Ed Storms Pre-print on Cold Fusion, Materials and Gaps. Comments Please!

Quote from Storms

Thanks for the support.

I would like to remind you that LENR occurs in an apparently ordinary material without any outside treatment other than having D made available. The special condition is a feature present in the normal physical-chemical structure. None of the conditions you describe are required. Therefore, you are not describing LENR. You are discussing an entirely different phenomenon. I would like to focus on what we know to be true about LENR.

The root cause is presently invisible because it occurs on an atomic scale. We are forced to discover its characteristics using an indirect approach. That is why we are having so much difficulting agreeing on anything. The event is too small to see, it is too unusual to explain mathematically, and it is so rarely produced that we do not have enough information to understand its cause. We need to make good guesses. So far, the guesses have been useless. The question is "Can the people here do better"? The jury is still out.

The atomic scale has many variables and the videos where meant to take a step few steps back on the wilderness hike that you analogized, as it relates to ionic hydrogen compounds of Alkaline metals. These too can be considered apparently ordinary materials, but that is just a matter of subjective perception.
What is the definition of a ordinary material and how is that an argument on the topic of the LENR phenomenon?
You yourself have suggested having nanoscale topological "cracks" seem to increase the probability of this phenomenon. So I am confused about that statement you made on ordinary materials?

From all the research I have done, the "hot" catalytic gaseous experiments are the least reliable and hardest to reproduce. It seems they are just a distraction from the original works going back as far as 1920s with Paneth, Peters and Tandberg. I subscribe to the hypothesis of a more electrical sun than Arthur Eddington predicts and there are some interesting theories that PM Robatialle and others have suggested.

If video format works better for you click this link.

In all of the experiments that have confirmed results, alkaline metals are used along with D2 or H2, as well as an electrified cathodic substrate which seems to form "events".
You refer to it as NAS, but they could as easily be called dark space for all I care since they are not well defined.
The point is these events seem to produce radiative effects and material byproducts previously unknown by our predictions. There are however many people who have good guess predictions on these things in mathematical formalization like the Schwinger limit, or in observable experiments like the collapsing of a field in a incompressible fluid which exceed predictions.
We can throw out good guesses all day long, but unless they are testable, aren't they useless?

So again the question remains. What are the purposed experiments which can help us eliminate any variables to better explain the root of these phenomena?

It's kind of silly that the majority of the arguments in the fusion space are about theory. We use electricity because we are aware of how the predictable patterns of ED physics which give us useful technologies in our lives. However, our best theoretical explanation of it's exact details are still very paradoxically fuzzy.
Perhaps the same can be said about Fusion with it's potential usefulness to generate abundant energy for humanity?

Anyways, glad to have some dialogue with you good sir.
I hope your are able to enjoy every present moment to the fullest of your abilities.

Here again, you have an opinion that does not match reality. Rossi discovered now to cause LENR by using a conventional catalyst containing Ni. This condition is very similar to what Case found to work, except Case used Pd and D2. Rossi demonstrated he could make excess power. Then IH required him to make 1 MW. Rossi did not trust IH so he lied about the material he used. He claimed the material was a mixture of Ni and LiAlH4 that was heated to high temperature. That material did not work. Meanwhile, he used the material that did work in an attempt to make the required 1 MW. He could not reach 1 MW so he lied.

F-P did not lie. I have not lied. Claiming that because Rossdi lied, all the claims are suspect is not rational.

That is one interpretation of the evidence wrt Rossi, which however I disagree with.

Please read what I wrote. I said the reverse of what you think I said. I agree - Rossi lied and cheated (we have written evidence of both) - I have no expectation that anyone else did that (except self-admitted for Parkhomov, who self-admittedly falsified a graph). I see no comparison between Rossi and LENR researchers. Which is why I am uncomfortable with anyone studying LENR claiming Rossi as doing useful work in that field. Rossi was neither a scientist nor a researcher nor an even vaguely competent inventor. I have followed the Rossi story, and contributed to the understanding of his many interesting demos, in probably more detail than you - ask the mods here. Anyway Rossi is not the topic at hand.

