Continuation Part II - Cold Fusion Claims

It is energetically true that 7Li + p --> alpha + alpha is a net exothermic reaction, whether or not you posit that the (energetically disallowed) 8Be is an intermediate state. I guess Rossi is finally capable of looking up the relevant three numbers in a reliable source.

However, not being a nuclear physicist (or, apparently, talking to nuclear physicists) he didn't get around to realizing that this is a familiar reaction. Mr. Rossi is not the first person to think about it, so it's unusually easy to recognize the extent to which he's making stuff up out of thin air.

First: his stick-and-ball diagrams are ... um ... not standard. It appears that they were invented by Cook, who is some sort of psychologist or computer scientist or something, and it is self-published (or what passes for self-publishing in the modern predatory-publishing world), and recognized nowhere. That said, as far as I can tell, the intention is to graphically keep track of a certain set of quantum numbers. However, insofar as what they're actually doing is looking up some (standard) angular-momentum assignments and selection rules, then drawing colorful pictures of them, I'm not particularly bothered.

OK, so let's look at the "result."

First, they posit that (a) the e-cat is mysteriously full of an excited state of 7Li (we'd call it 7Li(1/2-), or 7Li*, depending on how specific we're being) instead of the ground state; they say (b) this makes sense because it's such an unusually low-lying excited state. They suggest (c) there's a huge fusion cross section p + 7Li(1/2-) --> alpha alpha, and that (d) all together this explains how the e-cat gets nuclear power without emitting gamma rays, but (e) it doesn't help make the nickel transmutations make sense but never mind.

This is all gibberish. (Well, not (e)).
  • There's lithium in an excited state in your system? Listen, guys: the idea "hey, our magic powder has spontaneously excited a nucleus by 477 keV" is your law-of-physics violating step here. 7Li(1/2-) cannot be created out of 7Li by any chemical or thermal reaction. It's a hugely endothermic process, requiring a lot of extra energy to be transported to a single nucleus. It's just as impossible as all of the other "horribly endothermic nuclear reaction happens spontaneously, la la" that have been proposed over the years.

    My guess is that Rossi didn't notice what he was doing here. He hid his impossible step in one throwaway line ("start with 7Li(1/2-)") and spend the rest of his paper talking about all the clever things he can do with all this 7Li(1/2-) now that he has it.
  • No, 7Li(1/2-) is not unusually low-lying. I mean, sort of? A bit towards the low end but nothing to write home about?
  • You know what happens to 7Li(1/2-) in the real world? It doesn't sit around in Italian powders waiting for protons to wander past. Instead, it decays to 7Li ground state by emitting a gamma ray. It takes something like 10 femtoseconds. Not a great thing to suggest to have sitting around in the special system you're inventing that can't emit any gamma rays. 7Li(1/2-) is a gamma emitter. 7Li(1/2-) bombarded by protons is also a gamma emitter.
  • We know what the 7Li fusion cross sections are. Nowadays, everyone knows about it because it's one of the standard reactions of nuclear astrophysics, it's how the Sun destroyed its primordial 7Li stockpile. The funny thing is this is the first accelerator nuclear reaction ever run, literally. p + 7Li --> alpha + alpha was the first reaction observed by high-voltage-pioneers Crockroft and Walton.

    Nature 129, 242-242 (13 February 1932)

    Drat the luck! You try to pick a nice, obscure nuclear reaction you can lie about with no one noticing, and you accidentally pick the longest-studied nuclear reaction on Earth.

    Now, I wouldn't have minded if Rossi's cross-section guesswork had been true---if, by sheer luck, or by virtue of those graphs keeping a correct account of selection-rules, maybe it is true that 6Li(p,alpha) is rarer than 7Li(p,alpha) is rarer than 7Li*(p,alpha), and all three have been measured.

    Burcham and McCauley 1958 measured the 7Li(p,alpha) and 7Li*(p,alpha) reaction rates---the former both forwards and backwards, the latter backwards only. Contra Rossi's stick-and-ball hopes, both cross sections are about the same. Oops.

    doi:10.1016/0029-5582(58)90012-9

    Also, it's known in stellar physics---I will look up the lab cross sections later---that 6Li is actually burned faster than 7Li, i.e. the low-energy cross sections are higher. Rossi was hoping to explain why his reactor (supposedly) consumed 7Li faster than 6Li. Oops again.
  • Finally, contra Rossi's hope that 7Li(p,alpha) could be a totally-gamma-ray-free reaction ... well, that's sorta true at first order. It's better than anything else he's suggested on that front. But it's still not true. Bombarding metallic Ni with alphas---which is what will happen if you do this in a box of nickel powder---causes particle-induced x-ray emission, i.e. an extremely large flux of 7.8 keV x-rays at the nickel K-edge. Enough, I'm pretty sure, to kill everyone in the room with an E-cat even after the majority of them have been stopped by shielding.

