Re: [Vo]:national research program for cold fusion
On Sat, Dec 3, 2011 at 1:42 PM, Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: Good idea, good article. I disagree. Terrible idea, terrible article. Estimates are that $200 M has been spent on cold fusion research in 22 years. If that's not enough to generate unequivocal evidence of *heat* from nuclear reactions in a small-scale, table-top experiment at ordinary conditions, then the public should not commit funds to the idea as a generic possibility. If researchers have focused ideas about metal hydrides, there are funding programs they can apply to. But to simply allocate a fixed amount of money to a field most scientists think has no merit would bring all the kooks out of the woodwork. It's pretty clear from the past 20 years that negative results will not dissuade believers, so another billion dollars, with another 20 years of the same results, would put us right where we are now. Then what? 10 billion? Evidence for cold fusion has simply not gotten better after 22 years, hundreds of man-years, and $200M, than it was when PF came forward in 1989, after a few man-years, and a few tens of thousands of dollars. It's not time to redouble efforts; it's time to cut losses.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 8:40 PM, Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: Interesting. Long on theory. Short on data. Long on obfuscation. A few things that struck me about that presentation: Slide 13: Zawodny is up front about the energy needed for electron capture by a proton, which is more than you can say for WL. They say it is: inhibited by 0.78 MeV. [...] Then, a couple of lines further down, they try to explain where the energy might come from: Field results from a breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer Approximation via a coupling of Surface Plasmon Polaritons to a collective proton resonance in the metal hydride. Say what? That's just gibberish. I seriously doubt that Zawodny has any idea what that sentence means, if it means anything at all. A physical effect is allowed by a breakdown in a mathematical approximation? What that sentence does is make people's eyes glaze over, and think it sounds sophisticated enough that it must be true. But how exactly is concentrating 780 keV energy into a site where the bonds are a million times weaker than that made plausible by a breakdown of an approximation? It's like a mechanic telling a naive customer their car needs new muffler bearings. Slide 14: gamma rays get thermalized by heavy electrons Right, that's the patent WL just got. Heavy electrons are the new lead. But that's just about the easiest thing to test. Fire gamma rays at a LENR foil and see if they're absorbed. NASA has been working on this for years, and they don't have data to show that this works? Please. And *all* the gamma rays? None escape to indicate the signature for all those proposed reactions? The heavy electrons that are captured by protons are not around to absorb gamma rays, so they have to be absorbed by *other* heavy electrons. That's gonna require some density to make sure all the gammas are absorbed. Slide 15: In the chain of events in the Li-Be-He cycle, they admit the first step (electron capture) requires energy (as mentioned above), and claim some mechanism to provide it. But further down the list, the 4He + n - 5He is proposed with no mention that it is also highly endothermic. It also requires about 735 MeV, but there is no mechanism suggested this time that might provide that energy. In fact, they like to claim that the neutrons are ultra low momentum, so where exactly does the energy for this step come from? Slide 16: This slide is full of vague justifications for the theory, but as MY said, no hard data at all. And the best line is: Simplicity: Only need one theory to explain all the LENR data as well as a few other long standing anomalies They call 3 miracles simple. First they can provide 780 keV to induce electron capture by, as Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes put it when asked to explain Newton's law in his own words: Yakka Foob Mog. Grug pubbawup sink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. Then they provide 735 keV by an unmentioned mechanism to induce neutron capture by 4He, and finally all gammas associated with the various proposed reactions are absorbed by heavy electrons. Simple. Slide 26: 6p + 3e -- 6Li + 28 MeV (and neutrinos) is called getting energy from the *weak* interaction. Sure the weak interaction is involved in the electron capture, but that *consumes* energy. Building 6Li out of 3 protons and 3 neutrons is where the energy comes from, and that's all about the *strong* interaction. (There are many intermediate steps, but those are the starting and ending particles, and all the energy released is from the strong force.) This may be quibbling, but they make such a big deal about tapping the weak force. The weak interaction may be critical to the process, but is it so hard to identify the source of the energy correctly? Slide 9: -- The summary of evidence for LENR is a perfect indication of the complete absence of evidence: Metal hydrides of both H D • High H loading required • Not just 4He being produced • Full range of elemental transmutations • Energy input needed • Forcing at resonant hydride frequencies is effective • Sporadic detection of neutron or gamma radiation Not a definitive thing in there. Sporadic detection of neutron or gamma radiation? If there's gamma radiation, they should be able to nail down the reactions. And high H loading? Only in the electrolysis experiments. It doesn't seem to have to be high in gas loading experiments. Honestly, if a talk so devoid of hard results or plausible mechanisms were presented in any other field, it would be laughed off stage. One can only hope this is not representative of much of the research that goes on at NASA.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 10:51 PM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: The only set of slide notes in the presentation said the following about WLT: “The theory makes specific, testable predictions. Predictions that can be inexpensively verified.” Well, one prediction it makes is that heavy electrons absorb gamma rays with near perfect efficiency. That should be testable. Not much else is. And they say they've been working at this for several years. If these predictions are so easy to test, why hasn't NASA done it?
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: JC wrote: “Say what? That's just gibberish. I seriously doubt that Zawodny has any idea what that sentence means, if it means anything at all. A physical effect is allowed by a breakdown in a mathematical approximation? What that sentence does is make people's eyes glaze over, and think it sounds sophisticated enough that it must be true.” ** ** That certainly is one possibility… but it’s just as plausible that your and MY’s eyes glaze over because you don’t have enough in-depth knowledge of the relevant physics to fully understand what’s being proposed. But my failure to understand something does not make it any more plausible to me. Someone could come along and claim to have a theory that explains perpetual motion machines, but I wouldn't believe it just because he could string a bunch of sophisticated buzz-words together into an incomprehensible sentence. You need 780 keV at a single atomic site to induce electron capture by a proton. This is allegedly induced by heating the lattice. So, random atomic motion representing a fraction of an eV per atom is somehow supposed to be concentrated by a factor of much more than a million by some resonant phenomenon. No amount of jargon makes that plausible. WL present all sorts of equations to justify the idea, but they don't actually calculate a reaction rate for a given hydrogen loading in Pd or Ni. People are skeptical of cold fusion because of the Coulomb barrier. The big selling point about the WLT is that it is supposed to be more plausible because it avoids the Coulomb barrier. The problem is it introduces a much bigger energy barrier. So then, the same skeptics should be more skeptical of WLT, not less skeptical. Why should telling people they are not sophisticated enough to understand the mechanism be any more effective for the WLT than for breaching the Coulomb barrier? It's another matter to pitch it at theoretical physicists, but people like Bushnell and Krivit pitch it at their lay audiences. And the last time I checked, no theoretical physicists of any stripe were citing WL, even though it would be breakthrough physics if it were right. Even among LENR advocates, the theoretical physicists like Hagelstein don't give it much respect. this was only an internal workshop. It was most likely background for others who might be interested in helping. It most certainly was NOT a full description of all the LENR work that they have done. How the hell do you know what data they have or don’t have? What experiments they’ve done or not done? It's true. It's possible they have evidence that he did not present. They might have done an experiment where gamma rays that otherwise go right through a nickel powder, are blocked when it's heated in an atmosphere of hydrogen under pressure. Or other experiments that make WL more believable. But if he's trying to attract helpers, wouldn't it make more sense to present evidence like that? The presentation looks pretty similar to the one he gave in 2009. No indication of progress at all. But again, maybe he's got a reason for hiding it. Maybe, but I doubt it. Anyway, based on what's available, I remain skeptical.
Re: [Vo]:Padua University not Siena made the analysis
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 7:43 AM, Berke Durak berke.du...@gmail.com wrote: The nickel is a power. It's pretty hard to imagine a preferred emission direction with randomly oriented reactants. True, but again, this is unknown physics, Right. Anything can be explained that way... and the randomly oriented powder is possibly bathing in these EM fields that Rossi possibly uses to control the reaction - this breaks the spherical symmetry. Maybe with new physics, but with old physics, the EM fields Rossi used do not control nuclear reactions. And if true, it wouldn't be hard to get evidence for it. Evidence that might help to vindicate Rossi. But then, he's trying to avoid vindication; too much competition. According to Nelson's slides, the gammas are in the 50 - 200 keV range and are thermalized. Nelson didn't show data to support that. It was just wild speculation, and the range was probably chosen because Villa's cutoff was 200 keV. Easy to do with very little shielding. And photons in that range wouldn't have been detected by Villa - this is clearly stated in the abstract. Right. But there are ways to detect photons between 50 and 200 keV. And NASA could probably avail themselves of the necessary technology. But they didn't show evidence of 50 - 200 keV gammas. Neither has Rossi. And neither did he suggest any reactions that might produce such low energy gammas. And the sort of reactions that WL predict would produce much higher energy gammas. And the one slide he showed with a gamma spectrum from Piantelli showed a 750 keV gamma.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 10:57 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: Joshua wrote: “So, random atomic motion representing a fraction of an eV per atom is somehow supposed to be concentrated by a factor of much more than a million by some resonant phenomenon.” ** ** ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE. ** ** You are reasoning from the physics of brute force, which is all that nuclear physicists know. The physics of resonance can achieve the extreme energy levels required with very small, but properly timed/oriented, inputs. Resonance is very much a part of brute force physics. It's well-understood, and not magical at all. Your argument is that resonance has some amazing macroscopic effects, and so WL is absolutely possible. Sorry, it doesn't do anything for me. ** ** Tesla generated electrical discharges over 130 feet long when in Colorado Springs in 1899. That represents many 10s of millions of volts when his primary coil was operating at some very small fraction of that. Big deal. Tesla coils are not magic. A resonant transformer is well understood. Producing a million volts in a macroscopic device is pretty easy. But even those fields are 10,000 smaller than WL need localized to produce electron capture. And how does a resonant transformer relate to concentrating thermal energy into an electric field fluctuation at a single atomic site. I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying your arguments and Zawodny's (or WL) jargon don't make it any more plausible. And it still leaves the question of why WL is any more plausible than ordinary fusion. The latter should be a 10 times easier resonant phenomenon, so why does anyone (NASA) pay attention to WL? I can read minds using resonance. Don't believe me? Look up Tesla coils and the Tacoma bridge.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 1:34 PM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: ** ** I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement, “Resonance is very much a part of brute force physics.” ** ** I think I need to explain resonance to you… Resonance is an interesting phenomenon where SMALL INputs of force or energy into a system results in VERY LARGE OUTputs. There is nothing resonant about using EXTREMELY powerful magnets cooled with liquid helium to accelerate atomic particles to EXTREMELY hi velocities and smashing them head-on into each other. I guess it depends what you mean by brute force physics. To me, when I push a child on a swing, I'm using brute force physics. And I know intuitively that if I push at the natural frequency of the pendulum, the amplitude of the oscillation is much higher. That's resonance. If I push at a random frequency, energy will be dissipated, and the child will cry. Resonance allows the efficient storing of energy, so it can be built up after multiple cycles. The output energy does not exceed the input energy. Resonance is so intrinsic a part of so many branches of physics that I regard it as brute force. It is certainly not exotic by any measure. ** ** I came across the following article by Hagelstein, which I think is most relevant to the issue of resonant atomic/nuclear processes. Note his comment, ** ** “When we augment the spin-boson model with loss, we see that the coherent energy exchange process improves dramatically [10]. In perturbation theory we see that this comes about through the removal of destructive interference,” ** So, no proposed mechanism. The rest of the lengthy quotation just emphasizes that he doesn't have a mechanism, and in any case talks more about how the nuclear energy might be thermalized: perhaps deuterons are somehow reacting to make 4He. […] there are no previous examples in nuclear […] So, whatever process […] hasn’t been seen before. There are no previous relevant models[…] if there were a known mechanism […] there is no precedent for this; etc. Why not use your brain to help Hagelstein and others, who are at least open-minded enough to try thinking out of the box, to come up with a plausible hypothesis to explain the ‘current-theory-says-its-impossible’ evidence. ** Because, the evidence to date does not merit it.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Robert Lynn robert.gulliver.l...@gmail.com wrote: It is clearly demonstrable that there exist mechanisms (of unknown type) in room temperature condensed matter to create at least 10's of keV, check out the rather fascinating following video: I wouldn't say that's a mechanism *in* condensed matter. And although the details of the fascinating interactions are not known, the essential concept is well understood, and nothing particularly new. Friction produces separation of charge, and that can produce large potential differences. That's it. Combing your hair can produce thousands of volts, and clouds millions of volts. And such effects can produce high energy electrons. However, to get 10s of keV electrons, as you saw, required a vacuum. Because you need to separate the charge by macroscopic distances to get the necessary voltage, and electrons have a pretty short mean-free path in air. So it's not clear how this could apply to nickel powder under pressure. I agree, there are ways to get a lot of energy into atomic sites. Simply accelerating ions with an electric field (fusors), or using pyroelectricity (pyroelectric fusion), or even using pneumatic rams (General Fusion). The problem is that none of these are (so far) efficient enough to get more energy out than in, and none of them are comparable to a hot nickel lattice with hydrogen in it. Again, that's not saying it's impossible; it's just that saying it's a resonance phenomenon doesn't make it plausible. Especially without experimental data to support it.
Re: [Vo]:Padua University not Siena made the analysis
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Berke Durak berke.du...@gmail.com wrote: On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 11:10 AM, Joshua Cude joshua.c...@gmail.com wrote: Right. Anything can be explained that way... Thank God you weren't there when they came up with quantum theory. Except that when Planck tried to understand the ultraviolet catastrophe, he didn't just say: Well it's new physics. He suggested E=hf, and showed that with that equation, blackbody radiation fit his predictions perfectly. Einstein didn't just say that the photoelectric effect disagrees with classical physics because it's new physics. He used Planck's E=hf in a new theory that fit experimental results perfectly. Bohr didn't just say only selected orbits are allowed because it's new physics (he did say that, but not *just* that). He showed that if he quantized angular momentum he could reproduce the Rydberg formula. Schrodinger and Heisenberg didn't just say the particle-wave duality is because of new physics. They developed formal theories which included the duality, and which represent two manifestations of the most predictive physical theory in history. Do you see a pattern there? It's all about suggesting specific new physics that fits the data, and can be tested. WL is not that. Again, that doesn't make it wrong. But at the moment, it has no experimental legs to stand on, and remains energetically highly implausible. Maybe with new physics, but with old physics, the EM fields Rossi used do not control nuclear reactions. What do you know about the EM fields Rossi used? Are these described somewhere? Only that they switched on a frequency producing device at low power. It's hard to imagine it as anything other than a coil of some sort, and not a high enough frequency to influence nuclear reactions. But, you're right. I don't know. Just wild speculation. An X-ray tube produces directional photons using EM fields. True, with a vacuum, and dc high voltage. No sign of any of that in the ecat. And x-rays are produced by atomic, not nuclear, reactions. You cannot a priori assume spherical symmetry about an unknown system that is known to be non spherically symmetrical. No. But again, nuclear reactions in a powder triggered by heat are unlikely to be directional. As usual, you are making lots of implicit assumptions to debunk something we don't have much information about. It's OK to complain about lack of information, but it's not enough to debunk. To me it's not about debunking so much as denying evidence exists for bunking. According to Nelson's slides, the gammas are in the 50 - 200 keV range and are thermalized. Nelson didn't show data to support that. It was just wild speculation, and the range was probably chosen because Villa's cutoff was 200 keV. How do you know it's just wild speculation? The slide doesn't say My guess: 50 - 200 keV. Maybe you were at the LENR Workshop and asked him? If it's not supported by data, it's speculation. Right. But there are ways to detect photons between 50 and 200 keV. And NASA could probably avail themselves of the necessary technology. But they didn't show evidence of 50 - 200 keV gammas. Neither has Rossi. And neither did he suggest any reactions that might produce such low energy gammas. Rossi is not a physicist and has no business suggesting reactions. He's been working with Focardi for a few years already. (2) If you read the chronology of Piantelli's work in the same document, you'll see that Piantelli didn't always get radiation when he got excess heat. The one thing that's consistent in cf research is inconsistency. Remember that guy who measured a gamma spike while Rossi was adjusting a reactor in the other room? Right. The best evidence for cold fusion is some guy who saw something sometime. Rothwell loves to talk about the buckets of water that boiled away when no one was looking. Depending on anecdote just makes cold fusion seem needy.
Re: [Vo]:Re: Krivit article on NASA Forum
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 2:36 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: For example, he demonstrated 30 L of water that remained at boiling temperatures for four hours with no input. [...] Neither you nor any other skeptic has ever given us a single viable, scientific reason to doubt these results. You have had months, and you have given us NOTHING other than blather and handwaving. Irony, anyone.
Re: [Vo]:Re: Krivit article on NASA Forum
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: He has no magical ability to change the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The Stefan-Boltzmann law does you no good if the foil has an emissivity of 10% or less. That would give less than 50W emission for 60C surface temperature in a 30C room. Try again. You have never given any valid reason to doubt those conclusions. You think you have, but you have not. This is called playing to your fans. You can't possibly think it is a persuasive argument for anyone else.
