Posts by THHuxleynew

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Without proofs you can convince only those already convinced.

Peter - surely that statement applies even more to your sides argument than Dewey's?

EDIT: and your side does not seem to have anything like the ammunition that IH has...

Quote from Zephir_AWT

I just said, that reference to lack of evidence cannot serve as the evidence of the opposite - but evidence of pluralistic ignorance. For example ENEA lab achieved the reliability 70% of cold fusion at their palladium samples in 2009 - by now it will be probably even higher.

The yield for example in CPU production is generally lower than 70% - and yet nobody doubts their existence. Piantelli reported nearly 100% reliability of LENR with his technology (nickel whiskers). Szpak also referenced co-deposition as very reliable system.

Yet his iconic observation of cold fusion with thermocamera wasn't attempted to replicate yet - is it really the problem of Szpak or even LENR itself? Of course not, the problem is in scientific community itself. The direct observation with thermocamera is more apparent evidence of cold fusion, than many people are willing to admit.

The general understanding of motivation for LENR dismissal with scientists is generally not very deep even here, at the LENR forum. In my opinion this motivation is the jealousy, fear for lost of social credit and informational monopoly - all other well minded opinions are just a sort of evasions of this stance. Yes, the LENR generally lacks the reference system, but only because of generally dismissive attitude for their replications. The fully working nuclear bombs were developed in just five years from first observation of nuclear fission in the test tube - but this research was governmentally supported and it got full financial and intellectual support (for example the USA government supplied its strategical mintage reserves of silver for calutron windings).

This is what the real research effort means and such an effort would also yield into tangible results soon. Any other approach is just silent delay of progress in an effort to prolonge existing status quo.

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The problem is this. How can you distinguish between what you imagine - generally dismissive attitude for their replications - and real scientific uncertainty caused by results that are insufficiently validated and non-replicable (or, if replicable, the claims of excess heat etc require unproven assumptions). Where results are close to noise making that distinction is very difficult, and no-one without very significant expertise in all of the experimental issues can do it. Even with such expertise people can reach honest, but different, judgements.

Perhaps the matter could be progressed if you identified which replication (that is same everything) leads to clear above noise and error results?

Quote from oldguy

It makes me wonder why he would flush the lines. Could there have been something like clear un-tinted antifreeze in the water to raise the boiling point or drop the specific heat? How do we know that it was actually water and that there was not "additions" or "fluid replacements" made on the customer's side? What was the total volume of the system?

I hope that IH has sampled the system, perhaps there is still some residual fluid somewhere in the system (pumps).

That is a good point. However I don't expect any such sophistication from Rossi. I expect the tricks with that system to be very very obvious, given any real data at all. Which is why Rossi would try to remove as much as possible.

(Quotes from ele #1368 immediately above)

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WOW ( all caps for the Weaver joy ) you are predicting the future ! That's not science anymore but simple guessing.

Are you quite sure? You mean science does not say that the radiative and convective charactristics of a given object can be predicted from its precise composition and shape... I guess that is true if you view science as like alchemy where quantitative rules don't exist and calculations, if done, give the wrong answers. Oh - I guess that must be what the Lugano authors thought. Things did not quite add up with their guaranteed by IR thermometry 1250C hot reactor, did they? Things don't, when you use the wrong calculations...

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Apart from the pure ( PURE PuRe ) Alumina they need the right fuel and the right electromagnetic stimulation. Otherwise they can't say to have repeated the experiment.

Ah. the big get-out. You've learnt well. That is true, of course.

Quote from Peter Gluck

FAKE DATA has to be explained for all the paraameters.

Say flow was fake, but was then a real flow? Not 1500kg/h

but say 10kg/, or not flow at all? The pipes according to Jed were half full, what was the non-fake flow then?

Temperature was not 103 c but how much? ) and all the other ptemperatures fake on paper but measurable in the plant. pressure means not over atmospheric presure that is pattial vacuum due to condensation of steam at JMP. You do not agree, but was it some pressure at all? Parameters have values, that is why they are measurable.

It is no problem this FAKE theory incorrect, data can be erroneous but they ARE. Please tell how the parameters were faake and how this demonstrates zero excess heta as Jed says.

Wasthe plant actually working or was this simulated.

