From: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Subject: Harder than she thought
Reply-To: Jed Rothwell <72240.1256@compuserve.com>
Organization: Sci.physics.fusion/Mail Gateway
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:47:59 GMT

To: >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.sf-bay.org

Well, Notoya-san had to go off to another appointment in the U.S. I don't
know what they plan to do next, but I think she will mail cathodes to people
here in the U.S. who will try them in full-scale, careful calorimeters. I will
suggest to her that she wrap them carefully in containers filled with inert
gas. The glass-bottle demo approach is a good learning experience, because
it is fast and it lets you watch the electrolysis, but obviously red alcohol
thermometers and alligator clips are no substitute for real thermocouples
attached to data collection computers, solid electrical connections, on-the-fly
calibration heaters, and closed calorimeters with stable temperatures.

Jon Webb thinks it is a "lot harder" to do nickel CF than I said. He and I
have vastly different standards about what is "hard" and what is "easy."
Suppose the people at MIT (or elsewhere) work at nickel CF for six months,
day and night, go through 10 cathodes from Notoya, and finally replicate
her 400% excess. I will call that "dead simple." A ride on Delta! Compared to
palladium, it would be a cinch. Perhaps Mr. Webb is not familiar with just
how difficult and frustrating basic research and product development is. I
once spent six months just writing screen display software (back in the
prehistoric of microcomputers; now that sort of thing comes out of a box),
so I think six months of hard work is nothing. My idea of a "lot harder" is
what EPRI had to do in order to replicate P&F's palladium CF: three years
of work with a large staff, $3 million in expenses, and 200 experiments,
yielding 40 positive runs (a 20% success rate). So far, at MIT, we saw 2 out
2 nickel experiments work, although the rate of heat generation and the
stability were disappointing.

Since she only got a 70% excess at low power, obviously Notoya's cathode
and chemicals do not travel as well as she thought they would. Practically
anyone who makes a serious effort to do this experiment with porous nickel
will see excess heat in the range of 30% to 70%. Under clean, controlled
laboratory conditions back in Hokkaido, Notoya sees a lot more than that.
Compared to Mills, Noninsky, Srinivasan, and the others who have seen this
effect, her claims are different quantitatively, but not qualitatively.
Obviously, there is more art to it than she realized. I would say she got lucky
at Nagoya. Plus -- as I said all along -- B&J were partly right, when she
measured resistance she admitted that the silver wire was more resistant
than she thought, and the temperature did rise when we moved the clips, so
perhaps the Nagoya demo was also roughly in the range of 100% excess,
rather than 150% (my seat-of-the-pants estimate based on 15 C delta T). I
thank Mitchell Swartz for putting that discussion on a qualitative,
numerical basis. Why don't we put it aside for the time being, and try the
actual nickel experiment? That seems like the conventional course of action
to me.

I am not sure how you make a sintered nickel cathode. I gather it is in a
small forge or hot press. Several people have written to me suggesting that
it would be a good idea to grab the cathode from the forge when it is still
cooling with a pair clean tweezers, drill a hole in it, mount the lead wire,
and plop it into the electrolyte. They say, "do not let it lie around for a
week." One electrochemist, who is not working on CF, told me that in the
time it takes him to carry a newly forged cathode across the room, it turns
slightly black with oxidation. In the future, if CF devices are manufactured,
I expect they will be protected from the environment like computer chips
or hard disks, in automated production lines. The cathodes will go straight
from the forge into the sealed device, and never be exposed to tweezers,
dandruff, machine oil or air. With automated production machinery, it is
relatively easy to get the fanatical level of cleanliness the electrochemists
want. You do not need to manually wash glassware 20 times with hot water
and 10 times with cold water.

Cameron Bass reminds us that "energy balances are much easier than
detailed flow calculations." Let me add that steady state energy balances are
easier than balances during ramping, or changing energy flows. I don't know
why. I should be able to tell the computer to chop up the run and compute
a balance for every reading. But, for some reason, I have found that the
balance comes closer to zero when you put in a steady flow of electricity.
Doubling the rate of data collection does not fix the problem completely.
The difference is not large, but for best results, hold the power steady for
a couple of hours.

DB has the impression that there is $25 million in funding available in the
U.S. for CF. Did Hal Fox say that? I don't know exactly what Hal said, but
I am quite certain there is not even one tenth that amount available per
anum in all of North American. Perhaps Hal was referring to the total
capitalization that he expected would be possible from his venture. I am not
familiar with his affairs; I know nothing about his venture, but I can tell
by looking that he does not have that kind of ready cash. I speak to
researchers on a daily basis, and if there was any funding on that scale --
anywhere -- it would attract them like sugar attracts ants.

