Posts by THHuxley

Quote from JAROVNAK

I summarise the issues here in my paper under the "caveats" section: specifically alumina transparency. While I agree with this comment that there are unknown errors here I disagree with the implications that (a) said unknown errors are known positive and (b) said unknown errors are potentially very large.

I also think that looking for unknown errors as validation of extraordinary LENR is itself a weird business. The desperate attempt here is to find some wiggle-room to allow Rossi's device to work, and the Profs measurements be valid. Well, the Profs chose a very indirect and flaky way to measure power out so of course there is the possibility of error. In principle the results bound the COP in the range 1.5 - 0.7 (these are conservative figures).

Although at higher optical frequencies the alumina becomes transparent the equation for power out at these frequencies is not positive. Whatever surface actually emits the power will have a smaller effective surface area than the reactor, so even if the power / unit area is higher this is counteracted. What the power per unit area is we do not know: it could be higher from Inconel wire, if oxidised. It could be lower from Inconel wire if not oxidised (the comparator emissivity, at 700C, is about 0.7). Let us suppose the wire has max possible emissivity 1. Then we have a 50% excess from emissivity, and a (50%?) deficit from the area reduction. Note that the wire will not be much hotter than the alumina surface - though it will be a bit hotter. From the equations for heat from radially from an inner cylinder to an outer one, and the thermal resistance of alumina, you can get a rough approximation. I'd expect around 50C or less. I have not bothered to do this calculation precisely (I'm remembering similar ones I did for how much hotter a core with heat production would be than the surface). Somone else could. If we take 50C that is an additional (1020/970)^4 = +22%.

Furthermore, at 700C, a lot of the radiation is at frequencies where behaviour is known and the calculation stands. So this ballpark calculation tells us that there is an error, but it could be + or - and it is probably overall less than 20%.

Finally, I agree with the poster that such an effect would be highly nonlinear versus temperature. That would lead, were it significant, to different COP values measured at 800W and 900W. However my vanilla calculation shows the same COP for these two different powers and this means any highly nonlinear error must be fairly small, further validating my calculation. One reason I wanted to release the code is for other people to try to break the near precise equal COP in the two active tests. That is strong evidence that there is no nonlinear LENR effect, no nonlinear unknown error mechanism. I did not cherry-pick this coincidence and it was robust as I changed the various parameters that affect things.

Quote from Mary Yugo

@stevehigh

I have no idea what Darden knows or cares about. See the link from Mary above for what happened when nuclear inspectors tried to check Rossi's customer and factory. My suspicion is that Rossi has a container somewhere in which he conducts experiments and then gives bogus results to Darden. I doubt there is a real customer and there is certainly nothing to suggest that there is your hypothetical engineer to check Rossi's numbers!

Rossi is capable of convincing a set of apparently competent and independent scientists that he has a device capable of energy generation. He has done it twice. We are sure of the mechanism the second time. As MY pointed out there is strong evidence (the mystery wire and the cheese mechanism) of what it was the first time.

It is a lot easier for Rossi to delude a customer who will be less engineering-oriented, and less critical, and less independent. So whatever the results from this test it adds very little evidence.

Quote from Abd Ul-Rahman Lomax

We have been seeing these arguments for years. If X, then Y, and since Y is not seen, or Y is implausible then not X. Many variants appear.

If cold fusion is real, then 25 years of effort would have produced readily available commercial devices.

If Rossi is a fraud, then the Lugano testers, [lexicon]Industrial Heat[/lexicon], Parkhomov et al, are in cahoots with him, which is implausible, and therefore Rossi is truthful.

This last one contains several additional logical fallacies, not only the excluded middle, but also a series of incorporated assumptions, including that Parkhomov and others have confirmed Lugano and the Rossi Effect.

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Thus far I think I understand and agree with with post.

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"Fraud" is not just any untruthful claim or misleading statement. Fraud connotes that someone is deceived through claims known by the claimant to be false or materially misleading, who obtains a benefit thereby, to the specific detriment of another, who, based on these false or misleading claims, makes a purchase or investment or the like.

