10KW LENR demonstrator (new thread)

[GIThruster]

That's a pretty silly argument when examined. The notion that half a dozen profs at Rowan are ready to throw away their careers by lying in their work, just because Rowan got a small grant from BLP, is obviously and stupidly wrong. I do remember it was tendered here, but it was an embarrassment at the time. Perhaps overseas, poorly funded universities would be willing to strong-arm their staff into such collusion, but here in the States the possible gain for each individual is too infinitesimally small, and the projected loss of career, fantastically huge and likely. It's just not a sensible argument. The only reason it got type time is that there are several people here so violently opposed to BLP, they're write just about anything to discredit them--even slander the staff at Rowan.

Certainly the Rowan issue was not settled by such a pathetic argument. Their entire apparatus was open for inspection the entire time it was assembled and operating--many months--with a standing invite for anyone who wanted to see what they were doing to do so.. They corresponded regularly with labs expert in calorimetry like EarthTech. Frauds and con artists don't do things like that.

There's no reasonable doubt the Rowan experiment demonstrated a source of heat that cannot be explained by normal chemical reactions. The question is whether they're explained by Widom-Larsen theory, hydrino theory or some as yet unidentified mechanism. On that, neither the profs at Rowan, nor I, have an opinion.

[Skipjack]

I'd say that's perfectly sensible. Look at what happened at Rowan. Despite the test clearly demonstrates more energy than could possibly be accounted for from any sort of chemical reaction, the skeptics refuse to admit this and even take to slandering the staff at Rowan for finding something people don't generally want to believe is possible.

Why has nobody else seen it yet? BLP has been arround for a very long time. I first heard about them some 12 years or so ago. They always claimed to have the reactor ready for the net "by the end of the year". Where is it? Why cant I test it? Why should I believe a single test that a single university did that I have not even vitnessed?
IIRC there were a few other issues with said test that were discussed here at length.

I'm think the trouble with the E-Cat is probably less, because Widom-Larsen theory does propose an explanation that does not violate our current scientific paradigms; but Rossi's background does generate a lot of skepticism all on its own.

No according to Rossi himself WL theory does not explain his reactor. So there is still no working theory to go with the alleged(!) experimental results.

[Skipjack]

That's a pretty silly argument when examined. The notion that half a dozen profs at Rowan are ready to throw away their careers by lying in their work, just because Rowan got a small grant from BLP, is obviously and stupidly wrong.

No it is not. While it could be accepted as an argument in favor of BLP, it is wrong to accept an argument "from authority" especially if it is a single authority that has been paid by the subject of the argument.
The problem with BLP is that they have not delivered what they promised and they have certainly had a lot of time for that.

[Axil]

How does cooper pairing of elections and protons overcome the alleged impenetrable coulomb barrier?

[GIThruster]

That's a pretty silly argument when examined. The notion that half a dozen profs at Rowan are ready to throw away their careers by lying in their work, just because Rowan got a small grant from BLP, is obviously and stupidly wrong.

No it is not. While it could be accepted as an argument in favor of BLP, it is wrong to accept an argument "from authority" especially if it is a single authority that has been paid by the subject of the argument.
The problem with BLP is that they have not delivered what they promised and they have certainly had a lot of time for that.

That's pretty fuzzy thinking. People want an authentic test by an outsider to validate the BLP reactor generates the heat they say it does, they want to know what's inside the reactor and they want to know that whatever is inside the reactor, it cannot explain the heat coming out with recourse to only standard chemistry. Scientific method does not include every person who says they want to know, would suddenly, magically understand. So in at least this sense, all scientific method requires some sort of appeal to authority. This is not however, the same as the logical falacy as an appeal to authority.

You're not a chemist, Skippy. When half a dozen PhD chemists put their names on the line and say there is no normal way to generate the heat found from the reactants in the reactor, and that a novel form of energy is necessarily required, and the entire experiment is done as open science, you don't get to whine that you didn't do the experiment. You didn't do it, because you're not a chemist.

See what I mean? People tender the most crazy and ridiculous complaints. When it comes down to it, the Rowan experiment is pretty striking and I still don't know what to make of it, but of one thing I'm sure. I'm not going to whine or complain or ridicule or slander or stamp my li'l foot and turn all red. I'm going to accept at face value the result, despite it does not agree with what I would normally presume. That's why tests like these are done, so we can all be acquainted with the FACTS of the issue. The FACT is that there was more energy produced than can be explained by recourse to normal chemistry.

[Skipjack]

But science is also about the repeatability of results by 3rd parties. So far we have only got the word of a single entity that was contracted by BLP.
Just because I have ONE authority claiming something, it does not mean it is true, especially when it is an extraordinary claim.
Ohhh, but they are scientists and chemists on top of that. Yes, I have to admit that I am not a scientist and certainly not a chemist. I am one of the unwashed
But that does not mean that I cant do a simple equation or understand scientific procedure, does it?

