Posts by kirkshanahan

Quote from Zephir_AWT

kirkshanahan: OK, so you don't believe in helium formation and you have no evidence for it - why we should care? What would that imply?
Over 60% of USA citizens still don't believe in evolution - has it some meaning to convince them about the opposite?

You're losing me on this.... I explained the implication of no He other than from mundane sources...He is cited by CFers as evidence of LENRs, so if the He is 'mundane' (as well as the other evidences), it means the exploration of LENRs is a waste of time. Go ahead if you like, its your time and money, but don't expect me (or anyone else) to believe you let alone fund you ('you' being generic here) based on the extant 'evidence'. You'll need to do better. For example if you want to use 'excess heat', you will have to explicitly evaluate the possibility of a CCS.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

I'm perfectly sure, that at least the Li+D fusion produces He in 100% yield - it was measured with current of alpha particles generated. Don't ask me for source, you got it already.

This field is only related to classic CF via speculation at this point. It doesn't serve to legitimize what is normally considered LENR claims.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

/* Classic cold fusion error: assume that the reaction is d-d fusion, then notice that it doesn't behave like d-d fusion, then reject it. But the assumption was just that */

This is typical mindset in dismissal of nearly every phenomena and idea in the latest century.

For the record, I didn't write the stuff between the "/* */" and I don't agree with it. Which is why I got involved on the field to begin with. If I had believed it, I would have ignored the field. So don't associate me with that mindset, thank you.

Quote from Wyttenbach

Because You missed the last ten years I link it again (third time...).

Here one of the Stringham papers: iscmns.org/CMNS/JCMNS-Vol15.pdf#page=62

Bdw.: The He/LENR heat rate compliance has been proven already in 1992 at NRL... Recently Stringham counted the bubble-holes with a very high coincidence!

The only point one could make of it: Sono-fusion is hard core fusion. And indeed it is leading the other hard-core DD(T...) Fusion ITER by a ratio of 1000000:1 with it's overall positive COP near 4...

Nevertheless it's LENR, because D-D fusion happens with less than 20W/s

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Well I many have missed something, but not that stuff...

In particular I looked into 'sonofusion' and cavitation jets back when Russ George was posting stuff on spf about it. At that time I pointed out that the pits he was seeing in the region near to when material had been etched away by cavitaion jets were most likely caused by a process known as steam embrittlement. It works like this:

Sonicating D2O produces bubbles. They collapse and form a cavitation jet that is ejected at high speed into the foil. The physical action of the jet is to punch a hole or to cut the foil, just like linear shaped charges do in rockets, etc. That's why large portions of the foil 'disappear'. The chemical action is to load the foil with the atomic species found in the jet, i.e. D and O. Inside the solid, D and O recombine to form D2O, which like He, accumulates in bubbles. Eventually the pressure inside the bubbles exceeds the yield strength of the material, and the bubbles pop open. Often the 'cover' or top of the bubble is completely ejected. Has nothing to do with He forming from LENRs.

Added info: many times the inside of the bubbles show 'anomalous' elements, which CFers claim proves heavy metal transmutation. However what is more likely (but difficult to prove as usual) is that metallic contaminants in the metal have agglomerated (either during manufacture or by the action of the dissolved D or H) to form a weak point in the lattice. This weak point serves as a nucleation site for water bubbles. Also, it can potentially form a spot with a lower yield stress too.

Of course Jed or someone else will say I am inventing all this and it's all ridiculous. But no, I'm not. See:
J. D. Fast, "Interaction of Metals and Gases", Academic Press, 1965, pps 54-57. On pps 55 and 56 are pictures of this in Cu and Fe. There is a similar process called methane embrittlement where dissolved C reacts with dissolved H to form CH4. It 'bubbles up' too.

A less likely alternative is a similar process caused by nucleation and growth of hydrogen containing bubbles. Fukai has several papers out on 'superabundant vacancies' that form in Pd after high pressure hydrogen exposure. The cavitation jet may perform the same loading function as high gas pressure or electrolysis, and if loaded high enough, might form actual, visible (by SEM) bubbles. That is less likely though IMO.

Re: "The He/LENR heat rate compliance has been proven already in 1992 at NRL..."

Doubtful what you are thinking of proves LENR in a classic CF experiment. You might be referring to something like the D ion impingement on molten Li, which is not relevant to proving LENR in classic cold fusion experiments (it would only be relevant if one had proof of CF in classic experiences that was consistent with the ion beam experiments, but both need to be firmly established before a connection can be drawn at any level except a speculative one.)

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

I have answered in detail on newvortex.

I don't do 'newvortex'. It's poor form to answer a post here with a post elsewhere.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

I calculated a correlation coefficient for the full Miles data from Storms and combined with the six control experiments, the coerricient was 0.89.

