Blacklight Power

[KelvinZero]

(snip).. and there's whole fields of science where "test" has no sensible definition.

Heck, Mathematics? (snip)

How about string theory? So tautological that it can mathematically describe everything... and so tells us nothing specific about anything.

Nevertheless, fractional ground states would likely've been found by mainstream physics many decades ago, if they existed; which is unlikely, IMHO. So what *accepted* physical process could explain the flash bang? Can the state changes from water to steam to plasma (or "plasma") really be so energetic?

TW

It might be a matter of semantics. I found this link discussing whether maths is a science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics#Mathematics_as_science

Personally I have always liked the Karl Popper definition so I wouldn't call mathematics a science... I might be talked around on that, after all there is a universe of unknown mathematical principles you can explore just as there is a physical universe to explore.. perhaps mathematics is not a science but the processes of extending it are...? Im confusing myself now

Im vague on what Taxonomy is, but grouping organisms by characteristics should be able to help you make all sorts of predictions even before understanding evolution. It would be incredibly boring and pointless to me if it were just a list of facts.

[rusty]

Nevertheless, fractional ground states would likely've been found by mainstream physics many decades ago, if they existed; which is unlikely, IMHO. ...

That's a fairly bold assumption. Why would "mainstream physicists" look for something they're sure couldn't exist? What makes you think fractional ground states weren't already and/or accidently found, but dismissed as error or categorized as another "quantum" phenomenon? Simply look to Stormbringer 1) below stating these initial dismissals, desire for quantum categorization and yet possibility of ignorance.

1) the energy states of an electron are determined by quanticisation. It is a quantum property. No electron has ever been observed in an energy state lower than the accepted ground state. ...
it is possible that some procedure could force an electron into a extremely rare situation where it exists below its normal orbital so long as the new orbital is quanticized. and it is entirely possible for such a state to be completely unobserved by science to date because no one is looking for it and there are countless electrons the vast majority of which would be where we would expect them to be and doing what we expect them to do.
...
2) in physics there are several special states of matter beyond the four we are familiar with; in addition to solids, liquids, gases and plasma. Bose Einstein condensates and several other weird states also exist in which matter takes on strange properties that you would never expect if all you knew was the ordinary states of matter.  There are also strange configurations of nuclear and electronic shells such as nucleonic isomeres.
...
3) i think some set of circumstances could drop an electron below the accepted lowest ground state. but cannot see a way for that to happen and actually produce a gain in energy. It would take energy to produce the circumstances and forces that would make the electron behave abnormally. at best you would have a battery to store energy but you would have to provide the energy to charge that battery. and there is no telling what the relaxation time would be. it would probably be worse than the nucleonic isomer relaxation problem.

Re2) Condensates, superfluidity, entanglement, superconductance, Josephson junction, - Why must these use "quantum" descriptions?
Theory of Relativistic superconducting circuits; http://www.sciencentechnologyupdates.com/2011/06/einsteins-theory-applied-to.html#.Uw68MMKYbcs
The quantum theory of Cooper pairs addresses the superconductive question of no electron excitation by violating c and inventing electron bonding, but doesn't lower energy state shells address the same without dismissing the Laws of Physics? In essence, superconductivity and superfluidity are the rejection of electrons to maintain sub-ground state.
Isn't it also likely entanglement and Bose-Einstein condensates are the result of Relative proximity below ground state as with the Josephson junction article listed, not dubious superposition?

Re3) Collision and cooling. The first as result of high energy reactions (such as BLP's) or impacts (as in the Sun's superheated, twisted Corona). In each the energy is transferred or expelled as photons (BLP claims observed high-UV in tests and nature). Through cryogenics electron shells can be "squeezed" to below ground state, especially within a molecular structure (ie: silicate superconductors) when there's simply not enough "room" the temps would be much higher.
As you've mentioned, the question is how long this remains. If these then reject electrons, as I've offered as a possibility, is it photons that must "recharge" it to ground state?

----------------------------------------

The most important aspect of science is to pursue knowledge, regardless if the results are undesirable. If Geocentrism must be tossed along with the social and religious implications, if man-made CO2 can't account for anything its business model dies, if Newtonian Gravity cannot explain Mercury's orbit or the bending of starlight, if Quantum Mechanics is simply absurd - As scientists these facts must be accepted and truth discovered.

"It ain't great, but it's what we got."
Nothing wrong with that statement from a practical sense, but it's intellectually lazy and unacceptable from a scientific perspective. Ask a nuclear engineer, technician or designer when an atom will decay and he'll say, "I have no idea, but I know how long and how much heat a mass will produce." Ask a Quantum Physicist and he'll say, "Maybe it just did, or maybe in twenty years, or maybe twenty thousand." If I asks Ms. Clio when I'm going to die and she said the same, we'd both acknowledge she's a fraud and I should get my money back.