(In case anyone cares.)
 
(ETA: I was right that 6Li depletion is faster than 7Li depletion, but that's due to 6Li(d,alpha) rather than 6Li(p,alpha). Given that Rossi is running his device with standard deuterium-rich water, it might be tempting to ask why 6Li(d,alpha) shouldn't similarly dominate his "e-cat data".

If I were asked to list "all the ways the Rossi data would, if true, seem to contradict nuclear physics expectations" this would be very, very, very low on the list. If I were asked to list "nuclear physics discrepancies I expect Rossi to answer satisfactorily", this questions wouldn't even be on the list, and not just because the list is empty.)
 
ben m said:
(ETA: I was right that 6Li depletion is faster than 7Li depletion, but that's due to 6Li(d,alpha) rather than 6Li(p,alpha). Given that Rossi is running his device with standard deuterium-rich water, it might be tempting to ask why 6Li(d,alpha) shouldn't similarly dominate his "e-cat data".
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Hi ben m, while I agree with your previous long post I have to remark here that I do not think Rossi ever claimed to be using deuterium or deuterated water, only standard hydrogen gas in the reactor and possibly standard water outside for calorimetry
 
jacopogh said:
Hi ben m, while I agree with your previous long post I have to remark here that I do not think Rossi ever claimed to be using deuterium or deuterated water, only standard hydrogen gas in the reactor and possibly standard water outside for calorimetry
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Yes, standard water is "deuterium rich" in the sense that Earth's deuterium ratio (D/H = 150ppm) is high compared to the primordial matter (D/H = 25ppm) and very high compared to the solar interior.

To clarify my point: even in a deuterium-depleted environment like the Sun, the 6Li(d,alpha) reaction rate exceeds the 7Li(p,alpha) rate. Rossi seems to be claiming that this is not true in his system, despite his water having an even higher deuterium content than the Sun. (i.e., normal Earth water. Not isotopically-enriched deuterated water, nor isotopically-depleted light water.)
 
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ben m said:
Yes, standard water is "deuterium rich" in the sense that Earth's deuterium ratio (D/H = 150ppm) is high compared to the primordial matter (D/H = 25ppm) and very high compared to the solar interior.

To clarify my point: even in a deuterium-depleted environment like the Sun, the 6Li(d,alpha) reaction rate exceeds the 7Li(p,alpha) rate. Rossi seems to be claiming that this is not true in his system, despite his water having an even higher deuterium content than the Sun. (i.e., normal Earth water. Not isotopically-enriched deuterated water, nor isotopically-depleted light water.)
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Ah thanks, now I see what you meant. Still, I don't think he ever claims to be using water inside the reactor (for electrolysis, for instance), but only to be pumping hydrogen gas inside it. So would this gas also contain the natural deuterium content at the ratio you posted above? I have no intention of scrolling through Rossi's endless claims to see if he ever said anything about isotopically purified hydrogen.
 
jacopogh said:
Ah thanks, now I see what you meant. Still, I don't think he ever claims to be using water inside the reactor (for electrolysis, for instance), but only to be pumping hydrogen gas inside it. So would this gas also contain the natural deuterium content at the ratio you posted above? I have no intention of scrolling through Rossi's endless claims to see if he ever said anything about isotopically purified hydrogen.
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I forget how Rossi's steam-emitting object of five+ years ago purportedly worked---whether the nickel was reportedly in water or hydrogen. But you're right, the more recent high-temperature objects are reportedly nickel in hydrogen.

Yes, any hydrogen compound you buy on Earth has very nearly the same D/H ratio; I'd have to check the range but I believe it to be small. (Larger than any other natural fractionation, but still small.) If you want purified H or D you pay a premium.
 
jacopogh said:
...I have no intention of scrolling through Rossi's endless claims to see if he ever said anything about isotopically purified hydrogen.
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Rossi's device is actually pretty much a self contained unit - a ceramic cylinder containing nickel and hydrogen with an embedded heating coil. The actual contents are almost a secret since all we have is what he said is in them from several years ago.

The "steam" stuff is from Rossi's original incompetent and possibly fraudulent demonstration of the ecat. He used instruments that were not appropriate. From memory, a reporter noted that the steam output went up when Rossi left the equipment room for another room controlling the equipment.
 