How does one do that? The Fig. 47 data are for He atoms produced by 'LENR', which is alternatively evidenced by 'excess heat'. If there is no excess heat, there supposedly is no LENR, and there would be supposedly no He. The Figure though is trying to illustrate that the amount of He produced is consistent with what one would expect from the nuclear energy released in the putative LENR. Folding the controls' data into the plot is an 'apples and oranges' situation. All it really does is bias the data set numerically with more extreme values ('flyers', 'outliers'), and as I noted, the data set is already strongly impacted by that problem. Adding more of that in just hurts. it doesn't help. Of course the correlation coefficient will 'improve'. You're taking a data set that lies as a group far away from the (0,0) point, and adding several points in at (0,0). That will force a line through basically the center of mass of the original data (its average) and (0,0). (By the way, it seems that you have taken a data set that 'shows' (not really) that various levels of excess heat all lead to a consistent energy per He atom, as shown by the near random correlation coefficient, and turned it into one that proves the opposite (which is what a correlation coefficient of 0.89 implies). Is that what you intended?)

To answer my own question, you do it by 'just doing it'. You just chuck the new points into your calculator and churn out a correlation coefficient, with no regards to whether or not combining the data in one plot is legitimate. The numerics you end up with make no sense however, as would be expected from such a bogus procedure.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

The time is 4440 seconds (I provide sources) and this was a constant.

I noted this number in my post. It is the nominal time to produce 500cc of electrolysis gases, which is computed from the current flow. But the experimental runs were not all at the same current flows, they were varied, sometimes within the same run. I assume the idea is to correlate He production with 'LENR' activity as measured by apparent excess heat. That makes sense right? So it doesn't make sense to collect gases when no excess heat is showing, you should see only background. Further, isn't the idea that as the 'LENR' proceeds, more He will be produced, perhaps in proportion to the total activity as measured by apparent excess heat? If yes, then you at least want to take the sample during the event, otherwise the He will be flushed out of the sample cell when the 'excess heat' quits.

Furthermore, if the 'time' is fixed at 4440 seconds, then there is no apparent connection between the two numbers in the data table (He atoms/500cc and He atoms/W-sec). That simply makes no sense. No, the time I computed and posted as the last column in the data table is somehow related to the magnitude of 'LENR' activity. But as I noted, Miles never explains this.

I believe my procedure was correct. Take Miles' He atoms/Watt/second, divide by the given He atoms/Watt to get 1/seconds, and reciprocate to get the unidentified time in seconds. And plotting the He atoms produced as a function of this time gives a plot that looks like a spike dilution process.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

The time is dependent only on electrolysis power and gas evolution, and this is after the cell has stabilized, I'm sure,

Exactly, which varies from run to run, so a fixed 4440 is not correct. Your "I'm sure" indicates to me that your interpolating on what Miles said, and not quoting his actual words. In other words, like me, you're guessing what Miles did. That's one of my underlying objections to most CF research reports so far, insufficient information given forcing readers to guess at what was done, usually when what is being guessed at is very important, like this case.

Abd wrote: Two massive notes about He again. but he has still failed to address the issue I raised over in the thread "Document: Isotopic Composition of Rossi Fuel Sample (Unverified)". Specifically I point out that Miles uses a hidden value that must be a time to compute his He atoms/Watt-sec values, and that if you back calculate these numbers and plot He atoms measured vs this time, you get a curve that tells you that the longer this time number is, the less He you see.

Why is this important? Because it implies every single He reported to date could be dependent on this undefined 'time', whatever it is. In other words, you might not be able to get the whole picture without that number. In other words, the He data is inconclusive because of insufficient information once again.

(note also that if the He atoms measured vs time plot is accurate a single He appearance event followed by dilution is implied, at least in Miles data.)

Quote from JedRothwell

No, the measured ratios show that the helium is close to the expected ratio for D+D => He4,

That would be the 1.83 x10^11 +/- 1.25 x10^11 (1 sigma) He atoms/Watt-sec. The 2 sigma band on that average then goes from -0.67 to +4.33 x10^11, i.e. it is essentially indistinguishable from 0. Of course the upper limit is well above the theoretical value too (2.6x10^11). Hint: This proves nothing. The data are too noisy to be useful.

OK, so I looked over the 3 papers Jed has linked to the pictures of exploded apparati on his website. They all have some things in common. All the apparati are glass, all are open cell (meaning electrolysis gases leave the cell). all assume without proof that the vent lines remained open at all times, and all the researchers assume that heat is the critical parameter to calculate. There are lots of problems with this. I could go into details but there's no point. People are either going to listen or not, so go ahead and make your choice now...

Glass is easy to break. Try dropping a Dewar. A rapid pressure increase will break the glass. (It's kinda like dropping a Dewar in reverse, instead of the glass moving, the 'hard' surface of the pressure wave hits the glass). The key is whether a pressure wave of sufficient strength can be generated in the cell under the abnormal conditions (which are not well characterized) that were present in the cell at the time of the incident. I would not assume the vent lines remain open, I would do a bit of 'sensitivity analysis' to see what increasing the pressure would do, but you also have to take into account what pressure would cause the glass to break. (None of the exploded apparati shown were powdered like my sublimation apparatus was. I conclude the explosion was substantially weaker than that in all cases.) I do not know what that pressure is. Where I work we normally don't use glass, we use metal, which can take a lot more pressure than glass. Further, we the safety engineers do calcs to estimate what we might get if our H2 got mixed with O2 and exploded, they finish by taking a pressure that is 1/4th of what they calculated from their steady state conclusions. This is because explosions can create pulses 4x stronger than calculated by 'normal' means. Note I haven't mentioned the electrolytes yet. That's because it is not important. Again it is the gas pressure wave intensity that's important. So if these guys had a gas phase explosion. the temp of the electrolyte or the bath surrounding the cell is irrelevant, yet this is the only calc they do. In other words, my expectations have been met. The CFers always figure a way to make it nuclear, whether needed or not. But normal chemistry/physics does just fine.

