Posts by JedRothwell

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Here we go again JedRothwell. If Mizuno really has a 3kW reactor that runs on 300W of electricity, you really think anyone needs a highly accurate power measurement? For what, exactly?

Several reasons. What they boil down to is that accuracy, precision and speed are needed to learn what the reaction is doing. There is all kinds of fascinating information in the way it responds to heat, the time it takes to heat up and cool off, and so on. Also, it is a big help to have a fast-response calorimeter that tells you what is happen on a short time scale. I would love to see results from a microcalorimeter that works on the 0.1 s scale! However, rapid calorimeters can only measure small reactions. That's a trade off.

It is similar to looking at a sample with your eyes, or through a magnifying glass, a microscope or an electron microscope. All four methods have value. All four should be used. But at present our tools are limited to the equivalent of using our eyes.

Many others diagnostic tools are needed. Not just calorimeters. Mass spectrometers and SEM, for example. Unfortunately, they are not available. Mizuno's SEM was busted in the earthquake and it will cost $30,000 or so to fix, I think, which is $30,000 more than he has. Beyond that, there are wonderful modern diagnostic tools used in the semiconductor industry that would probably tell us a terrific amount about what is happening. With such gadgets, we could probably learn more in a month than we have learned in the last 30 years. Jean-Paul and others have told me they range from $50,000 to a few hundred million each. $50,000 might as well be $1 trillion.

A 1-W reaction subjected to these marvelous diagnostics would be far more beneficial than a 3 kW reaction measured with "quick and dirty" techniques. Such techniques would probably not reveal anything useful about the reaction. They would not convince any hardcore skeptics such as THH or anyone at the DoE, so they would have no political benefit either.

Quote from JedRothwell

It is not possible for people to reach a consensus about this. There are too many candidate experiments. No one knows enough to judge which is best. If Prof. A or Prof. B knew what works, they would have done an experiment proving they knew. At best, we are like the blind men trying to describe the elephant. If we happen to be lucky and we touch the right parts, our description will be more useful and a better prediction than others. If we happen to touch the wrong part of the beast, and we conclude it is a hard, cold object (the tusk) our recommendations will be useless.

This situation will not last indefinitely. After a hundred thousand people spend a few billion dollars researching cold fusion, the parameter space will shrink and we will know what the most promising approach is. A few billion dollars is a trivial cost compared to the benefits. Cold fusion will earn back that amount of money every day for the next several hundred years.

In 1911, three years after the world realized that airplanes exist, the Scientific American reported there were 500,000 people frantically working on airplanes: "more than half a million men are now actively engaged in some industrial enterprise that has to do with navigation of the air." I suppose it will take some similar effort to develop cold fusion. Maybe not as many people, but nowadays we use expensive equipment instead of people, so the cost should be similar. Despite this tremendous effort, airplanes were still many years away from being practical. Basically, there were complicated and expensive machines that accomplished only one thing reliably: they killed wealthy, daring young men.

I doubt those aviation pioneers were earning a lot of money. The average American earned $400 per year in 1911. Doctors, accountants and other professionals earned more, but I'll bet the ambitious people working on airplanes made about $400. So, 500,000 people cost about $200 million per year. That would be $5.4 billion today. Three years after the world realizes that cold fusion exists, I expect companies, governments and universities will be spending at least that much developing it.

Quote from Max Nozin

That is why it took 30 years and still there.

I think it took 30 years because it is difficult, there was no funding, and there was tremendous opposition. I do not think differences of opinion slowed things down much. Experts usually disagree with one another. Ask any question to three physicists and you will get five different answers.

Regarding the question: What are the best three experiments? Anyone can hazard a guess. Some of us are probably more qualified than others. But you would have to be omniscient and able to see into the future to know for sure. The only way to find out anything in experimental physics is to do experiments. Until you do them, you don't know.

For all anyone knows, some obscure experiment such as Ohmori's gold cathode experiments might be the best approach. No one has even tried to replicate that, as far as I know.

It is not possible for people to reach a consensus about this. There are too many candidate experiments. No one knows enough to judge which is best. If Prof. A or Prof. B knew what works, they would have done an experiment proving they knew. At best, we are like the blind men trying to describe the elephant. If we happen to be lucky and we touch the right parts, our description will be more useful and a better prediction than others. If we happen to touch the wrong part of the beast, and we conclude it is a hard, cold object (the tusk) our recommendations will be useless.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

https://www.amazon.com/Calorim…hias-Sarge/dp/3527327614/

Same co-authors, Hemminger and Hohne.

Quote from seven_of_twenty

Someone for the love of God please explain to me why replicate an experiment that makes "40 to 100W" while the newest claim from the same experimenter is a reactor that sits quietly in his fireplace, making 3kW from a 300W input?

