LENR-CANR year end statistics
Jed Rothwell
is ostensibly the topic of this discussion group. The daily access
statistics become available around midday, so here are the year end totals.
Since we moved LENR-CANR to its present ISP on October 7, 2002, readers have
visited 9,173 times. They have downloaded 14,782 papers.
Readers have logged in from 77 countries. Most readers worldwide seem to
have .com (commercial) ISPs, so I cannot tell where they are coming from,
but I have statistics for ISPs broken down by national extensions such as
.it (Italy) and .jp (Japan). They show 177 visitors from Canada (.ca) in
First Place, and 151 visitors from Japan (.jp) in Second Place. Italy, India
and several other countries are well represented. Iceland (.is) is last,
with 1 visitor.
For the past few weeks, readership has been low because of the Christmas and
New Year holidays. Around 1,500 papers per week have been downloaded. Totals
for peak week, December 7, were 2,703 papers. I hope that activity returns
to that level after the New Year, as people get back to work.
So far, results are very pleasing. The project has succeeded better than I
hoped. In the coming year, I hope it has some impact on the national level
in the U.S., Japan or Italy, and more funding for CF research is made
available.
This project would be impossible without the Internet. The cost would be
prohibitive. Most papers have 5 to 7 pages. As I said, we distributed 14,782
papers in three months. I would have to run a good copy machine 1 to 3 hours
per day to make this many paper copies. The postage per paper would be $0.60
in the U.S. and $1.70 overseas. The postage alone would cost approximately
$14,000.
Regarding this discussion group, I am pleased to see the so-called skeptic
have not discussed any of the papers in the library. This proves what we
have known all along, that skeptics are gutless wonders who cannot bear to
look at the truth. Either they do not understand these papers, or they
understand them too well, and realize they have no valid rebuttals. They
resemble the iconic Japanese monkeys, "Mizaru, Kikazuru, Iwazaru" who sit
their hands covering their eyes, ears and mouth. ("Zaru" is a pun, meaning
"monkey" and the archaic negative form of the verbs miru, kiku, iu; see,
hear, say.)
- Jed
Bill Snyder
<jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
[mostly snipped]
>Regarding this discussion group, I am pleased to see the so-called skeptic
>have not discussed any of the papers in the library. This proves what we
>have known all along, that skeptics are gutless wonders who cannot bear to
>look at the truth. Either they do not understand these papers, or they
>understand them too well, and realize they have no valid rebuttals. They
>resemble the iconic Japanese monkeys, "Mizaru, Kikazuru, Iwazaru" who sit
>their hands covering their eyes, ears and mouth. ("Zaru" is a pun, meaning
>"monkey" and the archaic negative form of the verbs miru, kiku, iu; see,
>hear, say.)
Ah, truly in the spirit of the Christmas season. Like the little boy,
we're supposed to think that with all that horseshit under the tree,
there's *bound* to be a pony here someplace.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Jed Rothwell
> Ah, truly in the spirit of the Christmas season.
The sprit of Christmas is when you work for months to establish a library,
you coordinate with researchers, and you give away 14,782 papers containing
vital information.
Like the little boy,
> we're supposed to think that with all that horseshit under the tree,
> there's *bound* to be a pony here someplace.
I haven't hear that tired cliche in years. I guess that is the best you can
come up with. You don't have the guts to read the papers or address the
technical issues, and you cannot even think up an original insult. It is no
fun arguing with you people.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
I don't read the National Enquirer either, or "address the technical
issues" in its articles; but somehow I still feel qualified to doubt
that an alien had Elvis's baby.
Name a few of these papers that describe reproducible experiments.
Not in the Rothwellian/Orwellian sense, but in the usual one -- i.e.
if several other researchers find that it _doesn't_ reproduce, you
will admit the original was in error, rather than claiming the others
didn't correctly pray over their cathodes in the dark of the moon.
Then explain how experiments that contradict one another can all be
"confirmations" of CF.
Then name an experiment or two that you'd actually stand by -- that
is, if that experiment were shown to be in error, you'd admit there is
no such thing as CF.
I won't hold my breath. And by the way, arguing with a religious
wacko isn't much fun for us either.
Jed Rothwell
> I don't read the National Enquirer either, or "address the technical
> issues" in its articles; but somehow I still feel qualified to doubt
> that an alien had Elvis's baby.
The papers in the library are published by Los Alamos, China Lake,
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the University of Minnesota, the University of
Illinois and other mainstream research laboratories, not by the National
Enquirer. They were published in journals like J. Electroanal. Chem. and the
Japanese Journal of Applied Physics, Japan's leading scientific journal and
one of the most widely read and citied in the world. When you claim these
institutions are no better than the National Enquirer, you make yourself
look obstinate, ignorant and foolish. Even your fellow "skeptics" must
realize you are full of hot air, because they do not support you with
"attaboy!" messages. They are silent. They are probably squirming with
embarrassment seeing you make a fool of yourself, pretending you know more
about electrochemistry than Bockris or Miles. You and Robert Park may be the
last two people left on earth who insist that CF is only good enough for the
National Enquirer.
> Name a few of these papers that describe reproducible experiments.
The ones by Fleischmann, Storms, Miles and McKubre.
> Not in the Rothwellian/Orwellian sense, but in the usual one -- i.e.
> if several other researchers find that it _doesn't_ reproduce, you
> will admit the original was in error . . .
Researchers often fail to reproduce difficult experiments. Hundreds tried
frantically to reproduce the transistor in the early 1950s and failed. Even
among those who succeeded, the failure rate remained much higher than cold
fusion until around 1960. It took years of effort and more than 200 attempts
before the first sheep was cloned in 1997. Dozens of researchers still have
great difficulty cloning animals. Some have failed for months or years. The
success rate is lower than it is for CF. Many medical procedures and tests
can only be done by experts. (See Beaudette, chapter 13.) Yet you insist
that "difficult" always means "impossible" or "irreproducible." This makes
no sense.
> Then name an experiment or two that you'd actually stand by -- that
> is, if that experiment were shown to be in error, you'd admit there is
> no such thing as CF.
All of them have to be proven wrong. These are experiments, not theories.
Finding an error in one does prove that another is wrong, especially when
different instrument types were used and systematic errors are ruled out.
Even if Fleischmann, Storms, Miles and McKubre were proved wrong, that still
leaves equally convincing work by Oriani, Will, Melich, Szpak, Lautzenhiser
& Fhelps, Lonchampt, Bockris, De Ninno and many others. For that matter,
look at the three famous "negative" experiments in 1989 at MIT, Cal Tech and
Harwell. These were actually positive. Positive experiments performed by
people who hate cold fusion and who cover up the results are especially
convincing, because you know the authors were not deluding themselves. They
are not victims of wishful thinking. On the contrary, they wished to see the
data go away!
> I won't hold my breath.
And you will not read the papers, ever. You will whine, ridicule and ketch,
but you will never lift a finger to read papers, even though I have made
them available at the click of a mouse, at
You do not have the guts to confront the facts. You will never try to find
an error in even one experiment, because you know that you cannot. You know
that you would look like a fool trying to pretend that you know more about
tritium than the experts at Los Alamos, or more about spectroscopy than the
researchers at Mitsubishi. You cannot match wits with these people, so
instead you pretend that I, Jed, am somehow responsible for these papers,
and you can discredit the papers by attacking me. All you have to offer is
bluster, evasion, anger, and tired old clichéd jokes about ponies that were
not funny fifty years ago.
> And by the way, arguing with a religious
> wacko isn't much fun for us either.
Your opinions are based on faith alone. You refuse to look at the data, the
way the Catholic Cardinals supposedly refused to look through Galileo's
telescope. (Actually, that is a myth.) If anyone is acting like a religious
fanatic here, it is you.
But I should not critisize you so much. Actually, people like you and Robert
Park have done a great service for cold fusion. You make us look good. Happy
New Year! Keep up the good work! Since you never have an original thought,
here is a cliché older and better than the pony joke. As Hamlet said to
Laertes, you should say to me:
I'll be your foil. In mine ignorance
Your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night,
Stick fiery off indeed.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> All of them have to be proven wrong. These are experiments, not theories.
> Finding an error in one does prove that another is wrong, especially when
> different instrument types were used and systematic errors are ruled out.
I meant: "Finding an error in one does NOT prove that another is wrong . .
."
A theory or a set of related theories may be like a house of cards. You can
disprove an underlying hypothesis and thereby disprove all of the subsequent
work based upon it. But experiments stand or fall independently. Finding an
error in one of Miles' early isoperibolic calorimeters would not prove there
were similar errors in his later models, or in McKubre's flow calorimeters,
or in someone else's Seebeck calorimeter.
However, the fact that all of these experiments and instrument types have
demonstrated excess heat *is* mutually supportive. Positive results do lend
strength to one another. This is why we demand replication before we believe
an experimental finding. Nearly all of the serious negative CF experiments
that were described in detail have errors that were clear in retrospect.
These errors were pointed out by experienced electrochemists years ago.
No skeptic has ever shown an error in any of these major positive
experiments. Only a few ever tried to find an error. Most skeptics,
including Snyder, are gutless wonders who will never read the papers, much
less try to find a mistake. After more than ten years it is safe to say that
the statute of limitations has passed, and no skeptic ever will find an
error. The results were proven years ago beyond any rational doubt. It is
case closed.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
<jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>I wrote:
>
>> All of them have to be proven wrong. These are experiments, not theories.
>> Finding an error in one does prove that another is wrong, especially when
>> different instrument types were used and systematic errors are ruled out.
>
>I meant: "Finding an error in one does NOT prove that another is wrong . .
So no matter what, you won't give up on your cult. Just like a
believer in spiritualism. Force him -- if you can -- to admit that
one medium is a fake, and he insists that doesn't prove the next one
is too, or the next one, or the next one . . .
[snip]
> After more than ten years it is safe to say that
>the statute of limitations has passed, and no skeptic ever will find an
>error. The results were proven years ago beyond any rational doubt. It is
>case closed.
Or in plain language, "I've now gotten so crazy that *no* amount to
debunking would make me admit there's nothing there. I'll simply
close my eyes, plug my ears, and yell "Nyah, nyaaah, nyaaahhh, I can't
hear you.' "
So where's the water heater, Jeddikins? When is this "excess heat"
going to actually manifest itself in the presence of Unbelievers
giving off Negative Vibrations?
Jed Rothwell
> So where's the water heater, Jeddikins? When is this "excess heat"
> going to actually manifest itself in the presence of Unbelievers
> giving off Negative Vibrations?
As I explained earlier, that first happened in 1989, at that three famous
negative experiments, at MIT, CalTech and Harwell. At MIT they attacked cold
fusion in the newspapers, held a party celebrating the death of cold fusion,
and their experiment began producing excess heat. They were Unbelievers with
the strongest Negative Vibrations ever recorded, but the cell produced heat
anyway. They published crudely forged fake data. The data points were not
only moved down, but moved left and right as well. This was obviously fake,
because no computer logging system generates points randomly distributed on
the x-axis. Fortunately, someone leaked the real data, so we know there was
excess heat.
You cannot ask for a better example of Unbelievers confronted with the ugly
truth.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
Ah, I wondered how long before the Dire Conspiracy would raise its
head. Happy babbling, nutbar.
Jed Rothwell
> Ah, I wondered how long before the Dire Conspiracy would raise its
> head. Happy babbling, nutbar.
Both sets of data were published. You can deny it all you like, but facts
are facts. Anyone can tell at a glance the published version is fake. You
refuse to look at this or any other data, which make you the biggest nutbar
of the 21st century. When the MIT researchers were confronted with the
original data, they did not deny it was theirs. They made up excuses.
Finally, Parker dismissed his own published paper, saying:
"I will tell you what you what my opinion is of that work, because I was
part of it. I don't think it's worth very much. Alright? And that is why
it's just published in a tech report. I don't think it's worth very much. I
think to do calorimetry is one of the hardest things I ever tried to do. I'd
rather stick to plasma physics. . .
I mean it's really tough and that's why I don't put any stock at all -- you
can redraw those curves anyway you want. I don't think the data is worth
anything . . ."
- Ronald Parker, June 7, 1991, MIT lecture Q&A session, recorded on
audiotape by E. Mallove
This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim the
study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the author
said the data is not "worth anything."
For another amusing account of what happens when skeptics are confronted
with excess heat in a laboratory, read Beadette chapter 20.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
<jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim the
>study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the author
>said the data is not "worth anything."
Make up your mind, Jeddikins. First the data clearly showed excess
heat, which had to be covered up by the Evulll Scientific
Establishment Conspiracy; now it isn't worth anything. We realize
you're, ahhh, mentally challenged, but at least *try* to keep your BS
consistent from one message to the next.
Jed Rothwell
> >This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim
the
> >study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the author
> >said the data is not "worth anything."
>
> Make up your mind, Jeddikins. First the data clearly showed excess
> heat, which had to be covered up by the Evulll Scientific
> Establishment Conspiracy; now it isn't worth anything.
You are confused. The *author*, MIT Prof. Parker said is isn't worth
anything, not me. He is the one who keeps changing his tune. When he
published the paper, he and many others claimed that it proved cold fusion
does not exist. They said this was the "nail in the coffin." Anyone glancing
at the paper could see that the data is fake, however. Some of the points
were generated by a computer, but many were obviously placed by hand. No
computer would scatter them at random on the x-axis. When the real data came
to light, showing excess heat where the fake data points had been
substituted, Parker changed his mind and said the data did not mean anything
after all. He did not deny the original graph was his. He said he couldn't
do calorimetry. He said "you can redraw those curves anyway you like," which
in his case seems to mean: "anyone can make up data and pretend it came from
an experiment."
I think the data are significant, and they are worth something. For one
thing, they prove that you are flat wrong and skeptics do see excess heat. I
think Parker could do calorimetry, and he understood the results the moment
he saw them. That is why he diddled with them.
> We realize
> you're, ahhh, mentally challenged, but at least *try* to keep your BS
> consistent from one message to the next.
You and Parker are inconsistent, not me. First you insist that skeptics
never see excess heat, then when I demonstrate that they do, you pretend
that is not what you meant, or you change the subject. Also, you have
difficulty understanding punctuation. You fail to see when when I am quoting
Parker, and when I am expressing my own thoughts.
- Jed
Cliff Frost
...
> This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim the
> study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the author
> said the data is not "worth anything."
I've never seen anyone, skeptic or otherwise, claim that this particular study
proves (definatively or not) that cold fusion doesn't exist. Not back when it
was done, and certainly not recently (ie in the last 10 years.)
In fact, skeptics (and anyone with more than an ounce of sense) realize that
the burdon of proof is on the True Believers to show that some consistent
phenomenon they call "cold fusion" does exist!
Furthermore, not one of them has addressed Kirk Shanahan's proposed mechanism
for most of the observed data on CF, which is that the methods used by CF
researchers are vulnerable to errors caused by calibration constant shift.
Jed will disagree with the above comments but will not be able to provide
any counterexamples.
Cheers,
Cliff
James Salsman
>...
> the burdon of proof is on the True Believers to show that some consistent
> phenomenon they call "cold fusion" does exist!
Fair enough, you can do the experiment yourself for about $500:
http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
That is based on the very easily reproducible codeposition process
pioneered by Stan Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss of the U.S. Navy's NOSC
in San Diego (correspondence address: bossp at nosc dot mil), measured
and confirmed by Jeremy J. Smith, of the U.S. Department of Energy
(Germantown, MD, 301.340.7529), and reproduced by the famous
electrochemist John O. Bockris (Distinguished Professor, Chemistry
Department, Texas A&M University.) You can read more about the
codeposition process at www.LENR-CANR.org or www.bovik.org/codeposition/
> Furthermore, not one of them has addressed Kirk Shanahan's proposed mechanism
> for most of the observed data on CF, which is that the methods used by CF
> researchers are vulnerable to errors caused by calibration constant shift.
Ha! On the contrary, in response to my questions about his hypothesis:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=c28K9.854%24io.38981%40iad-read.news.verio.net
He retracted it, saying, "given my inability to supply an
intellectually solvent hypothesis after years of detailed study
and one theoretical publication, I wouldn't hold my breath on me
coming up with something if I were you." That was posted without
any emoticons or other indications of sarcasm:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=9acdab21.0212160735.662aabff%40posting.google.com
In any case, Shanahan didn't answer my question about the catalytic
properties of the two types of cathodes or the amount of dissolved
gases his hypothesis required.
Best wishes,
James
Bill Snyder
<jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>You and Parker are inconsistent, not me. First you insist that skeptics
>never see excess heat, then when I demonstrate that they do, you pretend
>that is not what you meant, or you change the subject.
I'm not the one who tried to change the subject, Jeddikins. I didn't
ask for a unsubstantiated, nutso conspiracy theory about a botched
experiment years ago -- you yanked that in from left field while
trying to dodge the questions I did ask.
Where can skeptics see excess heat _now_, hmmm? Where's the water
heater? Where's the reproducible experiment? Where's the demo that
can survive examination by non-True Believers? Where's the coherent
theory? Where is the basic intellectual honesty, the admission that
if Prof X says the effect happens with D2O but not with H2O, while Dr
Y claims it happens with both, at least one of them is _wrong_, so
that one or the other result (or both) must be written off?
You seem to be having trouble remembering those questions, let alone
coming up with answers, so let me give you a little help:
Nowhere, that's where those things are. No reproducibility, no demo,
no theory, no honesty. Sizzle but no steak, horseshit but no pony.
That's why CF has continued to run downhill from possibly-interesting
development to fringe belief to quasi-religious cult: because there's
nothing to show, nothing but doubletalk, conspiracy theories, and yet
another chorus of the CFers' theme song, "But when we get behind
closed doors . . . "
> Also, you have
>difficulty understanding punctuation. You fail to see when when I am quoting
>Parker, and when I am expressing my own thoughts.
I must decline to agree with the implication that you are capable of
having thoughts (coherent ones, at least). If you were, you'd be able
to keep your story straight.
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>He retracted it, saying, "given my inability to supply an
>intellectually solvent hypothesis after years of detailed study
>and one theoretical publication, I wouldn't hold my breath on me
>coming up with something if I were you." That was posted without
>any emoticons or other indications of sarcasm:
I greatly fear that your sarcasm meter is about as accurate as the
average CFer's calorimeter.
Jed Rothwell
> Where can skeptics see excess heat _now_, hmmm?
SRI, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi or Hokkaido National University.
>Where's the water
> heater?
All CF experiments heat water, or gas. Some vaporize metal and melt
ceramics.
> Where's the reproducible experiment?
See: Storms, E., How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect. Fusion
Technol., 1996. 29: p. 261.
> Where's the demo that
> can survive examination by non-True Believers?
Every major experiment has survived more than 10 years of examination by
skeptics. No skeptic has ever found an error.
> Where's the coherent
> theory?
Theory is never required to verify an experimental claim. There is no theory
to explain high temperature superconductivity, but everyone accepts that it
is real. Before 1952, there was no theory to explain cellular reproduction,
but everyone believed that plants and animals reproduce.
> Where is the basic intellectual honesty, the admission that
> if Prof X says the effect happens with D2O but not with H2O, while Dr
> Y claims it happens with both, at least one of them is _wrong_, so
> that one or the other result (or both) must be written off?
Both are correct. With some materials, such as Pd, some effects such as
excess heat are observed with D2O and not H2O, whereas with Ni some nuclear
effects are seen. It is complicated. Many natural phonomena are complicated,
especially at first. When fission was discovered, it took many years to work
out the rules. It took 27 years to work out the rules governing
semiconductors (1925 - 1952).
> Nowhere, that's where those things are. No reproducibility, no demo,
> no theory, no honesty. Sizzle but no steak, horseshit but no pony.
You have not read the literature, so you do not know what you are talking
about. I can assert that 20 million people have replicated, and you do not
have a clue whether I am right or wrong. You are making empty assertions
based on your own imagination, without reference to experiments or published
papers.
Other people are now reading papers, and they will see that you are making
up "facts" as you go along, out of thin air. You wave hands and yell "there
must be errors!" and "nothing has been reproduced!" but yelling something,
however loud and however often, does not make it true. When I make an
assertion, I back it up with peer-reviewed published literature that anyone
can read. You have not got a shred of evidence to back up your statements.
By the standards of rational scientific debate, I win, you lose. More than
17,000 papers have been downloaded from LENR-CANR.org, so people like you,
who refuse to look or learn or pay any attention to the facts, will soon be
surrounded by others who see you for what you are.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> I've never seen anyone, skeptic or otherwise, claim that this particular
study
> proves (definatively or not) that cold fusion doesn't exist.
The people at MIT called several newspapers and major magazines and bragged
that they had hammered the last nail into the coffin of cold fusion with
this experiment. Before the experiment even ended, they distributed flyers
and held a party "A Wake for Cold Fusion" on June 26, 1989. I have copy of
the flyer, which I can send you if you like (by e-mail).
> In fact, skeptics (and anyone with more than an ounce of sense) realize
that
> the burdon of proof is on the True Believers to show that some consistent
> phenomenon they call "cold fusion" does exist!
By 1990, more than 100 scientists researching cold fusion showed consistent
phenomena that can only be nuclear, not chemical, such as massive excess
heat, tritium production and neutrons. These experiments have been
replicated hundreds of times subsequently, sometimes at very high s/n
ratios. They have met the burden of proof using the only method allowed in a
scientific debate -- the experiment. Useless debates and empty, incorrect
ignorant assertions such as yours do not count. Experiments are the only
standard that matters, and by that standard, cold fusion is proven to exist.
> Furthermore, not one of them has addressed Kirk Shanahan's proposed
mechanism
> for most of the observed data on CF, which is that the methods used by CF
> researchers are vulnerable to errors caused by calibration constant shift.
Several people addressed Shanahan's crackpot theory. If it were true, it
would overthrow the work of J. P. Joule and the conservation of energy,
which is unlikely. In any case, his assertions only apply to one type of
calorimeter, and many other types have been used, such as Seebeck
calorimeters. Even he does not claim his theory applies to Seebeck
calorimeters. Also, his "theory" does not apply to tritium, neutrons,
transmutations and other nuclear effects. He does have a few other crackpot
ideas that supposedly disprove the transmutations, but again -- if any of
his ideas were correct -- the whole edifice of nuclear physics for the last
100 years would come crashing down, and Shanahan would win at least three
Nobel Prizes in a row, for chemistry, physics, and chutzpah.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
<jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Bill Snyder writes:
>
>> Where can skeptics see excess heat _now_, hmmm?
>
>SRI, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi or Hokkaido National University.
Names of people at those places who a) assert they have excess heat,
and b) are willing to have knowledgeable skeptics inspect their
apparatus, observe their experiments, take their own data using their
own instruments?
What, no answer? Only more dishonest doubletalk? I thought so.
>>Where's the water
>> heater?
>
>All CF experiments heat water, or gas. Some vaporize metal and melt
>ceramics.
Sure they do, by definition, since they have a built-in resistance
heater. Now where is the water heater that Flieschmann promised would
be along within 18 months back in 1989? The one that heats the water
more than can be accounted for by the energy going in?
What, no answer? Only more dishonest doubletalk? I thought so.
>> Where's the reproducible experiment?
>
>See: Storms, E., How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect. Fusion
>Technol., 1996. 29: p. 261.
Name a half-dozen folks who weren't already True Believers who agree
that this reproducibly demonstrates more output power than input,
inexplicable except through an unknown nuclear process.
What, no answer? Only more dishonest doubletalk? I thought so.
>> Where's the demo that
>> can survive examination by non-True Believers?
>
>Every major experiment has survived more than 10 years of examination by
>skeptics. No skeptic has ever found an error.
That's not doubletalk, that's a plain old lie.
>> Where's the coherent
>> theory?
>
>Theory is never required to verify an experimental claim. There is no theory
>to explain high temperature superconductivity, but everyone accepts that it
>is real. Before 1952, there was no theory to explain cellular reproduction,
>but everyone believed that plants and animals reproduce.
And did they believe that humans reproduced asexually, or that they
reproduced sexually when Dr A was watching, and asexually when Prof B
observed them, and simply popped into being out of nowhere when Mr C
was looking?
Bzzzzt! Sorry, that's just another lie, no thanks for playing.
>> Where is the basic intellectual honesty, the admission that
>> if Prof X says the effect happens with D2O but not with H2O, while Dr
>> Y claims it happens with both, at least one of them is _wrong_, so
>> that one or the other result (or both) must be written off?
>
>Both are correct. With some materials, such as Pd, some effects such as
>excess heat are observed with D2O and not H2O, whereas with Ni some nuclear
>effects are seen. It is complicated. Many natural phonomena are complicated,
>especially at first. When fission was discovered, it took many years to work
>out the rules. It took 27 years to work out the rules governing
>semiconductors (1925 - 1952).
What you mean is that if you committed to anything consistent, you'd
have to abandon the BS about it being all things to all men. Look,
it's aneutronic! Whoops, there are lots of neutrons! Look, there's
transmutation! Oops, no there isn't! Look, there's tons and tons of
excess heat! No, there's only a smidgen! But since you and the other
nutbars refuse to say what it is, you claim that all these are
"confirmations."
Pull the other one now, it's got bells on it. If two results
contradict one another, at least one of them is wrong.
>> Nowhere, that's where those things are. No reproducibility, no demo,
>> no theory, no honesty. Sizzle but no steak, horseshit but no pony.
>
>You have not read the literature, so you do not know what you are talking
>about. I can assert that 20 million people have replicated, and you do not
>have a clue whether I am right or wrong. You are making empty assertions
>based on your own imagination, without reference to experiments or published
>papers.
>
>Other people are now reading papers, and they will see that you are making
>up "facts" as you go along, out of thin air.
Dear me, my irony detector just exploded.
> You wave hands and yell "there
>must be errors!" and "nothing has been reproduced!" but yelling something,
>however loud and however often, does not make it true.
Damn, there goes the replacement, too.
>When I make an
>assertion, I back it up with peer-reviewed published literature that anyone
>can read. You have not got a shred of evidence to back up your statements.
>By the standards of rational scientific debate, I win, you lose. More than
>17,000 papers have been downloaded from LENR-CANR.org, so people like you,
>who refuse to look or learn or pay any attention to the facts, will soon be
>surrounded by others who see you for what you are.
Will you promise to hold your breath until that happens? Or would you
like to make a small, or not so small, wager? Mind you, you don't get
to play it the way your buddy Mallove did -- you have to put up your
stake ahead of time, and you don't get to be the only arbiter of
whether you've lost.
James Salsman
> I greatly fear that your sarcasm meter is about as accurate as....
I see you have much to fear, given the amount of time and effort you
have invested in posts to usenet ridiculing cold fusion over the years.
Unwilling to face the fact that your excess of vitriol reflects merely
on your inability to make a correct judgement call and interact in a
responsible fashion with those who you falsely believed did not?
Most telling, though, may be that you ignored the easily-reproducable
codeposition experiment instructions that exactly fit the request you
made of Jed Rothwell in a subsequent post. If you are going to argue
with the U.S. Navy NOSC, the Department of Energy, and some of the
most respected researchers in the field of electrochemistry, why won't
you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
Best wishes,
James
Gordon D. Pusch
> why won't you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
> http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
I notice that _YOU_ don't report your _OWN_ results on any of your webpages.
Why won't =YOU= try this "simple $500 experiment," if it's so easy that you
think anyone can do it ??? Put you money where you mouth is, Salsman !!!
-- Gordon D. Pusch
perl -e '$_ = "gdpusch\@NO.xnet.SPAM.com\n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>
>> I greatly fear that your sarcasm meter is about as accurate as....
>
>I see you have much to fear, given the amount of time and effort you
>have invested in posts to usenet ridiculing cold fusion over the years.
>Unwilling to face the fact that your excess of vitriol reflects merely
>on your inability to make a correct judgement call and interact in a
>responsible fashion with those who you falsely believed did not?
Would you care to put your money where your mouth is on whether Kirk
Shanahan meant the remarks you cited as sarcasm or as a retraction?
>Most telling, though, may be that you ignored the easily-reproducable
>codeposition experiment instructions that exactly fit the request you
>made of Jed Rothwell in a subsequent post. If you are going to argue
>with the U.S. Navy NOSC, the Department of Energy,
Ahh, the appeal to authority again. If that's "interacting in a
responsible manner," I'll take vanilla.
> and some of the
>most respected researchers in the field of electrochemistry,
What "most respected researchers?" Are we talking about Bockris here?
If so, I suggest you rethink that phrase.
>why won't
>you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
> http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
And if I did so and reported that there was no indication whatsoever
of any unknown nuclear process, but only of experimental errors X, Y,
and Z, would it impress you? If several teams who were far more
competent than you or I to make such a judgement reported the same
thing, would you write this alleged "proof" off?
It would not be unreasonable to answer "no" to the first of these, but
it your answer to the second is "no" as well, then you have taken a
religious position rather than a scientific one -- like Rothwell, you
have already stamped "case closed" on the folder, and discussion with
you should be pursued only for the amusement it provides.
James Salsman
> Would you care to put your money where your mouth is on whether Kirk
> Shanahan meant the remarks you cited as sarcasm or as a retraction?
Sure. I offer to wager you US$250 that Kirk wrote what he did because
he had no answers to both my questions about the catalytic properties
of palladium compared to platinum and the amount of desolved gasses
that are consistent with his hypothesis. Before I pay or ask you to
pay, Kirk himself must pass judgement on whether or not he has any such
consistent answers, and must state both his answers in a post to this
newsgroup if he claims to have them. Do you accept the wager?
> What "most respected researchers?" Are we talking about Bockris here?
Yes, I was referring to Bockris.
> If so, I suggest you rethink that phrase.
Why do you say that?
>> why won't you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
>> http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
>
> And if I did so and reported that there was no indication whatsoever
> of any unknown nuclear process, but only of experimental errors X, Y,
> and Z, would it impress you?
That depends on X, Y, and Z.
Best wishes,
James
James Salsman
> I notice that _YOU_ don't report your _OWN_ results on any of your webpages.
> Why won't =YOU= try this "simple $500 experiment," if it's so easy that you
> think anyone can do it ???
Good question. After speaking and corresponding with Stan Szpak,
Pam Mosier-Boss, Jerry J. Smith and others independently, I am so
convinced that their results and observations indicate that the
experiment in question will yield a positive result that I do not
feel the need to try it first-hand.
> Put you money where you mouth is, Salsman !!!
Fair enough. Would you be willing to wager that you, Gordon, will get a
positive result if you perform the www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
experiment in your own lab? Consider the cost of the experiment, based
on 50 ml of electrolyte solution with open cells over an 8-day period,
and let me know how much you think it would cost you in total, including
for your time away from work if applicable. That could be the amount of
our wager, although I may need some time to gather my stake if your time
away from work is very expensive. Under a certain amount, I would ask
only to observe digital photographs of the apparatus; if the stakes were
sufficiently steep, I would want to visit your lab. Where do you live?
Best wishes,
James
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>Bill Snyder wrote:
>
>> Would you care to put your money where your mouth is on whether Kirk
>> Shanahan meant the remarks you cited as sarcasm or as a retraction?
>
>Sure. I offer to wager you US$250 that Kirk wrote what he did because
>he had no answers to both my questions about the catalytic properties
>of palladium compared to platinum and the amount of desolved gasses
>that are consistent with his hypothesis. Before I pay or ask you to
>pay, Kirk himself must pass judgement on whether or not he has any such
>consistent answers, and must state both his answers in a post to this
>newsgroup if he claims to have them. Do you accept the wager?
I have no idea whether he had answers on those points, nor whether he
even regards them as reasonable questions. You said his message that
you quoted constituted a retraction of his hypothesis, I said he was
pretty clearly being sarcastic, and invited you to put money on it.
If you wish to bet on the original proposition -- Did he recant, or
was he merely recognizing the useless of further discussion? --
without any more attempts to shift the terms of the wager, it's a bet
-- in fact, I'd be only too happy to raise the stake if you feel $250
is on the light side. And if not, not.
>> What "most respected researchers?" Are we talking about Bockris here?
>
>Yes, I was referring to Bockris.
>
>> If so, I suggest you rethink that phrase.
>
>Why do you say that?
Because I'd say that "idiot, senile loon, and/or crook" would be a far
more accurate characterization of how Bockris is viewed outside the CF
clique. Certainly that's how I regard him To be fair about it, the
general opinion would probably have been a good deal less harsh at the
time of his original CF experiments, since it was in '92 and '93 that
he was involved with the two con artists who claimed to be using a
CF-type process to transmute lead and mercury into gold. (Note
however, that this would well pre-date his endorsement of a paper
published in '96.)
The furor when news of this got out prompted a number of his
colleagues in the chemistry department to write an open letter urging
him to resign, and a number of other Distinguished Professors at A&M
to likewise sign an open letter asking the administration to strip him
of the Distinguished Professor title. By the looks of it, googling on
"Bockris" along with either "Telander" or "Champion" (the two (other?)
swindlers) should turn up plenty of mentions (and I have some archived
material from a story in the Dallas Morning News if you want to
supplement the 'net accounts of it, including an interesting
allegation by one of Bockris's research assistants that Bockris
pressured him to produce the "correct" results when evaluating
Champion & Telander's claims, to the point that, being consistently
unable to get the "right" answers, he eventually felt compelled to
resign).
>>> why won't you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
>>> http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
>>
>> And if I did so and reported that there was no indication whatsoever
>> of any unknown nuclear process, but only of experimental errors X, Y,
>> and Z, would it impress you?
>
>That depends on X, Y, and Z.
Meaning . . . ?
James Salsman
> On Sun, 05 Jan 2003 21:04:32 GMT, James Salsman wrote:
>> Bill Snyder wrote:
>>
>>> Would you care to put your money where your mouth is on whether Kirk
>>> Shanahan meant the remarks you cited as sarcasm or as a retraction?
>>
>> Sure. I offer to wager you US$250 that Kirk wrote what he did because
>> he had no answers to both my questions about the catalytic properties
>> of palladium compared to platinum and the amount of desolved gasses
>> that are consistent with his hypothesis. Before I pay or ask you to
>> pay, Kirk himself must pass judgement on whether or not he has any such
>> consistent answers, and must state both his answers in a post to this
>> newsgroup if he claims to have them. Do you accept the wager?
>
> I have no idea whether he had answers on those points, nor whether he
> even regards them as reasonable questions.
How about you, then? Do you think the questions are reasonable?
> You said his message that you quoted constituted a retraction of his
> hypothesis, I said he was pretty clearly being sarcastic, and invited
> you to put money on it. If you wish to bet on the original proposition
> -- Did he recant, or was he merely recognizing the useless of further
> discussion? -- without any more attempts to shift the terms of the wager
You are the one attempting to shift the terms! First you asserted,
without any evidence, that Kirk was being sarcastic, and now you want
to bet that he was, "merely recognizing the useless of further
discussion." Look, if he was being sarcastic about his inability to
present an intellectually solvent hypothesis, then how could he not have
an answer to my questions about the catalytic properties of the metals
and the dissolved gasses?
However, I am not sure I want to reject your wager, even on your terms
where Kirk has the final say without backing up his rationale. I
personally think Kirk is perhaps the most reputable disbeliever in that
he has been trying better than anyone else to come up with an alternative
explanation of the evidence of the effect, and I believe he has done a
very good job dissecting a few specific data sets from Storms, from which
he generalized improperly. However, recently it came to light that his
work at Savanah River depends on experiments which could be considered
dangerous unless cold fusion is false. So, not only is he biased (in a
way that would work against me) but people's lives are at stake. Upon
consideration of these issues, I'm going to have to insist that since
we have to depend on Kirk to say whether or not his retraction was
sarcastic, if he says it was, I should ask for the reasons why, in the
form of answers to the questions.
But then again, on the other hand, a month and a half ago he was
already essentially asked the question about dissolved gasses by
Dr. Britz --
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3DDB5208.7030806%40chem.au.dk
-- and had accepted Dr. Britz's explanation of the means to overcome
additional resistance brought about by cell partitioning:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=58efcfa58dd01674ac98850b81d52b63.38703%40mygate.mailgate.org
However, if you want me to accept that his answer was sarcastic, I
really do need to know why he thinks so, meaning, how more than
millimolar concentrations of O2 can get to the cathode (or, how more
than millimolar concentrations of D2 can get to the anode) and how
a palladium cathode can be more catalytic than a platinum cathode.
Don't ask me to bet on someone's internal state of mind without an
explanation of his reasons.
>>>> why won't you please try a simple $500 experiment first yourself?
>>>> http://www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
>>>
>>> And if I did so and reported that there was no indication whatsoever
>>> of any unknown nuclear process, but only of experimental errors X, Y,
>>> and Z, would it impress you?
>>
>> That depends on X, Y, and Z.
>
> Meaning . . . ?
Meaning that claims of experimental errors based on situations (such as
"active surface states") that can not be explained themselves are not
very impressive. Such as Shanahan's requirement for recombination
requiring more gases than can be dissolved in the electrolyte occuring
on a palladium surface but not a platinum surface.
Best wishes,
James
Dieter Britz
[...]
> Both sets of data were published. You can deny it all you like, but facts
> are facts. Anyone can tell at a glance the published version is fake. You
[...]
> - Ronald Parker, June 7, 1991, MIT lecture Q&A session, recorded on
> audiotape by E. Mallove
>
> This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim the
> study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the author
> said the data is not "worth anything."
Where have skeptics claimd this? I can't imagine anyone making such
a claim, because we are well aware that you can't have definitive
[sic!] disproof. Deryagin water was in the end definitively shown
to be in doubt, because the pillar it rested on (pure water inside
the capillaries) was shown to be false. That still didn't disprove
it, but made it implausible; about the best you can get. No such
single pillar exists for cold fusion, and I don't believe any
scientist worth his/her salt would make such a bold claim.
