This data looks exactly as expected. The greater the gamma energy, i.e. the more unstable the nucleus, the shorter the half-life, i.e. the faster the energy is released.
But I see the interest in LENR has been exhausted. I can only assume the problem is too difficult to solve and my questions are too difficult to answer. So, I will go back to my job of trying to explain my model in a paper. Perhaps someday someone will discover that I was on the right track after all.
So, I will go back to my job of trying to explain my model in a paper. Perhaps someday someone will discover that I was on the right track after all.
That is a very proper thing to do. Good luck.
But in practice we can never be sure that some unexpected and effect (ants easting the cables or whatever) does not break experimental assumptions. When checking experiments we can never be sure we have not missed something unexpected, and therefore not imagined.
We can never be sure? So Newton's prism experiments might be wrong? Calorimeters might not work? It has been 30 years, and no skeptic has ever found even one plausible error in any major experiment. You have not even looked! There has to be some reasonable statue of limitations, or no result will ever be accepted, no matter how many times it is replicated, no matter how many different kinds of calorimeters are used to detect it.
You say "we can never be sure we have not missed something unexpected, and therefore not imagined." The calorimetry in these experiments was invented in 1840 (isoperibolic) and 1900 (the flow technique). It is used thousands of times a day in industry, HVAC, laboratory studies, to control boilers, and so on. If it did not work, catastrophic accidents would happen every day. How likely is it that a technique that has been used daily for 200 years, and that is used millions of times a year, has some hidden problem?
Perhaps you are saying that hundreds of professional scientists are all idiot who cannot use 200-year-old techniques that high school students master. Is that really your position? Are you serious?
We can never be sure? So Newton's prism experiments might be wrong? Calorimeters might not work? It has been 30 years, and no skeptic has ever found even one plausible error in any major experiment. You have not even looked! There has to be some reasonable statue of limitations, or no result will ever be accepted, no matter how many times it is replicated, no matter how many different kinds of calorimeters are used to detect it.
Experiments with prisms has clear replicable and certain results. taught in schools.
I await such replicability, certainty, and clarity from LENR experiments.
It is no good drawing parallels without also acknowledging differences.
data looks exactly as expected.
the data looks exactly as expected ??
with a handwave or two
the theory doesn't..look so .. exactly 
... by a tad
But I see the interest in LENR has been exhausted
VIve la LENR! Marchons, Marchons sans souverain
Its going to take a lot more than handwavy QM etc
to reveal the secret life of the nucleus
perhaps the gamma transitions in heavy atoms
Pd,Ag, Sm, Gd Ni etc are
a sign of an underlying LENR mechanism
where the 22Mevs of deuterium fusion are
downsized to smaller packets..eventually to phonons IR etc
the conceptual problem is the ' inexact' understanding of the
BTS energy transitions which lead to gamma emissions
But I see the interest in LENR has been exhausted. I can only assume the problem is too difficult to solve and my questions are too difficult to answer. So, I will go back to my job of trying to explain my model in a paper. Perhaps someday someone will discover that I was on the right track after all.
The interest is there, as this forum being healthy and growing proves. But I do tend to agree when you say: "the problem is too difficult to solve, and my questions are too difficult to answer".
But that is not a reflection on you, the forum members who participated in this discussion, or most of your old guard colleagues who have tried as hard as you to solve the LENR mystery. It is simply a tough nut to crack. Like dark matter/energy, it is not one of nature's low hanging fruits. You are not the first to try to solve this, nor (probably) the last.
My hat is off to you. Instead of slipping off into a comfortable retirement, you have decided to fight. Hopefully you keep the fight up here on the forum.
Experiments with prisms has clear replicable and certain results. taught in schools.
Experiments with cold fusion also have clear replicable and certain results. "Certain" meaning high signal to noise ratios, not easy reproducibility. Cold fusion experiments work more often and they produce higher signal to noise ratios than, say, transistor production in the 1950s, animal cloning today, or Elon Musk's rockets today. Yet no one ever said that transistors, clones and rockets do not exist, just because they often fail.
I await such replicability, certainty, and clarity from LENR experiments.
