Re: [Vo]:comment on Violante data as covered by Steve Krivit
Hi Horace, sorry for the late response, my comments below. 2010/2/7 Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net: On Feb 7, 2010, at 4:42 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: 2010/2/7 Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net: Two things to consider: (1) reversing the current *does* dissolve the Pd surface, True, but extremely slowly I believe. A Pd anode is known to dissolve relatively fast in acidic electrolytes such as D2SO4, but I don't think that's what they used. It is doubtful whether they reverted the current long enough to dissolve more than a few atomic layers. I think the experimenters were competent. They knew what they were doing. Using a Faraday constant of 96,485 C/mol, and (conservatively) a valence of 4, n for moles produced, I for current = .2 A, t for time = 1 s, we get: n = I * t / (96,485 C/mol * 4) n = (0.2 A)*(1 sec) / (385940 C/mol) = 5.182x10^-7 mol This means that at 200 mA/cm^2, 5.182x10^-7 mol/s is removed, or 3.12x10^17 atoms per second. We also have for Pd: (12.38 g/cm^3)/(106.42 g/mol) = 0.1163 mol/cm^3 = 7.006x10^22 atoms/cm^3. The atomic volume is 1.427x10^-23 cm^3, and the atomic dimension is 2.426x10^-8 cm. The amount of Pd removed per second is (3.12x10^17 atoms per second) * (1.427x10^-23 cm^3 per atom) = 4.45x10^-6 cm/s, or 445 angstroms per second. The number of layers of atoms removed is (4.45x10^-6 cm/s)/(2.426x10^-8 cm) = 183/s. If this is correct (highly suspect! 8^), then at a current density of 200 mA/cm^2 we have a thickness of 183 atoms removed per second, or 445 angstroms per second. This would be correct if palladium, when driven as an anode, did dissolve in an alkaline electrolyte (they classically used LiOD in that M4 experiment, according to their original report at http://newenergytimes.com/v2/archives/1998epri/TR-107843-V1.PDF , thanks to Steve Krivit for the link), which it doesn't, see the Pd/H2O Pourbaix diagram at http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/jmpgm/data/datasheet.do?record=532database=cesdatabase which shows that such corrosion only occurs in an acidic electrolyte (pH 3). and (2) previous work has shown that helium production takes place near but below the surface (order of microns), while tritium production tends to take place on or very close to the surface (within a few atomic widths). I guess you mean they are *found* there, couldn't they be both produced on the surface, only with more kinetic energy in the helium nuclei (alphas) than in the tritium nuclei for some reason, so that the helium is implanted more deeply? I find the idea of two different nuclear reaction sites producing different products a bit unlikely. No, most of the 4He reactions occur sub-surface. What do you think produces a volcano? A surface reaction? The volcanos you mention could also be impact craters produced by a local chain reaction on the surface. The typical 4He produced by CF does not have MeV kinetic energy, and is not surface produced. If it were there would be massive alpha counts. There is not sufficient kinetic energy to push alphas that deep into the Pd. You may well have a point here. A ref for those deep alphas would be welcome BTW. This has been a classic problem with CF, converting the process into a bulk effect instead of a surface effect for all practical purposes. Maybe it's just not possible, because you can't make large D fluxes collide head-on Head on collisions, i.e. kinetics, can not possibly account for cold fusion. Not alone I agree, it's more subtle than that, but the Ds do have to meet don't they? I submit that the Ds following/pushing each other down the lattice corridors like fish in a fish swarm have no reasons to experience frequent close encounters. in the bulk, this can only happen at a significant scale on the surface (desorbing vs incident fluxes). In the bulk, it seems to me the deuterons just push and follow each other down the lattice's concentration gradients, and never really collide hard. Also, if Bose Einstein Condensates are involved, they requires cold bosons for their formation. Head-on collisions may be a plausible mechanism for deuteron kinetic energy removal. This would only be the case if the collisions were almost all totally inelastic. Good point, although the combined effect of their respective colleagues pushing from behind could conceivably result in many of the collisions being inelastic. In any case, surface or subsurface, we certainly all agree that something special occurs in the surface region, so the surface plays a determinant role in CF. Maybe we could collaboratively establish a list of what we know is special about the surface, here are a few items for a start: a/ only place where frequent D encounters are possible (as mentioned above) b/ adsorption heat is higher than absorption heat, i.e. the trapping potential for Ds is deeper on the surface than in the bulk (probably due to the surface Pds having dangling bonds) c/ place
[Vo]:OFF TOPIC What people are up to in Dekalb County
I had occasion to visit the Dekalb County, Georgia, Tax Commissioner web site: http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/TaxCommissioner/tc-home.html On the top right there is a set of Quick Links to Things People Often Do in Dekalb county. It is a pull down box, labeled I WANT TO: Click on it, and you find a revealing set of choices, including: REGISTER TO VOTE PAY MY WATER BILL . . . FILE A RESTRAINING ORDER REPORT A LOOSE DOG GET TRAFFIC CITATION INFO APPLY FOR A PISTOL LICENSE GET A MARRIAGE LICENSE FILE FOR A DIVORCE . . . PAY MY TAXES It add up to a Country Western ballad or an episode of Law Order. Note that paying taxes is the last thing on people's minds when they contact the Tax Commissioner. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Liquid Glass
Ron, You have to wonder - with liquid glass and a commercial laser engraver (etcher) which is similar to an ink jet printer - http://www.epiloglaser.com/product_line.htm and some imagination and metal-coated film, if one could not etch the circuits with the printer, then coat this film with the glass, and thereby make a large and fairly efficient homemade nano-solar thin film photocell array... Jones -Original Message- From: Ron Wormus This sounds very cool. http://www.physorg.com/news184310039.html Ron
[Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax quoted Huizenga: However, as is the case with so many cold fusion claims, this one is unsubstantiated and conflicts with other well-established experimental findings. First, the failure of Miles, Bush, et al. to detect 3He in their experiments requires that the branching ratio of 4He/3He from D+D cold fusion be increased by a facgtor of more than a hundred million compared to low-energy (=2 keV) and muon-catalyzed fusion (a type of cold fusion). Hence, it is highly likely that the 4He is a contaminant from the atmosphere. Ah, that's like a stroll down Memory Lane . . . during which someone jumps out from the boxwood there on Memory Lane and mugs you. Beautiful, John. Too bad you aren't still cogent enough to understand what you did. If, indeed, you ever were. That's a low blow. (Huizenga is reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.) But, anyway, he was always cogent enough to understand what he said, and did. There was never any confusion in his mind about what he meant. Many people, including me, spoke with him and asked him specifically whether he meant that theory overrules experiment and he said yes, emphatically, it does. Beaudette quoted the part of the book that makes this claim explicit, which is in the 6-point summation: Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat. Beaudette and I consider this a violation of the scientific method, but here's the thing: Huizenga did not think it is a violation, and neither do the many prominent scientists who agree with him. They honestly believe that the theory is so well established in this case, any experimental result that conflicts with it must be wrong. No further proof or specific reason to doubt the experiment is needed. You can dismiss it a priori the way you can dismiss a report that a person flapped his arms and flew to the moon. (I doubt they feel that all theory in all aspects of physics is so well established.) The first step to understanding a disagreement is to clearly grasp what people on both sides are saying, and in this case I am sure that is what the other side is saying. It seems mind boggling to me, but people often say and do mind-boggling things, after all. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
