The Pomp factor in Cold Fusion, an open letter to Stephan Pomp

    @Thomas Clarke


    58Ni->62Ni? How would that work without intense radioactivity? And indeed, fuel exhaustion would decrease the reaction rate. So guess what the best theory about this is.

    The lack of radioactivity does not make sense, I know. However the people here mostly view nuclear physicists as incompetent, or at least unable to research novel phenomena, and think that a lack of understanding of nuclear physics is the best starting point from which to make new extraordinary discoveries.


    So they are more likely to be interested in the internal inconsistencies in the tests than in arguments like this. they would reply that the lack of sense is because we are bound by conventional theory.


    The flip side of this is that there is no unconventional hypothesis that explains these phenomena - they continue to make no sense, with no correct novel predictions from any hypothesis. That is a subtle argument and does not I think cut much ice here where people do not care about Popper.


    I'm making some cavalier assumptions about others here - they are probably generalisations so I'm sorry, and willing to be corrected, if they offend anyone.

    • Official Post

    if you have a conspiracy theory that is not extraordinary, that include the hundreds of scientist who replicated similar LENR with low radiation, with various but similar transmutation, you should write it in detail, starting from F&P.


    until now, no paper even challenged F&P. McKubre was visited by Gawin and Lewis and nothing was found.
    Rossi was criticized but all fall flat with unproven hypothesis.


    note that it is false to say that his calorimetry method is uncommon, as it is common in the industry for very hot object above 1000C


    as explained on another article here, colorimetry is also a good method since the skeptic love to assert conspiracies about flow, thermocouples, hidden pipes and wires... IR cam is less sensible to conspiracy.


    If you have read The science of LENR, the explanation of LENR, you would have seen the chapters on transmutations, where there is indeed strange transmutation that can be interpreted either as fusion of 1/2/3 pairs of deuterons, or fusion+fission... with a strong tendencies toward stable elements... with Ni62 being the most stable of all per nucleon.


    this tendency is not a problem, it is a symptom. LENR increase the stability of nucleus... Reaction is done with null total momentum, or there would be gamma.
    energy is emitted by small quanta, and reaction clearly does not involve free neutrons...


    this cannot be faked, it is a single phenomenon, to be understood.



    the experiences are coherent, this is not a problem, this is a characteristic.


    Pomp model is a conspiracy theory, nothing else.
    people can only consider it because they don't have enough data on the total story.
    E-cat critic is just the culmination of the conspiracy.

    Not believing claims from lone inventors, like Rossi, is not conspiracy.


    Overall the LENR work is experiments that all have uncertainties: they are not precisely controlled, etc, etc. Not one of them that is replicable shows evidence of anything extraordinary to my knowledge. I can explain the problems with any one such that you put forward.


    Whether IR themography is good or bad as calorimetry in this case i'm open to persuasion. However the type of calorimetry in the recent test, using an emitting surface which has low and variable emissivity, variable transparency, is clearly not satisfactory. The lack of control measurement of emissivity is contrary to what all thermographers say you should do. Also it is unnecessary. It is clear that control thermocouples could have been used.


    Strong tendencies towards stable elements are as I say unexplained: stability is not relevant in quantum transitions since it is another transition - and one highly unlikely to occur in the femtosecond timescale of nuclear phenomena. Even so they do not explain results.

    Quote from Rends

    ... I wanted actually engage in a substantive discussion with you, but what I've found in a quick search about you as a person, does not permit it... (more ranting) ... I have no problem if someone choose to hide his identity and is therefor using pseudonyms like you, Al Potenza, Mary Yugo, maryyugo, etc,. But what I do not respect, is when someone steals the identity of another person, like you did it with this Facebook account https://www.facebook.com/maryyugo . Not only that you missused the name of that Spanish women, you additionaly added some of her family members as friends and joint her spanisch school group to cover your trace. (By the way, that violates the terms and conditions of Facebook, which you accepted, so you commit a breach of law)


