LENR Is Real

Point out news stories, on the net or in mainstream media, related to polywell fusion.

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tomclarke
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by tomclarke »

Axil you have no evidence here for variable decay rates.

The groups who claim this have results too near to experimental error - and without coherent support. For example the idea that decay rates vary with distance from sun is contradicted by lack of evidence from asteroid radioisotope chronology.

You need a set of coherent anomalies of this type to begin to get something interesting. Even then, they are not likely to be new physics.

You are overreacting.

If magnetic fields changed reaction rates much this would be known.

Incidentally electric and magnetic fields do have some influence of nuclear reaction rates as you'd expect since they can alter the energy of particles emitted. But it is a very small effect.

http://www.whoi.edu/cms/files/1972AnRev ... _68424.pdf
Axil wrote:
MSimon wrote:So where is the evidence that LENR produces copious neutrinos? Say enough to alter decay rates more than a fraction of a percent.
It's not neutrinos, it's magnetism.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/09 ... -Constancy
"Scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and Purdue University have ruled out neutrino flux as a cause of previously observed fluctuations in nuclear decay rates. From the article: 'Researchers ... tested this by comparing radioactive gold-198 in two shapes, spheres and thin foils, with the same mass and activity. Gold-198 releases neutrinos as it decays. The team reasoned that if neutrinos are affecting the decay rate, the atoms in the spheres should decay more slowly than the atoms in the foil because the neutrinos emitted by the atoms in the spheres would have a greater chance of interacting with their neighboring atoms. The maximum neutrino flux in the sample in their experiments was several times greater than the flux of neutrinos from the sun. The researchers followed the gamma-ray emission rate of each source for several weeks and found no difference between the decay rate of the spheres and the corresponding foils.' The paper can be found here on arXiv. Slashdot has previously covered the original announcement and followed up with the skepticism of other scientists."
The paper can be found here on arXiv

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1006.5071v1.pdf

MSimon
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by MSimon »

Axil wrote:It's not neutrinos, it's magnetism.
OK. The suns magnetic field varies at most by milliTeslas.

Got a paper on how magnetic fields vary decay rates?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Axil
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Axil »

MSimon wrote:
Axil wrote:It's not neutrinos, it's magnetism.
OK. The suns magnetic field varies at most by milliTeslas.

Got a paper on how magnetic fields vary decay rates?
Here is a collection of papers collected by mit on this subject

http://web.mit.edu/redingtn/www/netadv/XperDecRat.html

For your enjoyment as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N76lx-4fN-g
The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements

http://phys.org/news201795438.html
It must be magnetism

snip
On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.

The unknown force from the sun must not only increase nuclear decay rates but reduce them. This is an important clue to the nature of this unknown factor. Radioactive decay rates must be embedded in an environment that defines its nature. That environment can be increased or decreased based on solar activity and in fact is defined by solar activity.

The sun must provide an average background flux that directly affects the rates of decay. Various parts of the sun contribute to this background. This background comes from the core of the sun, but it can also be effected by localized regions on the sun’s surface.


It must be magnetism. Here is why…


The high magnetic fields in the sunspot-producing active regions also give rise to explosions known as solar flares. When the twisted field lines cross and reconnect, energy explodes outward with a force exceeding that of millions of hydrogen bombs.

Temperatures in the outer layer of the sun, known as the corona, typically fall around a few million kelvins. As solar flares push through the corona, they heat its gas to anywhere from 10 to 20 million K, occasionally reaching as high as a hundred million.

Because solar flares form in the same active regions as sunspots, they are connected to these smaller, less violent events. Flares tend to follow the same 11-year cycle. At the peak of the cycle, several flares may occur each day, with an average lifetime of only 10 minutes.

Solar flares vary in size and power. The largest, X-class flares have the most significant effect on Earth. They can cause long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere, and trigger radio blackouts. Medium-size M-class flares can cause brief radio blackouts in the Polar Regions and the occasional minor radiation storms. C-class flares have few noticeable consequences.

