Thursday, June 28, 2012

QUI CITO 32

Neuroscience + Supercomputing + Nanotechnology = Human Brain:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/neuroscience-supercomputing-nanotechnology-human-brain

Reality Is *Very* Different from How Your Brain Perceives it: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/reality-is-very-different-from-how-your-brain-perceives-it

This Embarrasses You and I*
Grammar Gaffes Invade the Office in an Age of Informal Email, Texting and Twitter: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303410404577466662919275448.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Lithium-Ion Battery
Inside the power source for portable electronics and electric vehicles: http://www.technologyreview.com/hack/428155/lithium-ion-battery/?nlid=nlenrg&nld=2012-06-25

Balancing simplicity and complexity: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2012/nt-2012-06-25-Complexity-simplicity.htm

How to Attend a Conference as Yourself:
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/03/how-to-attend-a-conference-as.html

Brain Structure Helps Guide Behavior by Anticipating Changing Demands: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120624134949.htm

Information Flow in the Brain Is Not a 'One-Way Street:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120622163535.htm

Discovery of Material With Amazing Properties:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120624134945.htm

Scientists Gain Understanding of Self-Cleaning Gecko Foot Hair:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620162431.htm

An Online Encyclopedia that Writes Itself
Machine reading effort builds dossiers on people and organizations from translated news sources:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428333/an-online-encyclopedia-that-writes-itself/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-26

Safe Science. Lessons from ­nanotechnology can help synthetic biology mature: http://www.technologyreview.com/notebook/428208/safe-science/?nlid=nlbio&nld=2012-06-26

Browsing Internet Sites Without the Hurdles:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120625100942.htm

Gut Microbes Battle a Common Set of Viruses Shared by Global Populations: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120625065348.htm

Scientists Struggle With Mathematical Details, Study by Biologists Finds: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120625160405.htm

Is intelligent design a valid scientific “philosophy”?: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/06/25/is-intelligent-design-a-valid-scientific-philosophy/

The Psychology of Flow (in under 300 words):
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-psychology-of-flow-in-under-300-words.php

Covering wicked problems: http://pressthink.org/2012/06/covering-wicked-problems/

What Honeybees Can Teach Us About Gang-Related Crime: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/06/what-honeybees-can-teach-us-about-gang-related-crime/2377/#

Become a Google Power Searcher: http://googleblog.blogspot.ro/2012/06/become-google-power-searcher.html

How to solve impossible problems: Daniel Russell’s awesome Google search techniques:
http://www.johntedesco.net/blog/2012/06/21/how-to-solve-impossible-problems-daniel-russells-awesome-google-search-techniques/

Dieting? Study Challenges Notion That a Calorie Is Just a Calorie:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626163801.htm

Why the Universe Doesn't Require God to Exist: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-the-universe-doesnt-require-god-to-exist

Being Rational About Irrationality:                                       http://bigthink.com/insights-of-genius/being-rational-about-irrationality

Creativity Lessons from Charles Dickens and Steve Jobs:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/creativity_lessons_from_charle.html

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

INTERVIEW WITH DEFKALION. I. BUSINESS

Interview conducted by Peter Gluck with DGTG management
(2012-06-25 Via Skype

When was your company established and with what purpose?

Praxen Defkalion Green Technologies (Global) Ltd. (DGTG) was established in 2011 for the sole purpose to become a global player in the emerging field of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR).
DGTG is registered in Cyprus.

What was the experience in LENR?

A collection of leading scientists on the theoretical approach was gathered under our umbrella after the break up with Andrea Rossi with the aim to establish proprietary technology in the field.

Were you successful?

Research and Development is the name of the game and we have excelled to the point where we can see a valid and functioning commercial product for a variety of applications within the coming months. Third party tests from internationally acclaimed entities as well as leading global technology players in both business and academia have been actively supporting our work.
Success is always relative and is not only a one off occurrence; it is an ongoing progress and we are very excited each and every day. The LENR field has reached a critical mass of research and understanding. Laboratory tests have been validated recently by several inventors and scientists in Italy, Japan and America. Our results in Greece are considered to be the most advanced. We are nearing a huge success with an international energy ‘breakout’.

What is the company’s view on the immediate next steps in LENR?

Over the last 15 years we have seen solid, unambiguous evidence supporting the existence of LENR as a new thermal energy source. The time has come when this must be proven and publicized. Soon the world will receive public announcements towards the fact that LENR is real. This will undoubtedly change the mentality of investments towards energy R&D, which to date have been
dealt with as fringe science. DGTG is at the forefront of this new era of clean, green and inexpensive limitless energy.

At what stage is the company’s technology?

DGTG is currently finalising an industrial prototype ready to be presented as a
commercial product for market entry within 2012. Our products will provide all people – end users – with a viable, low cost and green energy source, as a solution to the world’s energy needs. Of course, while we are working behind closed doors on many fine tuning aspects, we are pursuing a regimented business plan approach which extends far beyond the nature of the technology.

How do you expect this disruptive technology to evolve with the
mass media?

Currently, LENR technology is little known beyond those who are ‘in the field’. The market does not seriously expect it to be commercialized soon. That perception will soon change. Starting with the publication of the first independent validations of our technology and continuing to grow with the first LENR products
soon to be introduced to the market, the mass media is expected to bombard the public with analysis of future LENR applications (especially as it everyone is stressed by the increasingly high costs of energy, environmental concerns and the scarcity of traditional energy sources).

What implications on existing energy sources do you expect LENR to have on a global scale?

It is unlikely that the commercialization of LENR technology by DGTG and others will have an immediate significant decrease in fossil fuel consumption. It will, however, have a very dramatic psychological impact. Investors will see the medium and longterm implications of significantly lower energy prices, and
consequentially lower the assessed value of soon-to-be obsolete
energy infrastructure, conventional energy companies, and longterm contracts for their relatively expensive products. As more resources will be devoted to new and better ways to exploit the LENR reaction, the price of energy in the future’s market will drop, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and reducing the
negative environmental implications related to emissions.

How does DGTG expect to meet market entry challenges?

DGTG launch-strategy for this technology is focused on minimal risk of failure encompassed with fast speed, wide-ranging applications, many countries, competitive pricing, protection against industrial espionage, as well as international political support. There are far too many applications for this technology.
There is likely to be a logical evolution of market opportunity based on the ease of adoption and value of the technology to the other options it would be replacing, or enabling new uses.

How do you feel knowing that you hold the potential key to global economic change?

There are those who could have escaped into thought paralysis from the magnitude of this project’s implications. Indeed, we have been offered large sums of money by entities who wish to use this technology exclusively, which would have given us and our grandchildren financially carefree lives. However, while our core
team values profit and growth, we are sincere and committed to ensuring that this technology will have global social benefits.
Succeeding in this principle has just taken more time than expected.

Can you give a brief overview of your business development and global interest?

Many companies from 78 countries have already approached DGTG with an interest to become exclusive licensees to manufacture our Hyperion products, or to initiate joint R&D projects for new applications, or simply to purchase the thermal output of our units. They represent the following sectors:

• Fertilizer manufacturing
• Cement
• Drying kilns
• Food & Beverage
• Industrial heat and steam
• Commercial heat
• Electricity co-generation
• Domestic heat
• Household use
• Water desalination & purification
• Power production - Utilities
• Steam turbines
• Car propulsion
• Light aircraft turbines
• Marine propulsion
• Light aircraft

Can you explain your business plan in greater detail?

DGTG is primarily a technology licensing company with expected revenues being generated from OEM License Agreements and Joint Venture companies for further R&D of our technology.
The first category is simple. Our own product development will introduce a product we call the Hyperion. This Hyperion will be manufactured under license by other companies in as many countries as possible. DGTG selects one company as OEM from every country on the basis that they understand energy, have
manufacturing capabilities, are capable of handling national sales and distribution networks, and of course have the ability to incorporate technical support therein.

This means that you are working with very large companies?

Not really. We do not mandate that all of these actions be done by one company. We know that there will be partnerships to ensure the best outcome. We simply do not want to be part of each country’s modifications. Our aim is to assess each company’s ability to manage of these needs successfully.

I see. Please continue.

Licenses to build and sell Hyperion products are sold to companies with exclusivity in a given country for Euros 40.5 million. This represents one factory with maximum capacity to produce up to 300,000 units annually; (varying capacity and numbers of factories will change the license fee accordingly). DGTG shall guarantee to each of its OEMs that no other contracts will be licensed to
competitors in that specific country, and that the full transfer of knowledge on the product and its production will be transferred through training and transfer of knowledge. DGTG shall provide a full Transfer of Knowledge to each OEM Licensee concerning production, maintenance, installation, training and recharge
Hyperion products.