Fraud is generally a criminal offense, though there can also be civil fraud. To obtain a conviction on criminal fraud, as I understand the matter, takes stronger evidence than to obtain a judgment in a civil case.

The general idea here - that there are many gradations of falsehood and dishonesty - and generalising all as frau=d is unhelpful - I agree. In fact I specifically insist on it.

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Pseudoskeptics love to assert fraud. It's a cheap shot, and may be impossible to disprove. With Rossi, it is especially easy, based on interpretations of his past, it is commonly asserted that Rossi is a convicted fraud. That is misleading. My firm personal summary: maybe, maybe not. The Petrol Dragon affair is enormously complex, and Rossi was convicted of technical violations, and people argue about whether or not those were dismissed, etc. As to the thermoelectric converter affair, Rossi failed to deliver. Failure to deliver happens for many possible reasons. Bottom line: in that affair, Rossi was not charged or convicted of fraud.

I don't like this. Maybe MY is asserting fraud. But many, based on the facts, will argue one or other of:
(a) fraud is quite likely, given the history
(b) fraud is possible, and certainly NOT extraordinarily unlikely
(c) things that look like fraud could have multiple explanations based on delusion and irrational behaviour.

All of these support the [not pseudo] skeptic case.

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Should investors be careful with Rossi because of his history? Of course! But we can derive no definitive conclusions from what is public about this, so far.

You are saying that we cannot prove Rossi is dishonest/delusional. Maybe not, but if you connect the dots he certainly would have to be very weird to act as he does if not dishonest/delusional.

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Then, as to investment accepted by Rossi, we do not have critical details, specifically the involved agreements and conditions. If no investors in Rossi, where Rossi obtained a benefit, have been defrauded, there is no fraud, even if Rossi, in his public statements, is completely misleading.

That is true. Fraud is remarkably difficult to prove. It is also irrelevant for people here. Whether Rossi is fraudulent or delusional or some combination it does not really matter.

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So most of us are interested in this question because we have hopes for LENR. Those hopes are irrelevant, and they can mislead us. We see example after example where "believers" scour Rossi's statements, attempting to derive information from them that often exists only in fantasy.

For example, does an e-Cat require some particular waveform, or is the input power only for heating the device to operating temperature? There is substantial, but circumstantial, evidence for the latter, I won't go over it, but when Rossi was asked about the input power requirements, he replied according to the specific design of his control system: AC power. And then we have seen the usual pile of claims about this, as if Rossi had confirmed "special input power requirements."

Then there the "independent confirmations." The Lugano test is widely recognized -- by LENR scientists -- to have been a disaster. The best opinion I have seen on it considers that test inconclusive. The isotopic shift results, there, were most impressive. And not fully independent, because Rossi easily could have created those results. No collusion necessary, just a lack of understanding of what is conclusive and what is not.

Does Rossi have a motive to be deceptive in his public announcements and demonstrations and the like? This would not be fraud. Major corporations have announced products in development, completely false operations designed to mislead competitors. Public corporations might have a legal problem with this, but private corporations would not.

Of course Rossi has a possible motive, even a likely one. We do not know for sure why Rossi announced in 2011. The public statements have been that it was as a favor to Focardi. However, there is an obvious business motive: to attract possible investment. However, if investment is controlled and covered by specific agreements with investors, the publicity could be entirely misleading.

Then there is the other side. It is a common opinion among those knowledgeable about LENR that if conclusive evidence of reality of an effect on a commercial scale appears, investment floodgates will open. By providing conclusive evidence -- such as fully independent testing by experts with relevant expertise -- Rossi would create a flood of completion. Consider what would have happened if he had done this in 2011. There might be competing products on the market today.

The "independent professors" allowed by Rossi to test his device included none with truly relevant expertise, specifically in calorimetry. Being a "professor of nuclear physics" provides no relevant expertise, only a general knowledge of physics. Experts in calorimetry have volunteered their services, it has all been rejected.

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So this argument is waht "smart" rossi fans must adopt.

It goes like this: Rossi has commercial reasons to want to appear a flake. therefore even though he appears a flake maybe he is for real.