Nothing about LENR can be proven. That is a false requirement. Even using this word makes no sense. We are trying to understand a real phenomenon of Nature, not unlike how the fission reaction was viewed initially. All new discovers are initially confusing. If you cannot deal with confusion, you should not be involved with scientific exploration. Stick to teaching only what is known and can be proven.

I don't think I've shown any lack of comfort with uncertainty? It seems from this that you agree with me - read back what I said.

Google was not looking for new understanding. They were looking for proof that the heat could be made on demand. Heat can not be made in demand. I tried to show in my paper how the probability can be improved. That's the best we can do right now.

If that is true it is disappointing - and not what they said they were doing.

The Czerski study did not involve cold fusion. This and the later use of ion bombardment are triggering hot fusion. The failure to understand this fact is causing great confusion. Once again, nothing I say has the slightest effect on what the people in charge believe.

There might be some terminological confusion, for which I apologise. You can of course exclude electron screening effects from any CF mechanism, but I am not sure there is evidence to make that exclusion. Getting enhanced fusion from ion bombardment is maybe hot fusion - but noting enhanced reaction rates at very low energies (which might be found in special circumstances in a lattice at low temperatures) is surely cold fusion.

Mizuno has success only because his method for treating the material makes more gaps than the other methods. We need to know why his method works because without this knowledge the energy cannot be made practical. You keep focusing on efficiency and not on the basic cause. Simply having as a source of energy is useless because, without a clear understanding, no one will trust the generator to work as required.

I am not concerned about efficiency - but having a system easily and accurately enough measurable to parametrise it reliably. which would provide info (Arrhenis curves etc) as to cause.

One of the characteristics of all new discoveries is that they always look impossible and unreal at first. A few people who do not have this mindset will continue an interest until the discovery looks commonplace to everyone else. You have yet to reach that level.

I sort of agree - I am not one of the brave few who insist the impossible is possible until it becomes that.

But equally I do not deny that - and my interest - which even if it is not shared by many is perfectly legitimate - is in solving the mystery of how those partial theories and partially informative experiment results can be joined together. Not that I expect to solve this myself.

THH

THH, let's discuss electron screening. When hot fusion is caused to occur in a material, electron screening clearly operates. The magnitude is large but not enough to compensate for the reduction in the fusion rate caused by the use of lower applied energy. Therefore, this is not a useful path to increase the rate of hot fusion. I will stop here because you have a habit of disagreeing with me about everything. So, it's pointless to go on to the next step when we do not agree about the first step.

This is an important concept because cold fusion clearly is caused by electron screening but with different characteristics and mechanism. We need to talk about how the two mechanisms differ.

Quote from Storms

THH, let's discuss electron screening. When hot fusion is caused to occur in a material, electron screening clearly operates. The magnitude is large but not enough to compensate for the reduction in the fusion rate caused by the use of lower applied energy. Therefore, this is not a useful path to increase the rate of hot fusion. I will stop here because you have a habit of disagreeing with me about everything. So, it's pointless to go on to the next step when we do not agree about the first step.

This is an important concept because cold fusion clearly is caused by electron screening but with different characteristics and mechanism. We need to talk about how the two mechanisms differ.

Well, I don't broadly disagree. Rather than qualify what you say, how about you go on to the next step

OK

Hot fusion involves one satationary nucleus interacting with one moving nucleus. When the two nuclei come together, the electron charge that happened to be present at that location and time would slightly reduce the nuclear charge, hence the two nuclei would come together with a greater probability. The process would be controlled by random chance. Therefore the probability for successful interaction is increased as the velocity of the moving particle is reduced and the ion hass more time to interact with the negative charge, as is observed. However, because the energy is reduced, the overall reaction rate is reduced, as is observed. In other words, two different mechanisms are operating at the same time, with the hot fusion reaction products being produced regardless of the amount of applied energy. In other words, electron screening does not change the nuclear mechanism in this case. Only the rate is changed.