But this MIT affair might be worth investigating by other than a
TB. How about it, Kirk? Rothwell would no doubt put you on the
track of that raw data.
--
Dieter Britz http://www.chem.au.dk/~db
Dieter Britz
[...]
> What "most respected researchers?" Are we talking about Bockris here?
> If so, I suggest you rethink that phrase.
Let's keep our feet on the floor here. Some of us electrochemists
might not believe what Bockris believes about cold fusion and
transmutation, but we all agree that he was and is one of the
most highly respected electrochemists. Along, as I have also
said before, with Fleischmann. Electrochemistry would not be
where it is today without these two, I believe.
Kirk L. Shanahan
> Cliff Frost writes:
>
{snip}
> Several people addressed Shanahan's crackpot theory.
Not successfully.
>If it were true, it
> would overthrow the work of J. P. Joule and the conservation of energy,
> which is unlikely.
Pure B.S.
> In any case, his assertions only apply to one type of
> calorimeter, and many other types have been used, such as Seebeck
> calorimeters. Even he does not claim his theory applies to Seebeck
> calorimeters.
Wrong. This proves your unteachability. I've said many times my 'problem'
can show up in any calorimeter, and since I believe there is a real FPHE,
it should. In fact, one should be able to apply one of Irving Langmuir's
pathological science criteria, namely that the better the instrument, the
smaller the signal.
>Also, his "theory" does not apply to tritium, neutrons,
> transmutations and other nuclear effects.
Right, since it deals with heat only. The rest of those observations are
just more (but different) bad analytical chemistry.
> He does have a few other crackpot
> ideas that supposedly disprove the transmutations, but again -- if any of
> his ideas were correct -- the whole edifice of nuclear physics for the last
> 100 years would come crashing down, and Shanahan would win at least three
> Nobel Prizes in a row, for chemistry, physics, and chutzpah.
>
Wow! really! And I just thought I was bringing the field back into the
realm of normal physics and chemistry...I guess I should be figuring out
how to spend that prize money...
---
Kirk Shanahan {My opinions...noone else's}
Kirk L. Shanahan
> Sure. I offer to wager you US$250 that Kirk wrote what he did because
> he had no answers to both my questions about the catalytic properties
> of palladium compared to platinum and the amount of desolved gasses
> that are consistent with his hypothesis. Before I pay or ask you to
> pay, Kirk himself must pass judgement on whether or not he has any such
> consistent answers, and must state both his answers in a post to this
> newsgroup if he claims to have them. Do you accept the wager?
>
You lose. Your sarcasm meter needs to be tuned up. I didn't answer your
questions because they showed you were not understanding my explanations,
even after repeated attempts to get them across. You proved yourself a
member of the "Rothwell" school of science. In case you think I am wrong,
realize this, your concern over the dissolved gases is irrelvant. When you
can understand that, which should simply require reading through the
archives, please post a summary of my salient points to demonstrate your
level of accomplishment. If you can posit relevant questions at that point
I may answer them.
BTW, Jerry Smith retired in December. I was dealing with him on other
issues.
---
To Bill S.:
Bill, your position is also somewhat untenable, in that you have gone to
the extreme end of the scale too. There is a real and true Fleischmann-
Pons-Hawkins Effect. It is difficult to obtain, and how to do so
reproducibly is still not known. Part of the problem is the insistance of
the researchers to attribute the apparent excess heat signals to nuclear
origins. This consistently misleads them (in my opinion). To be fair,
CF researchers have not had a reason to suspect this problem prior to my
publication (however, they might have been expected to have noted it), so
the true test of pathological science begins now, with how they handle my
postulate.
Unfortunately, it seems they will be trying to ignore it, based on their
own estimate of the value of their counter-explanations. As Jed has
posted, they feel they have addressed my postulates, but they haven't, but
they refuse to accept that they haven't, so I forsee no change in the
field.
FYI, I have just completed another go-round with Ed Storms. Initially, I
thought I had a way to test my postulate, but in the end I had to admit there
is probably no good way to use existing equipment to test my CCS postulate.
That doesn't mean it is untestable, just that you have to build better
instrumented equipment to do so.
However, in our recent debate, he cited 'calibration results' from his
publication "Description of a Dual Calorimeter" that supposedly proved no
CCS had occurred. Unfortunately, I immediately showed hm how those results,
if interpreted based on the calibration data of his Pt cathode study, would
show that a Joule heater would produce up to 560 mW or so of excess energy.
He refused to accept my demonstration. This is just proof that he at least
does deserve the label "TB". One thing that did come out in the discussion
is that he feels the CCSs that he sees are 'too small' to be important.
What he resolutely refuses to accept is that they are not 'too small', but
'just right'. (Kind of an inverse Goldilocks effect I guess...)
Jed Rothwell
> > This research was paid for by the taxpayers. To this day skeptics claim
the
> > study definatively proved that cold fusion does not exist, yet the
author
> > said the data is not "worth anything."
>
> Where have skeptics claimd this?
In many statements at that time to the press and national magazines, in
physics conferences, in the books by Close and Taubes, and in the party they
held at MIT on June 26, 1989 celebrating the death of cold fusion.
> I can't imagine anyone making such
> a claim, because we are well aware that you can't have definitive
> [sic!] disproof.
Yes, it is rather like demanding the Iraqis prove they do not have hidden
weapons. This is irrational, but people who oppose cold fusion are
irrational.
> But this MIT affair might be worth investigating by other than a
> TB. How about it, Kirk? Rothwell would no doubt put you on the
> track of that raw data.
It was published in I.E. and elsewhere. I can e-mail copies. The editors at
LENR-CANR (who are not me, or not only me) have decided not to put it there
for the time being. We would like to tone down controversy.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> >> Where can skeptics see excess heat _now_, hmmm?
> >
> >SRI, Los Alamos, Mitsubishi or Hokkaido National University.
>
> Names of people at those places . . .
McKubre, Claytor, Storms, Iwamura, Mizuno, Ohmori.
. . . who a) assert they have excess heat,
> and b) are willing to have knowledgeable skeptics inspect their
> apparatus, observe their experiments, take their own data using their
> own instruments?
They are all willing to do this, and they have all done it countless times.
As Storms says, Claytor et al. (Los Alamos) have survived the internal
peer-review which is much more rigorous than anything the journals throw at
you.
> What, no answer? Only more dishonest doubletalk? I thought so.
I nearly always answer, as anyone can see. You pretend I have not answered.
This makes you look silly, or illiterate.
> Now where is the water heater that Fleischmann promised would
> be along within 18 months back in 1989?
I am not familiar with that claim. I have spoken with both of them at
length, and they never mentioned that. Perhaps they tried but failed to
produce it, or perhaps you invented that claim. Do you have any documented
evidence they made this claim? What, no answer? Only more evasion? I thought
so.
> The one that heats the water
> more than can be accounted for by the energy going in?
All successful CF cells do that.
> >See: Storms, E., How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect. Fusion
> >Technol., 1996. 29: p. 261.
>
> Name a half-dozen folks who weren't already True Believers who agree
> that this reproducibly demonstrates more output power than input . . .
Obviously, if a person believes this experiment works, that makes him a true
believer by your standards. Perhaps you mean I should name someone who did
initially believe CF is real, but who was persuaded by the experimental
evidence. That would be everyone: thousands of scientists worldwide. Not one
believed it before the evidence was published, and they all do now.
> inexplicable except through an unknown nuclear process.
There is no other plausible explanation, unless you think the Mills
shrinking hydrogen theory is plausible, and I do not think it can explain
the transmutations and neutrons.
> What, no answer? Only more dishonest doubletalk? I thought so.
I do not understand why you accuse me of not answering, when everyone can
see that I do answer. You should say instead that you do not agree with or
accept my answers.
> >Every major experiment has survived more than 10 years of examination by
> >skeptics. No skeptic has ever found an error.
>
> That's not doubletalk, that's a plain old lie.
Let me rephrase: As far as I know, no skeptic has published a peer-reviewed
paper pointing out what I consider a legitimate error. Two crackpot
skeptics -- Morrison & Shanahan -- published nonsense papers, but they do
not count. I do not know of any other critiques, but perhaps I overlooked
some. The ignorant nonsense that you and others have posted on the Internet
would not pass peer review at the National Enquirer, so it does not count.
Like Taubes, you have not even read the papers, you have no clue what they
say, so you are incapable of criticizing them.
- Jed
Kirk L. Shanahan
{snip}
> But this MIT affair might be worth investigating by other than a
> TB. How about it, Kirk? Rothwell would no doubt put you on the
> track of that raw data.
I don't think so. I always try to look ahead and see where I might end up
after competing some work. In this case, I doubt anything I concluded would
change anyone's mind. After all, after 3 years, Ed Storms still refuses
to believe my simple CCS problem. I don't feel like wasting more time in the
field, especially on 'old news'.
Tom Clarke
>Bill Snyder writes:
....
. . . who a) assert they have excess heat,
>> and b) are willing to have knowledgeable skeptics inspect their
>> apparatus, observe their experiments, take their own data using their
>> own instruments?
>They are all willing to do this, and they have all done it countless times.
>As Storms says, Claytor et al. (Los Alamos) have survived the internal
>peer-review which is much more rigorous than anything the journals throw at
>you.
The work of Claytor et al is best described as hot fusion, not cold fusion.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> The work of Claytor et al is best described as hot fusion, not cold
fusion.
Claytor does not think so, and neither do I. The temperatures and conditions
are orders of magnitude below those of hot fusion, and only a little higher
than the typical cold fusion experiment. The ratio of tritium to neutrons is
that of cold fusion, not plasma fusion. Also, as far as I know, conventional
plasma fusion theory does not predict tritium production in this experiment.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> The work of Claytor et al is best described as hot fusion, not cold
fusion.
>Claytor does not think so, and neither do I.
Then we disagree.
>The temperatures and conditions are orders of magnitude below those
>of hot fusion, and only a little higher
>than the typical cold fusion experiment.
Claytor's experiment involves a plasma discharge. Locally within the
plasma, expecially at the sites of "small cones (10-20 microns high"
[http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm] where the electric field could
be locally concentrated.
>The ratio of tritium to neutrons is that of cold fusion, not plasma fusion.
What is this ratio? So far as I can tell it varies from
electolytic fusion experiment to electrolytic fusion experiment.
Also http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm does not mention
neutron measurments.
>Also, as far as I know, conventional
>plasma fusion theory does not predict tritium production in this experiment.
It does when formation of effects of the small cones (10-20 microns high)
is taken into account. Back in July 2000, I had a dialog about the
theory of this on SPF.
- Jed
Bill Snyder
wrote:
>To Bill S.:
>
>Bill, your position is also somewhat untenable, in that you have gone to
>the extreme end of the scale too. There is a real and true Fleischmann-
>Pons-Hawkins Effect. It is difficult to obtain, and how to do so
>reproducibly is still not known. Part of the problem is the insistance of
>the researchers to attribute the apparent excess heat signals to nuclear
>origins. This consistently misleads them (in my opinion). To be fair,
>CF researchers have not had a reason to suspect this problem prior to my
>publication (however, they might have been expected to have noted it), so
>the true test of pathological science begins now, with how they handle my
>postulate.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this; it's precisely the
attribution of "excess heat" to some unknown nuclear process that I
was ridiculing. I'll quite cheerfully believe that if you run an
experiment in which both endothermic and exothermic reactions are gong
on at varying and unknown rates, heat is leaving the apparatus by
several different routes ditto, and the concentration of the
electrolyte keeps changing (and consequently, everything from its
electrical conductivity to its specific heat changes, too) that you
see shifts in the relationship between input electrical power and
cell/ambient temperature differential. Or did you mean the particular
calibration shift you've theorized, or something else more specific,
by "effect"?
Jed Rothwell
> >The temperatures and conditions are orders of magnitude below those
> >of hot fusion, and only a little higher
> >than the typical cold fusion experiment.
>
> Claytor's experiment involves a plasma discharge. Locally within the
> plasma, expecially at the sites of "small cones (10-20 microns high"
> [http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm] where the electric field could
> be locally concentrated.
That's true. There may be microscopic areas in which high-temperature plasma
conditions obtain, but the same might be true of conventional
electrochemical CF. See, for example, the eruptions of vaporized metal shown
in the Mizuno book. "Microscopic" may not be the right word; the conditions
may be occurring on the atomic scale, a few atoms at a time.
> >The ratio of tritium to neutrons is that of cold fusion, not plasma
fusion.
>
> What is this ratio? So far as I can tell it varies from
> electolytic fusion experiment to electrolytic fusion experiment.
Yes. It seems to depend on the mix of protons and deuterons, and probably
other factors still unknown. In the last couple of years Mizuno, Takahashi
and others have done an interesting experiment. They saturate Pd with D with
electrochemistry, and then quickly move it to a light water cell. Soon after
a significant number of protons have displaced deuterons, they measure a
burst of neutrons. Sometimes they have to raise voltage to trigger the
burst. See:
Mizuno, T., et al., Neutron Evolution from a Palladium Electrode by
Alternate Absorption Treatment of Deuterium and Hydrogen. Jpn. J. Appl.
Phys. A, 2001. 40(9A/B): p. L989-L991.
> Also http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm does not mention
> neutron measurments.
As I recall from lectures, they have not done careful neutron detection --
such as you do to establish the nature of a nuclear reaction -- but they
have detectors set up, mainly for safety. These instruments would easily
detect the neutrons if the tritium/neutron ratio was the same as it is for
plasma fusion, but they see nothing.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> >The temperatures and conditions are orders of magnitude below those
>> >of hot fusion, and only a little higher
>> >than the typical cold fusion experiment.
>> Claytor's experiment involves a plasma discharge. Locally within the
>> plasma, expecially at the sites of "small cones (10-20 microns high"
>> [http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm] where the electric field could
>> be locally concentrated.
>That's true. There may be microscopic areas in which high-temperature plasma
>conditions obtain, but the same might be true of conventional
>electrochemical CF. See, for example, the eruptions of vaporized metal shown
>in the Mizuno book. "Microscopic" may not be the right word; the conditions
>may be occurring on the atomic scale, a few atoms at a time.
If this is so, theory says there should be neutrons generated.
>> >The ratio of tritium to neutrons is that of cold fusion, not plasma
fusion.
>> What is this ratio? So far as I can tell it varies from
>> electolytic fusion experiment to electrolytic fusion experiment.
>Yes. It seems to depend on the mix of protons and deuterons, and probably
>other factors still unknown. In the last couple of years Mizuno, Takahashi
>and others .... measure a
>burst of neutrons. Sometimes they have to raise voltage to trigger the
>burst.
>> Also http://www.nde.lanl.gov/cf/tritweb.htm does not mention
>> neutron measurments.
>As I recall from lectures, they have not done careful neutron detection --
>such as you do to establish the nature of a nuclear reaction -- but they
>have detectors set up, mainly for safety. These instruments would easily
>detect the neutrons if the tritium/neutron ratio was the same as it is for
>plasma fusion, but they see nothing.
So what is it that distinguishes what you call "cold fusion" from what
you call "hot fusion"?
Apparently it is not temperature. Nor apparently is it the absence
of neutrons?
Just what do you mean by "cold fusion"?
Fusion involving palladium or similar metal?
Tom Clarke
James Salsman
>... I didn't answer your questions because they showed you were not
> understanding my explanations, even after repeated attempts to get
> them across.... In case you think I am wrong, realize this, your
> concern over the dissolved gases is irrelvant. When you
> can understand that, which should simply require reading through the
> archives....
I have obviously read through the archives and I have no idea what you
are talking about. Dissolved gasses or bubbles, how can the gasses get
to the other electrode? Since your theory depends on them getting to
the other electrode, how can asking how they get over to the other
electrode in the quantities required for the magnitude of heat needed
for a calibration shift show lack of understanding of your explanations?
And how about the question about how a platinum control electrode would
be less reactive to the extent your explanations require than a palladium
experimental electrode? Is that a relevant question or not? Why didn't
you answer it? Would you please?
If you refuse to answer questions about your theory, questions directly
about the quantity of the reactions comprising the activity you propose
as an alternative explanation, then won't you at least say why you
consider the questions irrelevant?
Have you even considered any quantitative questions about the reactions
you propose are occuring? I know I haven't seen any in your paper. Or
are those the kind of details that scientists in your lab consider so
irrelvant that they aren't worth asking, let alone answering?
> BTW, Jerry Smith retired in December. I was dealing with him on other
> issues.
And you never took the time to ask him about his measurements of the
radiation from codeposition fusion?
Best wishes,
James
Jed Rothwell
> >in the Mizuno book. "Microscopic" may not be the right word; the
conditions
> >may be occurring on the atomic scale, a few atoms at a time.
>
> If this is so, theory says there should be neutrons generated.
So I gather. I don't know enough about theory to comment.
> >have detectors set up, mainly for safety. These instruments would easily
> >detect the neutrons if the tritium/neutron ratio was the same as it is
for
> >plasma fusion, but they see nothing.
>
> So what is it that distinguishes what you call "cold fusion" from what
> you call "hot fusion"?
Certainly that is an important distinction. There are others.
> Apparently it is not temperature.
I doubt that has been established. Although there is evidence of very high
local temperatures in CF, I do not think anyone knows yet how high they may
be, or whether they might trigger anything resembling conventional plama
fusion. Pressure may also be very high, according to some people.
> Nor apparently is it the absence
> of neutrons?
Not exactly "absence." The presence in small and varying numbers. It is the
ratio of tritium to neutrons (T/n), which is ~11 orders of magnitude lower
than plasma fusion, and the ratio varies, whereas with plasma fusion it is
stable over a broad range. (A plasma fusion expert told me it does vary
slightly. I do not know the details.)
> Just what do you mean by "cold fusion"?
At this stage the phonomenon can only be defined by what it does in
experiments. It comes out like the blind men's definitions of the elephant:
hard and soft, warm and cold, blunt and sharp. Some aspects of it are clear
and relatively easy to reproduce. Others seem to be chaotic, but that is
only a reflection of our ignorance. Some claimed aspects are probably
experimental error. If a theory emerges it should make it easier to define
what cold fusion is and is not. This is typical of new discoveries. Emilio
Segre described the work of Hahn and Meitner: "Their early papers are a
mixture of error and truth as complicated as the mixture of fission products
resulting from the bombardments. Such confusion was to remain for a long
time the charactoristic of much of the work on uranium."
> Fusion involving palladium or similar metal?
Definitely. A nuclear reaction in a metal hydride or deuteride. The main
reaction appears to be fusion, but the metal sometimes transmutes and may
fission, which I suppose is a secondary reaction caused by the fusion.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> Just what do you mean by "cold fusion"?
>...If a theory emerges it should make it easier to define
>what cold fusion is and is not. This is typical of new discoveries. Emilio
>Segre described the work of Hahn and Meitner: "Their early papers are a
>mixture of error and truth as complicated as the mixture of fission products
>resulting from the bombardments. Such confusion was to remain for a long
>time the charactoristic of much of the work on uranium."
[quote also at
http://www.infinite-energy.com/IEHTML/FEATURE/cover/32/fbody.html]
I wouldn't push this analogy too hard.
Within the following decade there was Fermi's reactor at Chicago,
production reactors at Hanford and explosive reactions across the
world. Its been more than a decade since Pons and Fleischmann.
>> Fusion involving palladium or similar metal?
>Definitely. A nuclear reaction in a metal hydride or deuteride. The main
>reaction appears to be fusion, but the metal sometimes transmutes and may
>fission, which I suppose is a secondary reaction caused by the fusion.
Good luck.
Tom Clarke
Cary Jamison
> Bill Snyder writes:
> > Now where is the water heater that Fleischmann promised would
> > be along within 18 months back in 1989?
>
> I am not familiar with that claim. I have spoken with both of them at
> length, and they never mentioned that. Perhaps they tried but failed to
> produce it, or perhaps you invented that claim. Do you have any documented
> evidence they made this claim? What, no answer? Only more evasion? I
thought
> so.
>
You really make yourself look silly at times, Jed. This same conversation
has happened in this newsgroup before, including references to the
newspapers where the water heater claim was published. You know perfectly
well that is why everyone keeps asking you about the "water heater."
> > >Every major experiment has survived more than 10 years of examination
by
> > >skeptics. No skeptic has ever found an error.
> >
> > That's not doubletalk, that's a plain old lie.
>
> Let me rephrase: As far as I know, no skeptic has published a
peer-reviewed
> paper pointing out what I consider a legitimate error. Two crackpot
> skeptics -- Morrison & Shanahan -- published nonsense papers, but they do
> not count. I do not know of any other critiques, but perhaps I overlooked
> some. The ignorant nonsense that you and others have posted on the
Internet
> would not pass peer review at the National Enquirer, so it does not count.
> Like Taubes, you have not even read the papers, you have no clue what they
> say, so you are incapable of criticizing them.
>
> - Jed
Ahh, so when a skeptic's paper makes it through peer review it is
automatically labeled nonsense. There are others as well, as you full well
know, you just choose to ignore them because they don't fit your universe.
Check out Dieter's biblio. The one that comes immediately to mind is Jones'
paper on recombination effects.
What were you saying about monkeys?
Cary
Jed Rothwell
> I wouldn't push this analogy too hard.
It isn't an analogy; it describes the nature of scientific research.
> Within the following decade there was Fermi's reactor at Chicago,
> production reactors at Hanford and explosive reactions across the
> world. Its been more than a decade since Pons and Fleischmann.
The reasons are obvious! H&M were not denounced and attacked by the entire
scientific establishment. People who published positive replications of
their work were not fired. Funding for CF in the U.S. was gutted in 1989,
whereas Fermi and the others in 1940 were given the largest scientific R&D
budget in history. Naturally, there was some resistance to H&M, but it was
nothing remotely like the reaction to CF. If it had been, we still would not
understand fission.
Also, some problems take longer than others. Transistors took about 25
years. Nuclear fusion and high temperature superconducting (HTSC) were
discovered before CF, and billions of dollars have been invested in them,
but we are no closer to making a commercial tokamak than we were 30 years
ago, and as far as I know there is still no generally agreed-upon theory to
explain HTSC.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> You really make yourself look silly at times, Jed. This same conversation
> has happened in this newsgroup before, including references to the
> newspapers . . .
Ah, yes. Newspapers. I seldom put much stock in newspapers.
> where the water heater claim was published. You know perfectly
> well that is why everyone keeps asking you about the "water heater."
Everyone keeps asking this because it has nothing remotely to do with the
scientific issues. It is a red herring; a way to change the subject and
avoid the issue. No one asks "Where is the tokamak power plant?" or "Where
are the high temperature superconducting (HTSC) power lines?" Everyone
understands that the inability to make a commercial product from plasma
fusion or HTSC has nothing to do with their scientific validity.
> Ahh, so when a skeptic's paper makes it through peer review it is
> automatically labeled nonsense.
As far as I know, only two skeptic's papers have been submitted. Both made
it though peer-review easily, perhaps because journal editors despise cold
fusion as much as most mainstream scientists do. Both papers are nonsense.
Several pro-CF papers are also nonsense.
As I said, there may be others I have not heard about, or I do not recall at
the moment. There are large number of negative papers, of course. That is,
papers that show no excess heat or other nuclear effects in a set of
experiments. These do not disprove or critique other people's work.
> There are others as well, as you full well
> know, you just choose to ignore them because they don't fit your universe.
List a few that you think are particularly good.
> Check out Dieter's biblio. The one that comes immediately to mind is
Jones'
> paper on recombination effects.
Ah, yes, of course! That's nonsense too, as shown in Miles' rebuttal. Jones'
other paper is not exactly nonsense. It is a lie. He claims that P&F
measured power only once in ten minutes in the boil-off experiments. At an
ICCF conference they showed him the oscilloscope trace from one of the runs,
which sampled the power much more often (thousands of times per second), but
he ignored that and he continues to claim they only did it once, with only
one method.
- Jed
Dieter Britz
> Cary Jamison writes:
>
>
>>You really make yourself look silly at times, Jed. This same conversation
>>has happened in this newsgroup before, including references to the
>>newspapers . . .
>
>
> Ah, yes. Newspapers. I seldom put much stock in newspapers.
An evasive answer. At the time (I think it was the Deseret News?)
the TBs were happy about that report, in which there was a photo
of Pons, fondly looking down at a thermos-like flask, stating that
this little sucker could keep you supplied with hot water all day
(I seem to remember those were his words). It would be more honest
of you, Rothwell, if you simply admitted to this, and admitted that
it was a mistake on Pons' part, jumping the gun. He apparently did
claim that he HAD a water heater, back then; not that he might one
day have one. Pons' dishonesty on that point would not disprove
cold fusion, and if you admitted the above, you might stop getting
water heater jeers. And would you please remember this for the next
time, so that you don't, once again, claim you've never heard of all
this? This issue, as Cary points out, comes up periodically.
> Everyone keeps asking this because it has nothing remotely to do with the
> scientific issues. It is a red herring; a way to change the subject and
> avoid the issue. No one asks "Where is the tokamak power plant?" or "Where
> are the high temperature superconducting (HTSC) power lines?" Everyone
> understands that the inability to make a commercial product from plasma
> fusion or HTSC has nothing to do with their scientific validity.
No hot fusion spokespeople have been photographed with a tokamak,
claiming that it can supply continuous power. If someone did, people
would certainly want to check it out, and if it disappeared from the
news, they would indeed be asking about it. As for HTSC power cables,
I recall only reading about the possibility of using them, no more.
No photos of a spokesperson looking down at a thick HTSC cable, etc.
(well, maybe it would be a very thin cable {:] ).
In fact, I ought to get that newspaper report with the photo. Are
there archives of the paper, anyone know? Or does anyone in this ng
have a copy of the piece?
> As far as I know, only two skeptic's papers have been submitted. Both made
> it though peer-review easily, perhaps because journal editors despise cold
> fusion as much as most mainstream scientists do. Both papers are nonsense.
> Several pro-CF papers are also nonsense.
You often accuse others of not reading the literature, and look at you
here. I can offhand think of several other skeptical papers, several in
Nature, a thermodynamics paper by a Dane some years ago, not to mention
the multiparameter works at MIT and Harwell, concluding in the end
(rightly or wrongly) against CNF. What is your definition of a skeptic's
paper, might I ask?
>>Check out Dieter's biblio. The one that comes immediately to mind is
> Jones' paper on recombination effects.
>
>
> Ah, yes, of course! That's nonsense too, as shown in Miles' rebuttal. Jones'
> other paper is not exactly nonsense. It is a lie. He claims that P&F
> measured power only once in ten minutes in the boil-off experiments. At an
> ICCF conference they showed him the oscilloscope trace from one of the runs,
> which sampled the power much more often (thousands of times per second), but
> he ignored that and he continues to claim they only did it once, with only
> one method.
I am not sure that Miles rebuts the polemic successfully, but Jones did,
in my view also, go over the top, ignoring excess heat claims that go
beyond recombination effects. There have also been papers that
conservatively estimate excess heat without invoking zero recombination,
like the one-off (twice published) Huggins et al study (Belzner et al).
So, Jones did not put final nails in any coffin.
Kirk L. Shanahan
>
> I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this; it's precisely the
> attribution of "excess heat" to some unknown nuclear process that I
> was ridiculing.
{snip}
I guess that was what I was referring to. If you trust the
calorimeter output, as obviously Rothwell and all the rest do,
the numbers imply a nuclear origin of the effect. The fact that
that flies in the face of conventional science only shows that
you have a wonderful new effect that requires new physics to
explain. But what I suggest is that trust is misplaced due to
a subtle problem that effectively alters the calorimeter accuracy.
What I've found though, is that the CFers are so polarized that
they can't recognize a neutral position anymore. Continuing to
use ridicule helps no one. Although, I have to recognize that
we are discussing talking to Jed here. Just remember that the
CFers watch.
What I'd like to see is less outright rejection of positions and
more open considerations. Otherwise, we can all expect the
situation to remain just as it is, with no progress towards
resolving the issues, just further entrenchment on both sides.
(Unfortunately, I tend to believe we may have already gone down
that road too far.)
Kirk L. Shanahan
> I have obviously read through the archives and I have no idea what you
> are talking about.
My point exactly.
> Dissolved gasses or bubbles, how can the gasses get
> to the other electrode?
It's called mixing. It's supposed to be really good, otherwise the
calorimetry has other, worse problems.
> Since your theory depends on them getting to
> the other electrode, how can asking how they get over to the other
> electrode in the quantities required for the magnitude of heat needed
> for a calibration shift show lack of understanding of your explanations?
>
Because it's already been explained.
> And how about the question about how a platinum control electrode would
> be less reactive to the extent your explanations require than a palladium
> experimental electrode? Is that a relevant question or not? Why didn't
> you answer it? Would you please?
>
The only published Pt CF claims are by Storms. Those results are of
approximately the same magnitude as others with Pd by McKubre. Storms
does try to put down his own work as being 'too small' to be relevant,
but it really isn't. His CF signals are of the same relative size as
many (possibly the majority) of the claims. So, it isn't really 'less'
reactive. They tend to overlap.
My explanations do not require Pt to be less reactive than Pd. In fact, I
contend that the whole set of CF results will be explainable within normal
chemistry, once all the data regarding calorimeter function are known.
That is one test of my theories.
If you can tell me exactly what the 'special active surface state' is
(which I can't do), then I can probably explain many more details.
> If you refuse to answer questions about your theory, questions directly
> about the quantity of the reactions comprising the activity you propose
> as an alternative explanation, then won't you at least say why you
> consider the questions irrelevant?
>
> Have you even considered any quantitative questions about the reactions
> you propose are occuring? I know I haven't seen any in your paper. Or
> are those the kind of details that scientists in your lab consider so
> irrelvant that they aren't worth asking, let alone answering?
Please. Yes, I have considered extensively the quantitative requirements
of my proposal, and there is no barrier there to my belief in what I say.
What is missing however in the published literature is enough information
to evaluate if there are any extant cases out there that might show me
wrong. This is primarily due to the CFer bias towards an exclusively
nuclear explanation. Until they realize there is a potential non-nuclear
explanation, they will not change their methods, and we will continue to
be unable to evaluate their data from the non-nuclear point of view (because
they either don't collect the relevant data or don't publish it).
>
> > BTW, Jerry Smith retired in December. I was dealing with him on other
> > issues.
>
> And you never took the time to ask him about his measurements of the
> radiation from codeposition fusion?
>
Nope. Wasn't relevant to our interaction.
Tom Clarke
> Tom Clarke writes:
> > I wouldn't push this analogy too hard.
> It isn't an analogy; it describes the nature of scientific research.
An analogy is a kind of description.
> > Within the following decade there was Fermi's reactor at Chicago,
> > production reactors at Hanford and explosive reactions across the
> > world. Its been more than a decade since Pons and Fleischmann.
> The reasons are obvious! H&M were not denounced and attacked by the entire
> scientific establishment.
Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission and
nothing about uranium fission was a challenge to theory of the day.
> People who published positive replications of
> their work were not fired. Funding for CF in the U.S. was gutted in 1989,
> whereas Fermi and the others in 1940 were given the largest scientific R&D
> budget in history.
I think the reasons for why uranium fission was handomely funded
and why deuterium in palladium fusion has not been should be obvious.
> Naturally, there was some resistance to H&M, but it was
> nothing remotely like the reaction to CF. If it had been, we still would not
> understand fission.
Uranium fussion did not challenge theory, a-neutronic or sometimes
neutronic fusion in deuterium laden palladium does challenge theory.
It takes an extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge
theory, and despite all the work done on deuterium in palladium fusion
since 1989 or before, this level of confirmation just does not exist.
> Also, some problems take longer than others. Transistors took about 25
> years.
We had a long discussion about this circa September 2001.
The figure 25 years is debatable.
> Nuclear fusion and high temperature superconducting (HTSC) were
> discovered before CF, and billions of dollars have been invested in them,
> but we are no closer to making a commercial tokamak than we were 30 years
> ago, and as far as I know there is still no generally agreed-upon theory to
> explain HTSC.
Yes, HTSC has no theory, but commercial devices using HTSC are
available off the shelf.
Nuclear fusion reactors are a technological problem, not a problem
for nuclear theory. No new nuclear theory is needed for them.
[New plasma theory, but plasma theory is arguably not as fundamental]
The antiestablishment assertion that nuclear reactions occur in
deuterium loaded palladium which cannot be explained by nuclear theory
are - clearly - a challenge to theory. So clear demonstrations need
to be done if you want to get acceptance for the existence of these
phenomena that you call cold fusion as more than curious
experimental artifacts.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> > Ah, yes. Newspapers. I seldom put much stock in newspapers.
>
> An evasive answer.
No, it isn't. I am being direct and evading nothing when I say that I do not
trust newspapers much.
> At the time (I think it was the Deseret News?)
> the TBs were happy about that report. . .
If this occurred in 1989 then I knew nothing about CF and I was not
following the story. I have never reviewed newspaper accounts, and I have no
intention of doing so. In any case, if P&F said this in 1989 they were
wrong -- end of story. They are often wrong. As Pons said, "if we are right
half the time I would be delighted."
> It would be more honest
> of you, Rothwell, if you simply admitted to this, and admitted that
> it was a mistake on Pons' part, jumping the gun.
I have said that many, many times! Review the archives here.
> He apparently did
> claim that he HAD a water heater, back then; not that he might one
> day have one.
Well, all CF cells do heat water, and they Pons did develop a series of
water heaters. One at IMRA ran for 70 days at boiling temperature, at 250%
excess. For all I know they *did* have some kind of heater earlier. Perhaps
it turned out to be unreliable and difficult to reproduce, like Patterson's.
> Pons' dishonesty on that point would not disprove
> cold fusion, and if you admitted the above, you might stop getting
> water heater jeers.
The "water heater jeers" are made to derail the discussion, by applying a
standard that makes no sense.
> No hot fusion spokespeople have been photographed with a tokamak,
> claiming that it can supply continuous power.
They have been photographed with tokamaks every year for the last 50 years,
claiming the machines will work in 20 years. No group of scientists in
history have been more dishonest, or more discredited.
> You often accuse others of not reading the literature, and look at you
> here.
Newspapers are not the literature! My memory is not infallible. I have
copies of papers and proceedings, not newspapers.
I can offhand think of several other skeptical papers, several in
> Nature, a thermodynamics paper by a Dane some years ago . . .
As I said -- and repeated many times -- "there may be others I have not
heard about, or I do not recall at the moment."
> , not to mention
> the multiparameter works at MIT and Harwell, concluding in the end
> (rightly or wrongly) against CNF.
Wrongly, without question. The MIT published data was fake; the real data
showed excess heat. The Harwell researchers were incompetent. Their data
showed excess heat. These two experiments are convincing proof that CF is
real.
> What is your definition of a skeptic's
> paper, might I ask?
Morrison, Shanahan and Jones are the only ones I know about and have read
carefully. I REPEAT there may be others, but to the best of my knowledge
these three define the genre. Their papers are pure, unadulterated garbage.
In addition, there are non-peer reviewed books by Close, Huizenga, Taubes
and Hoffman, which are so awful they make Morrison et al. look good in
comparison.
> I am not sure that Miles rebuts the polemic successfully . . .
Miles, Storms, Bockris and Mizuno are sure, and so am I.
> So, Jones did not put final nails in any coffin.
He did: he destroyed his own credibility, and he made a mockery of the
scientific method.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> > The reasons are obvious! H&M were not denounced and attacked by the
entire
> > scientific establishment.
>
> Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission . . .
Labs around the world were able to reproduce cold fusion. By September 1990
Fritz Will tallied 92 groups that reported success.
> and
> nothing about uranium fission was a challenge to theory of the day.
That is my point. If uranium fission *had* challenged theory, few people
would have tried to reproduce it, and those who did reproduce it
successfully would have been fired.
> I think the reasons for why uranium fission was handomely funded
> and why deuterium in palladium fusion has not been should be obvious.
Yes, they are obvious. As you say, fission fit the accepted theories and was
approved by the establishment, whereas cold fusion appears to defy theory,
so it was attacked. Many other discoveries, such as antisepsis were been
delayed for years or decades for similar reasons.
> Uranium fission did not challenge theory, a-neutronic or sometimes
> neutronic fusion in deuterium laden palladium does challenge theory.
> It takes an extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge
> theory . . .
No, it doesn't. It takes exactly the same level to prove a theory is wrong
as it does to confirm the theory. Nature herself -- the experiments -- are
neutral. A s/n ratio, a thermocouple reading, or an isotope ratio are what
they are. They prove what they prove. No one can argue with them --
rationally, that is. Hysterical, irrational people who think that theory
overrules facts may demand a higher level of proof when the experimental
evidence disproves their pet theories, but this is irrational superstition,
not science.
> . . . and despite all the work done on deuterium in palladium fusion
> since 1989 or before, this level of confirmation just does not exist.
Yes, it does, but you deny it, just as doctors once denied that washing
hands before surgery saves lives.
> > Also, some problems take longer than others. Transistors took about 25
> > years.
>
> We had a long discussion about this circa September 2001.
> The figure 25 years is debatable.
The correct figure is 27 years, and it is not debatable at all. It is a
historic fact, well documented.
> The antiestablishment assertion that nuclear reactions occur in
> deuterium loaded palladium which cannot be explained by nuclear theory
> are - clearly - a challenge to theory. So clear demonstrations need
> to be done . . .
They were done years ago. What we need is more funerals. The opposition has
to die off before CF will be accepted. As Planck said, progress in science
is measured in funerals. Unfortunately, in the case of CF, the scientists
are dying off faster than the irrational idiots who oppose them.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> > The reasons are obvious! H&M were not denounced and attacked by the
entire
>> > scientific establishment.
>> Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission . . .
>Labs around the world were able to reproduce cold fusion. By September 1990
>Fritz Will tallied 92 groups that reported success.
And how many failed?
>> and
>> nothing about uranium fission was a challenge to theory of the day.
