Daddy Jed,
I have read McKubre's paper. So there has been no progress in the field since 2009? We have no better idea what is going on? Clearly I can't expect you to spoon-feed me things (i.e. give a simple answer to a simple question) because that isn't what you do. You declare victory and tell people to f-off.
And people think I am hostile. Sheesh!
Quizzical:
Well, if LENR is the observation and/or production of nuclear reactions from low-energy inputs, then the evidence must indicate the presence of nuclear reactions. This usually entails characteristic radiation as well as transmutation or isotope change. These things are sometimes claimed in LENR experiments, but quite often not. So the nuclear aspect of the effect must be inferred from the amount of heat produced in comparison with what could be expected from non-nuclear sources. Of course, these heat measurements are often the subject of great uncertainty or controversy.
You at least are providing a general definition, although one that is very difficult in practice to apply to an arbitrary experiment. If there are observations of radiation and/or transmutation, then claiming that a nuclear reaction has taken place seems quite appropriate. If all that is observed is some heat that may or may not be "anomalous", it is far more difficult to apply the definition with any confidence. This is why I am curious about all the so-called replications and exactly what they have in common.
Jed said that "Cold fusion an experimental observation with no theoretical explanation that has been widely agreed upon." All I am asking is what that experimental observation is. I don't really think that observing excess heat in some system automatically constitutes observing a nuclear reaction. That is a leap of faith in most cases.
THH:
It is difficult not to be hostile when my questions are answered with speculation that I am a troll and an ignoramus. As you pointed out, skepticism about LENR in general is met with complete dismissiveness here. Of course, skepticism about Rossi was treated the same way not that long ago.
I don't actually have my mind made up about LENR. The primary reason that it isn't even sensible which is something I am alluding to in my exchange with Jed. I frankly don't believe that there is a phenomenological definition for LENR. It seems to be a catch-all term for a wide range of observed effects in various systems. No one of them appears to be necessary but any one of them seems to be sufficient for people to declare the existence of the phenomenon. I don't know how you can state with confidence that something exists (or doesn't, for that matter) when you can't even define it.
Jed talks about 180 replications in LENR. What exactly was replicated? Excess heat? Transmutation? Neutrons? Muons? Gamma rays? Zero radiation?
My mind isn't made up. I am mostly looking to understand why people are so convinced about something that in the big picture seems so nebulous. But when I ask such questions, I am told to go read 1,000 papers. There is most assuredly no other area of science where this is the standard response. Folks, this is supposed to be science, not Scientology.
Jed, I gave you a one-sentence phenomenological definition of superconductivity. I asked for the equivalent for LENR and you told me to go read two books by Storms. Doesn't that strike you as peculiar?
Is LENR like obscenity: you can't define it but you know it when you see it?
You spend half your life spreading the gospel of LENR to the world but when anyone asks you a specific question, you respond by telling them to look at hundreds of papers or read books. Some evangelist you are.
And my comment about 90 efforts was just a quote from IH Fanboy. Argue with him about it.
Ok, so I have been instructed that LENR has been amply proven to be a valid physical phenomenon and that skepticism about it reflects some combination of ignorance, stupidity or a hidden agenda. I have also been instructed that it requires professional expertise in electrochemistry and, preferably, hands-on experience with LENR experiments in order to be qualified to judge the validity of LENR literature (criteria that no doubt virtually everyone here easily meets.) I also now understand that despite the cries of suppression and career destruction associated with any positive action with regard to LENR, there are now more than 90 efforts going on in the US alone and many others in other countries. I guess the suppression is not entirely successful.
In order to improve my education, I would ask for some of the experts here to give me a succinct definition of what LENR is. By this I mean a phenomenological definition, not a theory. This seems to be a distinction that is poorly understand in this community. Let me give you an example for the phenomenon of superconductivity.
Superconductivity is a phenomenon of exactly zero electrical resistance and expulsion of magnetic flux fields occurring in certain materials, called superconductors, when cooled below a characteristic critical temperature.
This definition could have been written by 1933, some 24 years before there was an accepted theory for the phenomenon. It does not explain why superconductivity happens or how superconductivity happens; it simply states what happens. If you take certain materials and reduce their temperature below a certain value, their electrical resistance disappears and they expel magnetic flux. These are the defining characteristics of superconductivity.
