My criticisms have not yet been rebutted (in the merit) by anyone here on LF
Your criticisms are irrelevant after 33 years of experimental evidence that support that F&P were right.
My criticisms have not yet been rebutted (in the merit) by anyone here on LF
Your criticisms are irrelevant after 33 years of experimental evidence that support that F&P were right.
Your criticisms are irrelevant after 33 years of experimental evidence that support that F&P were right.
They are irrelevant for you, but they are absolutely relevant for the discussion in this thread whose argument refers to the F&P boil off experiment and the related videos. Anyway, luckily for you, you are not obliged to follow this thread and read its irrelevant comments.
BTW, F&P were wrong in writing both the conclusions of their Simplicity Paper, the most important and mentioned document in the history of CF.
They are irrelevant for you, but they are absolutely relevant for.....
those with a bee in their bonnet.
Jed, if you read #352 just above you will see that Rob is able to borrow an ICARUS reaction cell. No need for a teapot. And he will need a constant current PSU, not a constant voltage one. The palladium and the D2O is the most expensive part.
I see no need to do a full cold fusion experiment to test the foam hypothesis. If anything, that would complicate matters. It is difficult to do a cold fusion experiment, and even more difficult to make it boil off. Whereas anyone can simulate a boil off and the foam it produces it with a resistance heater and a few other things. It can be done in one afternoon. You need only a graduated cylinder, pure water, a resistance heater, power supply, camera and a weight scale.
You could also just boil water in a graduated test tube with a Bunsen burner. Measure the water level. Bring the water to boil. Write down the water level every minute for 10 minutes. Turn off the flame. A moment later bubbles and foam clear up and you can confirm the water level. You don't even need a weight scale. You could do the same with the resistance heater, turning it off every few minutes to let the bubbles and foam clear, to confirm that you are reading the water level correctly (or not).
This is a very simple test to test the foam hypothesis. Do not complicate it by bringing in cold fusion, palladium, or electrolysis.
Whereas anyone can simulate a boil off and the foam it produces it with a resistance heater and a few other things. It can be done in one afternoon. You need only a graduated cylinder, pure water, a resistance heater, power supply, camera and a weight scale.
Yes, but whether you get foam or not (the issue here) is dependent on:
salts you add
surface films on constituents, contaminants in salts.
the electrolysis (which can make strange changes to organic contaminants).
Yes, you need to do the foam test with electrolysis in alkaline electrolyte solution; even steel electrodes should be fine.
Just boiling the water with a heater is probably not going to produce foam to any significant extent.
Yes, but whether you get foam or not (the issue here) is dependent on:
salts you add
surface films on constituents, contaminants in salts.
Just boiling the water with a heater is probably not going to produce foam to any significant extent.
If you get foam, you will not get cold fusion. Or most other electrochemical effects. That is what every electrochemist says. Foam is contamination. It must be eliminated by careful steps. When I say "careful" I mean that I have watched Mizuno and others spend days cleaning the electrodes and purifying the heavy water. He purified the water with an elaborate series of filters and gadgets connected by pipes, mounted on a 3' x 6' piece of plywood. These people do not throw together an experiment without careful preparation and extensive purification and other steps. If they did, it would never work. If someone tries to replicate cold fusion without doing these things, they will fail.
You can test whether boiling pure water makes it impossible to measure the waterline. You can even add Palmolive (surfactants) and test whether extensive foam and contamination make it impossible to measure the waterline. What you cannot do easily is replicate the bulk Pd-D cold fusion experiment. You have to a PdD in electrochemistry, years of experience, and you usually have to spend a year or two working on the experiment to replicate it.
If THH and Ascoli were serious, they would spend $50 and one afternoon testing their ideas. They would see that these ideas are bullshit. They are not serious and they will not do this.
I made a quick test:
LENR-Forum won't let me post a suitable gif, so here a few screenshots:
LENR-Forum won't let me post a suitable gif, so here a few screenshots:
Were the second and third shots taken at about the same time, from different angles?
Did you add surfactants?
You got a lot of foam!
As part of my video project, I'm hoping to recreate the boil-off experiment and get a much better video documentation of it (4k, two cameras). I'm not doing the experiment itself because I'm not a scientist, so I'm partnering with someone who is qualified. If anyone here wants to produce a bullet list of requests for this experiment, I'd find it helpful and be happy to report back how much of it we can do.
Three years ago, I proposed the LF community to select the F&P "1992 boil off" experiment as the highest priority experiment to be suggested to Team Google for replication (1), but my proposal didn't get through. Now, your intent is interesting, but I fear it doesn't have the resource, nor will have the notoriety of the Google initiative. Anyway, I wish you good luck.
However, consider that, even if you will show a lot of foam emerging from the electrolyte, somebody will probably object that your "heavy water can be contaminated with surfactants" (2) or that you have not carefully degreased everything (3).
My suggestion. Before engaging in a new demanding replication of the "1992 boil off" experiment, you should carefully examine the old one, especially the two lab videos (4-5). You are a video maker, probably you have the instrument and the skill to analyze these videos and possibly estimate the volume occupied by the foam. This would provide a further element to judge the correctness of the F&P conclusions.