Reality Check said:
The "steam" stuff is from Rossi's original incompetent and possibly fraudulent demonstration of the ecat. He used instruments that were not appropriate. From memory, a reporter noted that the steam output went up when Rossi left the equipment room for another room controlling the equipment.
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Yes. He had a metal vessel which was capable of emitting puffs of steam when plugged into the mains, and when he messed about with controls. I have one of them too. An electric kettle.
 
The Moog said:
rossi-has-been-granted-us-patent-on-the-e-cat
Although the patent is listing it as a "Fluid Heater", no mention of fusion at all.
Looks like this one is still going.
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Ah. The patent makes it clear that it does not refer to eCats at all. The reactions which produce heat are specifically identified as chemical reactions involving LiAlH4, and nickel is specifically identified as a catalyst. Any fusion reactions transmuting nickel to copper would violate the definition of catalyst.
 
WhatRoughBeast said:
Ah. The patent makes it clear that it does not refer to eCats at all. The reactions which produce heat are specifically identified as chemical reactions involving LiAlH4, and nickel is specifically identified as a catalyst. Any fusion reactions transmuting nickel to copper would violate the definition of catalyst.
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It is interesting to compare the patent with Q&A done by Rossi on it.
Which is here : http://ecat.com/news/e-cat-patent-granted-by-uspto
Apparently this all means mass production is 'closer'.
 
The Moog said:
rossi-has-been-granted-us-patent-on-the-e-cat
Although the patent is listing it as a "Fluid Heater", no mention of fusion at all.
Looks like this one is still going.
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Here are the patent claims, in their entirety:

1. An apparatus for heating fluid, said apparatus comprising a tank, an electrical resistor, and a fuel wafer, wherein said tank is configured for holding fluid to be heated, wherein said fuel wafer is configured to be in thermal communication with said fluid, wherein said fuel wafer includes a fuel mixture that includes reagents and a catalyst, wherein said electrical resistor is in thermal communication with said fuel mixture and said catalyst, wherein said resistor is configured to be coupled to a voltage source, wherein said apparatus further comprises a controller in communication with said voltage source, and a temperature sensor, wherein said fuel mixture comprises lithium, and lithium aluminum hydride, wherein said catalyst comprises a group 10 element, wherein said controller is configured to monitor a temperature from said temperature sensor, and, based at least in part on said temperature, to reinvigorate a reaction in said fuel mixture, wherein reinvigorating said reaction comprises varying a voltage of said voltage source.

2. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said catalyst comprises nickel powder.

3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein said nickel powder has been treated to enhance porosity thereof.

4. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said fuel wafer comprises a multi-layer structure having a layer of said fuel mixture in thermal communication with a layer containing said electrical resistor.

5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said fuel wafer comprises a central heating insert and a pair of fuel inserts disposed on either side of said heating insert.

6. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said tank comprises a recess for receiving said fuel wafer therein.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein said tank further comprises a door for sealing said recess.

8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said tank comprises a radiation shield.

9. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said reaction in said fuel mixture is at least partially reversible.

10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein said reaction comprises reacting lithium hydride with aluminum to yield hydrogen gas.
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Notice that claim 8 is the only mention of radiation.

Also note the classification of this patent: F24J1/00

What does that class cover?

SECTION F — MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING

F24 HEATING; RANGES; VENTILATING

F24J PRODUCTION OR USE OF HEAT NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR

F24J 1/00 Apparatus or devices using heat produced by exothermal chemical reactions other than by combustion (for cooking-vessels A47J 36/28; self-heating compresses A61F {A61F 7/03}; materials for the production of heat or cold involving non-reversible chemical reactions, other than by combustion, when used C09K 5/18)
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So, he's playing a classic game, as I identified in my talk at TAM 5, about how people get patents on ******** technologies. He's re-written the application to avoid any explicit mention of cold fusion or LENR, and gotten it reclassified into an art that would likely be examined by a mechanical engineer, rather than a chemist or physicist. So the examiner most likely didn't even realize what he was looking at when it came to the claimed fuel cycle.

Of course, that doesn't stop Rossi from turning around and pretending like this is a validation of his LENR claims. Which again, is exactly what we'd expect a conman to do. Indeed, he's following the playbook of other well-known conmen right here.
 
The Moog said:
rossi-has-been-granted-us-patent-on-the-e-cat
Although the patent is listing it as a "Fluid Heater", no mention of fusion at all.
Looks like this one is still going.
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In addition to what is said, you can pretty much get patent for stuff which are not working, although if the patent examiner detect you are trying to pull a fast one with a PM or nowadays cold fusion, they will ask you for a working prototype, but more or less if that does not fall into those domain you can patent stuff which do not work.
 