neither do the many prominent scientists who agree with him. neither do the many prominent technicians who agree with him. Fixed that for you. They don't deserve the label scientist if they think that way. On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 8:25 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax quoted Huizenga: However, as is the case with so many cold fusion claims, this one is unsubstantiated and conflicts with other well-established experimental findings. First, the failure of Miles, Bush, et al. to detect 3He in their experiments requires that the branching ratio of 4He/3He from D+D cold fusion be increased by a facgtor of more than a hundred million compared to low-energy (=2 keV) and muon-catalyzed fusion (a type of cold fusion). Hence, it is highly likely that the 4He is a contaminant from the atmosphere. Ah, that's like a stroll down Memory Lane . . . during which someone jumps out from the boxwood there on Memory Lane and mugs you. Beautiful, John. Too bad you aren't still cogent enough to understand what you did. If, indeed, you ever were. That's a low blow. (Huizenga is reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.) But, anyway, he was always cogent enough to understand what he said, and did. There was never any confusion in his mind about what he meant. Many people, including me, spoke with him and asked him specifically whether he meant that theory overrules experiment and he said yes, emphatically, it does. Beaudette quoted the part of the book that makes this claim explicit, which is in the 6-point summation: Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat. Beaudette and I consider this a violation of the scientific method, but here's the thing: Huizenga did not think it is a violation, and neither do the many prominent scientists who agree with him. They honestly believe that the theory is so well established in this case, any experimental result that conflicts with it must be wrong. No further proof or specific reason to doubt the experiment is needed. You can dismiss it a priori the way you can dismiss a report that a person flapped his arms and flew to the moon. (I doubt they feel that all theory in all aspects of physics is so well established.) The first step to understanding a disagreement is to clearly grasp what people on both sides are saying, and in this case I am sure that is what the other side is saying. It seems mind boggling to me, but people often say and do mind-boggling things, after all. - Jed
RE: [Vo]:Liquid Glass
Jones, That would be an interesting project. More than one layer would be needed though I don't know how accurately you could align the sheet for multiple passes. I think we will see some of the commercial panels drop in price. In our local paper just this last week was an article on leasing a 10KW array for 20 yrs for just over $100 a month that included installation maintenance. That is less than my current electricity utility bill so I am going to look into it. I am not sure I have enough roof space though. What I really need is a heater! Its been an unusually cold winter on the CO front range this year my gas bills crazy high just to keep this old place around 60 degrees. Ron --On Tuesday, February 09, 2010 7:51 AM -0800 Jones Beene jone...@pacbell.net wrote: Ron, You have to wonder - with liquid glass and a commercial laser engraver (etcher) which is similar to an ink jet printer - http://www.epiloglaser.com/product_line.htm and some imagination and metal-coated film, if one could not etch the circuits with the printer, then coat this film with the glass, and thereby make a large and fairly efficient homemade nano-solar thin film photocell array... Jones -Original Message- From: Ron Wormus This sounds very cool. http://www.physorg.com/news184310039.html Ron
RE: [Vo]:Liquid Glass
-Original Message- From: Ron Wormus What I really need is a heater! It's been an unusually cold winter on the CO front range this year my gas bills crazy high just to keep this old place around 60 degrees. You should never have given up on those fractional hydrogen gas-discharge tubes, Ron :) Seriously, folks - space heating (yawn) is probably the number one most useful application for either LENR or f/H. It's not fancy, and maybe that's the problem; and you may only need it for 5 months a year, so palladium is out, but still ... where's the beef? Lest we not forget our history - eighteen years ago, Thermacore, Inc. now a subsidiary of Modine International, ran an nickel light-water electrolytic cell for over one year continuously for DARPA - and produced more free energy in the form of low grade heat than the entire US hot fusion boondoggle has given us (probably $20 billion down the drain in that same time frame)... You cannot ever convince me that at tenth of the US investment in tokamaks - if shifted to that program in the early 1990s, would not have resulted in the availability of a simple space heater for wintertime use. Jones
Re: [Vo]:Liquid Glass
Jones, Thanks for posting that reference! Cool! Actual desktop USB interface computer laser cutters. And they sell used ones on occasion too. That stuff reminds me of the liquid sodium silicate I used to play with as a kid. It was sold under the name Eisenglass I think. It came as a viscous liquid in quart cans. It was used to paint eggs (still in the shells) in order to preserve them longer I think. This lost importance when refrigerators became common. I added chemicals like copper sulfate to the Eisenglass to grow a chemical garden in a glass jar. It formed neat plant-like tentacles. I don't know where I got the recipe for that. I think it might have been Sci. Am. or Pop. Sci. I am curious as to why you think circuits have to be etched? To use silicon for a solar cell I think it has to be doped, so as to create a PN boundary. It is the potential drop across the PN boundary that actually drives a solar cell. The sun merely creates the ions in the gap so they can be accelerated across it. I do wonder if it might be possible to use a zinc or zinc plated substrate (zinc is a hole conductor) coated with silicon that is chemically doped as an N (electron) conductor. If so, the remaining things necessary to create a solar cell are a transparent conductive overcoating, and possibly the printing of a very conductive metallic collector circuit on top. On Feb 9, 2010, at 6:51 AM, Jones Beene wrote: Ron, You have to wonder - with liquid glass and a commercial laser engraver (etcher) which is similar to an ink jet printer - http://www.epiloglaser.com/product_line.htm and some imagination and metal-coated film, if one could not etch the circuits with the printer, then coat this film with the glass, and thereby make a large and fairly efficient homemade nano-solar thin film photocell array... Jones -Original Message- From: Ron Wormus This sounds very cool. http://www.physorg.com/news184310039.html Ron Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
[Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
Understanding the Orbo principle by JL Naudin http://jnaudin.free.fr/steorn/html/orboeffecten.htm Harry __ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/
Re: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
