The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

  • Do you mean Fralick et al 1989, Fralick, Benyo et al in 2020, and Fralick, Benyo et al at ICCF24? Is this the new reference for experiment replications which demonstrate the reality of LENR?


    McKubre seems not to be aware of these achievements. Is it your personal opinion, or is it largely shared in the LENR field?


    In any case, please, remind me of this Fralick experiment when it will be replicated "more-or-less the same results (including magnitude and timing) more-or-less every time" by some other lab and authors in the world.


    In the meanwhile, the only replicated experiment in the LENR field remains the 1992 boil-off experiment by F&P, but the reported conclusions were wrong.

    Fralick seems pretty well replicated. But the replicated results do not as I understand it indicate nuclear activity.

  • There are plenty of replications of Fralick with difussion through Pd and one of those, through a Pd thin film, proved that the level of excess heat was comparable to nuclear in Energy density.


    Biberian also did a replication of sirts with 3 W of excess heat and proposed two mechanisms for explaining the excess heat, one of them nuclear.


    Difussion of H through a Nickel tubing was also proven to generate excess heat far beyond that chemically explainable, this is work done by trying to replicate Mills claims, but I mention it because was done by independent party.

    I certainly Hope to see LENR helping humans to blossom, and I'm here to help it happen.

  • There are plenty of replications of Fralick with difussion through Pd and one of those, through a Pd thin film, proved that the level of excess heat was comparable to nuclear in Energy density.


    Biberian also did a replication of sirts with 3 W of excess heat and proposed two mechanisms for explaining the excess heat, one of them nuclear.


    Difussion of H through a Nickel tubing was also proven to generate excess heat far beyond that chemically explainable, this is work done by trying to replicate Mills claims, but I mention it because was done by independent party.

    So, which paperd will contain the proof - if you can give me a precise reference I can find it - paywalled or no?

  • There are plenty of replications of Fralick with difussion through Pd and one of those, through a Pd thin film, proved that the level of excess heat was comparable to nuclear in Energy density.


    Biberian also did a replication of sirts with 3 W of excess heat and proposed two mechanisms for explaining the excess heat, one of them nuclear.


    Difussion of H through a Nickel tubing was also proven to generate excess heat far beyond that chemically explainable, this is work done by trying to replicate Mills claims, but I mention it because was done by independent party.

    This is quite a vague list of replications, and Biberian not so much independent. If the whole LENR field thinks that Fralick experiment is the new frontier to demonstrate the existence of LENR, they should declare it explicitly. But, for what I see, this is only your personal opinion.


    Presently, the only CF/LENR experiment considered to have been fully replicated by McKubre is the 1992 boil off experiment by F&P. Moreover, the "Simplicity Paper" was on top of the short list of documents submitted in 2004 to DoE by McKubre and four other CF experts, who were the crème de la crème of the field. On the contrary, Fralick is not even mentioned by Storms among the 64 references listed in the preview his last paper. "Simplicity Paper" is there as reference [36].


    Until now, the "Simplicity Paper" is still considered by the fusionists the most representative paper of the field, and the "1992 boil off experiment " the most convincing proof that CF is real. But the first is wrong, and the second is effectively the most convincing CF experiment ever done, but for proving the opposite.


    In any case, when CF community will recognize the evidence, admitting that F&P were wrong in drawing the conclusions of their 1992 boil off experiment, it will be worth taking into consideration the claims of another experiment. Otherwise, this is only a switching target hunt.


    Simplicity comes first, then Fralick or anybody else.

  • So, which paperd will contain the proof - if you can give me a precise reference I can find it - paywalled or no?

    Fralick analog by Liu 2007


    https://www.newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2006/2006LiuB-ExessHeat.pdf


    Biberian Analog:


    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237511683_Excess_Heat_Production_During_Diffusion_Of_Deuterium_Through_Palladium_Tubes


    And Biberian Follow up


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

    I certainly Hope to see LENR helping humans to blossom, and I'm here to help it happen.

  • There’s no single opinion in the LENR field, that’s not how science works. LENR has been proposed as the cause of excess heat / transmutations and “yet to be determined exactly what” particle emissions observed across multiple experimental systems. This is experimental science first and foremost.

    I certainly Hope to see LENR helping humans to blossom, and I'm here to help it happen.

  • In any case, when CF community will recognize the evidence, admitting that F&P were wrong in drawing the conclusions of their 1992 boil off experiment, it will be worth taking into consideration the claims of another experiment. Otherwise, this is only a switching target hunt.


    Simplicity comes first, then Fralick or anybody else.

    You are entitled to your opinion,

    but you know that saying about opinions, no need to repeat it here.

    I certainly Hope to see LENR helping humans to blossom, and I'm here to help it happen.

