HOW LENR TECHNOLOGY FIRST?

An answer in part   to my old question; “Why Technology First?” put in Infinite Energy 1^st issue, March-April 1995, p 26

In the most recent two Ego Out publications I have tried to demonstrate that closed minded Scientism is equal to death of progress in LENR. If Scientism is an anti- or non-solution, then it is my duty to offer a viable alternative; I am a technologist, but the solution is in no way closed minded Technologism the idea that technology can solve all our problems. Or, thinking that LENR can be converted, first in LENR+ and then in a working energy technology without understanding thoroughly some advanced scientific principles. The problem-solution is more complex, more interesting and even more beautiful.  

Yesterday, my friend Yiannis Hadjichristos wrote: “we need not to think technology in use as a sum of certain engineering (mechanical, chemical, electric, electronic etc) issues as most people believe. Technology includes also culture, business, ethics etc as always applying within a certain society and political framework.”

This morning I read about a great conference for emergent technologies: “EmTech MIT is where technology, business, and culture converge.”  This conference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emtech has a section for energy too,

and I bet that soon there LENR will be a serious rival in popularity there to shale gas/oil. A bit of patience, please.

This philosophy is in the spirit of: http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/technology-mon-amour.html

It is kind of ‘best practice’ for the Defkalion R & D team.

Just to mention en passant, recently, after Prof Y. Kim,  an other  very prestigious Cold Fusion-LENR personality has visited their labs and his essential conclusion was: “it is obvious you have a robust device which generates heat on demand”. More at ICCF-18

It is not a mystery why the technological awakening of what has appeared as Cold Fusion came so slowly and why, even today it is understood and acknowledged by so few. The history of CF/LENR is a series of alternatives and options.

The first one was birthplace and parents. Exactly as for humans

for scientific fields also, geography broadly defined, is destiny. You need to have great care with choosing well your parents. the country, town and house where you start your life because these

circumstances are determining if you get privileges or misery.

I dare to say that unlucky Cold Fusion had chosen a non-technological place electrochemistry- and I say this despite the fact of having worked near to huge electrolysis plants (Borzesti, OLTCHIM), having a over 20 years collaboration with the Romanian lead acid battery industry and being good friend with

Prof. Liviu Oniciu- once our best fuel-cell specialist. But let’s consider the facts, electrochemistry the branch of chemistry that deals with the chemical changes produced by electricity and the production of electricity by chemical changes- it can be technological for chemistry or for electric current, but NOT for thermal energy. Plus, electrochemical systems are impure and overly impure. Temperatures are limited due to the presence of water, while high temperature electrolysis systems with molten salts proved to be unmanageable- very early in the history of the field- I remember a discussion about this with Liaw at ICCF-2.

Cold Fusion was discovered in an electrolytic cell- bad luck! Why not in a gas-phase system, say a catalytic reactor? Perhaps because it would be difficult to observe some (first weak) excess energy there.

Could it be better if, say Piantelli had discovered cold fusion first and not Fleischmann and Pons? Impossible to answer and also useless- the great merit of the two great electrochemists is understanding and announcing the immense potential and possible future of cold fusion as a new energy source. They had a dream despite of making the discovery in a place- that in retrospective is perhaps the worst alternative possible.

Piantelli has discovered the unexpected heat effect in the frame of a biophysics experiment 146 days after F&P- however a few years later his cell was quite technological- gas phase, high temperature,

hydrogen in contact with a “processable”, clean(able) nickel surface. He had allies- Focardi and Habel plus their teams but no

followers with creative ideas i.e. the sort that considers the achievements of their model just a starting point from which they have to discover new ways. Piantelli has applied systematically the Scientific Method http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/how-does-apply-prof-piantelli-rules-of.html and has obtained results of paramount importance- but still in isolation and with no real scale up to LENR+, the enhanced process. In the field, the Pd D effort was

 much, much greater than that on the Ni-H gas phase line. Electrochemistry used for nickel is not more technologizable than the F&P Cell. Randell Mills CIHT method is an exception in principle- it produces electric energy- however it seems the way from mWatts to MWatts is long.

Just to remark that new technologies besides being cultural can be very difficult wicked problems with traps.

