On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 09:40:45AM -0400, Jed Rothwell wrote: > > What I meant by a giant effect is melting down of experimental setups, > > as purportedly happened several times. > > > > As far as I know, only one cathode melted, or vaporized. That was reported > by Fleischmann and Pons. Several other explosions and out of control > reactions have been reported: > > http://lenr-canr.org/?page_id=187#PhotosAccidents
If you're making knallgas with platinum group metals, then this is how it would look like, yes. The comments there are hilarious. 120 ml of knallgas in a dewar or glass container, "which does not seem like enough to cause a chemical explosion of this magnitude", oh really. > > 100 W in a small volume is a giant effect. Assuming you check for > > hydrogen loading of metal matrix and it's under inert gas blanket > > there's no chemical reaction that can produce such amounts of heat. > > > > That is incorrect. A burning match the size of a cathode can produce 100 W. What I meant is that a hydrogenated platinum group metal under inert gas blanket producing anomalous heat for weeks. If I did see that in person I would be indeed convinced. > That is high power density. The issue is not power density, it is energy > density. A match the size of a cathode burning at 100 W quickly runs out of > fuel, within a minute. A cold fusion cathode producing 100 W may continue > for hours, days, or weeks. The overall amount of energy produced has > exceeded the limits of chemistry by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000 in some > cases. The upper limit is not known. > > See chapter 1, p. 12: > > http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/RothwellJcoldfusiona.pdf > > High power density by itself does not prove anything. > > The power density of impure radium is low but the heat continues for > thousands of years so clearly it exceeds the limits of chemistry. This was > observed by Mme. Curie and others in the late 19th century. They knew at > once that this was not chemical effect. > > The only advantage to high power density from experimental point of view is > that you can be sure it is real. There is no possibility of calorimetric Exactly. Which is why I keep saying "giant effect". > error. Actually, with a good calorimeter you can always be sure of excess > power above 1 W. In 1780 Lavoisier constructed a calorimeter that could If I have a hydrogen loaded electrode (there's more hydrogen in hydrogenated palladium than in liquid hydrogen) and I have potential chimps as experimentators (no offense, but that's the kind of investigators CF tends to draw these days) I would rather be sure to rule out it's something spurious. So the stronger the signal, the better. > measure this power level with confidence. By the 1840s J. P. Joule was > making isoperibolic calorimeters sensitive enough to measure nearly any > cold fusion result. The calorimeter used by Fleischmann was essentially the > same as Joule's, except that Fleischmann used thermocouples instead of > mercury thermometers. Fleischmann himself pointed this out. > > Cude and others have claimed that the calorimetry is questionable. This is > nonsense. I'm not sure it's nonsense. I would insist that the experimental setup and experiment would be reviewed by a calorimetry expert. I certainly wouldn't trust myself with it, since I'm not. > > > Any investigator measuring anything like that would be instantly > > convinced. I certainly would be. > > > > If it continues for hours or days at any power level easily measured you > would be crazy not to be convinced. Indeed, and since people here claim thousands of experiments which were presumably also witnessed by visiting researchers I don't understand how these visiting researchers could come away from it unconvinced. This is not the say I consider most CF investigators charlatans like Rossi, far from it. But I do think there's a problem with the quality of evidence. > It is surprising how many professional scientists do not understand the > fact that a chemical reaction cannot produce megajoules per gram of fuel. I can quite assure you I get that part fine. I'm just not seeing any evidence for it so far.