Another comment of Jon Webb's deserves comment, because it is a classic
case of pathological non-science. It violates the rule established by Kepler
while examining the data of Tycho Brahe: the Data is Right, You are Wrong.
This is the whole ball of wax, the very basis of science and of the
Renaissance, and the Jon Webbs of this world are still -- literally -- living
in the Dark Ages, intellectually. I am not kidding. Let me pull apart his
statement, piece by piece.

"When Pons and Fleischmann first announced, I was sort of willing to
believe (based on their reputations) that two miracles could occur: fusion
could take place in palladium at room temperature and the fusion would not
produce copious amounts of neutrons.  But I'm not willing to believe in a
third miracle, namely that it doesn't require special materials like
deuterium. *Especially* since the theory claimed to explain this kind of
fusion invokes sub-orbital states of hydrogen..."

First: you must never, ever, believe or disbelieve any results based upon the
reputation of the scientists involved. It does not matter who reports a result.
No data means anything until it has been widely replicated. The only proper
response to a new and startling report is to suspend judgment for a couple of
years.

Second: the number of "miracles" required to explain a result makes no
difference whatsoever. God does not care how surprised you are. X-Rays
came as a terrible shock, and so did atom bombs (to most scientists). It does
not matter if it take 100 miracles, or 1000. The only thing that matters --
THE ONLY THING -- is the sigma level of confidence in the results
measured by the instruments. Suppose you woke up and found that the laws
of gravity had changed overnight; suppose you, and many other scientists,
ran a series of replicated experiments that proved convincingly that objects
now fall at a steady rate (not accelerated). Well, miracle or not, that would
be The Truth. Newton would be proved wrong, and everything you ever
"knew" about gravity would be incorrect. A scientist's job is to judge results
based on instruments and replications. Nothing else matters! Previous ideas
about what is possible, what is rational, what fits and what does not fit,
have absolutely no role in science. Data is truth, and all else is speculation.
A 90 sigma result, like McKubre's, overthrows any and all theory no matter
how well established. If an experiment was to prove that ESP exists, or that
black people were inherently more intelligent that whites, that would be
Truth and you would have to accept it unconditionally.

You must deliberately put all theoretical considerations aside when judging
results. It is like Zen meditation; you start by clearing your mind of all
preconceptions, prejudice, value judgements, and conscious ideas, you must
make it a blank slate. The only questions are: how do the instruments work,
and what is the signal to noise ratio? The whole *point* and *purpose* of
science is to get rid of preconceived ideas, to dynamite away old theories,
and to build on the first-hand, unfiltered lessons of Nature as shown by the
instruments.

It is no more of a "miracle" is that ordinary light water works than that
heavy water works. Both are extraordinarily surprising. (Besides, it might
be the fraction of D2O in ordinary water that is reacting.) The only reason
to that light water might be more of a surprise is this: people have been
using various light water - nickel electrochemical devices for a long time,
and light water is more common than concentrated D2O, so you might think
that people should have observed nickel CF excess heat a long time ago.
However, researchers working with nickel CF tell me that this would be
extremely unlikely. Under normal circumstances, with ordinary nickel, you
get between 0% and 3% excess, which would be easily overlooked, and you
can kill the reaction easily. You have to deliberately and consciously set out
to make a CF cell, and you have to carefully enhance the effect. Let me
draw a few analogies: by the late 18th century, people had been building
astrolobes and surveying devices, and they had been using mirrors and half-
silvered mirrors for hundreds of years, but nobody ever accidentally put
together a sextant. It took a deliberate, planned effort, and a great deal of
hard work. In an example closer to CF, people experimented with "cats
whisker" radios and they knew a lot about electricity, but Bell Labs did not
stumble over the transistor; it took a deliberate, planned effort.

Also, this part is really crazy: "*Especially* since the theory claimed to
explain this kind of fusion invokes sub-orbital states of hydrogen, which
*really do* violate quantum mechanics..."

There must always be a clear, solid wall in your mind between data and
theory. The data can be right, and the theory utterly incorrect. The viability
of the Mills theory has nothing whatever to do with the data from his
experiment, or from the many replications of that experiment. Data and
theory must be forever separate and distinct. Beginning in the middle ages
people used leaches to cure certain diseases; this practice did not die out
until the late eighteenth century. The theory behind this practice was some
kind of medieval nonsense about "humors" in the body (I believe), or some
other balderdash. However, this theory had nothing to do with whether or
not leaches are therapeutically effective at preventing blood clots and
speeding recovery. They are! Leaches work! They are now coming back into
widespread use for certain conditions. The theory was wrong, but the
medicine worked. This sort of thing happens all the time, in every branch
of science, medicine and technology.

- Jed


Distribution:
  >INTERNET:fusion@zorch.sf-bay.org

Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion