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(37) CommentsLPP’s policy on data release
Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) policy on data release, as stated by Eric Lerner, President:
Now that our Focus-Fusion-1 device is operational, we know that many people who have been following this project will be eagerly awaiting our experimental results. LPP firmly believes that scientific advances occur when results, both positive and negative, are freely shared and discussed throughout the community.
However, it is important to understand that experimental data have to be analyzed, digested and interpreted before they can become meaningful results. This takes time and affects the way that results are released.
Eric describes three main ways of publishing scientific results:
Announcing results on a website
The fastest way to release results is to announce them to the press and put them on our website. The disadvantage of this route is that it lacks the feedback from our scientific colleagues, who might point out alternative explanations of the data or flaws in our analysis. It increase the risk of publicizing results that may in fact later prove to be in error, which can have a big negative impact on the credibility of our effort.
Announcing results at scientific conferences
The second fastest way, which we intend to use in most circumstances, is to announce results at scientific conferences. Here, even if the results are preliminary, we have an opportunity to get our colleagues reactions, get suggestions from them, and either get confirmation of our conclusions or, possibly, modify them. LPP is currently lining up conferences that we intend to participate in, including the Conference on Future Energy this month and the International Conference on Plasma Physics (ICOPS) next spring.
Peer-reviewed scientific journals
The slowest method is publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. This method is useful for highly controversial results, where we expect considerable skepticism from some in the scientific community and the public in general—especially results that may seem “too good to be true”. The peer-review process, although it has very significant flaws, does allow us to answer some skeptical arguments and gives to our work, once published, a greater degree of credibility. Avoiding this process could very well bog us down in unproductive debate.
Since any positive result with hydrogen-boron fuel will in fact be highly controversial, we will almost certainly wait for peer-reviewed publication before publicizing these results, which we will not in any case be expecting until 2010.
So, we ask for everyone’s patience as we let them know, as rapidly as possible, of our results.
For those of you who were hoping for a webcam in the lab to watch it all unfold in real time, this may come as a disappointment. Here’s a little humor on scientific results to ease the pain.
Rest assured, we will be documenting LPP’s process as much as possible - even if we don’t get to publish everything right away.
Comments
There are (37) comments.So, I guess all the buyers who’ve bought and used plans for the N-Machine are in the cross-hairs. Poor suckahs!
Phil’s Dad;
Yeah, and it’s too late to keep it quiet, so ...
More on the aluminum-hydrogen cars (and rockets)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/02/researchers-ref.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091007161127.htm
It’s my understanding that they’re not actually going to be generating any power with this machine.. they won’t be demonstrating the systems needed to capture the charged particles and recharge the capacitor bank, right?
QuantumG;
No, that’s wrong, I think. The “drift tube” is the solenoid housing, AFAIK. Rezwan?
The more I study the pix, the more convinced I am that this machine will be the initial engineering testbed as well as the proof of concept/theory testbed.
All of the major components bolt together and are easily accessible. The cap bank spacing is almost enough for a production version water jacket.
So I can see a progression from recharging the cap bank from the ions (give or take a few percent) to beginning X-ray recovery experiments, to properly shielding it and developing a production-oriented pulsed ignition system.
” [to] make a BTU cost half as much electricity as Machinery’s Handbook says it’s supposed to. That number is supposedly an unassailable constant.”
Could you explain that more, pliz? I haven’t got ‘round to reading that particular handbook yet.
Sure, Brian
I doubt anybody actually reads the whole book, although future machine builders, machinists, draftsmen, and engineers take a college course that works it’s way through this tight collection of constants and conversion tables.
But, since the watt <—-> BTU ratios are constants, you can find those conversions in google and physics texts, too.
The fine print will get blurry at the system level when a FF can recharge the input cap bank to at least 80% of what it takes to fund the next pulse.
Note this is still a constant if you take the obvious route of resistance heating. But a 42% thermodynamic efficiency at making electricity tells me that it has a 58% TDE at making heat. Which it’s going to do anyway, with or without an electrical profit.
Aero;
I’m still getting lost in your criss-crossing back & forth between physics and engineering.
A watt is a power-expended measure, a BTU is a heat-produced measure, and those are not up for grabs. The recharge, however efficient or otherwise, is not the source of the power; the pB—>C12—>3He4 reaction is.
The conversions and transports and applications thereof after each fusion event are perfectly conventional, AFAIK.
43kJ—>pB—>C12—>3He4—>43kJ.
How can you design or build machinery with no knowledge of physics?
43kJ + pB—>C12—>3He4 + 43kJ++
which of course is the point of having a generator, to generate surplus.
Yep, all we need now is reach unity. Step by step.
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