The problem here is that there is no a priori likelihood Rossi is for real. In fact we require extraordinarily good evidence for his extraordinary claims. Therefore an argument that maybe he could be rationally engaged in an elaborate misdirection policy, while logically not excluding Rossi is for real, keeps this at its original extraordinarily unlikely level.

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So ... what we want to know, is the Rossi effect real? Is he on the verge of releasing a commercial product?

The following is my speculation, based on watching Rossi since 2011.

Rossi found an effect, as have many. He determined to scale up, which was always risky, because of the famous unreliability of cold fusion. He was not able to make the effect reliable, at least not at first. We have no data on reliability, only best-result claims. So he is buying time for development with his strategy.

That may all be true. But what you must also consider is that this "effect" can easily (ordinarily) be experimental error. Its characteristics exactly match that. And, of course, because it always exists, in many forms, many others will have found it.

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He will announce whatever serves his purposes, and withhold whatever information might make the matter completely clear.

And believers and pseudoskeptics will run around in circles, creating little or nothing of value.

There is serious work being done by MFMP. They may or may not find an effect, other than the Bang effect. However, more is made of certain MFMP results than they warrant, and in some cases, shoddy work, predictable failures, are being lauded as "excellent work." Major XP will show as an increase in power that appears at initiation temperature. When results show apparent XP that increases relatively uniformly with temperature, there is a ready appearance of systematic error. In a recent test, the "control" experiment, an unfueled cell, was differently supported from the test cell, in a way that would change cooling rate, so, no surprise, that cell ran cooler than the test cell, uniformly across the full temperature range of the experiment.

Further, a cell that is cracking and ready to fail may shift in its response to power, and thermocouples may be damaged (as well as heating elements). Talking with experts, I see a uniform recommendation: use an oven to heat the cells, do not incorporated heating elements in the cells themselves. There are ways to instrument test cells to see, then, if there is local heat generation and to measure how much; this requires a controlled temperature environment. An oven. A tube furnace can be made to do the same thing, key is temperature control of the oven in ways that are independent of what is happening with the cell.

If the cells make XP, then, this will show in temperature rises in instrumentation thermocouples, properly placed (and kept away from hot hydrogen, nasty stuff). As well, manor XP may show in lowered oven heating necessary to maintain temperature.

Having multiple sources of information on cell activity is crucial in this work.

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The fact that MFMP does its work and does not find anything real is evidence that gets stronger the longer they work.

Brian Aherne was going to use an oven - I'm pretty sure. I expect that he tried this, and got a null result, and as is normal in the LENR world did not make a fuss about it. LENR cannot be disproven by any number of null results.

I find this discourse psychologically fascinating.

The moment somone says "fraud" opinions polarise and the science is lost.

Rossi makes scientific claims (for the last 5 years) that are extraordinary. About as surprising as the FTL neutrino claims.

In that situation anyone rational requires unusually strong evidence to accept the claims as likely.

Now, I think what happens is this:

(1) People argue: either Rossi is a fraud, or the claims are true, at least to the extent that something LENR-like is happenning. "A little bit of LENR" is like "slightly pregnant". As far as physics goes either LENR exists or it does not. If it exists large excess energy is as likely as small excess energy.

(2) People argue that it would be extraordinary for Rossi to be fraudulent, and therefore the collection of Rossi demos make extraordinary evidence as is needed to take LENR seriously.

I can understand this argument: I just have reasons for thinking it unscientific.

Scientists tend not to worry about fraud, because it makes clear evaluation of science more difficult. People are seen as fallible, capable of mistakes, also capable of persistent wrong ways of thinking that result in repeated mistakes. All of this is known to happen quite innocently where people will champion an obviously wrong theory long passed its sell by date.

Obviously, sometimes people deceive others, deliberately falsifying results. When they do that it is often not for money, but because they have so much pride invested in the idea supported by the wrong results. The point is, we do better not to think about human motives here. Mistakes, and persistent bad mistakes, happen anyway.

