The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    The word is not thing it represents in the real world. All words are approximations. People define the same word in different ways, and disagree over what exactly it means. I think it was clear from context that by "cold fusion" I meant the effect that causes heat, helium correlated with heat at the same ratio as D-D plasma fusion, and tritium. I did not mean anything else.

    Just to continue this worthwhile discussion of the meaning of LENR.


    I now understand what you mean by LENR. That is very traditional. It leaves out many other systems (H-Ni) and effects (alphas as detected by CR39).


    So I don't think that specific definition is clear from context. If you try to ad enough to it to include all the claimed LENR effects as LENR - then you probably end up with my definition.

    Quote from Edo

    My simple problem with all this is that I feel mistreated by your writings often ( my perception) and feel like you are treating everyone here as one of your students that need some rectifying to the "settled science". Well Never going to happen, since I do not accept the Copenhagen Interpretation, neutron stars or heavy metals created by colliding neutron stars, nor the Big Bang, nor time travel and most certainly not a believer in dark matter or energy and last one, antimatter.

    Sorry you feel mistreated. I never feel mistreated except by personal comments (of which I get quite a lot). I agree that discourse where people can strongly disagree with you can be difficult.


    Your implicit definition of "settled science" covers a lot, not all of which is settled:


    Copenhagen interpretation - it is actually interpretation not science. No experiment can distinguish it from others. Personally, in the 1980s when it was still popular amongst physicists I was strong against it and liked Everett (many words) or Cramer (transactional) interpretations. I feel vindicated - only in that those two or variants of are now much more popular with other scientists.


    neutron stars - I've not looked at it - but the basic idea seems plausible, consistent with other models, and if you do not like it you need a better explanation for pulsars.


    heavy metals created by colliding neutron stars - well - they are also created by supernovae. You need incredibly high energy density. Again, I've not looked at it in detail, it is a lot of effort to do a literature review and none of this stuff can be judged till you have. Reading other people's summaries does not help to form your own judgement, but the primary literature is large. Of course this view of your is trivial if as you also believe neutron stars do not exist.


    Big Bang - it depends what exactly you mean but the evidence for rapid expansion from an initial super-hot compressed universe is very strong indeed. When young I never liked it but I have been won over by the evidence.


    time travel - not sure what you mean by this. Also not sure why you think it is settled science - you would have to be more precise and I could give my view, but in generality - no- it is not settled science.


    most certainly not a believer in dark matter or energy. No-one is - they are just names for some things we have lots of possible hypotheses for but as yet nothing coherent. A bit like LENR.


    antimatter - well this certainly exists - experimental evidence as follows:


    (1) positrons discovered experimentally 1932 (previously predicted)

    (2) anti-proton first made experimentally by bevatron 1955 (you need quite high energies relative to positron).

    (3) also both positrons and anti-protons observed from cosmic ray collisions

    (4) 1999 anti-hydrogen atoms made. High-tech stuff!


    In 1999, CERN activated the Antiproton Decelerator, a device capable of decelerating antiprotons from 3.5 GeV to 5.3 MeV – still too "hot" to produce study-effective antihydrogen, but a huge leap forward. In late 2002 the ATHENA project announced that they had created the world's first "cold" antihydrogen.[56] The ATRAP project released similar results very shortly thereafter.[57] The antiprotons used in these experiments were cooled by decelerating them with the Antiproton Decelerator, passing them through a thin sheet of foil, and finally capturing them in a Penning–Malmberg trap.[58] The overall cooling process is workable, but highly inefficient; approximately 25 million antiprotons leave the Antiproton Decelerator and roughly 25,000 make it to the Penning–Malmberg trap, which is about 1/1000 or 0.1% of the original amount.