In contrast, applied energy is not used to cause cold fusion and a different nuclear product is produced, i.e. He-4. Therefore, the entire process for overcoming the Coulomb barrier involves only electron screening. The reaction rate for cold fusion is many orders of magnitude greater than the hot fusion rate at the smallest applied energy. Therefore, the mechanism involving screening is different. In other words, the behavior observed when energy is applied cannot be used to understand cold fusion because the mechanisms are entirely different.

I propose that the mechanism causing cold fusion involves the assembly of many electrons. Therefore, I would make an effort to look for these electrons in the emitted radiation. I suggest Gordon has seen these electrons. In fact, I have measured the emitted current and the generated power and found that they are affected by temperature in the same way. This work is ongoing. In other words, I have seen the first clue. Hopefully, people will now look for other clues rather than dismissing the observation as a chemical effect.

Quote from Storms

Good question. I believe, and the behavior supports, that all isotopes of hydrogen can be caused to fuse when the required conditions are created. This required condition can be created in any material. However, its creation is easier in Pd than in Ni. When people focus on a material, such as Ni, while using a particular isotope, such as H, they will naturally have increased success as they identify and create the conditions required to cause LENR. This does not mean that H is uniquely active in Ni and D is uniquely active in Pd. This only means that the treatments that work have been focused on a particular isotope. Nevertheless, the conditions required to make H work might be slightly different from those required to make D work.

When D is used, the final product is observed to be He-4. When H+D is used the final product is mostly tritium with some He-4 and D. When H+H is used, a series of products are produced starting with D. In other words, the nuclear product and the amount of produced energy depend on the isotope. Unfortunately, people are not interested in exploring this idea, so the evidence is not available.

Just a note while mostly I agree with this, it’s hard to judge on low power short term experiments on H vs D because a significant number of D atoms are present in “H”. Unless one were centrifuge out the D to make pure H, this hypothesis has never been rigorously tested. It’s more precise to say that most LENR experiments do not show a significant difference between H and D as fuel sources. But I don’t think many other conclusions can be drawn.

Quote from Storms

OK

Hot fusion involves one satationary nucleus interacting with one moving nucleus. When the two nuclei come together, the electron charge that happened to be present at that location and time would slightly reduce the nuclear charge, hence the two nuclei would come together with a greater probability. The process would be controlled by random chance. Therefore the probability for successful interaction is increased as the velocity of the moving particle is reduced and the ion hass more time to interact with the negative charge, as is observed. However, because the energy is reduced, the overall reaction rate is reduced, as is observed. In other words, two different mechanisms are operating at the same time, with the hot fusion reaction products being produced regardless of the amount of applied energy. In other words, electron screening does not change the nuclear mechanism in this case. Only the rate is changed.

In hot plasma, the positive ions and electrons are self-organized into separate physical locations due to double-layer formation. There is very little overlap between positive and negative charged space, so very little interaction between electrons and positive ions (see the purple graph below). The hot fusion mechanism is simply using brute force kinetic energy to overcome Coulomb repulsion. I don't think electron shielding is a significant issue in hot fusion.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Think about your above two sentences. You agree there can be "obvious" leaks - discarded. You exclude the possibility of "microleaks" - a poor seal allowing He diffusion (but with no air gap). Those can only be evaluated by checking the experimental results. Once we have a protocol in which high He values are discarded as leaks your objection that "we know the flask does not leak" vanishes. It may leak.

You are mistaken. No values were discarded. The reports include all tests. No high He values were discarded. Yes, there can be "obvious" leaks, but there were none. If there had been, they would have been obvious.

I suggest you read the papers to avoid making these kinds of mistakes.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Your definition of "underlying principle" is in that case subjective.