So for scientists the argument above does not work because the reasoning bout fraud is psychology not science and just not strong enough to support extraordinary evidence.

For psychologists, the argument does not work because they know human fallibility is complex, and any mixture of delusion and deliberate fraud can happen, when they are mixed actions are not rational, so arguing: "Rossi could not do X - it would be irrational/stupid/unlikely" is very weak.

However, random people with no great skill in psychology or science will see (1) and (2) as together making strong arguments.

Mary - and many others, will look at the totality of evidence around Rossi and argue - "he is fraudulent - the facts make this likely". Whether they right or wrong this line of argument inflames people and is also impossible to debate on the internet. You will find web-sites cherry-picking facts. Determining the truth requires patience, persistence, and a wish neutrally to examine evidence. I bet Mary and Alain will both say they are doing this and the other is not.

Mary likes to say things that are essentially true, but in a way that will antagonise almost anyone here.

The issue about the old tests is that Rossi has dome (15?) demos and the original ones all demonstrated (it was claimed) a large COP. All have been shown to have understood error mechanisms explaining this, except one test conducted by Levi alone with his statement of an ultra-high COP. We have no detailed information about this so cannot know what was the error. These low temp ecat tests have never been replicated. Each one has a different setup, and a different new error mechanism. There is a trend down from high COP originally to 3 (the independent tests). Except the most independent test - the only one in a different lab -actually has COP 1.

A trend like this where performance goes down over a sequence of tests is remarkable where somone is developing and optimising new technology, but usual where somone is mistaken or deceitful and seeing remarkable performance from errors. They will be convinced (in the mistaken version) the effect is real and will try everything not previously proved wrong to optimise it. As more things are proved wrong the scope for errors that seem to give high COP goes down.

At this point Mary will point out why Rossi must be deceitful, not mistaken, and others here will argue with her.

I don't need to get into that argument much. Anyone can see that this whole long sequence of tests fits "Rossi has nothing" very well, and "Rossi has something" not at all. Why oh why does the COP progressively go down, if he really has something?

The idea that Levi is unreliable comes from this early outlying good test that Levi attested to with COP of (100?) that was clearly wrong.

Quote from AlainCo

note that if ridge increase emissivity of the IR measured by the cam, it also increase the emissivity used to compute the output...
in my rough computations, I join your result on temperature (I'm even more pessimistic with a peak at 750C) , but it also have impact on the 450W baseline, and on the output sensitivity

if you integrate emissivity error on both side of the balance, something real remain, which may explain the transmutations.
It appear if you simply compare the input power change with temperature change...

only excuse to reach COP=1 is to have a lower emissivity than assumed already, which is not coherent with the initial hypothesis and corrections.

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If you claim the transmutation is partial (say 0.1% of total) then there is no heat excess to speak of. If you claim the transmutation what it appears - total - you need a power out 10X what a 50% error here could give. Obviously too large. So either way COP 1.5 or COP 1 makes no difference explaining the transmutation.

My code used the ridge correction on all the emissivities. In any case the known errors here are quite large, so I don't understand this comment.

Quote from AlainCo

another source of question is that calibration looked correct at low temperature, which seems incoherent with initial hypothesis (why emissivity would increase with temperature from 400 to 800C).

This was a relatively small error (approx 17.5C), and could maybe be accounted for by the thermal gradient clearly visible in the photo, or a mistake in the quoted emissivity (I have no data on this), or an error in convection (which I cannot easily check, but which is not very significant in the high temperature tests). In any case inconsistent results are not a reason to expect extraordinary evidence of LENR - rather they are a case to suspect that the testers have not got a solidly worked out testing regime.

I suppose if you a priori believe that Rossi has working devices, arguing now that the Lugano tests are essentially null because they are badly conducted is your best bet to maintain your initial assumption. Given these were undoubtedly the best and most independent of Rossi's tests it is not a good bet.

The following is the context I take from these experiments:

(1) Rossi's demos have, as MY says, never had proper controls etc to check assumptions, and always had possible errors large enough to account for claimed results. The lack of proper controls has been pointed out and could easily have been mended at any stage.