The functional theory of technologies

In the good old times before the information revolution technologies were mainly mono-functional – doing an unique thing-as well as possible- transport, transfer or transformation

of matter and energy. For information technologies the Swiss Army knife multi-functionality is the rule- see PCs or smartphones

for example. However multi-functionality is a major global trend, a definitory technological virtue. DGT has started collaboration in an early stage with a diversity of major industries for applications

For classic LENR the main desired function- generation of excess heat is not fulfilled well being weak, incontrollable and evanescent.

Weak thermal signals could be treated in two ways:

1) enhancement by empirical trial and error using radical methods and changes- first of all abandonment of the “cradle” and of the culprit metal, palladium,

2) improvement of calorimetric measurements; calorimetry owes a lot to cold fusion; the reverse is not exactly true. The very precise

measurements have proved beyond any doubt the existence of LENR (science) but have not helped LENR to scale up and become a technology. Metrology has consumed too many resource es despite its passivity as solution of the weakness problem...

However it would not be justified to call this option an error. The immediate aim was to demonstrate that the excess heat exists- fast

so the longer. The longer http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html less traveled way (enhancement) could not be taken from practical reasons, cold fusion being engaged in uphill battles

for survival.

The general option for PdD and the relative lack of popularity of NiH system again cannot be qualified as error; the story is much too complex, multilevel, multifaceted and multi-egotistic...

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. (Henry Kissinger)  Please try to understand what can a clear mind do- really not much.

It is too much for me too; therefore I will use an other quotation here:

Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.” (Al Franken)

Even more, mistakes are a part of being a researcher and being unavoidable when you do not have all the data and you never have them all- you are working and creating in highly non-ideal

circumstances. This non-ideality, endemic for the LENR field

leads to a limitation of the scientific method- as also shown here:

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know.  (Robert M. Pirsig)

As more options are available now, errors become possible- I have written a lot about these. And unfortunately errors are more than additive:

But slight mistakes accumulate, and grow to gross errors if unchecked. (Jacqueline Carey)

I dare to say that both Scientism and any form of myopic Technologism would be very costly errors (as long as we accept that Energy- plenty, clean, healthy cheap is the aim. The only correct approach is hybrid- scientific and technological.

applied inventive and smart complementarity. 

Also it has to be accepted both continuity and discontinuity. similarity and difference between LENR and LENR+

Very soon facts will demonstrate that insisting in considering

the Scientific Method as panacea for the troubles and difficulties and problems of the field can be described by:

To err is human; to persist in error is diabolical. (erroneously attributed to many authors, actually a Latin proverb borrowed from the Greeks)

Once a psychologist friend has tested my personality. One of the conclusions was that I have many weak points but naivety is the most dangerous of them.

I believe that at ICCF-18 a paradigm change will take place and

a new era of collaboration and progress will start.

Peter

SCIENTISM-1, GLUCK-0; the first half.

Motto:

If you can't be a good example, you'll have to be a terrible warning. (Catherine Aird)

My gratitude goes to the readers who have answered to my questionnaire re SCIENTISM and LENR or have tried to help me in other ways. This gratitude includes NOT citing them in connection with some quite dangerous heretical ideas for which I take alone the full responsibility.

Actually, this paper just tries to call your active attention to the survival problem of LENR, it is an expression of deep discontent with the situation in the field and is a new assertion of the idea that only a mixed approach (scientific and technological) can assure a future for LENR. Homo sapiens and Homo faber have to work together for pleasing Homo discontentus. The generally accepted idea is different- first Homo sapiens has to decipher all the puzzles of LENR and then he can tell Homo faber what to do.

Scientism as a general concept is an unrealistic belief in the omnipotence of OUR science (Science hic et nunc). However it is in any case much better than the contrary opinion and, in practice is sooner or later corrected by reality. Perhaps the correct, direct question could have been:

“Is LENR a special victim of scientism?” A very inopportune question because it is common sense that Cold Fusion has problems of development due to oppression by closed minded and ill-willed skeptics and only lack of funding and support has stopped LENR to become the most important, clean, green energy source on Terra. However, till the reproducibility problem will not be solved= it will be something very rotten in LENR-land.