    The antiprotons are still hot when initially trapped. To cool them further, they are mixed into an electron plasma. The electrons in this plasma cool via cyclotron radiation, and then sympathetically cool the antiprotons via Coulomb collisions. Eventually, the electrons are removed by the application of short-duration electric fields, leaving the antiprotons with energies less than 100 meV.[59] While the antiprotons are being cooled in the first trap, a small cloud of positrons is captured from radioactive sodium in a Surko-style positron accumulator.[60] This cloud is then recaptured in a second trap near the antiprotons. Manipulations of the trap electrodes then tip the antiprotons into the positron plasma, where some combine with antiprotons to form antihydrogen. This neutral antihydrogen is unaffected by the electric and magnetic fields used to trap the charged positrons and antiprotons, and within a few microseconds the antihydrogen hits the trap walls, where it annihilates. Some hundreds of millions of antihydrogen atoms have been made in this fashion.


    (5) 2011 antihydrogen atoms trapped for 17 minutes!


    On 26 April 2011, ALPHA announced that they had trapped 309 antihydrogen atoms, some for as long as 1,000 seconds (about 17 minutes). This was longer than neutral antimatter had ever been trapped before.[65] ALPHA has used these trapped atoms to initiate research into the spectral properties of the antihydrogen.[66]

    In 2016, a new antiproton decelerator and cooler called ELENA (Extra Low ENergy Antiproton decelerator) was built. It takes the antiprotons from the antiproton decelerator and cools them to 90 keV, which is "cold" enough to study. This machine works by using high energy and accelerating the particles within the chamber. More than one hundred antiprotons can be captured per second, a huge improvement, but it would still take several thousand years to make a nanogram of antimatter.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    I now understand what you mean by LENR. That is very traditional. It leaves out many other systems (H-Ni) and effects (alphas as detected by CR39).

    Yes. That is not to say I doubt these other systems and effects are real. But I do not include them in a narrow definition which:

    • Everyone in the field agrees on. (Well, almost everyone!)
    • Is rock solid, and proven beyond doubt.
    • Is true by definition. I do see how anyone can argue that an effect which produces heat beyond the limits of chemistry, correlated helium, and tritium is not fusion. What else could it be?

    Some of these other effects such as the LEC might be real, but maybe they are not cold fusion. They may be unrelated. I cannot judge. However, I assume they are related based on McKubre's conservation of miracles principle. It seems unlikely there is more than one undiscovered mechanism in hydrides that produces non-chemical anomalous heat, x-rays, ions, tritium and so on. "Seems unlikely" is not rigorous scientific proof. It is just a gut feeling.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    When I say "experts," I mean electrochemists, and experts in tritium, calorimetry, and other relevant fields.

    I should add that I also mean people who have written signed articles in newspapers, magazines such Scientific American, or journals. Articles or letters to the editor. I do not include anonymous people who comment online or write the cold fusion Wikipedia article. I cannot tell who they are or how many there are. (One person might use several different pseudonyms, for example at Wikipedia or in New York Times comments.)


    There are mass media articles and letters by experts outside these narrow fields of electrochemistry, tritium and so on. I do count them. Google Alerts brings them to my attention. These comments are always negative, and the authors never have any knowledge of cold fusion. Anyone can see they have no knowledge, because everything they say is factually wrong.


    Articles and comments are always negative because positive ones are not allowed. No editor will publish them. A positive comment in the discussion section at places like the Scientific American is erased as soon as you post it. So, you cannot estimate how many experts believe in cold fusion by counting positive and negative articles. You can only confirm that the negative ones are always wrong.


    In a few cases a year, I contact authors and ask them -- politely! -- whether they have read McKubre or Miles. They always say no. They tell me they have never heard of McKubre or Miles, and they have read no papers.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Articles and comments are always negative because positive ones are not allowed. No editor will publish them.

    The google paper, which was positive in tone with some positive, some negative results, was published.


    Those same editors would say that they treat novel experimental results all the same - that very unexpected results need a very high standard of checking before it is worth publishing them, because of the probability of mistake (like that unexpected ftl neutrino result - which was checked and cross-checked by different groups before publication).


