Posts by THHuxleynew

Quote from JedRothwell

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.

Quote from Storms

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.

Quote from Alan Smith

Well-designed experiments and careful measurements always trump theory, or show ways in which it can be improved. The question sometimes is (in the words of Lewis Carroll) 'Who is to be master'.

Newton's gravitational theory worked well for most purposes, but there is a tiny anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury, only 43″ of arc per century, This tiny excess was eventually explained by Einstein some 200 years later. Mercury is not the only planet that has an anomalous precession - so do all the others. To the very best measurements, none of the planets obey Newton’s laws of gravitation, it’s not only Mercury that stands out. They are not huge corrections , but the reason they are required was not explained until Einstein came up with the concept of general relativity.

I agree with the question, but not that experiments always triumph.

If your definition of "well designed" is that the experimental assumptions are all correct - then by definition experiment wins.

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.

So when experiments go against well-established theory we look for coherence, replicability, certainty of interpretation, before thinking we need new theory rather than new types of ants.

Quote from Storms

Fusion can not happen in a normal chemical system because the nuclei are held too far apart by the electron cloud. The nuclei and electrons need to acquire an entirely different relationship for fusion to occur. This different relationship can not form within the chemical structure that is normally present because its formation would violate the rules that caused the normal structure to form. In other words, the new kind of structure can not form in a vacancy. Because this fact is ignored, people keep going down the wrong path.

I think "facts" of that sort - which rely on ideas of chemistry which are often broken by collective behavior in complex many-body systems - should not be assumed true.

Quote from RobertBryant

an understatenent

So a biologist would likely say. And be correct. But then a biologist would not be interested in the fundamental conservation laws that remain exactly true in spite of all that lack of understanding - such things don't really exist in biology.

Quote from AlainCo

As I understand from far, stating that QM and QFT exclude LENr effect is a bit prelature, as our mastering of QM/QFT in complex multibody systems is not total.

By the way, When I was reading papers one thing shocked me, between LENR and hot fusion or even fission.

(Please forgive my ignorance)

It seems that

1/ LENR results mostly ends with low energy outcome, and

2/ energy is dissipated in low quanta...

I've learned basic QM in the domain of semiconductors, and this behavior recalls me two phenomenons/situations:

Dr Storms made a good argument about the experience of Iwamura in thin film; where heavy atoms seems to absorb pairs of deuterons, but only to stable outcome.

When a quantum isolated system is in a state above it's lowest energy state, it may radiate, disintegrate spontaneously, and the outcome is necessarily made of more stable results. This happens for nuclear spontaneous radioactivity, or for electrons desexcitation...

Note also that sometime, the emission may be stimulated and coherent as MASER/LASER.

It reminds me of the THz excitation by dual LASER (even if some states that it may just allow higher peak power because of beat effect).

When many quantum systems like atoms are regularly associated like in a crystal, the energy level of the system obey a dense structure that allows very small quanta, if not simply heat.

The question if it is KeV band structure, or even e degenerated band like conduction band... (I'm not competent enough to see how semiconductor band structure could be adapted to a LENr system)

For my naive eye, LENR show the system is a large group of quantum system, regularly organized, that is excited by the fact that fused hydrogen nucleus (helium/H3/H4) are in a lower energy state than unfused hydrogen...

I admit this makes me consider Hydroton theory, Fukai phase (Super Abundant vacation), and 4QD with a favorable eye... I let the experts criticize each of those theories.

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Yes - so Hagelstein is the person who has put most effort into "how can the product nuclear energy (large) couple to many quanta of band energy (small)" problem.

Maybe the same coupling mechanism in reverse can surmount the CB. But it is actually easier to do that - because we can have collective coherent wave functions which enhance the probability of a high energy result taking energy from all. No additional coupling needed. And then the higher energy can surmount CB.

The other possibility is that the high nuclear reaction energy deltas are not seen - because there are no nuclear reactions.

With regard to energy levels. In a lattice there are electronic energy levels (what we normally think of) and nuclear energy levels. There is some coupligf (read hagelstein on this) because nuclear spin couples with electronic wave functions - quite weakly.