To the Quantum Ms. Clios here; The ruse is up and I want my money back.

[Ric Capucho]

Nevertheless, fractional ground states would likely've been found by mainstream physics many decades ago, if they existed; which is unlikely, IMHO. ...

That's a fairly bold assumption. Why would "mainstream physicists" look for something they're sure couldn't exist? What makes you think fractional ground states weren't already and/or accidently found, but dismissed as error or categorized as another "quantum" phenomenon? Simply look to Stormbringer 1) below stating these initial dismissals, desire for quantum categorization and yet possibility of ignorance.

Oh come on, my statement's one of the least bold made anywhere on this thread so far.

Consider the claims made by the Blacklight folks: fractional ground states undetected by mainstream science; a new state of hydrogen hitherto unseen by mainstream science; an explanation for dark matter; oh, and vast amounts of easily realisable energy in every scoop of water. I'd have to get up hours before I go to bed to make a bold assumption that could compete with that lot.

TW

[rusty]

Oh come on, my statement's one of the least bold made anywhere on this thread so far. ...

I suppose perspective determines what a "bold statement" is. Is it bold to say almost all subatomic physics post Maxwell, Einstein and Bohr is an ill-conceived and misguided dead end? Inversely, is it bold to say that because 95% of "experts", decades of work and extensive computer simulations come to a conclusion, it must be accurate?

Specifically on superconductors, superfluids and "dark" matter;
Is it bold for quantum theorists to dismiss Occam's Razor as simplistic and, if an answer cannot be found (as is the ongoing case of all quantum physics) than the answer must be even more complex? Is it bold to point out making up such dubious and malleable math to produce a result that fits a flawed theory, but falls apart if extended to other problems, isn't science at all?

Specifically on the assertion Quantum Physics is accurate;
Is it bold to point out statistics and probabilities are a man-made system for guessing, not a path to defined answers, and then remind you the Universe doesn't guess and has defined answers? If realized, is it bold to deduce all mathematics used to define the Universe and subatomic physics that uses statistics, probabilities and quantum physics is nothing but a mathematical exercise of approximation with no bearing or insight into the Universe?

[rusty]

Oh come on, my statement's one of the least bold made anywhere on this thread so far.

I'm making this a separate point as it's tangential, but quite important.
There is a common fault in claiming "because all the experts say so, it must be true." Yes, "experts" means they're knowledgeable and usually correct, but the fault lies in unquestioned acceptance to what those that are "experts", "educated", older, more experienced, titled, etc will say or claim. Many here, as with other inaccurate "science" and sometimes catastrophically so, fall into that trap of unquestioned acceptance. FYI; Like you, they're only human.

The lesson of flint mapping;
In the right hands a piece of stone can be struck with just the right amount of force at a perfect angle to produce the desired shards. It would be foolish to claim those shards are integral to the original stone as their creation was entirely man-made.
We have made incredibly well engineered atomic shard producers - colliders - but why do we assume the shards we create are integral to the original particles? Further, under what absurd reasoning can we then name one shard "pop", another "spitz" and so one, then try to attribute all the forces of the Universe to these shards? As quantum theory is itself fallacious, what then of the Standard Model? What then of using incredible engineering to produce shards that fit into this foundationless model?

What of all the "experts" that without any evidence, only bogus theories and doctored shards, can claim to have discovered all the forces of the Universe and structure of subatomic particles? Why then is there so much that is completely undefined (dark matter/energy, inflation, etc) if what they've done supposedly answers it all?
To the quantum Ms. Clios here; The ruse is up and I want my money back.

[hop]

As quantum theory is itself fallacious, what then of the Standard Model

Now that is a bold statement. However, it ignores the obvious fact that quantum physics and the standard model work extremely well. They may well be wrong, but they are less wrong than everything that came before.

If you have something actually works better, congratulations in advance on your Nobel. On the other hand if all you have is vague philosophical objections, that's certainly your right but it's not relevant to actual physics.

[rusty]

Now that is a bold statement ...

See post made 18minutes earlier for explanation. It's at the bottom of the previous page.
Post #162 just above it goes into greater detail about replacing Quantum Mechanics.

[IRobot]

As quantum theory is itself fallacious, what then of the Standard Model

Now that is a bold statement. However, it ignores the obvious fact that quantum physics and the standard model work extremely well. They may well be wrong, but they are less wrong than everything that came before.