Re: [Vo]:Re: Krivit article on NASA Forum
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 4:50 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: That is incorrect. Many people have looked inside these devices. The photographs of the Ottoman size device instantly rule out any possibility of a chemical or other conventional source of heat. Only to your satisfaction. Not to anyone else's. The size of the inner-cell alone rule this out. You do not have to know what it is made of. You can estimate the necessary volume of a chemical or electrical source of heat sufficient to produce approximately this much energy. It would be much bigger than this. Nonsense. You can buy a 10 kW propane water heater from a camping store that weighs 10 kg. Nevertheless, we know from the volume and mass of the cathode alone that the reaction has to be nuclear. Nope. It doesn't even have to be chemical. Ordinary thermal storage (or phase change) is more than enough -- maybe that's chemical. Mme. Curie new the same thing about her radium samples, for exactly the same reasons. Nonsense. Curie identified radiation first. Only later did she measure heat. And it was a very different experiment. No input energy needed at all. A small sample of radium salt simply remained warmer than its surroundings indefinitely. Days, weeks, months, years... See how that's not the same at all?
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 1:12 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: The simple fact is, that given the SAME amount of ‘push’ at regular intervals, a resonant system will achieve what appears to be extreme amplitudes whereas the non-resonant push of the SAME amount of force, can NEVER achieve any lasting, That's what I said. I didn't say resonance was not important, only that it is not exotic, and in fact is elementary, and you can't just explain something you don't understand by saying: Oh, it's a resonant phenomenon. And by the way, those big particle accelerators rely on resonance too.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:13 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: I never said it was ‘exotic’… And I never attempted to explain something as simply claiming it was a resonant phenomenon… Stop putting words in my mouth. This whole discussion started with your statement: “Resonance is very much a part of brute force physics.” ** ** In what way? Explain… Semantic discussions are rarely useful, but I took the meaning of brute force from the context in which you used it, when you said: You are reasoning from the physics of brute force, which is all that nuclear physicists know. The physics of resonance can achieve the extreme energy levels required with very small, but properly timed/oriented, inputs. If all that nuclear physicists know is brute force physics, then resonance is very much a part of brute force physics, because all nuclear physicists are intimately familiar with resonance. It's an elementary phenomenon taught in freshman physics, and permeates all branches of physics, including nuclear physics, in phenomena such as resonant gamma ray absorption or emission (in the Mossbauer effect, as one of many examples). To move beyond the semantics of brute force, your argument was that resonant phenomena made the concentration of thermal energy a millionfold in nickel powder absolutely possible (in caps), and that this was something nuclear physicists would not think of because it is outside their knowledge (which is where I got exotic from).
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:35 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: I would have thought with my clear statements about using extremely intense magnetic fields and smashing particles head on at extremely high velocities, it would have been obvious that I was referring to something specific, What specific, exactly? and not a ‘general’ concept of resonance. Why does nuclear physics use (BRUTE FORCE) particle accelerators? Because they are boxed in by the thought that the ONLY way to overcome the coulomb barrier is extreme force. You know, you don't need much energy (on the scale of accelerators) to overcome the Coulomb barrier; that's why you can buy bench top neutron sources that use ordinary fusion produced by accelerating deuterons through a simple electric field. The energy in big accelerators is needed to produce more exotic reactions and particles that don't exist in nature (except in stars or supernovae). Well, ya, that certainly is one way, but my point is that one could achieve the same end using much more modest energies if the device used resonance. The device does use resonance. But if you've got a way to look for the Higg's boson without big accelerators, you're a shoo-in for a nobel prize. I'm honored to have argued with you. But, as I said before, just saying resonance doesn't make something possible. You're going to have to be specific, or there's no cigar. That’s all… it’s certainly not meant to be a full blown explanation of exactly how to achieve that… No. It's not an explanation at all. It's just a vague wish. It's like saying we'll use zero-point energy, or pink unicorns, without any concept of how exactly. ** ** So how do particle accelerators use resonance to overcome electrostatic repulsion? Again, accelerators are many orders of magnitude beyond breaching the Coulomb barrier. But, as one example, from the first sentence in wikipedia on cyclotrons: *Ion cyclotron resonance* is a phenomenon related to the movement of ionshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ions in a magnetic field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field. It is used for accelerating ions in a cyclotronhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclotron ,... Or in the article on particle accelerators: As the particles approach the speed of light the switching rate of the electric fields becomes so high that they operate at microwave frequencies, and so RF cavity resonators http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavity_resonator are used in higher energy machines instead of simple plates. Basically, in any cyclic accelerator, the acceleration has to be in sync (resonance) with the particle motion. Otherwise there's interference and dissipation.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: JC: Thx for the explanations, relevant or not, however, I still think that the discussion wandered from my initial point, which was, given proper conditions, one can disrupt the natural balance within a nucleus and cause unexpected results using much lower levels of energy by using resonance rather than brute force. And I maintain that you're saying resonance like a magician says abbra cadabra. Without specifics, it's meaningless. ** ** ** Aside from that, your comment that the large accelerators go way beyond the energy necessary for overcoming the Coulomb Barrier seems to be only partially right. In the following article, the physicist states: “In other words, even the most massive stars, at the incredible pressures and temperatures found at their cores, cannot fuse nickel and hydrogen nuclei together.” ** ** So, even the most powerful accelerator built cannot overcome the CB for the vast majority of atomic elements… The *temperatures* and *pressures* in stars are not enough. An accelerator does not give energy to particles by heating them up, but by accelerating them in electromagnetic fields. You need to think outside the box, and consider the power of resonance, and not just brute force heating. You can fire a proton from a small cyclotron at 50 MeV to produce Cu from Ni, no problem. And in the LHC, protons collide at multi-TeV energies, and even for fixed targets, you can get protons close to 1 TeV. The temperature corresponding to 1 TeV would be more than a quadrillion kelvins (10^16 K). There are no stars that hot. Even 50 MeV corresponds to a trillion degrees, far above star temperatures. So, yes, accelerators go way way way beyond the energy needed to breach any Coulomb barrier in nature.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: The END RESULT is brute force smashing things together… there is NO resonance in that! That is, and always has been, my point. The actual interaction of the particles is by brute force, NOT RESONANCE. Collisions can be resonant too, but the goal of the experiments is energetic collisions, so accelerators use resonance to achieve the goal. And again, if you have an idea of how to produce exotic particles or probe the subatomic world in another way, I'm sure you'd find an audience. But if you just say use resonance, you're gonna get ignored. ** ** JC writes: “And I maintain that you're saying resonance like a magician says abbra cadabra. Without specifics, it's meaningless.” ** ** To answer this sad excuse for a rebuttal, the specifics comes from proposing a hypothesis, and then following that hypothesis to see where it leads and whether it could be reasonable from a physics perspective; and then conducting experiments to test the hypothesis. So, you've got nothin'. Your attitude reeks of closed-minded, theoretically-impossible-so-why-bother-even-thinking-about-it. We’d all be living in caves and throwing spears with that attitude… No. You have this the wrong way round. It's the cold fusion experiments that haven't changed significantly in 20 years. The rest of physics has moved on. I'm no more skeptical of cold fusion than the vast majority of scientists, and progress in science has kept pace since 1989. On the other hand, all the scientists who are not appropriately skeptical have made no progress at all. They're spinning their wheels. Zawodny's slides are an indication. He can't find a single definitive thing to say about the field. It's all sporadic detection of this and energy needed for that. Nothing is ever measured or identified consistently. The way science progresses is that knowledge already established is used as a guide. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that. QM and relativity could not have been developed without carefully cataloged and reproduced experimental results, just as Newton needed Kepler and Braha. Skepticism is a critical filter in science. Planck himself made great contributions to physics, but it took him a decade to accept the idea of photons, a concept his ideas led to. Cold fusion advocates just throw everything out and say resonance glorp chumble spuzz and hope something works out. Systematic is not in their vocabulary. Nothing should be regarded as impossible, but if you give every idea equal probability of being right, you will get nowhere. Which is where cold fusion has gotten.
Re: [Vo]:LENR-CANR Theory Papers
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote: For laymen, quantum mechanics (QM) is very hard to understand; even Einstein had trouble with it. Einstein had objections to its implications and apparent incompleteness. He was completely comfortable with how it was used to make successful predictions. Experimenting with QM is even more difficult. If you look at results, they go away or become invalid. QM is the most predictive theory over the widest range of dimensions in history. It has certain odd implications, but in its simple application as tool to predict the outcome of experiments, it is perfectly well understood and completely unambiguous, even if statistical in nature. Workers in the field have spent decades repeatedly redoing the double slit experiment, sometimes called Young's experiment, each trying to glean some new revelation into how the world of the small works. Investigation of entanglement keeps a lot of people fascinated. That's true. But that doesn't make the theory less useful. There are even two major QM theories competing with each other; each having its own lists of acolytes; and each with differing implications for the view of the cosmos. Not sure what you're referring to here. Surely not the heisenberg and schrodinger formulations, since they have been shown to be mathematically equivalent. And if you're referring to more philosophical interpretations like the Copenhagen interpretation, it's important to understand that these are more for peace of mind. In the applications of the theory to interactions, the predictions are not ambiguous. Most people will not accept LENR in principle because they cannot accept QM as meaningful in their everyday experience: it is just too weird. That's nonsense. Everything around us depends on QM, and most people accept everything around us. People won't accept LENR because the evidence sucks. Light a match and they'll agree there's heat. Plug in an ecat, and wait 2 hours for a cup of tea, and no one's gonna think it's a big deal. And as for scientists, especially physicists, quantum weirdness has never been a barrier to accepting phenomena. They are skeptical of LENR for the same reason: the paucity of good evidence.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: ** ** “Collisions can be resonant too…” ** ** Please explain… ** Here's an abstract from PRL, which I found with 10 seconds of google. Have you heard of it? Resonant collisional energy transfer between atoms with small relative velocity is shown to have such long collision times, ∼0.17 μs, or equivalently such narrow linewidths, 6 MHz, that it may be used to make spectroscopic measurements. Specifically, we report the use of the sharply resonant collisional energy transfer ns+(n-2)d→np +(n-1)p, between velocity-selected K atoms to determine an improved value, 1.711?5(5), and the K np-state quantum defect.
Re: [Vo]:LENR Presentation by Joseph Zawodny, NASA Langley Research Center Edit
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 4:03 PM, Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint zeropo...@charter.net wrote: Nope, let me look into it... thx. I meant google. Have you heard of google. Don't bother looking in to the particular resonant collisions. It's just an example of where collision energy can be tailored to match energy levels in inelastic collisions. Nothing particularly relevant beyond that.
Re: [Vo]:LENR-CANR Theory Papers
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 4:50 PM, Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote: “QM is the most predictive theory over the widest range of dimensions in history. It has certain odd implications, but in its simple application as tool to predict the outcome of experiments, it is perfectly well understood and completely unambiguous, even if statistical in nature.” How do you explain all the brouhaha over “spooky action at a distance”(a.k.a non-locality) Spooky action at a distance is mainly mental gymnastics. It's difficult to observe manifestations of entanglement, which is why it took so long to prove Bell's theorem, and even now it is controversial. There seems to be some progress toward exploiting it in quantum computing. But what I meant was the application of QM to calculation of energy levels, scattering amplitudes, stable configurations, etc etc in physics is spectacularly successful, *and* unambiguous, if tractable. It's got spooky implications, and yet straightforward (in principle) application to systems of particles. A detailed QM study of LENR might resolve some of these theories and is worth the effort on this account alone. 22 years of detailed QM studies of LENR don't hint at that. And that could be said about any phenomenon someone proposes, hopes for, but can't prove. It's clearly not worth the effort for every such possibility, or nothing else would get done. It is my contention that LENR requires non locality and entanglement to explain the lack of radioactive by-products derived from the reaction. Sure, but that's based on a vague dream and nothing more. Science is evidence based. The lack of radioactive byproducts is most easily explained by the lack of nuclear reactions. I am referring to the pilot wave theory that will explain a lot of what is going on in LENR. Again, I think that's wishful thinking. It is more or less accepted that these sorts of extensions of quantum mechanics, whether they involve hidden variables or not, do not provide a more accurate description (or better explanation) of experimental outcomes. This year someone claims to have published a proof of that, but I imagine that will be controversial too. IMHO in terms of QM, evidence of transmutation has been conclusively demonstrated in LENR(via Miley and Arata). Then they should be able to nail down the reactions definitively, but they can't. If transmutations were conclusive in general, you couldn't keep scientists away. But of course, in the humble opinion of most scientists, there is no proof of transmutation. Just like heat, the results are always kind of marginal. It's a field that has more different ways to find marginal evidence than one would think possible. Just by chance, you might think one of those results would stand out.
Re: [Vo]:Re: a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 5:20 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: 1. Safety. You want to be sure the heat will be removed even if it increases a great deal, the way it did on Feb. 10. Ah. The favorite excuse, second only to secret sauce. But the heat exchanger had no effect on the heat removed from the ecat. The condensed steam went down the drain after the exchanger, and only the primary fluid affects the cooling in the ecat. Non-starter. 2. Most people I know who do a lot of calorimetry prefer a smaller Delta T, between 5 and 10°C. They prefer to keep the absolute high temperature below ~30°C. Above that you get problems with the fluid characteristics changing, and the conversion rate of 4.12 J = 1 cal. starts to change a little. Come on. Now you're worrying about a fraction of a per cent. Totally bogus. It may be easy to measure 5 - 10 degrees if you put the probes in the right place. But where they were, the temperature jumped around by a few degrees. The most obvious scenario is that the probes were placed to exaggerate the heat and to give fluctuations to make it hard to measure. The high flux was used to make it even more uncertain. Nobody does uncertainty like Rossi.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:43 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Robert Leguillon robert.leguil...@hotmail.com wrote: You cite the temperature as evidence, but the temperature actually contradicts full vaporization. All of this has been explained succinctly ad nauseum, so please do not ask for any details on it I do not need any details. As I mentioned, every expert in steam I have consulted with says this is bullshit. Because you know how to pick experts to consult.
Re: [Vo]:Celani: gamma spike during ignition of Rossi reactor
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:39 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: peter.heck...@arcor.de wrote: Focardi said also not much above environment. Possibly there was a dentist or internist doctor or a antique colortv in neighbourhood. As I reported here, Celani said the burst was so intense both of his meters went off the scale. Very typical of cold fusion evidence. Anecdotal. Not quantitative. Apocryphal. Useless. Off-scale means nothing. Meters can have very sensitive scales. When I was treated for hyperthyroidism with I-131, I could send GM tubes off scale at a distance of meters, even on the less sensitive scales. (I was told not to hold children on my lap for a few weeks.) Salt substitute (KCl) can send some meters off scale on the most sensitive setting (from the K-40).
