Tuesday, June 5, 2012

DISCUSSING WITH MY COLLEAGUE ABD ABOUT RELIABILITY

I have to apologize again, my old age weaknesses allow me
to answer to Abd only step by step, in fragments to his so well
ordered arguments. I have to recognize that in our LENR circles, what he says is more happily/readily accepted than my ideas.
So, now about reliability.


Well, they *may be* inherent weaknesses of PdD LENR set up by known methods. A premature vision of an ultimate application can kill new discoveries, allowing them to be dismissed as worthless even if they are real, and if their reality is in question, it's a double whammy. What we need is Science, and it comes before Energy, if we need reliability for Energy. *We do not need reliability for Science.* It is desirable, that's all.

I think there definitely are inherent weaknesses, uncontrollable hidden parameters in the Pd-D cells and these are almost ubiquitous in this system. and difficultly curable. I have met similar things in my lab-pilot-plant practice, something that went fine 1000 times suddenly became impossible, a colorless product (as it has to be) coming out red or dirty grey with no obvious explanation first. Many times I was thinking to write a report about occult phenomena in technology, but then we found a simple straightforward causal explanation and we solved the problem by removing, killing that cause.
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The weaknesses of the Pd D cells are unusually stubborn, I am firmly convinced that poisoning of the active centers (NAE) by adsorption of gases that are NOT deuterium (it seems everything goes not only the very polar gases as I thought) explains this long series of troubles. I will write a new paper about poisoning these days. Nobody will believe it- just the Pd-D cells.

Reality is really good if it is repeatable and it is bad when it plays
perfidiously hide and seek with us.

I agree with Abd re the premature vision- it is not good to focus only and immediately on applications and not explore the full richness of the phenomena, process, and product, whatever.
I do not get clearly and do not agree with what says Abd re
reliability in Science. It is about the experimental results, these are used in the very Scientific process as described here:
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/how-does-apply-prof-piantelli-rules-of.html and here:http://egooutpeters.blogspot.com/2011/08/scientific-values-of-professor.html
There are many other papers about the scientific method and
solid results are necessary for developing understanding/theory.
Say, in 3 identical experiments we obtain 5, 10 and 0 units of Helium and only the second gives measurable heat- what can we conclude? This is a practical example, does LENR have a genuine scientific theory?
This discussion has reminded me  a paper I wrote some 6 years ago:
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2006/NET17.shtml it is about cold fusion as a wicked problem. You will see that my ideas have rater deep roots.

More accurately, we define, in Science, "reliability" in a different way than we will in engineering, it seems, statistically. (Sophisticated engineering actually does the same thing, looking at failure rates, not perfect reliability.)

I think reliability in Science, engineering, business, marriage, musical interpretation is, grosso modo, the same overall. Statistical reliability in engineering, production is about a small proportion of under-quality pieces. A minimum is say 98.5% good items.
However my personal professional experience comes from an extreme area where reliability = safety and unreliability was deadly danger. As an airplane pilot, I could not err two times- working with hydrogen cyanide, phosgene and vinyl chloride and other explosive or corrosive stuff we have used very reliable
vessels, pumps, gaskets, the gas masks and the fire extinguisher
systems were prepared for intervention. At one stage of my career I became an expert in dust explosions and have learned a lot from the terrible accidents investigated. In theory, many engineering systems are going asymptotically toward perfect reliability.

I also want to emphasize an important idea- engineering is based
on Science but comprises much more than Science. There are many empirical or empirical-in-part elements of Know-What, Know-How including Know How Not! And Know Why, rules and best practices- not all rational, quantitative and easy to get.
Technological reliability is a very complex and sometimes tricky issue. It has to be ingrained in the psychology of workers, users.


The reliability argument against cold fusion is a red herring as to the science of it. It's only truly important in the matter of practical applications. Even there, there can be ways to move around reliability issues. Under some conditions, many devices can be built into one. However, if the units work or fail to work together, then this approach can itself fail. However, if that is so, then it's likely that conditions can be found where all or most devices will work!

Cold Fusion is unreliable and has no usable, predictive explanation or theory. It is low intensity; low reliability and does not last, usually. It is more similar to a shark than a herring. I don’t understand this idea with many devices combined. Unreliable is unreliable in science too. I apologize for this painful tautology.

How long they work is a separate issue, and, again, might be addressed with engineering, once the science is understood. Until then, "engineering" is hit-and-miss, and could possibly take a very long time.

The system is ill, it exists but it is more a source of troubles than a source of knowledge and/or heat.

