Re: [Vo]:Mizuno couldn't get to ACS
2010/3/26 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Are there any published works showing nuclear phenomena such as excess heat, correlated with deuterium percentage? I'm starting with 99.9% D2O (atom percent D). What would be the difference I should expect with 98% D2O, which is substantially cheaper? I've seen rumors that ordinary water poisons the reaction. If so, at what level? With solid Pd in the conventional FP configuration, even a little light water poisons the reaction. I think even 1 or 2% but I do not recall. Storms says that with electrolysis the Pd preferentially absorbs the H atoms so the concentration of H in the lattice is soon higher than in the starting liquid. Interesting. If this is true, it must be a purely electrochemical effect, probably related to the lower thermoneutral potential (1.48V for H2O vs 1.54V for D2O) as D is, unintuitively, both more soluble and more diffusive than H in Pd. Michel Heavy water is hygroscopic. (Try saying that word three times in a row!) Meaning it readily absorbs ordinary water from the air. You might say it wants to get back to its natural ratio of 1:6,700 atoms. Anyway, people sometimes leave bottles of heavy water open to the air during experiments, and this ruins them by reducing purity. To prevent this with open-cell experiments, Bockris recommended putting the heavy water reservoir in a plastic IV bag with an IV tube leading down to the cell, with one of those itty-bitty stopcocks at the top of the cell. You exclude air the whole way. You dump and throw away the first small amount of little heavy water that comes through the empty tube. Bockris also thought that CO2 poisons the reaction. Or any kind of carbon. Storms also used an IV bag in some tritium studies, I assume for the same reason: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/StormsEastudyofel.pdf Those bags are clean and airtight and made to high standards, since air or contamination might harm the patient. - Jed
[Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I watched the Youtube presentation and frankly I liked it. How often does neutron capture occur normally? Does neutron capture get accelerated by catalytic action?
Re: [Vo]:Stimulus Suspension Would Put 85,000 Wind Jobs at Risk
2010/3/27 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com: At 07:39 AM 3/26/2010, Michel Jullian wrote: No wonder, the cold fusion experimenters say my cell makes excess heat but they won't let skeptics see it with their own calorimeter. I intend to fix that, you know. Good. Obviously, common sense starts at IQ 159 in CF researchers ;-) Except the first cells won't be calorimeter-ready, they might not generate anough heat, that would take a different, and more expensive design, I suspect.I'm just looking for neutrons. I know, boring. Who can solve the energy crisis with a few neutrons? Part of the point about CF is that it doesn't generate neutrons. Well, usually not. Usually not, or usually not many? Isn't it the exceptions to the rule that are fascinating? If I had a cell that was capable of serious heat generation, I'm not sure I'd turn it over to a skeptic. I'd try to find someone reasonably neutral. (i.e., someone *normally* skeptical but dedicated to fairness and honesty and careful work.) That's what I had in mind, skeptics in the noble sense of the word. Dishonest skeptics will never see the excess heat, not until the field will have entered mainstream. Michel
Re: [Vo]:Mizuno couldn't get to ACS
Michel Jullian wrote: Storms says that with electrolysis the Pd preferentially absorbs the H atoms so the concentration of H in the lattice is soon higher than in the starting liquid. Interesting. If this is true, it must be a purely electrochemical effect, probably related to the lower thermoneutral potential . . . Yes, the preferential absorption is a purely electrochemical effect. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
I never quit! I was temporarily locked out for a short time due to a misunderstanding. As I have said several times, I quit CMNS only because I am lazy about keeping track of information, and I don't want to upset anyone there. Francis X Roarty wrote: Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I do not know what the fuss is about. He was terribly upset with me because I reported that during the ACS press conference, he relayed questions via e-mail from Larsen. It turns out someone else was doing that. Why that would upset him is a complete mystery to me. It seems like an innocuous thing to do, and an innocuous mistake on my part. I think he was also upset because people criticized him for shoddy work, such as using the trick from How to Lie with Statistics. If someone caught me doing that, I would be embarrassed and apologetic, not upset with that person. Perhaps he has not read that book and he did not realize the technique is considered deceptive. I should have pointed it out the first time he did it, here. People get riled up for reasons that make no sense to me. I expect he will be back soon. I should probably not write too many snide comments about him in the meanwhile, since he can always read the archives. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Stimulus Suspension Would Put 85,000 Wind Jobs at Risk
