On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 6:15 AM, Jones Beene <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Eric Walker
>
> * This is yet another reason, one of many - why consideration of all
> the evidence, giving no preference to Pd-D, points to many different routes
> to gain in LENR.
>
> Sure… My working assumption is that both NiH and PdD (as
> well as W, Ti, etc.) involve fusion in some way. Both are without gammas
>
> This working assumption (of a known fusion reaction) is not justifiable by
> facts, logic or common sense.
>
Sure. That's you're opinion. You're entitled to an opinion.
When we come across an anomaly whose possible explanation is equivocal
(i.e., we don't have enough data to say one way or the other), we have the
option of adopting a working assumption vis-a-vis that anomaly. By
"working assumption" I'm thinking of a placeholder of some kind to stand in
for whatever the explanation ends up being when we have sufficient
experimental data to remove the ambiguity in the data. Working assumptions
are something we can throw away later when more evidence comes to light.
In this sense they're not a blind assumptions, implicitly adopted.
They're adopted consciously and tentatively. In this case I'm working
from these details:
- Skillful experimentalists have observed in the PdD system a
correlation between 4He levels and excess heat that strongly suggests that
there is d+d fusion going on, somehow.
- The Elforsk team saw what they believe to be heat above and beyond
what can be produced by a chemical reaction in Rossi's NiH system.
- Other experimentalists looking at the NiH system have also seen what
they believe to be heat above what can be produced by a chemical reaction.
Now here are my working assumptions:
- There's only two ways to get energy out of a system above a chemical
reaction, and that's through fission or fusion. There is no other
supra-chemical means of getting energy out of a system.
- There's no reason to go for two different sets of explanations to
explain an excess heat anomaly when the evidence is equivocal on what's
going on. My own bias is towards one explanation, so I go with my bias.
- There is a mechanism that has not yet been carefully characterized in
which fusion can proceed without penetrating radiation.
>From these observations and working assumptions taken together I infer,
consciously, aware of the implications, that what's going on in the NiH
system is some kind of fusion. A conclusion I am quite happy with for the
moment given my working assumptions and starting point.
Eric
