10KW LENR Demonstrator?

[chrismb]

I heard Prof. Ferrari and Prof. Levi at radio 15 mins ago.

To sum it up::
The research contract signed with Rossi will allow them to test freely the e-cat. All energy measurements of input and output will be public.
Focardi will not be part of the team that will make the test.
Prof. Levi pointed out several times that we should not expect any type of informal news from them before end of this year, maybe later.
Prof. Ferrari stressed that all is still to be confirmed and, because no replication has been done till date by anyone except Rossi, people should not get high hopes until all the measurements will be complete.


Timeline:
One year from now to prepare the experimental set up and execute the tests.
Expected date of publishing of results, End of 2012.

That's real funny and just about caps the whole thing for me.

So, we are supposed to believe that the 'E-cat' is currently in production and has 400 commercially supplied units working away somewhere or other, reliably, and that these mark 1 commercial products are going to take some academic a year to check if it works!

Er.... excuse me!! Knock-knock people!! Since when have you bought a commercial product and had to wait a year before finding out if it works or not!? This is just bl**dy daft.

[Giorgio]

Well, my dear freind, Mr 9, if you agree with this, then I can tell you that what you are doing is exactly how religions start, and if you, and others who use the same argument, think religions are 'scientific', then we have a bit of a problem on the board.

Couldn't have said it in better terms.
Sometimes I wonder how many on this board really do understand this point and its importance.

[chrismb]

I'm done here now. These demonstrations have now been shown to be fradulent.

So like I said before, whether something is truly going on or not, we're not gonna find out with Rossi running it. It could all end in a disaster yet there might still be some new physics at work - lost in all the snake oil.

I'm not going to bother with the 50-100g/min (2-4kW) steam test, because those that analyse what they see can already see what kW's worth of steam should look like with mine and Bruce's tests. Those who choose not to see, another test will do no good.

Just to lay out what I think and where I would take a scientific investigation:

I do think there is anomalous heat from hydrogen/deuterium in some metals. Unfortunately, researchers have seen this and then used subjective analytical means with clumsy, insensitive and badly calibrated setups at the limit of detectability, with which they can kid themselves over the quantity of that heat. I would run an experiment looking at changes of phase (enthalpy of hydrogen-metal systems) first to see if there is anything interesting there.

[Giorgio]

So, we are supposed to believe that the 'E-cat' is currently in production and has 400 commercially supplied units working away somewhere or other, reliably, and that these mark 1 commercial products are going to take some academic a year to check if it works!

Er.... excuse me!! Knock-knock people!! Since when have you bought a commercial product and had to wait a year before finding out if it works or not!? This is just bl**dy daft.

Of course by the time they will have the data ready there will be Mark2 on the market, so they will postpone publishing of results to 2013 to implement Mark2 data. Than Mark3, Mark4....

Reminds me a lot of the Blacklight Power nonsense.

[tomclarke]

It strikes me that Ivy Matt is basically correct. Evidence for a mutually-exclusive alternative certainly counts as evidence against a proposition - ie: if existing physics says it can't happen, then odds are it can't. Lack of support in existing physics does not - ie: if the claim is enough of an edge case that the existing knowledge base merely doesn't support it, this does not imply that the proposition is wrong - though it does at least constitute a lack of evidence for said proposition, and there's no need to get emotionally (or financially) invested in it until some shows up. But the difference between "wait and see" and "not proven yet" is semantic. What I object to is the radical-skeptical position of "false until proven", which is simply bad philosophy, and which I have encountered from time to time.

Forgive me being on edge, but I was just called pathological just because I don't believe Rossi.

FYI, I basically agree with what you wrote above, except that in this case I have a particular reason for extreme doubt. One claim unsupported by the existing knowledge base is a hard pill to swallow, but one we should consider.

Two claims, unrelated technically, each individually revolutionary, and each individually resting on the extreme outskirts of their own corners of the existing knowledge base, is a different beast all together.

The day he made the second claim (revolutionary new method of cheap isotopic separation) is the day the probability of fraud went to approaching 100% in my mind.

I have a clear reason behind my strong position, despite Parallel's imagination that I don't.

regards

As objective thinkers, scientists, engineers, physicists, and hobbyists, our goals are not to defend Rossi's work but to punch holes in it. That is the scientific method, to find errors in the fundamental understanding of the claims made. Several of Rossi's claims have been countered by many here and definitely after a review of the posts there seems to be sides.

So as an objective thinker, Parallel, I ask, where do you see holes in Rossi's line of thinking, proposed methodology, and demonstrations? I've noted you've defended it alot, but what are your concerns with it?