Horatius said:
Here are the patent claims, in their entirety:

Notice that claim 8 is the only mention of radiation.

Also note the classification of this patent: F24J1/00

What does that class cover?

So, he's playing a classic game, as I identified in my talk at TAM 5, about how people get patents on ******** technologies. He's re-written the application to avoid any explicit mention of cold fusion or LENR, and gotten it reclassified into an art that would likely be examined by a mechanical engineer, rather than a chemist or physicist. So the examiner most likely didn't even realize what he was looking at when it came to the claimed fuel cycle.

Of course, that doesn't stop Rossi from turning around and pretending like this is a validation of his LENR claims. Which again, is exactly what we'd expect a conman to do. Indeed, he's following the playbook of other well-known conmen right here.
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This would appear to confirm what you write.

http://www.e-catworld.com/2015/08/28/rossi-patent-in-media-sources-brian-josephson-and-tom-whipple/

Personally, I’m not expecting too much of a media splash on this news. The mainstream media in general seems to take its guidance on science reporting from what respected mainstream scientists say on a topic, and so far precious few have said anything positive about LENR or the E-Cat.

My guess is that it will be people in the business community who will be more interested in the granting of a patent — this raises the visibility of the E-Cat in commercial terms, and is an important step in getting the technology into the marketplace. I do agree with Tom Whipple that the information contained in the patent should be helpful to replicators, and I know that already there are people getting ready to try new replications based on what is revealed in this patent. Some successful replications based on the E-Cat recipe in the patent could be quite convincing.​
 
Horatius said:
Here are the patent claims, in their entirety:




Notice that claim 8 is the only mention of radiation.

Also note the classification of this patent: F24J1/00

What does that class cover?




So, he's playing a classic game, as I identified in my talk at TAM 5, about how people get patents on ******** technologies. He's re-written the application to avoid any explicit mention of cold fusion or LENR, and gotten it reclassified into an art that would likely be examined by a mechanical engineer, rather than a chemist or physicist. So the examiner most likely didn't even realize what he was looking at when it came to the claimed fuel cycle.

Of course, that doesn't stop Rossi from turning around and pretending like this is a validation of his LENR claims. Which again, is exactly what we'd expect a conman to do. Indeed, he's following the playbook of other well-known conmen right here.
Click to expand...

If you have a resistor connected to a voltage source the resistor will get hot and heat the surrounding medium regardless of what it is.
 
My guess is that it will be people in the business community who will be more interested in the granting of a patent — this raises the visibility of the E-Cat in commercial terms, and is an important step in getting the technology into the marketplace. marks to part with cash before the con falls apart.
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Fixed that for you.
 
See site called "Shut Down Rossi". I think his scam needs a bit of a boost. One of his "licencees" in fact found buyers for two of Rossi's large ecomony size devices. Rossi refused to deliver; presumably because he has no such contraptions except a phoney one for his dog and pony shows. The licencee took him to court, and he bought back the licence. This doesn't look good.

He seems to be buying back any licence the buyers want to return, presumably to avert other legal action. http://www.e-catworld.com/2014/11/19/industrial-heat-buying-up-all-e-cat-licenses-ian-walker/

But I have to say the scam is lasting longer than I predicted. There's more morons out there than one can readily imagine.
 
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Craig B said:
But I have to say the scam is lasting longer than I predicted. There's more morons out there than one can readily imagine.
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Google "Blacklight power". They've been pulling this same scam with their version of cold fusion since almost the beginning of cold fusion in 1989. Over about 25 years, they've reportedly brought in about $30 million in investment cash, without ever producing an actual working device. Every 5-7 years, they go through the same cycle: Announce a "new discovery" that will work this time, file a new set of patent applications, get a new crop of investors, have the patents refused, or granted based on the tricks I mentioned above, utterly fail to produce an actual device, go quiet long enough for the idiots to forget what just happened, then repeat. For 25 years. Rossi's a piker by their standards!
 
Horatius said:
Google "Blacklight power". They've been pulling this same scam with their version of cold fusion since almost the beginning of cold fusion in 1989.
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I know about these guys, but Rossi kicks their ass with Petroldragon that cost the regional government of Lombardy, Northern Italy forty million euro to clean up.
 
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Incidentally, in Italy the most common male name and surname are Andrea and Rossi: now I guess even the name is fake ;)
 
Kid Eager said:
If by "detail" you mean "many, many words strung together detailing a quite elaborate claim in a way to make it near incomprehensible", then yes.

