The perpetual “is LENR even real” argument thread.

THH, I think you have revealed the problem we all have to suffer. You can not read what is written. Instead, you see only what you want to see in the written word. I actually, I LIST in plain sight (PAGE 34) 13 different predictions that can be tested. Why are these tests not visible to you?

Indeed I did read your 13 different predictions. I then asked: which of these are concrete enough for any experiment to disprove your hypothesis? But I would welcome adding others; give me your arguments for an experimental result based on one of the others that would disprove (or at least make in your mind less likely) your hypothesis. i am not saying they do not exist.

I have no idea why you would think that your explanation of the activation energy has any value. If you made even the slightest effort to examine your ideas with the same skepticism you apply to other people's claims, you would easily discover why your explanations can not be true. But, I see no benefit in showing the flaws because such an effort as no ability to change minds including yours.

This is however - to take your phrase "the problem I and like-minded skeptics suffer". I am not saying my explanations are true. Just that they cannot be ruled out. Whereas your thinking in this area does not allow you to be surprised by something new. So much "cannot be true". Well, most people would say, quoting reasonable arguments, that LENR cannot be true. I agree with you and the others here. In the face of unexplained anomalies those "reasonable arguments" are not certain. Yet, then, you apply the same sort of "I must be right, it is obvious" thinking to alternative non-LENR hypotheses.

The reader will themselves interject with: "THH - your arguments are nihilistic. You are a true agnostic who believes nothing and can never believe anything - made incapable of common-sense thinking by your extreme skepticism".

The more discerning reader here (I know there are many) will realise that on this thread I have exactly been explaining why my skeptical approach to LENR is not that. True, I have much less certainty in the extrapolations from experimental results that convince most here. And I have given my reasons. But there a remain a collection of anomalies to explain. Either they have non-LENR explanations, or LENR explanations. I look at all these without pre-judging and for me since 40 years of experiments don't seem to have clarified anything I think comparing theoretical hypotheses honestly and in detail with experiment is the way to go. That means critical appraisal of those hypotheses. And THAT means asking - what do they actually predict in a way that has any merit?

It does not in the end realise where your skepticism dial is set (mine is quite high!). If an effect is real it can eventually be controlled enough for evidence, however low-level and difficult, to satisfy a skeptic. Note that a stochastic element (only one in 4 electrodes works) is ok as long as things can be repeated enough with a definite protocol. The results Ed documents from electrolysis in his calorimeter (replicating many other claims) are enough that a more sensitive calorimeter like MOAC where artifacts can be investigated to death could be used with an identical protocol, repeating enough times to find working electrodes, and check whether that small detected excess heat is real or artifact, and again given time whether it is large enough to be nuclear rather than chemical. That would then be a modern anyone can replicate definitive experiment.

You ignore the effect of applied current. This variable has a huge effect on increasing the amount of power, as I and three other people have demonstrated. Why does this behavior have no value to your efforts to apply and understand the phenomenon? Or do you think this is also the result of bad science?

Applied current correlates with: applied power, cell temperature, bubble production intensity, etc, etc. Basically, because it increases power in and a whole loa d of other cell conditions it is likely that any excess heat error, and certain that any excess heat calibration error (sorry - just to be clear - by that I mean a difference in cell conditions between one or other of the calibration runes and the active run) will correlate with applied power.

However - there is a way round this. You could have two co-located and insulated from each other electrodes. One treated Pd. One control (Pt or whatever). You can compare results in the two switching current between the two electrodes say every hour or whatever your thermal time constant needs within one run and detecting the temperature differences. That would not eliminate some non-LENR mechanism (e.g. unexpected recombination) but it would eliminate a whole load of other things.

If the mechanism is LENR - then there is nothing magical about room temperature. And it is surprisingly coincidental for some mechanism to have a temperature dependence where it conveniently cuts off when temperature is not significantly elevated from that. For example if diffusion determines the reaction rate it could juts as easily be high at room temperature. Surprising coincidences happen all the time - so this does not falsify LENR. But it is the type of minor indication that makes me suspicious.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Either they have non-LENR explanations, or LENR explanations.

And before you ask. I do not assume that anyone must be able to identify a non-LENR explanation, or else be sure there is an LENR explanation.

An obvious corollary of my approach is that "no-one has yet identified an explanation" remains on the table.

That is why an experiment that is replicable, has clear (maybe stochastic) anomalous results, which can be repeated over again using more instrumentation, changing systematically all conditions, so that explanations can be hypothesised and tested or ruled out - would be so valuable.

People here acknowledge that would be good to convince the wider world of scientists that LENR is real.

I am just explaining why this is so. And why it would be of equal help to those here who for whatever reason are sure that LENR exists, but do not understand exactly how it works.

Quote from Curbina

Cardone et al team used CR-39 as track detector (they asumed it was neutrons) for detecting emissions durinh ultrasound applied to solid and liquids experiments, and they found the emissions to be anisotropic. I can dig the papers for you at some point this sunday if you are interested.

I accept what you say, I remain unhappy about CR-39

One of the key advantages of high energy particles as an indication of some unusual reaction is that you can get real-time rates of emission, you can then correlate those accurately and precisely with changes in experimental conditions.

You lose that for:

• Excess heat (time constants - and more accuracy generally means longer time constants)
• CR-39 - etching is needed away from the experiment

But if LENR generates high energy products discoverable by CR-39 it really should be possible to re-engineer an experiment that will find them with a real time particle detector. And that is a lot more satisfactory.

There are experiments quoted here that try to do that.

If LENR is real there will eventually be some experiment that has unambiguous results that can be controlled real-time. That will make determination of mechanism much easier. In other words, data from such experiments can more easily be used to disprove (or provide evidence for) mechanistic hypotheses.

THH

Quote from THHuxleynew

there is a way round this. You could have two co-located and insulated from each other electrodes. One treated Pd. One control (Pt or whatever). You can compare results in the two switching current between the two electrodes say every hour or whatever your thermal time constant needs within one run and detecting the temperature differences. That would not eliminate some non-LENR mechanism (e.g. unexpected recombination) but it would eliminate a whole load of other things.

I like this because it can be added to a well-proven experiment with documented positive results as a way to obtain further insight into those results.

A new experiment with these co-located electrodes (I bet somewhere it has been done?) would be less helpful.