Re: [Vo]:Celani: gamma spike during ignition of Rossi reactor
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Berke Durak berke.du...@gmail.com wrote: THE MINI GEIGER HAD HIT THE TOP OF THE SCALE, Means nothing. What scale was it on? Did a hyperthyroid patient (treated with I-131) walk past? It takes very little to put some meters off-scale. And yes, some (older) welding rods can easily do it. Many old glazed ceramic dishes will do it to, as will KCl, although the latter takes a sensitive meter. Again, if cold fusion can't find some systematic, reproducible, meaningful evidence to hang its hat on, it's just not gonna get respect from some guy's meter went off scale somewhere at about the right time. Deliberate attempts to measure radiation in correlation with the operation of ecats have not measured anything. That should mean much more.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:50 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Here is another comment from Mats Lewan As for energy storing I believe that has been clearly shown not to be a possible explanation in itself.You simply would need an additional heat source inside to have water boiling after 4 hours with cold water added continuously (I heard and felt the water boiling), hot water leaking and an external surface still at 60-85 degrees centigrade (I measured that with my own thermometer). It's not clear to me. Ten or 20 kg of firebrick heated to 1000C could produce a kW for 3.5 hours. And that could have been hidden in that 100-kg device. And that's enough to heat the water coming in to boiling. At 60C, with low emissivity foil (below 10%), it would only radiate 50 W or so. And phase-change storage (molten lead, or some other compounds) gives much higher storage density still. But it should be enough to dismiss the demonstration if the possibility of storage is even within an order of magnitude. A blank calibration poses some problems as once you have run the reactor with hydrogen, and that had certainly been made previously, you always have hydrogen loaded in the nickel even without pressure (if that is what’s inside) and because of that you cannot exclude that the reaction starts (if there’s a reaction). In any case a blank test wouldn’t exclude a fraud as you in theory could choose not to start the magic heat producing fraud technology in the blank test and then start it in the ‘real’ test. In that sense a blank test wouldn’t change anything. But if you could ensure that the energy going in during the blank was legit, that would mean the energy measurement of the fraudulent source would be more meaningful, and so the comparison to chemical energy density would be more useful. But a better control would be to have several ecats, and let a skeptic choose which ones to charge, and which ones not to. Then compare the outputs. And in particular, increase the electric input of a blank to match the claimed lenr output of a real device, and see if the output is the same. But all sorts of improvements could of course have been made in the measurements. Lots of them. They have been pointed out several times. Just to have the thermocouples in contact with the water flow, have them well calibrated before the test, and have data logged on an sd-card in the display unit would have been a fundamental improvement. Agreed. Possible explanations as to why Rossi didn’t do this have all been presented – either he’s sloppy, either he wants to hide a fraud, or he’s basically not interesting in doing a proper test in order not to reveal too much. We cannot prove neither of them at this point. I don't think sloppy fits. It's too easy to improve the demo. So it's almost certain that he deliberately makes things uncertain. The simplest explanation is to hide fraud, but some sort of devious reverse-psychology, fear of competition, secrecy motive could be contrived as well, I suppose. I suppose you have seen the analyses of October 6 by Heffner, Higgins and Roberson: There is not really enough data (by design, presumably) to do a serious analysis, and Roberson's is more like a fanboy's endorsement than an analysis.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 9:41 AM, Robert Leguillon robert.leguil...@hotmail.com wrote: The steam experts were right in the INITIAL steam discussions. I agree with you. But they were being asked about steam quality, not water overflow. Krivit raised his questions on steam quality which were, more than likely, bullshit. Steam quality and entrained droplets were totally unnecessary and confused a valid issue. While I agree with your fundamental point, that the data do not show that more than a small fraction of the water was vaporized, I think the picture you show cannot represent reality, and that the idea of steam quality and mist and entrained drops is relevant to what was observed at the end of the hose, and in particular, why Lewan only collected about half the liquid that went in. The reason that picture is wrong is because the steam is formed in the ecat, not at the water surface. Then it has to bubble through the water. It takes only 1% vaporization (by mass) to produce 94% gas by volume. So, you would not see the chimney full of quiet water like that. The chimney would be mostly gas, and the turbulence would produce a lot of droplets that would be carried into the hose by the fast moving steam. Depending on the actual geometry of the chimney, the water might be forced up the walls into the hose (a kind of annular flow). Or Rossi might use a nozzle to promote the formation of mist. That way, much of the water could disappear into the air as a mist at the end of the hose. And that could easily explain why Lewan collected only half the liquid, even if only a few per cent was actually vaporized.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: I suspect you will take wild notions like mine more seriously if much more time passes without any absolutely definitive determination of Rossi's veracity. I consider the Oct. 6 test definitive. The chance of fraud is so low I do not take that seriously. It is no more likely than a supernatural event. Neither you nor any other skeptic has suggested any viable reason why this demonstration was not definitive. You have never come up with a method of committing fraud. If you could suggest a method, you would have done so by now. You are asking us to believe in fraud with a trace of evidence for it. Not a trace! You are a true believer clinging to an absurd hypothesis that is contrary to the laws of physics. Foot stomping. Nothing more.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 12:38 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: I have always maintained that I will follow the evidence and have been faithful to that end. That is not consistent with your frequently expressed absolute certainty that LENR is occurring. Why should we assume that a well trained engineer would be so stupid as to be incapable of catching water? Because of the geometry of the trap. It would not capture entrained mist. Why should we assume that a well-trained engineer would be so stupid as to be incapable of knowing the output flow rate? Please read the Wikipedia article on steam locomotives to put things in some perspective. I would estimate that the total area of Rossi’s 107 ECATs is comparable to that of boiler within one of these devices. How do you think that they can function at all if most of the steam leaving has a quality of 5% or so as you keep repeating? How does steam engines producing dry steam mean that the ecats are? You need more than the same area. You also need the power. The water level in steam engine boilers is regulated to ensure dry steam. In the ecat it's not. So if the power is too low, liquid water is forced through. It has no choice. If a straight forward model fits all of the facts, why should we go out of the way to insist upon one that requires dishonest behavior, ignorance or just plain deception as you suggest? Low vaporization is the most straightforward model that fits all the facts. It requires only the assumption that the trap is not effective for an entrained mist, and the closed valve kind of suggests it was not effective at all. 470 kW out requires unrealistic power regulation and stability and/or ignorance of the output flow rate. Are you convinced that the only way for the system to release 470 kW would be for LENR action to be taking place? No. I've answered this already. Playing with the report numbers is nothing more than academic, since we have no way to verify any of the results of that test. Even Rothwell agrees with that. To be convinced that heat was being produced by nuclear reactions would require disconnecting the 450 kW generator, verifying the energy out with a properly used heat exchanger, and demonstrably independent observation, and running it much much longer. Where are the skeptics that claim that energy is stored for long enough and intense enough to continue to heat the output for the full 5.5 hours? First, it didn't. The output temperature bounced around, and for the last half, mostly decreased, in spite of the fact that the input crept up a little because of recycling the output. But all you need is a slight increase in pressure to increase the temperature, as long as you've got liquid vapor equilibrium. Second, there is little point for any skeptics to waste their time trying to analyze the Oct 28 test, because there was no independent verification. Without trust in Rossi and his engineer of unknown connection, we have absolutely nothing. And from what we do have, there was a 450 kW generator connected, no evidence of dry steam, and unknown pre-heating conditions, and 107 completely uninspected ecats, which could easily contain more than just thermal mass for energy storage. Just look at the 450 kW generator beside it. It's a fraction of the size, and is capable of producing 3 times the thermal energy, at a temperature high enough to convert it to electricity. And it doesn't need to be plugged in to anything. It makes the giant ecat pretty feeble in comparison. The only thing that the megacat might have going for it over the generator would be run time, but, sadly, that was not demonstrated.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I agree there may have been some liquid flowing through at times, but Lewan performed Method 2 after a very large burst of heat, and he found the flow rate was much lower than the flow rate going into the reactor. Therefore the reactor water level was low and the vessel was filling up. All of the water coming out of the heat exchanger hose at that time was condensed from steam. You don't know any of that. There was steam and mist coming out of the hose, both at unknown flow rates. All Lewan measured was the collected water over a period of time. If they had measured the flow rate constantly with two precision flow meters (for the inlet and outlet) they might have found something like that, where the overall flow coming out was higher than the flow coming in. Yes. Wouldn't it be nice if things were actually measured. But Rossi doesn't allow us near the tree of knowledge. That would not serve his purpose.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:12 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: There is no need to postulate energy storage in the megawatt plant demonstration. It is only necessary to consider that Rossi's client may be fictitious and that the engineer may work for Rossi, perhaps for quite a very large fee or share. In other words, you have to believe in conspiracy theories. Which I do not. Except for the one about suppressing cold fusion research. A 2-person con does not a conspiracy theory make. Sorry.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:47 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Fortunately, it is predicated on immutable laws of physics and first principle observations made by dozens of people who I know to be honest. No. The laws of physics and ordinary chemistry can explain all the observations without invoking nuclear reactions. It is predicated on the work of Piantelli and others, Work about which *you* were skeptical before Rossi came along. Shall I dig up the quotations again?
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:54 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: I consider the Oct. 6 test definitive. Many capable scientists and engineers do not agree. I have not heard from any yet. How to break this to you? They don't care about you. You'll have to go looking for their judgements. Start with Krivit's 200 page report. There has to be a time limit for these things. Yes, but on Rossi's side. Really, tell us, if there is no commercial ecat available that you or I can buy in a year, will you be as certain as you are now? What about 2 years? 5 years? It's already 12 years after the time you predicted cold fusion cars would be available. As Melich and I wrote regarding cold fusion in general: . . . [S]keptics have had 20 years to expose an experimental artifact, but they have failed to do so. Wrong onus. Advocates have had 22 years to demonstrate what should be dead easy to demonstrate, and have failed to do so. That's why most people don't pay attention anymore. When a really convincing demo comes along, like the one you have described with an isolated device that stays palpably warmer than its surroundings long enough to exclude chemical reactions. Nothing close to that exists yet. A reasonable time limit to find errors must be set, or results from decades or centuries ago will remain in limbo, forever disputed, and progress will ground to a halt. Sorry, the only people in limbo are believers, and it's true, they will spin their wheels into their graves. The skeptics just ignore the voodoo and carry on making progress in their respective fields. It has always been thus. The measurement method was questionable and unverified and the run was way too short. Nonsense. It was 4 hours long. You can tell at a glance that the reactor would have reached room temperature after 40 min. You keep saying that, but it took 50 minutes to drop 10 degrees after it was shut down. That means you're just plain wrong. You can repeat this nonsense as many times as you like but the graphs show you are wrong. Everyday experience with boiling water in poorly insulated pots proves you are wrong. Are your pots 100 kg in mass? Are they wrapped in insulation and foil? Is that what counts as proof in the field of cold fusion? Sad!
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:03 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: And I always have to remind you that there are probably many potential methods to cheat we may not have thought of. You do not have to remind me of that. I have to remind *you* that is a violation of the scientific method. You don't know anything about the scientific method. Why is a non-scientist telling scientists how to do their job. Do you also advise Tiger Woods on his golf swing? It is proposition that cannot be tested or falsified. It is like saying there is probably an invisible undetectable fairy godmother hovering in the air causing these effects. It's nothing like that. In fact that's what advocates are doing. They are saying nuclear but can't specify a reaction or a mechanism to thermalize. That' s done by the fairy godmother. Yet, when skeptics claim it is chemical because the energy density fits, somehow *they* are required to specify the reaction and mechanism, or they won't be believed. It's a double standard. No, worse. Because surely the onus on proving the mechanism falls to the claimant. If the proof of a nuclear reaction relies on energy density, then it is enough to show the energy density is far below that of chemical fuel, to reject the evidence. An argument is not valid or meaningful *at all* unless you can describe some specific means of testing it and proving it is true -- or false. No one can prove that there are probably potential methods. You have to list actual methods. You might as well claim there are probably potential methods of proving that the world is flat. Okay, show us the methods! Again. This is what advocates are doing. They say there are probably nuclear methods to provide the observed heat, but don't show us how.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:30 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: A person who thinks it is possible to keep water at boiling temperatures for four hours at a poorly insulated vessel is not capable, by definition. By any method? In a 100 kg device that holds 30 L of water. Come on. You're not serious. 20 kg of fire brick at 1000C, no problem. Molten lead? Easy peasy. A few liters of alcohol? Simple. etc. Anyone who even imagines that is possible is a crackpot. Anyone who thinks it's not is ignorant. Anyone who thinks it is valid to propose there are probably potential methods of proving a proposition, without specifics beyond that, is ignorant of basic logic and the scientific method. The demonstrated energy density is a tiny fraction of chemical energy density. That is no evidence of nuclear reactions, no matter how you slice it, or how many times you stomp your feet.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:33 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: As I have pointed out before, that is an invalid argument. Rossi can invalidate the entire line of thought simply by giving an E-cat to a university, Your statement applies to Rossi, not your own argument. *Your argument*has to be falsifiable. It is not. You are the one invoking fairy godmothers that no one can ever detect, even in principle. Again. That's you. No one can explain the nuclear reaction. You're invoking fairies. The claimed evidence for a nuclear effect is energy density. Rejection of that evidence because the energy density is lower than chemical energy density only requires evidence that chemical energy density is higher (much higher). You don't have a clue what role falsifiability plays in science.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:01 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: Now, do you sincerely think that the large generator was supplying the heat energy to vaporize the water? I don't have sincere thoughts about anything on this subject. It could be, and that weakens Rossi's case. Those ecats could all have little burners in them too. Or thermite. There are too many possibilities to accept the highly unlikely claim of radiation less nuclear reactions producing heat. What would it take for you to be finally convinced that the 1 MW system is real? This has been covered. First, I would prefer a single ecat to simplify the scale. 100 ecats making 100 times the power is pointless, and I think a deliberate distraction. Either way, it should be completely and obviously isolated, with verification from skeptical observers. It should produce heat in an obvious and verifiable way, by heating up large bodies of water, or doing mechanical work, or at least using a properly calibrated heat exchanger, and verified by skeptical observers. The more obvious, the less verification needed. For example. heating a few thousand liters of water to boiling with a single ecat would be visible. Boiling it to half the volume, even better. It should keep going long enough to really exclude chemical fuels. In other words, produce more heat than the entire weight of the thing in the best chemical fuel. There's a factor of a million to work with. Why not at least demonstrate a factor of 10 or 100?
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 3:21 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: Of course you are making a good point that they did use extra equipment to ensure that the steam was very dry. The question is what is the dryness of the steam before it entered those devices? Do you have any reference to this information? Are we talking about only 5% at this point? Water is never forced through boilers by design, so the steam would be more than 90% dry. In the ecat, the input water flow is constant. If the power doesn't keep up, water is forced out with the steam. And then it can be very wet indeed.
Re: [Vo]:Discussion of saturated steam locomotive versus superheated from Railroad Age Gazette
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 4:38 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: The pressure must be established within the boiler so I guess the hotter steam does not make its way back to the boiler. Is it likely that some form of check valve is used at the throttle? If that were possible, then higher pressure could be applied to the cylinders due to the super heater. It's not necessary to use higher pressure to superheat steam. In fact, the point is that the temperature of the steam is above the boiling point at the local pressure. Otherwise, it's saturated.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 4:51 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: Of course you are correct if water is being forced out of the ECAT. I see no reason to believe that that is the situation since an attempt was made to measure the water and some was captured. But we don't know how successful this attempt was. If we believe the engineer, then the output flow rate was equal to the input, and all he had to do to be sure of this was to make sure liquid was coming out before the onset of boiling. If you assume he is competent, then it is fair to assume he would have checked that. In that case, the trap collected only 10% of the liquid water before boiling started (12:30 - 12:35), when the output was all liquid. That shows that the trap was ineffective even for liquid. It would then have had no chance with an entrained mist. It should also be noted that Rossi and company had the input power set to 180 kWatts during the initial portion of the self sustaining mode. The ECATs should have been producing 1 MW under that condition before the power was shut down. Where does that come from? If the output is just 6 times the input, then why would it be 500kW when the input is zero? And why do earlier ecats give 30:1. In any case, there's no evidence it was 1 MW, and I don't buy it based on some dubious 6:1 claim from Rossi. Especially since the point of the test is to show the output, if only to the engineer. You can't use a claimed COP to verify an output. That's circular reasoning. If that was the case, then twice as much water was being evaporated as inputted to the ECATs during that time. Even if it were 1 MW, it would have to be 1 MW getting to the water, and that requires heating thermal mass. Again, zero evidence. In fact, if 1 MW were getting in to the water in a partly filled ecat, it would have reached boiling much sooner. This is further evidence that they were not full of water and overflowing. A claim that the COP is 6 is not evidence that the COP is 6, or that the power is 500 kW, or that the ecats were not full, especially in *contradiction* to the engineer's implicit claim that they were. Again, I do not need to apply the ignorant engineer card every time things do not add up. But you do. You have to claim he was ignorant of the output flow rate, when he in fact claimed he knew the output flow rate. And I submit that knowing that the output flow rate was equal to the input flow rate (at least) is much easier than knowing how effective that trap was. All he needed to do to be sure the flow rate was equal to the input (at least) was to observe water coming out before the onset of boiling. Surely he was competent enough to know that. To know the effectiveness of the trap for wet steam, he would have to send steam of a known wetness through, and determine if it captured all the water. And that would require an independent way to determine steam wetness, which, even if it had been available, would have taken considerable time to measure. And it doesn't look like he paid much attention to the veracity of the trap contents, when you consider that only one of the steam pipes had a trap, and that the valve was closed at 3:00. The only way that anyone can suggest that the ECATs were full and overflowing is to assume bad test procedures. And yet, the engineer and Rossi do more than suggest exactly that. They assume it implicitly in the power calculation. But I don't have a problem with assuming bad test procedures, especially since: The only way anyone can suggest that the ecats were *not* full before boiling is to assume bad test procedures, because it contradicts the engineers assumption.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 6:07 PM, David Roberson dlrober...@aol.com wrote: Give the poor guy a break. You should give him a break about the trap. He measured the input flow rate accurately. You and I and everyone else would agree that the output flow rate and the input flow rate must be equal in the long term. The engineer most likely did not know that there was a chance that the level of the water within the ECATs would vary during his test. But you keep insisting on his competence. Now you're claiming that you're so much smarter than him, because even from the internet, you can imagine this possibility. Surely he kew the ecats hold 30 L. Surely he would know they didn't have to be full. Surely he would know that he could easily check the output to see if it was flowing. Anyway, the point is that this is an easier and safer assumption than assuming he knew how effective the trap was. He was unwise assuming this since it is quite hard to safely control that parameter with Rossi's setup. A well designed system would not have this occur. As I am saying, most engineers would not expect a difference in output flow rate and input flow rates. He could not read Rossi's mind any better than we can. In fact, you're suggesting he can't read it as well as you can. But I disagree. Any engineer knowing the volume of the ecats, should have expected a difference in flow rates (average) unless the ecats were full. Should you hold it against the engineer that Rossi has a non standard system and that he does not even know himself what it is doing? If he doesn't check the output, when it is easy and obvious to do, then yes, you should hold that against him, regardless of Rossi's standard. Why should he expect a standard system anyway in a ground-breaking device. He should check things as essential to the calculation of energy output as the output flow rate. This is an unfair standard. Nonsense. He's there to observe the output power. That involves the output flow rate. How can expecting him to determine such an output flow rate with more confidence than a remote observer on the internet can, be an unfair standard? Had the test been conducted for a long enough time, then everyone would have been happy except for those who are convinced that water is the main output. Yes, well, it wasn't though. Now, do you wonder why the engineer would not have captured some water in his trap before the water had enough vapor within it to fly past the trap? But he did. If you're referring to the 5 minutes from 12:30 to 12:35, he collected about 10% of the water that would have flowed past. That's probably pretty close to the ratio of the pipe diameters. And considering the horizontal momentum, 10% sounds pretty plausible. You must realize that the closed valve suggestion is not sensible. Why exactly? It was clearly closed at 3:00. Why does that not bother you? How do we know it wasn't closed the whole time? We are speaking of an experienced guy here, not some yoyo off the street. So, now he's competent. An experienced, competent guy would have checked the flow rate. Or at least one incompetence is not more likely than the other. Maybe it was closed at 3:00, that is what you say. Was it closed at 1:00? Or how about at 4:00? This is not proof of anything and we both know it. Right. I'm not claiming proof. I'm claiming Rossi's failure to prove. To be an effective trap it should be open all the time. The fact it's closed at 3:00 means we have no idea what it did any of the time. So its presence is meaningless. So, I assume the engineer was intelligent and knew what he was doing. He was possibly faked out by the change of level within the ECATs, but this was a rare system and not normally encountered. I don't agree, as you know. To me the likelihood of him getting faked out by a dummy trap is far higher than that he would get faked out by flow rate effects of non-full ecats. It's not that abnormal, if remote observers can figure out the possibility. You assume that he was ignorant. As do you. You suggest that he did not know how to set up a water trap in a system. You suggest he did not know how to determine flow rate. But I don't suggest he didn't know how to set up a trap, only that he was too accepting of Rossi's set up. And that's true, no matter what you think of him. Even a trap to capture non-misty water, would be put at the bottom of a U, and a steam separator would be used to capture mist. And he'd worry about the second pipe. Did he even ask Rossi why there was no trap on that pipe? Maybe they didn't even use the lower pipe, and redirected everything through the upper pipe. You think he might actually be an employee of Rossi, and there is no customer. Rossi has not given evidence contrary to that, and I think a demo that depends on this sort of meta-information is a useless demo, especially for something as profound as Rossi claims.