(2) If Rossi wanted to show that his stuff works, and was anywhere even remotely near where he says he is, with devices working at usable COP, he could have given the Profs a device to test that would unambiguously show excess heat - even given the flakey method that they use to determine this. There maybe would still be suspicion about power measurements etc - but if you trust the testers those are less important. (MY does not trust the testers, but many here do).

(3) So these latest and most rigorous results mean that either Rossi has nothing, or he wanted the test to fail.

(4) It does not really make sense that Rossi should have so many failed tests if he is working as he claimed. For him to have no tests, no public presence, would make perfect sense. For him to have enough public tets to be taken seriously and have patent apps succeed would make sense. What has happened makes no sense. On the other hand, if he has nothing that works his succession of unclear but tantalising tests makes perfect sense, as does the time he puts into courting an internet public.

The nature of LENR speculation on the internet is such that some will go for "he wanted the test to fail". I however would say that "he has nothing" is the correct conclusion.

Quote from Andrea Calaon

Alain, I would guess the evaluation of Thomas is correct. When I will have time I will try to go through it.
Thomas explained that ridges can cause an apparent higher emissivity, it is true. With ridges the surface not only emits, but it also reflects part of the emission coming form the opposite side of the ridges. The view for the whole surface is F. Moreover the radiation coming from the face in front is in part coming from the reflection of the emission of the first surface itself, and so on ... this is the reason for the series. You see from the formula of the effective emissivity that if the ridge angle goes to 0, the view factor F grows towards 1, and the effective emissivity epsilon' grows towards 1, no matter what epsilon was. In fact with low ridges angles the spaces in side the ridges becomes more and more similar to a cavity, i.e. a black body. This is the reason why beach sand gets so hot in summer: it is full of cavities that trap all incident radiation. For moderate angles the effect is stronger for intermediate emissivities. Near 1 there is no significant change anyway.
In the camera range alumina is never transparent so 780 [C] is not too wrong. At 780 [C] alumina is NOT transparent so the transparency argument is not valid. It it WERE at 1,400 you would benefit from high emissivity of the underlying surfaces.

Andrea - it is good to get some informed evaluation of my work, especially because I am an amateur - in the sense that I've never myself done IR thermography - on the other hand i've done quite a wide range of physics and engineering.

The power calculation from temperature is certainly, as Alain says, much less certain. Where I'd disagree with him is taking uncertainty as an indication of excess heat. If that were true any badly designed experiment could show LENR!

A few points about power. The Profs calculate radiation and convection based on a simple geometric model and a few ideal equations. I think it works well (with the ridge correction) for radiation. I'm less sure about convection - I don't know enough to validate the Prof's equations which in any case are approximate. Luckily, for the active results, convection is a small part of teh whole so errors in this don't much matter.

Finally, the calculation is imprecise because it should be done separately for each area element using a different temperature. I am using average approximations with some (gross) approximations for the rods, which vary in temperature. My work is less accurate here than that of the Profs because I do not have the source data. So there is an error from this (+/- 10%?). Also an error from unknown emissivity, and from possible transparency (+/- 20%?)

That is why I note high total errors in my paper. This is not a good way to measure heat output!

Where i expect I'll disagree with some is that when a Rossi device tests with heat output as expected for COP=1, but with large errors in measurement possible, I would not jump to the conclusion that it actually had a COP of 1.5 - even though this is not ruled out by the temperature measurements.

"Confirmed the Lugano result"

He is implying the Lugano results indicate excess heat, which he well knows they do not.

Andrea,

I wish you luck with JONP but don't expect Rossi will allow any comment seriously questioning the Lugano test.

I also note that others think the Profs were referring to 3 of the 'replications" as being successful, not tests they have done themselves. I therefore expect that they will refuse to answer the criticism of their test. That is, scientifically, a very poor show. Although they have not published in a Journal the UoB archive is public and their paper has clearly been seen by many. Their reputation as scientists means that some will take what they say seriously. To publish something completely wrong and when you know that not to correct it is shabby.

I hope I'm doing them an injustice, but that is the way the wind is blowing.