At 06:30 PM 3/26/2010, Michel Jullian wrote: 2010/3/26 Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com: Michel Jullian wrote: So, you would not believe the Wright brothers unless they let you fly their airplane? A better analogy is that I would not believe them unless I saw them flying it with my own eyes. If that is what you want, you should be satisfied with Rob Duncan going out to see the calorimeter at Energetics Technology. He is an expert, much better at determining whether it is working than you or I would be. Eyes stand for calorimeter (or more exactly energy balance measurement system) in my analogy . Duncan didn't bring in his own measurement system so he didn't see the excess heat for himself. Six of one and a half dozen of the other, please. Rothwell is correct because the general work of Energetics Technology has been verified by others, and Duncan was able to inspect the equipment, operating cells, and experimental data. Jullian is correct that Duncan's observations would not be enough to rule out fraud. If we assume no fraud, which is always where we should start, though fraud should remain a background possibility until replications are completely independent, the significance of Duncan's investigation is that, looking at the data ET had collected, and at their experimental setups and operation, he concluded that what they conclude from it is also what he concludes from it. So, absent fraud, we have a set of experiments showing excess heat. Significant excesss heat, not some marginal amount that raises issues about accuracy of calorimetry. Given that this is no longer any surprise, that hundreds of research groups have independently found excess heat in the palladium deuteride system, and, frosting on the cake, with lit birthday candles, helium is found by multiple studies to be correlated with the excess heat, when helium is also collected and measured, at a significant value close to the figure for deuterium to helium conversion, the only importance to Duncan's confirmation is: (1) a skeptical (but not dead yet!) prominent physicist was impressed and is now actively encouraging more research. (2) Energetics' numbers reflect their experimental data. They are unlikely to be the result of some stupid mistake. Fraud remains a possibility, in theory, because a fraudster might be motivated to exaggerate results to gain more funding for continued research. It's happened. But given who Dardik is and his history, it's extremely unlikely. (If you look at the history of his celebrated delicensing in New York, there was no fraud found, and it appears that the result was simply from a board view that his unorthodox approach was quackery, at a time when New York was cracking down on this. He had, and has, a lot of very satisfied patients, and where do you think the ET funding came from? Pass-the-hat donations at Quacks Anonymous? Fleeced patients? No, one very satisfied and very wealthy patient. Definitely, his approach is unorthodox, but it's simply conceptually different, and he makes no scientific claims that I've seen. I'd love to see controlled research on it, but it would be, as with many such things, very difficult. Suppose someone could talk to you and change your attitude? Could this affect your health? Most of us would be likely to say, yes, at least in some circumstances, it could. Okay, prove it with controlled research! It's not completely impossible, but also not easy, and Dardik isn't interested, nor would I be, in his shoes. Is his concept of waves responsible for ET's relative success? Maybe. The concept is not outrageous, and could result in new approaches in many situations that would, sometimes, work. It's not a rigid theory of causation, as far as I've seen.)
Re: [Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
At 04:07 PM 3/26/2010, Peter Gluck wrote: Dear Abd, I am starting the weekend rush to write my great editorial for the issue no 396 of my wekly newsletter Info Kappa ( I am working for an American Romanian ISP UPC Romania) The subject is primitive and I will use much of the book Caveman Logic But other things too. By the way, I like very much what your littel dughter has said it is bright and I will quote it in a future issue. I will ask you to tell your daughter;s name and how do you want the idea should presented. It is a great example of the wisdom of children. Her name is Birtukan Simone Lomax, Birtukan, meaning Orange, being the name she had from her first family, and Simon being her grandfather's name, which we feminized so she could keep it and not seem weird. She was born into the Kamabata tribe, and is now learning to speak, in addition to excellent English, Mandarin Chinese, and assuming that all continues on track, she'll be native speaker fluent and literate in English and Chinese by the eighth grade. We wish we could give her that in her native language, Kambatigna, but, unfortunately, there are no resources here, but Chinese could be very useful in Ethiopia if she decides to go back when she grows up, China is the number one investor in Ethiopia. She's also advanced beyond her years in athletics, she taught herself to swing on monkey bars at about four years old, she kept doing it, occasionally falling, and picking herself up and trying again, until she got it down cold . She got blisters on her hands and did not stop. She applies the same energy to learning the violin. Her sister, two years older, is still ahead, but has to work to keep there! (Her sister, from China, is spectacular all on her own, but today is Birtukan's story.) I'm not releasing photographs, but she has tribal markings that would allow someone knowledgeable to tell where she is from, and she is seriously beautiful. Can you guess that I'm proud of my daughter? She is also, as you might guess, as willful as they come, she can be a handful. She cannot be broken. It's my job to help her figure out how to cooperate with others when they want one thing and she wants something else. She's on track, I'd say. I wouldn't change a thing about her, and I'm blessed to have her in my life. At 65.
Re: [Vo]:Stimulus Suspension Would Put 85,000 Wind Jobs at Risk
At 07:37 PM 3/26/2010, Michel Jullian wrote: I am just stating a fact, not judging the validity of anybody's claims.There would be no airplanes today if the Wright brothers hadn't allowed skeptics to judge their claims with their own instruments (=own eyes in their case). Luckily, they were not that stupid. Jed knows the Wright history very well. It took years before those general replications took place. Seeing an airplane fly is pretty easy, if you are there at the time. Seeing excess heat is far, far more complex. What claim hasn't been independently tested here? You do know that McKubre at SRI did run the superwave technique with his own calorimeter, right? Is there anything preventing anyone from replicating these results? What? How? In other words, skeptics *are* allowed ... to judge their claims with their own instruments. If not, what's preventing them? I'll tell you. A belief that the results are bogus, a belief that is not based on eyewitness, but attachment to old theory and views. It's difficult and expensive to duplicate the ET work, so skeptics aren't rushing to try it. In 1989, skeptics did rush to try, but too many with a motive to discredit the work, and they clearly didn't wait long enough. Miles, at the ACS conference, pointed out that his work was cited in the 1989 DoE review as a negative replication. I think I've read that when he started getting positive results, he tried to inform them, but it was ignored. In 1989, it was a set-up, I'm afraid, or, perhaps, there were too many physicists too easily relieved that they didn't have to examine the assumptions they had been making for a good chunk of a century, nor did they have to worry about losing their funding to this upstart claim. And then angry that their sleep had been disturbed. Here is the real problem. With the ET/Fleschmann cell approach, there is high variability, cell by cell. The exact cause of this variability is elusive, though there are theories that can be explored and tested. So, here, claim must be seen as a specific claim for a specific experiment, that they got some high value of excess heat in that experiment. This is inherently not reproducible specifically. You either were there, partly (as Duncan) or completely (buying and installing the equipment, calibrating it, etc.), or you weren't. You can never reproduce *that specific experiment.* You can only run similar experiments, as close as possible to the same conditins -- which might be impossible! -- and see if you get statistically similar results. Exact replication, for these excess heat results with Fleischmann cells, is a wild goose chase. However, if you measure both excess heat and helium, and you use the same techniques for helium capture and measurement, and for excess heat, and across many cells, you can, in fact, reproduce results on the heat/helium ratio. Pretty closely, my guess. Individual cells will vary in excess heat, but not in the heat/helium ratio, unless a very different process is triggered, which remains possible. (Suppose the variation is caused by some trace contamination, unidentified. Suppose trace contamination also alters the predominant reaction. You might see variation in the ratio. This cannot be ruled out from what results I've seen. Helium, though, proves fusion if we set aside fusion pathway. (And excepting some fission possibilities that seem like serious stretches to me, and which really involve the same process as fusion, i.e., nuclear *combination*.)
Re: [Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
Dear Abd, Thank you! I will quote Birtukan as soon as I am writing about some positive concept- not as now. I perfectly understand your love and happiness given by your daughters. It is wonderful to help them and to see how brave and nice they are. I had a very tragical history with my son Robert born in 1968 who got encephalitis and was autistic and mentally retarded and you perhaps know how were treated such children in the communist Romania so we have kept him at home. He died from cancer in 1999, after more dreadful surgeries. My daughter Antonia, born in 1972 is OK a chemist and has three children- a boy and two girls- all strong persomalities, illuminating my sunset. Please convey my best regards to your daughters- if sometimes they will have some websearch problem, I am ready and prepared to help them. And I hope they will enjoy the marvel of classical and opera music...we are trying the same with our grandchildren. Back to my newsletter... Peter I don't know much about Ethiopia, except its history, was the Queen of Saba from there? I remember that I have collaborated with a Jugoslavian specialist Hrkalovic who was the Negus's bodyguard and told me a lot of stories. On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 5:18 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.comwrote: At 04:07 PM 3/26/2010, Peter Gluck wrote: Dear Abd, I am starting the weekend rush to write my great editorial for the issue no 396 of my wekly newsletter Info Kappa ( I am working for an American Romanian ISP UPC Romania) The subject is primitive and I will use much of the book Caveman Logic But other things too. By the way, I like very much what your littel dughter has said it is bright and I will quote it in a future issue. I will ask you to tell your daughter;s name and how do you want the idea should presented. It is a great example of the wisdom of children. Her name is Birtukan Simone Lomax, Birtukan, meaning Orange, being the name she had from her first family, and Simon being her grandfather's name, which we feminized so she could keep it and not seem weird. She was born into the Kamabata tribe, and is now learning to speak, in addition to excellent English, Mandarin Chinese, and assuming that all continues on track, she'll be native speaker fluent and literate in English and Chinese by the eighth grade. We wish we could give her that in her native language, Kambatigna, but, unfortunately, there are no resources here, but Chinese could be very useful in Ethiopia if she decides to go back when she grows up, China is the number one investor in Ethiopia. She's also advanced beyond her years in athletics, she taught herself to swing on monkey bars at about four years old, she kept doing it, occasionally falling, and picking herself up and trying again, until she got it down cold . She got blisters on her hands and did not stop. She applies the same energy to learning the violin. Her sister, two years older, is still ahead, but has to work to keep there! (Her sister, from China, is spectacular all on her own, but today is Birtukan's story.) I'm not releasing photographs, but she has tribal markings that would allow someone knowledgeable to tell where she is from, and she is seriously beautiful. Can you guess that I'm proud of my daughter? She is also, as you might guess, as willful as they come, she can be a handful. She cannot be broken. It's my job to help her figure out how to cooperate with others when they want one thing and she wants something else. She's on track, I'd say. I wouldn't change a thing about her, and I'm blessed to have her in my life. At 65.