In this context I have to think of this really great story by James Randi about a bunch of scientists at Lawrence Livermore being fooled by a beginners magic trick. Maybe the Rowan story could be related to this?
He best tells it himself here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53T7ADcv ... page#t=83s

[ScottL]

It seems to me the Rowan professors are safe as long as no other university or lab gets to validate the same device. I don't think they're worried when their pay checks are being funded by BLP. It's a lose/lose for them in my opinion, but since we're very unlikely to ever see true independent confirmation, it matters not.

[GIThruster]

I hardly think the profs paychecks were funded by BLP. IIRC, the grant was $70,000 and there were 6 profs involved. I think the grant was for lab equipment. They did after all build the calorimeter, the reactor and purchase all the chemicals themselves.

Skippy, I think what you don't get is BLP doesn't care at all if someone like you is convinced. They were looking to convince scientists who would have a clue when looking at the report. None of this has anything to do with Randi or Rossi. The Rowan folk know exactly what they put in the reactor, just as they know what the possible reactions are.

[tomclarke]

I hardly think the profs paychecks were funded by BLP. IIRC, the grant was $70,000 and there were 6 profs involved. I think the grant was for lab equipment. They did after all build the calorimeter, the reactor and purchase all the chemicals themselves.

Skippy, I think what you don't get is BLP doesn't care at all if someone like you is convinced. They were looking to convince scientists who would have a clue when looking at the report. None of this has anything to do with Randi or Rossi. The Rowan folk know exactly what they put in the reactor, just as they know what the possible reactions are.

Rowan are not a well-known research university. They do not have (I believe) a doctoral program. So my guess is any research they do will be very applied, and funded directly by industry.

They cannot be very concerned to convince other scientists or they would have published their results in a peer-reviewed journal. If they could. As I said above, the claimed non-chemical heat excess is very tendentious, one reason I guess why they have not been able to publish.

I certainly would not say Rowan could know what are the possible reactions. Metal lattices with hydrogen infused are complex, chemically, and in no way can all possible byproducts be summarised in a list of known specific molecules because of long-range lattice effects. If all by-products were gaseous it would be reasonable - you can probably enumerate every single possible molecule.

I also imagine there is scope for subtle erors in the energy content of the constituents. Take nickel - would Rowan include the extra surface energy from very fine powders in their calculation?

I'm not competent to evaluate their work myself, which is why, given it has not been critically appraised by those who are, and there are possible holes obvious to a generalist as above, I give it little credence.

[tomclarke]

That's a pretty silly argument when examined. The notion that half a dozen profs at Rowan are ready to throw away their careers by lying in their work, just because Rowan got a small grant from BLP, is obviously and stupidly wrong. I do remember it was tendered here, but it was an embarrassment at the time. Perhaps overseas, poorly funded universities would be willing to strong-arm their staff into such collusion, but here in the States the possible gain for each individual is too infinitesimally small, and the projected loss of career, fantastically huge and likely. It's just not a sensible argument. The only reason it got type time is that there are several people here so violently opposed to BLP, they're write just about anything to discredit them--even slander the staff at Rowan.

Certainly the Rowan issue was not settled by such a pathetic argument. Their entire apparatus was open for inspection the entire time it was assembled and operating--many months--with a standing invite for anyone who wanted to see what they were doing to do so.. They corresponded regularly with labs expert in calorimetry like EarthTech. Frauds and con artists don't do things like that.

There's no reasonable doubt the Rowan experiment demonstrated a source of heat that cannot be explained by normal chemical reactions. The question is whether they're explained by Widom-Larsen theory, hydrino theory or some as yet unidentified mechanism. On that, neither the profs at Rowan, nor I, have an opinion.

Just to knock the nail on the head. I think you have this the wrong way round.

When a reputable scientist comes up with a result which challenges a lot of accepted physics (as does this) it is not saying they are liars or cheats to disbelieve the results.

In fact the FTL neutrino team basically disbelieve their own results, even though they were done very carefully. And no-one else will believe them till they have been replicated.

Now what BLP have done is not comparable because the results are much less clear. The BLP people claim they can't see how to get that much heat out from chemistry, but rightly no-one will believe the results until there is significant high quality replication.

That is because honest and difficult to detect mistakes are a lot more common in science than experimental breakthroughs which upend physics.

Just to put this in LENR context. There are a LOT of claims of:
anomalous heat
transmutation (fewer)
high energy byproducts (fewer)

You might lump thyem all together and say they constitute replication.

But they don't, unless the same phenomena under controlled conditions is replicatable. In this case it can be examined, further information gathered, etc. That is what happens with all breakthroughs.