Quote from Alan Smith

Were the P&F cells pressurised?

Usually not, the cells typically had vent lines that were often claimed to have plugged up, which would allow pressure to build and thus to get an explosion.

The other way to do it is to have closed cells (i.e. no vents) which necessitates inclusion of a recombination catalyst in the gas space to prevent pressure build-up. However, the catalysts seem to stop functioning every now and then, leading to a pressurized cell, which sometimes explodes.

Quote from Zephir_AWT

All of them support it, deal with it.

No they don't. That was my point...

Quote from Zephir_AWT

You're [an] anonymous on-line twaddler without [a] single scientific [piece of] evidence, just face it...

Devolving to name calling now? Tsk, tsk. And for the record, the people who are claiming the new discovery are the ones who have to supply the evidence to back up the claim. Then the rest of us get to evaluate that to the best of our ability.

Seems to me you don't really want to have a good, scientific discussion Zephir, so don't be surprised if I don't reply to you again.

Quote from JedRothwell

Nope. As described in the papers linked to these images, some of these explosions produced ~400 times more energy than all of the available chemical fuel could have. Most of these are open cells, so there is hardly any H2 and O2 in the cell. It is vented. It was confirmed that the vents were clear. Not plugged up.

I seriously doubt the computation used to come up with the '~400 times' numbers were done correctly, but i will look at them. Why do I doubt? becasue from 1976-1979 I worked with explosives at Sandia Lab in Albuquerque. I blew things up a few times, and I had a couple of experiments go up. One in particular is relevant here. I was trying to collect the sublimate that formed during the thermal decomposition of a new explosive we were developing, so I was heating the explosive to near its autoignition point and it apparently decided it was too close and it blew up. 99% of the glass sublimation apparatus (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublimation_apparatus for a picture) had turned to dust. I then had the joy of cleaning up the hood this occurred in (these special hoods were certified for explosives work, one had had 1 pound of TNT detonated inside it and it had survived and did not endanger the 'theoretical' user that would have been standing in front of it if 'real') which was covered in the silicone oil from the bath used to heat the apparatus and which contained the glass dust. The only piece bigger I found was the tip of the cooling water connection point, smaller than the tip of your little finger, which was still embedded in the Tygon tubing. The metal 250cc beaker that had held the oil was bowed out at the bottom quite nicely, and the hot plate had a matching dent in it, about 1/4 to 3/8" deep in the center. I still have the beaker... So when I look at you pictures I say, "Yup, looks familiar", actually they seem to have arisen from a weaker explosion than I experienced. I think the computations you cite have bad assumptions in them. The results from the computations are out-of-line with my experience at least.

Quote from JedRothwell

The thing is, you can't just declare "In fact the damage shown is easily encompassed by the chemical energy resulting from H2 + O2 explosions." Just saying this does not make it true. You have to take into account actual facts and measurements. You have to understand that when the gas is vented out of the cell through a 1 cm tube, it is not available to cause an explosion.

So, yes I can say that the pictures you show are fully consistent with my personal experience, which was NOT with a small nuclear explosion in a lab apparatus... You do have to take into account actual facts and measurements, AND the assumptions behind them and in addition to them. And given my experience, I also seriously doubt that one could tell if the vent line was actually plugged or not after the fact. There's a very good chance any such plug disappeared in the 'flash' so to speak. (So the forced assumption of 1 atm pressure in the cell is not a fixed requirement for example. One needs to consider other pressures too. And in the end, how can you tell which assumed pressure is correct?))

Quote from JedRothwell

Shananhan invents endless impossible phenomena, such as ...[see above], and noise that magically works in one direction only, always producing a positive effect, never a negative. (See p. 4: lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MarwanJanewlookat.pdf).

Jed again demonstrates that he has no idea what I have written regarding the noise level in cold fusion calorimetry. Just to be explicit for the rest of you (since I know Jed won't hear me on this, the true Shanahan CCS says that you will always see a positive excess heat signal from the at-the-electrode recombination-driven heat source distribution change because all calibrations are done with inert (inactive) electrodes. That establishes the starting heat distribution. The redistribution moves the heat from the lossy zone to the less lossy zone, thereby registering more heat than is actually there because the normal calibration had to bump the heat values up more when the heat was in lossy zone. This is trivially obvious if you take the time to understand what I say, but it was obvious that no CFers has done that, since they think I was proposing some random process when I clearly and multiple times said it was systematic.

{added} That brings up an interesting question too. Is it noise if you know what causes it is a systematic chemical process, or is it an effect?