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 7:02 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: To put it another way, older laws trump newer ones. You mean like Newton's laws trump relativity and QM? If calorimetry and thermodynamics prove that cold fusion does exist, you cannot point to the newer laws governing plasma fusion to prove it does not exist, and that calorimetry does not work. You know, the laws have always been around. It's just that we learn about some sooner than others. And precedence has nothing to do with validity. It's all about what is supported by evidence. And since evidence is cumulative, usually newer laws trump older laws. And you know that you're using what's been learned about nuclear physics to even postulate cold fusion in the first place. But of course, you just take the part you like. What's been learned about nuclear physics makes cold fusion very unlikely. So, to accept it would require some pretty radical surgery, and so, strong evidence is needed. No matter how much you like calorimetry, the evidence to date doesn't cut it, because the claims would be far more manifest than we've seen so far, if real. You have to conclude that a metal lattice is nothing like the sun. Well, that's the point. Fusion works in the sun. His measurements are reliable enough to be sure the effect is real. For you to be sure. And for a few others. Most of whom have no relevant background. For most qualified scientists, they're not.
Re: [Vo]:Brian Ahern Will Not Be Presenting on December 7, 2011
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Akira Shirakawa shirakawa.ak...@gmail.comwrote: From NextBigFuture: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/**12/brian-ahern-will-not-be-** presenting-on.htmlhttp://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/brian-ahern-will-not-be-presenting-on.html This is unexpected. Does anybody know why Dr. Brian Ahern won't be presenting his findings on LENR tomorrow as originally planned? Looking at the slides, it's not surprising he bailed. The talk doesn't look finished. Like he never got past the introduction. There is absolutely no substance there at all. Just one loose idea than that dissimilar (or non-linear) bond potentials at a certain size scale can cause energy localization. He shows a macroscopic example of BBs from the cover of nature, but the degree of localization certainly doesn't make the sort of million-fold concentration that's needed plausible. When he starts to talk about cold fusion experiments, it is without any detail, without any data. Just bullet lists. The only thing in the way of evidence for his idea is that Takahashi's experiment didn't work with 20-100 nm powder, but did with the smaller powder. Sounds a little anecdotal, and appears to disagree with Rossi's results that use much larger grains (allegedly). There is a 2-line reference to recent (?) Piantelli and Miley self-sustained operation, but no details at all. And what's with the slide on Arata, calling him Japan's most decorated scientist? I don't pretend to know anything about noted Japanese, but the Wikipedia page on list of japanese people ... who are notable doesn't list him at all. They have a section just on scientists, which lists 20 names, many of them nobel prize winners, which Arata is not. The order of cultural merit (or actually the order of culture) that he has is not that exclusive; there were 7 awards in 2010, and most nobel prize winners seem to get the order. It's not that big a deal, but it would be nice if you knew you could trust the accuracy of these presentations.
[Vo]:takahashi's electron capture
Krivit has put up the abstract for Takahashi's paper at the JCF-12 meeting. In it he proposes a WL-like electron capture by a proton. He claims the energy threshold for this reaction is 272 keV, and that it is exceeded by 600 keV electrons in his magic lattice. Could someone explain how they get a threshold for electron capture by a proton to be 272 keV. The Q-value is clearly ((p + e) - n)) = -782 keV. The difference is the mass of the electron (511 keV), so it seems as if they're counting the mass of the electron twice (1022 keV), but I don't see justification for that. Check any chart of the nuclides or decay scheme to see the Q-value for the spontaneous reverse reaction (n -- p + e) is 782 keV. And even Widom and Larsen give the required mass of the electron as 2.53 times the rest mass, meaning it needs an additional kinetic energy of 1.53*.511 keV = 782 keV. Secondly, why, if it is possible to give electrons 600 keV in ordinary matter near room temperature, shouldn't it be much easier to give deuterons 100 keV to enable ordinary fusion?
Re: [Vo]:a long paper about and mainly against the E-cat
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: So there was an uninspected volume of about 30 cube centimeters cube. Right. That's what I said. There is no way equipment in such a small cube can explain the heat. I said: They have not seen inside the cell (which is inside the reactor) but the volume of the cell is too small for any tricks. How is that too small. It's big enough for the most innocuous of methods. A 3rd of the volume filled with fire brick at 1000C would do it. Far less is needed for molten metals, and still less for fuels like alcohol (with an oxygen candle) or even Ni-H. Now, can you name a single nuclear reaction that fits the data?
[Vo]:krivit and the WL theory
Krivit has written another smug, self-satisfied, sneery, sarcastic piece about the Widom Larsen theory. I posted a reply in the comments, but of course it won't pass moderation, so I'll post it here as well: Although I think you are sincere, and your motives are true, as is quite clear in your handling of the Rossi case, I believe you are completely deluded about cold fusion, lenr, and the WL theory. I don't believe advocates of LENR reject WL (to the extent that they even do) because it is not fusion. I am quite sure they would all rejoice and dance in the streets if solid evidence for lenr were to emerge (by which I mean solid enough to convince the mainstream and the DOE), whether or not it fit better with WL or any theory of fusion. Because either way, they get their clean energy, and they get to wave the results in the faces of the likes of Bob Park, Nathan Lewis, and Steven Koonin. They reject WL (to the extent that they do) because it has serious problems. I'm sure you've seen my objections before. It is simply far less plausible that an electron can get 780 keV in a room temperature lattice (miracle 1) than for a deuteron to get 100 keV (also implausible). And all those reactions proposed by WL would produce gamma rays, which are not detected. Sure, they claim heavy electrons would absorb *all* the gamma rays (miracle 2), but that would be the very simplest claim to test, and in 5 years, there is no evidence of such a thing. Then in the chain of events proposed by WL there is the absorption of a cold neutron by He-4, which also requires some 700+ keV (miracle 3). There are just too many miracles required. A unicorn really is more likely. Krivit For unknown reasons, many of the people who have been fighting the “War Against Cold Fusion” appear to be locked into a siege mentality and have been unable to shift their thinking as better facts and understanding of the field have emerged. This is a smug comment coming from someone without scientific background. From the outside, it appears the facts and understanding have not improved at all. They are, as they have always been, vague, uncertain, irreproducible, and marginal. Krivit But much like Columbus when he headed east from Spain and then thought he found a new way to India, Pons, Fleischmann and their followers were mistaken, but only partially. It's really too early to talk as if you are in possession of some sort of received wisdom. Most scientists are skeptical of nuclear reactions at all. Why exactly you think your view should be taken above theirs is puzzling. Krivit But there was a subtle but significant difference with the underlying physical mechanism: It was based primarily on weak interactions and neutron-capture processes, not fusion. Despite the growing body of experimental evidence that revealed this distinction, and despite all the attempts that Pons and Fleischmann’s followers made to try to make LENR look like fusion, no amount of varnish could change the fact: “Cold fusion” too, was a myth. But LENR, which does not presume or assert a fusion mechanism, is real. Even among those who accept nuclear processes, this kind of smug certainty should be considered repugnant. The evidence is simply not strong for WL. It's not even suggestive. Legitimate scientists who accept that there is evidence for heat from nuclear reactions could not claim any level of certainty about the WL theory without at least some direct evidence for it. In truth, I don't think Widom and Larsen believe the WL theory. I think they're scamming just like Rossi, and looking for investors for Lattice Energy. And you and Bushnell are their stooges, being blown away by the sophisticated math, and not having enough background to see the obvious holes in it. If the theory were valid, it would be ground-breaking, nobel prize worthy, but other scientists don't even cite the work.
Re: [Vo]:Will tests surface mounted thermocouples on pipe
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 1:44 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Houkes is right. Live with it. When you no longer have to insist repeatedly that something is right, there might be a chance that it in fact is.
Re: [Vo]:Will tests surface mounted thermocouples on pipe
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 3:17 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Did you read what I wrote about this? What I wrote SEVERAL DOZEN TIMES?!? Unfortunately repetition does not make it true. Although some experts question these results, most believe that the reactor must have produced large amounts of anomalous heat, for the following reasons: I don't like your sampling methods, but it's a shame we have to rely on beliefs. . . . When a poorly insulated metal vessel is filled with 30 L of boiling water, it begins to cool immediately. What kind of description is poorly insulated metal vessel? How poorly. What's its mass? Its thermal mass? It can only grow cooler; it cannot remain hot or grow hotter; that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics. . . . On average yes. But if the inside starts hotter, the outside can certainly become warmer. You can prove this with a space heater. Pull the plug while the surface is still warming up, and it will continue to warm up for a while. It's especially possible if you have a vapor - liquid equilibrium, where the temperature will be determined by the pressure. For example, if a closed container, the bulk of which is at a few hundred degrees, contains boiling water, and you close the exit so the pressure increases. The temperature of the water goes up. And the 2nd law remains intact. Unfortunately, this test was marred by problems that made it impossible to accurately determine how much energy was produced. Peak power was nominally 8 kW but the instruments were so imprecise it might have been lower or much higher, perhaps 10 kW. 1 kW is consistent with the data. However, these problems -- bad as they are -- do not negate the findings. They introduce enough uncertainty so the evidence does not prove Rossi's claims.
Re: [Vo]:Will tests surface mounted thermocouples on pipe
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 2:54 PM, Robert Leguillon robert.leguil...@hotmail.com wrote: 1) We don't know the flow rate of the primary, but Rossi says it's 15 l/h, and you've never known him to lie, so let's assume 15 l/h, or 4.17 g/s I don't think this can be right, because this is already beyond the design flow rate for that pump (12 L/h), and at the end of the run, they *increased* the flow from the pump, according to Lewan's notes. Since the increase in input resulted in an immediate increase in output, it seems reasonable that the ecat was full, and therefore the exit flow rates reported by Lewan should be right. (1 g/s and 2 g/s). (The flow rate can be changed without changing the pump frequency.)
Re: [Vo]:LENR-CANR Theory Papers
On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 12:09 PM, Alan J Fletcher a...@well.com wrote: Akito Takahashi, a retired professor of nuclear engineering from Osaka University, and now affiliated with Technova Inc., is shifting his thinking about low-energy nuclear reactions. For two decades, Takahashi, a LENR experimentalist and theorist, has been exclusively proposing strong force reactions in which deuterons theoretically overcome the Coulomb barrier at room temperature. In the abstracts for the forthcoming Japan CF Research Society conference, Takahashi discusses the weak interaction p +e – n + v and the neutron capture process 3p + n – 3He + p. Right, but as I pointed out elsewhere, he appears to have the threshold energy for p+e-n wrong. The difference between a neutron and a proton mass is 1.293 MeV/c^2. Take away one electron mass (511 keV) and you're left with the q-value of 782 keV. He seems to have taken the electron mass away twice to get 272 keV. Maybe I'm reading something wrong, but as I see it, he's mistaken or WL (and Zawodny) are. Anyone can make mistakes of course, but this is kind of critical, and he claims the electrons can get 600 keV energy in his magical TSC state, which falls between 272 keV and 782 keV. My guess is that if he is in error, his theory will get tweaked to give the electrons another 200 keV. What's a few hundred keV for electrons that ordinarily have only a few eV in condensed matter? So, instead of imagining conditions in which deuterons theoretically overcome the Coulomb barrier at room temperature, now he's imagining conditions in which electrons theoretically overcome a much larger energy barrier.
Re: [Vo]:The assumption that Rossi is right is made for the sake of argument
On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: It means we acknowledge the possibility of error or fraud, and *then we move on* to the rest of the discussion. Lawrence already showed how silly this claim is. You repeatedly say there is no chance of fraud; that the claims are proven or thermodynamics is wrong, etc. The argument that Rossi might be lying and doing stage magic begins and ends there. It is sterile. Unless you have some new evidence for it, beyond Rossi's flamboyant behavior, there is nothing more to be said about that subject. It's not about direct evidence of fraud. It is about the absence of direct evidence for his claims. Many aspects of cold fusion are proved beyond any rational doubt. That is manifestly untrue. If it were true, then a panel of experts enlisted to study it would not conclude 17:1 that the evidence for it is not conclusive. Among people who have read the literature, only a handful of crackpots still dispute the heat and tritium. I assume the DOE panel did not consist of crackpots. Before his message disappeared into the void, I believe Cude threatened to expose the fact that years ago I expressed doubts about Piantelli, whereas I am now more persuaded by his claims. Cude thinks it is shameful for me to reconsider the evidence, and two-faced for me to change my mind. I do not think so. No. That's not what I think. It is perfectly fine to reconsider evidence and change your mind. The objection is not that you changed your mind about Piantelli in light of Rossi's results, but that you now use Piantelli's results to validate Rossi's. (And by the way, it was only a few years ago (2009), and you did more than express doubts; you were pretty skeptical when you said: As far as I can tell, they disproved the Focardi claims.) This is like being quite certain that the Loch Ness monster does not exist, and that the many blurry photographs are all interpreted incorrectly. But then, when a clear photograph finally comes along, like the surgeon's photograph (see the wikipedia article on the loch ness monster), you argue that it must be real, not just because of this photograph, but because it is supported by all the old photographs. The problem is that a lot of marginal results and a devoted following make for fertile ground for a hoax, and decades later, the surgeon's photograph was finally revealed as such, and the surgeon confessed to it. And it's not just deliberate hoaxes, but also cognitive bias and delusion thrive in this environment. This is especially so if the results point to profound benefit to all mankind. It doesn't matter how many people try and get negative results; those are rarely reported. But if a few stumble on the same systematic errors or artifacts that others have made, or fall prey to, as you put it, calorimetric errors and artifacts, which are more common than researchers realize, those will be added in with the hundreds of previous marginal results, and will appear to many as if evidence is building. But the absence of one solid result that can be reproduced quantitatively by other labs after so many years and so many attempts suggests to skeptics that the evidence is getting weaker. This idea that many marginal results is somehow stronger evidence than a few marginal results is typical of pathological science, and is expressed frequently by you, and recently by Krivit in his interview with IARPA. It just doesn't seem likely to you that so many scientists could be wrong. But when the results are as weak as cold fusion results, in fact it *is* likely. What is not likely is that so many photographs, from so many angles, with so many different cameras, could *all* be blurry. The only reasonable explanation is that when the pictures are clear, the image turns out to be something other than a monster. Of course the clear photos don't dissuade the believers; they just mean the monster ducked under water at the right moment.
Re: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi's setups and see how they work without LENR?