So I have been told that there are hundreds or thousands of observations of LENR, a hitherto unknown nuclear process. Can someone present a phenomenological description of LENR? What are its defining characteristics?
THH:
You should listen to Jed. His judgement in these matters is impeccable. If anyone can evaluate LENR papers properly, he is the guy. Take for example his analysis of the seminal 2013 Levi paper on Rossi's hot cat:
"Just read this paper for the third time. This is a gem. These people think and write like engineers rather than scientists. That is a complement coming from me. They dot every i and cross every t. I can't think of a single thing I wish they had checked but did not." (Vortex-I)
So stop arguing with the man.
IH Fanboy: "In the US, Japan and EU alone, there are over 90 known entities engaged. That aside, there is active engagement in the field of LENR discovery by Russia, China and India.”
Shane: "the LENR field may no longer have the "excuse" they have legitimately had until recently for lack of progress."
You two are on the same page. Now we just need to wait for the results, even if some of you don't think any are needed to establish the validity of the phenomenon. I look forward to hearing about what happens. As an interested observer, I think it would be fantastic if LENR was real. But convincing me is irrelevant. The proof must be in the data. In science there are no alternative facts (well, in a sane world, there aren't alternative facts in any arena, but I digress).
Shane,
My view is that if it works, then there can be no stopping it. If the phenomenon is real, then there is huge potential for it. Even if it turns out that for some reason it ultimately can't be scaled up or commercialized, that potential alone would create enormous incentive to make progress. Regardless of any stigma or discrimination, there have surely been enough people working at this for the past couple of decades to make real progress. Where is the progress? If you ignore Rossi and other players who have raised money based on unsubstantiated claims, all I see are endless breakthroughs that never seem to get any better than their initial results. How many years ago did Celani announce his wires that would change everything? Is everybody using them now because they work? Nope. You can say the same for every other breakthrough in the field. Most of the time, even the one who announced the breakthrough has moved on to a different methodology. Even with breakthroughs, science generally proceeds with incremental improvements. Do something that kind of works and then make it work a little better; and then make it work a little better still. And so on. I just don't see this happening in this field.
Of course, Rossi operates by leaping from one breakthrough to another. It takes some combination of a wild imagination and complete blindness to believe that each successive incarnation of the e-cat could possibly have the remotest relationship to its predecessors. I mean, look at the 2011 gizmo with the hydrogen tubes, power supplies and acres of aluminum foil and compare it with the QuarkX. Fortunately, Rossi believers have far more imagination than their hero and actually construct theories on how the two are in any way based on the same physics.
People seem to think that the validity of LENR can be decided by popular vote. If enough people would vote "yes" on LENR, then all would be well. However, it doesn't matter if everybody and his uncle believes. Yes, more money will be thrown at it, but even in that case it still has to work. Declaring that it already does really has no bearing on anything.
In a couple of more years, if LENR has not gone anywhere, then you, Shane, will lose faith, apparently. Well, perhaps so. I sure others will not so the community will soldier on. But it really doesn't matter what any of us in the peanut gallery think. It has to work.
Well, you are sure upset with me for asking you what sort of instruments are used, or which institutions the scientists worked in, or wondering who the researchers were, what they did, or why it was difficult to replicate. The only problem is that I have done none of those things. But if you think that I have, please quote me. I'd be interested to hear what I said. Your last points about helium detectors and volunteers fall into the same category. Boy are you pissed at me for the things you imagined I said.
I guess the ad hominem fallacy got tiring for you pretty quickly, so you have moved on to the straw man fallacy.
Thanks for the bunch of ad hominem comments. After all, I don't see things the way you do, so I must either be an idiot or evil. I've been reading and learning for many years, Jed, and I'm in a perfectly good position to judge this field. And it is filled with people like you who are incapable of supporting their position without personal attacks, which is not helping it one bit.
Eric, ad hom is the go-to tool on the internet. I don't see the remaining Rossi supporters here actually offering arguments against the criticisms made against Rossi. All I see are attacks on people like Jed and Dewey and major animosity toward Industrial Heat, which is a shell company that is nothing more than a bank account and a bunch of (probably) well-intentioned capitalists who made one of most moronic investments in history. I have yet to hear a good reason to believe a single thing emanating from Camp Rossi.