    I couldn't let this baseless rant go unanswered. The sign on in Facebook, "maryyugo/Mary Yugo" is all mine. Same with my Twitter one. There may be other people using the same name but I did not steal their names or families or anything else. I have the password for it because I created it. And it references my real email, maryyugo [at symbol] yahoo [dot] com. Almost all the Facebook friends on my page requested me, not the other way around. So once again, Rends is all wrong. I have freely confirmed many times that maryyugo is my internet name and not my real name. I am not covering traces. If you want to contact me via Yahoo email, feel free. These are mine and only mine and were never stolen:


    https://www.facebook.com/maryyugo and https://twitter.com/maryyugo


    I am always amazed at how incompetent and irrelevant some supposed defenders of Rossi are. And that Rossi attends to them favorably in his execrable blog he calls JONP is only further evidence that he's a fraud.

    Quote from Patrik Wiksten

    Yes I agree, it is a well written answer. I never stated that the cat works nor that I am a believer. And I agree with his approach to the report, but not his dismissal and ridicule.

    Well, the dismissal and ridicule comes with long study of the situation. And most of the skeptics now deriding Rossi started out as cautiously optimistic and interested. I know I did.


    If you really read Rossi's bizarre and mostly idiotic blog he pompously misnamed The Journal of Nuclear Physics, you begin to recognize what a duplicitous liar he really is. He constantly makes grandiose claims and virtually never provides results. And what tests he provides are ALWAYS deficient in just the way he needs to promote his device. We've been through wet steam, misplaced thermocouples, lack of blank runs and now a lack of proper power supply constraints, poor use of a thermal camera with alumina, and blank runs that don't come close to covering the required operating range. ALL of that when Rossi has been told again and again how to conduct tests properly.


    Rossi could have fixed the FIRST test by Levi in February 2011 into a convincing and precise demonstration of how his ecat works. He was told how by believers and skeptics alike, including some of the enthusiasts for LENR on the Vortex email list. But Rossi and Levi never repeated that test. Instead, they did ever changing and ever worsening displays of testing incompetence culminating with the current really DREADFUL display of ignorance and negligence. I don't know what the reaction to Rossi's longitudinal history would be other than ridicule. But yes, if you only read the last test, you might think there could be something to his claims.


    If you are really interested in knowing about Rossi and his likely investor scam, first examine his long and colorful criminal history: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/s…al-Criminal-History.shtml then read the absurd and constantly changing claims (million unit a year robotic factory, isotopes on the cheap, using a "safety" heater, having a dozen or more sales to clients, etc. etc.) here: http://www.rossilivecat.com/all.html (that's the whole blog on one HTML page so give it time to load). There is also this damning report, removed from the internet by an embarrassed sponsoring agency but preserved by Steve Krivit: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/s…ThermoelectricDevices.pdf -- Rossi caused CERL/DOD to spend $9 million and delivered surplus junk made in Russia and sold by a San Diego company (Hi-Z Technology, Inc.) as rejects! Gary Wright researched and documented it that part.


    For even more information, Google is your friend as are archived discussions on this now uncensored blog: http://ecatnews.com/


    Finally, what you may call ridicule is pretty mild and based on facts. Now THIS is ridicule :-): http://www.moletrap.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Rossicaptions

    Quote from Patrik Wiksten

    I admire you for your stamina. And you can link to dozens of more stuff regarding Rossi's background. It still won't get me to dismiss the report. Nor ridicule it. I can't see what good will come out of that. I will continue to hope and follow this as close as I can. And other players.


    Cheers!

    You are a strong advocate for caveat emptor! I prefer to help investors and tax payers hold on to their money or spend it on worthwhile causes rather than donating it to Rossi and his Florida real estate investments (what he probably does with the invested cash). By all means follow. Get back to me when its' over.

    • Official Post

    Dear mary it seems you try to fool reader by argument out of the problem


    Beaudette grid apply well

    Quote

    In general, skeptics display the following habits.