You do no such thing! Give us a break. You refuse to look at any experiment. You refuse to suggest any possible error. Instead of reading the papers, you make up nonsense such as the claim that Miles threw away data from leaks.
a better role model than Huxley.
Huxley...would probably not endorse his 21C alterego
His grandson Aldous Huxley would have liked to be Faraday....
rather than wordy like his grandpa,,
"“The vast majority of human beings dislike and even actually dread all notions with which they are not familiar .... Hence it comes about that at their first appearance innovators have generally been persecuted, and always derided as fools and madmen.” (Aldous Huxley)
“He is always the natural philosopher. To discover truth is his sole aim and interest…even if I could be Shakespeare, I think I should still choose to be Faraday.”(Aldous Huxley)
the blacksmith's son is my choice for a role model..
contrary to Aldous Huxleys words
I doubt whether Faraday was derided as a fool..
he was much more than a natural philosopher
or an inventor..
now I need to get some D2O... for an arm or leg.
We can never be sure? So Newton's prism experiments might be wrong? Calorimeters might not work? It has been 30 years, and no skeptic has ever found even one plausible error in any major experiment. You have not even looked! There has to be some reasonable statue of limitations, or no result will ever be accepted, no matter how many times it is replicated, no matter how many different kinds of calorimeters are used to detect it.
You say "we can never be sure we have not missed something unexpected, and therefore not imagined." The calorimetry in these experiments was invented in 1840 (isoperibolic) and 1900 (the flow technique). It is used thousands of times a day in industry, HVAC, laboratory studies, to control boilers, and so on. If it did not work, catastrophic accidents would happen every day. How likely is it that a technique that has been used daily for 200 years, and that is used millions of times a year, has some hidden problem?
Perhaps you are saying that hundreds of professional scientists are all idiot who cannot use 200-year-old techniques that high school students master. Is that really your position? Are you serious?
Jed, this is a very old argument between you and me. We both know that reiterating it will not change the other person's mind.
For the sake of others I will do the best I can to elucidate the reasons for it.
From your POV, no doubt, I refuse to accept things which are obvious.
From my POV, you are reductionist and do not see crucial distinctions between different experiments. Thus (I emphasised this above) there is a big difference between prism experiments, replicable, replicated, certain (always deliver same results). And LENR experiments, either uncertain or unreplicable or both. (Remember, the community here has many times looked for a certain replicable experiment - the need for it is seen).
Again, from your POV, you point to the calorimetry in classical experiments, and the many different experiments with good methodology giving excess heat results. From my POV that looks like a genuine anomaly, not necessarily, or even given lack of coherence with what would otherwise be expected, probably, nuclear. You point to the absolute certainty of the calorimetry - where experts have worked out errors. Yet, we do not have such an experiment now that can be replicated with careful methodology (google tried). And experts can easily all make systematic errors when faced with something unusual. Nor is it reasonable to expect such an error to be discoverable for sure in experiments no longer conducted.
If you do not have a binary "checked by experts must be true" attitude to experiment, but see all experimental results as needing interpretation, and the interpretation, even of experts, as being sometimes systematically wrong, then you cannot get your level of certainty from those old excess heat experiments. I know of no modern experiments with anything like that level of definiteness.
The irony here is that for their to be a systematic error in those excess heat experiments, interpreted by experts, looks a bit like what the LENR community thinks of mainstream experts - that they systematically judge LENR evidence incorrectly uanble to think out of their box. But systematic errors in very specific, and unusual, calorimetry on materials (Pd and H or D) known to have have complex chemical behaviour is not so impossible. and the LENR box is every bit as real as the mainstream box.
Equally, the same complex behaviour makes Pd + H/D a good bet (well - D more than H) for cold fusion. One reason it was at various times in 20th C suggested and taken seriously. And, in fact, it is being taken seriously again now. Good for those of us like me who like mysteries resolved.
Going back to prism and other experiments. Whenever some new science exists and is initially not believed what gets it over the line is killer replicable experimental evidence that cannot be denied. LENR needs that - and has not yet found it. Newton had it, with prisms!
Experiments with cold fusion also have clear replicable and certain results. "Certain" meaning high signal to noise ratios, not easy reproducibility. Cold fusion experiments work more often and they produce higher signal to noise ratios than, say, transistor production in the 1950s, animal cloning today, or Elon Musk's rockets today. Yet no one ever said that transistors, clones and rockets do not exist, just because they often fail.