[Vo]:The Adventures of Buzzaroo Skyline, and the Business of Cold Fusion.
Finally read the blog comments for Buzz Skyline's rant. You said it all, Jed, clearly and cogently, and if Riordan had been listening, he'd have heard it. He's not willing to do any work, because he already thinks he knows the answer. At that point, once that has been established, it's a waste of time to dump more into the conversation, unless you have some point to make to the future audience. Keep it simple! There is an anonymous skeptic there who knows the literature. I thought of Shanahan, but he seems smarter than Shanahan. Shanahan would probably be referring to his Calibration Constant Shit. I may review those posts later, it could be worth examining each point in a better forum, like here. Krivit showed up to ask who Buzz Skyline is, which I found in about 30 seconds by looking at the staff for the site. On the other hand, I suppose asking questions is what reporters do, and, in fact, it might be better than doing original research, which has become most of Krivit's work lately. (I.e., new analysis of reports that he doesn't understand.) Meanwhile, Buzz had a great idea: What would really impress me is if you rent space on the show floor at the next APS March meeting (don't worry, it's cheap), set one on the table and turn it on. Then take orders and let us know how many you sell. If I don't have something to sell by then, I'll be convicted of attention-deficit disorder, I've already done major time over it. Anyone want to share the booth? It could be difficult for me to fund this myself, though it makes good business sense for me to go. I assume that the travel expenses will be higher than the booth. I presume I'll actually have something to sell, right there, packaged and ready. Get 'em while they're hot! Er, cold! Er, whatever! Finding out is the point. Jed, what would be good books to sell? Let's see: Storms (2007), for sure. The ACS Sourcebooks. Mizuno? What else would you recommend? Damn! I think I might actually make some money at this. Thanks, Buzz, for the idea, and I'm assuming that you won't try to keep me out. If you do, wear those shark bite protectors that the White Knight has on in Through the Looking Glass, it can be inconvenient to have me fastened to your ankles. (I'm assuming that the suggestion was only a little facetious, and that the APS would welcome a serious effort like that, not selling fantastic free energy devices, but a simple science kit for replication of experiments published in major journals.) I won't be selling excess heat. I'll be selling neutrons. But it will be a chemistry experiment. I'm not sure that physicists are the best market, since they went into physics because they didn't like chemistry, too smelly and messy, almost as bad as biology. Maybe this will be simple enough and clean enough for them, though. Buzz's attitude is typical of the pseudoscientists on that side. If it doesn't generate enough heat to brew two cups of tea in a row, it isn't real. Now, I wonder why they don't apply that standard to muon-catalyzed fusion? In fact, when they say that cold fusion is impossible, why do they always forget the well-known and noncontroversial exception? Simple; you can't brew yet cups of tea with it, and if it's fusion, it must mean limitless power. Q.E.D. But wait, you can't brew cups of tea with hot fusion with the excess heat, either, though you might vaporize samovars of the stuff with a millisecond of input to the hot fusion monsters. Or, of course, you could use the sun. I give up. It doesn't make sense, trying to understand the thinking of these pseudoscientists; and that is exactly what they are, they pretend the color of science, when the positions they firmly take are based on rigid belief instead of experimental evidence. It's not about genuine skepticism, which remembers to be skeptical of itself as well as the views of others. They confuse positive experimental evidence, showing the accuracy of quantum mechanics in the two-body case (plasma physics), with an unproven extension of that into the realm of complex condensed matter, based on assumptions about the nuclear distances involved, and the only attempt to actually verify those assumptions was made by a pair of researchers named Pons and Fleischmann. If these physicists are so certain about their math (theory!), they should test it, and the trail has already been blazed for them. In other words, there are now massive signs, in the work of hundreds of researchers, that something falls short in those assumptions. It's basic science that I'm concerned about, not the brewing of cups of tea. Nor, in fact, solving the world's energy problems. That might follow, it might not. It makes no difference to me, though it might make a difference to my children. I'm fact, I'm pretty sure it will. Science, that is. Cold fusion? Maybe. I think we should find out, don't you? What's a booth cost? Where and when will that
[Vo]:Miley's presentation on fusion-powered rockets
See: http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/03/george-h-miley-presentation-on-nuclear.html George sure has some imagination! I wish Arthur Clarke could have seen this. I *love* ambitious stuff like this! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:The Adventures of Buzzaroo Skyline, and the Business of Cold Fusion.