You can still think of them as a very valuable tool, but that does not correctly explain what is happening. Personally I prefer to think of a string moving on 11 dimensions on a straight path than a particle that pops in and out of existence in random positions and times.

Like Newton's gravitation law compared to Einstein's relativity. Newton produced a very useful tool, but it did not explain the reason. It started with the permissive that mass attracts mass, without explaining why. Einstein explained that with space-time distortion.

Still, relativity is again a useful tool, but it was built around an observation, while for example string theory, instead of trying to explain gravity, found, "by chance," a mathematical model of a particle that could  be the graviton. On the opposite direction, the standard model changed itself to incorporate the graviton.

[Elmar Moelzer]

BLP posted 3 new videos showing something that resembles and early stage prototype of the continuous power device presented in their video from January:






Still not too impressed, but maybe there is hope that they will actually show a self sustaining device in action some time soon (provided this whole thing actually works).

[gospacex]

As quantum theory is itself fallacious, what then of the Standard Model? What then of using incredible engineering to produce shards that fit into this foundationless model?

Ultimately, physical theories are ONLY judged by how well their predictions match the observations. All other metrics, such as "beautiful", "elegant", "makes sense", or your "fallacious", are subjective.

For example, electron has a magnetic moment. It can be measured. OTOH, quantum physics and SM make a prediction about its magnitude. The experimental value and the prediction match to better than 10^-9.

I and many other people won't care that you think that QT and SM are crap as long as you are unable to propose an alternative which predicts such experimental values at least as well as they do.

What of all the "experts" that without any evidence, only bogus theories and doctored shards, can claim to have discovered all the forces of the Universe and structure of subatomic particles?

They have evidence. It's your method of reasoning what is bogus here.

[Prober]

Any updates on Blacklight?   If memory serves they should have some type of demo system operational??

[Elmar Moelzer]

They did show some demos to a selected crowd recently. Videos of that are here:

part1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGTUd68hu5M&feature=youtu.be
part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRnfuO6uQyU&feature=youtu.be

Still far from convincing, but something is moving...

[Prober]

Not very impressive
Not going to invest the time watching the hrs of video first 5 min on the 2nd video tells me this is more about investment then some real device, how sad.

The basic design and many off the shelf parts shown here.
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=16535.msg1157733#msg1157733

Should have brought the custom CAD parts into printable format and ordered them from one of the 3D print houses, couple of weeks work.

Sorry but BL should have had something tangible.
 

[Bob Shaw]

TANSTAAFL. RAH was right again!

[Elmar Moelzer]

11 million in funding...
http://www.blacklightpower.com/whats-new/
Does that mean they will disappear again for a few years?

[Bob012345]

Regarding your example of quantum mechanics, there is a growing body of evidence that Hydrogen exists in lower or fractional states according to multiple new experiments. QM doesn't admit such fractional states. Accordingly, if you ask any physicist they will tell you such states cannot exist because they are not admitted in QM and we know QM is 'true'. They say millions of experiments have been conducted consistent with QM for over a century. It's completely proven. So what do the proponents need to do to show that hydrogen does exist in lower 'fractional' states? How much data does it take? Does it matter who does the confirming experiment? In practice, what would you consider the necessary 'extraordinary' evidence? Thanks.

I cannot answer your question because I don't know what you mean by a fractional state of hydrogen. A quick google search turned up nothing. If you point me to these experiments, I could give a better answer, but for now it could be anything from experiments showing a new state that is consistent with the rest of quantum, but had either been overlooked in the theory due to complicated preconditions necessary for it to exist, or simply not formed experimentally until now. On the other hand it could be talking about electron orbitals that don't fit Schrodinger's equation, and they will need a lot of careful data showing there is not some contaminant in their experiment, and explaining why no one has ever noticed the extra line in the emission spectrum of hydrogen.

Fractional states are those with principle quantum numbers as fractions such as 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, and so on where the electron is closer and more tightly bound. These states are stable and non radiative and below the accepted ground state and thus release huge amounts of energy as they form. The scientist is Randell Mills at Brilliant Light Power. Mills calls these 'hydrino' or small hydrogen states. A word of caution, the Wikipedia editors consider it junk science and they actively censor any confirming data concentrating mainly on snarky public comments from well known scientists opposed to the idea. Mills holds the worlds record for pissing off the most Nobel laureates. But at least they've heard of him.

I don't think it is so much they censor confirming data as there is none. I specifically asked you to point me to the experiments and you did not.

"incompatible with key equations of Quantum Mechanics" is not a snarky comment, it is a problem that would have to be addressed. So far you have pointed me to one collection of claims that contradict a whole lot of known physics, and 0 supporting evidence. These claims would need either a huge amount of data or a few very significant experiments (scientific definition of significance). He has had tons of funding and plenty of time, and if any of his claims worked, he should have created irrefutable demonstrations by now.