>That is my point. If uranium fission *had* challenged theory, few people
>would have tried to reproduce it, and those who did reproduce it
>successfully would have been fired.
But uranium fussion did not challenge theory.
Can you find an example of a phenomena that challenged theory,
that was very difficult to reproduce in the lab, and which ultimately
came to be accepted?
>> I think the reasons for why uranium fission was handomely funded
>> and why deuterium in palladium fusion has not been should be obvious.
>Yes, they are obvious. As you say, fission fit the accepted theories and was
>approved by the establishment, whereas cold fusion appears to defy theory,
>so it was attacked. Many other discoveries, such as antisepsis were been
>delayed for years or decades for similar reasons.
No. I had in mind that fission was easily reproducible, whereas
deuterium in palladium fusion only seems too work in "considerable skill"
with specially chosen ""good" material" samples of palladium etc.
>> Uranium fission did not challenge theory, a-neutronic or sometimes
>> neutronic fusion in deuterium laden palladium does challenge theory.
>> It takes an extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge
>> theory . . .
>No, it doesn't.
If you think this, you are misreading the history of science.
>It takes exactly the same level to prove a theory is wrong
>as it does to confirm the theory.
Theories are never proven right. They only survive a series
of disconfirming experiments.
>Nature herself -- the experiments -- are neutral.
Experiments do not occur in nature. They are the results of
scenarios carefully set up by human beings to produce a given
phenomena.
>A s/n ratio, a thermocouple reading, or an isotope ratio are what
>they are.
A signal to noise ration depends on the choice - human choice - of
the set of measurements for which noise and signal are calculated.
Isotope ratio measurments are know to be subject to problems of
contamination and so can be questioned on the basis of experiment
technique - human technique.
>They prove what they prove.
They proved nothing. The current thinking is that they can only
disprove.
>No one can argue with them -- rationally, that is.
They can quite rationally question whether the human-chosen
experimental setup eliminated possible extraneous factors.
>Hysterical, irrational people who think that theory
>overrules facts may demand a higher level of proof when the experimental
>evidence disproves their pet theories, but this is irrational superstition,
>not science.
You just don't understand the nature of science that has carried us
far in the past few hundred years.
>> . . . and despite all the work done on deuterium in palladium fusion
>> since 1989 or before, this level of confirmation just does not exist.
>Yes, it does, but you deny it, just as doctors once denied that washing
>hands before surgery saves lives.
Just as doctors once thought stress caused ulcers?
>> > Also, some problems take longer than others. Transistors took about 25
>> > years.
>> We had a long discussion about this circa September 2001.
>> The figure 25 years is debatable.
>The correct figure is 27 years, and it is not debatable at all. It is a
>historic fact, well documented.
It is an interpretation of events.
>> The antiestablishment assertion that nuclear reactions occur in
>> deuterium loaded palladium which cannot be explained by nuclear theory
>> are - clearly - a challenge to theory. So clear demonstrations need
>> to be done . . .
>They were done years ago.
But they fail to convince.
>What we need is more funerals. The opposition has
>to die off before CF will be accepted.
More likely the advocates of antiestablishment deuterium in palladium
fusion will die off, methinks.
>As Planck said, progress in science
>is measured in funerals. Unfortunately, in the case of CF, the scientists
>are dying off faster than the irrational idiots who oppose them.
Like I said. The scientists who think deuterium in palladium fusion
is real are aging and not recruiting many new advocates. They
need some demonstrations that don't depend on "considerable skill" and
special ""good" material" palladium to convince younger scientists that
researh into deuterium in palladium fusion will have career payoffs.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> >> Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission . . .
>
> >Labs around the world were able to reproduce cold fusion. By September
1990
> >Fritz Will tallied 92 groups that reported success.
>
> And how many failed?
I do not know, because only a handful published papers. There have been
rumors that "hundreds" of labs tried it, but when I track these down, I
usually find only a few. For example, there were supposedly "dozens" of
failed experiments in Atlanta, Georgia, but I know of only two: one at
Georgia Tech, that failed, and one at Amoco that worked extremely well.
In any case, the number of failures has no significance. The first group to
clone a sheep failed more than 200 times before they succeeded, but the 200
failures did not disprove the final success. The proof of CF or cloning is
not statistical; it is not based on a preponderance of evidence, or a trend
in many runs, but rather on a clear yes-or-no result in one or more runs. In
other fields of science, proof *is* statistical. A good example is the top
quark, as described in a quote from the Fermilab web site:
"We discovered the top quark not in one lightning stroke, but over a long
period of time, event by event," says physicist Nick Hadley, a DZero
collaborator. "No single piece of evidence, no matter how strong, was enough
to let us claim a discovery. We couldn't be sure we had found the top quark
until we had seen so many events with the right characteristics that there
was almost no chance the statistics were fooling us into making a false
claim."
This is a perfectly legitimate way to do research, but it does not resemble
the kind of proof we look for in cloning or CF. Statistical proof in a
single, unreplicated experiment is the best evidence the top quark
researchers can offer. We have to accept it; it would cost too much to
reproduce them. You cannot make a top quark appear on demand most of the
time, the way you can reproduce cold fusion heat. (Obviously, if the
standards used to reject CF were applied to the top quark, no one would
believe it, but these standards are absurd and should not be applied to any
claim in any field.) CF is more robust and more believable than the top
quark, or indeed most high energy physics as far as I can tell.
> Can you find an example of a phenomena that challenged theory,
> that was very difficult to reproduce in the lab, and which ultimately
> came to be accepted?
Yes, I know of dozens of examples -- enough to fill several books on my
shelf. See Beaudette's book for an excellent discussion of this issue. Well
known examples from the 20th century include:
Transistors -- required weeks or months of hands on training to reproduce,
and a large book affectionately known as Mother Bell's Cookbook. At first,
many leading scientists claimed they were impossible. As each new type, such
as silicon-based ones were developed, other scientists and engineers claimed
they were impossible.
Masers - these took years to produce and reproduce, and they were opposed by
some of the biggest names in science. See Townes' autobiography chapters 5
and 6.
Ovshinsky's amorphous photovoltaics faced years of opposition based on
theory.
This is a little early, but Arrhenius's ion theory circa 1880 faced huge
opposition based on theory until around 1903. This ties in directly with
cold fusion, as it happens. It prompted Fleischmann's line of research in
the late 1940s that eventually led to cold fusion, and Arrhenius's
granddaughter Caldwell is chemist who has made interesting comments about
CF, and who was colleague and friend of Stanley Pons.
In medical science, Goldberger's discovery that malnutrition causes pellagra
in the Deep South, Marshall's discovery that H. pylori causes ulcers and can
be cured with antibiotics. Many medical procedures are extremely difficult
to reproduced, and not much grounded in theory. (No one really knows why
they work.) Beaudette describes the Wasserman Test example in detail.
Folkman's recent claims about endostatin and cancer are very controversial,
and as far as I know they have still not been reproduced after several years
and millions of dollars of effort, but many researchers still take them
seriously. The jury is out on this.
Most electrochemical and catalytic techniques take years to master,
according to Fleischmann, Bockris, Bard, Caldwell and many others. They do
not challenge theory so much as circumvent it. They are more art than
science; a.k.a. black magic. Entire industries depend upon them, but experts
admit they do not understand why the techniques work.
Airplanes were very difficult to reproduce despite the 1906 patent, and many
experts claimed they were physically impossible, and challenged theory. Of
course they did not, but many expert thought they did. Schwinger and many
other experts say that CF does not actually defy theory, and the objections
raised on theoretical grounds are bogus. I cannot judge this issue.
Speaking of Schwinger, he described a good example:
"A totally unexpected phenomenon has been discovered in a certain field of
science. It could have significant implications for the future of mankind,
and especially for the Japanese. The overwhelming reaction of the experts in
the field is rejection, based on the absence of other effects that are
considered to be necessary companions of this new phenomenon. To quote one
expert: 'We know a lot about what happens. . . . We no longer have the
latitude to say 'Well, some strange event occurred and generated those
things.'' Nevertheless, this new possibility seems to have enough validity
that one skeptic said: 'It's hard to believe it. But there seems to be
something to this.' And he went on to say: 'It should not be necessary,
however, to understand the mechanism before embracing the concept. If a
proven track record can be established . . . you have to believe it.'
To which scientific field does all this refer? In view of the title of my
lecture, the question may seem surprising. In fact, the object is
seismology. . . ."
> No. I had in mind that fission was easily reproducible, whereas
> deuterium in palladium fusion only seems too work in "considerable skill"
> with specially chosen ""good" material" samples of palladium etc.
Some things are easy to reproduce, and some things are difficult. Fission
itself was not too difficult to reproduce, but fortunately fission bombs are
extremely difficult to make. Most industrial products, such as modern
alkaline batteries, computer chips, and automobile engines require fantastic
skill. Not "considerable" but fantastic -- they take a crack team of experts
with hundreds of man years of training. All modern high tech devices and
processes require tight control over material purity, and specially chosen
"good material." The purity and material choices used to make palladium
catalytic converters are very similar to those recommended for making CF
devices. (Not coincidentally, by any means.) The machines used to prepare
converters cost millions of dollars, and billions of dollars of R&D were
required to pefect them.
> >> Uranium fission did not challenge theory, a-neutronic or sometimes
> >> neutronic fusion in deuterium laden palladium does challenge theory.
> >> It takes an extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully
challenge
> >> theory . . .
>
> >No, it doesn't.
>
> If you think this, you are misreading the history of science.
I am not misreading the history of science. I am saying that scientists have
often failed to understand a fundamental principle: that experiments must
always overrule theory. You are correct when you say "it takes an
extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge theory," but I
say it should not. One experiment replicated five times at a high signal to
noise level should suffice. The fact that it does not suffice proves that
many researchers are unscientific dolts, who never learned the fundamentals
of their business. This not surprising. They are only human. People in many
other professions also routinely fail. Many institutions are dysfunctional.
Policemen and judges do not enforce justice well; stockbrokers do not always
offer wise investment advice; teachers and students do not uniformly master
basic academic skills; computer programmers fail to make operating systems
reliable. When large numbers of scientists actually, honestly believe it
should take "extraordinary proof" to overturn theory, science is at a low
ebb, and badly in need of reform. When they apply that ridiculous standard
to CF alone -- as most do, they are intellectually dishonest.
> >[Isotope ratios] they prove what they prove.
>
> They proved nothing. The current thinking is that they can only
> disprove.
Nonsense. They prove that CF experiments change atomic nuclei.
> >No one can argue with them -- rationally, that is.
>
> They can quite rationally question whether the human-chosen
> experimental setup eliminated possible extraneous factors.
Not unless they can point to a plausible problem with the setup. Waving your
hands and saying "there may be a problem with the setup" proves nothing, and
means nothing. People who doubt an experimental result must be held to the
same level of rigor as those who think the result is correct. No skeptic has
ever pointed to a significant error in any major CF experiment, so the
experiments stand, and the skeptics are wrong.
> >Hysterical, irrational people who think that theory
> >overrules facts may demand a higher level of proof when the experimental
> >evidence disproves their pet theories, but this is irrational
superstition,
> >not science.
>
> You just don't understand the nature of science that has carried us
> far in the past few hundred years.
I understand it all too well! It has often been perverted, and
dysfunctional. It is no better than the stock market in that respect.
> >> . . . and despite all the work done on deuterium in palladium fusion
> >> since 1989 or before, this level of confirmation just does not exist.
>
> >Yes, it does, but you deny it, just as doctors once denied that washing
> >hands before surgery saves lives.
>
> Just as doctors once thought stress caused ulcers?
They had no good experimental evidence for that. Medicine and biology are so
complex, and so little understood that doctors are often forced to rely on
untested beliefs and folk-wisdom.
> >They were done years ago.
>
> But they fail to convince.
They convinced Schwinger, and they convinced me. The people who remain
unconconvinced have either not looked carefully at the results, or they can
offer no reason to doubt the results and no rational basis for their
beliefs, or they are fools.
> >What we need is more funerals. The opposition has
> >to die off before CF will be accepted.
>
> More likely the advocates of antiestablishment deuterium in palladium
> fusion will die off, methinks.
And as Schwinger said, that will be the death of science.
> >As Planck said, progress in science
> >is measured in funerals. Unfortunately, in the case of CF, the scientists
> >are dying off faster than the irrational idiots who oppose them.
>
> Like I said. The scientists who think deuterium in palladium fusion
> is real are aging and not recruiting many new advocates. They
> need some demonstrations that don't depend on "considerable skill" and
> special ""good" material" palladium to convince younger scientists that
> research into deuterium in palladium fusion will have career payoffs.
Nearly all experiments in chemistry, physics or gourmet cooking require
skill and close attention to materials, so this is an impossible standard.
It will never be met. It has never been applied to any other discovery in
the history of science. If we had demanded this in the past, we would still
be living in trees, since nearly every profession requires skill, and years
of training.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
wrote:
> Morrison, Shanahan and Jones are the only ones I know about and have read
> carefully. I REPEAT there may be others, but to the best of my knowledge
> these three define the genre.
Let me clarify that. I know of several papers and articles (not peer
reviewed papers) showing mistakes in individual CF experiments and claims. I
wrote a few myself. Ed Storms is preparing a list of them, as it happens,
and we just conferred about it. Most should be listed in the "critique"
section of the LENR-CANR library. (If you know of one that isn't listed,
please let me know.) These critiques are valuable, because many CF papers
are wrong.
What I mean by "a skeptic's paper" is one that denies *all* cold fusion
claims en mass, according to some crackpot theory. For example, Jones claims
"it is all recombination." Apparently he actually believes that applies to
experiments with recombiners in the cell, gas loaded experiments, and
experiments in which output power far exceeded input power! That's about as
crackpot as they come -- the flat-earth society doesn't hold a candle to it.
As far as I know, only three authors have published in journals. Perhaps
there are no other crazy yet diligent crackpots who will go to the trouble
to write such weird papers. Most other "skeptics" are so ignorant, lazy and
sloppy they couldn't publish, even though journals will forgive most
mistakes committed against cold fusion. See, for example the Nobel
endorsements of Taubes book, and the discussion in my "Titanic" paper.
- Jed
Gordon D. Pusch
> Tom Clarke writes:
>
>>> The reasons are obvious! H&M were not denounced and attacked by the
>>> entire
>>> scientific establishment.
>>
>> Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission . . .
>
> Labs around the world were able to reproduce cold fusion. By September 1990
> Fritz Will tallied 92 groups that reported success.
...Of course, the number who reported failure, or who failed and didn't
even bother reporting it, was at least an order of magnitude larger...
-- Gordon D. Pusch
perl -e '$_ = "gdpusch\@NO.xnet.SPAM.com\n"; s/NO\.//; s/SPAM\.//; print;'
Kirk L. Shanahan
{snip}
> Most electrochemical and catalytic techniques take years to master,
> according to Fleischmann, Bockris, Bard, Caldwell and many others. They do
> not challenge theory so much as circumvent it. They are more art than
> science; a.k.a. black magic. Entire industries depend upon them, but experts
> admit they do not understand why the techniques work.
{snip}
> They convinced Schwinger, and they convinced me. The people who remain
> unconconvinced have either not looked carefully at the results, or they can
> offer no reason to doubt the results and no rational basis for their
> beliefs, or they are fools.
>
{snip}
> Nearly all experiments in chemistry, physics or gourmet cooking require
> skill and close attention to materials,
{snip}
All of these comments are correct and generally applicable to any chemical
process. In fact, the modern quality control industry uses this as a
guiding principle. Essentially _any_ chemical process you care to name is
_not_ funtioning with the base noise equal to the Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle level, so there are _always_ unknown factors at work increasing
the error to the observed levels. That total error arises from multiple
factors, some of which are random, some of which are not. But most of
which are identifiable and quantifiable with enough effort (i.e., bucks).
The amusing thing here is that the CF researchers I have dealt with recently
do not seem to understand this. They are all of the 'old school' that says
"If the error is less than 2% or so, it's not important." But then they
fail to test their own assertion. In the single case of Ed Storms' Pt CF
research, I tested it, and found it wanting. Then I recognized that no
other CF claim addressed the problem either.
Basically, the problem is that they refuse to move beyond their simplistic
and homogeneous models of how their systems function. My whole theory of
where excess heat comes from simply rests on considering the true
heterogeniety of their cell/calorimeter system. But, because it causes
their claim of a new nuclear process to be suspect, they reject it out of
hand, for no good reason.
Jed, you ought to inform them of your knowledge on this. Maybe you can
bring the CF saga to a close!
Kirk L. Shanahan
{snip}
>
> As far as I know, only two skeptic's papers have been submitted. Both made
> it though peer-review easily, perhaps because journal editors despise cold
> fusion as much as most mainstream scientists do. Both papers are nonsense.
Since my paper is one of the two you refer to (directly in some of your other
posts), it seems I need to correct you on this. My paper was tied up in
review for over a year by negative reviewers who presented incorrect logical
arguments against my work, which I rebutted. Some of those comments and
responses from and to Dr. Ed Storms were posted here by you and I. I
eventually sent my paper to a different journal, where the review process of
the first journal was accepted. The process was not 'easy' I assure you.
What was so disappointing is that in the end the first journal made it
difficult for me simply on the numbers of replies in the negative, not on the
fact that I could rebutt all the negative arguments. All this is old news,
and was posted here before. This is another proof that you remember what you
want, and hope other people forget what actually occurred.
{snip}
> > Check out Dieter's biblio. The one that comes immediately to mind is
> > Jones' paper on recombination effects.
>
> Ah, yes, of course! That's nonsense too, as shown in Miles' rebuttal. Jones'
> other paper is not exactly nonsense. It is a lie. He claims that P&F
> measured power only once in ten minutes in the boil-off experiments.
{snip}
The Miles-Jones/Hansen affair is an interesting one. Shortly after J&H
published their little study (only 5 points), I wrote Hansen and asked if he
knew he had a flyer in his data. He replied that he did, but left it in
because he had no reason to reject it. This sequence of papers, combined with
the Will papers on the subject, is what the CFers use as a prime argument
against my explanation of excess heat. It is also where the concern about
'dissolved oxygen' comes in, which James S. keeps asking about.
It is instructive to look at Figure 1 in Ed Storms paper "A Critical
Evaluation of the Pons-Fleischmann Effect (Part 1)". (Web link is:
http://home.netcom.com/~storms2/fig1.html ) Ed has added some of
his own data to the J&H data and shows the effect of the cathodic O2
reduction side reaction. The bulk of the data can be fit with a curved
decreasing line. When you draw that line in, you can see the J&H flyer.
It is their 4th point. (Before this Figure was published, I couldn't say if
it was the 4th or the 5th point.) But there also is a cluster of flyer points
between .01 and .1 A applied current. It is interesting to note that both
the Storms flyers and the J&H flyer lie about .15 units above the rough line
one would draw through the rest of the data. In other words, while the overall
curve predicts X% recombination at a given current (by cathodic O2 reduction),
there are several points that show a _second_ source of about 15%
recombination. That's the source of the CF effect folks!
Interestingly, neither Storms or J&H claim 'CF' in this data, which gives us
sort of a minimum level of 'normal' (i.e. simple .5O2 + D2 = D2O)
recombination necessary to 'detect' a CF effect. In simple computations based
on my heterogeneous cell/calorimeter picture, I have estimated that about 30%
recombination at the cathode would be adequate to produce the apparent CF
results, based roughly on the Storms' Pt work. And of course we have the
Szpak photo of just such a process ongoing.
Getting back to your comment about J&H work being a 'lie', I think you go too
far. Their data is useful, and as I show above, supports the recombination
explanation of CF, as does the extension offered by Storms.
Dieter Britz
> Britz asked "What is your definition of a skeptic's paper, might I ask?" I
> wrote:
>
>
>>Morrison, Shanahan and Jones are the only ones I know about and have read
>>carefully. I REPEAT there may be others, but to the best of my knowledge
>>these three define the genre.
>
>
> Let me clarify that. I know of several papers and articles (not peer
> reviewed papers) showing mistakes in individual CF experiments and claims. I
> wrote a few myself. Ed Storms is preparing a list of them, as it happens,
> and we just conferred about it. Most should be listed in the "critique"
> section of the LENR-CANR library. (If you know of one that isn't listed,
> please let me know.) These critiques are valuable, because many CF papers
> are wrong.
>
> What I mean by "a skeptic's paper" is one that denies *all* cold fusion
> claims en mass, according to some crackpot theory. For example, Jones claims
That is not what the word "skeptic" means. If you are skeptical, you are
not ready to accept something, but neither have you made up your mind
against it.
Tom Clarke
> Tom Clarke writes:
> > >> Labs around the world were able to reproduce uranium fission . . .
> > >Labs around the world were able to reproduce cold fusion. By September
> 1990
> > >Fritz Will tallied 92 groups that reported success.
> > And how many failed?
> I do not know, because only a handful published papers. There have been
> rumors that "hundreds" of labs tried it, but when I track these down, I
> usually find only a few. For example, there were supposedly "dozens" of
> failed experiments in Atlanta, Georgia, but I know of only two: one at
> Georgia Tech, that failed, and one at Amoco that worked extremely well.
Did Amoco pursue their success? If not, do you know why not?
> In any case, the number of failures has no significance.
Sure it does. That is part of the context that would establish
signal to noise ratio. If you say failures are not significant
then you don't understand science.
> The first group to
> clone a sheep failed more than 200 times before they succeeded, but the 200
> failures did not disprove the final success.
In the case of sheep there is incontrovertible evidence in the form
of genetically identical animals that can be independently tested and
verified as genetically identical.
>The proof of CF or cloning is not statistical;
Cloning no.
But so far as I know there is no apparatus that is running away
producing excess energy via fusion of deuterium in palladium that
is subject to independent verification.
> it is not based on a preponderance of evidence, or a trend
> in many runs, but rather on a clear yes-or-no result in one or more runs.
Uh. "trend in many runs" is not a statistical idea?
"preponderance of evidence" is a legal term.
> In
> other fields of science, proof *is* statistical. A good example is the top
> quark, as described in a quote from the Fermilab web site:
> "We discovered the top quark not in one lightning stroke, but over a long
> period of time, event by event," says physicist Nick Hadley, a DZero
> collaborator. "No single piece of evidence, no matter how strong, was enough
> to let us claim a discovery. .....
You don't understand what they are saying. There were definite events
that had characteristics of top quark, but the data were noisy so they
were unwilling to claim discovery - even though the sought for event
matched theoretical expectations - until there were enough events to
be sure that they were artifacts of noise.
In the case of fusion of deuterium in palladium, there seems to be
a whole lot of noise. One piece of palladium works, several pieces
don't. Considering that many characteristics of the phenonema
(e.g. paucity of neutrons) violate theoretical expectations, then
it would take some very good evidence to claim that the phenomena
was deuterium fusion in palladium with a paucity of neutrons and
not some poorly understood phenonena of electrochemistry.
> This is a perfectly legitimate way to do research, but it does not resemble
> the kind of proof we look for in cloning or CF.
In cloning there is a sheep. Actually two. They are genetically
identical QED.
In deuterium fusion in palladium where is the energy producing device
that can be tested for energy output, for paucity of neutron production
etc?
> Statistical proof in a
> single, unreplicated experiment is the best evidence the top quark
> researchers can offer.
I'm sure the physicists would love to replicate the experiment.
Would you like to spend your tax dollars on reproducing the required
facilities?
>.... You cannot make a top quark appear on demand most of the
> time, the way you can reproduce cold fusion heat.
Who is this "you"? So far as I can tell the majority of people
who have tried have failed.
>(Obviously, if the
> standards used to reject CF were applied to the top quark, no one would
> believe it, but these standards are absurd and should not be applied to any
> claim in any field.)
The very researchers who worked on the top quark rejected their own
data until they were sure beyond "scientific doubt".
> CF is more robust and more believable than the top
> quark, or indeed most high energy physics as far as I can tell.
Nothing you have written, and nothing I have read by any
other experimenter in electrochemically driven fusion in palladium
research has convinced me that the phenomena is as they think.
> > Can you find an example of a phenomena that challenged theory,
> > that was very difficult to reproduce in the lab, and which ultimately
> > came to be accepted?
> Yes, I know of dozens of examples -- enough to fill several books on my
> shelf. See Beaudette's book for an excellent discussion of this issue. Well
> known examples from the 20th century include:
> Transistors
Did not challenge theory.
> Masers
Did not challenge theory. Theory was developed in 1916.
> Ovshinsky's amorphous photovoltaics faced years of opposition based on
> theory.
Ovshinksy came across as an antiestablishment scientist, but I don't
think his ideas caused a problem for theory.
> This is a little early, but Arrhenius's ion theory circa 1880 faced huge
> opposition based on theory until around 1903.
I don't think this resulted in a device.
> In medical science, Goldberger's discovery that malnutrition causes pellagra
> in the Deep South, Marshall's discovery that H. pylori causes ulcers and can
> be cured with antibiotics.
And how did these challenge fundamental theory?
.....
> Most electrochemical and catalytic techniques take years to master,
> according to Fleischmann, Bockris, Bard, Caldwell and many others.
And that is why there is avery low signal to noise ratio in CF research,
and why the claims of deuterium fusion in palladium with a paucity of
neutrons must be viewed very skeptically.
> They do not challenge theory so much as circumvent it. They are more art than
> science; a.k.a. black magic. Entire industries depend upon them, but experts
> admit they do not understand why the techniques work.
How does experience in electrochemistry bear on the fundamental
quantum physics of D+D ->{He3+n,T+p,He4} ?
> Airplanes were very difficult to reproduce despite the 1906 patent, and many
> experts claimed they were physically impossible, and challenged theory.
I think the problem was that the experts were not familiar
with developments in internal combustion engines, not aerodynamics.
> Of
> course they did not, but many expert thought they did. Schwinger and many
> other experts say that CF does not actually defy theory, and the objections
> raised on theoretical grounds are bogus. I cannot judge this issue.
But you do judge, since you accept their statements.
....
> > No. I had in mind that fission was easily reproducible, whereas
> > deuterium in palladium fusion only seems too work in "considerable skill"
> > with specially chosen ""good" material" samples of palladium etc.
> Some things are easy to reproduce, and some things are difficult.
And that means the signal to noise is low.
> Fission
> itself was not too difficult to reproduce, but fortunately fission bombs are
> extremely difficult to make.
Not too hard scientifically, just industrially.
>Most industrial products, such as modern
> alkaline batteries, computer chips, and automobile engines require fantastic
> skill.
But if the success rate of the production of working alkaline
batteries equalled the success rate of deuterium fusion in palladium
experiments then alkaline cells would be extremely costly if they
were manufactured at all.
>Not "considerable" but fantastic -- they take a crack team of experts
> with hundreds of man years of training.
The first batteries were a couple of pieces of metal in a container
of acid. The basic principle is easy. Industrial scale production is
what is hard. A hobbyist can make a model airplane engine on a bench
top lathe. Computer chips are rather inherently an industrial process,
but logic circuits can be built out of variety of things as parts of
high school science projects.
? All modern high tech devices and
> processes require tight control over material purity, and specially chosen
> "good material."
No. Not at the basic scientific demonstration level.
> The purity and material choices used to make palladium
> catalytic converters are very similar to those recommended for making CF
> devices.
If this is all that is required then why cannot I buy a guaranteed to
work deuterium in palladium fusion kit from Edmund Scientific as I can
buy a high temperature superconductivity kit?
>(Not coincidentally, by any means.) The machines used to prepare
> converters cost millions of dollars, and billions of dollars of R&D were
> required to pefect them.
Billions might be an exaggeration. That seems high to me,
unless you charge all research on catalysts to the catalytic convertor
account.
> > >> Uranium fission did not challenge theory, a-neutronic or sometimes
> > >> neutronic fusion in deuterium laden palladium does challenge theory.
> > >> It takes an extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully
> challenge
> > >> theory . . .
> > >No, it doesn't.
> > If you think this, you are misreading the history of science.
> I am not misreading the history of science. I am saying that scientists have
> often failed to understand a fundamental principle: that experiments must
> always overrule theory.
That is not a fundamental principle.
> You are correct when you say "it takes an
> extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge theory," but I
> say it should not.
Yes it should. Otherwise science would be diluted by psychics and
astrologers and every manner of crackpout.
> One experiment replicated five times at a high signal to
> noise level should suffice.
By different experimenters? Can the method of producing the
effect be written down on paper in enough detail so that anyone
can read the experimental description and produce the effect.
[Storms' article is not such a description, it is cheerleading]
You may specify that "anyone" must be skilled in electrochemistry
is you like so the description does not have to include the whole
of basic chemistry.
>The fact that it does not suffice proves that
> many researchers are unscientific dolts, who never learned the fundamentals
> of their business.
You are sadly mistaken about how science works.
> This not surprising. They are only human. People in many
> other professions also routinely fail. Many institutions are dysfunctional.
The fact that scientists are human is why the evidence so far
offered by advocates of fusion in palladium with a paucity of neutrons
is not sufficient to gain this phenomena acceptance. It is just too
easy for researchers to fool themselves. (See Blondlot and N rays)
> .... When large numbers of scientists actually, honestly believe it
> should take "extraordinary proof" to overturn theory, science is at a low
> ebb, and badly in need of reform.
Then science has been at a low ebb since its inception.
> When they apply that ridiculous standard
> to CF alone -- as most do, they are intellectually dishonest.
Above you cited an example of physicists looking for the top quark
doing just that to their own data. Requiring of their own data
a high standard even though it did not violate their theoretical
expectations.
> > >[Isotope ratios] they prove what they prove.
> > They proved nothing. The current thinking is that they can only
> > disprove.
> Nonsense. They prove that CF experiments change atomic nuclei.
Are these experiments replicated by different experimenters?
Can instructions be written down ....?
> > >No one can argue with them -- rationally, that is.
> > They can quite rationally question whether the human-chosen
> > experimental setup eliminated possible extraneous factors.
> Not unless they can point to a plausible problem with the setup.
There is lots that is plausibly wrong. People who are skilled
in electrochemistry question aspects of the chemical set up.
As you say I am not expert so I have to take them at their word.
I do know something about signal measurment and parastic signals
and the like and I see lots in the measurment set ups of some
experiments that could lead to erroneous underindications of
input power.
But these sorts of things have been debated for years on SPF
....
> > >Hysterical, irrational people who think that theory
> > >overrules facts may demand a higher level of proof when the experimental
> > >evidence disproves their pet theories, but this is irrational
> superstition,
> > >not science.
> > You just don't understand the nature of science that has carried us
> > far in the past few hundred years.
> I understand it all too well! It has often been perverted, and
> dysfunctional. It is no better than the stock market in that respect.
All that is needed is written instructions on how to reliably build
a device that fuses deuterium in palladium with a paucity of neutrons.
[And Storms' "How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect" is not
such a set of instructions]
Better yet a demonstration device that can be tested and vetted.
.....
> > >What we need is more funerals. The opposition has
> > >to die off before CF will be accepted.
> > More likely the advocates of antiestablishment deuterium in palladium
> > fusion will die off, methinks.
> And as Schwinger said, that will be the death of science.
Nah. Just the end of a chapter another of the many controversies
of science. If there is some real phenomena that involves
fusion of deuterium in palladium that doesn't produce neutrons then
somewhere down the road someone will discover how to reliably produce
the phenomena is some experimental situation that can be written as
an explicit set of instructions.
This has not happened yet. It may never happen. There may not
be fusion of deuterium in palladium that doesn't produce neutrons.
> Nearly all experiments in chemistry, physics or gourmet cooking require
> skill and close attention to materials, so this is an impossible standard.
No. Every phenomena in an experimental science that is scientifically
accepted has met this standard.
> It will never be met. It has never been applied to any other discovery in
> the history of science.
The top quark researchers applied it to their own data.
>If we had demanded this in the past, we would still
> be living in trees, since nearly every profession requires skill, and years
> of training.
Are you saying that everyone who tried to see what happened when
deuterium was electrolytically loaded into palladium and failed
to find excess heat did not have any training or skill
in electrochemistry?
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> Did Amoco pursue their success? If not, do you know why not?
They wrote an excellent paper: Amoco Production Company, Research
Department, Theodore V.Lautzenhiser, Daniel W. Phelps, Report T-90-E-02,
90081ART0082, 19 March 1990, Cold Fusion: Report on a Recent Amoco
Experiment. This was delivered at ICCF-4, and copies circulated for a while,
but it did not appear in the proceedings, and the authors never responded to
my inquiry about it. I do not know what happened after that.
> In the case of sheep there is incontrovertible evidence in the form
> of genetically identical animals that can be independently tested and
> verified as genetically identical.
Right. It is yes-or-no test; albeit one that takes expertise to perform. In
other words, it takes an expert to look at the DNA, but the s/n ratio is
very high, and the results are unequivocal. Exactly the same can be said for
CF. Massive excess heat orders of magnitude beyond chemistry, tritium and
transmutations are unequivocal, yes-or-no tests. Some take considerable
expertise to perform, but the results cannot be questioned.
> >The proof of CF or cloning is not statistical;
>
> Cloning no.
> But so far as I know there is no apparatus that is running away
> producing excess energy via fusion of deuterium in palladium that
> is subject to independent verification.
"Running away" is surely not necessary! That would be dangerous. Steady
energy production at a high s/n ratio is all that is needed to verify the
effect, and that has been seen in hundreds of tests, in many different labs,
using different instrument types. "As far as you know" can only mean you
have not read the papers describing the experiments, or you think these
papers are in error. If the latter is what you mean, you need to write a
critique showing errors in the papers by McKubre, Miles and the others.
Otherwise, I have no reason to take your views seriously.
> > "We discovered the top quark not in one lightning stroke, but over a
long
> > period of time, event by event," says physicist Nick Hadley, a DZero
> > collaborator. "No single piece of evidence, no matter how strong, was
enough
> > to let us claim a discovery. .....
>
> You don't understand what they are saying. There were definite events
> that had characteristics of top quark, but the data were noisy so they
> were unwilling to claim discovery . . .
I understand that. Fortunately, that is not the case with CF. In many CF
experiments the data was not a bit noisy. The s/n ratio in the best
experiments 90:1. The heat and tritium are extremely easy to detect. Also
fortunately, they stick around for days at a time, giving plenty of
opportunity to check the instruments. In other words, as McKubre said, the
effect is "neither small nor fleeting" contrary to many skeptics. If you
disagree with McKubre, and you assert the signal *is* small, that's fine,
but you have to look carefully at his data and show why he is wrong.
> In the case of fusion of deuterium in palladium, there seems to be
> a whole lot of noise.
That's incorrect.
> In cloning there is a sheep. Actually two. They are genetically
> identical QED.
And in CF we have excess with s/n ratios of 90:1, as I said, QED. It is as
definitive as a DNA test.
> In deuterium fusion in palladium where is the energy producing device
> that can be tested for energy output, for paucity of neutron production
> etc?
That would be a cold fusion cell. I am not sure what you are driving at.
> I'm sure the physicists would love to replicate the experiment.
> Would you like to spend your tax dollars on reproducing the required
> facilities?
Which facilities? For CF or Fermilab, for the top quark? I have spent a
great deal of my own money on CF equipment (for other people, not me). I
gather that a second Fermilab is not needed for the top quark findings.
> >.... You cannot make a top quark appear on demand most of the
> > time, the way you can reproduce cold fusion heat.
>
> Who is this "you"? So far as I can tell the majority of people
> who have tried have failed.
I do not know how many tried, and how many failed. I have not tallied the
numbers, and it seems that most people who failed did not write a paper, so
I have no knowledge of them. In most cases where people failed and *did*
write paper, it is clear in retrospect what they did wrong. This is
described by Storms and others.
In any case, this "majority" has no significance. Suppose, for the sake of
argument, we assume that 992 researchers tried in 1989, and 900 failed, and
92 succeeded. (92 is the actual number of successes; but I have no idea how
many failures there were.) Richard Oriani is one the world's top
electrochemists, and he is one of the people who succeeded in reproducing
the effect. He had 50 years of experience in electrochemistry, and he said
this was the most difficult experiment he has ever done. In other words,
this takes an expert months of demanding work to replicate. That is what
Fleischmann, Bockris, Miles and others said in 1989. Therefore, I would
conclude that most of these other 900 people (or whatever the number may be)
were not skilled in the art, and they did not know enough electrochemistry
to do the experiment. Many of them were nuclear physicists. Expecting them
to succeed would be like expecting an electrochemist to perform the Fermilab
Top Quark experiment, or to operate a tokamak. If 900 nuclear physicists
tried to clone sheep, they would surely fail, but this would not shed any
light on biology, or cause anyone to think cloning does not work. It would
be irrelevant.
(Actually, by an extraordinary turn of luck, nuclear physicists at MIT *did*
manage to produce excess heat in 1989, despite their inexperience. I suppose
electrochemists might also be lucky enough to run a tokamak without harming
it.)
> > CF is more robust and more believable than the top
> > quark, or indeed most high energy physics as far as I can tell.
>
> Nothing you have written, and nothing I have read by any
> other experimenter in electrochemically driven fusion in palladium
> research has convinced me that the phenomena is as they think.
You will have to be more specific. Nothing you have said here convinces me
that you have read the literature, or that you have any specific knowledge
of the research. If you know of errors in the work I suggest you write paper
describing them. You do not get a free pass.
> > Transistors
>
> Did not challenge theory.
People thought they did, and argued that they did.
> > Masers
>
> Did not challenge theory. Theory was developed in 1916.
See the Townes autobiography, chapters 5 and 6. Rabi, Kusch, Bohr, Thomas
and Von Neumann all told him that the maser is impossible, it violates
theory, it will never work. He quotes Rabi: "You know it will never work. We
know it will never work. Stop wasting money. Just Stop!" (p. 65)
Obviously in retrospect the maser did not challenge theory, but many theory
experts thought it did. Townes describes their reasons. CF probably does not
challenge theory either, according to Schwinger and others. If you think it
does, you are probably as wrong as Rabi and Von Neumann were about the
maser. You are in good company, but wrong.