The claim is not the thing. however. I could write something simliar for cheese-powered xylophones...
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Incidentally, I just had an idea for how you could fool an IR-camera-based independent test/pony show: Rossi could hide an IR laser somewhere in the room. Turn it on and illuminate the ECat whenever you want it to register as "hot". Easy peasy.
 
pteridine said:
For those that complained about a lack of detail, this patent application by Industrial Heat should provide some discussion:

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...ter&sortOption&queryString&tab=PCTDescription
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Sure, sure, there's lots of "additional detail" there. Alas, the vast majority of it is related to the purely mechanical structure of the device, which was never in contention here, with only passing references to what drives the reaction, which is what is in contention.

Here's the only passage I could find that addresses the reactive material in any specific, concrete terms:

[0078] Any suitable reactive material that produces energy (e.g. chemical, thermal, electromagnetic, and/or nuclear) in response to the thermal and/or electromagnetic input from the resistance wires 16 and/or other source of input energy may be used. Exemplary reactive materials are discussed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0005506 to Rossi, U.S. Patent Publication No.2013/0243143 to Mastromatteo, U.S. Patent Publication No. 20110255645 to Zawodyny and U.S. Patent No. 8,485,791 to Cravens, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. Additional reactive materials are discussed in European Patent Publication No. 2,368,252B1 to Piantelli; International Application No. PCT/FI2012/051171 to Soininen; Campari et al., "Ni-H Systems," ICCF8 Conference Proceedings Vol. 70 (2000); Celani et al., "Improved understanding of self-sustained, sub-micrometric multi-composition surface Constantan wires interaction with H2 at high temperatures: experimental evidence of anomalous heat effects," Chemistry and Materials research, vol. 3, no. 12 (2013), and Final Report, Termacore, Inc., Contract No. F33615-93-C-2326, "Nascent Hydrogen: An Energy Source." Exemplary reactive materials may include a metallic material able to absorb hydrogen (and its isotopes) in a sufficiently high amount for the triggering of nuclear reactions under predetermined operative conditions. Suitable metallic materials belong to the group of the transition metals and may be chosen from the group including: Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn, Y, Zr, Nb, Mo, Tc, Ru, Rh, Ag, Cd, Lu, Hf, Ta, W, Re, Qs, Ir, Pt, Au, lanthanoids, lanthanides, actinides, and an alloy between two or more of the listed metals. The metallic material may be chosen from the group including nickel (Ni), palladium (Pd), platinum (Pt), tungsten (W), titanium (Ti), iron (Fe), cobalt (Co) and alloys between two or more of such transition metals. In an embodiment, the transition metals used, or their alloys, have a surface crystalline structure, for example, with crystalline clusters having micro and/or nanometric sizes, so as to ensure the adsorption of a high amount of hydrogen and the capture of possible ionic species that can be strongly attracted in a deep-energetic fashion, and even interact with the nuclei of the metal.
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Notice what they've done here? They've basically passed the buck, saying, "Well, we can use anything that works, just ask these other guys, who also haven't actually told you how it works." That's another of the techniques scammers use to get bad patents. At this point, the poor bloody patent examiner doesn't just have to argue against this one, new application, they will have to argue against everyone who has ever claimed a LENR device. The workload is thus geometrically greater with every patent application they file!

Their lack of detail concerning this key, central part of their claimed device is particularly egregious when you consider that:

[0063] The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms "a," "an" and "the" are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms "comprises" and/or "comprising," when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein, the term "and/or" includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. As used herein, phrases such as "between X and Y" and "between about X and Y" should be interpreted to include X and Y. As used herein, phrases such as "between about X and Y" mean "between about X and about Y." As used herein, phrases such as "from about X to Y" mean "from about X to about Y."

[0064] Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the specification and relevant art and should not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein. Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity.

[0065] It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being "on," "attached" to, "connected" to, "coupled" with, "contacting," etc., another element, it can be directly on, attached to, connected to, coupled with or contacting the other element or intervening elements may also be present. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being, for example, "directly on," "directly attached" to, "directly connected" to, "directly coupled" with or "directly contacting" another element, there are no intervening elements present. It will also be appreciated by those of skill in the art that references to a structure or feature that is disposed "adjacent" another feature may have portions that overlap or underlie the adjacent feature.

[0066] Spatially relative terms, such as "under," "below," "lower," "over," "upper" and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one element or feature's relationship to another element(s) or feature(s) as illustrated in the figures. It will be understood that the spatially relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures. For example, if the device in the figures is inverted, elements described as "under" or "beneath" other elements or features would then be oriented "over" the other elements or features. Thus, the exemplary term "under" can encompass both an orientation of "over" and "under." The device may be otherwise oriented (rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative descriptors used herein interpreted accordingly. Similarly, the terms "upwardly," "downwardly," "vertical," "horizontal" and the like are used herein for the purpose of explanation only unless specifically indicated otherwise.

