Merged Cold Fusion Claims

[Horatius]

So you're saying an idiot is worse than a scammer? I disagree. Scammers actually intentionally go out and hurt people for their own gain. Idiots don't (or it's not a defining characteristic of them).

At least with a scammer, someone is gaining something. Idiots just waste everybody's time and money trying to polish a turd.

 

[Farsight]

You're overcomplicating things. Perhaps this is a simpler way of looking at it...

I'm not. You're thinking of pressure as an emergent property of an ensemble rather than an aspect of inter-particle force. Think of the two protons as two strong magnets. You hold them in your hands such that like poles repel, and you push them towards one another. They're very strong magnets, and you find you can't get them to make contact. You exert pressure, but it isn't enough to overcome their repulsion. But when If load one of them into a gun and fire it at the other, we hear the ring of metal on metal. The collision generated pressure that overcame the "Coulomb barrier". That's like hot fusion. We could also hold one magnet in a vice and push the other down using a press. That's like cold fusion.

 

[Evilgiraffe]

I'm not. You're thinking of pressure as an emergent property of an ensemble rather than an aspect of inter-particle force. Think of the two protons as two strong magnets. You hold them in your hands such that like poles repel, and you push them towards one another. They're very strong magnets, and you find you can't get them to make contact. You exert pressure, but it isn't enough to overcome their repulsion. But when If load one of them into a gun and fire it at the other, we hear the ring of metal on metal. The collision generated pressure that overcame the "Coulomb barrier". That's like hot fusion. We could also hold one magnet in a vice and push the other down using a press. That's like cold fusion.

Analogies are great so long as you realise that they might not capture all the details of the phenomena you are trying to simplify.

In this case you want to confine the proton in a very small region, putting it in a vice. If it's in the vice you know where it is very precisely and so, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allows for a very large uncertainty in its momentum. This means there is a very high probability your proton will leave the vice.

Quantum mechanics means that particles are very slippery at the smallest scales, so the only real way to get sub-atomic particles close to one another is to arrange high speed collisions.

 

[catsmate]

Have a look at http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator Steve Krivit has an even more exhaustive list somewhere, but I don't seem to be ble to find it. Rossi's own "peer-reviewed" site is hilarious, with his ravings about snakes and clowns and puppeteers. The peers who review it (if such there be) must be off their heads.

What still gets me is that Rossi's "journal" still lists a dead psychologist and two people who've repudiated all connection as "advisers"............


Here is NET issue 37 with the review of Rossi's magic water heater. The PDF link doesn't seem to work but the content is there in HTML.

 

[Dancing David]

I'm not. You're thinking of pressure as an emergent property of an ensemble rather than an aspect of inter-particle force. Think of the two protons as two strong magnets. You hold them in your hands such that like poles repel, and you push them towards one another. They're very strong magnets, and you find you can't get them to make contact. You exert pressure, but it isn't enough to overcome their repulsion. But when If load one of them into a gun and fire it at the other, we hear the ring of metal on metal. The collision generated pressure that overcame the "Coulomb barrier". That's like hot fusion. We could also hold one magnet in a vice and push the other down using a press. That's like cold fusion.

No, this is not a good analogy.

The force of repulsion rises as the distance decreases. Your analogy applies to bar magnets that have a small repulsive effect to mass ratio.

This is not true of protons.

 

[Aepervius]

So you're saying an idiot is worse than a scammer? I disagree. Scammers actually intentionally go out and hurt people for their own gain. Idiots don't (or it's not a defining characteristic of them).

LOL.

I wanted to write idiot at best, scammer at worst. For some reason I wrote the reverse...

 

[RobDegraves]

3. Rossi does not ask for money before a demonstration. He asks that money be placed in escrow and when the device meets the agreed on specifications, the money is transferred. Would you still say that this is a hallmark of fraud?

Actually I am curious about how the financial transactions work. Obviously he is getting some money, or he would find it difficult to operate his current set up, do interviews, etc.

Having looked up some info on it, I'm not clear that anyone knows for sure how Rossi deals with the money since he seems to go out of his way to hide info on his buyers and financial supporters. Obviously, that is another flagrant hallmark of a fraud. Does anyone have any clear information on the money that is going into the ecat, either to Rossi or Defkalion?

 

[ctamblyn]

I'm not. You're thinking of pressure as an emergent property of an ensemble rather than an aspect of inter-particle force. Think of the two protons as two strong magnets. You hold them in your hands such that like poles repel, and you push them towards one another. They're very strong magnets, and you find you can't get them to make contact. You exert pressure, but it isn't enough to overcome their repulsion. But when If load one of them into a gun and fire it at the other, we hear the ring of metal on metal. The collision generated pressure that overcame the "Coulomb barrier". That's like hot fusion. We could also hold one magnet in a vice and push the other down using a press. That's like cold fusion.