I have to confess: only a good dose of plum brandy has saved me from depression when during my study of the papers to be presented at the coming ICCF-18 in a keynote paper (Kidwell) I have read: “Unfortunately, the poor reproducibility (<6%) prevented discovery of the trigger for this excess heat.” This is a kind of reality I am unable to accept. My ideas are probably solitary and non-scientific and deeply mistaken; I wrote an Open Letter to the previous ICCF-17 and I have told straightly what I think-http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/08/open-letter-to-iccf-17.html and this was ended with:

“We have to acknowledge that LENR is like a caterpillar that has to be metamorphosed in LENR+- a butterfly able to fly (i.e. to generate useful energy).. Instead of conclusions…
I think the best option is for radical changes, first of all in the mode(s) of thinking in/re LENR.”

That my success/impact/influence was zero or even negative is demonstrated inter alia by the very slogan of the coming ICCF:

“Applying the Scientific Method to Understanding Anomalous Heat Effects: Opportunities and Challenges.”

Is this realistic, stimulating, inspiring?

Can the scientific method applied well when the process is not under control? Are Mother Nature’s answers useful when She whispers and stutters?

Is understanding the ultimate aim when we have to solve the problem of energy? (here I suddenly remembered quinine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine that is used against malaria with some success, but its mechanism of action is still not fully understood. And LENR seems to be seriously ill; an analogy with malaria is even not so idiotic, high fever episodes are not predictable.

And nothing is more counter-productive and self-destructive than calling anomalous (even temporary) a phenomenon aiming to furnish energy for billions of people.

Otherwise, as Cuvier would say the crab is indeed a little red fish that moves backward. And LENR is purely scientific, completely knowable now, and is indeed weird.

One reader has interpreted my essay as a wake up call for conventional science; actually I am focusing on the LENR community that was not conventional but has recently embraced the idea of science as first priority, kind of Science uber alles. The crisis of global science- physics first-is a too complex subject for this blog, here and now.

Very interesting for me is the idea taken from the genius de jour, Nicholas Nassim Taleb of ‘via negativa’ in usual language it is more urgent and important to get first rid of the evil harmful things and only later add or build the positive things. Your humble friend has arrived to the same conclusion years ago see please my 20 Problem Solving Rules or this essay-puzzle

http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/02/can-you-guess-word.html whose unique solution is the boldest word: NO!

In the case of LENR the “negative way” is to solve, to get rid of the life-or-death problem of reproducibility that also includes low intensity and duration of excess heat. I know well many of my friends will say that is stupid exaggeration coming from somebody unable to comprehend  the subtleties of the scientific method and will give examples  of sporadic or unpredictable  or uncontrollable processes that are doing quite well, scientifically i.e are studied with care by many researchers. The killer difference is that cold fusion had ab ovo great technological ambitions. Now it has great but undefined scientific ambitions.

An other wise reader has patiently explained me that what happened, rejection reaction to CF and the reactions of those rejected by the scientific community are both conditioned culturally and by the standard modes of thinking. We do not have to assume any conspiracy. The inability to cope with the frightening complexity of the reality, manifested as extreme wickedness of the research problems. The symbolic boat of LENR was caught and became a long-time prisoner between the Scylla of skepticism (outer) and the Charybdis of scientism (inner). This situation has to be seen as a special, extreme case of the crisis in science-physics-thinking- that claims a revolution. It seems also that the unique salvation of the crew from the fatal attraction of the rocks and deadly currents of Scylla and Chrybdis is to change the boat from LENR to LENR+ much more advanced technically.  

As a honest writer I take the responsibility for this dubious metaphor, the reader has exposed these ideas with proper words- but this is what I was able to understand from the message.

An other nice reader calls our/your unkind attention to dogmatism, including its institutionalized form- a formidable force of inertia. Surprisingly stubborn anyway. I will cite this friend protected by anonymity:

“There are times when the physical reality intrudes so greatly upon our consciousnesses that the old systems and institutions fail, or are weakened enough that revolutionary progress occurs. as opposed to the evolutionary progress that is the institutional methods great strength.” 

In other words powerful shocks are  necessary to remove the old inner paradigm of LENR and then the unjust chronicized rigid impenetrable skepticism can /will gradually melt away.

The obstacle and the way out are defined: “the principle difficulty holding back the field is the lack of researchers that can be open minded enough to allow the new ideas in, and skeptical enough to block the old and bad ideas out. Instead, you have true believers for whom every experiment is a vindication and victory, and skeptics for whom everything is a fraud and a cheat.” 