Mendel would argue that "units of inheritance" which are dominant or recessive, is an underlying principle. So would I.

Dominant or recessive is not an underlying principle of Mendel's. It is a law. It underlies genetics, but when it was proposed there was nothing underlying it. There was no known mechanism. Whereas natural selection is an underlying principle of evolution, and the invariance of the speed of light is an underlying principle of special relativity. So evolution and relativity were theories, not laws. Theories are built on a scaffolding of observations. Laws just are. A law is an observation. In 1905, the invariant speed of light was an observation, made by Michelson & Morley.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The extra detail you get from associating genes with DNA sequences is just detail.

There were no extra details for dominant genes before 1953. It was fact, but it was unconnected to any other knowledge, and it had no explanation.

Quote from THHuxleynew

How much detail do you need before it becomes, in your view, "fundamental"?

You do not need any detail. A law is as valid as a theory. A law is an observation that has been widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios with no exceptions found. That makes it certain. That is why we know that cold fusion is real, even though we cannot explain it.

Suppose we find out that a law is not always true. Imagine we find an exception to Ohm's law. It would become a special case, no longer a law. It would be an observation that is widely replicated, but not universally true.

Quote from Daniel_G

In hot plasma, the positive ions and electrons are self-organized into separate physical locations due to double-layer formation. There is very little overlap between positive and negative charged space, so very little interaction between electrons and positive ions (see the purple graph below). The hot fusion mechanism is simply using brute force kinetic energy to overcome Coulomb repulsion. I don't think electron shielding is a significant issue in hot fusion.

Daniel, you really need to read what people are doing and the results rather than applying your imagination. I'm not going to educate about hot fusion. Cold fusion is a big enough challenge.

THH: You keep saying "there could be a leak." Why don't you do your homework and make your case? This is simple arithmetic, not quantum electrodynamics. Read the literature (for once!). Find out the volume of the cell, hose and flask. You know the effluent gas is collected for 1.2 hours. You know the concentration of helium in air: 5,000 ppb. You can find out the performance of the best needle valves available, and assume that a hole could not be any smaller than that. What else do you need to know?

Miles and the other experts told me that a leak cannot produce only 7 ppb in a sample of gas. You are saying they are wrong about that. I did not check their arithmetic, but you can. So do it. Quantify your assertion.

Over the years, you and other skeptics have repeatedly made various assertions about this or that aspect of cold fusion, but never once have you tried to quantify these assertions, or justify them from textbook physics and engineering. For example, you say "the effect might be chemical," but you never propose a candidate chemical reaction that might explain it. You never propose a chemical reaction because you would have to find one that produces at least 10,000 times more than the most energetic known reaction, or roughly 4,000 eV per atom. You never propose a hole that could admit only 7 ppb because no hole could be that small. Only permeation can do that. As far as I know.

If you can show us that such a small hole is possible, you are still not finished. You must also show why the hole admits more helium when there is excess heat, and never any other time. Excess heat, not a higher temperature. The temperature is often higher when there is no excess heat. Then, after you propose a mechanism that correlates with excess heat -- and nothing else -- you have tell us why the increased helium from 4 to 7 ppb happens to correlate with helium production from D-D fusion, and why the same increase is observed with real-time helium measurements, and with systems that start out with helium already at atmospheric concentration and go above that. How does the leak admit a higher concentration than the atmosphere? That's not possible.

Your work is cut out for you!

One more thing you should bear in mind is that not all the helium comes from the atmosphere. Some of it is contamination in the electrolyte. I do not know how much, but permeation or leaks do not admit 3 to 7 ppb. They admit some number lower than this. I leave it to you estimate this.

I'm just as frustrated with people who reject the helium-energy measurements as Jed, but for different reasons. The basic criterion of reality required by science is replication. Yet, when replication is done and excellent agreement is achieved, this work is rejected. Clearly, we are actually dealing with a problem involving psychology rather than science. Therefore, a logical argument is useless. This being the case, I suggest no further time be wasted on this subject.