[0067] It will be understood that, although the terms "first," "second," etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. Thus, a "first" element discussed below could also be termed a "second" element without departing from the teachings of the present invention. The sequence of operations (or steps) is not limited to the order presented in the claims or figures unless specifically indicated otherwise.
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...they spent about two or three times as many words defining perfectly normal terms. (The above is becoming a standard boilerplate bit from American patent agents, which is annoying as all heck, but it does highlight exactly how little attention is being paid to the core concepts in this application).
 
Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway. Likely, a detailed mechanism is not known when all that has been done is workshop engineering and operation as a black box. The effect could be general; at least including materials that dissolve significant amounts of hydrogen.

I am aware that many on this board take great delight in attacking Rossi because their demands for detailed proof have not been satisfied. Rossi doesn't care what they think and will continue on his path. As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction. ONR and NRL have been experimenting in this area since 1990 or so and have seen some interesting results even with the unpredictable electrochemical loading of Pd. The level of Boron impurities in the Pd seems to be important.
I understand that this is uncomfortable for those that think they have nuclear reactions completely covered and do not like upstarts like Rossi and Norman Cook treading on hallowed ground that is only accessible to the high priests of physics. Norman's book does make sense and seems to explain nuclear structure better than the liquid drop model. It is well referenced and is a nice read. The second edition is more pertinent to Rossi but either will explain his concept of nuclear structure.
 
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pteridine said:
For those that complained about a lack of detail, this patent application by Industrial Heat should provide some discussion:

https://patentscope.wipo.int/search...ter&sortOption&queryString&tab=PCTDescription
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He skirts around. Liek his other application. Fusion is nigh mentioned except vaguely in 198, and in claim 78 he mention pretty much everything including chemical reaction. And at the start "reaction" which is could be mistaken for chemical reaction by somebody not following Rossi.

From the heap of claim there is also nothing about the secret sauce.

In other word, from my unschooled eye, it is basically just a reactor like there are hundreds of, nothing "fusion" novel in those claim.

Powder thrown in the eye of the fans and possible idiot investing in that.
 
pteridine said:
Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway.
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The only things which would be worth protecting is the "secret" sauce. The reactor are all trivial.

So yeah I can stop you right there.

Likely, a detailed mechanism is not known when all that has been done is workshop engineering and operation as a black box. The effect could be general; at least including materials that dissolve significant amounts of hydrogen.
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You are just waffling around. The bottom line is that the patent does not protect any of the supposed fusion part. That's it. End of the line.

I am aware that many on this board take great delight in attacking Rossi because their demands for detailed proof have not been satisfied.
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No that's because he was caught cheating and he has not even met the basic burden of proof for physic changing stuff. You know who pretend to change physic with energy production and do not publish ? Scammer. You know who publish and published in the past detailed description ? Physicist.

Rossi doesn't care what they think and will continue on his path. As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction. ONR and NRL have been experimenting in this area since 1990 or so and have seen some interesting results even with the unpredictable electrochemical loading of Pd. The level of Boron impurities in the Pd seems to be important.
I understand that this is uncomfortable for those that think they have nuclear reactions completely covered and do not like upstarts like Rossi and Norman Cook treading on hallowed ground that is only accessible to the high priests of physics. Norman's book does make sense and seems to explain nuclear structure better than the liquid drop model. It is well referenced and is a nice read. The second edition is more pertinent to Rossi but either will explain his concept of nuclear structure.
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Look if you want to convince yourself that we are close minded because we accept only evidence, then it is up to you, and frankly the common call of all woo and scammer "hey skeptic are close minded because they ask for evidence. Such fools ! Pyramide power is all proven ! Homeopathy works ! Rossi has a fusion reactor !". But why both posting this in a skeptic forum ? That type of cheerleading you present is useless in a skeptic forum. We look at available evidence, and at the claims and decide based on that. I do not care if something makes me uncomfortable. FFS I studied QM. How much uncomfortable do you think you can get with quantum physic ? Duality wave particle ? Many world ? You think Rossi's stuff would make us more uncomfortable ? Gee. In the grand scheme of think I can think of many uncomfortable proposition. Rossi does not make top 10. I am not even sure if I count everything in QM , Particle Physic, biology if he would even make the top 100.

