The LENR charlatans have poisoned the well of actual science,
The standard model charlatans have deeply destroyed basic physics as they never did grasp even the most basic things like e+/e- annihilation that almost never leads to two 511keV photons. In most cases 3 photons are produced. So this completely spoils some basic SM mechanism... Just to give one example where these dilettantes failed. ITER is an other...
Has anyone compiled an LENR Wiki FAQ for the common questions posed by skeptics?
My very short LENR FAQ list (for skeptics).
1 - What is LENR?
LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reaction) is the name that was chosen by the people involved in "Cold Fusion" field, after the original name became a synonymous of pseudoscience.
2 - What is Cold Fusion?
CF is the name which was originally given to an undefined and mysterious nuclear phenomenon, such as the possible fusion of 2 deuterons, whose existence was invoked by the two electrochemists Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons (F&P) in the press conference held on March 23, 1989, when they announced to the world that, in experiments carried out in their electrolytic cells, they obtained heat in excess with respect to the input electric power or any other possible conventional energy source.
3 - What happened since the announcement of F&P in 1989?
From (1): "DOE reviews in 1989 and 2004 both concluded that the body of evidence to date did not support the claim of D-D fusion, but that research proposals on deuterated heavy metals should be evaluated under the standard peer-review process. This has not happened, in part because LENR was largely dismissed by the scientific research community by 1990. Nevertheless, many groups from around the world continued to conduct varied LENR experiments on minimal budgets and to report evidence of excess heat and nuclear reactions (including neutrons, tritium, 3He, 4He, transmutation products, and isotopic shifts) in hundreds of reports/papers. However, repeatability of the key evidence over multiple trials of seemingly the same experiment remains elusive to this day."
(1) https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/…d3-4afc-bd17-bc7a7f05fb2f
4 - Which LENR experiment is considered the most important?
Each LENR expert has his own opinion on which experiment is the most important and meaningful. However, in 2004, when the DOE carried out his second review, a group of 5 people, among the most experienced and authoritative in the field, agreed on a short list of documents, to be submitted in response of a request from the DOE to "provide a summary of the status of the field which articulates what are considered to be the most recent significant experimental observations and publications … " (2).
The short list began with:
M. Fleischmann and S. Pons, "Calorimetry of the Pd-D2O System; from simplicity via complications to simplicity," Physics Letters A, 176, (1993).
For the sake of brevity, this document is also called "Simplicity Paper".
(2) https://www.newenergytimes.com…010/34/344doereview.shtml
5 - Which experiment is described in the "Simplicity Paper"?
The paper describes the so called "1992 boil-off experiment", a CF experiment carried out in April-May 1992 at IMRA Europe laboratory, in Sophia Antipolis, near Nice, France. The experimental set-up involved a row of four cells placed side by side in a constant-temperature water bath. After about 3-4 weeks of applied constant current, the temperature of each cell, one at a time, increased up to the boiling point, and the electrolyte boiled vigorously and evaporated completely, until the cell dried out and the electrolytic current has stopped.
The experiment was first described in a paper (3) presented by F&P at ICCF3 in Nagoya, Japan, in October 1992.
In May 1993, an article with nearly the same contents was published in the peer reviewed journal Physics Letter A (4).
(3) http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmancalorimetra.pdf
(4) https://www.sciencedirect.com/…icle/pii/037596019390327V
6 - Is the "1992 boil-off experiment" still considered important by the LENR community today?
Yes, it is. The "Simplicity Paper" is still considered the "major paper" of Fleischmann (5, page 14), and, at ICCF23 in 2021, Michael McKubre stated that it was the only LENR experiment, to his knowledge, which was exactly replicated (6, slide 11).
(5) http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/Fleischmanlettersfroa.pdf
(6) http://ikkem.com/iccf23/speakervideo/1a-IN01-Mckubre.mp4
7 - Which were the main claims contained in the "Simplicity Paper"?