Meberbs, thanks for the response. I just figured you could find the papers on your own given the subject but here is the latest experimental paper you can read;

http://www.brilliantlightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/Hydrino-Blast-Power-Paper-060117b.pdf

Here is an earlier peer reviewed paper;

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjd%2Fe2011-20455-x
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjd%2Fe2011-20246-5

A paper regarding spectum measurments;
http://brilliantlightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/EUV-Mechanism-051817.pdf

There is supporting evidence and supporting scientists who have independently verified the reaction and it's power but Wikipedia does censor that information and I know because I've heard from people who have posted to the site with that information and seen it disappear every time. I'm confident that in time the level of evidence will reach a point that it is widely accepted.

But yes, it's a long hard slog to prove a reaction exists that could have been discovered over a century ago and was missed. There is understandingly a lot of resistance to that mistake. Add yes, QM will have to be modified to incorporate these states but the key equations of QM have been modified before as new discoveries unfolded, like anti-matter and spin. These equations are models of nature, not laws of nature. It's not so hard to imagine they need to be modified again.

It's also under appreciated by Mills' critics as to how hard it is to engineer such a reaction into a fully working energy producing device especially with a small team and no government funding. With all it's potential and funding, fusion should have been done a half century ago. What about MEGA devices? I ask you, why should engineering such a hydrino reaction be so trivially easy that not completing it so far deserves your derision? But a major breakthrough was achieved about four years ago that allows the reaction kinetics to be very large and yield commercial amounts of power. It took over twenty years to find that path. For the first decades Mills' power levels were very low like the MEGA or EMDrive devices are now. I'm sure the 'doers' in this group appreciate just how difficult it is to do experiments and show new effects in a skeptical if not hostile environment.

Thanks again.

[Bob012345]

I don't think it is so much they censor confirming data as there is none. I specifically asked you to point me to the experiments and you did not.

"incompatible with key equations of Quantum Mechanics" is not a snarky comment, it is a problem that would have to be addressed. So far you have pointed me to one collection of claims that contradict a whole lot of known physics, and 0 supporting evidence. These claims would need either a huge amount of data or a few very significant experiments (scientific definition of significance). He has had tons of funding and plenty of time, and if any of his claims worked, he should have created irrefutable demonstrations by now.

Based on a cursory overview of information available online, Mills seems to be a scam artist who has been fleecing investors with promises of ultra-low-cost energy production for well over a decade without producing any functional results.

On the plus side, a libertarian news aggregate page, which calls him "A Living Legend, Greater Than Einstein and Tesla Combined," has a link to his most recent paper (from May). Warning, it's 111 pages long.

http://www.brilliantlightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/Hydrino-Blast-Power-Paper-060117b.pdf

That's the problem with 'cursory overviews', they lead to snap judgements like the editors at Wikipedia. Mills does oversell his optimism as to timelines but he bases his extreme optimism on the real potential of his discovery. He's no 'scam' artist, he's a Harvard and MIT educated scientist who has devoted his life to what he believes is a major discovery "greater than fire" as he often says from a key insight given to him by an MIT professor regarding electrons and radiation during acceleration. And if true, that's certainly true. From that key insight, he developed a new model of the hydrogen atom which led to the hypothesis of the hydrino state he later discovered. His professor at MIT, Herman Haus, was aware of and supported his work but privately. The problem is too many people rely on the reaction of others to make up their own minds.

Anyone interested in a greater background on Mills and his ideas can read Brett Holverstott's excellent book which follows the development of Mills' theory and the difficult path to commercialization over the decades including setbacks and false leads;

https://www.amazon.com/Randell-Mills-Search-Hydrino-Energy/dp/0692760059/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496948076&sr=8-1&keywords=Hydrino

As to 'fleecing investors for well over a decade' let's compare that to the parade of fusion researchers who have been hyping the importance of their results to an unwitting Congress and to the taxpayers for over six decades with promises of unlimited power just around the corner if they only can continue their research...

[Bob012345]

There seems to already be a thread for Black/Brightlight Power: http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=16535.160

With just the emdrive itself having serious credibility problems, it's surely not a good idea to associate it with other fringe-y concepts.

Thanks. No activity since 2014 though. Folks here might be interested in Mills' hypothesis that the electron is not affected by gravity and that they also can be knocked into a shape he calls 'pseudoelectrons' that repels gravitational sources. He refers to that as the 'Fifth Force'. He has developed that idea into a spacecraft concept that can be experimentally tested. The bummer is that it only works around large masses such as planets and stars and wouldn't be useful in deep intersteller space away from such sources.