At 10:25 AM 2/9/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax quoted Huizenga: However, as is the case with so many cold fusion claims, this one is unsubstantiated and conflicts with other well-established experimental findings. First, the failure of Miles, Bush, et al. to detect 3He in their experiments requires that the branching ratio of 4He/3He from D+D cold fusion be increased by a facgtor of more than a hundred million compared to low-energy (=2 keV) and muon-catalyzed fusion (a type of cold fusion). Hence, it is highly likely that the 4He is a contaminant from the atmosphere. Ah, that's like a stroll down Memory Lane . . . during which someone jumps out from the boxwood there on Memory Lane and mugs you. Beautiful, John. Too bad you aren't still cogent enough to understand what you did. If, indeed, you ever were. That's a low blow. (Huizenga is reportedly suffering from Alzheimer's.) Yeah. If someone from his family asks for an apology, I will. On the other hand, he did what he did, and the consequences fall, in the end, based on his actual life. I certainly am not demanding that he now defend his position. I'm outraged by what he wrote, personally. It does indeed represent a bull-headed denial of the scientific method, and, apparently, from what you say, Jed, it was even worse than it appears. But, anyway, he was always cogent enough to understand what he said, and did. There was never any confusion in his mind about what he meant. Many people, including me, spoke with him and asked him specifically whether he meant that theory overrules experiment and he said yes, emphatically, it does. Beaudette quoted the part of the book that makes this claim explicit, which is in the 6-point summation: Furthermore, if the claimed excess heat exceeds that possible by other conventional processes (chemical, mechanical, etc.), one must conclude that an error has been made in measuring the excess heat. The claim assumes that the possible conventional processes have all been identified and ruled out. Further, sure, some major unexpected anomaly, error is a reasonable hypothesis, but not a reasonable conclusion. That's not a conclusion, it's an assumption. A conclusion would look at the evidence and consider, as well, that possibly the circumstances were not completely understood. The conclusion of fusion was also improper, certainly. But it was also a reasonable hypothesis, and that's why Huizenga's DoE panel did recommend further research to nail this down. But Huizenga, obviously, was not prepared to take that seriously, he was forced into it politically. And I'm suspecting that the mental problems began much earlier than obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's, it would explain the otherwise mysterious obstinacy. Beaudette and I consider this a violation of the scientific method, but here's the thing: Huizenga did not think it is a violation, and neither do the many prominent scientists who agree with him. They honestly believe that the theory is so well established in this case, any experimental result that conflicts with it must be wrong. Cool. However, what established theory is violated? Basically, the established theory does not make detailed predictions in the condensed matter realm, it's mathematically far too complex, and this is what I learned directly from Feynman. One can make *assumptions* that *might* hold. And might not. Absolutely, skepticism that D-D fusion, straight on, was happening in the environment was pretty solidly based, but they forgot to realize that there might be *something else* going on, something not expected. The unexpected does not violate established theory, by definition. It wasn't expected! Nobody had examined the case and done the detailed and difficult work of not only making the calculations (how do you calculate the unexpected?) but also of verifying the results experimentally. Fleischmann, as you know, if his memories are accurate, and I see no reason why they would not be, thought that his exploration of the Pd-D system would come up with a confirmation that the deviations from the predictions -- which are *theoretically expected*! -- of QM would be below measurement error. But he and Pons decided to test it, and were surprised, then excited, by what they found. That exploration of the boundaries is why I think that P and F deserve the Nobel Prize for what they found, even if they made mistakes. This was fundamental science, of a kind that is too rarely done. No further proof or specific reason to doubt the experiment is needed. You can dismiss it a priori the way you can dismiss a report that a person flapped his arms and flew to the moon. (I doubt they feel that all theory in all aspects of physics is so well established.) It's a classic error, actually, and one would think that it would be totally obvious by now. It's remarkable, though, that Huizenga claims that such and such a
RE: [Vo]:Liquid Glass
-Original Message- From: Horace Heffner I am curious as to why you think circuits have to be etched? To use silicon for a solar cell I think it has to be doped, so as to create a PN boundary. It is the potential drop across the PN boundary that actually drives a solar cell. The sun merely creates the ions in the gap so they can be accelerated across it. Yes, all that is true, but as I understand the factors that drive photocell efficiency - the etching is required to get makeup electrons to the depleted sites with as little resistance as possible, and in the opposite path - to remove them. Metal lines may not be required for this, since silicon can be doped to conduct reasonably well, but it is probably more efficient that way. In the case of liquid glass the cool thing is that one could also (probably) dope various layers easily by adding an electrolyte or nanopowder in a few percent - right to the product - and apply in thin films. That could be done easier than with a crystalline material - heck you might even be able to do triple or quadruple layering with liquid glass if- as Ron mentioned, the circuit layer(s), could be matched up... aluminum coated mylar might work and has the advantage of transparency. You will probably see this in a high school science fair project soon - if it is indeed this simple to pull off. Jones
[Vo]:Britz versus Huizenga's totals
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Your paper on this, also based on the Britz bibliography, is at http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf, and, reading numbers (approx) from your chart, year totals cumulative totals pos neg neutral pos neg neutral 198943 92 22 42 92 22 199075 76 41 117 168 63 199147 28 18 164 196 81 199222 13 11 186 209 94 There is a huge difference between Huizenga's numbers and yours. What happened? Pretty obviously, the Britz database was not complete at that time, assuming that it wasn't cherry-picked, and the claim was that it wasn't. Those are not my numbers. They are the totals from the Britz database, tallied by a Pascal program I wrote. (The program may have produced minor discrepancies but I checked it manually with a subset of the data and it is pretty good.) Britz said that these were the authors' own evaluations, and for the most part I agree with him. (as I said on p. 33). Here is the spreadsheet: YearTotal Res+Res-Res0Undecided 1989205 46 83 22 54 1990248 75 76 41 56 1991130 46 29 18 37 199265 22 13 11 19 199366 31 10 8 17 199442 20 3 3 16 199529 19 3 6 1 199648 24 10 7 7 199732 19 2 4 7 199833 19 2 3 9 199923 18 0 1 4 200015 10 0 1 4 200117 11 2 0 4 200218 9 2 0 7 20037 2 1 0 4 20046 4 0 0 2 20056 2 2 2 0 20066 4 0 1 1 20075 5 0 0 0 20086 2 0 0 4 20090 0 0 0 0 1007388 238 128 253 I do not know what order the papers were added to the database, or how to explain the difference between Huizenga's totals and Britz. Huizenga tries to show that positive publications had almost ceased by 1992. In fact, they continued, though certainly at reduced levels. They did decline over time, later, but never to zero, and, in fact, since roughly 2003 or 2004, they began to increase . . . Surely the overall conclusion is correct. Cold fusion publication dwindled almost to zero and so did the research. It is moribund even now. There is no funding and few young researchers, and the field will surely die sooner or later as things now stand. However, you have to look as the causes. Huizenga, Morrison and Britz said the total is asymptotically approaching zero for the same reason polywater research and publications are: because the results were proved wrong. There is nothing left to discuss. Schwinger and I say that the research was crushed by academic politics, venomous criticism and censorship. . . . and the numbers for 2007 and 2008 in the Britz database are quite certainly not complete. For example, there were many peer-reviewed papers published in 2008 in the ACS Sourcebook, enough to practically dwarf the number shown on the chart for 2008. The numbers are close to complete. He will never