The debates around LENR are fierce, and the methods used quite despicable. A geographically distant close-in-thinking friend raises the idea of right-brain vs. left-brain thinking in these debates; perhaps this deserves a special chapter in an old vs. new thinking editorial about LENR (and LENR vs. LENR+)

An other subject of paramount importance: when scientism will be removed and the problem of energy source will be solved in practice, the field will need a new theory, actually a creative association of diverse theories. A task for generations, but technological and commercial success does NOT depend on a perfect theory. Frere Axil contributes a lot to this Theory in statu nascendi

Frere Alain, on his turn correlates the present problem with Kuhn’s theory including paradigm change that will be fatal for scientism and all the other obstacles in the way of a new energy technology- or more. I am citing Alain because he is resistant to attacks- is an anti-fragile personality. (we have to explore Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s book to learn how LENR – now fragmented, broken can become an Anti-fragile construction indeed, as it has to be!

A discontented author of a new theory has reminded us: “The status quo has always powerful allies” True at the third power…

Two complete answers to my questionnaire

Special thanks and my comments in blue go to B.A. and E.P. who have answered directly to all my 5 questions re Scientism.\

The first

Q1: Is the problem of scientism an important one or is just an unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

A 1: I do not know the answer, but I suspect it is 'just the way things go'. That is, it is part of the human condition. 

C1: Yes, we err, and err and so on, but supposedly less, perhaps it is time to solve the problem and for this we will need a lot of realism and pragmatism, Active discontent is an even more human condition, see please this quote by Andre Malraux: “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.” Boldness is the key for LENR

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, a scientism problem and in what extent has this influenced its development?

A2: LENR had their problem defined for them and it made success nearly impossible, because fusion is not the root cause of the energy.

C2- This is a radical idea, attacking in a way an original certainty of the field, possibly its most sacred cow. However being given the powerful meme ‘nuclear is bad’ non-nuclear or differently nuclear is a good thing. Just wait

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are some inextricable complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

A3: No, the problem is finding the right metaphor.  For example; I once told a group of children that birds pull the grass up rather than growing. Later in life if they want a nice lawn they will buy birdseed rather than grass seed. LENR has bought into D-D fusion where it does not exist.

I have to agree with both the metaphor idea and with LENR community chasing sometimes inexistent beasts and chimaeras.

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now and what is the best approach to a solution?

A 4-5: See above

C 4-5: This seems to imply that the most scarce and  critical resource now for LENR is creative ideas not funding but I will let you to decide if you say this or not.

Q6. What will be the global situation of the field in 1, 3, 5 years from now?

A6: Rossi, Defkalion or others may break out soon, but their behavior is troubling.

C6: Actually these are solutions from outside of LENR community and we cannot expect from outsiders to respect our rules. The basic and primary nature of these LENR+ solution is not scientific but technology+engineering+ management-business. Why should these discoverer-developers strive desperately for peer reviewed all telling

papers in the best journals or open demos and detailed

reports helping existent and coming competition to reduce

the business intelligence-industrial espionage-reverse engineering expenses to a fraction of that “normal”?

The second

Q1: Is the problem of scientism an important one or is just an unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

A1: Is scientism a major problem? No. Let's consider four groups the general public, politicians, scientists who are focused on money and position, scientists who are focused on understanding/finding new things. The first group believes science knows all and is certain. They are wrong, but it is not important they have little power or influence. The second group does not take unnecessary risks. They will not risk their success on uncertain science though some well understand science is uncertain. Scientists who, regardless of why they entered science, are now focused on their status will not take risks just like politicians. Some of them understand science is uncertain. Some of them entered science to avoid the anxiety caused by more fluid fields of human endeavor. They have made science rigid to meet their psychological needs. The last group is harmed by scientism in the other three groups, but there is little they can do about it.

C1 Perhaps scientism is good outside science and bad inside it.

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, a scientism problem and in what extent has this influenced its development?

A2: No. LENR has political problems among career scientist and politicians. Seldom (only in LENR?) does science offer a big and immediate threat to a trillion dollar per year industry. When you threaten thousands of multimillionaires, and several multibillionaires expect violent and systemic push back. I think this is a special case for LENR.

C2- Usually (and psychologically) pride is considered the worst of the seven deadly sins. It is dangerous and counter-productive to think that science, pure science alone can solve all our problems and technology should come only later when

we are happy know-it-alls.

