I'm correcting this comment as to the Violante
data using more accurate numbers as provided by
Violante and inferred from that. The substance of this remains the same.
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2010/34/345revisions.shtml
We have learned, through a better understanding
of their paper, that the authors did not perform
calorimetry. Rather, they used the helium
measurements to back-calculate the excess heat
they would have expected from the amount of
helium they measured, assuming the hypothesis of
a D+D > 4He + 23.8 MeV (heat) reaction.
That statement appears to be radically incorrect.
If it were true, the green dots would be right on
the helium actually measured! You have
misunderstood the chart, and you are directly
contradicting the article. The chart plots, for
three experiments, the numbers of helium atoms
found, with error bars. This is total helium, and
it appears that background helium is included.
There are, however, some problems with the
presentation. On the one hand, the experiment
that shows a green dot "on the money," is the
noisiest point, it's actually a low excess helium
measurement, obscured by plotting total helium
including background. I doubt that the intention
was obfuscation, though, rather it seems a bit
sloppy to me. But it was only a conference paper!
You state that they did not perform calorimetry.
On the contrary, they describe their calorimetry
in the paper,
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2005/2005Apicella-SomeResultsAtENEA.pdf,
in detail, and they give the data in the text,
and I have converted to MeV using the NASA energy
calculator at
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/Tools/energyconv/energyConv.pl
Laser 2: 23.5 kJ, 1.47 x 10^17 MeV
Laser 3: 3.4 kJ, 2.12 x 10^16 MeV
Laser 4: 30.3 kJ, 1.89 x 10^17 MeV
If we expect 24 MeV/He-4, these figures would translate to
Laser 2: 0.612 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 3: 0.088 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 4: 0.787 x 10^16 atoms
If background is to be added, 0.55 x 10^16 per
the chart (and from Violante direct data), this becomes expected measurement:
Laser 2: 1.162 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 3: 0.638 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 4: 1.337 x 10^16 atoms
And these are the green dot positions (read from the chart):
Laser 2: 1.20 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 3: 0.72 x 10^16 atoms
Laser 4: 1.27 x 10^16 atoms
It appears that they took the energy, divided it
by 24 MeV/He4, and plotted that as the green dots
for reference. However, the positions aren't
exact, so they have made some approximation or
there is some other factor they have not
disclosed. Nevertheless, the green dots are
*approximately* what they say they are: measured
energy converted to expected helium at 24 MeV.
(Note that Violante does acknowledge some
sloppiness in the plots, but this does not greatly affect the presentation.)
For reference, here is the helium data taken from the chart:
Laser 2: 0.80 x 10^16 to 0.97 x 10^16 atoms,
increase over background: 0.245 - 0.415 x 10^16, midpoint 0.330
Laser 3: 0.68 x 10^16 to 0.79 x 10^16 atoms,
increase over background: 0.125 - 0.235 x 10^16, midpoint 0.180
Laser 4: 0.94 x 10^16 to 1.18 x 10^16 atoms,
increase over background: 0.385 - 0.625 x 10^16, midpoint 0.505
Numbers reported by Violante in correspondence
with Krivit, helium atoms, increase over background:
Laser 2: 0.35 x 10^16
Laser 3: 0.10 x 10^16
Laser 4: 0.50 x 10^16
Calculated Q factors from the energy/helium (from my reading of the chart):
Laser 2: 35 - 60 MeV, midpoint 45 MeV
Laser 3: 9 - 17 MeV, midpoint 12 MeV
Laser 4: 30 - 49 MeV, midpoint 37 MeV
Laser 3 certainly looks like an outlier.
From the better data provided by Violante:
Laser 2: 42 MeV
Laser 3: 21 MeV
Laser 4: 38 MeV
I'd have been much happier with statements of the
actual measured values, or series of values, but
this kind of specific and detailed data is often
omitted. The round numbers are very clearly claimed.
Then there are the green dots. These are not
presentations of raw data, but of the raw energy
data (stated explicitly as numbers) interpreted
as helium on the hypothesis of 24 MeV/He-4. But
there is an unfortunate problem. They do not
state how they correlate measured helium with
total helium, and they are not clear on whether
or not the data in the chart is measured helium
including background, the caption implies that it
is the increase, but the caption could be
interpreted merely to indicate that an increase
over background is shown, and, from the
calculations above, the figures are for total
helium, i.e., background plus increase. However,
the variation in the background is not stated. Do
the error bars include that? It is quite
unfortunate that they did not present the data clearly!
They did do calorimetry, they are explicit about
that. Those are the measured energy figures
given, and those figures were not simply
extrapolated from helium measured as you claimed:
were it so, the green dots would be meaningless,
but they also would be consistent, i.e., all
three experiments would show green dots right on
the money. The only experiment that shows that
ratio, roughly, is the one with the lowest energy
production, and the error bars in the helium
measurement would make this not as important as
it might seem. In any case, nobody with any sense
would look at the series of three experiments and
think that it was some kind of definitive
confirmation of 24 MeV/He-4. It's one data point
that looks like that, that's all, and two data
points, less down in the noise, that look like
there is "missing helium," the same as with about everyone else.
Definitely, I'm troubled by the presentation of
data from these experiments, but I do recall that
this is a conference paper and wasn't subjected
to the rigorous review that would likely accompany journal publication.
As to the importance of this confirmation, it's
small. It's only three experiments, with one
appearing to be an outlier. The two that are
roughly consistent with each other are in the
same ball park as other results. If we assume 24
MeV, we are looking at, for the midpoints, a
helium retention factor of 47% and 35% for the
two experiments. But the data isn't very solid, this is a *rough* confirmation.