    • They do not express their criticism in those venues where it will be subject to peer review.
    • They do not go into the laboratory and practice the experiment along side the practitioner (as does the critic). (This one for Pomp :cursing: )
    • Assertions are offered as though they were scientifically based when they are merely guesses.
    • Questions are raised that concern matters outside of the boundaries of the claimed observation.
    • Satire, dismissal, and slander are freely employed.
    • When explanations are advanced for a possible source, ad hoc reasons are instantly presented for their rejection. These rejections often assert offhand that the explanation violates some physical conservation law.
    • Evidence raised in support of the claims is rejected outright if it does not answer every possible question. No intermediate steps to find a source are acceptable


    I resume the E-cat test from the last test


    1- E-cat prototype was tested with steam... it worked and Levis see it. Skeptic said there was problem with steam...
    2- E-cat prototype was tested with hot water... it worked and Levis see it. Skeptic said there was problem with thermocouple and flow...
    3- E-cat prototype was tested with IR cam and One wattmeter... it worked and Levis see it. Skeptic said there was problem with electricity, and no isotopic analysis.
    4- E-cat prototype was tested with IR cam and two wattmeter... it worked and Levis see it. Skeptic said there was problem with emissivity


    meanwhile the reputation of any participant was muddied, so strangely few newcomers were volunteer, except some retired scientists.


    Curious people could also read my article on storytelling .

    Alain, are you being deliberately obtuse or is that an act?


    The problem with steam, hot water and thermocouples was that THERE WAS NEVER A PROPER CONTROL/BLANK/CALIBRATION. Rossi ALWAYS refused it and more amazing than that, the testers approved! Therefore, you have NO WAY of knowing that the steam was dry, the thermocouples were correctly placed, and the results were reliable. You assume so because Rossi told you so.


    The latest two tests have no control of the power supply, incorrect thermal imaging, and again, in both, there was NO PROPER BLANK. THAT is the problem. Not what you said. That and trusting a convicted felon to do things correctly.


    I don't know what Beaudette was referring to with those points you cite but it certainly was not Rossi's experiments. You really think Rossi will allow a skeptic to help design an experiment? As for peer review, if Rossi would publish in a peer reviewed journal, I'd be happy to submit the rebuttal in the same journal. For example, when Dr. Josephson published a letter in Nature's letters section, I replied directly to him in the same section: http://www.nature.com/news/sev…-3-9-october-2014-1.16087

    • Official Post

    first of all, now you have to accuse Tom darden and Industrial heat, plus the testers of the recent test.


    there was a blank test in previous test, which was correct.


    You can say, and maybe right , that the blank were bad in previous non independent test, but you cannot say it was a fraud. It was badly done, but convincing for the participant...
    Rossi even organized test that failed, which is not typical of stage magic...


    the blank at lower power in recent test, linked to the problem that some material don't accept high current at temperature they are not designed for, is a problem. but your conspiracy theory cannot be supported for many rational reason.


    one is that the testers could spot many cause of fraud, as they were alone with the reactor, and numerous enough to rule-out conspiracy. even if the reactor is stage magic, since the testers controlled input and output, it have no importance. it is nuclear stage magic.


    you ask question, some for which there is no answer, but this does not mean you are right.
    there is clear answers that show that conspiracy is impossible, at least for the essential.


    the key point is that now you accuse Tom Darden to be a scam artist. forget rossi, he is an employee.

    I never accused anyone at Industrial Heat of complicity with Andrea Rossi. I suppose it's possible but it makes more sense from the evidence of Vaughn's blog and Darden's statement that they were simply extremely careless and sloppy in accepting other people's work as evidence that the ecat works. They probably relied mainly on the scientists who tested it and that, as we now know, is a very bad idea and was from the very start in 2011.