Look basically once he starts presenting independent evidence we can talk, but so far he pretended to have more than one way to have such fusion, none of which could not have been cheated since he maintained total control of the experimental set up, and he WAS caught fiddling a power control back when he was doing "steamy video". He is a known fraud. Not only the gold things IIRC, but also petrodragon and the DOD heaters. You may not like it , but that is the evidence which are available to us. There is nothing pertaining his claim which has met a burden of evidence in physic. And remember how is non delivery led to a legal action leading him to announce he would give money back. So he is taking money already in and nothing is being delivered except waffling and patents for reactor which anybody could make up without having any valid reaction.

He reminds me of BLP / Hydrinos Now talk about another scam.

Let me ask you an honest question.

We can all tell you in detail what sort of test would be need to demonstrate the effect. We can tell you what would convince us.
Are you able to do the same thing ? Are you able to tell us what would convince YOU that Rossi has nothing ? After how many years of nothing coming would would you prepared to admit that maybe you were too trusty ? Remmember that it all started 7 years ago. And no real steps forward were made despite the pretention to have 1 MW plants and working prototypes.
 
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pteridine said:
Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway. Likely, a detailed mechanism is not known when all that has been done is workshop engineering and operation as a black box. The effect could be general; at least including materials that dissolve significant amounts of hydrogen.
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So, if the details provided are not the details WE need to determine if he's full of **** or not, why did you say:

pteridine said:
For those that complained about a lack of detail, this patent application by Industrial Heat should provide some discussion:
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?

You seemed to think this application would give us more to work with, but now you're backing off, telling us, "Oh, those details. Those aren't important."


Now, getting back to your assertion that "Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway." This is the sort of superficial understanding of patent law that lets scammers like Rossi et al. keep pulling the wool over your eyes.

Yes, it's true that it is not necessary to describe a theoretical basis for a process - if that process can be demonstrated to work. To demonstrate the process works, you must be able to provide what is known as "an enabling disclosure" - that is, an exact set of instructions that, if followed diligently by a person of skill in the art, will inevitably result in the claimed process working as described. And it is in this that Rossi et al. have completely failed - they have never given a good enough description to allow any other person to replicate their work.

Now, what level of detail constitutes an enabling disclosure depends highly on the nature of the technology, and how well known it is. "Set it on fire" is just about the oldest technology we have, and those four words would be sufficient for almost anyone to understand that step. "Induce a LENR reaction" is so poorly understood, and so obviously fraught with pitfalls that even trained scientists and engineers still can't produce a reliable and predictable reaction, that it will require far more, and more precise, instructions. That's what happens when you're on the cutting edge of ground-breaking science.


And note, this would all be true even if LENR was a completely real phenomenon. Even if Rossi et al. are all perfectly honest, perfectly correct, and are just on the cusp of revolutionizing our entire way of life - they still haven't met their burden of an enabling disclosure.





As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction.
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As you can see, we have considered it, and they still fail.

We've been considering this since at least 1989. I was a physics undergrad when this all started, and we were all paying attention. We all wanted it to be true, since we all understood exactly how awesome that would be, and what it would mean both for physics and for the world. But it was that "paying attention" that led us to conclude it was a crock.
 
pteridine said:
Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway. Likely, a detailed mechanism is not known when all that has been done is workshop engineering and operation as a black box. The effect could be general; at least including materials that dissolve significant amounts of hydrogen.

I am aware that many on this board take great delight in attacking Rossi because their demands for detailed proof have not been satisfied. Rossi doesn't care what they think and will continue on his path. As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction. ONR and NRL have been experimenting in this area since 1990 or so and have seen some interesting results even with the unpredictable electrochemical loading of Pd. The level of Boron impurities in the Pd seems to be important.
I understand that this is uncomfortable for those that think they have nuclear reactions completely covered and do not like upstarts like Rossi and Norman Cook treading on hallowed ground that is only accessible to the high priests of physics. Norman's book does make sense and seems to explain nuclear structure better than the liquid drop model. It is well referenced and is a nice read. The second edition is more pertinent to Rossi but either will explain his concept of nuclear structure.
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Same old, same old. Where is this power production happening, where is this earth changing technology.

If it worked it would be great, I suspect it doesn't and that is why it isn't changing the world.

I think the issue is that Rossi hasn't produced and is still just working the crowd. If he had actual results they would be applauded and lauded and he would be the savior of the world.
 
I happened to stumble into a part of youtube devoted to videos of "working" perpetual motion machines. All the classic unbalanced wheels, auto- recirculating funnels, eccentric gears, etc. And sure enough, they all worked very convincingly when the narrator started them up! Some I think were just meant as elaborate jokes, but others asked for donations/investments to complete the commercialization of the product. I am much more likely to sent my money to one of these youtube sites than to Rossi. At least the youtube sites all seemed based on simple principals (well, misunderstandings of simple principals) and they showed me videos of turning, moving, mechanical machines and no excuses.
 