> > Ovshinsky's amorphous photovoltaics faced years of opposition based on
> > theory.
>
> Ovshinksy came across as an antiestablishment scientist, but I don't
> think his ideas caused a problem for theory.
Many prominent scientists told him his ideas contradicted theory! I am sure
they were not joking or misleading him.
> > In medical science, Goldberger's discovery that malnutrition causes
pellagra
> > in the Deep South, Marshall's discovery that H. pylori causes ulcers and
can
> > be cured with antibiotics.
>
> And how did these challenge fundamental theory?
Many experts thought they did, and told Goldberger and Marshall they did.
Perhaps these experts were wrong. I do not know enough about biology theory
to comment.
> > Most electrochemical and catalytic techniques take years to master,
> > according to Fleischmann, Bockris, Bard, Caldwell and many others.
>
> And that is why there is avery low signal to noise ratio in CF research .
. .
There is not a low signal to noise ratio. The difficulty of an experiment
has no bearing on the s/n ratio; the two are completely separate issues. To
take the most extreme example, a nuclear bomb is difficult to build, but it
produces a very high s/n ratio, to say the least.
> > They do not challenge theory so much as circumvent it. They are more art
than
> > science; a.k.a. black magic. Entire industries depend upon them, but
experts
> > admit they do not understand why the techniques work.
>
> How does experience in electrochemistry bear on the fundamental
> quantum physics of D+D ->{He3+n,T+p,He4} ?
The experience in electrochemistry show that many processes are not
understood by present day science. I have no idea how CF achieves D-D
fusion. The question is over my head.
> > Airplanes were very difficult to reproduce despite the 1906 patent, and
many
> > experts claimed they were physically impossible, and challenged theory.
>
> I think the problem was that the experts were not familiar
> with developments in internal combustion engines, not aerodynamics.
The experts did not understand aerodynamics. Internal combustion engines
were not needed for airplanes; the steam engines developed by 1880 would
have sufficed, according to Orville Wright and others. The steam engines
used in half scale airplanes made by Langley, and the full scale (gigantic)
airplanes made by Maxim had much better power to weight ratios than the
early Wright engines.
> > Of
> > course they did not, but many expert thought they did. Schwinger and
many
> > other experts say that CF does not actually defy theory, and the
objections
> > raised on theoretical grounds are bogus. I cannot judge this issue.
>
> But you do judge, since you accept their statements.
No, I do not. I have no idea whether CF actually defies theory or whether it
can be reconciled with present day theory. Some experts say yes, some say
no -- the debate is over my head. However, I am sure that CF is real and it
is a nuclear effect, so if it turns out to conflict with present day theory
then theory is wrong.
> > Some things are easy to reproduce, and some things are difficult.
>
> And that means the signal to noise is low.
No, it does not. You are confusing difficulty with s/n ratios. The two are
independent. The CF reaction is difficult to produce, but once it turns on
there is no question it is occurring. You are correct in one sense: when an
amateur does a CF experiment, it may actually produce tiny nuclear effects,
so small they are nearly impossible to measure. The excess heat is orders of
magnitude too low for any calorimeter to detect. However, as it happens,
people have lately had success detecting alpha particles from such tiny
reactions with old fashioned CR-39 plastic detectors.
> > Fission
> > itself was not too difficult to reproduce, but fortunately fission bombs
are
> > extremely difficult to make.
>
> Not too hard scientifically, just industrially.
Perhaps it is not hard scientifically today, but it was extremely hard in
1944. Perhaps in 60 years CF will also be easy.
> But if the success rate of the production of working alkaline
> batteries equalled the success rate of deuterium fusion in palladium
> experiments then alkaline cells would be extremely costly if they
> were manufactured at all.
Right. And the first prototypes alkaline cells did cost a fortune. So did
the first transistors, the first light bulbs, the prototype fuel cell cars
now buzzing around Japan, and so on.
> >Not "considerable" but fantastic -- they take a crack team of experts
> > with hundreds of man years of training.
>
> The first batteries were a couple of pieces of metal in a container
> of acid. The basic principle is easy. Industrial scale production is
> what is hard.
That was true of the first batteries circa 1780, but today's advanced
batteries, especially the ones use in things like pacemakers, are very
complex and could not be reproduced by amateurs. For that matter, a few CF
experiments with things like CR-39 that probably always work, as I said.
> ? All modern high tech devices and
> > processes require tight control over material purity, and specially
chosen
> > "good material."
>
> No. Not at the basic scientific demonstration level.
Yes, even at the basic scientific demonstration level. You cannot make a
transistor work at all unless you have highly pure Ge and later Si material.
You can buy that material off the shelf today, but in 1952 when people were
still figuring out how to make it, you had to be an expert, and you had to
make it yourself. Someday you may be able to buy Pd or Ni suitable for CF
experiments off the shelf, but at present the only way to get any is to
spend $50,000 or $1 million on equipment and make it yourself. See, for
example, the equipment shown at:
http://lenr-canr.org/Experiments.htm
> > The purity and material choices used to make palladium
> > catalytic converters are very similar to those recommended for making CF
> > devices.
>
> If this is all that is required then why cannot I buy a guaranteed to
> work deuterium in palladium fusion kit from Edmund Scientific as I can
> buy a high temperature superconductivity kit?
Because the details have not all been worked out yet, the material costs a
small fortune, and the catalytic converter company and others that make CF
Pd only give it to qualified experimenters who have loads of equipment and
who know how to perform the experiment. The first purified Ge samples made
by Bell Labs also cost a fortune, and were only distributed to a small
number of researchers, at places like LANL. I expect millions of dollars
more would be required before we can crank out guaranteed, high-heat Pd.
> > I am not misreading the history of science. I am saying that scientists
have
> > often failed to understand a fundamental principle: that experiments
must
> > always overrule theory.
>
> That is not a fundamental principle.
Oh yes it is! Experiment must be the final arbiter of any claim, or no
dispute will ever be settled. Anything might be true or false. There would
be unending chaos. Until this principle was established at the beginning of
the scientific revolution, the human race made very little progress. This
concept is, in fact, the essence of the scientific method: that nature is
the only authority, and nature speaks only through experiment. Theory is a
human construct that may always be incorrect, and will always be incomplete.
Experiment is the only touchstone of truth. If you do not understand that I
think you need to go back and review some basic concepts regarding the
scientific method.
> > You are correct when you say "it takes an
> > extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge theory,"
but I
> > say it should not.
>
> Yes it should. Otherwise science would be diluted by psychics and
> astrologers and every manner of crackpout.
The claims of astrologer can easily be tested by ordinary means. No
extraordinary experiments are called for to prove or disprove crackpot
claims. Ordinary science works perfectly, and it disposed of these claims
centuries ago.
> > One experiment replicated five times at a high signal to
> > noise level should suffice.
>
> By different experimenters?
Yes, right. Independent replications.
> Can the method of producing the
> effect be written down on paper in enough detail so that anyone
> can read the experimental description and produce the effect.
Yes, but not one piece of paper. For that matter, you cannot describe every
detail of the top quark apparatus or at tokamak on a single piece of paper.
The people who succeeded in replicating CF have read many books and
textbooks about electrochemistry, and they drew upon a broad range of
knowledge, just as the people who make tokamaks do. Some of them, like
Fleischmann and Bockris wrote the textbooks. They described their
experiments in fairly short papers and books, ranging from 5 to 120 pages.
Another expert reading those papers will learn enough to replicate. It will
take the expert 6 months to 2 years to do it. That's how long the actual
work takes, even when you know exactly what you are doing. It could be
automated in the future and it might be done in a few minutes, but manually
performing the tasks does takes months. (See Storms, "How to produce the
Pons-Fleischmann effect.")
> The fact that scientists are human is why the evidence so far
> offered by advocates of fusion in palladium with a paucity of neutrons
> is not sufficient to gain this phenomena acceptance. It is just too
> easy for researchers to fool themselves. (See Blondlot and N rays)
No, isn't easy. N-Rays are excellent example. See the Sci. Am. article about
them. Only a handful of people ever thought they saw N-Rays, and the s/n
ratio was supposedly very low. If large numbers of experimentalists could
mistakenly see effects with large s/n ratios, then the experimental method
itself would not work. People are evolved to survive by correctly perceiving
sight and sound. Dysfunctional behavior, delusion and so on can occur, but
not in large numbers of people, in normal, everyday behaviors (outside of
politics or war).
> > .... When large numbers of scientists actually, honestly believe it
> > should take "extraordinary proof" to overturn theory, science is at a
low
> > ebb, and badly in need of reform.
>
> Then science has been at a low ebb since its inception.
No, that idea was introduced by Carl Sagan a few years before he died. It is
absurd. All traditional philosophers of science have held that the scales
must be equal, judgment must be impartial, and the same set of principles
applies to arguments in favor of a theory as those against it, no matter how
long the theory has been in place, or how many people believe it. When you
start demanding "extraordinary evidence" (whatever that means), you turn
science into a popularity contest, or a farce. You also bring progress to a
halt. When existing theory becomes sacred, and it can no longer be
overturned or revised without some magic, indefinable "extraordinary"
evidence, then theory no longer changes and progress must grind to a halt.
> > Nonsense. They prove that CF experiments change atomic nuclei.
>
> Are these experiments replicated by different experimenters?
> Can instructions be written down ....?
If they were not written down, how would I know about them? By ESP? That is
a very strange comment. Do you think I have traveled to every lab, and
learned what I know by word of mouth alone?
> > > They can quite rationally question whether the human-chosen
> > > experimental setup eliminated possible extraneous factors.
>
> > Not unless they can point to a plausible problem with the setup.
>
> There is lots that is plausibly wrong. People who are skilled
> in electrochemistry question aspects of the chemical set up.
Which people? In what publication? I do not know of any such people. Unless
you can point them out and give me the titles of the papers they have
written, I have no reason to believe you.
> As you say I am not expert so I have to take them at their word.
If you are not expert enough to evaluate the papers by these people, then
you have no business forming any opinion. I have no opinion about many
aspects of theory, such as whether or not CF contradicts it, so I remain
neutral on that question. I have no opinion about the work of these "people
who are skilled in electrochemistry" who "question aspects of the chemical
set up" because I have no idea who they are, or what they published. After
you tell me and I read it, I might have an opinion.
> I do know something about signal measurement and parastic signals
> and the like and I see lots in the measurment set ups of some
> experiments that could lead to erroneous underindications of
> input power.
Perhaps you do see lots, but until you describe what you see in a rigorous
paper I will not believe that you see anything. You must be specific, you
must be rigorous, and you must give the authors a chance to respond. Those
are the rules of academic debate. I will not take your word for it that you
have discovered errors that might elude people like Bockris and Oriani.
Frankly, I think that is extremely unlikely.
> But these sorts of things have been debated for years on SPF
Don't be ridiculous! The "debates" on SPF would not survive peer-review for
five minutes at any respectable journal.
> > I understand it all too well! It has often been perverted, and
> > dysfunctional. It is no better than the stock market in that respect.
>
> All that is needed is written instructions on how to reliably build
> a device that fuses deuterium in palladium with a paucity of neutrons.
Yes, written instructions are essential. That is why I went to trouble to
post 120 papers, and why people have read 18,605 copies in the last three
months. Those papers are not easy to read; people are doing a lot of work to
absorb them.
> [And Storms' "How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect" is not
> such a set of instructions]
> Better yet a demonstration device that can be tested and vetted.
If you would like to pay for such a thing, I would be happy to arrange it.
Last time it took $5 million at Utah's National Cold Fusion Institute. The
demonstrations were totally convincing -- in a sane world they would have
convinced every scientist alive. You might be able to do it for less than $5
million.
> >If we had demanded this in the past, we would still
> > be living in trees, since nearly every profession requires skill, and
years
> > of training.
>
> Are you saying that everyone who tried to see what happened when
> deuterium was electrolytically loaded into palladium and failed
> to find excess heat did not have any training or skill
> in electrochemistry?
Clearly they did not have sufficient training! The best people in the world
did not. It took Fleischmann and Pons years to master the technique, and it
took Oriani and Miles several months to learn it even after Fleischmann told
them what he knew, despite their 30 to 50 years of previous training. Only a
few of the people who failed in 1989 described their work in detail. From
the descriptions it is clear in retrospect what mistakes they made.
Obviously, the expert electrochemists among them could now review the
literature and try again with a much larger likelihood of success. People
who knew nothing about electrochemistry in 1989 and who have not studied it
in the interim, or people who have not read the papers about CF published
after 1989 would probably still fail. As Storms says, doing a CF experiment
blindly is like trying to make a transistor out gravel you pick up from your
driveway.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> > What I mean by "a skeptic's paper" is one that denies *all* cold fusion
> > claims en mass, according to some crackpot theory. For example, Jones
claims
>
> That is not what the word "skeptic" means.
Quite right. It is an unfortunate perversion of the original meaning. It
would better to call these people pathological debunkers.
> If you are skeptical, you are
> not ready to accept something, but neither have you made up your mind
> against it.
I think more often in philosophy it means one who questions or doubts
assertions, which is not necessarily the same as disbelieving them or
suspending judgement (not making up your mind). Churchill believed in
democracy, but he remained skeptical about many of the supposed benefits to
it. This prompted him to say, "democracy is the worst form of government
except all those other forms that have been tried." I believe that many cold
fusion claims are correct, but I have a very skeptical nature, so it took me
years and a great deal of study to reach a conclusion, and I still have
doubts about things like Ni + H CF claims.
What you are describing is a wishy-washy attitude, or an inability to reach
an objective, firm conclusion based on evidence. A person who does not
believe that cold fusion is real today, given the overwhelming body of
evidence for it, is not skeptical. He is ignorant and confused, or he does
not understand the role of theory and experiment in the scientific method.
He is like one these creationist nutcakes who claims to be "skeptical" about
evolution. Actually, such people are gullible, conformist fools who believe
superstitious nonsense. Anyone who buys the absurd, ad hoc, crackpot
arguments that are put forth today to "disprove" cold fusion is a true
believer, not a skeptic. These people have to convince themselves that the
laws of thermodyamics have been cancelled and mass spectrometers do not
work.
- Jed
Gordon D. Pusch
> Gordon D. Pusch <gdp...@no.xnet.spam.com> wrote:
>
>> I notice that _YOU_ don't report your _OWN_ results on any of your webpages.
>> Why won't =YOU= try this "simple $500 experiment," if it's so easy that you
>> think anyone can do it ???
>
> Good question. After speaking and corresponding with Stan Szpak,
> Pam Mosier-Boss, Jerry J. Smith and others independently, I am so
> convinced that their results and observations indicate that the
> experiment in question will yield a positive result that I do not
> feel the need to try it first-hand.
That was a mistake in logic on your part. If you tried it first hand,
you would have learned the hard way that doing an reliable, non-ambiguous
experiment is not as simple and as trivial as you seem to think, ESPECIALLY
when you are a non-expert, nor are interpreting the results as unambiguous
as you seem to think.
>> Put you money where you mouth is, Salsman !!!
>
> Fair enough. Would you be willing to wager that you, Gordon, will get a
> positive result if you perform the www.bovik.org/codeposition/best.gif
> experiment in your own lab?
That would be pointless, for the simple fact that I am NOT an experimental
electrochemist, and I don't _HAVE_ a lab! My training was in THEORETICAL
physics, not experiment. I lack the training, the expertise, and the basic
fundamental _KNACK_ for performing good, reliable experiments.
You need to understand that science has two totally distinct "cultures:"
Theory, and Experiment. These two "cultures" are as different as Night and
Day, and exist in constant antithetical tension to each other. It is a
basic rule of science that one should =NEVER= trust an experiment performed
by a Theoretician, nor a theory proposed by an Experimentalist, because the
members of each "culture" have different training, different methodologies,
different basic skill-sets, and even different ways of _speaking_. It is
=VERY= rare for an individual to be equally competent in both "cultures"
(the last widely recognized example of such an individual was Enrico Fermi).
Most people who _think_ they are equally competent at theory and experiment
are simply fooling themselves --- they are actually "unskilled and unaware
of it," and will either produce botched experiments, nonsense theories, or both.
That is why I urge you to perform this experiment yourself: If you are
honest with yourself, you will learn the hard way learn that it is =NOT=
a simple matter of hanging a few electrodes in dewars, filling them up,
connecting a power supply, and making a run or two over some weekend.
It takes more work than that --- a =LOT= more work --- and even MORE work
and skull-sweat to rule out possible confounding variables and sources
of systematic errors. Anyone who thinks they can come up with a simple,
``idiot proof'' experiment is either woefully inexperienced, or is fooling
themselves --- because is is a basic fact of reality that _Murphy_ rules
the Laboratory, his laws reign supreme, and to do battle with him without
proper training and experience is to find oneself rudely knocked down onto
one's nether regions.
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: James Salsman <ja...@bovik.org> writes:
:> Good question. After speaking and corresponding with Stan Szpak,
:> Pam Mosier-Boss, Jerry J. Smith and others independently, I am so
:> convinced that their results and observations indicate that the
:> experiment in question will yield a positive result that I do not
:> feel the need to try it first-hand.
: That was a mistake in logic on your part. If you tried it first hand,
: you would have learned the hard way that doing an reliable, non-ambiguous
: experiment is not as simple and as trivial as you seem to think, ESPECIALLY
: when you are a non-expert, nor are interpreting the results as unambiguous
: as you seem to think.
And double especially because there is no evidence of which I am aware that
the mundane explanation for most of their results (some kind of cross-talk
between the power supplies and the detector) can be excluded.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
". . .Mr Schutz [sic] acts like a functional electro-terrorist who
impeads [sic] scientific communications with his too oft-silliness."
-- Mitchell Swartz, sci.physics.fusion article <EEI1o...@world.std.com>
Tom Clarke
> Tom Clarke writes:
> > In the case of sheep there is incontrovertible evidence in the form
> > of genetically identical animals that can be independently tested and
> > verified as genetically identical.
> Right. It is yes-or-no test; albeit one that takes expertise to perform. In
> other words, it takes an expert to look at the DNA, but the s/n ratio is
> very high, and the results are unequivocal. Exactly the same can be said for
> CF. Massive excess heat orders of magnitude beyond chemistry, tritium and
> transmutations are unequivocal, yes-or-no tests. Some take considerable
> expertise to perform, but the results cannot be questioned.
So where is the sheep, er reliably heat producing cell that can be
inspected by anyone and seen to manifestly be producing "massive" heat?
> > But so far as I know there is no apparatus that is running away
> > producing excess energy via fusion of deuterium in palladium that
> > is subject to independent verification.
> "Running away" is surely not necessary!
Sorry bad phrasing. My meaning was "running continuously".
But I would take "running reliably".
...
> energy production at a high s/n ratio is all that is needed to verify the
> effect, and that has been seen in hundreds of tests, in many different labs,
> using different instrument types.
And it has failed in how many?
The effect is just not reliably reproducible so far as I can tell.
>[if] think these
> papers are in error. ...., you need to write a
> critique showing errors in the papers by McKubre, Miles and the others.
Why is that onus on me? I am not making extraordinary claims.
> Otherwise, I have no reason to take your views seriously.
Feel free. Absent a reliable demonstration, I have no reason
to take claims of fusion in palladium seriously.
[regrading top quark experiments]
> I understand that. Fortunately, that is not the case with CF. In many CF
> experiments the data was not a bit noisy.
You don't understand that experiments that fail to produce the purported
fusion in palladium effect are as important as the comparitively few
that appear to produce anomalous heat.
> > In the case of fusion of deuterium in palladium, there seems to be
> > a whole lot of noise.
> That's incorrect.
The noise I am speaking of is the difficulty of producing the effect.
This you agree with, I believe. You have said many times that it
takes skill and persistence to produce the effect that is allegedly
due to fusion of deuterium in palladium.
....
> > In cloning there is a sheep. Actually two. They are genetically
> > identical QED.
> And in CF we have excess with s/n ratios of 90:1, as I said, QED. It is as
> definitive as a DNA test.
So where is the cell operating right now for all the world to see
and evaluate?
Or where are the definitive instructions allowing anyone to make one?
> > In deuterium fusion in palladium where is the energy producing device
> > that can be tested for energy output, for paucity of neutron production
> > etc?
> That would be a cold fusion cell. I am not sure what you are driving at.
Where is one other than in the labs of non-skeptics as you might term them?
....
> > >.... You cannot make a top quark appear on demand most of the
> > > time, the way you can reproduce cold fusion heat.
> > Who is this "you"? So far as I can tell the majority of people
> > who have tried have failed.
> I do not know how many tried, and how many failed. I have not tallied the
> numbers, and it seems that most people who failed did not write a paper, so
> I have no knowledge of them.
Yes generally there is no scientific fame to be had in failure.
> In any case, this "majority" [of failures]has no significance.
>Suppose, for the sake of
> argument, we assume that 992 researchers tried in 1989, and 900 failed, and
> 92 succeeded. (92 is the actual number of successes; but I have no idea how
> many failures there were.) ....In other words,
> this takes an expert months of demanding work to replicate.
So even if there is a real effect it is not very useful because an
expert can only make it happen once after months of trying?
> Therefore, I would
> conclude that most of these other 900 people (or whatever the number may be)
> were not skilled in the art,
You have no basis for this conclusion.
....
> > Nothing you have written, and nothing I have read by any
> > other experimenter in electrochemically driven fusion in palladium
> > research has convinced me that the phenomena is as they think.
> You will have to be more specific. Nothing you have said here convinces me
> that you have read the literature, or that you have any specific knowledge
> of the research. If you know of errors in the work I suggest you write paper
> describing them. You do not get a free pass.
I have read several papers. I think that enough absent reason to read more.
The claimers of extraordinary results that contradict accepted theory
do not get a free pass either.
Which paper should I read that has convincing evidence?
Feel free to dismiss me. I don't think you have the evidence to
convince me.
[Snip discussion of discoveries Rothwell thinks analogous to alleged
deuterium fusion in palladium that threaten to grow too large]
> > > Most electrochemical and catalytic techniques take years to master,
> > > according to Fleischmann, Bockris, Bard, Caldwell and many others.
> > And that is why there is avery low signal to noise ratio in CF research .
> . .
> There is not a low signal to noise ratio.
If I use your example numbers, 992 try, only 92 succeed, that is a
1 to 10 signal to noise ratio.
> The difficulty of an experiment
> has no bearing on the s/n ratio; the two are completely separate issues. To
> take the most extreme example, a nuclear bomb is difficult to build, but it
> produces a very high s/n ratio, to say the least.
Er how many nations have embarked on a bomb building program?
10? 12? How many have succeeded - at least 9.
Pretty good signal to noise, size of bang has nothing to do with
the existence of technologically useful uranium fusion.
....
> The experience in electrochemistry show that many processes are not
> understood by present day science. I have no idea how CF achieves D-D
> fusion. The question is over my head.
That is why extraordinary proof is required. The alleged phenomena
does not fit in with present day science.
....
> > > Of
> > > course they did not, but many expert thought they did. Schwinger and
> many
> > > other experts say that CF does not actually defy theory, and the
> objections
> > > raised on theoretical grounds are bogus. I cannot judge this issue.
> > But you do judge, since you accept their statements.
> No, I do not. I have no idea whether CF actually defies theory or whether it
> can be reconciled with present day theory.
So you think Schwinger might be wrong?
> ....However, I am sure that CF is real and it
> is a nuclear effect, so if it turns out to conflict with present day theory
> then theory is wrong.
Why are you sure of this?
> > > Some things are easy to reproduce, and some things are difficult.
> > And that means the signal to noise is low.
> No, it does not. You are confusing difficulty with s/n ratios.
I am looking at the whole body of work on deuterium fusion in palladium
as a grand experiment to determine whether or not the phenomenum exists.
Just as above I look at the set of nations starting nuclear programs as
a "meta-experiment" to see whether uranium fission bombs work.
>The two are
> independent. The CF reaction is difficult to produce, but once it turns on
> there is no question it is occurring.
WHere could I go to see one. Not spend months at a lab waiting
for something to happen, but walk in and see a working reaction>
> You are correct in one sense: when an
> amateur does a CF experiment, it may actually produce tiny nuclear effects,
> so small they are nearly impossible to measure.
How do you define "amateur"?
> The excess heat is orders of
> magnitude too low for any calorimeter to detect. However, as it happens,
> people have lately had success detecting alpha particles from such tiny
> reactions with old fashioned CR-39 plastic detectors.
Alpha particles? From within an electrolytic cell?
Methinks another violation of current physical theory.
> > > Fission
> > > itself was not too difficult to reproduce, but fortunately fission bombs
> are
> > > extremely difficult to make.
> > Not too hard scientifically, just industrially.
> Perhaps it is not hard scientifically today, but it was extremely hard in
> 1944. Perhaps in 60 years CF will also be easy.
In 1944 Fermi had already created a fission chain reaction under the
stadium in Chicago in a simple stack of natural uranium and graphite.
The rest was "just engineering".
> > But if the success rate of the production of working alkaline
> > batteries equalled the success rate of deuterium fusion in palladium
> > experiments then alkaline cells would be extremely costly if they
> > were manufactured at all.
> Right. And the first prototypes alkaline cells did cost a fortune. So did
> the first transistors, the first light bulbs, the prototype fuel cell cars
> now buzzing around Japan, and so on.
The first cell's using the chemistry of an alkaline cell were more
like Volta's original battery.
But where is the first prototype deuterium in palladium fusion cell?
Not one that only works in the hands of an expert, no one that
could be the basis of a new industry?
But I would settle for a "Volta" type demonstration.
> > >Not "considerable" but fantastic -- they take a crack team of experts
> > > with hundreds of man years of training.
> > The first batteries were a couple of pieces of metal in a container
> > of acid. The basic principle is easy. Industrial scale production is
> > what is hard.
> That was true of the first batteries circa 1780, but today's advanced
> batteries, especially the ones use in things like pacemakers, are very
> complex and could not be reproduced by amateurs. For that matter, a few CF
> experiments with things like CR-39 that probably always work, as I said.
Where is the simple CF cell that has even the crudity of Volta's battery
that can be demonstrated to anyone on demand?
Lethal uclear fission can be and has been achieved by accidentally
dropping one piece of uranium onto another.
> > ? All modern high tech devices and
> > > processes require tight control over material purity, and specially
> chosen
> > > "good material."
> > No. Not at the basic scientific demonstration level.
>
> Yes, even at the basic scientific demonstration level.
Where can I go to see a working demonstration of deuterium fusion
in palladium on demand?
> You cannot make a
> transistor work at all unless you have highly pure Ge and later Si material.
> You can buy that material off the shelf today, but in 1952 when people were
> still figuring out how to make it, you had to be an expert, and you had to
> make it yourself.
I think some of the early transistors are still around today and still
operate.
So where is the analogue for deuterium in palladium fusion.
...
> > > The purity and material choices used to make palladium
> > > catalytic converters are very similar to those recommended for making CF
> > > devices.
> > If this is all that is required then why cannot I buy a guaranteed to
> > work deuterium in palladium fusion kit from Edmund Scientific as I can
> > buy a high temperature superconductivity kit?
> Because the details have not all been worked out yet, the material costs a
> small fortune, and the catalytic converter company and others that make CF
> Pd only give it to qualified experimenters who have loads of equipment and
> who know how to perform the experiment.
What? You have to be in the inner circle to buy suitable Pd?
> > > I am not misreading the history of science. I am saying that scientists
> have
> > > often failed to understand a fundamental principle: that experiments
> must
> > > always overrule theory.
> > That is not a fundamental principle.
> Oh yes it is! Experiment must be the final arbiter of any claim, or no
> dispute will ever be settled.
Science is experiment and theory working together.
The results of an experiment are always tempered by theory or else
we would still think that heavier objects fall faster because some
prehistoric man say a rock falling faster than a feather.
Yes the rock hits the ground before the feather, but that does
not prove that heavier objects fall faster.
Yes, some experimenters got unusual results from electolytic cells
using D & Pd, but that does not prove that the effect is nuclear.
> > > You are correct when you say "it takes an
> > > extraordinary level of confirmation to successfully challenge theory,"
> but I
> > > say it should not.
> > Yes it should. Otherwise science would be diluted by psychics and
> > astrologers and every manner of crackpout.
> The claims of astrologer can easily be tested by ordinary means.
Astrologers claims are generally so vague that they cannot be
disproven.
> > > One experiment replicated five times at a high signal to
> > > noise level should suffice.
> > By different experimenters?
> Yes, right. Independent replications.
Replications. Same type of apparatus, same results.
From what I have seen each D&Pd experimenter has his own
setup.
> > Can the method of producing the
> > effect be written down on paper in enough detail so that anyone
> > can read the experimental description and produce the effect.
> Yes, but not one piece of paper.
Paper is a collective noun. I didn't mean to imply a single page.
> > The fact that scientists are human is why the evidence so far
> > offered by advocates of fusion in palladium with a paucity of neutrons
> > is not sufficient to gain this phenomena acceptance. It is just too
> > easy for researchers to fool themselves. (See Blondlot and N rays)
> No, isn't easy. N-Rays are excellent example. See the Sci. Am. article about
> them. Only a handful of people ever thought they saw N-Rays, and the s/n
> ratio was supposedly very low. If large numbers of experimentalists could
> mistakenly see effects with large s/n ratios, then the experimental method
> itself would not work. People are evolved to survive by correctly perceiving
> sight and sound. Dysfunctional behavior, delusion and so on can occur, but
> not in large numbers of people, in normal, everyday behaviors (outside of
> politics or war).
This makes absolute no sense relevant to the discussion here.
.....
> > > .... When large numbers of scientists actually, honestly believe it
> > > should take "extraordinary proof" to overturn theory, science is at a
> low
> > > ebb, and badly in need of reform.
> > Then science has been at a low ebb since its inception.
> No, that idea was introduced by Carl Sagan a few years before he died.
Doesn't matter who said it. It does take extraordinary proof to
overthrow theory.
It is
> absurd. All traditional philosophers of science have held that the scales
> must be equal, judgment must be impartial, ...
Then you have never read Popper or Kuhn.
.....
> > > Nonsense. They prove that CF experiments change atomic nuclei.
> > Are these experiments replicated by different experimenters?
> > Can instructions be written down ....?
> If they were not written down, how would I know about them? By ESP? That is
> a very strange comment. Do you think I have traveled to every lab, and
> learned what I know by word of mouth alone?
So why has not some company taken these instructions and produced
a profitable device?
> > > > They can quite rationally question whether the human-chosen
> > > > experimental setup eliminated possible extraneous factors.
> > > Not unless they can point to a plausible problem with the setup.
> > There is lots that is plausibly wrong. People who are skilled
> > in electrochemistry question aspects of the chemical set up.
> Which people? In what publication? I do not know of any such people. Unless
> you can point them out and give me the titles of the papers they have
> written, I have no reason to believe you.
Mostly people here on spf. Not sure if spf counts as publication or not.
> > As you say I am not expert so I have to take them at their word.
> If you are not expert enough to evaluate the papers by these people, then
> you have no business forming any opinion.
Then since you have no knowledge of nuclear physics you have no business
asserting that the results of the D&Pd experiments are due to nuclear
phenomena.
....
> > But these sorts of things have been debated for years on SPF
> Don't be ridiculous! The "debates" on SPF would not survive peer-review for
> five minutes at any respectable journal.
They why are you arguing in this forum?
....
> > [And Storms' "How to produce the Pons-Fleischmann effect" is not
> > such a set of instructions]
> > Better yet a demonstration device that can be tested and vetted.
> If you would like to pay for such a thing, I would be happy to arrange it.
> Last time it took $5 million at Utah's National Cold Fusion Institute. The
> demonstrations were totally convincing -- in a sane world they would have
> convinced every scientist alive. You might be able to do it for less than $5
> million.
If I paid that much money, and said that on say on some day next October
I would arrive and expect to see a working demonstration producing
excess heat, could this be done?
....
> > >If we had demanded this in the past, we would still
> > > be living in trees, since nearly every profession requires skill, and
> years
> > > of training.
> > Are you saying that everyone who tried to see what happened when
> > deuterium was electrolytically loaded into palladium and failed
> > to find excess heat did not have any training or skill
> > in electrochemistry?
> Clearly they did not have sufficient training!
You only have sufficient training if you can make a D&Pd cell work?
Sounds like circular reasoning to me!
....As Storms says, doing a CF experiment
> blindly is like trying to make a transistor out gravel you pick up from your
> driveway.
Instructions can be written down on paper (reams of it) about
how to make a transistor from driveway gravel!
Tom Clarke
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: "Jed Rothwell" wrote:
:> And in CF we have excess with s/n ratios of 90:1, as I said, QED. It is as
:> definitive as a DNA test.
: So where is the cell operating right now for all the world to see
: and evaluate?
: Or where are the definitive instructions allowing anyone to make one?
More to the point: what Mr. Rothwell consistently refuses to understand
is that "s/n" is only part of what makes a measurement significant. It
is possible to measure an artifact with an extremely high S/N ratio. In
fact, it is possible to measure an artifact with an extremely low statistical
probability. I know that particle physicists are fond of claiming that
their result is n sigmas away from chance, where n is some absurd number
like 12 (which shows that many physicists don't know much about statistics
either, but that's another story). I remember reading a news article about
a retraction of such a result (I think that that one only claimed 6 sigmas).
If what you're measuring is an artifact, then it doesn't matter how good
your S/N ratio is, or how unlikely it is to be a chance effect. Indeed,
one favorite blind alley (not just in physics) is to spend a lot of time
figuring out how to get the best "signal" for what turns out to have been
a mistake.
:> Yes, right. Independent replications.
:
: Replications. Same type of apparatus, same results.
: From what I have seen each D&Pd experimenter has his own
: setup.
That's the other thing that Mr. Rothwell routinely refuses to understand:
that if two researchers obtain *different* anomalous results after putting
D in Pd, the second one has *not* "reproduced" or "confirmed" the results
of the first one. One common thread going through all of the claims of
the TBs is their inability to recognize that if two experiments give
mutually inconsistent results, then the two experiments cannot simultaneously
be used to claim the existence of the same effect.
:> No, that idea was introduced by Carl Sagan a few years before he died.
:
: Doesn't matter who said it. It does take extraordinary proof to
: overthrow theory.
It also wasn't introduced by Carl Sagan, although he was one of the
people (along with Martin Gardner) who was fond of quoting it.
Jed Rothwell
> So where is the sheep, er reliably heat producing cell that can be
> inspected by anyone and seen to manifestly be producing "massive" heat?
They are produced at various times in laboratories working on CF, usually 5
or 6 times a year. You can contact the labs and ask when it would be
convenient to visit. However, as Bockris said, "these things usually turn on
at 3:00 a.m. the morning after the visitor leaves."
> > energy production at a high s/n ratio is all that is needed to verify
the
> > effect, and that has been seen in hundreds of tests, in many different
labs,
> > using different instrument types.
>
> And it has failed in how many?
The number of failures is NOT relevant. Sheep cloning failed more than 200
times before it worked, and it still fails more often that it works, but no
one claims it does not exist for that reason. The success rate for the early
transistors was less than 10%, and many of the ones that did work abruptly
failed after a few hours, for unknown reasons.
> The effect is just not reliably reproducible so far as I can tell.
You cannot tell very far. Like cloning or the early transistors, it is
difficult and time consuming to reproduce, and you may have to try many
times, but it can be reproduced.
> Why is that onus on me? I am not making extraordinary claims.
As you know, I do not accept that philosophy. I think the onus is everyone,
equally shared, whether they support or oppose a position. Whether it is the
majority, conventional position or a controversial one makes no difference.
> > Otherwise, I have no reason to take your views seriously.
>
> Feel free. Absent a reliable demonstration, I have no reason
> to take claims of fusion in palladium seriously.
Reliability has nothing to do with believability. There was no "reliable"
demonstration of airplanes in 1909 -- most of the time they did not get off
the ground. There were no reliable rockets in 1956; most of them blew up on
the launch pad. There were no reliable demonstrations of transistors in
1954. The devices used to stop working "whenever someone slammed the door
shut." There is no such thing as reliable cloning today; most of the time it
fails.
> [regarding top quark experiments]
> > I understand that. Fortunately, that is not the case with CF. In many CF
> > experiments the data was not a bit noisy.
>
> You don't understand that experiments that fail to produce the purported
> fusion in palladium effect are as important as the comparitively few
> that appear to produce anomalous heat.
I understand that perfectly well. In fact, in a paper I am editing, I just
wrote a revised sentence: "Although skeptics often point to failures to
reject the process out of hand, actually a failure in one lab seldom casts
doubt on the work in another, unless the two use exactly the same
instruments and techniques. Failure can be just as useful as success in
revealing how a process works." We know why the well documented failures
failed. The reasons are now clear.
You seem to be suggesting that we can establish the existence or
non-existence of a phenomenon by vote -- by tallying up experiments that
worked and did not work. That's absurd. By that standard, cloning is
impossible, since most attempts fail, and most people who try to replicate
it fail. Also by that standard, the Wrights did not fly in 1903. Despite
numerous attempts, no one had been able to replicate them five years later.
> The noise I am speaking of is the difficulty of producing the effect.
> This you agree with, I believe.
This is not "noise" in the scientific or engineering sense. It has nothing
to do with noise. It is the success rate, or a measure of difficulty.
> So where is the cell operating right now for all the world to see
> and evaluate?
The last one I saw was in Hokkaido.
> Or where are the definitive instructions allowing anyone to make one?
There are no definitive instructions yet. That will be the end result of the
research, not the beginning. There were no definitive instructions for
making transistors until around 1960, which is why the failure rate was so
high and the device remained more expensive than vacuum tubes.
> Where is one other than in the labs of non-skeptics as you might term
them?
