On May 27 the following post was placed out on NewVortex by Abd ul-Rahman Lomax concerning the Parkhomov controversy. Again, as one comes to expect from previous Lomax contributions his analysis is obsessively long, highly detailed in all of its fiddle-de-bits, and definitely worth reading. Few stones remain unturned when Lomax becomes interested in parsing out a perplexing controversy. I wish Mr. Beaty could see it within his internal compass to reinstate Abd to Vortex. As always Lomax continues to be a valuable and respected contributor to the CF community.
See Yahoo NewVortex: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/newvortex/conversations/messages/710 Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.orionworks.com zazzle.com/orionworks ---------------------------------------------------------------- >From Abd ul-Rahman Lomax Date: May 27, 2015 I've spent some time looking at the Parkhomov data scandal; it's being said that the fabrication made no sense. As usual, that claim makes no sense. Almost everything makes some kind of sense once it's understood. Here are some links: https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg102900.html https://www.mail-archive.com/vortex-l@eskimo.com/msg102914.html Parkhomov appears to have disclosed what he did, April 29, in a mail posted on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ECat.LENR/1135996836416219/ The earliest mention I've found of the problem was in an e-catworld.com post, April 4, which showed one of the data artifacts. Some are congratulating Parkhomov for admitting what he did, but, in fact, he stonewalled, apparently being asked repeatedly *by supporters* to explain this. If I recall correctly, it's claimed he was asked at ICCF-19 about the issue, and simply did not respond. This is especially poignant because Parkhomov was touted for his openness, his lack of secrets, but that was an illusion, and I knew it, because I'd discovered many issues with Parkhomov's data, and went to him with questions, which he politely declined to answer. I assumed he was merely busy. But many of those questions have never been answered, and as Parkhomov kept publishing more reports, the mysteries multiplied. So why did Parkhomov doctor the data? It seems stupid, since it's just a section of data with apparently constant temperature, albeit a bit noisy. It would seem that he gained nothing but trashing his own reputation. However, he still has not told the whole story. Reading his explanation, at first I didn't understand it, because it seemed crazy. He doesn't say *why* he filled in the data. He tells us why the data was missing, but he doesn't explain why that happened. It was not some accident, if I read this right. This is my speculation as to the sequence. Parkhomov is running a reactor that contains a winding that is energized with up to 600 watts or so of AC power. It's a winding over a material that could change its dielectric constant as the chemical reaction happens inside. Then there is a thermocouple in close proximity to this coil. This is going to induce substantial AC noise in that thermocouple circuit. It might even be enough to blow out the computer interface, but absent a short, probably not. Still, the noise made the thermocouple unreadable. To reduce the noise, Parkhomov disconnected the computer from AC line power, so it would float. So the computer was running on battery, and the battery needed to be periodically recharged. Hence the gaps in the data. He could not just plug it in. I can think of no other explanation of why he would run the computer on battery power. But he has not told us why he did that. To do so would expose how shoddy the work is. It would, incidentally, reveal a possible source of artifact (AC noise). He did not want to show the blank data periods because it would raise these questions, so he filled them in, hoping nobody would notice. He did it in a shoddy way; he *could have* made this invisible, easily, and then, as he did before, (with the original work) not release the raw data. It was deliberately deceptive. Not as to the results, but as to the quality of his work. It was "quick and dirty," which is simply what it was. Parkhomov did this on his own, with presumably his own money, just on a hunch that it might work. As a scientist, he knew what was right to do: don't publish, or publish what you have, warts and all. Instead, he cleaned it up, to make it look better. And he is still avoiding the question, perhaps hoping, still, that nobody will ask about why he was using a computer on battery power. This is open science, with hundreds or thousands of people looking at it. You can actually fool almost all these people, sometimes. Few will study in detail, but that's all it takes: one, and then someone else to look and say, OMG! He didn't make that up! Meanwhile the claque continues treating all criticism as if it were pseuodoskeptical. No. We actually want to know what happened, and Parkhomov still is withholding much. Consider this little conundrum: the temperature during that period is supposedly held constant by thermostatic control. Thermostatic control works by comparing the temperature to a set value, and increasing heat if the temperature is below the set value, or decreasing it if the temperature is above that value. So if the temperature measurement is shut down in those periods, how is the heating being controlled to hold temperature constant? In addition, the power data has not been plotted as-is. It's been averaged in some way, not disclosed, apparently. I don't have that spreadsheet data, but a plot from it is a solid mass of black, because the power is varying widely, indicating that Parkhomov is using primitive on/off temperature control, which then makes it difficult to see what is going on. I've been writing about it since he started using thermostatic control. In my view, that was a mistake. Rather, set power and let the device settle. Very simple to plot and to understand. He wants to use thermostatic control because he thinks the device is overheating and burning out because of a runaway reaction. No. All his burnouts before occurred after he increased the power. The temperature sometimes increased a bit with apparently constant power, but only a little. Parkhomov is using approaches that do not generate data that can be easily and clearly interpreted. He is not exploring the behavior of the system he made, not in any systematic way. The same report as had the data fabrication also has a calibration, supposedly, a comparison of a no-fuel reactior with a fueled one. The fueled reactor gets much hotter, starting when the temperature reaches about 700 C. It's a smooth increase, a widening gap, after that, up to about 1100 C where, then, there is this striking decline in input power with constant temperature, it cuts about in half. So what's odd: the XP setting in at 700 C or so. That's not the prior reported behavior. As well, the declining power input was in steps. Very unlikely that the reaction would increase in steps like that, it would smoothly increase. Further, there is very substantial noise in the power around transitions. What's happening? No clue. So what could be happening? I don't see enough data to have a strong opinion. There might be some XP. However, there might also be a problem with thermocouples giving bad readings. It happens. And a thermocouple sitting in a magnetic field, from the coil with substantial current, with a lot of AC noise, just not surprising if something is off. The no-fuel reactor, having no metal inside, will behave differently from the fueled reactor. It will have different heat conduction characteristics, and different electromagnetic characteristics. Sloppy work. And the purpose of the data fraud was to avoid making the sloppiness visible, to avoid inconvenient questions. Same reason for stonewalling for over three weeks. Parkhomov's general approach is of high interest, but the focus should be on original investigation. Replicating Parkhomov is replicating what? His results have been changing from publication to publication, so no body of experience has been built up, where we know what to expect from the setup. It's all new. This phenomenon of decreasing power with constant temperature is entirely new, and contradictory, apparently, to what was seen before. That is, if power were being generated, the temperature would have risen substantially without an increase in input power.