Absorbing X-rays affects the atmosphere. The increase in heat and energy result in an expansion of the Earth's ionosphere. Man-made radio waves travel through this portion of the upper atmosphere, so radio communications can be disturbed by its sudden unpredictable growth. Similarly, satellites previously circling through vacuum-free space can find themselves caught in the expanded sphere. The resulting friction slows down their orbit, and can bring them back to Earth sooner than intended.

Despite their size and high energy, solar flares are almost never visible optically. The bright emission of the surrounding photosphere, where the sun's light originates, tends to overshadow even these explosive phenomena. Radio and optical emissions can be observed on Earth.

I am saying in so many words is that solar flares are very powerful.

Clearly, a tremendous amount of magnetic energy is converted in an instant to all the aforementioned energetic phenomena at the expense of the magnetic output of the sun. The sun stores vast amounts of energy in its magnetic fields. A sudden release and conversion of that energy will reduce that magnetic energy storehouse and consequentially reduce the magnetic background around earth that defines the rate of radioactive decay.

tomclarke
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by tomclarke »

Axil,

As always I find it difficult to follow your argument.

The "MIT paper collection" you posted has papers on three topics:

(1) The GSI anomaly
This is interesting because it measures fine details of decay from individual particles that would be invisible when averages over many particles as is true of all other experiments and also (presumably) any hypothesised LENR mechnaism. I see no connection with magnetic field. There is some speculation about neutrino oscillations (which it seems does not work) and another ingenious QM explanation:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1669
This would be easily verified or denied by further experiments so I'm not sure whether it pans out (solving the mystery) or not.

(2) Periodic changes in experimental decay rates. These are very small and all sorts of experimental errors are possible. Solar influence on the decay (rather than the equipment) cannot be ruled out but is not supported by the meteorite measurements. Again there is no connection to magnetic field here.

(3) Non-periodic changes in experimental decay rates. You will have to help me - none of these seem to be related to magnetism. Nor do I know of any which are so clearly validated they are beyond the range of experimental error.

So your it must be magnetism totally baffles me.
Clearly, a tremendous amount of magnetic energy is converted in an instant to all the aforementioned energetic phenomena at the expense of the magnetic output of the sun. The sun stores vast amounts of energy in its magnetic fields. A sudden release and conversion of that energy will reduce that magnetic energy storehouse and consequentially reduce the magnetic background around earth that defines the rate of radioactive decay.
The earth has a well-defined magnetic field from its core. Magnetic fields add, so I just don't understand this "magnetic background". High magnetic fields in the sun are associated with solar flares - but these drop off as 1/r^3 and the far field from them at the earth is negligible. More to the point artificial magnetic fields are 1000s of times stronger than natural ones, and no significant correlations are observed between them and decay rates (there are some well understood and theoretically modelled effects - but nothing of use to LENR nuts). So your "magnetic background that defines the rate of radioactoive decay" statement is so far into delusional territory I do worry about your mental state - unless you are just not connecting this stuff to all the many lab measurements of radioactive decay under different magnetic fields.

Axil
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Axil »

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2 ... f=obinsite

While examining data on radioactive isotopes, Purdue researchers found disagreement in measured decay rates, which goes against the long-accepted belief that these rates are constant. While searching for an explanation, the scientists came across other research that noted seasonal variation in these decay rates. Apparently radioactivity is stronger in winter than in summer

There is another correlation that might be magnetic in nature. This relationship involves seanoal variation based on hemisphere of the earth.


However, As EMF radiation, I would expect magnetic power to be absorbed seasonally just as light and heat would based on the tilt of the earth's rotation with more power absorbed in summer than in winter. However, it is not clear what the detailed seasonal relationship is from the article.

JoeP
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by JoeP »


Axil
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Axil »

Please be kind enough to explain how the "Bogdanov_affair" applies to the subject of this thread "LENR is real".

tomclarke
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by tomclarke »

Axil wrote:
Please be kind enough to explain how the "Bogdanov_affair" applies to the subject of this thread "LENR is real".
It shows that peer-reviewed papers can be rubbish. This is taken by some LENR enthusiasts as proof that rubbish LENR papers so bad they are rejected by all journals could nevertheless have merit.

Think about it. Peer-review is done by people (3 usually) and is as imperfect as people even when editors are unprejudiced. Admittedly an editor publishing contrary to peer-review recommendations would be found out and disgraced eventually.

More importantly, cutting edge science is imperfect. Papers may be rejected because they have obvious self-contradictions, because they do not consider related important published work, or because they make no significant contribution.

The contribution bit is subjective to some extent.

So peer-review is a sieve that eliminates most of the total rubbish, but does not guarantee papers are valid. Nor does it always allow publication of ground-breaking "new physics" work. But there are 1000s of journals, each with independent editors and each likely to call on different peer reviewers. Obvious errors - lack of attention to previous work, inconsistency - can and should be mended. No significant contribution will have judgements that vary, and be less of a bar in lower quality journals. Good work can always be published though it takes a bit of effort to do this.

Some people seem to think that a peer reviewed paper is "canonical fact". That is a total misunderstanding. Scientists are universally skeptical about anything contained in any one published paper. It is what you learn in the first 12 months of doing a PhD. And its a valuable lesson.

Axil
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Axil »

tomclarke wrote:
Axil wrote:
Please be kind enough to explain how the "Bogdanov_affair" applies to the subject of this thread "LENR is real".
It shows that peer-reviewed papers can be rubbish. This is taken by some LENR enthusiasts as proof that rubbish LENR papers so bad they are rejected by all journals could nevertheless have merit.

Think about it. Peer-review is done by people (3 usually) and is as imperfect as people even when editors are unprejudiced. Admittedly an editor publishing contrary to peer-review recommendations would be found out and disgraced eventually.

More importantly, cutting edge science is imperfect. Papers may be rejected because they have obvious self-contradictions, because they do not consider related important published work, or because they make no significant contribution.

The contribution bit is subjective to some extent.

So peer-review is a sieve that eliminates most of the total rubbish, but does not guarantee papers are valid. Nor does it always allow publication of ground-breaking "new physics" work. But there are 1000s of journals, each with independent editors and each likely to call on different peer reviewers. Obvious errors - lack of attention to previous work, inconsistency - can and should be mended. No significant contribution will have judgements that vary, and be less of a bar in lower quality journals. Good work can always be published though it takes a bit of effort to do this.

Some people seem to think that a peer reviewed paper is "canonical fact". That is a total misunderstanding. Scientists are universally skeptical about anything contained in any one published paper. It is what you learn in the first 12 months of doing a PhD. And its a valuable lesson.
This insight from tomclarke begins an explanation of why the accusation of SCAM is so prevalent among the naysayers. These barking nabobs of negativism are not concerned about the financial welfare of the funders of out-of-system freelance research but fear a loss of power to control the agenda that the gatekeepers of science have constructed. There are some small amounts of money now flowing into LENR research and in a short time a product will be available that the rank and file of science will believe is impossible since it does not conform to the doctrinaire that the gatekeepers have enforced. I say …let the money flow to LENR… it’s a free country…it can’t be worse than spending three trillion dollars and more in funding oil wars. That's not counting the expense of caring for the many thousands still living who have lost limbs and are brain damaged from physical and mental assaults that have be a product of those wars.

Betruger
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Betruger »

the naysayers. These barking nabobs of negativism are not concerned about the financial welfare of the funders of out-of-system freelance research but fear a loss of power to control the agenda that the gatekeepers of science have constructed.
Regardless your conjecture, this paranoid pretense kills your credibility. Gatekeeper of the coffee machine.
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Axil
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by Axil »

Betruger wrote:
the naysayers. These barking nabobs of negativism are not concerned about the financial welfare of the funders of out-of-system freelance research but fear a loss of power to control the agenda that the gatekeepers of science have constructed.
Regardless your conjecture, this paranoid pretense kills your credibility. Gatekeeper of the coffee machine.

Seems to me that the judgment regarding credibility is predicated on conformance to the RULES. Where do the rules come from?