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Anyone want to share the booth? It could be difficult for me to fund this myself, though it makes good business sense for me to go. Don't get ahead of yourself! First make the co-dep thing work. Confer with Miles about co-dep procedures. He is a top-notch electrochemist. - Jed
[Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
Jones wrote on 3-27-10: ... there is no need for a liquid if we can dispense with electrolysis. IMHO this is probably a significant way in which LENR is maturing ... -- gas phase. Why not? There is little advantage to electrolysis as it actually hinders loading. The ~4:1 loading ratio of Arata (D:Pd) has been confirmed numerous times by independent experimenters. Efforts are underway from a few of those experimenters (at least one, anyway) to increase the low delta-T of A-Z by means of other energy input. That is obviously the way to proceed, as commercialization will demand a useable spread ... The easiest way to move beyond A-Z would be high voltage, but coherent light would certainly be interesting. --- Horace Heffner wrote on 3-27-10: High temperature cell operation is clearly necessary to achieve practical Carnot efficiencies. --- A Commentator wrote: *Cold fusion.* Fusion, i.e., the production of higher weight nuclei from lower weight ones, at low temperatures instead of at the high ones thought necessary. Non-thermonuclear fusion. Neutron-catalyzed? Okay, maybe. But what does that have to do with whether it's fusion or not? - Another Commentator wrote: The sanest position here is no position. There is helium, and it's correlated at roughly the value for deuterium to helium conversion -- let's call that fusion, okay? --- Horace Heffner wrote on 3-23-10: The term in question I think is nuclear fusion. There are many definitions which do not mention the Coulomb barrier. However, it appears plasma fusion is often assumed. - Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: And the reason is obvious. Almost all known fusion is plasma, thermonuclear fusion. A.k.a. the brute force method. In the ACS press briefing, Peter Hagelstein called this kind of fusion vacuum reactions which I think is a good term. Regarding words and the definition of cold fusion, I would like to remind readers that Humpty Dumpty was fundamentally right: [Source: Through the Looking Glass] `I don't know what you mean by glory,' Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' `But glory doesn't mean a nice knock-down argument,' Alice objected. `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.' `The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' `The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.' Hi All, 3-27-10 The discussion of the definition of cold fusion is fascinating. I find Humpty's position somewhat extreme, but not beyond the means of practical implementation, as pointed out in 1984, and as demonstrated by the effective financing of propaganda from the insurance companies during the recent health law debate. Thomas Hobbes' position is more to my taste: Words are counters; and wise men only reckon with them; but they are the money of fools. The lazy-thinking thought in my mind is that cold fusion takes place at standard temperatue and pressure; but obviously that does not provide enough difference between heat source and heat sink to do useful work, which is a pessimistic position that should be rejected (would someone kindly give me another snapshot thought to define cold fusion?) Where I really have a problem is 'plasma fusion.' ``Almost all known fusion is plasma, thermonuclear fusion. Peter Hagelstein called this kind of fusion vacuum reactions ...'' ``The term in question I think is nuclear fusion. ... it appears plasma fusion is often assumed.'' Is it possible to have room temperature and low pressure plasma cold fusion reactions? I can imagine cold fusion in space when deuterium encounters the right nanoparticles and is converted to helium. Is the background helium concentration a measure of this activity? If most of the universe exists as plasma, as suggested by Hannes Alfvén, could there be a lot of natural cold fusion going on? Jack Smith -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannes_Alfv%C3%A9n Hannes Alfvén - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ``Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (born 30 May 1908 in Norrköping, Sweden; died 2 April 1995 in Djursholm, Sweden) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth's magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.''