Quote from Storms

I'm just as frustrated with people who reject the helium-energy measurements as Jed, but for different reasons. The basic criterion of reality required by science is replication. Yet, when replication is done and excellent agreement is achieved, this work is rejected. Clearly, we are actually dealing with a problem involving psychology rather than science. Therefore, a logical argument is useless. This being the case, I suggest no further time be wasted on this subject.

The field need help of a well-thought-out communication strategy created by experienced PR people. This could be an important way to build legitimacy and attract new young talent to take us to the next level.

We discussed the importance of good communication in the last L-F moderator talk "coldtalk" yesterday!

Quote from JedRothwell

THH: You keep saying "there could be a leak." Why don't you do your homework and make your case? This is simple arithmetic, not quantum electrodynamics. Read the literature (for once!). Find out the volume of the cell, hose and flask. You know the effluent gas is collected for 1.2 hours. You know the concentration of helium in air: 5,000 ppb. You can find out the performance of the best needle valves available, and assume that a hole could not be any smaller than that. What else do you need to know?

Jed - I'd welcome wading into the literature on another thread if others are interested - I am not sure anyone except me is!

You make an assumption here which I would never assume, and it is pretty obviously wrong.

The microleaks in this case are incredibly small - so small that in most experiments they would not be noticed. They could rely on the diffusion of He through barriers (to take just one example: no hole, but barrier that is thinner than usual in one spot). So the idea that leaks must be larger than the holes from needle valves does not fly.

You cannot cite "what everyone knows" because very few people care about such incredibly tiny leak rates for high mobility gasses. How in a normal experiment could you even measure this?

THH

Quote from Storms

I'm just as frustrated with people who reject the helium-energy measurements as Jed, but for different reasons. The basic criterion of reality required by science is replication. Yet, when replication is done and excellent agreement is achieved, this work is rejected. Clearly, we are actually dealing with a problem involving psychology rather than science. Therefore, a logical argument is useless. This being the case, I suggest no further time be wasted on this subject.

Hi Ed,

I have been interested in the He measurements and only remember when I last looked at them I was a bit disappointed. What I discovered then was that the amounts of He were so incredibly small that great care was needed, and even then artifacts were difficult to rule out.

Replication of an artifact obviously does not provide any extra integrity, so they precise details of protocols, what is done to detect and minimise artifacts, etc matter.

My remembrance is that some people (e.g. Miles) tried quite hard to eliminate artifacts but did not have a protocol that could do that for all artifacts. It is no criticism of them - it is just an incredibly difficult type of experiment to do safely.

So then it is a matter of correlating all of the different attempts, and seeing what they add up to. Do they, between them, provide better integrity. That process again depends on very precise details of methodology. I find it fascinating and would want to discuss it (which would take a long time so obviously not here) but I am not sure anyone else is interested.

The He/excess heat experiments are pretty well unique in LENR in having a clear prediction against which results can be compared. So, for me, they are valuable. When there was some talk (Abd here) that maybe there would be a modern replication I thought great - but I can see, on reflection, given the difficulties that any modern replication would also find it difficult with certainty to eliminate all artifacts.

Best wishes,

THH

Quote from JedRothwell

You are mistaken. No values were discarded. The reports include all tests. No high He values were discarded. Yes, there can be "obvious" leaks, but there were none. If there had been, they would have been obvious.

I suggest you read the papers to avoid making these kinds of mistakes.

Dominant or recessive is not an underlying principle of Mendel's. It is a law. It underlies genetics, but when it was proposed there was nothing underlying it. There was no known mechanism. Whereas natural selection is an underlying principle of evolution, and the invariance of the speed of light is an underlying principle of special relativity. So evolution and relativity were theories, not laws. Theories are built on a scaffolding of observations. Laws just are. A law is an observation. In 1905, the invariant speed of light was an observation, made by Michelson & Morley.