There is a training process that forms the mind of the problem solver that might explain why scientists are reluctant to accept unorthodox ways of problem solving. In scientific education, a scientist gains success by learning the established doctrinaire of the field of study he is being educated in. The scientist is presented with a doctrinaire outline in a text book and will pass the course if his way of thinking has been properly molded by his professor in the course of his studies whose chief objective is conformance with the required doctrinaire. He passes a final examine that demonstrates that he understands and agrees with the doctrinaire and the professor who has enforced the course of study on the student.


Over a lifetime of conformance based thinking, a religious like need to conform to the prevailing belief structure is ingrained in his mental being. When an idea is outside that conformant framework, the scientist’s mental processes automatically and unconsciously rebels to discount the new idea as a sin against doctrinaire and the dereliction of consistency implied by the new idea.

Over the centuries, this doctrinaire has been modified and oftentimes been replaced whole cloth with some new way of thinking that is forced on science to meet some unusual nonconforming natural idiosyncrasy. When a new scientific theory is introduced it usually takes years or decades to penetrate through the closed minded prejudices of the majority of conservative scientists.

Furthermore, science has become specialized to such an extent that in order to get to the cutting edge of any given field, it takes half a lifetime to acquire the knowledge and the history of the narrowly defined subject matter. When a scientific specialist writes about the hard won advancement that he has labored hard to contribute to his specific field, that information lays fallow because only a few people in the world understand the context and the background required to properly understand and utilize his contribution. Over his career, the scientific specialist builds on his contributions to the field and hopes someone will reference any of the papers that he has produced. Each new paper becomes more and more incomprehensible dealing on more and more unfathomable and obscure detail of the subject matter.

This extreme scientific specialization has resulted in stove piping of the scientific disciplines.

Stovepiping (also stove piping) is a metaphorical term which recalls a stovepipe's function as an isolated vertical conduit for information and knowledge, and has been use to describe several ways in which raw information may be presented without proper context. It is a system created to solve a specific problem.

The lack of context springs from the specialized nature of the knowledge and information. It also has limited and myopic focus that is not easily shared. Alternatively, the lack of context may come from a particular group, selectively presenting only that information that supports certain conclusions or supports the agenda that advances the interest of that group.

The other mode of education of problem solving is provided by real world experience in meeting project oriented requirements. In business, a customer puts out a request for quote (RFQ) that requires a potential vender to meet a specification describing the project.

The customer does not require the vender to follow any method in the way that the vender solves the conformance of the proposed solution to totally meeting the entirety of the specification.

The vender in a functional analysis of the specification brakes up the specification into a thousand atomic level individual requirements. His solution must meet all these many requirements simultaneously and in every possible permutation and combination of situations.

A chief project engineer will develop a pragmatic solutions oriented way of thinking. This mindset is not concerned with following the rules as a means of the solution; he just wants to come up with any viable way of solving the problem, rules be dammed. Success is what counts no matter the way in which that success is achieved. Cleverness and elegance of thought is what distinguishes a great project engineer from all the rest.

An experienced project engineer will develop a feeling about the major directions to be taken that are implied by the specification. He thinks to himself, if we can stay true to these fundamental design principles we will be alright. In this way like high art, the design engineer breaths the essence of his soul into the system to be uncovered by any who can appreciate the brilliance of his creation.

Under the realities and pressures imposed on the chief project engineer by the commercial world, this renaissance man is usually faced with a task that he has little or no background to apply to or depend on. And yet, to be successful in implementing his project, he must become an expert second to none in multiple fields. His first job is to determine what fields of expertise he must acquire to meet the new challenge. Two dozen diverse fields of knowledge might be required in a large and convoluted project. As an expert adept at learning and correlating of information, he begins his study by identifying, surveying, and going through all the thousands of obscure scientific papers that have been produced by the various scientific specialist both newly written or that have been laying fallow and unappreciated for ages.

He begins to apply this knowledge to the requirements both specified and implied in his project. His plans are formed around the aggregation of knowledge that seldom ends until the customer accepts the project as completed. Even then he works to solve latent defects in his project until the project has reached a high level of utility, effectiveness, and customer satisfaction.