Anyone interested can check out chapter 35 of Mills' three volume tome. It's available for free;

http://brilliantlightpower.com/book-download-and-streaming/

The paper below measures gravitational force on electrons as 0.09mg. The authors though interpret that there is an induced electromagnetic force in the apparatus that counters gravity but others disagree with that interpretation.

https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.19.1049

[meberbs]

Meberbs, thanks for the response. I just figured you could find the papers on your own given the subject but here is the latest experimental paper you can read;

You are making the claims, I am not going to do extensive research to support your claims, and searches on the subject mostly bring up many references and peer reviewed papers providing a long list of problems with Mill's experiments and theory. Meanwhile, everything you provided is from Mills, and based on the fact that direct replications of his experiments by NASA contradicted his findings, there is strong reason to doubt results that he publishes.

There is supporting evidence and supporting scientists who have independently verified the reaction ...

Then why did you not provide any?

and it's power but Wikipedia does censor that information and I know because I've heard from people who have posted to the site with that information and seen it disappear every time. I'm confident that in time the level of evidence will reach a point that it is widely accepted.

Your confidence seems to be based on ignoring the preponderance of evidence. Wikipedia does not censor information, but I am guessing that the policy of "no original research" is one of the problems that people may have run into if what you say is true. (And if it is, you can easily prove it by looking providing a link to the relevant revisions in the article history.)

But yes, it's a long hard slog to prove a reaction exists that could have been discovered over a century ago and was missed. There is understandingly a lot of resistance to that mistake.

This is basically you agreeing with the original point that extraordinary claims  require extraordinary evidence.

We should probably end the conversation here, but I'll respond to the rest of your post for completeness.

Add yes, QM will have to be modified to incorporate these states but the key equations of QM have been modified before as new discoveries unfolded, like anti-matter and spin. These equations are models of nature, not laws of nature. It's not so hard to imagine they need to be modified again.

Schrodinger's equation hasn't changed to my knowledge. From what I have seen of Mill's theory, he takes an equation derived from the Schrodinger equation, plugs in numbers explicitly inconsistent with the derivation of the equation, and claims magic happens. This isn't modifying QM, this is just him making up a self-inconsistent theory.

It's also under appreciated by Mills' critics as to how hard it is to engineer such a reaction into a fully working energy producing device especially with a small team and no government funding. With all it's potential and funding, fusion should have been done a half century ago. What about MEGA devices? I ask you, why should engineering such a hydrino reaction be so trivially easy that not completing it so far deserves your derision? But a major breakthrough was achieved about four years ago that allows the reaction kinetics to be very large and yield commercial amounts of power. It took over twenty years to find that path. For the first decades Mills' power levels were very low like the MEGA or EMDrive devices are now. I'm sure the 'doers' in this group appreciate just how difficult it is to do experiments and show new effects in a skeptical if not hostile environment.

Somehow I knew you would make exactly this point, and it is completely wrong. First you need to be aware of the difference between physics and engineering. The physics of fusion was demonstrated in the 50s, and I don't think there have been any real significant updates in decades. The engineering of controlled fusion is a harder problem, but we know the relevant physics and it has been clearly demonstrated. The only question is if we can find creative enough containment methods to make it economical, and solving some things that are difficult to model theoretically, like material degradation under high energy neutron bombardment.

On the other hand, none of the physics behind the hydrino has been demonstrated, your comment about government funding is both wrong (NASA did tests) and irrelevant (quick research indicates tens of millions of dollars of investment.) Meanwhile, if there were other states of the hydrogen atom, a simple high school level experiment of a glass tube full of hydrogen, with a pair of high voltage electrodes and a spectrometer would be able to demonstrate it. Also, electrons tend to the lowest available energy state, so lower energy states should literally be impossible to miss.

If you really want to discuss this further, we should take it to the relevant thread that as58 found. With your apparent agreement with the claim that started this tangent, there is no longer any meaningful relevance to this topic. (this site has nothing against resurrecting even very old threads, but it does have rules against off-topic posts)

[whitelancer64]

Any updates on Blacklight?   If memory serves they should have some type of demo system operational??

No demonstration system yet, they always seem to be a year out from that.

But a libertarian news aggregate page, which calls Mills "A Living Legend, Greater Than Einstein and Tesla Combined," has a link to the most recent published paper (from May). Warning, it's 111 pages long.

http://www.brilliantlightpower.com/wp-content/uploads/papers/Hydrino-Blast-Power-Paper-060117b.pdf