The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

Quote from JedRothwell

Evaporation is low, even at 60 deg C.

Read my writeup (sorry - lost link now - 5 pages back.) 67C. Significant.

You have no doubt! There are too many unknowns and unspelt-out things in this experiment.

As we agreed - if its not written down - don't trust it.

Quote from Curbina

I have to insist in the fact that there are experiments, with the exact same set up and methodology, that show no excess heat results where the only change is using different metal samples of equal size and weight. This is by far the strongest and undeniable evidence that:

- The excess heat is real and not an experimental artifact from measurement error (same setup, only different samples of metal)

- The effect depends in a yet not easily reproducible property of the metal sample

- The magnitude of the excess energy can't be explained by chemical reactions as the excess heat is sustained for lenghts of time that warrant any chemical source would be long spent.

So, are we done with finding the inexistent experimental error that can't explain at the same time both the null and positive result? Are we?

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That would eliminate some errors. But not others. Remember - to change a cathode (or run in in new apparatus) you have to dismantle and put together the experiment.

It would be helpful to see consistent reproducible behaviour for a given cathode over multiple experiments though. Do we have records of that?

Look at it the other way. if things are so easy some experiment - maybe Ed's - can become a cheap reproducible reference experiment with poistive results noone can deny. That is all I am looking for. Every time I think I may have got close to it I have doubts - mainly that no-one in the LENR community seems to think this.

Quote from JedRothwell

Electrochemists know how to deal with it. Losses from electrochemistry and evaporation can be measured separately with resistance heating calibration.

All agreed. But Staker did not do that.: or at least did not give evidence he did it.

Where is our reference experiment?

Quote from orsova

There's also this:

https://www.researchgate.net/p…tions_in_Condensed_Matter

as well as the NASA replication:

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20210010199

But for whatever reason, THH regards the codeposition results as inconclusive, and has stated so in the past.

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The CR39 track results require chemical, heat, and low-energy electron/ion effects to be eliminated. I know those doing the experiments claim they have done this but it is very hand-wavey.

Also it does not make much sense - if high energy particles are generated they can be detected more definitely by other methods, with multiple detectors in different positions so that there is quantitative evidence the particles come from the experiment.

I'd also want to point out that we know LECs generate low energy electrons (or maybe ions). We do not know LECs are nuclear in mechanism. You would need to rule out any tracks that would relate to such activity.

I guess if you can get non-LENR peer reviewers to be sure your tracks are high energy particles then they are as good as any other detector of high energy particles. you would then want to be sure they were coming from the sample using multiple detectors. After you have clear above background high energy particles generated from a sample (known via geometry and rates from multiple detectors) in a lab with low background (e.g. low radon area etc) - that is good proof.

I don't like it because I cannot evaluate the tracks myself and it turns into he says/she says. (also - particle detectors are a better way to go - they provide more info).

Quote from JedRothwell

Again and again, you act as if Staker, Storms and the others have no knowledge of high school physics and chemistry. As if they do not realize that evaporation removes enthalpy, and no idea how evaporation works.

Jed. Let us take that example.

When have I accused Ed of not knowing about evaporation, or high school physics, etc. My only beef with Ed has been not putting all relevant info in the paper he showed us. He has done previous work on that calorimeter - but it was not clearly (or at all?) referenced with explicit reasoned closure of the single issue I found.

As for Storms. When have I accused Storms of not knowing how evaporation works. I am saying that (private communication) he dismissed evaporation in this case when perhaps he should not have done. And that not to explicitly state how he is dealing with evaporation makes the paper problematic.

Jed, you all the time act as though scientific papers do not need to be precise because "everyone knows" and the people doing the experiments are "professional electrochemists" or something like.

That is just not good enough if you want results to be accepted as something very unusual not otherwise validated.

I am aware that for you - it is not unusual, and it is otherwise validated. but until there is a replicated reference experiment no-one outside of LENR will have that view: they will think it is not usual, it is not otherwise validated, so every possibility needs to be explicitly ruled out. It is not enough to assume and experimenter did something when the write-up does not make clear what they did.

It is not me you need to argue this with: but the mainstream scientific community who will not be persuaded LENR is real without clearer evidence than this "well, the experimenter was an experience calorimetrist so we trust they did everything to make this results certain, even though they have not said they did that".

If you can't understand why that would not be enough for most people outside the LENR field, not because they are biased or politically motivated, but because they need a very high standard of proof for anything where the result is unprecedented and the evidence is complex, then I am sorry.

If you do understand that you could agree with me that having a better is dotted, ts crossed reference experiment which can be replicated is important. In which case, if any of the experiment we are discussing is good enough for that, writing them up completely, without assumptions, with all details and possible issues explicitly considered - is also important.

Quote from JedRothwell

That is what I said: "Evaporation is low, even at 60 deg C. No doubt it has some effect. Of course they can predict the amount with great precision, based on physics and calibrations. No doubt they tweak the IV pump syringe gadget a little to make up for the extra water that goes out in evaporation."

