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A team of researchers have tested a device (the E-Cat) produced by a team in Italy led by Andrea Rossi and claim that its 'abundant heat production' together with the change in the composition of its fuel during the reaction can only be explained by a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) - http://www.sifferkoll.se/sifferkoll/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LuganoReportSubmit.pdf. Despite the fact that they cannot explain exactly how it works should we all now take LENR seriously? Can anyone figure out from the description in the paper how it does work?

Qmechanic
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  • Rossi did not get patents because the effect does not have a theory to explain it. –  Oct 11 '14 at 11:44
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    It's difficult to see that this question could literally be answered here. – Fattie Oct 11 '14 at 12:09
  • @CuriousOne - It's too bad you deleted your answer. It was the answer as far as I'm concerned. Rossi is a known crook. He was put in jail for tax fraud and for environmental crimes. Prior to "working" on cold fusion, he "worked" on converting waste into oil. It didn't work. He surreptitiously dumped the toxic waste, thereby costing Milan, Italy a significant environmental cleanup task. When he got out of jail he looked for a new scam. Hello, cold fusion. – David Hammen Oct 11 '14 at 17:21
  • Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/16278/2451 – Qmechanic Oct 11 '14 at 17:25
  • Hi mistermarko, This question fits poorly on Phys.SE for various reasons, e.g., because non-mainstream physics is off-topic. I close it as a duplicate, not because it is necessarily an exact duplicate, but to point in the right direction. – Qmechanic Oct 11 '14 at 18:09
  • 'non-mainstream physics is off-topic.' I find that attitude profoundly appalling. If the guy is wrong it should be possible to prove him wrong. If he's right then it will become mainstream. –  Oct 11 '14 at 18:25

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Please note, that this test was conducted by exactly the same group that did the previous test, lead by Guiseppe Levi, who is closely connected to Andrea Rossi. Also, you can read from the report, that Rossi himself was present in the test pulling the strings.

Hardly independent testing, is it?

The above facts alone are enough to make the report somewhat fishy, not to mention the lack of any radiation, and the fact, that the isotopic composition of the ashes analysed is highly suspicious, as explained by Swedish physicist Stephan Pomp in his blog.

http://stephanpomp.blogspot.se/2...

No, I don't think this is proof of cold fusion/lenr.

Timo Ylhäinen
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    Is there some kind of civil war going on within Swedish academia that we don't know about? –  Oct 11 '14 at 09:53
  • @Timo, what do you say to the "six independent observers" mentioned below? How does that fit it? Thanks! – Fattie Oct 11 '14 at 12:10
  • why not to make pair test. I.e. take steel rod vs Rossi machine, feed them both with the same (easy to measure) power and document differences in temp/luminocity etc. It seems to be most direct demonstration possible given experiment description. – lowtech Oct 13 '14 at 18:22
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Their latest press release says it has been confirmed by 6 independent observers. However, so far I cannot find who these are nor the status of their scientific credentials. If Rossi really has something working I do not see why he does not simply get a whole slew of patents and throw the whole technology wide open for inspection by qualified teams of scientists and engineers. Call me exceedingly skeptical.

  • OTOH, maybe Rossi should have put all of their information up front. OK - info here

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/markgibbs/2013/05/20/finally-independent-testing-of-rossis-e-cat-cold-fusion-device-maybe-the-world-will-change-after-all/

     –  Oct 11 '14 at 09:55
  • Having said that, there are now only two possibilities. Either this device is exhibiting some new form of energy conversion that goes beyond classical chemical energy. Or Rossi is an outright fraud. –  Oct 11 '14 at 09:58
  • I really want this to be real as well! And all those conventional fusion approaches that are being undertaken by private enterprise. Once we have cheap clean energy almost anything is possible. –  Oct 11 '14 at 11:37
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    I am confused by the comments here: can anyone state the names of the "six independent observers"? if so, thanks! – Fattie Oct 11 '14 at 12:11
  • @JoeBlow - The names are on the linked paper in the question. – David Hammen Oct 11 '14 at 15:46
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    I see - thanks. It does seem to be the case they are "not very independent" – Fattie Oct 11 '14 at 15:58