I responded, "anonymously," but it should be pretty obvious it was me
.... I've been harping on the same theme for months now.
At this point, we need more science and pure scientific investigation
(controlled experiment), and, arguably, less attempt to scale up and
"make it more reliable." Cold fusion, and specifically the FPHE, is
already reliable enough to do the needed research, through the power
of correlation.
Characterizing the reactions or results that have already been found,
and especially those replicated in some way, should have taken
priority from 1989 on, instead what we got, and endless and largely
fruitless quest to satisfy pseudoskeptics who wanted BIG,
PUNCH-ME-IN-THE-NOSE results, before condescending to look at the
actual science, at what can be known from what is already observed
and properly documented and reported.
Once the helium correlation with excess heat was discovered, and
especially once it was confirmed, the "reality" of cold fusion should
have been a closed chapter in this history. (Unless manages to
demonstrate artifact in the *correlation.* I have seen no proposed
theory of artifact that is at all consistent with experimental
results, far less an actual demonstration that tests such a theory.)
Is it truly cold and is it truly fusion? Well, it's got to be nuclear
in nature, but until we know what it *is* -- and we don't -- we can't
rule anything out, not completely.
As it is, we largely have a pile of results, from which little that
is truly solid can be deduced, because conditions have not been
controlled across protocols, which multiplied like rabbits. Bockris
reported tritium. Great. What was the hydrogen/deuterium ratio in his
heavy water, and how was it known, and how did that compare with his
tritium and excess heat results? He also measured helium, as I
recall. How did helium compare with tritium and the other results and
experimental variables?
Miles also tested for tritium. He doesn't usually report the values
*because they were too low for tritium to be the product of the main
heat-producing reaction.* And that's what people wanted to know, what
was "the" ash? Every piece of correlated information about the
behavior of Fleischmann-Pons cells is valuable, including behavior
when there is no heat, especially if the conditions *appear* to be the same.
One of the criticisms of cold fusion work is that reported results
have been cherry-picked. It's true for some research groups, not for
others. Further, results considered significant for the "nuclear"
issue are reported, too often in complete isolation from other
results, in the same experimental series or even with the same cell.
The result is an inefficient mish-mosh. And piles of "amazing"
results that nobody attempts to replicate. There are few exceptions,
I can think of McKubre replicating Energetics Technologies' SuperWave
approach. ENEA also worked on that, but, apparently unlike McKubre,
did not report all cells, only the ones with apparent excess heat,
which, absent information about the "duds," really tells us much less
than a full report.
It's time that the cold fusion wake up and take responsibility for
the situation. It's time to stop blaming the physicists for lack of
funding. It's time to start using the resources we have, and using
them well and effectively and efficiently. It's going to take cooperation.
Or, I suppose, we can muddle along, bickering about whose theory is
better, and hope that Saint Rossi rescues us, by delivering
impossible-to-dismiss results that you can buy at Home Depot.
As far as I can tell, though, what Rossi has found/exaggerated/faked,
or whatever it is, is not the same reaction as with the
Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect, it isn't the same catalyst or catalytic
context, and it may or may not involve some similar mechanism. If
Rossi's approach works, it brings us, by itself, no closer to
understanding LENR, indeed, it seems to deepen the mystery.
And since Rossi's work is secret, without clearly disclosed results
and controlled experiment, we cannot sensibly suspend our work and
study based on some idea that he's going to make it all useless next
month -- or next year. No, the FPHE (excess heat through loading
palladium with deuterium using electrolysis) remains an accessible
way to set up and observe and measure LENR. It will likely never be
practical for power generation. So what?
What we can learn by studying it may enable engineering of new
effects that may turn into practical applications. And, sure, that
might involve nickel and hydrogen. Storms is claiming that the NAE is
cracks, and that the same NAE can fuse hydrogen with itself, hydrogen
with deuterium, and deuterium with deuterium, through electron
catalysis or involvement (the involvement is necessary for pure
hydrogen fusion, which then makes deuterium).
But none of this is established except the conversion of deuterium to
helium, with the number of deuterium nuclei or atoms involved in the
reaction being unknown, all we know is that the helium is produced
with roughly the right value for deuterium fusion to helium with *any
mechanism* that starts with that fuel and ends with that ash.
(Has anyone seen alleged nuclear product from Ni-H that was
correlated with anomalous heat? Wouldn't that be interesting?)
(Rossi actively dismissed the very idea of controls, why should he
bother with a control, since he believes he knows what happens with
the control, i.e., nothing. Except that "nothing" is not what
happens. What a control might do is show how much steam the same
input power would generate, which isn't "nothing." It's less or a lot
less or it's a certain temperature reached, not "nothing." Or it's
the same, and not running a control allows no verification of Rossi's
expectation. A control is almost useless, though, if it is not
possible to verify that the control is identical to the experimental
cell except for the variable.)
At 09:45 AM 5/1/2012, you wrote:
My dear friends,
I have sinned again, this time it is about more capital sins.
See please:
<http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2012/05/detailitis-kills-discussion-in-lenr-too.html>http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2012/05/detailitis-kills-discussion-in-lenr-too.html
Best wishes to you all,
Peter
--
Dr. Peter Gluck
Cluj, Romania
<http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com>http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com