As I said, it is 67C not 60C (makes a big difference). The evaporation is ~ 40g (vs 162 g electrolysis water loss) over 46 days. And varies according to temperature so their instrument tables would not be enough. (PS - I may have got 40g wrong - but it is ballpark correct). While they can predict many things the question is whether they bothered to do this, or just decided it did not invalidate positive results 9true, for the direct effect), and from their ref [44] recombination need not be considered, so did not worry about it. Which is what there write-up would lead anyone to think.

"No doubt they tweaked it". I hope very much that they would not make undocumented additions to the protocol. If they did, then it is improperly written up.

The point is, neither you nor I should make assumptions.

Quote from JedRothwell

You have the notion that it is somehow difficult to measure both evaporation and recombination at the same time. They are completely independent of one another. Evaporation is always the same at a given temperature. It can be modeled and predicted with 100% confidence, based on Dalton's law. That is what you see in the equations in the F&P paper. Recombination is measured by monitoring the water level.

Yes, I understand that. Of course it can be so. I just do not assume Staker did it when the paper implies he did not do it (it does not explicitly say), but it would be not precise if Staker was actually checking carefully for amount of recombination using predicted evaporation and liquid used.

Again, sorry to sound like a broken piano - you are making unwarranted assumptions that given extraordinary results would need to be checked. And, as you have said, informal communication is just not as reliable as a properly written peer reviewed paper.

I don't expect recombination is an issue here. But the lack of precise stated methodology means I cannot be sure, and also means that I am a little uncertain about all the results. That is the way it is with any paper. It is the job of authors, if they want their results to be taken as strong evidence of something extraordinary, to provide that very complete evidence.

I know, because you have said, that you believe the standard of evidence should be the same between LENR and some hypothesis which has a higher prior, or which more sharply predicts the results. I have told you in summary why that is not true and referenced Jeynes for the detailed reasons.

You do not have to agree with me. I am pointing out that the scientists who agree with me are not necessarily stupid, ignorant, or biassed.

And anyway - why not just deal with the matter by putting a little bit more care into write-ups? It is shooting yourself in the foot not to do that.

it is like you say to yourself: "I am an Olympic-level marksman but that is not needed for this gamekeeper job. So I will not bother to bring evidence of my Olympic achievements, and rely on a shooting test I passed which I believe is easily high enough level for the demands of the job".

Then, you get rejected. Well, ok, you made a mistake.

But then, every subsequent interview, you also refuse to get the higher quality evidence because it is more effort and you know in your heart it should not be necessary.

It is counter-productive, but also when you think about it very insulting to all the people offering gamekeeper jobs. Perhaps they need a higher level of marksmanship?

THH

PS - no guns were actually shot, or even bought, in the making of that post.

Quote from Alan Smith

The are alpha particles measured in the body of a liquid. There's no other way to do that bacuse the alphas are energetic, densely ionising and do not travel very far in any medium.

Are you sure about that?

Lots of methods.

GM tubes are pretty sensitive.

Or even...

Alpha Particle Detection Using Alpha-Induced Air Radioluminescence: A Review and Future Prospects for Preliminary Radiological Characterisation for Nuclear Facilities Decommissioning

The United Kingdom (UK) has a significant legacy of nuclear installations to be decommissioned over the next 100 years and a thorough characterisation is…

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

The issue is whether alpha particles could be detected any way other than CR-39. The CR-39 detection is contentious. In that situation scientists look for confirming evidence. Claiming that the only way to do this is inserting wrapped CR-39 into electrolytic cells is just yet another "coincidentally - the high energy particles we are able to detect can only be detected in a very unclear way".

It would be a pity if CR39 was the only possible way to obtain this evidence because of citation trails like this one - which everyone in the LENR filed will explain away - but every other scientist will think "hmmm - contentious - not clear whether those tracks are alphas". In such a situation - you look for alternate detection methods. Must be possible, because if you can get a CR-39 film in there you can also get a plastic viewport - the other side of the film is separated from the cathode so does not need to be electrolyte.

But mainly, the evidence from this is so uncertain I can't believe any nuclear particle detection expert not a signed-up LENR community member would be convinced by it.

And, for the reasons I've stated earlier - once you buy into LENR exists, moderate evidence will seem compelling to you.

(for those same reasons, lots of different bits of moderate evidence, accumulated over years, but each uncertain, does not increase the overall quality of the evidence).

What is needed is better quality evidence. For detecting alphas that is clearly an alternative (and much more controllable, because it provides time resolution) method.

If a CR-39 placed right next to a cell, and detect alphas, why can a GM tube not do the same?

Then the CR39 evidence could be cross-checked.

If the alpha rate just happens to be in all cases so low that it cannot be disambiguated from background except (contentiously) by CR39 - let me point out Huxley's 2nd Law (which will annoy some here even more than Huxley's 1st Law):

Replicable LENR experiments detecting high energy particles above background do so in a manner which defies checking using multiple detection methods.

But perhaps there is a counterexample - I have no idea? If so - it would the CR39 evidence and perhaps the two methods together would be reference experiment?

If not - then I have a possible mechanism which would explain these results in the case that LENR is real. Perhaps God has an intense dislike for the LENR community and does this stuff on purpose?