At the end of the "Simplicity Paper", F&P made two main claims:
1st – "We note that excess rate of energy production is about four times that of the enthalpy input even for this highly inefficient system; …"
2nd – "… following the boiling to dryness and the open-circuiting of the cells, the cells nevertheless remain at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, Fig 8; furthermore the Kel-F supports of the electrodes at the base of the cells melt so that the local temperature must exceed 300ºC."
8 - What is the experimental evidence on which the above claims are based?
F&P relied on the images captured in a time-lapse video recorded during the experiment. In the "Simplicity Paper", they explained: "It is therefore necessary to develop independent means of monitoring the progressive evaporation/boiling of the D2O. The simplest procedure is to make time-lapse video recordings of the operation of the cells which can be synchronised with the temperature-time and cell potential-time data. … As it is possible to repeatedly reverse and run forward the video recordings at any stage of operation, it also becomes possible to make reasonably accurate estimates of the cell contents. We have chosen to time the evaporation/boiling of the last half of the D2O in cells of this type and this allows us to make particularly simple thermal balances for the operation in the region of the boiling point."
9 - Is this time-lapse video publicly available?
Yes, although not entirely. The most important parts, those used by F&P to estimate the enthalpy output, are shown in two videos available on internet.
The first video was uploaded to YouTube in 2009 (7). It shows the main phases of the time-lapse video, preceded by some preparatory phases.
The second video was uploaded to YouTube in 2015 (8) and shows longer footages than the previous one.
(7) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBAIIZU6Oj8
(8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn9K1Hvw434
10 - Are these videos important?
Yes, they are fundamental to understanding the CF phenomenon, because these video are the only publicly available document which was directly used by F&P, the pioneers of the field, to infer their claims related to their most important experiment.
Therefore, these videos allow anyone who understand the basics of physics to check for themselves whether F&P's claims were correct or wrong.
11 - What can be deduced from the videos of the "1992 boil-off experiment"?
The videos show that both the main claims made by F&P in the "Simplicity Paper" were wrong.
1st – In the first one, F&P claimed to have obtained an excess heat about four times greater than the enthalpy input. This estimate comes from their calculation reported in the "Simplicity Paper". In this calculation F&P assumed that the last half of the D2O liquid originally contained in each cell had boiled away in just 600 s.
However, the videos show that at the beginning of the final period, identified in the first video by blue arrows, the cells were already mostly filled with foam, not liquid (9), therefore the heat required to evaporate the residual electrolyte was much less than the quantity estimated by F&P, so that it was not necessary to invoke the presence of an additional energy source, besides electrolysis, to explain the dry-out of the cells.
2nd – In the second claim, F&P stated that cell 2 remained at high temperature for prolonged periods of time, following the boiling to dryness and the open-circuiting of the cell. They cited Fig 8 of the "Simplicity Paper", where they indicated by means of two vertical arrows the instants in which this cells was half dry and full dry.
However, a simple comparison with the times reported in the first video, when the blue arrows appear to mark the moments of half dryness and full dryness of the second cell, shows that the vertical arrows on Fig.8 was shifted a few hours to the left (10).
(9) RE: FP's experiments discussion
(10) https://imgur.com/X2q1TWv
Best regards.
Display MoreThe evidence for nuclear reactions is overwhelming. When similar evidence was presented by Curie for radium nuclear reactions, no one questioned it. Your claim there is "not enough" is irrational. The evidence includes:
Heat thousands of times beyond the limits of chemistry, with no chemical changes. This in itself is irrefutable. It was enough to convince everyone that Curie was right.
Tritium production at levels tens to thousands of times above background.
Helium production at 24 MeV per atom, confirmed by many laboratories.
The corroborative evidence is irrefutable. You have not refuted it. You didn't even try to refute it. You declare it does not exist.
That never happened. You are describing an imaginary event.