I'm coming to this discussion a little late, I know, and I'll probably repeat points others have covered, but as I read through the nonsense Rothwell writes, I can't carry on to the next nonsensical paragraph until I've dealt with the previous, so I'll post my thoughts as I work through it. If you feel he's been adequately refuted by others already, feel free to ignore. On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 11:58 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: In this case you should do what I described earlier: Bring ~30 L of water to boil in a large pot Insulate the pot, but not much, so that the outer layer is still too hot to touch (60 to 80 deg C). Check the temperature periodically for 4 hours and see whether it remains at boiling temperature, or cools down. That may sound silly, but I am 100% serious. Any skeptic who sincerely believes the claim may be mistaken should be willing to do this test. That you would even write this shows that you pay no attention to the experiment, or what other people try to tell you about it. It is not simply a large pot. It is a large 100-kg device, with plenty of volume unaccounted for. You can store energy in 100 kg of material heated to a high temperature. You cannot store much energy in a simple pot. You can also put fuel into large unaccounted for volume. You can't do that in a pot. Frankly, if anyone is being silly it is the skeptics who are unwilling to try this, or to deal with the fact that this is a direct simulation of eCat behavior. It's not a direct simulation because a 1-kg pot is not like a 100-kg container. And there is no need for skeptics to do anything when it is perfectly obvious that a 100-kg device can easily keep water boiling for 4 hours, or 40 hours for that matter. However, you can ignore that, not replace the water, and simply look at the heat lost from 30 L container. OK. For a container that size at 60C in a room at 30C, covered with foil with an emissivity less than 10%, the heat loss is about 50 W. Over 3.5 hours, that's less than a MJ (less then 3/4 MJ). You don't think you can store 3/4 MJ in 100 kg of material, at any temperature? This is a much easier test than making a copy of the reactor. This is as definitive and irrefutable as a test with a copy would be. This test gets to the point, without confusing the issue, and without getting into debates about trivial and irrelevant matters such as the placement of the cooling loop outlet thermocouple. Or such as the heat or chemical fuel that you can store in a 100 kg device. The only way this may not model the reactor in all important respects would be if there is a hidden source of chemical or electric energy. There is absolute no evidence for that. Well, now, if there were evidence for it, it wouldn't be hidden, would it? There is absolutely no evidence for a nuclear source either. And you left out a hidden source of thermal energy storage. To put it another way, if there is a hidden source, it is hidden so well no expert has seen any trace of it, and there no suggestions anywhere as to how you might simulate it; i.e. how you might hide wires large enough to keep a 30 L pot boiling for 4 hours. You're just not listening. There are suggestions all over the internet for how you might simulate it with thermal storage, thermite, alcohol and oxygen candles, and so on. For your reduced experiment, it would be simple in fact. (There are a few crackpot ideas about putting bricks heated to 3000 deg C into the reactor beforehand. There is no way that could work, and it would be dangerous, so do not try it.) A sure sign that you do not have a rebuttal for the actual argument is that you replace it with an absurd one. No one suggested heating bricks to 3000C, nor is it necessary to do it beforehand. For your simplified experiment of supplying the heat lost through the insulation, less than a MJ is needed. Even if you double that to keep the water boiling it's only 2 MJ. That's a small fraction of the 34 MJ of heat that went in during the pre-heat phase. And 10 kg of fire brick (only 1/10 of the total mass) only has to change temperature by about 200C to provide that heat. Heating fire brick to 1000C should not be a problem to provide much more. Or use a salt like sodium nitrate with an even higher heat capacity, and a large heat of fusion (190 J/g) at the melting point of 308C, for even more storage with a relatively small temperature change.
Re: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi's setups and see how they work without LENR?
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: I was assuming that nearly all of the heat is stored in water, and that heat stored in the core is insignificant because it is metal, and most metals have about 10 times lower specific heat than water. I was leaving out the core altogether. Water cannot store heat to keep itself boiling even for a moment. Unless the pressure is slowly decreased. Where do you get your ideas? I assume that adding any kind of simulated core will only make the thing cool down faster. Adding heat will make it cool off faster? How does that work? HOWEVER, if you want to do this test, and you feel the core is important, you should simulate it. That may mean you heat it up a core separately and then immerse it in the liquid. Or you put electric heaters into the core, similar to the ones Rossi uses, and then heat the whole thing for a few hours until the water boils. I am not sure what material would be a good choice. Metal, rather than a brick. Why? Metal has a higher volume heat capacity, but a lower mass heat capacity, and lower resistance to heat, unless you can contain the molten metal. Probably either would work, depending on the actual amount of heat lost in the 3.25 hours. Conversely, an internal heater would necessarily be more than 100C. If there were a slow thermal transfer between the core and the water, as is demonstrated by the input power prior to the onset of boiling, the core could elevate to much higher temperatures, and continue releasing that stored heat, slowly decreasing temperature after power is removed. A 500C core and 300C core both produce ~100C water and some amount of steam. I knew that, but as I said, I figured a 500 deg C metal core would have less thermal mass than an equivalent mass of water at 100 deg C. Even by volume, nothing holds more heat than water, as far as I know. Now, you're just not thinking, or feigning ignorance to cling to your point. A 500C metal core may have less thermal energy (relative to ambient) than an equivalent mass of water at 100C, but that's not the point. First, heat flows from hotter to colder objects. That's one of your favorite laws. So, regardless of heat capacities, a hotter metal core will contribute heat to the water. Second, the core might be more massive. After all the device weighs 100 kg, and the water only 30 kg. More importantly, the thermal energy in the water is quite useless as far as keeping the water boiling is concerned. It doesn't contribute at all. What matters is simply the amount of thermal mass stored in the core, and the rate at which it is drawn down. The comparison to water is irrelevant. And for your simplified scenario, where you only consider the heat lost through the insulation, a few kg of either would supply the necessary heat with a 500 hundred degree temperature change, and 10 kg of brick would require only a change in the temperature of 200 degrees. That's still only 10% of the mass of the device. It would be unrealistic to make the simulated core more than 500 deg C. I do not think Rossi's electric heaters can make it hotter than that. Well, 500C would be enough for 5 - 10 kg of fire brick, or maybe 10 - 20 kg of copper or iron, or only a few kg of sodium nitrate. (Again in your simplified scenario; more is needed to account for the flow of water through the ecat.) And why is more than 500C unrealistic? The elements on a stove are much hotter than 500C, and they're heated by electricity where cooling is efficient. Inside the ecat, with 2.5 kW power input for 3.5 hours, and very little power out, something has to get pretty hot. Finally, how is I do not think… supposed to represent an argument when you say it about the feasibility of heating unknown materials in an ecat, but It's almost certainly impossible means nothing when most nuclear physicists say it about cold fusion?
Re: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi's setups and see how they work without LENR?
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:20 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: If you trust there was water flowing thorough at the rate reported by Rossi, then replace 4 L every 15 minutes as I originally suggested: This seems wrong. The pump is rated at 12L/h, and at the end of the run the rate is doubled, according to Lewan. So it was at most 6 L/h, not 16 as you claim. But Lewan actually measured the output rate to be about 3.5 L/h, and we have no evidence that the input rate was any higher than that. This will make it cool to room temperature in ~40 min., the way the original did. I don't understand where you get this. At 19:08, the hydrogen pressure was eliminated, and the input flow increased, and then it cooled from 117C to 105C by 19:52 (44 minutes later). That's 12 degrees in 44 minutes. Not 100C in 40 minutes. You seem to be making stuff up. Obviously there was *some* water going out, because otherwise the heat exchanger would not have gotten hot. Nothing would have reached it. But if you sincerely believe this flow was only a few liters per hour then don't bother simulating it. Lewan reported measuring the outflow to be 0.91 g/s or about 3.3 L/hr. Why would he lie?
Re: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi's setups and see how they work without LENR?
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: If you wish to disprove these claims, you must demonstrate by conventional means that you can keep a reactor of this size at boiling temperatures for 4 hours, while it remains too hot to touch. There is no need to demonstrate this. It is patently obvious that a 100-kg device of that size can stay at boiling temperature for 40 hours without any need of nuclear reactions. The heat losses by radiation may be 50 W or so, and power required to bring water to boiling at the rate of Lewan's reported 0.91 g/s is about 400W. So to be generous, one kW power for 3.5 hours could produce what was observed in that experiment. That makes a total of about 13 MJ. The input power was about 3 times that. And storing 13 MJ is child's play, when you have 100 kg to work with. Fire brick could do it with less than a third of that mass. Using liquid sodium nitrate, you could do it with less than 20 kg, and you wouldn't have to heat it above 500C. And fuel. Energy density of alcohol is 30 MJ/kg. So, 400 mL of alcohol and a chemical source of oxygen and you're in business. Four liters of alcohol, and you could go all day. You can buy 3 kW propane heaters that are one tenth the mass of that thing and it can put out 3 kW for hours. And finding a source of oxygen and hiding the output gas is really a trivial problem compared to inventing a nuclear reaction that produces heat but no radiation at ordinary temperatures in non-radioactive material. He's producing 13 MJ with a 100 kg device for a .13MJ/kg energy density. Chemical fuel is in the range of 50 MJ/kg density, and commercial devices run for a couple of hours can give around 4 MJ/kg. (Of course, they approach the density of the fuel, the longer they run.) So, Rossi's device isn't even 1/10 as good as off-the-shelf commercial devices. And we're supposed to be impressed? This demonstration is so far from proof of nuclear reactions, it's not even funny. Skeptics should confront the facts head on, instead of raising petty objections to unimportant aspects of the test. If you seriously believe these results are in error, or that this can done with conventional stored energy or some sort of hidden chemical device, prove it. You claim violates so many established laws of physics, you will win the Nobel prize. You seem to have a double standard when evaluating cold fusion claims: You seriously believe these results come from nuclear reactions, and yet you don't demand that Rossi prove that he is using only Ni and a few grams of hydrogen by showing us the contents of the cell (not the composition necessarily). You don't demand that he explain the details of the nuclear reaction and why it doesn't produce gamma rays or neutrons. Yet, you don't believe that it could be a chemical reaction or thermal storage unless the exact reaction or method of storage is demonstrated and explained in detail. The whole claim is based on energy density, but the fact is that the energy density is completely consistent with either nuclear or chemical energy sources. Beyond that the evidence for nuclear is no better than for chemical. On which planet does that constitute proof of a nuclear source?
Re: [Vo]:What is so special abbout Rossi?
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: This theory has no bearing on the results. The theory may be wrong, but the technique has been independently tested, and it works. So they claim. But the demonstrations are not impressive. I'm not aware of any peer-reviewed papers on it, and in their presentations, the numbers bounce all over the place. They claim they have hours of output without input, but they can't demonstrate it by actually placing the ignited electrode in an isolated thermos to show the temperature increase. Instead, when 60 minutes did a show on Dardik's company, the best they could come up with for a visual was someone doing calculations in a notebook. Dardik seem no worse that many mainstream medical researchers. Well, he's no worse than Andrew Wakefield, whose license to practice was revoked for dishonest falsification of results. He's no worse than other researchers who have been sanctioned for quackery. But he is demonstrably worse than researchers who have not. Isn't it interesting that by far the two most publicized experiments in cold fusion in the last decade are those by persons with backgrounds in fraud instead of physics.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
Ransompw is desperate to justify his faith in Rossi, but this experiment is hardly the one to do it, for several reasons: 1) If half the liquid is escaping the hose as steam as ransom claims, then there should be a flow of gas at the output close to 1 L/s. There is no way the gas coming out of that hose represents 1 L/s. This has been discussed at some length, and there are youtube videos showing what it might look like. As I argue in the comments, anyone with a 1 kW electric kettle can verify for themselves what 1 L/s steam formation underwater looks like. Lewan's video is not even close. 2) One possibility to account for the extra liquid is simply in the form of very wet steam; i.e. entrained droplets. The water is clearly boiling at the bottom of some sort of chimney, and the steam that forms will dominate the volume, and move through the hose much faster than the water, and entrain a good deal of it as a mist. Rossi could easily design his chimney to promote this sort of mist formation using a nozzle, or even some kind of ultrasonic mister. It is certainly in his interest to do so. 3) Lewan was careful to monitor the fluid input, but the power input was not monitored, and this is the run that Rossi was famously caught adjusting the power input. So we really don't know what the power input was. At least not all the time. 4) Even if half the water was converted to steam, that amounts to 4000 Wh of energy, less the 1100 Wh input for 2900 Wh net, or about 10 MJ. That's impressive for the size of the device, but it was not inspected, and represents only a fraction of a liter of chemical fuel. A longer run would have made the need for nuclear more obvious. I recognize that not all of these factors are self-consistent. That is, (1) claims the evidence for the power output is not there, and so the possibilities of the power being present in (3) and (4) are not consistent with (1), so there may be only partial contributions from each of these points. However, it is clear that the experiment is a long distance from unequivocal evidence for heat from nuclear reactions. And importantly, if Rossi was making heat from nuclear reactions, it would be easy to be unequivocal in demonstrating it.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Also, if the water was in the mythical state discussed here in which it is 90% liquid and 10% vapor, the liquid portion would definitely fall into the bucket. The only way it could not have reached the bucket would be if it was vapor, as far as I know. An ultrasonic mister puts liquid water into the air without producing vapor. (The droplets evaporate later, and this will happen more quickly if they are already at 100C.) Notice it was not sparging when the camera first looked at the steam pipe in the bucket. The steam was escaping and the condensate flowing down into the bucket. After that Lewan put the hose under the water but a lot of steam still escaped. The problem was that it was not enough to account for 1 L/s of escaping dry steam.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: I understand and agree with all the reasons but the problem I see is accounting for the water. But how much water? I can't really tell what Lewan measured. It's pretty simple. Lewan measured about 11 liters going in to the ecat over 3 hours. His calculations assume all of it was vaporized, to give about 8 kWh of energy out. The input power was 380 W to give about 1.1 kWh in. But at the end of the hose, he collected 5.4 liters of water. (That's in the note at the end.) He claimed it was due to condensation, which is not likely. Ransom's argument is that at least 11 - 5.4 = 5.6 liters had to be vaporized because it was not collected. That means that the output would be about 4 kWh, for a gain of 4/1.1 = 3.6. That calculation assumes that any steam that escaped at the end of the hose was completely dry. That is, that there was no mist entrained in it. I don't believe that. I guess I will look again for it. An ultrasonic nebulizer is certainly possibly but it's a bit far fetched. It may be far-fetched, and probably not necessary, since fast moving steam pushing past the liquid will form some mist, and a simple nozzle could promote the formation of mist. But far-fetched or not, it's not nearly as far-fetched as heat from radiationless nuclear reactions. However, Lewan did not inspect under the insulation. So if Ransompw read it right, where did 5 liters go if not steam? Into the room in the form of a mist. I am still not sure what experiment Ransompw was referring to. You had the link to the detailed report in your first post. The information is there.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Mary Yugo maryyu...@gmail.com wrote: An ultrasonic nebulizer is certainly possibly but it's a bit far fetched. A bit? How would the water from this reach the end of the hose without forming drops and becoming an ordinary flow of water? I would say that is impossible. So some things are impossible? You should keep an open mind. It doesn't violate any principles of physics for a mist of micrometer droplets to travel through a hose, and it is far more plausible than radiationless nuclear reactions producing heat. The steam is flowing at something close to a m/s, depending on the fraction that gets vaporized, and the diameter of the hose. A fine mist or fog carried along with the steam would take only a few seconds to get through the hose. It seems entirely plausible that half of it would survive as a mist, while the other half is collected as a liquid.
Re: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi\'s setups and see how theyworkwithout LENR?
On Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 11:28 PM, Randy Wuller rwul...@freeark.com wrote: Lewan's 2nd test in april adequately measured the output energy to establish O/I of over 3/1. Since steam quality and output measurements have been questioned and used as a basis to argue that the various Rossi tests failed to demonstrate O/I, it is unique. That calculation also requires an assumption that the steam that escapes at the end of the hose is dry. That is highly unlikely. If in fact, a fine mist or fog was entrained in that steam, to explain the disappearance of water, very little gain is established. The best test is the EK demo, because in that case, if the numbers are accepted, then it required an energy gain of at least 2, because the input energy was only enough to bring the water to about 60C. But as in the Lewan test, the input power was not monitored, and moreover, the total energy needed to explain wet steam is rather modest, and certainly does not rule out chemical heat. While manipulation of input energy, a hidden energy source or chemical energy were not excluded by Lewan's 2nd test, it did confirm significant measured output over input. If the input energy was manipulated, then no, it doesn't, even if you accept that half the water was vaporized. But it's kind of academic anyway if a chemical source is not excluded. That was the point after all. Since the measured energy input was insufficient to vaporize any of the 11.160 liters of water pumped through the Ecat True, it was marginal, so accepting the input as reported, some energy would be needed from the ecat to produce steam. But, judging by the feeble puff of steam at the end of the hose, not much. and since all the output, vapor and condensed water was collected by Lewan in a bucket, Vapor and mist and fog were not collected. They escaped into the room.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Cude wrote: So some things are impossible? You should keep an open mind. It doesn't violate any principles of physics for a mist of micrometer droplets to travel through a hose, and it is far more plausible than radiationless nuclear reactions producing heat. What is possible and impossible can only be determined by experiment. Our state of mind, being open or closed, has nothing to do with it. Of course. I was mocking all the believers who so often adjure skeptics to keep an open mind. We know that radiationless nuclear reactions are real because they have been widely replicated at high signal-to-noise ratios. This would only be effective for the small minority of people who accept the evidence that expert panels have rejected. It is a useless argument for those of us, including you, who before Rossi, did not accept that the evidence suggested such reactions were possible in H-Ni. You said: As far as I can tell, they disproved the Focardi claims. It would be easy to test whether micrometer droplets can travel through a hose. I could set up a test to do that this afternoon, since I have an ultrasonic humidifier. I would use a plastic bag to funnel the mist into a short garden hose, and put a bucket at the end of the hose to collect the water. Even if your mist did not survive, that doesn't prove it's impossible. It just proves that it doesn't work for your hose, at your temperature, and with your flow rate, and on the particular day of the week. Rossi may use a special catalyst on the inner hose surface that promotes the formation of surface plasmon polaritons in a fluctuation of the electromagnetic field that violates the Born-Oppenheimer approximation and promotes the survival of mist. But to be serious, it would seem the temperature, flow rate, and hose diameter would be pretty important parameters. You'd need at least to add in the flow of gas from a bottle at high speed to simulate the presence of steam in Rossi's hose. If Cude wants anyone to believe this is possible it is incumbent upon him to do a test. Again, you're mixing up the onus. Rossi has done a demonstration, and I'm simply explaining why it is not convincing. It's not as if it would burden Rossi in any particular way to avoid these ambiguities, as everyone has frequently pointed out. He could have sparged the output and measured the heat; he could have increased the flow rate to prevent phase change; he could have measured the speed of the output fluid. Instead he measured the temperature of boiling water to keep things sufficiently uncertain that his followers would not turn away. I'm sure it's true that believers will not accept the skeptical argument about mist without a demonstration, but to me the definition of impossible is trying to convince a believer. But likewise, skeptics will not accept Rossi's claims without an unequivocal demonstration.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:30 AM, Daniel Rocha danieldi...@gmail.com wrote: I have one of those, 5L. At maximum power, it takes 33W and 15 hours to empty all the reservoir, but the fog is so dense that it falls within a meter but it is so opaque cannot see through it. Despite all this, putting my hand in front of exit of the fog, it takes a few seconds to make my hand feel humid. A few seconds is all it takes for the mist to go through the hose. In the ecat's case, the mist is carried along by vapor (steam) moving at high speed. The fraction of vapor (steam) by volume is probably a lot higher, even if only a few per cent of the water (by mass) is converted to steam.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Daniel Rocha wrote: BTW, the vertical component of the exit tube of my humidifier is only 5cm long... Mine too. As I said, I think you could use a plastic bag to funnel the vapor into a hose. Be sure to mix it with a high velocity gas, and put the whole thing at close to the boiling point, if you want to simulate the conditions accurately.