Right, but people initially, when they were failing a lot, doubted them. Luckily the "failures" and the "successes" could all be modelled by theory and better tech - guides by theory -solved the failure porblem.
However casing LENR experimental results into "success" or "fail" is actually a very unscientific analysis.
Experiments give us results which can validate or contradict theory. Until there is a predcitive LENR theory all we have is "results are not as expected - something strange". We do not even have LENR results (without theory) all pointing on one direction.
I, as a skeptic, can give you a strong theory predicting all LENR results:
"The results will either be as expected (no anomaly), or if there is an anomaly the evidence will prove uncertain or unreplicable, or consistent with a non-nuclear anonmaly".
That theory may not be correct, but has not yet been disproven. (Oh - and I accept it is not a good theory. It shares with LENR the demerit of being imprecise, without quantitative predictions).
By replicable I of course do not mean that "all electrodes have to work" but that a given methodology repeated say 5 times can show replicably working cases where the tests for what counts as working is specific and definite, so as a whole the experiment "works". Generally when such tests exist the chances of success can be greatly improved over time (as happened with rockets and semiconductors).
In fact I am never sure whether it has happened with LENR. If now we can make electrodes that work with fair reliability - say 50% or better - then a straight electrolysis experiment could be made certain and replicable enough. The calorimetry is however not simple, and subject to systematic errors of many types as was understood by the pioneers doing it after F&P who tightened up so many of the loopholes at some cost. Still, such experiments look look to me the best chance of getting what is needed. The fact that they did not work for google, google did not try, - (?) remains for me a mystery. The LENR community now has money - they could take on the challenge of getting certain and replicable results from those experiments with checks and methodology that answered all those nitpicking skeptic loopholes. Ok, you don't believe they are real - but you can still add instrumentation etc to check them.
Better that than lots of little startups trying to commercialise something that is not understood and doss not yet work.
I'd be happy to be contradicted by even one of those startups. But I'm not holding my breath...
From my POV, you are reductionist and do not see crucial distinctions between different experiments.
That is preposterous. I have never said anything that would justify that. On the contrary, I have often said that experiments somewhat different from others need to be replicated on their own. For example, I pointed out that Ohmori's Au cathode experiments need to independently replicated. Au is very different from Pd, Ni and Ti. It is reasonable to think it might work, especially if Ed's model is correct. But no one should assume it works and add that to the list of replications. I doubt Ohmori would have.
Experiments give us results which can validate or contradict theory. Until there is a predcitive LENR theory all we have is "results are not as expected - something strange".
Nonsense. We do not need any theory to know that cold fusion is nuclear fusion. The proof is overwhelming. It produces heat with no chemical fuel; helium in the same ratio to the heat as plasma fusion; and tritium, which is dead easy to confirm. Emphasis on "dead" -- everyone would be dead if it were contamination.
You do not need a theory to be certain is nuclear fusion. That is an observation. It is fusion by definition, since it produces a fusion product. The tritium also confirms it is nuclear. Unless you can give a reason to doubt any of these observations, you do not have a leg to stand on. You have no case. And if you had a reason, you would have stated it long ago. "No theory" is never a valid reason to reject observations and replicated experiments. A grade school science textbook tells you that. It is the most fundamental rule of the scientific method.
That is preposterous. I have never said anything that would justify that. On the contrary, I have often said that experiments somewhat different from others need to be replicated on their own. For example, I pointed out that Ohmori's Au cathode experiments need to independently replicated. Au is very different from Pd, Ni and Ti. It is reasonable to think it might work, especially if Ed's model is correct. But no one should assume it works and add that to the list of replications. I doubt Ohmori would have.
You said that LENR experiments are similar to those splitting light with a prism. Ignoring differences in replicability and certainty.
Nonsense. We do not need any theory to know that cold fusion is nuclear fusion. The proof is overwhelming. It produces heat with no chemical fuel; helium in the same ratio to the heat as plasma fusion; and tritium, which is dead easy to confirm. Emphasis on "dead" -- everyone would be dead if it were contamination.