Re: [Vo]:Maybe we should thank Bernstein
At 04:34 PM 3/26/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote: I doubt that James Riordon will generate a lot of angry mail to Bernstein. I hope not. I could hope so, in fact, because it could cost Riordon his job. I don't actually think that way, though. Let's say that it might be a good thing if Riordan is confronted with his antiscientific attitude because he makes a fuss with it. Anyway, perhaps it would be nice for people here to send him a short, friendly note thanking him. Michael Bernstein mailto:m_bernst...@acs.orgm_bernst...@acs.org Second that. Thanks him for last year while you are at it. I assume that Bernstein is working for the ACS and isn't doing this independently and without approval. But he should be thanked anyway.
Re: [Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
At 04:42 PM 3/26/2010, Horace Heffner wrote: We should not shrink from looking in the mirror! We have only begun to scratch the surface of a very large parameter space. Huge, truly enormous parameter space. Scary parameter space, compared to the much simpler space of plasma fusion. Messy, hard to control, with practically infinite variables. We are just playing with some pebbles on a beach. Still.
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
At 11:34 PM 3/26/2010, fznidar...@aol.com wrote: Something ate our friend. If the professional is still alive in the belly of the whale, he'll be back. Maybe even a new, improved version. Meanwhile, those who are close to him can still communicate with him where he sits, in his self-constructed confinement. Maybe you can bring him out. I'm not giving up, though I'm not trying directly any more. I'd gladly respond to any mediation attempts, though. If I've done something wrong by confronting what I found, I'd like to know. I won't quit the list because someone criticizes me, I'm sure. Check out my participation on Wikipedia! I've stopped editing, generally, but only because an arbitrator opined that I'd violated a sanction, without explaining why my actions were violations, so, since I'd rather not be blocked right now, I've simply stopped all of it for a time. I didn't trash my account, spike my password, or stuff like that which editors abused by Wikipedia process often do. And I'm working on Wikipedia and the entire WikiMedia Fourdation structure, from the outside. One step at a time.
Re: [Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
On Mar 27, 2010, at 11:25 AM, Taylor J. Smith wrote: Is it possible to have room temperature and low pressure plasma cold fusion reactions? If the results of Claytor et al. are considered cold fusion, then the answer is probably yes. Claytor used a low pressure gas regime, involving charged hydrogen species, and thus plasma, but the electrostatic energy involved would better be called warm. Too hot to be called cold and too cold for thermonuclear fusion. Similar things might be said regarding experiments by Storms and others that used much lower voltages than Claytor, on the order of hundreds of volts rather than thousands, yet still not cold in comparison to room temperature. Then there are high voltage electrolysis experiments that cover the range up to over 1 keV, and involve plasma, but are also far from room temperature. All the above types of cold or warm fusion involve surface effects, so could not rightly be called plasma fusion. I can imagine cold fusion in space when deuterium encounters the right nanoparticles and is converted to helium. Is the background helium concentration a measure of this activity? Background helium is primarily from alpha decay, e.g. radon. If most of the universe exists as plasma, as suggested by Hannes Alfvén, could there be a lot of natural cold fusion going on? Jack Smith There may be cold fusion going on inside the earth. Out in the vacuum of space, it is hot fusion. Inside stars, there are a variety of processes at work, some undoubtedly not yet discovered. Best regards, Horace Heffner http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
Re: [Vo]:Triumph looks in the mirror
At 01:53 PM 3/26/2010, Peter Gluck wrote: First of all- thank you! I also think that somewhere we have to get rid of palladium and replace it with something cheaper and more abundent, And is a provocative and/or nasty assertion that now we still do not understnd the science? We don't understand the science. We don't understand the science. We don't understand the science. Finding reactions that don't involve palladium is obviously of great interest. It's just not where I can start. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants, and I can only go where they go, so far. Someone has a simple, cheap experiment that can be done and that produces striking and reliable results, I'll be all ears. Right now, striking is neutrons, and reliability seems likely, for a codep approach with a gold cathode. The neutrons are of no practical significance, to my understanding. They are present at incredibly low levels, such that they must be from secondary reactions, possibly hot fusion. I think we might be looking at one energetic neutron per minute or the like. That is easily distinguisable from background if the capture surface of a solid-state nuclear track detector is small, close to the active region, and the cross-section for observable interactions is high enough, which apparently it is from the published work. I can also detect slow neutrons, using a B-10 conversion screen, not sure I'll look for them initially.