Ya know...it brings up an important realization to note that Jed can't even accept what I say about what I wrote, which can be directly checked for truthfulness. Whether the chemistry I propose is correct or not is irrelevant to this realization. Jed just won't listen to you if you offer any skepticism. Y'all need to fold that into your thinking when you consider what Jed says.

Quote from Wyttenbach

May be You took a ten years nap and missed that 105 above ambient measurments... (they often directly measure alphas...)

Maybe I did, since I don't have a clue what you are talking about. Care to be more specific, as in citing a reference paper I can study?

Jed linked to pictures of blown-up apparati when MY suggested he demonstrate a nuclear explosion from a CF experiment. In fact the damage shown is easily encompassed by the chemical energy resulting from H2 + O2 explosions (and that includes the infamous F&P hole in the lab floor).

One of the odd conditions used in F&P cells that allows a CCS to occur is that the electrolysis gases are not kept separate. This allows explosions to happen and is a real, valid safety concern for CF experimentalists.

Oh...and again and again Jed's statements prove he hasn't read the literature...

JR wrote:
"Nuclear reactions such as heat from radium go for thousands of years. They go to completion. Cold fusion reactions would also for many years if they went to completion, but most stop working before that because the deuterium comes out of solution and the reaction stops. In any case, heat after death often produces far more heat than a chemical reactants of equivalent mass could produce, and it produces no chemical changes or ash, so it is definitely nuclear. Or something unknown to science.I am sure you know this. Your statements are only intended to confuse people who do not understand the issues. The part about "long (long, long) time" is pure bullshit. Nuclear reactions do not always go for a long, long time before completion. A nuclear bomb, for example, goes for a short, short time, before the reaction stops. I am sure you know that."

As noted the definition of self-sustaining incorporates the idea of time. In common parlance that time is 'long' but the exact length is variable depending on what one is discussing. For example, a self-sustaining nuclear explosion is a frightening thing to contemplate. The typically short burst is bad enough. You are playing semantics games here...

Your HAD comment is correct except that you should put the word 'claim' in there somewhere. There are claims that HADs produce more energy than chemically available, but my response is that an error integrated for a long time becomes very big (maybe even self-sustaining?). Of course my whole point is that the data interpretation method used to reach this claim is wrong, ergo the claim of massive energy release is wrong.

JR also wrote:
"To suggest that might affect a Seebeck calorimeter is ridiculous. In point of fact, it would not affect any calorimeter. If it did, calorimeters could not be used to measure chemical reactions in electrochemistry. The textbooks would all be wrong."

The textbooks would be wrong only if a CCS occurred every single time, which of course we know is not the case. Normally, calorimetry works. It is the specifics of F&P cells that bring on the CCS after the 'special active state' is formed and at-the-electrode recombination begins (if my proposal is substantiated).

You still say it 'would not affect any calorimeter'. You realize that Storms proved you wrong, right? He found that changing the heat source for calibration from the electrolysis power to a joule (resistive) heater changed the value of the cal. constant slightly, illustrating that internal cell conditions can affect the calibration equation. He just didn't recognize the significance of that. I did and thus my reanalysis and 1st publication on this...

Ridiculous you say? Let's think this through. In the mass flow configuration we have an F&P cell inside a calorimeter that attempts to collect all released heat (in its most efficient configuration; one can work with less efficient calorimeters and some do). Now a Seebeck calorimeter also attempts to collect all the heat released from the cell. Same cell here in both cases. Now, the mass flow calorimeter normally uses a calibration equation for output power that looks like this: Pout = k * Cp * f* deltaT + b. Cp is the heat capacity at constant pressure, and it is a function of temperature. f is the mass flowrate. Delta T is the temperature difference between the water exiting the calorimeter and the water entering it. k and b are the calibration constants. We can simplify this to Pout = kX + b, where X is a shorthand for the 3 terms above. This is what Storms' did. He found that changing the heat source for calibration from the electrolysis power to a joule (resistive) heater changed the value of k slightly, illustrating that internal cell conditions can affect the calibration equation.

Now the Seebeck calorimeter typically uses a calibration equation like this: Pout = K * X, where K is the calibration constant and X is the voltage used as the calorimeter's signal. X is produced by wiring some several thermocouples (TCs) together in series and then placing those TCs in and/or around the cell, thereby forming the calorimeter surface. (Conceptually, of course something has to hold the TCs. Storms used to have a picture of his homebuilt one on his Webpage. He placed the TCs in holes in the wall of a PVC pipe which was capped at both ends once the cell was in place. The cell went inside the pipe and there was a fan to circulate air inside the calorimeter. McKubre has used a cube formed of Al sheet with 1 TC in each side as another example, i.e. only 6 TCs used.) So, what is the difference that supposedly makes the Seebeck calorimeter immune to the problem found in the mass flow type? Answer: there ain't none.

There is the usual assumption that the 'b' term from the mass flow version is zero in the Seebeck version, but this is actually not the best practice. Good use of statistics, which is what is usually used to get the constants' values, requires the use of an additive constant. Otherwise the math can get messed up. So let's put the b back in the Seebeck equation: Pout = K * X + b. Looks pretty darn similar to the mass flow case to me! If the cal const changes, using the previous one will give you the wrong Pout.