Are there many countries interested and how are you managing all the checks?

We have received interests from more than one thousand companies from 79 countries. It is very exciting and truly challenging to manage communication with them all. In actual fact, although at first we intended to conduct due diligence
(physical and documentation) we realized that finances and time restrictions did not permit us. So, we have relied our efforts on understanding the commitment level of each company through various other means. For sure, after the announcements of our technology’s validity, there will be an even greater demand on our work. The strain on our company’s resources will depend on the
breadth of our financing and the nature of our partners; which is currently being discussed.

Can you tell us who your investors are and what partners you have?

We have always maintained a high level of secrecy on our potential investors. Primarily due to the fact that such announcements are scheduled only with the presentation of the product. Of course, there are other reasons for keeping silent
as well, which touch on the strategic aspect of this geopolitical project. The entities behind our success will all receive the successful recognition at a time that is mutually agreed.

You mentioned that there is a second business approach

Yes, it is the Joint Venture companies we are discussing. DGTG technology, proprietary know-how and knowledge will be used in several specific technology application areas with interested global players in the form of Joint Venture partnerships, where R&D is coordinated in Greece. Interested companies can partner with DGTG to use its core technology as an energy source through joint R&D to prepare specific new products according to their expertise as global leaders in their given industry, with global distribution rights thereafter. We have done enough innovation and by no means claim to have expertise in other areas. This project is successful because we believe in a win-win approach building on synergies and incorporating the sphere of influence to many sectors.

And is there an interest from companies?

DGTG is currently discussing possible partnerships with globallycompetitive companies: marine propulsion; water desalination; automobiles; small aircraft; mining/extraction and refining; telecom towers; cooling/heating; green-houses. Niche market applications for joint venture companies in R&D applications are
assessed many but we are still in early stages. We must first finish with our robust, tried and tested, operational Hyperion and then embark on these agreements. Nonetheless, as a business, we are entering into talks from now. Large companies are complex, careful and need their time. We understand this and are building our bridges from now.

Interesting, but what about companies that will want your energy for their own needs, such as multinational companies with factory locations globally? Where have you included them in your business plan?

Yes indeed, very important. Companies operating multiple locations around the world with large factories / installations having large energy needs will be serviced as large accounts. Tailor-made technical solutions will be given applicable to each company’s energy needs by DGTG and through our OEMs in
countries where applicable. Pricing agreements will be based on the volume of energy consumed (although this has yet to be confirmed). This category of accounts represents energy solutions that do not need distinct modifications on Hyperion units but rather, modifications on heat management and interoperability
for large units in the MW range.

Your business plan seems solid but what about your revenues?

DGTG’s revenue source will be from the sale of licenses on a per country basis and then from royalties received from units sold.
Of course, each R&D project under a new JV will create further
revenues as well.

You have said nothing about your industrial secret. Won’t that be part of your profit base?

For us, our industrial secret is much more than just the Nickel powder. We have constructed a product that will have more than 6 patents. Only one of them will be linked to Nickel. We expect a strong industrial espionage effort to know what is in
the powder. As such, although we are protecting this secret, our competitive edge is beyond the element of powder; it is in the total functionality of the product. As such, although we initially were going to be selling the powder, we will give it free to all our OEMs as part of the royalty scheme on their sales. Eventually
someone will copy it, so why base our revenues on something that could / will be copied?

.You mentioned patents. Why have we not seen any IP activity from DGTG?

[laugh] … For the reason that we do not want you to see. We value IP and will be filing for a number of patents (as mentioned previously), but the timing is critical for our business strategy and market entry.
Our company’s assets do not only include the IP. We have built a strong team, an international network of LENR contacts in business, academia, government, and science, and we are fine tuning an entire electronic hardware and software system for our Hyperion systems. These, coupled with the engineering design and implementation on product safety and security create a strong base for us to move forward alone. Public announcements and legal steps towards our proprietary know-how will follow at the right time.

You keep on referring to an announcement. When can we expect something?

Patience is a virtue … soon

What can you say about your technological achievements to date?

Again, patience is a virtue. This was meant to be a business discussion. Of course, you may have seen on the internet that we will be participating as speakers and presenters during the ICCF-17 in Daejeon, Korea. This should be enough as an indication.

Yes. Exciting. Thank you. You briefly touched upon the global impact of this technology. What, from your perspective, are the biggest global issues to be faced from your success?

It was based on a question of yours, I believe [laugh]. We have held many discussions with high level officials and global players and have come to the conclusion that this technology will undoubtedly impact the lives of many through:
• Huge impact on national economies and job creation
• Huge impact on climate change and carbon emissions
• Dynamic implications on global economy
• Makes low cost energy readily accessible to third world
countries
. Initiates entirely new field of scientific research
• Rebirth of high cost energy needing technologies

Of course, we remain humble and conservative in the fashion that these changes will take place. We do not see DGTG as the corner stone of all these changes but merely one of the many spark plugs that will tilt the world towards a new, dynamic and positive direction. Remember, we know that this revolutionary discovery is not only ours. We were simply first to put it into business. The
huge market impact that is expected in the hundreds of billions (conservatively speaking) will not only be attributed to DGTG’s rapid market entry. Our management and technical team, our company, will not be the only actively operating business in LENR.
We are getting ready for a whole new industry with new R&D and
new directions.

New Physics maybe?

That is not for me to say, we are a business. Possibly.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Monday, June 25, 2012

100 SEPTOES

These septoes are not written to be liked, just to be understood.

1.The Universe feeds our insatiable curiosity forever
2. The Universe is obsessed to be interesting.
3. The world is simultaneously chaotic and ordered.
4. Evolution is the inherent perfectibility of Nature.
5. The Good and Evil are siamese twins
6. Good could take creativity lessons from Evil.
7. Greatest evil in world- collective, inheritable sin
8. First remove Evil then start building good.
9. Life is hungry matter and edible too.
10. People lie because most truths are bad.
11. Lies are shortcuts from problems to solutions.
12. Means are swallowing aims and replacing them.
13. Bad septoism is seven words not wise
14. All great crises are crises of thinking
15. Wisdom of crowds lies in their diversity
16. Brainair- four parts realism, one part imagination.
17. Future is bright but not for Humanity.
18. Human rights are threatened by Human Privileges
19. Even the best religions are mainly suicidal.
20. We live in memecracies, ideas dominate us.
21. In need, solidarity becomes liquidarity even gasidarity.
22. Greek Gods ruling today: Ares, Hermes, Koalemos.
23. Human nature plus idealistic theories equal disaster.
24. Unlimited greed and ignorance lead to disaster.
25. The essence of human nature is discontent.
26. Perfectionism is dangerous, we need sustained perfectibilism.
27. I am not perfectionist but maximalist-perfectibilist
28. Astrology offends Human Intelligence but is Business
29. My favorite metasport is swimming counter-stream.
30. Old researchers need infinite and impossible tasks
31. I am a stubborn claustrophilic old man,
32. My unique brain has two left hemispheres.
33. My philosophy infinite interestingness and neutral negativity.
34. My work: new energies and problem solving.
35. My values: independent thinking and humanitarian spirit.
36. My religion: human evolution to godlike beings,
37. My aim: to solve humanity’s real problems.
38. My incurable illness is the Cassandra Syndrome.
39. Initiative is the greatest differentiator of humans.
40. Save the world with the Seriousyne vaccine!
41. Victories over your former Self are triumphs.
42. The Future Shock was amortized by irrationality.
43. The problems are here to be solved
44. Always find the Solution outside the Problem.
45. Thinking people have problems, the others troubles.
46. Religion can not be displaced, only replaced.
47. Parts and Whole is the insoluble problem.
48. NO is always more significant than YES.
49. You have success because you had success.
50. Idealism has three opposites materialism, realism and
pragmatism,.
51. Atheism is the last step before negatheism.
52. Scipiology: how to convert disasters in triumphs.
53. Impotence in problem solving is called PROBLETENCE.
54. The cult of celebrities is the Disaster.
55. EGO-OUT: intellectual values lost when somebody dies.
56. Modes of thinking: prelogical, logical, superlogical,
postlogical.
57. Anti-vaccine: perfect evil attacks imperfect good.
58. Sensational a cheap substitute for real knowledge.
59. Intelligence the ability to NOT mix viewpoints.
60. Good thinking- rejecting memes, addiction to facts.
61. The most common crime is attention theft.
62. Intellectual and bigot is like virgin whore.
63. Populism is moving the Center to Periphery
64.. Solar eclipses are rare, intellectual eclipses permanent
65. We have to choose: decelebrization or decerebelization?
66. Anti-intellectualism is more against intellect than intellectuals
67. The 21st Century is the 12th, resurrected
68. This new century has irreparable birth defects.
69. The world is grosso-modo an inverse meritocracy.
70. The world economy- a myriapode with Achilles Heels.
71. Sacred is something you are allowed to kill for.
72. Avoid using intellectual aphrodisiacs in marketing, politics.
73. Moneytheism is senseless, limitless adoration of money.
74. Cultural high jump: bury the bar deeper!
75. Scam: one holiday equals 50 miserable everydays.
76. Starts the terminal phase of chronic anachronism.
77. Do not criticise theories, reality is erronated!
78 Possibility is NOT probability is NOT certainty.
79. Patent literature is mainly mythology, not history.
80. Geography is destiny, history is a prison
81. Autodestructive adoration: you become what you adore.
82. Even very high intelligences are NOT additive.
83. Natural selection builds, unnatural counterselection destroys everything.
84. Kleptocracy is the most natural form of government.
85. Geniuses are specific, no global genius exists.
86. The stupidity of geniuses can be catastrophic.
87. Religions are shortcuts between Questions and Answers.
88. “Fan” the dirtiest form of mental slavery.
89. Chronology is rather annoying, kairosology most interesting.
90. Implementation is decided by abuse not by use.
91. In my life, obstacle was usually a verb.
92. Recipe of humor: sex, stupidity shit, sadism. surprisingly.
93, A great Universe with disproportionately slow light.
94. Schooling help grown-up, while media forces grown-down.
95. Dumbing down people is the greatest megabusiness.
96. Quantity of life eats quality of life/
97. Intolerance kills people, tolerance destroys the Society.
98. My strong certainty: certainties can kill us.
99. People will believe anything except the truth.
100. Solutions are sometimes accomplices of problems.
101. Too few words to say something intelligent.