If nuclei could be coupled coherently - we would be in a different ball park. Chubb (IBSL) has proposed this, ignoring the great difficulty in keeping that coherence.

Electrons can be coupled coherently - we see it in superconductivity, and in plasmons, and there are lots of interesting special cases. So getting higher energies out of electron band energies via such a mechanism seems plausible. But it does not, without something else significant, give you all you need for LENR.

You will see from my post above that I am not absolutist, and I am incremental. So, I prefer solutions building on partial solutions. While not assuming they exist.

THH

Quote from Storms

Yes, THH, what you say is true. People who believe that QM and QED are true must reject LENR as impossible.

If you look back at my post you will see I reject both the idea of truth and (in general) impossibility as applied to scientific theories. They are, as you say, both beliefs. i may loosely use those words - I mean them in the sense of how predictive a theory is and how well supported by experiments. If both are high, then there is a high bar for an alt better theory. It must be as predictive, and identical, over all of those results but different in some other way.

Examples: QM vs classical physics. GR vs Newtonian physics. In both cases the better theory is simpler than the approximation, and provably reduces to the approximation except in a defined set of cases where there are predicted differences.

Whereas the point I am making about some things (e.g. breaking things conserved for fundamental reasons) being low on my list of what is likely is surely what any rational person would say. I've not, on this thread or elsewhere, said or implied LENR is impossible. Nor do I think that way.

However, I do think that whatever LENR is it can be understood rationally and that means various things:

• Preferring the idea that it is rare and therefore many of the claimed LENR results have non-LENR explanations. The more common it is, the less likely it would not have been found in some mainstream experiment.
• Preferring the idea that it comes from some highly unexpected aspect of collective behaviour, than the idea there is a different theory of particle physics which is identical with standard over all those other experiments and only show differences (which, however, are not predictive) in LENR experiments. For example, LEC behaviour would be an example of something unexpected which could reasonably be supposed a result of collective behciour (maybe it could also be other things, like some unusual shaped catalytic surface).
• That, thus far, no LENR theory has proven highly predictive means either (1) no LENR theory exists or (2) We do not yet have a viable theory. Until (1) or (2) happens, the search for a viable LENR theory is interesting - but also interesting is the possibility that none such exists and the apparent LENR anomalies are all just unexplained (or explained but the explanations are incorrectly dismissed) results of methodological or experimental errors. To dismiss either alternate is to be prejudiced. A good (certain and replicable) experiment which was replicated by different groups with different methodology, and in a progression that gave better insight over time would rule out (2). LENR does not yet have that although if Daniel et al are correct there is no reason now why it could not have that. We will see.

I think these things would be commonly held by everyone except those who adopt a magical mindset towards LENR. What I mean by "magical mindset" is that those experiments are so extraordinary and inexplicable that they break all known rules and therefore no known rules can be trusted.

I think, if LENR breaks rules, than it is more likely to be the result of a smaller number of or less definite rules being broken, than a larger number of or more fundamental rules being broken.

Now Ed here is someone with the same motivation as me - he sees the merit of theory. Unlike me, he has specific experimental detail he wants to explain. However, if such an explanation is to be helpful, it is worth rating possible explanations as above. Saying something works - when it manifestly causes problems in other ways, is problematic. Of course something that works in some ways can be made to work regardless of problems in others - but only by admitting those problems as real and finding ways round them.

Ironically, I am less likely to dismiss possible explanations on grounds that I do not see how they could work than most here. I am well aware that what I can imagine is finite, and being human I am capable of getting things wrong, capable of signing up to groupthink. The LENR community would do well to have a similar humility.

👋 Hello! What can I do for you today?

how did shanahan criticise lenr?

Shanahan criticized LENR in several areas including calorimetry, heat after death, elemental transmutation, energetic particle detection using CR-39, and the temporal correlation between heat and helium-4. These issues were addressed by the researchers who conducted the original work. Shanahan also wrote a lengthy critique of a review paper on LENR by Marwan and Krivit, which was later rebutted by the LENR researchers.

give me references to the papers

I apologize, but I do not have access to the specific references to the papers you are asking for. However, you may be able to find them by using modern search tools on a particular topic given the references included in the data provided. Alternatively, you may try contacting the authors or relevant organizations for further information.

which papers were criticised?