add the ACS sourcebook for the same reason he never added the peer-reviewed version of the ICCF-4 papers: it is too positive for his taste. Too many solid affirmations. You have to realize that Britz is a diehard skeptic. He holds that cold fusion does not exist and that every single positive paper is mistaken or fraud. (He seldom accuses the researchers of fraud, but he claimed that some Japanese researchers and I committed fraud, at ICCF-3, so he is not shy about making accusations.) He agrees with Huizenga. The detailed tally hardly matters in a sense. When I wrote the paper last year he retreated somewhat, but as far as I know he still thinks every paper is a mistake. Quoting my paper: [Britz] says he is: [not] among those who totally deny that may be a new phenomenon. I do believe there may well be. In the past he said: There are enough quality positives for the original FP system (tritium, some XS [excess] heat) to force me to give it a (small) chance. Huizenga claims that all marginal papers were included, i.e., papers with inadequate controls, etc. Huizenga, of course, claims any finding of no neutrons as negative. . . . You should not take his claims too seriously. If he were discussing some other area of science, his assertions would be in line with conventional thinking. People like Huizenga and Britz are good scientists, and solid professionals. Normally they would not make up new rules or bend over backwards to skew the data in their favor (by rejecting the ICCF-4 and ACS book, for
[Vo]:ICCF-15 videos
As I noted before, the ICCF-15 PowerPoint slides are here: http://iccf15.frascati.enea.it/ICCF15-PRESENTATIONS The videos are available on line but for some reason the site is not open to the public. Perhaps only attendees are eligible to get the videos? No one told me that, and I do not know what the policy is. Anyway -- speaking hypothetically -- if someone here to were to contact me with your mailing address, you might find a set of 4 DVDs with the videos on them in the mail. The videos are nearly as boring as the actual lectures, but they have two advantages: 1. You can see the slides more clearly, since I include the slides and a look-up table and you can view the slides in a separate window. 2. The conference was held in a 19th century lecture hall in a divinity school, so the chairs are as uncomfortable as anyone can make them. Presumably to keep the students awake, or perhaps it has to do with original sin and hairshirts. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Britz versus Huizenga's totals
I wrote: If someone like Britz or Prof. Dylla of the AIP were to come out and declare unequivocally and publicly they think cold fusion is real, they would land in a world of trouble. They know that! To be fair to Britz, he has also at times defended the reputations of researchers, if not their results. He has distanced himself from the extreme tactics of his fellow skeptics. The attached letter from Miles to Britz describes one such incident. I do not recall that he has engaged in ad hominem attacks, except when he attacked me and a few Japanese researchers. I am not likely to forget that! Since he is a political animal, I suspect this is more a case of prudence or cowardliness than ethics. He and the other skeptics are usually happy to kick anyone in the teeth so long as that person is unable to kick back. By the way, the postscript in this letter is addressed to me. - Jed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION CHINA LAKE, CALIFORNIA 93555-6001 IN REPLY REFER TO December 18, 1996 Dr. Dieter Britz Kemisk Institut Aarhus Universtet Langelandsgade 140 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Dear Dr. Britz: Thank you for your letter of 12 December 1996 and your support of scientific fairness with respect to my response to the Jones and Hansen paper criticizing my cold fusion publications. I understand your position as a skeptic on this issue and have no problem with that fact. Nevertheless, my experimental measurements convince me that anomalous effects occur in deuterated palladium. I will mail you a copy of my final report and recent papers that I submitted to ICCF-6 so that you can judge this experimental evidence yourself. I will also send you copies of letters that I have on file regarding my request to publish a rebuttal back-to-back in the same issue of J. Phys. Chem. as is their stated custom. Steve Jones, however, did not want to delay his publication. Neither Steve Jones nor Dr. El-Sayed can produce any formal letter that shows that I was officially informed of the publication criticizing my work. I challenged Steve Jones to publish his e-mail allegations regarding my work because I expected to be informed and to be allowed to write a rebuttal. This never happened. I can document the following sequences of events: Dr. Kendall Johnson, a post-doe, visited BYU on 3 January 1995 and was given an early version of the paper in question. Dr. Johnson was not involved with any publications involved in this debate and was not an appropriate person to be given this paper. He later showed this paper to me, but he did not know what stage this paper was in or to which journal it would be submitted. Furthermore, I had to leave on travel for meetings and other assignments in Washington, D.C., and I did not return until the end of January. I was expecting to receive the final manuscript and to be informed of the journal involved before writing my response. I never heard another word about this manuscript until Dr. Morrison was handing out copies of page-proofs of this paper at the ICCF-5 conference in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The rest of the story is found in my letters requesting a delay in publication to permit my back-to-back response in the same journal. This was denied. I later submitted a detailed response to J. Phys. Chem., but this response was rejected by the editor and reviewers that were selected. Based on the reviewer's comments, none of the reviewers that I proposed were selected. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find unbiased reviewers for either side of this controversy. I remain convinced of my experimental results and that I can easily respond to nearly all criticisms of my work. Sincerely, Dr. Melvin H. Miles NAWCWPNS Fellow P. S. Please post this letter on e-mail if you feel that it would be informative to others regarding this matter. copies: Dr. El-Sayed, Editor, J. Phys. Chem. Professor Steve Jones. BYU
Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
Lovely page! Thanks, Harry! JLN has done a really clear job of describing the effect, well enough that it can be reproduced and fully analyzed, with, as far as I can see, no hidden tricks. Now, what can we say about his page? First, he measures the inductance of the coil, and observes that it's lower when the magnets are nearby. OK, well and good; as I understand it that's because the core is saturated and its permeability has hit the skids. Next, he shows the voltage, current, and power curves to energize/deenergize the coil with and without the magnets present. He asserts, several times in a couple different ways: KEY 3 : The electrical power (Current * Voltage ) needed to energize the toroidal stator coil at the TDC position is EQUAL to the electrical power for the REF position and this is fully independant of the position of the magnet of the rotor Vs the toroidal stator coil. The electrical input power is fully decoupled from the output mechanical power. Now it may not matter with regard to the final analysis of this motor (which probably must depend on calorimetry), but it's interesting to note that this several times repeated assertion is FALSE. This can be seen by simple reasoning, and by looking at his curves. First, simple reasoning: When the magnets are present, the inductance of the coil is lower. So, by definition of inductance, when the voltage is turned on, the current is going to rise and fall *faster* with the magnets present than with them absent. That means total power going in during turn-on is going to be higher with the magnets present than with them absent, and total power going in during turn-off is going to be lower with the magnets present than with them absent. Consequently, power consumed