I look forward to Ascoli65's intellectually honest demonstration
I've already shown you my demonstration. It's in the previous jpeg (*).
I believed it was self-explanatory, but if you need an explicit explanation I'll provide it, referring to the documents listed in the jpeg.
As you know, I'm dealing - since a few week - with the F&P claim, which is the specific object of the paper they presented at ICCF3 in October 1992 (3). F&P claimed to have generated nearly 150 W of excess heat in the final period boiling dry for each of 4 cells that they tested in an experiment started on April 11, 1992 (1). This value derives from the calculation on page 16 of their paper (3), in which it was assumed that half of the initial water content (5 moles /2 = 2.5 moles = 45 cm3) evaporated in about 10 minutes (600 s). F&P stated that these assumptions were based on the careful observation of the images of a lab video recorded during the test, some stills of which were included in their paper (3). For instance Figure 10(B) shows Cell 1 during such a period of presumed intense vaporization.
The aforementioned video still reports a time of 22:03:58, but some short versions of the same lab video recording - available on internet - show that the Cell 1 was almost full of foam well before that time. See, for example, the video still at 21:20:58 of the video (2). Therefore, the cell was full of foam even at the time of the video still included in the paper (3). It means that the experimental data were (possibly) heavily misrepresented and that the assumptions made by F&P to calculate the excess heat were (possibly) totally untrue.
After the ICCF3, the Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry announced a multi-year program on cold fusion, financed with 30 M$ and including a new dedicated laboratory in Sapporo. F&P were hired as senior scientific advisors. The BBC documentary "Too Close To the Sun" (5) includes some scenes of the F&P visit in Sapporo (from 36:18 to the 4 "Kampai!"). The BBC speaker tells the audience that the celebration arrived after a few days of "frantic presentations". It's quite probable that the short videos of the "Four-cell Boil-off" experiment was presented in these meetings.
This New Hydrogen Energy (NHE) program ceased in 1998, without any reliable results, as reported in an Infinite Energy article (6), in which the program manager complains:
“In the Pons replication experiment, we saw excess heat and by the same token we saw examples of a heat deficit, where the energy appeared to vanish. We found problems with their calorimeter, and we feel that their entire data set is weak and questionable."
In particular, the Japanese tests were affected by foaming problems, but - as reported in the corresponding box in the jpeg - this was not the case for the IMRA Europe tests, because F&P checked this problem. The same IE article (6) adds:
"It is equally clear that the NHE researchers did not know that Pons and Fleischmann addressed this issue years ago. Miles, McKubre, Bockris, Fleischmann and others have repeatedly warned it can happen. Some heavy water supplies produce a lot of foam which can reach the top of the cell and expel unboiled electrolyte out of the cell. Miles and Fleischmann say they have identified the cause: heavy water can be contaminated with surfactants"
In a 2004 letter to Miles (7), MF confirms that the Japanese tests were "plagued" by the foaming problem and that he "wrote to them at length about it".
Up to this point, it can be understood that the responsibility for the failure of the 30 M$ Japanese research program was due to their inability to procure, in 4-5 years, a few liters of the right heavy water necessary for the F&P cells. But the video referenced as (4) provides a completely different scenario.
This very peculiar and important video contains some scenes shot in the IMRA Europe laboratory on June 23, 1992, that is a few weeks after the end of the "Four-cell Boil-off" experiment, and well before the ICCF3 conference and the NHE agreement. From the times reported on the screen images it's clear that the F&P cell generated a lot of foam in a few hours and that MF was aware of this behavior, because he was showing his cells to a (probably) Japanese guest.
In conclusion, it is quite evident that the heavy water used at the IMRA Europe laboratory in the same months when the "Four-cell Boil-off" experiment was carried out had the same foaming problem denounced in the following years by the Japanese and that F&P knew it. But this fact poses a big problem of inconsistency with what has been continuously affirmed by F&P, strenuously repeated by their supporters and naively believed by their fans.
So, your request for an "intellectually honest demonstration" is indisputably reasonable, but I would urge you to address it to people who, for their role in the CF/LENR story, are in a better position to explain the inconsistencies described above.
(*) FP's experiments discussion
