Which ICCF24 presentation is most likely to sway a skeptic?

    Here is the next Al Scott podcast series in which he explores LENR from the viewpoint of a "former" skeptic, turned believer:


    Player FM - Internet Radio Done Right


    In this episode I am continuing my investigation into cold fusion, looking into potential scientific explanations of the excess heat and fusion products hinted at by Dr. Edmund Storms in my last podcast.

    There seems to be a dedicated research group that is working on these theories and I am eager to find out whether or not their hypothesis about condensed plasmoids can stand up to skepticism.

    Lutz Jaitner from Hamburg Germany is the father of three adult daughters. He holds a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Hamburg.

    Lutz started his career as a designer and developer of multiprocessor hardware. After which he worked as a consulting engineer. Lutz is the programmer and operator of a public cloud service for neighborly help groups: Obelio eLETS Service

    Around 2006 Lutz started to evaluate the available literature about LENR research. By 2015 he found an explanation, how the reaction is facilitated by an ultra-dense plasmoid state of matter. It took him until 2019 to work out a quantum-mechanical model of this state, to program a simulation tool for it, perform the simulation runs and document this theory on this web site.

    Another former skeptic tells his story of how he became a believer in "Nuclear Transmutation The Reality of Cold Fusion".

    I have bought the book many times and given it to someone who exhibits a healthy skepticism. CMNS is science with a capital S. I continue to be amazed by the credentials of the scientists working in this field of Condensed Matter Physics.

    Buy the book and gift it...

    Read this introduction online for free.

    Introduction to the English Edition of –

    Nuclear Transmutation:

    The Reality of Cold Fusion

    by Dr. Tadahiko Mizuno

    Department of Nuclear Engineering

    Hokkaido National University, Japan

    English translation by Jed Rothwell

    Infinite Energy Press

    Concord, New Hampshire, U.S.A.

    With a Foreword by Eugene F. Mallove, Sc.D.

    Introduction by Jed Rothwell


    Link

    lenr-canr.org was first indexed by Google more than 10 years ago

    https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTnucleartra.pdf

    It's great he managed to catch Lutz Jaitner, hes a hard man to find. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. I met him around 4 years ago and we had a long conversation about the work of Ken Shoulders, the 'father' of plasmoid science as a fundamental part of LENR research.

    A PhD granted for Condensed Matter Nuclear Science research.


    Final Examination (Dissertation Defense) for Erik Ziehm


    Sponsor NPRE

    Welcome to the Department of Nuclear, Plasma & Radiological Engineering!

    We are unique in the state of Illinois, the state with the largest nuclear power production in the U.S. NPRE ILLINOIS is the one academic department in Illinois which serves the needs for the development of expertise in the nuclear power area, as well as a broad range of advanced science and engineering needs to develop atomic and nuclear processes for the benefit of today’s society.


    NPRE ILLINOIS is renowned for its expertise on issues surrounding the production, transport, and interactions of radiation with matter and the application of all nuclear processes. This includes leadership in traditional areas of nuclear fission for production of electric power and guiding the development of advanced nuclear systems for more efficient production of energy resources. We also emphasize nuclear fusion for near-term scientific applications and for its development as a future clean energy source.


    The LENR Doctoral Thesis


    An Experimental Investigation of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions in a DC Glow Discharge


    Final Examination (Dissertation Defense) for Erik Ziehm



    ABSTRACT: This work addresses the possibility of low energy nuclear reactions within a DC glow deuterium discharge with palladium electrodes. The hypothesis is that the dynamics typically used in plasma for nuclear reactions must be modified while the reactants are within a dynamic solidstate metallic system. In this work, a DC glow deuterium plasma simultaneously implants deuterons into the cathode and causes crystalline deformations, which act as trapping sites for the mobile interstitial deuterons. A Solid-State Nuclear Track Detector (SSNTD), called CR-39, was chosen as the technique to investigate the emission of energetic charged particles from the cathode. While other research has used this type of detector, this is the first application in a low voltage DC plasma discharge, i.e., a discharge with electrodes biased below 1 kV. A new analysis technique was developed, which allowed rapid scanning of large CR-39 surfaces. The new method amassed considerably more data than previous studies. After plasma treatments, tracks in the CR-39 detectors consistently corresponded to 138 ± 21 keV alpha particles emitted from the palladium electrodes. The track densities for deuterium discharges wereoften ∼100 times above controls with hydrogen and helium. Currently, there are no known means to accelerate ions to these energies within the apparatus. The energy estimates plus other factors like the ion directionality indicate these ions were created by nuclear reactions. This work provides future researchers the basis for establishing a theory for creating Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).

