The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from Curbina

THHuxleynew don’t know if you have seen this more recent work that used two methods of gas detection.

https://sci-hub.se/downloads/2…rov2020.pdf?download=true

That link don't work for me.

Quote from Curbina

Here you have it THHuxleynew . Alexandrov does a rather thorough self questioning of his assumptions and interpretation of the results. As he uses two methods for measuring the evolved gases, and both agree,I’d say the results are pretty robust.

Great. I agree it is helpful to find papers setting out rational in this way. Alas I don't have time today to read it properly, am taking short break from other stuff.

On a superficial reading:

• Rationale for 3He rests on the m=3 line not being DH. I did not agree with the assumptions leading to that conclusion. The claim is DH line, if it exists, cannot be a lot larger than H2 or H lines? Why? I do not see this.
• Rationale for 4He rests on m=5 line being necessarily 4HeH. The argument here is that it can't be D2H because if D2H existed then so would D3 and we have no m=6 line => no D3.
• I don't like this argument because it applies equally to 4HeD. If 4HeH exists then it is equally reasonable to assume that 4HeD exists. But 4HeD does not exist because of the lack of an m=6 line.
• Now I am absolutely no expert in mass spectroscopy but thanks to the care with which the authors have set out their case here it is possible to say what I have said above.

Quote from JedRothwell

There are such experiments in the literature. However, there are advantages to the technique used by Miles. Various other methods have been used, such as starting out at atmospheric concentration. The advantages and problems of these various methods have been discussed in the literature in detail.

Thread

Experimental evidence to date for He / excess heat correlation in LENR experiments to have nuclear mechanism

[…]


I'll check Apicella et al and get back to you.

on your other comments - you I think have not excluded the "data selection" argument, and have perhaps misunderstood the "leakage vs excess heat mundane correlation argument.

Data selection: yes this can generate roughly the expected results. We'd need a much more subtle analysis to determine whether the precise figure was coincidental, and also be careful about cherry picking etc in getting it. We could explore further that assertion if you wish.…

THHuxley

Aug 9th 2016

Here is a previous thread on the topic. With a remarkable lack of relevant experiments. Do you want to hold out Apicella as an example - which seems to be the only definite paper porduced. from Abd's summary it does not quite seem to meet my requirements. But maybe discussing it would be illuminating? Or is there something better? it is effort discussing any paper so it should be the best available.

Apicella: https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ApicellaMsomerecent.pdf

THH

The evidence on He4 from that experiment is minimal, and not only is there not enough data to investigate scaling properly, there are many things about the limited data which need to be understood before it can be used safely to establish 4He / excess heat relationship.

My requirements:

• clear uniform methodology - no. The three points are each got using quite different current and/or laser irradiation conditions. The methodology is not defined: for example - do all experiments take the same amount of time?
• calibration: the calibration run has no He testing, so although there were 4 experiments we have only 3 4he measurements
• direct comparison between excess heat and 4He. no. The comparison is between excess heat and 4He for 3 different experiments out of a possible 4 (the cal experiment was alas not used to provide a baseline He4 measurement).
• Multiple comparable tests over time that could be used to check baselines, leakage, etc, no. (I admit - this is maybe a technically difficult requirement).
• 4He >> atmospheric 4He. ? can't tell
• Plan with expected results. No. It seems pretty clear from incidental remarks that many experiments were done (30% reproducible without irradiation). Yet we only have these 3 experimental runs where 4He was measured.

It is clear from the experiments that the aim here was to test laser stimulation of LENR. A large effect is claimed, which however seems not to have been reproduced or entered the canon now as what needs to be done to optimise LENR in D/Pd electrolysis.

So we do not have clean results that could be used to test 4He/excess heat.

The results do not make sense parametrically. Why does the low excess heat result exactly correspond to theory when the higher excess heat results are under? But in any case we have not enough dtaa points for parametric analysis to be more than guesswork.

It is DIFFICULT to get adequate results for this - I agree. This experiment is not adequate - nor do the authors claim this. They seem to agree with me in calling the 4He results preliminary presumably hoping to repeat these encouraging results obtaining clearer data? Perhaps there is some later paper that complies at least a bit with good practice requirements?

The real question here is not criticism of the experimenters (who seem to have done interesting but by itself very difficult to interpret work). It over-interpreting their fragmentary results in 2024.

