The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from JedRothwell

There are many critiques of theory, or based on theory. I don't know much about them, but they are all wrong,

Well, actually...

I informally here provided a detailed theoretical critique of the proposition that Ed's calorimeter could safely have errors due to heat variation on the inside of the box bounded << 0.5% based on the 3 tests described in his paper. That theory related to the fact that, in principle, to balance 12 Seebeck effect panels you need 11 (or 12 if calibrating as well) orthogonal measurements.

I have no intention of writing this up formally here - it is basic maths, but I could do so. The formal proof would look at the number of independent linear equations needed to determine uniquely 12 unknown coefficients.

Notwithstanding that, practically - such calibration is not needed. But more calibration than has been done is needed if an accuracy of << 0.5% is required to be proved, and it is pretty simple. note that ed has released no information on the relative matching of the Seebeck effect transducers, nor their model, so this could be looked up. Without that it is important to be pessimistic.

Quote from JedRothwell

It says right in the paper. In the sentence before that on p. 8. The next sentence, about using the "equilibrium calibration mark" to ensure the water level is the same, applies to all periods in the experiment. Staker checks every day to see if the water level has fallen, and then replenishes it by tweaking the electronic syringe gadget to add a little more. The gadget gives a very precise reading of how much water was added.

It is simple. You look at the cell, see that the water is below the mark, and add a little until it is right back at the mark. With a test tube of this size, you can see the water level to within a fraction of a milliliter.

You are overthinking this. It is just common sense chemistry. What people have been doing since the medieval times. Stop worrying about "the context of these periods." He is telling you how he adds make-up water. That's all there is to it.

That means they set up the syringe gadget by projecting the likely replacement rate based on electrolysis current. They used Faraday's law. Obviously, if the cell overfilled or underfilled, they would change the delivery rate. Equally obvious, if there was recombination, and they had set up the rate based on electrolysis current, it would soon overfill. They would see the water level is gradually rising above the calibration mark.

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Jed, truly - you may be right. Or wrong. But that is not what he says. And, if the water level "falls" then that would introduce an unquantified error in the calorimeter since he says the meniscus level matters.

You are continuously making assumptions about this experiment, but if you are right this unclear unrecorded manual adjustment means that there is no information about evaporation rate - back to where we started! the evaporation rate over one day is very small. To detect accurately what it is you need many days of data.

I agree he could have obtained this by adjusting the "instrument table" each day, and then using all the adjusted values to calculate the overall fill-up rate. Although since that is not what he said he did, merely what you think "everyone does" I don't think anyone could be confident.

You are continuously filling in details in experiments, and assuming that not only are things done the way you expect, but extra calculations are done to check things not mentioned, when if your proposed ad hoc fill compensation was used there would not easily be any record.

I am not saying you are wrong. I am saying that I don't know, and you are wrong if you claim it is possible for anyone to know (without detailed cross-examination of Staker). Which I am not willing to do. It is not polite.

Note that my much simpler request to Ed here for a little more information has not led to any more information. Ed is under no requirement at all to give that, I am just illustrating why when a paper is very unclear I would not normally try to extract recollections a long time after the work was done from the P.I. unless it was something very specific.

Quote from Alan Smith

I have not read Huizenga's critique, but I have read Shanahan's various comments, indeed when he was a contributor here we exchanged views at length. He could not describe a single experiment to me which would prove his theories about the ubiquity of fairly dramatic changes in the calibration constant of calorimeters which explained all XSH results were incorrect.

This is what Shanahan was saying 20 years ago., taken from Jed's library.

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

"All excess heat results from those calorimeters either were non-existent or much less that the 1992 results, as would be expected with a pathological science effect. Further, while no calibration data was supplied, my analysis of the later results showed that it was another 2% effect, agreeing with Dr. Storms' results.

The patterns referred to....are more the imaginings of Dr. Storms than anything else. Secondarily, I also propose a real effect as the root cause of the CCS, so it wouldn't be surprising to find correlated factors. The point is that Dr. Storms does not distinguish experimental error and data misinterpretation from possible real correlations, so his basis set is corrupted and cannot be trusted.

Much recent comment has been made here and in the literature as to the ability of CF researchers to objectively and accurately analyze their samples. The associated nuclear ash reported by Dr. Storms ...

is usually explained easily by bad analytical chemistry. There do remain a few isolated reports after filtering out the bad stuff, but they are not reproduced and as such are still nothing but suggestions, not proof."

But in reading his remarks , I soon realised that he depended on magical thinking and ad hom atackes far more than most LENR scientists do.

ETA kirkshanahan last graced us with his thoughts in 2020.

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Shanahan was a little inclined to over-generalise, like Jed, I agree.