Re: [Vo]:Acceleration Under Load
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 8:52 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: He did that! What are you talking about?!? He has made the thing self-sustain from internally generated heat for 4 hours. It's not self-sustaining if you have to cycle the input power, and Rossi has admitted that the input power has to be cycled on periodically. It would have cooled down in 40 min. if it had not been generating heat. No. When they shut it down, doubled the coolant rate, it took more than 40 minutes to cool down by 10C. And this was after drawing heat of the thermal mass for 3.25 hours. Did you notice the difference between the ecat that could self-sustain, and the one that did not? About 70 kg more mass, and 8 kW less power. Hmmm. Coincidence?
Re: [Vo]:Acceleration Under Load
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Mary Yugo wrote: Rossi ran a nuclear reactor for four hours with a claimed six month capability and I am supposed to be ecstatic? Since it would have cooled down immediately in the absence of anomalous heat, 4 hours proves the point as well as 40 years would. It wouldn't have, and it didn't. When they removed the hydrogen pressure, and doubled the coolant rate, it only decreased by 10C in 40 minutes, and that was after 3.25 hours of drawing down on the stored heat. Four hours is *nothing* for a 100 kg device. You can buy chemical stoves that will give you 40 hours at 3 kW with a tenth of that weight. Forty years would be *something*. The heat is there in the reactor. There is no need to conduct, convect or convey it back anywhere. It is already right where it is needed. The hydride is hot. I agree with this. Which is why the absence of real self-sustaining operation (beyond what is possible from thermal storage alone, let alone chemical fuels) makes the claims completely unbelievable.
Fwd: [Vo]:Why not duplicate Rossi\'s setups and see howtheyworkwithout LENR?
This went to personal mail, so I'm forwarding to the list: On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 7:29 AM, Ransom Wuller rwul...@peaknet.net wrote: Sure, but the output after traveling through meters of hose also had to then travel through water allowed to stand at room temperature. It's exactly what you're claiming for the steam. If the steam contained suspended fog, there is no reason it would not survive similarly. The calculation ignores any steam condensed in the process and would be very conservative. Several estimates of heat loss by that hose were done, and it's probably around 100W; not enough to facilitate much condensation. I disagree, the output was not measured in the E K demo, it was in Lewan's 2nd test and O/I is clearly greater then 2/1 in Lewan's test. Far be it from me to defend any of the demos, but the EK demo gives 2:1 if the measurements are accepted, without assumptions. The Lewan demo requires an assumption of dry steam at the end of the hose to get 3:1. Without that assumption, very little excess heat is in evidence. I'd say more then half the water was vaporized. [...] I'd say far less than half. Maybe less than 10%. But it should not be about guessing. It should be about evidence. And the evidence doesn't support the claim. You say it is virtually all mist taking into account no condensation and ignoring the cooling taking place over 3 hours. Just what level of entrapped steam do you believe can account for this physical evidence? The evidence proves the water was heated to boiling, and the electrical input pretty well accounts for that. Beyond that, there is no credible evidence, and no claim of extraordinary effects can possibly be based on guesses and suggestions. The flow of steam looked consistent with maybe a hundred watts (or a few hundred tops, when Rossi goosed the power in the next room). I suspect the ecat can produce a few hundred watts of power by some pretty ordinary means, such as the ones Talbot suggested. Sorry, mankind has understood steam a lot longer then nuclear physics Yes, and still professors of physics think they can measure steam quality using a relative humidity probe. And mankind has had language for a long time, and still, people who make their living by it don't know the difference between then and than. and without most of the lost water being steam, I'd say that physical evidence is impossible. Radiation less nuclear reactions which have been suggested and ignored for 20 years because we theorize they are impossible is lot more likely. To a lawyer, maybe. I'm gonna take my likelihoods from people who understand both steam and nuclear physics. And LENR has been ignored because of the lack of good evidence, *and* the theoretical unlikelihood.
Re: [Vo]:New Posting from Lattice Energy - LENR compared to CF
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 12:12 PM, pagnu...@htdconnect.com wrote: Lattice Energy LLC-LENRs and Cold Fusion are Different Concepts - Dec 13 2011 As usual, he points out 1) the absurdity of breaching the Coulomb barrier in ordinary fusion, which would take something approaching 100 keV for appreciable tunneling probability, and 2) the absence of a Coulomb barrier in neutron capture (hooray!) And, as usual, he neglects to point out 3) the 780 keV energy barrier to the formation of those neutrons by electron capture. The existence of relativistic, 780 keV electrons in ordinary matter (without copious x-rays) is far more implausible than 100 keV deuterons, and that leaves aside the implausibility of the complete absorption of gammas from all the proposed reactions. He's just after more investment in Lattice Energy, LLC.
Re: [Vo]:Acceleration Under Load
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 2:13 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: In any case, it continues in self-sustaining mode far beyond the limits of chemistry, Not more than a few per cent on *this* side of the limits of chemistry. and the energy used to reheat it is far less than the energy it produces continuously during the self-sustaining period. I don't recall he ever actually went through a complete cycle: preheat, self-sustain, reheat, self-sustain. The demos are all pre-heat and self-sustain and then shut-down. And the energy used in the pre-heating phase is comparable, if not more than that extracted during the self-sustain phase.
Re: [Vo]:Reviewing Lewan's test of April 2011
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I calibrated the thermocouple in a pot of boiling water before the test and it was 99.6 deg C. That’s all you need to know. It’s in the report. The temperatures +/- a degree or two within boiling are not informative. The flat temperature indicates pretty clearly that it is at the boiling point. Measuring temperature in a pot of boiling water is not very reliable way to get the bp, considering it is only boiling near the element, and there will be gradients in the water, even if it is rolling. The higher temperature might as well be due to a slightly increased pressure inside the Ecat Right, this is necessary to ensure the flow of water plus steam to the output. - Still you have to account for the water that didn’t end up in the bucket. The theory of fog travelling 3 meter in the hose, exit the hose under water and make it to the surface, and still remaining fog, seems pure fantasy. That appears to be a consensus around here, but I'm not convinced. If the steam can survive the trip down the hose and through the water, then I don't see why fog suspended or entrained in the steam wouldn't also survive, or at least half of it. The steam flow rate just didn't seem to be enough to represent one L/s, in spite of the fact that there is a good chance that Rossi goosed the power in the other room just as Lewan was inspecting the hose. So, whether the pail got bumped, or whether a mist got transported, it looks to me like pure fantasy that the output shown in the video represents enough steam to account for the missing water. And of course you know that most people regard the idea of radiationless nuclear reactions in H-Ni to produce enough heat to vaporize the water as even purer fantasy. So the mist theory is the lesser of the fantasies. It's just a shame that we have to try to interpret these demos based on such indirect observations, when direct and relevant measurements would have been very easy. And still would be. Rossi could resolve the issue if he wanted to. So it seems likely that he doesn't want to.
Re: [Vo]:Replication News from Chan
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 4:32 PM, Peter Heckert peter.heck...@arcor.dewrote: Am 13.12.2011 23:21, schrieb ecat builder: Hi All, Just a brief update on the replication attempt by Chan. Chan is an anonymous poster who claims to have replicated the Rossi reaction using powders on two builder sites, ecatbuilder.com and buildecat.com. He uses an RFG connected to a induction coil to heat the contents of a copper reaction vessel that he fills with a mixture of MgH2, Ni, and Fe. He provides molar percentages and possible catalysts. This is rather exactly what they use at Max Plank Institute for their high temperature heat storage system. http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/**10/1/325/pdfhttp://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/325/pdf Interesting paper as it describes a perfectly feasible way for Rossi to be storing energy from the pre-heating cycle in reversible metal hydride reactions. It means he could be using nickel and hydrogen and possibly Mg, so that inspection, if he ever allowed it, would reveal nothing but the components he's claiming. Except some kind of pressure vessel is needed to store the hydrogen as the heat dissociates it from the metal. The unit described in table 2 is about 3 times larger than Rossi might need for his fat cat demos. It stores 36 MJ at 450C, and produces 4 kW power output, weighs 40 kg total, and requires a 20 L pressure vessel. So to store the 12 MJ needed for the Oct 6 demo, a 7L vessel would be needed, and the total weight might be 13 kg. What this should make clear is that energy storage is a well-developed science, and that if Rossi wants to convince skeptics that he is *producing* energy, he will need clear evidence of energy output significantly and unambiguously greater than energy input, whether or not it seems feasible to internet observers that the input could be usefully stored. (Of course, to really remove all doubt, the output should exceed the total mass of the unit in the best chemical fuel, but one step at a time...)
Re: [Vo]:New Posting from Lattice Energy - LENR compared to CF
On Tue, Dec 13, 2011 at 6:26 PM, pagnu...@htdconnect.com wrote: Joshua, I believe, Zawodny does explain the creation of ULM neutrons through the plasmonic creation of heavy electrons. See (slide 16) of http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2011/36/2010-Zawodny-AviationUnleashed.pdf That's not an explanation. That's jargon and an artist's conception. Energetic electrons should be expected to produce x-rays when they interact with matter, but there are none. These 780 keV electrons are basically traveling at the speed of light. It's pretty hard to imagine fields in a solid that can produce electrons like that without any clearly observable byproducts. The electrons are supposedly confined, but that in itself seems implausible. I am unsure as to whether Zawodny is correct, but page 9 of INTENSE FOCUSING OF LIGHT USING METALS (-JB Pendry) -- http://www.cmth.ph.ic.ac.uk/photonics/Newphotonics/pdf/pendry_crete.pdf -- states that by super-focusing of E-M fields and by confining electrons to thin wires we have enhanced their mass by four orders of magnitude so that they are now as heavy as nitrogen atoms! This is far beyond 780 KeV - and even greater effective mass increases are possible. For sure, though, these electron wave functions are delocalized, but are you sure that such massive pseudo-particles (heavy electrons) cannot donate some of their mass-energy to create ULM neutrons? or possibly provide enhanced screening? Also see papers by Alexandrov and by Breed in vol.2 of Proc. ICCF-14 http://www.iscmns.org/iccf14/ProcICCF14b.pdf This may be the confusion WL were going for. The effective mass of fermions ordinarily referred to in solid state physics is not a relativistic mass; it usually refers to an effective mobility. In the paper you mention, the effective mass increases because of the self-inductance of the particular wire structure. They write: any restoring force acting on the electrons will not only have to work against the rest mass of the electrons, but also against self-inductance of the wire structure. So, it is *as if* a free electron were heavier. The electrons do not have the relativistic energy associated with this effective mass, and so it will not enable electron capture, which requires actual 780 keV of energy. WL claim the electrons get the energy from collective proton oscillations, and seem to indicate the electron actually possesses increased energy, but it seems completely implausible, and more importantly, there is no evidence for it. The Alexandrov paper seems to suggest that increased (non-relativistic) effective mass in solid state can enable electron capture, but don't explain where the energy comes from. The Breed paper argues that increased effective mass can improve charge screening to enable fusion (like muon catalyzed fusion). That's more plausible, but it's not clear how increased effective mass in metal or semiconductor band structures can improve screening of hydrogen nuclei. In any case, they don't claim the effective mass can enable electron capture, as required by WL.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:59 PM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.netwrote: http://www.heise.de/tp/**artikel/35/35803/1.htmlhttp://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/35/35803/1.html English translation http://translate.google.com/**translate?sl=detl=enjs=n** prev=_thl=enie=UTF-8layout=**2eotf=1u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.** heise.de%2Ftp%2Fartikel%2F35%**2F35803%2F1.htmlact=urlhttp://translate.google.com/translate?sl=detl=enjs=nprev=_thl=enie=UTF-8layout=2eotf=1u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Ftp%2Fartikel%2F35%2F35803%2F1.htmlact=url Video is in english. Some vorts quoted. The beginning of the second video shows (again) that the valve to the water trap was closed. So, now we know it was closed at two separate times during the time it was supposed to be collecting all the liquid water. The shadows clearly indicate the time was well before 6 (probably 2:00 or so). It kind of undermines confidence in the engineer's, shall we say, attention to detail.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: The other tests cannot be faked as far as I know. No skeptic has come up with a plausible method. After all this time, I do not think any skeptic will come up with anything. At least, not with anything that can be tested or falsified. I imagine you're trying to convince yourself that this is true by repeating it ad nauseam. But it's clearly not true. There are not one, but many methods suggested to produce what Rossi observed without nuclear reactions, and all of them are more plausible than Rossi's claimed explanation, and all are falsifiable by a long self-sustained run. The best one is courtesy of the Max Planck Institute paper, cited here yesterday, that shows that reversible metal hydride reactions can be used to store close to a MJ/kg at about 450C. The only thing that is not falsifiable is your absolute conviction that Rossi is right. I wonder if you will continue to insist daily that the Oct 6 demo is irrefutable if there are no ecats warming your (or anyone else's) house or factory, or powering any cars, or even heard of by the man in the street, in 5 years time. We will simply have to be patient to find out. Claims that you can fake it with some stage magic trick that some person somewhere might know are not valid, in my opinion. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:entanglement broadcasting
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote: This experiment supports my contention that entanglement, a key mechanism in the cold fusion process, can be broadcast from one entangled ensemble to induce entanglement in another ensemble even at high temperatures. The experiment shows that entanglement is a subtle effect, that is very difficult to observe, let alone have practical implications. Since cold fusion doesn't use diamonds or femtosecond lasers, it rather seems to contradict your contention that entanglement is a key mechanism in cold fusion. Interpreting it as support, shows is that the bar on what is considered support among cold fusion advocates is set pretty low.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: You ignore the central fact about this test which is that the reactor remained at boiling temperatures for four hours with no input power. Big deal. It weighs 100 kg. Ten kg is enough to stay at boiling for 40 hours, without any nuclear reactions. It was too hot to touch. It burned an observer. Which observer was that? This is irrefutable proof that the effect is real. No, it's not even suggestive of nuclear reactions. You can do at least 10 times better with chemistry.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: 1. Stored energy can only cause the temperature to decline monotonically, very rapidly at first (Newton's law of cooling). Yet this heat increased during the event. Not true. If the inside is hotter than the outside, the outside can heat up, just from stored energy. Try this: Get an oil-filled space heater, and plug it in for about 5 or 10 minutes, then measure the surface temperature. It will continue to increase after it is turned off. With water-vapor in equilibrium, it is even easier to explain. If the inside of the container is well above boiling, then the temperature of the water/steam will be completely determined by the pressure. So, if the pressure increases as steam is formed, the temperature will increase. Moreover, chemical fuel can produce heat, which could increase the temperature. An increase in temperature, by itself, is no evidence of nuclear reactions. And the energy density is but a tiny fraction of the best chemical energy densities. 2. You cannot heat the iron around the cell or in the call walls up to 543°C with electric heaters inside the cell. They would have to reach much higher temperatures than any electric heater is capable of. But the iron in the walls accounts for only a small part of the 100 kg mass. The inner part could easily consist of 30 - 50 kg of thermal mass heated up to hundreds of degrees. About 15 kg of metal hydride could store the 13 MJ necessary to produce all the observations in that demo. 3. The data shows that the reactor cools in ~40 min. when the power is cut. No. It doesn't. It cools by 10C in 40 minutes. And that's when the coolant flow rate is doubled. And it's at the end of the run, when most of the stored energy will have already been drawn down. For this oft-repeated argument to be valid, it would have to be done at the beginning, not the end, of the run, with the same flow rate. That is the actual, measured limit of stored heat with this system, at these temperatures and inputs. No. It's not, because you don't know the temperature of the inner core. At the end of the run it may have been 200C or less, but at the beginning at 500C or more. Those two temperatures give the same temperature of the water-steam mixture. To get the limit of energy storage, you have to see how fast it cools *right after it's heated up*, not 3.25 hours later. You cannot magically change it to 4 hours. The data shows a rapid decline in temperature. You cannot magically change that to an increase. There is nothing magic about starting at a higher inner temperature. That's just simple physics. And there's nothing magic about part of a system increasing in temperature, even if the average temperature decreases. That's just physics. To some, simple physics may look like magic. But if you've studied physics, it just looks normal. Your friend has a famous quote about that. This analysis cannot be taken seriously. It is full of gaping holes and impossibilities. I realize that Heffner does not see it that way, but I do. You are in the minority.