Shanahan criticized several papers on LENR, including those related to calorimetry, heat after death, elemental transmutation, energetic particle detection using CR-39, and the temporal correlation between heat and helium-4. However, I do not have access to the specific papers that were criticized.

You would hope chatgpt can extract bibliographic data but maybe not?

Quote from RobertBryant

Was the H mode predicted by "QM"? not at all..

Much of nuclear physics is in the unknown unknowns sector..

beyond the myopic scope of QM

"Experimenting on the ASDEX tokamak at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching, Germany, the German scientist Fritz Wagner was confronted by a totally unexpected "transition" in the neutral beam heating experiment he was conducting. "It came out of nothing," recalled the recently retired 65-year old physicist during a visit to ITER. "It wasn't predicted, it just happened..."

https://www.iter.org/newsline/86/659

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In biology everything is complex and extraordinary things can come out of nowhere from that complexity.

In physics many-body complex systems can exhibit surprising unexpected behaviour (H-mode as above). This is especially true of plasma which has been a big topic for so long because it is complex and nonliear, it is often true of phase transitions which because they relate to collective behaviour can be difficult to model.

QM is the deeper description of physics for small scales - just as GR is deeper for large scales - and has these same characteristics.

However - both QM and classical physics - those complex many-particle systems are subject to strong laws that limit what is possible based on fundamental constraints and conserved quantities. You don't see that so obviously in biology (maybe you don't see it at all there). You don't see it so obviously in chemistry. Biologists looking at physics might therefore tend to see things in terms of the complexity, and the surprising order that can come from it, rather than in terms of the fundamental always obeyed constraints.

Now - whether particular hypothesised behaviour is "impossible" or not clearly depends on does it inhabit the "fundamentally not allowed" bit or the "all the complex systems we have seen obey this so lets call it a law" bit. To engage with that you need to start by looking at all of the known fundamental laws - and that includes a lot of QM stuff.

It is not always easy to know which is which. But, to make that judgement in an informed way you need very sound and detailed understanding of QM, etc.

I am willing to bet that those here dismissing QM, QED, etc have not fully learnt it: because if they had, their arguments would be much more specific and include acknowledgement of the fundamental constraints that all physical systems operate under.

THH

Quote from Alan Smith

There is indeed intrinsic energy in the lattice environment, and we add more energy by raising the temperature or subjecting it to electrolysis. But if you stick with the idea that there is in every case and in every environment an energy mountain to climb before the CB can be overcome then LNER will never happen. But it does as witnessed and proven in hundreds of carefully conducted experiments..

To paraphrase (slightly) the words of Akito Takahashi "Experimental results are independent facts.

Theory and explanation are also independent issues. to combine the three requires full consistency with as many rational physics aspects as possible".

But please note, he says " As many...as possible." And when you run out of the old 'possibles' you have only new ones left.

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Right. But you are making assumptions when you say it is not possible. There is a mountain to climb, but there are many possible things to help that climb.

I am not saying it is likely - but if LENR exists it has a mechanism - and the possible mechanisms need to be considered, not dismissed out of hand.

Quote from Alan Smith

If you are looking to publish in a peer-reviewed journal you will need evidence that stands on two legs, not one, no matter how carefully constructed. Transmutation would be a natural.

Transmutation at higher levels - yes agreed.

Transmutation at very low levels - or measured only on surface - not clear unless the elements transmuted to do not occur naturally.

I am sure that transmutation evidence could be made 100% reliable. I am not sure that is easy.

Quote from Storms

We are confronted with the fact that cold fusion occurs without added energy. So, we have a problem to solve.

I don't think that is proven. In all CF systems to my knowledge there is quite a bit of energy around the lattice. How much that energy can be localised and amplified to increase tunnelling through a CB - well - that is complex, and I don't claim to know the answer. Nor, I think, does anyone.