Let us summarize the reasons you reject cold fusion:
1. You declare that most results are at low levels. That is not true. It is not even false; "low" is not a meaningful metric. You are ignoring the signal to noise ratio, which is the only applicable metric. J. P. Joule could have measured most cold fusion reactions in 1841 with high confidence. In what sense are these reactions "low" or questionable given that any competent scientist in the last 181 years could have measured them with a high signal to noise ratio?
2. You apply imaginary low levels and declare that most results are negative. Therefore cold fusion does not exist, or it is questionable. No one in history has ever said this about any other scientific discovery. No one claims that the prevalence of failed rockets mean that satellites were never launched, or failed efforts to clone means animals have never been cloned. Your claim makes no logical or scientific sense. You would never apply this standard to any other discovery.
3. You make up another imaginary and unprecedented standard: that many people must understand cold fusion and agree it is real. Again, you would not apply this to anything but cold fusion. If someone said, "if we do not all agree that vaccines work, that is proof the COVID vaccines do not work" you would come down on them like a ton of bricks.
It can be seen that with regard to cold fusion you are as irrational as any antivaxxer. You may be scientific about other subjects, but not this one. You do not have a single valid logical, scientific, or technical reason to doubt that cold fusion is a real nuclear effect. You will not look at the calorimetry of McKubre, Miles or anyone else. You have no scientific reason to reject cold fusion, but only emotional or political reasons.
There is no need for us to repeat views we have both previously stated. You are certain on all these matters, and believe the evidence obvious and irrefutable. I am not. I see lack of reproducibility, or lack of clarity with excess heat results close to measurement error that smaller when better experiments are done so they still stay frustratingly close to experimental error. that is not the scaling we expect from a real effect.
It is that factor which makes me uncertain.
You would expect that early experiments showing variable heat production beyond chemical explanations could be replaced by better instrumented experiments showing the same, with more clarity. One example is the large( results claimed by F&P, and the much smaller results found by McKubre doing similar experiments, and intended replication, but with more accurate calorimetry.
You have added He4 (correlating with heat) and Tritium. I do not remember the tritium evidence: I suspect - since I have been very interested in high quality evidence - that it is unclear, perhaps you should direct me to a thread here where we have discussed it.
I am still interested in the He4 replication that Abd said was being done. Austin U maybe? What happened?
The data marshalled from old experiments is problematic, because the results were cherry-picked for "non-leaking equipment". Thus, runs which did not deliver the required ratio (too much He4) would be examined for leaks and replaced. This would be continuous - thus a run would continue until such time as the He4 ratio looked wrong. I suspect also that runs which did not deliver the required ratio (too little) would similarly be examined for some other factor that might prevent the experiment from working. I remember looking at the meta-analysis selection protocol and seeing that it was vulnerable in this way. Thus you get roughly the correct ratio from variable lab atmosphere leaks. You similarly get a correlation between excess heat and He4 because the He4 content, and the excess heat, will both be linearly dependent on the total; experimental time if we assume He4 comes from small equipment leaks and a lab atmosphere relatively high in He4.
Now, a proper replication could deal with all these issues and would be exciting.
THH
You asked for your own thread, you got it and I took the trouible to move a lot of posts into it. Post any more about the boil-off in this thread and it will be moved too.
Kindly excercise restraint.
I find ascoli's deconstruction of the F&P paper fascinating because it is so detailed. You'd think we could reach a resolution where everyone agreed, or where the reasons for different interpretation were laid bare.
It is not to the credit of LENR that we cannot do this, and yet still that experiment is held out has gold standard. There should be newer and better gold standards.
It is clearly NOT gold standard: or there would be a careful and detailed rebuttal of ascoli that ascoli cannot answer. To my knowledge he was winning 80% of the time on details when we discussed it. It is such an iconic argument that there should be a whole blog page here devoted to the arguments and counter-arguments.