[Vo]:OT (sort of): Challenging Dogma
It was recently opined here that it is not the job of a reporter to challenge dogma. This was followed up with another opinion: That the job of a reporter is to find and present facts - that science reporters should find and present scientific fact. Personally, I think challenging dogma IS one of the many jobs that an investigative journalist performs. Actually, I would like to believe it's the job of everyone to challenge dogma whenever they see it. Of course, one person's perception of fact often turns out to be another person's perception of dogma, and, oh, what a squabble that can produce betwixt us all. Regarding journalism, the Society of Professional Journalism (the SPJ) has a lot of interesting things to say about the code of ethics that investigative journalists should follow. For details see: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp While on the subject of the ethics of investigative journalism, and for a more controversial debate concerning the limits of Cotcha investigative journalism, here is an article about a former ABC producer, Linne Dale, who performed an undercover investigation of a company called Food Lion, and the company's illegal practices which were endangering public health. The ABC article when it eventually aired helped destroy the company, but not after a protracted and expensive battle spearheaded, of course, by Food Lion's legal team. The doomed company attempted to obfuscate and deflect the original ABC claims by claiming fraud, trespassing and breach of loyalty. Most curiously, they did not pursue libel. Fortunately, for the sake media freedom, Food Lion's tactic didn't work: http://rsjsoup.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-ethics-of-investigative But getting back to the SPJ web site, a lot of sensible things are listed out there. Good sensible things that every investigative journalist ought to ponder carefully before practicing their trade. Incidentally, while pondering the dos and don'ts of investigative journalism nowhere did I read a commandment stating that those who pursue this profession should not challenge dogma. Actually challenging dogma, isn't what really piqued my interest. What piqued my interest was wondering if anyone here really believes they have the right to determine for everyone else what dogma is versus what is scientific fact. It seems to me that the polarity of perception, when placed on a scale where dogma resides at one end and scientific fact the other, often boils down to a difference of opinion. All too often when opposing opinions, including those of a journalistic nature, perform battle in the arena the results tend to generate a lot of rancorous debate, acrimony, hard feelings, broken friendships and strained alliances. What is often missed in the ensuing battle for dominance is the fact that ALL opinions, no matter what position they take, end up getting bruised and lacerated by the same double edged sword. This double edged sword is more often than not powered by the seductive emotions of outrage. The seductive double edged sword of outrage doesn't care whose opinion is being slaughtered. It simply strikes. It strikes repeatedly because it is addictively delicious to do so. I know that I am not immune to the sword's seductive power. I constantly try to remind myself of a concept attributed to another learned man whose credentials remain steeped in mythology: Let he who is free of imperfection, let he who knows he has freed himself from the clutches of dogma and the seductive emotions of outrage cast the first strike. At times I know I have failed miserably when I struck out at others when perhaps I should have held my tongue, and pen. At least I try to be aware of the sword's seductive presence in my life. That's half the battle. In conclusion, I could speculate that there might be a few lurking within the catacombs of the Vort Collective who may try to interpret the content of my little essay as possessing hidden meanings - or that I really meant to say this, or that, yadda, yadda, yadda. It was intentional on my part to remain neutral. Often there is no right or wrong answer. There are only actions and the consequences of those actions. It's best to make them those actions count. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
Re: [Vo]:Stimulus Suspension Would Put 85,000 Wind Jobs at Risk
At 05:10 AM 3/27/2010, Michel Jullian wrote: 2010/3/27 Abd ul-Rahman Lomax a...@lomaxdesign.com: I intend to fix that, you know. Good. Obviously, common sense starts at IQ 159 in CF researchers ;-) Geez, I mention the result of one test told to me in the 1950s, and it keeps bouncing back. I'm smart, sure. As a girlfriend used to say about her Master's degree in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street in New York, probably the most prestigious school in the field, with that and a quarter I could get a ride on the subway. This was a while ago There are some very, very smart people in this field. It's not necessarily a protection from error. That takes an ability to listen, which may be even less common among very smart people than with ordinary people, for smart people can get stuck in a habit of being right Except the first cells won't be calorimeter-ready, they might not generate anough heat, that would take a different, and more expensive design, I suspect.I'm just looking for neutrons. I know, boring. Who can solve the energy crisis with a few neutrons? Part of the point about CF is that it doesn't generate neutrons. Well, usually not. Usually not, or usually not many? Usually not. I.e., of many, many reactions, only a very few end up producing neutrons. And maybe not any at all, i.e., the primary reaction never produces neutrons, but it does produce some hot reaction products, perhaps, that then can cause secondary fusion and therefore some neutrons. Isn't it the exceptions to the rule that are fascinating? If I had a cell that was capable of serious heat generation, I'm not sure I'd turn it over to a skeptic. I'd try to find someone reasonably neutral. (i.e., someone *normally* skeptical but dedicated to fairness and honesty and careful work.) That's what I had in mind, skeptics in the noble sense of the word. Dishonest skeptics will never see the excess heat, not until the field will have entered mainstream. Problem is, you need a relatively rare combination. Someone who is carefully skeptical but who has not only the inclination to check this out, but the opportunity, i.e. the time and access to resources. But it will happen. The job of those who are already convinced should be to make it easy. Organize the information better, so that access is quick and clear -- and balanced. Don't exclude skeptical material, rather develop consensus about it that is, again, clear. Let unresolved issues be unresolved issues, don't paper them over with unproven hypotheses. Suppose there is a website, might even be lenr-canr.org. Every common question or claim about cold fusion is answered there, in a presentation that is accessible immediately and that is concise and focus, as well-written as possible. So, someone comes up with a Standard Stupid Statement in a blog, very quickly and effeciently someone familiar with the web site can quote the Stupid Stement without argument, then point to the URL of the standard answer that is utterly clear and fully evidenced (possibly on subpages, citations, etc). And this site, by the way, invites criticism, so that if it's defective, it can be fixed. The top-level page isn't publicly editable, that's done by consensus with the approval of site management. So it doesn't get cluttered with discussions and arguments that can go nowhere. What will happen? I don't know, but I'd like to find out!
