On Feb 26, 2011, at 2:10 PM, Joshua Cude wrote:
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 7:53 PM, William Beaty <[email protected]>
wrote:
On Thu, 24 Feb 2011, Joshua Cude wrote:
,in the data by orders of magnitude (10^10 if I remember), from the
fact that the highest values came from BARC within weeks of the
press conference (for what is supposed to be a very difficult
experiment), that they have gotten smaller over the years, and
don't come close to accounting for the measured heat, it is
reasonable to conclude that they do not provide enough evidence to
suggest nuclear reactions at room temperature in benchtop
experiments create measurable heat.
One brief question to clarify a small confusion.
I noticed that in the last week or so you've mentioned that values
have "gotten smaller over the years." Perhaps I'm missing
something. Do you see this decrease as evidence of problems? Why
keep pointing it out? ( Or did I miss an earlier explanation? )
It is characteristic of artifacts that as experiments improve, they
get smaller. On the other hand, real effects -- desirable effects
-- almost invariably become more pronounced as more people work on
them, and the experiments get better. This is true even if the
theory is not understood, just from systematic, or even non-
systematic, search of parameter space. Better conditions and
recipes are found, reported, repeated, and extended. It's the way
science works. Especially science that can be performed on a
benchtop. A good example is high temp superconductivity, where
higher critical temperature and critical current densities seem to
be reported every year (although many claims do not bear up under
scrutiny), in the absence of a widely accepted theory. (The
relatively slow progress in plasma fusion is not difficult to
understand when you realize that experimental iterations are
measured in decades, considering progress should be expected to be
exponential in the number of iterations.)
The above does not characterize the field of LENR. The experiments
are not typically replicated. There is no funding for that. Also,
scientists typically have little interest in repeating their own
work, in which they have faith, especially when they are old,
retired, and trying to accomplish something meaningful.
Consider the high quality experiments done by Claytor et al., at LANL.
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ClaytorTNtritiumgen.pdf
http://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/ClaytorTNtritiumpro.pdf
This is extraordinary evidence of low energy induced fusion. The
product, tritium, unlike helium, is unmistakable, and valuable too.
The experiments are highly repeatable, but also variable depending on
the metal batches. You would think scientists would be all over
this, replicating it and then exploring it. Not so. There is no
money for that. Same goes for numerous other experiments. This is
the plague of the field - no money for research.
Generally speaking, experiments don't get better, they just get
different. Even replication attempts, few as they are, are
typically highly flawed due to "ego mods" - "improvements" made to
the experiment that seem like a good idea to the experiment
replicator based on his personal theory.
When it comes to theory the situation is even worse. Every theorist
has one and only one theory he thinks has potential - his own!
Theorists appear to be blind to the flaws in their theories. too. It
is not uncommon to see good experimental reports mangled by the
inclusion of flawed theoretical explanations. It seems like a good
rule, suggested by Jed and others, to not mix experimental reports
and speculated theoretical explanation of results in the same LENR
paper.
The people in this field are true mavericks. You have to be a
maverick to shake off the stigma, or too young to understand the
effects of stigma. High quality replication in quantity is only
likely to happen when the work is supervised and for pay.
Investment in pure science in this field, at least in some areas, is
highly justified. The last DOE report essentially backs this up,
though little funding has been forthcoming. Clearly, if practical
progress is made, nothing else could be nearly as important to
economic development or defense. It is insane to ignore this field.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