+1 Good taxonomies reveal deep cause-effect relationships.
+2 Differences in opinions attract only smart people.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

QUI CITO 31

How Twitter Changed Literature & Culture:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-twitter-changed-culture-literature

How depressives surf the Web: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/how-depressed-people-use-the-internet.html?_r=3&ref=opinion

In networks, cooperation trumps collaboration: http://www.jarche.com/2012/06/in-networks-cooperation-trumps-collaboration/

Planning for Facebook’s Future. As CEO of a public company, Mark Zuckerberg needs to engage his board in developing the next generation of leaders:                                                                                                http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00116?gko=253e7&cid=20120619enews

Google Wave's Inventors Give Gmail a Facelift. Three brains behind Google's failed collaboration service think your e-mail should work like a social network's news feed—and they might be right:                      http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428218/google-waves-inventors-give-gmail-a-facelift/?nlid=nlweb&nld=2012-06-20

1o Essential Leadership Models: http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2012/06/10-essential-leadership-models.html

A Start-Up Bets on Human Translators Over Machines: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/a-computer-scientist-banks-on-human-superiority-over-machines/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26_20120620

The Reality Distortion Field: http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/06/19/the-reality-distortion-field/

On the Origin of Music by Means of Natural Selection: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120618153716.htm

Adaptable Decision Making in the Brain: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120619225234.htm

Highways of the Brain: High-Cost and High-Capacity: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120618153429.htm

The Weight of Nations: An Estimation of Adult Human Biomass: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120618095057.htm

Belief in Hell, According to International Data, Is Associated With Reduced Crime: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120619093217.htm

The Rise of the Fork.Knives and spoons are ancient. But we’ve only been eating with forks for a few centuries: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/design/2012/06/the_history_of_the_fork_when_we_started_using_forks_and_how_their_design_changed_over_time_.html

Search vs. Social: The 50 Shades of Gray in Online Information Retrieval:                                      http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2185260/Search-vs.-Social-The-50-Shades-of-Gray-in-Online-Information-Retrieval

A Quantum Theory of Black Holes Could Solve Physics' Mysteries:                                                 http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/a-quantum-theory-of-black-holes-could-solve-physics-mysteries

The Future Of Energy and Public Good: There's No One-Size-Fits-All Solution                                         http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-marriage-of-energy-and-transportation-innovation

The Global Ethos: Need, Speed, and Greed: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-global-ethos-need-speed-and-greed

You are not your brain:                                                               http://bigthink.com/think-tank/you-are-not-your-brain

What Motivates Generosity? Researchers Study Muslims and Catholics:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620143251.htm

Respect Matters More Than Money for Happiness in Life: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620133310.htm

All Things Big and Small: The Brain's Discerning Taste for Size: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620133306.htm

Confusion Can Be Beneficial for Learning: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620103233.htm

Trouble On the Horizon for Genetically Modified Crops?: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620133359.htm

Nano-Pesticides: Solution or Threat for a Cleaner and Greener Agriculture?: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620113232.htm

Asymmetry May Provide Clue to Superconductivity: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620143325.htm

5 Ways Email Can Completely Ruin Your Life: http://www.alternet.org/story/155908/5_ways_email_can_completely_ruin_your_life?akid=8967.112117.wsffpI&rd=1&t=5

Test your color knowledge: http://color.method.ac/

Genetically Modified Food Myths and Truths -- A Critical Review of the Science: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/989525/genetically_modified_food_myths_and_truths_--_a_critical_review_of_the_science/

Questioning the value of economics: http://www.wobi.com/wbftv/joseph-stiglitz-questioning-value-economics

Why Soccer Is the Best Sport Ever: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-soccer-is-the-best-sport-ever

American Higher Education Is Corrupt and Corrupting: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/american-higher-education-is-corrupt-and-corrupting

Who controls social networks: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/06/who-controls-social-networks.html?ref=em

Our Microbes, Ourselves: Billions of Bacteria Within, Essential for Immune Function, Are Ours Alone: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120621130643.htm

How Much Cleaner Does Soap Make Your Hands?: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-much-cleaner-does-soap-make-your-hands

Thinking Your Way to a Better Brain:                                      http://bigthink.com/artful-choice/thinking-your-way-to-a-better-brain

Saturday, June 23, 2012

LENR AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD.





The subject of this essay is so complex and contains so many contradictions that I have to combine the presentation with implicit questions to my potential readers. I hope the following
discussions will help us all to solve this problem.

The champion of the Scientific Experimental Method in our field, is Prof. Francesco Piantelli, see please:
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/how-does-apply-prof-piantelli-rules-of.html
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/scientific-values-of-professor.html
Piantelli does not agree with the use of many unverified and unverifiable theories, with the many fantastic hypotheses that actually are only retarding the progress in the field. The 4 Rules of Galileo are actually not applied, or are applied not completely or not adequately. So we continue to be in a dark room and we don’t succeed to illuminate it.
I cannot remember who, when, in which context has said that the
Pd- D electrolytic system is inconclusive but I was terribly shocked. It was many years ago and he (pr she?) has also added that for cold fusion, palladium is a cradle but also a 4-letter word if you want to get real energy. Please contradict this with facts; however it seems that this system can generate only one certainty- LENR exists but not much more.
Back to Prof. Piantelli- he considers that the electrochemical LENR systems are much too complex to give reliable results and all they do is to prepare a veil/layer of gas around the active electrode. The fact that it is not possible (actually without dreadful experimental complications) to use temperatures over 100 C in the wet LENR systems. This is a suicidal limitation of the experiments especially when the aim is massive energy generation.
Piantelli has also shown that a major impediment in applying the scientific method to the classic LENR system(s)- the 4-th rule of Galileo cannot be applied.

Regarding the application of the scientific method to LENR, Prof Robert Duncan from the Missouri Univ. has learned some essential lessons: see please:

http://newenergytimes.com/v2/library/2009/2009DuncanUMSummit.pdf and
http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/06/robert-duncan-on-cold-fusion-and-the-scientific-method/

I agree 120% with everything he says. 100% is obvious; all I want is to comment about the 20% added

There is a huge gap between new science discovery and useful engineered systems.
Yes it is much to go and Herculean work to do in order to arrive from science to a commercial application. Scientific truth can be known by the really smart application of the scientific method but technology and management also have their specific rules and new dimensions are added to science. It is clear gap = distance, however reality geometry is not identical to mathematical geometry; the distance from the science discovery to application is much greater than the distance from application to science. I will explain this in forthcoming blog writing.

Mass media needs to approach new discoveries in light of the above point (the media should not be overspeculative and create false expectations, but rather engage the public in the scientific process)
Very true, all good scientists will agree. I fear the mass media will find the idea- idealistic. There are notable and noble exceptions but in the strongly moneytheistic environment of today a non-sensationalist press is the equivalent of odorless garlic- non-saleable. Sometimes it is possible to engage a part of the public in the scientific process however anti-intellectualism and anti-scienceism have strong, deep roots.