The CCS arises because heat loss changes. The same problem will arise in any type calorimeter as long as the cell is designed with all primary heat loss pathways going through the low efficiency zone (these are the penetrations and wires used to support and power the electrodes, joule heater, vent lines, etc.). Of course, the magnitude of the effect can vary, but the upshot is for all these methods you need to experimentally determine the variation of the cal constants and then evaluate that variation's impact on your conclusions. What I showed in 2000 in the manuscript on file at Jed's library is that that variation explained the excess heat peaks easily.

That means all calorimetric determinations of 'excess heat' need to be able to support that this effect is not the cause of the anomalous signal. To date, none do. Ergo, no excess heat claim is trustworthy. And it doesn't matter what type of calorimeter one uses, as it is just simple applied propagation of error theory. You must translate the cal constant variation through the computations to the final conclusion to determine the actual 'noise' present. In Ed's case he had at least 780 mW of 'noise' due to this problem (not 78, which is in the normal range claimed).

And remember folks, this all started with Ed Storms' reporting the presence of exactly this problem (cal constant shift). I just expanded on it in detail and proposed how it might happen.

Quote from JedRothwell

kirkshanahan wrote:
An effect that only lasts an hour to a few days is not self-sustaining.

If there is no input power, but only output, that is called "self sustaining" in cold fusion jargon. It resembles a burning match. When you strike the match, that's input power. Once it starts burning by itself, that's self sustaining.

That's not what the rest of us mean. Your match example is certainly incorrect. We call that a chemical reaction going to completion. As MY indicated 'self-sustaining' means it goes on by itself for a long (long, long) time. Redefining words away from a standard definition is not an advisable practice.

Merriam-Webster's on line dictionary says this as the second (and applicable) definition:
: maintaining or able to maintain itself once commenced <a self–sustaining nuclear reaction>

Quote from JedRothwell

kirkshanahan wrote:
Also, the cell conditions in HAD events are radically different from those during active electrolysis, but the raw data is always interpreted with the same calibration equation…an extreme example of a likely CCS.

Many calorimeter types measure heat outside of the cell, such as flow and Seebeck calorimeters. Conditions in the cell cannot affect the performance of these calorimeters. They have detected heat after death. So your hypothesis is wrong

This is where you don't know what you are talking about because you fail to understand my publications. The CCS was determined in Storms' 98% efficient flow calorimeter. A 98% efficient Seebeck calorimeter would likely give the same result (there is no reason to expect it wouldn't). To be specific, the CCS occurs because some heat source moved from either the recombination catalyst or the outside (via a vent line) to a more efficient heat capture zone of the calorimeter/cell combination (envisioned as the wetted part of the cell). In the HAD case, the more efficient zone is reduced in size and the primary heat source of the cell (electrolysis power) is terminated. It seems impossible to me this wouldn't affect the calibration, since a less drastic change apparently does.

Zephir_AWT wrote:
" kirkshanahan /* If you have a case contrary to this please reference it. */
You already got a link above, so that I don't quite understand your requirement..."

If you are referring to the link that led to Sept. 2002 Bulletin, I don't see the relevance. Proton impingment on liquid Li is an interesting research area, but to establish a relationship to the CF people here are talking about a lot more has to be discovered. Right now that relationship is pure speculation, especially since I don't see any compelling evidence for CF.

You wrote:
"The concentration of helium in cold fusion is routinely higher than atmospheric" and I disagree with that. It is that assertion I was hoping you would document.

---
I see you added a big long list of papers. Perusing the list I see many standard CF papers that fit my description, several from the metal tritide world, which is my bailiwick, which don't support your thesis at all, and a few other papers that don't seem relevant.

Please choose 1 paper from that list that supports your contention that CF has produced greater than atmospheric levels of helium and let me know which one it is.

This morning I posted a bevy of likes and dislikes. I did this because a raft-load of dis- and mis-information suddenl appeared in this thread, as well as evidence of clique-voting that I felt needed to be countered. I actually think the like/dislike system is garbage and shouldn't be used to suppress opinions, but that's just my opinion...

Anyway, here is a compilation of why I voted as I did today in reverse order:
Jed: “You can confirm the reaction is real whether it sustains itself or not. ... usually continue working for anywhere from an hour to a few days. This is called "heat after death."” An effect that only lasts an hour to a few days is not self-sustaining. Also, the cell conditions in HAD events are radically different from those during active electrolysis, but the raw data is always interpreted with the same calibration equation…an extreme example of a likely CCS.

Zephir_AWT “The concentration of helium in cold fusion is routinely higher than atmospheric, ...outside.” To my knowledge, the He measurements have never exceeded the nominal air concentration level of ~5ppm, except in the case where Russ George measured it while at McKubre’s lab. But he only got up to 11 ppm before stopping the experiment. The problem is that all scientists know and some even report in the CF literature that the He conc. In lab air can be in the hundreds of ppm. If you have a case contrary to this please reference it.

Wyttenbach “Never heard that bullshit. Did he also explain ...” If you’ve never heard of it, how can you know whether it is BS or not??

