falls below the cathode; the remaining water stays there; and the Kel-F plastic does not melt. So there is clearly a non-electrolysis source of heat from the cathode. The mechanisms you have proposed to explain this are physically impossible by a large margin. The cathode cannot hold enough chemical energy to cause these effects, and it cannot release it fast enough.
The cathode produces anomalous heat before the boil off, measured by another calorimetric technique. It produces heat after the boil off, measured by yet another technique. It is absurd to claim that the cathode produces heat for a week before the boil off, then abruptly stops producing heat for 10 minutes during the boil off and then starts again and continues for a day. To show there is no heat, you have to prove that all three methods of calorimetry do not work.
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The cathode produces anomalous heat before the boil off, measured by another calorimetric technique. It produces heat after the boil off, measured by yet another technique. It is absurd to claim that the cathode produces heat for a week before the boil off, then abruptly stops producing heat for 10 minutes during the boil off and then starts again and continues for a day. To show there is no heat, you have to prove that all three methods of calorimetry do not work.
Jed, the shape of the cooling curve shows there was HAD It is convex, Without HAD it would be concave.
See my post #205; Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
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Jed, the shape of the cooling curve shows there was HAD It is convex, Without HAD it would be concave.
I assume you mean the calorimetry after the boil off. I covered this on pages 18 - 20 here:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf
In a way, it is the easiest and most convincing of the three methods, because there is no input power. There is a dramatic difference between the blank cooling curve in Fig. 7 and the HAD curves in Figs. 8 and 9.
I covered this and the other methods under the tutelage of Mel Miles, who is quite the most rigorous and demanding professor I have ever studied under. I do not envy his students! I should also give credit to Biberian and Pons. This is like writing a paper on information theory which is reviewed and corrected by Claude Shannon. Kind of nerve wracking. But I am confident there are no stupid mistakes left in the paper.
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Indeed Jed, your comment at the foot of page 18 (which I confess I had nor seen before) explains it precisely. As does Mel Miles input.
"During the heat after death episode described in this paper, the inside of the cell does not cool
down according to Newton’s law. On the contrary, it remains at the same temperature for a
while, and then the temperature rises. We know the palladium cathode is the only thing in the
cell that produces heat" -
One or other of these two judgements is correct. I do not need to imagine I know more than the minority side of it, when I am agreeing with the majority.
I agreed to stop with the political comments, but someone should answer this. It is completely wrong. THH is not agreeing with the majority. The vast majority of scientists who have read the cold fusion literature or done experiments are convinced the effect is real. I know only four scientists who read the literature yet still claimed the effect is not real: Morrison, Huizenga, Park and Britz. There may be a few others, but I know hundreds who are certain the effect is real. Of these four, only Morrison tried to give technical reasons to support his claims. I do not think his reasons had any scientific merit. Read them and see for yourself:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanreplytothe.pdf
All of the other scientists in what THH calls the "majority" know nothing about cold fusion. They have read no papers. Most of them claim there are no papers. They do not know what instruments were used, what results were obtained, or what conclusions were drawn from these results. You can see this from the comments they publish in the mass media and on the internet. Therefore, they have no basis to judge. Their opinions do not count. Anyone can see they have no idea what they are talking about. You might as well tally up the opinions of professional baseball players or taxicab drivers. A scientist who has not read the literature has no business expressing an opinion about an experimental result. It would be like me pontificating about a Japanese author I have not read. Yes, I did study Japanese literature in translation and in the original. Yes, I did translate some short stories by well known modern authors in college. So I know more about Japanese literature than most people do. But I would be way out of line discussing an author I have not read.
The opinions of the 2004 Review panelists who voted against funding cold fusion also have zero scientific merit. They are elementary violations of the scientific method. If a seventh grade student were to write the kind of slop they wrote, you would give her a failing grade. See:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJresponsest.pdf
The panel members did not even try to challenge the technical issues, the way Morrison and THH have done. I guess they were smarter than that.
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I am happy to take Jed's calculation here. We can refer to the original should there be questions.
I prefer the inverse: the "Simplicity Paper" (1) is the reference. JR paper (2) is just useful to clarify some aspects of the original F&P paper.
Page 16 is the core of the paper, because it contains the formulas and calculations by which F&P justify the claims anticipated in the summary ("high rates of specific excess enthalpy generation (> 1kWcm-3) at temperatures close to (or at) the boiling point of the electrolyte solution") and in the conclusion ("We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even").
Therefore, page 16 is the essence of the "simplicity paper", but it is also the sloppiest part as you have seen by looking more carefully at it. Their calculation are inaccurate, not well explained (even JR made a better job in his 2020 paper) and contains incredible errors as the J unit in the first formula (it remained unchanged also in the peer reviewed article on PLA (3))!
QuoteThe big assumption here is that 50% of the liquid boils off in 10 minutes. The issues about "when the cell was dry" affect that similarly. So, if the cell dry endpoint is in fact later - even by 30 minutes let alone 3 hours - this energy balance fails.
Exactly, this is the biggest assumption because it affects the biggest term in the excess heat balance, that is the 171 W lost in vapor. In this case there are big issues both for the mass of liquid boiled off and for the duration of boiling.