Excuse me but please put a limit on your negative anti-technical mis-creativity. WTF is fake data in this case?

peter

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I think Peter what you are saying here is 100% wrong. You seem to have lost the plot. If the data is Fake then nothing needs to be explained. Nor can any speculations be made because without (non-fake) data we do not have a clue what were temps etc.

Perhaps you are asking, how could the claimed data be (sort of) real and Rossi's device not work?

Very easily! you look at the headline COP=200 and reckon that this cannot be explained away. Let me lead you through why it can. I'm sure, in fact, that if you pay attention to what people have said here you already know this? but here goes:

The key thing is the assumption of phase change for flow round the system. Specifically rossi's figures assume all water is vapourised, leave his reactor has 100% dry steam, returns as liquid. It is very easy indeed for such a system (without careful trapping etc) to have water flow so that 99% or more of all water circulates in liquid phase. There is absolutely no evidence there is significant phase change and significant evidence (103C for a high flow rate pumped system) that there is no phase change. Of course with 100% phase change, as Rossi and the ERV assume, the output temperature would never be near 100C even at atmospheric pressure. And the factory would get too hot. The evidence against Rossi's and the (clearly professionally incompetent and, it seems, in hiding) ERV assumption is cast iron. (Maybe Penon did not author or authorise the report - but in that case allowing it to be used without clear written refutation must surely at best be professional incompetence).

If we (for one moment) accept Rossi's 1500kg/h that removes a total power of 1500*2257 kJ/h = 940kW from the calculations. We are down from 1MW to 60kW output. If 1% of the water is actually delivered as steam that goes up to 70kW. You get the idea.

Next, let us examine the other component of the "heat delivered" equation. That comes from heating the water. It is (Tin-Tout)*1500*4kJ/hour/C = 1.7kW/C. So with no phase change, accepting 1500kg/h, we have an expected temperature rise from Rossi's 20kW input of about 13C.

The figures we have (103C and and 60C) would superficially seem to indicate more than that. The problem is that neither figure represents mixed flow liquid temperature on the inlet vs outlet sides, which is what we would need. It is very easily for water to circulate going between 103C and 90C (stablised at 103C by small amts of phase change). it is also very easy for water to circulate between 60 and 73C with the outlet unmixed and the temperature measurement looking at a small amount of high temp steam.

Or, the two temperature readings could both be correct, and the flowmeter could be spoofed as Jed suggests.

Or, some combination of the three error mechanisms.

Now, Peter, I have answered your question. Suppose you answer mine. What evidence do you have that Rossi's devices have ever generated any excess heat? I'm looking here for positive evidence from tests, not speculations and conspiracy theories.

Regards, THH

Dewey, you seem to reckon that (some of?) the various pro-Rossi personas on here are Rossi? You may be right, but it seems a bit weird. They could be Rossi, or Levi, or anyone under the sun, from my POV. Of course, it is undoubtedly true from cursory inspection of JONP that Rossi is very weird, so...

Mats role here is indeed psychologically interesting. I think, having invested all that Alan said, and being chose personally (I guess) to some of the actors, he is just incapable of seeing the strong negative evidence for what it is. He promised, six months ago, to get a definitive independent ruling on the argument between TC and Levi vs Lugano. Anyone seen that? And, he is on record as stating that it is bettwe to back Rossi even if at low probablility because the harm being wrong that way round is much less than the harm done not backing Rossi, if Rossi turns out to have something. This, Mats claims, justifies bending the truth (at least that was implicit).

The reason the NANOR does not work for this purpose is that it is very difficult to do reliable calorimetry on such small qtys of power. As the size of active material goes down so the errors go up. Schwarts claims that as the active size goes down the COP goes up....

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if they would like to make any comparison with Lugano they must be sure to use the very same material ( i.e. PURE Alumina as from the report ).

If they do that they will agree with Tc's values and COP ~ 1!

Quote from rb0

Paradigmoia, this phrase is completely FALSE.

At equal temperature if an object on the image (e.g. the dot ) appears brighter then another ( e.g. the rod ) is because has higher emissivity .

So if the dot appear brighter is because his emisivity is higher !

Also in your statement there is quite a confusion among words "reactor" and "rod" .

On my opinion you are clearly trying to diffuse false information in order to influence the trial.

I presume that this is against law.