is going to be larger if the magnets are brought to the coil, the power is turned on, the magnets are removed, and power is turned off, than it would be if the magnets were either left far away throughout the cycle, or were left adjacent to the coil throughout the cycle. Second, look at the curves: The power curve, shown most of the way down the web page, is clearest on this point. The RED curve, magnets present, goes up faster and comes down faster. If you bring up the magnets, turn on the power, take the magnets away, and then turn off the power, you get the RED curve going up and the BLUE curve coming down, and the result is that you're on the higher consumption curve going up *and* coming down. So, again, power consumed is higher if the motor is running than if it's shut off. So, JLN has mis-stated things: Power consumed is not independent of the placement of the magnets. Without careful measurements we can't know how big the difference is, but there clearly is a difference. As with all magnetic shields, the only place where you can see any power being consumed is as the shield is switched on and off. Look at the rise and fall -- don't look at the flat peak, it's just a red herring. Now, the other issue is warming of the core. As I understand it, when the core is saturating, things are not behaving elastically and some energy is being lost to heat. I *think* that amount is different depending on whether the core starts out saturated (by the external magnets) or doesn't. That heat must be measured to get a full energy balance of the motor, and of course JLN hasn't done that in this series of experiments. But once again, I'd like to say I think this is a great page; by putting everything down, in detail, with measurements and specifications, JLN has made it possible to fully analyze exactly what is going on, and determine once and for all where the energy is going and where it is coming from. Excellent! On 02/09/2010 02:16 PM, Harry Veeder wrote: Understanding the Orbo principle by JL Naudin http://jnaudin.free.fr/steorn/html/orboeffecten.htm Harry __ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/
Re: [Vo]:comment on Violante data as covered by Steve Krivit
On Feb 9, 2010, at 2:09 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: Hi Horace, sorry for the late response, my comments below. 2010/2/7 Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net: On Feb 7, 2010, at 4:42 AM, Michel Jullian wrote: 2010/2/7 Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.net: Two things to consider: (1) reversing the current *does* dissolve the Pd surface, True, but extremely slowly I believe. A Pd anode is known to dissolve relatively fast in acidic electrolytes such as D2SO4, but I don't think that's what they used. It is doubtful whether they reverted the current long enough to dissolve more than a few atomic layers. I think the experimenters were competent. They knew what they were doing. Using a Faraday constant of 96,485 C/mol, and (conservatively) a valence of 4, n for moles produced, I for current = .2 A, t for time = 1 s, we get: n = I * t / (96,485 C/mol * 4) n = (0.2 A)*(1 sec) / (385940 C/mol) = 5.182x10^-7 mol This means that at 200 mA/cm^2, 5.182x10^-7 mol/s is removed, or 3.12x10^17 atoms per second. We also have for Pd: (12.38 g/cm^3)/(106.42 g/mol) = 0.1163 mol/ cm^3 = 7.006x10^22 atoms/cm^3. The atomic volume is 1.427x10^-23 cm^3, and the atomic dimension is 2.426x10^-8 cm. The amount of Pd removed per second is (3.12x10^17 atoms per second) * (1.427x10^-23 cm^3 per atom) = 4.45x10^-6 cm/s, or 445 angstroms per second. The number of layers of atoms removed is (4.45x10^-6 cm/s)/(2.426x10^-8 cm) = 183/s. If this is correct (highly suspect! 8^), then at a current density of 200 mA/cm^2 we have a thickness of 183 atoms removed per second, or 445 angstroms per second. This would be correct if palladium, when driven as an anode, did dissolve in an alkaline electrolyte (they classically used LiOD in that M4 experiment, according to their original report at http://newenergytimes.com/v2/archives/1998epri/TR-107843-V1.PDF , thanks to Steve Krivit for the link), which it doesn't, see the Pd/H2O Pourbaix diagram at http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/jmpgm/data/datasheet.do? record=532database=cesdatabase which shows that such corrosion only occurs in an acidic electrolyte (pH 3). It has been pointed out to me privately that hydrogen charge transport has to be accounted for as well, i.e. that hydrogen evolution reduces the effective corrosion current. However, since the reversed current cleaning process was carried out in part to degass the Pd, I expect the hydrogen contribution to the positive surface charge of the Pd anode would be extremely diminished in the latter part of this cleaning process. Well, this is indeed an interesting electrochemical problem. My experience is that nothing, including platinum, totally avoids anodic corrosion if there is a current present. Passification works in part by eliminating the current at the potential at which the passivation is occurring, or less, i.e. by building an insulating layer. I do not think passification of *highly loaded* Pd is possible. The evolving hydrogen would prevent accumulated oxidation of the Pd surface. I have done various passivation experiments (not with Pd though) and my experience has been that passification takes considerable time, even for metals that are not loaded with hydrogen, and once it does occur, the current is highly reduced. Further, if a constant current source is used then the voltage rises to the point where the passified surface is breached. Beyond that, and this is a fairly irrelevant point I know, I think Pd corrodes as an anode in the presence of current in neutral Ph salt electrolytes. The EPRI article states: They accomplished loading with a combination of initial low cathode current densities of ~20-50 mA/ cm2, followed by current ramps up to ~1.0 A/cm2. Current reversals to deload or “strip” the cathodes of D and clean the surface by temporarily making it an anode resulted in high loadings. It seems to me the Pd would be dissolving during the deloading process when the current is reversed. Also, apparently my estimate of 200 mA/cm^2 was too low - it was probably 1 A/cm^2. It would be interesting to actually do an experiment with Pd wire, loading and then reversing the current repeatedly for a long period and then weighing the wire. It seems to me the experimenters would not have gone thorough this procedure if the current reversal did not actually clean the electrode surface, i.e. expose a pure Pd surface. A fully passified surface would not be effective at loading hydrogen as a cathode because it would not even be conductive. If pure Pd was exposed to the electrolyte as an anode it seems to me certain that Pd was being dissolved in the process. One thing I take to be self evident to anyone who has practical experience with electrochemistry experiments. If you have current through an anode then *some* of that anode is going into solution, and that includes platinum. I