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
At 05:55 AM 3/27/2010, Francis X Roarty wrote: Just so I understand what all the fuss is about.. Is it because he is pushing neutron capture when he is supposed to be unbiased? I watched the Youtube presentation and frankly I liked it. How often does neutron capture occur normally? Does neutron capture get accelerated by catalytic action? No, you don't understand. I know it's a lot of material, but read the material about Krivit above, since the ACS press conference, say, and there is much more recently about Krivit, including his documents on the heat/helium issue. Then consider what's been said. The problem is only a little that he is aggressively pushing a single theory, though that does compromise his objectivity as a reporter. It is that, to do this, he attacks practically the entire cold fusion research community, and he criticizes the work in ways that show that he hasn't understood it. The issue is not Widom-Larsen theory, per se. It's how Krivit supports it by attacking differing theories using polemic and gross oversimplifications of the experimental evidence, its implications, and what others say about it. Neutron capture is apparently very rare normally, because of the shortage of slow neutrons, which are very readily captured by many nuclei. In other words, the issue would be the generation of slow neutrons, not acceleration of capture. Where are they coming from? I don't know how Larsen explains this, but if slow neutrons are available, we'd expect lots of reactions to be taking place that are not seen. Perhaps Larsen has an answer for this. I'd suggest that if he favors W-L theory, he has a lot of work to do to educate the rest of it as to why it's so explanatory in power, because, so far, what I know, and I've looked more than just a little, doesn't do that for me. As a journalist, it's fine for him to explain things, collect the information, and present it in a way that makes it understandable. But he's not a scientist, and he seems to be more interested in the politics, and creates political stories where there may be none. His very noisy claim that LENR is not fusion is little more than a linguistic quibble; as far as I can see, he accepts that helium is being produced, and if helium is being produced by neutron capture, it is a type of fusion, just not deuterium fusion, and probably the reaction isn't simple two-deuteron fusion anyway, though some possibilities have not been ruled out. By aggressively challenging fusion as being the product of a belief, rather than of serious experimental evidence, he is justifying the doubts of the skeptics. See, look, even Steve Krivit now admits that it isn't fusion, which is actually being said, and, mostly, his parallel message that it is, anyway, a nuclear reaction, is lost. His screeds cast doubt upon the honesty and competence of nearly every major cold fusion researcher, without any necessity. It's pretty bad.
Re: [Vo]:I missed Jed when he quit and now I miss Steve
Abd, Thanks- I kind of figured there was more to it than I was processing. I asked about the normal rate of neutron capture because I thought it might change with fractional hydrogen. Always the optimist I find myself looking for the mechanism by which it could work. I really feel we already have all the information we need to solve this mystery but no one wants to borrow parts from one another to solve it correctly. Regards Fran
Re: [Vo]:The Adventures of Buzzaroo Skyline, and the Business of Cold Fusion.
At 02:07 PM 3/27/2010, Jed Rothwell wrote: Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: Anyone want to share the booth? It could be difficult for me to fund this myself, though it makes good business sense for me to go. Don't get ahead of yourself! First make the co-dep thing work. Yeah, I get it. The APS idea, though, gives me some kind of deadline. I work better with deadlines. Confer with Miles about co-dep procedures. He is a top-notch electrochemist. I will.
