I see a thread on the forum here titled LENR Wiki, but this isn't quite what I have in mind. Has anyone compiled an LENR Wiki FAQ for the common questions posed by skeptics? Such a resource would be very useful.
LENR FAQ (for Newcomers)
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As a skeptic, I'd be happy with answers along the lines proposed in the link below.
Pointing the questions:
(1) Is the reason most LENR results are irreproducible and/or unclear because those are false positives? What fraction of the experimental results are that? Surely we now there are false positives, and to move forward we need to know which are that?
(2) Which of the many theories proposed are obviously wrong? No pussy-footing here. Real science is quite happy to disprove wrong theories, and to have good and bad candidates before things are certain.
https://arpa-e.energy.gov/site…orkshop_Metzler_Final.pdf -
As a skeptic, I'd be happy with answers along the lines proposed in the link below.
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(2) Which of the many theories proposed are obviously wrong? No pussy-footing here. Real science is quite happy to disprove wrong theories, and to have good and bad candidates before things are certain.
You've nailed it! This is a difference between what I see going on in academic science in general and what goes on here.
The most sciency part of science is saying that some claim or theory seems to be wrong. But I see little appetite for this sort of activity here. The LENR community thus opens itself to charges that it practices a pseudoscience.
Can anyone here point to a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years that the community now sees as wrong? (I exclude the unmasking of charlatans like Rossi)
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https://lenr.wiki/index.php/Das_LENR-Wiki
In German, but lots of information. -
Can anyone here point to a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years that the community now sees as wrong?
Not sure what you mean by fundamental theory, but the community often debates, both publicly and privately, whether such and such theory is wrong. I could go down the list starting with Storms NAE theory. Then there is Bill Collis who has pointed out the flaws in others pet theories and engaged them on it at conferences, and even at one time here on the forum. Of course, there is our very own Wytten who has never met another theory he likes except his own.
And the community has never shied away from admitting they do not have that overarching, end-all/be-all theory that would guarantee 100% successful experiments and lead the field to a commercial product. Many do think they have a bit of the puzzle though, which is no different than in the 18-1900's where science was groping around with bits and pieces of the big picture before eventually putting it all together as the Standard Model.
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Eventually, after enough fumbling around on theory, and experimentation, the two will meet, and then LENR will have it's own GUT.
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As Ed Storms has said, there's a 'How' to make LENR happen, and there's a 'Why' it happens. We have partial answers to How, but no single convincing one for Why.
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LE.NR есть, он в земной коре, изучайте тектонику плит...
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First question should be, does it exist several or one way to trigger a nuclear reaction than usual ways known ?
Not sure what you mean by fundamental theory, but the community often debates, both publicly and privately, whether such and such theory is wrong. I could go down the list starting with Storms NAE theory. Then there is Bill Collis who has pointed out the flaws in others pet theories and engaged them on it at conferences, and even at one time here on the forum. Of course, there is our very own Wytten who has never met another theory he likes except his own.
And the community has never shied away from admitting they do not have that overarching, end-all/be-all theory that would guarantee 100% successful experiments and lead the field to a commercial product. Many do think they have a bit of the puzzle though, which is no different than in the 18-1900's where science was groping around with bits and pieces of the big picture before eventually putting it all together as the Standard Model.
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Eventually, after enough fumbling around on theory, and experimentation, the two will meet, and then LENR will have it's own GUT.
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Can anyone here point to a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years that the community now sees as wrong? (I exclude the unmasking of charlatans like Rossi)
A more basic question is: can anyone here see (and admit) that a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years is wrong?
IMO, the F&P claims about their "4-cells boil-off experiment" performed 30 years ago, in 1992, are totally wrong, as it is clearly shown in their paper (1), and by their lab video (2). But, supposing my opinion is correct, as I'm convinced it is, can anyone here admit the erroneousness of these F&P claims, and the groundlessness of theories based on them?
On the contrary, it happens that the most active defenders of the correctness of F&P's claims and related theories are the same who were the most active in defending the reality of the Rossi's claims.
(1) https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
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A more basic question is: can anyone here see (and admit) that a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years is wrong?
If you provide a specific claim that you think is fundamental for LENR, and someone here doesn't agree with you that the claim is waste of time. Then it is up to that person give you reasons for their decisions.
For example, you had questions about any data or claims in my patent application, I could defend that. But why would I defend groundless theories when I have an unambiguous one to defend? WO2018204533 COMPOSITIONS AND NUCLEAR METHODS FOR HELIUM-3 AND OTHER ISOTOPE PRODUCTION (wipo.int)
I will decide where to spend my dime. A troll argues but a skeptic needs to use logic and facts.
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A more basic question is: can anyone here see (and admit) that a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years is wrong?
You are asking whether any here, on this site, is willing to say that a fundamental theory ... is wrong whereas I am asking about whether the community will say it is wrong. You are right that your question is more basic in the sense of more atomistic, but I hold that my question is the crucial one. This is because science is inescapably a social (as well as and empirical and rational) affair. One needs the research community to establish a consensus about whether a theory or claim is likely true or false. That is the real science part! And this requires, at a minimum, that the community has broad agreement that trying to identify wrong theories, claims, etc., is an important activity -- something I don't see here.
Not sure what you mean by fundamental theory ...
You are right. I regret using the word "fundamental". I meant something like 'regarded as important'.
Here is a proposal for an operational way to express my meaning. Take the presentations offered in one of the ICCF meetings 10-15 years ago and ask whether any of those theories or claims are now regarded by the community as mistaken. I'll bet there will be none. It is my supposition that this will be so because the community does not really take any such claims seriously enough that their being wrong would be of any particular import. Theories and claims come and go and no one cares. Nothing is really at stake.