THH
Display MoreThere is no fold. There are no gatekeepers. No one letting theorists in or keeping them out. There is no agreement among theorists themselves. I have the impression that most experimentalists ignore theory. Cold fusion theory is not just unsettled. It is chaotic. I suppose most of it is "baloney," which is how Watson described biology theory before the discovery of DNA. That is how nascent science is. It is an unavoidable step in the development of science. See pages 12 and 13:
https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf
I suppose there is a "fold" in the sense that ICCF conferences allow just anyone to present a poster. The APS allows absolutely anyone to present a paper or talk. (I guess that would be anyone with a PhD -- not sure.) They made this rule decades ago after a scientist who was rejected went berserk or hurt people, or killed someone. I don't recall the details. Anyway, they decided that physics conferences should not have gatekeepers.
I myself cannot judge whether theories are reasonable or the product of crazy people or charlatans. Fortunately for me, that's not my job. Jean-Paul and the conference organizers do that. Whatever they allow into the Proceedings or JCMNS I upload to LENR-CANR.org. If individual researchers ask me to upload papers, I will usually do it, unless the papers seem to have no connection to cold fusion. I think I rejected two or three for that reason. They were not even in a far-out branch of the field such as biological transmutations.
If I could tell who is a charlatan I guess I would agree they should not be allowed into ICCF conferences. The whacko people seem harmless. You can never tell whether someone is crazy or highly original and right. I can't tell, anyway.
Because there is such a wide spectrum of ideas, people, and a lack of clear direction but strong desire to get a working device, the field will attract the good with the bad, and some of the bad will use the field as a foil to further their own personal aims without regard to the damage they might cause (whatever it might be), or delays they cause to real progress due to intentional misdirection.
You have added He4 (correlating with heat) and Tritium. I do not remember the tritium evidence: I suspect - since I have been very interested in high quality evidence - that it is unclear, perhaps you should direct me to a thread here where we have discussed it.
I find ascoli's deconstruction of the F&P paper fascinating because it is so detailed.
And based on his imaginative interpretation of a grainy old video. That's it. Would you accept evidence of this quality as evidence for UFO's?
It is such an iconic argument that there should be a whole blog page here devoted to the arguments and counter-arguments.
As he does.
And based on his imaginative interpretation of a grainy old video. That's it. Would you accept evidence of this quality as evidence for UFO's?
As he does.
No: I don't know he is correct. But it is the other way round: he provides a possible non-LENR explanation for otherwise unexplained observations in that experiment. If you think (for other reasons, McKubre perhaps) that excess heat from those experiments is known to exist you would not jump at it, but otherwise it provides a decent solution to anomalous results.
By invoking UFOs (that is, you mean I guess, alien UFOs) you invert the probabilities. It is LENR which is inherently unusual and unexpected - not no LENR.
The analogous question is this: would I accept ascoli's argument if the two options were either it is true, or the only other solution is to posit the existence of alien-piloted UFOs.
Coming back to the thread topic.
Skeptics (like me) need one single irrefutable experiment.
It could, for example, be got in parts: initially finding some effect (but with limited instrumentation). Then replicating that effect, with much better instrumentation - and the effect stays the same.
The regrettable situation in LENR is that when experiments are replicated with different instrumentation, calorimetry, etc that is more comprehensive effects tend to reduce, or even disappear. Finding some new anomaly in these replications is of no use. That has all the characteristics of anomalies caused by uncontrolled or not recognised error sources in experiments.
It would not matter that the effect was variable, difficult to control. In such cases you can go on doing the experiment and and the variability always does get a bit more tractable with practice, so repeated observations are more convincing (because results are comparable, and there is additional instrumentation, different calorimetry, etc) than earlier ones.
How very many "wonder results" when replicated go away?
Perhaps that is all I need; LENR results that become more convincing when replicated.
For example, Daniel_G's results here would be that, if replication showed something similar.