As people looking clearly at science we need to consider all evidence, and dismiss nothing. But before that makes me sound like parallel note that in this case "all evidence" includes:
Rossi's track record of doing useful science
Rossi's motivation (it is not easy to be objective and truthful, as scientists try, even if you are a scientist)
How these phenomena, if they exist, would fit into any possible theory.

All three give heavy negative bias. Things like gamma counts anomalous, isotopic ratios anomalous, don't help the "fitting into possible theories".

You then look at how strong is the positive info. In this case anomalous heat is all that is claimed, but the measurements have always been flaky, when it would be easy to have non-flaky measurements. That is weak evidence.

So the unbiassed position has always been to be heavily biassed against Rossi. So to speak.

But that does not mean it is our job to punch holes in Rossi's stuff. Merely to look at the results carefully with a very strong but not certain initial viewpoint that they are wrong.

Krivit's detailed report adds more flesh to this - doubtless his next report on the experimental details will similarly add more flesh. But you don't need it to see the Rossi evidence as too weak to be significant.

[tomclarke]

I'm done here now. These demonstrations have now been shown to be fradulent.

So like I said before, whether something is truly going on or not, we're not gonna find out with Rossi running it. It could all end in a disaster yet there might still be some new physics at work - lost in all the snake oil.

I'm not going to bother with the 50-100g/min (2-4kW) steam test, because those that analyse what they see can already see what kW's worth of steam should look like with mine and Bruce's tests. Those who choose not to see, another test will do no good.

Just to lay out what I think and where I would take a scientific investigation:

I do think there is anomalous heat from hydrogen/deuterium in some metals. Unfortunately, researchers have seen this and then used subjective analytical means with clumsy, insensitive and badly calibrated setups at the limit of detectability, with which they can kid themselves over the quantity of that heat. I would run an experiment looking at changes of phase (enthalpy of hydrogen-metal systems) first to see if there is anything interesting there.

Worth doing. But worth remembering that the anomalous heat experiments almost 100% include very significant energy input of a sort that makes detecting how much excess heat output difficult and prone to error. This could be a feature of the effect. Or it could be a consequence of there being no effect except bad experimental technique and hope.

[Skipjack]

Er.... excuse me!! Knock-knock people!! Since when have you bought a commercial product and had to wait a year before finding out if it works or not!? This is just bl**dy daft.

Agreed, that is realy stupid...

[breakaway]

The reason for the year wait by the U of B is probably because it was agreed in the contract so Rossi can delay the scam or if real then to replicate it and find out what is going on in the reactor and come up with a formal theory.

That is the only reason that makes any sense to me. Lets face it nothing will come out until their big 1MW demo. That is what Rossi or DGT wants.

[TallDave]

Rossi's position seems reasonable.

If you look at the history of these types of things, an agreement that says they don't get paid until it's actually working is pretty forthright on Rossi's part. So it looks like the only people being "scammed" would be Rossi's investors.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if it does work but the mechanism isn't well-understood. History is littered with inventions that worked even though their inventors didn't understand why, or had a very incomplete understanding of their operation (phlogiston, anyone?). Hell, we didn't understand how aspirin worked until the 1990s.

By similar reasoning, and adding in the profitability aspect, it doesn't surprise me the academic proof will apparently trail the commercial.

Of course, I also won't be a bit surprised if it turns out not to work and at the end of 2012 Rossi's investors are suing him while the academics report no ability to replicate.

[Kahuna]

I thought this video of some short interviews with mr. Rossi and A. Xanthoulis (Defkalion Investors Representative) was interesting. The interviews were recorded after the press conference.

http://vimeo.com/25785236

Xanthoulis is a pretty smooth character. IMO he either believes in the E-Cat (perhaps has been totally taken in) or is in on a scam (doubt this). According to him, things are moving along at Defkalion and they already have five years worth of orders (I hope the clients are not paying up front).

[Crawdaddy]

Chrismb

I'm done here now. These demonstrations have now been shown to be fradulent.

In light of you statements about 93143 and religion this statement is amusing.

Have you read much on the topic of the philosophy of science? I recommend that you do, it might change your attitude towards 93143. The arguments presented so far don't show anything definitively. That is the only thing that has been shown in this discussion.

Personally I find 93143's comments to be spot on. He is not saying that the e-cat is genuine, he is saying that the attempts to debunk the device so far have lacked rigor. He is absolutely right.

In summary, the evidence available does not make it possible to determine the legitimacy of the rossi device. Anyone who makes definitive statements like you just did is behaving irrationally based on their personal opinon or "faith". That *is* how religions get started.

One this is for sure, if the e-cat turns out to be genuine it will be a great lesson in problem solving. Sadly it is more likely to be a fraud.