    So - this is LENR work that is relatively unsurprising - and many people will think it likely.


    That does not mean it is correct - of course - but it looks solid. And it is not that surprising so as a Baysian I am more inclined to give it benefit of any doubt. (Everyone here does that - it is juts their Baysian priors start with "I know type 1 LENR is real").


    Now - since I agree that this is most likely real that means I think LENR is real - which qualifies me for this site.


    However - I am much more cautious about many of the claims made here. Which means basically that half of the posters here consider me a Russian-controlled company pretending to be a person trolling to destroy the nascent western LENR industry (I kid you not).


    Talk about hubris!


    Ignoring that, here are the bits of LENR "waffle-theory" that lead me to liking some things more than others. I say "waffle-theory" because they are sort of guesses. Clear experimental results always trump such things.


    (1) D reaction is more plausible than H fusion (that extra neutron helps with its shielding)

    (2) Fusion which fractionated inevitable high energy excess in products much less likely than fusion that has high energy products

    (3) Metal lattices containing D certainly provide electron-screening, and there are potential mechanisms for enhancing the screening based on coherent electronic behaviour in lattices.


    The alert reader who has been blocking accusations of Russian-controlled trolling will also wonder about the connection between this and the F&P debacle.


    Short answer; I don't know.


    Longer answer:


    (1) Certainly Pd lattices (and Ni, etc) can absorb H or D, and there are interesting not fully understood chemical reactions that will provide anomalous enthalpy and might be mistaken for LENR. Because chemical - there would be no high energy products.


    [ I hear people here pointing out all the F&P - and other - experiments - show many things outside of what this could explain. That is true. And also not the point. We do not have nuclear reactions as an explanation that fits all of the data (no predictivity - unexpected no theory yet fractionation of high energy results in some cases, high energy results in others - some experiments showing "transmutations" to pretty well any element which is even less likely than other sorts of LENR). So trying to fit everything is a mugs game, and since none of this data is lab rat experiment replicable (except maybe the stuff in the

    (thesis above) we need to be cautious about all of it.]


    (2) If unexpected effects in lattices can lead to D nuclear reactions then F&P could have seen some of this - but not have been able to make it repeatable. Against that, and this was what (mainly) sank LENR in those early years - the expected high energy products were not found.


    (3) But - surely the coincidence of F&P finding this stuff (r thinking they did) and these lattice effects being real is too much? Well - perhaps - but the problem is the "lattice effects" side of LENR - which I call type 2 - has very different characteristics from type 1. It DOES result in easily detectable high energy products. Finding some variant of it that fractionates all those products in some circumstances is a big ask.


    So that is the "not died-in-wool-LENR-believer-but still-open-minded" side of things.


    Yes - by the site's definition - I am not censored here because I am part of the community of people who things LENR is possible.


    There is no need for factional infighting (such as what some here are doing with me). You can see from the above that whether a type 1 or type 2 LENRer there are mysteries here. Type 2 LENR is pretty well at the lab rat everyone knows it exists stage. Whether type 2 works as well with H is unclear (and if it does a bit surprising - the theories we have would say it should work less well).


    Although no need for infighting, also it is dangerous to over-generalise. Whatever LENR mechanism is proven is likely to explain only some part of the diverse evidence posted here. That is the price you pay for including absolutely everything under the umbrella "LENR". Insisting like some latter-day Spanish Inquisition that all keep the faith and have non-heretical beliefs is frankly both unpleasant and deeply wrong.


    THH


    PS - as some will note - I am still not happy about the Russian multi-person troll abuse - which is tolerated and (Alan saying ascoli is irrational) to some extent encouraged here. My lack of happiness is not specifically personal. If this site stops being a place for civilised, frank and open discourse - as is useful in science - it has no value to me. So keeping me happy is identical to keeping this site a better place.


    :)

    Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

    he new method amassed considerably more data than previous studies. After plasma treatments, tracks in the CR-39 detectors consistently corresponded to 138 ± 21 keV alpha particles emitted from the palladium electrodes. The track densities for deuterium discharges wereoften ∼100 times above controls with hydrogen and helium. Currently, there are no known means to accelerate ions to these energies within the apparatus. The energy estimates plus other factors like the ion directionality indicate these ions were created by nuclear reactions.

