Ed: While what Axil describes are not unconventional theories in physics, they have no relationship to LENR. That is the problem in physics these days, any idea can be applied to LENR no matter how unrelated to reality it might be. The justification being that QM is a world unrelated to common logic or experience in which anything can be justified if the right formula is applied. To a large extent, this attitude is a self-serving way to avoid having to justify why the ideas make so sense outside of complex math.
Axil: In the process of connecting the dots, I have made the mistake that most everyone makes; we just cannot help ourselves; at any given juncture in the journey, I assume the most fundamental effect that is so far uncovered must be the cause. This is the great trap in thinking about LENR. There has always been something more basic and profound underneath that effect. Ed: The situation in LENR is a good example. A collection of conflicting ad hoc assumptions are made and these are taken seriously by people in physics even when they lead to direct conflicts with experience, with basic laws of Nature, and even with each other. I'm of the opinion that physics needs some serious house cleaning, a process that is rejected just as new ways of thinking were rejected before QM was introduced. Physics, as well as all human activity, gradually gets corrupted by ad hoc assumption, poorly defined words, and concepts based on authority figures. As a result, the old needs to be periodically swept away with a fresh start. LENR has the potential to do this, but only if the old ideas are abandoned. I see no effort to do this in these discussions. Axil: In Ed storms brilliant posit that cracks were important in LENR, I accepted it whole cloth and I just went to the associated field of physics to see how these cracks worked. I wanted to know everything and anything about these cracks. I found the answers in the field of nanoplasmonics and quantum optics. This field in turn provided more clues and directions to enable the ideas to go deeper. Down, down the rabbit hole, in any complex system, it's all about following the dots. All the dots are described by standard science; it's just the magnitudes involved that are hard to believe. I told Ed Storms that he needed to study the field of science that describes the cracks that he has so brilliantly discovered but he never did. He made the "effect is the cause" mistake and never recovered.