Part 3 On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 8:45 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <a...@lomaxdesign.com>wrote:
lomax>>>The original report of neutrons was artifact. The recent reports are at levels vastly lower, but well above background. cude>>Presumably you are referring to the CR-39 results, but these have been observed by one group only, and the results have been challenged as to whether they are in fact above background, and/or caused by artifacts. lomax> "Have been challenged" covers a multitude of comments. Yes, there is only one group reporting this result, […] > There are some very cogent and serious objections to the early SPAWAR CR-39 work, […] So far, we're in pretty good agreement. >> A project led by Krivit with a number of groups involved, and pretentiously named the Galileo project, failed to confirm the CR-39 results. > That, again, isn't true. Where is that conclusion found? Krivit desperately tried to salvage something positive in his final report of the project. It turns out that interpretation of the results is not so unambiguous, that the brand of material affects results, that chemical attacks on the material produce artifacts. Some of the participants concluded evidence for nuclear reactions was absent, and Krivit was left with the following pathetic consolation: "Everyone who has reported results has found something anomalous, something that they have had difficulty explaining by conventional science, and all of their experiments are giving results, however mystifying they may be." In the best tradition of pathological science, definitive results were just out of reach. > However, to me, the Earthtech results, which were not included in Krivit's report on Galileo, were the best documented, and Scott Little comes up with chemical damage as explaining what he found. It's a complex issue. There is, in the earlier SPAWAR work, CR-39 results that look like radiation tracks, and results that look like chemical damage, and no good analysis was done to discriminate these, in my opinion. Not yet, anyway. Like I said… the results have not been confirmed. > What Cude glosses over is that the Galileo results have nothing to do with the topic, neutrons. Whatever. They were looking for nuclear events, and did not find conclusive evidence. Neutrons are nuclear events. >> So even these results, which in any case cannot explain the claimed heat, are far from convincing. > Heat isn't even measured in these experiments. So what. Heat has been claimed in similar systems, but the claimed neutrons are orders of magnitude below the level that could explain heat. So, whatever's going on, it doesn't explain the heat. So now you have at least two nuclear reactions that are only remotely likely going on. I'll take your remote chance of Rossi being a fraud and square it. >> Cude has "proof" on the brain, he's got an argument going on, all the time. No claim was made that the neutron results were "convincing," and the point was only that, if neutrons are produced, there are very few. You said at the start of this: > The recent reports are at levels vastly lower, but well above background. Well above background should be convincing. Anyway, not too long ago you wrote: > Positive publication has exploded since 2004, […] including some stunning reports, such as conclusive evidence of very low level neutron emissions from certain CF cells, So, *you* have claimed the results are convincing. You should make up your mind. > Lots of people consider the SPAWAR work convincing, as to neutrons, but there is, indeed, an obvious problem, the lack of independent replication. Right. Just like in all CF experiments. >> Cold fusion experiments simply never get past marginal, controversial, and dubious. > Notice the absolute insanity of this. Cude has dismissed conclusive correlation, and reviewing the literature, there is plenty of exhaustive, careful work, demonstrating the effect beyond a reasonable doubt. False. You may have no doubt. But most people doubt, including the DOE panel who took the time to examine the evidence. > But it's work to read that literature and to understand it, and someone like Cude isn't likely to put in the work, and he will filter everything through the lens of his expectations. This is CF's problem, isn't it? And this actually confirms my "insane" statement that CF experiments are all marginal, controversial, and dubious. It takes work to read and understand that CF can produce GJ of energy per gram of material on a desktop at accessible temperatures, even while proving a million times less energy from a match head is child's play. If the claims were valid, it would not be so difficult, so marginal, so controversial, so dubious. It would be obvious. > He's searching for error, for something he can pounce upon, and he will always be able to find it, Like Rothwell has said in this forum: a small isolated device indefinitely warmer than the surroundings would be difficult to dispute. I've said the same. So far CF hasn't produced it. > Rossi *has* changed the picture. The prior claimed results were low-level. There are some previous claims of 1 kW or more. > Even though the prior heat results were very clear, and clearly above noise, and clearly, when carefully analyzed, not artifact, the levels were low enough (like 5% of input power, say, in certain SRI work) that it was quite possible to hold on to an interpretation that there was something being overlooked. Come on. Now you're deliberately picking poor results to make Rossi look better. There are plenty of claims of 100W or more, and gains of 20 or 30, and some infinite. The problem is, there is always input, or at least the absence of input is not made obvious. > That isn't possible with Rossi. For the first time, this is either real or it is a positive fraud, simulating heat generation by a number of possible devices. As has been pointed out, there have been a series of demonstrations, and if they were all identical, every reasonable fraud mechanism has been ruled out. Except for the private 18-hour experiment, the demos have all been producing steam. That allows a 6-fold exaggeration of the output power, if most of the water comes out as a mist. The flow rates have never been monitored, and in the 10 kW demo, it seems likely that it was exaggerated by a factor of 2 or 3. The average input power was exaggerated in the 10 kW demo by a factor of at least 2. The input power was monitored in the 10 kW demo, but not the other demos. And the H-Ni, or whatever else is in there, probably produces a little chemical heat. The combination of all these factors easily accounts for the reported temperatures. Only the claimed measurements in the 18-hour experiment are at least consistent with a claim of excess energy. But those are reported only orally, by the inventor and his grantee, there is no photographic evidence, and it has peculiar features like a very high, and completely unnecessary flow rate, and the excursion to 130 kW, which as I said before seems implausible, given the reactor temperature that would be necessary. > There is no end to this, except multiple and completely independent replication, which is where science goes, necessarily. A convincing, visual demo of 10 kW and GJ/g that requires no expert observers should be very easy to design for someone like Rossi. That he hasn't done so suggests the claims are bogus. > If Rossi is real, this will blow the cold fusion skeptics out of the water, not that anyone will care about the skeptics any more. That would indeed be terrific. Unfortunately, he needs more than your hope and confidence. > Cude thinks that the physicists who have witnessed demonstrations are gullible. I don't know and I don't care if they are gullible, incompetent, deceptive, or senile. I just want to see evidence. Not hear about evidence from hand-picked people. Is that too much to ask? > No, Cude is gullible, easily fooled by his own thinking, which he believes in firmly. Classic error, shades of Feynman. I'm happy to be compared to Feynman. But what error are you referring to? He clearly didn't know of the danger of keeping that engine unplugged, but he was right that it was fraudulent. > "aleklett" is a true skeptic, and is to be congratulated. He's very clearly stated the matter. If this isn't a fraud, something is going on that existing theory does not explain. Isn't that fascinating? I hold this attitude only for the 18-hour experiment. If their numbers are right, i.e. it is not fraud, something interesting is going on. In all the other demos, even the numbers we are privy to can be understood without a new energy source. > *Even if it is a fraud,* it's fascinating, the sheer chutzpah of it! How the hell did he do this, if it's a fraud? Not really new at all. There are all sorts of precedents from Mills to Dardik to the GWE to the Papp engine and on and on. True believers are a dime a dozen. Some even believed the rapture was upon us this weekend. That's what took me so long to reply...