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are some inextricable complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

A3: Of course there are complex things going on that need detailed experimental data to understand.

C3-bad reproducibility unfortunately means that even the successful experiments give very different results and data. Too much chaos in the field.

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now and what is the best approach to a solution?

A 4-5: Lack of data is the main problem. The solution is more data. I do not expect money from the western/global-bank governments. I think parametrizing response to a few variable will be a big step forward and can be done by individuals.

C4-5: perhaps the problem is even more difficult. I am more and more convinced that even with a million researchers working with F&P Cells and an other million trying to get the best data and highest performances from the most pre-formed nano-structures- static NAE- a lot of data will be obtained but no real progress toward an energy source. The

Sine-qua-non condition for a technology is dynamic NAE.

Q6: What will be the global situation of the field in 1, 3, 5 years from now?

A6:  If someone or some group parameterizes the excess heat from nickel/copper in terms of temperature, hydrogen pressure, and lifetime as limited by nickel/copper, lifetime as limited by hydrogen, effect of various temperatures cycling then in five years there will be some government money for more data taking. With some luck the energy poor and non global-bank countries (the ones that are human capital rich) will be quietly developing LENR+ for themselves and their militaries. That is Japan, Italy, China, and India.

C6- I think we will know soon what is the real source of excess heat, we will be surprised but able to develop LENR+ faster and faster

The author who has inspired the essay, Dave Pollard nicely said he is respecting my opinion but is far from being a cold fusion or LENR believer. In any case he is convinced that the human society is “so” unsustainable that even an energy revolution cannot save us from the Collapse. On the contrary:

“I would hazard a guess that if some astonishing new energy technology were invented and rolled out with record speed it might make the ultimate collapse of our civilization even more catastrophic by enabling population and exhaustion of our planet to accelerate even more quickly over the cliff.”

On my turn, I respect Dave’s opinion.

As a kind of consolation- I am worried that my grandchildren will not be able to cope with that evil Collapse without my help- I got a nice message of a biologist, knower of many “isms” who gave me good ideas re LENR and the biosphere.

Eventually I think scientism needs a partner for constructive disputes.

I got the solution from Gary Wright who “created” a relevant accusation in his newest paper: “Hanno Essén Admits Recent Test of E-cat NOT Science” Subtle suggestion- if it is NOT science, the test is not valid, it is a blunder, a shame and so on, fiat justitia, pereat Rossi! For details please read Gary’s paper.

It was a black box experiment without theoretical foundation and it does not contribute to the advancement of human knowledge.

It has simply shown that the HotCat produces excess heat something very undesirable for Gary who has bet his virtual reputation on the repeated assertion that Rossi is a fraud.

“It is not Science!” but how will sound “It is not Technology?”

Something that resembles perhaps Science but cannot be converted in a technology. I am starting to write a list but now I have to finish this paper with the warning: “Scientism creates (new) problems or our field, does not solve them!”

Scientism in LENR is powerful; today I have no chances in confronting it. I am searching allies, humans because reality that is already on my part, has very limited convincing power compared to strong memes.

Peter 

LENR AND SCIENTISM.

My dear readers: PLEASE HELP!

This writing can become a real source of inspiration and information only with your help – via pro- and contra-comments.

The subject of it is difficult and “sensitive” and it is beyond the

judgment of a single person, having a limited, specific professional experience. I ask you for a small “wisdom of the crowds” creative exercise action.

I have confessed that my favorite meta-sport is swimming counter=stream, therefore for me it is a problem to decide in which direction to swim in stagnant water

What is this all about?

One author I am admiring much, first off all for his superior and deep understanding of the world’s complexity see e.g. http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2010/10/10/complexity-its-not-that-simple/ is the Canadian ecologist, environmental philosopher and writer, Dave Pollard who edits “How To Save The World” This admiration does not mean that I share his ideas

But I warmly recommend you to systematically study his newsletter.

This week Dave has published a paper:

 

The Dangers of Scientism and the Fear of the Unknowable http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2013/06/13/the-dangers-of-scientism-and-the-fear-of-the-unknowable/  PLEASE READ IT WITHOUT PREJUDICES!

 

Actually it is a value-added presentation of the book: “The Science Delusion” by Curtis White. The book is in way, an echo of “The God Delusion” of Richard Dawkins. The target of these writing is SCIENTISM see it defined and described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism Scientism states that science is omniscient and the scientific method is omnipotent.