Abd “If anyone wants to seriously argue that theory, we could look at it. In short, it is preposterous, ... coincidence.” ‘Maintained closeness’? You need to realize how to statistically test the validity of this claim. I outlined it in my post in the thread “Document: Isotopic Composition of Rossi Fuel Sample (Unverified)” on July 19th, which Abd hasn’t responded to yet. In fact, the data does not support Abd’s conclusion. ‘many failures’ – such as? (be specific please)

Abd “The heat/helium correlation has already ...dozen research groups,” Who ‘confirmed’ it? Note that to be noteworthy, the He conc. measured should exceed that measured in the lab air present during the time when the purported unknown process was producing He. Then of course, it should be reproducible in detail, preferably at other labs, meaning that the claimants have a method that varies the amount of He produced in proportion to the settings of a controlling variable(s) which they identify. “The heat is real, ... helium. This is not any longer in reasonable doubt.” I must have missed that defining report. Please cite a reference I can get and study. “The resolution of the Pons and Fleischmann work was in the milliwatt range, ... 50 mW resolution.” Again, baseline noise is not the controlling error component. “Where Shanahan goes off the rails is ... can be the same. The correlation shows common causation, and because "heat" is not "temperature," what would be the common cause?” You must have missed the rule on that – “Correlation is not causation.” You must have also missed the idea that if the excess heat is fictitious it is equivalent to claiming the relevant variable is the number of time a leprechaun ran through the lab that day. You would claim He production is related to that would you? No. Then why claim it is related to how much simple chemical recombination occurs at the electrode?

Jed “I have gone to a lot of trouble to bring you actual scientific information from distinguished scientists about this subject.” You mean “only carefully selected positive information”….“distinguished scientists” You realize that even ‘distinguished’ scientists can be trapped by a systematic error, right? In Langmuir’s talk on pathological science he mentions a guy named Latimer who promoted a particular idea for a while and then later was so embarrassed by that he refused to talk about it. One of the chemistry buildings at the UC-Berkeley campus is named ‘Latimer Hall’. You don’t get a building named after you if you’re not ‘distinguished’…this episode illustrates why Feynman said the scientist should bend over backward to prove himself wrong, since fooling ourselves is a very common problem.

Mary Yugo “So I guess I will see my next space heater powered by LENR and available in ... departments “ I ‘liked’ this because it is just a variation on the Pons claim that he would deliver a CF powered water heater in 6 months, and the Morrision criticism that he couldn’t get his CF-electricity-brewed cup of tea. Both of these are valid expressions of the simple idea that a real CF gizmo would most likely be proof positive of CF. MY didn’t deserve the ‘dislikes’ received on that.

Jed “Since you have not evaluated them, or even read them, how the hell would you know? Where...? I'll tell you where: you made it up. You pulled it out of . . . thin air.” This is a typical JR ad hominem attack. Jed has no idea where MY got her idea, so he makes one up, then rants about how bad MY is…not kosher. “I know what I am talking about, and you don't.” No Jed, you don’t. I clearly pointed out a systematic error with cold fusion calorimetry, and you can’t stand to incorporate that into your thinking. Thus, you don’t know all the relevant facts, and thus you don’t know what you are talking about.

Jed “One of the many odd things about cold fusion is ...ignorant crackpots.” ‘mainly’…so there are a few denouncers who *ARE* ‘mainstream respected scientists’. Why don’t you promote their ideas/concerns as much as you do the proponents? Answer: you want to promote the idea that it's all a done deal when it is far from that. Your bias is showing…

Mary Yugo “Ah I see. Electrochemist, noun, “ There is nothing bad about this post, yet it garnered 2 ‘dislikes’ (from the “usual suspects”) and was fading out. I disagree with those ratings.

Jed “That's because you have not looked. Around 1995, most of the world's top echelon of electrochemists had successfully replicated cold fusion.” First, we have Jed again implying he knows what MY did or didn’t do when he clearly doesn’t. Second, he overstates the case again by implying ‘replication’ has occurred to an extent that it is foolish to disagree. In fact ‘replication’ has many levels, and what was true then is also true today: the level of replication in CF experiments is primitive, meaning once can conclude (as I do) that there seems to be something going on, but as to knowing what that is…forget it.

Jed “Let me reiterate what is going on here. Imagine that for the past 20 years, Mary Yugo, Shanahan ... unreliable."” Interesting strawman I suppose, but irrelevant. I personally wouldn’t do that. The connection of my name to this irrelevant and inaccurate strawman is an indirect ad hominem attack. “What ...Yet this heat is measured the same way as chemical heat is.” If you actually look at the equipment design and experimental methods it is clear it isn’t. I mentioned (forcefully) elsewhere in this forum there are at least two distinct problems with the way F&P-type experiments are run that allow the CCS error I outline to occur.

Mary Yugo “Well, last I looked, most professional…”Again, nothing in this post that deserves ‘dislikes’. I ‘liked’ to counteract the improper use of ‘dislike’ to suppress.

Jed“You know that Fleischmann, ...wrong, and you are right,” This is known as a call to authority. It means that he has no better argument, otherwise he would have put it forth. And what Jed references is the expected outcome of a set of experiments that contain a common systematic error. The rest of the post just lambasts MY for having an opinion that JR *thinks* goes against authority. Again, call to authority, either direct or indirect, is a logical fallacy.

