The Cat is dead

You all know about Schrödinger’s cat. It is dead as soon as you take a look at it. A similar thing can finally be said about the E-Cat after having read the essential parts in the new report by Levi et al¹. 

The title of the report, though, heralds quite differently “Observation of abundant heat production from a reactor device and of isotopic changes in the fuel”. So what is going on? 

Yet another version of the E-Cat² has been tested. This time the tests have been performed in Lugano³.

As in previous reports, some measurements and technical details are reported in great detail. One may, however, wonder why so much information, irrelevant for the core question, is reported while the really interesting claim is dealt with on only about two pages.  

So if you do not manage to read through all the tables and numbers, just turn to page 27 ff, read section 8 “Fuel analysis”, and check out table 1 in Appendix 3. That should do. Why? Because none of the measurements presented on the previous 26 pages matter, if what is written in this section is true; i.e., that the reported dramatic changes in the isotopic composition of the “fuel” are really due to a nuclear reaction in the E-Cat.

Levi et al. write that the “fuel” initially consists of a mixture of nickel powder and lithium in natural isotopic compositions. However, after the run, the “ash” is radically different in the isotopic composition! Practically all Li-7 has turned into Li-6 and all the 4 other naturally occurring nickel isotopes have practically vanished and turned into Ni-62. The latter has a natural abundance of 3.6 % but in the “ash” the abundance is about 99 %! Yes, you have read correctly. This is what is claimed. Nobelprize? If true: definitely. Imagine: You run the E-Cat and all the Ni-58 (68 % natural abundance), Ni-60 (26 %), Ni-61 (1 %) and Ni-64 (1 %) nuclei have turned into Ni-62.

Yes, you may read this again and try to digest it. The authors really claim that some of the nickel isotopes get some neutrons added while others have some removed and everything just becomes one single isotope. 

And this miracle happens without any radiation being emitted when the E-Cat is run, without traces of copper or other elements, and without changes in the effectiveness of the E-Cat while it is run⁴.

Levi et al. draw the conclusion that “nuclear reactions have taken place” and that one “can speculate about the nature of such reactions.” However, they “refrain from such discussions.” While the latter seems wise it is totally inexplicable to me, how the authors cannot see the most obvious and by far most likely conclusion of the fuel analysis; that they simply have been fooled. Just realize that obtaining an enriched Li-6 or Ni-62 sample is not too difficult (see, e.g., here, here and here). And yes, the available enrichments in Li-6 do match what is reported …

 
So for my part the Cat is dead. How others accomplish not to see and obviously are able to keep the Cat alive in their wishful thinking, that is the real mystery.


Footnotes: 
1) The current report is said to have been submitted to arXiv again but has been put on hold there. In addition it seems to even have been submitted to a real physics journal. I would be very surprised if it got published. When taking a look at the quoted references what sticks out to me is the lack of a reference to the critique of the earlier report by Levi et al. However, references to, e.g., Wikipedia are made. This is quite unusual for a paper submitted to a scientific journal.
2) I have lost count on how many different versions there are as it seems never to be the same that is tested twice.
3) It is noteworthy that TSL is no longer involved and several authors of the previous report are not among the authors any longer. The only connection to Uppsala University is now through three retired researchers. The extensively reported measurements of the radiated power have been carried out in southern Switzerland. 
4) Think about it: the E-Cat is run for what seems to be an arbitrary amount of time under what is reported as stable condition and in the end all the “fuel” has turned into “ash”.