To Summarise:

Excess heat / 4He quantitative measurements are one aspect of LENR which have well defined theory and can be tested: resulting in that theory being accepted or rejected.

I like them.

Unfortunately they are difficult to do. But they can be done, and the exact magnitude of 4He generated checked against that of excess heat.

That parametric testing - two different parameters against each other - makes otherwise marginal results much stronger. But the difficulties mean it is not straightforward to obtain adequate results.

For example, suppose we can easily test 4He from apparatus across time, we have multiple runs, testing each one multiple times for 4He. the 4He / excess heat results form a clear linear graph with approximately the correct slope.

Can that happen without 4He generated from the experiment correlated with excess heat?

YES

(1) In these experiments many have found that ingress of 4He from the atmosphere is a major error source. Such ingress is tested and experiments abandoned and results rejected when leakage is discovered

(2) both excess heat and leakage will naturally scale linearly with experiment time

(3) low levels of leakage cannot be disambiguated from low levels of 4He emission.

(4) The nature of LENR electrolysis effects is that some electrodes "don't work". Such runs will naturally be discarded.

From (1), (2), (3) and (4) it is clear that such experimental results correctly measuring 4He can generate spurious correlations. My conditions above are not all required for an experiment to be safe - every experiment is different - but they all help make the results easier to interpret unambiguously.

They do mean that meta-analyses - always in science difficult because of the possibility of selection - are not necessarily a safe way to get stronger results than are available from individual experiments. That is true for Storms's meta-analysis where the paucity of experimental data means that too many of the analysis points come from the same runs and can exhibit spurious correlations at the right level due to some combination of teh above points.

Which is why we need high quality results from these experiments - where parametric analysis with controlled methodology that eliminates false positives from selection is such a powerful tool to strengthen results.

Quote from orsova

Letts’ dual laser experiment comes to mind immediately. Well known for its theoretical importance.

Quote from Alan Smith

I just types 'laser stimulation'; into Jed's library. search engine. You get 126 results. Searching 'laser' on it's own gives 564 results. I don't have time to check the content, but it does suggest that this method of triggering LENR has probably been replicated more than once.

Both miss the point, which is that electrolytics D+D / Pd fusion is the most well researched aspect of the LENR canon. Many people (e.g. Storms here) have understood the whole literature and developed replications with the intent of having clear unambiguous replicable LENR signals. I don't notice laser stimulation in these.

Whereas - laser stimulation introduces a number of additional artifacts that could be mistaken for excess heat. It is relatively easy to implement. It has some theoretical support. It can easily be checked (switch lasers on/off, look at excess heat correlation). The lack of laser stimulation clear replicable results and these features makes me pessimistic about it. But it is a natural candidate for testing - just i do not notice any widely accepted prescription for the type of laser stimulation that facilitates LENR. Given how relatively easy it is to check, I'd expect that if it were helpful.

The difference between me and others here is that I look for effects that can be understood. You don't need a theory. You just need a whole load of laser experiments showing e.g. that 400nm lasers work - 600nm lasers don't - or whatever. Even given the notorious (and theoretically sort-of justifiable) variability in LENR activity that makes replication difficult, precise correlations of the form "in working electrodes this type of laser stimulation has this effect" would be helpful. LENR researchers over the years have not been fools. Many very clever people have done work in the field. So I view with some pessimism the lack of such correlation.

THH

Quote from orsova

Au contraire, mon ami. It is not I that has missed the point. The Letts dual laser experiment is palladium electrolysis in heavy water.

Orsova - you are saying that laser stimulation has been used in subsequent experiments? Of course it has. That is not my point.

The issue is whether its effects are artifactual, or true stimulation of LENR. If the latter then enhancing "standard" electrolysis using laser stimulation should be what everyone does. It is not.

Would you care to comment on why the Letts experiment shows completely different apparent laser stimulation results from Apicella?

Which is my point, which you are not taking.

Quote from orsova

Have you looked for it? I gave you a reference, but for whatever reason, you didn't investigate it.

Sorry - I did not see this. It is difficult for me to act on this statement. i realise i should see and follow up links as soon as they are posted - but that would require more time than I can spend on this site.

I have discussed here the two papers I found links to: Apicella (just now) and previously that experiment with Li and 4He outputs.

I may well have missed another reference - if you post it (with a brief summary of what you think it shows) I will comment now.