Quote from Storms

Thanks THH, I discovered what I wanted to know. The Coulomb barrier cannot be reduced by a local assembly of electrons according to conventional theory. Conventional theory can not be used to evaluate an assembly of electrons other than the assembly that creates chemical bonds. Therefore, we have to look outside of conventional theory for the explanation. Is it possible for you to think outside of conventional theory?

In order to think outside conventional theory you have to understand what it is, and which bits of it are fixed by experimental results (e.g. any theory would need to predict those same results).

Conventional theory can and is used to evaluate all sorts of assemblies of electrons, not just those that create chemical bonds. For example: FRCs, solar and terrestrial plasmas, semiconductors, superconductivity, electron double-slit experiments, topological superconductors, quantum dots, surface plasmon polaritons (not electron assemblies but relevant to electron behaviour in chemical reactions).

I've always seen myself as somone pretty good at thinking outside conventional theory. But I don't think you can do that till you understand the relevant conventional theory. On (nearly) the topic at hand I championed the various many-worlds (Everett) style interpretations of QM when they were considered weird and unpopular - though of course that would no longer be the case.

To reply to your first sentence. Conventional theory offers ways to get round the CB - but not, as you say, ways to reduce it a lot via local electrons (electron screening reduces it a bit anyway). As you can tell on this specific matter I'm not in favour of unconventional theories that are directly contrary to very much replicable experimental evidence.

Quote from Alan Smith

And others have given reasons and experimental evidence that electrons can behave in unexpected ways, including clustering. Try telling an electron 'you can't do that' (which is not a very scientific approach) and you might get a surprising answer

With respect Alan, you are not understanding the point here.

In large many-body system electrons can and do behave in unexpected ways. Specifically when - in such a system - two electronic wave functions are coherent, and when not, is complictated.

none of that affects the basics of how you cannot squeeze too much charge together in a small space. The HUP prevents it - mathematically there are not enough QM states to do it without going up to v high energies (and momentum) and then there are no forces to keep the electrons constrained. Which is why we have atoms and not things that can suddenly collapse to 1000th the size.

To confuse that without subtle bulk coherence/no coherence effects in extended many body systems, or topological coherent effects in same, is wrong.

You can argue that coherence over extended systems does various interesting and perhaps relevant to fusion things, but not that it does what Ed says which is allow a very high charge build-up close to the nucleus that would screen two nuclei from each other

Go talk to any physicist about how electrons work.

You can incidentally argue (alas it seems incorrectly) that deuterium ions, if coherent and behaving no longer as particles, could more easily fuse as in Chubb IBSL. The problem there is that the interactions with other particles prevent coherence strongly. But that is actually less obviously true. it requires estimating what things prevent decoherence and showing there is nothing can be done about it.

Whereas this matter is simply true.

Quote from RobertBryant

our resident circuitogist QM expert has assertions,,, not solutions...

QM is not 'precise' for multielectron atoms.

https://physics.stackexchange.…or-multi-electron-atoms-d

No analytic solution is possible for many-body system - for example multi-body planetary systems are chaotic and cannot be exactly predicted. Yet celestial mechanics simulations are exquisitely accurate.

Our resident "personalise everything and do not engage with arguments" person possibly doe snot know much about the question here.

QM simulations work, and while you can always find extended complex systems too chaotic for exact prediction, we are talking here about an extremely high local build-up of charge, not a chaotic many-body system

The analogy would be arguing that we cannot accurately predict the orbit of the earth because comets from beyond the Kuiper belt can come in unpredictably and affect earth orbit. They do, but not in ways that matter for practical purposes.

Quote from Curbina

That is our limitation, not Nature's.

What evidence do you have for that? I have given the reasons why electrons can't behave like that - it is pretty fundamental and not something (like superconductivity) that can in principle be got round it many different ways.

Quote from Storms

You assume that energy is required for electrons to form a structure when this is never the case. The assembly of electrons that form chemical structures always gives off energy when it forms. The electron pair that is asssumed to explain superconductivity gives off energy when it forms. Why would you assume that only the kind of assembly needed to cause fusion would require energy to form?

Chemical bonds overall release energy because they are stable - if they did not release energy they would fall apart! The energy released comes form electrons able to occupy positions at more positive potential around nuclei.