Any honest scientist who sees the effect will believe it exists. That is the
imperative of experimental science. Therefore, in all labs in which it has
been reproduced at a high s/n ratio, the scientists are "believers" as you
might term them.
> So even if there is a real effect it is not very useful because an
> expert can only make it happen once after months of trying?
Right. It is not useful now. That was also true of incandescent light bulbs
in 1879 and transistors between 1948 and 1952. After a great deal more work,
the experts may learn to make it happen with production line models, a
million times a day.
> > Therefore, I would
> > conclude that most of these other 900 people (or whatever the number may
be)
> > were not skilled in the art,
>
> You have no basis for this conclusion.
I do. You will have to read Storms, Miles and others to see why I say that.
> > You will have to be more specific. Nothing you have said here convinces
me
> > that you have read the literature, or that you have any specific
knowledge
> > of the research. If you know of errors in the work I suggest you write
paper
> > describing them. You do not get a free pass.
>
> I have read several papers.
Which ones?
If you want me to believe you have good reasons to doubt these papers, you
will have to write a coherent, rigorous critique of them, and subject it to
peer review. So far you have not listed any specific, technical reasons that
call into question any papers. In fact, you have not mentioned a single
paper by author or title, so I have no idea why you doubt any of this work,
or which experiments you are talking about. There are many poorly done CF
experiments which I do not believe. If these are the ones you have in mind,
we agree, but that has no bearing on the good experiments.
> The claimers of extraordinary results that contradict accepted theory
> do not get a free pass either.
Right. They have to do good experiments and write good papers. I say they
have done so. I have written reviews and summaries of these papers
describing -- in detail -- the technical reasons why I think these papers
are correct. See my review of McKubre, for example, at LENR-CANR.org. If you
think McKubre is incorrect you will have to make the same kind of effort to
convince me.
> Which paper should I read that has convincing evidence?
All of the ones in LENR-CANR.org would be a good start, especially McKubre
and Miles. (Almost all of them -- we have some bad ones too, but it would be
fair for me to prejudice a reader.)
> If I use your example numbers, 992 try, only 92 succeed, that is a
> 1 to 10 signal to noise ratio.
That is NOT a signal to noise ratio! It is a success rate. As I said, the
s/n ratio of the DNA test confirming that Dolly was a clone was not 1:200.
> > > But you do judge, since you accept their statements.
>
> > No, I do not. I have no idea whether CF actually defies theory or
whether it
> > can be reconciled with present day theory.
>
> So you think Schwinger might be wrong?
I have no idea, as I said.
> > ....However, I am sure that CF is real and it
> > is a nuclear effect, so if it turns out to conflict with present day
theory
> > then theory is wrong.
>
> Why are you sure of this?
Simple logic: CF is definitely real. Theory X says it cannot be real.
Therefore theory X must be wrong. As I said, the fundamental, unvarying
bedrock principle of the scientific method is that experiments are the only
standard of proof. Replicated, high sigma experiments are truth -- by
definition. If we abandon that, and start picking and choosing what we will
believe based on theory, chaos must result. We will be back in the dark ages
circa 1400, when people had no idea how to separate true and false
assertions, assertions about nature could not be tested, and progress was
impossible. Aristotle claimed that women have fewer teeth than men. For
centuries, people assumed that was true. No doubt some of them wondered,
counted the number of teeth, and found out it was wrong. But direct
observation and experiment were not yet established as the standard of
truth, so the issue was not settled, and people went on believing nonsense.
If we now, in the 21st century, reject CF experimental data because of what
plasma fusion textbooks say, we will be no better than the people who
refused to count teeth.
> > No, it does not. You are confusing difficulty with s/n ratios.
>
> I am looking at the whole body of work on deuterium fusion in palladium
> as a grand experiment to determine whether or not the phenomenon exists.
> Just as above I look at the set of nations starting nuclear programs as
> a "meta-experiment" to see whether uranium fission bombs work.
This meta-experiment is nonsense. This cannot be the basis for judging the
reality of a claimed phenomenon, or we must conclude that airplanes did not
exist before 1908, which is preposterous.
> WHere could I go to see one. Not spend months at a lab waiting
> for something to happen, but walk in and see a working reaction>
Someone has to do months of work. If you happen to show up during the week
they actually test the devices you can see them.
> Alpha particles? From within an electrolytic cell?
> Methinks another violation of current physical theory.
Whether it is a violation or not is irrelevant. It has been observed in two
labs so far at a high s/n ratio.
If several labs independently confirm it, it must be true.
> But where is the first prototype deuterium in palladium fusion cell?
In in CF laboratory, obviously. Where else would it be?
> Not one that only works in the hands of an expert, no one that
> could be the basis of a new industry?
>
> But I would settle for a "Volta" type demonstration.
So would I, but such a thing is not possible. It was not possible to make a
transistor without 4 nines purity material doped at 0.6 ppt, which was darn
near impossible to make in 1952. It was nothing remotely like an experiment
that anyone can do at home. It was not possible to make an incandescent
light in 1879 either, unless you had a hugely expensive collection of the
best vacuum pumps and other equipment on earth. A few years later you could
buy the finished product. If they ever iron out the kinks in CF, you will be
able to buy one and watch it work, but you will NEVER be able to make one
from scratch. I'll bet you cannot make an incandescent light, either. It is
much harder than it looks.
> Where is the simple CF cell that has even the crudity of Volta's battery
> that can be demonstrated to anyone on demand?
There is nothing simple or crude about CF, or transistors, or any other 20th
century materials science breakthrough.
> Lethal uclear fission can be and has been achieved by accidentally
> dropping one piece of uranium onto another.
Purifying that uranium, and the isotope separation, required a gigantic
factory and hundreds of man years of intellectual effort by some of the
smartest people on earth. If you lump together ordinary uranium samples,
nothing happens.
> Where can I go to see a working demonstration of deuterium fusion
> in palladium on demand?
To a lab, obviously.
> > Because the details have not all been worked out yet, the material costs
a
> > small fortune, and the catalytic converter company and others that make
CF
> > Pd only give it to qualified experimenters who have loads of equipment
and
> > who know how to perform the experiment.
>
> What? You have to be in the inner circle to buy suitable Pd?
No, you have to be an experimenter if you want them give you the Pd for
free. If you would like to buy some the minimum order is $30,000, I think,
from Johnson Matthey and some other suppliers. You might find replacement
parts for a hydrogen purifier that would suitable. If you can persuade Joint
Chiefs of Staff, they might allow the NRL in Washington to make a new batch,
but that seems like a long shot.
> > Oh yes it is! Experiment must be the final arbiter of any claim, or no
> > dispute will ever be settled.
>
> Science is experiment and theory working together.
> The results of an experiment are always tempered by theory . . .
In some sense, perhaps, in subtle cases. But if a theory says that alpha
particles cannot emerge from Pd at room temperature, and the detectors all
show they are emerging, the theory is wrong. If theory tells you a cell must
be stone cold, but the surface temperature is well above 100 deg C, that
theory is wrong. CF results are not subtle or disputable, and neither small
nor fleeting.
> Yes, some experimenters got unusual results from electolytic cells
> using D & Pd, but that does not prove that the effect is nuclear.
Tritium, transmutations and excess heat orders of magnitude beyond the limit
of chemistry prove the effect is nuclear. There are no ifs, ands or buts,
and no subtlety whatever.
> > The claims of astrologer can easily be tested by ordinary means.
>
> Astrologers claims are generally so vague that they cannot be
> disproven.
You can pay one to make specific predictions about your own private life,
and you can compare these predictions to the actual outcome. People have
done this many times, and determined that astrology is no better than random
guessing.
> > > > One experiment replicated five times at a high signal to
> > > > noise level should suffice.
>
> > > By different experimenters?
>
> > Yes, right. Independent replications.
>
> Replications. Same type of apparatus, same results.
> From what I have seen each D&Pd experimenter has his own
> setup.
Then you have not seen much. I suggest you read the literature before
commenting on it. In any case, if they were all to use exactly the same
apparatus in every experiment, skeptics would say there may be a systematic
error -- and the skeptics would be right, for once. It is essential to use
different instrument types. That is why, for example, some experimenters use
two different kinds of calorimeter and four different mass spectrometer
types to verify a result.
> It is
> > absurd. All traditional philosophers of science have held that the
scales
> > must be equal, judgment must be impartial, ...
>
> Then you have never read Popper or Kuhn.
I do not think Kuhn meant to endorse the blockheaded foolish blindness he
described! He was saying that scientists are sometimes dysfunctional, not
that they should be.
> > If they were not written down, how would I know about them? By ESP? That
is
> > a very strange comment. Do you think I have traveled to every lab, and
> > learned what I know by word of mouth alone?
>
> So why has not some company taken these instructions and produced
> a profitable device?
Why were there no profitable airliners in 1909? Why has no one set up a 500
km long high temperature superconducting power line? Why are there no
commercial flights to the moon?
> > Which people? In what publication? I do not know of any such people.
Unless
> > you can point them out and give me the titles of the papers they have
> > written, I have no reason to believe you.
>
> Mostly people here on spf. Not sure if spf counts as publication or not.
I assure you it does not!
> > If you are not expert enough to evaluate the papers by these people,
then
> > you have no business forming any opinion.
>
> Then since you have no knowledge of nuclear physics you have no business
> asserting that the results of the D&Pd experiments are due to nuclear
> phenomena.
Who said I have "no knowledge"? I have some knowledge, and you can confirm
that by reading the articles and papers I have written and translated. I
know what isotopes are, what the natural isotopic ratio is, and I know how
mass spectrometers of various different types work. I took midlevel
undergraduate physics at Cornell, and did reasonably well as I recall. I
understand the difference between a chemical reaction and a nuclear
reaction. It is very clear to me why a reaction that produces hundreds of
megajoules from a few grams of fuel cannot be chemical. If it is not clear
to you, you need a remedial course in basic chemistry, electron bonds and
some other fundamentals.
Just because I cannot follow theory papers by Schwinger or Hagelstein does
not mean I know nothing, and can judge nothing. There are degrees of
understanding.
> > Don't be ridiculous! The "debates" on SPF would not survive peer-review
for
> > five minutes at any respectable journal.
>
> They why are you arguing in this forum?
It is good practice. I am writing a book for the general public.
> > If you would like to pay for such a thing, I would be happy to arrange
it.
> > Last time it took $5 million at Utah's National Cold Fusion Institute.
The
> > demonstrations were totally convincing -- in a sane world they would
have
> > convinced every scientist alive. You might be able to do it for less
than $5
> > million.
>
> If I paid that much money, and said that on say on some day next October
> I would arrive and expect to see a working demonstration producing
> excess heat, could this be done?
Probably. You might have to stay for a week or two extra. That has been my
experience observing experiments. Things seldom happen exactly on schedule.
It is like going to Florida to watch a Space Shuttle launch.
The people at Mitsubishi paid a lot more than that, probably $10 or $20
million. (I really cannot judge, but the clean room alone supposedly costs
$10 million.) Their experiments go like clockwork. They have been doing 5 or
6 runs per year since the early 1990s, and after they mastered the
techniques around 1996 virtually every run has produced strong, positive
results, according to their data tables. (I asked -- they list all runs.)
That's what tons of money and talent buys.
> > > Are you saying that everyone who tried to see what happened when
> > > deuterium was electrolytically loaded into palladium and failed
> > > to find excess heat did not have any training or skill
> > > in electrochemistry?
>
> > Clearly they did not have sufficient training!
>
> You only have sufficient training if you can make a D&Pd cell work?
> Sounds like circular reasoning to me!
No, it is common sense, and what anyone in any skilled profession would
expect. An expert surgeon does not have the skill to do a revolutionary new
procedure on people until he has practiced on other animals. An
electrochemist cannot do the "most difficult" experiment Oriani has ever
tried until he practices a few months. A top-notch computer programmer does
not master a new language overnight. If anyone could master CF in a few
days, it would have been replicated ten thousand times and there would be no
controversy. Unfortunately, it is more difficult than that. Not as difficult
as a tokamak or top quark machine, fortunately.
- Jed
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: Tom Clarke writes:
:> So where is the sheep, er reliably heat producing cell that can be
:> inspected by anyone and seen to manifestly be producing "massive" heat?
:
: They are produced at various times in laboratories working on CF, usually 5
: or 6 times a year. You can contact the labs and ask when it would be
: convenient to visit. However, as Bockris said, "these things usually turn on
: at 3:00 a.m. the morning after the visitor leaves."
This is a definition of "reliable" with which I was previously unfamiliar.
: There were no reliable rockets in 1956; most of them blew up on
: the launch pad.
Actually, most of them had blown up a decade previously in London (and
other locations in England).
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> So where is the sheep, er reliably heat producing cell that can be
>> inspected by anyone and seen to manifestly be producing "massive" heat?
>..., as Bockris said, "these things usually turn on
>at 3:00 a.m. the morning after the visitor leaves."
Then the visitor should be forgiven for being skeptical.
.....
>The number of failures is NOT relevant. Sheep cloning failed more than 200
>times before it worked, and it still fails more often that it works, but no
>one claims it does not exist for that reason.
Sheep are different. Once a sheep has been cloned it stays cloned for
several years (maybe it's lifespan is less, jury is out on that).
But these D&Pd apparatuses only work sporadically according to
the accounts of those who can make them work.
....
>> The effect is just not reliably reproducible so far as I can tell.
>You cannot tell very far. Like cloning or the early transistors, it is
>difficult and time consuming to reproduce, and you may have to try many
>times, but it can be reproduced.
So far as I can tell, there are odd phenomena that occur in D&Pd electroyltic
cells and those who do extensive experimentation with such cells encounter
such phenomena on occasion.
.....
>> Why is that onus on me? I am not making extraordinary claims.
>As you know, I do not accept that philosophy.
Then you are outside the mainstream of science.
....
>> > Otherwise, I have no reason to take your views seriously.
>> Feel free. Absent a reliable demonstration, I have no reason
>> to take claims of fusion in palladium seriously.
>Reliability has nothing to do with believability.
Not to you apparently.
>There was no "reliable" demonstration of airplanes in 1909
How many times did the Wright Flyer fly in December 1903?
How many times did similar aircraft fly in front of observers in the
next 6 years? - More than a few.
> There were no reliable rockets in 1956;
Tell that to the Londoners in WWII who had V2's falling on them.
I'd settle for the D&Pd equivalent of a balsa wood airplane
powered by a rubber band. Wind it up and it flies.
I don't need a 747.
>> [regarding top quark experiments]
>> > I understand that. Fortunately, that is not the case with CF. In many CF
>> > experiments the data was not a bit noisy.
...
>> You don't understand that experiments that fail to produce the purported
>> fusion in palladium effect are as important as the comparitively few
>> that appear to produce anomalous heat.
>I understand that perfectly well. In fact, in a paper I am editing, I just
>wrote a revised sentence: "Although skeptics often point to failures to
>reject the process out of hand, actually a failure in one lab seldom casts
>doubt on the work in another, unless the two use exactly the same
>instruments and techniques. Failure can be just as useful as success in
>revealing how a process works." We know why the well documented failures
>failed. The reasons are now clear.
So why haven't the reasons been eliminated to produce a reliable
demonstration?
>You seem to be suggesting that we can establish the existence or
>non-existence of a phenomenon by vote -- by tallying up experiments that
>worked and did not work.
That is in essence what statistical analysis does.
>That's absurd. By that standard, cloning is
>impossible, since most attempts fail, and most people who try to replicate
>it fail. Also by that standard, the Wrights did not fly in 1903. Despite
>numerous attempts, no one had been able to replicate them five years later.
[Incidentally Alberto Santos-Dumont flew in Europe in 1906]
One reliable working example would silence all skeptics just
as one cloned sheep has. Just as one flying aircraft silenced skeptics.
It is as if the cloners were at the level of embryos that spontaneously
aborted after a few days and this only happened occassionally after
weeks of worked by skilled people. From this sort of evidence
>> The noise I am speaking of is the difficulty of producing the effect.
>> This you agree with, I believe.
>This is not "noise" in the scientific or engineering sense. It has nothing
>to do with noise. It is the success rate, or a measure of difficulty.
From my point of view, the point of view of someone who is not sure whether
D&Pd fusion exists or not, the signal is precisely the successes, and the noise
the failures.
>> So where is the cell operating right now for all the world to see
>> and evaluate?
>The last one I saw was in Hokkaido.
Is it running now? Could it be started up for a visitor?
>> Or where are the definitive instructions allowing anyone to make one?
>There are no definitive instructions yet. That will be the end result of the
>research, not the beginning. There were no definitive instructions for
>making transistors until around 1960,
Uh. I believe alloy junction transistors were commercial in the 50's
See http://semiconductormuseum.com/Museum_Index.htm
There is a picture of a Raytheon CK722 dated 1956.
>which is why the failure rate was so
>high and the device remained more expensive than vacuum tubes.
Not for long. I just bought several million the other day for a few bucks.
>> Where is one other than in the labs of non-skeptics as you might term
>them?
>Any honest scientist who sees the effect will believe it exists. That is the
>imperative of experimental science.
I believe that rocks fall faster than feathers. I see this. But this does not
mean that I have to agree that heavier objects fall faster than light ones.
> Therefore, in all labs in which it has
>been reproduced at a high s/n ratio, the scientists are "believers" as you
>might term them.
I shall use the term "believers" for short.
Is there any lab a skeptic can go to observe the effect reliably?
....
>> So even if there is a real effect it is not very useful because an
>> expert can only make it happen once after months of trying?
>Right. It is not useful now. That was also true of incandescent light bulbs
>in 1879 and transistors between 1948 and 1952. After a great deal more work,
>the experts may learn to make it happen with production line models, a
>million times a day.
No debate about that.
But if lightbulbs had only worked for believers, then Edison would have
never gotten the funding to engineer production etc. Ditto everything else.
.....
>> > Therefore, I would
>> > conclude that most of these other 900 people (or whatever the number may
>be)
>> > were not skilled in the art,
>> You have no basis for this conclusion.
>I do. You will have to read Storms, Miles and others to see why I say that.
I have read Storms and Miles. Not all of course. I'm not sure which of their
opus you mean.
In any case you do not know the qualifications of every one of the
900 or so who failed.
>> I have read several papers.
>Which ones?
This is usenet. It was a few years ago and right now I don't want to
go refresh my memory. I have certainly read the Storms paper on
"how to" and the original accounts of Pons and Fleishman as well
as the LANL plasma work. I can't recall the title of the Miles paper
I read.
>If you want me to believe you have good reasons to doubt these papers, you
>will have to write a coherent, rigorous critique of them,
This is so bogus.
I don't believe in miracles. Do I have to critique the documentation
of the reported miracles of the saints?
>..... There are many poorly done CF
>experiments which I do not believe. If these are the ones you have in mind,
>we agree, but that has no bearing on the good experiments.
So which are the good ones in your opinion?
.....
>> The claimers of extraordinary results that contradict accepted theory
>> do not get a free pass either.
>Right. They have to do good experiments and write good papers. I say they
>have done so.
So pick your all time favorite best D&Pd fusion paper and I'll read it
and tell you if I see gaps.
>. See my review of McKubre, for example, at LENR-CANR.org. If you
>think McKubre is incorrect you will have to make the same kind of effort to
>convince me.
The site doesn't have a search feature that I can find.
Can you provide a direct URL?
>> Which paper should I read that has convincing evidence?
>All of the ones in LENR-CANR.org would be a good start, especially McKubre
>and Miles. (Almost all of them -- we have some bad ones too, but it would be
>fair for me to prejudice a reader.)
Sure it would be fair. What is the good D&Pd fusion work in the
eyes of believers?
>> If I use your example numbers, 992 try, only 92 succeed, that is a
>> 1 to 10 signal to noise ratio.
>That is NOT a signal to noise ratio! It is a success rate. As I said, the
>s/n ratio of the DNA test confirming that Dolly was a clone was not 1:200.
When the question is whether the phenomena of D&Pd fusion exists or
not it is the signal to noise ratio!
You are a believer, I am not.
>> > ....However, I am sure that CF is real and it
>> > is a nuclear effect, so if it turns out to conflict with present day
>theory
>> > then theory is wrong.
>> Why are you sure of this?
>Simple logic: CF is definitely real.
Well there you go. Assuming the conclusion. This is definitely a premise
you should question.
>Theory X says it cannot be real.
>Therefore theory X must be wrong.
Or D&Pd anomalies are - well - anomalies.
> As I said, the fundamental, unvarying
>bedrock principle of the scientific method is that experiments are the only
>standard of proof.
Science does need experiment. But experiments are interpreted in the light
of theory.
>Replicated, high sigma experiments are truth -- by definition.
So you agree that light bodies fall more slowly than heavy bodies?
>If we abandon that, and start picking and choosing what we will
>believe based on theory, chaos must result.
No science results from the chaotic argument and give and take about
the meaing of the experiments.
....
>> > No, it does not. You are confusing difficulty with s/n ratios.
>> I am looking at the whole body of work on deuterium fusion in palladium
>> as a grand experiment to determine whether or not the phenomenon exists.
>> Just as above I look at the set of nations starting nuclear programs as
>> a "meta-experiment" to see whether uranium fission bombs work.
>This meta-experiment is nonsense.
I disagree. It may be an unconventional way to express how science works,
but I think it is basically true.
....
>> WHere could I go to see one. Not spend months at a lab waiting
>> for something to happen, but walk in and see a working reaction>
>Someone has to do months of work. If you happen to show up during the week
>they actually test the devices you can see them.
And according to you the people doing the work are believers,
so believers are the only ones who get to see convincing demonstrations?
Too bad for D&Pd fusion. Skeptics will never be convinced except
by rare happenstance. No wonder the believers are dying off!
>> Alpha particles? From within an electrolytic cell?
>> Methinks another violation of current physical theory.
>Whether it is a violation or not is irrelevant. It has been observed in two
>labs so far at a high s/n ratio.
>If several labs independently confirm it, it must be true.
In the same experimental setup?
>> But where is the first prototype deuterium in palladium fusion cell?
>In in CF laboratory, obviously. Where else would it be?
Does it even exist there? A cell that could be engineered into
a production unit is what I had in mind.
>> Not one that only works in the hands of an expert, no one that
>> could be the basis of a new industry?
>> But I would settle for a "Volta" type demonstration.
>So would I, but such a thing is not possible.
Why? Two possible reasons:
1) phenomena does not exist
2) phenomena is very hard to reproduce
>It was not possible to make a
>transistor without 4 nines purity material doped at 0.6 ppt, which was darn
>near impossible to make in 1952.
[Actually first transistor was demonstrated in 1947]
>It was nothing remotely like an experiment
>that anyone can do at home.
CK722's were available commercially in 1956.
> It was not possible to make an incandescent
>light in 1879 either, unless you had a hugely expensive collection of the
>best vacuum pumps and other equipment on earth.
Nonsense. I made incandescent light as a child by shorting pieces of thin
copper wire across a battery terminal. The wire glowed - briefly.
Now a light that would last many hours - another story.
But I could demonstrate incandescent light upon demand with my wire
and my battery.
> If they ever iron out the kinks in CF, you will be
>able to buy one and watch it work, but you will NEVER be able to make one
>from scratch. I'll bet you cannot make an incandescent light, either. It is
>much harder than it looks.
Hey I already answered that one!
.....
>> Where is the simple CF cell that has even the crudity of Volta's battery
>> that can be demonstrated to anyone on demand?
>There is nothing simple or crude about CF, or transistors, or any other 20th
>century materials science breakthrough.
This sure looks kind of rube goldberg to me:
http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/images/transistor1.jpg
....
>> Lethal uclear fission can be and has been achieved by accidentally
>> dropping one piece of uranium onto another.
>Purifying that uranium, and the isotope separation, required a gigantic
>factory and hundreds of man years of intellectual effort by some of the
>smartest people on earth. If you lump together ordinary uranium samples,
>nothing happens.
If you lump them together in a big enough mass with graphite ....
>> Where can I go to see a working demonstration of deuterium fusion
>> in palladium on demand?
>To a lab, obviously.
Which lab? Are demos Wednesdays at 2PM?
....
>> What? You have to be in the inner circle to buy suitable Pd?
>No, you have to be an experimenter if you want them give you the Pd for
>free. If you would like to buy some the minimum order is $30,000, I think,
>from Johnson Matthey and some other suppliers. You might find replacement
>parts for a hydrogen purifier that would suitable. If you can persuade Joint
>Chiefs of Staff, they might allow the NRL in Washington to make a new batch,
>but that seems like a long shot.
This is that "special material" again?
99.98% palladium from Sigma-Aldrich [$159.40/2gm foil]
won't do?
.....
>> Science is experiment and theory working together.
>> The results of an experiment are always tempered by theory . . .
>In some sense, perhaps, in subtle cases. But if a theory says that alpha
>particles cannot emerge from Pd at room temperature, and the detectors all
>show they are emerging, the theory is wrong.
Or the experimenters are doing something wrong.
> If theory tells you a cell must
>be stone cold, but the surface temperature is well above 100 deg C, that
>theory is wrong. CF results are not subtle or disputable, and neither small
>nor fleeting.
They are subtle and fleeting apparently. They only seem to happen
"after the visitor leaves"
>> Yes, some experimenters got unusual results from electolytic cells
>> using D & Pd, but that does not prove that the effect is nuclear.
>Tritium, transmutations and excess heat orders of magnitude beyond the limit
>of chemistry prove the effect is nuclear. There are no ifs, ands or buts,
>and no subtlety whatever.
So the demonstration is Wednesday at 2PM?
....
>> Replications. Same type of apparatus, same results.
>> From what I have seen each D&Pd experimenter has his own
>> setup.
>Then you have not seen much. I suggest you read the literature before
>commenting on it. In any case, if they were all to use exactly the same
>apparatus in every experiment, skeptics would say there may be a systematic
>error -- and the skeptics would be right, for once.
So I take it that they do use different apparatus and set ups?
> It is essential to use different instrument types.
Brands would be a good idea. But it would be nice to see
the same results under same conditions reliably reproduced.
.....
>> It is
>> > absurd. All traditional philosophers of science have held that the
>scales
>> > must be equal, judgment must be impartial, ...
>> Then you have never read Popper or Kuhn.
>I do not think Kuhn meant to endorse the blockheaded foolish blindness he
>described! He was saying that scientists are sometimes dysfunctional, not
>that they should be.
So you didn't understand Kuhn, then?
Popper?
>> > If they were not written down, how would I know about them? By ESP? That
>is
>> > a very strange comment. Do you think I have traveled to every lab, and
>> > learned what I know by word of mouth alone?
>> So why has not some company taken these instructions and produced
>> a profitable device?
>Why were there no profitable airliners in 1909? Why has no one set up a 500
>km long high temperature superconducting power line? Why are there no
>commercial flights to the moon?
There are superconducting power lines, there have been flights to the
moon. Bleriot crossed the English channel in 1909 which really caught
the interest of governments!
>> > If you are not expert enough to evaluate the papers by these people,
>then
>> > you have no business forming any opinion.
>> Then since you have no knowledge of nuclear physics you have no business
>> asserting that the results of the D&Pd experiments are due to nuclear
>> phenomena.
>Who said I have "no knowledge"?
Essentially you did. In your various denials about being an expert on this
or that, on being able to judge Schwinger's work etc.
......
>Just because I cannot follow theory papers by Schwinger or Hagelstein does
>not mean I know nothing, and can judge nothing. There are degrees of
>understanding.
Good to hear it.
......
>> > If you would like to pay for such a thing, I would be happy to arrange
>it.
>> > Last time it took $5 million at Utah's National Cold Fusion Institute.
>The
>> > demonstrations were totally convincing -- in a sane world they would
>have
>> > convinced every scientist alive. You might be able to do it for less
>than $5
>> > million.
>> If I paid that much money, and said that on say on some day next October
>> I would arrive and expect to see a working demonstration producing
>> excess heat, could this be done?
>Probably. You might have to stay for a week or two extra.
Probably? You'll have to do better than that to get my $5 mil.
The two week window would probably be tolerable.
>That has been my
>experience observing experiments. Things seldom happen exactly on schedule.
>It is like going to Florida to watch a Space Shuttle launch.
Lordy, I hope D&Pd fusion, if it exists, takes less effort than a shuttle launch!
>The people at Mitsubishi paid a lot more than that, probably $10 or $20
>million. (I really cannot judge, but the clean room alone supposedly costs
>$10 million.) Their experiments go like clockwork. They have been doing 5 or
>6 runs per year since the early 1990s, and after they mastered the
>techniques around 1996 virtually every run has produced strong, positive
>results, according to their data tables. (I asked -- they list all runs.)
>That's what tons of money and talent buys.
Are their papers/reports accessible?
.....
>> You only have sufficient training if you can make a D&Pd cell work?
>> Sounds like circular reasoning to me!
>No, it is common sense, and what anyone in any skilled profession would
>expect. An expert surgeon does not have the skill to do a revolutionary new
>procedure on people until he has practiced on other animals.
To me it seems as if a new surgical procedure were at the stage where every
time the surgery is tried the patient dies before he/she can be interviewed by
the press. Where only some surgeons who "believe" in this surgical
procedure can even get the patient off the operating table alive.
Quite understandably in these circumstances most doctors would be
skeptical about the possibility of even performing the surgical
procedure in question.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> Sheep are different. Once a sheep has been cloned it stays cloned for
> several years (maybe it's lifespan is less, jury is out on that).
CF transmutations last forever. The Mitsubishi transmuted material is
verified in two different labs, in Japan and France, by outside experts.
Devices have run continuously at 250% output for up to 70 days. That is long
enough to verify the reaction.
> But these D&Pd apparatuses only work sporadically according to
> the accounts of those who can make them work.
Some are sporadic. Others, in other labs such as Mitsubishi, work every
time, and have been working for years.
> >You cannot tell very far. Like cloning or the early transistors, it is
> >difficult and time consuming to reproduce, and you may have to try many
> >times, but it can be reproduced.
>
> So far as I can tell, there are odd phenomena that occur in D&Pd
electroyltic
> cells and those who do extensive experimentation with such cells encounter
> such phenomena on occasion.
So far as you can "tell" from what? Based on what? If you believe that you
have obviously not read the literature, since your statement is incorrect.
Where do you get this information from? Are you making it up as you go
along? The reports from Mitsubishi, the Navy and the National Cold Fusion
Institute prove that you are wrong.
> How many times did the Wright Flyer fly in December 1903?
Four times. The machine was damaged by the forth flight, and it was turned
over and destroyed a short time after that by a gust of wind.
> How many times did similar aircraft fly in front of observers in the
> next 6 years? - More than a few.
As far as I know, they flew in front of observers approximately ten times
before 1908. They kept a list of people who observed the flights, and some
affidavits. The list included 60 people by the end of 1905, when they
stopped flying for two years. (Kelly, p. 145). The success rate was
extremely low. In the first six months of 1904, for example, they attempted
12 flights. These failed disastrously 11 times, almost killing the pilot
(Orville) in one case. The 12th flight barely got off the ground and it was
only 300 feet. There were a total of 105 flights in 1904, but most were very
short (a few hundred feet). The longest was December 1: 5 minutes, 8
seconds, 4514 meters. Total flight time for the years was 45 minutes.
(Combs, p. 241, 242).
The 1905 flights were much better. There were fewer flights, but they stayed
aloft 39 minutes in one case, and 33 minutes in another. Still, if you had
gone to Dayton hoping to see a flight, on most days you would have been
disappointed, because the machines failed more often than they worked. There
were no flight in 1906 or 1907. In May 1908 they flew, and then again in
August.
> I'd settle for the D&Pd equivalent of a balsa wood airplane
> powered by a rubber band. Wind it up and it flies.
> I don't need a 747.
You might be able to make that with CR-39, as I said. But you are ignoring
the fact that some devices are more complicated that others. In 1879 you
might have desired a simple, do-it-yourself lightbulb, but there was no such
thing, and there never has been such a thing. Incandescent lights are high
tech devices. Back then required the best vacuum pumps available, the most
advance fabrication techniques and so on. Even now it would be a challenge
to make one from scratch in a university laboratory. There has never been
any such thing as a "do-it-yourself" balsa wood style transistor. All
transistors have always required 4-nines purity Ge or Si, with carefully
controlled doping. No one can make such a thing at home. Of course you can
buy the material, but for that matter, you can buy a fully make up Pentium
computer, even though you cannot make one yourself.
> >revealing how a process works." We know why the well documented failures
> >failed. The reasons are now clear.
>
> So why haven't the reasons been eliminated to produce a reliable
> demonstration?
Because there has not been enough money, manpower or time (man-years).
Progress has been remarkable considering how much there is to learn, and how
many questions must be answered.
> [Incidentally Alberto Santos-Dumont flew in Europe in 1906]
Not by the standards of the Wrights, he didn't. It was, as they said, an
uncontrolled hop. If he had tried doing it again a few more times he would
have been killed. People made uncontrolled hops long before the Wrights.
That isn't flying.
> One reliable working example would silence all skeptics just
> as one cloned sheep has. Just as one flying aircraft silenced skeptics.
That is incorrect. The Wrights flew dozens of times, they circulated
affidavits signed by leading citizens of Dayton, they circulated
photographs, a 1906 patent showing the full details of the machine was in
the public domain, but virtually no one believed them. The Scientific
American, most other journals, and every major newspaper and journal
attacked them as frauds and liars until August 1908. Most scientists said
that flight is impossible. After Santos-Dumont and a few others partially
replicated, they said controlled flight is impossible. After the Wrights
flew in public, the skeptical scientists said that flying with more than one
person is impossible. A week later Wilbur flew with a passenger. The
skeptics said that flying was extremely dangerous and would never become
practical. It *was* dangerous. Wilbur crashed a few days later, killing his
passenger. In 1908, 1909 and 1910 approximately 1000 people flew, and 35
were killed. (Villard, p. 240, 243). As Anthony Fokker put it, "my memory is
one long obituary list." However, 24 years later, after millions of dollars
of intense R&D, reasonably safe airplanes were finally made.
In 1912, many years after the major newspapers proclaimed that flight is
real and Congress had issued the Wrights a medal, "skeptics" in small towns
and cities would threaten to tar and feather barnstorming pilots because
they were sure the claims were a lie, and no one could fly.
> It is as if the cloners were at the level of embryos that spontaneously
> aborted after a few days and this only happened occassionally after
> weeks of worked by skilled people. From this sort of evidence
That describes the actual situation. Most attempts to clone do not work at
all, and most that begin to develop abort, and this only happens
occasionally after weeks of work by skilled people. Successes are much rarer
than the 1904 Wright flights (1 in 10), or cold fusion (1 in 5 in some labs,
1 in 1 at others.)
> >> The noise I am speaking of is the difficulty of producing the effect.
> >> This you agree with, I believe.
>
> >This is not "noise" in the scientific or engineering sense. It has
nothing
> >to do with noise. It is the success rate, or a measure of difficulty.
>
> From my point of view, the point of view of someone who is not sure
whether
> D&Pd fusion exists or not, the signal is precisely the successes, and the
noise
> the failures.
Your point of view is unique. You have invented a new meaning to the term
"signal to noise ratio." I suggest you find another name for this, or stick
to the conventional name: the success rate.
> >> So where is the cell operating right now for all the world to see
> >> and evaluate?
>
> >The last one I saw was in Hokkaido.
>
> Is it running now? Could it be started up for a visitor?
I do not know whether it is running now. It probably could be started for a
visitor if you tell them you are coming a month in advance, although you can
never be sure how well it will work. Most of the time, you cannot tell much
about how well it worked until weeks later when they finish the mass
spectroscopy, since they are mainly looking for long-term transmuted
products, and they send the material to several different labs for analysis
with different mass spectrometer types.
> >There are no definitive instructions yet. That will be the end result of
the
> >research, not the beginning. There were no definitive instructions for
> >making transistors until around 1960,
>
> Uh. I believe alloy junction transistors were commercial in the 50's
> See http://semiconductormuseum.com/Museum_Index.htm
> There is a picture of a Raytheon CK722 dated 1956.
Yes, but the instructions for making them were not very reliable. In most
runs, for most types, the failure rate was high -- 50 to 100% in many cases.
That is why they remained so expensive.
> >which is why the failure rate was so
> >high and the device remained more expensive than vacuum tubes.
>
> Not for long. I just bought several million the other day for a few
bucks.
That was the end result of 78 years of research, starting in 1925, and
billions upon billions of dollars of research starting in 1952. More money
may have been spent semiconductors than any other technology in history. If
we spend a few billion on cold fusion it is likely we will make it as
reliable as oil or coal. One cannot be sure, naturally. Tokamak reactors
have not been perfected or made practical despite billions of dollars of
research.
> >> Where is one other than in the labs of non-skeptics as you might term
> >them?
>
> >Any honest scientist who sees the effect will believe it exists. That is
the
> >imperative of experimental science.
>
> I believe that rocks fall faster than feathers. I see this. But this does
not
> mean that I have to agree that heavier objects fall faster than light
ones.
Yes, some degree of theory is needed to evaluate experimental results. In
the case of cold fusion, we must refer to conventional thermodynamic theory
(conservation of energy), chemistry theory (electron bond), and what is
known about isotopes and atomic nuclei. Based on these theories, the
evidence from CF experiments proves overwhelming that a nuclear reaction is
occurring. That is what the cold fusion literature shows. If you disagree
you will have to write a paper that demonstrates these other papers are
wrong. Waving your hands and saying you disagree for unspecified reasons
does not count. It does not mean anything. Your unsupported opinion stated
without reference to any facts carries no weight.
> I shall use the term "believers" for short.
> Is there any lab a skeptic can go to observe the effect reliably?
Any lab where a cold fusion experiment is underway, assuming it works. I
have visited quite a number of them.
