I address this issue in my book, which Joshua obviously has not read.
But you are right, Jed. This issue has been laid to rest so
completely, one has to wonder why it has been brought up now. This is
like someone now arguing for the flat earth concept.
Ed
On May 4, 2013, at 11:12 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Joshua Cude wrote:
Surely you're aware of the Jones' challenge to Miles' results in
Jones & Hansen, "Examination of Claims of Miles…", J. Phys. Chem.
95 (1995) 6966.
Ah yes. That one slipped my mind. The recombination hypothesis.
That is even more pathetic and preposterous than Morrison. As Miles
pointed out, Jones uses a cell in a shape than no one else would
think of using, and he set the power level a thousand times lower
than Miles. Miles said: "Why not throw a handful catalyst powder
into the electrolyte while you are at it, just to make absolutely
sure you have recombination."
My suggestion was to put the cathode above the anode. There are
other ways to ensure recombination. The thing is, there are also
many ways to prevent it, and to verify that you have prevented it.
For example, you measure effluent gas. Miles, along with EVERYONE
ELSE uses these methods, so what Jones asserts is not only
preposterous and unrealistic, it is factually wrong.
Jones reached the living end -- the final frontier! -- when he
boldly asserted to me that recombination can explain McKubre's
results, even though McKubre uses a closed cell with a recombiner.
At that point I figured that either Jones had taken leave of his
senses, or Jones thought I understand absolutely nothing about cold
fusion or grade-school chemistry.
The fact that Cude still flogs this kind of nonsense tells me that
he, too, has employed a warp drive to move light years beyond
rational, fact-based argument, into the netherworld of recombination
causing false excess heat in closed cells.
This is why I stopped paying attention to people such as Jones and
Cude 15 years ago, and why Cude is on my auto-delete list. Note that
the Wikipedia article still flogs the recombination bugaboo. It did
last time I checked, a few years ago. That is a handy litmus test.
When a person says "recombination might explain the excess heat!"
you can disqualify them.
I will grant, there are a few other attempts to critique
experiments, by Shanahan. I have some of his papers at LENR-CANR.org
- Jed