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can anyone here see (and admit) that a fundamental LENR theory or claim from the past 30 years is wrong?
The theory just is incomplete.
We just coat surfaces with the well known elements and measure the theoretically expected gamma radiation. So for as the how is solved and the why too...
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(1) Is the reason most LENR results are irreproducible and/or unclear because those are false positives?
LENR results are irreproducible because it takes years and lots of money to replicate, and no one has even tried in the last 10 years as far as I know. Also because most of the researchers are dead. Dead people do not do experiments.
LENR results are not unclear. They are as clear as any experiment can be. It is impossible to mistake 0 W for heat ranging from 10 to 100 W. Heat that continues thousands of times longer than any chemical reaction, with no chemical changes, cannot possibly be caused by a chemical reaction. Any scientist living after modern calorimetry was developed in 1780 should be instantly convinced by the best results such as Fleischmann, McKubre or Miles. Some of the other results are less clear, but that does not make McKubre unclear.
What fraction of the experimental results are that?
It makes no difference. If even one experiment were as irrefutable as McKubre's, that would prove cold fusion is real. The unclear ones have no effect. As it happens, hundreds of experiments are irrefutable.
There were ~1000 attempts to clone a sheep before Dolly was born, but these failures had no relevance. Dolly proved that sheep can be cloned.
On Dec. 17, 1903 the Wright brothers proved beyond any doubt that powered controlled flight is possible. There were dozens of failed attempts before them, and hundreds of failed attempts and fatal accidents after 1903, but these failures made no difference whatever to the conclusion.
Note that many experts thought that both cloning and controlled flight were impossible before they were achieved.
The difficulty of replicating an effect, and the success rate, have absolutely no bearing on the validity of results. That has never been part of the scientific method. On the contrary, experiments that are extremely difficult to replicate, such as the Top Quark, are accepted no matter how difficult once the signal to noise ratio is high enough.
Your question and your metric make no sense. They are not part of science, and never have been. You are trying to apply a new, arbitrary, meaningless standard to muddy the waters and give yourself an excuse to deny the undeniable.
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Any scientist living after modern calorimetry was developed in 1780 should be instantly convinced by the best results such as Fleischmann, McKubre or Miles.
The first modern calorimeter was developed by Lavoisier and Laplace in 1780. They used it to measure the metabolism of a guinea pig, and to compare the total heat of metabolism to the carbon dioxide produced by the animal. They proved that the ratio of heat to carbon dioxide is the same for metabolism as it is for combustion. They measured the heat of metabolism at 3.91 W, which is close to the modern value of of 2.67 W. Their calorimeter could have measured the heat from many cold fusion experiments.
In 1841, J. P. Joule developed much more accurate and sensitive calorimeters. These could measure any of the important cold fusion results over 200 mW with absolute confidence. Any scientist who denies this is living in a dreamworld where all of science going back to 1841 is magically invalid and the laws of Thermodynamics have been repealed. Joule, or any rational scientist living after him, would have instantly recognized that cold fusion is real and that it is not chemical. In 1904, Marie Curie measured the heat from radium at 0.114 W. She used a technique very similar to Lavoisier's. She instantly recognized that the effect could not be chemical, for the same reason we know cold fusion is not chemical: it exceeded the limits of chemistry many times over, with no chemical changes. She announced this result and every scientist on earth agreed with her. Because they were sane, and not driven by politics or the kind of irrational desire to deny the undeniable that bedevils THHuxley and the other so-called skeptics (who are anything but skeptical). There is no arguing with such people. When you dismiss thermodynamics along with all of science going back to 1841 just in order to prolong your delusions, you are beyond help.
See:
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LENR results are irreproducible because it takes years and lots of money to replicate, and no one has even tried in the last 10 years as far as I know.
I mean the bulk Pd-D experiment, as described by Fleischmann, Cravens and Storms. See p. 5:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf
A similar experiment was successfully done by the people at BARC and NASA with commercial electrolysers. See:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/KrishnanMScoldfusion.pdf
It may not seem similar at first glance, but the materials and methods are close, and it is good supporting evidence.
Many other people who followed the protocols succeeded. The people at Google apparently did a very different experiment. Their paper did not describe it in enough detail for me know what they did, but I suppose it was different because:
1. They said they did not achieve sufficient loading.
2. They told me the methods described by Fleischmann, Cravens and Storms will not work, so they did not try them. I do know what they did instead.
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It makes no difference. If even one experiment were as irrefutable as McKubre's, that would prove cold fusion is real. The unclear ones have no effect. As it happens, hundreds of experiments are irrefutable.
My point was not about proving LENR real (or not).
If LENR is science then it matters which experiments are delivering false positives, because that will push theory in the wrong direction.
In practice we do not always know, but we can develop a hierarchy of confidence which can guide people trying to make sense of why things are happening.
That is true for every other part of science - I don't see why it would be different for LENR?
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They told me the methods described by Fleischmann, Cravens and Storms will not work, so they did not try them.
These are clever guys, coming at the field afresh and highly motivated to get results. It would be interesting to know what they meant by that and what was their reason for that belief.
THH
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LENR results are irreproducible because it takes years and lots of money to replicate,
This only holds for P&F style experiments. What we do costs a few $ to replicate and always works. So things have changed now.
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This only holds for F&F style experiments. What we do costs a few $ to replicate and always works. So things have changed now.
I am pretty sceptical about that.