  • Although I think the mainstream consensus would be that the chemical reactions around those deuterated or hydrided palladium electrodes, and the possible chemical enthalpies there, are not fully understood.

    List a chemical reaction that can produce 3 to 50 MJ from a few grams of material, with no chemical changes, at a very high power level that is far beyond the margin of error for the calorimeter.


    Go ahead. If that is your hypothesis, explain which reaction you have in mind. If you cannot name one, then your hypothesis is wrong. Every textbook written since 1800 will tell you that no chemical reaction can do that, and the upper limit for a few grams of material is about 80 kJ.

  • (1) unless detritiated electrolyte is used, and great care taken with all other sources of "natural" water: hydrides, water vapour in air, etc, tritium exists in the experiment.

    Great care is always taken. You would know that if you would read the papers. As I said, the people at Los Alamos, BARC and the PPPL know how to check for tritium. They describe their methods in the papers. Unless you have found a problem with their methods, you have no basis for this statement. You are saying "things would be so different if they were not as they are." (The Anna Russell dictum)

  • List a chemical reaction that can produce 3 to 50 MJ from a few grams of material, with no chemical changes, at a very high power level that is far beyond the margin of error for the calorimeter.


    Go ahead. If that is your hypothesis, explain which reaction you have in mind. If you cannot name one, then your hypothesis is wrong. Every textbook written since 1800 will tell you that no chemical reaction can do that, and the upper limit for a few grams of material is about 80 kJ.

    Jed, no point repeating things.

    (1) You will admit no possibility that finely balanced system where between cal and active runs there is maybe 5% difference in heat collected, that error could be some systematic error caused by different experimental conditions

    (2) you will admit no possibility of one-off error

    (3) you will admit no possibility of unexpectedly high chemical enthalpy due to unknown D-Pd or H-Pd metal lattice arrangements

    (4) You will not admit incorrect error bars due to not considering the way that calibration errors are multiplied by the ratio of input / excess heat.


    Now, these four cases, and others do not all apply to all experiments. In fact it is unlikely that any of them apply to any specific experiment. But you only need one such, some other specific to the experiment, for every positive experiment. The corpus as a whole is vulnerable to this because:

    unlike rocketry

    unlike semiconductors

    unlike superconductvity

    (to take your examples - but any other would do)


    We do not have a clear replicable effect.


    When LENR has this, I and mainstream scientists will talk about it very differently. Had google found that excess heat (why not - if it is so clear) the conversation now would be different.

  • Great care is always taken. You would know that if you would read the papers. As I said, the people at Los Alamos, BARC and the PPPL know how to check for tritium. They describe their methods in the papers. Unless you have found a problem with their methods, you have no basis for this statement. You are saying "things would be so different if they were not as they are." (The Anna Russell dictum)

    When I read those papers the effect they were trying to catch was so tiny that even with the high levels of care they used, the results were unclear. We could take "your fave paper" from that stack and go over in detail why unclear on another thread?


    There was one paper with anomalous very high tritium results. It is an outlier, and of no merit for that reason.


    THH

  • 3 to 50 MJ from a few grams of material, with no chemical changes


    (1) there clearly are chemical changes

    (2) I know of no LENR experiment which delivers even 3MJ from a few g of material. You are making it up or misunderstanding uncertain results - thinking they are positive because the author hopes that, or makes assumptions that you accept without attention.


    * There was one extreme outlier in the long McKubre series that might do that - but this was an outlier. you get such things in even the best experiments - they should not count.

  • There’s no single opinion in the LENR field, that’s not how science works. LENR has been proposed as the cause of excess heat / transmutations and “yet to be determined exactly what” particle emissions observed across multiple experimental systems. This is experimental science first and foremost.

    Agreed. The debate here is merely one of interpretation of the experimental corpus as a whole. Does it imply nuclear reactions, or chemical anomalies and a whole set of different errors.


    I have set out here why it is proper to be more cautious about a positive interpretation of this data because of the lack of specificity needed for a result to be considered LENR.

  • (1) You will admit no possibility that finely balanced system where between cal and active runs there is maybe 5% difference in heat collected, that error could be some systematic error caused by different experimental conditions

    Of course I admit that! Although it would have to be less than 5% to be a problem for most calorimeters. Obviously, the people doing this research also know that. That is why they do not claim significant excess heat when it is near the margin of error. They claim heat it when it is 10%, or 300%. Look at the difference between the control and the excess heat here, for example:


    https://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/McKubre-graph-2.jpg


    That is way more than 5%. Again, you have gone back to claiming that all results are marginal. That is false. You can't just make up stuff.


    Furthermore, all known systematic errors are ruled out, using methods that have been used for 100 to 180 years, millions of times a year. There is nothing about this calorimetry that sets it apart from any other kind. If you, or some other skeptic, wants to claim there is a systematic error, you must identify it. Just saying "there could be some systematic error" proves nothing. It is not falsifiable. It applies equally well to every experiment in history. If you say there is a systematic error, tell us what it is. A skeptical assertion does not get a free pass.