As a matter of fact. You are deducing that cold fusion is fusion based on theories: conservation of energy, some bound on available chemical energy, some idea about what nuclear reactions are possible and the energy released. A whole load of other theories needed for the correct interpretation of the results, as well.
And these theories rely on your cold fusion theory being conventional - energy released as heat as expected from fusion.
As for tritium dead easy. We have an experiment from ICCF24. I am expecting all of the questions in those results can be answered and then it will be good enough to convince anyone? But in fcat it is not dead easy to close all possible holes - so while I hope it will happen - it will take a lot of work. And probably a few theories...
There are hundreds of other less exact replications, many of them better than the original in various ways. For example, there were many with closed cells, which have some advantages, and others with diagnostics such as x-ray film and tritium detection. Many used better calorimeters.
And please note
JBS Haldane 1892-1964.
Perhaps a better role model than Huxley.
The original T. H. Huxley was one of greatest advocates of new discoveries in the history of science. He was known as Darwin's bulldog for good reason. He couldn't have been more different from our THH. Here are some of the things he said.
The Four Stages of Public Opinion
I (Just after publication)
The Novelty is absurd and subversive of Religion & Morality. The propounder both fool & knave.
II (Twenty years later)
The Novelty is absolute Truth and will yield a full & satisfactory explanation of things in general -- the propounder a man of sublime genius & perfect virtue.
III (Forty years later)
The Novelty won't explain things in general after all and therefore is a wretched failure. The propounder a very ordinary person advertised by a clique.
IV (A century later)
The Novelty a mixture of truth & error. Explains as much as could reasonably be expected.
The propounder worthy of all honor in spite of his share of human frailties, as one who has added to the permanent possessions of science."
- T. H. Huxley on Evolution
I have said that the man of science is the sworn interpreter of nature in the high court of reason. But of what avail is his honest speech, if ignorance is the assessor of the judge, and prejudice the foreman of the jury? I hardly know of a great physical truth, whose universal reception has not been preceded by an epoch in which most estimable persons have maintained that the phenomena investigated were directly dependent on the Divine Will, and that the attempt to investigate them was not only futile, but blasphemous. And there is wonderful tenacity of life about this sort of opposition to physical science. Crushed and maimed in every battle, it yet seems never to be slain; and after a hundred defeats it is at this day as rampant, though happily not so mischievous, as in the time of Galileo.
Lecture at Royal Institution, 10 February 1860, Huxley versus Samuel Wilberforce
Samuel thought it was a fine opportunity for chaffing a savant However he performed the operation vulgarly & I determined to punish him-partly on that account and partly because he talked pretentious nonsense.
So when I got up I spoke pretty much to the effect -- that I had listened with great attention to the Lord Bishops speech but had been unable to discover either a new fact or a new argument in it -- except indeed the question raised as to my personal predilections in the matter of ancestry. That it would not have occurred to me to bring forward such a topic as that for discussion myself, but that I was quite ready to meet the Right Revd. prelate even on that ground -- If then, said I the question is put to me would I rather have a miserable ape for a grandfather or a man highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence & yet who employs those faculties & that influence for the mere purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion -- I unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape.
Whereupon there was inextinguishable laughter among the people -- and they listened to the rest of my argument with the greatest attention. , . . I think Samuel will think twice before he tries a fall with men of science again.... I believe I was the most popular man in Oxford for a full four & twenty hours afterwards.
. . . Regrettably, Huxley was also an extreme racist. Perhaps in part because his American relatives were Confederates. People are complicated. We all have our faults.
It is worth mentioning that Newton's work on prisms as described in his 'Optiks' was controversial in its day and to a certain extent long after. And the most vocal critics were Hooke and Huygens, who were not unfamiliar with optics. This lecture by a friend of mine gives an interesting insight into the arguments, and shows how the orthodox view does not always prevail and is not always correct. To discuss Newton's work properly, one must consider it in the context of the time it was published.
The original F&P experiment was held in 1992, Lonchamp replication a few years later. In about 3 decades since then, this experiment should have accumulated dozens of exact replications!
