David Roberson <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have a great concern that it is just too easy to make instrument errors > which make a small apparent signal look real when in fact it is not. . . . I strongly agree! Especially when you are talking about measuring energy over the entire course of an experiment, and even more so when you are using potential chemical energy as the divisor. I think it is difficult to know exactly how much potential chemical energy there is in the system. Input electric power, on the other hand, can be measured with high precision, as McKubre often points out. > In my opinion, a COP of 1.1 is likely to be measurement error. It may be > real, but I would not bet on it. > That is just what I said. With most calorimeters, I would not trust a COP of 1.1 no matter how you define COP: power out/in, energy out/in, or energy/potential chemical energy. If a ratio of 1.1 were reported by Fleischmann, Miles or McKubre, I might believe it. With most other calorimeters a result of 1.1 is too close to the margin for confidence. Actually, when you look at this last definition, energy/potential chemical energy, in most experiments you can expect the ratio to go far over 1.0. I mean by a factor of 10, or 100 or in some cases 10,000 or more. There is essentially no limit and no reason why it would barely exceed 1. I would be very suspicious if the experiment petered out just at 1.1. I would assume this was actually ~1. If the researcher deliberately stopped the experiment soon after it passed 1.1, I would say that is crazy. Why not let it run for several more hours, or days? - Jed