    When I read those papers the effect they were trying to catch was so tiny that even with the high levels of care they used, the results were unclear.

    That is incorrect. The effects at BARC were often very large.


    We do not have a clear replicable effect.

    Yes, we do. It is extremely clear. There is no possibility that a chemical effect can produce 50 MJ from 2 g of material with no chemical change. Nothing could be clearer than that.


    It is a lot more replicable than cloning mammals today, or Musk's rockets, or transistors in 1953. But even if it was only as replicable as Musk rockets, you would never claim it does not exist for that reason. You would never apply that standard to any other phenomenon in science or technology, because the success/failure rate has no bearing on whether something is real. You apply that standard as an excuse to dismiss the facts.

  • 3 to 50 MJ from a few grams of material, with no chemical changes


    (1) there clearly are chemical changes

    No there are not. There is loading of the cathode, but it deloads. When the experiment ends, all chemicals are the same state they were at the beginning. It is fundamental to thermodynamics that there can be no net chemical energy released or absorbed when all of the materials end up in the same state they began. (In this case, Pd and D2O, with no free O2 and no absorbed D.)


    If that is not the case, tell us what chemical changes you know of. Also, tell us what chemical fuel can produce 50 MJ from 2 g of fuel.

  • When the experiment ends, all chemicals are the same state they were at the beginning.

    Jed - with respect

    You are not a material scientist

    LENR papers claim cathode is in different state at end

    Exact nanostructure after is hypothesised to be very different by LENR resarchers

    Even a normal person would reckon cathode structure could have differences. And electrolyte.


    You just make these sweeping "it must be perfect generalisations" and refuse to specify specific single papers that validate your statements.

  • Furthermore, all known systematic errors are ruled out, using methods that have been used for 100 to 180 years, millions of times a year.

    Exactly.


    LENR experiments are highly unusual as calorimetry goes, and are a clear case for possible unknown systematic errors. After all, we have anomalies to investigate! And we have candidate systematic errors, which LENR researchers dismiss out of hand (the Shanahan/Marwhan/etc paper sequence). We have those same LENR researchers convinced by extraordinarily unconvincing F&P boil-off experiment evidence.


    Only LENR researchers give up on looking for mundane anomalies and go with a faith-based "it must be nuclear, but not nuclear as we know it".


    I am fine with "it could be nuclear, or a weird type that does not make much sense at the moment". But not "because we are convinced and all those old experiments like F&P boil-off have proven it, it must nuclear". The skeptical approach would lead to more pruning of misleading modern experimental evidence from the canon - and might make finding some genuine LENR theory (if one exists) easier.


    I'd be happier if LENR community admitted F&P evidence is v suspect and went with McKubre etc as better proof - admittedly of a less clear sort.

  • LENR experiments are highly unusual as calorimetry goes, and are a clear case for possible unknown systematic errors.

    Why are these highly unusual as calorimetry goes? Why is the calorimetry any different from chemical calorimetry done for the last 180 years? The heat from electrolysis was measured with precision by Faraday in 1834. If it could be done then, what makes you think it cannot be done now, and that people cannot be sure the heat exceeds Faradaic efficiency?


    Since heat is the same from all sources, and no calorimeter can tell the difference between chemical, nuclear, or electric resistance heating, what could possibly be "unusual" about this calorimetry.


    Which systematic errors? Why are these errors more likely in cold fusion calorimetry than calorimetry to measure chemical reactions? If this is a "clear case" then tell us what clear case it is. You should have no difficulty describing a clear case.


    If you cannot tell us which systematic errors might be occurring, and if you cannot demonstrate that the researchers have not taken steps to prevent these errors, you have no case. Your assertion is not falsifiable. It cannot be tested. It applies equally well to all experiments with calorimetry, going back to Lavoisier in 1780. (The first calorimeter that could have measured many cold fusion effects with high confidence. It was used to measure the metabolism of a guinea pig, which is about the same as a robust cold fusion cell.)


    Waving your hands and saying there might be invisible, unknown errors in a technique that was perfected 100 years ago is not a valid argument. It is not an argument at all. It is impossible for you prove that, or for me to disprove it.

  • I'd be happier if LENR community admitted F&P evidence is v suspect

    What is suspect about it? Give three reasons why anyone should doubt F&P's calorimetry. If you wish to include the foam hypothesis, explain why the cell was producing high heat for days before the boil-off, and for a day or two after it. Why did it stop for 10 minutes, and then start up again?


    You keep saying this or that is suspect, or there is a "clear case" for something. Saying does not make it so. You have tell us what that clear case is. If you cannot tell us, then obviously you made that up. You have no case at all, clear or opaque.

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