Let's start from the latter. F&P assumed a duration of 600 seconds, they don't specified to which of the 4 cells they are referring to, or if 600 seconds is an average value. At page 13 they wrote: " For the second value of the pressure, 0.97 bars, the cell would have become half empty 11 minutes before dryness, as observed from the video recordings (see the next section) and this in turn requires a period of intense boiling during the last 11 minutes." In this case, the 11 minutes comes from a numerical simulation, but they say this period coincides with the boil-off duration observed in the video. A 10% error, not a big one, it's negligible with respect to the others we will see.
Anyway, this phrase confirms that F&P derived the boil-off period from the video recording, and the video published by Krivit in 2009 contains the blue arrows which mark the beginning and the end points of the boil-off period for each cell. The vertical position of these arrows and the time span between then determine the rate of lowering of the level inside the cell. From that video it comes out that the lowering time is comprised between 20 and 35 minutes, as explained in this old comment (4a) and the related jpeg (4b), a period two to three times and half longer than the 600 seconds considered in the calculation.
But this is not yet the biggest problem for the evaporative term of the heat balance. The biggest problem is about the evaporated mass not the time. If you look carefully at the video you will see that the lowering white column inside the cell is not made by liquid water, but instead by mostly foam. This description (5) in native English describes much better than my words the foaming nature of the content inside the cells during the so called boil-off period. Therefore the liquid mass which actually evaporates during the boil-off period is much smaller that the quantity calculated by F&P, who assumed that 2.5 Moles of water evaporated in a 600 seconds. This molar quantity corresponds to half of the volume filled with full liquid, not by mostly foam! So the calculation of the Enthalpy Output in Vapor at page 16 of the Simplicity Paper is totally inconsistent.
Your remarks about the Enthalpy Input in the cells are also correct. The voltage has not been made explicit, we don't know to which cell it refers, or if it is just an average of the four. Consider also that they recorded a voltage value every 300 seconds, so at best the 75 V comes from the average of three values.
Anyway the big, big problem is the foam. Notwithstanding they had the possibility "to repeatedly reverse and run forward the video recordings at any stage of operation, [so that] it also becomes possible to make reasonably accurate estimates of the cell contents" they omitted to consider that the lowering column inside the cell during the boil-off period was mostly foam.
So, due to large number of issues contained on page 16, I suggest to first concentrate ourselves on the calculation of the Enthalpy Output in Vapor, and then examine the issues about the Enthalpy Input.
(1) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
(2) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf
(3) http://coldfusioncommunity.net…n-Pons-PLA-Simplicity.pdf
(4a) RE: FP's experiments discussion
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Jed, the shape of the cooling curve shows there was HAD It is convex, Without HAD it would be concave.
See my post #205; Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
No: it shows that as you would expect in that part of the curve there was still some liquid evaporating, and electrodes as > 100C, as we suggest.
Think about it.
But think more about the fact that trying to get clear evidence from such a complex dynamic system poorly instrumented is impossible. Though the speculations would be easier if we had proper V/I data at good resolution for that 10 minutes: as anyone wanting to derive proper quantitative data from that period would normally provide.
Of course - there could easily be HAD. All that is needed is for some of that electrolysed oxygen - in the unusual conditions of the boil-off - to get to the cathode which would then catalyse ATER. Known science. The foam could trap lots of O2 from a longer of period of electrolysis which could then recombine at the end.
Proof that this does not normally happen, or has not happened much, would be irrelevant given it only needs to happen in those last 600s and the conditions are to say the least unusual.
Anything could happen at the end because that foamy cell with asymptotic high voltage and power in over a short period is so uncontrolled.
THH
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But think more about the fact that trying to get clear evidence from such a complex dynamic system poorly instrumented is impossible.
Yes. That is why no one has any idea what the heat of vaporization of water is. People have been measuring it since the 18th century using Fleischmann's method. It has been in the textbooks for hundreds of years: 540 Cal/g. Chemists have been using retorts to distill water, alcohol, and countless other liquids since Medieval times, but the textbooks are all wrong and distillation does not work. Because you and Ascoli say so. You two -- and you alone -- know what the REAL heat of vaporization is. Someday you will reveal your knowledge to humanity. We will be grateful.
Also, you know when 10 minutes is actually 3 hours (3 hours, isn't it?!?) despite what clocks and wristwatches say. Your knowledge is God-like. Ineffable. Irrefutable! Not falsifiable! We stand in awe.
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The cathode produces anomalous heat before the boil off, measured by another calorimetric technique. It produces heat after the boil off, measured by yet another technique. It is absurd to claim that the cathode produces heat for a week before the boil off, then abruptly stops producing heat for 10 minutes during the boil off and then starts again and continues for a day. To show there is no heat, you have to prove that all three methods of calorimetry do not work.
That is true. And as you know all three methods have severe issues.
It is bad science when the most problematic boil-off evidence is challenged to say - well there is different evidence that also shows excess heat.
I am happy to consider the non-boil-off evidence. Happier than this boil-off stuff which is more ascoli's thing. I don't like it because the highly dynamic conditions, not properly instrumented in the paper, do not make accurate determination of anything possible. At least not from the evidence in that paper! Take for example the 75V. How do F&P derive that? It must be from integration over a 600s period. And which 600s period? It is impossible to tell.