Re: [Vo]:Bob Park is back!
The whole thing is related to pseudoscience and ignorance, and it's all relevant. Here it is: 1. HACKS: SHODDY PRESS COVERAGE OF SCIENCE. The Leveson Inquiry into the standards and ethics of the UK press, headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, was prompted by the News of the World phone- hacking scandal (WN 22 Jul 2011). The seamy British tabloid was the top- selling English-language newspaper in the world when owner Rupert Murdoch had to close it five months ago after its news-collection methods were exposed. The intense public interest in the sex and drug culture of celebrities is certainly troubling, but the same journalistic standards applied to science news may be more dangerous. In 1998, for example, Andrew Wakefield, an obscure British gastroenterologist, set off a worldwide vaccination panic when he falsely identified the common MMR vaccination as a cause of autism. Widely reported by the press, Wakefield's irresponsible assertion led to a precipitous decline in vaccination rate and a corresponding 14-year rise in measles cases. An editorial in the current issue of Nature (8 Dec 2011) urges scientists to fight back against agenda-driven reporting of science. Who could disagree? It is, after all, a fight against ignorance. 2. IGNORANCE: THERE'S PLENTY MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM. A commitment to intellectual openness provides a mechanism for self- correction that sets science apart from the unchanging dictates of revealed religion, raising the prospect of transforming Earth into something close to biblical paradise, at least for Homo sapiens. Directions to this earthly paradise, however, are written in mathematics. In particular, the dialect of scientific progress is differential equations. Unfortunately, few people speak mathematics or have any interest in learning it. In the modern world, the engine of scientific progress is driven by a subset of the human race that speaks mathematics as a second language. This is not healthy. Many people, unable to distinguish science from pseudoscience, are duped by crackpots and swindlers who attempt to mimic scientists, and often manage to fool themselves. How do they do it? 3. LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: PSEUDOSCIENCE IS AN ENORMOUS FIELD There are, I think, many more of them than there are of us. Let me mention just a few of the more notorious: Stanley Pons and Martin Fleishman, who gave us Cold Fusion in 1989, are the most famous in the Free Energy Category. Even so, physicists had their number in a couple of weeks. More recently (2006) in the same category, the Steorn Company in Dublin gave us Orbo, a classic perpetual motion machine. So classic it gets reinvented every century or so. Unfortunately Orbo is shy and refuses to perform when anyone’s watching. In the Chicken-Little Category, Devra Davis says the 5 billion cell-phone users are toast when we reach the latency period of brain cancer. Alas, I'm reaching my limit and there are hundreds more on my list. Maybe I'll write a book, or did I already do that?
Re: [Vo]:Bob Park is back!
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Most confirmed skeptics refuse to read anything. It's not refusal. It's that they are not interested. Most skeptics are satisfied that if the grandiose claims were real, simple and obvious demonstrations would not only be possible, but would be ubiquitous, and then, as in 1989, they would all leap in quicker than you can say lenr. If they read something, and understood it, they would not be skeptics, would they? Yes, they would. The DOE panel read it, understood it, and were still skeptical.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 11:49 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.comwrote: Oh come now. I have dealt with fraud by pointing that Yugo's claims of stage magic is not falsifiable. I don't know who you think is convinced by that. Of course it's falsifiable. Just run the experiment long enough without input to exclude any possible source of energy except nuclear. Stage magic is not real magic you know. It still depends on the laws of physics. And even if it were paranormal, James Randi makes a living falsifying claims of paranormal. To be falsifiable, you only have to be able to *conceive* of an experiment that would contradict it. It's intended to distinguish scientific theories or assertions from religious ones. Not to discount speculation as you've done. Otherwise we could deal with Rossi by saying his claims are not falsifiable. It's ridiculous, and you need to find a new chorus to sing. I have dealt with chemical energy by pointing out that in my opinion it is impossible to make a chemical fuel system this small that puts out this much energy. This is not a matter of opinion. Clean-burning fuel like alcohol stores the amount of energy Rossi displayed in less than one liter. It would be easy to burn that in a 100 kg device of that size. . . . which demonstrates an output of between 1500 W and and 750 W between time 150 minutes and time 476 minutes. That estimate is far too low. The heat radiating from the reactor plus the heat captured in the cooling loop far exceeds that. Hard evidence does not support more than a few hundred watts on average. And the soft evidence, the losses through the insulation, not more than a few hundred more, for a total of 1 kW or less. Remember there were 50 of those fat cats inside a shipping container. If each was losing a kW or even 500 W, the inside of that container would have been unbearably hot. How's that for soft evidence?
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: The power between 150 and 250 shown in the cooling loop is more or less stable, meaning the thing has reached the terminal temperature. It has achieved a balance between input and output. It's stable because it's measuring the temperature of water and steam at equilibrium. To the extent the pressure is stable, the temperature must also be, regardless of the rate of flow of heat into the water. And if the energy is stored in some kind of phase-change material then the temperature of the thermal mass will be stable at the melting point, and the heat flow to the water will be pretty constant until the material has all solidified. That's the time to shut the show down, because then the heat flow is likely to start slowing down, and soon enough the water will stop boiling, and *then* the temperature will start to fall. So, if he's using a phase-change material to store the heat, he's got two layers of stabilization going for him. As for the rest of your comments . . . I am not the only one who disagrees with you. So do all of the knowledgeable people I asked to review your paper. There are also a lot of people who agree with that analysis, at least its broad strokes. But counting supporters won't move this forward. Challenging and defending the claims will. Or should.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 12:45 PM, Horace Heffner hheff...@mtaonline.netwrote: Rossi's tests and explanations are full of holes and self contradictions, impossibilities. It is Rossi's tests and explanations that matter. All the blather from the peanut gallery is irrelevant, except possibly to alert the few gullible investors that might listen, and to demonstrate that the LENR research community is not so crackpot as to easily accept scientifically unproven claims of commercial viability. What it's demonstrated is that there are only a few not so crackpot. You and Krivit are in the minority if Rothwell is right that most of the CF community believes Rossi. If Rossi flames out, Krivit will become an unbearable sage in the field. That is, more unbearable than he already is.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Alan J Fletcher a...@well.com wrote: I need to add phase-change salts (and possibly even ceramic bricks) to my fakes paper. Can you give me / point me to a likely candidate? You might also consider reversible metal-hydride reactions.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Other than Talbot Chubb every researcher I have discussed this with believes most of the claims. Not many on record though. It will be interesting if the ecat comes to nothing, to see how they will rationalize their beliefs in the claims. Because the absence of a real commercial product in a few years would all but prove the claims wrong. Probably conspiracy theories will abound. See McKubre's recent talk: http://lenr-canr.org/News.htm As I said here, I agree with his characterization of Rossi and Rossi's business strategy. To reiterate, McKubre began by calling Rossi a dodgy character but technically brilliant. He discusses Rossi's business plans. He says Rossi is the master of misdirection. His business strategy is also brilliant. He is keeping his results ambiguous to avoid competition and the evil eye of the DoE. Can results be ambiguous and irrefutable at the same time?
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: It is a problem of logic, as I explained to Yugo. An assertion that cannot be tested or falsified cannot be debated. I cannot dispute it. Or agree with it, for that matter. It is meaningless. This sounds like the tactic of a loser. The same can be said of Rossi's claim that the heat comes from nuclear reactions. Rossi's claim is based on energy density. If it does not exceed the energy density possible by chemical or thermal storage, then he has nothing. And any claim of magic (illusion) still has to satisfy the laws of nature. It is perfectly feasible to conceive of ways Rossi could do his demo to exclude illusion as an explanation. That makes it falsifiable. But trying to obfuscate an argument with rules of logic that you don't understand may allow you to keep jabbering, but I have no idea who could possibly buy into it. The levels of energy Rossi is demonstrating are small enough to be produced by thermal storage, chemical reactions, or by misdirection and sleight of hand. Much larger levels of energy would not be. That would be falsification. No matter how you fake an eCat, the moment the reactor is opened up experts will see how it works. Too bad, they just cracked the lid. I'd like to see the actual amount of nickel powder used, and the absence of any other thermal mass, before I'm prepared to believe nuclear reactions are needed. There is no way to hide wires. There is no need for wires in a 100 kg device. The cell is much too small to produce a chemical reaction of this magnitude, when you take into account the space needed for the equipment such as tanks and burners. You should look up thermochemical energy storage. Arguments that cannot be tested, falsified or refuted are verboten in science, All the arguments *against* the ecat can be. Rossi won't allow it for the claims for it.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Alan J Fletcher a...@well.com wrote: At 11:08 AM 12/15/2011, Alan J Fletcher wrote: I need to add phase-change salts (and possibly even ceramic bricks) to my fakes paper. Can you give me / point me to a likely candidate? http://www.seas.upenn.edu/~meam502/project/reviewexample2.pdf(2007) Very few with a melting-point above 100C -- and most of those are categorized as Group II or III or - Group I, most promising; group II, promising; group III, Less promising; -- insufficient data. It's odd that the paper says little or nothing about sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate, a mixture of which (40/60) is actually used to store energy in some concentrating solar plants. Sodium nitrate melts at 308C, and the liquid has a heat capacity of 2 J/gK if I remember correctly. It would be pretty effective for Rossi's purposes.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 2:42 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: I am saying that as a rule of logic, all assertions much be falsifiable, Resorting to misunderstood rules is the refuge of people who have no good arguments left. Falsifiability just means it should be possible to conceive of an experimental result that would contradict the assertion. It's intended to avoid religious claims in a scientific arena. It's certainly possible to conceive of experimental results that would contradict all the claims that the ecat could be run on non-nuclear principles. They could all be falsified by a suitable isolated and inspected device that produced heat for a really really long time. So that the overall energy density (unambiguously measured) exceed unequivocally the energy density of the best chemical fuel. and you cannot test or falsify this one. You cannot prove that some person out in the world knows how to accomplish X, Y or Z. You would have have to ask every stage magician on earth before determining whether this is true. That is neither necessary, nor would it be sufficient. There are some tricks that haven't even been thought of yet. But James Randi would be out of a life's commitment if it weren't possible to set up controls on a demonstration that can exclude paranormal effects to discover the illusions used. He's done it repeatedly. Take for example a claim that a fission bomb (or hydrogen bomb) used sleight of hand to produce the claimed energy output. That claim could be pretty clearly falsified with a demonstration to the satisfaction of any observer you can imagine. Likewise, a small, completely isolated ecat (inspected by James Randi) that boils an olympic pool dry would falsify claims of magic to just about anyone's satisfaction. So would an ecat that powered a (small) vehicle to drive around the world without refueling. If you don't understand, then I suggest you read a book about logic. When you have to suggest people read books about logic for them to accept a claim of a new *nuclear energy source*, it's a pretty safe bet the claim is bogus. Do you need to study Plato to believe fission bombs are real?
Re: [Vo]:E-cat article by Haiko Leitz
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 4:08 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: If you can't think of a specific way this EXPERIMENTAL scientist's work could have jumped the tracks, then you have no basis to challenge the conclusions. First of all, there are many specific ways suggested to explain the ecat, that do not involve nuclear reactions. Secondly, none are necessary. Unless the energy density exceeds what is known to be possible, there is no reason to accept the claims. And thirdly, the failure of scientists (for a time) to identify the flaws in the N-ray and polywater experiments did not mean the conclusions were right, or that they should not be challenged. And that goes for all the perpetual motion claims that are repeatedly made. At some point, it is no longer interesting or necessary to even try to understand the observations made by people claiming yet again to have built a perpetual motion machine. All critiques of experiments must be based on specific discussions of instruments and techniques. No appealing to theory allowed. It's a good thing you don't make the rules. If appeals to theory were not used to guide understanding, we would lose the benefit of standing on the shoulders of giants. Robust experimental results must be accepted in contradiction to theory, for sure, and are, of course. But that's not the same as ignoring theory in the interpretation of experiments.Theory just represents an accepted generalization based on previous experiments. If a result (or more commonly, an interpretation of a result) contradicts theory, then it has to be questioned. That's a critical part of making progress. And if another interpretation of the same results fits existing theory, then it's more likely to be correct. In the case of the ecat, the experimental results consist of temperature and flow rate measurements. Claiming it's nuclear is a *theory* to explain the results. And since it is not consistent with expectations of existing theory, it is important to question it. If the temperatures and flow rates are consistent with an alternative theory that *is* consistent with existing theory, it's more likely to be correct. replication is always required. It does not matter how strong the evidence is; you cannot short-circuit that step. That's another rule of experimental science, Replication is always desirable to improve and understand, but it's not always necessary to accept a new phenomenon. The Wright's 1908 flight in Paris was enough to convince all skeptics. An exploding nuclear bomb would convince all skeptics. And it's not hard to imagine a single demo of the ecat that would convince all skeptics. Rossi has not come close to that yet. That is in fact where we stand with the Fleischmann Pons effect. The statute of limitations ran out a long time ago. I agree. If they claim heat from nuclear reactions and can't convince the scientific mainstream, who would love nothing more, then it's time to cut losses.
Re: [Vo]:eCat Electric COP : 2
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Then I suggest you read Christensen and some other books about business. Some of these ideas are complicated. You have to do your homework. An amazing new revolutionary technology promising to replace fossil fuels... but it's useless if you don't do your homework. Once you're finished with Plato, Descartes, and Popper, move on to Christensen. When you can pass the exams, maybe you will be allowed to benefit from the amazing new ecats. I think you're hedging your bets now. The device as it is supposed to be would immediately and without any changes be an excellent heat source. That it may be, but we already have excellent heat sources, such as gas-fired space heaters, heat pumps and solar water heaters. None of those are excellent compared to an isolated ecat producing 12 kW without fuel. They need in order: gas, electricity or gas, daylight, plumbing, and and energy storage technology. There are many dimensions in which something can be excellent yet still uncompetitive in some markets. A ecat that does what Rossi claims now would be competitive in any market. Cold fusion does not need any fuel. You might think that would make it an unbeatable competitor. But the same can be said for solar water heating, solar power and wind power, yet these are not competitive in all markets. Cold fusion does not need fuel and is not intermittent. Check mate. No, not any cold environment. That depends on the initial cost of equipment, reliability and many other factors. What other factors. It depends on capital cost and reliability, but Rossi has already claimed costs that are certainly competitive. Reliability would have to be proven. That's true. Why are you arguing against ecats now? Because you think maybe they're not so great after all, and you're gonna need rationalization. You might as well line it up now.
Re: [Vo]:Bob Park is back!
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Charles Hope lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.comwrote: It's not relevant, because his criticism is against innumeracy, which applies to such delusions as astrology and homeopathy, but not cold fusion, where the most serious advocates are scientists, who certainly know their differential equations. It's about pseudoscience in general, and he cites cold fusion specifically. Why would anyone mention cold fusion in 2011, and raise P F as the example, while neglecting Rossi? That's really bizarre. My guess is that he knows it will irk the believers even more if he ignores Rossi, than if he dumps on him. It seems to be working.
Re: [Vo]:CF as a historical phenomenon
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Charles Hope lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.comwrote: Are there any examples of pathological science persisting 20 years without being properly debunked? Are there any examples of new science remaining on the fringe for 20 years before being finally accepted into the mainstream? Perpetual motion fits the first question. There are adherents to it that will claim it has not been debunked, and that's been centuries. There are a lot of medical claims that would also fit. Homeopathy, (straight) chiropractic, acupuncture, the vaccine-autism connection, psychic healing, or any paranormal phenomena. None of these are accepted by mainstream science, but will probably never be debunked to the satisfaction of their adherents. I have posed the latter is a question frequently, albeit qualified, and without a good response. There are some examples of theories or phenomena that took decades to be accepted, but not small-scale, bench-top type experiments. Examples include Wegener's continental drift, maybe black holes, and Lawrence cited a dinosaur theory. These are in fields that give up data greedily. The closest example of a small-scale theory that I have seen is Semmelweis's disinfection (hand-washing), which was ridiculed for a long time. But you have to go back 150 years for that example. I think most phenomena (especially in the physical sciences) that can be tested on a bench top, and that turn out to be real, were accepted pretty quickly. And revolutionary theories to explain a lot of well-established experimental results, like relativity and quantum mechanics were accepted almost as quickly as they were proposed. QM took time to be developed of course, but who could doubt that Bohr was on to something when quantization of the angular momentum reproduced the empirically determined Rydberg formula for atomic spectra? Rothwell likes to list various technologies that took time to develop, like the transistor and the laser (which did see some skepticism), but none of his favorite examples are anything close to case of cold fusion where the concept is rejected out of hand by the mainstream for 20 years. This year's nobel prize in chemistry represents another case of skepticism proved wrong. Shechtman's proposed quasicrystals were ridiculed (most vociferously by Linus Pauling who said there were no quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists), and he was kicked out of his research group. But the derision lasted only a couple of years, and he was published in PRL, at the height of it, and began getting awards soon after, culminating, in less than 20 years, in the nobel prize. Contrary to popular argument, science actually celebrates novelty and revolution, and scientists are not afraid of disruptive experiments; they crave them. Fame, glory, funding, and adoration come to those who make breakthroughs, not those who add decimal places. The problem is, the revolutionary science has to be right...