There never was a Cold Fusion Killer paper. Reviewing all the peer-reviewed literature, so far, I've noticed nothing that rises to this level, not even "wrong." What uncontroversially existed was rather widespread failure to replicate. However, there was not universal failure to replicate, and replications *of a kind,* in the end, have outnumbered, as to publication, the failures. That is, there are widespread reports of anomalous heat in PdD under some conditions.

Cold Fusion/LENR exists with certainty, is versatile and very diversified, supported by good scientists- a Killer Paper cannot be
conceived/written. Cold Fusion is not dead, however a good doses of reliability resurrection seems necessary.
If it is technologizable as such or only after conversion to LENR+,
is a 2 .10 exp 16 cents question

Peter

4 comments:

  1. Peter, I think CF practitioners must step outside their metaphor and examine non nuclear causes for the heat. My reproducible heat with NiH was only with nanopowders below 12nm/

    Coincidently, this is the size where the newest form of ferromagnetism was discovered. Magnetic vorticies found at 10nm ferrite grains opens possibilities of extracting energy from the fourth dimension, iCt. Dirac used it to discover the spin of the electron as the 4th quantum number. The spin is real, but the dimension is imagniary. What fraction of the electron's angular momentum is in real space and how much is in iCt?

    Recent experiments by Arthur Manelas produce 100 watts of clean electricity in battery self-charging. It is fully repeatable, but the source remains a mystery.

    Many materials are ferromagnetic at 10nm when they are not so in bulk phases. Palladium probably only works with nanopowders or nanometric features, because that is where the super-ferromagnetism arises.

    The lack of radiation comensurate with heat output suggests to me the the nuclear tid bits are a small side reaction to the real effect.

    The search for helium is a waste of effort. Hydrogen and deuterium serve only to amplify the magnetic vortex dynamics.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Brian!
      It is very possible you are right, and then the problem arises- how many truths exist in our field? What are the
      other sources of excess energy in LENR- in the non-
      nanometric systems as the Pd-D cell amd similia and (you will put perhaps an If there) for Rossi and DGT.
      Only experiment will say and we will have to think about its answer(s)
      Peter

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  2. I hope that one of the groups currently working on bringing functional Ni/H systems to the market will soon have some hardware available for public review and examination. The current state of affairs is strange, in that this proposed Ni/H technology is on par with Matter Transfer, or Gravity modification,(currently non existent and impossible they say.), and is being talked about by some as real and about to be released into the wild. While some very well known Physicists are saying it is not possible and any talk about it being real is very wrong. Has a technological advance ever in history had such a raucous roll out? The Wright brothers claims of controlled flight had some parallels with established science being initially doubtful.

    As the time approaches for more complete disclosure and verification, I think it proper to think about what measures should be taken once the issue has been decided once and for all. What actions should be taken? What should have precedence, scorning those who blocked LENR progress, or gathering together to move forward, forming a consensus to find a common goal? Thinking about how the technology should be fully utilized to further human kind? I see a need for many involved in Vortex, (Like Peter.), to form an advisory group offering guidance for Governments and Corporations on how to best exploit the new energy source in a responsible manner that will make later generations proud of us.

    Certain individuals in the Physics, Science community have earned special treatment because they were reasonable throughout, while others were the opposite, some small, reasonable form of scorn should probably be directed at these individuals because of the somewhat malicious manner in which they handled the claims.

    But what shall we do if we are wrong? What if Lenr plus is not repeatable, and how will we respond to those who said it was false? The time is approaching quickly when we will know, I think it appropriate to have a plan of action either way!

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  3. Dear Nixter,
    You are right, we are really at a turning point,near to a decisive hour. If LENR+ fails the loss could be very great and with a high degree of irreversibilty. However I am confident that Defkalion will
    present working Hyperions and will tell the good facts at ICCF 17.
    Sooner or later Rossi has to come out of his hideplace and show
    a healthy E-cat.
    I hope the situation will change radically. Just a bit of patience.

    Re your idea "form an advisory group offering guidance for Governments and Corporations" I agree wholeheartedly however
    unfortunately reality does not.
    When you learn how to communicate the professor will not tell you some simplistic but essential and invinciple truths as:
    "Beyond ages, cultures, professions, mentalities whatever, there are three kinds of people:nice, difficult and wimps. With nice people it is a pleasure to communicate, with difficult people you
    can communicate with efforts, with wimps it is useless to try to
    communicate.: FYI- I am difficult.
    But it is an other even simpler rule:there are people who KNOW and people who learn. Zero inter-categories communication. governments and Corporations know, weak chances they will ask some experts from the other, lowly category.

    But as you say we have to be prepared. I intend to write about this action on the Blog.
    Peter

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