If people skilled in the art trying to replicate get ~10 W the first time around, it will be a triumph. It will prove that Mizuno is right.

If they keep at it for a year or two, I expect they will get kilowatts for that mass of reactant (~54 g). More likely they will want to work with a smaller mass of reactant at lower power, at a similar temperature and power density. It is much easier to work with 10 to 100 W than kilowatts. It is easier to measure that accurately. That reactor is so big, it is unwieldy. It is big because Mizuno thinks a large mass of reactant is more likely to work, and because if it only works at a small power density he can still detect it. Last year he was getting ~12 W out of that much reactant, which was close to the margin to measure.

The kilowatt scale reactions are probably mainly due to the improved design. That is the only design we described and illustrated in the paper. So that is the only one people will try to replicate. That does not mean it will work. Even if it does work, that does not mean it will work as well as this reactor did. That would be a miracle, not a replication. That never happens the first time around in experimental science. There may be large variations in Pd-on-Ni reactant performance. The high power may be partly a matter of luck. Mizuno himself might not see it with the next batch of reactants. That is hard to predict. After a few years and several hundred million dollars of R&D, people will probably figure out how to make the reactant more consistently. A few years after that, and a few billion dollars later, they will have far better reactants and better control. I suppose the reactors will look quite different as well.

Quote from Alan Smith

Well, we hope that this is an airworthy biplane, but other types may fly better, faster, and more economically. I think you are being a bit too dogmatic about the possibility of progress.

That is a good analogy. Maybe not the way you meant it. There were many different approaches to building airplanes circa 1900, such as A. G. Bell, and Maxim and Lilienthal. Those were smart people. Their ideas deserved respect, although the efforts did not make much progress. However, in 1906 the Wright patent was issued. All successful airplanes after that have been based on their discovery, which was 3-axis control. Also, all of them have wings with chambers similar to this, and similar length to width ratios. These are very different from Lilienthal and other early attempts. The Wrights were superb engineers and they had rigorous proof these were the best chambers and ratios, at the low speed their airplane was designed for.

In other words, every airplane after 1906 is a descendant evolved from this design, and all other precursor designs are extinct.

Needless to say, there has been tremendous progress in aviation! There was tremendous progress between 1908 and 1914. By 1914, there were airplanes that could fly 6 passengers for hours, going thousands of miles. Outwardly, they looked completely different from the pusher design of the Wrights, with the elevator in front. But from the engineering physics point of view, they were similar. They owed the Wrights royalties for the patent.

If the Mizuno design actually works and it is widely replicated, it will probably be the starting point for all future designs, just as the 1906 Wright patent design was. But there will be tremendous progress. Future designs may look very different outwardly, but the microscopic details of surface where the reaction occurs will probably be similar. It is likely there is fundamentally only one effective design, just as there is only one way to control an airplane (with 3-axis control).

Quote from THHuxleynew

Are the traverse tests used determine average velocity made in the 58X38mm outlet or the 66mm tube?

The 66 mm tube. How could you do a 60 mm traverse test in a 58 x 38 outlet? You cannot move something 60 mm in a space 58 mm wide.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I believe the 66mm tube.

Yes. I wrote: "The traverse test covers 6 cm, so that leaves out only 6 mm to the edge, 3 mm on each side." That's 66 mm. If it were the 58 x 38 mm hole, that would be negative 2 mm, and a negative 22 mm. Not positive 6 mm. How does one move negative 22 mm?

I guess i should have made it more clear. But I have tried to make it clear that A * B = C means B = C/A, and alas THH does not grasp that, so I guess he would not understand that you cannot move a sensor 60 mm in a 58 mm space, even if I had pointed that out.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Confirming the ~ 20% difference between middle of tube velocity and average over area velocity.

It is far less than 20%, as shown in Fig. 4. Each set of data points is clustered close together. The largest separation is ~4.0 to ~4.2, for 3.7 W. That's 5%, not 20%.

Quote from Alan Smith

On the topic of vacuums and reacvtors my colleague Russ has pointed out to me that Mizuno's reactor has been 'seasoned' over many years, many long periods of bake-out and high vacuum etc.

That is incorrect. Most are fabricated not long before first use. He has made 20, I believe, R1 through R20. (R = Reactor) (I think he did not use a few of them.) He does not use the same one for years, except for the first cruciform one shown on p. 8 here, which ran for 3 years as noted:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTexcessheat.pdf

I do not know why he made so many reactors, but I am sure he has his reasons.

He himself did not fabricate them. An expert machine shop that makes them. They clean them and deliver them in a very clean state, he says. I do not know what they do, but I suppose they test for leaks and they bake them out.

Quote from nickec

Mizuno used external tape heating and various other internal heaters. Or so I believe having inspected images thus far available.

