The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from THHuxleynew

So, compared with most other professions, you can expects scientists to be less financially motivated than typical.

I don't think Jed ot Ascoli were proposing that direct personal enrichment is the motivation for scientists to be less than careful about their claims. It may happen, but is vanishingly rare. However there is a powerful motive to do so when large amounts of public money to create new projects are potentially available.

With one or two glaring exceptions, the LENR field is generally free of that problem, because there are only private funds or small amounts of public money available. Few scientists will tap-dance for peanuts, but they might do for a $1Bn+ fusion research project.

Quote from THHuxleynew

That powerful motive is at its strongest - of course - in the LENR "commercial start-up" sector.

Private fusion starups raised $2.8 Bn last year alone, almost $5Bn do far, including $117M of public money.

That's worth tapdancing for.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I did not make it up.

Okay, if you did not make that up, what paper did you find it in? List author and title.

Quote from THHuxleynew

My point is that, as you say, those errors are always detected.

They have been detected in all the top papers I have read, by authors such as McKubre or Miles. I do not know of any examples of the errors you listed, such as very low signal to noise ratios given as proof of a reaction. If you know of examples, I suggest you list them. As far as I know, all of the errors you listed are ruled out by the authors of major papers. Some of these errors might be possible, but they did not actually happen.

There may be some obscure, fifth rate papers with some of these errors. You mentioned an apparent endothermic reaction. At first I thought, "no one has ever seen that, other than known chemical endothermic reactions." Then I remembered there is one in the NHE paper. You can learn all about that in the references in the paper I linked to above.

I consider that an obscure, fifth rate paper. It is obscure because the NHE never published or wrote about it in English, as far as I know. Miles sent it to me, and I translated it for Fleischmann. He thought it was fifth rate for the reasons he spelled out in the papers I linked to.

Quote from THHuxleynew

My point, which you still don't understand, is that all work has errors. Scientists use self-consistency and expectations to eliminate errors.

That is as true of cold fusion as any other experiment. It is entirely based on conventional methods such as calorimetry, autoradiographs, helium and tritium detection and so on. The methods used to eliminate errors in these techniques are always used. Indeed, the people who did cold fusion were noted experts in all of the relevant methods. Tritium is tritium, whether it comes from the BARC power reactor, a plasma fusion experiment, or cold fusion. The methods of confirming it is tritium and that it was generated (and not contamination) are the same in all three instances.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Whereas for LENR researchers LENR results are expected. No cross-checking needed.

Results are always cross-checked. You made that up. You cannot find an example of major experiment that was not cross-checked by every method used in that type of experiment. For example, tritium detection is always confirmed by multiple methods.

The results from cold fusion may be unexpected or inexplicable, but the methods used to study it are all conventional, and the methods used to cross-check and confirm them are ordinary, work-a-day textbook science.

Quote from THHuxleynew

So I am not saying that any papers contain discovered errors. I am saying that whereas mostly in science errors are unlikely, because they are discovered, the nature of LENR excess heat results means that any undiscovered positive results will have a danger of not being detected, because they are expected, and LENR makes zero quantitative predictions about the results.

There is nothing about LENR heat that makes it any more difficult to detect or confirm than any other source of heat. The calorimeter cannot tell the difference between chemical heat, electric resistance heating, fission heat, or cold fusion heat.

There is no such thing as an undiscovered positive result.

LENR makes many quantitative predictions about the results. For example, the reaction will depend on loading, flux and the other parameters of the McKubre equation. It will coincide with helium production in the same ratio as plasma fusion. It will produce x-rays, which can be detected close to the cathode, with an autoradiograph and various other techniques. Again you made up the assertion that there are "zero quantitative predictions." It is completely wrong.

I do give you credit for putting your cards on the table and telling us in falsifiable detail what it is you believe about cold fusion. I thank you for that. In the past you did not say what might be wrong with this research. Now you tell us that all results are close to the margin; or that there are no quantifiable predictions; or that results are not cross-checked. Your statements can be checked against the literature. Anyone who checks them will see that you are wrong.

When I say "I thank you" I mean it. I am not being sarcastic. I am sincere. I appreciate that you telling us things we can confirm or falsify. You have not given any references to actual papers, for the obvious reason that no such papers exist. No one can expect you to provide examples from the literature.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Again Jed, I am not listing "very low SNRs" as proof. The errors would be more subtle than that, don't you think, like when doing the SNR calculation not including some real and significant cause of error?

The real and significant causes of errors in calorimetry, tritium detection, helium detection and all other methods used in cold fusion are well established. These techniques have been in use for decades -- or centuries -- in many other branches of science. As I said above, a calorimeter measures heat from cold fusion the same way it measures heat from a chemical reaction, or electrical heat. There are no subtle errors that occur with one source of heat but not another. Heat all looks the same once it reaches the temperature sensors or Peltier devices.

A person who is not skilled in calorimetry might make subtle errors, just as he might when measuring chemical heat. If you know about calorimetry, you can read the papers and confirm that every known subtle error was eliminated. It was done by the book. World-class experts in calorimetry such as Duncan looked very closely at the instruments, methods, and results and found no problems.