> >Right. It is not useful now. That was also true of incandescent light
bulbs
> >in 1879 and transistors between 1948 and 1952. After a great deal more
work,
> >the experts may learn to make it happen with production line models, a
> >million times a day.
>
> No debate about that.
> But if lightbulbs had only worked for believers, then Edison would have
> never gotten the funding to engineer production etc. Ditto everything
else.
As it happens, they usually did work only for Edison at first. In the early
days of production the factory ran for a week, and every one the bulbs was
defective and had to be trashed. Edison came, spent a week tweaking the
machinery, and it started working again. But CF works for anyone who is
sufficiently skilled in the art and lucky. As I said several times, it even
worked for the people at MIT, Harwell and Caltech in 1989, who denounced it
and rabidly attacked Pons and Fleischmann despite their success, and who
published fraudulent data to cover up that success. You can't ask for better
proof than that!
> I have read Storms and Miles. Not all of course. I'm not sure which of
their
> opus you mean.
I mean everything they have written. Read it all, again, carefully. Take
notes and look up the references. Buy some textbooks on calorimetry and
electrochemistry. If there is some aspect of the papers you do not
understand, ask the authors. If you disagree with their conclusions, write a
paper and send it to them. They will respond, I expect. They have spend
hours assisting me and many others I know.
I am telling you to spend 6 or 8 weeks of hard work on the subject. If you
do not wish that kind of effort, that's fine, but you have no business
discussing it or trying to judge it on any other basis. A great many other
people *do* find it worth their time to read these papers. They download
~2000 per week from our website. They must find it worthwhile; no one would
do that for fun. Certainly not me, and I had to type most of the text in all
120 papers on file, and translate or two 50 others and two books. It is
about as much fun as programming an accounting application in COBOL.
If you do not wish to make a serious, open minded, careful review of the
literature I encourage you to do nothing, and forget about the subject. A
little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
> >> I have read several papers.
>
> >Which ones?
>
> This is usenet. It was a few years ago and right now I don't want to
> go refresh my memory.
As far as I know, there were virtually no papers about CF on the Internet
until I started putting them there in August. Before that, it took me a year
to persuade the authors to give me permission, and it is still a lot like
pulling teeth.
> I have certainly read the Storms paper on
> "how to" and the original accounts of Pons and Fleischmann as well
> as the LANL plasma work.
Okay. So if you think you have found an error, write it up and send it to
Claytor. If you did not find an error, and you see that the results have
been replicated elsewhere, you must admit they are real, unless you are good
at doublethink.
> >If you want me to believe you have good reasons to doubt these papers,
you
> >will have to write a coherent, rigorous critique of them,
>
> This is so bogus.
Hard work and clear thinking are bogus?
> I don't believe in miracles. Do I have to critique the documentation
> of the reported miracles of the saints?
If it is replicated at LANL and Mitsubishi, you darn well should.
> >..... There are many poorly done CF
> >experiments which I do not believe. If these are the ones you have in
mind,
> >we agree, but that has no bearing on the good experiments.
>
> So which are the good ones in your opinion?
Most of the ones in the library. I do not spend time converting the bad
ones.
> >. See my review of McKubre, for example, at LENR-CANR.org. If you
> >think McKubre is incorrect you will have to make the same kind of effort
to
> >convince me.
>
> The site doesn't have a search feature that I can find.
> Can you provide a direct URL?
You are not very observant. The site includes four search features: by
author, all authors, category and publication. Look again. Go to the library
and click on R - Rothwell, and you will see my review, or M - McKubre to
read some of the original papers. There are thousands, but we have only 120.
Still, based on your comments so far, that sounds like 120 more than you
have read.
> >Simple logic: CF is definitely real.
>
> Well there you go. Assuming the conclusion.
That is incorrect. The scientific method proved the conclusion. From that,
the rest follows. If we later learn these is a genuine conflict with theory,
we will know that theory is wrong. That has not been established. In most
cases in which "skeptics" claim that X or Y effect is "against theory," such
as the maser, they were later proven wrong.
> >> Alpha particles? From within an electrolytic cell?
> >> Methinks another violation of current physical theory.
>
> >Whether it is a violation or not is irrelevant. It has been observed in
two
> >labs so far at a high s/n ratio.
> >If several labs independently confirm it, it must be true.
>
> In the same experimental setup?
See Oriani, 2002.
> >> But where is the first prototype deuterium in palladium fusion cell?
>
> >In in CF laboratory, obviously. Where else would it be?
>
> Does it even exist there? A cell that could be engineered into
> a production unit is what I had in mind.
I am not aware of any such thing. It would have no practical purpose, since
it operates at 1 atm and produces a watt or a fraction of watt of excess
heat at most.
> >It was not possible to make a
> >transistor without 4 nines purity material doped at 0.6 ppt, which was
darn
> >near impossible to make in 1952.
> [Actually first transistor was demonstrated in 1947]
But it was not easy to reproduce.
> >It was nothing remotely like an experiment
> >that anyone can do at home.
>
> CK722's were available commercially in 1956.
Obviously, if commercial CF units become available, you will be able to see
them. That will be the end results of billions of dollars of R&D. You can go
look at Boeing 747s too, but that does not mean you could make one in your
garage. Most of the objects in your house and office are far too complex for
you to make from scratch.
> > It was not possible to make an incandescent
> >light in 1879 either, unless you had a hugely expensive collection of the
> >best vacuum pumps and other equipment on earth.
>
> Nonsense. I made incandescent light as a child by shorting pieces of thin
> copper wire across a battery terminal.
That was an arc light, not an incandescent light. They were made in 1858, 20
years before Edison. They do not not have the essential characteristics of
the Edison light, such as high voltage -- the ability to operate
electrically in parallel. That was the key breakthrough.
> The wire glowed - briefly.
> Now a light that would last many hours - another story.
"Many hours" was not the issue. Long lasting arc lights were already
available. What they needed was a light that would not require all of the
copper in the world to serve one city.
> >There is nothing simple or crude about CF, or transistors, or any other
20th
> >century materials science breakthrough.
>
> This sure looks kind of rube goldberg to me:
> http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/images/transistor1.jpg
The outward appearance has nothing to do with it. The difficulty was to make
the materials and to understand them well enough to make it work. To the
naked eye, cold fusion cathodes look exactly like any other samples of
metal. It takes an SEM to see the difference, and mass spectrometer to
verify the reaction products on the surface.
> >> Lethal uclear fission can be and has been achieved by accidentally
> >> dropping one piece of uranium onto another.
>
> >Purifying that uranium, and the isotope separation, required a gigantic
> >factory and hundreds of man years of intellectual effort by some of the
> >smartest people on earth. If you lump together ordinary uranium samples,
> >nothing happens.
>
> If you lump them together in a big enough mass with graphite ....
Nothing happens. You have to refine and enrich the uranium first,
concentrating the radioactive isotopes. That is why a kg of uranium fuel
costs $3,000 dollars, but a kg of ordinary uranium costs $60.
> >To a lab, obviously.
>
> Which lab? Are demos Wednesdays at 2PM?
Usually four or five times a year, unscheduled. It depends on when the mass
spec and other equipment is available. Most of the time and effort goes into
calibrating, null runs, pre-and-post experiment analysis of materials and so
on. If you want proof that the reaction occured, you can ask for a sample of
used cathode, and put it into a high res mass spec machine. The isotope
ratios you will observe do not exist nature anywhere in the known universe.
> This is that "special material" again?
> 99.98% palladium from Sigma-Aldrich [$159.40/2gm foil]
> won't do?
That is a complicated issue I cannot describe in a few paragraphs. You will
have to read the literature. To make a long story very short, it is material
that is probably well suited for a hydrogen filter.
> >In some sense, perhaps, in subtle cases. But if a theory says that alpha
> >particles cannot emerge from Pd at room temperature, and the detectors
all
> >show they are emerging, the theory is wrong.
>
> Or the experimenters are doing something wrong.
Read their papers and find out what that mistake might be. Go to Minnesota
and try it yourself. I've heard its lovely in January.
> > If theory tells you a cell must
> >be stone cold, but the surface temperature is well above 100 deg C, that
> >theory is wrong. CF results are not subtle or disputable, and neither
small
> >nor fleeting.
>
> They are subtle and fleeting apparently. They only seem to happen
> "after the visitor leaves"
That was Bockris' joke. That is certainly not always the case, and a visitor
in the correct frame of mind would come straight back, even at 3:00 a.m.
> >> Replications. Same type of apparatus, same results.
> >> From what I have seen each D&Pd experimenter has his own
> >> setup.
>
> >Then you have not seen much. I suggest you read the literature before
> >commenting on it. In any case, if they were all to use exactly the same
> >apparatus in every experiment, skeptics would say there may be a
systematic
> >error -- and the skeptics would be right, for once.
>
> So I take it that they do use different apparatus and set ups?
That is a foolish comment. You are jumping to conclusions and guessing
instead of reading the literature. You are wasting my time.
> >I do not think Kuhn meant to endorse the blockheaded foolish blindness he
> >described! He was saying that scientists are sometimes dysfunctional, not
> >that they should be.
>
> So you didn't understand Kuhn, then?
I do; you don't. He did not endorse block-headed obstructionism, he merely
described it.
> >Who said I have "no knowledge"?
>
> Essentially you did. In your various denials about being an expert on
this
> or that, on being able to judge Schwinger's work etc.
Another foolish comment. You are obviously not familiar with Schwinger's
work, etc., which is quite different from the experimental papers I have
cited.
> >Just because I cannot follow theory papers by Schwinger or Hagelstein
does
> >not mean I know nothing, and can judge nothing. There are degrees of
> >understanding.
>
> Good to hear it.
Is this news to you? Have you never read, say, the Scientific American, and
found some articles you understand easily and others you do not?
> >That has been my
> >experience observing experiments. Things seldom happen exactly on
schedule.
> >It is like going to Florida to watch a Space Shuttle launch.
>
> Lordy, I hope D&Pd fusion, if it exists, takes less effort than a shuttle
launch!
Har, har. Obviously it does, since it is usually done by small groups of
elderly scientists in university labs, working on a shoestring.
> >The people at Mitsubishi paid a lot more than that, probably $10 or $20
>
> Are their papers/reports accessible?
Yes, they have been published in Japan's most prestigious journal of
physics. See Iwamura in our library.
> To me it seems as if a new surgical procedure were at the stage where
every
> time the surgery is tried the patient dies before he/she can be
interviewed by
> the press. Where only some surgeons who "believe" in this surgical
> procedure can even get the patient off the operating table alive.
That is a very common circumstance in actual medical science. A doctor who
does not believe a risky procedure will work will probably kill the patient.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> Sheep are different. Once a sheep has been cloned it stays cloned
for
>> several years (maybe it's lifespan is less, jury is out on that).
>CF transmutations last forever. The Mitsubishi transmuted material is
>verified in two different labs, in Japan and France, by outside
experts.
>Devices have run continuously at 250% output for up to 70 days. That
is long
>enough to verify the reaction.
Which papers in your archive describe this?
Was the reaction verified by non-believers?
>> But these D&Pd apparatuses only work sporadically according to
>> the accounts of those who can make them work.
>Some are sporadic. Others, in other labs such as Mitsubishi, work
every
>time, and have been working for years.
If this is the case, then everyone in the D&Pd fusion community is
absolutely awful at public relations.
....
>> So far as I can tell, there are odd phenomena that occur in D&Pd
>electroyltic
>> cells and those who do extensive experimentation with such cells
encounter
>> such phenomena on occasion.
>So far as you can "tell" from what?
From the articles I have read.
>Based on what?
Based on the non-existence of public demonstrations - or is this
just awful public relations?
>Where do you get this information from? Are you making it up as you
go
>along? The reports from Mitsubishi, the Navy and the National Cold
Fusion
>Institute prove that you are wrong.
If things were as rosie as you portray them, then where are the
public demonstrations etc. etc. ?
[Snip discussion of Wright travails]
>> I'd settle for the D&Pd equivalent of a balsa wood airplane
>> powered by a rubber band. Wind it up and it flies.
>> I don't need a 747.
>You might be able to make that with CR-39, as I said. But you are
ignoring
>the fact that some devices are more complicated that others.
What is so complicated about one of these fusion cells? The
complication
seems to be in the monitoring equipment. And with 250% output for
70 days, you hardly need that. Material purity seems stringent, but
once you have the right material ...
.....
>> >revealing how a process works." We know why the well documented
failures
>> >failed. The reasons are now clear.
>> So why haven't the reasons been eliminated to produce a reliable
>> demonstration?
>Because there has not been enough money, manpower or time
(man-years).
Well duh. If you know why the bad cells failed, fix them, demo them
to some
people with deep pockets and the rest should be history .
...
>> One reliable working example would silence all skeptics just
>> as one cloned sheep has. Just as one flying aircraft silenced
skeptics.
>That is incorrect. The Wrights flew dozens of times, they circulated
>affidavits signed by leading citizens of Dayton, they circulated
>photographs, a 1906 patent showing the full details of the machine
was in
>the public domain, but virtually no one believed them.
Maybe the Wright's had awful public relations as well.
>> It is as if the cloners were at the level of embryos that
spontaneously
>> aborted after a few days and this only happened occassionally after
>> weeks of worked by skilled people. From this sort of evidence
>That describes the actual situation. Most attempts to clone do not
work at
>all, and most that begin to develop abort, and this only happens
>occasionally after weeks of work by skilled people.
But occassionally one comes to term and there is success.
So far there has been no announcement of D&Pd success except in
circles of believers. PR failure?
>Successes are much rarer
>than the 1904 Wright flights (1 in 10), or cold fusion (1 in 5 in
some labs, 1 in 1 at others.)
0 in N in many many labs.
....
>> From my point of view, the point of view of someone who is not sure
>whether
>> D&Pd fusion exists or not, the signal is precisely the successes,
and the
>noise
>> the failures.
>Your point of view is unique. You have invented a new meaning to the
term
>"signal to noise ratio." I suggest you find another name for this, or
stick
>to the conventional name: the success rate.
Well the success rate for CF is very small. It is only high among
believers.
Perhaps by dint of trying they are raising the percentage, but is it
or is
it not self-fulfilling prophecy?
>> >The last one [running cel] I saw was in Hokkaido.
>> Is it running now? Could it be started up for a visitor?
>I do not know whether it is running now. It probably could be started
for a
>visitor if you tell them you are coming a month in advance, although
you can
>never be sure how well it will work.
Not a good way to get PR, I think.
Incidentally I looked at the diagram of T. Mizuno's experiment on your
web site and it looks like the power input to the magnetic stirer
is not monitored. This would be an unaccounted for source of energy
input to the cell.
.....
>> >Any honest scientist who sees the effect will believe it exists.
That is
>the
>> >imperative of experimental science.
>> I believe that rocks fall faster than feathers. I see this. But
this does
>not
>> mean that I have to agree that heavier objects fall faster than
light
>ones.
>Yes, some degree of theory is needed to evaluate experimental
results.
There you go.
> In
>the case of cold fusion, we must refer to conventional thermodynamic
theory
>(conservation of energy),
chemistry theory (electron bond), and what is
>known about isotopes and atomic nuclei.
Actually you are willing to throw out the last one.
I prefer to doubt the experiments.
>> I shall use the term "believers" for short.
>> Is there any lab a skeptic can go to observe the effect reliably?
>Any lab where a cold fusion experiment is underway, assuming it
works. I
>have visited quite a number of them.
If these are so reproducibly successful why not shout it from
rooftops?
......
>> ...if lightbulbs had only worked for believers, then Edison would
have
>> never gotten the funding to engineer production etc. Ditto
everything
>else.
>As it happens, they usually did work only for Edison at first. In the
early
>days of production the factory ran for a week, and every one the
bulbs was
>defective and had to be trashed.
You are mixing apples and oranges. Now you are talking about the
problems of getting a production line going, not about the problems of
establishing underlying science and engineering design.
>.... But CF works for anyone who is
>sufficiently skilled in the art and lucky.
Lucky? Where does that fit into science?
>> I have read Storms and Miles. Not all of course. I'm not sure
which of
>their
>> opus you mean.
>I mean everything they have written. Read it all, again, carefully.
Take
>notes and look up the references.
There is a definite chicken or egg problem here. Why should I invest
such
effort into something of which I am skeptical?
>I am telling you to spend 6 or 8 weeks of hard work on the subject.
If you
>do not wish that kind of effort, that's fine, but you have no
business
>discussing it or trying to judge it on any other basis.
Sure I do. As you said you are posting here because you are
practicing to
write a popular book. I am a member of the populace, a scientifically
educated one. I provide a foil to your efforts to convince. The
target
audience of your book will not spend 6 to 8 weeks ....
>A great many other
>people *do* find it worth their time to read these papers. They
download
>~2000 per week from our website.
There is a difference between downloading and reading.
I looked at a few today. Probably counted toward your statistics
downloading
the pdf. But I just skimmed the articles and did not save them.
>If you do not wish to make a serious, open minded, careful review of
the
>literature I encourage you to do nothing, and forget about the
subject. A
>little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The articles I looked at today did not have enough detail I thought
about
the apparatus and how the measurments were done. Things like computer
interfaces were just boxes in block diagrams.
...
>> >If you want me to believe you have good reasons to doubt these
papers,
>you
>> >will have to write a coherent, rigorous critique of them,
>>
>> This is so bogus.
>Hard work and clear thinking are bogus?
It is the chicken/egg problem. The
study-a-field/think-the-field-worthwhile problem.
>> I don't believe in miracles. Do I have to critique the
documentation
>> of the reported miracles of the saints?
>If it is replicated at LANL and Mitsubishi, you darn well should.
What are those statues that are supposed to cry regularly?
LANL is hot fusion anyway, as I have argued. Mitsubishi seems to
involve some
sort of plasma as I learned in today's perusal so it may well be hot
as well.
......
>> >. See my review of McKubre, for example, at LENR-CANR.org. If you
>> >think McKubre is incorrect you will have to make the same kind of
effort
>to
>> >convince me.
>> The site doesn't have a search feature that I can find.
>> Can you provide a direct URL?
>You are not very observant. The site includes four search features:
by
>author, all authors, category and publication.
That is not really what I would call a search feature, it is just an
index.
>Look again. Go to the library
>and click on R - Rothwell, and you will see my review,
Do'oh. Of course. You are the author! I don't need to search on the
subject!
....
>> >Simple logic: CF is definitely real.
>> Well there you go. Assuming the conclusion.
>That is incorrect. The scientific method proved the conclusion.
No. The assumption that the experiments are correct proves the
conclusion.
> ..... If we later learn these is a genuine conflict with theory,
>we will know that theory is wrong.
Or the experiment is wrong.
>> >> Alpha particles? ....
>> In the same experimental setup?
>See Oriani, 2002.
Thanks.
>> >> But where is the first prototype deuterium in palladium fusion
cell?
>> >In in CF laboratory, obviously. Where else would it be?
>> Does it even exist there? A cell that could be engineered into
>> a production unit is what I had in mind.
>I am not aware of any such thing. It would have no practical purpose,
since
>it operates at 1 atm and produces a watt or a fraction of watt of
excess
>heat at most.
It would have great public relations value.
But earlier you wrote of 250% output. Was the input so low?
....
>> > It was not possible to make an incandescent
>> >light in 1879 either, unless you had a hugely expensive collection
of the
>> >best vacuum pumps and other equipment on earth.
>> Nonsense. I made incandescent light as a child by shorting pieces
of thin
>> copper wire across a battery terminal.
>That was an arc light, not an incandescent light.
No it was incandescent. The wire glowed orange hot and gave off
light.
Then it oxidized, broke and stopped working. I thought it was way
cool at age 10.
>> The wire glowed - briefly.
>> Now a light that would last many hours - another story.
>"Many hours" was not the issue. Long lasting arc lights were already
>available.
They were too bright and used too much electricity for home use.
Yes Edison had the system concept of a light that used only small
current and gave off small light for use in home etc.
....
>> >There is nothing simple or crude about CF, or transistors, or any
other
>20th
>> >century materials science breakthrough.
>> This sure looks kind of rube goldberg to me:
>> http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/images/transistor1.jpg
>The outward appearance has nothing to do with it. The difficulty was
to make
>the materials and to understand them well enough to make it work. To
the
>naked eye, cold fusion cathodes look exactly like any other samples
of
>metal. It takes an SEM to see the difference, and mass spectrometer
to
>verify the reaction products on the surface.
That was my point earlier above. CF cells are basically simple.
>> >Purifying that uranium, and the isotope separation, required a
gigantic
>> >factory and hundreds of man years of intellectual effort by some
of the
>> >smartest people on earth. If you lump together ordinary uranium
samples,
>> >nothing happens.
>> If you lump them together in a big enough mass with graphite ....
>Nothing happens. You have to refine and enrich the uranium first,
Now you are dead wrong. Fermi in 1942 used natural uranium and
graphite to make the first self sustaining chain reaction under the
Chicago stadium.
....
>> Which lab? Are demos Wednesdays at 2PM?
>Usually four or five times a year, unscheduled. It depends on when
the mass
>spec and other equipment is available. Most of the time and effort
goes into
>calibrating, null runs, pre-and-post experiment analysis of materials
and so
>on. If you want proof that the reaction occured, you can ask for a
sample of
>used cathode, and put it into a high res mass spec machine. The
isotope
>ratios you will observe do not exist nature anywhere in the known
universe.
They really should set one up and just let it chug along making heat
for
public relations purposes.
......
>> >In some sense, perhaps, in subtle cases. But if a theory says that
alpha
>> >particles cannot emerge from Pd at room temperature, and the
detectors
>all
>> >show they are emerging, the theory is wrong.
>> Or the experimenters are doing something wrong.
>Read their papers and find out what that mistake might be. Go to
Minnesota
>and try it yourself. I've heard its lovely in January.
I don't need to find the mistake. I have great confidence it is
there.
Hence the need for extraoridinary proof.
You don't like it, but science IS biased toward the existing theory.
Always has been. Keeps out the riff-raff.
.... [demonstrations]
>> They are subtle and fleeting apparently. They only seem to happen
>> "after the visitor leaves"
>That was Bockris' joke. That is certainly not always the case, and a
visitor
>in the correct frame of mind would come straight back, even at 3:00
a.m.
Correct frame of mind = believing?
But jokes often reveal the truth.
....
>> >Just because I cannot follow theory papers by Schwinger or
Hagelstein
>does
>> >not mean I know nothing, and can judge nothing. There are degrees
of
>> >understanding.
>> Good to hear it.
>Is this news to you? Have you never read, say, the Scientific
American, and
>found some articles you understand easily and others you do not?
It is news to me that you admit of degrees of understanding. Above
you
were telling me that either I had to study hard or shut-up. I do have
some knowledge.
....
>> >The people at Mitsubishi paid a lot more than that, probably $10
or $20
>> Are their papers/reports accessible?
>Yes, they have been published in Japan's most prestigious journal of
>physics. See Iwamura in our library.
Thanks.
>> To me it seems as if a new surgical procedure were at the stage
where
>every
>> time the surgery is tried the patient dies before he/she can be
>interviewed by
>> the press. Where only some surgeons who "believe" in this surgical
>> procedure can even get the patient off the operating table alive.
>That is a very common circumstance in actual medical science. A
doctor who
>does not believe a risky procedure will work will probably kill the
patient.
Will the procedure ever become non-risky? That is the question.
It may or may not.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> >CF transmutations last forever. The Mitsubishi transmuted material is
> >verified in two different labs, in Japan and France, by outside
> experts.
> >Devices have run continuously at 250% output for up to 70 days. That
> is long
> >enough to verify the reaction.
>
> Which papers in your archive describe this?
Roulette, 1996.
> If this is the case, then everyone in the D&Pd fusion community is
> absolutely awful at public relations.
That's true, just about everyone is. But they have some other major
problems. In most institutions such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi, they are only
allowed to publish in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings.
Company rules prohibit press conferences and the like. Also, the leadership
in most of these places is trying to stop them by every means possible. The
Deans and other hate and fear CF as much as you do, and they also refuse to
look at the results. One of them in Japan worked in an office for three
months just down the hall from a cold fusion experiment that was producing
continous heat, and he refused the whole time to come and look at it, or
look at any of the instruments, even though the government asked him to
review the research. Then he wrote a major government report saying that
cold fusion does not exist, and he worked behind the scenes to help gut
funding. Beaudette describes some similar incidents in the U.S.
> From the articles I have read.
>
> >Based on what?
>
> Based on the non-existence of public demonstrations - or is this
> just awful public relations?
It is your overwrought imagination.
> If things were as rosie as you portray them, then where are the
> public demonstrations etc. etc. ?
They published in Japan's most prestigious journal, after years of battling
against opposition. They think this is what a scientist should do. They
think it is unprofessional, undignified and even unethical to perform any
"public relations" or have open house demonstrations. (At Mitsubishi that
would be physically impossible because it is so difficult & expensive to
access the clean room.) They do not realize that the hot fusion scientists
and many others constantly do PR, and call the press whenever they can. As
for the Internet, most CF scientists I know have never looked at it. They
are mainly people in the 70s who seldom use computers, except as research
tools. (Iwamura, however, is younger.)
> >You might be able to make that with CR-39, as I said. But you are
> ignoring
> >the fact that some devices are more complicated that others.
>
> What is so complicated about one of these fusion cells?
The cathode material. Also, heavy water contamination turns out to be a
major issue. Most heavy water is contaminated with bacteria that has adopted
to surviving in it -- quite a surprise.
> The
> complication
> seems to be in the monitoring equipment.
No, the complication is all in the materials. The expense is mainly in the
equipment. The equipment is mainly standard, off the shelf stuff.
> >Because there has not been enough money, manpower or time
> (man-years).
>
> Well duh. If you know why the bad cells failed, fix them, demo them
> to some
> people with deep pockets and the rest should be history .
It does not work that way in the real world. Many powerful people with deep
pockets have seen cold fusion first hand, in their own corporate or
government laboratories. Nearly all of them responded by ordering the
researchers to stop, and by trying to bury the results.
> Maybe the Wright's had awful public relations as well.
It varied. They did some things well and some badly. See my at article in
the Featured Articles section here:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/IEHTML/feature.html
"The Wright Brothers and Cold Fusion"
> So far there has been no announcement of D&Pd success except in
> circles of believers. PR failure?
Partly that, but mainly because other means of communication are shut off.
You cannot publish a word about CF in any U.S. journal or newspapers. Only
in Japan and Italy, where it has the support of some Nobel laureate types.
> >I do not know whether it is running now. It probably could be started
> for a
> >visitor if you tell them you are coming a month in advance, although
> you can
> >never be sure how well it will work.
>
> Not a good way to get PR, I think.
Given the difficulty of doing the work, and the shoestring budgets in most
labs, it is amazing they manage to do an experiment at all. For you to
demand they do it on schedule is ridiculous.
> Incidentally I looked at the diagram of T. Mizuno's experiment on your
> web site and it looks like the power input to the magnetic stirrer
> is not monitored. This would be an unaccounted for source of energy
> input to the cell.
The input power to the stirrer is much too small to be measured with this
calorimeter. Both input and excess heat far exceed total input power to the
stirrer. Furthermore, this source would appear at all times, even when the
cell was turned off or during a blank run.
> > In
> >the case of cold fusion, we must refer to conventional thermodynamic
> theory
> >(conservation of energy),
> chemistry theory (electron bond), and what is
> >known about isotopes and atomic nuclei.
>
> Actually you are willing to throw out the last one.
No, I firmly believe that mass spectrometers work. When four different types
all show isotope shifts, the shifts must be real.
> I prefer to doubt the experiments.
But you have no rational basis for that doubt.
> If these are so reproducibly successful why not shout it from
> rooftops?
In most cases because they are barred from doing anything but publishing in
approved journals (which all turn them down), or presenting at conferences.
> >.... But CF works for anyone who is
> >sufficiently skilled in the art and lucky.
>
> Lucky? Where does that fit into science?
It fits more often than you would think.
> >I mean everything they have written. Read it all, again, carefully.
> Take
> >notes and look up the references.
>
> There is a definite chicken or egg problem here. Why should I invest
> such
> effort into something of which I am skeptical?
If you are so closed minded and so sure that you are right that you do not
want to make the effort, I urge you not to make it. Please do nothing.
Continue to wallow in illusions, bigotry and ignorance. Only people with an
open minded, skeptical attitude should read these papers.
> Sure I do. As you said you are posting here because you are
> practicing to
> write a popular book. I am a member of the populace, a scientifically
> educated one. I provide a foil to your efforts to convince. The
> target
> audience of your book will not spend 6 to 8 weeks ....
Thousands of people are spending that kind of time. (I know they are, from
the pattern of downloads and titles, and because some of them contact me
from time to time with suggestions and corrections.) Perhaps my book and the
one Storms is writing will increase that number. Both books will be
available for free on the web site.
> >A great many other
> >people *do* find it worth their time to read these papers. They
> download
> >~2000 per week from our website.
>
> There is a difference between downloading and reading.
I can see the difference in the pattern of downloads and in the demand for
new titles. Reading most of these papers is like wading through peanut
butter. People would not ask for obscure titles if they did not intend to
read them. They would not come in groups and download 200 copies of a
requested paper in a single day. They would not spend 30 minutes or an hour
on the site.
> I looked at a few today. Probably counted toward your statistics
> downloading
> the pdf.
Obviously it did. The Earth Urchin utility tells me nothing about individual
users (or their motivations), but it does tell me the average time spent
browsing through the library, and the users themselves tell me what they
want. They are not asking for "lite eazy reading."
> The articles I looked at today did not have enough detail I thought
> about
> the apparatus and how the measurements were done.
Then you need to read more articles, including some of the 2,900 we do not
have at the site, and you need to ask the authors for more information.
> Things like computer
> interfaces were just boxes in block diagrams.
Space in journals and proceedings is limited. The authors cannot describe
every detail. Things like the interface are standard, off the shelf
equipment. (If it is not listed the author will tell you what he or she
used.) The authors must describe the unique parts they make themselves. You
can read about the computer interfaces at the manufacturer's web site.
> That was my point earlier above. CF cells are basically simple.
No, they are incredibly complex. They may be the most complex objects ever
investigated, on the microscopic and atomic scale.
> >Read their papers and find out what that mistake might be. Go to
> Minnesota
> >and try it yourself. I've heard its lovely in January.
>
> I don't need to find the mistake. I have great confidence it is
> there.
Your confidence is based on absolutely, positively nothing. You have decided
in advance that you know the answer, and you have a closed mind. Nothing can
be more contrary to the spirit of scientific exploration than your empty
assurance that you know the answer a priori.
> Hence the need for extraordinary proof.
Hence my belief that "extraordinary" means: "I will not believe anything, I
will look at anything, no matter how convincing, I will set no rational
standard. I will move the goalposts out the stadium past the parking lot and
into the next county if that is what it takes to keep the CF scientists from
scoring."
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
[If the situation with D&Pd fusion is a sanguine as Rothwell protrays]
>> .... then everyone in the D&Pd fusion community is
>> absolutely awful at public relations.
>That's true, just about everyone is. But they have some other major
>problems. In most institutions such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi, they
are only
>allowed to publish in peer-reviewed journals or conference
proceedings.
......
>They published in Japan's most prestigious journal, after years of
battling
>against opposition. They think this is what a scientist should do.
Or as you said above is it the companies that make them publish in
this
fashion?
>.... They do not realize that the hot fusion scientists
>and many others constantly do PR, and call the press whenever they
can. As
>for the Internet, most CF scientists I know have never looked at it.
They
>are mainly people in the 70s who seldom use computers, except as
research
>tools. (Iwamura, however, is younger.)
Hmm. Is age correlated with belief in D&Pd fusion?
....
>> The
>> complication
>> seems to be in the monitoring equipment.
>No, the complication is all in the materials. The expense is mainly
in the
>equipment. The equipment is mainly standard, off the shelf stuff.
What I meant was all the plumbing as in "what does a physics lab look
like"
on your site is mostly due to the monitoring equipement.
>> >Because there has not been enough money, manpower or time
>> (man-years).
>> Well duh. If you know why the bad cells failed, fix them, demo
them
>> to some
>> people with deep pockets and the rest should be history .
>It does not work that way in the real world. Many powerful people
with deep
>pockets have seen cold fusion first hand, in their own corporate or
>government laboratories. Nearly all of them responded by ordering the
>researchers to stop, and by trying to bury the results.
This sounds entirely too paranoid to me.
...
>> So far there has been no announcement of D&Pd success except in
>> circles of believers. PR failure?
>Partly that, but mainly because other means of communication are shut
off.
>You cannot publish a word about CF in any U.S. journal or newspapers.
I can buy journals since they generally publish only what is au
courant in
science. But newspapers? I think you can get anything published in
the
month of August.
>> >I do not know whether it is running now. It probably could be
started
>> for a
>> >visitor if you tell them you are coming a month in advance,
although
>> you can
>> >never be sure how well it will work.
>> Not a good way to get PR, I think.
>Given the difficulty of doing the work, and the shoestring budgets in
most
>labs, it is amazing they manage to do an experiment at all. For you
to
>demand they do it on schedule is ridiculous.
Which is it? Are the cells diffficult and cranky to operate or are
they
reliably producing excess heat?
>> Incidentally I looked at the diagram of T. Mizuno's experiment on
your
>> web site and it looks like the power input to the magnetic stirrer
>> is not monitored. This would be an unaccounted for source of
energy
>> input to the cell.
>
>The input power to the stirrer is much too small to be measured with
this
>calorimeter.
Is it? How big is the motor etc?
> Both input and excess heat far exceed total input power to the
>stirrer. Furthermore, this source would appear at all times, even
when the
>cell was turned off or during a blank run.
Was the stirrer turned off when the cell was turned off?
See? a fairly causual look at the setup uncovered an possibly
unaccounted for source of energy.
>> > In
>> >the case of cold fusion, we must refer to conventional
thermodynamic
>> theory
>> >(conservation of energy),
>> chemistry theory (electron bond), and what is
>> >known about isotopes and atomic nuclei.
> Actually you are willing to throw out the last one.
>No, I firmly believe that mass spectrometers work. When four
different types
>all show isotope shifts, the shifts must be real.
Unless they are being misused.
As I said
>> I prefer to doubt the experiments.
>But you have no rational basis for that doubt.
Yes I do. The extant theory predicts a whole lot of stuff to umpteen
decimal places.
To mess with that theory is not a trivial undertaking.
.....
>> If these are so reproducibly successful why not shout it from
>> rooftops?
>In most cases because they are barred from doing anything but
publishing in
>approved journals (which all turn them down), or presenting at
conferences.
This is just the Japanese. What about others?
>> >.... But CF works for anyone who is
>> >sufficiently skilled in the art and lucky.
>> Lucky? Where does that fit into science?
>It fits more often than you would think.
Your science must treat all measurements, no matter how startling,
alike.
My science does not allow for luck.
We disagree. I think mine is closer to the science of the past 300
years.
......
>> There is a definite chicken or egg problem here. Why should I
invest
>> such
>> effort into something of which I am skeptical?
>If you are so closed minded and so sure that you are right that you
do not
>want to make the effort, I urge you not to make it. Please do
nothing.
>Continue to wallow in illusions, bigotry and ignorance. Only people
with an
>open minded, skeptical attitude should read these papers.
I looked at your web site today. That is quite a bit of effort given
the
ratio of data in favor of current theory versus data that by the D&Pd
believers who thing current theory is wrong.
Nothing has changed since the last time I read an article in this
area.
A casual read uncovered a potential error source.
>> ... The
>> target
>> audience of your book will not spend 6 to 8 weeks ....
>Thousands of people are spending that kind of time. (I know they are,
from
>the pattern of downloads and titles, and because some of them contact
me
>from time to time with suggestions and corrections.)
Do thousands contact your?
If only thousands will read your book, why bother?
>> >A great many other
>> >people *do* find it worth their time to read these papers. They
>> download
>> >~2000 per week from our website.
>> There is a difference between downloading and reading.
>I can see the difference in the pattern of downloads and in the
demand for
>new titles. Reading most of these papers is like wading through
peanut
>butter. People would not ask for obscure titles if they did not
intend to
>read them.
Most of your articles are pdf. Just looking at a pdf file requires a
download.
How can you distinguish such looking from serious reading?
>They would not come in groups and download 200 copies of a
>requested paper in a single day.
Sounds like some professor is making an assignment or maybe someone
mentioned
the article on spf and 200 readers decided to take a look.
>They would not spend 30 minutes or an hour on the site.
Hey! You go to a URL, the phone rings, something else requires
visiting another
site in another browser window and the original one languishes back on
the
desktop while the minutes count away.
>> The articles I looked at today did not have enough detail I thought
>> about
>> the apparatus and how the measurements were done.
>Then you need to read more articles, including some of the 2,900 we
do not
>have at the site, and you need to ask the authors for more
information.
The chicken or egg problem again. Do I think there is sufficient
probability that D&Pd fusion is a real phenomena to invest
such time or not?
>> Things like computer
>> interfaces were just boxes in block diagrams.
>Space in journals and proceedings is limited. The authors cannot
describe
>every detail. Things like the interface are standard, off the shelf
>equipment. (If it is not listed the author will tell you what he or
she
>used.) The authors must describe the unique parts they make
themselves. You
>can read about the computer interfaces at the manufacturer's web
site.
All this to find the flaws in the apparatus like an unmeasured
magnetic stirer.
>> That was my point earlier above. CF cells are basically simple.
>No, they are incredibly complex. They may be the most complex objects
ever
>investigated, on the microscopic and atomic scale.
No, the brain has that honor. For you to assert this is rather
hubristic.
>> >Read their papers and find out what that mistake might be. Go to
>> Minnesota
>> >and try it yourself. I've heard its lovely in January.
>> I don't need to find the mistake. I have great confidence it is
>> there.
>Your confidence is based on absolutely, positively nothing.
No. It is based on the accuracy and wide range of applicability of
current theory.