 

Pollard considers that scientism is untenable because:

“science is, after all, nothing more than the creation of approximate, limited and ever-changing models and metaphors of some aspects of reality, that are often interesting and sometimes (enormously) useful”.

The deep source of scientism is the ideology of certainty and

the intolerance (even loathing) we humans have for complexity and for the unknowability of most of reality says Pollard.

Scientism is absolutization and dogmatization of science mirroring the same standard procedures applied for religion(s); there exists some 11,500 uniquely true religions functioning as perfect sources of meaning of life and organizers of life.

Scientism is bad for science but it is also a more general menace:

The consequence of the new scientism dogma goes far beyond the censorship and dismissal of more creative and open inquiry; as it reinforces the equally rigid, simplistic and reductionist political, social and economic dogma of our culture, it becomes a force for tyranny, as White explains.

The paper and the book carry a message of danger for progress, a serious warning. One smart comment about the scientism says:

their faith is actually a betrayal of the scientific method Scientism is the new despot, if we have no other values.

Personal comments

Obviously, you can read these, but I am interested in your ideas; metaphorically speaking I want to know how broad is the spectrum of opinions regarding the nakedness of the Emperor (LENR classic style).

Life in an oppressive society has made me an expert in dogmas, mainly political ones- but it is well known that dogmas are very contagious and penetrate all the sectors of society and individual life. The Romanian poet, Lucian Blaga has stated: “Every dogma is an idea, often malefic, owning all the weapons of terror.”

Years ago, in an editorial about dogma I wrote:”Man's pathological passion for certainty exposes him to major risks. If he ceases to think about the fundamental issues with his very own brain, he will become only a fraction of what he could be. He will be de-personalized in more senses. He will not become only an other man, but also other men- those who have forced him to transfusion of dogmas.

Now, back to scientism, Pollard and Curtis White. A word that is not used and interpreted properly in my opinion is "extremist".

Actually extremists are those who push a concept, idea, ideology

up to its limits- but till inside some tolerable, non-evil behavior. They do good things and bad things but still not criminal things.

They stop at some boarders but do not go further. Fascists, communists, terrorists, active fundamentalists are worse than extremists they do not respect elementary rules of morality, decency, common good sense.

The practicians of scientism are extremists, but so is Pollard and Curtis White. Pollard’s ecologism and preoccupation with the

collapse of our civilization seen as something inexorable and our return to Nature are signs of a benevolent extremism- are exaggerations.

White has given an ultra-provocative title to his book calling science a delusion. Actually science is the best thing we have created, however it has weaknesses, limits, it is imperfect but it is

continually improving, progressing, correcting errors and creating new and new tools, concepts, means and methods.

Human science is new and the shadows of the Dark Ages are still omnipresent. And the task of the science(s) is formidable just because the reality it explores and has to understand is so complex and dynamic at all levels.

Probably you have ignored to read http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/09/the-principle-of-chief-engineer.html but this tells us about a vital rule of life and science- you (and science) will almost never have all the conditions and tools to fulfill a task, solve a problem. Engineers,

great entrepreneurs and great generals know this well. In research this is common sense: “First you jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” (Ray Bradbury)

Unfortunately many scientists have developed a belief that we can understand everything, we have theories for all the knowable phenomena. However this is simply, tragically and increasingly not true. It is not entirely bad, because it supports the idea that any problem can be solved. An other facet of the problem is the idea that any problem can be solved purely scientifically. Historically we have had similar cases of thinking that everything can be solved by an inspired philosophy or by perfect logic; the key of disaster is the…premises.

Dave Pollard and Curtis White are inspiring for the problem part of scientism, however about the solution they allude mainly to a more holistic view (correct!) including art (OK, but incomplete)

And excluding what they call technophilia and the concept of technological progress.

Their extremist view seems to interfere with the understanding

of the essence of technology—not only a problem solver that creates new problems when applied inadequately but, first of all

creating a basis for solving all the major problems. No alternative to this, a world without technology is Hell.

Technology (mon amour!) has a Grand Plan:

“Systematically improving the processes of transport, transfer and transformation of matter, energy and information that create something useful for people.”

In the frame of this, you can understand technological progress that happens now all the time, everywhere on the Earth. I recommend you to use this as a frame of realizing what happens now in LENR and beyond.  