Research funding needs to become less dependent on the common assumptions within the culture of scientific communities, and much more courageous and objective.
Those who are distributing the research funds must be courageous, generous and should have a perfect predictive power and a great capacity to distinguish the really great discoveries hidden at the right side of the Medawar Zone. Sometimes they have to forget that “success breeds success” and support even seemingly chanceless research. I wonder if cases of “negative corruption” aren’t possible?

The scientific method is a wonderful thing. Use it always — no exceptions.
Oh yes! Here I can only ask- specifically for LENR is the scientific method used, in which forms and in which extent?
For the time given, there are problems with the use of the Scientific Method for LENR- in part due to the weakness and unreliability of the experimental results, in part due to the lack of realism and to excess of imagination of the LENR theories. I wonder if thus is a unique specific status of CF/LENR or something more general.
I am trying to respect the rules of good Thinking and I avoid stubbornly both analogies-too-far and forced correlations that actually do not exist. I have always been near-sighted in such things- I will now compare LENR with a neighbor, high temperature super-conductivity that also belongs to solid state physics and was discovered three years earlier. HTSC has no problems of reproducibility, has some practical applications however has no perfect theory just “possible explanations”. It is- in a sense also a step-daughter of the scientific method, cannot be explained very precisely in a cause-effect manner. Not only LENR is in a difficult gnoseological situation, but this is no consolation.

By the way- I have to tell you about the success of my Survey re LENR launched a week ago: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/06/new-lenr-survey.html
It has absolutely no success and I know that many friends want to help me- but cannot. I have received an answer from Brian Ahern who says: “LENR is primarily not a nuclear process. It is energy derived from a new form of asymmetric magnetic vortex interactions that has some nuclear reactions as a secondary process”.
Ed Storms has generously given a very condensed formulation of his new, leading and plausible theory…do you surely remember I have discussed about it on my blog

1. LENR is caused by a single mechanism and a single NAE regardless of the method used or hydrogen isotope involved.
2. Tritium is produced from the d+e+p fusion reaction.
3. Helium is the major source of energy when deuterium is used, which results from d+d+e fusion.
4. Deuterium is the source of energy when protium is used, which results from p+e+p fusion.
5. A LENR reaction can be initiated within a chemical lattice, such as PdD or NiH, no matter how high the d or p concentration.
6. Cracks of suitable size are a possible NAE.
7. The energy resulting from the fusion reactions is dissipated as photons.
8. The mechanism of fusion involves a coherent resonance with laser-like characteristics that occurs within the NAE.
9. Transmutation results at atoms located at the ends of the cracks.

It seems that a rigorous application of the scientific method to
Ed’s theory will be possible only in rather far future, it needs instruments and methods not invented yet and sub-theories still not conceived or formulated.
Ed has received remarks and critics, and that’s all about the 2012 Survey for now! I don’t take it as something personal, however my sad conclusion, comparing the new Survey with that of 2005
is that now the confusion and uncertainty in the LENR community is even greater and deeper than it was 7 years ago. Please contradict me with courage & facts!

I think that I understand the situation in its historical context- and it is described by this old Irish proverb:“The darkest hour of all. is the hour before day.”

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

QUI CITO 30


100 Websites You Should Know and Use:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/AhYmb6

Issue 133 - Hoax-Slayer Newsletter:
http://www.hoax-slayer.com/issue-133.shtml

Theory On Metastasis Goes Beyond Metaphor to Mathematics:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120614130620.htm

Battle History Between Bacteria, Viruses in Human Body:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120613132905.htm

A very remarkable site: http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/

How the 1% Brainwashed the 99%: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/title-of-the-post

Why Do We Hate Our Bodies So Much?:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-do-we-hate-our-bodies-so-much

The Gay Gene: New Evidence Supports an Old Hypothesis: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-gay-gene-new-evidence-supports-an-old-hypothesis

The Evolution of Aesthetics: The Origins Of Music And Visual Art:                                                                                http://bigthink.com/insights-of-genius/the-evolution-of-aesthetics-the-origins-of-music-and-visual-art

Study: Decisions Made in a Foreign Language Are More Rational: http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/study-decisions-made-in-a-foreign-language-are-more-rational

Bugs Have Key Role in Farming Approach to Storing CO2 Emissions: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120615125303.htm

Nanotechnology Used to Harness Power of Fireflies: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120615114104.htm

Human Irrationality is a Fact, not a Fad: http://bigthink.com/Mind-Matters/human-irrationality-is-a-fact-not-a-fad

An E-Reader Revolution for Africa? Schools in developing countries are experimenting with digital books; endless titles, spotty electricity: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303768104577462683090312766.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

Work is learning and learning is the work: http://www.jarche.com/2012/06/work-is-learning-and-learning-is-the-work/

Why Smart People Can Be so Dumb: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/why-smart-people-can-be-so-dumb

Buddism as a Science of the Mind:                                               http://bigthink.com/think-tank/buddhism-as-a-science-of-the-mind

Psychological Distance: 10 Fascinating Effects of a Simple Mind Hack:                                                   http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/psychological-distance-10-fascinating-effects-of-a-simple-mind-hack.php

The most deadly diseases: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/tenmostdeadlydiseases20120617
Reality check: the self-driving car. Vehicles that navigate themselves expected this decade: http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/story/2012/06/07/f-driverless-car.html?cmp=rss

The World's Most and Least Peaceful Countries: http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/the-worlds-most-and-least-peaceful-countries

A Better Way to Get Hydrogen from Water. Caltech researchers demonstrate a clean technique for using heat and catalysts to split water into hydrogen and oxygen: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428260/a-better-way-to-get-hydrogen-from-water/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-19

Sunday, June 17, 2012

NEW LENR SURVEY. To be repeated in 2019

The historians of our field will discover that the following Survey is/was an important event in the evolution and evaluation of what we call now LENR:
http://newenergytimes.com/v2/reports/2005GluckKrivitSurvey.shtml
It was an attempt to see what happens and, more important, what will happen- and the most important, what have we to do in order to “convince” Cold Fusion to happen to become an energy source.
We have used four questions- No 1 and No. 2 about understanding Cold Fusion, No. 3 about prediction and No. 4 about actions necessary to make a positive prediction to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

1. WHAT IS COLD FUSION (LENR,  CMNS, CANR)
2. HOW DOES IT WORK?
3. WHAT CHANCES DOES IT HAVE TO BE SCALED UP
    TO A TECHNIOLOGY?
4. WHAT MUST WE DO IN ORDER TO ATTAIN THIS?

The questions are easy and natural however the answers were not so; and this has not changed much, we have received them from 16 nice and helpful colleagues: A.Takahashi,  B. Beaty, D. Britz, A. De Ninno,  J. Dufour, E. Storms, H. Lietz, H. Heffner, X.Z. Li, L. Kowalski, J.P. Biberian, R. Van Spaandonk, T. Chubb,  M. Miles, H. Kozima, R. Gimpel, plus the two  organizers of the Survey, Steve and myself.
Dear colleagues- you could re-read your ideas from 7 years ago and see with proud nostalgia how good your analysis, synthesis and prediction were. I am also doing this with my inimitable-not-to-be-imitated-incurably-egocentric- pseudoliterary-prescientific writings. However, even my proverbial modesty can not stop me from observing that I had a bright idea re action: “Lucky - we clearly need luck- in different form: a solid breakthrough now, good ideas”   
Very soon we will know if really had luck and the Solution of our problems is still here and it came – in a great extent from outside of our community and if it is a new, different LENR (LENR+) or it was just a practical joke of Fatum and we are in a deeper trouble than ever.
What has changed and which are the most relevant questions today? Which questions should we change and why/why not?
Piantelli’s results are now more visible; however they were present very early. Nanometric approaches were also developed by Arata, Ahern and many others. Transition metals and gas phase seem to have better perspectives than palladium and wet phase systems. The absolute novelty- is more companies claiming to be VERY near to manufacturing commercial generators. Do we have unreliable information about undeniable facts- or is it becoming so in few weeks/months? The situation is so lovely complex and so amazingly open that it will be a real fun to answer the new questions. The Survey will end on August 5 this year- I want to\send the results to the participants of ICCF-17 to help them in paradigm change.
Two questions, more complex and condensed than those from 2005 will give a greater crop of answers, I hope. We (the CF community) have been considering that theory first! Is the genuinely scientific way, however now it also seems possible that the more reliable results coming from the commercial energy generators will help us a lot to understand the very essence of LENR/LENRs (?)