Re: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: And I'm suspecting that the mental problems began much earlier than obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's, it would explain the otherwise mysterious obstinacy. Many young scientists at the peak of their careers agree wholeheartedly with Huizenga, so this is ruled out. Cool. However, what established theory is violated? Basically, the established theory does not make detailed predictions in the condensed matter realm, it's mathematically far too complex . . . Let's try to understand what Huizenga means here, and what the other hard-core opponents mean. I gave the example of someone flapping his arms and flying to the moon. That's not a joke, or hyperbole. That is how these people view the likelihood of cold fusion. They have told me on countless occasions that the claim violates so many laws of physics, on so many levels, it is absolutely, 100% certainly, impossible. They usually point to what Huizenga said about neutrons as proof. Regarding the experiments they say what Feshbach told Mallove in 1991: I have had 50 years of experience in nuclear physics and I know what's possible and what's not. . . . I don't want to see any more evidence! I think it's a bunch of junk and I don't want to have anything further to do with it. Whether this argument is scientifically valid or not is not the issue. The point is: they are unalterably certain it is valid, just as I am certain that a person cannot fly by flapping his arms, and on top of that, that a person cannot cross outer space to the moon by this method. As I said, it is impossible on many levels. It has never crossed their minds they might be wrong. They have never bothered to read papers or evaluate them, any more than I might be persuaded to look at papers claiming human flight by arm flapping. Actually, I am very conservative myself, and I have great respect for expert knowledge, so I understand where these people are coming from. As Fleischmann says, we are painfully conventional people. There is only one tiny difference between them and me. Suppose I were to hear rumors that people are taking off from the face of the earth by flapping their arms, and that some of these people were last seen exiting the stratosphere, headed for the moon. Naturally I would dismiss the notion without a second thought. BUT, imagine I kept hearing these rumors, and I heard from credible witnesses. And photos and radar data was published in credible scientific journals showing this was actually happening. And then, finally, since I am a firm believer in the motto of the Royal Society nullius in verba (take no one's word for it), suppose I attended conferences and visited sites and actually observed it happening myself. Obviously, by that time I would be convinced that people can fly by flapping their arms, and somewhat convinced they can leave the atmosphere. (Since I could not not observe that first hand, it would be analogous to the Iwamura paper.) The difference between Huizenga and me is not lack of skepticism, or rigor. It is not even the depth of scientific knowledge. Although he most assuredly knows far more about nuclear physics than I do, when it comes to arm flapping or calorimetry, I probably know as much of the scientific and engineering facts that mitigate against the claims as Huizenga does. The first, small difference is that I will at least consider any possibility, however outlandish, miraculous or impossible. I will take a look. Why not? But the important difference is, I will believe anything -- absolutely anything! -- no matter how impossible it may seem, so long as it is proved by experiment. That is assuming I can understand the experiment. I have no difficulty understanding arm flapping or excess heat beyond chemistry. That is the one unshakable principal I hold, and it is the only important difference of opinion between Huizenga and me. Actually, the whole debate about cold fusion boils down to this one difference of opinion. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Britz versus Huizenga's totals
Am I daft? Why is he cc Jones? Because he challenged Steve? SJ is deep end challenged, IMO. T On Tue, Feb 9, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I wrote: If someone like Britz or Prof. Dylla of the AIP were to come out and declare unequivocally and publicly they think cold fusion is real, they would land in a world of trouble. They know that! To be fair to Britz, he has also at times defended the reputations of researchers, if not their results. He has distanced himself from the extreme tactics of his fellow skeptics. The attached letter from Miles to Britz describes one such incident. I do not recall that he has engaged in ad hominem attacks, except when he attacked me and a few Japanese researchers. I am not likely to forget that! Since he is a political animal, I suspect this is more a case of prudence or cowardliness than ethics. He and the other skeptics are usually happy to kick anyone in the teeth so long as that person is unable to kick back. By the way, the postscript in this letter is addressed to me. - Jed - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY NAVAL AIR WARFARE CENTER WEAPONS DIVISION CHINA LAKE, CALIFORNIA 93555-6001 IN REPLY REFER TO December 18, 1996 Dr. Dieter Britz Kemisk Institut Aarhus Universtet Langelandsgade 140 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark Dear Dr. Britz: Thank you for your letter of 12 December 1996 and your support of scientific fairness with respect to my response to the Jones and Hansen paper criticizing my cold fusion publications. I understand your position as a skeptic on this issue and have no problem with that fact. Nevertheless, my experimental measurements convince me that anomalous effects occur in deuterated palladium. I will mail you a copy of my final report and recent papers that I submitted to ICCF-6 so that you can judge this experimental evidence yourself. I will also send you copies of letters that I have on file regarding my request to publish a rebuttal back-to-back in the same issue of J. Phys. Chem. as is their stated custom. Steve Jones, however, did not want to delay his publication. Neither Steve Jones nor Dr. El-Sayed can produce any formal letter that shows that I was officially informed of the publication criticizing my work. I challenged Steve Jones to publish his e-mail allegations regarding my work because I expected to be informed and to be allowed to write a rebuttal. This never happened. I can document the following sequences of events: Dr. Kendall Johnson, a post-doe, visited BYU on 3 January 1995 and was given an early version of the paper in question. Dr. Johnson was not involved with any publications involved in this debate and was not an appropriate person to be given this paper. He later showed this paper to me, but he did not know what stage this paper was in or to which journal it would be submitted. Furthermore, I had to leave on travel for meetings and other assignments in Washington, D.C., and I did not return until the end of January. I was expecting to receive the final manuscript and to be informed of the journal involved before writing my response. I never heard another word about this manuscript until Dr. Morrison was handing out copies of page-proofs of this paper at the ICCF-5 conference in Monte Carlo, Monaco. The rest of the story is found in my letters requesting a delay in publication to permit my back-to-back response in the same journal. This was denied. I later submitted a detailed response to J. Phys. Chem., but this response was rejected by the editor and reviewers that were selected. Based on the reviewer's comments, none of the reviewers that I proposed were selected. Unfortunately, it is difficult to find unbiased reviewers for either side of this controversy. I remain convinced of my experimental results and that I can easily respond to nearly all criticisms of my work. Sincerely, Dr. Melvin H. Miles NAWCWPNS Fellow P. S. Please post this letter on e-mail if you feel that it would be informative to others regarding this matter. copies: Dr. El-Sayed, Editor, J. Phys. Chem. Professor Steve Jones. BYU
RE: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. Arthur C. Clarke, Clarke's first law English physicist science fiction author (1917 - 2008 ) -Original Message- From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, February 09, 2010 3:26 PM To: vortex-L@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: And I'm suspecting that the mental problems began much earlier than obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's, it would explain the otherwise mysterious obstinacy. Many young scientists at the peak of their careers agree wholeheartedly with Huizenga, so this is ruled out. [Hoyt A. Stearns Jr.] ...
Re: [Vo]:Britz versus Huizenga's totals
On Feb 9, 2010, at 12:27 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote: To be fair to Britz, he has also at times defended the reputations of researchers, if not their results. He has distanced himself from the extreme tactics of his fellow skeptics. Also to be fair to Britz, ever since the early days of the true believers and skeptics on sci.physics.fusion, Dieter Britz has maintained that he is neutral on the subject, keeping an open mind. He is neither one of the faithful nor an atheist, but rather an agnostic. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
[Vo]:speaking of printing solar cells ...