@ Jed: I have quite a few friends who have worked at NIST (in both Gaithersburg and Boulder) and do lots of experimental physics work including developing and testing new devices using microfabrication, thin film deposition, cryogenics, and many other technologies. I don't know what you mean by "theoretical matters", but the work at NIST in many areas is quite similar to that in other government labs, industrial labs, and private companies. Yes, they have their "standards" charter that is a big part of their work, but they most assuredly don't have a narrow charter that precludes them from working on various topics.
And Jed, I understand perfectly well that a reasonably sophisticated laboratory is required to do meaningful experiments that could validate LENR. My notion of a "volunteer" was not a Russian tinkerer with a teapot in his apartment, which apparently is seen as quite convincing in many circles. This is why I suggested major laboratories like NIST and NREL (among others) for the task. Such places and others are quite capable of doing the work needed. Or are these hundreds of replications you keep referencing all at places with unique and wildly-expensive apparatus that cannot be duplicated even at national laboratories?
Somehow the flow of logic in these debates is never very good. On the one hand, LENR is terribly arcane and requires very time-consuming and expensive efforts to pull off. Yet, hundreds of people everywhere manage to do it all the time. And still, none of them can show someone else how to do it. Yet, people say it has been definitely proven to work at major institutions. And yet, none of those institutions will stand up and vouch for the existence of the phenomenon; only individual researchers claim the results and follow-on funding doesn't happen. And that part is supposed to make sense? Why should successful research on an entirely new physical phenomenon that could potentially change the world not attract more funding? And so we are back to silly conspiracy theories.
I suppose being part of "a community" has its rewards, but sharing the illusion that LENR has been proven to exist and is only held back by nefarious (or stupid) forces is exceedingly counterproductive. And focusing on the path to commercialization of a phenomenon that had not even been convincingly shown to exist is silly at best and has led in the mess created by Andrea Rossi. I know some people here inexplicably still think there is something good to come out of his scam, but I think the absolute best outcome of the Rossi fiasco is for him to quietly fade into obscurity where he belongs. Anything else will only diminish the chances of truly talented scientists from taking up your "cause".
Sadly, I can imagine 10 years from now having the same round-and-round discussions with Jed Rothwell pointing out the now 358 "replications" that are only visible on his website because apparently all the scientists in the world are "against LENR" and don't care that it could dramatically improve the world. What do people here imagine might change this state of affairs?
It isn't necessary to conclude anything from the lack of such an experiment. My only contention is the the claim that LENR been proven and replicated and so forth is not backed up by the facts. If it was true, funding and widespread research would be a no-brainer. Coming up with conspiracy theories, claims of suppression, and the idea of some sort of locked-arm intransigence by all of science are just ways of avoiding the fact that the existing evidence is not convincing to almost anyone who looks at it (apart from the frankly cultish group that frequents sites like this one.) The knee-jerk reaction is that if you don't agree, then you didn't really look at the data. These days, it seems as if the societal norm is that if somebody disagrees with your point of view, they must either be an idiot or corrupt. There is always the alternative, however: they might also be right and you might be wrong.
@Bob: of course I did not literally mean to stick the reactor in a box and Fedex it to a lab. It would take some back-and-forth communications to arrange a test. My point is that if a researcher had an LENR reactor that he/she was confident demonstrated the effect, they could send their data to a lab along with the offer to send the reactor to that lab for independent testing. I know enough scientists in such places to confidently say that they could easily find someone to do a test under those circumstances. On the other hand, finding someone to do an orchestrated piece of nonsense a la Rossi is an entirely different matter. And yes, everything costs money but lack of budget would not prevent such a test from happening if the opportunity was presented appropriately.
I really don't understand where this wildly distorted view of scientists comes from on LENR websites. Scientists are the most curious and most interested people in the world in new phenomena. Show them something with real promise and they go nuts (see superconductivity in 1986/7.) Given the opportunity to get their hands on a device displaying an exciting new phenomenon, any scientist worth beans would jump at the opportunity. The notion that only a bunch of internet science groupies are the only truly openminded people in the world is just dumb.