Tom

I will be fascinated to see what else Hoistad publishes.

It is good form, scientifically, to address criticism. I'd hope that he does that.

With regard to the electrical issues in the Lugano Report I'm not aware of Hoistad having done this. Here is what he is duty bound to correct - I leave out a few minor errors with no great consequences:

• Make it clear how the active Joule heating results were calculated, address the X3 anomaly. Invoking a possible highly variable resistance heating element for this must be done explicitly, since Inconel - as stated in the report - cannot have the necessary characteristics or anything else like. He has stored data that would validate or deny such an explanation and not using this to resolve the anomaly is most unfortunate. If the electrical connections were changed in the active test, thus altering currents vs powers, that must be stated explicitly.
• Agree that the temperature and therefore power calculation in Lugano was incorrect and redo as per my comment (but since they have the proper data they can redo this more accurately)

Or, much easier, admit that the Lugano results are essentially no evidence for anything.

What I worry is that he will ignore the Lugano report criticism and publish again new experimental results repeating the same mistakes, and perhaps with less detailed information so that what mistakes are made cannot be detected.

Quote from Andrea Calaon

Dear Thomas,
I am revisiting the Lugano report and I stumbled upon a doubt:
In Fig. 7 of the report the comparison with the emissivity of a known target (rutile on Kapton film) gives the correct temperature, when using an alumina emissivity, I believe, of 0.71 (the value is not precisely stated ...). Since the equivalent emissivity of alumina at this temperature is about 0.882, the temperature of the rutile target and alumina should not give precisely the same temperature.
How would you explain the remarkable match (235 vs 237.5 [C])?

I don't explain this, nor do I need to! If they have anomalies in their measurements of this sort that is something only they can resolve.

It is surprisingly easy, when looking for validation (in this case that temperature readings are OK) to make mistakes that generate it. When you get an "error" you double-check everything or redo the measurement. If mistakes are possible they can be ignored when the "right" result is reached. Note that this temperature is so far from the active temperatures that if it were correct, it would not provide any validation for them.

I would note that the rutile patch is mounted on the high temperature side of a thermal gradient compared with the reference patch, which would perhaps explain the readings. Strange not to choose a reference an equal distance from the reactor to the dot.

I would wonder what were the characteristics of this reference patch at 250C. (I can't find data on it).

I realise that is not an explanation, and it would be presumptuous for me to give one, there is not enough data.

There are possible errors in equiv emissivity, since it does depends on the precise alumina characteristics, but I don't think that is enough for this, though as always I could not rule that out. The expected discrepancy here is around +20C. We then have a known difference of +2.5C +?C (for the temperature gradient).

I wonder also who did the patch calibration.

Quote from Jarovnak

Thomas what think you of dual element inline current test data with fuel & un-fueled powered in series where COP estimate is only Temp difference? Eliminates calibration error on IR or TC data more or less - still LENR present, No?

You can see in the amount of work in this Lugano recalculation that considering the significance of an experiment takes effort and details. In the case you describe any difference between fuelled and unfuelled halves could cause an artifact, so you'd need to look carefully at the results to rule all such out before thinking there was an anomaly, let alone and LENR anomaly.

Differences:
differing core thermal characteristics due to fuel
differing winding characteristics altering radiation or convection
different position or close objects resulting in altered radiation or convection
different end fastening resulting in different conduction
slightly different TC position resulting in anomaly from thermal gradient

The problem is that none of these effects can be ruled out as causing difference without care. Of course, a lot depends on the magnitude of the claimed discrepancy. Large differences would most likely come from TC position issues. As always, details matter.

I'm all for thinking - there tends to be too little of this in evaluating tests.

Quote from JAROVNAK

Just a thought Thomas, Henry & those who still doubt? Jim The lady has visited us many times & we have many more test in the future to examine what she looks like & responds too, be patient fellows & don't anger needlessly, Huh? THINK

Quote from Andrea Calaon

Thomas,
do you mind if I comment about your findings to Andrea Rossi on the JoNP?
I would try to put thinks as simple as possible making a summary of the origin of the mistake and ask for comments. Rossi will surely say he can not comment, but probably many will react and consider the "emissivity mistake". Intellectually honest people will consider it.
Andrea

Not at all, you can reference the paper from lenr-canr:

http://lenr-canr.org/wordpress/?p=1589

But - I don't expect a helpful result.