Because this forum is moderated I presume that eventually also the moderators of the forum could be responsible.

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I agree it does not sound right at all. rb0 it is not necessary to make silly threats, You perhaps see P and me in your own image (as documented on here), unable to accept correction. I'll await what P says because he may have meant this in some weird way I'm not understanding.

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I guess that would imply either the temperature readings or the flow meter readings were wrong though.

We don't have the real piping diagram. The temperature readings don't tell us anything unless the tank temperature is the flow inlet temperature, and the steam temperature is the flow outlet temperature. Both those assumptions can easily be wrong, and just one wrong would be enough for deltaT to be small.

Regards, THH

I'd expect that a 100% steam flow that moves that water meter would be more than 20kW. I would not say that is a cast-iron proof because in theory flowmeter spoofing can give large apparent flows with no actual flow. In this case that would mean water moving in both directions through the flowmeter (between reservoirs on either side) and all that flow never emerging as steam. That is possible we know, it can even happen innocently with the right (bad) piping, but I don't feel it is likely here. Most likely for me is either the reading is bogus, or more likely the flow is real but there is no significant phase change and a relatively small deltaT. That seems consistent with all evidence so far.

Quote from ZenoOfElea

At least in the cold fusion/lenr there is lots of uncertainty and complexity so plenty of wiggle room to run scam demos, scam theories etc.

To address the title of this thread: Why is Cold Fusion so opposed by Scientists?

I think there are two different negative arguments: experimental and theoretical.

The theoretical argument has to do with lack of coherent theory. The standard model and related theories are a large structure with high predictive power and while like any theory it is flaky at the edges, subject to revision, it does not seem easy to fit viable LENR theories into the core of the existing theory that is well backed by experiment. Look at Hagelstein's efforts. A lot of people who are not theoreticians will just give no weight to this, and there is an attractive argument about how theories can be wrong and constrain innovative thought etc. I don't see any useful debate about this; except by the LENR people like Hagelstein trying to find a viable theory and the critique of their efforts. The hundreds of fringe papers claiming this or that don't cut it, but need (scientists) to evaluate so on the internet can be seen as better than they are. If you also think that scientists are incapable of seeing new ideas because they are too attached to old ones that is difficult. Negative evaluations of these hundreds of (mostly, by law of averages, bad) papers don't convince. A proper evaluation needs people with skill set and knowledge that makes them biased against radical ideas. Personally, in theoretical physics, I see no such bias against radical ideas. In fact people with such (even though most turn out wrong) get rewarded. But many will disagree, and this is a matter where argument does not get us anywhere.

The experimental argument, to me, is more profitable because it can possibly be moved forward. On the one hand just one replicable experiment with secure unexplainable results would change things. That unexplainable result could be evidence of unexpected radiation, excess heat, transmutation. On the other hand, addressing the thread question, skeptics (not just pseudo-skeptics) see results that are always near the noise level, for LENR in particular, as being negative. That is because both radiation and excess heat are easy to detect and both would be expected to deliver results far away from the noise level given the exquisite sensitivity of radiation detection, and the high energies involved. So a long line of near noise level results, to skeptics, looks like a sign that this effect is not real.

Anyway, Abd believes that new IH-funded research will generate clear coherent results. I hope he is right: but I don't expect it.

zeus46 - you and Abd seem not to like each other. Abd is, I can see, extremely annoying - partly because he is usually right and rubs people's nose in it. I'm sorry he is not here but disagree with his idea that lenr-forum admins are either incompetent or hopelessly biassed.

I'd cut him some slack: he contributes more than many.

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After many personal attempts to partially replicate Brillouin's electrolysis system, I came to see that the most likely error would be on the input power measurement. I have suspected that BE has made mistakes with this all along, because it is quite difficult to measure the input power precisely with the Q-pulse system. BE used an ohmic control in previous electrolysis experiments, which I do not trust based on a lot of experience with this producing false results. You absolutely must perform an electrolytic control using material theoretically inactive (e.g., the only thing changed is the cathode material).

Jack I take your point. The extra power added by the Q pulses is also problematic to measure, and that, as well as the possibility of EMC, needs to be carefully checked unless the excess power is high enough to be insensitive to this. All you'd need would be to measure DC in to the pulse generation system and not try to factor in the efficiency of that system (which might vary, and would be difficult to measure). If the excess heat is high enough it would not matter taking an upper limit.

