On Monday May 5 Joshua said [snip] LENR+ is so 2011. I think the future is in
LENR++ or maybe objective LENR. Nickel and light water are certainly easier to
obtain than Pd and heavy water, but you still have to mine nickel, and refine
it. LENR++ uses ordinary soil and tap water. Just mix the dirt with water 2:1
by mass in an empty tin (I find Libby's bean cans work best, especially if you
eat them beforehand), add a secret catalyst, which I can't disclose, turn it
upside down, and hit it with a hammer, and it begins to glow red hot. Pictures
at 11.
[/snip]
Joshua,
The funny thing about your comment is that you just know 30
minutes after someone finally nails the working principle behind these effects
that they really will "Mcgiver" together a working example out of off the shelf
products at Wall Mart. .. :_).
Fran
From: Joshua Cude [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 5:54 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: EXTERNAL: Re: [Vo]:Hagelstein's editorial
LENR+ is so 2011. I think the future is in LENR++ or maybe objective LENR.
Nickel and light water are certainly easier to obtain than Pd and heavy water,
but you still have to mine nickel, and refine it. LENR++ uses ordinary soil and
tap water. Just mix the dirt with water 2:1 by mass in an empty tin (I find
Libby's bean cans work best, especially if you eat them beforehand), add a
secret catalyst, which I can't disclose, turn it upside down, and hit it with a
hammer, and it begins to glow red hot. Pictures at 11.
As for the WL theory, I think Larsen is running a scam. It's too preposterous
to imagine that anyone educated could take it seriously. He tricks his intended
audience (with dense and colorful slides) by cleverly getting rid of the
Coulomb barrier, and somehow they are not in the least bothered by the fact
that the energy barrier to making neutrons is 10 times higher. Thieberger calls
it going from the frying pan to the fire:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/83026935/Cold-Fusion-and-LENR. As he says, the
theory is totally beyond any reasonable credibility.
There are many implausible parts to the theory, including the ad hoc additions
to explain the absence of neutrons or gamma rays. Here's a recent paper
showing why the electron capture has negligible probability: Tennfors, Eur.
Phys. J. Plus 128 (2013)
But the most blatant problem is not an intrinsic part of the theory, but it
illustrates that they are either completely clueless (not true of Widom), or
they are trying to pull a fast one. It also shows that the referee for their
paper was sleeping.
As part of the chain of reactions, they propose 4He + n -> 5He. 4He is a highly
stable (doubly magic) entity, and therefore adding a neutron actually produces
a decrease in average binding energy per nucleon, and is therefore endothermic,
requiring something close to an MeV to proceed. WL insist the neutrons are
cold, so where does the energy come from? Simple kinematics show that the alpha
would have to have energy 9 times the Q-value (no more and no less) to conserve
both momentum and energy with only one product. Not only would 9 MeV alphas be
trivial to detect (from other reactions they would produce, if not directly),
but the probability of producing them with the exact energy would be
vanishingly small. And while WL do spin a great yarn trying to justify the
"heavy" electrons needed to make protons, they don't even try to explain where
the energy for this reaction comes from. And yet somehow Larsen has kept his
company alive with an angel investor for 6 years. There really is a sucker born
every minute. And they seem to be concentrated in the cold fusion business.
Rossi, for his part, has yet to provide evidence of anything nuclear, let alone
commercial. Anyway, I though his first delivery was back in 2011.
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 10:03 PM, Axil Axil
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Joshua Cude
I wonder if you have been keeping up with the new thinking in LENR.
Specifically, I would like your opinion of the new theories posed by NASA and
Widom-Larsen centered on the polariton.
These theories are more applicable to the Ni/H reactor (LENR+) rather than the
older LENR theories witch are still the mainstream on this site.
I believe that LENR is essentially useless. Your opinion on the Rossi and DGT
reactors would be interesting.
Frankly because LENR is useless and uninteresting, your abuse of LENR is
tedious regardless if LENR is real or not.