    LENR people think those old papers (e.g F&P simplicity) are gold standard of LENR proof. Whereas mainstream probably thinks F&P Simplicity is just wrong. So, for example, citing it as a work you are building on will be problematic. The same applies to a lot of CF/LENR papers.


    So that explains why google were so careful, and why they got published. Anyone with real replicable positive results can similarly publish if they write as carefully and well as the google people. The not-wholly positive tone is needed because that is the current known reality. LENR people can convince themselves they live in a different world - but they have not yet brick by brick proven that to anyone else.


    Now, LENR people bemoan the fact that everyone else does not know about all those many bricks the LENR people think are good evidence, when mainstream science has not for a very long time been convinced even of the first one.


    And, for that first one now, you will need some good starting point. Maybe McKubre, but definitely not Simplicity or anything from F&P.


    What one LENR paper contains results so compelling and well documented and written up that anyone outside the LENR field would accept it as definite evidence of nuclear reactions? If you have that, you can build on it. If you don't, you must publish anomalies as anomalies without jumping to conclusions.


    That may be unfair or whatever - but it is reality. Personally, I don't think it is unfair. Good papers with clear certain results get published. Any tiny uncertainty in a result which requires "impossible" nuclear reactions (type 1 - some new theory of the nucleus required to explain them - according to Storms) will lead most physicists to reckon the experiment is somehow wrong.


    You break that by reducing uncertainty while keeping replicability, and replicating. Or, by filling those gaps in Storms or somone else's ideas about how type 1 LENR happens - if you can do that and show the filler is consistent with all other accepted experiments (e.g. valid physics) you have an explanation massively reduces people's skepticism.


    Oh - and if you want to write up type 2 LENR results you can just do it now. They tend to be pretty unambiguous because the high energy products well above background are easy to detect. There is theoretical basis that can easily be referenced and will be believed.


    THH

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    The google paper, which was positive in tone with some positive, some negative results, was published.

    I don't see any positive results in it. I assume they did not get any positive results.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Those same editors would say that they treat novel experimental results all the same

    Oh really? So, whenever Nature publishes a novel experimental result (or non-result, in this case), it accompanies that with an editorial savagely attacking the field, filled with lies about other researchers? I don't read Nature often but I have not heard they do that. Maybe they only do that for cold fusion.


    Never mind what those same editors would say. What would you say? Is this how editors should treat new science? By saying:


    "All cold fusion theories can be demolished one way or another, but it takes some effort.... Would a measure of unrestrained mockery, even a little unqualified vituperation have speeded cold fusion’s demise?" - Dr. David Lindley, Editor of Nature, March 29,1990.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    LENR people think those old papers (e.g F&P simplicity) are gold standard of LENR proof.

    Actually, I think most people cite McKubre as the gold standard. Flow calorimetry is easier to understand.


    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Whereas mainstream probably thinks F&P Simplicity is just wrong.

    No mainstream paper, newspaper column or letter that I have seen mentions "Simplicity." I do not think the critics who write these columns have heard of it. No published critic anywhere has ever described a technical problem with this paper. If they have reasons to doubt it, they are keeping their reasons secret. So we cannot judge whether their doubts have any merit.


    Here on this forum, you have said we cannot trust the results because you imagine there is foam. In fact, there is no foam, but if there was, and it obscured the waterline, F&P and everyone working with them would see that. They would not have published these results. As I said, your hypothesis is that they are insane. Which I find implausible.


    Actually, other than Morrison, no published critic anywhere has ever described a technical problem with any paper. As I said, most of them tell me there are no other papers, just the first ones published by F&P in 1989. Since they know nothing about these results, obviously, they have no technical reasons to doubt them. They present only two arguments:

    1. The results violate theory so they cannot be true (Huizenga and THH).
    2. All researchers are frauds, lunatics and criminals (Robert Park, Nature, Washington Post, New York Times etc.).
    Quote from THHuxleynew

    So, for example, citing it as a work you are building on will be problematic.