There were no extra details for dominant genes before 1953. It was fact, but it was unconnected to any other knowledge, and it had no explanation.

You do not need any detail. A law is as valid as a theory. A law is an observation that has been widely replicated at high signal to noise ratios with no exceptions found. That makes it certain. That is why we know that cold fusion is real, even though we cannot explain it.

Suppose we find out that a law is not always true. Imagine we find an exception to Ohm's law. It would become a special case, no longer a law. It would be an observation that is widely replicated, but not universally true.

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Jed. I will leave this discussion now. I do not disagree with most of what you say, yet it does not address the topic at hand, which is whether science needs theory as well as experiment. (and that has only tangential relationship to this thread!).

Your argument (I think) is that the identification of dominant and recessive units of inheritance and how they interact, the probabilities you get from that, and its inference from, and prediction of, experimental data is not a case of scientific theory. I disagree.

Those reading our sequence of posts will make what they want to of your arguments and mine. Maybe the difference is just semantics. I do not think either of us are likely to be swayed by what the others say on this particular topic - strange because I thought it was pretty uncontentious. If anyone other than you or me feels that more clarification is needed, or feels that what I have said does not stand up - I'd be happy to continue the conversation somewhere else.

Quote from Storms

In contrast, applied energy is not used to cause cold fusion and a different nuclear product is produced, i.e. He-4. Therefore, the entire process for overcoming the Coulomb barrier involves only electron screening. The reaction rate for cold fusion is many orders of magnitude greater than the hot fusion rate at the smallest applied energy. Therefore, the mechanism involving screening is different. In other words, the behavior observed when energy is applied cannot be used to understand cold fusion because the mechanisms are entirely different.

I propose that the mechanism causing cold fusion involves the assembly of many electrons. Therefore, I would make an effort to look for these electrons in the emitted radiation. I suggest Gordon has seen these electrons. In fact, I have measured the emitted current and the generated power and found that they are affected by temperature in the same way. This work is ongoing. In other words, I have seen the first clue. Hopefully, people will now look for other clues rather than dismissing the observation as a chemical effect.

Just a logical comment here.

I think many people would agree with "assembly of many electrons". However some would disagree that the behaviour comes solely from electron screening rather from electron screening and high energies. That is because:

(1) The obvious way to get higher screening is to have a higher electron charge density - that requires higher energy. I am not saying that is the only way - there are other possibilities.

(2) There are known processes that might result in high energy electrons in a lattice (and indeed that are also evidenced by the LEC work, which requires higher than typical energies).

And another comment:

Temperature scaling of any effect can be very helpful in identifying mechanism. What are you proposing is the precise temperature scaling shard by LECs and cold fusion?

Best wishes, THH

Quote from David Nygren

The field need help of a well-thought-out communication strategy created by experienced PR people. This could be an important way to build legitimacy and attract new young talent to take us to the next level.

We discussed the importance of good communication in the last L-F moderator "coldtalk" yesterday!

David, I agree. But, effective communication in science is normally done by people who are respected by their peers and who have access to important journals. No matter what we write, no one will pay any attention because it will not appear in such journals as Nature or be written by a well-known scientist. Thanks to such people as THH, the field is ignored by conventional science.

We need a person such as Dr. Garwin to publish an apology for rejecting the idea and to admit that F-P were right. Of course, this will not happen. Meanwhile, Google takes a baby step and a few people follow. As far as I can tell, ICCF-24 was a nonevent to the rest of the scientific community. The promised X-prize has not been created. No additional interest is apparent. The papers will be eventually published in JCMNS and will be ignored.

We have a reality that will not change no matter what we do. The reality might change in a few years when the work supported by the DoE is published. Which direction the reality will take is unknown because we cannot expect much success. The present belief system is still too far from reality for it to be used as an effective guide.