    Now Levi is another story. I don't know if he is a dupe or an accomplice. I do know he has been close enough to the ecat and Rossi for more than long enough to have asked some difficult questions of Rossi and far as anyone can tell, he has never done that. To be a dupe, he'd have to be incredibly stupid but I wouldn't rule that out. Do you suppose you could ask him whether it's stupidity, criminal intent, or some unholy combination of both? Only he can tell us!

    I have to agree with all you say about Rossi. His duplicity (over both technical and business matters) on his blog is palpable. The "JONP" is grandiose and absurd.


    But dismissal and ridicule is still not the best way to communicate - and why bother interacting on the internet unless you wish for that?


    Tom


    PS - the current tests have a quite well hidden but absolutely definite error. The Joule heating powers in the wires don't match the equivalent heating element powers between the dummy and active tests. This is a cast iron error based only on published data, because Inconel wire (or indeed any metal) cannot have a resistivity that reduces by a factor of three between 500C and 1250C.


    The factor of over 3 inconsistency neatly matches the claimed COP on the active runs.


    Quote from Thomas Clarke

    The Joule heating powers in the wires don't match the equivalent heating element powers between the dummy and active tests.

    It's been a while since I looked at the report. Can you explain that more elaborately or point me to the section of the report? Or maybe you explained it in more detail elsewhere? Thanks.

    here


    It seems Mats Lewan has now (by another) been convinced this is a real issue. So it will get dealt with.


    Rossi has just recently claimed the "Inconel wire heaters" are in fact a special material with resistivity dropping by factor of 3 from 500C to 1250C and strangely staying constant from 1250C to 1400C.


    I hope not even the report's authors will be able to swallow that one.

    • Official Post

    The real issue is that the change in apparent impedance, need an explanation to clear conspiracy theories.


    anyway the hypothesis that the PCE830 were tweaked, assume that the testers cheated the test...
    because only them could do it.


    there is no way to make errors of that kind that one cannot spot immediately. especially in such a skeptical context.


    moreover the fact that the temperature coefficient of the resistance is strongly negative seems coherent with the answer of Rossi, and with the goal to avoid runaway.


    each part of a heating coil support the same current, and the power of a heating element dl is dP=dl.rho(T).I^2 ...
    if rho is getting smaller when temperature increase, the power get lower and temperature increase less and finally stabilize...



    doped conductors, like in toasters, are used often not to stabilize but to simply avoid the inverse phénomenon that cause runaway... when temperature increase cause power increase via resistivity increase. the coefficient is not very negative, just not positive.

    • Official Post

    I just fall on a book with a page about NTC resistors


    http://books.google.fr/books?id=I1YFofnHXusC&pg=PA393&lpg=PA393&dq=doped+metallic+conductor+negative+temperature+coefficient&source=bl&ots=3SY7SR8NFR&sig=ctp4lEJDmgSOjDH7ZHFkVyPTocE&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=dMxKVO3EK8fkaLX0gpgF&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=doped metallic conductor negative temperature coefficient&f=false

    Quote

    Negative temperature coefficient thermistors are made from impurity-doped transition metal-metal oxides...


    ...
    Acceptor doping as in lithium oxide doping of nickel oxide, leads to the production of holes and produce p-type thermistors


    NiO doped with Li is also described here
    http://books.google.fr/books?id=u7P1WgmTN9oC&pg=PA333&dq=doped+metallic+conductor+negative+temperature+coefficient&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=c85KVKDnLdLjaL3RgpAH&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=doped metallic conductor negative temperature coefficient&f=false



    I don't think it is exactly what Rossi use in his reactor, but maybe something of that style... maybe that is the mouse.


    maybe also it is the opposite of the usual problem.
    in usual heating elements the runaway is general, not local.
    when resistance decrease with temperature, it increase the total current, and the total power.
    On the opposite if the current is stabilized, when locally temperature increase, it decrease power locally, and also globally.


    as we need advice from professional on IR cam calorimetry, honest one, we need some on doped conductors.


    anyway this does not suddenly make powermeter loose in measuring energy.

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