Quote from IH Fanboy

@Roseland67

The most credible so far, IMHO, is SRI's independent testing/replication of results of

Brillouin's NiH reactor system. For whatever reason (probably due to the ongoing dispute with Rossi), Dewey tends to minimize IH's involvement with Brillouin, but apparently they are an investor, and are involved.

I looked with interest at the (preliminary) report. We must all reserve judgement till we see a more complete writeup, but based on what I've seen I'd qualify the statement that the work is independent. They tested the same calorimetric setup that Brillouin used (and that they advised on). They note that this setup can be moved (possibly remanufactured) which makes these results very repeatable.

I do not question SRI's expertise with typical calorimetric errors - although since no-one should take anything on trust a proper write-up would be needed. Let us assume that the calorimetry checks out and that the resuts are indeed replicable.

However there remains the possibility of systematic error due to the experiment itself. This involves high amplitude RF stimulus (specifically pulses with fast edges that have lots of power pushed up to high frequencies when you look at the spectrum). The positive results correlate with the use of this stimulus. Calorimetry experts are not necessarily EMC experts, so potential errors here can go unspotted.

This type of stimulus is known to create issues with any electrical measurements - most obviously with thermocouples where rectification of RFI can look like low amplitude Dc signals. There was no discussion of what steps has been taken to measure the errors caused by EMC problems that might masquerade as excess heat, or even a statement that any steps has been taken, in the preliminary report. (I can think of definite ways to investigate the matter - so it is not that it cannot be elucidated. And a report that did that would be much stronger).

Thus I reserve judgement till this is done. I'm not just being picky here. I stated 5 years ago when Brillouin results were first publicised that there system was a classic example of one that could suffer these specific problems. I've been expecting to find a full analysis with the controls, time constant measurement, etc that prove that whatever they observe comes from excess heat and not EMC issues. I'm hoping the full report from SRI will provide this - but worried that the preliminary report does not even mention the matter.

If there are EMC issues these would be a systematic error with the setup, so you'd expect false positive results to be replicable.

OK. The first info we had about this test was that Rossi told the ERV not to include the water deltaT in energy calculations because he would discount this. That was a dead giveaway as to the big assumption made here - which is that all the flowed water carried enthalpy from phase change - which of course by far dominates in deltaT energy. I also thought that it might be because more precise details would reveal more of the setup than Rossi wanted revealed.

Stephen - I've lost the thread of this: are you replying to some other post because I don't see your argument?

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I think you should dig deeper into what was "done" in Italy. You might be surprised. Start by reading Mats Lewans book "an impossible invention" and end up by discounting everything that Dewey Weaver has said.

(1) Dewey is real. You should be cautious of anything anyone tells you on the internet: but whereas Rossi is a proven bare-faced liar, Dewey here has been mostly correct and never to my knowledge known to lie (though he has certainly presented the case for IH in strong and sometimes coloured terms, and sometimes been wrong).

(2) Mats' book is a good read. He is convincing because he listens to all sides, and has enough technical knowledge to challenge obvious errors. That however does not mean that he is an unbiassed reporter. Mats invested a lot in the Rossi story, and like so many others very much hoped it was true. Had it been so Mats would be seen now as a heroic and important journalist. The evidence presented in "an impossible invention" - particularly the two (for me and I think Mats most convincing) tests:

• The "Ottoman reactor" long "self-sustained mode" test - many credible observers
• The "Lugano test" - many credible observers

Is very incomplete. Mats leaves out subsequent analysis that when considered shows (in both cases neatly - because the numbers add up) how these apparently definite tests in fact have mundane solutions. In both cases the solutions are surprising, and somewhat counterintuitive. That does not surprise me. I have found in a long experience of doing things that the real world twists theory in surprising ways. So surprising that it is easy to be convinced something impossible is happening, when in fact the eventual solution reveals itself to be very possible but never considered, or dismissed initially as not true on soft evidence.

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However, if the burst did come from the 7-8M away that Celani suggested it suggests a very powerful source, not a small check source and not easily handled and not easily hidden

I think an X-ray laser would do the trick. But more likely some more mundane explanation. It is awfully difficult to work out these experimental one-offs post hoc.