On Aug 30, 2011, at 12:12 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
Horace Heffner wrote:
As far as I know, this is the only eCat that Levi et al. tested
in December, which is when the event occurred. The flow rate was
typically ~300 ml/min I believe.
Are you sure about that flow rate being present in the heat after
death observation?
How else could it work? It would run out of water. Very little fits
into the cell. You cannot do flow calorimetry without a flow. It
would be like trying to do it without measuring the temperature.
Obviously my question is are you sure that *precise magnitude* of
flow rate, 300 ml/min, 5 ml/sec, 18 liters per hour, was present at
the time of the heat after death observation?
It does correspond roughly to 12 kW boiling power. Of course, it
could also mean water was pushed out of the top of the device
during the run merely giving the appearance of 12 kW output when
it is assumed all water is boiled.
If that happened, the temperature would drop. You can see that easily.
Well, yes of course, if 300 ml/s was indeed the flow rate. The
thermal power applied would have to be above 1617 W to heat that flow
to boiling point. It would be of interest to go back to the film and
count the click rate. Also useful to know what the maximum flow rate
for the pump would be at that click rate. My impression was that 7
liters per hour was the pump rate, but my memory is admittedly very
bad. At 7 liters an hour the water heating power is 630.6 watts,
not too far from 400 watts input, so it becomes very important to
establish with great certainty just what the electric power input
was. If all is as you say was presented, then it is true it would be
possible to detect momentary heat after death by the flue
temperature. However, there seems to be some doubt as to the
credibility of any numbers that are from the demos. The good thing
about the first *public* test is that there were multiple scientists
present. Still, calorimetry was not performed, and no energy balance
determined, so nothing clear was determined by the demo.
For that matter, if you cannot tell when there is steam by the
temperature, the method would not work at any time, under any
conditions, whether there is input power or not. The data would be
meaningless; all of the results would be in error. This error would
have been revealed during the 18-hour flowing water test, as Rossi
and I have pointed out many times.
Well, if there is no continued inspection of what is going out of the
hose then it is not known what the thermal power is at many moments,
and certainly an overall energy balance can not be taken.
The input power is 80 to 400 W, which is small fraction of the
output power, so cutting it off entirely has little effect on the
total output. Obviously, reducing overall output from ~12 kW to
~11.2 kW will not stop the thing from boiling!
Yes obviously true, *provided* the thermal output really was 12000 W,
and provided the input flow really was 5 ml/sec.
A calorimetric error mistaking 400 W for 12,000 W is out of the
question. The worst flow calorimeter imaginable would not produce
such a large error.
Well, no calorimetry was actually done on the output. The problem is
it is easy to mistake 1700 W for 12000 W with the methodology used.
We have good reason to think Rossi has misstated flow on at least one
occasion. There is some evidence he has tinker with controls during
at least one demo. There are active controllers in the box. Who
knows what kind of input power was actually applied at any specific
minute?
I am curious as to how the steam was observed if the hose was in
the drain. If the steam stopped then water pouring out of the
hose should have followed immediately if the 5 ml/s pump rate was
maintained.
If the steam was stopped, the temperature would drop immediately.
There is a constant flow of water into the cell. It takes little
time to replace all of the water with cold water.
Yes, and thus water should almost immediately come out of the hose,
as I said. That was *my* point.
If the only source of heat was electricity, two things are certain:
1. It could not be 12 kW in the first place. The wire would melt.
You can't possibly conduct that much electricity over an ordinary
wire.
This is false. If the flow is 3 ml/s then any input power above 1617
W will provide a flue temperature at boiling point. If no one
measures the output of the hose, but rather assumes dry steam, then
the apparent power is over 12000 W.
2. Boiling would stop within seconds, and the temperature would drop.
If there is no steam then boiling *has* stopped. As soon as the
temperature has decayed to the point there is no steam water should
be coming out of the hose. THis should have been observed if there
really was an observation of the heat after death steam.
It is notable that in the right conditions "steam" will be seen
coming off a hot bowl of soup, or even a cool river. You can't
actually see steam of course, only condensation. Too bad there is
no video of this event.
You cannot tell much about steam by looking at a photo or video.
You cannot discern the quality of the steam. Lomax claimed here
that he can determine the velocity of the steam by looking, but he
did not describe his method. I do not think that is possible.
- Jed
It is fairly easy to measure of the vapor velocity adequately if you
look at the video frame by frame. You can estimate the scale using
other things in the video, such as the hose, or Rossi's hand.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
