The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

    Quote from Curbina

    Sorry but I am quite OCD about keeping things on topic. This thread is for skepticism on LENR's very existence, and your comments are of this tenor. That's all.


    About the collection of papers, you can spend months reading at https://www.LENR-CANR.org , and you will find some also mentioned along this thread, where we have been discussing the issue for a while.

    When fishing, it helps to put a worm on the hook, rather than fish repellent. We all have limited time. "Jed Rothwell keeps a list" is not a worm. I described a suitable worm, and am done here. Thank you for your replies, and I'll check back in a year, probably.

    Quote from mjtrac

    OK. Let's hypothesize that US fusion researchers collectively put their grant applications ahead of their childrens' future. Why have electrochemists not found funding?

    Read the history of cold fusion. Read about what happened to Mel Miles, a Fellow of the Institute. Distinguished scientists who talked about cold fusion or published positive results were -- and still are -- driven out, despite having tenure. They are reviled in the mass media as criminals and lunatics. Foreign nationals are threatened with deportation. Their experiments are trashed, their lab books stolen and destroyed. That is what happens to distinguished scientists. Junior scientists are instantly destroyed. Their careers come to an abrupt end.

    Quote from mjtrac

    Please point me to the link at which Jed Rothwell maintains his collection of replicated experimental results.

    Not me so much as Britz. See:


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


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

    Frogfall


    I thought you might be interested in this email extract from somebody who looked closely at the Harwell LENR results...


    ...... If one still obtains an endothermic result (NEGATIVE Excess Power), then this indicates some other calorimetric error source. In many cases this is due to the neglect of the heat capacity term, CpMdT/dt, when the cell temperature is increasing. The Excess Power can be ZERO as it often is, but it should never be negative. Nevertheless, Negative Excess Power results were often reported by Harwell and other publications in 1989. Harwell, CalTech and MIT all omitted the CpMdT/dt term and Negative Excess Power results were obtained when the cell was heating.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    As for Ascoli's 'foamgate' even if he is correct, which I doubt because the evidence is based at least (or mostly) on his imaginative re-interpretations of low-definition video clips. And he has (I am told) a vested interest in hot fusion so there may also be a conflict of interest there.

    I hope, I'm allowed to say that you have been told a false information. I've no interest in hot fusion, neither vested, nor naked.


    As for the "foamgate", if I'm correct, as clearly and indisputably shown by the available videos, it follows that paragraph 9 "Effect of Temperature" in Ed Storm pre-print, which relays on the F&P "Simplicity Paper", starts with a wrong statement.

    Quote from Ascoli65

    As for the "foamgate", if I'm correct, as clearly and indisputably shown by the available videos, it follows that paragraph 9 "Effect of Temperature" in Ed Storm pre-print, which relays on the F&P "Simplicity Paper", starts with a wrong statement.

    IF you are correct. Anyway, your thoughts on this are off-topic here.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    Anyway, your thoughts on this are off-topic here.

    No.


    Ascloli65's thoughts are completely on topic for this thread. He actually mentions the line in Storm's preprint that he believes is wrong IF his (Ascoli65's) observations and prior arguments are correct and his point is logical.


    You emphasize the "IF", which is completely legitimate, but don't call his post off topic just because you disagree with his views.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    To paraphrase (slightly) the words of Akito Takahashi "Experimental results are independent facts.

    Theory and explanation are also independent issues. to combine the three requires full consistency with as many rational physics aspects as possible".


    But please note, he says " As many...as possible." And when you run out of the old 'possibles' you have only new ones left.

    These are really wise words. First consider the old "possibles". The older are also the simpler.


    But this plain and opportune rule has not always been followed in the CF research. Indeed, for what I saw till now, in my personal review of some of the most important CF experiments, it has never been.


    For example, it has not been applied for the interpretation of the experimental results presented at ICCF22 by Akito Takahashi himself. In fact, there is no doubt that the variable cooling effect due to the on-off operation of an AC unit provides a much simpler, older, and already theoretically explained interpretation of the oscillatory down-spikes in the TC4 signal, rather than any other hypothetical, exotic, and unexplained new nuclear phenomenon.


    For details, see: RE: The NEDO Initiative - Japan's Cold Fusion Programme

    This message was moved here, so let me copy my response, and delete the copy in the other thread.


    Quote from Ascoli65

    In fact, there is no doubt that the variable cooling effect due to the on-off operation of an AC unit provides a much simpler . . .

    No doubt? Do you have ambient temperature data showing the effects of the AC unit? If you do not, then there is doubt, and you are merely speculating.


    Other reasons to doubt:


    Most AC units in laboratories have fine thermostatic control, to within a fraction of a degree. When you go any distance from the heat outlet, temperature variations are less than 0.1 deg C. Such temperature variations cannot measurably affect the inside of a calorimeter.


    If the experiments were performed repeatedly at different times of the year, there would be air conditioning in summer and heating in winter. These produce different responses. You can tell the difference. Heating is usually much faster, unless there is a heat pump, and I doubt there would be one in Japan.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    No doubt? Do you have ambient temperature data showing the effects of the AC unit? If you do not, then there is doubt, and you are merely speculating.