LENR+ is a completely new principle which is coming to perfection in the short
term with the first delivery of a Rossi reactor this last week and the upcoming
demo of the DGT reactor at the NI conference in August.
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Joshua Cude
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The recent editorial in Infinite Energy by Hagelstein represents the incoherent
ramblings of a bitter man who is beginning to realize he has wasted 25 years of
his career, but is deathly afraid to admit it. He spends a lot of time talking
about consensus and experiment and evidence and theory and destroyed careers
and suppression but scarcely raises the issue of the *quality* of the evidence.
That's cold fusion's problem: the quality of the evidence is abysmal -- not
better than the evidence for bigfoot, alien visits, dowsing, homeopathy and a
dozen other pathological sciences. And an extraordinary claim does require
excellent evidence. By not facing this issue, and simply ploughing ahead as if
the evidence is as good as the Wright brothers' Paris flight in 1908, he loses
the confidence of all but true believers that he is being completely honest and
forthright.
1. On consensus
Hagelstein starts out with the science-by-consensus straw man, suggesting that
consensus "was used in connection with the question of the existence of an
excess heat effect in the Fleischmann-Pons experiment."
Please! No one with any familiarity with the history of science thinks
consensus defines truth (which I think is what he's suggesting scientists
believe). If it did, the ptolemaic solar system would still be taught in
school, and time would still be absolute. Individual qualified scientists
sufficiently motivated to inspect the evidence make judgements based on that
evidence, and, since the modern physics revolution, avoid absolute certainty,
their judgements representing varying degrees of certainty.
Of course, consensus judgements do form, and are considered by those
unqualified or unmotivated to examine the evidence to get some idea of the
validity of a phenomenon or theory. While consensus does not define truth, a
consensus of experts is the most likely approximation to the truth. And the
stronger the consensus, the more confidence it warrants. Sometimes the
consensus can be very strong, as in the current consensus that the solar system
is Copernican. I have not made the astronomical measurements to prove that it
is, although my observations are certainly consistent with it, but my
confidence in the description comes from the unanimous consensus among those
who have made or analyzed the necessary measurements. Likewise, confidence in
the shape of the earth is essentially absolute, and serious humans dismiss
members of the flat-earth society as deluded, or more likely dishonest.
So, when it comes to allocating funding, hiring or promoting, or awarding
prizes or honors, there's really no option but to consult experts in the
respective field -- essentially to rely on the consensus. It's the worst system
except for all the others.
Hagelstein claims that cold fusion is an example of the Semmelweis reflex, in
which an idea is rejected because it falls outside the existing consensus. That
reflex is named after the rejection of Semmelweis's (correct) hand-washing
theory in 1847, which Hagelstein cites. Then he goes on to mock a scientific
system in which ideas outside the consensus are rejected and the people who
propose them are ostracized in a ridiculous parody that bears no resemblance at
all to the actual practice of science. It's the usual way true believers
rationalize the rejection of their favorite fringe science. But it's truly
surprising to see that Hagelstein has no more awareness of the reality of
science than the many cold fusion groupies who populate the internet forums. Of
course there is a certain inertia in science, and that is probably not a bad
thing, even if it sometimes has negative consequences, but there's so much
wrong about the way the phenomenon is applied here:
i) Hagelstein fails to mention that in 1989 the announcement of P&F was greeted
with widespread enthusiasm and optimism both inside and outside the scientific
mainstream; that Pons got a standing ovation from thousands of scientists at an
ACS meeting; that scientists all over the world ran to their labs to try to
reproduce the effect to get in on the new and fantastic revolution; that
eventual uber-skeptic Douglas Morrison was breathlessly optimistic writing: " I
feel this subject will become so important to society [...] the present big
power companies will be running down their oil and coal power stations while
they are building deuterium separation plants..." and so on. In fact, people
took great pleasure in the idea that a couple of chemists could so
revolutionize science. Semmelweis received no such reaction. Cold fusion was an
example of the anti-semmelweis reflex, where people delight in bucking the
system. It wasn't until people started doing experiments and examining the
evidence of others that skepticism began to dominate.
ii) In spite of inertia in science, the most revolutionary ideas in physics
were accepted immediately. Einstein's photons and Bohr's discrete atomic levels
and deBroglie's particle waves were all embraced, because they fit the data.