    You will say that anything I cite is problematic. You dismiss McKubre, Miles, Storms, the work at BARC as quickly as you dismiss "Simplicity." You dismiss the other two phases of calorimetry in "Simplicity." You have no technical reasons for dismissing any of this work, other than nonsense such as foam or light and heavy water affecting flow calorimetry outside the cell. It is obvious why you have no technical reasons: Because cold fusion is real, and the only way to deny that is to deny the laws of thermodynamics and calorimetry going back to Lavoisier in 1780. You do not have a leg to stand on. Neither does any other critic. If they had any valid reasons to reject the findings, they would have published them decades ago.

    Quote from JedRothwell

    Never mind what those same editors would say. What would you say? Is this how editors should treat new science? By saying:


    "All cold fusion theories can be demolished one way or another, but it takes some effort.... Would a measure of unrestrained mockery, even a little unqualified vituperation have speeded cold fusion’s demise?" - Dr. David Lindley, Editor of Nature, March 29,1990.

    Absolutely not. But then after 12 months of a high intensity media circus any scientist can get jaded.


    Hmmm...

    1927 Paneth and Peters claimed - but later discovered that the observed He could be from atmospheric leaks.

    1932 (Tandberg) filed for a Patent for CF (using Deuterium/ Pd electrolysis similar to that used by Paneth, and also later by Fleishmann). This was not granted.

    1989 recycled (independently) by Fleischmann & Pons, and also Jones - F&P broke a co-publish agreement by announcing results early.

    1989-1990 > 500 scientists conducted funded CF research - without replicable results. And the fact that false positives were so easily obtained


    The irony is that as a way-out but plausible idea CF as originally expected by Paneth, Tandberg, and then F&P, deserved (and still deserves) research. The deuteron density inside metal deuterides is very high. That creates possibilities for fusion. In addition, we now know, lattice screening and (just possibly) other effects enhances this.


    Unfortunately F&P went crazy, the world went crazy (both understandable I guess) and normal scientific caution was thrown out. But then when so much rests on whether you are right or wrong I guess anyone can get a bit obsessive.


    We still don't know what caused those very early results: we do know that there were options (chemical) other than CF. We also know that the original reason for contemplating CF remained on the table.


    I think what then happened was two opposite mistakes:


    • The rest of the world switched off the possibility of CF (or LCF as it is now also known)
    • The CF community believed results with excess heat and no high energy products, because it was so difficult to get results that included high energy products, and upped the ante with not one miracle (CF) but two (CF with no high energy products). Whilst at the same time the search for products continued and a few CF researchers claimed high energy products.

    With no interest of constructive critique from the wider community, and a "we know we are right we are persecuted" mentality, it became more difficult for the CF community to distinguish between good science and errors or even charlatans: making the corpus of agreed reference material large, undoubtedly including much stuff that is inaccurate, and therefore efforts moved in directions that would not generate real positives without the simple filter of high energy product detection to filter results. Worse, as persecution continued, the CF community united with elements of group think (the correctness of F&Ps later experiments, for example).


    The wider scientific community, having fingers burnt, ignored CF - with a few individuals pointing out errors etc, and without the proper interest in what was going on in those deuterated metal lattices.


    Had the CF community not upped stakes, but continued more modestly to look at something most had given up on without gradiose claims based more on the tenet that F&P were correct in all their claims than on new research, we might nor understand more about deuterated lattices than we do.


    The irony is that CF is real - just not (likely) in the way the LENR community has long suggested.


    In engineering and science often what matters is patience and humility. Well, the rest of the world lost patience with this idea. The CF diehards, faced with quite horrible and unjust persecution, lost humility and became dognmatic.


    Let us hope that now those working in the field, and funders, can have both.