THE QUESTIONS
1. WHAT IS LENR AND HOW DOES IT WORK< WHEN IT WORKS WELL- AND WHEN NOT?
2. WHICH NEW LENR TECHNOLOGY WILL GO FIRST COMMERCIAL AND WHEN?

Everybody is invited to participate; I will ask the participants to ask their real names (being a bureaucrat) however if somebody has strong reasons to not mix with the CF/LENR people etc. OK you can use nicknames, pseudonyms etc. – it seems so democratic!
The answers will be published as soon as it is possible for me- steadily at “LENR SURVEY 2012 ANSWERS” on my blog.
Thank you in advance!
Peter

 

Thursday, June 14, 2012

QUI CITO 29

5 Tips for Sparking Innovation:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinseygoman/2012/05/29/5-tips-for-sparking-innovation/?feed=rss_home

Environmental Benefit of Biofuels Is Overestimated, New Study Reveals: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120608100548.htm

How Does Dolomite Form?:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607105815.htm

The Antivirus Era Is Over
Conventional security software is powerless against sophisticated attacks like Flame, but alternative approaches are only just getting started:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428166/the-antivirus-era-is-over/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-12

The work of many:
http://www.jarche.com/2012/06/the-work-of-many/

Carlos Slim, World's Wealthiest Man, Says Retirement Age For Regular People Should Be Bumped To 70: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/13/carlos-slim-retirement-age_n_1593799.html

11 languages spoken by 11 people or fewer:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/129738

New Twist On Old Chemical Process Could Boost Energy Efficiency Significantly: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607142242.htm
Global Investment in Renewable Energy Powers to Record $257 Billion:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120611092347.htm

Predicting the Formation of New Species: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120610151300.htm

Microbes Discovered in Extreme Environment On South American Volcanoes: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120608160119.htm

Neuropolis: a global neuroscience hub:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/neuropolis-a-global-neuroscience-hub

The Abundance Builders:
http://www.wfs.org/futurist/july-august-2012-vol-46-no-4/abundance-builders

Voicemail Discovered in Nature: Insects Receive Soil Messages from the Past:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120612115946.htm

Trust Us, We're Google!
The company that knows everything about you wants you to feel in control:  http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428049/trust-us-were-google/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-14

When Being Scared Twice Is Enough to Remember:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120612145143.htm

The evolutionary origins of optimism:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-evolutionary-origins-of-optimism  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/06/aging-dna-damage/

In Good Health? Thank Your 100 Trillion Bacteria: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/14/health/human-microbiome-project-decodes-our-100-trillion-good-bacteria.html?_r=1

Researchers Catalog Your Microbial Zoo
Sequencing the microörganisms that inhabit healthy people could aid research into human disease:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428193/researchers-catalog-your-microbial-zoo/?nlid=nlmat&nld=2012-06-14

Google's New Brain Could Have a Big Impact
The Knowledge Graph is rapidly learning about the world. It promises to transform more than just search.:
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428180/googles-new-brain-could-have-a-big-impact/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-06-14

What's your Technology Quotient (TQ)?:
http://bigthink.com/hybrid-reality/whats-your-technology-quotient-tq

Got Mass? Scientists Observe Electrons Become Both Heavy and Speedy: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120613145418.htm

Monday, June 11, 2012

RELIABILITY -THE DISCUSSION WITH ABD CONTINUES TOWARD AGREEMENT.

The original thread of this discussion has increased up to 8100 words, not manageable in a blog. Some 80% of the words belong to my discussion partner and are showing a lot of very relevant examples of his LENR experience and thinking, while I am more interrogative than affirmative.
However, the discussion has a hard core and I hope that Abd will
kindly agree with my definition of it, in what follows.
Abd’s statements that are at the root of the dispute:

"We do not need reliability for Science. It is desirable, that's all.
 "Improvement in reliability is desirable, but not necessary."

The main obstacle, psychological barrier, for me to accept these is my personal work experience in a medium where unreliability is danger but this was a technological “place” not a scientific one.
Add to this my favorite modes of thinking- I need solid, stable,
repeatable premises. Human weaknesses, perhaps sometimes
not good for the Superlogical Thinking see please: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/03/modes-of-thinking-my-taxonomy.html. A reason more to take in account very carefully
and positively what Abd has to say.
I have asked him to give examples of science based on unreliable
results:

The example that comes to mind first, for me, is medicine. A medicine may not successfully treat a disorder in all cases. Yet by controlled research, we may find that it is helpful in enough cases to be useful.

In my opinion, here Abd has entered with courage a mined territory and I am going with him. Due to the extreme complexity – in space and in time (personal heredity and history) of the human organisms, there are really cases when some medicine helps only a part of the sick people and 100% efficient solutions are rare. Medicines are rarely acting in the style of “The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go.” No, Big Pharma likes more dependency on its products than complete, irreversible healing.
The Moor usually remains with us, as a servant & master.
I am an ideal small customer, have hypertension and I take daily
2 pills of Enalapril and one of Tertensiv, and these help me to be able to drink one cup of instant coffee each morning- vital for me and also to survive temporarily and that’s also very good and surprising for me. If we will think quantitatively, a medicine with an expected success rate of 80%  will have  much better chances to be used than one having 20% chances of some success.

Going further with/from this analogy with medicine, re Cold Fusion/LENR, Abd shows the following: 
 Cold fusion, particularly in electrochemical cells, is a complex phenomenon, and the necessary conditions are poorly understood and apparently chaotic. Nevertheless, we can study the Fleischmann-Pons Heat Effect (in PdD) and can measure helium in the evolved gases, or we can even go deeper and do a comprehensive analysis of cell contents. Either way, from what's been done, the helium found is highly correlated with the anomalous heat generated.
It is not necessary for this that the generation of heat may be reliable, all that is necessary is that a significant number of cells, where this experiment is done, do show the FPHE. The number that I have for cells showing the FPHE in the original work is one out of six. Suppose that 60 cells are run, and 10 show anomalous heat above noise. Suppose that, for all 60 cells, helium is measured, and helium is above background levels for 10 cells. And all ten of these showed anomalous heat, and none of the cells with no anomalous heat showed helium. This is really enough, but suppose that, as well, the more anomalous heat found, the more helium is found, within experimental error. If the study is comprehensive (which might require taking steps like dissolving the cathode or melting it to drive off all retained helium), suppose that the ratio of heat to helium corresponds to 25 +/- 5 MeV/He-4.

Here I had a kind of revelation- Abd’s truth is based on realistic thinking, we have no alternative! Nothing else can be done, hic et nunc. The experimental practice has shown it, many times and for many years. We have to use some “unhappy man’s methods” first of all because there are no other methods available. We have to solve the problem with the tools and resources we have, not with those we want to get- it is not possible now. Problems have to be always solved with what we have, not with what we wish to have.
Difficult, but realistic.

That result would be conclusive that the heat is nuclear in origin. It would create a high probability that the nuclear reaction involved is some kind of fusion that takes deuterium and converts it to helium. It is not necessarily "d-d fusion." There are other possibilities.

However Abd is clearly aware of both the limitations and the drawbacks of using (forcedly) unreliable results/methods:

Obviously, though, such an experiment would not establish any kind of practical possibility. That's what I mean by distinguishing the science from the engineering of energy generation. We don't need reliability to extend our scientific knowledge (at least not reliability in the sense of each experiment producing specifically predictable results, specific values of energy -- and we don't necessarily need great reliability with our measurement methods. Properly done, the experiment I mentioned would adequately establish the reliability of the calorimetry and the helium measurement!)
So you run many more cathodes. *Many*. You got one working one. Great! That's one out of six, not bad. Were all these cathodes apparently identical, or did you keep changing conditions to try to make it work. You are aware, I presume, that all that variation may have been for nothing. But perhaps you did learn to run the experiment more successfully. So great. Run more cathodes as close to what you did with the successful one as you can.


I think Abd’s following statement has truth value:
“A great deal can be discovered about an unreliable reaction.”

Abd writes about his idea that a good theory could contribute a lot to solving the reliability problem.

And if a practical application is possible, setting Rossi et al aside, it will very likely be from theory enabled by the presence of more data from what should have been done twenty years ago. The idea that it was necessary to get reliability permeated the field, and that was an error. Reliability would very likely follow from a successful theory. Or not.