[chrismb]

Chrismb

I'm done here now. These demonstrations have now been shown to be fradulent.

In light of you statements about 93143 and religion this statement is amusing.

Have you read much on the topic of the philosophy of science? I recommend that you do, it might change your attitude towards 93143. The arguments presented so far don't show anything definitively. That is the only thing that has been shown in this discussion.

Personally I find 93143's comments to be spot on. He is not saying that the e-cat is genuine, he is saying that the attempts to debunk the device so far have lacked rigor. He is absolutely right.

In summary, the evidence available does not make it possible to determine the legitimacy of the rossi device. Anyone who makes definitive statements like you just did is behaving irrationally based on their personal opinon or "faith". That *is* how religions get started.

One this is for sure, if the e-cat turns out to be genuine it will be a great lesson in problem solving. Sadly it is more likely to be a fraud.

I do not see the connection between your comment and mine. Where have I said that the E-cat won't work here? This has got all so tangled up, as I have pointed out. It is like 'the E-cat will work so long as Rossi is genuine' and 'the E-cat is a fake if Rossi is a fraud'. WHy? I've not said this? All I have commented on is Rossi, whereas all you commented on is the E-cat.

...and you suppose to lecture ME on what I should do to comprehend science!!!!!!!!!! Go pontificate elsewhere, if you please.

[Crawdaddy]

Chrismb

I do not see the connection between your comment and mine. Where have I said that the E-cat won't work here?

So when you say something like this:

I'm done here now. These demonstrations have now been shown to be fradulent.

You mean that even though the demonstrations have been shown to be a fake that the e-cat still might be legitimate?

[chrismb]

You mean that even though the demonstrations have been shown to be a fake that the e-cat still might be legitimate?

I am saying that even though the demonstrations have been fradulent, there is nothing shown that disproves that anomalous heat can arise from H-Ni interactions.

I did lay this out as a crystal clear sentence in my post, the one you took my first sentence from but discarded the rest. Best not to react to the first sentence of a piece and ignore the remainder, eh!?

[93143]

Actually, as I've already pointed out, my objection was to the statement:

There are far too many ridiculous claims in the world to adopt a wait and see attitude to all of them.

...which seems to me to be an unscientific statement, implying an attempt to manufacture certainty where it does not exist, and where it is not necessary.

The Rossi mess is just a convenient case in point, where one might theoretically encounter someone attempting to claim either the E-cat definitely works or that it definitely does not, when it is not currently possible to ascertain that. I am not a proponent of the Rossi reactor; I'm simply picking on technicalities.

I have also not attempted to claim that one must maintain one's estimate of the odds of a proposition being true at 50% until rock-solid proof arrives one way or the other; that would be silly.

...

The mention of your definition of an "experiment" was a reference to earlier in the thread. I composed a post regarding this technical point, but I decided not to post it. Here it is:

From all experimental indications ....

This is an outright fantasy. No 'experiments' have occurred. If you think otherwise, then you demonstrate you know nothing about modern science. An experiment contains [amongst other lesser criteria] an objective, a hypothesis and a null hypothesis, and objective methodology sufficient to demonstrate both in enough detail that anyone can reproduce it.

These 'demonstrations' contain not even one of these several required features of 'an experiment'.

Don't be ridiculous.

Objective: Demonstrate the functionality of the Rossi reactor.
Hypothesis: If you run water through a properly-operated Rossi reactor, it will heat up more than can be explained by the input power, and this process can be continued long enough to eliminate conventional chemical explanations.
Null hypothesis: No it won't, or it will but it can't.
Objective methodology: Given a Rossi reactor with operating instructions, it's not really that tough, now is it? You can argue that this criterion has not actually been met, and I haven't been following this topic closely enough to contradict you, but certainly the other three factors are present, meaning your statement above is false regardless.

Requiring that the experiment address the contents and/or operating principle of the tested black box is completely arbitrary and unwarranted. Galileo's inclined-plane experiments didn't require him to know general relativity. The fact that the black box in this case is man-made is beside the point.

Now, I grant you that Axil was trying to infer something about the operating principle, and I haven't been following closely enough to say whether or not this is justified. But your response wasn't nearly that specific...

Turns out I may have misremembered the issue slightly... but even if the public demonstrations don't qualify as "experiments", which I contest (they may be badly-designed or even fraudulent experiments, but the word "experiment" does apply), the phrase "no experiments have occurred" also ignores the possibility that objective, scientific experiments have occurred, but have not been made public. The expressed certainty is therefore unwarranted in any case.

...

Regarding your (and Giorgio's) philosophy of science and religion, it is overly simplistic, but I don't want to waste another work day trying to explain why, especially in the News section...