From: J_FARRELL@acad.fandm.edu
Subject: Re: Fusion Digest 666
Reply-To: J_FARRELL@acad.fandm.edu
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 02:23:45 GMT


> 
>--------------------
DROEGE@fnald.fnal.gov writes

> 
>Chris Phoenix worries that possibly the Mills experiment failed because
>there was a mercury bubbler in the calorimeter.  There was a water bubbler
>there first.  But Mills said the back pressure would not be high enough.
>There was also and oil bubbler, then the Mercury.  Mills seems to me to be
>a moving target.  Whenever a careful measurement does not work, you get to
>do something different.  But his first experiment "works" if done as he
>describes.  But then you find that a more complete experiment does not work,
>then Mills tells you to try something else ... .
> 

This is pure, unadulterated rubbish.  Mills recommended that a recombiner 
**not** be used with the Ni/K+ system.  This recommendation was based on
his lack of success with recombiners. [This could mean that the process
will not work with (or without) a recombiner.  Or, it could mean that Mills
had not worked out the necessary experimental parameters to get it working
with a recombiner.]  Nonetheless, Mills is now depicted as a "moving
target" by someone who failed to heed Mills' advice and who asked Mills for
suggestions to further his (Droege's) perception of how the experimental
verification of this excess heat phenomenon should proceed. [Droege
*assumes* that an experiment with a recombiner is a more complete
experiment.  He also *assumes* that if it doesn't work with a recombiner
that it doesn't work period.]  

I will concede that Tom Droege has an excellent calorimeter.  [Mills also
has a very good data aquisition system and some very sophisticated
equipment.]  Unfortunately, Droege's calorimeter is not being used to full
advantage.  I remind you that Droege was getting excess heat without the
recombiner.  He attributed this heat to recombination (gas analysis by
Mills showed little or no recombination).  Recombination is a serious
complication as long as the output wattage is less than or equal to the
input wattage.  But as I reported here several weeks ago,  Mills (and
Thermacore, Inc.) was getting several times VI [typically 20 watts in, V*I
= 20 watts with no 1.48 *I correction, and 60 watts out].  Actually, those
data were several months old.  I am now free to say that more recent
experiments have 2.5 watts in and 50 watts out. Once again the 2.5 watts is
V*I (no 1.48*I correction). You are welcome to conclude that Mills is
making some sort of error--because the details of these more recent
experiments will not be published for some time (the older three-fold
increase can be achieved using procedures published previously). In my
opinion, however, no error is being made.  These measurements are difficult
at the mW level but not at the 10 W level.  Droege's calorimeter could
easily do the job, but he would have to sacrifice his recombiner.  Alas,
hard decisions.

Jed Rothwell has been taking a verbal beating of late, but basically I
agree with him--the experiment always wins in an encounter between
experiment and theory. No exemptions are granted to any theoretician.  

Best regards to one and all.

John Farrell
Franklin & Marshall College