On May 6, 2013, at 3:49 AM, Joshua Cude wrote:
Murray wrote: Maybe you and Lomax have already long reached an
impasse, talking right past each other?
You are right. We have hashed this over several times, and ceased to
make any progress a long time ago. After all, the discussion is
about results mostly a decade or more old. It was hashed out here 2
years ago, and more recently in moletrap. But since you ask, I can
cut and paste and augment a recent summary that expresses my view of
the correlation situation.
Heat Helium correlation
A correlation between heat and helium is clearly an important and
definitive experiment for cold fusion. To justify a claim of such a
correlation, Lomax points to a Storms' 2010 review in
Naturwissenschaften. Unfortunately, the experiments that Storms
cites represent a real dog's breakfast of mostly unrefereed and
marginal work, and the conclusions depend rather heavily on Storms'
own data interpretation, which does not add confidence considering
he takes Rossi's results seriously.
This is an example of the approach that makes your comments
irrelevant, Joshua. First of all, all data requires interpretation.
Either a knowledgeable scientists does this and explains the reasons
behind the interpretations, as I did in the quoted paper, or you do
the job and distort what has been observed to fit your conclusions.
Unless you show what is wrong, your comment is just your opinion,
which people are learning not to trust. As for taking Rossi seriously,
I do not. I have explained what I accept and what I do not, and why.
I take him no more seriously than I take you.
Peer review
Peer-review is a rather modest requirement for credibility, but
Lomax seems to think that a citation in a refereed review article
confers upon the data the equivalent credibility of peer-review of
the original work, but that's nonsense. The referees for a review
paper cannot possibly be expected to critically review each of the
papers cited. And a look at some of the cited papers makes it clear
they did not.
The most recent peer-reviewed results that Storms uses to get a
quantified heat/helium correlation come from a set of experiments by
Miles in the early 90s. These were very crude experiments, in which
peaks were eyeballed as small, medium, and large, the small taken as
equal to the detection limit (which seemed to change by orders of
magnitude over the years). The correlation was all over the map, and
barely within an order of magnitude of the expected DD fusion value.
Again, you distort the data to fit your attitude. Miles published two
sets of results. You quote only the first and least accurate. The
results were confirmed by Bush and later by McKubre.
Miles results' were severely criticized by Jones in peer-reviewed
literature. There was considerable back and forth on the results,
and in Storms view (of course) Miles successfully defended his
claims, but the DOE panel in 2004 agreed 17 to 1 with Jones, that
there was no conclusive evidence for nuclear effects. In any case,
that kind of disagreement and large variation in such a critical
experiment simply cries out for better experiments. So what else
have we got?
The replications
Storms cites (and Lomax parrots) a dozen groups (including the Miles
results) that have claimed a heat-helium correlation, but a look at
his list paints a different picture.
Storms admits that one group (Chien) does not measure heat, so they
can't claim a correlation. Another group (Botta) also does not
measure heat, although Storms claims they do.
Storms cites Aoki's 1994 claim of a very weak helium signal, but
fails to cite their follow-up work in Int J Soc Mat Eng Resources 6
(1998) 22, where they report no helium (nor any other products)
above background, but they do measure excess heat. That's an *anti-
correlation*, isn't it.
The Takahashi results also suggest anti-correlation. They are not
completely clear about the various cells in the two different
reports, but as I read it, in the ICCF-7 paper about half the cells
give heat, and half show helium, and only one shows both. Likewise,
in the ICCF-8 paper, only one of the cells that showed helium also
showed heat. And the amount of heat was more than an order of
magnitude below the expected value based on the helium.
Then there is the Gozzi reference, one of the few in a readily
accessible (not Japanese) refereed journal. This is claimed as a
replication, but in fact Gozzi admits in the latest 1998 paper that
the helium results are too weak to be definitive. Maybe it's not
anti-correlation, but it certainly can't be counted as replication.
Interestingly, Gozzi appears to have gotten out of the field after
that paper.