But... rather than make me do all the work it would be fairer for you to argue your case concretely drawing on that reference as your counterexample to what i am saying and being as specific as possible.

After all my point is that I've not found adequate evidence here. I cannot prove that. You can however disprove it by looking in detail at your counterexample and arguing why it is adequate. In the end i expect that evidence you will consider adequate I will not. That does not mean either of us is correct: I've explained my reasons for being more skeptical about evidence which fragmentary rather than coherent, and we have looked in detail at how (and i am only here paraphrasing Abd a while ago) a theory that makes quantitative predictions can be proved (or disproved) by experiments that test those predictions. In both the proof and disproof cases one experiment will not settle the issue. Those early 4He / excess heat experiments are of this type, for me they make better evidence of that kind and are an obvious way forward for LENR if those working want their ideas to be taken seriously by a larger number of colleagues.

Similarly, the concrete "D+D -> 4He" fusion occurs with nearly 100% branching ration in these D/Pd experiments is a plausible and concrete LENR hypothesis that would be accepted by many, if its falsifiable predictions were adequately tested. Let me point out that no (almost no) other LENR hypothesis commonly discussed here is falsifiable. (Widom Larsson theory was falsifiable and has been alas mostly falsified - I do not notice it being talked about now which is a good thing if it is false - however attractive it was).

The positive thing I am arguing, in this thread, is the general point about what makes for stronger evidence because I believe it is valuable for those thinking about LENR to understand why much of the LENR evidence is ignored by the mainstream science community, and how that could be corrected.

Most LENR evidence has the form:

• We did an experiment and measured a whole load of things that if anomalous would indicate fusion had occurred.
• Some of the things we measured appeared sometimes to be anomalous, and therefore only explainable by some not known error or artifact, or fusion
• This is (of its nature relatively weak) evidence for LENR (in its non-specific - some kind of nuclear reaction is happening when not expected) form.

Note "relatively weak" is relative to evidence from experiments to test and either support or falsify specific hypotheses.

Note that the "known" characteristics of LENR mean that this type of result can never falsify any LENR theory. Why? Because the evidence is "some anomaly". No anomaly is expected if LENR is not happening, and one known characteristic of LENR is that you can never be sure it will hap[pen to a measurable degree. So negative experiments prove nothing. For this class of results positive experiments also prove nothing when it comes to narrowing down the space of possible LENR theories.

The burden of proof for these results is therefore much higher than for more specific results that come from a more specific theory.

I'd hope that orsova and others here would take this point and look for more specific and therefore convincing evidence, where replication can falsify or strengthen it.

Although diametrically opposed to views here - and biased, the following paragraph from rationalWiki summarises the case against LENR as seen by mainstream scientists. While 1 and possibly 6 are judgements that can be argued, 2 remains true despite continuing and helpful attempts to mend it, and 3,4,5 are behaviours sometimes found here. I, and any friend of LENR, should regret them.

Although they screwed up rather spectacularly, it appears that Pons and Fleischmann were doing low-quality real science, known as pathological science, not pseudoscience. Current advocates, however, are well into the realm of the determined pseudoscientific crackpot, as evidenced by the following signs:

1. The effects are not reproducible under independent verification or even consistently reproducible at all. Even among cold fusion researchers, reports of substantial excess heat are rare, as shown in a 2010 review paper.^[11]
2. The process of cold fusion, especially the lack of gamma radiation, is contrary to the current understanding of nuclear physics, for which there is massive evidence.
3. Proponents trumpet any paper concerning the subject that achieves peer review in any venue whatsoever as if "peer-reviewed" meant "solid verified and settled science" rather than "not-obviously-wrong results for further consideration."
4. At the same time, proponents try to blame their lack of success on persecution from the establishment.
5. Proponents advocate cold fusion as an alternative energy source with imminent practical utility, despite the aforementioned lack of reproducibility.
6. The theories proposed to explain the supposed effect, outlined in a 2010 review paper, are little more than contrived rationalizations of the claimed observations. When considered in the context of what is already known about physics and chemistry, they border on the nonsensical.

There is a continuing failure to find any cold-fusion method that consistently reproduces the supposed effect. The great majority of written-up experiments fail even to obtain excess heat. The primary research effort should be on improving reproducibility; instead, the cold fusion people live in a fantasy where their field has imminent practical engineering applications despite not having even reproducible science. This is a telltale sign of crankery.