I think my colleague is right; theory that is understanding will help us to go forward/upward from unreliability based on overwhelming complexity to unreliability based on a known cause to high reliability
The essence is that now I have understood Abd’s points of view and I can accept them.
I want to follow the discussion with causal unreliability, specifically with my idea that any gaseous components of air can deactivate NAE- and are not shy doing it. I think that this kind of poisoning is acting in all classic CF/LENR systems, and is deadly. Euphemistically speaking.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

QUI CITO 28

The Curious Case of Internet Privacy
Free services in exchange for personal information. That's the "privacy bargain" we all strike on the Web. It could be the worst deal ever.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428045/the-curious-case-of-internet-privacy/?nlid=nlbus&nld=2012-06-08

The Internet, IPv6 and a World of Abundance:
http://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/the-internet-ipv6-and-a-world-of-abundance

The Myth of Potential: 5 Ways to Develop Talent:
http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2012/06/myth-of-potential-5-ways-to-develop.html

How Search Engines Are Becoming More Like Our Brains:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/how-search-engines-are-becoming-more-like-our-brains

Creativity in the Cloud: From the Big Bang to Twitter:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/the-cloud-filmmaking-manifesto-a-declaration-of-interdependence

Managing in a Multipolar World
Emerging markets are shifting the balance of economic power, and for multinationals, a “business as usual” approach will no longer suffice.:
http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00112?gko=855a7

Learning charisma:
http://hbr.org/2012/06/learning-charisma/ar/1
Scientists Discover Huge Phytoplankton Bloom in Ice-Covered Water:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607154142.htm

Venom- Nature’s Killer:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/venom-natural-killer.html

Seven blunders of the World: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/3gISJM

Top ten myths about introverts:
http://jerrybrito.org/post/6114304704/top-ten-myths-about-introverts

How to Become the Good Kind of Narcissist:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/how-to-become-the-good-kind-of-narcissist

ScienceShot: Cannibalism Seen in Gray Mouse Lemur:
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/06/scienceshot-cannibalism-seen-in.html?ref=em

Parasitic Plants Steal Genes from Their Hosts:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120608100846.htm

Does Cooperation Require Both Reciprocity and Alike Neighbors?:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120608100557.htm

Sugar = Heroin. How to Cut Your Addiction: http://bigthink.com/think-tank/sugar-is-like-heroin-how-to-cut-your-addictio

Consciousness: Why Study What You Can't Define?:
http://bigthink.com/think-tank/consciousness-why-study-what-you-cant-define

The Dunning-Kruger Effect: Why The Incompetent Don’t Know They’re Incompetent:
http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/06/the-dunning-kruger-effect-why-the-incompetent-dont-know-theyre-incompetent.php

Why Daydreaming Is a Virtue:                                   http://bigthink.com/ideas/why-daydreaming-is-a-virtue

Ed Storms' answers to 5 questions. Questions No. 6 and 7

I am very grateful to Ed Storms who has promptly and straightly answered to my
first 5 questions- see please below. I hope that his answers will become reality
because LENR's situation is far from the optimal. (I have a Masters Degree in Euphemistics.)
To remind you, the questions were:

1- about the consequences of the perfect success of the New Theory;

2- about the completeness of the New Theory, is it a "transtheory"-?

3- about the validity of the theory for all the existing LENR systems.

4- if the New Theory explains the serious problems of control, characteristic to
all the LENR systems?

5- if the New Theory explains the huge enhancement of energy achived in the LENR+ systems of Rossi and Defkalion?


Question #1: The consequences of my theory being correct are two fold. First, the ability to replicate LENR at robust levels will improve. Once the required cracks can be manufactured on demand, the energy could be made on any scale, from that required to power a computer to a space craft. Second, the phenomenon can be applied to solving the solar defect of neutrinos.  This will cause a new understanding of the Standard model.  But right now, we can only hope.

Question #2: The model will be a "trans-theory" only to the extent that it is acknowledged as plausible and worth exploring. This acceptance is not assured at this time.  As for whether one or many theories are required depends on how many ways Nature has to cause LENR. I assume only one basic method is possible.  Therefore, only one theory is needed, i.e. the correct one. We will have to  wait until the proper tests are made to determine which theory is correct. My model shows exactly which tests need to be done.

Question #3: I base my model on hundreds of observations that show several very robust patterns of behavior.  These behaviors include both the presence and absence of expected behavior.  I rely on using a large number of combinations of behaviors, all of which are consistent with the logic of the model.   In addition, the model can be applied to both deuterium and hydrogen systems using any method for causing LENR.  Of course, less support for the idea exists in the hydrogen system, which makes it the ideal system to use as a test of the predictions.

Question #4: Control is a problem that the model addresses. I assume the rules controlling chemical behavior apply to the process that proceeds the nuclear reaction, regardless how the  nuclear reaction operates. Once the preconditions are understood, the controlling variables can be identified and used in the same manner they would be used to control a chemical processes.  In other words, chemistry determines the rate of the nuclear reaction.  Once the required conditions are formed, the nuclear process occurs very rapidly and without any additional effort.   This is similar to how energy is made in a gas furnace. The rate of energy production is determined by how fast the fuel is applied, in this case D+, and the subsequent flame does its thing without any additional effort or control.

Question #5: Rossi has succeeded in increasing energy production by finding a way to create many active cracks in the fine nickel powder. Presumably the powder has just the right size to support exactly the correct size crack.  As a result, the concentration of NAE is higher than Piantelli was able to achieve in solid nickel.  The secret of the process involves the method and/or the material that needs to be added to Ni to cause the cracks to form.
In my opiniuon the answers o Ed are rational and positive- experiments and time will show. However, the answers have inspired me two new questions.

Question No.6: If the NAE are active cracks in the metal and many/more active cracks mean more energy, isn't then LENR an inherently destructive process?
Is there is a concurrent process by which the structure of the metal is rebuilt,
the "wounds" are healed or the metal is, in a certain sense, sacrificed -structurally speaking, on the altar of LENR?
Piantelli had self-sustaining cell working for some 4 months, Rossi speaks
about an active life time of the material of 6 months- it seems Ni is not destroyed but transmuted.
My guess from the very start (1993 paper) was that the active sites are formed in some way by "surface dynamics"- the movements of the atoms at the very surface of the metal - many degrees of freedom.

Question No.7  : Based on the New Theory, what would you recommend as a STRATEGY for the LENR field? For the time given the global startegy is driven mainly by the scarcity of the resources and the hostility of the authorities.  On what should research and development focus as much as they can? E.g. Pd systems vs. Ni systems?

Peter

Saturday, June 9, 2012

SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING ED STORMS’ NEW LENR THEORY.

Mottos:
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
(Eugene Ionesco)

The really best questions even don’t need answers; they are valuable per se. (Yves Henri Prum)

SOME QUESTIONS REGARDING ED STORMS’ NEW LENR THEORY.

Our colleague, leading LENR scientist and author, Dr. Edmund Storms has just written a paper about LENR theory. It will be published in the Journal of Condensed Materials Nuclear Science’ Its abstract is here and I am sure the full text will be on the Web very soon.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An explanation of low energy nuclear reactions (cold fusion)
Edmund Storms
KivaLabs. Santa Fe, NM
ABSTRACT
A plausible nuclear-active-environment in which LENR occurs is identified by ruling out various possibilities and by identifying an environment that is common to all successful methods. When this environment is combined with a plausible mechanism, many testable predictions result. These insights and proposals are offered to help clarify understanding of LENR and to suggest future studies. The common environment in which LENR occurs is proposed to be cracks of a critical size, followed by a resonance process that dissipates energy by X-ray emission based on a laser-like process.  The LENR behavior has the potential to test the Standard Model of nuclear interaction
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Many ideas from the paper are developments of those from Dr. Storms’s great LENR guide that I have reviewed here:
http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/04/new-edition-of-ed-stormss-cflenr-guide.html
In order to avoid interference with the many questions expected regarding particular aspects and details of the new theory, I have asked for the permission of the author to put here some questions I consider relevant.

First question- the Management of Triumph question: in case this theory is 100% real and “true” and a complete success, what are the consequences?

Is this theory first class i.e. predictive (II- prohibitive, III- explicative)? How has it to be developed in order to eradicate low reproducibility, increase intensity and prolong the release of heat energy? How can it be used for scale-up of the systems and which systems are the best.

Second question- in which extent is this theory a TRANS-THEORY?

(Explanation: I think LENR is a very complex combination of more phenomena and it needs more theories working together in harmony- as has, say photosynthesis or nitrogen fixation.
See please what I and other colleagues more knowledgeable than me have said some 7 years ago http://newenergytimes.com/v2/reports/2005GluckKrivitSurvey.shtml
By the way, when will this Survey be repeated?

Also please look to this excerpt of my 2006 paper: http://newenergytimes.com/v2/news/2006/NET17.shtml#wicked
“From the understanding/theoretical point of view, it seems to be a fatal error to attempt to explain a multiphase, multistep, multilevel aggregate of phenomena by a single theory -- without considering adequately where they take place, how and what they are, etc.”

