Hi Lomax, First, I've enjoyed reading your posts as a lurker;
I remember that hit piece in Science from Lewis very well. It was disturbing and really put the whole of Cold Fusion into doubt. Nathan Lewis, published a really good analysis on calorimetry of electrolysis and the physics thermal systems, but he never replicated the P&F effect, for example the "Heat after death" effect Jed Rothwell talks about. At the time, it put into doubt whether the P&F effect was even real. After the Lewis article, CF was kind of dead in the main-stream of science. As it would happen, I was designing my own calorimeter that I never used. Lewis just blew it for me. If you go back and read the original Pons and Flieshmann article, they have a huge discussion on nuclear sampling, neutron measurements, gamma etc, but in the end, they say; the excess heat (measured over a large period of rime) can only be attributed to a nuclear effect. P&F released an idea that was just too good not to study; that being that being that certain solid state conditions could produce nuclear fusion in the light elements. That is what got me interested. As far as your questions on the calorimetry, on the NiB experiments, I have a lot of incomplete data from then. Most of it looked positive, but to be honest, the Lewis article really made me rethink. Given that as hind site, I melted several polycarbonate 4" ptree dishes *uncovered* with a melting point of about 250C on the nickel side. The thermal difference between the hot and cold side in 4 inch ptree dish was the odd part of those experiments. Think about the size of a nickel to heat that much with at best 11Watts. So, at the time, I expected the electrolye to heat up, instead it was the nickel. The other electrode was not involved chemically. So yes, Lomax I will say my calorimetry at the time was dismal, but this effect is beyond question, There is something really odd happening that I've not seen in other systems. I think the "Cat is Our of the Bag" now.