    THH

    PS - I sort of expect to be excoriated.


    It is well known that an apostate is more harshly treated than an athiest. Well, I'm not an apostate, but when I post as above maybe people here think of me as one, instead of a harmless eccentric skeptic to lend some credibility to the serious stuff.

    THHuxleynew


    Don't worry I expect that your expectation will be fulfilled. ;)


    Many see your scepticism as nitpicking to the point of trolling.

    I don't, I presume you are still open-minded but clearly have an interest in LENR or you would not be on this forum.


    But just out of interest, to take a different tack towards the positive side of things;

    If you had to speak to somebody who has already decided that LENR is bunk (perhaps an editor of a science journal, or a person who decides on who gets funding for research) I would be interested on whether you would be able to make a positive case for LENR and what research or results you might want to present to them.


    Cheers

    Sabine Hossenfelder's Saturday YouTube posting is her take on Cold Fusion.


    Cold Fusion is Back (there's just one problem).


    She has a bit of fun, for the purposes of entertaining the viewers, but does review recent developments and does decide at the end that although she is sceptical "Something odd is going on that deserves further study".


    Edit, just noticed that a link has also been put into Media/News/Video Library so mods may want to delete this!

    Edited 2 times, last by ZenoOfElea: Edit, just noticed that a link has also been put into Media/News/Video Library so mods may want to delete this! ().

    Thanks 2 Like 1
    Quote from ZenoOfElea

    But just out of interest, to take a different tack towards the positive side of things;

    If you had to speak to somebody who has already decided that LENR is bunk (perhaps an editor of a science journal, or a person who decides on who gets funding for research) I would be interested on whether you would be able to make a positive case for LENR and what research or results you might want to present to them.

    I always go with underselling and overdelivering. Also I'd pre-empt the arguments by making them myself.


    So I'd start by summarising all the reasons why LENR results cannot be trusted, with reasons. I'd weave into that an argument a bit as above where I made the link with LCF (which could work). I'd then point out that these systems (deuterated metals) are not understood and present my work as adding to the understanding. With a sort of "well we have some evidence for a 2nd miracle, but whether of not that exists it is clearly important to understand this stuff". In fact - I'd point out that LCF is sort-of proven, and then leave the finding or not of high energy products as something I was neutral about but interested in.


    But then my results (if I was doing this) would be compatible with that - an attempt to understand and characterise things and rule out hypotheses. I would not try to publish a lot of the LENR results quoted here because they are two unreplicable and flaky. That perhaps puts quite a high bar on any such publication but i think it is a fair one. Most of the LENR results published over the last 30 years have not advanced the field.


    Above all I would not present the work as an attempt to get working cold fusion (unless specifically building on the NASA work and optimising LCF). For anything else the science is not there for such engineering work based on no understanding to be sensible. If you don't believe this - well look at the history - it has been true for a long time.


    Finally - I would not present flaky "my favourite LENR theory" in a paper of experimental results, nor would I refer to much that was cloistered within the LENR community literature. References matter - and you want to build on work that is helpful scientifically rather than a "well I think it works" binary statement.


    EDIT


    Research results:

    LCF stuff - with quantitative relationship if between persistent products (difficult to measure), high energy particles, and excess heat. Relating that to known science.

    Transmutation stuff if I could find real signs of "stripping" to transform nuclei, where again quantitative evidence of stripping is found, not just "wow - we got a whole load of random new nuclei".

    If I believed Storms (I don't) I'd look for the evidence of high energy particles that his theory claims must exist.


    So, basically, a lot of the current stuff I'd just not try to publish, because whether correct or not I'd think it would not contribute to the field.


    In all cases, if I got some random anomalous result I'd check, recheck, characterise rather than say "it is an anomaly - it could be generated by an uncharacterised LENR effect".