Yes, the papers say he used external tape heating, and some of them show internal heaters in the schematics.

Quote from Director

I think the situation is pretty clear and obvious.

The Mizuno experiment is going to be replicated by multiple teams so there is not an urgent need for it to be replicated by Google.

I know of two or three credible attempts to replicate it. I hope one of them succeeds.

Quote from Director

If they can take on multiple projects it would be great for them to replicate it.

If the Mizuno experiment can be replicated and it produces the kind of results he saw with R19, with good control over the reaction and 40 to 100 W of heat, there will be no point to doing any other cold fusion experiment. All other approaches will be abandoned. This one will be improved in various ways, such as the ones Ed Storms has in mind. This will be the starting point for all future research.

Okay, a few other approaches might still have value. A Takahashi replication with Ames NL material might be worth it. But all other experiments such as bulk-Pd F&P style experiment would be a pointless waste of time and effort.

Quote from oystla

No one should do boil off test before they know for sure they have a Pd/D cell that actually produce excess heat.

So they would have to first test according to F&P 1990 paper.

Correct. Except you should say: "No one can do the boil off test before they know for sure they have a Pd/D cell that actually produce excess heat." It does not work. You can, of course, boil off the water with high input power, but the calorimetry shows no excess heat. It shows a deficit, from heat not accounted for.

Quote from THHuxleynew

(4) I noted, you agreed, that there was an unexplained X60 factor there, not used on (some) other spreadsheets you have posted

You did not note that. I told you that when I posted that spreadsheet.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Now, no doubt there are many reasons for that X60 factor. I've suggested one. However, it is not documented and adds possibility of error

No, there is no possibility of error. Any spreadsheet can multiply a number by 60 with 100% absolute certainty. It would only add to the possibility of error if the spreadsheet might multiply incorrectly.

The calibrations and other instruments prove this is the correct power level.

Quote from THHuxleynew

I agree, I ask all sorts of questions and persist with minutiae that are probably nothing, and 9/10 times end up being nothing
I agree, I ask for specifics, not just general statements
I disagree that makes me biassed or lazy

That is not what makes you biased or lazy. The bias shows up when you refuse to question your own assumption. The lazy part is when you don't even glance at the graph to see whether power is recorded continuously. One glance would answer your question. You are also lazy when you make assertions without checking the arithmetic.

Quote from THHuxleynew

The above sequence perhaps indicates why I believe my approach to be useful.

I do not recall you have said anything useful. All of your assertions have been mistaken.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Reynolds number for airflow indicates average values ~ 20% smaller than section measured. Exact value is 24% smaller. It is inconsistent that calibration results don't show this and therefore something else must be wrong.

That is incorrect.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Airspeed as on spreadsheets is calculated from blower power, not measured (ok - this was ascoli but many people were not understanding this)

This is wrong, as I said. Apparently you are incapable of doing 4th grade arithmetic. You do not understand that when A * B = C, B = C/A.

Or if you do understand that, you are deliberately lying and trolling here. Frankly, I think you should be banned for a week for repeating this garbage. It is incredible to me that you think you can fool people with this.

Frankly, you have gone too far this time. When you repeatedly claim that something as simple as A * B = C, B = C/A is not true, you have gone over the line. I am going to block your messages and ignore you from now on. I will not waste my time with such an obvious troll. You are a troublemaker, and your only agenda is to cast doubt on things and confuse the audience here.

Quote from THHuxleynew

ascoli's clever observation shows that the airspeed figures for these tests are calculated from blower power, as measured, using the calibration graph given in the paper, rather than measured with the hot wire anenometer.

No, it does not show that. Not if you understand grade school arithmetic. Ascoli claimed the blower power is multiplied by one factor to produce the air flow. If that were true, you could divide air flow by blower power and the get the same answer every time (the factor). Here, let me spell that out, so that even you and Ascoli understand:

A * B = C. To solve for B, divide C by A. Example: 2 * 4 = 8. 8 / 2 = 4.

Do you understand?

As you see in the table I uploaded, the actual data does not show the same factor in every case. Ascoli should have tried that himself before uploading a blatant error.

Do you understand this? It is 4th grade arithmetic. Are you deliberately repeating this as a lie, or are you incapable of doing 4th grade arithmetic?

After Ascoli came up with this, other people tried to develop equations with more than one factor. They failed. Any spreadsheet works to better than 5 decimal places, and no one has come up with a function that converts blower power into air speed. I am sure you cannot come up with one either.

Why do you make claims that anyone with a grade school education can see is wrong? Are you trying to fool people here? Do you have no respect for the audience here?

Quote from anonymous

Depends on what wrong means. If being able to predict the dependent variable for the data set to within 5 decimal places, it works perfectly as described by the standard deviation of its error.