A tritium detector works the same way no matter where the the tritium originated. When you give a sample of tritium to an expert at BARC, Los Alamos and the PPPL, his methods of detecting and confirming that it is tritium will be exactly the same whether it came from a fission reaction, plasma fusion, or cold fusion. If he is not told where it came from, he will have no way of knowing. The substance is exactly the same. The methods of ensuring it is not contamination are the same. The methods of determining SNR (signal-to-noise) ratio are exactly the same.

There have been claims that a cold fusion experiment has some unique aspect to it. Or some problem that has never been seen in any other experiment using the same instruments. For example, Shanahan claimed there are positional errors in calorimetry. Heat originating in part of cell might register at a higher level than the same amount of heat from another part of the cell. First, it is easy to show that is not the case. Second, if it happened, it would happen with many other calorimetric experiments.

First, we know there are no positional errors because in many experiments the position of the heat generation reaction moves. With a closed cell there has to be recombiner in the head space, and this produces heat. It always produces the expected level of heat, as does conventional electrolysis. In other cells a resistance heater is installed somewhere in the cell. When it is turned on, it produces the expected level of heat. The calorimetry does not measure the resistance heat at a higher or lower level than electrochemical or recombiner heat.

Second, many other experiments also incorporate resistance heaters and other sources of heat in the cell. They would have positional errors as often as cold fusion does. There are no such errors.

You can find other claims that this or that aspect of a cold fusion experiment is unique, so we cannot be sure it is working. For example, people say the level of heat is lower than any other experiment, or the heat is more sporadic, or that tritium detector is being used at the lower limits of detection. All such claims that I have seen were mistaken. In the top tier experiments, the instruments are always used in the normal range of detection they were designed for, and they are always instruments that have been widely used for decades or centuries.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I am not claiming an undiscovered positive result. I am claiming a positive result that derives from an undiscovered error - and because it cannot be reliably replicated (if real) the error is never discovered.

This happens now and then in company financial reporting. But it is usually discovered and the culprit jailed before too many years have passed.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The point is that when the expectation for what should happen is very vague, cross-checking is much less possible.

The explanation for what should happen in a cold fusion experiment is very clear. It is excess heat production at levels beyond the limits of chemistry, with no chemical fuel consumed. That is not vague at all. That result is easy to measure. Many cold fusion experiments produced 0.5 W or more. Any scientist after 1840 could have measured this with ease. J. P. Joule's calorimeters could have measured a much smaller reaction with high confidence.

Cross checking is as easy as it is with any other calorimetry. Joule's methods of cross checking work as well with cold fusion as they did with his chemical and electrical experiments. There is no difference at all in the methods, or the confidence level, because all heat looks the same to a calorimeter.

Generating a cold fusion reaction is difficult. Confirming that the reaction is happening is dead easy. Any scientist could done it in the last 120 years, even for ~10 mW scale reactions. In this regard, cold fusion is similar to radium. The Curies and others first confirmed radioactivity using calorimetry. They showed that the heat from radium cannot be chemical because it exceeds the limits of chemistry, and because there are no chemical changes in the radium. Marie Curie described how it produces heat and no detectable chemical or physical changes. I quote her here, p. 2:

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

She measured 4 mW of heat, in 1904, using phase change calorimetry. No one questioned her ability to do that. No one claimed the result was not meaningful, or that it was vague. Cold fusion heat is usually far higher than this, so there is no basis to question it. Radium was difficult to concentrate but it was easy to confirm it produces heat.

To take the most extreme example, an implosion fission bomb is very difficult to make, but when you explode one there is no question it reacted, and that it far exceeded the limits of chemistry.

When you claim "the expectation for what should happen is very vague" you are making stuff up. You are saying something that anyone familiar with the literature knows is not true. The expectation for what should happen is excess heat production beyond chemistry. The very first paper said that! Subsequent papers showed that helium, tritium and x-rays are also expected. They are expected and have been confirmed at high signal to noise ratios hundreds of times. It is not vague at all, any more than radium was.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The point is that when the expectation for what should happen is very vague, cross-checking is much less possible. In most (nearly all) experiments you do not have this problem. For LENR you do.

I will happily continue to say this same thing different ways until it is understood?

Say it as many times as you like, it will not be true. LENR is not a bit vague, any more than any other calorimetry is. The expectation is crystal clear, and has been from day one. The effect produces heat beyond the limits of chemistry with no chemical changes. Heat at levels that are easy to measure. It is cross-checked the same way any other experiment in calorimetry or tritium detection is. The cross checks described by Joule are still used, as Fleischmann pointed out.

There is no reason you would have any problem measuring cold fusion heat, any more than you have a problem measuring the chemical calories in a food sample, or measuring the heat from radium. Heat is heat, and there is no way a calorimeter can tell the difference, or measure one source of 0.5 W with more confidence than 0.5 W from some other source, chemical, nuclear or electric heating.

You keep saying there is something vague about it. WHAT IS VAGUE? Be specific! You are making the claim here. Tell us exactly why cold fusion heat is more vague than chemical or resistance electrical heat. Why would a calorimeter than can measure one not be able to measure the others? Is there something about the heat from different sources that varies, making it more or less difficult to measure? What is it about 0.5 W of heat that is vague in one case, and clear in the other?

Also explain why tritium from cold fusion is more vague than from other sources. What is vague about it? How can you even tell where it came from?