I believe and have repeatedly told that in the case of LENR technology is an equal rights partner of science-see e.g. http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/search?q=hybrid.

Perhaps the positions had been radicalized in meantime, many of my respected good friends consider that LENR has to be first understood and later developed based on this understanding, however I think that these two actions have to be combined and performed simultaneously, this being realistic, pragmatic

and possible.

I wish that one day; Dave Pollard will use a Hyperion heater in his pre-Collapse flat and think that technology can be good for people and for the environment too.

Questions for you  

Please forget about my opinion, consider me an extremist-technologist and tell exactly what do you think;

Q1: Is the problem of scientism an important one or is just an unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, a scientism problem and in what extent has this influenced its development?

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are some inextricable complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now and what is the best approach to a solution?

Q5. What will be the global situation of the field in 1, 3, 5 years from now?

Thank you in the name of the Cold Fusion Energy Dream!

Peter

A VETERAN’S VOICE

Interview with Professor YEONG E. KIM

It is a self-assumed task of this blog(ger) to provide young LENR researchers with the best information available regarding the field. Till now they have received mainly technological principles and managerial best practice due to my own limitations, but now I am appealing to a good friend- who is a world class specialist and authority in those branches of physics that are bound the very core of LENR, nuclear physics and solid state physics... Professor Yeong E. Kim from the Purdue University has generously accepted to help, first with the following interview.

Yeong Kim got his diploma in physics in 1959, the same year when I became a chemical engineer. 30 years later when he was already an internationally known theoretical physicist and I was a very locally known technologist, we have reacted very similarly to the advent of Cold Fusion. The risks were much greater for him but he remained faithful to this cause till today

Q1: Dear Yeong, can you please tell us about your moments of awakening, illumination, scientific revelations to the truth of cold fusion?

As you know, John Huizenga dismissed the Fleischmann-Pons effect (F-P effect) as the scientific fiasco of the century [John R. Huizenga, Cold Fusion: the Scientific Fiasco of the Century, U. Rochester Press (1992)]. He claimed that three miracles were needed to explain the F-P effect:

(1) suppression of the DD Coulomb repulsion (Gamow factor) (Miracle #1),

(2) no production of nuclear products (D+D → n+ ³He, etc.) (Miracle #2), and

(3) the violation of the momentum conservation in free space (Miracle #3).

The above three violations are known as “three miracles of cold fusion”.

My first moment of awakening happened when Fleischmann and Pons announced their experimental results in news media.  Initially, my feeling of disbelief dominated about this discovery as a practicing theoretical nuclear physicist, as most of my professional colleagues did.  As I was searching a possible theoretical explanation for the claimed discovery, I realized that the conventional nuclear theory could not be applied to deuteron fusion in metal. However, at the same time, I did not know how to formulate a theory for deuteron fusion in metal, even though I clearly recognized that the conventional nuclear scattering theory at positive energies cannot directly be applied to nuclear reactions involving deuterons bound in a metal, which is a negative-energy bound-state problem. Quantum scattering theory describing the Coulomb barrier problem is applicable to scattering experiments with nuclear beams.

When they were being criticized at the APS meeting, I was frustrated that I could not rebuke public criticisms by my nuclear theory colleagues, since I did not have an appropriate alternative theory, even though I realized that their theoretical arguments are premature.  Furthermore, I did not have slightest ideas for explaining the miracles #2 and #3.  However my theoretical curiosity on the miracle #1 did kept my intellectual interests on the subject.

My second awakening happened in 1996-1997 when our theory group at Purdue developed the optical theorem approach for low-energy nuclear reactions.  Purdue nuclear theory group at that time consists of four members (Y. E. Kim, group leader; A. L. Zubarev, senior scientist; Y. J. Kim, visiting professor; and J. - H. Yoon, graduate student). Our results were published in a publication entitled “Optical Theorem Formulation of Low Energy Nuclear Reactions” (OTF-LENRs) [Physical Review C 55, 801 (1997)].

 http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim.shtml Our optical theorem formulation is rigorous. My second awakening came in 1997 with realization that our theoretical result for the OTF-LENRs can be used to develop a generalized theory which is appropriate for describing deuteron fusion in a metal.