A good example of this type of adaptable mentality is the various ways NASA has solved how spacecraft land on Mars. Based on the projects requirements, the Mars landing method may use balloons that bounce the lander on touchdown, or use retrorockets, or a Sky Crain that gently lowers the lander from a height. All these method are based on absolutely meeting all the requirements of the project, the least of which is a successful landing.

LENR requires a project oriented way of thinking. The LENR method must conform to the multitude of individual observations of its nature. The method must be independent of any constraints imposed by existing scientific doctrinaire, the majority of which are always subject to some level of untruthfulness. We must look for a solution that meets all the experimentally derived clues that have been gathered over the years and no clue must be ignored.

The ultimate goal of the theorist looking to understand LENR must be to uncover the ultimate operational principles that underlie the entirety of LENR. A true LENR theory will cover all LENR systems as well as each and every situation demonstrated by all those various systems.

I believe LENR requires an engineering solution approach that is not constrained and limited by existing scientific doctrinaire.

ladajo
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by ladajo »

Holy Schmolly!

A Second Gold Star for TechnoBabble!

Well done Axil. You are on a roll.

Do you really and truly believe your logic trains and justifications?
You seem like a bright guy, but these diatribes make you look like a preacher, not someone who is thinking critically.
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tomclarke
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by tomclarke »

The scientist is presented with a doctrinaire outline in a text book and will pass the course if his way of thinking has been properly molded by his professor in the course of his studies whose chief objective is conformance with the required doctrinaire. He passes a final examine that demonstrates that he understands and agrees with the doctrinaire and the professor who has enforced the course of study on the student.
That may be how you learnt science. For most, it is about paying detailed attention to experiment, understanding theory, seeing whether the two fit and if not investigating why.

What do you think research is, except figuring out new stuff?

I'm not saying all science is like that, but scientists are one of the very few classes of people trained to work stuff out for themselves and develop new theories when old ones do not work.

It is very tough, trying to make sense of experimental data. It is tough trying to formulate new testable theories. LENR enthusiasts have on the evidence of their published material not much skill at either. Not because they don't conform to some textbook, but because they do not advance any disprovable hypotheses and do not check apparent positive results to find out why they are positive.

One exception I know, an LENR Prof called Kim - developed a hypothesis for LENR which was definite and disprovable, and tested it. However his tests disproved it. So that was good science (arguably misguided since others would have told him his idea could not work), with a boring result. Unfortunately most science has boring results in the real world.

In the LENR world most science had earth-shattering new physics results.

GIThruster
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by GIThruster »

Axil, the dynamic in doing science you're describing pretty ably, sans reference to the primary source materials, is the subject of the landmark work by Thomas Kuhns:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Struct ... evolutions

Much of what you say is true. Kuhns said it better and I suggest you give it a read. However, given all what you're saying is true, one is still left with needing to make scientific appraisals of hypotheses, theories and data based upon the actual evidence. The fact scientists doing normal science don't reevaluate their theories continually is not a damning observation because to do normal science, you can't start at square one on every occasion.

there are indeed all manner of psychological forces at work on scientists when they approach any hypothesis, theory or data for example, but it is the strength of that data that ultimately matters. You need to have reasons to suppose these upstarts proposing what science says can't be done, can really be done. For this you need boatloads of evidence. Science is a "show me" kinda activity.

So yeah, read Kuhn's little book. It's great. And don't pretend things ought to be very different than they are in science in general. people are people and scientists do have the right to demand evidence. It's only when there is boatloads of evidence, validated by multiple parties and replicated to some degree, that scientists really ought to even consider, the overthrow of an old paradigm. And this is what you're asking for with LENR. There needs to be LOTs of evidence before people should en mass chase any particular scheme, as there are an awful lot of them, and a terrible time in validation of any of these studies.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

hanelyp
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Re: LENR Is Real

Post by hanelyp »

to do normal science, you can't start at square one on every occasion.
Indeed, a lot of work went into devising establishing the basic theory of any mature science. You can't advance if you take all your time validating every prior step every time. There is still a place for challenging established theory, but after a certain point the burden of proof shifts to showing where the old theory has a problem.
it is the strength of that data that ultimately matters.
And the data (unless tortured) will eventually reveal a problem if established theory is in error.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.

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