Well, lots of answers with the party line of the LENR community. LENR has already been proven and replicated and it is just the entrenched and biased mainstream science community that has rejected the overwhelming evidence. Do you seriously believe this or does it just feel good? If anybody had an LENR device that actually works, they could stick it in a box and send it to NIST or NREL or any of a number of other places and tell them to repeat the experiment. Do you really think they wouldn't do it? They have tested lots of other "free energy" devices in the past but alas, they didn't work. Let someone who says they have a working LENR reactor step forward and offer to have it tested by interested laboratories and see what happens. I dare them. You really think they won't get volunteers? If they have something that works, it will work for someone else in a different place. Or does it require magic and a special stethoscope?
And don't howl about intellectual property or other lame excuses. And Jed, I don't think you really understand the term "replication" as applied to science. When an experiment is replicated, other people can follow the recipe and get the same results. I'm not even sure that anybody in this field can follow their own recipe and get the same results. Does this show that the phenomenon doesn't exist? Hardly. Perhaps there is a real effect. But what has happened so far sure doesn't provide any confidence that there is even if there are 10,000 unrelated and irreproducible reports (see UFOs). What is it you claim has been replicated in 180 laboratories? I mean specifically. Doing some sort of experiment with palladium or nickel and measuring "excess heat" of some magnitude by some method or another does not constitute replication of anything.
And I am of course speaking in general. As for Rossi, he is unequivocally a fraud and probably has done more damage to legitimate research in LENR than any perceived conspiracy or suppression effort. There is nothing like a con man to taint an entire field and there is nothing like believing a con man that destroys the credibility of anybody who does so.
All the talk about how to get and what to do with millions of dollars of research money for LENR puzzles me. The discussions of commercialization paths and scaling up power seem completely beside the point. This is table-top science, not billion-dollar installations. How about if any of the legitimate researchers builds a reactor of any size and power and delivers it to an independent laboratory with appropriate reputation and expertise so that they can unambiguously prove that the thing works? Don't argue that this has already happened. Clearly it hasn't. If it were to happen, funding will be no problem. However, if doing that is out of the question (and please skip the usual litany of lame excuses why this should be so), why does anybody continue to think this is a real phenomenon at all?
In keeping with pretty much all debates related to Rossi, the fact that there is no such thing as a NATO colonel does not prevent Rossi supporters from believing one of them accepted the blue box of old for "the military".
It is utterly astonishing to watch people argue for months over the question of whether a piece of apparatus produced a megawatt of power for an entire year and think the answer depends on arcane quibbles about pipe diameters and tiny temperature differences. This can only happen when people with no technical background are enamored with a "cause" as opposed to a "technology". As for the few who don't have the excuse of ignorance, I can only shake my head.
Ascoli65: you've been at this for years with your fervent arguments about the Rossi affair. The definition of conspiracy is "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful" and that is precisely what you argue for incessantly. It doesn't matter whether you use the word or not. You think the Rossi affair is part of a conspiracy. Say it aloud. It will set you free.
Again with the paid poster idiocy? Could somebody explain to me why anyone would spend money to have posts made on a fringe website impugning the character of either a free-energy scammer or a shell company that invests in cold fusion? What is the payoff and to whom? Do people think that this childish infighting will affect a multimillion-dollar lawsuit in any fashion? Will it affect the course of science? Do people here actually think that the petty squabbles on this website are important to anyone but those who hang out here? That strikes me as delusions of grandeur.
Thanks for responding. I don't need to come up to speed on all of this stuff. I've been watching the circus for a long time. I am not looking for the arguments for or against CF. It is still a faith-based subject and there is not much point in arguing about such things. If there is a smoking gun, I haven't seen it. I am quite aware of the Rossi saga and its manifestations including the obsessive deconstruction of the ongoing lawsuit. I guess being on Team Rossi or Team IH is almost as much fun as Team Edward or Team Jacob - both are obsessions with essentially fictional characters. Like I said, I am just trying to understand why anyone still thinks that the e-cat is something real, regardless of their opinions about CF. There is not a single aspect of the e-cat story that stands up to any critical analysis and yet it appears that most people here still think that there is a pony under that barnful of... well, pony stuff. One just has to wonder why.