    So - one of the reasons this work gets much more easily believed is the predictivity. The reactions possible lead to energy and directionality estimates which can be quantitatively substantiated or not. If they prove true we have a quantitatively predictive theory (and equally incoherent energies and directions disproves this theory).


    Its called science.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    So - this is LENR work that is relatively unsurprising - and many people will think it likely.

    Why do you say is “relatively unsurprising”?


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    (2) If unexpected effects in lattices can lead to D nuclear reactions then F&P could have seen some of this - but not have been able to make it repeatable. Against that, and this was what (mainly) sank LENR in those early years - the expected high energy products were not found.

    Why the “If”‘ when you are seeing evidence of it? Here you show your bias against it.


    F&P did make it repeatable, and the fact that not all the samples of Pd worked is well documented.


    The expectation of high energy particles is something that has indeed stumped the development of the field, because we have the arrogance of thinking we know how nature works. When nature shows us something we didn’t expect we should change our understanding of how nature works, not dismiss it as an error. Have you read the Cardone Papers? They do analyze the puzzling lack of high energy particles, gammas and neutrons, you May agree or disagree on how they explain it, but you can’t say they did not go to great extremes to prove the elemental synthesis they observed wasn’t due to “contamination”.

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

    Like 1 Thanks 1
    Quote from THHuxleynew

    and since none of this data is lab rat experiment replicable

    Many and various types of LENR research and experiments in this field are replicable. Your arguments are faulty in this regard. Energies beyond your unknown chemical reasoning... Nuclear dense. Excess energy clearly proven and replicated since 1989. Keep in mind that the original wet cell has Lattice has Plasma has acceleration of Deuterons... Also has, as you like to say about LENR 2, has that Coherence stuff.


    Dry cell just no water.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    since none of this data is lab rat experiment replicable

    Lab rats are not experiment replicable. I mean actual lab rats, used in biology. I myself used them, along with guppies and ground squirrels. Every guppy is different. Some respond to a treatment or stimuli, others do not. They are as variable as people. As a biologist said, when all conditions such as temperature, humidity and stimuli are made as alike as possible, the organism will do whatever the hell it wants to do. In most cases, the only thing you can count on in biology is a distribution curve of likely responses.


    Even in 1990, cold fusion was more replicable than lab rat experiments. They were more replicable than space rockets in 1958, or transistors in 1955. No one ever claimed that rockets and transistors did not exist because they were difficult to reproduce, and they often failed. That would be absurd. THH's claim that cold fusion is not replicable is not only wrong; it never was true; it is absurd; and it has no bearing on whether cold fusion exists. If THH were to say this about anything other than cold fusion, he would be laughed at, but for some reason people take him seriously when it comes to cold fusion. He and other skeptics make up arbitrary, ad hoc "rules" they apply to cold fusion and nothing else.

    Quote from Curbina

    F&P did make it repeatable, and the fact that not all the samples of Pd worked is well documented.

    Especially by Miles and Storms. See pages 5 and 6, and the references listed there:


    https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJlessonsfro.pdf


    Storms spelled out the reasons why samples fail in 1996, as did many Italian metallurgists. Storms more recently described what materials work in much more detail.


    http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEthenatureoc.pdf


    why "relatively unsurprising"? For the reasons I give.


    Why "If"?


    LENTR - even type 2 - is still not well understood. This is one experiment. I am being cautious - as is proper. Just because I think something is probably true does not mean it is true! Hence if.


    Re Cardone papers


    Thank you for these useful papers. I started to read (the first one) then realised:

    (a) I need to read the lot

    (b) It was not immediately obvious (from the first one I read) what the transmutation evidence was based on (I could so the post-reaction data, but not clear what was the comparable pre-reaction data). I expect more careful reading of all the papers will sort that out (I am not saying you are wrong because I have no idea) but it is sit down for an afternoon to do it not do a quick scan now and I do not just at the moment have an afternoon. It is on my list and I will make no further comments about transmutation till I have read those papers without qualifying my comments.


    Re explanation

    Post-hoc explanations are two-a-penny and don't count for much unless precisely predictable from known theory. There is no known theory that can lead to that expected fractionation of high energy products from nuclear reactions.


    THH

    Quote from Gregory Byron Goble

    Many and various types of LENR research and experiments in this field are replicable. Your arguments are faulty in this regard. Energies beyond your unknown chemical reasoning... Nuclear dense. Excess energy clearly proven and replicated since 1989. Keep in mind that the original wet cell has Lattice has Plasma has acceleration of Deuterons... Also has, as you like to say about LENR 2, has that Coherence stuff.