You should perhaps note that Bob Higgins first noted this mistake - but did not fully evaluate its consequences. The key convincing thing is that the correct equations show constant COP to within 1% between the 800 & 900W tests, showing the "acceleration" to be an artifact.

Quote from Henry

and now? What will you do?
Why don't call Hoistad and friends?

I sent them the paper 4 weeks ago - and received no reply.

I don't think bombarding them with e-ms will help if they don't want to respond.

It won't register much with people at ECW since this report is not allowed there.

Quote from acalaon

Dear Thomas,
I am taking the parts of your code and reproduce bit by bit the steps towards the evaluation of the real temperature of the Hot Cat experiment. I am VEEEERY slow and haven’t finished yet because I do not have much time for these things.

I did a series of changes to the code that do not modify the message you gave. The results so far agree with what you say. In fact the result is that the correct temperature in the second part of the Lugano experiment (using the data of the Lugano report, the spectral emissivity of Alumina and the bolometer sensitivity) was not 1,400 [C], but around 780 [C].
What I did so far to you original code was:

• improving a bit the input data (I digitized the graphs),
• added precision to the constants (not needed, but anyway …),
• limit the highest frequency of the camera band to 13 instead of 14 microns,
• “corrected” the planck function by eliminating the 1E6 multiplier for the wavelength (the input wavelengths are in meters and the planck() function converts to micrometers); this does not change the result.
• modified the integration to the trapezoidal rule,
• add the possibility to modify the angle of the ridges,
• remove all sensitivity parameters for simplicity,
• modified the function fun_to_pts() to include the extreme point ( delta=(b-a)/float(NUM_PTS-1) ).

I haven’t reached the estimation of the actual COP yet. But definitely the temperature of the alumina in the Lugano report was wrong and largely overestimated.

That sounds fine.

One note about the 1e6. I added it to keep all numbers within valid floating point range. So if you remove it (it cancels) be careful with this!

One thing you see with this is that there are lots of slight approximations etc but they make no difference to the results! It is useful to play with the code to get a feel for this.

Tom

The Lugano e-cat showed no excess heat and indeed the Chinese replication also showed no excess, (see my comment on that thread). So that is replictaion, but not of a helpful sort.

The extraordinary aspect of the Lugano test - the isotopic results - has never been replicated anywhere.

So I don't find the statements in this Petition very convincing. Were I an LENR researcher I'd be worried about such possible misrepresentation of the field.

I'd also point out that Rossi seems to have no lack of money.

Tom

Quote from AlainCo

This is the key point where we disagree.

Maybe there is a computation error, but I have integrated the Plank law (not sure the name, but that is energy density by wavelength) over the 7.5-13µm bandwidth (flat, but I've seen shape does not change much),

and this led to a nearly linear/affine function of temperature.
EDIT: after checking this formula is made to be integrated over lambda, so my morning correction is unjustified...

sigBolometer=~ k . (Temp-218C) . emissivity

the Optris could roughly estimate temp that way

Temp ~= sigBolometer/k/emissivity + 218C

anyway, having to guess how a bolometer react is a pity.

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We agree about that. The nearly linear relationship is because at this wavelength much higher than peak Planck approximates to Rayleigh-Jeans. Integrating over a band does not change this linear relationship.

Quote from Rical

Then Barty and Frank Acland on ECW "for some reason", for these excellent reasons, do not publish your spam which is pseudo-scientific.

This is not very polite, but I cannot resist laughing at this. You will not get much support for the view that my paper is "pseudo-science". Of course it might be wrong - but exactly because it is written as science it can be checked and critiqued. It has definite conclusions, with definite arguments, all of which can be reconsidered and perhaps improved. And it is transparent, I publish all my code ion an accessible form.

Tom