The Luch results from 1994 claim helium and heat but did not attempt
to quantify the ratio. The odd thing is that, as Storms says, their
work on essentially the identical experiment continued until
recently (maybe the present), but none of their subsequent papers
refer to helium at all, which is presumably why Storms does not cite
them specifically. But if it is generally agreed that the main
nuclear product is helium, and if they claim to have seen it early
on, failure to mention it subsequently, let alone attempt to
quantify it, suggests they probably didn't see it, or have abysmal
judgment as to what's important.
That means 5 of the claimed replications do not support (or
contradict) the correlation, and one is questionable, which should
shake anyone's confidence in Storms.
Of the remaining 5, only Arata's results were published in refereed
journals. They are Japanese journals, but some are written in
English. Still, they seem quite cryptic and incomplete, as though
Arata's reputation trumped effective peer-review. In any case,
although there are at least 9 papers, indicating extensive efforts,
they stop short of reporting a quantitative correlation. As best as
I can make out, the claimed helium level falls many orders of
magnitude short of accounting for the claimed heat. They exclude
leakage based on the absence of Ne-22 in the mass spectrum, but He
is penetrates leaks much more rapidly, so that Ne-22 is not a
suitable control.
I would take the time to refute these comments if they did not have
superimposed on them a clear bias to reach a conclusion that no amount
of argument can change. Yes, like all data about any subject, errors
and objections can be proposed by a determined skeptic. I have
written and reviewed hundreds of papers, and not single one can be
accepted as absolute proof of anything. We humans are limited by our
current knowledge, logic ability, and our wish to believe.
Nevertheless, when many people report seeing the same behavior, the
reality of this behavior grows. You take the approach that none of
the claimed behavior has been observed, consisting instead of bad
interpretation of random events, unrecognized error, and wishful
thinking. This opinion is applied to all the trained scientists who
have been well accepted when they did studies in other subjects. Yes,
CF is hard to accept and to understand. So what? So is quantum
mechanics and the big bang theory, but these concepts are accepted
because they are presently popular and supported by extensive studies,
not all of which are correct. Nevertheless, although an active debate
exists in the literature, these subjects are not denied the money
required to resolve the debate, as is the case with CF. You complain
about not having the required support for the CF idea, yet your
efforts will help deny the money required to get that support. I'm at
a loss to understand why you do this.
I apologize to the general reader for continuing this discussion. This
will not happen again. I suggest if you want to discuss your opinions
in detail, you send a private e-mail.
Ed Storms
Quantitative correlation
The only results since Miles that Storms has deemed worthwhile (i.e.
cherry-picked) to calculate energy correlation come from conference
proceedings, and the most recent of them from year 2000. Nothing
that Storms considers adequate quality in this critically important
experiment has met the standard of peer review. And they're not good
enough to allow Miles' crude results to be replaced; Storms still
uses some of Miles results, one assumes because it improves the
average.
Most of the results come from McKubre's experiments, which include
experiments described in the 1998 EPRI report, where McKubre himself
is quite cautious about the results, saying the correlation is
apparent but not definitive: He writes: "it has not been possible
address directly the issue of heat-commensurable nuclear product
generation". His confidence in the results seems to have grown since
then, but Krivit claims to show (with considerable evidence) that
some data points seemed to migrate over the years. McKubre's
credibility is questionable anyway with his interest in the Papp
engine and willingness to support likely cons like Dardik and Godes
and Rossi.
And then there's this from the review: "The paper provided
insufficient information to check the claimed values, so the values
in Table 3 are based on detailed information communicated to Storms
by Bush in 1998 (Storms 1998)." Translation: The results didn't fit,
so I called Bush up, and suggested adjustments, which he accepted.
Talk about an opportunity for confirmation bias.
