At 10:15 PM 10/8/2012, Eric Walker wrote:
Oriani also talks about tracks generated within the CR-39 chip itself in his Pd/D and Ni/D electrolysis experiments [1].  He also mentions tracks appearing in chips that are in the anode compartment of a subdivided cell, well away from the cathode, where the anode and the cathode are physically separate.  He sees these affects noticeably above activity in control cells he is also running.  This paper challenges conventional wisdom about CR-39 tracks in LENR cells.
Oriani did not use adequate controls, and his "effect" was explicitly not correlated with the electrolysis current. Basically, we don't ordinarily leave radiation detectors sitting in electrolytic cells, we don't know, really, what "normal" behavior is, and it would vary with the lab environment.
I don't think Oriani used "control cells." I think you made that up, Eric, by not reading his paper carefully. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate correction, but I did review this fairly carefully before, looking as well at Kowalski's attempt to replicate. Kowlaski was not able to see the effect that Oriani had claimed.
As I recall, Oriani claimed "reproducible" but it turns out that his evidence didn't show that, it showed that he found *something* anomalous each time he looked. Not always the same thing. Sometimes it was an increase in front side tracks, sometimes in back side. It seems that the range of track counts found for experimental runs overlapped the range of counts found in controls. (Controls were chips not exposed to the cells.)
I can't say that there was *nothing* there in Oriani's work, only that it was far less clear than claimed.