If LENR exist, and the claimed positive results are really positive, finding thst should not so very difficult. You don't need high heat output, just say 10% excess over a long time period with good quality calorimetry.

The very variety of different claimed positives, given that none are definite, and none which are definite can be replicated under careful experimental conditions, is negative. (what about the non-definite ones which are replicatable? One would reckon they can be tightened up, cross-checked, made definite. Would one not? Yet where is the systematic line of investigation tightening up on such a phenomena ruling out all other explanations?).

On this thread I never replied to the posts about Iwamura & Itoh's transmutation results.

http://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/IwamuraYobservatiob.pdf

I misread the paper initially not seeing the before and after superimposed graphs from the spectometry on sputtered ions.

So I apologise for dismissing this stuff in such cavalier fashion.

But, much as I would love it to be a real portent of something wonderful (since if LENR exists it could be optimised, and would at least provide an exciting new energy source), the evidence is strongly against.

I can understand why there are those here who find the body of LENR claims convincing, and WL theory just enough to remove doubts about Coulomb barrier.

And I can understand why those people would feel I am "strongly defended" against new ideas. LOL.

But I bet I read new ideas with more attention than most here. They fascinate me. It is just that WL theory does not "smell" right as a coherent theme to make sense of diverse inchoate phenomena. When you check the details for every phenomenon it predicts, there are more that it does not predict. And WL itself has big unplugged holes.

Which makes the hypothesis of experimental error and hopeful overinterpretation of results by a long way the most likely explanation for this stuff.

If, for example, the Defkalion claims were backed up by plausible independent tests, which let us face it would not seem dificult. that would change. But then we said the same about Rossi claims and Rossi tests, only to find that every Rossi test was implausible. Either there was phase change miscounting, or deltaT much too low with T below ambient, or output thermocouples sited on metal in thermal contact with the reactor...

The list goes on, and it is like a list of the ways in which LENR excess heat experiments can have false positive results. And the same false argument: "each of these tests may have holes but they are all different, so when you put it together there must be something" is applied.

So I very confidently predict the Defkalion tests will prove bust, but I can't say in which way, whether lack of independent trustable observers, or bad protocols, or whatever.

But there are now a good more many real people with money testing Pt/Ni/H/D systems for excess heat, so we will hear of any possible positive results.

We won't hear about the negatives...

[Am]

 http://world.std.com/~mica/krivit02052012.html

NOT AS SMART AS A FIFTH GRADER
Numerical Analysis of Steven Krivit's Lastest Rants

February 5, 2012 - There he goes again.  Just when cold fusion scientists thought it might be safe to emerge from their laboratories, along comes major mischief-maker Steve Krivit ('New Energy Times') to spin facts into fiction.  Known by many for his serial, unqualified "analyses" and his intense advocacy of a knock-off theory, Steve Krivit has now been over-shadowed by fifth grade level logic regarding both the magnitude of numbers AND how he failed to even read a graph correctly.

[tomclarke]

 http://world.std.com/~mica/krivit02052012.html

NOT AS SMART AS A FIFTH GRADER
Numerical Analysis of Steven Krivit's Lastest Rants

February 5, 2012 - There he goes again.  Just when cold fusion scientists thought it might be safe to emerge from their laboratories, along comes major mischief-maker Steve Krivit ('New Energy Times') to spin facts into fiction.  Known by many for his serial, unqualified "analyses" and his intense advocacy of a knock-off theory, Steve Krivit has now been over-shadowed by fifth grade level logic regarding both the magnitude of numbers AND how he failed to even read a graph correctly.

Seems there are people who don't like Krivit. He made no mistakes, was just quoting other LENR researchers, and corrected the [other LENR resercher at coference] statement in a followup:
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2012/02/ ... tzs-claim/

This experiment claims 10X excess heat where the max output powr is 80mW sustained for a few minutes, and this corresponds to a temperature change of 1C. No information about mass of reactants (hence available chemical energy). No information about calorimetry.

Still when it is published (if) we will be able to check all these issues.

[tomclarke]

This is why some LENR people see Krivit as a snake...

http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2012/01/ ... t-created/

[Am]

Surely not the scottl that posts here?

http://world.std.com/~mica/DisingenuousKrivit20072.pdf

[Giorgio]

That's a pretty silly argument when examined. The notion that half a dozen profs at Rowan are ready to throw away their careers by lying in their work, just because Rowan got a small grant from BLP, is obviously and stupidly wrong.

I think we already agreed 160 pages ago (in this very same thread) that there were too many conflicts of personal and economic interests between BLP and Rowan to be able to trust the correctness of their scientific method.

Additionally another year has passed without them releasing any product.
That's 21 years since he founded the company and 12 years since he claimed to have a fully working excess energy reactor.....