The question is:
"Why are old and accepted by LENR community experiments as showing clear nuclear activity not replicated with novel instrumentation, different calorimetry, parametric characterisation? That would help by convincing skeptics and also presenting clearer evidence about how the effect works"
That would be especially true of all those old Pd-D experiments, where people here other than me seem convinced they work.
I have of course heard the "F&P used magic palladium which we have not since been able to find" argument. It is profoundly unsatisfactory.
Best wishes, THH
The question is:
"Why are old and accepted by LENR community experiments as showing clear nuclear activity not replicated with novel instrumentation, different calorimetry, parametric characterisation? That would help by convincing skeptics and also presenting clearer evidence about how the effect works"
The program discussed here seems to be aimed at replicating some of the SPAWAR results, including the evidence of nuclear activity:
I have of course heard the "F&P used magic palladium which we have not since been able to find" argument. It is profoundly unsatisfactory.
In what way? The fact that old JM palladium worked more readily than the current material is well known to people who have worked with both, and there is a very good reason for it, there was a complete change in the method of manufacture in the early 90's when the Harlow Essex smelter closed down. The changes are a long story, which I have written about before, but I do have personal knowledge of why and how the methods of refining employed were altered to improve the purity of Pd produced at the Royston (also Essex) plant since 2 members of my close family worked for JM right through this period.
There's already a plethora of evidence that CF/LENR reactions take place: transmutations, emissions, heat, and electrical production. The opinions of skeptics that have mindsets incapable of grasping the evidence don't matter. Despite their never ending objections, companies, institutions, and government agencies around the world are moving on without them. Eventually, when the technology is commercialized to a significant degree, the skeptics will go silent without admitting that their mindset had kept them ignorant of the truth that was plain to see. Thankfully, even then they won't matter, either. Humanity's moving towards a literal "new age" in which our understanding of physics and the fundamental workings of the universe will leap further than ever before in history. Since other parties in this thread have mentioned a certain topic which is taboo on this forum, I'll dance around it by saying that there are other subject areas that are advancing at an accelerating pace. Now is an amazing time in history to be alive as the impossible becomes hard fact.
Display MoreComing back to the thread topic.
Skeptics (like me) need one single irrefutable experiment.
It could, for example, be got in parts: initially finding some effect (but with limited instrumentation). Then replicating that effect, with much better instrumentation - and the effect stays the same.
The regrettable situation in LENR is that when experiments are replicated with different instrumentation, calorimetry, etc that is more comprehensive effects tend to reduce, or even disappear. Finding some new anomaly in these replications is of no use. That has all the characteristics of anomalies caused by uncontrolled or not recognised error sources in experiments.
It would not matter that the effect was variable, difficult to control. In such cases you can go on doing the experiment and and the variability always does get a bit more tractable with practice, so repeated observations are more convincing (because results are comparable, and there is additional instrumentation, different calorimetry, etc) than earlier ones.
How very many "wonder results" when replicated go away?
Perhaps that is all I need; LENR results that become more convincing when replicated.
For example, Daniel_G's results here would be that, if replication showed something similar.
The question is:
"Why are old and accepted by LENR community experiments as showing clear nuclear activity not replicated with novel instrumentation, different calorimetry, parametric characterisation? That would help by convincing skeptics and also presenting clearer evidence about how the effect works"
That would be especially true of all those old Pd-D experiments, where people here other than me seem convinced they work.
I have of course heard the "F&P used magic palladium which we have not since been able to find" argument. It is profoundly unsatisfactory.
Best wishes, THH
He is well versed in this field enough to know the history of the palladium used in early experiments vs. what was used later. The fact he'd use the term, "magic palladium" is an obvious sign that his posts are an effort to push the idea that LENR/CF isn't real but nothing more than pseudoscientific "woo woo" (using the terminology of the skeptics).
In what way? The fact that old JM palladium worked more readily than the current material is well known to people who have worked with both, and there is a very good reason for it, there was a complete change in the method of manufacture in the early 90's when the Harlow Essex smelter closed down. The changes are a long story, which I have written about before, but I do have personal knowledge of why and how the methods of refining employed were altered to improve the purity of Pd produced at the Royston (also Essex) plant since 2 members of my close family worked for JM right through this period.