    Quote from ZenoOfElea

    THHuxleynew


    Thanks for the reply, but good grief, I can see why you are not a sales man and I think you have turned me off LENR :) :) :)


    From what you say is there nothing worth publishing or investing in as far as the existing body of LENR is concerned?

    do you include the electron screening stuff? That is worth investing in.


    Otherwise if you believe almost any of those results are real, they would be worth investing in to make them more replicable.


    I would not rule that out - but I would not myself bet on it.


    Personally I'd want to understand it all - but that is not a very commercial thing perhaps.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    1989-1990 > 500 scientists conducted funded CF research - without replicable results.

    That is incorrect. 92 groups replicated by 1990. See:


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


    You know nothing about the history of cold fusion so you made this up and posted it here. That is a disservice to readers. Please do not comment on subjects you know nothing about.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    And the fact that false positives were so easily obtained

    There were no false positives as far as I know. No paper was retracted. If you say there were false positives, please tell us the authors and papers. Be specific.

    Quote from Alan Smith

    Try this then...


    https://coldfusionnow.org/wp-c…re-of-radiation-emitt.pdf


    Findings corroborated by Violante's work, and Bush and Eagleton, Matsumoto, Karabut and others. Very clear radiation signal well above background in most cases.

    Well, as with the LEC, it would be possible to characterise this effect and see what it is.


    For this paper (which does not give details) I'd point out:


    Radon => radioactive radon decay products in air which coalesce on specks of dust etc.


    heating/cycles can cause many such specs to adhere to the surface.


    Of course, the H2 atmosphere used was completely uncontaminated but with these very low levels and almost anything could give you contamination - coming from the equipment used to heat or whatever.


    Now, as always with these mystery close to background results from LENR (the LEC an honourable exception) there is v little information here. That makes it more difficult for skeptics to work out what the radiation could be. The only indication is radon, which opens a whole can of worms, where radiation levels of any part of a lab depend on when it was last cleaned, an air can carry significant radiation which varies with convection currents and anything which disturbs microscopic dust particles. And the slow decay shown here is a dead giveaway for airborne dust type radiation.


    But - it is OK - there are all these other people. Surely one of them must have done a better job characterising this? Papers, please? Between them all we can maybe work stuff out better than this immediate ticks the boxes "radon decay products in air". Airbourne contamination from radon gives results which are quite difficult to pin down because levels vary dramatically with what has last put dust in the air, air currents, whether air has been left for a long time in an enclosed space, whether surfaces have been left undusted for a long time, etc. Heating stuff up tends to change things because of convection.


    In the case that this is real measurements, of course, it could be the type of LENR I think is pretty possible, that DOES have expected high energy products. But, alas, radon decay products look more viable here.


    One suggestion: all work on close-to-background hypothesised LENR radiation detection is best done in an area with low natural radon (not lots of granite).


    UKradon - UK maps of radon


    THH

    Quote from JedRothwell

    There were no false positives as far as I know. No paper was retracted. If you say there were false positives, please tell us the authors and papers. Be specific.

    Well I'd guess that most false positives were discovered (by the competent teams) before papers went to press. Remember it is a long long time from doing an experiment to publishing a paper.

    just one example (high profile)


    Georgia Tech Team Reports Flaw In Critical Experiment on Fusion (Published 1989)
    www.nytimes.com


    The SAM model and I am pretty sure the SO(4) model as well are both perhaps very different in how they explain things, but do not need all the antiquated ideas which we are now slapped around the ears with to explain to us cold fusion cannot be real. That is what has been done to this field for 30 years or so now. The evidence is overwhelming that we have collectively been wrong about so many fundamental beliefs it is not funny even. In fact it is only showing me that we do not have a problem in science but a problem with humans believing stuff. Once we are schooled in a certain paradigm we want to keep that paradigm, because doubting it would be greatly upsetting for the psyche. That is why its called a paradigm shift and that is not nice, in fact it probably is very destructive and painful for most people.....

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