In the context of kinetic theory, which you brought up in the post I replied to, my previous points apply. That is, in a gas the reaction rate is determined by temperature (and not pressure). I'll add that in the context in kinetic theory, pressure is indeed an emergent property of the ensemble, and inter-molecular forces don't come into it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic-molecular_theory#Pressure_and_kinetic_energy).

What you're discussing, though, is pressing the two protons together somehow, in which case kinetic theory is pretty irrelevant. Could you clarify exactly what set-up you have in mind, here?

 

[attaboy]

Have a look at http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Andrea_A._Rossi_Cold_Fusion_Generator Steve Krivit has an even more exhaustive list somewhere, but I don't seem to be ble to find it. Rossi's own "peer-reviewed" site is hilarious, with his ravings about snakes and clowns and puppeteers. The peers who review it (if such there be) must be off their heads.

Thanks for the reply. I'll check that link.

 

[Reality Check]

The high pressure occurs when the collision occurs. Look at the kinetic theory of gases and say the wiki shaped charge article. Then think in terms of just two protons slamming into each other head on. As they collide the pressure mounts, and eventually overcomes the coulomb barrier..

The problem with this way of looking at fuson is that it rules out cold fusion ! The temperatures that you need to get "two protons slamming into each other head on" hard enough to "overcomes the coulomb barrier" are millions of degrees.

Of course this is not what Rossi claims is happening. He is (or at least was) claiming that a low energy collision of hydrogen atoms with nickel atoms is causing fusion and the creation of copper. This was debunked at the start of the thread
22nd January 2011

And none of this matters for Rossi's poor deluded investors, since at lab temperatures the 62Ni(p,gamma) cross section is zero point zero times zero to the zeroeth zeroness. But the Q value *is* positive.

(the reaction is exothermic).
And on 13th May 2011:

Let's not even get into the copper. The only way to make Cu from Ni is via neutron capture *and* beta decay. The only way to make 30% abundant 65Cu is by 64Ni(n,gamma)65Ni, and 65Ni beta decay---a really violently high-energy beta/gamma emitter. Too bad that 64Ni is only 0.9% of natural nickel; how do you make 0.1x0.3 = 0.03 grams 65Cu per gram of Ni, when the parent gram of nickel only starts with 0.009 grams of 64Ni to begin with? And when isotope analysis said that only 0.001 grams of the 64Ni had been used up?

(Because it's nonsense. They're making it up and they're not doing it very well. Herb Kroemer said this once about the Jan Henrik Schoen case: it's hard to lie about physics. Physics is very tightly constrained, and anything you make up is unlikely to be consistent with *itself*.)

You also needed to actually read pteridine's post. It is full of ignorance of how science works but he does get one thing right: "My point all along has been that there is not enough information to conclude anything.".
The points he fails to grasp is that it is up to the LENR researchers to provide that information.
Until they do then scientists will follow the scientific process and conclude that LENR does not exists because it violates the known laws of physics. This is a classic example of "extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence".

This is not a case of "LENR is an unlikely possibility based on the physics that you know" as pteridine thinks. It is a case of the known laws of physics make LENR impossible and so any experiment that claims to demonstrate LENR

• needs to be competently done (Rossi's first failure)
• needs to be reproducible (Rossi's second failure)
• and hopefully have a credible mechanism (Rossi's third failure)

 

[pteridine]

Thank you for the vote of confidence in my scientific acumen. Your response was most enlightening and has allowed me to better understand the level of your abilities.
Perhaps you can explain why you think LENR violates the known laws of physics and is impossible. To do so, you would have to know the mechanism of reaction and certainly all on this thread would find it interesting if you would show it in detail so that we may be enlightened.
Of course you can’t because, in spite of your bombast, you appear to be generally clueless about science, in general, and have only stated your opinion after assuming some mechanism or another. Were you an actual scientist, you would not assume a mechanism and would conclude that there was not enough information to determine if the phenomenon occurred or not. You would simply state that “no evidence has yet been presented to show the existence of LENR” without all the emotional language and vituperation. This thread doesn’t seem to attract such people.
Certainly, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence and we do not have that yet. We do not need a mechanism to show energy input and output and, in fact, there would have to be completely different sets of experiments to determine a mechanism. Initially, we would just determine if any excess heat was being produced so we would know whether we had justification for determining a mechanism. This point probably eluded you, too. We would monitor radiation but, at this point, only for safety. In fact, if safe, useful energy was produced, it could be used immediately without knowing the mechanism. As we would want to understand the process, we would want to know the mechanism, so we would study it after we had determined that there was something to study.
It would be good to follow a protocol and one has been proposed at the Chennai meeting. It is comprehensive and sufficient to quantify any thermal effect, which is what we will be looking for. Electrolytic hydrogen generation would be more easily controlled and measured vice bottles or hydrides, but both those could be accommodated. Running a unit in a calorimeter would be advantageous and all electrical input power would be measured and spectrum analyzed to ensure no high frequency power was being fed to the reactor system.
A flow system would present different challenges, but such a system could be calibrated using an on-demand water heater that would be interchangeable with the LENR device. We can discuss this further, if you wish, but do try to be a little less obnoxious.