It has accumulated hundreds of replications. Perhaps not "exact" by your exacting standards, but no one other than you would claim these are not replications, or they do not prove the original experiment was correct. As I said, the wide variety of different instrument types is a strength, not a weakness. It give more proof to the claim, not less. Only you would claim it is a problem, and you have no reason or rational basis for saying that. You are just looking for an excuse to dismiss the claims.
The original experiment was difficult, and the equipment and analysis was difficult. Fleischmann and Pons were experts. They were among the greatest experts in electrochemistry and calorimetry in history. The only person I know who fully understands their work is Melvin Miles. He was a big help to me when I spent a few months working through F&P's calorimetry for this paper:
https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJreviewofth.pdf
Other people selected calorimeter types that are much easier to understand, and that do not call for such complex equations. McKubre said his own calorimeter was designed to be easily understood, so that anyone could understand how it works. I think he once said it was almost "stupid." Miles and Mizuno, after doing close replications with calorimeters similar to F&P's, went on to design simpler, more easily understood calorimeters that preserved the advantages of the original. For example, Miles shifted to measuring the heat outside the cell wall, with a copper sheath. This eliminates any concerns about mixing the electrolyte. It does not affect the temperatures in the cell, when it is done correctly with a layer of insulation around the sheath. It is describe here:
https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MilesManomalousea.pdf
Fleischmann later recommended this design. See:
https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BiberianJPjcondensedc.pdf#page=53
So, the original author -- a world-class expert -- disagrees with you. Not that you give a fig about what experts say.
Granted, the original F&P calorimeter has some advantages that even microcalorimeters cannot match. Biberian called it "a microscope for heat." He wrote: "Many new discoveries have been made by development of new instruments: microscopes to see microbes, telescopes to see the satellites of Jupiter, there are many examples. In the case of Cold Fusion, it is the creation of a high precision electrochemical calorimeter. Without such a precise and simple instrument they could not have made the discovery."
. . . You might have learned this if you had bothered to read the literature. Of course you and THH will never read it, except perhaps to pull out a few cherry-picked quotes which you misunderstand, such as the one from McKubre above. Regarding Miles' calorimeter with the sheath, you might have asked my Invisible Friend. She would tell you what I just did, in more detail:
Hello! What can I do for you today?
Miles used a copper sheath in one of his calorimeters. Describe this.
Miles used a copper sheath in the outer cylinder of his isoperibolic calorimeter. The outer copper cylinder had a diameter of 5.1 cm (2.0 inches) and a length of 28 cm. The inner copper cylinder, which was completely separated from the outer cylinder by insulating material, had a diameter of 3.2 cm and a length of 20 cm. The glass electrochemical cell, which contained 50 mL of electrolyte and had two thermistors positioned on opposite sides of the outer wall of the glass cell, was positioned inside the inner copper cylinder. Thermal contact between the glass cell and the inner copper tube was established.
Why did he use a sheath instead of temperature sensors in the electrolyte?
Miles used a copper sheath instead of temperature sensors in the electrolyte because it allowed for more accurate temperature measurements. The temperature sensors in the electrolyte can be affected by convection currents and other factors that can cause inaccuracies in the measurements. The copper sheath, on the other hand, provides a more stable and uniform temperature environment for the glass electrochemical cell, which allows for more accurate temperature measurements.
To discuss Newton's work properly, one must consider it in the context of the time it was published.
Amen! That is true of other scientists and inventors as well. History is the essential context. You have to try to understand what was known, and not known. And what was mistakenly believed. A discovery that runs counter to the accepted theory or "common sense" is hard for the discoverer to make. It is even harder to sell to other scientists, or the public. Fleischmann said that doubting your own work and ignoring an anomaly is "the easiest thing in the world to do."
People imagine that scientists and engineers are anxious to make breakthroughs. That they want to be first to discover something; they want to trod paths that no human has ever been on. Some of them are like that. But most are afraid of novelty, just as most people are. It is our natural instinct to flee from things we do not understand. To avoid going into deep woods and other places we have never been. That is how you keep from being eaten by predators. A few people such as Darwin and Fleischmann had countervailing instincts that drove them to explore ideas that no one else would touch.
Here are some excellent quotes about that:
Quotes for the Openminded Scientist
My favorite one:
"If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated."
- Wilfred Trotter