Jed “You fail to understand…”This whole post is spurious. Again Jed is telling us what MY thinks, feels, etc. Illegitimate… The same thing can be said about Jed, for him, someone claiming a femtowatt of excess heat is a legitimate claim. The real test is reproducibility – not the level of the effect measured. The level of effect is relevant when considering the noise level however, if it isn’t ‘out of the noise’ it has to be replicated many, many times to be significant, and Jed continues to not estimate the noise level on the proper basis. No one has done that to date that I know of (and yes, I’ve looked at Storms’ table…).

Mary Yugo ” I don't recall saying something DOES NOT EXIST. …” This post is a very reasonable response to the misinformation Jed posted in the prior post MY quotes. Clarifies many points. No ad hom attacks, etc.

Jed “People do have reproducible recipes. …” This post summarizes the current LENR mythology. As such it presented as fact, when it really is speculations of the so-called ‘true believers’. Doing that rates a ‘dislike’.

Jed “To put it in somewhat more technical terms: …” This post implicitly incorporates the idea that current excess heat measurements are accurate and precise. Jed routinely assumes baseline noise is the primary error component, but ignores the fact I showed that it is not. In fact the noise level was ~10X that in the Storms’ data that I reanalyzed. Smuggling in assumptions as if they we well-known facts rates a ‘dislike’.

Hermes “ @Mary Yugo. I believe in…” Very reasonable viewpoint.

Jed “You have no rational reason to say it does not exist.” As noted in the subsequent MY post, this is not what MY said. Typical JR misinformation…dislike. “As for credible entities, 180 laboratories …” Call to authority….not relevant….dislike.

Alan Smith “Back off a bit Mary.” Don’t see a problem … dislike.

Mary Yugo “Complete nonsense. All…” Good post. Dislikes not warranted. Like.

Jed wrote:

Quote

kirkshanahan wrote:Upshot is Hagelstein and McK and Storms and the rest MISREPRESENTED my position in that paper.

So you say, but I disagree. They disagree too. Just repeating yourself like this does not advance the argument. You have to address the issues they raised, such as the fact that your proposed effect would cause negative heat (an apparent endothermic reaction) as often it causes excess heat. That has not been observed, so you are wrong. This is not complicated. Your hypothesis predicts various things, but these things are not observed, so you are wrong. That's how science works.

hmmm....you disagree and so do they do they...OK...let's Google it..."Thermochimica Acta Shanahan 2002"....hit #2 is:

A systematic error in mass flow calorimetry demonstrated on ResearchGate, ... K.L.Shanahan/Thermochimica...

Note the title....see the 'systematic'? So what is it you disagree with???

I hope you understand the difference between systematic and random...it's like if I said "Jed believes strongly that cold fusion is a farce." instead of 'fact'. But, i know your emotional commitment will not allow you to understand what I write, so I quit with you now.

To the rest of you...do you see how it works now? No matter what I say, according to the CFers, I am wrong, even when it agrees with them...amusing isn't it.

"such as the fact that your proposed effect would cause negative heat (an apparent endothermic reaction) as often it causes excess heat."

My CSS proposal never said that at all. My CSS proposal is entirely consistent with multiple types of data reported by CFers. Now this "CSSH" thing, I don't know, maybe it does. But it is mistakenly attributed to me. Should probably be attributed to Storms, McK, Miles, Hagelstein, etc. I don't have a clue what the "CSSH" says or doesn't say.

Jed...dude...wake up and smell the roses...

We had a long discussion of this over in The Playground I think. Upshot is Hagelstein and McK and Storms and the rest MISREPRESENTED my position in that paper. I agree with you, everyone should read all of these papers. In my 4, I talk about a systematic, non-random process. McK and Co. _SAY_ I talk about a random one. WRONG! They base their rejection of my ideas on this incorrect supposed fact, but, guess what, I AGREE with them, it's NOT random, it's systematic. But you know, when you promote an incorrect basis assertion, it's hard to draw correct conclusions! So, no, they didn't knock me down one bit....

Given the inverse nature of their paper, the comment you quote makes perfect sense. Several people have seen apparent excess heat in F&P cells, because there IS a real, non-random process showing its ugly face.

But guess what! IT AIN'T NUCLEAR!

Wyttenbach wrote: "I thought we live in 2016 now... Do you see any improvement, as some out in the field report COP's well above 100!"

Nope, no improvement... In 1995, a guy named James Patterson promoted a gizmo (later patented) that was supposed to put out 25000% excess heat (maybe only 2500%...too lazy to dig that detail up). I figured that that should be a slam-dunk for understanding what was going on. It wasn't. A lot like Rossi, lots of demos, no science. I came up with a different explanation of why he got apparent excess heat, but with no science-types involved, it was impossible to prove or disprove, so I gave up on that.