Were I a betting man, my money would be on the theory.
>You have decided
>in advance that you know the answer, and you have a closed mind.
No. It is open a chink or I would not be posting on spf.
>Nothing can
>be more contrary to the spirit of scientific exploration than your
empty
>assurance that you know the answer a priori.
You really, really "absolutely positively" do not understand science.
.....
>> Hence the need for extraordinary proof.
>Hence my belief that "extraordinary" means: "I will not believe
anything, I
>will look at anything, no matter how convincing, I will set no
rational
>standard. I will move the goalposts out the stadium past the parking
lot and
>into the next county if that is what it takes to keep the CF
scientists from
>scoring."
I don't just apply this standard to D&Pd fusion believers, I have had
exactly the same conversation with people who believe in ether.
But actually the chink is open much wider for D&Pd fusion than
it is for ether.
I have even been on the other side. I'm fond of the "aquatic ape
hypothesis"
and have argued against establishment anthropologists as an
antiestablishment advocate on this issure on sci.anthropology.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> >CF transmutations last forever. The Mitsubishi transmuted material is
> >verified in two different labs, in Japan and France, by outside
> experts.
> >Devices have run continuously at 250% output for up to 70 days. That
> is long
> >enough to verify the reaction.
>
> Which papers in your archive describe this?
Roulette, 1996.
> If this is the case, then everyone in the D&Pd fusion community is
> absolutely awful at public relations.
That's true, just about everyone is. But they have some other major
problems. In most institutions such as Hitachi and Mitsubishi, they are only
allowed to publish in peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings.
Company rules prohibit press conferences and the like. Also, the leadership
in most of these places is trying to stop them by every means possible. The
Deans and other hate and fear CF as much as you do, and they also refuse to
look at the results. One of them in Japan worked in an office for three
months just down the hall from a cold fusion experiment that was producing
continous heat, and he refused the whole time to come and look at it, or
look at any of the instruments, even though the government asked him to
review the research. Then he wrote a major government report saying that
cold fusion does not exist, and he worked behind the scenes to help gut
funding. Beaudette describes some similar incidents in the U.S.
> From the articles I have read.
>
> >Based on what?
>
> Based on the non-existence of public demonstrations - or is this
> just awful public relations?
It is your overwrought imagination.
> If things were as rosie as you portray them, then where are the
> public demonstrations etc. etc. ?
They published in Japan's most prestigious journal, after years of battling
against opposition. They think this is what a scientist should do. They
think it is unprofessional, undignified and even unethical to perform any
"public relations" or have open house demonstrations. (At Mitsubishi that
would be physically impossible because it is so difficult & expensive to
access the clean room.) They do not realize that the hot fusion scientists
and many others constantly do PR, and call the press whenever they can. As
for the Internet, most CF scientists I know have never looked at it. They
are mainly people in the 70s who seldom use computers, except as research
tools. (Iwamura, however, is younger.)
> >You might be able to make that with CR-39, as I said. But you are
> ignoring
> >the fact that some devices are more complicated that others.
>
> What is so complicated about one of these fusion cells?
The cathode material. Also, heavy water contamination turns out to be a
major issue. Most heavy water is contaminated with bacteria that has adopted
to surviving in it -- quite a surprise.
> The
> complication
> seems to be in the monitoring equipment.
No, the complication is all in the materials. The expense is mainly in the
equipment. The equipment is mainly standard, off the shelf stuff.
> >Because there has not been enough money, manpower or time
> (man-years).
>
> Well duh. If you know why the bad cells failed, fix them, demo them
> to some
> people with deep pockets and the rest should be history .
It does not work that way in the real world. Many powerful people with deep
pockets have seen cold fusion first hand, in their own corporate or
government laboratories. Nearly all of them responded by ordering the
researchers to stop, and by trying to bury the results.
> Maybe the Wright's had awful public relations as well.
It varied. They did some things well and some badly. See my at article in
the Featured Articles section here:
http://www.infinite-energy.com/IEHTML/feature.html
"The Wright Brothers and Cold Fusion"
> So far there has been no announcement of D&Pd success except in
> circles of believers. PR failure?
Partly that, but mainly because other means of communication are shut off.
You cannot publish a word about CF in any U.S. journal or newspapers. Only
in Japan and Italy, where it has the support of some Nobel laureate types.
> >I do not know whether it is running now. It probably could be started
> for a
> >visitor if you tell them you are coming a month in advance, although
> you can
> >never be sure how well it will work.
>
> Not a good way to get PR, I think.
Given the difficulty of doing the work, and the shoestring budgets in most
labs, it is amazing they manage to do an experiment at all. For you to
demand they do it on schedule is ridiculous.
> Incidentally I looked at the diagram of T. Mizuno's experiment on your
> web site and it looks like the power input to the magnetic stirrer
> is not monitored. This would be an unaccounted for source of energy
> input to the cell.
The input power to the stirrer is much too small to be measured with this
calorimeter. Both input and excess heat far exceed total input power to the
stirrer. Furthermore, this source would appear at all times, even when the
cell was turned off or during a blank run.
> > In
> >the case of cold fusion, we must refer to conventional thermodynamic
> theory
> >(conservation of energy),
> chemistry theory (electron bond), and what is
> >known about isotopes and atomic nuclei.
>
> Actually you are willing to throw out the last one.
No, I firmly believe that mass spectrometers work. When four different types
all show isotope shifts, the shifts must be real.
> I prefer to doubt the experiments.
But you have no rational basis for that doubt.
> If these are so reproducibly successful why not shout it from
> rooftops?
In most cases because they are barred from doing anything but publishing in
approved journals (which all turn them down), or presenting at conferences.
> >.... But CF works for anyone who is
> >sufficiently skilled in the art and lucky.
>
> Lucky? Where does that fit into science?
It fits more often than you would think.
> >I mean everything they have written. Read it all, again, carefully.
> Take
> >notes and look up the references.
>
> There is a definite chicken or egg problem here. Why should I invest
> such
> effort into something of which I am skeptical?
If you are so closed minded and so sure that you are right that you do not
want to make the effort, I urge you not to make it. Please do nothing.
Continue to wallow in illusions, bigotry and ignorance. Only people with an
open minded, skeptical attitude should read these papers.
> Sure I do. As you said you are posting here because you are
> practicing to
> write a popular book. I am a member of the populace, a scientifically
> educated one. I provide a foil to your efforts to convince. The
> target
> audience of your book will not spend 6 to 8 weeks ....
Thousands of people are spending that kind of time. (I know they are, from
the pattern of downloads and titles, and because some of them contact me
from time to time with suggestions and corrections.) Perhaps my book and the
one Storms is writing will increase that number. Both books will be
available for free on the web site.
> >A great many other
> >people *do* find it worth their time to read these papers. They
> download
> >~2000 per week from our website.
>
> There is a difference between downloading and reading.
I can see the difference in the pattern of downloads and in the demand for
new titles. Reading most of these papers is like wading through peanut
butter. People would not ask for obscure titles if they did not intend to
read them. They would not come in groups and download 200 copies of a
requested paper in a single day. They would not spend 30 minutes or an hour
on the site.
> I looked at a few today. Probably counted toward your statistics
> downloading
> the pdf.
Obviously it did. The Earth Urchin utility tells me nothing about individual
users (or their motivations), but it does tell me the average time spent
browsing through the library, and the users themselves tell me what they
want. They are not asking for "lite eazy reading."
> The articles I looked at today did not have enough detail I thought
> about
> the apparatus and how the measurements were done.
Then you need to read more articles, including some of the 2,900 we do not
have at the site, and you need to ask the authors for more information.
> Things like computer
> interfaces were just boxes in block diagrams.
Space in journals and proceedings is limited. The authors cannot describe
every detail. Things like the interface are standard, off the shelf
equipment. (If it is not listed the author will tell you what he or she
used.) The authors must describe the unique parts they make themselves. You
can read about the computer interfaces at the manufacturer's web site.
> That was my point earlier above. CF cells are basically simple.
No, they are incredibly complex. They may be the most complex objects ever
investigated, on the microscopic and atomic scale.
> >Read their papers and find out what that mistake might be. Go to
> Minnesota
> >and try it yourself. I've heard its lovely in January.
>
> I don't need to find the mistake. I have great confidence it is
> there.
Your confidence is based on absolutely, positively nothing. You have decided
in advance that you know the answer, and you have a closed mind. Nothing can
be more contrary to the spirit of scientific exploration than your empty
assurance that you know the answer a priori.
> Hence the need for extraordinary proof.
Hence my belief that "extraordinary" means: "I will not believe anything, I
will look at anything, no matter how convincing, I will set no rational
standard. I will move the goalposts out the stadium past the parking lot and
into the next county if that is what it takes to keep the CF scientists from
scoring."
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> >They published in Japan's most prestigious journal, after years of
> battling
> >against opposition. They think this is what a scientist should do.
>
> Or as you said above is it the companies that make them publish in
> this
> fashion?
They agree with company policy, that professional scientists should only
publish in peer-reviewed journals, and that calling a press conference would
be undignified and unethical.
> Hmm. Is age correlated with belief in D&Pd fusion?
No, only open mindedness and respect for the traditions of academic free
enquiry. But I think that many older scientists who got their start in the
1940s and 50s are more used to vigorous academic freedom and the hands-on
experimental method, whereas young scientists are used to regimented,
centralized science based on textbooks and computers.
> >No, the complication is all in the materials. The expense is mainly
> in the
> >equipment. The equipment is mainly standard, off the shelf stuff.
>
> What I meant was all the plumbing as in "what does a physics lab look
> like"
> on your site is mostly due to the monitoring equipment.
That's all you see in a CF experiment. The actual cathode, where all of the
complexity and mystery are located, is an ordinary, nondescript piece of
metal tucked inside the gadgets.
> >It does not work that way in the real world. Many powerful people
> with deep
> >pockets have seen cold fusion first hand, in their own corporate or
> >government laboratories. Nearly all of them responded by ordering the
> >researchers to stop, and by trying to bury the results.
>
> This sounds entirely too paranoid to me.
But it is fact, nonetheless. If you read the history of previous
breakthroughs such as antisepsis, the telegraph, telephones and so on you
will see the same pattern. For example, antisepsis was developed before the
U.S. Civil War, but most doctors ignored it, and they killed roughly 300,000
soldiers for no reason. Pasteurization of milk was developed in the 1860s,
but the dairy industry in New York fought it successfully until 1917,
because it added a fraction of a penny to the cost of a bottle of milk. They
killed hundreds of thousands of children, including one of my
great-grandmother's. It never occurred to them that killing off babies was
bad for business.
> I can buy journals since they generally publish only what is au
> courant in
> science. But newspapers? I think you can get anything published in
> the
> month of August.
Newspapers, magazines and all other mass media stopped printing anything
about cold fusion after 1989, except in very rare cases. Perhaps a dozen
articles have appeared.
> Which is it? Are the cells difficult and cranky to operate or are
> they
> reliably producing excess heat?
Both, obviously. The same as a Wright Flyer in 1905: they actually do fly,
but you often have to spend hours or days preparing them. The CF cathodes
themselves are not what causes the delay. It may take a few weeks to
fabricate one, but after that most of the time is spent calibrating and
doing blank runs, and preparing the mass spectrometers and so on. The
equipment at most Japanese universities is old. Mizuno's SEM / mass spec
combo gadget was made in the 1960s. He repaired it himself in 1968, and he
has been scrounging parts and keeping it running himself ever since. It has
8" floppy disks and other obsolete parts. Fortunately, a large corporation
gave him equipment for recent experiments, which they are performing in
parallel, including a Dell computer, some great HP instruments, RTDs and so
on.
> Is it? How big is the motor etc?
I do not know, exactly. I can find the make and model and look it up.
However, I am sure it adds no measurable heat because I spent two days
calibrating the cell with the stirrer on and no electrolysis, and I did not
detect any heat from the stirrer. The calorimetry is designed to measure 10
to 200 watts, and the heat from the stirrer is much less than one watt.
> Was the stirrer turned off when the cell was turned off?
Of course not.
> See? a fairly causual look at the setup uncovered an possibly
> unaccounted for source of energy.
See, what? You waved your hand, came up with an absurd assumption, and now
you think you have found a problem that Mizuno (and many others) have
overlooked for decades. Mizuno, Miles, Bockris, Fleischmann and the others
have been using magnetic stirrers and doing calorimetry since the 1940s.
They understand how these things work. They have not overlooked some simple
error that would be obvious to you from reading the papers.
> >No, I firmly believe that mass spectrometers work. When four
> different types
> >all show isotope shifts, the shifts must be real.
>
> Unless they are being misused.
The same samples are examined by different teams of scientists at Hitachi,
Mitsubishi, Meidensha and elsewhere, using different mass spectrometer
types, in Japan, the U.S., France and Italy. The scientists and engineers
who operated the instrument are the experts who design and manufacture them
in some cases. Frankly, I find it inconceivable that for 14 years in
hundreds of analyses, every single time these experts were "misusing" the
equipment. If that could happen, all experiments would fail, results would
always be meaningless, and progress impossible.
> >> I prefer to doubt the experiments.
>
> >But you have no rational basis for that doubt.
>
> Yes I do. The extant theory predicts . . .
What theory predicts can NEVER be cited as a rational justification for
ignoring replicated experiments. Even if every theory in every textbook said
these results are impossible (which is not at all the case), it would not
make the slightest difference. Science must proceed from experiment, to
facts, to theories, NEVER the other direction. To deny what the instruments
prove is to deny reality itself.
> . . . a whole lot of stuff to umpteen
> decimal places.
> To mess with that theory is not a trivial undertaking.
Many experts say CF does not violate any theory. Perhaps they are right. But
in any case, theory must always give way to established facts.
> >In most cases because they are barred from doing anything but
> publishing in
> >approved journals (which all turn them down), or presenting at
> conferences.
>
> This is just the Japanese. What about others?
In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold fusion or
suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired. In the U.S.
government, especially the Navy, scientists were ordered to attend no
conferences and to discuss the results with no one. They were told they
would be fired if they said anything. This was not because the results were
secret. Most results were published in documents marked "UNCLASSIFIED" with
no copyright (some on LENR-CANR.org). When the scientists asked why they
being gagged, they were told that the decision makers were certain the
results were bogus and they did not want the DoE and the DoD to be
embarrassed.
> Do thousands contact your?
No, dozens, but the Earthlink utilities tell me the number of visitors,
average visit length, number of pages accessed and so on.
> If only thousands will read your book, why bother?
Thousands is better than nothing.
> People would not ask for obscure titles if they did not
> intend to
> >read them.
>
> Most of your articles are pdf. Just looking at a pdf file requires a
> download.
> How can you distinguish such looking from serious reading?
As I said, I can tell by the audience reaction and demand for new titles.
> >They would not come in groups and download 200 copies of a
> >requested paper in a single day.
>
> Sounds like some professor is making an assignment . . .
That is out of the question! No professor who wants to keep his job will
mention CF.
> Hey! You go to a URL, the phone rings, something else requires
> visiting another
> site . . .
I can tell how many do that. The Urchin Pro utility shows the distribution
of file accesses per visit. It is described here:
http://www.earthlink.net/business/urchin.html
> All this to find the flaws in the apparatus like an unmeasured
> magnetic stirer.
Nonsense. Again you have jumped to an ignorant conclusion.
> >Your confidence is based on absolutely, positively nothing.
>
> No. It is based on the accuracy and wide range of applicability of
> current theory.
Theory can never be a guide to what is real and what is not. Only experiment
fulfills that role. Theory only explains established results, and suggest
what may be a fruitful approach to new work. No theory can ever be complete,
and the unexplained and unknown will always be infinitely larger than what
our theories and knowledge encompass.
> Were I a betting man, my money would be on the theory.
You would be insane. That would be like betting in 1908 that the Wrights
cannot fly, despite the photographs, scientific papers, patent and
eyewitness descriptions they published. Theory can never be right when it
conflicts with facts. You might as well assert that by wishful thinking and
faith alone you might jump to the moon. Theory is a human construct. Nature
does not care what you think, or what you imagine you know. She dictates
facts through experiments, and a sane person has no choice but to believe
what she deigns to reveal. When four mass spectrometers in the hands of four
teams of experts all show anomalous isotopes in a sample, the isotopes are
real, and a whole library of theory textbooks would not add a nanogram of
doubt to that conclusion.
In any case, I am sure Schwinger knew more about theory than you do. He said
it does not conflict with CF, you say it does . . . I cannot judge, but I'll
bet you are wrong. He revolutionized physics and won a Nobel, so I doubt
that you know more about theory than he did. I doubt you know more than
Peter Hagelstein, Talbot Chubb or Carlo Rubbia. As I said, I cannot judge
theory, but I know that your statements about the mag stirrer are bunk, so I
expect your claims about theory are also bunk.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>> What I meant was all the plumbing as in "what does a physics lab look
>> like"
>> on your site is mostly due to the monitoring equipment.
>That's all you see in a CF experiment. The actual cathode, where all of the
>complexity and mystery are located, is an ordinary, nondescript piece of
>metal tucked inside the gadgets.
You don't know that the cathode is complex. I daresay no one does
since no one has a theory for why the phenomena that is alleged
to be D fusion in Pd should work. A mystery as you say.
>> >.... Many powerful people with deep
>> >pockets have seen cold fusion first hand, in their own corporate or
>> >government laboratories. Nearly all of them responded by ordering the
>> >researchers to stop, and by trying to bury the results.
>> This sounds entirely too paranoid to me.
>But it is fact, nonetheless.
I am a skeptic on this part as well. There are many non-conspiratorial
reasons why a boss could be shown what an experimenter thinks is
D fusion in Pd and would then order that line of experimental work
to stop and to forbid publication of what the experimente thinks is
excellent research.
>> ...I think you can get anything published in the
>> month of August.
>Newspapers, magazines and all other mass media stopped printing anything
>about cold fusion after 1989, except in very rare cases. Perhaps a dozen
>articles have appeared.
Must have been in August, the silly season.
>> Which is it? Are the cells difficult and cranky to operate or are
>> they reliably producing excess heat?
>Both, obviously.
Sorry. You cannot have both.
Cranky, difficult to operate apparatus does not meet the
definition of "reliably".
Diffiult to build can go with reliable, but certainly not
cranky.
>The same as a Wright Flyer in 1905: they actually do fly,
>but you often have to spend hours or days preparing them.
Neither could you call the Wright Flyer of 1905 reliable.
[regarding energy input by a magnetic stirrer]
>> Is it? How big is the motor etc?
>I do not know, exactly. I can find the make and model and look it up.
>However, I am sure it adds no measurable heat because I spent two days
>calibrating the cell with the stirrer on and no electrolysis, and I did not
>detect any heat from the stirrer. The calorimetry is designed to measure 10
>to 200 watts, and the heat from the stirrer is much less than one watt.
Perhaps that source is negligible.
>> Was the stirrer turned off when the cell was turned off?
>Of course not.
Cell off. Stirer off. I don't see the "Of course not"
>> See? a fairly causual look at the setup uncovered an possibly
>> unaccounted for source of energy.
>See, what? You waved your hand, came up with an absurd assumption,
What absurd assumption? The diagram showed no connection from
the stirer to the computer logger input.
>and now
>you think you have found a problem that Mizuno (and many others) have
>overlooked for decades.
Did they overlook it or not? It might not be a problem, but apparently,
on the basis of your reply, this source of energy was overlooked.
>Mizuno, Miles, Bockris, Fleischmann and the others
>have been using magnetic stirrers and doing calorimetry since the 1940s.
>They understand how these things work. They have not overlooked some simple
>error that would be obvious to you from reading the papers.
Well if they have not been taking this source of energy into account then
their measurments are off by that (very?) small increment caused by the
stirrer input.
Perhaps they do take it into account, but you didn't know whether they
did or not.
....
>> >No, I firmly believe that mass spectrometers work. When four
>> different types
>> >all show isotope shifts, the shifts must be real.
>> Unless they are being misused.
>...Frankly, I find it inconceivable that for 14 years in
Were people using mass specs fom the beginning?
>hundreds of analyses, every single time these experts were "misusing" the
>equipment. If that could happen, all experiments would fail, results would
>always be meaningless, and progress impossible.
How long did people observer N-rays in how many labs?
It does happen.
>> >> I prefer to doubt the experiments.
>> >But you have no rational basis for that doubt.
>> Yes I do. The extant theory predicts . . .
>What theory predicts can NEVER be cited as a rational justification for
>ignoring replicated experiments.
That is your rule of your interpretation of science.
Not to mention that results of D in Pd fusion experiments often
give contradictory results and use various kinds of experimental
setups so that they can hardly be termed "replicated".
>Even if every theory in every textbook said
>these results are impossible (which is not at all the case),
They do actually. I don't think ideas like Schwinger's that
there may be a theoretical basis for D/Pd fusion have made it
to the text's.
>it would not
>make the slightest difference. Science must proceed from experiment, to
>facts, to theories, NEVER the other direction. To deny what the instruments
>prove is to deny reality itself.
And so N-rays existed until they were debunked by Robert Wood?
>> . . . a whole lot of stuff to umpteen
>> decimal places.
>> To mess with that theory is not a trivial undertaking.
>Many experts say CF does not violate any theory. Perhaps they are right. But
>in any case, theory must always give way to established facts.
The facts must first be established. This is not the case in my humble opinion.
[I am kind of intrigued by the out of the blue post by Mike Staker who
claims to have achieved a sustained fusion reaction in Pd in his lab
At Army Research Lab? But he hasn't responded to my query yet]
....
>> >In most cases because they are barred from doing anything but
>> publishing in
>> >approved journals (which all turn them down), or presenting at
>> conferences.
>> This is just the Japanese. What about others?
>In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold fusion or
>suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired.
Not only do believers in D/Pd fusion lack PR skills, but from this it
seems they lack diplomacy skills also.
>In the U.S.
>government, especially the Navy, scientists were ordered to attend no
>conferences and to discuss the results with no one.
I used to work for the government. One is always free to say anything
as long as one does not say it in an official capacity. The Navy lab's
"brass" does not think D/Pd a real phenomena and would be
concerned to maintain the labs reputation and would be correct
to put a damper on controversial research that might damage the
lab's reputation.
A government employee
can attend an astrology conference and cast horoscopes as well,
just not in an official capacity.
[regarding Rothwells interpretation of web usage statistics]
>> Do thousands contact your?
>No, dozens .....
>> Most of your articles are pdf. Just looking at a pdf file requires a
>> download.
>> How can you distinguish such looking from serious reading?
>As I said, I can tell by the audience reaction and demand for new titles.
You are extrapolating from the queries of an active few to the motives of
the surfing multitude.
>> >They would not come in groups and download 200 copies of a
>> >requested paper in a single day.
>> Sounds like some professor is making an assignment . . .
>That is out of the question! No professor who wants to keep his job will
>mention CF.
Not even in a course on the dangers of pseudo-science?
......
>> >Your confidence is based on absolutely, positively nothing.
>> No. It is based on the accuracy and wide range of applicability of
>> current theory.
>Theory can never be a guide to what is real and what is not.
So it was just luck that Eddington photographed the same area
of sky that the eclipse in 1919 would occur in?
> Only experiment
>fulfills that role. Theory only explains established results, and suggest
>what may be a fruitful approach to new work.
Theory also provides a filter for experiment. You just don't seem
to realize that.
Feathers fall faster than rocks, but theory shows how this experiment
does not bear on the question of whether light or heavy objects fall
faster.
N-rays violated theory and that led to the effort that showed the self
delusional nature of N-ray experiments.
D/Pd fusion as reported by believers violates theory so it is subject
to examination. For example Shananahan may have identified a systematic
error in how data in D/Pd experiments are processed.
> No theory can ever be complete,
>and the unexplained and unknown will always be infinitely larger than what
>our theories and knowledge encompass.
No human or even group of men are infallible and always perform
perfect experiments.
....
>> Were I a betting man, my money would be on the theory.
>You would be insane. That would be like betting in 1908 that the Wrights
>cannot fly, despite the photographs, scientific papers, patent and
>eyewitness descriptions they published.
It is my considered judgement of the odds.
I can't place myself in 1908 so I don't know how I would have bet then.
It would depend on whether I were part of the Eastern establishment
who backed Langley, how much I knew of IC engines, etc. Would have
been vastly different were I a European.
>Theory can never be right when it conflicts with facts.
D fusion in Pd is not a fact. It is only something that minority of
researchers thinks is demonstrated by difficult and cranky experiments.
> ... Theory is a human construct. Nature
>does not care what you think, or what you imagine you know.
Experiments are contolled situations constructed by fallible humans.
>She dictates facts through experiments,
Nature does not construct experiments, people do.
> ...When four mass spectrometers in the hands of four
>teams of experts all show anomalous isotopes in a sample, the isotopes are
>real, and a whole library of theory textbooks would not add a nanogram of
>doubt to that conclusion.
Would you have said the same in 1903 regarding N-rays?
>... I doubt you know more than
>Peter Hagelstein, Talbot Chubb or Carlo Rubbia.
Probably not, but even experts can be wrong. After all, Langley and
the Eastern establishment were wrong about the Wrights.
Is Carlo Rubbia a believer? Has he written anything on D/Pd?
I don't see Rubbia on the list of authors on your site.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> You don't know that the cathode is complex.
Yes, I do. SEM and mass spectrometers show the complexity.
> What absurd assumption? The diagram showed no connection from
> the stirer to the computer logger input.
None is needed. The stirrer input is far too small to register with this
arrangement. I calibrated it myself and confirmed that, and much else. In
any case, it would make no sense to "connect" the stirrer to the logger
input. The only thing you can connect would be the stirrer motor AC
consumption. The motor is outside the cell and well insulated from it, by
design. The only energy that goes from the stirrer into the cell is the
kinetic energy of the Teflon covered magnet at the bottom to the cell. That
is a tiny fraction of the AC motor power, and -- as I said -- it is too
small to detect with this instrument.
> Did they overlook it or not? It might not be a problem, but apparently,
> on the basis of your reply, this source of energy was overlooked.
No it was not.
> Perhaps they do take it into account, but you didn't know whether they
> did or not.
I sure as heck do!
> Were people using mass specs from the beginning?
No, eggbeaters. What do you think they use?
> How long did people observer N-rays in how many labs?
One person in one lab thought he saw a signal with a very low s/n ratio for
a few months. A few others briefly thought they might be seeing something
similar, but they never published any claims as far as I know. That is about
as different from 14 years and Sigma 90 results as anything can be.
> It does happen.
Not the way you think it does!
> >> Yes I do. The extant theory predicts . . .
>
> >What theory predicts can NEVER be cited as a rational justification for
> >ignoring replicated experiments.
>
> That is your rule of your interpretation of science.
Not my rule. You will find that in any introductory textbook or book on the
philosophy of science. I am appalled that you, or anyone else, would argue
about it.
> >In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold fusion
or
> >suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired.
>
> Not only do believers in D/Pd fusion lack PR skills, but from this it
> seems they lack diplomacy skills also.
Oh, right. When people sabotage their experiments, lie about them in the
newspapers, dump horse manure onto their desks, and threaten to fire them,
that is their fault. They should have known better. Everyone should know
this stuff about academic freedom and tenure means nothing.
> I used to work for the government. One is always free to say anything
> as long as one does not say it in an official capacity.
Sure, as long as you don't mind being fired the next day.
> A government employee
> can attend an astrology conference and cast horoscopes as well,
> just not in an official capacity.
That's right. You attend, and when you return the next day, the guard does
not let you in the building, they hand you your possessions in a cardboard
box, and your capacity is altogether unofficial.
> >As I said, I can tell by the audience reaction and demand for new titles.
>
> You are extrapolating from the queries of an active few to the motives of
> the surfing multitude.
And the site user statistics, as I said. But you ignore the parts you don't
want to see.
> So it was just luck that Eddington photographed the same area
> of sky that the eclipse in 1919 would occur in?
Yes, and that is an excellent illustration of my point. Thanks for bringing
that up. It was just luck that the weather was good and the instruments did
not malfunction more than they did. He was lucky indeed, but almost not
lucky enough. In Sobral they took 8 good plates and 18 poor quality one, and
at Principe they took only 2 poor quality plates. If a few more plates had
turned out badly, he would have had nothing. In fact, some modern observers
think he fudged the data things are. ". . . Nevertheless, Eddington obtained
a result from [the Principe] plates using a complex technique that *assumed*
a value for the gravitational effect." (Collins & Pinch, p. 48)
In 1989, some people were lucky enough to select Pd which -- we now know --
was well suited to this experiment.
> Theory also provides a filter for experiment. You just don't seem
> to realize that.
Yes, I realize that, but when you filter out four independent mass spec
analyses and several thousand experiments, your filter has gone haywire.
That's not rational thinking, it is denying reality. You are living in a
dreamworld, where anything can be true, and nothing is real. You have no
standards and no possible way to sort out truth from falsehood. Your
theories are useless in this case, because some experts in theory say the CF
might be real based on theory, and others say it cannot be real. Theory will
never answer the question. Only experiment.
> D/Pd fusion as reported by believers violates theory so it is subject
> to examination. For example Shananahan may have identified a systematic
> error in how data in D/Pd experiments are processed.
Shanahan is a First Class Flake. If his "theories" were correct, J. P.
Joule's experiments would not work and the conservation of energy would be
open to question. It is incredible that you embrace nutcake ideas that
violate elementary physics when they proposed by Shanahan while you reject
result from people like Oriani. This is an example of extreme bias.
> I can't place myself in 1908 so I don't know how I would have bet then.
I know exactly how you would bet: you would gone with the unthinking
establishment point of view. You would slavishly agree with the textbooks,
the journals and the newspapers, and you would refuse to look at the facts.
Your kind never learns, and never changes.
> It would depend on whether I were part of the Eastern establishment
> who backed Langley . . .
You think the Eastern establishment backed Langley?!? In 1908? Let's see . .
. he was disgraced in 1903, he was the laughingstock of every newspaper, and
he was accused of fraud by members of Congress. He died in 1906. An you
think the establishment "backed" him? In what sense, pray tell? They backed
him against the wall and shot him, metaphorically. I think you know nothing
about aviation history, and you should read a few books before commenting on
it.
> D fusion in Pd is not a fact. It is only something that minority of
> researchers thinks is demonstrated by difficult and cranky experiments.
Whereas tokamaks, top quark demonstrations and cloning are easy experiments
that anyone can do at home. Right? What makes you think there is ANY
correlation between "believable" and "easy"? Where did you get that weird
idea? I'll bet you cannot cite any textbooks or authors who propose that.
Only nutcakes on Internet.
> > ...When four mass spectrometers in the hands of four
> >teams of experts all show anomalous isotopes in a sample, the isotopes
are
> >real, and a whole library of theory textbooks would not add a nanogram of
> >doubt to that conclusion.
>
> Would you have said the same in 1903 regarding N-rays?
If four independent, high sigma experiments had confirmed N-rays, I would
suspect they might be real. If hundreds of experimentalists had gone on to
confirm them with many different instrument types at high s/n ratios then I
would be certain they are real. There is NO OTHER CRITERION. That is the one
and only way we ever know that anything is real.
> Is Carlo Rubbia a believer?
No, he is a scientist, so he understands that replicated high sigma data is
correct by definition. You are "believer" or a man of faith.
> Has he written anything on D/Pd?
Not in English, as far as I know. The Italian physicists tell me has written
articles and lectures in Italian. I do not know whether he has written
papers.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
[regarding a magnetic stirrer in a D/Pd cell]
> The only energy that goes from the stirrer into the cells the
>kinetic energy of the Teflon covered magnet at the bottom to the cell. That
>is a tiny fraction of the AC motor power, and as I said -- it is too
>small to detect with this instrument.
Well if the motor is at all efficient it takes very little energy to spin at
no load. The load would be supplied by the friction - viscous and
turbulent - of the spinning stirrer in the fluid. Thus to first order all
the energy used by the motor winds up directly as heat in the fluid
via viscous friction or as turbulent motions in the fluid that will
ultimately degrade to heat.
But this source of heating in the fluid may well be negligible.
>> Did they overlook it or not? It might not be a problem, but apparently,
>> on the basis of your reply, this source of energy was overlooked.
>No it was not.
But they did overlook it?
>> Perhaps they do take it into account, but you didn't know whether they
>> did or not.
>I sure as heck do!
So they didn't notice this source of heat?
[Starting to sound like Abbott and Costello here]
>> Were people using mass specs from the beginning?
>No, eggbeaters. What do you think they use?
Let me try again. In 1989 were Pons and Fleishman using
mass spectrometers to either analyze products from their cells
or to analyze electrodes after cell runs?
....
>> How long did people observer N-rays in how many labs?
>One person in one lab thought he saw a signal with a very low s/n ratio for
>a few months. A few others briefly thought they might be seeing something
>similar, but they never published any claims as far as I know. That is about
>as different from 14 years and Sigma 90 results as anything can be.
This [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/1922/8030701t.html]
says "Dozens of other Scientists confirmed the existence of N rays.
Over 300 papers were published on the subject over the next three years."
So D in Pd fusion would not be so different if it is ultimately disproven.
......
>> >> Yes I do[have rational reason]. The extant theory predicts . . .
>> >What theory predicts can NEVER be cited as a rational justification for
>> >ignoring replicated experiments.
>> That is your rule of your interpretation of science.
>Not my rule. You will find that in any introductory textbook or book on the
>philosophy of science. I am appalled that you, or anyone else, would argue
>about it.
No I won't find any such thing.
Would you care to cite one of these books explicating such a rule?
>> >In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold fusion
>> >or suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired.
>> Not only do believers in D/Pd fusion lack PR skills, but from this it
>> seems they lack diplomacy skills also.
>Oh, right. When people sabotage their experiments, lie about them in the
>newspapers, dump horse manure onto their desks, and threaten to fire them,
>that is their fault. They should have known better. Everyone should know
>this stuff about academic freedom and tenure means nothing.
This is the first I have heard of sabatoge or horse manure.
>> I used to work for the government. One is always free to say anything
>> as long as one does not say it in an official capacity.
>Sure, as long as you don't mind being fired the next day.
If they fire you for what you do on your own time, independent of your own
employment, provided it is legal, then you have can grieve and can sue.
[There is a law limiting some kinds of political activity by civil servants
I recall, but I think as long as you explicity state you are not campaigning
or whatever in any official capacity, you are OK]
>> A government employee
>> can attend an astrology conference and cast horoscopes as well,
>> just not in an official capacity.
>That's right. You attend, and when you return the next day, the guard does
>not let you in the building,
Well if you go on work time without permission then you are violating
terms of employment. Get leave, go on your own time and it is your
own business.
>they hand you your possessions in a cardboard
>box, and your capacity is altogether unofficial.
There are ways to do these things and ways to get fired.
...
>> >As I said, I can tell by the audience reaction and demand for new titles.
>> You are extrapolating from the queries of an active few to the motives of
>> the surfing multitude.
>And the site user statistics, as I said. But you ignore the parts you don't
>want to see.
I still don't think you can reliably conclude what you are concluding
from user statistics.
.....
>> So it was just luck that Eddington photographed the same area
>> of sky that the eclipse in 1919 would occur in?
>Yes,
Luck! Luck? Surely you are joking Mr. Rothwell!
My point was that he deliberately went to sites months before the eclipse
and took reference photos of the sky. He did not rely on their being
reference photos availabe by chance.
[Yes he was lucky with weather, astronomers like farmers are at the
mercy of weather]
>In 1989, some people were lucky enough to select Pd which -- we now know --
>was well suited to this experiment.
Pd was one of the few metals that would have been a logical choice for such
an experiment.
.....
>> Theory also provides a filter for experiment. You just don't seem
>> to realize that.
>Yes, I realize that, but when you filter out four independent mass spec
>analyses and several thousand experiments, your filter has gone haywire.
Do you know how many other experiments agree with conventional
nuclear theory?
I have no idea either, but it must be in the millions if not billions.
So to say that the theory that works so well is wrong when the D is in
Pd would take some great deal of proof.
The conventional theory does agree with a great many experiments,
you know.
I'm going to get on a soap box.
People trying to prove D fusion in Pd have gone about it wrong.
The should be like the biologists who have standard test animals
that they work on. C. elegans, highly bred white rats etc.
Pick one cell that works some percentage of the time and
improve it. Systematically vary electrolytes or electrode purity
or any of the parameters associated with the cell until it
gets to the point where it makes excess heat any time an
identical cell is put together and turned on.
Also go over and over the apparatus and account for any
possible source of stray heat - like the stirrer I noticed - until
there is absolutely no doubt that the heat can come anywhere
but from within the cell.
Then if someone comes in they can be shown a working cell
Period. End of story.
Even if the reliability can only be gotten to 25%, set up 16 cells
for the visitor and it is 99% sure that one of the cells will work.
End of story.
But instead D/Pd experimenters try all sorts of things and no
one thing gets refined and made reliable.
.....
>> D/Pd fusion as reported by believers violates theory so it is subject
>> to examination. For example Shananahan may have identified a systematic
>> error in how data in D/Pd experiments are processed.
>Shanahan is a First Class Flake. If his "theories" were correct, J. P.
>Joule's experiments would not work and the conservation of energy would be
>open to question. It is incredible that you embrace nutcake ideas that
>violate elementary physics when they proposed by Shanahan while you reject
>result from people like Oriani. This is an example of extreme bias.
Shanahan has gotten through peer review, that counts for something.
And I do know something about statistics and signal processing so
his concerns make sense to me.
[regarding whether I would have accepted Wright Flight in 1908]
>> I can't place myself in 1908 so I don't know how I would have bet then.
>I know exactly how you would bet: you would gone with the unthinking
>establishment point of view.
Think that if you like.
....
>> It would depend on whether I were part of the Eastern establishment
>> who backed Langley . . .
>You think the Eastern establishment backed Langley?!? In 1908? Let's see . .