The most celebrated and honored scientists are the ones who revolutionize
thought, in direct contradiction to the claims of Hagelstein. For example, he
writes "If one decides to focus on a question in this context that is outside
of the body of questions of interest to the scientific community, then one must
understand that this will lead to an exclusion from the scientific community. "
So were Einstein, Bohr, and deBroglie excluded from the scientific community?
No, they were all given Nobel prizes. Some exclusion!
Now, he might argue that that's ancient history, and the problems he's talking
about are recent. In fact he writes: "There are no examples of any researcher
fighting for an area outside of science and winning in modern times." I'm not
quite sure what he's trying to say here. *His* example was from 160 years ago,
and that was egregious, but is he now saying it doesn't happen any more? Isn't
that a good thing?
There are certainly still examples of results that fall outside the current
consensus. Things like dark energy and the accelerating expansion of the
universe, for example. This was completely contrary to expectations, but was
accepted rather quickly, so to that extent Hagelstein is right; they did not
have to fight for the area. It resulted in a Nobel prize in 2011, and here's
what Perlmutter said in his Nobel speech: "Perhaps the only thing better for a
scientist than finding the crucial piece of a puzzle that completes a picture
is finding a piece that doesn't fit at all, and tells us that there is a whole
new part of the puzzle that we haven't even imagined yet and the scene in the
puzzle is bigger, richer than we ever thought." Science celebrates innovation
and discovery; it does not suppress it.
There are other examples like high temperature superconductivity, also
unexpected and unexplained but accepted immediately, and also resulting in a
Nobel prize (in record time).
There is also the discovery of quasicrystals by Dan Shechtman. This discovery
actually did meet considerable resistance, and required Shechtman to fight for
his area. Pauling said there are no quasi-crystals, only qausi-scientists. But
it was not like cold fusion in that his results from the beginning were
published in the best journals, and he began winning awards for the work only a
few years after the discovery, and in 2011 he was also given the Nobel prize.
There is also the example of the faster than light neutrinos. Most physicists
were skeptical, but the idea was certainly given a hearing: Here's a scientist
quoted in a recent report in the Washington Post: "The theorists are now
knotted up with conflicting emotions. As much as they support Einstein, they'd
also love for the new finding to be true. It'd be weirdly thrilling. They'd get
to rethink everything. If neutrinos violate the officially posted cosmic speed
limit, the result will be the Full Employment Act for Physicists."
So, it's nonsense to suggest that working outside the current consensus leads
to exclusion. (It can, of course, if the area really has no merit.) Scientists
crave revolutionary and disruptive results. It's very clear that honor, fame,
glory, and funding come to those who make major discoveries. Not those who add
decimal points. The most famous scientists are those who revolutionized fields.
The buzz words in grant proposals are "new physics" or "physics beyond the
standard model". And that's why the world (the scientific world) went briefly
nuts in 1989. Everyone wanted to be part of the revolution; no one wanted to be
left behind.
And the fact that Hagelstein had to go back 160 years for a really egregious
case of suppression is an indication that things have improved. And even in
that case, Semmelweis's ideas were vindicated in about 20 years, although it
was too late for him. I'm not aware of a modern example of a bench-top
(small-scale) phenomenon that was rejected by the mainstream for decades, that
proved to be right. And cold fusion is very unlikely to change that situation.
2) quality of the evidence
As already mentioned, Hagelstein hardly considers the quality of the evidence.