    Other reasons to doubt:


    Most AC units in laboratories have fine thermostatic control, to within a fraction of a degree. When you go any distance from the heat outlet, temperature variations are less than 0.1 deg C. Such temperature variations cannot measurably affect the inside of a calorimeter.

    Yes, no doubt.


    Please, read again my sentence above. I was referring to the explanation, and there is no doubt that the effect of an AC unit is a simpler explanation than an unknown nuclear phenomenon.


    As for the ambient temperature, I know that it was kept constant within a small range, but it was done by means of an AC unit inside the cabin containing the cell. However the down-spikes in the TC4 curve are not due to the small ambient temperature cycling, rather to the strong increase of the convective coefficient of heat exchange between the H/D gas pipe and the ambient temperature caused by the periodic activation of the AC unit fan, as I explained in the post linked to my previous comment.


    TC4 measures the temperature of a flange directly connected to the H/D gas pipe, it usually stays at above 250 °C, so when the AC fan blows its temperature starts to quickly drop. This is very old and basic thermodynamics, and provides a perfect explanation of the TC4 behavior, so it should have been preferred over any other new and bizarre explanation.


    Quote

    If the experiments were performed repeatedly at different times of the year, there would be air conditioning in summer and heating in winter. These produce different responses. You can tell the difference. Heating is usually much faster, unless there is a heat pump, and I doubt there would be one in Japan.


    Not in the case of the experimental setup we are talking of. The cell was hosted inside a small cabin in a laboratory, and its ambient temperature was kept 2-3 degrees below the lab temperature by means of an AC unit installed inside the cabin, in winter as well as in summer.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Experiments with cold fusion also have clear replicable and certain results.

    At ICCF23, McKubre stated (1):


    "As far as I am aware Lonchampt and his team were and are the only group ever to attempt an exact engineering replication of the original Fleischmann Pons experiment."


    So just one replication, and of a, well let's say, controversial experiment.


    I don't think McKubre is less informed than you with respect of the CF experiments.


    Who is right?


    (1) RE: What should we do next ? - A relevant question from Matt Trevithick

    Quote from Ascoli65

    At ICCF23, McKubre stated (1):


    "As far as I am aware Lonchampt and his team were and are the only group ever to attempt an exact engineering replication of the original Fleischmann Pons experiment."


    So just one replication, and of a, well let's say, controversial experiment.

    There are hundreds of other less exact replications, many of them better than the original in various ways. For example, there were many with closed cells, which have some advantages, and others with diagnostics such as x-ray film and tritium detection. Many used better calorimeters.


    It would not be a good idea to do only exact engineering replications. You want to try different instruments to see if the same results are found. If people only used the exact same instrument, they might all be making systematic errors. Whereas there can be no systematic error common to isoperibolic, flow and Seebeck calorimeters. The systems are different.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    There are hundreds of other less exact replications, many of them better than the original in various ways. For example, there were many with closed cells, which have some advantages, and others with diagnostics such as x-ray film and tritium detection. Many used better calorimeters.


    It would not be a good idea to do only exact engineering replications. You want to try different instruments to see if the same results are found. If people only used the exact same instrument, they might all be making systematic errors. Whereas there can be no systematic error common to isoperibolic, flow and Seebeck calorimeters. The systems are different.

    But, please, note, in the same slide presented at ICCF23, McKubre wrote:


    " c. Reproduce exactly first. Work with the originator directly, in person, understand their procedures at every step until the original effect is recreated. In 1996 Lonchampt et al* set out "simply to reproduce the exact experiment of Fleschmann and Pons – to ascertain the various phenomena in order to master the experiments". The phrase underlined is critical. Only from the position of mastery can systematic effects be studied."


    The original F&P experiment was held in 1992, Lonchamp replication a few years later. In about 3 decades since then, this experiment should have accumulated dozens of exact replications! How is it possible that nobody else, including McKubre, has replicated this experiment?

    Quote from Storms

    Until an experiment is reproducible more-or-less at will, producing more-or-less the same results (including magnitude and timing) more-or-less every time then we cannot know that it is real and fully under our control."


    Being real and being under total control are two entirely different requirements. They should not even be discussed in the same sentence. Cold fusion is real. However, it will not be under total control until it is understood. Unless a person is helping to obtain this understanding, their comments are useless.

    Well, Ed, yours is a legitimate opinion. However the quoted sentence appears in a slide presented by McKubre at ICCF23, as you can see here: RE: What should we do next ? - A relevant question from Matt Trevithick


    In the same slide, McKubre also mentions the original Pons Fleischmann experiment replicated by Lonchamp. This is the famous "4 cells boil-off" experiment carried out in spring 1992 at IMRA Europe and presented at ICCF3 in Nagoya in October. It was also described in the so called "Simplicity Paper" published by F&P in 1993 on PLA, which you included in the Bibliography of your draft paper at number [36].


    You mentioned that reference at the beginning of this paragraph:

    Quote

    9. Effect of Temperature

    The increased temperature was known since 1990 to increase power production.[36] Since then, this effect has been studied in greater detail.[35, 37-40] Of importance, most of the samples I have studied made no detectable power at room temperature yet would produce significant power when heated. Perhaps more success would have been reported if the samples had been simply heated.


    I would like to ask you if you have deeply examined the results claimed in this F&P paper, and if you agree with McKubre in considering this F&P experiment the only one which has been exactly replicated.


    Thanks.

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