>. he was disgraced in 1903, he was the laughingstock of every newspaper, and
>he was accused of fraud by members of Congress. He died in 1906. An you
>think the establishment "backed" him? In what sense, pray tell?
In much the same sense the Schwinger who is now dead knows more
physics than I do.
The establishment could not believe that some rubes from the sticks of
Ohio could build an airplane when their favorite Langley could not.
....
>> D fusion in Pd is not a fact. It is only something that minority of
>> researchers thinks is demonstrated by difficult and cranky experiments.
>Whereas tokamaks, top quark demonstrations and cloning are easy experiments
Hard is not cranky. Top quarks worked out according to the standard model
so it "just" took some high energy big iron. Poking nuclei into ova and
(I think) giving them a little electrical shock (shades of Mary Shelley!)
got things going often enough that Dolly resulted.
Tokamaks are cranky. But they have kept at the tokamak thing long enough
that they could probably make one work now if you gave them enough money.
>... What makes you think there is ANY
>correlation between "believable" and "easy"?
Did I say there was? I'm sorry if my examples have given
you the impression that the critical thing is easy when I
was trying to convey reliability. So reliable that Edmund
Scientific could sell a kit.
The correlation is between reliable and believable.
Science is all about intersubjective agreement and the only way to get that
is if more than one person can experience the phenomena. This takes
reliability.
D/Pd fusion is just not reliable enough to convince and merit the
word "fact". Maybe some day, perhaps ....
>> > ...When four mass spectrometers in the hands of four
>> >teams of experts all show anomalous isotopes in a sample, the isotopes
>are
>> >real, and a whole library of theory textbooks would not add a nanogram of
>> >doubt to that conclusion.
>> Would you have said the same in 1903 regarding N-rays?
>If four independent, high sigma experiments had confirmed N-rays, I would
>suspect they might be real. If hundreds of experimentalists had gone on to
>confirm them with many different instrument types at high s/n ratios then I
>would be certain they are real. There is NO OTHER CRITERION.
How about dozens? Which was the case.
>That is the one and only way we ever know that anything is real.
No. The one and only way we ever know that anything is real is
to ruthlessly question and requestion assumptions.
The assumption that four experts did not mess up with MS.
The assumption that there are no unaccounted for sources of heat.
Etc. Etc.
If anything, science is organized skepticism.
....
>> Is Carlo Rubbia a believer?
>No, he is a scientist, so he understands that replicated high sigma data is
>correct by definition.
Until the mistakes or systematic errors are found, of course.
Nothing is forever. Humans are fallible.
>You are "believer" or a man of faith.
I am a scientific skeptic. I have faith in the thousands and millions
of other people who have skeptically examined and confirmed the existing
body of science. Against that four measurements of a single(?) sample
are just not persuasive.
>> Has he written anything on D/Pd?
>Not in English, as far as I know. The Italian physicists tell me has written
>articles and lectures in Italian. I do not know whether he has written
>papers.
Well if they get translated you should put them on your site.
Tom Clarke
Jed Rothwell
> But this source of heating in the fluid may well be negligible.
It is definitely negigible. I looked for it during calibration, and could
not measure it.
> >> Did they overlook it or not? It might not be a problem, but
apparently,
> >> on the basis of your reply, this source of energy was overlooked.
>
> >No it was not.
>
> But they did overlook it?
No, they have overlooked nothing. These people have been doing similar
experiments since before you were born. They always do the same thing I did:
they calibrated to make sure it produced no measurable effect. There are
cells & calorimeters in which the stirrer *does* register, and it is added
into the equation, but the Mizuno cell you referred to is not among them.
> Let me try again. In 1989 were Pons and Fleishman using
> mass spectrometers to either analyze products from their cells
> or to analyze electrodes after cell runs?
Probably, but I don't recall specifics about them, and I do not have any
papers from them from that time. A few hundred others definitely did.
> This [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/1922/8030701t.html]
> says "Dozens of other Scientists confirmed the existence of N rays.
> Over 300 papers were published on the subject over the next three years."
That is incorrect. See: I. M. Clotz, "The N-Ray Affair," Scientific
American, May 1980, p. 168. This is an authoritative account. Others I have
seen agree with it. (Perhaps they all have common sources.) There were 4
papers published in 1903 by Blondot, and 57 papers published in early 1904
by Blondot and others, but the others did not claim clear evidence, only a
very low s/n ratio, in modern terminology. Wood "debunked" the finding in
September 1904, and nothing was published after that.
> >Not my rule. You will find that in any introductory textbook or book on
the
> >philosophy of science. I am appalled that you, or anyone else, would
argue
> >about it.
>
> No I won't find any such thing.
> Would you care to cite one of these books explicating such a rule?
Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum," 1620, for crying out loud.
> >Sure, as long as you don't mind being fired the next day.
>
> If they fire you for what you do on your own time, independent of your own
> employment, provided it is legal, then you have can grieve and can sue.
Yes, I sent testimony to one of those hearings. Your chances of winning in
this case are roughly as good as getting a hearing or a trial if you are
declared an "enemy combatant" in the "war" against terror. In other words,
zero to none.
> I still don't think you can reliably conclude what you are concluding
> from user statistics.
That is because you refuse to look at the Urchin documentation I cited. You
are good at not seeing things!
> >In 1989, some people were lucky enough to select Pd which -- we now
know --
> >was well suited to this experiment.
>
> Pd was one of the few metals that would have been a logical choice for
such
> an experiment.
You misunderstand. I meant they selected good Pd material, well suited to
the experiment, more or less by chance. If you gather 100 Pd samples from
different vendors, you will be lucky if even one works, unless you happen to
use the alloy manufactured for hydrogen filters. (Pure Pd will not work, as
far as I know.) It never occured to most people to try that. Fleischmann was
not lucky; he knew what type he needed. He described the required
charactoristics to Johnson Matthey, and they told him what type to use, and
gave him some. In 1989 and 1990 people who listened to Fleischmann would
have known that, but most people did not listen to him, and he soon grew
tired of repeating himself.
> Do you know how many other experiments agree with conventional
> nuclear theory?
>
> I have no idea either, but it must be in the millions if not billions.
Obviously these other experiments are valid as well. The correct theory,
whatever it may be, will have to explain both plasma fusion and fusion in
metal lattices. The two environments are about as different as any two can
be. As Schwinger put it, "The circumstances of cold fusion are not those of
hot fusion."
> So to say that the theory that works so well is wrong when the D is in
> Pd would take some great deal of proof.
Who said the theory is wrong? You did! Not me, and not Schwinger. There are
four possibilities:
1. Conventional theory explains CF, but you do not understand why. Other
people do.
2. Conventional theory is not applicable; a brand new set of theories is
required, because the mechanism is totally different from that of plasma
fusion.
3. Conventional theory is incomplete, and will be extended to explain CF.
4. Conventional theory is wrong, and it only explains plasma fusion because
the incorrect values the theory predicts in that domain are so small they
cannot be measured.
#1 is by far the most likely explanation; Schwinger is right and you are
wrong. Other people may be smarter than you -- get used to it. The others
are at least plausible. You seem to be suggesting a fifth explanatoin, which
is utter nonsense, and completely out of the question:
5. All previous experiments were wrong.
> Shanahan has gotten through peer review, that counts for something.
It counts for nothing. Any flake, liar or lunatic who wants to publish a
diatribe against cold fusion, and who can disguise at as real science has a
good chance of sneaking past peer-review. Peer review is supposed to be
rigorous for all, but it is marshmallow for people who hate CF, and
stainless steel for those who find evidence for CF.
> [regarding whether I would have accepted Wright Flight in 1908]
> >> I can't place myself in 1908 so I don't know how I would have bet then.
>
> >I know exactly how you would bet: you would gone with the unthinking
> >establishment point of view.
>
> Think that if you like.
You talk like them. Your arguments against CF are so similar they might be
taken from the attacks published by Sci. Am. against the Wrights, with just
a few words changed. You ignorance and illogic is exactly the same. It would
be miracle if someone with your mindset had been among the few people who
accepted the Wrights before 1908.
- Jed
Tom Clarke
>Tom Clarke writes:
>... they have overlooked nothing. These people have been doing
similar
>experiments since before you were born.
Then they are getting pretty old!
>They always do the same thing I did:
>they calibrated to make sure it produced no measurable effect. There
are
>cells & calorimeters in which the stirrer *does* register, and it is
added
>into the equation, but the Mizuno cell you referred to is not among
them.
I thought it was a bit easy to spot that omission.
.....
>> Let me try again. In 1989 were Pons and Fleishman using
>> mass spectrometers to either analyze products from their cells
>> or to analyze electrodes after cell runs?
>Probably, but I don't recall specifics about them, and I do not have
any
>papers from them from that time. A few hundred others definitely did.
So why the sarcasm about eggbeaters?
,,,,
>> This [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Chamber/1922/8030701t.html]
>> says "Dozens of other Scientists confirmed the existence of N rays.
>> Over 300 papers were published on the subject over the next three
years."
>That is incorrect. See: I. M. Clotz, "The N-Ray Affair," Scientific
>American, May 1980, p. 168. This is an authoritative account. Others
I have
>seen agree with it. (Perhaps they all have common sources.) There
were 4
>papers published in 1903 by Blondot, and 57 papers published in early
1904
Well 57 is a lot more than your first statement "A few others briefly
thought
they might be seeing something similar, but they never published any
claims as far as I know."
Maybe the 57 doesn't include conference papers.
>by Blondot and others, but the others did not claim clear evidence,
only a
>very low s/n ratio, in modern terminology. Wood "debunked" the
finding in
>September 1904, and nothing was published after that.
I guess there was a collusion to not let Blondlot publish any of his
evidence after 1904.
....
>> No I won't find any such thing.
>> Would you care to cite one of these books explicating such a rule?
>Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum," 1620, for crying out loud.
There is no such thing in Novum Organum. I was looking at it last
year.
I could be wrong, perhaps you can quote or cite a section.
.....
>> >Sure, as long as you don't mind being fired the next day.
>> If they fire you for what you do on your own time, independent of
your own
>> employment, provided it is legal, then you have can grieve and can
sue.
>Yes, I sent testimony to one of those hearings. Your chances of
winning in
>this case are roughly as good as getting a hearing or a trial if you
are
>declared an "enemy combatant" in the "war" against terror. In other
words,
>zero to none.
Well if whoever it was defied a supervisor ... not much can be done.
....
>> I still don't think you can reliably conclude what you are
concluding
>> from user statistics.
>That is because you refuse to look at the Urchin documentation I
cited. You
>are good at not seeing things!
I know something about statistics. You cannot infer human motives
from
statistics.
...
>> >In 1989, some people were lucky enough to select Pd which -- we
now
>know --
>> >was well suited to this experiment.
>> Pd was one of the few metals that would have been a logical choice
for
>such
>> an experiment.
>You misunderstand. I meant they selected good Pd material, well
suited to
>the experiment, more or less by chance.
Ah the "good material" again.
>Fleischmann was not lucky; he knew what type he needed.
If he had this knowledge why has it not been passed down and refined
to
result in reliable devices suitable for public demonstration?
>> Do you know how many other experiments agree with conventional
>> nuclear theory?.... millions if not billions.
>Obviously these other experiments are valid as well. The correct
theory,
>whatever it may be, will have to explain both plasma fusion and
fusion in
>metal lattices. The two environments are about as different as any
two can
>be. As Schwinger put it, "The circumstances of cold fusion are not
those of
>hot fusion."
He may have been right in ways he did not mean.
....
>> So to say that the theory that works so well is wrong when the D is
in
>> Pd would take some great deal of proof.
>Who said the theory is wrong? You did! Not me, and not Schwinger.
There are
>four possibilities:
>1. Conventional theory explains CF, but you do not understand why.
Other
>people do.
Could be. But I think more theorists think that D/Pd fusion
contradicts theory.
>2. Conventional theory is not applicable; a brand new set of theories
is
>required, because the mechanism is totally different from that of
plasma
>fusion.
In other words theory is wrong. Conventional theory says its applies
to lattices etc.
>3. Conventional theory is incomplete, and will be extended to explain
CF.
In other words theory is wrong. Conventional theory says is supposed
to
predict in this range.
>4. Conventional theory is wrong, and it only explains plasma fusion
because
>the incorrect values the theory predicts in that domain are so small
they
>cannot be measured.
In the same words theory is wrong.
I'm really not sure how this is different from 2 and 3.
I can't imagine a theory that is right down to 1 millimeter (say)
and then all of a sudden starts being wrong.
>5. All previous experiments were wrong.
No just the ones claiming success in D/Pd fusion. A very small
fraction of all
experiments.
.....
>> [regarding whether I would have accepted Wright Flight in 1908]
>> >> I can't place myself in 1908 so I don't know how I would have
bet then.
>> >I know exactly how you would bet: you would gone with the
unthinking
>> >establishment point of view.
>> Think that if you like.
>You talk like them. Your arguments against CF are so similar they
might be
>taken from the attacks published by Sci. Am. against the Wrights,
with just
>a few words changed.
Really?
Your arguments are so like anti-relativity theorists I have debated
it is uncanny. They want ether theory to be treated fairly, you want
positive D/Pd fusion experiments to be treated fairly etc.
>Your ignorance and illogic is exactly the same. It would
>be miracle if someone with your mindset had been among the few people
who
>accepted the Wrights before 1908.
Enjoy your N-rays.
Tom Clarke
Dieter Britz
> Tom Clarke writes:
>>Were people using mass specs from the beginning?
>
>
> No, eggbeaters. What do you think they use?
If you scan the biblio, looking for "MS" or "mass spec", you'll
find that it is a small fraction of papers that report the use
of MS. What do you, Rothwell, think MS is used for in cold
fusion? Are we talking effluent gases a la Arata & Zhang, or
transmuted heavier elements here? I wouldn't say that MS is a
required technique in CNF work; it depends on what you are trying
to measure.
>>>In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold fusion
>>> or suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired.
That is a bit misleading. If a researcher has a grant for a specific
project, or has been ordered to work on a specific project, and then
misuses his/her time or money to work on a different project, things
will happen. That is not the same as suppressing that other work by
way of conspiracy. Diverting grant money does go on a lot, but on
a smallish scale, and often, it leads to new discoveries. I think
a lot of CNF work has been done in that way, but it's always against
the rules, and you must not get caught - without some very interesting
results. If someone has been expressly ordered NOT to work on some
given project and does so anyway, summary firing is to be expected,
too.
Actually, a lot of people, back in 1989, were expressly ordered to
do a cold fusion project. One of my colleagues, working in a German
government institution, was one of them, and he did it conscientiously,
feeling all the time that it was a waste of time. He was not the only
one in that situation.
Jed Rothwell
> >>Were people using mass specs from the beginning?
> >
> >
> > No, eggbeaters. What do you think they use?
>
> If you scan the biblio, looking for "MS" or "mass spec", you'll
> find that it is a small fraction of papers that report the use
> of MS.
Yes, many could not afford it. Bockris told me one scan cost him $10,000 or
more. I did not mean to imply that all researchers use mass spectrometers,
but those who could, did, from the beginning. My sarcastic comment
"eggbeaters" meant "what else could they use" to analyze elements and
isotopes, and look for helium.
> What do you, Rothwell, think MS is used for in cold
> fusion? Are we talking effluent gases a la Arata & Zhang, or
> transmuted heavier elements here?
Both.
> I wouldn't say that MS is a
> required technique in CNF work . . .
All of the researchers I know consider it essential, but most cannot afford
it.
> >>>In most U.S. corporations or universities, people who discuss cold
fusion
> >>> or suggest that an experiment be performed are summarily fired.
>
> That is a bit misleading. If a researcher has a grant for a specific
> project, or has been ordered to work on a specific project, and then
> misuses his/her time or money to work on a different project, things
> will happen.
In the U.S. people have been fired for talking about CF, and for attending
meetings on their vacation time. If a researcher or professor suggested
*doing* an experiment he would be fired forthwith, or if he had tenure I am
sure he would never be promoted again.
> That is not the same as suppressing that other work by
> way of conspiracy.
Who said anything about a conspiracy? I have never suggested there is a
conspiracy. A conspiracy, as I have often pointed out, is an organized,
covert agreement between people. The suppression of CF is quite overt and
not organized as far as I know. The mainstream attitude toward CF resembles
biologists' attitude toward creationism. No research project in either subje
ct would be allowed in any U.S. university or mainstream institution. In my
own mind, I am sure that creationism is the worst kind of superstitious
bunk, and it should not be researched, but I admit it makes me slightly
uncomfortable to reject it as firmly as most people reject CF. All I can say
is that CF has massive experimental support so by the traditions of academic
science it should be accepted, whereas creationism requires that we ignore
huge numbers of observations.
Your famous fellow scientist Bjorn Lomborg is an interesting intermediate
case. I think he is wrong, and his research causes harm, but I would never
countenance suppressing it. Recently some organ of the Danish government
officially censured him. See:
http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
I think that is going much too far in the direction of suppression. I do not
like the decision described in this document, even though I agree the work
is schlock science. There are tons of schlock science out there. You
couldn't censure it a lifetime, and even if you could, the cure would be
worse than the disease.
> Actually, a lot of people, back in 1989, were expressly ordered to
> do a cold fusion project.
I doubt that! How many? Do you know of more than one? Given the hostile
comments made by experts at nearly every institution, I cannot imagine
anyone was ordered to do anything, except at a few places where researchers
were ordered to fudge the results and pretend they had seen no excess heat.
- Jed
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
:> If you scan the biblio, looking for "MS" or "mass spec", you'll
:> find that it is a small fraction of papers that report the use
:> of MS.
: Yes, many could not afford it. Bockris told me one scan cost him $10,000 or
: more.
Then somebody was scamming him. Most decent chemistry departments have a
departmental analytical facility, and a single MS analysis should cost on
the order of tens of dollars (if not less) -- not tens of thousands.
: I did not mean to imply that all researchers use mass spectrometers,
: but those who could, did, from the beginning.
And, at the time, it was made abundantly clear that many of them did not
have a clue about the correct operation of a mass spectrometer, and that
their "results" were therefore *extremely* suspect.
: In the U.S. people have been fired for talking about CF, and for attending
: meetings on their vacation time.
Can you name any names?
: If a researcher or professor suggested
: *doing* an experiment he would be fired forthwith, or if he had tenure I am
: sure he would never be promoted again.
One thing is fairly clear -- you don't have a clue about how academic
science works in the United States.
Jed Rothwell
> : Yes, many could not afford it. Bockris told me one scan cost him $10,000
or
> : more.
>
> Then somebody was scamming him. Most decent chemistry departments have a
> departmental analytical facility, and a single MS analysis should cost on
> the order of tens of dollars (if not less) -- not tens of thousands.
Bockris had his own mass spectrometer, so the kind of scan you refer to cost
him nothing. However, the kind of analysis he wanted -- and purchased a few
times -- is much more extensive, and takes weeks. It involves removing thin
layers and looking at each layer with much higher resolution than the
in-house instrument.
It is highly unlikely that someone like Bockris, who has been on the
forefront of chemistry for 60 years, would not be aware of the cost of
various analyses.
- Jed
Dieter Britz
> Dieter Britz writes:
[...]
>>I wouldn't say that MS is a
>>required technique in CNF work . . .
>
>
> All of the researchers I know consider it essential, but most cannot afford
> it.
Think about the meaning of "essential". If it were essential, and they
can't afford it, they shouldn't be doing the experiment. You can't
measure all possible parameters in every experiment. It would make a
very long list if you tried, and nobody would ever do an experiment
at all. But sure, MS is a nice tool.
> In the U.S. people have been fired for talking about CF, and for attending
> meetings on their vacation time. If a researcher or professor suggested
> *doing* an experiment he would be fired forthwith, or if he had tenure I am
> sure he would never be promoted again.
Professors don't get sacked that easily, nor others with tenure.
And I believe Hagelstein did get tenure. A single case, maybe. You
are right to some extent, even though you overstate your case as so
often. I myself, even though I make it clear that I am on the skeptical
side, am looked at askance to some degree, for even collecting the
biblio. Why waste valuable time, the feeling is. The reason is not
suppression of cold fusion, but that most scientists have given up on
it long ago and regard it as just that, a waste of time; certainly not
as dangerous competition to orthodox energy production.
> Your famous fellow scientist Bjorn Lomborg is an interesting intermediate
> case. I think he is wrong, and his research causes harm, but I would never
> countenance suppressing it. Recently some organ of the Danish government
> officially censured him. See:
>
> http://www.forsk.dk/uvvu/nyt/udtaldebat/bl_decision.htm
>
> I think that is going much too far in the direction of suppression. I do not
> like the decision described in this document, even though I agree the work
> is schlock science. There are tons of schlock science out there. You
> couldn't censure it a lifetime, and even if you could, the cure would be
> worse than the disease.
Fellow scientist? Hmm, he is a political scientist. He is called a
statistician a lot, but that seems to refer to "statistics" in the
sense of counting things and making diagrams, I think. The committee
is not in line with our Government, by the way, it is an independent
body set up to judge on cases of suspected scientific dishonesty.
Lomborg was accused by some biologists of being dishonest in his book,
and the Committee pondered the case. I think their conclusion was OK:
L was not exactly dishonest, did not fake anything, but failed on
scholarship. This is bad because he published his book(s) as an
academic, not as a private citizen. Our Government disagrees for
some reason and shovels money his way, probably because what he says
suits them. The environmetal studies institute they set up and made
him head of, is regarded by many here as a kind of Trojan horse in
the environment.
Mind you, I think he has a point to some extent, and we ought to
think about what he writes, even though he distorts the facts a
bit (a lot?). And unfortunately for the Committee, it turns out that
one of the four articles in Scientific American that they based
their investigation on, is weak in itself. Schneider, it seems, rejects
outright (if I have that right) that global warming can have more than
the one cause, rising levels of CO2 in the air. He rejects, for example,
the recent proposal by a couple of Danish physicists, that the Sun is
a factor. Depending on the relativities, Lomborg might be right to
suggest we shouldn't put a lot of money into trying to reduce CO2
levels. On the third hand, he seems to reduce everything to money,
whereas there are some out here who have other values.
>>Actually, a lot of people, back in 1989, were expressly ordered to
>>do a cold fusion project.
>
> I doubt that! How many? Do you know of more than one? Given the hostile
> comments made by experts at nearly every institution, I cannot imagine
> anyone was ordered to do anything, except at a few places where researchers
> were ordered to fudge the results and pretend they had seen no excess heat.
OK, I confess I don't know, I just suspect it. There were a few large
teams put together from various research organisations like the one my
friend worked in, and I believe, without knowing for sure, that in some
cases, they were told to have a go. In that institution, there were two
teams, too; one (my friend et al) was a bunch of electrochemists, the
other was nuclear people.
Jed Rothwell
> > All of the researchers I know consider it essential, but most cannot
afford
> > it.
>
> Think about the meaning of "essential". If it were essential, and they
> can't afford it, they shouldn't be doing the experiment.
I have to agree, reluctantly. There isn't much point to it. You are working
blind.
> Professors don't get sacked that easily, nor others with tenure.
Most people with tenure remained, but they were pushed aside, their funding
was cut and they were never promoted again. That's what they tell me. I have
not been following the career of every CF researcher, but everyone I have
talked to says that. Most are retired by now.
> And I believe Hagelstein did get tenure.
Barely! After a big fight. He is still treated like a pariah.
> Fellow scientist? Hmm, he is a political scientist.
I wrote that just to bother you. I know how you feel about him.
>The committee
> is not in line with our Government, by the way, it is an independent
> body set up to judge on cases of suspected scientific dishonesty.
It seems to have some sort of legal standing, like the bar association or
some other private, professional standards organization. The document refers
to laws and legislative definitions of misconduct.
> Lomborg was accused by some biologists of being dishonest in his book,
> and the Committee pondered the case. I think their conclusion was OK:
> L was not exactly dishonest, did not fake anything, but failed on
> scholarship.
I have not read the law, but based on the sections they quote in the report,
if I had been on the committee I would have voted to dismiss the charges.
Unless someone comes up with a document or tape recording proving that
Lomborg deliberately & willfully distorted data, they have no case. The
committee concluded:
"Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is
deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. . ."
My guess is that it falls within the bounds of scientific stupidity. Whether
it is dishonest or not can only be established by subpoenaing Lomborg's
notes or calling witnesses who saw him do or say something dishonest, such
as making up numbers. He seems to believe what he writes, and many other
people believe it, so I suppose he is honest.
> And unfortunately for the Committee, it turns out that
> one of the four articles in Scientific American that they based
> their investigation on, is weak in itself. Schneider, it seems, rejects
> outright (if I have that right) that global warming can have more than
> the one cause, rising levels of CO2 in the air.
It is a very complicated issue indeed. Any statements about should include
many caveats. It is so important and emotional, people feel forced to take
extreme positions. I myself cannot judge whether global warming is real or
not, but I think we should take steps to reduce CO2, because most of those
steps would be beneficial even if global warming is not occurring, or if it
is occuring but it isn't man-made. These steps will save money and reduce
pollution, so we should take them in any case. Sometimes I think the global
warming hypothesis actually hurts the environmental movement and retards
progress. Anti-environmentalists use it as an excuse to block reform. They
say, in effect: "global warming isn't real; there is no real problem, so we
do not need to improve gas mileage or reduce smog." The enviromentalists are
so hung up on global warming they forget that smog is a public health issue.
I do not have a high opinion of the Sci. Am.'s scientific integrity. Even
aside from CF -- where their position is unforgivable -- they take strident
editorial positions these days, and they publish columns by people like
Shermer, who thinks of himself as a "skeptic" with a license to belittle
subjects he knows nothing about. The format & content of the magazine looks
more like Popular Mechanics than the Sci. Am. of old. On the other hand, it
is more lively and interesting than it used to be.
- Jed
David Spain
> You need to understand that science has two totally distinct "cultures:"
> Theory, and Experiment. These two "cultures" are as different as Night and
> Day, and exist in constant antithetical tension to each other. It is a
> basic rule of science that one should =NEVER= trust an experiment performed
> by a Theoretician, nor a theory proposed by an Experimentalist, because the
> members of each "culture" have different training, different methodologies,
> different basic skill-sets, and even different ways of _speaking_. It is
> =VERY= rare for an individual to be equally competent in both "cultures"
> (the last widely recognized example of such an individual was Enrico Fermi).
> Most people who _think_ they are equally competent at theory and experiment
> are simply fooling themselves --- they are actually "unskilled and unaware
> of it," and will either produce botched experiments, nonsense theories, or both.
>
I agree that this has been the "culture" of Physics as practiced for most
of the 20th Century, but it didn't start out this way. Going back further
to the previous century shows experimentalists who by necessity became
theorists, like Oersted (sp?) and Faraday.
Go even further back in time and we have neither, only the Natural
Philosophers such as Franklin, Newton, etc.
This split in experimental disciple vs theory is largely an artifact
of the practice put in place at the Cavendish and then further
enhanced at UC Berkley. Perhaps the reason Fermi was so good at both
was that as an Italian he was somewhat sheltered from these
influences? In physics the necessities of WWII war development
furthered these trends as way of improving the efficiency of the
scientific process. After the war colleges modeled their programs
after the perceived successes of these programs, alternatives were
largely ignored. I have never really bought into the theory that one
is either a born experimentalist or theorist. You can train in either,
the only limiting factor I can see is one's own enthusiasm.
> That is why I urge you to perform this experiment yourself: If you are
> honest with yourself, you will learn the hard way learn that it is =NOT=
> a simple matter of hanging a few electrodes in dewars, filling them up,
> connecting a power supply, and making a run or two over some weekend.
> It takes more work than that --- a =LOT= more work --- and even MORE work
> and skull-sweat to rule out possible confounding variables and sources
> of systematic errors. Anyone who thinks they can come up with a simple,
> ``idiot proof'' experiment is either woefully inexperienced, or is fooling
> themselves --- because is is a basic fact of reality that _Murphy_ rules
> the Laboratory, his laws reign supreme, and to do battle with him without
> proper training and experience is to find oneself rudely knocked down onto
> one's nether regions.
>
>
> -- Gordon D. Pusch
>
I agree Science is not easy.
David Spain
David Spain <nos...@127.0.0.1> writes:
> This split in experimental disciple vs theory is largely an artifact
^^^^^^^^
discipline
Interesting slip tho'... :-)
Dieter Britz
> Dieter Britz writes:
[...]
> Most people with tenure remained, but they were pushed aside, their funding
> was cut and they were never promoted again. That's what they tell me. I have
> not been following the career of every CF researcher, but everyone I have
> talked to says that. Most are retired by now.
I don't believe that this is true for more than a few. And some
CNF proponents strike me as a bit paranoid. Bockris is untouchable,
so is Fleischmann. Pons resigned voluntarily, I believe, in order to
take up his position in the French lab. Miley? No. Miles? Maybe, but
his might be a case of what I was referring to, someone not following
the prescribed path. Szpak et al? Don't think so. I'd ask you who all
these people are, but you'd say, they don't want their names published.
There are now 1300+ papers in my biblio, at a guess writen by 1000 or
so (co)authors. How many of these, do you think, are in trouble
because of these papers?
As for Lomborg,
>>The committee
>>is not in line with our Government, by the way, it is an independent
>>body set up to judge on cases of suspected scientific dishonesty.
>
>
> It seems to have some sort of legal standing, like the bar association or
> some other private, professional standards organization. The document refers
> to laws and legislative definitions of misconduct.
Its findings can lead to legal action, but by the police or judiciary,
not the Committee itself. It is an advisory body.
>>Lomborg was accused by some biologists of being dishonest in his book,
>>and the Committee pondered the case. I think their conclusion was OK:
>>L was not exactly dishonest, did not fake anything, but failed on
>>scholarship.
>
>
> I have not read the law, but based on the sections they quote in the report,
> if I had been on the committee I would have voted to dismiss the charges.
Well, they did. You corectly cite the first sentence in their conclusion,
> "Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is
> deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. . ."
but it goes on:
In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross
negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the
bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed
clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.
Iow, shonky but not proven dishonest.
He is now upsetting the board of the Institute by having announced
that he might only work for it for one year and then go back to his
university position. One board member has already resigned as a result.
And some members of parliament are going to read the reports coming
from the Institute, very carefully, to check whether they are up to
scratch. Lomborg is being watched now.
> It is a very complicated issue indeed. Any statements about should include
> many caveats. It is so important and emotional, people feel forced to take
> extreme positions. I myself cannot judge whether global warming is real or
> not, but I think we should take steps to reduce CO2, because most of those
There seems to me to be abundant evidence of global warming, but the
causes are not clear. CO2 may well be the major cause but we don't
know. We do know that fiddling with nature is a dangerous game. OnCO2,
though, I am a pessimist: we will inevitably burn everything there is
to burn until it's cheaper not to. That will be the point where the
small amounts of oil and coal left are more valuable as chemical
feedstock.
Another possible problem with CO2 has been found recently. Some
people have apparently said that more CO2 in the air will be
good for us because plants (= food) will grow better. True; but it
seems, according to a piece in New Scientist, that at the same time,
levels of essential trace elements like Cu, Zn and Se (and others)
drop, so as to cause wide-spread deficiency in these elements. Bad
news. More data is needed, but some studies suggest that in the
last 10 years, some elements have dropped by 14%. We rich people
can all eat pills, but they can't afford them in the poor countries.
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: I don't believe that this is true for more than a few. And some
: CNF proponents strike me as a bit paranoid. Bockris is untouchable,
: so is Fleischmann. Pons resigned voluntarily, I believe, in order to
: take up his position in the French lab.
Actually, Pons disappeared from the University of Utah during the summer of
1989, and faxed the department during the first week of classes (I don't
remember if it was on the first day of classes or later in the week) that
he wouldn't be showing up to teach his courses. Since not showing up for
your lectures is one of the few things a tenured professor can do to get
himself fired, Pons was basically asking to be let go. They ended up with
a face-saving deal in which he was kept on for the rest of the year (and,
as I recall, for a couple of years afterward) as a "Research Professor" and
then allowed to resign. Having been in the department at the time, I
can assure everyone except for Jed that the department had no intention of
taking any action against Pons until *after* he decided that he had better
things to do with his time than to fulfill his teaching responsibilities.
Jed Rothwell
> > Most people with tenure remained, but they were pushed aside, their
funding
> > was cut and they were never promoted again. . . .
>
> I don't believe that this is true for more than a few.
As I said, it is true of every one the researchers I have spoken with,
including the ones you list: Miley, Miles and Szpak. Well known people who
were forced out or told they would never be promoted or funded again
include, for example, Huggins, Storms, Mizuno, Ohmori, Srinivasan and many
others I have spoken with. Pons resigned "voluntarily" and fled the country
because he and his family received many death threats.
> so (co)authors. How many of these, do you think, are in trouble
> because of these papers?
All of them. At least, all of the ones I have spoken with. I do not mean to
suggest they were fired en mass, but they all say their careers suffered.
> Well, they did. You correctly cite the first sentence in their conclusion,
>
> > "Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration
is
> > deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. . ."
>
> but it goes on:
>
> In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross
> negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the
> bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed
> clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice.
I agree with the second conclusion but not the first. The second conclusion
says, in effect, "this committee has no business investigating these
charges."
> Iow, shonky but not proven dishonest.
Right. So the committee should have dropped the case. If you were call a
committee of experts for every scholar who violates "good scientific
practice" there would no one left to man the classrooms and laboratories.
> Another possible problem with CO2 has been found recently. Some
> people have apparently said that more CO2 in the air will be
> good for us because plants (= food) will grow better. True . . .
False, I expect. All plants will grow better, but weeds, pest species,
bacteria and mold will probably outgrow the food crops, making food more
expensive, and increasing the use of herbicides and fuel for tractors.
(Bacteria and mold will be promoted by the higher temperatures, not the
CO2.)
The coal industry in the U.S. has formed a lobbying organization called the
"Greening Earth Society" that promotes the notion that CO2 is good for the
earth because it will promote plant growth. They are probably right about
the growth, but the result will look like a bad science fiction horror
movie. Crops, plant diversity and the ecology will be a shambles. The whole
of North America will look the wastelands of fast growing kudzu vine fields
that have devastated millions of acres in the Southeast. People should be
careful what they wish for.
- Jed
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: Pons resigned "voluntarily" and fled the country
: because he and his family received many death threats.
This statement is, as is usual for Mr. Rothwell, untrue. At the time, I was
at the University of Utah working in the same building as Pons and his
research group. No one in the chemistry department had any desire to
force him out -- in fact, Jack Simons published a paper that attempted to
provide a theoretical basis for CF, and he's still there. The chronology
is as I presented it -- the first inkling that anyone had that Pons wasn't
coming back to teach in the fall of 1989 was upon receipt of the fax that
he sent during the first week of classes.
Jed Rothwell
> : Pons resigned "voluntarily" and fled the country
> : because he and his family received many death threats.
>
> This statement is, as is usual for Mr. Rothwell, untrue. At the time, I
was
> at the University of Utah working in the same building as Pons and his
> research group. No one in the chemistry department had any desire to
> force him out . . .
In that case, the people making the threats were not in the chemistry
department. That seems likely; the sort of people you meet in a university
chemistry department seldom make violent threats. I have no idea who made
threats, or whether the threats were serious. The police and Pons took them
seriously. Pons is a sensible, experienced person with good judgment. He was
so upset this, and by the other abuse he suffered, that he renounced his
U.S. citizenship. He is now French.
- Jed
kra...@dellepro.com
What evidence of this nonsense can you produce?
"Jed Rothwell" <jedro...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:y8hV9.11305$Dq.11...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
Jolly Rogers
> As I said, it is true of every one the researchers I have spoken with,
> including the ones you list: Miley, Miles and Szpak. Well known people who
> were forced out or told they would never be promoted or funded again
> include, for example, Huggins, Storms, Mizuno, Ohmori, Srinivasan and many
> others I have spoken with. Pons resigned "voluntarily" and fled the country
> because he and his family received many death threats.
Death threats from whom? People with something to lose when the full truth came
out?
Jolly Rogers
Jed Rothwell
> And we are all supposed to believe this?
If you like. It makes no difference to me.
> What evidence of this nonsense can you produce?
Pons told me.
- Jed
Jed Rothwell
> Death threats from whom?
I have no idea.
> People with something to lose when the full truth came
> out?
Either that or crazy people, I suppose.
- Jed
kra...@dellepro.com
Ah! The proverbial "reliable source".
>
> - Jed
>
>
Jed Rothwell
> > > What evidence of this nonsense can you produce?
> >
> > Pons told me.
>
> Ah! The proverbial "reliable source".
Can you think of a more reliable source? A police report would be based on
what Pons himself said. Any report would be second-hand. Are you saying that
we cannot believe this unless we hear from people who made the threats?
Making threats is a crime, so they would never tell us what they did. When
you say that Pons himself is not a reliable souce, you are saying, in
effect, there can be no reliable sources, and you will reject any report out
of hand. In that case, why bother asking for detailes? You are wasting your
time, and you are illogical.
Illogic seems particularly widespread this winter. As I noted earlier, the
U.S. keeps demanding that the Iraqis "prove" they have not hidden any
weapons. This is impossible; one cannot prove a negative. This is one of the
most illogical and contrived Causa belli in history.
- Jed
kra...@dellepro.com
> kra...@dellepro.com writes:
>
> > > > What evidence of this nonsense can you produce?
> > >
> > > Pons told me.
> >
> > Ah! The proverbial "reliable source".
>
> Can you think of a more reliable source?
That's just the point!
Based upon track record, one of the least reliable sources I can possibly
conceive of is Pons.
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
:> What evidence of this nonsense can you produce?
:
: Pons told me.
It's interesting that he told you, but that he didn't tell anyone else,
including other faculty members (I double checked this with one of them)
or the police.