The perfect example of such a trans-theory is described in Piantelli’s Pontignano Poster 2010.
It also is my pleasure to quote again Defkalion’s bright definition of their process- as they understand it: “a dynamic system of  the multistage set of reactions.”

It seems a good theory has to be really trans-theory because the barrier of Mr. Charles_Augustin de Coulomb is only one of the many barriers we have to pass in order to accomplish an industrial LENR process.
My impression is that the new theory is on the best way to become a transtheory. The genesis of NAE has to be thoroughly understood

Third question- what do you consider to be the proofs of the apparent universality of the New Theory?

As I have told more times, Nature has no problems, only solutions. Occam’s Razor is only one of them and sometimes it gets in conflict with the basic principle of maximum interestingness of the world. By the way, in LENR we are victims and scapegoats of this powerful principle. Hyper-complexity has put us repeatedly on the ropes. Therefore it is possible but not certain that the same theory is valid for the Pd-D electrochemical cell- with his rather modest performances. Nature does not like advices or consultants.  She does what she wishes.
Piantelli has developed his own theory- that is a trans-theory and it is very self-consistent locally and it applies –as it was verified experimentally to all the transition metals. It is about nanostructures and not voids.
Palladium and nickel have quite different behaviors in contact with hydrogen isotopes and, physically speaking hydrogen and deuterium are more like stepbrothers. The electronic structure of palladium is more closed than nickel; deuterium is poison for the Ni-H process of Piantelli. Many colleagues bet on a D + D process for the palladium cell, H + H looks improbable.
I think only experiment will answer to this disturbing question.

Fourth Question: how does the New Theory explain the serious problems of controllability in LENR land?

Actually despite the smart methods, tricks, many experiments, classic (let’s say pre-Rossi LENR) despite many doubts) is apparently unable come out from the trap of smallish, unsure and volatile results.  How can the New Theory explain or even justify this situation? Can we hope that serious improvements based on this theory? I accept this is an issue that needs much work. My friends know well that I ma intellectually married to my poisoning hypothesis. I am able to convince one colleague per year that I am right. 

Fifth question- how does the New Theory explain LENR+ i.e. the two orders of magnitude enhancement of energy production in the E-cats and the Hyperions? 

What is the significant even huge difference between Rossi’s process and LENR? kWatts vs. tens of Watts? Can the New Theory give some indication, idea whatever? Rossi has told from the start the process is very different from any LENR, including Piantelli’s and he cannot learn anything from classic LENR. The spectacular enhancement shows that he probably is right in this case.
Apparently LENR+ possesses an extra dimension, feature, a new degree of freedom- it is an other, new game. To use a tautology, an unexpected surprise.
Defkalion was speaking about working temperatures of + 650 C starting a couple of months ago, Rossi, Rossi started to mention 600 C more recently and says he is obtaining now a stable work regime at this temperature. Such high temperatures exclude nanostructures formed a priori- they are rapidly destroyed. Do not forget that according the available information, both Rossi and Defkalion are working with micrometric not nanometric nickel powder, however the surface is prepared using some proprietary methods. It also seems that for LENR+ some residual air traces are tolerable and no deep degassing cleaning of the nickel surfaces a la Piantelli’s patent WO 2010/058288 is compulsory.
In essence it is probably about a very dynamic generation of a great population of NAE. Highly active NAEs.  

Thursday, June 7, 2012

RELIABILITY -THE DISCUSSION CONTINUES.

I hope this discussion will continue because it is constructive, calm, empathy
laden and I can learn a lot of it. It seems both Abd and I have the rare ability to not be angry with people who have other opinions than ours. If it could be created a vaccine for thisvirtue! (BTW during my 8.5 years of journalism-writing the INFO KAPPA Newsletter I have stated that the most aggressive, trolls, Forum Monsters are not the extremists, not soccer team fans but the anti-vaccine activists- at an unbelievable intensity.
Dear Abd, I am very grateful for this opportunity. It is very difficult to discuss on our Forums about essential problems- due to the epidemics/endemics of Detailitis.
Our discussion will not lead probably to agreement but let’s try
to generate some Important Questions is more useful for the future development of the field.


I don't see that we are far from agreement, but maybe Peter sees something I don't.

Actually it is mainly about the role of reliability in Science and in Engineering. I am simply not able to believe that:
“We do not need reliability for Science.* It is desirable, that's all.
“Improvement in reliability is desirable, but not necessary.”
(Quoting you)
Please support this with examples of valuable unreliable scientific results that have generated valuable science. Or, unreliable products or processes made by engineering that are used. People need almost-certainty and safety. But please give priority to Science, I cannot find an example similar to LENR in the sciences of matter or energy- not psychology or sociology where too many things are possible.

I'm a writer, so it's my business to be effectively communicative. I'm still learning, though.

You are a good writer and this is the reason a discussion with you is both pleasant and instructive.

Yes. Until you identified the cause, it was totally mysterious. Gremlins. Bad juju. Whatever.

I hope one day you will agree that this poisoning destroys the LENR experiment- re-read please Piantelli’s patent WO 2010/058288

Electrochemical PdD experiments are *extremely* complex. With gas-loading, the complexity may be reduced, but a great deal depends on the exact structure of the particles or Pd material. And it will change with loading and deloading.

I just want to add that adapting/scaling up an electrolysis cell to an energy source is an engineering nightmare. Gas phase is kind of must, it seems Rossi and DGT are working at an active surface temperature of over 600 C.

I'll believe it in that I consider it possible. Why not? However, I don't see this as explaining the difference between the first, second, and third current excursions in SRI P13/P14, which was a sealed cell. It's not impossible, though, because the first and second excursions, showing no heat, may have cleaned off the cathode.

One of my lab colleagues/friends at the Stable Isotopes Institute was working with high vacuum 10 exp -9 to 10 exp -11 mmHg and he has convinced me that the gases adhere unbelievably strongly to the metals.
When you and other colleagues will eventually believe in my poisoning idea, I will be already busy smelling the flowers from the side of the roots- send please a good thought to my memory then


It was crucial to identify the reasons for such variability. The skeptics did not get the import of variability; they thought that it meant that the effect was down in the noise. However, that's what SRI P13/P14 showed so clearly: the effect, when it appears, is striking, not marginal. Of course, sometimes there is an effect close to the noise. But a strong, quite visible effect is one of the characteristics of a successful replication of the FPHE, not something questionable, where we look at a plot and say, "Well, see, it's a little bit above the noise there, for a few hours." Maybe. Or maybe that is just noise a little higher than usual.

Not exactly a good situation for a researcher who has to understand and solve the problem, isn’t it? However poisoning, partial or complete is uncontrollable and can explain the variability.

Ultimately, it appears, reality does play hide and seek, at the quantum level. But I don't think that's happening here. Regardless, reality is not "bad." Period. It's just reality. We make up good and bad. This is not you, but "scientists" who reject experimental data because they don't see repeatability in it are just fooling themselves. What they don't see means nothing. Saying "I don't understand this" is fine. Saying "you must have made a mistake," is the problem, unless the error can be identified. Not just guessed.

Unfortunately some aspects of reality are not good for us- cold, disasters, illness, old age- then reality is really bad sometimes. I know nature has no problems just solutions, but we have problems- the energy situation is one and any obstacle to a solution is bad.

See, my hobby is collecting proverbs, quotation aphorisms and in my opinion the most false and cruel one is one by John Ruskin:
“there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather” I have arrived to this idea when once during the terrible winter of 1959/1960 I was trying to defreeze a pipe at the top of a very high distillation column with live steam coming through a rubber hose as you could seen in the Rossi experiments Just to mention-I accomplished the task nad did not get pneumonia..
Weather can be bad, reality is sometimes hostile, Murphy is a sadistic techno god.

It's not as powerful, and it runs the risk of an enormous waste of time. Look, it was obvious from the beginning that there *might be* enormous promise from cold fusion. But it was also obvious, within a few months, that this was not going to be easy, at least not with the FP approach. Yet people had done stuff for a long time with no clear evidence of fusion, and casting about to find a new approach was probably not so wise, either, in the sense that it was likely to be obscure itself.
The deepest error that Pons and Fleischmann made was in not disclosing how difficult it was, with the original announcement, and, if not there, with the original paper.
For those convinced that LENR was real by the P&F results, and by other confirmation, including perhaps their own, pursuing more reliable approaches did make some sense. However, if these people were convinced it was real, and especially if they had success replicating P&F, they might consider the value of carefully studying what they already were able to make happen. Some did that, perhaps. Some did not.