As others have noted here, the calorimetry is key for COP claims. The CF community routinely only considers 'nuclear' explanations, when they should be considering measurement device or systems error.
Any reliable experiment will be calibrated, and that calibration is often one source of the problem. As in the Lugano case, where the temperature measurement device was mis-applied. And as in the Defkalion case, where the wrong flowmeter was used, etc. etc. Every time I have looked into 'high COP' experiments I have found problems, most often it is 'insufficient information' to determine if problem xyz is present. So, today I am not really interested in investing a lot of time debugging other people's work. If they don't do the basics, and report them, I figure it's just more of the same, and I move on.

Quote from IH Fanboy

kirkshanahan wrote:
It occurs when 'groupthink' predominates.

If ever there existed an instance of groupthink, it would be the community of physicists who have refused to think beyond their narrow-minded view regarding LENR.

(It doesn't look like the quoting is working for me, so I will separate IHFB's comments with a line of asterisks.)
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Actually I agree with you. It was my recognition of this in 1995 that prompted me to do a deeper study. Their groupthink is "CF is junk." The CF community's groupthink is "Only insiders can make significant comments."

kirkshanahan wrote:

They eyeball their calorimeter's baseline and say "OK...the error is the baseline variation." and then they stop.

No we don't. There are plenty of examples of transmutation and isotopic shift evidence to back up the anomalous heat observations.
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Hmmm...interesting... You shifted the focus, but that's OK. It does mean I have to make a couple more comments here.

You challenged the baseline error comment I made, but don't offer an explanation of what "you" actually do. Please expand on that.

If I knew who you were perhaps I could directly address your own errors. Since I don't, I won't.

I have commented in the past on this in print and in forums. The most rational explanation for the evidence the CFers interpret as support for HMT is contamination plus concentration. I have commented in this forum on He and heat-He 'correlation'. None of that evidence is conclusive or compelling.

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kirkshanahan wrote:

But the cold fusion community has actively attempted to suppress my findings when they should have been attempting to incorporate them.

This is a fairly comical instance of the pot/kettle analogy.

It is isn't it? Kinda shoots down the idea that the CFers are a squeaky-clean group of pure researchers put upon by all sides doesn't it. They seems to be just as bad as those establishment physicists. (Good thing I'm a chemist I guess...)

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kirkshanahan wrote:

The primary difference with cold fusion is the level of fanaticism the proponents have in maintaining their status quo.

Ditto.

You write with remarkable contempt and emotion. Why is that when I raise the topic of cold fusion / LENR with my scientist friends, the reaction is always similar? Even extreme? One time shortly after Dennis Bushnell of NASA came out in support of LENR, I reached out to a scientist friend at NASA--a very conservative and polite person whom I've know for my entire life--and he reacted in a tirade of expletives about his negative views on cold fusion. I had never witnessed him react in such an emotional and angry way. What is it about this topic that brings out so much angst and fear from you folks?

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No, I wrote with a desire to unemotionally state the facts. It is your realization of what they mean that causes you to try to find a way to denigrate what I say so you can ignore it. And is typical in Internet forums, having only the written word to go by, it is trivially easy to read in the most awful things imaginable when desired.

I don't know about your friends, but I've written many times in many places that my original reason for getting involved in this arena was my personal safety, and that of my coworkers. Plus, I was intellectually curious as to why the field was still in an 'unresolved' state in 1995. My agenda was to find out whether there was any concern about unexpected heat application to closed and pressurized vessels. After 2-3 years, I concluded there was no concern and had targeted a primary reason why (the CCS) and since that hadn't been published I did so. Wow, did the fur start to fly then!

I have no angst and fear about the topic. I do feel that the disinformation campaign by the CFers needs to be countered, and I'm stubborn, which is why I persist in trying to 'get the word out'. And by the way...I not one of your 'folks'. I am probably the last man standing who held the view (in 1989) the F&P probably did find a new effect, but their explanation was really off-base (just like F did in 1973).

Jed wrote:
" 'kirkshanahan wrote:In the case of cold fusion calorimetry it arises specifically because the researchers don't study their methods' noise sufficiently.'

That is what you claim, but your claims are physically impossible. See:

lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEcommentonp.pdf

lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MarwanJanewlookat.pdf"

The first publication was addressed immediately by a following publication. The refs. are:

Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta 387 (2002) 95.
Storms, Thermochimica Acta 441 (2006) 207
Shanahan, Thermochimica Acta 441 (2006) 210

None of Storms' comments were accurate. It is also of historical interest to note that in his 2007 book, Storms' claims to have rebutted my comments and references the original paper and his rebuttal, but fails to reference my reply, which was published with his full knowledge immediately after his paper. ("Maybe if we don't talk about it, it won't really exist...")

The second is the infamous paper by the 10 authors (discussed extensively previously here) who used a fallacious strawman argument to attempt to discredit my comments. Strawman arguments don't refute anything, so my original comment stands.

The refs. are:

Marwan and Krivit, J. Environ. Monit., 11, (2009), 1731
Shanahan, J. Environ. Monit., 12, (2010), 1756
Marwan, et al, J. Environ. Monit., 12, (2010), 1765

Jed's response clearly shows exactly what I was saying. He cites two papers by CFers that purport to rebut my original comments, but which both miss the mark (badly in the second case!). But to those who are interested in preserving the status quo's mythology, only the fact that replies were made counts, not whether the replies were correct or not. QED