    Dry cell just no water.

    (1) no replicable experiment I know is highly certain in indicating LENR: in that I only follow one of the ICCF24 talks - so you may hold a different view, as is your privilege, but others do not agree.


    (2) excess energy not clearly proven. But this is an argument that will have no end, and would take a long time because you have 100s of cases where disagree to argue about. Let me give as an example that F&P boil-off phase experiment, where I say not proven at all Jed and many others here have said (still say?) proven 100%. In that specific case I can justify my not proven simply.


    (3) Original wet cell has plasma and deuterons. That distinction is that those original experiments, in is generally accepted, never generated high energy products, hence are not type 2. Read my post again and you will see I talk about this.


    (4) That coherence stuff - yes indeed it is possible in lattices or on lattice surfaces. Where did I say no?


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    There is no known theory that can lead to that expected fractionation of high energy products from nuclear reactions.

    Theory is NEVER needed to prove something is real. All you need to do is replicate an effect some number of times in different labs at a reasonably high signal to noise ratio. In cold fusion, excess heat far beyond the limits of chemistry, no chemical changes, helium and tritium have been widely replicated at astronomically high signal to noise ratios in some cases. Therefore cold fusion is a nuclear effect. No theory or explanation is needed, and no theory can disprove these results, contrary to what Huizenga wrote.


    Saying you need a theory turns the scientific method upside down.


    There is only one matter of opinion. Only one thing that can be debated, and that only in the early stages. You can debate how many labs need to replicate, and how high the signal to noise ratio must be before we can be sure the claim is true. Some people say 3 labs, others may hold out for 5 or 10, and they have to be pretty good labs, such as Los Alamos and BARC. Those are reasonable differences of opinion. However, THH and others will not accept a claim that has been replicated by ~180 labs, often at s/n ratios close to infinity, with no input power and palpable heat. To go on claiming "we can't be sure" in the face of such evidence is not science. It is nonsense. If we had applied that standard to other discoveries, people would still be living caves.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    (1) no replicable experiment I know is highly certain in indicating LENR

    That is because you refuse to look. I gave you very specific reasons why your claims about Miles are wrong, and I gave you a short paper, but you refused to read it.


    What you know has no bearing on what has been discovered and published. I know practically nothing about quantum theory, but my ignorance does not diminsh the credibility of quantum theory.


    The scientists who conducted experiments were highly certain they indicate LENR. They have published these experiments, and the reasons they are certain, in hundreds of peer-reviewed papers. Papers that survived tough peer-review. That is why other experts such as Heinz Gerischer concluded “there [are] now undoubtedly overwhelming indications that nuclear processes take place in metal alloys.” Unlike you, he actually read the literature and talked to the researchers, and unlike you he was a distinguished expert in electrochemistry. In the 1990s, just about ever distinguished expert in electrochemistry, calorimetry and tritium detection who looked at the evidence concluded it is real. I know of only three or four who disagreed. You haven't looked -- you refuse to look -- and all of the reasons you have given to reject the data have been nonsense, so your opinion does not count.


    By the way, before you say it, this is not a fallacious appeal to authority. Many people confuse that with a legitimate appeal to authority. Fleischmann, Bockris and Gerischer were actual, valid, 100% relevant authorities, whereas you don't know a damn thing about any of this, so pointing to them is very good evidence that you are wrong. See:


    Fallacy: Appeal to Authority


    Quote from JedRothwell

    Theory is NEVER needed to prove something is real. All you need to do is replicate an effect some number of times in different labs at a reasonably high signal to noise ratio.

    Agreed.


    But, you see, LENR is not an "effect". It is a statement that said collection of effects are caused by nuclear reactions.


    For that you need theory.


    THH

    Quote from JedRothwell

    That is because you refuse to look. I gave you very specific reasons why your claims about Miles are wrong, and I gave you a short paper, but you refused to read it.

    When was this Jed, and when did I refuse to read it. Was it a summary paper by somone else, or a paper by Miles. I don't like to read summaries because it introduces somone else's judgement into the equation. Often that is OK but with LENR where different people can have wildly different judgements it is not.


    Anyway a short paper by Miles sounds good - and I'd be happy to read it. Perhaps when I refused I was influenced by the claims of wrongdoing between different LENR characters which (perhaps) related to Miles. I have conveniently forgotten those now, if they existed, so unless they crop up in obvious form again he gets a fair hearing.


    Funny thing is, I do vaguely remember looking in detail about some of those results (not sure if it was Miles).


    THH

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