http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/view?q=view% 3Apopularsource=news#ark6CLCHHYH9NM http://tinyurl.com/yfztyg9 Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
At 04:40 PM 2/9/2010, you wrote: Lovely page! Thanks, Harry! JLN has done a really clear job of describing the effect, well enough that it can be reproduced and fully analyzed, with, as far as I can see, no hidden tricks. Well, to a degree. The explanation is clear, I agree, and this is what the Orbo effect is on the face, it's what I came up with from slogging through the Steorn videos There are two states: toriod de-energized. The permanent magnets are attracted by the ferrite core of the toroid, and that attraction does work accelerating the coil. Energized, the coil causes the ferrite core to be non-attractive to the permanent magnets, so they can, having accelerated toward the core, sail on past the core if the timing is right. So the big question is how much energy it takes to turn on and shut down the toroid and thus the attractiveness of the core. If it can be done with lower energy than the rotor picks up from the free energy of attraction, then, indeed, it seems we'd have energy gain. But measuring that turn-on and shutdown energy isn't particularly simple. Those are high-speed transients, and determining the energy in them simply by watching them on a scope display isn't going to cut it. Remember, Sean has insisted that he needs the rapid response of the kind of battery he is using, an ability to source large currents. Why? Obviously, large peak currents are needed! I can't say I was disappointed by the promised February 1 demo, because I didn't expect better. The demo did not convince one of his own replicators, and, reading Sean carefully, that's quite deliberate. He does not want to explain what is going on, he wants to *sell* that information. He was pretty explicit that he wasn't going to give it away for free! So what he is basically saying is Trust me! Do I look like I'd lie to you? Yes, unfortunately, quite like that. Is he lying? Well, I think he's slipped a few times and has lied. Mostly it is obfuscation, deliberately unclear and inconclusive. Is he committing fraud? Probably not. Is he sincere? Probably not. Not by now.
Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
As I stated on the Steorn forum I looked at Naudin's most recent video and see an OU gravitational-electrogmagnetic piston, assuming the energy needed to release the suspended magnets is or can be made -- with the right choice of materials --less than the gravitational potential energy of the suspended magnets. Harry - Original Message From: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Sent: Tue, February 9, 2010 8:25:51 PM Subject: Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo At 04:40 PM 2/9/2010, you wrote: Lovely page! Thanks, Harry! JLN has done a really clear job of describing the effect, well enough that it can be reproduced and fully analyzed, with, as far as I can see, no hidden tricks. Well, to a degree. The explanation is clear, I agree, and this is what the Orbo effect is on the face, it's what I came up with from slogging through the Steorn videos There are two states: toriod de-energized. The permanent magnets are attracted by the ferrite core of the toroid, and that attraction does work accelerating the coil. Energized, the coil causes the ferrite core to be non-attractive to the permanent magnets, so they can, having accelerated toward the core, sail on past the core if the timing is right. So the big question is how much energy it takes to turn on and shut down the toroid and thus the attractiveness of the core. If it can be done with lower energy than the rotor picks up from the free energy of attraction, then, indeed, it seems we'd have energy gain. But measuring that turn-on and shutdown energy isn't particularly simple. Those are high-speed transients, and determining the energy in them simply by watching them on a scope display isn't going to cut it. Remember, Sean has insisted that he needs the rapid response of the kind of battery he is using, an ability to source large currents. Why? Obviously, large peak currents are needed! I can't say I was disappointed by the promised February 1 demo, because I didn't expect better. The demo did not convince one of his own replicators, and, reading Sean carefully, that's quite deliberate. He does not want to explain what is going on, he wants to *sell* that information. He was pretty explicit that he wasn't going to give it away for free! So what he is basically saying is Trust me! Do I look like I'd lie to you? Yes, unfortunately, quite like that. Is he lying? Well, I think he's slipped a few times and has lied. Mostly it is obfuscation, deliberately unclear and inconclusive. Is he committing fraud? Probably not. Is he sincere? Probably not. Not by now. __ Looking for the perfect gift? Give the gift of Flickr! http://www.flickr.com/gift/
Re: [Vo]:Britz versus Huizenga's totals
At 03:46 PM 2/9/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Your paper on this, also based on the Britz bibliography, is at http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJtallyofcol.pdf, and, reading numbers (approx) from your chart, year totals cumulative totals pos neg neutral pos neg neutral 198943 92 22 42 92 22 199075 76 41 117 168 63 199147 28 18 164 196 81 199222 13 11 186 209 94 There is a huge difference between Huizenga's numbers and yours. What happened? Pretty obviously, the Britz database was not complete at that time, assuming that it wasn't cherry-picked, and the claim was that it wasn't. Those are not my numbers. They are the totals from the Britz database, tallied by a Pascal program I wrote. Yes. I knew that, and that's pretty much what I said. But your paper doesn't have the numbers broken down by year so I read them off the chart. (The program may have produced minor discrepancies but I checked it manually with a subset of the data and it is pretty good.) Britz said that these were the authors' own evaluations, and for the most part I agree with him. (as I said on p. 33). Here is the spreadsheet: YearTotal Res+Res-Res0Undecided 1989205 46 83 22 54 1990248 75 76 41 56 1991130 46 29 18 37 199265 22 13 11 19 199366 31 10 8 17 199442 20 3 3 16 199529 19 3 6 1 199648 24 10 7 7 199732 19 2 4 7 199833 19 2 3 9 199923 18 0 1 4 200015 10 0 1 4 200117 11 2 0 4 200218 9 2 0 7 20037 2 1 0 4 20046 4 0 0 2 20056 2 2 2 0 20066 4 0 1 1 20075 5 0 0 0 20086 2 0 0 4 20090 0 0 0 0 1007388 238 128 253 I do not know what order the papers were added to the database, or how to explain the difference between Huizenga's totals and Britz. There are discrepancies above that are larger than I think I'd have seen from misreading the chart. I'll take a closer look later. They may not be important. Huizenga tries to show that positive publications had almost ceased by 1992. In fact, they continued, though certainly at reduced levels. They did decline over time, later, but never to zero, and, in fact, since roughly 2003 or 2004, they began to increase . . . Surely the overall conclusion is correct. Cold fusion publication dwindled almost to zero and so did the research. It is moribund even now. There is no funding and few young researchers, and the field will surely die sooner or later as things now stand. I've disagreed with you on this. First of all, consider the numbers for 2008. The LENR Sourcebook was published in that year. That's 16 papers, peer-reviewed. Mainstream publisher, too. What does that do to the number of 2 for 2008? 2009, of course, saw many publications. However, you have to look as the causes. Huizenga, Morrison and Britz said the total is asymptotically approaching zero for the same reason polywater research and publications are: because the results were proved wrong. There is nothing left to discuss. Schwinger and I say that the research was crushed by academic politics, venomous criticism and censorship. Sure. But the similarity with polywater breaks down. After about 2004 or so, publication rates increased. The negative publications almost completely disappeared. Now, if this were, say, conference papers, the Huizenga/Morrison/Britz argument might make sense. But it's peer-reviewed publications, including some very prestigious publications where the claim that the peer-reviewers don't know an atomic nucleus from a cell nucleus doesn't make any sense. You would think that cogent skeptics would be submitting cogent criticism. Where is it? (As to atomic vs. cell, it was actually argued on Wikipedia that Naturwissenschaften was a life sciences journal and would therefore not have competent reviewers for Pamela Mosier-Boss's paper on triple tracks. Let's say that this argument did not stand up to examination. It was just ignorant blather and assumption.) . . . and the numbers for 2007 and 2008 in the Britz database are quite certainly not complete. For example, there were many peer-reviewed papers published in 2008 in the ACS Sourcebook, enough to practically dwarf the number shown on the chart for 2008. The numbers are close to complete. He will never add the ACS sourcebook for the same