Helium in the headspace
The correlation value is based on measurements of helium in the gas
in the headspace, instead of in the solid Pd. Detection of helium in
the gas is much more susceptible to uncertain contamination from the
atmosphere; leaks, outgassing, permeation, and so on all complicate
the interpretation. This is especially the case if you want to
contain the gas and send it to different laboratories for
independent testing. Interference from D2 is more severe and more
difficult to mitigate in the gas. Measurement of helium in the Pd
requires no increase in the complexity of the cold fusion experiment
itself, since the Pd is analyzed off-line. This means one can take
advantage of existing facilities, which already have the means for
accurate helium detection with D2 suppression. One can wait until a
highly successful cold fusion experiment is claimed, and then
analyze only those rods, after the fact, in comparison to suitable
controls. Partitioning solid samples of Pd for measurements at
multiple independent labs is much easier, and less prone to error,
than partitioning gas samples.
Abd has argued that early searches of helium in the Pd were negative
because the helium is implanted near the surface, but this objection
does not apply to most of the analyses, which *did* look for helium
near the surface. In fact, in the cases where controls were used,
the helium was implanted within 1 micron of the surface, and
produced extremely strong signals.
The more error-prone measurements of helium in the gas fit the needs
of cold fusion scientists, who rely on confirmation bias for
positive results. Even there, it should be easy to produce helium
levels orders of magnitude above ambient, based on some claims of
excess heat, but so far the reported levels are mostly below or near
ambient levels.
Isn't it an amazing coincidence that of all the possible products of
nuclear reactions, the only one claimed to be commensurate with heat
is the only one that is present in the background at about the right
level? All the more plausible products that can be detected easily
at levels orders of magnitude lower, are found, surprise, surprise,
at orders of magnitude lower. Nature is toying with us. (The
transmutation situation is similar: all the precursors and products
are stable, when of course, changes in concentrations of unstable
nuclei would be far easier to identify, and only a tiny fraction of
radionuclides are stable.)
Assessment
This is what passes for conclusive in the field of cold fusion. This
is good enough that no measurements of helium-heat in the last
decade entered Storms' calculations. No serious scientists would be
satisfied with this state of affairs if they thought there was
anything to cold fusion. Real scientists obsess about details,
especially in critical experiments like this, and would not rest
until far more definitive results with a much more accurately
determined correlation factor were obtained. Millikan's experiment
was not accepted as good enough, but was repeated endlessly.
Scientists are still toiling to reduce the limit of error on
measurements of Einstein's time dilation, and improve the value of
the gravitation constant, and so on.
The results used by Storms were all available to the 2004 DOE panel,
and they were left unconvinced that nuclear reactions were taking
place. Lomax claims they didn't understand the evidence, but if the
leading cold fusion experts could not explain the results to an
expert panel with written and oral arguments, then that demonstrates
the weakness of the evidence or the incompetence of the researchers.
Lomax thinks they needed a college dropout to help with the
argument. I remain skeptical.
Regardless of the reasons, it is clear that the results have so far
failed to impress the scientific community, and it is clear that far
better results could be achievable, if the effect were real. So, why
are so few pursuing correlation experiments? It seems likely that
cold fusion scientists are not pursuing it (or not admitting it)
because they're afraid that more careful results will be negative,
and they would rather remain ignorant than to have to admit they
wasted 2 decades of their life chasing wild geese.
So, an objective look at the heat/helium results does not provide
convincing evidence for cold fusion. And given the extraordinary
nature of the claimed phenomenon, that means it is almost certainly
not happening.
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 7:22 PM, Rich Murray <rmfor...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Joshua Cude,
Seems you might end up being the last person standing...
May ask you to offer a few decisive critiques to refute Lomax's
claim, much repeated for a year or longer, that heat and helium are
correlated in standard cold fusion experiments, some years ago --
for instance, have there been any attempts since then that fail to
show this correlation?
Maybe you and Lomax have already long reached an impasse, talking
right past each other?
What would have to happen for you to be curious enough to join Lomax
in proposing new tests for this correlation?
within the fellowship of service, Rich Murray
On Sat, May 4, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
Consequently, I for one will not continue the discussion.
Me neither! I promise to shut up.
- Jed