Re: [Vo]:CF as a historical phenomenon
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 6:56 PM, Giovanni Santostasi gsantost...@gmail.comwrote: There is an example that is interesting. Gravitational wave detection. As a practical field was created more than 40 years ago and no detection has been done yet. Doesn't fit the question though, since the concept has never been considered fringe. There are plenty of theoretical predictions that took decades to be observed, including neutrinos (26 years), quarks (20 years for top), Higgs boson (40-some years and counting), lasers (40 years, sorta), and others.
Re: [Vo]:CF as a historical phenomenon
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 7:19 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Charles Hope lookslikeiwasri...@gmail.com wrote: Are there any examples of pathological science persisting 20 years without being properly debunked? Not to my knowledge. Unless you count things like water memory, which may be real after all, and acupuncture and chiropractic, which seem to work. It's probably the case that most pseudo-sciences that survive 20 years or more are likely to maintain some following indefinitely, and so may not be considered debunked until adherents disappear by attrition. Evidently Blondlott continued to be convinced of N-rays until his death. And perpetual motion will likely have adherents for a long time. If by pathological you mean sciences not accepted (or rejected outright) by mainstream science, then there are very clearly *many* examples that have persisted far longer than 20 years, including perpetual motion, homeopathy (and other alternative medical treatments), and any paranormal or religious claims like astrology or scientology or creationism (intelligent design). Global warming denialism might also fit some characteristics of pathological science. Straight chiropractic based on vitalism also fits the pathological bill, although most chiropractors try to distance themselves from vitalism, and have found some legitimacy in the mainstream; after all, massage and certain exercises (physiotherapy) are undoubtedly beneficial. Acupuncture has also found some mainstream support, but conclusive evidence of efficacy is still not established, and the concept of meridians and qi is not scientifically accepted. It's very difficult in the case of acupuncture to do blank controls; you know when someone sticks a needle in you. There are not very many examples like cold fusion, where a rather simple non-paranormal phenomenon, claimed in a controlled experiments, is rejected for decades by the mainstream, but still maintains a substantial following. Perpetual motion is the obvious similar example, and it has in common with cold fusion, the profound implications for the betterment of mankind. Perhaps water dowsing is another, although that is often considered paranormal as well. Alien sightings are not considered paranormal (usually), but are not results of controlled experiments. Are there any examples of new science remaining on the fringe for 20 years before being finally accepted into the mainstream? Genetics, photography and semiconductors. See: http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcomparison.pdf Countless others, such as electric motors, incandescent lights and and calculators took decades to be developed. They were considered laboratory curiosities with no future and no practical value. Taking decades to develop does not mean the principles or the basis were rejected by the mainstream. None of those examples are now,nor were they ever considered pathological or pseudoscientific.
Re: [Vo]:CF as a historical phenomenon
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 7:27 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Joshua Cude wrote: Contrary to popular argument, science actually celebrates novelty and revolution, and scientists are not afraid of disruptive experiments; they crave them. This is complete bullshit. Most scientists neither fear nor celebrate disruptive experiments. They do not give a damn how disruptive a result is, or how much it appears to violate theory. They care about one thing, and one thing only: FUNDING. Money. Status. Power. Maybe the scientists you know, but certainly not the vast majority. A career in science is not particularly lucrative in most cases. Incomes are typical of most professions, and probably lower on average than in medicine or law or finance. Considering that most scientists don't begin to earn a real salary (beyond post-doctoral stipends) until they are pushing 30, their lifetime earnings are often not much better than teachers or nurses or engineers or computer scientists. And they well understand the magic of the exponential function, and the value of money earned in the third decade. Academic scientists generally earn salaries that are fairly independent of the success of their research, at least to first order. That is to say, a minority generate income from inventions or patents or licenses and so on, though some clearly do. But even if it were true that they acted purely out of greed for money and status, the best way to achieve those things is to make revolutionary discoveries, so it does not contradict my claim. Regardless of what you say, awards in science are granted for novel discoveries, as is research funding, and with those come status and power. Einstein, Bohr, Planck, and Hawking did not gain their status by making shit up. They actually made discoveries. That's how you make an impact. As Stan Szpak says, scientists believe whatever you pay them to believe. A few scientists may make things up for financial gain, but I can't think of very many examples, and they certainly don't include the most famous and most prestigious scientists or the most wealthy scientists. The disgraced Andrew Wakefield is one example. But most scientists are pretty honest, and got into science because it is an interesting and agreeable career. And as I said, success in the career (including financial) is measured by novelty and discovery, not by confirmations of old ideas. You can set up a project with no hope of success, no scientific value, and which is a fantastic waste of money, such as Star Wars or plasma fusion. Scientist will flock to join. Scientists that flock to join don't agree with your assessment. And why should they? What do you know? Most scientist think of cold fusion research as a waste of time, and yet you wouldn't hold it against your friends if they accepted funding for the research, would you? Many scientists were strongly critical of the SDI, and many of those that became involved rationalized it by potential spin-offs, which have been borne out in things like x-ray laser imaging. Obviously many people who do not benefit from plasma fusion consider the research worth the gamble, your opinion notwithstanding. They will swear they believe in it. You can present theories with no basis, no means of verification, and no possible use, such as string theory. They will publish happily, and award prizes. But there's not a lotta moolah in string theory. People that go after it are interested in the aesthetics. The scientific validity and the degree of novelty has nothing to do with resistance to a new idea. The only metric that matters is moola. The least practical ideas often meet no resistance because no one is already being paid to do them. If the plasma fusion people had not been around in 1989, we would have cold-fusion powered aircraft by now. The only reason there was resistance, and continues to be, is because those people are making 6-figures for screwing the taxpayers, and they do not want the gravy train to stop. You can keep thinking this if it helps you sleep at night, and I suppose if you believe cold fusion, you will believe anything, but this is even less plausible than cold fusion. The plasma fusion people simply don't have that kind of power. How can they affect the research in Japan, Italy, and China? If cold fusion were valid, it would be in the government's interest, strategically, economically, and environmentally, to support it. And the money that supports plasma fusion is from the government. Why would they fund something contrary to their own interest? They are well aware of conflicts of interest, and know how to avoid it in funding the research they deem most productive and useful for their own benefit, and the benefit of the country. And why do the plasma fusion people not shut down research in fission or solar or wind? This sort of paranoid conspiracy theory gives your field a bad name. A single
Re: [Vo]:CF as a historical phenomenon
On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Harry Veeder hveeder...@gmail.com wrote: Geocentrism took over 1000 years to debunk. But considering it was accepted by the mainstream, it was not a pathological science.
Re: [Vo]:E-cat impact
On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:20 AM, Axil Axil janap...@gmail.com wrote: Following this line of reasoning, it is logical to assume that MY is more likely than not a male. I would guesstimate that the odds on this speculation are 70/30 that MY is a man. Who the hell cares?
Re: [Vo]:Miley and other professors can only take money from official sources
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:01 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Gene went from a top academic career to working in a warehouse at night to feed his family. He was a science writer. Respectable, yes. Top academic career, no. Fleischmann and Pons had a terrible time. Too much money? They had better funding after the CF announcement than at any previous time in their careers. I think it traumatized Pons. It did not bother Fleischmann as much because he is a tough, cynical person who had nightmare experiences during WWII. The Gestapo beat his father to death, and he himself barely escaped. Your arguments for cold fusion are aiming for the gut, not the mind... He told me that he knew calling that press conference would mean the end of his career. It would seem the reports on the sociology of CF are about as reliable as those on the science. It was not the end of his career. He was already resigned from his academic position at Southampton, so he had no job to lose. As it happens, he worked in a well funded lab in France until 1995, when he retired. France is not Siberia. How is that the end of his career? He knew he would be vilified and ridiculed for the rest of his life. So he says now, but his self-satisfied grinning during the press conferences after the announcement tell a different story. He went into it knowing what would happen. Right. That his research would be well funded until retirement. Until the announcement, PF were funding the experiments themselves. That was an act of courage. It was an act of fear. Fear that someone else would get priority.
Re: [Vo]:Miley and other professors can only take money from official sources
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: He sure knew what he was getting into. Fleischmann wrote a lighthearted account of this, quoted in Beaudette's book. It starts off with Arrhenius in 1883. He was one of the most important electrochemists in history, like Faraday. He made a revolutionary discovery. As any student of history would predict, this led the academic authorities to kick him out of the university. He was vilified and ridiculed for years and years. Finally, long after, he won a Nobel prize. You mean like Einstein got kicked out of university? No, because his revolutionary ideas got him kicked *into* university. You mean like Planck's ideas got him kicked out of university? No, because they named one after him. etc. You can't just make shit up to please your audience. I'd like to know of a professor who got kicked out of university for a revolutionary idea. At least one that turned out to be right, and didn't have religious objectors. Because, contrary to your claim, Arrhenius does not provide an example. I admit, my source does not go beyond wikipedia, but according to it, his controversial ideas were presented in his doctoral thesis, so he didn't have a position to be kicked out of. And while there were local skeptics, his degree was granted, if only as 3rd class. Nevertheless, when the dissertation was sent to other European scholars, they came to Sweden trying to recruit him. Doesn't really sound much like cold fusion, does it? The Swedish Academy then awarded him a grant to study with the likes of Boltzmann and van 't Hoff. That doesn't sound like years and years of vilification does it? A few years after his graduation, he was *given* an appointment at the Stockholm university, and was a full professor/chair (rector) about a decade after his PhD. That doesn't sound much like ridicule, does it? It did take almost 20 years to recognize his work with a Nobel prize, but maybe the fact that the prize was not initiated until about 17 years after had something to do with that. He got the 3rd one in chemistry. He was on the Nobel committee from the beginning until his death, and it seems he was not a particularly nice guy himself, arranging awards for his friends, and attempting to deny them to his enemies. He also got involved in racial biology (eugenics) later in his life. That happens so often I am astounded anyone believes the myth that scientists welcome new ideas. Well, you would not be astounded if you actually paid attention to history, instead of twisting it to rationalize your fervent belief in cold fusion. Right about the same time as the CF announcement, high temperature superconductivity was discovered, and the Nobel prize was awarded -- now get this -- one year later. The discovery had no theory to support it, was unexpected, and yet the discoverers were not dismissed from their positions. Amazing, isn't it. Of course, most Nobel prizes (including Einstein's) take much longer, because it usually takes time for the importance to become manifest, but new discoveries are always celebrated in science, by scientists. As I've said before, the most revolutionary ideas in science in centuries, relativity and QM, were accepted almost as quickly as they could be developed. Because they fit the evidence so perfectly. Just about every evaluation of merit in science, from granting of degrees, to awarding academic or industrial positions, to granting awards, to giving funding, to accepting manuscripts for publication, to any degree of fame and glory, has as its first criterion: *** novelty ***. What scientists fear is not new ideas (they crave them), but wrong ideas. Scientists are skeptical; they have to be. Skepticism is a critical filter in guiding research. Without it, they would simply flounder around, like, well, like cold fusion researchers. Of course, that sometimes leads to rejecting good ideas, and finding the right balance is the most important quality a scientist can strive for. Linus Pauling was clever enough to win 2 Nobel prizes, and yet he ridiculed quasi-crystals. At the other end is perhaps Josephson, who got a Nobel prize for work done as a graduate student, when skeptical guidance was still provided by others. On his own, his lack of skepticism has led him to dabble in the paranormal, and to a life's work wholly unworthy of his brilliant beginning. After the press conference, Dr. Caldwell came up to us and said, Well, when my grandfather proposed electrolytic disassociation, he was dismissed from the University. At least that won’t happen to you. I said to her, “But you are entirely mistaken. We shall be dismissed as well. Their ideas were dismissed, but they were not fired from academic positions. Fleischmann was already retired, and continued to list his affiliation with Southampton until at least 1994. Pons was tenured, and left voluntarily for greener pastures and more money in France.
Re: [Vo]:Miley and other professors can only take money from official sources
On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 8:54 PM, Aussie Guy E-Cat aussieguy.e...@gmail.comwrote: This is so wrong as to make me very upset. I'll do anything I can to get hold of a FPE device from Leonardo or Defkalion or who ever and shove it up some FPE deniers back side so far the sun will never shine on it again. And you wonder why I have no time for most university chalk heads. Ah, yes. Is this how cool, rational minds prevail? Rothwell knows how to get people's blood to boil. Would that he could do the same for their intellect.
Re: [Vo]:Miley and other professors can only take money from official sources
On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 7:10 AM, Aussie Guy E-Cat aussieguy.e...@gmail.comwrote: Cude what does this have to do with FP having been replicated in many labs all over the world? They haven't been. McKubre himself has said that no one has achieved quantitative reproducibility. And interlay reproducibility always requires the interchange of personnel. Doesn't say much for the robustness of the effect. What cf researchers call replication is not what is considered replication in the rest of science. Which is why the expert panels in 1989 and 2004 judged the evidence to be inconclusive. Would you please disclose if your income / pay check depends on you not believing the FPE is real and / or working to trash anyone who does? No, like just about everyone else on the planet (probably everyone), I would benefit immensely if cold fusion were real. Like the the industrial revolution, everyone's standard of living would improve. What's not to like about that? That's why these arguments about political opposition and conspiracies are just rationalizations for people who are heavily invested, emotionally and otherwise, in the cold fusion delusion. I ask because all you apparently contribute to this list is trashing the FPE. On 12/19/2011 11:23 PM, Joshua Cude wrote: On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 8:38 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.commailto: jedrothw...@gmail.com** wrote: He sure knew what he was getting into. Fleischmann wrote a lighthearted account of this, quoted in Beaudette's book. It starts off with Arrhenius in 1883. He was one of the most important electrochemists in history, like Faraday. He made a revolutionary discovery. As any student of history would predict, this led the academic authorities to kick him out of the university. He was vilified and ridiculed for years and years. Finally, long after, he won a Nobel prize. You mean like Einstein got kicked out of university? No, because his revolutionary ideas got him kicked *into* university. You mean like Planck's ideas got him kicked out of university? No, because they named one after him. etc. You can't just make shit up to please your audience. I'd like to know of a professor who got kicked out of university for a revolutionary idea. At least one that turned out to be right, and didn't have religious objectors. Because, contrary to your claim, Arrhenius does not provide an example. I admit, my source does not go beyond wikipedia, but according to it, his controversial ideas were presented in his doctoral thesis, so he didn't have a position to be kicked out of. And while there were local skeptics, his degree was granted, if only as 3rd class. Nevertheless, when the dissertation was sent to other European scholars, they came to Sweden trying to recruit him. Doesn't really sound much like cold fusion, does it? The Swedish Academy then awarded him a grant to study with the likes of Boltzmann and van 't Hoff. That doesn't sound like years and years of vilification does it? A few years after his graduation, he was *given* an appointment at the Stockholm university, and was a full professor/chair (rector) about a decade after his PhD. That doesn't sound much like ridicule, does it? It did take almost 20 years to recognize his work with a Nobel prize, but maybe the fact that the prize was not initiated until about 17 years after had something to do with that. He got the 3rd one in chemistry. He was on the Nobel committee from the beginning until his death, and it seems he was not a particularly nice guy himself, arranging awards for his friends, and attempting to deny them to his enemies. He also got involved in racial biology (eugenics) later in his life. That happens so often I am astounded anyone believes the myth that scientists welcome new ideas. Well, you would not be astounded if you actually paid attention to history, instead of twisting it to rationalize your fervent belief in cold fusion. Right about the same time as the CF announcement, high temperature superconductivity was discovered, and the Nobel prize was awarded -- now get this -- one year later. The discovery had no theory to support it, was unexpected, and yet the discoverers were not dismissed from their positions. Amazing, isn't it. Of course, most Nobel prizes (including Einstein's) take much longer, because it usually takes time for the importance to become manifest, but new discoveries are always celebrated in science, by scientists. As I've said before, the most revolutionary ideas in science in centuries, relativity and QM, were accepted almost as quickly as they could be developed. Because they fit the evidence so perfectly. Just about every evaluation of merit in science, from granting of degrees, to awarding academic or industrial positions, to granting awards, to giving funding, to accepting manuscripts for publication, to any degree of fame