The problem is that spreadsheets are all more precise than than 5 decimal places, and this one shows different answers than yours. So you got the wrong answer. If the function you wrote here gave the right answer, it would agree with Mizuno's numbers to more than 5 decimal places.

Quote from Paradigmnoia

What [calorimetry textbook] do you recommend?

W. Hemminger and G. Hohne, “Calorimetry, Fundamentals and Practice”, Verlag Chemie, Florida (1984).

Quote from Wyttenbach

This comment unmasks THH as well connected person to divert the field.

What makes you think he is well connected?

I think this comment unmasks him as someone who is unwilling to check his own hypotheses, to do even the simplest quantitative check of his hypotheses before posting them, and as one who is unwilling to admit his is wrong when other people show conclusively that he wrong by many orders of magnitude. And as someone who is careless and lazy. He does not make even the simplest observations to confirm what anyone can see at a glance, for example, looking at graph to see if input power is recorded continuously, or only measured a few times a day. If it is recorded continuously, the line will have have spikes and perturbations. If it is recorded once, the line will be perfectly straight. I suppose anyone would know that. Look at Fig. 7 in the Mizuno report. What does it tell you?

He also tends to come up with outlandish theories and questions that no ordinary person with a technical background would ask. Even after he realizes -- or grudgingly admits -- that power is recorded every 5 seconds, he then comes up with an equally far-fetched question: Did Mizuno record voltage only, without amperage? What?!?? Why would anyone do that? How difficult is it to record both? Have you ever heard of an experimentalist doing that? I uploaded spreadsheets years ago showing volts and amps recorded every 5 seconds. Robert Bryant recently posted copies here. Why not have a look at them instead of asking such a strange question? I have a hunch he asks that not because he wants to know, but because he wants to introduce confusion and doubt into the discussion. Such questions are not intended to shed light, but rather to shed darkness, like the ink from a cuttlefish.

In short, although he calls himself a skeptic, he is the very opposite of a real skeptic. A skeptic questions his own assumptions first, quantitatively analyzes them to see if the numbers add up, and tries to confirm them or disprove them. THH never does these things. When others do them for him, he never admits they are right. He just goes right back to making the impossible claim a day later. Most people opposed to cold fusion are like him. None of them has ever written a paper or made an argument that stands up to 5 minutes of cursory examination. None of them has ever discovered a substantive error in any important paper.

Quote from Ascoli65

famous and best documented experiment in the history of CF/LENR: the boil off experiment performed by F&P in April-May 1992 (1).

It's very simple, cheap and easy to replicate . . .

It is not simple, not cheap, and very difficult to replicate. Other than that, you may have a point.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Mizuno's work: there are too many question marks, high risk of its being negative and if it is this would not help matters.

There are not "many" question marks. There is not a single one, so far, unless you count the kinds of "questions" you have raised, which are 7 orders of magnitude too small, or physically impossible. The risk of the classic F&P experiment being negative is higher. Google already did this experiment, and it was negative.

As I predicted when I first posted this, you invent all kinds of impossible reasons to doubt it, then you declare by fiat that you are right and there are problems, then you ignore people who show that you are drastically wrong by many orders of magnitude.

Quote from THHuxleynew

Classic F&P / Mckubre - that would be best:

(1) This work has a better theoretical chance of being onto something

As I said, they tried that and it did not work. It seldom works, except when done by experts. Also, it takes years of effort, testing dozens or hundreds of cathodes before you find one that might work.

There is no theory. There is no theoretical chance that any of this is right. F&P is no more supported by theory than Mizuno.

Quote from Cydonia

In order to know where you want to go you must make an uncompromising analysis of Lenr situation, first.

Why we are here ?

Because 1989's Pons&Fleischman great results.

By their results they were happily financed by Toyota, yet despite their experience, they found nothing more with this investment.

That's incorrect. They made tremendous progress. The program was shut down for political reasons. Before that, it culminated with these results, which are as dramatic and undeniable as Mizuno's recent results, only far more difficult to replicate:

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RouletteTresultsofi.pdf

Quote from THHuxleynew

One additional possible artifact characteristic of Mizuno-style air calorimeters (if constructed according to his geometry) and easily avoided by replicators.

That is an imaginary possible artifact, that -- if it were real -- would be ~7 orders of magnitude too small to cause the effect, and about 5 orders of magnitude too small to measure. It is not possible to construct a calorimeter that avoids all of the imaginary problems THH comes up with, because he can come up with as many more as he wants. Most are physically impossible. How can you avoid invisible drops of water that defy gravity and magically erase the energy need to vaporize water? That's like trying to protect against poltergeists.

I recommend people read a good textbook on calorimetry and learn to avoid actual problems, not imaginary ones.