This is a study of a Bob Greenyer document, (22 MB) being presented as MFMP Claims Strong Evidence for LENR in Slides and Video on E-Cat World and MFMP: Titanium/Vanadium Neutron production [safety warning] on LENR Forum.
Where and what is the beef here? I took a look at Greenyer et al’s video and gave up after 15 minutes of fumbling and mumbling with no content, but for the record, this is apparently discussed in it. If someone transcribes that, I’d appreciate a copy or a link. Meanwhile we have the document. Copying the text as indented italics:
C A B
‘CAB Story’ > SUM(A + B + C)
Testable Low Energy Nuclear Reactions
Bob W. Greenyer B. Eng. (Hons.)
2 August 2017
The C, A, and B have images behind them with no apparent meaning. Looks nice graphically. I have not included them here.
Party A
The pdf uses the letters to maintain a level of dramatic mystery. A is Piantelli, something said in January 2015.
Due to other world events on that day, was moved to tell us about specific
reactions that were highly predictable based on their most successful excess heat experiment
Shared full plans of experiment and previously undisclosed details
surrounding the event that produced those results, discussed risk
Shown data other than already in the public domain
Due to other group investing at same time, MFMP were prevented from
replicating which was a huge disappointment
It is unclear how they were “prevented from replicating” if “full plans” were disclosed. This boils down to “Piantelli said,” which is then second-hand, and it’s well-known, details shift with time, the “telephone game” or “Chinese whispers.”
Goldwater *Glowstick* series evidence
GS 5.2 “Signal” possibly due to break down of charge cluster, lead to
purchasing of Neutron bubble detectors
I’ve had a great deal of difficulty decoding MFMP reports. This appears to be this one.
Theorizing about the source of signals is typically way premature, unless evidence is clear. What “breakdown of charge cluster” means is very unclear. Is there a report somewhere? If one suspects neutrons, having some bubble dosimeters around is a great idea. Neutrons can also be detected with LR-115, fast neutrons from the back of the material, perhaps, and slow neutrons with a boron-10 converter screen (which generates alpha radiation from slow neutrons. (I have some).
GS 5.3 Observations of thermal Neutrons in temperature range similar to
Party A
There is some discussion on Facebook. The face of Open Science: confused and over-amped? Trying to derive meaning from the timing of single nuclear tracks? This is hardly a report of neutrons, much less what is later made of this.
Following announcement, other researchers (re-)reported neutrons
This is entirely unclear. Who? Under what conditions? I have an Am-241 source on my desk. I have a piece of Beryllium metal. I could make some neutrons. And it would mean what? (Fun, actually, but that’s not the point here.)
Development of Bob Higgins open Neutron detector
Nice article at Physics Open Lab.
How is this relevant? What results have been seen? If one is sitting there getting excited because of a bubble detector showing an apparent neutron track, or a counter showing an alpha from a boron-10 converter in a tube (that’s what is described on that page), the real story is yet to be developed. It’s hard work to distinguish experiment-sourced neutrons from background. SPAWAR provides some convincing evidence, but this must be remembered: the SPAWAR tracks are accumulated over weeks. These tracks could probably not be distinguished based on an electronic detector that would pick up background readily; what they show is an accumulated spatial correlation.
Generally, with LENR, neutron radiation (fast or slow), if any, is close to background, essentially irrelevant to the main reaction. A common expression I use is that (for PdD work), tritium is a million times down from helium and neutrons are a million times down from tritium. For excess heat, we may be looking at 10^12 reactions per second, implying a possible neutron rate of 1 per second, but most will not be detected.
Party B
Party B is Suhas Ralkar. What’s happening with MFMP investigation with Suhas? Last I’d noticed, there was a big flap about he needed money or his lab was going to be shut down and everything would be lost. I stopped following MFMP (and I think many have done that. People burn out.)
Very specific claims of high heat
Known fuel feedstock, known processing, known reactor design
All procedures published
Published where? Confirmed, and if so, how? The approach is radically different, on the face, but Greenyer is presenting these together as if a mutual confirmation of three independent persons. This is a classic cold fusion error (and it happens in both directions: vague results at A are consider to confirm different vague results at B, as long as those results seem to indication something “nuclear.” This is far from direct evidence, it is highly circumstantial and indirect, and easily flawed, in many different ways. One mystery does not confirm another mystery. This is not replication, for sure, and it is hardly confirmation at all.
Present this to scientists as proof of something, they will think you are crazy. This has nothing to do with pseudoskepticism, it is rather a form of common sense.
Subsequently, evidence found in two scenarios supporting claims of
Parties A & C
So far, no actual evidence, just claims that evidence exists. I suppose single tracks are evidence, but it is so weak that relying on it is like trying to repair your roof by climbing on a ladder made of stacked playing cards. I don’t think so….
With each report, there might be years of work to create something clear and definitive. Is that work under way?
Party C
Party C is me356, an anonymous researcher who made many claims on LENR Forum.
Claims of success in triggering LENR with excess heat
Due to timing and choice of reactor / technology,
a hugely disappointing live test with no excess heat result obtained
Notice the excuse given as if it were fact. Maybe that was the cause, purely accidental. Maybe not. How would we know?
Due to the lack of excess heat, a request was made to test samples from
previous reactors; under the circumstances, access was given
I would not spend money on analyses of samples without other evidence of a reaction. Bad idea, except as controls in experiments that show heat with some material samples.