(2) http://www.infinite-energy.com…/pdfs/JapaneseProgram.pdf
(3) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
I used a steel mesh as the anode and a steel sheet as the cathode. I added about 150 ml tap water and some KOH flakes, then applied electrolysis up to 30V and 10A to quickly heat up the water. It created some foam, but not enough to make a convincing video. I didn't want to add more KOH, so I added a few grams more K2CO3, and it started forming a lot of foam. At this point the conductivity of the electrolyte solution increased and my power supply could only provide about 22V at 10A.
I did not add any surfactant.
Screenshot #1 is at 0 seconds, Screenshot #2 at 2 seconds, Screenshot #3 at 10 seconds.
The link in the same post shows a longer gif at 30 fps, here it is again: https://imgur.com/0du7nqt
EDIT: the electrolyte solution was already hot when the video started.
Display MoreThree years ago, I proposed the LF community to select the F&P "1992 boil off" experiment as the highest priority experiment to be suggested to Team Google for replication (1), but my proposal didn't get through. Now, your intent is interesting, but I fear it doesn't have the resource, nor will have the notoriety of the Google initiative. Anyway, I wish you good luck.
However, consider that, even if you will show a lot of foam emerging from the electrolyte, somebody will probably object that your "heavy water can be contaminated with surfactants" (2) or that you have not carefully degreased everything (3).
My suggestion. Before engaging in a new demanding replication of the "1992 boil off" experiment, you should carefully examine the old one, especially the two lab videos (4-5). You are a video maker, probably you have the instrument and the skill to analyze these videos and possibly estimate the volume occupied by the foam. This would provide a further element to judge the correctness of the F&P conclusions.
(2) http://www.infinite-energy.com…/pdfs/JapaneseProgram.pdf
(3) RE: Where is the close-up video of Fleischmann and Pons boiling cell?
It will go on YouTube. I aim to make the video as viral as possible. If we can answer past questions, like degassing, that seems easy enough to do. The idea of continually measuring the weight of the cell over the duration of the experiment seems solid to me.
The idea of continually measuring the weight of the cell over the duration of the experiment seems solid to me.
It is certainly a way to verify many of the assumptions. It also creates certain constraints for the design of the experiment as the whole experimental apparatus needs to fit in a device capable of measuring weight with enough accuracy. But if you can find a way to do so, by all means, do, it will lead to indisputable results.
The idea of continually measuring the weight of the cell over the duration of the experiment seems solid to me.
Yes, it is absolutely mandatory. Perhaps it would be enough to put the cell and its support on a precision scale.
Yes, it is absolutely mandatory. Perhaps it would be enough to put the cell and its support on a precision scale.
Finally something in which have certain degree of agreement. I don’t think is “absolutely mandatory”, but I do think if properly implemented it can lead to indisputable results.
I made a quick test:
LENR-Forum won't let me post a suitable gif, so here a few screenshots:
My best compliments. The video is very interesting. Your foam looks like that shown in this video (1) at 00:32.
Is it possible to post what happens to the foam level after the power is shut off?
Display MoreI made a quick test:
LENR-Forum won't let me post a suitable gif, so here a few screenshots:
KOH in presence of organic contaminants will foam readily. Using ultra pure water will reduce the problem.
I have never done electrolysis myself, just ultrasonic experiments, where foaming also occurs due to the intense vibration. But we used ultrapure water (distilled and deionized twice) and pro analasi salts. I work with Chemical Analysts and they are absolutely maniac about contamination sources.
if properly implemented it can lead to indisputable results.
Indisputable results are very much desired.
There seems to be an amplification effect in the minds of skeptics, where anyone can rationalize a criticism, no matter how unscientific it may be, and then all other skeptics will elevate the prior criticism, make zero effort in checking it for scientific legitimacy, and simplify the claims to appear more damning.
So, seems we have a difficult task in that we need to anticipate every possible criticism and prove it wrong before it's been made. Yay...
he idea of continually measuring the weight of the cell over the duration of the experiment seems solid to me.
If you cannot do that, you can weight it before and after. That would confirm the final visual estimate of the water level.
I have seen people put the whole experiment on a weight scale. Some experiments cause vibrations that make this difficult. Sometimes the electrode lead wires interfere with the weight measurement.
If you cannot put it on a scale, I would stop the boiling every 5 minutes, let things settle down, and see if the apparent waterline changes.
If there is so much froth you cannot even see the waterline, the situation is as Ascoli describes. The thing is, that is not the situation with Pd-D and lithium.
Indisputable results are very much desired.
There seems to be an amplification effect in the minds of skeptics, where anyone can rationalize a criticism, no matter how unscientific it may be, and then all other skeptics will elevate the prior criticism, make zero effort in checking it for scientific legitimacy, and simplify the claims to appear more damning.
So, seems we have a difficult task in that we need to anticipate every possible criticism and prove it wrong before it's been made. Yay...
It’s difficult even if you are on the LENR side of things. Experiments have to be designed with control of error sources, and some times this can be a tough cookie. That’s why I personally have always favored transmutations as proof, where control of contamination sources can be exhaustive. On the other hand, We have been discussing calorimetry for 33 years and we still don’t convince a single pseudoskeptic.