 

[Reality Check]

Perhaps you can explain why you think LENR violates the known laws of physics and is impossible.
...inane insults snipped...

That is easy: The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics is to have temperatures of millions of degrees.
The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics produces easily detected products.
LENR requires new laws of physics that somehow remove the need for the high energies, thus the LE part of the name, and products.

We can discuss this further, if you wish, but do try to be a lot less obnoxious, pteridine.

ETA: Cold Fusion: Issues

ETA2: Of course I have to assume a mechanism for LENR!
There is no credible experimental data for LENR after 30 years worth of unreproducible excess energy experiments.
There are are numerous mechanisms proposed for all of these non-results.

 

[RobDegraves]

It would be good to follow a protocol and one has been proposed at the Chennai meeting.

Curious... I have an easy way to prove the system works or does not.


Apparently the system needs a certain amount of electricity to spark up right?

So...


1. Bring the system to an empty field, without any way to bring in excess energy.

2. Bring enough large batteries to supply the needed spark up power.

3. Calculate the total amount of energy the batteries could put out.

4. Calculate the total amount of energy the device puts out over time by powering a specific device that measures the input.

In this case, the only thing that needs be supplied by Rossi or Defkalion would be the device. The people evaluating the device, preferably someone who does not believe in the system, would bring the batteries and the measuring devices.


If it's obviously true... it won't matter what anyone believes.

Easy right?

 

[pteridine]

That is easy: The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics is to have temperatures of millions of degrees.
The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics produces easily detected products.
LENR requires new laws of physics that somehow remove the need for the high energies, thus the LE part of the name, and products.

We can discuss this further, if you wish, but do try to be a lot less obnoxious, pteridine.

ETA: Cold Fusion: Issues

ETA2: Of course I have to assume a mechanism for LENR!
There is no credible experimental data for LENR after 30 years worth of unreproducible excess energy experiments.
There are are numerous mechanisms proposed for all of these non-results.

I will forgive your last unimaginative reply and accept that you wish to discuss this without impugning my abilities, meager as they are. If we can do that, I won't return any personal attacks like those that you have made previously.

Your statement "The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics is to have temperatures of millions of degrees." Is it possible that you have confused the "Laws of Physics" with a known mechanism for nuclear fusion? If particles reacting with nuclei were neutral, would you need those energies? In fact, is not even known if this is a fusion reaction. There is no reason why any "laws of physics" need be violated, so the old "laws of physics" argument really doesn't cut it. Should this prove out, I wouldn't expect that any new physics would be necessary but, as I said, my abilities are meager.
The Pons-Fleischmann experiment was publicized in 1989. I realize that higher mathematics has long been forgotten by me, but I count 23 years, not 30. Arguments based on how long people have been working on this are weaker than usual, as the purveyors of dogma had made exploration of this a poison pill for those who dared investigate it. Previously, I discussed the events of the time and said that many of the lynch mob are now positioning themselves so that they can pretend that they were disinterested and are really open minded seekers of truth.....and grants of course.

Crack into another Speight’s and rethink your last response.

 

[pteridine]

Curious... I have an easy way to prove the system works or does not.


Apparently the system needs a certain amount of electricity to spark up right?

So...


1. Bring the system to an empty field, without any way to bring in excess energy.

2. Bring enough large batteries to supply the needed spark up power.

3. Calculate the total amount of energy the batteries could put out.

4. Calculate the total amount of energy the device puts out over time by powering a specific device that measures the input.

In this case, the only thing that needs be supplied by Rossi or Defkalion would be the device. The people evaluating the device, preferably someone who does not believe in the system, would bring the batteries and the measuring devices.