Request was made which samples should be focussed on
Only samples highlighted for examination were interesting, key sample with
same key fuel elements as Party B, support claims of Parties A and B
No evidence is given here and what is being claimed is far from clear.
CAB Story
We had no proof of what Party A was saying until recently
Given the sequence of events and the nature of our project we must inform
PROOF is evidence that is so strong, it would be statistically unreasonable to deny it
This is not untrue, but how statistics are applied is crucial. There are many possible pitfalls, common errors that can trap the naive — and, sometimes, even experts.
Party A – Piantelli, January 2015
Following first Paris attacks, Piantelli was adamant the world could not be responsible with LENR
and worried about an amateur researcher chancing upon a reaction that might cause injury, leading
to a shut down of the field
Highly unlikely. A great deal of research is very dangerous, yet it continues.
Explained that the highest excess was due to reaction products released
from contamination in his reactors stainless steel (never disclosed) which took a long time to
establish
So what is the evidence here? Basically Piantelli Says.
Explained that a common metal hydride could lead to same active
component and that was a real safety concern
We mused for years over if we should conduct experiment as fast track to
LENR proof – not willing to take risk since others may follow as we acted
Neutrons – but why? Source:
*How many neutrons?* Notice: three papers from the same group. Two show no neutrons, and allegedly one does. Was this it? 1994 Focardi, S., R. Habel, and F. Piantelli, “Anomalous heat production in Ni-H systems.” Nuovo Cimento Soc. Ital. Fis. A, 1994. 107A: p. 163. No., this is the “1993” work. This would be the work, it has the right authors and was published at about the right time, but that paper did not report radiation results, deferring that.
However, this paper may refer to the work: Neutron emission in NiH systems. (Thanks, Steve Krivit.)
That paper deserves careful study. However, a result from it is not very far from common results in LENR. They estimate that there is one neutron emitted for every 10^11 reactions. The figure that I have often cited — very roughly — has been one in 10^12. That work is still very approximate. Consider the data on pdf page 6.
The “excited” cell produced about 87 neutron counts per 10 minutes, while the “normal” cell produced about 78. That is an excess of 9 counts per 10 minutes, less than one neutron detected per minute. This should be kept in mind. This is common with claims of neutron detection with LENR: the rates are very low.
why?
Vanadium 50 + p
This is speculation. A speculation cannot be an element in a statistical proof. The problem is an undefined sample space.
Only 0.25% Natural as
part component in steel
Titanium and Vanadium
Party B – Suhas Ralkar
Party B – Suhas Ralkar
Party B – Suhas Ralkar
Lovely toy. The significance?
Party C – me356
Party C – me356
Party C – me356
This is essentially meaningless. If a transcript of the video appears, I hope someone will let me know about it, I may come back and edit this.
why?
49Ti + p
Reaction table
This was a broken link.
Links to a fuzzy image of a set of reaction charts like the one above.
49Ti is 5.41%
Natural Titanium
This set of reactions appears based on sequential proton fusion. This could run square into a major rate problem. Unless the first reaction proceeds to high levels of completion, the second reaction will be very rare. Of course, to explain one neutron per minute, a reaction could be very rare. However, none of this is explained to show it as probative evidence of any kind.
49V – Isotopic tracer
Since 73% of natural Titanium is 48Ti, most likely output is 49V
Has 329 day half life producing 601KeV gamma
Opportunity for verification by long term integration spectrometry
I am not convinced that anything here even merits careful investigation. Maybe. However, this kind of result, neutrons at extremely low levels, is a distraction. It provides little or no guidance as to the main reaction taking place. I remember thinking, back in 2009, how exciting neutron results were. However, that kind of work has basically gone nowhere. The field needs basic science, clear and direct evidence (which can be done without “reliability,”) as well as reliable experiments, a “lab rat.” There is nothing here that shows this. There are possibilities, though my assessment is that probability of success is low.
Summary
Nickel + Titanium + Hydrogen + Electrons leads to
excess heat
transmutations
potential emissions of gamma and neutrons
Seemingly resilient to reactor design
May be verifiable with bubble detectors and gamma spectrometry
These are NiH results, which are, in the CMNS field, the weakest, once we realize that Rossi was a carnival sideshow, never actually confirmed, with massive evidence accumulating that it will likely never be confirmed. Rossi will continue to work on almost entirely alone, and if he actually creates a product, everything will change. I don’t expect it, we are seeing more of the same-old, same-old.
Meanwhile, MFMP appears to be spinning its wheels, having allowed mania to hijack what had sometimes been useful work. Structurally, MFMP was vulnerable to this, and MFMP members that might have done something about it have mostly remained silent.
This pdf was apparently intended as a slide show for the video presentation. This is not science.
Thanks
Q & A
Comments here are welcome, and especially the correction of errors. It was substantial work to convert the pdf to what could be posted here, and mistakes can be made in the process. This study was inspired by Bob Greenyer’s comments on Bob Greenyer and the Temple of Doom.
About the original PDF
The original pdf is 23.2 MB. The extracted text is 5 KB. The extracted images total 57.9 MB. (That’s much larger than the file, probably because of PDF compression). Excluding background images (there is one image repeated for every page, 2.6 MB, the patterned background), images remain 4.35 MB. I don’t have general PDF creation tools, so I don’t know what a PDF without the backgrounds would be, but it could not be more than 4.26 MB. So the original PDF is more than 80% fluff. Further, there is data presented as image, instead of as text. That swells the file and makes commentary more difficult.