He is well versed in this field enough to know the history of the palladium used in early experiments vs. what was used later. The fact he'd use the term, "magic palladium" is an obvious sign that his posts are an effort to push the idea that LENR/CF isn't real but nothing more than pseudoscientific "woo woo" (using the terminology of the skeptics).
That was not my intent. If CF/LENR effects are real then the most plausible (to me) mechanism would be as many think: NAE, specific vacancy sites that support coherent bound electron/charge pseudoparticles that could effectively alter shielding and increase reaction rates.
If, however, that mechanism has merit then the initial surface condition of the Pd + however it changes through electrolysis is likely to alter the rate at which reactions happen a lot. Since it is not understood exactly what is needed it seems like magic. And others have speculated that they source of the metal matters, and that F&P had found a good source.
In terms of an effort to push: I think those who see this Forum as a way to push things will also interpret posts from others as something similar.
I take part in these discussions when they interest me (or on the covid thread out of sense of duty to point out the glaring science errors of the antivaxxers there).
I can understand that since you have decided that LENR/CF clearly has a nuclear explanation (along with most on this site) you will not be interested in that question. However if I were you, I would still be interested in which experiments are showing solid data, and which not. So discussion of that would be of benefit.
It is strange that so many here are political. I mean, ascoli has very single-minded views, and while I have sympathy with his Socratic technique (asking questions the answers to which may be enlightening) he is much more certain than me about the experiments he critiques. I would see his posts here as being political in the sense that he has a specific viewpoint which he believes should be more widely accepted, and he posts to that end.
For me, it is very liberating not having a specific viewpoint (and perhaps at heart more Socratic than ascoli). I have my guesses, as we all do, but that is all they are and where is the fun in thinking about things where the answer is known?
THH
Skeptics (like me) need one single irrefutable experiment.
I would believe what you say... Perhaps you could provide irrefutable proof.
I would argue that all skeptics are not equal. Proof is... Are you a skilled artisan with a Doctoral Degree in skepticism or a simple layman. Either way irrefutably you.
Yet I doubt that.
It should be clear to the skilled artisan that a much better estimate of Ue c can be achieved with Fermi-Dirac statistics for the description of conduction electrons rather than with the classical (Boltzmann) statistics. It is noted that the screening potential values calculated for plasma and conduction electrons are identical, although for different reasons. Indeed, plasma formation may also contribute to screening in non- metal targets, e.g., in dense deuterium gas irradiated by ionizing radiation.
I would believe what you say... Perhaps you could provide irrefutable proof.
I would argue that all skeptics are not equal. Proof is...
Surely that is not true. There are many different types of proof. In science anything experimental is probabilistic and in principle proof is too. In practice some results are better validated than others. Some interpretations are less assumptive than others.
And based on his imaginative interpretation of a grainy old video. That's it. Would you accept evidence of this quality as evidence for UFO's?
I wouldn't. Nor do I accept low-quality evidence of a grainy old video as evidence for LENR. But you do.
The proper question here is the reverse one. Since you accept the evidence of a grainy old video for LENR, would you accept similar evidence for the existence of UFO's?
...
Eventually, when the technology is commercialized to a significant degree, the skeptics will go silent without admitting that their mindset had kept them ignorant of the truth that was plain to see.
I am sceptical about the reality of LENR and this is not true of me. If I could see convincing proof of LENR I would be charmed. And I would say so. I expect that THH and others who post here in a sceptical manner feel the same..
Nor do I accept low-quality evidence of a grainy old video as evidence for LENR. But you do.
No. I accept the hundreds of replications of LENR performed by scientists around the world, documented and reported and in some cases replicated by others. That is acceptance based on evidence, not rejection based on nothing more than a flawed idea supported by an obsession.