If it's obviously true... it won't matter what anyone believes.

Easy right?

This sounds like a good plan but measurements would still be necessary along with modfications to the system to use batteries. Inverters would likely be required and the actual output of the batteries would be challenged. I would be happy if the device was able to be tested in a calorimeter in a well instrumented lab.

 

[bruto]

This sounds like a good plan but measurements would still be necessary along with modfications to the system to use batteries. Inverters would likely be required and the actual output of the batteries would be challenged. I would be happy if the device was able to be tested in a calorimeter in a well instrumented lab.

But if the system works at all, this method would not really need such precision, would it? If the system puts out power, then eventually it will put out more power than the batteries could possibly have supplied from their known capacity. Fast or slow, it either will or it won't.

 

[RobDegraves]

This sounds like a good plan but measurements would still be necessary along with modfications to the system to use batteries. Inverters would likely be required and the actual output of the batteries would be challenged. I would be happy if the device was able to be tested in a calorimeter in a well instrumented lab.

1. No modifications to the system would be needed. You just need the same ac current that the system uses... which could be easily done.

2. The batteries would be brought in by the testers. No challenge would be likely as long as the batteries do the job required.


These few steps are very simple.

Why was the device not properly tested before now?

 

[Reality Check]

I will forgive your last unimaginative reply and accept that you wish to discuss this without impugning my abilities, meager as they are. If we can do that, I won't return any personal attacks like those that you have made previously.

I also will forgive your last unimaginative reply and accept that you wish to discuss this without impugning my abilities, meager as they are. If we can do that, I won't return any personal attacks like those that you have made previously.

Your statement "The only way to get fusion using the known laws of physics is to have temperatures of millions of degrees."

Not that I can see. The known laws of physics means that fusion can only happen at termpertaures and pressures that cold fusion does not have.
I forgot about mentioning pressures but your assumed knowledge of LENR should have made ir clear that the required partial pressures of H or D in metals have never been reached.
See: Cold Fusion: Issues

Just to make it clear: The known laws of physics state that fusion can only happen if you have the correct combination of temperature & pressure. For hot fusion the temperature is high and the required pressure is relatively low. For LENR, the temperature is low and and the required partial pressure within the metal is high. The Pons-Fleischmann experiment results were incompatible with the known laws of physics because the rate of fusion to produce the results was orders of magnitude too low, e.g. Calculated fusion rates in isotopic hydrogen molecules (1989) calculates that the rate was 5-10 orders of magnitude off.

The Pons-Fleischmann experiment was publicized in 1989. I realize that higher mathematics has long been forgotten by me, but I count 23 years, not 30.

You are right - I got the dates wrong.
It should have no credible experimental data has been produced been in the last 85 years (since Tandberg)
Cold Fusion

In the late 1920s, two Austrian born scientists, Friedrich Paneth and Kurt Peters, originally reported the transformation of hydrogen into helium by spontaneous nuclear catalysis when hydrogen was absorbed by finely divided palladium at room temperature. However, the authors later retracted that report, acknowledging that the helium they measured was due to background from the air.[17][18]
In 1927, Swedish scientist J. Tandberg stated that he had fused hydrogen into helium in an electrolytic cell with palladium electrodes.[17] On the basis of his work, he applied for a Swedish patent for "a method to produce helium and useful reaction energy". After deuterium was discovered in 1932, Tandberg continued his experiments with heavy water. Due to Paneth and Peters' retraction, Tandberg's patent application was eventually denied.[17] His application for a patent in 1927 was denied as he could not explain the physical process.[19]

But if you want to date LENR from the Pons-Fleischmann fiasco then it would be 23 years.

 

[pteridine]

The system would have to be modified to run on the batteries and the batteries would somehow have to be 'certified.' It is easier to measure power from an outlet. One also has to run the system long enough to ensure that a chemical reaction could not be responsible.
Testing by a disinterested third party at a location selected by the third party should suffice.

 

[Reality Check]

Also see: Michael, McKubre; Nagel, David; Chubb, Talbot; Hekman, Randall (2004) (PDF), New Physical Effects in Metal Deuterides
These authors are supporters of LENR who accept the excess heat results as valid evidence and state

The equilibrium spacing of deuterons in PdD is greater than in D2, so the proximity of deuterons at high loading alone is not expected to promote an excess heat effect. The pair-wise fusion rate of deuterons in PdD or in other metal deuterides is too small by tens of orders of magnitude to be observable.13 The notion that deuterons are somehow being squeezed together, so as to fuse at high loading or high fugacity in these experiments, is not considered a plausible explanation.