What else could I say other that you are right? But it is a bit late. A long series of hopes and disillusions followed, the disillusions were the continuous phase but hope remained indestructible,

Not from that example!!! The correlation there is quite weak, and, if this is a real CF experimental series, I'd suspect that the heat is close to the noise. That is, from the expectation d -> He, we'd expect half as much heat with the first as with the second, but you have only the second showing heat.
This is too short an experimental series to do more than provide an indication, and the indication here could be that one of the heat measurements is punk.
Thank you for the next examples given by you; they are the best ones possible, emphasis on ‘possible’
Real example, one of the two or three best:
Miles' work. Miles did a set of CF experiments and controls. His full series as reported by Storms involved 33 helium samples taken and analyzed blind. These were samples of the cell gases. Miles had data on heat generation from these cells before the samples were taken. Multiple samples were taken from cells, I originally though this was 33 cells. Not. A weakness, but not a disaster. (Better if all cells had been treated equally, all cells were identical, etc. There were some differences, which actually weakens the result, i.e., included in the series was some cells where something quite different was going on, and that makes the work look *less* conclusive. But I won't go into that here.)
Of the 33 cells, 12 were showing no anomalous heat, and no anomalous helium was detected. 18 showed heat, and, from them, helium was detected within an order of magnitude of the helium expected from d -> He-4. The more heat, the more helium, within experimental error. (The measurements were rough, unfortunately, only order-of-magnitude detection.)
That leaves three cells. One experienced a power failure and deloading and calorimetry error was thus suspected, the other two were a cerium-palladium alloy. They showed heat, but no helium. What happened? We don't know. Nobody followed up, the classic story of cold fusion. Mysterious results, sitting in the record, with no follow-up.
This is a strong correlation, even with those three anomalous results. Miles calculated one chance in 750,000 of this happening by chance.
You could also look at the SRI Case replication, reported in the 2004 DoE review paper. It was poorly explained. When it's fully understood (I had to read other papers to get it), it shows this same phenomenon: no heat, no helium. Varying amounts of heat, varying amounts of helium. SRI also studied the time behavior of accumulated helium, and did one experiment where they attempted to recover all the helium (that's the hard part!), finding a ratio of heat/helium quite close to the theoretical value for d -> He-4.

It could be a very different situation with say, ten times mire results of this kind.
.
It was largely reward-less because many researchers were not looking at the treasure they had in their hands, if they managed to occasionally see excess heat. They bought the idea that this was some kind of failure. No, it was success. It was indeed difficult to arrange a demonstration of the FPHE. However, it seems that those who persisted did find it. Indeed, it may have been most difficult for those who were lucky and found it quickly! -- because it then disappeared. I can imagine the agony. However, the gold was in investigating the conditions of appearance and disappearance.

A very complex situation, difficult to appreciate in retrospect.

And if a practical application is possible, setting Rossi et al aside, it will very likely be from theory enabled by the presence of more data from what should have been done twenty years ago. The idea that it was necessary to get reliability permeated the field, and that was an error. Reliability would very likely follow from a successful theory. Or not.

A beautiful idea, but how does this go in practice? Or not, to cite you. In the 70-ies I had lead many research and development programs and one of our slogans was ”one experiment is no experiment, one result is no result” we have always followed till we were convinced  the method, process, step, whatever is repeatable, reproducible, reliable.  We scaled up from lab to pilot plants and to industrial scale.
Make your blunders on a small scale and your profits on a great scale. And many times scale up is not a linear process
you can have surprises of any kind. It is an adventure.
I have to confess that I cannot understand exactly how a good theory can remove the reliability problem, but it is about my limited imagination here.

(With Rossi, if that's real, the investigation will follow and theory will be developed based on that. Rossi, in a sense, got lucky -- if this is real -- though he "got lucky" from what he says was a thousand variations he tried. Essentially, he explored the parameter space, trying lots of combinations. It can work. In fact, I'm suggesting something like that, only with systematic exploration, with special focus on answering extant experimental questions.)

With Rossi if real, a great question arises: what has he changed in LENR? What new dimension he has added to LENR? I think BTW that he has gone outside the parameter space. LENR+ has added new unexpected parameters to those of LENR. (It is a pity that I am not inerrant, we will have to wait if this is true or completely false.

Yes. "Wicked problem." Peter, you caught the disease, you looked at cold fusion with an eye that only saw value in high COP (which is very different from reliability, by the way, 10% excess power, reliably, would be spectacular *for the science*), and you compared a few thousands of what you called "sick cathodes" with heat less than 30% with "many thousands" of "dead cathodes\". 30% of input power, with the FPHE, is actually way above noise, more than adequate for systematic study. Pons and Fleischmann, as I recall, had a "dead cathode" rate of 5/6. The practical implication of this is that one must run many cathodes, and, from what I'm seeing (Letts is graciously allowing me to watch his work-in-progress), a "dead cathode" can become "live" by continued electrolysis, sometimes. So it's not the cathode that is dead, but the patience of the researcher.

Mea culpa, I have understood Cold Fusion as a future energy source not as a system for new scientific discoveries. However with 5 dead cathodes vs. 1 working one, it is difficult to be either.
Experimentally speaking some cathodes are hibernating and then suddenly without any visible cause or logical/correlational explanation start to work. Mystery!


The point is that one out of six is actually fine, not terribly difficult, except for one thing: it can take months to run one of these experiments. So, if one is serious, one must run many cells in parallel, which is exactly what Pons and Fleischmann did in their later work. I've been suggesting expanding this, by making cells smaller and cheaper, the limit is the smallest cell for which heat can be measured with reasonable separation from noise. NASA is apparently exploring cells-on-a-chip, with many cells built on a substrate perhaps using techniques common in electronics. I assume that with the connections through the substrate, individual cells can be run together with the others, or separately, all being immersed in the same electrolyte (if this is electrolytic, or in the same gas if this is gas-loading.)

OK, in the heroic period of the research you can work with many cells in parallel, try to understand why some work and why the others re inert, but later attention has to be focused on the active cells.
It is difficult to deny that we still are in the prehistory of LENR.


If research can identify markers of the reaction other than heat and helium, it could be *extremely* useful. For example, suppose that active PdD produces a characteristic sound. (This is reported by SPAWAR, by the way). It might then be possible to monitor instantaneous reaction levels, even more quickly than through calorimetry. Monitoring IR emission could do this as well. I've wondered about visible light. There should be some, if palladium is being melted, as appears in some SEM images of cathodes. (Etc.)
This kind of research would vastly speed up engineering the effect, even without a sound theory.

I am absolutely enchanted with the idea of “singing cathodes” and will ask my active experimentalist friend to test the idea.

*Without needing any new approach to be invented.* Of course, if more reliable methods of triggering LENR are found, great. I expect the same kind of work can be done with NiH, for example.
It seems NiH (transition metal hydrogen systems) are somewhat simpler and more practical than electrochemical cells.

(I think reliability in Science, engineering, business, marriage, musical interpretation is, grosso modo, the same overall. Statistical reliability in engineering, production is about a small proportion of under-quality pieces. A minimum is say 98.5% good items.)

Depends on the nature of the application. However, reliability of an effect is not necessary in science, it is simply one more characteristic that is measured, by accumulating experience and quantifying it. X out of 100 cells tested following Protocol Y were found to exhibit anomalous heat above 5% of input power. Then we look for associations present with X and not with not-X, or vice-versa. We try variations, etc. And we also run the *same* series again.
There difficulty is that electrolytic cold fusion is extremely sensitive to seemingly trivial variations in the material. This is one reason why I think the most productive work will be with electro-deposited palladium, because it may, particularly with thin layers, be easier to control that deposit. But there are still many ways to mess it up, apparently. An advantage of deposited techniques: generally cheap.

I remember the volcano eruption of optimism when Stan Szpak has invented the method. It definitely gives improvements, however not spectacular ones. The liquid phase being saturated with air, the newly formed surfaces are also poisoned from the start..

It becomes possible with experience. One of the big concerns about CF is that occasionally, heat production has been enormous, cf. Pons and Fleischmann's cell meltdown. However, if cell performance becomes reliable, within a few percent, say, such an outlier becomes quite unlikely. That meltdown cell was bulk palladium, a 1 cm cube. It would be interesting if someone, taking appropriate precautions, were to run that again. The worry: that the meltdown was at the low end of what might happen.... but it's unlikely.

We still cannot explain those events- the cubic cathode, Mizuno’s unquenchable 100 grams cathode, Piantelli’s molten rod, cathode 64 of Energetics- on a causal or rational basis.

Yes. However, Science makes Engineering more efficient.

Let’s discuss engineering later, please! We will indeed learn something from Defkalion and Rossi about engineering.
We have to explore Science and Reliability first.