However, when he wrote "The current view within the scientific community is
that these fields [nuclear physics and condensed matter physics] have things
right, and if that is not reflected in measurements in the lab, then the
problem is with those doing the experiments. Such a view prevailed in 1989..."
he admits that the evidence was, at least at the beginning easy to dismiss.
(What he ignores here, as he did earlier in the paper, is that at first, most
(or at least much) of mainstream science *did* accept their claims and started
to look for ways to modify known theories.)
But then, in the next sentence, he suggests the quality of evidence has
improved without giving any specific reason to think so: "Such a view prevailed
in 1989, but now nearly a quarter century later, the situation in cold fusion
labs is much clearer. There is excess heat, which can be a very big effect; it
is reproducible in some labs; there are not commensurate energetic products;
there are many replications; and there are other anomalies as well."
It's difficult to imagine a more vague testimony in cold fusion's favor. Is
there any year in the 90s that that could not have been written (or that some
form of it wasn't)? It as much as admits the opposite of what he claims: the
situation in cold fusion labs is no clearer now than it ever has been. And a
little later in the paper, he admits that explicitly when he says: "aside from
the existence of an excess heat effect, there is very little that our community
agrees on".
Hagelstein makes almost no specific reference to experimental evidence, and one
example he chooses, if examined, emphasizes its marginal nature.
He says that Morrison frequently cited negative results from the KEK group, but
then rejected their positive result. But in the latest KEK paper (1998) , one
finds: "Since spring of 1989 we have attempted to confirm the so-called cold
fusion phenomenon ... Until now a burst-like heat release, equivalent to 110%
of the input electric power, was observed in one cell...Further studies as well
as reproductions of the anomalies are becoming highly essential to understand
totally these abnormal phenomena."
That's a bit selective, admittedly, since they also claim weak evidence for
helium and a very low neutron signal "once", but still, 9 years, and one
positive excess heat cell in a burst-like heat release with a COP of 1.1? Is it
any wonder, the funding was cancelled? And the authors were equivocal too,
writing in the summary: "The heat burst in particular must be reproduced
repeatedly to solve the question whether it is nuclear origin or not. It seems
Morrison's skepticism was well justified.
So, it is not simply the disagreement with established physics that led to the
rejection of cold fusion. It was (and is) the low quality of the evidence,
which never seems to get better. Hagelstein would do well to face that truth
head-on.
3) Career calculus
The end of Hagelstein's essay devolves into a pit of paranoia and self-pity.
When he asks "how many careers should be destroyed in order to achieve whatever
goal is proposed as justification? " he has gone off the deep end. No one does
calculus with anyone's careers. But science is about making judgements, and
scientists spend a large fraction of their time exercising their judgement,
both to direct their own efforts, and in the service of others as reviewers for
journals, hiring and promotion committees, granting agencies, and awards
organizations. Great scientists are venerated by other scientists for their
accomplishments. It is only fair that their failures, as judged by the same
body, count against them.
P & F were distinguished scientists precisely because they had impressed
mainstream science with their work. When mainstream science rejected their
claims, it was (is) incumbent on the mainstream to express that rejection,
without regard for the consequences. And anyway, Pons had tenure and
Fleischmann was retired. They were as protected from career destruction as they
could be. They went to France voluntarily to take advantage of a funding
opportunity, so to the extent their careers (or their legacies) were
"destroyed", it was their own doing. They opened themselves up to harsh
criticism by not only going public, but doing it in a non-scientific,
uncharacteristically incautious way. Witness the almost painfully slow and
tentative announcements of the Higgs boson or of the FTL neutrinos. P&F threw
caution to the wind. They were adamant and they became angry. I think they got
what they deserved.
What does he expect? That science should pretend to accept claims, even if they
don't, in order to preserve the careers of the claimants?
Hagelstein's conclusion that science should approve of efforts in cold fusion
to see progress in the field, is based on the premise that cold fusion is real.
If science rejects the premise, then the conclusion does not follow.