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pteridine said:
Describing the mechanism for heat production is not necessary in a patent and is not a wise thing to do, anyway. Likely, a detailed mechanism is not known when all that has been done is workshop engineering and operation as a black box. The effect could be general; at least including materials that dissolve significant amounts of hydrogen.

I am aware that many on this board take great delight in attacking Rossi because their demands for detailed proof have not been satisfied. Rossi doesn't care what they think and will continue on his path. As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction. ONR and NRL have been experimenting in this area since 1990 or so and have seen some interesting results even with the unpredictable electrochemical loading of Pd. The level of Boron impurities in the Pd seems to be important.
I understand that this is uncomfortable for those that think they have nuclear reactions completely covered and do not like upstarts like Rossi and Norman Cook treading on hallowed ground that is only accessible to the high priests of physics. Norman's book does make sense and seems to explain nuclear structure better than the liquid drop model. It is well referenced and is a nice read. The second edition is more pertinent to Rossi but either will explain his concept of nuclear structure.
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This is one of a series of recent posts on the ISF which propose that the reason the people who know the most about these sort of things (over unity devices, Bigfoot, etc.) don't believe in them is that such things make them "uncomfortable" and come from outside "the club." This appears to represent a common way that people who believe in outlandish ideas reconcile themselves to the immense rejection of these ideas by the relevant experts. I suggest an alternative interpretation: the people who know the most about science and biology reject these ideas because they see fundamental problems with the corresponding concepts, and a total lack of reasonable evidence in favor of these ideas.

As I noted elsewhere- scientists are often very open to new concepts when these concepts are well documented. Scientists like new ideas, and ones that shatter the pre-existing paradigms are opportunities to study new and exciting aspects of nature.
 
Giordano said:
As I noted elsewhere- scientists are often very open to new concepts when these concepts are well documented. Scientists like new ideas, and ones that shatter the pre-existing paradigms are opportunities to study new and exciting aspects of nature.
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Indeed. As I mentioned above, I was an undergrad when Cold Fusion first came out, and we all knew how amazing that could be. Had this turned out to be real, it probably would have been the defining discovery of all our careers - what gravity and optics were to Newton, what electricity was to Faraday, what radium was to Curie, and what nuclear fission was to Fermi, cold fusion would have been to us these last 30 years or so.

And these guys would have us believe that I, and all my fellow students, just threw that all away because we were "uncomfortable"? ********.
 
Horatius said:
Indeed. As I mentioned above, I was an undergrad when Cold Fusion first came out, and we all knew how amazing that could be. Had this turned out to be real, it probably would have been the defining discovery of all our careers - what gravity and optics were to Newton, what electricity was to Faraday, what radium was to Curie, and what nuclear fission was to Fermi, cold fusion would have been to us these last 30 years or so.

And these guys would have us believe that I, and all my fellow students, just threw that all away because we were "uncomfortable"? ********.
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IIRC, Pons' and Fleishman's anouncement of cold fusion came out within a few days of the Exxon Valdez spill. I remember thinking, maybe we won't have to deal with that sort of stuff any more. If only.

The thing is, if cold fusion worked the way they claimed it did, putting the apparatus inside boiler and generating electricity would have been trivial. If the government and Big Oil tried to suppress it (not that I think that would really happen), people would have been building them in their basements and telling the power company to take a hike.
 
pteridine said:
As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are correct and there is a nuclear reaction.
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I have done so, repeatedly.

Tell me, Pteridine: since Rossi has repeatedly changed his story about whether isotope analysis has been done, and what the outcome was, which story am I supposed to hypothesize is correct? Do you want me to supposed to "consider the possibility" that nuclear reactions burn isotopically-natural nickel and leave behind isotopically-natural copper? Or do you want me to suppose the opposite is true? Rossi has claimed both, but I can't believe that, can I?

Can I re-ask your question in a more sensible way?

edited said:
As I have said before, consider the possibility that Rossi and others are only lying about some things, not everything, and in the part they are not lying about there is a nuclear reaction.
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Do you see why that possibility is so easily rejected?
 
pteridine said:
I am aware that many on this board take great delight in attacking Rossi because their demands for detailed proof have not been satisfied.
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That is wrong, pteridine.
We take great delight in pointing out that a crank like Rossi exists because the basics of the scientific (and rational!) world have not been met by his "experiments". No valid proof that he is anything but a fraudster fooling people into giving him money and time has been presented.

It is insanely ignorant to think that an actual nuclear reaction happened in his apparatus as you already know from the posts in this thread, pteridine.

A rant about "high priests of physics" does not help your or Rossi's case.
 
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