My third awakening and illumination happened when I and Zubarev developed a theory of Bose-Einstein condensation nuclear fusion (BECNF) for deuteron fusion in a metal.  The results were published in 2000 [“Nuclear fusion for Bose nuclei confined in ion traps,” Fusion Technology 37, 151 (2000); “Ultra low-energy nuclear fusion of Bose nuclei in nano-scale ion traps,” Italian Physical Society Conference Proceedings 70, 375 (2000)].

http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim.shtml My third awakening came in 2000 with realization that the BECNF theory is capable of explaining the F- P effect and all of Huizenga’s three miracles.

My fourth awakening is currently evolving ever since I met John Hadjichristos of Defkalion at the NI Week in August 2012. I was very pleasantly surprised when he told me at the NI Week that he quoted our OTF-LENRs paper in his paper submitted to ICCF-17. This was the first time someone in the LENR community was quoting this paper!  My second surprise was to hear from him about the even-isotope effect which he observed in his experiments and which was reported in his ICCF-17 paper. The observed even isotope effect is consistent with the theory of BECNF!  More detailed theoretical analysis of reaction mechanisms for his experimental results is currently in progress

Q2: 24 years have elapsed; hundreds of successful experiments were made proofs of the reality of the phenomena. Unfortunately the experiments were not sufficiently successful to provide the necessary understanding of what happens and the conditions to enhance the heat release to useful levels?

What were your thoughts re the evolution of the experimental situation in the field?

 

Experiments with electrolysis and gas loading involve very complex measurements with many parameters. Unfortunately, even when useful positive results were observed, it had been very difficult to reproduce the results. The absence of reproducibility of positive experimental results has been a major road block in the field.

We needed desperately a break-through in experimental procedures and techniques to achieve the reproducibility.  Unfortunately lack of research funding prevented intense and concentrated experimental works based on fresh new ideas, especially from younger generation.

Q3: You have published over 200 papers re Physics http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim.shtml and over 50 regarding LENR. (An opportunity to thank you for the many fine papers of you have sent me by classic mail and later electronic mail). As a theorist it is said you do not belong to any school, you “are” a school. I could understand this for LENR from your very first note re Cluster Fusion in 1989 till http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim/PhysRevC.55.801.pdf the Kim paper I know; may I ask how your theoretical ideas have evolved?

Peter, this was actually answered – for your first question.

I will ask the nice readers to study these two relevant documents: “Critical Review of Theoretical Models (1994)” and “Message to the Colleagues 2012” http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim.shtml

Many of my papers are also posted in the above web site. I hope to publish very important new ones soon.

Q4: Why the way to truth and to value was so long, why LENR still has so many problems? On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your degree of discontent with the global situation of LENR?

This is more a philosophical question and I am a physicist. Perhaps CF was not discovered in the best place; perhaps it is a historical bad chance that two electrochemist geniuses have discovered it.

And surely I am highly discontented with the experimental situation - weak signals and poor reproducibility – if and when they come, lack of conceptual unity, vision. The theory part was not much better, however I am happy that now becomes obvious - our theory is a part of a greater vision, and it is a critical part.

Q5: Recently some non-conformist newcomers, as for example Defkalion Green Technologies Global (DGTG) came with the idea that actually what we call LENR is something much more complex than we have thought and the solution is to radically re-design the components – hydrogen, metal, reaction vessel and environment to make it productive and controllable. What do you think about this New Wave idea? New paradigm?

Recently, I had an opportunity to observe experimental runs of DGTG’s R-5 reactor carried out by their group of scientists in Vancouver. The results were positive. More importantly the results are reproducible, since there had been many positive runs with other observers so far in addition to my observation. This is very significant historically since we have now a device which yields reproducible results for the first time.  It is a break-through which we have been waiting for.

The break-through is accomplished by new comers, new breed of scientists and engineers lead by a mathematician who became an excellent scientist. This is a new wave and new paradigm change.

Q6: Prediction is an intellectual activity superior even to wisdom. Please tell my readers what are your predictions for the future of the field! Are you looking to the present and then great chances are you are pessimist, or do you have the vision of a bright future?

Recently I became very optimist. At Vancouver I witnessed a protocoled successful test with results leaving no doubt about plenty of heat in excess and good control of the device. I am an optimist regarding the principles, but also for discovering and or creating the details which I plan to work on very hard in collaboration with my DGTG friends.