However that statement from him:

"All excess heat results from those calorimeters either were non-existent or much less that the 1992 results, as would be expected with a pathological science effect. Further, while no calibration data was supplied, my analysis of the later results showed that it was another 2% effect, agreeing with Dr. Storms' results.

You could rebut it easily now with a single counter-example. (we might need the context?).

Quote from JedRothwell

When you said "gaps" I thought you were talking about air gaps.

I don't see any significant contradictions here. The experiment may have been changed slightly between the papers.

I was misled by the lack of description of the instrument tables in the later paper, thinking that the fill-up rate was determined from the calculated Faradaic rate rather than empirically.

However given careful calibration of fill-up rate it would be possible to have a predetermined rate. The total volume over 46 days is only ~ 160g + evaporation. The syringes are very accurate (or so they say).

Yes, I apologise, I was using gaps in two completely different ways relying on context to disambiguate.

Quote from JedRothwell

Ed did not describe errors in percent terms. He wrote: "Proper design of a measurement can reduce the absolute error in a power measurement to less than 30 mW and the relative error to less than 15 mW." How does that compare with your percent estimate?

That quote is from this paper, which describes sources of error in detail:

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

I worked it out from power in 30W, delta power out 300mW. A 1% effect. Well above calibration repeatability and noise. But relatively low for a not fully characterised calorimeter.

The percentage is only relevant for errors that scale with the power in and are not calibrated out. There is one such which I have mentioned several times (asymmetric response of panels - or varying response across a panel between edge and middle - leading to overall response dependent on exact position of heat, or fan airflow - which is also not characterised. There might be others that I do not know - I do not feel very omniscient about that experiment and it is a clever but slightly unusual design.

Quote from Alan Smith

They typically claim an overall accuracy of +/- 2%.

In that case I misread the spec which seemed a lot better than that. No - I was right! It surprised me...

https://www.harvardapparatus.com/media/harvard/pdf/552222_Pump_22_Manual.pdf

Accuracy ±0.035%
Reproducibility ±0.05%

Quote from JedRothwell

Do you mean 1% of 300 mW, or 30 W? The former would be 3 mW, much smaller than Ed estimates.

Do you mean 1% of 30 W? 300 mW?

I mean that the excess, 300mW, is 1% of the input power 30W.

Before you say anything, the excess is well above the noise and calibration repeatability.

But, errors caused by difference between calibration and actual conditions in cell are not covered by calibration and will scale with input power. I am saying that such an error would need to be 1% to show the results from unquantified errors.

That is why I am keen to bound such errors quantitatively (which a bit more calibration would do of course).

Quote from Storms

I have used 5 different Seebeck designs as well as the flow method, the isoperibolic method, and combinations of all the methods. I probably have more practical knowledge about calorimeters than anyone in this field, yet my advice has no more value than yours.

I am sure everyone here 9including me) would accept your knowledge of this type of calorimetry over mine.

Quote from Storms

In fact, the error is only a small fraction of the measured value. But proving this to you would require a major effort

Well, it does not seem difficult to me. Just a little bit of quantified worst case calibration. And it would help to provide details of the Seebeck sensors from which their accuracy could be determined.

My point is that for these results (and pretty well any contentious science) we cannot and should not trust scientists, no matter how excellent they are. We should trust what is written down first, because that can be critiqued. And after that passes, what is verifiable by others. This is not a sign of disrespect toward the scientists. It is just the way things should be.

Quote from JedRothwell

Unrecorded?!? Who the hell would add water without recording it??? That's nuts. Nothing is unrecorded. There is nothing unclear about it.

Other people who add make up water once a day always record it. Staker adds it continuously. The gadget records it.

Of course there is information about the evaporation rate! It is governed by the temperature and Dalton's law. It is measured in calibrations with resistance heating, and with the control cell. It is total loss minus the loss from electrolysis. And if isn't that, you can tell, because there is no way a decline in one would be exactly matched by an increase in the other.

Lots of assumptions! I don't know. Nor do you. I would point out, private communication which you have, Staker said the evaporation rate was at 10X lower than what those calculations say it should be. Faced with this uncertainty it is good to be cautious and not make any assumptions.

THH

Quote from RobertBryant

evidence of humanity...insanity persists despite funerals

Planck

"“a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Well - for that to work with LENR you need to get universities to teach it as a fact.

Good luck with that until you have a reference experiment that survives the type of question I ask, and is either replicated by a non-LENR independent group, or written up with extraordinary detail and care. (Well, you need that write-up to get decent replication from others, I think).

Quote from RobertBryant

Mr and Mrs "mainstream" concur on that but perhaps not on

I just phoned them

Perhaps, then you could provide a detailed account of this interesting call about Seebeck calorimeters, and what were the reasons of this mythically authoritative pair.