Re: [Vo]:Huizenga sincerely thinks that theory overrules experiment in this case
At 05:25 PM 2/9/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: And I'm suspecting that the mental problems began much earlier than obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's, it would explain the otherwise mysterious obstinacy. Many young scientists at the peak of their careers agree wholeheartedly with Huizenga, so this is ruled out. Cool. However, what established theory is violated? Basically, the established theory does not make detailed predictions in the condensed matter realm, it's mathematically far too complex . . . Let's try to understand what Huizenga means here, and what the other hard-core opponents mean. I gave the example of someone flapping his arms and flying to the moon. That's not a joke, or hyperbole. That is how these people view the likelihood of cold fusion. They have told me on countless occasions that the claim violates so many laws of physics, on so many levels, it is absolutely, 100% certainly, impossible. They usually point to what Huizenga said about neutrons as proof. Regarding the experiments they say what Feshbach told Mallove in 1991: I have had 50 years of experience in nuclear physics and I know what's possible and what's not. . . . I don't want to see any more evidence! I think it's a bunch of junk and I don't want to have anything further to do with it. Look, I've done extensive interreligious dialogue and have dealt with famous paranoid thinkers. (I'm not sure that this is a correct usage of paranoid, but by it I mean self-reinforcing thinking. I have ten reasons why you are wrong. Okay, let's look at reason A, it's flawed because Well, you might be right about that, but I have ten reasons why you are wrong. And you can go down the ten reasons, and with every one the answer will be more or less the same, and then, at the end, I've actually encountered, Well, I know because God told me. And, you know, when I heard that, I'm really sorry that I didn't ask, How do you know that? Like, what did God's voice sound like? Or was it a voice you heard? *What was your experience?* Instead, I dropped the conversation and left. And the man was assassinated a few years later, for claiming to be a prophet, i.e., someone who is directly informed by God. While I have no sympathy at all for the assassin, and considered this man a friend (he was always kind to me), there is a reason why that claim is considered really dangerous! Whether this argument is scientifically valid or not is not the issue. The point is: they are unalterably certain it is valid, just as I am certain that a person cannot fly by flapping his arms, and on top of that, that a person cannot cross outer space to the moon by this method. As I said, it is impossible on many levels. It has never crossed their minds they might be wrong. They have never bothered to read papers or evaluate them, any more than I might be persuaded to look at papers claiming human flight by arm flapping. Shall we notice that the level of abstraction involved in judging what is possible with condensed matter nuclear reactions is a bit different than that involved in judging flying to the moon by arm-flapping? The I know, so shut up argument will lose in a public debate. Therefore these people will avoid public debate, unless they can control the terms. If they get caught in a debate, say an on-line one, when it starts to go badly, they will announce that they don't have time for this crap, they aren't going to waste any more effort arguing with idiots. However, until the idiots notice the discussion and show up, they will happily hold forth with many very clearly false assertions, not about the theory, but about the *evidence.* It never was replicated. With better measurement accuracy, the effect disappears. There are no theories that could explain this. If this were fusion, there would be dead graduate students. The last one is actually true but misleading. It isn't the fusion that they know, and that's, er, obvious? It's *something else,* and, without having a clue, they proclaim loudly that it must be sloppy work or fraud. And as the evidence mounts, they keep on proclaiming the same old errors, again and again, as if repetition made them more cogent. Huizenga correctly noticed the proper question of a skeptic: the suggestion that there be a seeking of a correlation between excess heat and helium, and the suggestion about light-water controls. But then, actual experimental results, involving this, he discards as necessarily artifact because they didn't look for gamma rays? So does every nuclear reaction produce gamma rays? I used to give talks at schools about Islam, and I remember one student who defiantly proclaimed that there was no God. Okay, please tell me what this God is that does not exist! He couldn't say a word. Then I said, The God you don't believe in, I probably don't believe in either. I don't really argue about God with anyone,
Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
On 02/09/2010 08:25 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: At 04:40 PM 2/9/2010, you wrote: Lovely page! Thanks, Harry! JLN has done a really clear job of describing the effect, well enough that it can be reproduced and fully analyzed, with, as far as I can see, no hidden tricks. [ ... ] But measuring that turn-on and shutdown energy isn't particularly simple. Those are high-speed transients, and determining the energy in them simply by watching them on a scope display isn't going to cut it. I'm not so sure. Just getting a ballpark measurement would be interesting. Naudin's scope was just loafing along for those shots, and even so, if you look closely you can see right on his screen shots that electrical energy consumed is going to be higher in a running motor than a stopped motor. If JLN put the power display into A-B mode you'd get something pretty telling, I think. If the sample rate were cranked up, and just the edges examined, you'd be in the ballpark for getting some real energy measurements for the turn-on/turn-off pulses. Sean may claim he's got something else going on, too, of course, beyond what JLN is showing. But what JLN shows is interesting all by itself. Naudin, unlike Sean, is into documenting everything, so recreating Naudin's experiment should be straightforward. Remember, Sean has insisted that he needs the rapid response of the kind of battery he is using, an ability to source large currents. Why? Obviously, large peak currents are needed! Large peak currents? Going through an inductor? Do tell! I didn't swallow that business about the battery when Sean said it and I don't believe it now. Large peak voltages when the circuit's opened, sure, I can buy that. But one thing inductors do really well is squash the current peaks. Look at Naudin's scope shots -- no wild peaks in the current, and I don't think that's because he lost them somewhere. They were never there to begin with. L * dI/dt = V I = integral(V/L) dt. In other words, you need a nice high voltage for a good long while to get a really hefty current to flow through an inductor. Forget Sean's high *current* transients, they're not happening.
Re: [Vo]:latest from Naudin on the Orbo
At 09:55 PM 2/9/2010, Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: Large peak voltages when the circuit's opened, sure, I can buy that. But one thing inductors do really well is squash the current peaks. When you turn on the inductor, yes. But when you turn it off quickly, the opposite. At least the voltage spikes, it tends to fry switches. Look at Naudin's scope shots -- no wild peaks in the current, and I don't think that's because he lost them somewhere. They were never there to begin with. L * dI/dt = V I = integral(V/L) dt. In other words, you need a nice high voltage for a good long while to get a really hefty current to flow through an inductor. Forget Sean's high *current* transients, they're not happening. Yeah, I think you are right, on that end. Energy is stored in the inductor field, but with relatively long rise time. When the switch opens, though, the field collapse will recover some of that energy, and quickly. Usually it's dumped through a diode to protect the switch.
