On Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 8:22 AM, Jones Beene <jone...@pacbell.net> wrote:
This is not a fair characterization from a technical standpoint. We can > trust the calorimetry – which is the more important detail by far. > The 4He measurements have been important in establishing PdD LENR specifically as a *nuclear* phenomenon. In this sense they're quite important. The researchers (Miles, McKubre, etc.) had the presence of mind to know that a mass spec with a resolution that could distinguish 4He from D2 would be necessary. They have come out with unequivocal statements concerning a positive 4He signal, above and beyond the sources of noise and error you identify, which they were aware of and took into consideration. One reason they put such effort into these measurements was precisely to establish that we're dealing with a nuclear phenomenon. I'm not in a position to assess the quality of their findings. But I can say that their results, if reliable, are pretty important in pinning down what is going on. I can also say that if they have come out and unequivocally stood by 4He measurements that turned out to be unreliable, I would also have significantly less trust in their calorimetry from that point on as well. I am skeptical, to put it mildly, that the m=4 species that were observed were deep-dirac level bound deuterons. If I were on a game show, and I had 1000 dollars to apportion between three possibilities, where the correct bet would be multiplied by 1000, and the choices were (1) they saw real 4He, (2) they saw something completely unrelated to 4He (e.g., some kind of ion, or regular old D2) and (3) they saw DDL bound deuterons, I would put 700 dollars on (1), 299.50 dollars on (2) and 50 cents on (3). Eric