Electron pairs give off energy because the paired (different spin) electrons can occupy the same orbital - this overall allows electrons to get closer to nuclei.

All these effects are precisely modelled by QM theory and simulations.

The kind of assembly you suggest for fusion is a very high local charge concentration (lots of electron charge close to the nucleus) to provide very high screening.

That is not a possible solution of the equations. I've given you the reason - HUP. If it were possible we would have all our atoms collapsing into smaller neutral structures (e.g. like muonic atoms). Those indeed would make fusion much easier - muonic deuterium will fuse very easily. But it is possible muons because they are much heavier than electrons and so have much higher momentum - HUP constrains momentum and position - higher momentum => position can be more precise.

I'm not saying there is no electron assembly that causes fusion. I am addressing only what you have said must do this, which seems on very strong grounds not to be possible.

Quote from Storms

A person asked a very good question during a different discussion. Here is my answer. I would like to hear your comments.

"Yes, electrons are involved to reduce the Coulomb barrier and to allow strong force interaction. We know that electrons can assemble to produce chemical bonds. Apparently, they can assemble in a different way when certain conditions are present. They would do this because such an assembly is part of the electron nature, just like chemical bond formation happens because this is the nature of the electron. Clearly, electrons have several ways they can assemble. One is common and the other is rare. Conventional theory has focused on the chemical-assembly process. We now need a theory describing the other process. People have explored other kinds of assembly to explain superconductivity. We now need to expand this understanding to explain LENR.

Why the gap encourages this assembly process is unknown. We can imagine the very large negative field present in a small gap might play a role. Clearly, the gap size is important, which would determine the magnitude of the negative field and how the electrons might form a structure. We have to assume that electrons want to form such a structure and only need the correct environment. Why they want to form the structure is unknown and would be the focus of a theory."

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(1) I think you mean negative potential. Fields are vector qtys and therefore cannot be negative.

(2) It is true that electron-electron interactions can be complex. However superconductivity and chemical bonds are all described by the same QM equations. The spookiness of superconductivity comes from electron pairing: after which the pairs can interact as bosons. There are many interesting and not fully understood options for this sort of thing (and therefore superconductivity). The not understood stuff is just exactly what are the solutions to complex many body wave function equations for electrons in lattices where many bound electrons are interacting. They obey the normal laws and those laws do not allow very large local charge build-up. The HUP prevents it without high energy. And, with high energy, there is nothing to hold electrons in place. Certainly electrons cannot hold electrons in place at high energy: there is no force from the equations strong enough to hold electrons together.

So while high energy electrons are possible, with energy enhanced by resonance and coherence effects, or in some other not understood way, I don't see how high charge density electrons - as would provide very high screening, are possible. You would need something to "box" the electrons that exerted a very large force on the electrons. All we know that can do that is more electrons (an even higher charge density). Which just makes the problem of how you hold the electrons in place worse.

Quote from Storms

I'm not talking about gluons, which is an imaginary concept.

Just a terminological point here. I am not clear how one can have a definition of physics concepts which makes some "imaginary" and others "real".

It is possible to consider concepts related to theories which are proven incorrect, have strong predictive power (the closest we can get to proven correct), or which have not yet been (in some cases cannot be - in which case they are not physics) tested.

I guess the untestable concepts might be considered imaginary?

Anyway gluons are testable. (Short form for "gluons are a concept in a theory (QCD) which makes predictions that are testable").

We have had definite experimental evidence for gluons for a long time:

https://www.physlink.com/educa…y%20are%20first%20created.

If you want to replace gluons with something better and incompatible, you need to predict all those jets, and many other things...

If you want some deeper model of which gluons and other things are an approximation - then that is what everyone wants. It would not make gluons imaginary in the same way that GR does not make Newtonian gravity imaginary.

Quote from Storms

And yes, as Alan so eloquently describes the situation, the idea of a chemical source is dead and belly-up. The people who like to believe QM and other conventional ideas have another conflict to explain.

I'd welcome more detail on what that conflict is? I see no conflict relating to LECs.